Riples and Waves

Need to Know

"Whose fucking idea was it that I go on holiday, eh?" Tommy strutted into the Shelby betting shop and it was the first time Anna heard something resembling lightness in his voice.

A tall man with a mustache and the signature Blinders haircut said something about golf and how it was boring and easy while clapping Tommy's shoulder on the way to his office. He almost closed the door on her face.

"And who are you, love?" He said when Anna stopped the door with her hand.

"This is Ms. Anna Strauss, Arthur." Tommy cut in almost before Arthur finished his sentence. "She has a business proposition for me."

"Oh, well, I'm sorry Ms. Strauss." Arthur said after a pause. He moved out of her way with no further issues and extended his right hand to shake hers. "It is nice to meet you!"

"A pleasure to meet you as well, Mr. Shelby." She shook his hand back and moved into the spartan room.

The wordless kind of encrypted communication siblings usually have passed between the Shelby brothers and a second later Arthur left with a mere "welcome back" thrown over his shoulder before he closed the door.

"Drink Ms. Strauss?" Tommy said motioning her to the empty chair, while sitting down himself and pulling out a bottle of whiskey from the bottom drawer of his sturdy desk.

"No, thank you, Mr. Shelby." Anna sat down.

"Tommy."

"I'm sorry?"

"If we are to plan an assassination in the near future, Anna, formalities can be forgotten, don't you think?" He took a sip of his whiskey.

"Yes, you're quite right... Tommy. The thing is... we can't have Hitler killed yet."

"Why?" His posture didn't change, but his eyebrows went up a fraction.

"You see, Hitler is an awful man with awful ideas and plans. But right now, the German people don't know that. They either chose not to see it, or are fooled by his nationalistic rhetoric to think that he is right. If he dies now, before people can't see where his ideas are taking the country and the world to, somebody else will just take his place."

"Sure, maybe, if somebody else takes his place a war doesn't happen, or if it does, isn't as horrific, but we can't know for sure. The man is a monster, but he is not the only one and his motivations are certainly not unique to him.What we need to do is undermine his authority, his message, his propaganda and then end him when everyone else will kinda be wishing for his death anyway." She stopped talking then, watching the still, and yet never calm, man before her.

He said nothing. He either guessed what she would be saying next, or was rethinking his decision to help her. Anna gave him no more room to decide by saying,

"I came to you because I know you are very, very close to putting yourself in the House of Lords as the head of the Worker's Party, Mr. Thomas Shelby. I also suspect you will be doing that, not because you want more power, but because you want to win the game people have made you a pawn of. My only suggestion is that you do that on a slightly larger scale than you once predicted." Her chin had unconsciously gone up while her voice acquired an almost preaching quality. She probably would be embarrassed by that later, but right now, Anna allowed her passionate desperation to flow free into her features in hopes of maybe warming him.

If it did, she had no way of knowing by his expression. All she knew was that he was considering her words carefully, while taking another deliberate sip of his amber drink. Had she said too much? The Academy was adamant about the "Need to Know" rule, and Anna's necessity for honest communication had always clashed with that ideal. That was, after all, the reason why she had come alone, to a time period very different to the one her assignment had prescribed.