Apologies for the late update, but I'm so glad that everyone is enjoying it! The real story is about to kick off, but it's going to be a bit angsty in this chapter (by angsty I mean lots of sisterly arguing). And even though we still haven't seen a few key characters ... I promise you, we will soon! :D So stay tuned, and as always, reviews are very much appreciated!
Chapter Three – An Impossible Job
After three days of not hearing anything from anybody – neither her sisters nor Foyle Industries – Mary's stomach gave an uncomfortable lurch when she heard someone knocking on her hotel room door.
Her first thought was that Foyle Industries had finally located her and sent people to kidnap her. It was late at night – the perfect time to be stolen away, she thought. She knew that Tony Foyle wasn't pleased, to put it lightly, at her failure, despite not hearing a word from him. And he was the type of man to make his displeasure quite obvious.
But when she crept towards the door and looked through the peephole, it was Sybil's face that she saw. Feeling a mixture of relief, confusion, and a bit of annoyance, she opened the door.
"What are you doing here?" she asked, frowning at her sister.
Sybil didn't seem all that surprised at being greeted so crudely. "I'm not here to make you feel more guilty than you probably already are," she answered, "if that's what you assumed I was here for."
"That's Edith's job," Mary said dryly. "How did you know where to find me?"
Sybil simply shrugged. "You always go for the fanciest hotel in town."
Mary rolled her eyes. "Well, I don't have to sacrifice comfort just because I'm a fugitive."
"But it does make you a lot easier to locate," Sybil said.
Mary turned around and walked back into the bedroom, with Sybil following and closing the door behind her. "And where are you staying? A place on the outskirts with faulty plumbing?"
"A reasonably-priced hotel near the airport, actually," Sybil retorted. "I'm not cheap, but I don't spoil myself."
As kids travelling with their parents, they always stayed at four or five-star hotels, and apparently Mary still had the mindset of requiring the only the best. It was hardly a lucky guess that she would have gone straight for the Hotel Adlon. Sybil was the opposite, as she asserted she was content with any place that had a working toilet and wifi.
Mary looked back at Sybil, noticing her large backpack hanging from one shoulder and the travel bag in her other hand. Everything she had were stuffed into those two bags. "Are you leaving?" she asked, trying to hide the disappointment in her tone.
Sybil nodded. "Yeah. And I think you should to."
"Why? I haven't heard anything from—" Mary stopped herself, all of a sudden concerned. "Wait … did you hear something from Foyle?"
Sybil shook her head. "No, I haven't heard anything from him. But I got an email from … from …" She seemed to have a hard time spitting out the name, but the look from Mary goaded her into finally revealing it. "It was from Larry Grey."
"What?" Mary exclaimed. "Wh – how – first off, how in the world does he have your email address?"
"I don't know – maybe he got it when I was doing the research at Merton Banking," Sybil said, clearly surprised as well that Larry Grey had gotten ahold of her email address. "I thought I had deleted it anyway. But I got an email from him early this morning … he knows we attempted an extraction on his dad."
Mary froze for a moment, trying to sort out in her head what Sybil had just told her. Sybil pulled out her phone, presumably to show her the email that Larry had sent her. "I have it here, if you want to read what he sent me. A lot of it is him gloating though – you though you could outwit me, you won't get away with this. That sort of thing."
"Well, it's marginally better than him being a little perv," Mary muttered.
"Actually, he is a little bit … er, crude," Sybil added. Larry Grey could always be depended on to be lewd at the most inappropriate of times, though she was certain he had used that sort of language because he was writing to her specifically.
Mary grimaced slightly. "Then just tell me – did he say how he found out? Did his father mention that he had weird dreams or something?"
"No, it was—" Sybil faltered, obviously afraid of Mary's reaction to what she was about to reveal. Mary stared hard at her, pressing her to finally spill it. "Tony Foyle told him."
Mary groaned. "Oh God … shit … shit, this is not good!"
She turned away from Sybil, rubbing her face with her hands. So Tony Foyle had given them another powerful enemy in the form of Larry Grey; that was their punishment for failure. It wouldn't matter so much if Richard Grey knew – he was a passive man, and probably would let the whole matter go since the extraction had failed – but with the real Larry Grey being aware, things had just become a lot more dangerous for everyone on the team. Now, not only did they have to worry about being apprehended by people from Foyle Industries, Larry Grey had likely sent people from Merton Banking to find them too.
And if they stayed in Berlin for even just one more night, they'd be sitting ducks. Their cue had come; it was time to disappear.
"So … I think we should get on a plane to somewhere, wherever you decide," Sybil said. "Tonight, preferably."
"Yeah … yeah, you're absolutely right," Mary muttered, bringing herself out of her shock. She had never bothered to fully unback her bag, so she stuffed what clothes were strewn across the floor back in, then brushed past Sybil to get her toiletries. The machine case was still under the bed, and she pulled that out as well.
"Where are we going to go?" Sybil asked, watching Mary stride across the room as she collected her stuff. "Merton Banking and Foyle Industries must have people everywhere."
"Not in Rio," Mary said. "We'll lay low for a couple of weeks, maybe sniff out another job when things calm down."
Sybil quirked an eyebrow. "Will they ever?"
Mary understood Sybil's frustration about their situation, but after several days of guilting herself for her failure, she could hardly stand it anymore. She threw down the sock she was holding and shot Sybil another sour glare. "Look, I'm sorry I screwed everything up during the job. I'm sorry that you're pissed. I'm sorry that now we've got two powerful corporations hunting us down, corporations that want to send us back to England so we can be arrested, and we'll most likely go to prison for the rest of our lives—!"
"Mary!" Sybil shouted, forcing Mary to stop short. "Please, just … just calm down."
She watched Mary take in a few shaky breaths, though her expression remained tense. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that," she apologized. "And it's not just your fault, I made that really crap design—"
"It is my fault," Mary interrupted. "The design wasn't that bad, and I had you doing too much. I underestimated Richard Merton."
"I don't think anyone could have predicted how crazy his projections would get," Sybil said. "Have you figured out why the projection of Larry Grey was so … advanced?"
Mary shook her head. "I still have no idea. His subconscious wasn't trained, that showed in your research, and all his projections would have been militarized if that was the case. But the projection of Larry …" She sighed, at a complete loss for an answer. "I don't know. Maybe because he's Richard's son, it was a lot stronger and more like the real Larry. But I'm just not completely sure. All I'm hoping is that something like that won't happen again."
She stuffed the last of her things into her bags and zipped them closed. Hoisting the strap of one over her shoulder, she picked up the other and the machine by the handles. "Let's go now," she said, pushing past Sybil who was still rooted to the spot. "We can catch a red eye out of here if we hurry—"
"Mary, wait."
Breathing a sigh of annoyance, Mary stopped and turned around. Sybil was still standing in the middle of the room, as if she wasn't the one that suggested that they needed to get out of Berlin as soon as possible. "What now?"
"I just think we need to talk more about what our plan is," Sybil said carefully, wanting to approach the subject with care. "I mean, besides getting out of Berlin and waiting for Tony Foyle and Merton Banking to lose interest in us."
Mary knew what Sybil was talking about without her needing to clarify – she was having doubts about extraction, and more specifically her ability to keep doing it. "I'm sorry, do you have a different plan in mind?" she snapped.
"No, I don't," Sybil mumbled. "But … can we really keep going like this? I don't think Edith's going to come back, and now that it's just the two of us—"
"You think I'm going to fail again," Mary finished in a rather accusatory tone.
Sybil nodded sheepishly. "Maybe what happened down in the dream was just an anomaly, but I don't think we should take any more risks if we can help it."
"Do you want to leave too?" Mary asked, hardly hearing what Sybil was actually saying. "Do you want to give up on the one thing that might get us back home?"
"We've been doing this for two years!" Sybil shouted. "And I don't feel any closer to getting home! We're just … we're just scrounging around at this point, hoping that no one's going to try and cart us off to prison!"
"Well, what other plan do you have in mind?" Mary shouted back. "Because unless you know of something else that might give us the chance to go home, I suggest you shut up!"
Sybil let out a loud groan of exasperation. "You always have to have the last word, don't you?"
"Yes, I do!" Mary retorted. "Because I'm the one in charge, and I'm the one who's—!"
She was cut short by the phone ringing. Both she and Sybil glanced at the phone beside the bed, ringing methodically every three seconds. Mary dropped her bags and went over to the nightstand, but she hesitated to pick up the phone, her hand hovering over the clunky receiver.
"Do you think it's—?" Sybil started to ask, but Mary shushed her.
Fingers trembling, she picked up the ringing phone. "Hello?" she asked in a whisper.
"Miss Crawley?"
Mary recognized the voice: it was only the receptionist at the front desk. "Yes?" she said in a louder tone.
"Your ride is downstairs, and we just wanted to remind you to check out when you—"
"My ride?" Mary frowned. "I didn't … who – who ordered it?" She looked nervously towards Sybil, who returned an equally concerned expression. Could it be Foyle Industries or Merton Banking come to take them away, albeit in a more subtle fashion?
"The name that was put down is Strallan. Just Strallan," the woman replied. "Do you recognize it?"
Mary wasn't sure if the name rang any bells for her, but she was sure she had never met anyone in person with that name. Was it some sort of alias that Tony Foyle or Larry Grey were using. She tried to think quickly about what to do. Behind her, Sybil was biting her lip as she looked out the window, though from where the room was located there wasn't much of a street view.
"Um … I'm going to come down now and check out, and I'll see about the car," Mary said finally. "I'll be there in a few minutes."
"Very good, ma'am," the receptionist replied, hanging up. Mary put the phone back down and quickly walked across the room to pick up her things again.
"Do you think it's them?" Sybil asked, walking towards the door.
"I don't know." Mary fished around her jacket pocket for her room key. "Listen to me carefully: we'll go downstairs together, but I'll go into the lobby first, and you wait by the lifts. If I don't come back to give you the okay in five minutes or you see me get into a car, then get out through another exit and go to the airport, or the train station, or wherever else you can go to get out of the country."
"On my own?" Sybil asked as she pushed past Mary and stepped out into the corridor.
Mary shut off the room lights and closed the door after her. "Yes, by yourself."
"Are you crazy? I'm not going to leave you," Sybil insisted.
"Honestly Sybil, before tonight I had no idea you wanted to go to prison so badly," Mary said sardonically. "Because that's what will happen if Tony Foyle or Larry Grey catch us."
She stalked down the hall towards the lifts, a disgruntled Sybil trailing behind her. She understood that Mary would prefer her to stay out of prison if she could help it, but it wasn't in her character to abandon her family just to save her own skin.
Neither of them spoke during the ride down to the lobby, and went it arrived at the ground level Sybil did just as Mary instructed her: she hung awkwardly by the lifts while Mary entered the lobby, carefully looking around for a figure that might make her want to start running in the other direction. Late in the evening it wasn't at all crowded, just a few businessmen shaking hands before going to the bar or sitting in the couches with a laptop or newspaper in hand.
"Miss Crawley, ma'am?"
Mary looked over to the receptionist at the front desk, the same one who had called her minutes earlier. She shifted her luggage as she walked to the desk, hoping she could conceal the silver case of the machine from anyone hanging about in the lobby.
"Is the person who ordered the car here?" she asked as she slid her room key across the marble countertop.
"Yes, he is," the receptionist answered. "Mr Strallan?"
Mary looked over her shoulder to the person whom the receptionist had beckoned to. The man, Mr Strallan, looked like any other businessman, and he seemed about as threatening as a puppy. He came towards the front desk, holding out his hand to Mary. "Miss Crawley?"
Giving him a polite but stiff smile, Mary shook his hand. "Mr Strallan." She told herself to stay vigilant, but her hunch was that he had nothing to do with either Foyle Industries or Merton Banking … which only made her more confused as to what he actually wanted with her.
"The car's waiting outside," Mr Strallan said. "Would you like me to take your bags for you?"
Mary tightened her grip around the handle on the machine case. "No thank you, I can manage," she said. "But can you wait just a second? My sister is here too, actually."
"Alright," Mr Strallan nodded. "I'll just go outside and stand by the car."
He did just that, going through the glass doors at the front of the lobby. Mary glanced back towards the lifts where Sybil was still standing, making herself look like she was waiting for someone and getting impatient. A couple of people getting into the lifts glanced curiously at her.
"Sybil!" Mary hissed loudly, motioning with her hands for Sybil to get over to where she was. Sybil jolted out of her act and hurried towards Mary.
"Who was that?" she asked.
"I'm not completely sure, but I don't think he's going take us to Foyle or Larry Grey," Mary said in a low voice.
"Right," Sybil said slowly. "So who is he?"
Mary shrugged, the strap of one of her bags digging into her shoulder; her arms were already getting sore from her heavy things. "I guess we'll find out soon, but I really don't think he's someone we should be too worried about."
"I hope you're right," Sybil said. She didn't like playing the skeptic, but recent events were making her question Mary's perspective on certain things.
Mary bit back the acid retort on the tip of her tongue and led the way out of the lobby. Mr Strallan was standing next to a black car of German make, expensive-looking but inconspicuous. The driver climbed out of the car and opened the boot. "Your bags?"
Sybil handed her things to the driver, and Mary gave him her bags too – except for the machine case. She'd rather have it in her sight if she was getting into a car with an unfamiliar man, as non-threatening as he seemed. She noticed how Mr Strallan was looking at it curiously, and she wondered if he knew what it contained.
All three of them slid into the back seat of the car, Mr Strallan sitting across from the Crawley sisters with his back to the driver. He turned on the dim yellow interior lights, illuminating the black-leather seats. Mary held onto the machine case as it rested in her lap, her fingers curled rigidly around the sides as though she feard Mr Strallan would snatch it out of her hands without warning. She heard the door locks click and the car rumble to life as the driver steered it onto the street. Any chance to run away was now forfeit.
"I'm sorry for being so … unexpected," Mr Strallan began apologetically. "I didn't want to discuss anything over telephone or email in case someone was tracking us. And as I understand, you've limited your means of communications while in Berlin."
Mary had a hundred questions itching to be answered, but the first thing she blurted out was, "How do you know that?"
"I think I ought to explain from the beginning," Mr Strallan said. "I don't know if you've heard of me or my company, but I'm the head of Locksley Engineering. My real name is Sir Anthony Strallan."
He seemed to cringe at the mention of his own title, but it was enough to remind Sybil of who he was. "I have heard of you, actually," she told him.
Sir Anthony lifted his brow. "Have you indeed?"
Sybil nodded. "I read an article in The Guardian that you might be made Minister of Agriculture."
Mary had heard that too, and she was vaguely familiar with Locksley Engineering. She never paid much attention to it however, since she always supposed that a company that specialized in farming machinery would never have a real need for extraction. Now she was getting the feeling that she was about to be proved wrong.
"Well, I must say I'm surprised that young people know me at all," Sir Anthony responded. "Anyway, I was actually leaving Berlin for New York a few days ago, and on the flight I was sitting next to your sister, Edith."
Mary lifted a brow. "Lucky her," she muttered under her breath.
"She was very nice," Sir Anthony went on, "a very sweet young woman. I recognized her last name, and she did confirm what I asked about … about what it is that you do. She was rather reluctant to give much more information besides where you were, though I don't blame her for wanting to keep some things to herself. But as soon as we landed at LaGuardia I contacted some people to track you – specifically you, Mary – and then I got the next flight back to Berlin."
"That must have been rough – two transatlantic flights one after the other," Sybil remarked sympathetically.
"You tracked me?" Mary asked, looking hard at Sir Anthony sitting across from her. "What do you want from me?"
"I have a job offer," Sir Anthony replied. "But I feel that I should say it up front: it's not quite a straightforward extraction. I'm not looking to steal another corporation's secrets."
Mary frowned. No one before Sir Anthony had ever suggested doing something other than extraction. "I'm not sure what you're getting at. If it's not extraction, then what do you want us to do?"
"I'll try and explain it the best I can," Sir Anthony said. "You'll want to take a look at this first." He reached into the pocket of a briefcase sitting on the floor of the car, pulling a file out and handing it to Mary. She opened the folder and quickly scanned the first page.
"Rose MacClare, age twenty. Heir to the Flintshire energy conglomerate," she murmured as she read. "Flintshire … isn't that the one that acquired the Duneagle company?"
"The very same," Sir Anthony declared. "Flintshire labels itself as a energy corporation, although in the last ten years it has gained equal power in the agricultural sphere. They control sixty-percent of the world's agricultural output, most of it in India, and nearly half of the world's energy supply."
"Blimey," Sybil muttered. She glanced over at the file in Mary's hands. "Rose MacClare looks pretty young to have anything to do with such a big business."
Mary flipped to another page in the file, which gave more details about the Flintshire empire. From the way the file was written, it made the corporation seem like they could control the world's resources. She had heard about it certainly, the name popped up often enough in the news, but she never imagined it was quite this massive or powerful.
"I'm guessing they're your biggest competitor," she inferred, looking up at Sir Anthony.
"They're everyone's competitor," Sir Anthony said, "but yes, I would say they are a rival – indeed, a very problematic one. However, I'm not asking you take on this job for any personal reason. I believe that, if you succeed, the entire world will benefit."
Mary arched an eyebrow. Most times corporate espionage was done solely for the personal gain of one company. "How so?"
"Flintshire's growth has been exponential in the past decade, but it has failed to modernize. That failure, I believe, will set the world back," Sir Anthony explained. "Each company within the conglomerate has grown so powerful by now that they have the regulators in their pockets. Soon they'll be able to dictate policy, control world economies, perhaps eventually become a new superpower. Unless they change how they operate, they may inadvertently create an environmental and economic catastrophe."
Sybil looked as though Sir Anthony had pretty much confirmed that the apocalypse would happen within the week. "Sounds like a proper corporation."
"Who says they won't change how they do things?" Mary asked. "Rose MacClare, she's the heir to it all – couldn't she possibly modernize the company when she takes over?"
"She's spent her whole life being groomed as the company's successor, but in such a way that she wouldn't deviate far from how her parents have run things," Sir Anthony told her. "And there are some sources that state she doesn't have much interest in running it. She would probably just have other people who would run things the exact same way they always have."
Mary flipped back to the page with Rose MacClare's information. "So this is where we come in, correct?"
Sir Anthony nodded. "The current head of the corporation, Rose's father, is currently in poor health, and so Rose will probably inherit the corporation very soon. She must be persuaded to break up her family's empire almost as soon as she has control of it. It will be going against her own interest, even though she wants very little to do with the corporation. But the world needs her to break up the Flintshire conglomerate if it is to advance to the next decade."
Mary took a moment to think through what Sir Anthony was asking of her. "You want us to try and give her this idea – an idea that goes against her own self-interest, an idea that may or may not stick or that she'll even act upon?"
To her, Sir Anthony coming to them with this 'job offer' sounded like someone asking a landscaper to fix the plumbing. They were extractors – they stole ideas, they didn't give them to someone. And she had no idea if such a thing were even possible; even it an idea was planted subconsciously, someone could always figure who might have given it to them. It was ludicrous to even suppose it could be done.
"Nobody I know of has ever done something like that before – and if they have it probably wasn't successful," she said. "That sort of thing is impossible to fake."
"But – but if it's done subconsciously, then surely—?" Sir Anthony stammered.
"With all due respect, Sir Anthony," Mary said curtly, "I'm the one here who knows best how the subconscious works, and I can tell you for certain that it is most likely impossible. You can't just go into somebody's mind, tell them the idea, and expect it to stick that way. And to manipulate things in such a way that will allow them to come up with that same idea on their own … it's just far too complex to actually execute."
She closed the file and handed it back to Sir Anthony. Looking somewhat crestfallen, he sighed, clearly dismayed at how quickly Mary had rejected his proposal. "Are you sure you cannot at least attempt it?"
"Best case scenario, the subject doesn't realize what has happened and is completely unchanged," Mary said. "Worst case, they know exactly what has happened and trace whomever attempted to alter their mind. I don't suppose you're already aware of it, but we've got two major corporations attempting to find us so they can send us back to Britain, which will result in us being arrested almost as soon as we touch ground there. We do not need a third powerhouse added to that equation."
The whole time Mary argued with Sir Anthony on the matter of the job he had presented, Sybil slouched quietly in the leather seat, her eyes darting between the two other passengers. From her point of view, Sir Anthony looked like a dog being scolded as Mary talked to him like she was intentionally hoping to crush his hopes. Sybil felt a bit sorry for the man; he didn't seem like the normal greedy, secretive corporate chief, and Mary's lengthy rejection really did seem to distress him.
The thing was, Sybil had to admit, Mary did have a point – why attempt something so complex, something that no one had ever attempted in the past, something that was barely possibly even in theory? And of course she would reject even trying to do what Sir Anthony was asking her, especially since she had just failed spectacularly at something she was supposed to be one of the best at. Now that Edith had effectively defected from the team, it was just the two of them, and how could they manage such a complex task by themselves. It would be like trying to build a skyscraper with a two-person team.
Glancing outside the window, Sybil could see the yellow and white lights of the urban landscape, and in the distance she thought she could see the control tower of the airport. The car seemed to be speeding towards the airport, though what exactly Sir Anthony had planned out he hadn't yet revealed. As long as they got out of Berlin, she supposed, their chances of being caught by Tony Foyle or – she shuddered internally at the thought – Larry Grey would be lessened.
She had droned out their conversation for the last few minutes, but Mary's most recent outburst shifted her focus back to what was going on between her and Sir Anthony.
"Sir Anthony, I really am sorry to have to refuse your job offer, but as important as you seem to think it is, it is simply an unrealistic idea, not possible, and I will not be the one to attempt it!" Mary practically growled. "Now, if you don't mind telling your driver to take us to the airport as quickly as he can …"
Sir Anthony, probably wishing he could sink into the leather seat, nodded and tapped on the window between him and the driver. "Airport please, as quick as you can."
The car immediately turned off at the nearest exit. Mary sat fuming, grasping the machine case so hard her knuckles turned white. Sybil didn't say anything, knowing that bringing up the subject again would only send Mary into a frenzy, but she tried to give Sir Anthony a sympathetic smile. The man didn't see it, since he had turned his attention to the cars they passed on the road.
They entered the airport in a matter of minutes; however, the car didn't turn onto the lane heading for the departures terminal. It stopped outside a long grey building in a car park that was empty except for one vehicle.
"Just wait here for a moment, please," Sir Anthony said as he opened the car door and climbed out. Mary's mouth was open as if she wanted to snap at him again, but she didn't get the chance as Sir Anthony shut the car door behind him and hastily walked through the door to the building.
"You know, you sounded pretty rude to him," Sybil muttered.
Mary rolled her eyes, letting out a low groan of annoyance. "Really, Sybil—" she started to say.
"Don't 'really Sybil' me," Sybil cut her off. "You didn't have to be so harsh on him. Just because he doesn't know what you do about dream-sharing … he did sound hopeful that we'd take the job."
"Well, I'm not going to do anything I know is beyond my capability," Mary retorted. "And you should understand that."
"Of course I understand that," Sybil said. "But Sir Anthony didn't know that, and what good reason did you have for just snapping at him?"
Mary raised her eyes to the roof of the car, shifting the machine case in her lap. "Look Sybil, I'm not in the mood to argue with you—"
"Because you know I'm right," Sybil shot back.
Whipping her head around to meet Sybil with an intense glare, Mary spat out, "If you want to take the job on yourself, go ahead. I won't stop you. But I'm not going to have anything to do with it, no matter what he says."
"Even with what he said about Flintshire creating an environmental and economic catastrophe?"
"They always try to make things seem like a bigger deal than they actually are," Mary explained. "I highly doubt it's as bad as all that. It's probably just to make him sound like the sympathetic party."
"He sounded honest to me."
Mary muttered, "God, Sybil," as she rubbed tired eyes. "Listen, it's out of the question. We'll have nothing more to do with Sir Anthony, and I'll tell him once he comes back from whatever he's doing."
Again, Mary decided when the conversation was at an end. Sybil sighed, slumping back in her seat again. It was impossible to argue with her: they were both stubborn, but Mary somehow always had the upper hand, and that let her win most times. Sybil hated fighting with the one family member she had close to her, but Mary's agitation wasn't making it easy to avoid a quarrel.
A few minutes later, Sir Anthony returned to the car. He tapped the glass as he climbed into the backseat, telling the driver, "Lot 5," and the driver started up the car again.
"I've secured you use of a private plane that my company owns," Sir Anthony told them. "Tell the pilot where you want to go, they'll file the plan en route."
Mary nodded. "Thank you," she said stiffly. She glanced at Sybil before muttering, "I, um … I'm rather sorry at having to refuse your job offer."
Sir Anthony shrugged, though it was clear he was disappointed. "It's alright. I might find someone else."
Mary knew he wouldn't. If anyone had the best of succeeding in Sir Anthony's task, it was her – even if that chance was next to nothing.
"And I can swear to you that I won't say anything to Flintshire about this," she added. "This conversation will never have happened by tomorrow morning."
"Well, I must say I'm at least relieved to hear that," Sir Anthony muttered.
The car drove around the tarmac, swerving around the white and red lights in the ground until it stopped close to a private jet. Sir Anthony pointed to it. "It's just over there. Good luck to you both."
"Thank you," Sybil murmured.
Mary wordlessly opened the door on her side and climbed out, walking around to the boot of the car which flipped open automatically. She and Sybil pulled their luggage out and set the bags down on the ground. The jet was already ready and waiting for them, the stairway already lowered and the lights on the wings blinking.
"We still going to Rio?" Sybil asked.
"I don't see why we shouldn't go ahead with our original plan," Mary answered as she hoisted the strap of one of her bags onto her shoulder. She pulled up the handle of her suitcase and started off towards the jet.
But Mary and Sybil barely a few steps away from the car before they heard:
"Wait – Miss Crawley!"
Both of them stopped, turning back towards the car. Sir Anthony had climbed out of the car and taken a few steps towards them, though there was still a distance between them.
"Miss Crawley," he called out to Mary, "what if I could offer you something that would make you change your mind?"
"There isn't anything that will make me change my mind," Mary said, and turned away again.
"Not even the chance to go home?"
That stopped Mary in her tracks. Those words, the chance to go home, were the ones she had wanted to hear for years, but even so it sounded too good to be true. "You can't do anything about that."
"I believe I can," Sir Anthony said.
That still wasn't enough to move Mary. In fact, she felt offended that Sir Anthony would try to bribe her with something that he couldn't deliver. "Did Edith tell you all about that too? Did she explain why we can't go home? If we set one foot in any country in the U.K., we'll go to jail for the rest of our lives."
"I understand your situation well enough, and if you are successful in changing Rose MacClare's mind, I will work towards clearing your names," Sir Anthony said.
"And if you can't? What then?"
"Then I suppose we'd settle on something else," Sir Anthony replied. "But I am confident that I can clear your names and get you back home."
Mary weighed the offer in her head: if they could accomplish the complex task of altering somebody's mind, and if Sir Anthony could clear the charges against them, then they could go home. Right now, the costs seemed to outweigh the benefits, but she felt like she couldn't walk away from someone who was giving them the chance to return home. No one else had offered them that, and odds were that no one would do the same soon.
She felt Sybil's hand on her arm. "Mary, can we talk about this? The two of us?"
Mary looked back at the jet, then at Sir Anthony standing by the car. "I don't know if there's time."
That apparently didn't matter to Sybil. "I know what I said about you not doing anything more complex than an extraction, but … Mary, this is our chance to go home!"
Mary sighed, feeling like she was about disappoint her sister again, and that was the last thing she wanted to do. "I know how much you want to go home, but he's asking for too much. I just … I know I can't do it, and like I said before I can't take that risk."
Deep down, she wanted to return home as much as anyone. This offer was the light appearing at the end of a tunnel – only a pinprick right now, but it was finally there. But at the same time, she wanted to keep being realistic, and she didn't want to do anything that would get anyone's hopes up.
"But if we had the full team? I just know if we had everyone with us—"
At the mention of the full team Mary's startled, and she cut Sybil off with a hoarse, "No!" She shook her head, mumbling, "No, we can't do that. They won't come back, not for this."
"You don't know that," Sybil tried to convince her. "If we told them that this job was our chance – everyone's chance – to go back home, I know they'd come back."
"How can you be sure?" Mary asked, aghast. "Even if the others did agree to help us with the job, who knows if that job is even possible of completing? If we don't complete it, we're no closer to home and we'll be in even more trouble than we already are."
Sybil reached out and touched the back of Mary's hand. Her eyes were pleading for her to understand her. "Mary, if we don't take this job, we lose this chance to finally go home, probably the only chance we'll ever get. I know you want to keep being realistic about things, but … don't you think it's time to take a risk that might be worth it? If we take on the job, we'll have a better chance of going home than if we walk away." Her eyes were glassy with moisture, and she started blinking rapidly. "Please Mary … we can't keep running. Don't throw this away because you're afraid."
"I'm not—" Mary started to say, but she stopped herself. Sybil was right: if she threw away this opportunity, that was it for them. Their entire lives would continue as they did now, or else they'd be lived out in a cramped, isolated prison cell. That wasn't how Mary wanted her life to be, and certainly not how she wanted anyone else's to be. She knew she would regret it to the end of her days if she walked away from this, and that, on top of the rest of her preexisting regret and guilt, she knew she couldn't bear.
She turned back towards Sir Anthony, still waiting expectantly by the car. "How long do we have to prepare for the job?"
Anyone could see Sir Anthony's delight from all the way across the airfield. "Plenty," he said as he regained his composure. "I'd prefer it to be done before Rose assumes control of the company, but as far as I know about her father's illness, that won't be for a while."
Mary nodded, glad that there wasn't going to be a set deadline to add to the pressure. "We'll have to assemble the rest of the team first, but you'll be needed as well for the preparations."
"Of course. I'll be available any time you need me."
Mary took ahold of her suitcase and started off towards the plane, but Sir Anthony calling out to her halted her again.
"Do you by any chance – I'm sorry, but will Edith be coming back to the team?" he asked.
Mary was surprised at this. "I don't know. She's really not …" She was about to say that Edith probably wanted nothing to do with the team any more, but Sir Anthony sounded … hopeful? Eager? Why exactly was he asking after Edith?
"I can't say for sure," she said at last. "It's up to her."
Sir Anthony's face fell a little. "Oh. I see." He stepped backwards towards the car. "Thank you. And good luck."
We'll need all the luck in the world if we're going to pull this off, Mary thought.
She and walked to the jet as Sir Anthony's car drove away. "So where are we headed now?" Sybil asked. "I'm assuming Rio isn't our destination anymore."
"No. Paris." Mary kept her eyes trained on the jet, and her face as expressionless as she could. Even so, a single sliver of emotion betrayed her as she said, "We're going to need to get our architect back."
Sybil couldn't help but smirk a little as she followed Mary up the jet stairs.
Who could the architect possibly be? Hmm ... ;)