To write (verb): Communicate or express...: Secrets III: Chapter 87

CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN

Finally, Charles Grady had left him alone. But Harry wasn't sure which was worse, Grady's haranguing or his own stabbing shame. He could hardly manage to hold his head up, or to keep his eyes open. The drugs had left him drained and now slightly nauseated, and it was taking every bit of his strength to stay upright.

Lucas had to be back in London soon, or at the very least, he would have passed the information about Connie on to Ros. Harry knew they wouldn't leave him here for long. To pass the time, he worked out how it would all happen. Lucas would get the proof to Ros, and Ros would disregard Dolby and go directly to the Home Secretary. Connie would be arrested, and Dolby, who Harry was sure had been sitting in his chair all this time, would be relieved of his self-appointed duties on the Grid.

And what would happen next? An apology, certainly, which Harry would accept with the good grace and dignity of his office. A glass of cold water, a hot shower, some decent clothes, a fine English meal, beef and potatoes, perhaps, with a large tumbler of single malt, and yes, leave the bottle, if you please. And then, finally, blessed sleep. Harry could see it, he could taste it, all of it. Soon. It would certainly have to be soon.

Harry heard the door again, and looked up. Oh, Christ, yes. The Home Secretary. Harry released a sigh of infinite relief as he watched Nicholas Blake move through the doors and into the interrogation room. Finally, it's over.

Harry was almost too weak to stand, and when he pushed his chair back he saw flashes of light dancing in front of his eyes. But he would stand. Not so much for the entrance of the Home Secretary, but to show Blake that he still understood the dignity of his own office as the Head of Section D, Security Services of Her Majesty the Queen. To show that no matter how he looked, no matter what humiliations he'd been through, Sir Harry Pearce was still, and would always be, a gentleman.

Harry would have put his hand out to shake the Home Secretary's, just as if he were standing behind his own desk on the Grid, but unfortunately, he had to steady himself against the table to keep from toppling over. It couldn't be helped. And his voice was feeble and out of breath, but Harry summoned what little strength he had left to address Blake.

"Home Secretary. I apologise for being out of contact today. A little local misunderstanding has arisen." Harry could no longer stand, as he was afraid he might pass out. He fell back into the chair just in time. But even through the haze of his exhaustion, Harry had to admit to himself that the Home Secretary didn't look like a man who was intending to apologise. He looked quite angry, actually, and what was worse, he had a look about him that seemed to indicate a sort of personal disappointment.

Blake's flat, cold voice did nothing to dispel Harry's increasing fear. "I've seen the dossier, Harry."

Ah, yes, he just needs to hear it from me. He'll believe it's been faked once he hears it from me. "The dossier. It's a forgery. There's not a single word of it is true." Harry's breath was coming in short bursts now, and he was more than a little worried that he might lose consciousness. He focused his eyes on Nicholas Blake and the rest of the room began to disappear, as if they both stood in a narrow tunnel. I have to stay present. I have to focus.

Blake started speaking, eloquently, with magnitude. "The world is on the edge of an abyss." Harry thought for a moment that they might be on the floor of Parliament. Ah, he's giving a speech. I'll just listen, and soon he'll take me out of here. "The Americans will do everything to complete their missile defence program. And the Russians will do everything to stop it. The ace up our sleeve was Sugarhorse."

Was? Not was. I still have my names. I never told them. "It still is." I can assure you our position is just as strong as it ever was. How long ago did I say that? Was it only last night?

"I've been through the dossier with Richard Dolby. Alexander Borkhovin is mentioned. Maria Korachevsky is mentioned. All your communication with the FSB is documented."

"Sir." Harry wanted so much to stand and look Blake in the eye, but he knew he wouldn't stand for long. So he sat, looking up, trying to catch his breath. He knew how he sounded, he sounded weak, desperate, and guilty, but he felt he must convince him. "You have to understand this is an orchestrated attack on me and my network. A network that ... that still protects us and will still allow us to call Russia's bluff."

"It's time for you to give up those names." It was an order. A direct order from the Home Secretary.

Harry's vision was starting to cloud. No, this can't be happening. I've lost my family, I've lost Ruth. All gone, because of my job, my duty to my country and to this man. I have to make him understand. "Home Secretary, I would never betray this country, you know that. I have given ... my life, I have given... everything I have, in its service."

"And you were very good, Harry. I trusted you completely." Blake wouldn't sit, but he leant forward on the back of the chair in front of him. "And I'll never forgive you for the damage your actions have inflicted."

The words hit Harry with the force of a blow to the chest. He felt not only his hands, but his arms shaking now, and he gripped his knees to try and stop the trembling that he knew Nicholas Blake could see. Harry felt broken, lost, and completely alone, and now, to his horror, he felt tears welling in his eyes, and he was powerless to stop them. What he felt a need to do, and what he fought with every fibre of his being, was to lay his head on the table in front of him and allow the excruciatingly powerful emotion to exit his body. To cry, to sob, to release.

But on sheer instinct and without clear thought, Harry kept his eyes focused squarely on Nicholas Blake's as the Home Secretary spoke. Harry heard the disgust, the acid in the voice of the man he had thought of not only as a colleague, but as a friend. Every word stung as if a whip was meeting his skin, tender, raw. "So, when this is over, you will be stripped of everything, do you understand? The knighthood, the pension. You will die in the most obscure and impoverished ignominy that we are capable of heaping on anyone."

Harry listened, but finally, he had to lower his eyes from the torment of what Blake was saying. "The only thing you can possibly salvage is your self-respect. So, if you have an atom of that left, you will give us those names. At the very least we can save those involved and make this a fair fight with Russia." The tears were truly threatening now, and Harry wasn't sure he cared. Nothing. It's all been for nothing. Everything I've lost has been for nothing.

Blake straightened, and said with absolute finality, "Goodbye, Harry." He turned without another word, and walked out of the door.

Nothing. That's what I have left. Nothing. His head was still down, and now, mercifully, the tears seemed to retreat, as an unspeakable emptiness descended upon him. Harry suddenly found he was wishing the drugs were still in his body, because Ruth would be here. She would sit across the table from him and take his hand, just as she had at the restaurant in Bath. Her hand would stroke his, and somehow she would let him know that everything would be alright.

I'm sorry, Ruth. I'm so sorry. Why hadn't he gone to her, all those times, all those nights he'd sat on the couch with the girls, dreaming of flights to Cyprus? Now, he would go, and he would hope against hope that she was there and would still have him. Right now, in this room, Ruth was all that mattered to Harry. Not the job, not the Russians, not the safety of the whole bloody world, but Ruth. His Ruth. My dearest love, my wife. My Ruth.

Harry promised himself that if he had another chance with her, he wouldn't make the same mistake as he had with Jane and Graham and Catherine. He would change. He would value the gift he had been given, and he would love Ruth in the way that every cell in his body was crying out to do now. He had given up their wedding for the knighthood that had meant nothing to him, and now he'd been told it was being taken from him. Nothing left. He'd given up so much. And now, this job, this thing that had been so important was just so much dust running through his fingers.

Then, just as Harry thought he was truly lost, the music returned. It rose softly at first, then stronger, until it seemed to fill the now-quiet room. Charles Grady stood off to the side, revelling silently in what Harry assumed he was seeing as his final victory. Grady had played his part well, orchestrating a combination of drugs and mental anguish, finishing with the ultimate degradation of the Home Secretary's disavowal. But Charles Grady hadn't taken the music into account, and more importantly, he hadn't known about Ruth.

Slowly, Harry began to pull himself back to sanity. On some level, he knew that in order to fulfil the promises he was now making to Ruth and to himself, he had to get out of this room. Harry knew what would come next. He would have to give names. He'd been given an order by the Home Secretary, and yes, Harry would give Charles Grady names.

But the names were still his only bargaining chip, and now the music recalled the thought he'd had last night, sitting in his study. Renaissance. The operation that he assumed had been the beginning of Connie's betrayal, where she had been turned. He couldn't come right out and tell Ros. Although he knew where all the cameras were located in the room, he had no idea who was presently watching him. Richard Dolby came to mind, and considering their thirty-year relationship, Connie could be another. He wouldn't give them a head-start on this information.

So he had to trust that he could let Ros know, whilst not tipping off anyone who could be listening. Ros was a very smart and intuitive woman, and she knew Harry well. She would have to know that he would never have done this. She would have to understand. He was counting on her to understand.

Charles Grady sat down across from him at the table. His voice held a peculiar combination of weariness and triumph. "Let's go home."

Harry's eyes were still glistening from the tears that had never fallen. He looked directly at Charles, and heard the slaves voices reach crescendo, as he spoke. "Before I give you anything, I want to speak to Ros Myers. I want my team to know why I acted the way I did."

Ruth opened her eyes and squinted into the sun. She thought she'd been sitting on the rock wall for a long time, remembering. Without meaning to, she'd gone through almost the entire last weekend with Harry at his house, recalling every touch, every word that she could. She realised that she'd been trying to find him somehow by connecting with him this way. She wanted to be sure he was safe. She didn't know whether she had accomplished that, but she knew she felt better. As if she'd read a wonderful book, and had lived in that reality for a time.

She hopped off the wall and picked up her sandals. The sand was warmer now, and Ruth felt a tingle on her legs from the strong rays of the sun. Idly, she wondered if she might have gotten a slight burn from sitting so long without any lotion. Ruth stepped off of the sand and onto the cobblestones, and began to make her way back to Tarasio's stall to retrieve her packages.

Ruth had a curious moment of déjà vu as she passed three young men walking toward the sea. With a growing sense of discomfort, she realised that they were the ones George had rescued her from so long ago. They were slightly older, and the youngest had grown to a size more like the other two. She looked away, but she felt their eyes on her as they passed, and heard them whispering excitedly once they were behind her.

What Ruth didn't see was the sharp turn the three made, away from the sea. They were going to find the two men who had offered them money for any more information about the English woman. They were laughing, and thinking that this was going to be a very good weekend for drinking at the club.

Ros watched as Harry struggled to stand as she walked in. Always the gentleman, she thought, although she felt she wanted to help him back to his seat. Ros was certainly no stranger to hard interrogation, but the shock of seeing Harry Pearce in this condition registered immediately on her face.

"Hello, Ros," he said, wavering a bit on his feet.

Ros immediately felt the heat in the room, like midsummer heat. She turned to Charles Grady and said archly, "Can you at least give him a glass of water?"

Grady stood with his arms folded. "I'm afraid not."

The look she gave Charles Grady managed to give even him a moment of pause. But then she turned to Harry and walked over to the table to sit with him. He'd asked to see her, and she was anxious to hear him say that he was innocent of all this nonsense. Harry waited until she began to sit down, before he fell unsteadily into his own chair.

Ros wanted to say he looked like hell, but instead she said softly, "None of this is true, is it?"

Harry was looking at her strangely. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but it didn't seem to be simply the result of what he'd been through. The only way she could describe it to herself was that it was as if he was playing a part, acting as if he was someone else, as if he was reading words that someone else had written down for him. "I'm afraid it is. I've betrayed you and the entire team. I gave the names of my Sugarhorse assets to the FSB."

Although she couldn't quite believe them, Harry's words shook Ros to her core. He was telling her that he was not the man she'd known, and he was telling her with virtually no emotion. "I can understand how you must feel, but in mitigation, my priority has been the Renaissance...Renaissance of something I believe in, profoundly." Harry looked directly into her eyes, and now she saw something flicker there. She didn't know what it was, but it was something.

Harry looked away from her, down to his lap, in what seemed an act of contrition. "I'm very sorry, Ros."

She continued to look at him, waiting for something, anything, from him. She nearly expected he would look up, smiling, and make a joke of some kind, but he kept his eyes down. He had asked her down here for this? For a confession that told her that everything she had ever believed to be true of Harry Pearce was a lie?

As the time passed and he made no move to explain himself, Ros realised that he was going to say no more to her. She was so saddened by what she was seeing and hearing that she actually felt the sting of tears begin. The last thing she wanted was to cry in this place, in front of this Harry, this man she didn't know.

Ros turned to Charles Grady, and said simply, "Can you let me out now?"

Harry didn't look up until she had left the room. When Charles Grady walked over to the table and handed him a pencil and paper, Harry began to write the names, quickly, and with purpose. They were Russian names, to be sure, but they weren't the names of Sugarhorse assets. He'd been formulating the list in his head ever since he began to come down from Grady's drugs.

What he wrote was a list of the names of high-level Russian civil servants that were known to be working for the FSB. They were the thorns in Harry's side.

It was Harry Pearce's own personal wish-list of Russian enemies to be eliminated.

Ros couldn't believe it. Literally couldn't believe it. Harry Pearce an FSB mole? She stood in the lift and shook her head, though no one was there to see her do it. It wasn't possible, and if it wasn't possible, why had she been summoned to see him?

She stepped out of the lift and walked back onto the Grid. Malcolm looked up and saw in her face a combination of disbelief and distraction as she closed her eyes and tried to puzzle it out.

"Ros? How's Harry? Did he say anything?"

Ros opened her eyes. What did he say? What did he say that might mean something? Ah, yes. The word he had emphasised, had even said twice. Renaissance. Ros looked at Malcolm, and said quietly, "Renaissance. Come."

Malcolm stood and followed her as she walked swiftly to Harry's office. As soon as they were through the door, Ros said, "Pull up everything you can, related to the codename Renaissance."

Grateful that Harry hadn't yet changed his password although Malcolm had repeatedly counselled him to, Malcolm went through only a few keystrokes before the electronic dossier appeared on the screen. "Renaissance," he told Ros. "It's a retired operation. Run by Harry during the 1980's. It's object was to persuade the KGB that they had a mole inside MI5."

Ros' stood watching coolly, although her heart was beating faster. "Who was the officer used to dupe them?"

Malcolm read silently down the file, and then got to the piece of information Ros was looking for. "Connie James. Traitor."

Richard Dolby came up behind Ros. "It doesn't matter what you try. I've got the names of Harry's assets, and I've already passed them on to a trustworthy officer. Within twenty minutes they'll all be on their way to tell us what they know."

Ros finally had the chance to say what she'd been wanting to say since she first set eyes on Richard Dolby. "You are a fool. I know why Harry wanted to see me. Connie James was turned during Operation Renaissance."

And at that very moment, Connie was on the roof, talking with Bernard Qualtrough in Moscow. She was nearing the end of the list of names that Richard Dolby had given her.

"Ilya Silvashko," she said without emotion, knowing that every name she read belonged to a person who was receiving a death sentence.

Bernard sounded surprised, as took down the names. "The Undersecretary for Arms Procurement."

Connie finished up the list. "Misha Sormonov. Porto Bloch."

Taken aback again, Bernard said, "The Kremlin's Head of Internal Security. You and I never thought Sugarhorse could have corrupted him. But don't worry, he'll soon find out his part in all this is over."

Connie folded the piece of paper into her pocket, where it now rested with the sign-out sheet that Ben had found. "What about me?" she asked Bernard.

Bernard spoke grandly. "When you reach Moscow, you can expect the full gratitude of the Motherland. Thanks to you, Russia can finally fulfil its destiny to stop and turn back the spread of American imperialism."

"Do svidanya, Bernard."

"Do svidanya, Connie. Come home."

Connie hurried downstairs and stepped back onto the Grid with her mobile to her ear. She was talking to her London FSB contact. "Call for the car, I need to get out of here. Get the driver to leave the ID in Locker 416. I'll contact you when I get out through airport security."

Quickly, she grabbed her purse and walked toward the exit. Suddenly, she looked to her right, where Ros stood, looking particularly icy.

"Step away from the pods," Ros said.

Connie took a step back, and gave her best approximation of a pleasant smile. "Is there anything wrong?"

"Operation Renaissance." Ros actually managed to give Connie a bit of a smile back, although it was of the sardonic variety. "That's where they turned you, isn't it? You and Harry working to persuade the Russians they had a mole. He came back from Moscow the same." Ros lifted a hand and snapped her fingers. "You didn't."

Connie heard footsteps from behind Ros, although she couldn't see to whom they belonged. Oh, well, so it's over, but in any case, Connie thought, Sugarhorse has been blown wide open. She gave Ros a self-satisfied look. "You realise it's too late, I've already sent the names?"

Now from behind Ros came a voice. Harry Pearce's voice. "Not the right names, I'm afraid. Names I gave to Richard because I knew you'd be working hard to get him to trust you." Ros stepped aside, and there he was. Connie knew he'd been in interrogation for nearly twenty hours. He looked tired, but he was dressed in a crisp white shirt, suit and tie. And with a look that Connie could only describe as filled with revulsion.

She remembered his apology, as she had stood in his doorway just yesterday. It had been the only moment that had given her the slightest regret. They might be on different sides, but Connie and Harry had quite a lot of history, and she knew that he offered apologies sparingly, if at all. She looked into his face and took a deep breath. His feelings for her were etched there, not only from the last twenty hours, but from the last twenty years.

Connie could only manage an arch tilt of the head and a slightly playful tone. "Almost made it."

"Almost," Harry replied with a decided absence of playfulness.

She didn't even know where it came from, but Connie felt something well up in her, an anger, a repugnance of these small people and their small ideas. And the smallest of them all was the self-righteously superior Sir Harry Pearce, who now stood in front of her. Connie put her teeth together and let her vitriol spew as a snake would, as the Devil himself would, in a long and evil hiss.

Harry was unmoved. He'd seen worse. But he did need to ask her one question, the one that had been nagging at him through all of the long hours in the cement room below them. "Why? Why did you do it?"

"I don't have to explain my actions..." Connie started to say.

Harry cut her off, his tone ominous, low. "Yes, you do. To me." After what he'd been through, and with the knowledge that he would probably never be the same, Harry felt she owed him any number of explanations.

Connie nearly spat her answer at him. "I did what I thought was right. We're a pathetic little country. Putting a fig leaf of British democracy over the actions of a monster."

Jo stepped forward, still broken-hearted from the vision of Ben lying in his own blood on the floor of the Archive Room where they had found him less than an hour ago. "What about Ben?" she asked Connie.

"I had no choice." Connie turned and said it to Jo, but then quickly returned her eyes to Harry. His was the reaction she wanted to see, and his eyes were still focused, boring into her. In a sense, Connie had waited many years for this, the moment of truth. The moment when Harry realised that he was no longer the still point of the turning world. That the world had gone and left him behind. That he was a dinosaur, antiquated, obsolete.

Jo now crossed the room to Connie, her voice rising. "You had a choice." Connie refused to look at Jo. Her eyes were on Harry, absorbing the sight of him, relishing what she saw there. She saw that Harry knew his time in this new world of spies was coming to an end, just as hers was.

Jo was still speaking, "Connie. He was worth more than that."

Finally, Harry spoke. "Get her out of my sight." His only consolation was that she was headed for the very hell he'd just left. He watched until she was safely off the Grid, and then he turned to go to his office.

Ros followed Harry down the hall to his door. "I'm assuming none of this makes any difference to immediate American plans for missile defence?"

Harry shook his head. "None whatsoever. We remain at a state of heightened alert, ready for imminent Russian reprisals."

Ros handed Harry a sheet of paper. "Then we need to deal with this. Using your password, we were reassuring Sugarhorse assets. One of them sent this back."

Harry read what was written there. "Beware, Tiresias wakes, three p.m. tomorrow." He looked up at Ros. "What the hell is Tiresias?"

Ros sighed. "We don't know yet. But Lucas is on his way back from Moscow, and he's bringing a film canister from Maria Korachevsky. We hope we'll know more once we've had a chance to analyse it."

Harry nodded. "Stay on it. And let me know as soon as Lucas arrives."

Ros walked back down the hall, and Harry closed his door against the noise of the Grid. His light was off, and the murky shadows allowed him the privacy to lean his forehead against the door and close his eyes for a moment. He still hadn't slept, and he almost felt as if he could doze off right here, standing up. The change of clothes he always kept in his office had been brought down to him so that he could face Connie with dignity, but he hadn't showered or eaten yet. Harry was as exhausted as he'd ever been in his life.

I'm getting too old for this.

With his eyes closed and his head still against the door, Harry said a heartfelt thank you to Maria. He'd only learned of her death moments before he'd confronted Connie, and he was still reeling a bit. They'd been apart for nearly twenty years, but he could still see her face clearly. He could only hope that Lucas had been able to deliver his message to her, and that she hadn't remembered him too harshly at the end.

Harry walked over to his cabinet and pulled the bottle of Ardbeg from the lower shelf. The irony was not lost on him that the last time he'd poured from this bottle, it had been to offer a drink to Connie. He poured it now because he needed it more than he could ever remember, except perhaps on the night he'd waited here for news of Ruth after she'd been taken by Yalta.

Ruth. Harry fell heavily into his chair. He sat in the dark and took a long swallow as he watched the activity on the Grid. Ruth had been with him every minute he'd been in the interrogation room, for the greater part of it as a steadfast, trusting, and loving presence that had given him the strength he needed to hold his confidence and retain his sanity.

He'd made a promise to her, and he intended to keep it. One more day, after he'd slept and could think clearly. Tomorrow, after three p.m., after this Tiresias business, whatever it was, had been dispensed with, Harry would take Ros aside and give her his codes. He would force Malcolm to give him the information about Ruth, he would pack up the girls, and Harry Pearce would fly to Cyprus.

He wasn't worried about Ruth's safety any longer, because he would take her somewhere safe. They would find a beach and he would marry her, a real marriage this time.

She would wear the white flowing dress and the flowers in her hair, and Harry would never let go of his Ruth again.

~~~~~

CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT

Harry pulled the key from the lock in his new front door, and released a long, exhausted sigh. He was grateful to Ros for sending someone round this morning to close up his house after CO-19 had made such a disaster of it. Workmen had roughly boarded up the windows in the study upstairs, then replaced the front and back doors and reset the alarm. Tonight, Ros had handed him a set of keys as he walked toward the pods to come home. He'd thanked her, and then said, softly, "And Scarlet? The cats?" Ros had winced a bit, and responded with a rueful shake of the head. She didn't have pets, and it hadn't even occurred to her.

He laid a hand on Ros' arm, and gave her an appreciative half smile. "I'm sure they're fine. Thank you for doing what you did. It means a great deal to me." Ros hadn't wavered in the last twenty -four hours, and Harry now felt that, acutely. He added, "Not just for my house, Ros."

Ros smiled too. "You're welcome, Harry." Then, the depth of the moment embarrassed her slightly, and she said, gruffly, "Get some sleep."

As Harry opened the door, he wasn't worried in the slightest about Fidget and Phoebe, independent as those girls were. In fact, he'd barely come into the hall when they leapt downstairs and began to rub back and forth on his legs, obviously none the worse for wear.

But he had been a bit worried for Scarlet. He'd tried to imagine her confusion and panic in the face of CO-19 running through the house, breaking down doors, and clambering up the stairs. And then today, more strangers hammering, drilling, and shouting. But Harry knew that Scarlet could be quite resourceful when she needed to be, and he also knew she was very good at hiding, as he'd discovered on more than one occasion. Harry allowed a tired smile to curl his lips as he remembered crawling round his house on hands and knees the last time he'd tried to get her to the vet's.

He heard a small whimper coming from the lounge, and turned. He went over to the sofa, calling softly, "Scarlet. It's only me. Come on out, girl." He bent down and peered underneath the sofa to find two narrowed, black eyes looking suspiciously at him. Shivering and terrified, Scarlet poked her nose from under the sofa. Harry put his hand toward her and let her sniff. Little by little, she inched out. "It's me, girl. Just me. That's it. Just me ... "

She looked hungry and slightly distraught, and was still shaking quite markedly, so Harry picked her up and held her close. He took her into the kitchen to her food and water, and saw that they were still virtually untouched from when he'd set them out last night. He picked up her bowl and placed it on the kitchen table, allowing her a forbidden perch in the very spot where he usually ate his own dinner, and he watched her eat ravenously. Suddenly, Harry's heart opened wide, and it all came tumbling down on him. His eyes began to mist and then filled, and he laid his head heavily onto his arm on the table.

Harry had never gone much for therapy, and now he knew for certain why he'd chosen to avoid it. He hadn't been touched whilst he was being interrogated, but his body felt sore, as if his muscles had been tensed, on high alert, for twenty hours. His insides felt just as battered. For nearly the entire time he'd been in the basement room, his own regret, shame, and guilt had rattled around in his chest cavity, pummelling his heart and pushing the breath from his lungs, making him almost physically ill.

He'd had so many choices in his life, and in that room with Charles Grady, those choices seemed to have lined up, each and every one of them, and asked him, "Why?" Finally, he'd found himself simply shaking his head, defeated, answering each one in turn, "I don't know." And the last choice, the one that tormented him more than any other, was Ruth. "Why?" she asked, "Why didn't you come to me?"

The simple answer was that he'd had a responsibility, a job to do. The difficult answer was that he'd been afraid. Afraid that a life outside of the Services wouldn't be enough. Afraid that once he was no longer defined by his position as Head of Section D, he might dry up, disappear, cease to be.

And now, after this long night and day of being forced to confront himself, Harry knew that the job didn't quite return the favour. How quickly had they believed in his treachery? How paper-thin was their loyalty? Not his team on the Grid, but Dolby, and in particular, Nicholas Blake, whom he thought would be less open than most to being swayed. Even Charles Grady, who had been only a footnote in Harry's life until today, had fully bought into Harry Pearce as a traitor. It was too easily done, this setup. They had given up on him far too effortlessly, and much too fast.

But through the terrors of the drug, Ruth had been there. The paradox was that here in London, Harry felt he'd planted his faith in shifting sand, but there, far away on Cyprus, Ruth was his rock.

Harry knew he wasn't thinking entirely clearly, and he wondered how he would feel in the morning, after sleep had given him more clarity. Somehow, he thought it would be the same in the bright light of day as it was right now. Certainly he would have nerves at the idea of leaving the work he'd done for so long, the job that had been so much a part of his life. But aside from the joy of finally being with his Ruth, Harry thought he might feel a sort of elation at leaping into the unknown.

He hedged his bets by thinking that after it was all said and done, perhaps he wouldn't have to leave it completely behind. But, he thought, first things first. He would find Ruth and get them settled, and take it from there. He couldn't seem to manage a plan beyond that.

Scarlet finished eating, and now, in her bliss at having Harry back, she lowered all her defences and let go into her exhaustion, just as Harry had. She fell forward onto her front paws and put her nose down, peering at him. Harry gave her a rub behind her ears, and said, gently, "We've both been up all night, haven't we? You'd like a little walk out back, and then, what do you say we go to bed?"

He picked her up off the table and set her on the floor, and then put her food and water back in their place. "Tomorrow will look better, won't it, girl? You're going to take your first ride in an aeroplane!" Scarlet's tail began to wag at his tone, as if she understood. "You'll like that? Yes, of course you will."

Harry opened his new back door and walked out with Scarlet, who paused for a moment. Then she bravely, but cautiously, ventured out to inspect the shrubbery. It was a cool night, and the moon was just waning from full, although it was bright in the black London sky.

As he always did when he looked at the moon, Harry thought of Ruth. It had been nearly a year since he'd said goodbye to her in Dover, and Harry wondered about so many things. He would talk to Malcolm tomorrow to get all the information he could in order to find her, and then he would send a short email by way of Martin Wingate's account to let her know he was coming. If she'd left Cyprus, he would track her down. If she was still on the island, as he so ardently hoped she was, he would simply tell her that he'd finally come to his senses, and that he loved her more deeply than he thought was possible.

Of course, Harry knew there was a chance that she'd found someone else, but he couldn't allow that to intrude on his thoughts or diminish his hope right now. He would deal with the situation as it presented itself. He could only hope that she would forgive him, and if all went well, they would be on their way tomorrow night, their three girls in tow, heading toward a new life.

And in the glow of that thought, as he looked up at the moon, Harry wondered if his beloved, psychic Ruth knew how drastically her life was going to change tomorrow. He hoped that somewhere in her heart, the heart he loved so dearly, she did.

Ruth's cheeks had a trace of the blue glow from the computer screen, as she navigated to the l'Alcove server. She'd been mulling over the thought of sending a message to Isabelle, thanking her for getting in touch, and she'd finally determined that it wouldn't put Isabelle in danger. Ruth gave herself the reason of wanting to send thanks to Isabelle, but in truth, Ruth was feeling an emptiness of heart, a need for the contact. And of course, whilst she was transferring the email into the drafts folder, she would be able to check the server again for any word from Malcolm. Or Harry.

Suddenly the light blazed on in the small office, and Ruth started and blinked. George stood in the doorway. "Why do you insist upon doing that to your eyes?" Outwardly, he said it good-naturedly, but there was an edge in his voice that Ruth heard nearly all the time now. An impatience, a discontent, a dissatisfaction with the way she did almost everything.

She looked up at him, and gave a half-hearted smile as she shrugged. "It doesn't bother me. I don't think about it."

George pursed his lips slightly. "Well, you ought to think about it. It's not good for you." He stood there as she stared at him, and Ruth wondered how obvious it would be to close the window to l'Alcove.

When he asked what she did at the computer each night, she'd told him she was organising recipes, and she had copied quite a few of them from cooking sites, so it was partially true. But if he were to walk behind her right now, she would have to click the window closed, and she would see the suspicion in his eyes. One night, when she'd abruptly closed an article on MI5 in The Times, he had simply turned on his heel and said coldly, "I'll leave you to your secrets."

Now, as George stood in the doorway, the thought of his anger that night brought a slight blush into Ruth's cheeks, and she felt the heat rise in her face. She hoped he hadn't noticed, but as his lips tightened, she could see that he had. She smiled, and tried to sound playful. "Will you be awake for awhile? I'll be up in just a minute?" Ruth despised herself for using sex to mollify him, but she knew it was exactly what she was doing. It had been five days since they'd last made love, and she'd used the excuse of being tired as many times as she dared.

George's face softened, and he matched her teasing tone. "I could be awake." He smiled at her, and she knew the danger had passed.

"Good." She waved him away. "Then, go, and let me finish my recipe. I have Christina's cooking to live up to, you know."

"You cook very well, Ruth. Don't worry." He still wasn't leaving, so she tilted her head at him in mock exasperation. He laughed, and said, "Alright, I'm going!" As he left the office, he turned to her one more time, and said softly, "Don't be long, eh?"

"I won't." Ruth already had her head turned back to the screen, and she waited until she heard his footsteps on the stairs before she allowed herself to close her eyes and release a sigh. How long can I do this? The answer came back to her so quickly that her eyes flew open. Not forever. And Ruth realised that already, in some corner of her being, she was longing for escape.

But they're my family now. My family. Ruth heard the words as they came so often from Christina's lips. Bring your family for dinner tonight. The people in town asking, How is your family? As she was growing up, how often Ruth had longed for a real family. She'd wished for a house like this one, a husband who would care for her, and who would be as steady and responsible as George was. Now she had it all, and she could hardly breathe.

What made Ruth feel so guilty was that it wasn't their fault. The secret life that she carried around inside her was unknown to all of them. It informed her feelings, her reactions, what she said, and how she responded to the love that was offered to her. They couldn't know that Harry was inside her, a part of her, and impossible to compete with. They couldn't know. They never would.

When she'd laid in her bed as a young girl, counting the cabbage roses on her wallpaper, she'd had no idea of the complexities of relationships. How a man like Harry could be so compelling in his unavailability, and how one like George could be so suffocating in his love. But most of all, how she could be torn so completely in two, on one hand by what she wanted, and on the other by what she needed.

Ruth looked again at the screen. No new messages. She closed the l'Alcove window and shut down the computer. I won't write to Isabelle tonight. Maybe tomorrow night. She would ask Isabelle to tell her again about Pierre, about the year they spent apart, and how she'd never wavered in her love for him. Isabelle had always made Ruth feel better, and although it had been nearly a year since she'd seen her, Ruth's lovely Parisian friend was never far from her thoughts.

Ruth sighed again. I've been sighing a lot lately, she thought. She knew she had to make a decision if this was to be her life. It wasn't fair to anyone for her to sit on the fence as she was. She shut off the light in the office and walked out to the porch. She would go upstairs and make love with George, and yes, she would think of Harry, as she always did. She would compare, as she always did. And then she would remind herself that she was a very lucky woman, as she always did.

And Ruth vowed again that she would do her best to love George Constantinou. She would give it time. And if, after a time, she simply couldn't bring herself to love him, then she would go. Where, she didn't know, but she would make a decision. Not tomorrow, not next week, and probably not even next month. But she knew she couldn't stay forever, not like this. She'd tried so hard, and she was frankly exhausted with trying. Feeling love for Harry had been easy, like breathing. Even through the pain of missing him and the anger at his abandonment, it was still like breathing.

Before she went upstairs, she took one last look at the moon, not only bright in the sky, but reaching its sparkling white tendril across the sea. Ruth looked off to the trees, far away on the peninsula, that protected the Bath of Aphrodite. She closed her eyes and asked for guidance.

Ruth knew in her heart that something had to change, so that's what she asked for. She begged Aphrodite to bring change.

Walter Crane had a routine that never varied. With some people that statement would be an exaggeration, but with Walter, it was the unvarnished truth.

Every morning, his alarm went off at 6:00 a.m. He would climb from his bed, turn on his shortwave radio, and go to the kitchen to start the coffee. As it brewed, he would get back into bed and stare at the ceiling, thinking, listening to the snippets of music, the numbers, and the random words in Russian that always came from the radio.

It was a sort of meditation, brought on by the meaninglessness white noise of the combinations. He had been listening since September 26, 1986. Every day, without fail.

When Walter heard the bubbling finally stop in the kettle, he would stand, put on his watch, and go to the kitchen to pour a cup of coffee. Then he would prepare one scrambled egg, half an apple, and one piece of wheat toast with orange marmalade, which he would eat alone in his single chair at his metal folding table, still listening.

After he finished his breakfast dishes, he would make his lunch, and then shower and dress. On weekdays, Walter would walk the nine blocks to his teaching position and to his students in six classes of "Russian for Adults, Beginners Level Preparation." On week-ends, he would walk to the park, or to the shops, or perhaps to a museum. Then, each day, he would walk home, turn on the shortwave radio and listen as he prepared and ate his dinner. At 9:30 p.m., he would turn off the radio, climb back into bed, and fall into a peaceful and untroubled sleep.

To say that today would be a different sort of day for Walter Crane was an understatement of monumental proportions.

He poured his coffee and turned to begin his breakfast, and over the shortwave, he heard, "Dozhdʹ s nebes." Rain from heaven. Walter froze in place, and his brain seemed suddenly to lose command over his muscles. The coffee cup fell from his hand, shattering spectacularly across his spotless kitchen floor. What was left of last night's dinner lurched with frightening speed from his stomach, and Walter had barely enough time to reach the sink before vomiting repeatedly, uncontrollably. Rain from heaven. .2.5. Finland red Egypt white. It is twice blest.

Without warning, Walter Crane's mind was flooded with an understanding of who he was and what he was doing here. For twenty-two years, he'd been walking through a dream, and now, he awakened. Rain from heaven. .2.5. Finland red Egypt white. It is twice blest. The randomness of what he usually heard spoken on the shortwave radio turned suddenly into uncomplicated clarity, and Walter Crane knew what he must do. He knew his purpose. It was as if the world suddenly came into focus, its edges no longer blurred. Everything was sharp, luminous, precise.

Walter washed out the sink, and then splashed his face and rinsed out his mouth. He carefully plucked the shards of ceramic from the pool of coffee on the floor, and mopped it until it was just as it had been. His stomach had settled, so Walter poured himself another cup of coffee, and started his breakfast. He would need his strength for what he had to do.

There was no real hurry, as he had until three o'clock to complete his task. Walter knew he would be teaching no Russian classes today. He also knew that at a little after three o'clock this afternoon, every one of his students might be dead. Walter knew he certainly would be. Today was the day he would fulfil his purpose. Every puzzle piece had fallen firmly into place, and although Walter Crane would die today, at least he finally knew who he was.

Harry felt like a new man. He'd had seven hours of sleep and had awakened rested and ready to get through this one last operation. He had a small bag packed and had closed up the cat flap so that he could run home at any moment, bundle up the girls, and get on his way. He'd determined that it would take two quick meetings and two telephone calls to sever his ties with London. And Harry thought, That, in itself, is telling, isn't it?

The meetings? With Malcolm and Ros. The telephone calls? To the Home Secretary and to the Quinns. Tom and Christine had been good friends. They deserved a goodbye, and he knew they would be pleased with his decision. He'd also composed his resignation letter, which he would send to Nicholas Blake after he spoke with him.

In fact, Harry was feeling so optimistic this morning, that he was thinking he might just get to the Grid and find that Tiresias had turned out to be a non-issue. A cryptic message from a Sugarhorse asset, saying, "Tiresias wakes at 3:00 p.m." That could be anything, couldn't it?

When he arrived on the Grid, Lucas was poring over the microfilm that had been in the canister Maria had given him. Harry came up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Anything?"

Lucas barely looked up, saying, "It's written in an obscure dialect, but I'm getting it. I'll let you know when I have it completely translated."

"Good," Harry said, and started toward his office.

Now Lucas did look up. "Harry?"

Harry turned and raised his eyebrows, "Yes?"

Lucas frowned. "I'm sorry about Maria. I should have stayed with her."

Walking back a few steps, Harry said, shaking his head, "You followed my orders to the letter. It wasn't your fault, Lucas." Harry sighed. "She always knew the danger." He started to turn again.

"You were right, Harry." Harry looked back at Lucas, waiting. Lucas said softly, "She was a formidable woman. I know I was only with her for a short time, but ... I ... liked her very much."

After a pause, Harry said, "So did I. Very much." Harry gave Lucas a half smile. "And I'm grateful that yours was the last friendly face she saw. Thank you for what you did."

Lucas nodded, and then looked back down at his magnifier. He spoke not to Harry, but to the film in his hands, and his voice had a slight huskiness. "I'll let you know when I've finished the translation."

Harry smiled, remembering Maria's extraordinary ability to impress people and to draw them in. He went into his office, hung up his coat and sat behind his desk. He turned on his computer, and was again glad of Malcolm's instruction on how to clear his browser of any trace of his activities. He typed in "Paris to Cyprus" to begin finding flights, and wrote down the available times. He would know better which one he should take once he got to Paris.

He was very close to calling Isabelle, but decided against it. No need to complicate this further, and although it would be good to talk with her, he really didn't want to involve anyone else. Perhaps later, after he and Ruth were settled, they could let her know.

After going through some files he needed to shred, Harry suddenly remembered something, and reached over to lift up his mouse mat. The piece of paper was worn from use over the past year, but it still held the same emotional impact for him. "NO. If you love her. NO." Harry gazed out at the Grid to see if anyone was watching, and then he held the paper in his lap and looked at it for a long time.

Finally, with purpose, and with an enigmatic smile on his face, Harry tore the piece of paper into tiny bits and tossed it in the bin with the rubbish.

There was only one more thing to do. Harry turned his computer screen slightly so that it faced away from the Grid, and he began to type.

My dearest Ruth,

I can only hope that this doesn't come too late, and that you still love me.

I sit here with my hands on the keyboard trying to think of what to say to explain the silence of this long and painful year, and nothing materialises. The only thing I can tell you is that every moment I've not gotten on a plane, every time I've not sent a letter or picked up the phone, was a moment that I loved you completely. And there have been many, many thousands of those moments.

Later today or tonight, I'm getting on a plane to come to you. If you're still there, and if you'll allow me to, I'll take you in my arms and beg you to forgive me. I'll tell you that the thread between us has never broken, and I'll try to convince you that I've felt I was doing the right thing by leaving you alone. Then it will be up to you.

Please be there. Malcolm will tell me what he knows, so please be where I can find you. You've not been out of my thoughts since the moment I kissed you goodbye in Dover. I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life showing you exactly how much, my Ruth.

My Ruth. My dream is that you are still my Ruth.

Harry

There was a knock at his door, and Harry looked up, suddenly jolted into the present. He saved the draft, and closed the window. "Come."

Lucas put copies of the translation on Harry's desk. "We have a serious problem."

Harry pointed to the Russian word at the top of the page. "What's this?"

"Tiresias." By the look on Lucas' face, Harry thought Tiresias might be an issue after all. He read the file quickly with a dread beginning in his stomach, his heart sinking. No, not this. Not now.

Harry looked up. Lucas might have thought the profound sadness he saw on Harry's face was a result of the file that sat on the desk between them, but it went much deeper than that. Harry said, softly, "Have copies made of these, and call the team together."

In fifteen minutes, Harry stood on the Grid with Ros, Jo and Malcolm as Lucas handed a report to each of them, still warm from the copier.

Once they were settled, Harry began. "Sugarhorse is an MI5 operation in place for twenty years. It was designed to warn us of any forthcoming Russian attack on Britain. We've just ascertained that the Russians have an equivalent operation and it's bigger, and better. For perhaps twenty-five years, the Kremlin has had a network of sleepers, high-level assets in place throughout the United Kingdom. The Russians call this Operation Tiresias."

Ros looked up from the report. "Tiresias wakes. Exactly how big is this thing?"

Lucas couldn't seem to sit still, and he paced as he spoke. "It's everywhere. All political parties, civil service, police service, armed forces, security services, MI5 and 6."

Ros frowned, incredulous. "All of them infiltrated?"

Jo shared Ros' disbelief. "All of them? How's that possible?"

Lucas answered her. "It was there all the time. Everything we ever did, everything we gave. This was waiting for us. Operation Tiresias. Like a node of cancer biding its time."

Harry continued, "There could be hundreds of sleepers, motivated by greed, ideology, hatred, all unknown, even to each other."

Ros read from the report. "Tiresias wakes at 3 p.m. Today."

Walter Crane lifted the Mk-54 SADM from the box carefully. He was careful, because Walter knew that the American-made Special Atomic Demolition Munition held the explosive power of six kilotons of TNT. Not quite the sixteen kilotons of the Hiroshima bomb, but enough to leave a massive hole where most of Central London used to be.

Walter couldn't know that it had been stolen from an American Air Force base in Southern England in 1996. This morning, he had followed the directions he'd been given to a field just outside East Studdal, and had dug up the box that had been there since just days after it had been stolen.

He opened the briefcase in which the Mk-54 was already packed, and he set the timer for 3:00 p.m. BST. Walter dressed in his best suit and left his flat for the very last time, bound out of Faversham on a train whose destination was London. From there, he would walk to Grosvenor Square.

The weapon had been taken from the Americans, and Walter Crane was to return it to the Americans, by way of levelling their Embassy, along with the better part of London and its inhabitants.

Viktor Sarkiisian was young, but he was on his way up the ladder. The position of FSB Station Head for London was, at his age, quite a coup. His unusual appointment had been made possible by the sudden disappearance, still unexplained, of his predecessor, Arkady Kachimov. Viktor looked out at the gray water of the Royal Albert Dock from the empty building they had commandeered for their Headquarters, and, not for the first time, he said a silent thank you to whomever had so kindly caused Kachimov to fall off the face of the map.

The orders he'd received today were simple: find Connie James and either capture her for interrogation, or, if that wasn't possible, eliminate her. Viktor had been told that she'd been a useful asset for the last twenty years, but that she'd been compromised, and her usefulness was now at an end. Unfortunately, she was being held in detention by the British Security Services before being transferred to the Nemworth Interrogation Unit. Once she was moved to Nemworth, there would be no possible retrieval, so the time was now.

Viktor sipped at his coffee and looked around. They had pulled every chair and desk available on the empty floor of the office building to the middle of the room, creating a command centre of sorts. He felt capable of doing this job, and happier to be here than out in the field, where he had still been, part-time, when Kachimov had disappeared. It had been a big adjustment, but now his wife, Alina, and their two little girls were finally settled in London. He could almost see the flat from here, only a short distance from the Dock across from Mayesbrook Park. The move had been an ordeal in itself. They still missed home, but they were comfortable.

He walked over to his desk and went through the messages. The usual decoded directives from Headquarters in Moscow, although Viktor always felt that he was being told only half the story. Then on to the reports from his operatives in the field: rumours, chatter, rumblings of discontent within MI5 and MI6, GCHQ, possible areas of weakness.

One report cited a rumour that there was a very rich man who was willing to pay dearly for Sir Harry Pearce, Head of Section D, MI5. Viktor smiled. They could probably pick him up when they got Connie James, but then Viktor would have to be willing to leave his entire life here behind, if he didn't get shot first by his own superiors.

A life on the run, with a great deal of money. He threw the report back onto his desk. Not bloody likely.

~~~~~

CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE

Harry had no choice. The last person he wanted to see right now was Connie James, but he needed to enlist her help. He was still feeling deeply stung by what she had done, and how coldly she'd done it. Whenever Harry thought of that last evil hiss she had given him, he found Malcolm's words satisfyingly descriptive: treacherous cow.

Harry knew that Tiresias reached into all areas of Britain's civil and security services, and consequently, he had no way of knowing whom they could trust. They had to stay silent about their knowledge of the operation until they at least knew what it was, for fear of tipping off the Russians and forcing them to bring the operation forward from the 3:00 p.m. deadline.

There was only one person who could help Harry, and unfortunately, it was Connie. It was likely that Connie had set aside a wealth of valuable information about the FSB's activities in London, if only as an insurance policy against the time that her cover was finally blown. Harry needed a way inside Tiresias, and fast. Connie was their only way in.

So, Harry gave the order for Ros and Lucas to apprehend Connie as she was being transferred to Nemworth, and to make it look as if the Russians had taken her. In fact, Viktor Sarkiisian's people were planning to do just that, but they were a bit too late.

Ros and Lucas took Connie, still in the black hood they'd put over her head in the car, to the Ottawa Bravo safe house. Connie couldn't see anything, but she had a fairly good idea where she was. No one had spoken, but she also knew who her abductors were. Before the hood had gone over her eyes, she'd seen a man and a woman, both masked, but coincidentally the same heights and body types as Lucas and Ros.

As Connie sat waiting to have the hood removed, she became aware that her hands were falling asleep, strapped behind her back. As she wiggled her fingers, she heard footsteps, and there was no mistaking them. She'd certainly heard Harry Pearce stride into enough rooms in their decades of working together. The hood was lifted, and yes, there they were. Lucas, Harry and Ros.

Harry stood front and centre, and addressed her with just one word, "Tiresias."

If he can't ask a proper question, then I'll be damned if I'll give him a proper answer. "A seer. Condemned by Dante to spend all eternity with his head twisted round. Prophet who could only look backwards."

Harry spoke through clenched teeth. "I'm tired of the dance, Connie. What do you want?"

Connie paused for just a moment, although she'd been thinking of this ever since they'd put her in custody. "Somewhere temperate. Too much heat is intolerable. Dulls the wits. New Zealand sounds nice."

Harry's tone was right on a knife's edge of sarcasm. "I'll see what I can do."

Connie nearly cut him off. "I thought the dancing had stopped. Don't see, just do."

Ros had taken about as much as she could. She spoke softly, menacingly. "Alternatively, I could always break your fingers one by one."

Turning sharply to her, Connie said, "You don't have the balls."

In a near whisper, Ros purred, "You don't think so?"

Connie kept her eyes on Ros for a moment longer, and then looked back at Harry. "Judging by the way you snatched me, this is a black op. Which means you don't trust MI5. Which means you've grasped the scale of Tiresias, and you're very frightened. So don't be coy."

The last time Harry had seen Connie, he'd wanted nothing but to have her out of his sight. His feelings hadn't changed, so the sooner this was over, the better. He was already more angry than he could admit, even to himself, about the fact that he might need to change the plans he had nurtured so carefully since yesterday evening. But no matter how motivated he was to get to Ruth, he simply couldn't leave with Tiresias up in the air, at least until he knew what it entailed. So he kept his voice even, calm. "What do you have for us?"

Connie had everything, but first she needed to know the state of the operation. "Has Tiresias gone live?" she asked.

"We believe so," said Lucas.

Connie looked at Harry. "Then have you checked the number stations?"

Harry paused, gazing at her, and then pulled out his mobile. He quickly dialled Malcolm, and asked him about the number stations. Malcolm told him it had been years since they'd broadcast anything remotely germane. Harry asked him to check them again, and Malcolm was surprised to hear something new. .2.5. Finland red Egypt white. It is twice blest. Rain from heaven.

Now Harry knew the question to ask Connie. "What is rain from heaven?

Connie's immediate reaction did nothing to calm Harry's nerves. If he'd been asked to describe it, he would have to say that she looked truly terrified. She took a breath, and began. "When the KGB knew the Soviet empire was falling, it put in place certain contingencies. One of them, rain from heaven, involved secreting portable nuclear devices around the United Kingdom, for use in future deployment."

After a pause, Connie continued, "All they had to do was broadcast the right code to the right sleeper. Rain from heaven is the "go" code for a nuclear attack on London. If the sleeper received the "go" code this morning, you have a matter of hours before tens of millions of people are annihilated."

Harry turned away for a moment. A nuclear attack on London. Harry thought of his optimism as he'd walked onto the Grid this morning, thinking that perhaps Tiresias would turn out to be nothing of importance. Getting to Ruth, which had been his principal goal up to this point, suddenly became less important in the face of this new information. Harry thought Ruth would understand, but as that thought crossed his mind, Charles Grady's voice intruded. Your work has always been more important than those you love, hasn't it? Harry answered, silently, But this is different. A nuclear weapon unleashed on Central London? Ruth would have to understand. Grady's imagined face came into Harry's field of vision, shaking his head in pity. Again, Harry, you're doing it again.

Harry turned away from Grady, and told himself, One last operation, and then I go. He forced himself to listen to what Connie was saying. They had until 3:00 p.m. to defuse the bomb, and Connie had stored everything she knew in a locker at London Bridge. She would not only tell them who the rain from heaven sleeper was and where he was to take the bomb, but she also promised to give them the names of every Russian sleeper in England.

It was unfortunate, however, that Connie had already passed on the locations of MI5's safe houses to the Russians, because now that information was in Viktor Sarkiisian's hands. As Harry, Connie, Lucas and Ros stepped out of the safe house to go to London Bridge, Sarkiisian's snipers were waiting for them.

It was clear that Harry had to get back to the Grid to run the operation, so they split up, barely evading the gunfire outside the safe house. Ros and Lucas took Connie toward London Bridge and Harry left Catherine Wheel Alley and headed back to Thames House. It was safer to be underground, so they all made their way toward the tube.

Harry walked quickly toward Liverpool Station for the short stretch he needed to reach cover. For a time he let his eyes stray to the rooftops, then to the people around him, and again, up to the sky. The next time he looked down, he saw it. Just over his heart, the red dot that was the sighting laser for a sniper's rifle. Without a moment's thought, Harry bent sharply as if to tie his shoe, and then he crouched behind a man walking in front of him until he was able to duck in behind a building. A few more turns, and he had lost all but one of the men following him.

Harry knew exactly where he was, and now he had an idea of what he had to do. In his current state of mind, he was going on instinct only, but Harry knew that this moment, and the decision he was making right now, would haunt him in the days and years to come. He would wonder if there had been any other way, and again, he would ask what his Ruth, his conscience, would have had him do.

But right now his primary goal was the safety of London. Beyond that, Ruth was his final destination, and if he didn't live through this day, he would never see her again. Harry felt the man behind him, gaining ground, and he slowed his steps just slightly so that he could be caught. He had no weapon with which to fight, but he had what he needed.

Harry's hands moved up to his neck, and in one swift, elegant movement, he loosened, and then removed his tie, without breaking stride. He turned sharply into a doorway and quickly re-looped the tie in his hands, creating a noose of sorts, while he lay in wait for the few seconds that elapsed before his follower came through the door .

It took only the simple movement of slipping the tie over the Russian's head, then a quick snap of the wrists. It was a singularly effective technique, as the more the man struggled, the tighter the knot became, until finally, completely without oxygen, he ceased to move. Harry retrieved his tie, and took one last look. At the man, now dead, and at this place, which would remain in his memory forever.

Another life extinguished, for the good of the realm. Another sharp stab of his conscience, another moment he would carry with him to his dying day. Harry felt sick at heart, and was more determined than ever that he would leave this world, and find his way to Ruth.

Stepping out onto the upstairs porch, Ruth fluffed her wet hair in the warm breeze. She was wearing only a towel after her shower, and the drops of water that still clung to her shoulders cooled her in the waning late-afternoon heat. She had just looked at the clock. It was nearly 4:00 p.m.

Ruth gazed down at the pool below, and knew that Nico and George couldn't see her in the shadow behind the porch wall, so she could watch them unobserved. They were throwing a brightly-coloured ball back and forth. Occasionally, the ball would go too far, and Ruth watched as Nico scrambled quickly out of the water to retrieve it and then throw it back to his father.

Ruth smiled and watched them for a time. They had no idea of the dangers that routinely threatened the serene, secure life they lived here. She remembered saying much the same thing to Harry as they lay on the grass in Bath, talking about the banker and the shopgirl.

These are the people we protect every day. They don't know how many times we've saved their cheque books and their dinners, and I guess it's better that way, really. Harry had turned to her and said, Preserve the status quo. We do our best to keep them from knowing how fragile this life is.

But she knew. And after all these months, Ruth realised that she would always know. She'd wanted to leave her life as a spook behind, but it wasn't really possible. What was known couldn't be unknown.

And Isabelle's letter entered her mind again. She had it memorised. I hope this reaches you. A very tall man, Indian I believe, was here asking for S.P. today. I told the truth - that you left a year ago and I do not know where you are. Be safe. I still pray to see you again.

Clearly the warning hadn't worried Malcolm or Harry, as she'd heard nothing from either of them. But Ruth couldn't seem to set it aside. It felt important to her, and although she seemed relatively safe in Polis, she knew from experience that nearly anyone can be found, given the time and energy.

As she watched Nico and George, Ruth couldn't seem to get Bath out of her head. She remembered the rest of the conversation that day, as she'd laid on her back, looking up at the blue sky and its sprinkling of clouds. Harry had said, "I love you," and she'd heard something in his voice that was vaguely frightened, lost. Her answer had been firm, uncompromising, and blindly unrealistic. We'll be fine, Harry. We can do this. We can tell people or not tell people, whatever you like, but we can have this, I know it.

She stood and shook her head again. This time, it wasn't to dry her hair. It was to rid herself of Harry's face, bemused, the soft smile playing at his lips, a look she still loved as much as she loved him.

Harry was pacing his office again. It had almost been better to be out in the street, being chased by snipers, than waiting on the Grid for word. Ros and Lucas were underground now, taking Connie to her locker so that she could access the location of the nuclear device. Comms didn't work where they were, and Harry had been out of touch for far too long. It was already 2:00 o'clock. Only an hour left.

Harry took one more turn, and then walked directly out to the Grid. "Malcolm?"

Malcolm turned to him and shrugged slightly. Jo had the phone to her ear, ringing Ros' mobile and then Lucas'. She shook her head. "Nothing yet."

"Right." Harry had clearly had enough of not knowing, and he'd been formulating a plan whilst pacing. "Well, we're not going to stand around here and wait for this to happen. The FSB came after us in numbers. Their orders were to assassinate Connie and the rest of us. Do you think they know
what's about to happen? You think they know about rain from heaven?"

Jo shook her head. "An operation of this magnitude would be classified well above Top Secret."

Harry nodded. "Well above even a Station Head's security clearance. The FSB are here in London with us. They have families, people they love." He looked to Malcolm, and asked, "Can we arrange a parlez?"

"The handshake protocols change weekly."

Harry couldn't risk anyone knowing about this. "Can you access them without alerting anyone in the building?"

Malcolm raised an eyebrow. "Well, I shouldn't be able to."

Harry gazed at him from under his brows. "But you can."

With obvious pride, Malcolm said, "Course I can."

Jo tilted her head slightly, "What are you planning?"

Harry said, "Truth or dare. I need to have a chips-down conversation with Viktor Sarkiisian." He stood thinking for a moment, and then turned to Malcolm. "May I have a word with you in my office, please?"

If Malcolm was surprised, he didn't show it. He simply stood and followed Harry down the hall. When they stepped inside, Harry closed the door and motioned for Malcolm to sit.

Harry took a breath. "I had planned to have this conversation with you under very different circumstances, and not quite so quickly, but we'll have to make do with the time we have." Malcolm's face was passive as Harry reached around and pulled the memory stick from his computer and handed it to him.

"There's a letter on here, to Ruth. Before I discovered the real nature of Tiresias, my plan was to leave today, to go to her, and this letter was to let her know I was coming."

Malcolm nodded slightly, and simply said, "Ah."

With a cheerless half-smile, Harry said, "Now, instead of going, as I'd hoped, to Ruth, I seem to be walking into the lion's den. Should I not come out of it, I want you to make sure she sees this. I also have a bag packed at home. In it are three very important things, a necklace, a ring, and my diary. Please be sure she gets those as well, will you?"

Frowning, Malcolm said, "Harry …." He stopped, and then said, resigned, "Yes. I will."

Harry held a pencil none-too-gently in his hands. In fact, Malcolm thought he might snap it in two any second. Finally, he put it down and looked up at Malcolm. It was clear that he was working very hard to stay composed. "I want her to know that not one day has gone by that I haven't thought of her. And that I have always … always …" Harry got hold of himself, and finished the sentence, "Loved her."

Malcolm could think of nothing appropriate to say, and beyond that, he was quite overcome himself. He simply nodded, and stood. He wanted to say what he had said once before to Harry, love will find out the way. But the truth was, where Harry and Ruth were concerned, Malcolm was sadly beginning to have his doubts.

Harry suddenly remembered his worry for Scarlet yesterday. "And please make sure the girls are cared for. They're shut up in the house today so that I could get them quickly when I was done here." He looked up as Malcolm paused at the doorway. "Tell Ruth, in case she'd like to ... have them with her."

Malcolm nodded, and then narrowed his eyes slightly. "I will. But you're coming back, Harry." He tried to smile, and a slight twinkle came into his eye. "They won't want you any more than we do."

Harry smiled too. He could always count on Malcolm not to get maudlin. "You're probably right. Thank you, Malcolm." He nodded. "Please make contact with Sarkiisian. I need to get there as soon as possible."

Five minutes later, Malcolm was back in Harry's doorway. "I've contacted the Russians using the emergency handshake. I've got a car waiting for you." Malcolm turned away for a moment, but then looked at his friend. "Harry, you're walking directly into the arms of people who want you dead."

Harry kept his tone light. "Then I'll try my best to be especially charming."

Malcolm raised his eyebrows. "My God, then we're in trouble." Harry gave a small chuckle, as Malcolm said, softly, "Come back."

Harry knew what Malcolm was saying. Come back because you're my friend, but also, Don't make me give this news to Ruth. Harry said gently, "Malcolm, I know I can rely on you. Some things change, that never will."

"Good luck," Malcolm said, almost in a whisper. Harry put his hand out, and Malcolm shook it, wondering if it would be the last time.

Connie had to sit down. She was feeling far too advanced in years for all this running about. Sarkiisian's people were not far behind them in the tunnel, but she wasn't sure she cared anymore. She could hardly breathe.

Ros turned to Lucas. "What time is it?"

"Half past." Lucas handed a bottle of juice to Connie from his rucksack.

Connie bent over, catching her breath. "Ah, you're not going to make it. Your best chance of survival might be…"

Ros was already furious with Connie. She stood over her and nearly spat the words out, "Might be what?"

"To go deeper."

"You'd do that, would you? Burrow down here like a rat?" Ros didn't even bother to hide her contempt.

Connie laughed, sounding slightly mad. "Like a mole!"

Ros bent over, her face near Connie's. "Yeah, and wait for Central London to be annihilated?"

Now Connie had enough breath to fight back. "Do you think I want this to happen? A nuclear weapon in London? I am what I am, but I've done more for this country than you'll ever know."

Lucas spoke, finally, and asked Connie, "You ever hear of Bridget Driscoll?"

Connie shook her head. "Should I have?"

Lucas kept his voice even, but his anger was just under the surface. "First person ever to be run over and killed by a car. She was a daughter, a wife, a mother. But all that's faded away now. All Bridget Driscoll is, is a single moment." Lucas turned to her. "Whatever you've done for this country, Connie, is gone. What's lost can never be found."

Another bloody black hood, Harry thought. Was it only two nights ago that he'd sat in the back of the CO-19 van in one of these? Except that this one smelled a far sight better, and at least today, his hands weren't tied. Not to mention that the ride was exceedingly more comfortable.

The car lurched to a stop, and he was pulled to a standing position. With a set of strong arms on each side, Harry was walked across what seemed to be an endless tiled floor. They stopped, and the hood was wrenched suddenly from his head. His eyes were still adjusting, but he looked up to see Viktor Sarkiisian, looking just as he did in his photos - like he badly needed a haircut.

Minutes later, Harry stood next to Sarkiisian, looking out over the grey expanse of water. He'd had time to think of what he was going to say, and he knew he had very little time to do it. He spoke softly, although he wasn't able to keep the urgency from his voice. "Do you realise your kill-squad is trying to hit my officers before they can prevent a nuclear weapon from being detonated in London?"

Viktor narrowed his eyes at him. He was trying to determine if Harry Pearce was telling the truth, or was insane. He had to admit that it was not unreasonable to assume that Moscow had kept him in the dark about something like this. It was what they did regularly.

Harry continued, "In an hour's time, tens of thousands of people will be dead. If your officers succeed in killing mine, you will have succeeded in nothing except killing yourself and your family." Viktor was listening intently, but as he was looking at Harry, something else had suddenly come to his mind. He was remembering his goodbye at home this morning, kissing Alina whilst his two beautiful girls sat at the breakfast table. A nuclear weapon. London. Tens of thousands of people dead.

"Your country, your own country is about to kill you, Viktor, and I'm here alone to tell you that. If I'm lying ... Well, keep me, ship me to Russia. If the best you can hope for from this operation is Connie James, I'm a much bigger prize. The FSB can do with me whatever it is it does with people like me."

Viktor looked down, thinking. He was wondering why a man of Harry Pearce's stature and position would be willing to walk unarmed into the FSB's London Headquarters and offer himself up as a sacrifice. The only sense he could make of it was that Pearce was telling the truth.

Harry's voice rose, and he moved closer. "Viktor, look at me! We're short of time. If I'm lying?" Harry exhaled, "What's the worst that can happen? You can make a gift of me to your superiors, a senior British intelligence officer." Harry's voice went ominously low. "If I'm not lying, your children have less than an hour to live."

Viktor tried to concentrate on his duty, but he couldn't get the picture of his family out of his mind. Now Harry wasn't talking to the Station Head of FSB London Headquarters, he was talking to Viktor Sarkiisian, husband, and father.

But Viktor knew that If he believed Harry, he would have to betray Moscow and the FSB. He would need to stand in the way of this bomb being detonated. If Harry was correct and it was a nuclear weapon, it had to be an enormous operation, a decision made far above his level. If Viktor kept this bomb from detonating, he and his men would be punished, and the punishment for that sort of treason would be death. But in the end, Viktor knew that even that would be better than knowing he had stood by as his lovely Alina and his extraordinary girls died.

Finally it was the husband and father who decided. Viktor said, "OK. OK. I believe you, Harry." Now, I will see how committed he is to this. "They've gone underground. The old tube tunnels. Communication is impossible, so I need to know their destination. Where are they headed?"

Harry paused, unsure of himself for the first time since he'd started talking. He was standing opposite the London Station Head for the FSB, preparing to reveal the location of his officers to the people who were attempting to kill them. It was an absurd situation, one he could never have imagined.

Sarkiisian frowned. "Harry, come on. You came to me for help, so accept it. What is their destination?"

There was no more time to wonder if this was the right thing to do. Harry said quickly, "Get me a map."

As they walked toward the large map of London that was laid out on the table, Viktor allowed himself a glance toward his own desk. He could see that the file was still there, with the information about the man who was offering such a generous sum for the delivery of Harry Pearce.

Viktor had a very different reaction to that information now. If this did turn out to be a nuclear weapon, and if Victor did keep it from detonating, he and his people would need a way to escape. And an escape for all of them and their families would require money.

Viktor didn't dislike Harry Pearce, he knew he was just a man doing his job. But Harry Pearce was Viktor's ticket to freedom, and if he had to, he was going to use him.

It was 2:45, and Jo needed to follow the order that Harry had given her for this specific time. She called the Home Secretary and told him it was time to evacuate the Prime Minister, Parliament and the Royal Family. They would survive, but Jo and Malcolm would sit and wait, either until Harry called with the all clear, or until everything disappeared in a blinding flash of light.

Jo hung up the phone and turned to Malcolm. "Anyone you need to call?"

Malcolm's face was unreadable, but his voice held a tinge of melancholy. "Well. Mum will be watching A Place In The Sun and waiting for Countdown. She loves Countdown." He sighed lightly. "Why spoil it, eh?"

Malcolm stared at the computer screen. In the spirit of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, he was clearing out his email on the server, tidying things up a bit. Suddenly, he realized that he hadn't re-enabled the Martin Wingate account since yesterday, when Dolby was on the Grid.

And there it was. A message. From Ruth. Malcolm quickly opened and read it. He looked at the clock in the lower right hand corner of his screen. 2:48. He decided that if he managed to see a number past 2:59, he would do something about this, but as it was, he thought there was a possibility it was a moot point.

Not only did the FSB back off, they assisted. Walter Crane was correct, he was going to die on this day, but not in the way he imagined. Not in a sudden flash of light, but with a bullet to the brain. A bullet from his own beloved Russia, from the FSB itself.

The briefcase containing the nuclear device was taken underground to Connie, along with a working light, a tool kit and a bottle of gin.

When the case was brought to her, she opened it and looked at the timer. Two minutes and seventeen seconds. She chose the wire to cut, which immediately stopped the clock. Unfortunately, with a click, another timer started.

Lucas asked, "Connie?"

Connie sighed and turned to him. "This isn't an improvised explosive device cooked up by some halfwit undergraduate. There are fail-safes and back-ups. By cutting that wire, I've initiated a secondary countdown."

She began dismantling the bomb as she spoke. "A conventional explosive will go off in less than two minutes. If I haven't removed the uranium, it will cause a chain reaction and a nuclear explosion. I need to remove the shell from the central housing and separate the two isotopes. When I do that, the bomb cannot reach critical mass and will no longer be nuclear."

Connie turned to Ros and Lucas. "It will, however, go up in my face. The bomb kills whoever disarms it, so go, please. Both of you."

Lucas suddenly found it hard to leave her. "No."

Connie gave him a wistful smile. "What you've lost can sometimes be found, Lucas." She turned back to the case and continued to work. "I remove the uranium, it's just a bomb. I'm not scared of bombs."

Lucas nodded and stood to go. Ros turned to Connie, and acknowledged, finally, the sacrifice she was making, by simply saying her name.

Connie had one more thing to say. "Oh, Lucas!" He turned and stepped back toward her. "At 3:00 a.m., when you can't sleep and the nightmares come, who do you blame for what happened to you? Eight years in a Russian Hell? Who do you blame?"

Lucas didn't see any reason not to tell the truth. "I blame Harry."

Connie removed the uranium from the housing. "Then it's time to let it go. It wasn't Harry's fault."

This was the question that Lucas had agonized over for nine years now. He wasn't moving until he got his answer. "Who was it, Connie? Who sold me out? Just say it!"

As the timer counted down, Connie said, "It was me, always me."

Ros and Lucas ran, and managed to move behind a cement column just as the blast ripped through the tunnel, taking Connie James with it.

The last time Harry had seen his watch, it was 3:17. Sarkiisian had gotten word that the bomb had gone off underground, and clearly it hadn't been nuclear. Either the Broken Arrow Unit had arrived on time, or Connie had found a way to remove the uranium. In truth, he thought she was the only one who could have. If that had been the case, there would have been some redemption for her, then.

3:17. That was just before the gaffer tape, and then the body bag. What had he said? Keep me, ship me to Russia. I'm a much bigger prize. The FSB can do with me whatever it does with people like me. After they'd zipped the body bag, he'd been lifted and roughly dropped into what he assumed was the boot of a car. Right now, in the dark, breathing in the overpowering plastic smell of the bag that enclosed him, Harry was feeling some regret for the bravado that shaped those words. But he was, after all, alive. And so were the people of Central London.

Harry groaned, and thought the piece of metal that was digging into his side felt something like a tyre iron. And the road they were on could use some work. His hands were behind his back, tied, as were his feet. He'd had to quell his rising panic once he realised that hyperventilating into gaffer tape was not conducive to the process of breathing.

Harry didn't share the knowledge of his claustrophobia with anyone, in large part because talking about it didn't tend to make it any better. And also, that sort of Achilles heel was never the type of thing you'd like to get out in his line of work. But it was quite acute in a situation like this: bound, gagged, zipped inside a bag, inside the boot of a car. Harry tried to calm himself again with the music, and with thoughts of Ruth.

So close. He'd been on his way to her, and when he'd thought about it, he'd almost been able to feel her in his arms. And Harry wondered now, bumping along in the back of this car, if he'd simply gone to her and left dealing with Tiresias to others, would someone have stepped in and done it? He'd always told Ruth that as soon as he felt someone else could do a better job, he would step aside. But the conundrum was, how would he know if someone else could do it unless he stepped aside?

In the dark, it was so easy to conjure Charles Grady's face. You're doing it again, Harry. Pushing the people you love away, in the name of the job. You think you're the only one who can save Britain? Delusions of grandeur, Harry. That's all they are.... Harry tried to hear the music, but it wouldn't come. And now, neither would Ruth.

Another chance, and he'd missed it. He wondered if it was his last chance. Most of all, Harry wondered if he would ever see his Ruth again.

~~~~~

To write (verb): Communicate or express...

1/1/11

Secrets III: Chapter 87 - 89

No comments:

Post a Comment