Random Harvest
I found a way for Ruth to return from the dead and this is what I think happened when she came back.
I don't own Spooks or any of the characters in the TV series; Kudos Productions own the relevant copyright. This fic is inspired by the 1942 movie, Random Harvest. Again, I don't have any rights vis-à-vis that movie. I hope that the copyright holders will not be too aggrieved by my use of their characters in this fic.
Thanks to Rachel for having beta'd the first three chapters. Also thanks to Liz for providing many useful comments.
Chapter 1
The Return of the Native
It was early evening and in one of the bigger apartments in the Watergate complex in Washington DC, Jools Siviter sat in his favourite armchair, nursing a glass of scotch. The telephone rang. It was a call on a secured line from the Home Secretary in London.
"Jools, how the devil are you? Not getting too spoiled by the cousins, I hope."
"Doing one's best to keep the flag flying, Home Secretary. To what do I owe the honour of this call?" Jools did a quick calculation of the time difference between Washington and London, and concluded that this was not the usual time for Home Secretaries to be making social calls.
"Well, there has been some discussion here, and the general feeling is that perhaps it was time you came home. In fact, assuming that you don't have anything ongoing which is urgent, you should come home before the end of the month. We'd like to discuss a new direction for you to take, within the Service."
When the Home Secretary called you to talk about having you transferred home, it was not a suggestion, it was an order. Jools had now been in the US for five years and it had been nice, especially as there were endless embassy parties and cocktail parties to attend. He did have to file regular reports to head office, but given Jools's experience, those reports were a piece of cake; he could and usually did finish them with his eyes closed.
Even though he had been away all this time, Jools had kept his ears firmly to the ground and knew everything that had been going on within the Secret Service at home. What a mess it had been!
First there was that Michael Collingwood business - silly boy. When Jools handed over the reins of MI6 to Collingwood, the department was in very good shape. All he needed to do was to keep to the procedures which Jools had set up over the years and everything would have been fine. What was that wonderful American expression? Don't fix what ain't broke. But no, Collingwood had to be clever and become involved in that sordid little plot to overthrow the government. Now he was dead and MI6 was floundering.
Then there was Juliet Shaw. Now there's a handsome woman, Jools thought. Although she would be much better looking if dressed in leather and cracking a whip, rather than in a power suit trying to act like one of the boys. She probably slept her way to the top though Jools wasn't one of her conquests. Was it because she never asked, or was it because she wasn't his cup of tea? Jools couldn't remember. She was mixed up with that Yalta group. What was that all about? As usual with these clever and ambitious bitches, they bit off more than they could chew and ended up with their arses on the floor.
Finally, there was that slime ball Oliver Mace. How he got to where he ended up in Government, Jools would never know. As far as Jools was concerned, Mace was a fellow who had a much higher opinion of himself than others would give him credit for. Jools had been hearing about Mace's various dealings with Middle Eastern contacts on the Service grapevine and he wondered how long it would take before he got burned by those people. The whole Cotterdam incident was a case in point. Did he and his cronies really think that they could pull off a stunt of that magnitude and get away with it?
Such important business as national security could not be entrusted to these people; inevitably, it would only go to their heads. It was only a matter of time before they would get a god complex and became involved in all kinds of dangerous but stupid stunts.
Jools liked to wheel and deal as much as the next man, but at the end of the day, he stilled believed in the democratic system of Government. Given a set of parameters within which to operate, he would quite happily run his own little shows, conducting dealings behind the scenes. That was why he was content with being a spy who worked in the shadows. He never had any delusions of grandeur or ambitions to take a more active role in government.
When Jools was first offered the transfer to Washington as Juliet Shaw's replacement, he saw it as a demotion rather than the lateral move sold to him by the Home Office. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, it was probably for the best that he was not around head office when all these other shenanigans were going down. God, I must be spending too much time with the Americans if I am now using terms such as "shenanigans" in my own thoughts.
Jools figured the real reason why he had to head home now was because they wanted someone to clean up after these people. Someone who they could trust but who had been away from head office during the troublesome days and therefore could now be considered safe and reasonably objective. Morale was generally low in all branches of the Service and god only knows how many agents had been sacrificed in the meantime. Jools supposed that there could be worse jobs than the one he had to do when he got back. Maybe it was time to go home. He had just about taken as much as he could stomach with these Americans, so upfront and gregarious about everything. No subtlety or finesse at all! Anyway, it was time to reacquaint himself with the delights of warm beer served during intermission at Covent Garden. So home it was, then.
One of the first things Jools Siviter did when he returned to Britain was to review files which involved Collingwood, Yalta, Shaw and/or Mace. If there had been a wrong, he must try and make it right. If certain agents in the field had been discredited, unjustly, then he must seek them out and rehabilitate them. Jools was not really a details man and he hated having to wade through all that paperwork. He was on the verge of giving up and delegating it to a trusted junior when he came across a file marked "Ruth Evershed".
Yes, I heard about Ms. Evershed, Jools thought. Wasn't she Harry Pearce's star analyst who somehow got implicated in one of Oliver Mace's little plots? Pearce attacked Mace at his club in a bid to protect his little protégé, but then the woman turned up dead and the case was closed. Her death precipitated a series of events which ultimately brought down Mace and a variety of other politicians. Wait a minute. If there was one thing Jools was good at, it was to sniff out a rat. With this file, the scent was particularly strong. He read on.
A lot of things did not add up in Ms. Evershed's file. She was mostly desk bound and was rarely sent out in the field. In fact, by all accounts, her field work was kind of poor. So how did she get involved with Mace? Why or how did she end up dead? Wasn't that just a little convenient how things turned out for her? How could they claim that Mace and Evershed were co-conspirators when early on in the investigation, it was Mace who wanted to arrest Evershed? Maybe Mace was trying to silence Evershed. There was a cross reference in the Evershed file to the Cotterdam file, so Jools spent a couple of hours reading up on that file to refresh his memory.
By the end of the afternoon, Jools was pretty sure that he understood what had happened. You sly old dog, Harry Pearce. You went and fell for one of your junior officers, didn't you? Looking at the file photo of Ruth, Jools couldn't quite see the attraction. Then again, it was one of those black and white photos taken in those automatic booths which took ID photos. They never do justice to any one. That Greek woman whose face was supposed to have launched a thousand ships? Jools could have sworn that he read somewhere that she was no great beauty in real life, that it had everything to do with the eye of the beholder etc. Now why couldn't Harry have gone for one of those young, nubile blondes? What did Pearce see in that woman anyway? She did not seem to be Harry's usual type. Then again, Jools was not sure what Harry's usual type was as far as women go. His last known fling was with Juliet Shaw and that happened in the last century. Since his divorce, gossip about Harry's sexual conquests were about as rare as sightings of Big Foot.
Jools thought, if you are going to let your pecker rule your life and chuck caution to the wind, you might as well go for a spectacular looking woman rather this one. Then again, the Service inevitably attracted a large number of mousy, geeky types for the desk bound analysts, so if one was restricted to women in the Service, the pickings were rather slim. If only Harry had asked him, he could have given him the numbers of a couple of ladies who worked in Mayfair. In Jools's mind, there was nothing wrong with paying for sex. A straightforward cash transaction, no strings attached, scratched the biological urge brilliantly if the right girl or girls were involved, and then he could get on with more important matters like his day job. At the rate the Family Courts were going, a wife might end up costing you more money than if you had paid for sex over the years.
No, Mace probably found out about Harry's little obsession and used that woman as bait to coerce him into joining one of his little schemes. A perverse kind of honey trap, if you will. Knowing Harry Pearce, he refused and in the ensuing tug of war, Ruth Evershed got pushed over the edge and ended up on the funeral pyre. Only question was, was Ms. Evershed really dead? The Service was terribly good at making people disappear, only to have them resurface somewhere else as different people. Jools would not put it past Harry's team to have arranged for Ruth Evershed to go into hiding somewhere with a new identity. It all seemed so convenient, Ruth's body being found the day Harry got out of jail. It was Harry who identified her body at the morgue. All of that was involved too many coincidences and Jools Siviter was not a man who believed in coincidences.
Did Harry Pearce still feel the same way about this woman, Jools wondered to himself. Now that he was back, he needed to rebuild confidence within the Security Service and Harry Pearce would be a good ally in this exercise. Any tactician would tell you that you should never fight a battle on more than one front. Jools needed to be sure that he got at least one section of the Secret Service locked down before tackling the other sections. MI5 was as good a place to start as any. If Harry could be on board, he would form a good rallying point for MI5, and hopefully for other sections of the Service.
Jools was never particularly fond of Harry, but that was not to say that he disliked the man. Pearce's arrogance matched his own. Maybe that was why they never got on. Still, Jools wondered if it was worth the trouble of resurrecting Ruth Evershed. Use her as a peace offering to Harry Pearce, all tied up with a pretty red bow. If you wanted to make friends with your neighbours, you go to their house for dinner and bring a bottle of wine. If you wanted to get Pearce's attention, why not use the same bait as before? It might still work. Jools had the best intentions in the world at this point in time, and it did not bother him that he would be regarded as a "Greek bearing gift".
There was just one problem. Ruth Evershed was used as the match that lit the bomb which blew Mace and a number of other high ranking officials out of Government. As far as Jools was aware, Oliver Mace was still lurking about, wheeling and dealing, calling in favours and using many of his old contacts. If he found out that Ruth Evershed was being resurrected, how would he, or any of the other politicians who lost office over that Cotterdam matter, feel about it and if they did not like it, would they do anything about it? If they wanted to do something, how far would they go?
The case against the Government over Cotterdam was incontrovertible. There was evidence of secret arrangements to fake the deaths of prisoners so that they could be smuggled abroad and tortured for information on terrorist activities. Once that aspect took up residence in the headlines, people tended to forget the involvement of a little analyst in the whole affair. If Mace or any of the other "victims" wanted to make any sort of comeback, the last thing they wanted would be to draw attention to the fact that they were once associated with Cotterdam. If any one wanted revenge, either against Harry Pearce, Ruth Evershed or both, over their involvement in this whole debacle, they would do so whether or not Jools assisted in the resurrection of Ruth Evershed. So far, Jools had not heard of any retaliatory action.
Simply because this Evershed woman was going to become 'alive' again, this was not going to enable Mace and his cohorts to return to Government, that was for sure. Quite the contrary. Bringing her back should send the strongest possible signal to Mace and his friends that there was a new sheriff in town and he was not to be messed about.
Jools was a betting man and after considering the matter at length, he was willing to bet that absolutely nothing would happen if he were to arrange for Ruth Evershed to be resurrected.
Now how should he go about doing this? The paperwork should not be a problem. Jools had already compiled a list of 10, 12 agents scattered around the world who needed to "come back from the dead", so to speak. One more should not make much of a difference. Besides, he was on a roll with the Home Office, so it was unlikely that they would ask too many questions. The Home Office probably did not want to know too many details about these agents; if something went wrong, they could always put the blame on him.
As for the actual logistics, Jools decided that in order to achieve maximum effectiveness, the whole thing would have to be a surprise as far as Harry Pearce was concerned. If he revealed his plans to Harry from the outset, he might veto his plans and stay as far away from Jools as possible. Pearce could be a very suspicious fellow when he wanted to be. No, this had to be an undercover operation. He needed the help of someone on Harry's team, who knew all about Ruth Evershed and how Harry Pearce still felt about her. After all, if Harry had moved on, then this whole exercise would be futile. Jools needed information. Who should he talk to?
Going through the internal directory for Section D, the first name (in terms of seniority) he came across was Adam Carter. Yes he knew Carter from his MI6 days but then he defected to MI5. Carter's dislike of Jools might still be too strong for there to be any deep and meaningful discussion between them. Anyway, Carter seemed to have acquired a bit of a reputation for being a hot head since his wife died. No, he could not use Adam as a first point of contact.
The next on the list was Connie James. Ah yes, dear old Connie. Maybe Harry has learnt his lesson and decided to go for older women, as far as analysts go. How did he manage to cajole Connie out of retirement to become his senior analyst? That must be a good sign, it showed that maybe Harry still had feelings for his supposedly "dead" girlfriend. No. Connie would not do. For one thing, Jools did not know her that well. She was not even back in the Service at the time of Ruth's disappearance. She would be too suspicious of Jools's hidden agenda to take his suggestion seriously.
He looked at a few other names. Ros Myers. No, another MI6 defect. Joanna Portman, Ben Kaplan. No, too junior.
It had to be Malcolm Wynn-Jones, then. Dear old stodgy Malcolm. Now if only he could sell the idea to Malcolm, then he could rely on Malcolm to bring the others on board. With this happy thought, Jools Siviter called Malcolm and suggested a meeting as soon as possible.
Malcolm was puzzled when he received word that Jools Siviter wanted a chat. Siviter usually fraternized with more senior ranking officers within the Service, not the likes of Malcolm. Malcolm knew that he was back and there were rumours as to what he was supposed to be doing. But what was there to chat about between the two of them? Jools Siviter must want something from him. He also mentioned that Malcolm should not discuss their little tête-à-tête with either Harry or any one else on his team.
The request to have an audience with Jools Siviter was intriguing. Purely out of curiosity, Malcolm decided that it would not hurt to find out. So he arranged to meet Jools Siviter for drinks. As long as he remained aloof and non-committal, Malcolm decided that he could always come back and discuss things with Adam, and if necessary, Harry.
Malcolm nearly spilt his drink when Jools came right to the point after exchanging brief pleasantries. Bring back Ruth?! What was this man playing at? And not tell Harry for the time being? The whole idea was preposterous. What did Jools Siviter really want? That was the more important question.
Jools knew that Malcolm would not be so foolish as to agree with his plans right away. He encouraged Malcolm to take the proposal back to his colleagues (other than Harry, of course) and let him know. They needed to move fast though. Jools was about to submit the first batch of agent rehabilitation applications to the Home Secretary and he would very much like to include Ruth Evershed's file. So he told Malcolm that he should get back to him in a day or so.
When he returned to the Grid, Malcolm arranged to meet Adam, Connie and Ros off the Grid, that is, away from Harry's eyes and ears, where he reported details of his recent discussion with Jools Siviter. Given the sensitivity of the subject matter, more junior members of the team were not consulted. After initial accusations of duplicitous behaviour on Malcolm's part, the team quickly settled down to consider the merits of the proposal which had been tabled by Malcolm.
Adam did not trust Jools, not even if he had his back to the wall and Jools was the only one who could wave a wand and make the firing squad disappear. But Adam felt tired. He had just lost his best friend, Zaf, in the field and Jo looked as if any day now, she might lose it too. Ros was the only one who could be of any use to him in the field. Still, he knew that after Ruth left, it had hit Harry hard. Having Connie on the Grid has been helpful but they could sure do with an extra brain. Adam was never very happy with Ruth's plan to save Harry over the Cotterdam affair, but everything had happened so fast. So even though it would leave his department vulnerable and indebted to Jools Siviter, the thought of resurrecting Ruth became more and more appealing as Adam gave it some thought. With a degree of reluctance, he voted to go along with the idea. He assumed that Jools had worked out all the political implications regarding this little project.
It was not difficult to convince Connie. She and Harry went a long way back. Since coming onto the Grid, she had noticed that Harry appeared to have lost some spark in his personality. Whilst you might not usually describe Harry as the life of the party, Connie could see that a part of Harry's personality seemed to have withered or gone into hibernation. She had always assumed that it was the result of weariness on Harry's part, having seen too much of man's inhumanity to man, but she now knew that it was the result of affairs of the heart.
As for Ros, well, remorse might be too strong a word, but she has felt bad about going over Harry's head and reporting Ruth to the authorities over the Mik Maudsley incident. Her action had accelerated what happened subsequently and left Harry no time to seek an alternative course of action in order to save Ruth. Ros was not about to apologise to any one; she still felt that it was the right thing to do at the time. But if Jools Siviter now thought that he could resurrect Ruth, who was she to stand in the way of his plans?
The team had more of a problem in deciding whether to keep Harry in the dark about these arrangements, as stipulated by Jools. No one doubted that the famous Pearce temper would explode if he got wind of this scheme. However, recalling the way Harry had been moping round the Grid ever since Ruth left helped the team quickly decide that Harry deserved to have Ruth back in his life. It never occurred to any of them that perhaps Harry himself might not want Ruth back in his life.
Naturally, Malcolm was asked to be in charge of locating Ruth and making arrangements for her return. It took him the better part of a week to finally trace her to a small university in Italy where she was teaching a course in classics. An email, suitably encrypted in a way that only Ruth and Malcolm could decipher, was sent to her university email address. If the email address turned out to be incorrect, then the recipient would not understand the garbled message. If it was correct, Malcolm prayed that Ruth had not lost her skills to crack the code in order to decipher the real message. After he hit the "send mail" button, Malcolm sat back and hoped that he had done the right thing.
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