At what was the end of an era, a dreadful sense of finality had settled over the grid, as they struggled to come to terms with the inconceivable. Heads had been kept down, voices to a minimum, working like beavers as a means of distraction from the enormity of what they'd been told.

'Please just leave me alone,' Malcolm had snapped at his mother when she'd popped in to see if he was alright, suggesting that he shouldn't be sitting in his chair at midnight, listening to what she considered to be depressing music. Well she was right he shouldn't be and he'd apologised, but it was becoming a habit which had also seen him having a couple of drinks during the course of each evening. This had been Harry's means of coping and in some way he knew he was doing it to keep his legacy alive. Well it wasn't bloody working was it?

A week had gone by and as usual they'd been ordered to move on, whatever the hell that was supposed to mean. But he couldn't, not this time. Harry the only friend that he had, a traitor. Never, it was impossible despite his apparent confession. He just couldn't let this lie, he had to speak out, and now before he lost his nerve. He climbed the stairs with a heavy heart and crawled into bed, but with the semblance of a plan to right the wrongs.

The following morning

Ros stood motionless, her head in her hands, the door to her new office fairly reverberating on its hinges, and with it Malcolm's words echoing in her head.

'If it's the last thing I do on God's earth Ros, then by Christ I'll do it.'

The grid on mass fell silent, all eyes on his disappearing back, the only sound being the opening and then closing pods. It was an exit worthy of Harry, except that Harry wasn't there.

'You idiot,' he berated himself, as the front door closed behind him and he found himself on the steps of Thames House with nowhere else to go, other than back to face the music. Snapping, just because she'd told him she was busy at the moment and could it wait? He'd behaved like a petulant child, his mother would have been mortified. He'd known before he'd gone in there that she was under enormous pressure, fending off the resulting flack while at the same time trying to settle into her new role as section head. What would it take to convince her? Well the first thing he needed was an ally, someone who he could trust, but who could he trust in the present climate? Ben with his feet barely under the table was far too inexperienced and Connie as much as he admired her, had been scathing in her comments about Harry and his long association with the Russians. Jo it had to be then. Dear sweet Jo, who was still mourning the loss of Adam as he was Colin, his only hope of persuading Ros that his plan was viable.

'You know where Ruth is!' came out as a high pitched whisper, when after Malcolm's outburst and subsequent phone call, she'd left the grid on the pretext of meeting an asset. Instead of which, they'd bought themselves a second cup of coffee from a street vendor and were sitting on a bench overlooking the Thames Barrier. She in shock and he now ready to explain his idea that he hoped Ros would run with.

'I haven't always known I promise you Jo, but before Adam died he left me with a letter to be opened in the event of his death.

The letter explained the arrangements that he and Zaf had made at the time of Ruth's exile that they'd kept to themselves.

'I've come up with a plan to help Harry Jo, but in order for it to work we need to get Ruth back.'

'Why?'

'Because more than any of us she knows how to work the system, and besides which I trust her implicitly.'

'And you think Ruth will do this because?'

'Oh come on Jo don't be ridiculous, you and I of all people know how she and Harry felt about each other.'

Jo did, but time had moved on and who was to say that Ruth still felt the same? Added to which, she still wasn't sure how Ros felt about Ruth, despite the passing of years. Still Malcolm had chosen her to confide in, so the least she could do was to listen.

In a nutshell as Malcolm put it, first and foremost they needed to find a way to let Harry know that Ruth was back and helping, which would at least give him a reason for hope. Then, somehow or other which he hadn't yet worked out, he, Ruth and Jo if she was willing, would continue to try and discover the real traitor, job done.

It sounded so simple when in essence it was anything but.

'I need someone to come with me when I talk to Ros that's all,' had Jo saying that 'that's all was far from it.'

To the already at the end of his tether Malcolm, that sounded like a rejection.

'You're not suggesting that you think Harry's guilty are you?'

'Christ no, sorry Malcolm, but I still don't see why you need my help with Ros?'

'Don't be swayed by what you heard earlier, I find her truly terrifying Jo,' he admitted, 'which is why I need you to back me up, when I ask her for time off to go to the States.'

'Ruth's in the States, what the hell's she doing there?' came out with the same look of astonishment and at a similar volume.

Malcolm needed to explain the contents of Adam's letter, though not at this stage show it to Jo.

'With Mace still around, they apparently deemed it unsafe for Ruth to stay in Europe, although they made a pretty good job of convincing Harry and the rest of us that she had. Zaf set her up with a legend and an introduction into Cambridge College, which is attached to one of Boston's many universities.'

'And? asked Jo as Malcolm paused.

'She's still there, teaching English Literature to mature students.

'So Harry's never known where she is?'

'He's tried to trace her believe you me, almost from the beginning, but no he still doesn't know.'

'Christ,' said Jo again.

Two and a half years was a long time and Jo's only other question which Malcolm also knew the answer to, was that no Ruth wasn't in a relationship and she lived on her own.

'So let me get this right,' Ros asked them two days later, by which time he and Jo had spent the last two evenings together, dotting the i's and crossing the t's to his plan. 'You're proposing that I sanction what amounts to a black op that has a supposed dead woman running it?'

'Yes we are,' said Malcolm, for want of anything better to say.

They'd also plied Ros with the numerous occasions that Harry had bent the rules to help other colleagues. Not they'd needed to, because like them she couldn't conceive that Harry was guilty, despite the fact that she'd been told at the highest level that there was irrefutable proof that he was; although her request as to the nature of the proof had been denied.

'Three things,' she told them in her unmistakable let's get back to business voice. 'If I sanction this then you need to move quickly, because wherever they're holding Harry it won't be for long and after that we'll never find him. You keep this away from the grid until such a time as I find a way to raise Ruth from the dead and it doesn't encroach on any other ops that need to take priority.'

They nodded.

'Go on then,' she added to an impatient Jo, who was waiting to ring Malcolm, five minutes after he got back to his desk.

Far from being angry with Malcolm Ros was secretly impressed by his tenacity and that he wasn't the shrinking violet she'd presumed him to be. Without Harry at the helm she was floundering, akin to trying to swim with your hands tied behind your back. If nothing else this had proved to her that there were at least two members of her staff that she could trust. Loyalty was a rare commodity these days especially at the moment, when as far as she was concerned the whole of five was still under suspicion.

'Malcolm's had to go home,' she announced to the remainder of their colleagues, after he'd disappeared through the pods at the same speed in as many days. 'That was the hospital. It seems that his mother's condition has deteriorated.'

As Malcolm raced home to pick up his case and say cheerio to his mum, who was sunning herself in their neighbours back garden before they watched countdown together, Tariq Masood was looking forward to his first day on the grid. He'd finished his basic training which he'd passed with flying colours, anticipating that he would be spending years at GCHG until such a time as he could apply for a position at Thames House. Jo's call the previous evening had come as a complete surprise and now with confirmation to say that it was all systems go, he was looking forward to his first day as Malcolm's temporary replacement.

'I hope he enjoys his holiday,' said Malcolm's mum, as much to herself as to her friend Agnes. 'He's been really out of sorts lately, which isn't like my Malcolm.'

There had been none of the niceties that Harry liked. He knew who he was, for which he was bloody grateful and he also knew that he should have been at Thames House. But why he was here, wherever here was, for what he now calculated must have been close to a week he had no idea, because no one had said a word or answered any of his questions.

His recollections prior to his arrival were at best sketchy. Blurred visions of his children when they'd been young, some sort of holding cell where he'd been stripped naked and then being bundled into a van, were all that he'd so far managed to conjure up. He couldn't even remember putting up a fight which was unusual for him and there wasn't a mark on his body to suggest that he'd been beaten. There didn't seem any point in inviting one either.

The door opened, and the same anonymous face that he saw each morning walked into his room carrying a tray. It was his breakfast, porridge most likely. Not his first choice, but then seemingly he didn't have choices any more. The routine was monotonous in its consistency and a short walk along a darkened corridor to a bathroom always followed breakfast. If his calculations were correct, then his accompanied walk outside around what he'd concluded to be a high walled former garden, happened around mid-morning, followed by lunch, another walk and then dinner such as it was, before a nod from the same anonymous face told him that it was time for bed.

Mind blowing repetitive and torture by silence was the way he'd come to think of it, but crucially he'd forced himself to keep his temper, calculating that eventually someone would realise that this was some terrible mistake and he'd be allowed to go home. Ros seemed the most likely candidate, but why she'd suddenly popped into his mind he had no idea and too much thinking seemed to give him a headache.

'Oh Ruth,' he said, dragging himself off the bed, before bending down to retrieve his porridge.