Chapter Text
“Bond Air is go. Tell the Coventry lot.”
The failed ‘Bond Air’ operation was remembered as an ugly blotch mark within British and American intelligence circles, an embarrassment which was only prevented from escalation at the last minute by Sherlock’s timely decryption of Irene Adler’s passcode.
In hindsight, perhaps Whitehall should’ve accepted CIA’s advice and put a bullet through Ms. Adler’s head instead of the roundabout path it took to retrieve her toxic camera phone. In that case, Sherlock Holmes would have never met his match in “the woman who beat him”, but at least it could've saved his brother and the British Security Service a lot of time and headache.
The truth is this: Long before Sherlock and John were invited via helicopter to the Buckingham Palace, the breach in security of the Coventry plan had already been perceived by the British intelligence community. You see, the MOD official from whom Irene Adler obtained the Boeing 747 seating arrangements was not a complete and utter idiot. Very quickly after his session with the cunning dominatrix, he realized that perhaps his personal indulgence had inadvertently exposed classified information. Betraying his country for a little bit of recreational scolding was an act so comically criminal that even he did not wish to be found guilty of it.
And so, as soon as the mistake was realized, the MOD man reported himself to the relevant authority. What happened afterwards was the execution of a plan proposed to remedy the situation, involving some “compromising photographs” and a disgruntled civil servant. It was an idea that backfired most destructively, the ripples of its impact hitting none more than Mr. British Government himself.
I always thought that love is a chemical defect found on the losing side; thank you for the final proof.
Callous words, but how true it was.
~
Early March, 2011
It began on a regular working day. Nothing too out of the ordinary for Olivia Mansfield, the prestigious and hailed M of SIS. Q-branch was off doing geeky-things, 007 had yet delivered another successful but dramatic operation in Istanbul, and the Americans were appeased since the Coventry plan has been drafted and agreed upon. If anything, MI6 was having a quieter, calmer morning than usual.
M drank her coffee, checked her emails, and reviewed the numerous mission reports with a hard-to-come-by good mood. When five o’clock rolled around and not a single disaster threatened to uproot England and annihilate its citizens, M thought perhaps she could go home early for once.
A mere minute later, just as she shrugged into her heavy winter coat, her phone which had been silent the whole day came to life. The ominous flashing green of the caller ID – E, Smallwood – would have made any lesser man or woman groan, but M was above such plebeian gestures. Instead, she grimaced, the tip of her thin lips dragging downwards with an almighty force, and answered the call. Her stern, icy tone was laced with irritation.
“This is M.”
Elizabeth Smallwood was a good friend – well, as close to a friend as one could have in this business – but M didn’t particularly enjoy these calls. Eliza was rarely a bearer of good news. Last time she phoned in, M ended up with a juvenile Holmes on her hand as if he were a delinquent orphan and MI6 the foster home of last resort. The kid had since proved his loyalty and competence, and taking him in definitely meant M now held a debt over his oldest brother’s head, but that was beside the point.
“We have a problem,” Lady Smallwood started, sounding incredibly tired, as if the whole situation had drained her. “It’s Bond Air. MOD has been in contact: there could be a possible breach in security.”
M squeezed her eyes shut, barely holding in her frustration. Though the Coventry initiative had barely grown out of its infancy stage, it was a sound and clever ploy, and she would hate it to see it choked in the cradle.
“An emergency meeting with the nuclear core of the team has been issued. We are to gather in half n’ hour at Thames House. The MOD agent responsible would be there to give us a full disclosure of the situation. He is quite chastised already from what I heard; can’t be easy to come forth with a confession such as this.”
M’s brows furrowed. “I don’t understand. What exactly is the nature of the breach?”
There was a short pause, and Lady Smallwood could be heard releasing another tired sigh. M’s frown deepened as she felt an impending migraine pushing forth from behind her eyes. She had a dreadful feeling in the pit of her guts that was usually reserved for when 007 pulls a massively stupid stunt that would for sure result in a PR nightmare on an international level.
“Irene Adler,” said Lady Smallwood finally, without further explanation. The name itself carried more than enough threat.
Ah, fuck. That bloody dominatrix. M scowled, slamming her office door behind her with more force than necessary. “You see, Eliza, this is the reason why I don’t trust men.”
~
Her sister was chattering excitedly about something. Probably about the bridesmaid dress she was just fitted for.
Anthea didn’t care in the least.
The wedding was less than two months away, and at this point, she knew there was no stopping it.
Anthea frowned, annoyed at herself for this sudden bout of melancholia. Look at her, being all moody like a bloody child. She should be smiling and exultant, but the harder she tried to be that person, the stronger her repulsion grew at the very idea of even being happy. If she could just muster an eighth of the excitement that seemed to have infected everyone anticipating “the big day”, then perhaps she would not be so miserable, or feel that she was marching towards the end.
“Katie, are you listening to me at all?” Pip shook her arm.
No Pip, I’m not.
“Oh sorry, Pip. My head wandered a bit; it’s been a long day.”
Pip nodded slowly, unconvinced.
Anthea looped her arm though her sister’s and carried on strolling down Mount Street as though nothing was wrong. In secret, she reminisced a time when days were truly long, filled from dawn to dusk and beyond with parliamentary meetings and diplomatic conference calls. She could still taste the bitterness of the cold 3 am coffees, smell the gunpowder on her finger tips, and feel the weight of a tailored suit top that often found itself draped over her shoulders when she invariably crashed behind her desk.
“You sure you’re all right?” pressed Pip worriedly.
“Yes. Just tired,” Anthea reassured. And that wasn’t a lie.
She knew exhaustion well, but nothing in all her years working in the intelligence field had prepared her for this special type of fatigue, one in which she had accomplished nothing but still had no energy, as if the dullness of her days had sucked all the power from her limps.
Suddenly, her phone gave two short vibrations in her pocket, a mode she had set up for special contacts. The alert gave her a bit of a surprise – she wasn’t expecting anything from the office today – but with the surprise, she felt a thin sliver of spirit slip back into her bones.
Pip was talking again. Clandestinely, Anthea pulled out her mobile and glanced at the screen. Punching in the passcode, she watched the backdrop of herself and her fiance dissolve into black as her civilian phone switched to its encrypted OS that contained the other half of her life. It was a shadow program installed by MI5’s quartermaster, rendering the classified contents of her phone undetectable to meddling individuals in her less-than-private life.
Anthea scoffed at the irony. It was rather difficult to protect state secrets, when she was expected to live a life in which nothing was truly private.
One new message.
There is a taxi coming on your left with the license plate number SS05 ADG. Get in. We have a situation. - MH
She smiled despite herself.
From her periphery, Anthea could see the cab just passing the oncoming traffic stop. She had approximately a minute to catch it.
Glancing at her sister, she considering for a second of an appropriate lie, but decided against it. Pip would never waggle her tongue; she learned that the hard way when she was sixteen and decided that tailing her big sister was a good idea. A severe warning from the British Security Service managed to seal her lips for the last decade. To this day, Philippa didn’t know exactly what her sister did for a living, but she knew enough not to ask any questions or mention it to anyone else.
“Pip, I have to go. If anyone inquires after me, you know the drill.” Anthea raised her hand and hailed the cab.
Her sister frowned, growing pale. “But Katie….”
“What?” She turned around, one foot already inside the car.
“I thought…nothing. Never mind. Be careful.”
“Thanks. You head on home,” Anthea kissed her sister’s cheek and responded to Pip’s suspicion with a placating smile, but as the cab door closed behind her, her smile grew until it became genuine, and all trace of weariness lifted from her face.
Inside the taxi, a bespoke suit hung on the handle bar above opposite window, waiting for her. The driver was a young man, younger than herself. Nothing in his disguise gave him away but she saw through him nevertheless. As the saying goes, it takes one to know one.
Mycroft’s new PA.
“Good afternoon ma’am, Mr. Holmes sent me.” He greeted her with a small courteous nod through the rear-view mirror.
Sitting in the back of an unfamiliar vehicle, Anthea felt a bit empathetic towards John Watson. Since meeting Sherlock, the man had been picked up unceremoniously off the streets for far too many times.
John…Anthea had only met him once, that first night when he was coerced into her vehicle by a series of ominous telephone calls that trailed after him like shadows in an unfamiliar neighbourhood. And yes, it was her vehicle (MI5 property) and her driver (MI5 agent), both of which she had lent to the concerned big brother looking to intimidate his little brother’s new found friend. As for herself, well, she was there purely for entertainment purposes, or as the millennials put it – “doing it for the lols”.
Mycroft’s request had come a little unexpectedly. At the time, she had been preoccupied by a very significant promotion, an ascension, which would transform her career irrevocably for the years to come. The transfer of power of MI5’s highest authority had been a lengthy and time-consuming process, requiring numerous legal and logistic steps. Her predecessor, the previous Director General, had been a stubborn man of sixty-eight, who had held the fort at Thames House for over fifteen years. He’d been more than a little bit unwilling to hand over the reins to a successor so young and so…female, and made blatant of his resistance to this change. Thus when it was finally confirmed, when all the documents were signed, when the gold name plague was engraved with her name and title, when the boxes were moved from her old office to her large new one, Anthea felt justified to revel in her triumph.
She’d been sitting in her new chair, facing her roomful of unpacked belongings, when her phone had rung.
-
“Who is it now that you want me to abduct of our streets?”
“A Captain John Watson of the 5 th Northumberland Fusilier.” Mycroft sounded…. intrigued. He didn’t have an assistant at the time, claiming that he was perfectly capable of managing his own books for the time being while a suitable replacement was unavailable. Anthea knew that he hadn’t even started looking, but she didn’t allow herself to ponder too much about why. Besides, even if he did, when it came to Sherlock, there were not many persons Mycroft Holmes trusted, and so this task of (illegally) abducting unsuspecting citizens would still fall to her.
Even if she was the head of British Security Service, even if asking this of her would be pushing professional boundaries…
She could say no, but she didn’t.
“Oh I don’t know, Myc. If Six found out that the head of Five is off kidnapping innocents, they’d never let me live it down. M already glares at me the way one would a naughty child,” Anthea teased good-spiritedly, but she pulled up the file of this John H. Watson nevertheless. “Three-Continents Watson – he’s … a bit of a hound, isn’t he? Are we worried for Sheryl’s safety or his virtue?”
Mycroft grunted on the other line, but he was amused. She could tell.
“Virtue? I do hope you aren’t speaking in the biblical sense. As for his safety, we can never be too careful. Come now, Ann, one more favour for an old friend.”
One more favour… and then it’s goodbye.
Later that night, when the two of them watched Sherlock march away with his new flatmate turned friend, Mycroft, in his moment of distractedness, had said to Anthea, “Update their civilian status to Level Three: Active.”
And she replied, just like the olden days, “Sorry sir, whose status?”
“Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.” Then suddenly, he looked at her, a little embarrassed, before turning his gaze down to his shoes. “Apologies, Ann. I’d...”
He’d forgotten. Over the excitement of Sherlock’s new acquaintance, Mycroft had forgotten that this was all for show, put on for John Watson’s benefit. He was not a minor official, and she was so much more than a secretary. Perhaps once she had been, but no longer. No longer.
Technically, he was still her superior, but nothing could ever be the same.
“I should let you go,” he said lamely, after a short moment of silence.
Anthea did not know if he had meant for it to come out that way, but the double entendre of that sentence was not lost on either of them.
“Yes, it’s late.” She did not have the heart to chastise him for ordering her about like she was still one of his rookie subordinate. “Mycroft,” she called out as she got into the car. “Even Sherlock needs an assistant. There’s no sense in waiting.”
Mycroft nodded, saying nothing.
Mycroft Holmes did not have secretaries because he was too lazy to pick up his own dry-cleaning or update his agendas. Men like him needed a lieutenant, who served many vital and irreplaceable functions for the smooth running of his jurisdiction. Thus, when one left, another must take their place. Prolonged vacancy was inadvisable.
If Mycroft Holmes were a machine, then his assistants were gears, to be changed and replaced when needed - at least, that was how others saw them. In their world, agents were little more than objects, to be used, discarded or shelfed depending on their utility. Everyone had an expiration date, and no one was irreplaceable.
When her small office beside his own had been cleared out, Mycroft had sent her off the only way he knew how: with his 55 Macallan that he’d been saving for special occasions. The bottle had costed him a fortune.
“Alea iacta est.” She said as she accepted the drink, hardly able to look him in the eye.
With some hesitance, Mycroft raised his free hand and gently held her arm at the bend of her elbow, and through the sleeve of her suit, she could feel his warmth.
“I understand now that… I had been selfish. I do hope that you would not hold me in contempt.” The door was closed, and with no audience except for her, Mycroft appeared…younger. Uncertain.
Covering his hand with her own, she raised her gaze and with a watery smile, absolved the guilt he carried for so long. She hoped he knew that there was nothing to forgive.
I love you. She wanted to say suddenly, but it didn’t seem right. With Mycroft, there had never been a right moment to voice those three words, and perhaps there would never be. It didn’t matter; he knew. He had to know.
The tickle in her throat was getting increasingly unbearable. She had never cried in front of him, and she was not about to break her record, not on her last day, especially not on her last day.
So she raised her drink instead, “Cheers, Mycroft.”
Their glass clinked together quietly.
“Likewise, my dear Ann.”
It was always meant to end this way. Even if she had not accepted her MI5 appointment, in the end, she would have had to leave him.
Many, many years ago, an operation called the Cendrillon Project was drafted to secure the future of the crown. Twelve candidates – eight girls and four lads (just in case their mark had an existential crisis in university) – were recommended by the different men and women who ran this country and placed at St. Andrew’s. Mycroft Holmes had made one proposal:
Name: C.E. Middleton
Code: A13257
Alias: Anthea
To this day, Mycroft still could not decide if he had made a mistake, and no one but himself could know that deep down, he had simultaneously wished for her success and her failure. Anthea was beautiful, funny, witty and excellent....most excellent. Of course, of course, the mark would fall for her - of course he would - that was the point, but still.... Mycroft had entertainment the possibility of a different outcome.
And what a foolish delusion that had been.
When C.E.M became the final agent left in the Cendrillon Project, her superiors had prepared her with the knowledge that this would be the epitome of covert operations. Her mission was to maintain a mirage and preserve the dignity of a family whose image had been tarnished by too many divorces, scandals and failed marriages in the last two decades: this one cannot fail. It must not. She must not fail.
They never spoke of the consequences if she ever did, but she could imagine that it would not be pleasant.
Once she was married, she could not take another job as an agent. This was the condition she had agreed to at the very beginning. She’d been young and ambitious and the idea of being queen someday, a figure-head or not, had appeared too attractive to refuse.
As for the man who picked her, she had been too young and naïve to appreciate him from the get-go. But by the time she had come to know her own heart, it was already far too late. Her mark had fallen deeply in love with her, his family thoroughly approved, and there was no turning back.
Marriage was only a matter of time and logistics, and her resignation from Mycroft’s command was inevitable, but it would seem that he could not have her leave with nothing.
An opportunity has risen which I would like you to take it. The window is short, to say the least, and in order to succeed you must secure it before the Cendrillon Project locks you down. Whether you choose to or not is up to you, but I want it to be understood that if you do, it would not be easy.
That had been November of 2009, and merely two months later, by late January of the following year, she had been instated as the new Director General of MI5.
Beyond a professional recommendation, Mycroft had not interfered further. Yet Anthea knew, deep down, that having his support – his vote – gave tremendous weight to her candidacy. Despite her experience and brilliance, she was young, and therefore in the opinion of others, underqualified to hold such an important seat. Even after those who voted against her had begrudgingly accepted her for the job, there was the matter of her “Royal Assignment”, which some still thought posed a direct conflict of interest.
On this front, Mycroft could not help her, overtly or otherwise. This opportunity was for her, and she needed to stand alone and brave the storm, to prove to the British intelligence community that she was not a hammer but the hand that swung it, and that without Mycroft Holmes, she was still a force to be reckoned with, a stronghold of her own making and never to be underestimated.
You will not forget that I am Her Majesty’s agent, and regardless of what I will be in the future, I will be Britain’s civil servant – first, foremost and always.
His eyes as she said those words defending her candidacy before the board had shown with pride, and for her, that’d been enough.
Sometimes she wondered if it’d been his test – a taunt, a dare – to see if she was smart enough to climb the rope thrown at her while she had hung off the proverbial edge of her career.
Or perhaps it was not that at all. Perhaps pushing her towards higher grounds was the only way for a man like Holmes to express his gratitude and his condolence for the life course he had set her upon.
He thought he owed her.
Foolish man.
Some months after her official inauguration, she had texted him belatedly. Thank you.
Congratulations, Ann. -MH
Ann. She never truly knew why he opted to call her that, and it certainly wasn’t just because it was a short form of “Anthea”.
“Do you really not know?”
Once, in his state of impairment, a drugged up Sherlock had spilled his brother’s secret to her.
“It’s a self-warning. I suppose he is….afraid.” The word rolled off his tongue like something sweet, savoured. His mind was only half-lucid in the amphetamine high, and his grin was smug and giddy. How wonderful that he’d finally found an imperfection in his otherwise untouchable older sibling.
“Afraid? Of what...?”
She'd been how old then? 20? 21?
“That you’ll be his Anne – his Anne Bering…Badlam…Bailey…Anne. Something.”
-
“Boleyn…” She murmured, clutching her phone.
“Sorry, ma’am, I didn’t catch that.” Her driver spoke over his shoulder.
Anthea pulled herself from the depth of her memory, casting a glance at the agent behind the wheel. Kaleb Reed, his name was. She’d read his file.
“Nothing. So,” Anthea met his eyes in the rear view mirror, parroting the words once asked of her. “What’s your name then?”
“Benjamin, madam.” The young man replied.
Her lips curled upwards. “Is that your real name?” She asked, knowing that it wasn’t.
“No.”
“Good.” Her grin broadens, “And there’s no need to call me madam. I am not married yet and in any case we are both Mycroft’s people."
“But you are…” Kaleb gnawed on his lips, conflicted and a little bit embarrassed. A pale hint of blush coloured his cheeks. “How should I address you then?”
“Officially I am A, but you can call me Anthea.”