[Johnny1A.2]

LATER.

Nathan pondered what he had just been told, taking his time to
think about the many implications as he sipped his tea. He was
aware that Barrington-Shaw was watching and waiting, but
saying nothing as he sipped his own herbal brew and waited for
his guest to finish his cogitation.

Nathan was not at all offended by the admission of ulterior motives
on the part of his host, that came with the territory. Intelligence
work was not about altruism, there were always hidden agendas
and ulterior motives in play, on all sides and by every player.

That the British, and Barrington-Shaw himself, had such hidden
agendas certainly came as no surprise to Nathan, it was not as if
he and his were any different.

It was also not a surprise to Nathan that his British counterparts
had held back such a considerable amount of information for so
long. Again, self-interest was the name of the game in their line
of work, and information was a valuable commodity.

Besides, Nathan thought to himself in a certain amount of wry
amusement, if they had told us about a man over a century old
running around today, still young and strong, we’d probably have
thought they were insane if we hadn’t already found evidence of
it ourselves. Even with all the weirdness we already knew, about
Atlantis and the rest, that one would be hard to take on faith!

“So why are you telling us this now?” Nathan finally asked aloud.
“What’s changed?”

“Among other things,” Barrington-Shaw said, after a long sip of
his own ‘tea’, “you’ve had your own encounter with the man now,
and learned enough on your own to believe the things we’re ready
to tell you. For another, I personally have wanted to reveal some
of this for a while now, but I had to get approval from...certain
people...before I could do so.”

Nathan made a mental note about that, suspecting that Barrington-
Shaw would say nothing else about those ‘other people’.

“When you analyze the papers and materials I’m sending back to
the States with you,” Barrington-Shaw went on, “I believe that
you’ll see why I say that I think that our mutual ‘acquaintance’
is preparing for something relatively large in the not-too-distant
future. I don’t pretend to know what that is, but I’m fairly sure it’s
coming, and I’m reasonably confidence that whatever it is, it’ll be
bad for the United Kingdom, and bad for your United States. I’m
also of the opinion that of stopping whatever he’s planning, or at
least mitigating the harm it will do, are better if we work together.”

“I can’t commit to anything like that,” Nathan warned.

“I know that,” Barrington-Shaw replied. “I’m not asking that of
you today, I just want you to know what I’m doing, and why, and
give your best advice to Robert McLaird when he asks for it.

“My guess,” Barrington-Shaw went on, “is that you’ll agree
with me about my worries after you have made yourself familiar
with the information I’m sending back with you. You’ve met
this bastard now.”

“Not socially,” Nathan replied. “But...”

“Exactly my point,” Barrington-Shaw went on. “He does make an
impression, doesn’t he?”

Nathan could not argue with that. There was something about the
man in question, something that left an impression that, for lack of
a less melodramatic term, simply had to be called sheer evil.

Let us take our momentary leave of Nathaniel Conners and his host, and turn our
attention westward across the vast Atlantic Ocean. We need now focus upon a
town in upper New York State, and a warehouse on the outskirts of said town.

MORE LATER.