Charlie had referred to as “the aunties”—were due for tea that very afternoon.
Ali and Leland made their way through the check-in process andup to their suite. The sitting room was spacious, with expansive windows that overlooked the sea. B.’s frequent guest points were paying the bill here, and his membership status was high enough that a bottle of chilled champagne and an enormous basket of fresh fruit awaited them. Walking over to look down at the view of the seaside promenade and the shoreline far below, Leland grew quiet again. “This hotel’s been here for a very long time,” he said. “I never would have thought I’d be staying here as an overnight guest.”
Ali grabbed a pear from the fruit basket and joined Leland at the window. “Didn’t you ever come here as a boy?”
A shadow fell across his face. “Not as a boy,” he said. “My father was a thrifty man, and he maintained that the place was far too grand for us when I was growing up, although my parents did bring me here once. We came to Sunday-afternoon tea after I joined the Royal Marines and before I shipped out for Korea.”
“Oh, my,” Ali said. “If I had known that, I could have booked us somewhere else.”
“No,” Leland said. “This is an excellent choice. I can see that parts of this trip will mean facing down some of my own personal demons, including Daisy and Maisie.”
“We can go down for lunch if you like,” Ali offered.
“No,” he said. “If afternoon tea now is anything like it was then, we won’t find ourselves starving. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll grab a short nap before that. I didn’t sleep well last night, and I want to be at my best.”
Ali smiled at that. “You do that,” she said. “I’m going to order a pot of coffee from room service. I ended up on the short end of the coffee stick this morning. Then I have some work to do.”
Once the coffee arrived, Ali settled at the desk in her own room and pulled out her computer. Her e-mail account was chock-full of the usual spam. Even on the far side of the Atlantic, a Canadian pharmacy wanted to sell her Viagra. Hidden away in all the junk were two real messages. One, from her mother, contained a photo of Colleen lookingdarling in her finished flower-girl dress. The other was from B., saying his meetings were going well, but that he was beat and would be hitting the sack early. She replied to both. Then she extracted her thumb drive from the bottom of her purse and returned to the files Stuart had sent in the encrypted photo. This time she went to the opposite end of the string of files and started at the beginning with articles, all of them culled from what was evidently a local newspaper, the San Leandro Lariat .
Ali soon realized that in order to keep track of the whole story, she would need to take notes. Not wanting them to be readily accessible, she used the same steganography program to create a separate file on the thumb drive, one she’d be able to put into another photo to send back to Stuart and B.
There was a whole collection of articles dealing with school board meetings, in which the pros and cons of the proposed SFLS—student/faculty location system—were discussed in mind-numbing detail. Ali had reported on enough meetings like that to know how opposing sides had most likely lined up behind a standing microphone to take public potshots at each other. Either the reporter was incredibly evenhanded or the townsfolk had been evenly divided for and against the system, which would allow school administrators to know at all times where each person—visitors included—could be found on the various school campuses.
The program required that everyone involved would be issued a bracelet that contained a GPS tracking device associated with that person’s name, which would allow administrative personnel to instantly locate the targeted individual. The school superintendent, Dr. Richard Garfield, was a huge proponent of instituting
Ali and Leland made their way through the check-in process andup to their suite. The sitting room was spacious, with expansive windows that overlooked the sea. B.’s frequent guest points were paying the bill here, and his membership status was high enough that a bottle of chilled champagne and an enormous basket of fresh fruit awaited them. Walking over to look down at the view of the seaside promenade and the shoreline far below, Leland grew quiet again. “This hotel’s been here for a very long time,” he said. “I never would have thought I’d be staying here as an overnight guest.”
Ali grabbed a pear from the fruit basket and joined Leland at the window. “Didn’t you ever come here as a boy?”
A shadow fell across his face. “Not as a boy,” he said. “My father was a thrifty man, and he maintained that the place was far too grand for us when I was growing up, although my parents did bring me here once. We came to Sunday-afternoon tea after I joined the Royal Marines and before I shipped out for Korea.”
“Oh, my,” Ali said. “If I had known that, I could have booked us somewhere else.”
“No,” Leland said. “This is an excellent choice. I can see that parts of this trip will mean facing down some of my own personal demons, including Daisy and Maisie.”
“We can go down for lunch if you like,” Ali offered.
“No,” he said. “If afternoon tea now is anything like it was then, we won’t find ourselves starving. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll grab a short nap before that. I didn’t sleep well last night, and I want to be at my best.”
Ali smiled at that. “You do that,” she said. “I’m going to order a pot of coffee from room service. I ended up on the short end of the coffee stick this morning. Then I have some work to do.”
Once the coffee arrived, Ali settled at the desk in her own room and pulled out her computer. Her e-mail account was chock-full of the usual spam. Even on the far side of the Atlantic, a Canadian pharmacy wanted to sell her Viagra. Hidden away in all the junk were two real messages. One, from her mother, contained a photo of Colleen lookingdarling in her finished flower-girl dress. The other was from B., saying his meetings were going well, but that he was beat and would be hitting the sack early. She replied to both. Then she extracted her thumb drive from the bottom of her purse and returned to the files Stuart had sent in the encrypted photo. This time she went to the opposite end of the string of files and started at the beginning with articles, all of them culled from what was evidently a local newspaper, the San Leandro Lariat .
Ali soon realized that in order to keep track of the whole story, she would need to take notes. Not wanting them to be readily accessible, she used the same steganography program to create a separate file on the thumb drive, one she’d be able to put into another photo to send back to Stuart and B.
There was a whole collection of articles dealing with school board meetings, in which the pros and cons of the proposed SFLS—student/faculty location system—were discussed in mind-numbing detail. Ali had reported on enough meetings like that to know how opposing sides had most likely lined up behind a standing microphone to take public potshots at each other. Either the reporter was incredibly evenhanded or the townsfolk had been evenly divided for and against the system, which would allow school administrators to know at all times where each person—visitors included—could be found on the various school campuses.
The program required that everyone involved would be issued a bracelet that contained a GPS tracking device associated with that person’s name, which would allow administrative personnel to instantly locate the targeted individual. The school superintendent, Dr. Richard Garfield, was a huge proponent of instituting
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