"All things come to those who wait."

English Proverb

Malcolm:

Malcolm Wynn-Jones was about to get himself a cup of tea from the kitchen when he heard the special tone from his mobile phone. He knew what it meant when he heard the brief `ding'. The message tone on his phone was the Daleks from Doctor Who saying, threateningly: "exterminate ….. exterminate", and this always brought a chuckle from anyone who heard it, but the `ding' wasn't a message tone as such; it was something else altogether. The `ding' was loud enough for him to hear, but unobtrusive enough so that others who heard it would accommodate it by allowing it to mingle with all the other hundreds of electronic sounds which emanated from the machines of the Grid at any time of the day or night. Malcolm looked around him, but Adam wasn't at his desk, and Jo was fully occupied reading something on her monitor, and Connie and Harry were deep in conversation in Harry's office. He heard Harry raise his voice, but then he quieted, as he listened to Connie's reply.

Malcolm had never much liked Connie James. In his mind, she was a female snake – slimy and elusive, prone to hiding under rocks and then striking without warning. She had a way of saying things which were heavily barbed, but which sounded rather benign to those who didn't know her. She tended to hide behind her lame attempts at humour, safe there, ready to strike. Malcolm didn't trust Connie. All the same, he hoped he was wrong about her. In Malcolm's view, Harry deserved to be surrounded by people whom he could trust, and that hadn't always been the case. Tom Quinn was a case in point; Tom, who had gone rogue, and then shot Harry in the shoulder.

Malcolm observed Harry at a distance, it was easier that way. He and Harry had known one another for almost 18 years, which is a long time to have worked with someone. If Malcolm had any friends, they were people he knew from work. He'd considered Ruth a friend, Colin had been his best friend, and since Ruth had gone into exile, he and Harry had found some common ground, although both men were very private, and so not prone to sharing anything personal. In all likelihood, Malcolm was going to have to get close and personal with Harry. It all depended on what he found when he got home. It all depended on what the program he had running on his personal computer – in his locked office at home – had found, because it had found something. The `ding' was a message from his computer to his phone which essentially said: You'd better take a look at this. Trouble is, it was only 11.07 am, and so it would be a good number of hours until he was able to leave work and go home. He could wait. He was a patient man.

Harry:

While Malcolm was contemplating the possibilities of what he'd find when he got home and unlocked his office, Harry was sitting in his office with the blinds closed. He'd seen the photos of what was left of Zaf. There was no way of identifying him from the photos, so he'd ordered a DNA test, just to be sure. He had no doubt that the beaten and burned mess of flesh had once been Zafar Younis, MI5 officer, fine young man, friend, colleague, son and brother. Did it ever stop? It was in these moments that he hated his job, hated the responsibilities he had for maintaining morale against the tide of hatred and abuse, hated sending healthy and happy young men and women to their deaths, hated losing people he valued, people he even loved. He had loved them all – for their bravery, their kindness, their loyalty, the latter of which he was certain he didn't really deserve.

Then there was Ruth.

She had always been more, special to him, and now she was at some secret place far away. He held close to him his memories of her. What they had shared was not to be spoken of to another. What they had was not to be flaunted or displayed. What they were to each other was for them alone to know and to cherish. Until her name was cleared, he had to play it carefully, and as was his habit, he had to pull down the shutters on his emotions and simply get on with it.

In the meantime, his team needed to know about Zaf.

Malcolm:

By the time Malcolm put the key into the front door of his house it was past eight-thirty, and he was weary. Despite his curiosity, the last thing he felt like doing was opening the door to his office and finding what it was his face and body recognition software had found. He knocked on his mother's bedroom door, and then opened it and put his head inside.

"Mother?" he asked, but she was already asleep.

He ate the meal she'd left for him in the warmer of the cooker, and opened a fresh bottle of grenache, and poured himself a glass. After he'd sifted through the mail which his mother had left in a neat pile on the end of the dining table, he took the bottle and his glass of grenache into his office.

He tapped a key on the keyboard to awaken his computer's monitor, and there it was, the image of the person he'd been seeking, along with the date, time and place the image had been captured. He sat back in his chair and smiled at what he saw. It wasn't a really defined image, but it was defined enough. He enlarged the image, and zoomed in, and then he zoomed out. It was what the zoomed out image showed which had him putting down his glass, and then searching for his reading glasses. He didn't wish to jump to conclusions, nor did he wish to be mistaken in any way. Glasses on his nose, he looked closely at the screen.

"Bloody Nora," he said aloud. "What do I do with this little piece of information?"

He sat back in his chair, removed his glasses and pinched his nose with his thumb and forefinger, just as he'd seen Harry do many times. How do I tell Harry about this? Do I tell Harry ,or should I keep this to myself?

Malcolm stood up from his chair and, despite the lateness of the hour, and the recent rain, he unlocked the back door to the house, walked across the paved patio, and stepped on to the lawn. He loved his back yard. Along with his house, it was his sanctuary, surrounded on three sides by a high wall. He lifted his eyes to the sky, but all was dark, with only a slight glow where the moon was hidden behind cloud cover. He shivered, suddenly recognising how cold he was, and how still was the night air.

Malcolm walked around the perimeter of his lawn three times before something else crept into his conscious mind. Harry had taken leave around five months ago, and he himself had prepared his legend and his passport, in the name of Dr James Grey. Malcolm had not been privy to where Harry had spent the four weeks of his leave, but it was possible, wasn't it?

He quickly went back inside, locking and bolting the back door behind him. Inside his office, he once again sat in front of his computer. Although it would be the easiest thing in the world for him to do, he baulked at doing a search for where Harry may have gone for his leave …... although he now has a pretty good idea. He opened up the `Search' facility in his Chwilio y byd program (written and developed by him, and deliberately named in Welsh in honour of his late father's native tongue), and typed in the parameters for a new search.

Location? Zurich, Switzerland.

Search radius? 50 km.

To identify? He uploaded a recent full-body photograph of Harry.

Date(s)/Time? Malcolm keyed in the time frame of Harry's leave five months earlier. Then he set the program – as usual – to let him know when it had found a match by sending a coded message to his mobile phone.

Now all he had to do was wait.

A/N: The name of Malcolm's program translates as: Searching the globe. I had to use Google Translate, so to any Welsh speakers/readers, I hope it's accurate.