Free The Prime Minister's Secret Agent by Susan Elia MacNeal Page A

indoor cat?”
    K took a running leap at the doorknob, grabbing it with his front paw, and with the skill of an Olympic gymnast managed to fling his small body round the knob. A moment later he had opened the door by himself.
“Meh!”
he cried in triumph.
    “Well, I suppose if you’re smart enough to open the door, you’re smart enough to look after yourself outside, aren’t you?” Maggie reached for her coat and hat.
    K paused at the doorway. He touched one paw to the stair landing, then drew it back, as if stung.
“Meh,”
he complained. The stone was cold and damp, like all of Scotland in November.
“Meeeeeeeeeeh!”
    “Sorry, I know I may seem all-powerful, but I can’t heat the outdoors for you. In or out, then?”
    Hesitating only briefly, K chose out, picking his way over the chill lichen-spotted flagstones of the walk.
    Maggie had a self-defense class to teach at nine on the main house’s grass badminton lawn, just past the walled formal garden. Even though it
was
November in Scotland, the warmer Gulf Stream currents kept the weather in Arisaig more temperate. So the grass was a vivid shade of green and relatively soft to land on, if cold andwet. The sky above turned from darkness to a heavy gray, and the wind whipped about them.
    The class was taught by a young American man of Japanese descent, Satoshi Nagoka, who specialized in jujitsu. Maggie had taken his classes, twice, and was on her way to becoming an expert. She was now considered proficient enough to teach the France-bound group while the sensei was off for a special session with the Czech and Slovak trainees.
    Arisaig was no-man’s-land during the war, international, without a class system, with women training alongside men. It wasn’t Scotland per se anymore, because it had been taken over by the military, and was “out of bounds” to all locals and civilian travelers. To obtain entrance, one had to show special identification. The instructors and staff of Arisaig and the various houses co-opted by the military for training weren’t necessarily Scottish; like Maggie and Satoshi, they came from the four corners of the earth.
    The families who owned the houses had been found lodging elsewhere, and the “stately ’omes” had been taken over by the military—mostly English men of the upper class and a certain age, although there were certainly a number of men in the “thieving” class as well, who provided instruction in lock picking, jumping off moving trains, and other activities considered unsavory in peacetime.
    It was a respite from England’s usual creaky and claustrophobic class- and gender-bound society—a bizarre democracy of the brave, resourceful, and perhaps slightly suicidal, where a Glaswegian arsonist might train next to a Duke’s daughter. But the truth was, at a certain point in the training, especially the intensely physical paramilitary training they did in Scotland, they all started to look alike: hollow-eyed, damp, shivering in their uniforms, and miserable. By this point in their journey, they had thin, athletic bodies with ropy muscles, yet their faces were often still round andquick to smile or laugh. While Maggie didn’t resent their easy camaraderie and banter, she felt a bit lonely to be left out of it; she’d been the same way with her group, a long, long time ago.
    In the shadow of Arisaig House, on the croquet lawn, Maggie could see them sizing her up. She was fit, but she was still female, and somewhat petite at that. “Who wants to go first?” she called, her breath forming clouds in the chill air.
It’s probably wrong how much I enjoy this part
, she thought. The women all held back, squeamish at the thought of hand-to-hand combat.
That’s all right, I’ll get to them next
. Maggie had her routine down cold—the first task was to select the alpha male of the group. “Come on, light the blue torch paper!” She recognized Charlie. “You!” She pointed at him. “Three! You’re up!”
    Charlie