Disclaimer: Spooks belongs to Kudos and the BBC
Happens sometime during the 8th series, I assume all the events from the end of the 7th series were already resloved, may contain spoilers to all existing Spooks series.

Thanks to DeskSpook for the Beta

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Monday morning in central London, a girl was sitting on the edge of her a bed inside a small hotel room getting ready for her big day, this was the first part of their grand plan and everything had to go exactly as planned, a thought that didn't really help her relax.

Once the shaking was under control she finished putting on her rollerblades, gloves and cap, got up and rolled over to the mirror. She gave a weak smile to her reflection and then covered her brown eyes with sun glasses, browsed through her IPod for the perfect song, decided that Queen's "The Invisible Man" should be very appropriate, took a deep breath, whispered "Here goes nothing" and was off.

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Harry was taking his dog for her morning walk through the park, leash in one hand coffee cup on the other. No matter how hard he tried to ignore it today's date kept creeping into his thoughts; this day three years ago he was almost a happy man, was so close to getting through to her, before they took her away from him forever. The memory of their first and last kiss was as vivid to him as it was the day she left, and as painful. He knew she had asked him to let her go, and he had tried so hard to do that, but he was so worried about her, always wondering where she was, what she was doing, was she happy-

Harry was so engulfed in his self torment he almost didn't hear the girl shouting at him to look out before she collided into him at top rollerblading speed. He stumbled backwards, spilling his coffee along the way as the girl crashed into the road behind him.

"Oh god! I'm so sorry," she said as she stood up, shaking "I'm kind off new to this and don't know how to stop properly yet"

"No, its fine, I should have paid more attention to what was going on around me," Harry mumbled, still in shock from being pulled so abruptly from his thoughts. "Are you all right?" He looked at the girl as she was scanning for bruises, trying to read her expression beneath the cap and behind the sunglasses.

"Everything seems in working order," She smiled at him, "Oh no, your shirt!" her smile went away when she noticed the big coffee stain on his white shirt."Let me pay for that," she reached for her wallet, took out a 10 Pound note and handed it to him.

"No, really, there's no need for that," Harry protested," and that's way too much…" but the girl pushed the note into his hand and said softly: "No, I insist"

Harry started to protest again but the girl was already rollerblading away from him, way too fast for the beginner she claimed she was.

He stood there staring at the 10 Pound note, a weird and sick feeling started to form in his stomach, as a familiar and distant voice echoed in his head: "It had the feel of a classic drop, Harry"

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"My my, oh my!" Malcolm was saying excitedly just as Harry came through the pods, shirt replaced and the note burning a hole in his coat pocket.

"Why is Malcolm drooling?" he asked Jo as she passed him by.

"Something about a hacker gone missing, don't really know the details, better ask him," she answered and continued to her desk.

"Might as well do that," Harry thought and went over to Malcolm's station.

"Anything interesting?" he asked.

"Griffin!" Malcolm exclaimed in awe.

"As in the mythical creature?" Harry was a bit confused.

"As in the legendary hacker". Harry's expression signaled to Malcolm that more explanation was due so he continued, typing an address in his web browser as he spoke: "Griffin is one of the most famous hackers in the last decade. He managed to crack into almost every computer system existing, including some of ours. The interesting thing about him is that he never really caused any damage, most of the time he just left his calling card behind and sometimes, if he was feeling generous, he left some advice as to how to close the security holes he came through," Malcolm turned his screen towards Harry, "This is his calling card," he pointed at the image on the screen, which depicted a Griffin in a playful stance, biting its own tail, "For a long time nobody knew who he was or where he was working from, but you surely understand that every intelligence agency on the face of the earth wanted to be the first to find him"

"I'm guessing their agenda wasn't making him stop hacking and pay for his crimes?" Harry interrupted

"Hell no, a talent like this is too valuable an asset to waste in prison, they all wish they could somehow turn him and use him as their own pet hacker"

"So why all the excitement now?"

"A few months ago he went underground, nobody knows for sure why, but the rumor is that some agency figured out who he was and he decided to make a run for it and disappear, not before braking into a Chinese bank, steeling a small fortune and leaving a very apologetic letter behind. There was nothing much since then, but this morning I received this in my secure email box" Malcolm navigated to a new page, showing Harry another picture of the Griffin, this time with the English flag in the background, "I haven't been able to track the source yet".

"Well, see what you can find out about this, I'm guessing that if it was Griffin who sent you this he had a good reason, also try and find out how he knew who to send this to" Harry said.

"Will do," Malcolm smiled and turned back to his computer.

"Malcolm," Harry hesitantly reached for the note in his pocket, "Could you please take a look at this for me, discreetly?" He handed him the note, Malcolm looked at it with a worried expression, remembering the last time he was asked to look at a tenner.

"Is everything OK? He asked. "Yes, nothing to worry about," Harry replied and turned towards his office, very worried.

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That evening Harry was being driven back home with the 10 Pound note safely back in his pocket. Of course Malcolm wasn't able to find anything on the note, or on his mysterious hacker for that matter. Harry was starting to think that maybe there really wasn't any drop, that it was just the date combined with this morning's events that made him paranoid.

He was just about to let this whole matter go when a figure in the bus stop, her bus stop, caught his eye as he was looking through the car window. It was too dark to see anything more then a silhouette, but it was of a slender woman with shoulder length hair and a long skirt. "Stop the car!" He shouted to his startled driver who immediately brought the car to a screeching halt.

Harry jumped out of the car and ran to the bus stop, which was empty by the time he got there. He looked around breathlessly and immediately saw the flyer, stuck to the timetable board:

"The Stubborn Mule is celebrating three years and you are invited to party with us with one of our notorious Karaoke nights!" underneath the message was a picture of a mule kicking a barrel. Bellow the picture was an address, today's date and: "Entry fee 10 Pounds".

Harry's thoughts that this was all a coincidence withered away as he went back to the car and gave his driver the address of The Stubborn Mule.

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To be continued....
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