Shining Dawn bombing campaign. Adam Carter was in his element.
Sure, they had to grit their teeth and bear the presence of some cousins, but Adam joined with new friend and colleague Zaf was making progress in the operation and stopping the terrorists from getting their ways.
On this occasion he didn't get the chance to perform counter surveillance, his favourite, or go undercover and adopt a legend. But Adam knew he was equally able at working with his team to stop a bombing campaign. No challenge was too big.
So, when Adam found out that there was a mole, he was thoroughly pissed off.
It hadn't been a coincidence, Carl Mortimer's murder. He and Zaf had nearly been killed by someone who knew about the safe house.
Harry ordered Adam to investigate any of the new faces that they were currently housing, including Zaf. Adam knew it couldn't be him – he was nearly killed – but Harry wanted to be certain. Adam felt horribly guilty having Colin's innovative wonder-jacket inflicted upon his new friend but hoped that Zaf would forgive him later.
Juliet Shaw was prancing about, shaking her curly, shoulder-length hair and throwing back her shoulders, heels clicking, smiling at Harry. Adam had met women like her before – powerful, stern and more appropriately suited for being a Victorian headmistress. She was being particularly vicious to Colin and Adam suspected she might even be playing Harry. Adam kept a stern eye on her and got satisfaction from the fact that Harry was giving her documents labelled as Level 1 but that were actually pieces of low-level intelligence.
Annoyingly, though, she had prised information from Carl Mortimer's widow and led them to his girlfriend, who was associating with Shining Dawn. Juliet Shaw did seem to have her uses.
The next stage had been to pick up the waitress, Natasha Scott, to identify the bomber at the train station. Adam had liked her from the start. Sure, she was drinking away and she was a bit chavvy but she was quite bright and funny and wouldn't stand for shit. And, of course, when Zaf had been almost killed at the warehouse she had helped to save his life.
Adam knew that after the operation was over, he would never see her again. And strangely, the thought saddened him.
They used people so many times that Adam couldn't keep track of names and faces, but Natasha had made some sort of impact on him. Of course, he was professional and calm and collected, but she had just been a good sort of person, which made using her all the more difficult. She wasn't a Cambridge graduate but had a sharp wit and questioned what was right and wrong and made Adam think about his own attitudes.
They had stopped the bombing campaign, the mole Richard Boyd from the Americans was dead and Michael Munroe, Shining Dawn's appalling influencer, wouldn't be seeing any more dawns, shining or otherwise. But reports flooded in after the first bomb that they had detonated and interrupted Danny's funeral. The security services aren't doing enough.
Adam's first defence was to be angered by the news. His entire team had worked mercilessly for days and nights and saved the lives of hundreds of innocents, but the focus was on the one that went wrong. MI5 weren't to know that a bomb was waiting just outside – they can't physically stay on top of everything. Adam felt personally offended at the rumour that MI5 was incompetent when the reporters had no idea what it was really like.
How untimely of the terrorists to start their chaos in the middle of Danny's funeral. The team hadn't even the chance to say goodbye to an officer killed by terrorists before more terrorists were on their tail, wrecking, wrecking everything. Wrecking lives. Wrecking Adam.
Of course, this fear was temporary. Everyone had 'dark days', especially in the Service. Adam had downed several drinks and fell asleep on the sofa with his head resting on Fiona's shoulder.
He had worried about Fi after Danny had died. Adam was doing well at burying his own feelings of guilt about his friend's death, but he powerless and unable to help his own wife – he had been in similar situations before but couldn't pinpoint how she was feeling. Particularly as she was a spy, and so bloody good that Adam admired her and was driven crazy by her and felt as if he couldn't even begin to comprehend her, even though he knew her better than anyone else.
The only thing that Adam could do to crush the doubt was come back ten times stronger. So, he took risks that would give great consequences and put his trust in Zaf entirely after realising he would never be a mole and stopped worrying about Fiona so much because he knew that he would regret not doing everything he could to stop rumours of MI5's inability to defend the country from resurfacing.
No-one knew how far Adam would go to protect his country.