Codename: Omega (feat. The Apiary Society) (11 page)

Emily yanked a rope from the rear bedroom’s ceiling that released a ladder from a hatch in the roof.  She hiked up her skirt and headed up the ladder, calling out, “Hurry up!” 

Price looked back at the front door, trying to focus on the men trying to break it down and not the silk underwear between Emily's legs.  Blue.  Thin.  He tucked his useless weapon into his belt and climbed after her.

The roof of 221B Baker Street connected to several houses on either side.  Emily scurried across the flat tar surface toward the building’s edge, when a doorway burst open from the other end of the rooftop.  Two men came through, guns ready.     

"Throw me the Webley!" Price shouted. 

Silent bullets skipped across the black roof, leaving score marks all around them.  Price ran toward her, shouting for the gun, but she was frozen in place.  He snatched the weapon from her hands and threw her to the ground, cocking the hammer and hoping that whatever old boy had bothered to hold onto such an engine of destruction had bothered to keep the damn thing loaded.  The Webley erupted and the nearest of the men flew backwards like someone had punched him in the chest.  The second dove for cover.  Price cocked the hammer.  "Stick your head out," Price whispered.  "Just give me an inch."

Emily fished a key from a chain around her neck and bent to a small box chained to a gutter along the roof’s wall.  She fit the key into the rusted lock and removed a heavy iron ball from within.  Price’s eyes widened, “What the hell is that?” 

She leaned over the edge of the roof and unscrewed the cap of a drain pipe that ran down the side of the house to the street below.  "No one was going to catch my grandfather with his knickers down," she said, twisting the grenade at the middle and dropping it down the center of the pipe. 

A bullet flew across Price’s right calf, searing the flesh and leaving a smoking hot trail across his skin.  The gunman poked just enough of his head out of the chimney to aim his weapon again and Price squeezed the Webley's smooth, well-oiled trigger.  The gun barked and the right side of the man's head exploded. 

Emily looked down at the black sedans screeching around the corner with men jumping out of them, bearing guns.  "More are coming!  Follow me!"  

Price saw movement in the stairwell and fired, not seeing what he hit.  He looked over his shoulder just as Emily leapt over the side of the roof, shouting "Victoria Regina!"  

The iron ball dropped out of the drain pipe and hit the street, exploding into a fireball that sent shards of concrete as high as the roof.  Emily clung to the drainpipe, hugging the wall as hot asphalt splinters struck her legs.  “Come on, damn you!” she shouted.

Emily climbed down the drainpipe into the swirl of smoke and flame, down into the now open manhole from ancient times.  Price fired on the stairwell again, keeping the group of men pinned back, then stuck the gun in his belt and leapt over the side of the roof. 

The pipe was sturdy, with handholds built along the sides as if someone expected to be making this descent someday.  He realized it wasn’t a drainpipe at all, but rather an ingenious escape device disguised as one.  He leapt down from the pipe and fell into the darkness of the London underground, landing in a pool of black water.  Rats squealed in protest at their sudden intrusion as Emily Watson held out her hand to lift him to his feet. 

"This way," she said.  "My grandfather mapped out an escape route should something like this ever occur."

Price ran after her, "Well then.  He sounds like someone I should like to have met."

***

Price toweled his wet hair just inches from his closed bathroom door.  Steam curled out from beneath it and Price leaned close to say, “Finding everything all right in there?”

“I don’t believe it’s that difficult, Mr. Price,” Emily said. 

“Just letting you know that my assistance is available to you.  Anything that might be hard to reach, perhaps?”  

“I think I’ll manage, thanks.  Are you always this forward, or is it just when there are naked women within ten feet of your grasp?”

Price quit the doorway and headed for the drink car.  He poured whiskey over several ice cubes, swirling it in the glass before adding soda, letting the ice mix it all together.  “I’ve found that getting shot brings out my passion for living.  When I can clearly see my own death only moments away, I cling to life like a wounded animal.”  Price quickly downed his drink, made another, and downed that as well.  The third he sipped slowly.  “It’s a survival mechanism, really.  People who lack it don’t last very long in my profession.”   

“And what profession is that, exactly?”  

The leg would heal.  It was not damaged significantly.  He cleaned the wound upon returning to his flat, but was waiting to dress it until his skin dried.  Price pulled his robe tightly around his chest as the water shut off in his bathroom. 

Emily Watson entered the living room, wrapped tightly in a towel.  The towel was tighter around some areas than others, Price thought, taking his time looking over every inch of her.  “I say, my eyes are up here,” she said. 

“Don’t be silly,” Price said.  “I was simply looking you over to see if you were hit.”

“I wasn’t,” she said.  “I checked.”

“But you could be in shock.  In fact, drop your towel immediately and submit to a proper inspection.  Safety first, I always say.”

Emily smirked and turned toward his bedroom.  “You promised me clean clothes,” she said.  “Yet, you said nothing about wanton advances.  I trust that you wouldn’t dream of taking advantage of a terrified young woman?”  She stood at the doorway of his bedroom, playing with the knot of her towel between her breasts.  Emily stepped back and undid the knot, releasing the towel just as she shut the door. 

“Perish the thought,” Price said.

***

They sat apart from one another on his wide, deep sofa. Price felt warm within as he swallowed the last of his drink.  The flats on King’s Road were tiny, and the walls were not as thick as he’d preferred, but they were still relatively cheap and had the benefit of a fireplace.  Price poked a log within, listening to the wood crackle.  “I really must insist that you tell me what the hell is going on, Emily.  I’ve been shot at and dropped into a sewer today because of you.”

“No one told you to come poking your nose around Baker Street,” she said.

Not entirely true,
Price thought.  “Be that as it may, you owe me an explanation.”

“Where would you like me to begin?”

Price set his empty glass down and folded his hands in his lap.  “Who were the men that tried to kill you?”

“My grandfather was, above all things, a man of science.  A chemist, by training.  He understood the order of things.  He understood that when you added variable compounds together, it took a very strong oppositional chemical to neutralize the solution.  Sherlock Holmes took a look at the world in the late 1800’s and realized that something was very, very wrong, with it.  He saw the emergence of great evil, and foresaw the need for someone to stand against it.” 

“The Apiary Society, I presume?” 

“Exactly.”

Price nodded.  “I seem to recall no mention of him having children.”

Emily finished her drink.  “Do you have any more of this?”  

Price rose to get them both another, and Emily said, “The mysterious child of Sherlock Holmes.  That is an even longer story than this one.”

“Did Holmes live long enough to see the Apiary Society form?”

“That is a matter of what you believe.  Or rather, who.”

“How so?”   

“Ah, but you are racing ahead, Mr. Price.  And to talk of the death of Sherlock Holmes, we must talk of the only man he ever feared: Professor Moriarty.  It is cliché now to refer to Moriarty as Holmes did, ‘The Napoleon of Crime’, but there may be no other way to put it.  Not a single criminal enterprise existed in the Empire that did not filter up to Moriarty at the height of his reign.  Aside from his criminal intellect, Moriarty possessed a truly superior academic mind.  By an early age he’d authored studies on Binomial Theorem and Dynamics of Asteroids.  To all appearances, he should have gone on to cure a great disease, or discover a new solar system.  Instead, he set events in motion that would create a network of criminals so vast that it would eventually change the face of the world.”

Price sniffed, setting his drink down.  “I think you might be getting a little carried away, Emily.  I happen to have some knowledge of large criminal organizations at work in the world, and I’ve never heard of this man.”

“In 1882, a group called the Irish National Invincibles assassinated the British Chief Secretary to Ireland and his secretary.  Around that same time, the term ‘Mafia’ first appeared in official law documentation when a Sicilian doctor was threatened for not abandoning his lemon grove.  On March 13, 1881, members of a Russian organization called Narodnaya Volya assassinated Emperor Alexander II.  I could go on, Mr. Price, but one startling fact remains: In the early 1880’s multiple criminal organizations sprang up that grew very powerful, very quickly.”

“And you believe this Professor Moriarty was at the head of it all?” Price said.

“Not necessarily,” Watson said.  “But his methods, his influence, was seen and felt throughout that time.  Moriarty was the spider, spinning a massive web of chaos that reached across nations.”

Night began to fall.  The sun crept lower and lower toward the rooftop of Crosby Hall.  Price’s eyes felt heavy.  “So who was it today, then?  The IRA?  Mafia?  Soviets?”

“None of them,” Emily sighed.  “All of them.  I don’t know.  The Apiary Society is a beacon of light in a world that is growing increasingly dark, Mr. Price.  We’ve made many enemies.  What were you expecting?  Some fancy, flashily named syndicate you could just blow up and be done with?”

Price sighed, “No.  That was my last assignment.  So what ever became of Professor Moriarty?”

“Sherlock Holmes killed him in 1891 at the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland. “

Price raised his glass, “Bully for him.”  

“Of course, Holmes was killed along with him.”

“Ah,” Price said.  “Sorry to hear that.”

“That’s one story at least.”

“And the other?”

“The other is that my grandfather faked his death, traveled around clearing up the rest of Moriarty’s gang, and died years later in Sussex Downs.”

“Which one do you believe?”

“The one my father always told me, about how he met my mother at that very same funeral.” 

Price looked at her, “Was your father the son of Dr. Watson?”

Emily touched her glass to his and said, “Elementary, my dear.”  

***

It was the same dream again.  The creature had him, and Ivor’s shredded face billowed in the sea water like mermaid tailfins.  “You should have been with me, Sean.  You should have been with me.  Why weren’t you with me?”

Price woke clutching the blanket stretched across his body.  The fire was out, leaving the flat dark and cold.  Emily Watson was gone. 

The next morning, he walked to the café and pulled the door only to find it locked.  There was a note taped to the glass that read
“Closed due to family emergency.”
  He thought of the little girl’s limp and said, “Damn.”

At the office, Admiral Sir Lee Knight did not look amused.  “You did debrief her, didn’t you, Commander?”   

Price frowned.  “I didn’t get quite that lucky, sir.”

“Damn.  Gone without a trace?  In the dead of the night?”

“Mmm,” Price said, nodding.  “I went back to Baker Street first thing this morning, but she wasn’t there.  The place had been ransacked.  There were no bodies either, which is odd.  Whoever the civilians are calling for corpse disposal, we should get their number.  The boys from the 5
^th
Floor are much less efficient.” 

“This is no joking manner, Commander.  You’ve let a major suspect in an international syndicate into your apartment, just so she could waltz out freely whenever she chose.  Tell me you didn’t let her pump you for information, at least.” 

“No,” Price said.  “She didn’t even try.”

“The first thing I want you to do is report to Commander Damon of Station A.  Advise him to alert the CIA that Emily Watson may be en route to the States for God knows what.  If they can detain her at the airport long enough for us to get there, we’ll return her home immediately.  Second, return to Baker Street and thoroughly investigate the premises for any sort of clue as to what they may be up to.  Don’t ignore even the slightest detail.” 

“Ironic, isn’t that, sir?”

“What’s that?”

“Sending me to 221B Baker Street to search for clues?” 

Ms. Maxwell cocked an eyebrow at Price as he closed the door to Knight’s office.  “Was it so disappointing, Sean?  You must have wanted her to debrief you very badly.”

Price straightened his tie.  “Don’t be silly, my dear.  I wasn’t wearing any in the first place.”

***

The lock to 221 Baker Street was probably original construction as well,
Price thought.  He slid a small tool into the keyhole and it popped open immediately.  Price called out, “Hello!”  He stopped, listening carefully for movement inside the building.  There was nothing.