Читать книгу The Lost Knights - William Speir - Страница 17

Thirty minutes after Emily had dropped Jamie off at Tom’s parents’ house, she was ushered into Edison’s office at SignalCorps’ headquarters. It was clear that Edison was excited about something as he motioned for her to sit down on the couch in the near corner of his office.

“Thanks for coming,” he said as Emily sat down. “I’ve got some exciting news.”

“Oh?” Emily said, raising an eyebrow. She was used to Edison’s excitement when it came to her surveillance system. The system had already sold several million units across the United States, and sales to allied nations and organizations, including Interpol, looked like they could begin to take off soon. “What news?”

“The British military wants to sign a contract to buy the system, but they want a demonstration of the new modifications first.”

“Are the new modifications ready for demos?” Emily asked, knowing that the last of the minor bugs should have been worked out by now.

“Absolutely!” Edison affirmed.

“Well, that’s good, but it doesn’t seem all that exciting…”

“There’s more,” Edison interrupted. “There will be representatives from NATO and the European Community there as well. They all want to see the demo, and if the system performs as expected, they all want to make their initial purchases.”

That’s exciting news! SignalCorps is having difficulty breaking into the European marketplace. They’re well known in the United States and Canada, but they’ve only sold a few units overseas – mostly to the local Commanderies who learned about the system at the Order’s Conclave three years ago when the system was first released on the market. Having so many countries in Europe ready to purchase the system is huge and is a credit to Edison’s salesmanship.

“That’s great, Edison,” Emily said smiling. “Who are you going to send to do the demos?”

“Well, this is the thing, Emily,” Edison began slowly. “Some of the people who want to see the demo were there that night in… Orlando.”

Edison shuddered. He still had trouble mentioning what had happened three years ago at the Tower Conference in Orlando, Florida when Edison and Emily were taken hostage by former HSF Deputy-Director Kingston and his men. “They remember you and your presentations. They want you to come and demo the system.”

Emily had always wanted to see Europe, and she started getting excited until she thought about Jamie and Tom. Tom almost never had time to take a vacation, and she wasn’t sure that she felt comfortable leaving Tom alone with Jamie for a week or so while she went to Europe alone.

Edison didn’t think Emily wasn’t taking the news the way he had expected. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Well, it’s a lot to think about. I need to make sure that it’s okay with Tom and that he can handle Jamie by himself for however long I’d be in Europe. When are you thinking of having the demo?”

“We can have it any time you’re ready. I was hoping that we could do it later this month sometime. Now that there’s interest, I don’t want to risk them finding another system or spending their money on something else before we can get them to sign the contracts.”

Edison was right, of course. There were always more sales when Emily demonstrated the system since she was its creator. No one knew what it could do better than she did, and no one understood the modifications the way she did. She was the logical choice. She’d have to find a way to make it work.

“All right, let me talk to Tom, and I’ll let you know by tomorrow when we can do this.”

“Excellent,” Edison said, clapping his hands as he did when he was excited. “I’ll contact the people over there and see when it’ll be most convenient for them to meet.”

They talked for a while longer about the testing and manufacturing of the new version of the system before Emily realized what time it was. Standing, she said, “I need to run, Edison. I’m meeting Tom for lunch. If I get the chance to discuss it with him then, I’ll give you a call this afternoon.”

“Perfect,” Edison replied. “It’s night over in Europe now, so as long as you can let me know something before midnight, I can get the European staff started on scheduling the meetings when they get to work in the morning.”

“I will,” Emily promised as she left Edison’s office and walked back to her car.

Tom was just pulling into the gun club parking lot when Emily turned off her car and opened the door. Tom pulled into the parking place next to her, quickly got out of his car, and came around to help her out and give her a kiss. She kissed him back.

“Regular stakes?” she asked. Even though Emily didn’t like to compete with pistols against Tom, they did, on occasion, make friendly wagers regarding who’d have the higher score. The loser had to clean up Jamie’s messes in the kitchen for the next week. Emily had lost the last round, and she was ready to give the responsibility back to Tom.

“Do you mind if we skip that today? I’ve got some things that I need to talk to you about, and I’m too distracted right now to compete.”

“Sure,” she said. “I’ve got something I need to talk to you about, too. But I’m not doing all the clean-up for another week.”

“Fine,” Tom said, laughing. “How about we alternate every day until the next time we compete?”

“Deal!”

They walked past the shooting range, holding hands. A few minutes later, they were seated at a table in the corner away from the other club members so they could talk privately. As it turned out, it was the same table where they had been sitting when Tom proposed to Emily. They checked the menu briefly, and ordered as soon as the waiter came over to bring their water glasses.

Emily was still trying to figure out how to tell Tom that she needed to go to Europe, so she decided to let him go first. “What did you want to talk about?” she asked.

Tom looked at her for a moment. He reached for her left hand and gently held it. “I have two things I need to talk to you about. First, I need to know your thoughts about doing field work now that you’re working more hours.”

Emily knew that Tom was talking about participating on intervention teams with the Order. She was still a Dame, having refused higher rank twice before because she didn’t want to lead intervention teams, so being a member of intervention teams was still expected of her. “I’m still not comfortable with doing interventions now that we have Jamie. She’s too young for me to be out at all hours doing surveillance work, leaving her either with you or with your parents. It just doesn’t feel right. Why? You’re not going to ask me to leave the Order, are you?”

“Not at all,” Tom said quickly. “Quite the opposite. I just needed to make sure that I correctly understood your feelings on the subject first.” He paused for a moment. “As you know, we’ve created a new position for Ralph as the Chief Training Officer for the Order. He trains members here and he travels to the Commanderies far away to provide training.”

“I know that,” Emily said, wondering where Tom was going with this.

“You also know that your surveillance system has been adopted by most of the Commanderies, and you’re considered to be one of the best surveillance operatives we’ve ever had.”

“Well, I don’t know about being ‘one of the best,’ but thanks for the compliment.”

“The point is,” Tom said, smiling, “if you’re not going to do surveillance work in the field anymore, or at least for a long time to come, I need to see if you’d be willing to work with Ralph as the new Chief Surveillance Training Officer for the Order. You’d be responsible for teaching the other members how to be good surveillance operatives and how to use your system. I might still want you to do some analysis on occasion, but I think you could add the most value as part of Ralph’s training team. It would be easier to schedule your involvement, and we could get creative with the occasional travel requirements – you know, make it part of a family vacation or something…”

Emily thought about what Tom was saying as he stopped talking and leaned back in his chair to let his suggestion sink in a bit. He was right that she could be of more use to the Order in a training capacity than in a field capacity for the foreseeable future. She was an accomplished surveillance operative, and her techniques, as well as her system, were something that needed to be shared with others. Tom was suggesting a more formal method of sharing those techniques, and Emily liked the idea.

She nodded. “I like it! It would give me a role in the Order that I could easily do and still add value. But if I agree to this, when’s the next time that I’d need to be prepared to teach?”

“Well, that’s the other thing I needed to talk to you about,” Tom said. He told her about his boss’ visit to his office and the trip he needed to take to Europe later in the month. Emily had to suppress the urge to laugh; she didn’t want to interrupt him until he was finished. It was just funny that they both needed to be in Europe at almost the same time.

“Anyway,” Tom was saying, “he not only wants me to fill in for Cabot at these meetings, but he wants me to stay in Europe for a couple of weeks and take a vacation. He’s even willing to pick up the tab to fly you over so we could make it a family vacation. Ralph is going to be over there doing some training at the same time. I’m thinking that you and he could be doing training while I’m in my meetings, and then we can spend some time doing sightseeing and relaxing once my meetings and your training sessions are over. I might even visit a few of the other Commanderies around Europe at the same time. What do you think?”

“I think we need to schedule this carefully because I have to be in Europe in a few weeks for Edison to demonstrate the new system for the British as well as for NATO and other military officials from across the European Community. They’re ready to sign the initial contracts, but they want me to walk them through the new version before they make their final decision. Some of the people that Edison has been talking to were in Orlando, and they remember me. If we can make those meetings fit into the plans, I think it’s a great idea.”

“Is that what Edison wanted to see you about this morning?” Tom asked.

“Yes, but I was worried about it at first.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t want to leave you and Jamie here by yourselves for that long, and I didn’t want to put too much of a burden on your parents,” Emily replied.

Tom leaned back and nodded. “We need to see if they’ll be willing to keep Jamie for us while we’re away. I don’t think we could take her with us unless we had someone with us full-time to take care of her while we’re both in our meetings.”

Emily frowned. He was right. There was no way they could take Jamie with them – not with all of the meetings and traveling they’d be doing. But they could be gone for almost a month, and that was a lot to ask Tom’s parents to take on. “Do you think they’d be willing to take Jamie for several weeks?” she asked.

Tom shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess we can ask them tonight when we go to pick her up. Maybe Sophie could help take the burden off of them.”

They finished eating their lunch and discussing the details about their trip until they were satisfied that they knew how to broach the idea with Tom’s parents. When they were done, they decided to take a quick walk around the club before heading back to work.

After about ten minutes, they headed back to the parking lot. Tom held Emily’s car door for her as she got in, giving him a kiss first. Tom smiled at her and closed her door before getting into his own car. When Tom looked over to wave good-bye, Emily was already on the phone to fill Edison in on her conversation with Tom so SignalCorps could begin arranging the meetings in Europe.

Once on the road, Tom pulled out his phone and called Ralph. When Ralph answered the phone, Tom filled him in on the conversation.

“That’s great, boss!” Ralph said when Tom was done speaking. “When you and Emily get your meetings scheduled, let me know so I can set up the training sessions. Are you heading back to the office now?”

“Yes, I just left the club. I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.”

“See you when you get here,” Ralph said as he hung up.

Emily left the parking lot and drove to the dojo. Even though the dojo’s primary focus was Tae kwon do, the owner, who was a good friend of Emily and Tom’s, had also opened a fencing studio on the upper floor. Rather than traditional fencing, which was about touches and scoring points, this studio taught combat fencing, which is how swords were used to fight for centuries. Emily was good enough to teach classes, but she preferred to spar, either with Tom or with the owner.

She changed into the proper attire for Tae kwon do, and after her warm-ups she sparred with one of the senior black belts. For an hour she and her opponent fought each other to a stalemate. When the hour was up, they bowed to each other and shook hands. It had been an excellent session.

Emily changed and went upstairs to fence with the owner. Most people would be too exhausted, after sparring for that long, to start working out with the heavy rapiers, but Emily felt energized by the sparring. It wasn’t just a purely physical activity. It involved reading the opponent’s body language, anticipating and countering the opponent’s moves, and delivering an attack past the opponent’s defenses. Emily loved the feeling of not knowing what would be happening next. It excited her.

The owner was waiting for her, and as soon as she had put her bag down in the corner and grabbed her sword, he attacked. Emily anticipated this and rolled out of the way before bringing up her sword to defend against the next attack. The owner smiled. Emily always managed to mix fencing and martial arts together into something all her own, which made her such a formidable opponent. He studied her stance, noted an opening, and attacked again.

For the next hour, they parried, thrust, cut, and deflected until they finally realized that neither was going to get the advantage over the other. The owner saluted Emily with his rapier, and she returned the gesture, acknowledging that the duel was over and was officially a draw.

“It’s amazing how you’ve developed such a unique style of fighting,” he commented and they put away their gear. “I watched you sparring downstairs, and I’d swear you had a sword in your hands when you fight hand-to-hand, just like it seemed you were fighting hand-to-hand when we were fencing just now. You know how to fence in the traditional manner that I teach, but when you’re fencing alone with me or your husband, your style is incredibly unique. I wish we could document it and teach it as its own martial art!”

“That would take away my advantage,” Emily said, smiling at the compliment. “If other people learned to do things my way, I’d have to come up with another way of doing things.”

The owner laughed. Emily shook his hand, grabbed her bag and equipment, and walked down the stairs and back to her car. She wanted to get home, take a shower, and get ready for dinner with Tom that evening before the meeting.