Notes: This story is my first real attempt at a chapter fic, in other words the first where I have actually planned out how I want it to end. This involved a lot of research, particularly Arabic names and meanings. I hope that my information is correct, I apologise if it is not, I am not very well informed on a lot of the subject matter! The story takes place in Series 5, after 5x02 and before 5x05 (preferably with that never happening!).
Disclaimer: I do not own Spooks or any of its characters. Also, apart from Thames House and a couple of other locations, all locations in this story are fictional, any resemblance to real places is entirely coincidental (same goes for people, I guess).
Please review, if you enjoy this story (or if you don't, whatever :)). I've worked for a long time on this and would love to continue, particularly if people enjoy it.
Devastation meets her eyes and, yet again, Jo wonders why she does this job. The sirens and the screams tug at her heart and she stares, immobilised, at the chaos. The shattered glass is something that Jo has seen many times before, and yet it's that she focuses on because she knows if she looks any closer she'll see the true nature of terrorism, a nature soaked in blood. Adam always tells her to detach herself, so that's what she does, her eyes sliding out of focus, chin lowered. In the back of her mind she wonders if she's growing colder, harder. Still she doesn't let the tears fall.
The bomb went off at 11:24 this morning. A small, enclosed space that was packed with people. One kilogram of Semtex. Malcolm had informed her sombrely that no one could have survived an explosion that size. He was now rambling on about complex chemical processes and ratios of casualties per square metre, but Jo wasn't listening. She didn't need to. It might be childish, but to her seeing was still believing. And all she was seeing was death.
Still she doesn't let the tears fall.
--
Jo sits at her desk and stares blankly at the screen. She's been told that there's nothing she can do until the briefing. She feels vaguely put out: Adam and Ros have disappeared, presumably to beat information out of some asset; Harry is at an emergency meeting of the Joint Intelligence Committee; Zaf and Ruth are busy creating a legend for another op, one that she knows nothing about, one that she isn't a part of. Even Malcolm looks busy, sitting at his desk like she is, clicking away ferociously. She wonders why she's never the one doing anything exciting. Why she's always the last one to know.
The pods slide open and Jo comes back to reality, drawn out of her reverie. A flurry of activity erupts around her. Somehow she gets the message. Briefing. Now.
She passes Malcolm's desk as she heads for the meeting room.
Minesweeper Expert Level : 164 seconds : Malcolm
Jo smiles.
--
"All other operations will be put on hold regardless of importance." Harry is tired, and the no-nonsense tone of his voice informs Jo, and everyone else, that these are orders, not suggestions. "If you have loose ends, tie them up in the next few hours, please. Say whatever you have to."
Ruth drags eyes filled with disquiet away from Harry and exchanges a glance with Zaf that is clearly a wordless agreement of his get out clause. Jo feels left out again. She's never had a moment like that. Never been able to communicate without words, without gestures.
"Before we begin I would like to remind you that this is an extremely sensitive time: the terror alert has, understandably, been raised to critical, and there is wide spread panic among the British public. Several of the news stations and websites are near to collapse. Airports and train stations are at a standstill. This is a national emergency. We must remain calm, focused, on task."
"Can we move on now, please?" Ros' eyes roll, she doesn't need to hear this.
Adam stands. Jo gets the feeling that he enjoys these little performances more than he should. There's something in his eyes that betrays his love of performance, of control.
"At 11:24 this morning, a bomb was detonated in Princess Court, Central London. No one has, as yet, claimed responsibility, however, it is unlikely to be the work of a large organisation."
"Could be a splinter group, though." Zaf adds this, somehow managing to not interrupt Adam's flow.
"True. In cases such as these it's normal for someone to claim responsibility. We can therefore expect such a communication in the next few hours."
"We can expect? Do you really think that now is the time to base our operation on an assumption?" Ros always makes comments like this, unhelpful but completely reasonable and utterly necessary.
Harry sighs, "We have so little else to go on that all we have is protocol. Nothing remains of the bomb or indeed the location of the blast. All we have is CCTV footage from the surrounding area, but finding our man in amongst it will be like looking for a needle in a haystack, to use the common phrase." He says this without a glint in his eyes. He has no energy for complex idioms today. "Ruth, Jo, Malcolm, you will trawl through it looking for suspicious activity, matching suspects against our database. Zaf, I believe you have a veritable squad of assets and sources within the extremist community?"
Zaf has no time to say anything. Ruth has, in her own quiet way interrupted. Unusual, Jo thinks. But then this is an unusual day.
"How do we know that the culprits are Muslim extremists? That assumption is made to quickly nowadays."
Jo likes Ruth. She is considerate and gentle, concerned about equality for all people, even terrorists.
Harry grimaces. "We don't know anything. But we have to start somewhere, so we pick the most likely threats, check those out first. If they concede nothing, we'll move on." He clearly feels that this is enough of an answer and turns pointedly back to Zaf.
Zaf inclines his head, "I have a couple of possible leads, yes."
"Good. Adam, Ros, do what you can for now, talk to any sources that might be useful, get on to GCHQ and re-check all the recent chatter."
"And if nothing turns up?" Adam is, for once, uncertain.
"Then all we can hope for is some kind of communication from the perpetrators. And keep the terror alert up, of course."
Harry sighs again. Ruth's eyes flood with concern.
"I have to go. I have a meeting with Juliet."
Half smiles flicker across all the faces in the room before grim reality takes over. This is not the time for smiling.
--
Zaf doesn't enjoy this. He doesn't get his kicks from intimidating assets. He's not sure he'd like himself very much if he did. He picks up his phone and dials a familiar number, fingers flying over the keys without any thought behind the action. This is the most promising asset. The only one that he is hopeful about.
"Ali? Tariq." Zaf speaks as soon as his source picks up the phone. He doesn't stop for confirmation. He has to move quickly. "We need to meet. Today. Now. The usual place. Half an hour."
Zaf ends the call quickly without fuss or flourish. He feels that in these troubled times eloquence can be sacrificed for results.
--
Ros puts down the phone and rubs her temples, shutting her eyes for a moment. Racing against time, gun at her head, 10 seconds until the bomb goes off with only minutes to save the damsel in distress: that's what she likes. Not this monotony, the uncertainty, the inability to help.
Give me something I can fight.
She stalks over to the coffee machine, for her money worth far more than the complicated computer systems and databases, the lasers and tracers and triggers. The bitter, black liquid is all that gets her through the day. Well, that and adrenalin. She slots in the filter, presses the button.
Adam comes up behind her, silently and when he talks it's as if he's expecting her to jump in surprise.
"Bored?"
Ros doesn't move a muscle. Doesn't turn around. She knew he was there.
"Somewhat."
"You know it's likely they'll attack again? Harry doesn't want to say it but it was a small target. Plenty of casualties, superficial damage, yes. But they made no political statement. Their target didn't betray their aims. We may as well be blind."
Ros considers this before replying, a patronising edge in her voice barely showing through.
"We can't always have it easy. If they'd attacked the Houses of Parliament then we would have been sure of their intentions, but they didn't, so we can't be."
Adam selects another filter with precision. The tinge of superiority in her voice does not escaped him, tired as he may be. Not that he minds. In a slightly twisted way he likes it.
"How did this get under our radar? And not just ours, but all intelligence organisations?"
"Unless they're hiding something from us. The Americans, the Russians… I wouldn't put it past them."
"That would be a whole different ball game. Then they'd be keeping it to themselves for their own gain. That never ends well."
The uncomfortable thought hangs oddly in the air between them. Ros dismisses it as something to be considered later. She thinks that right now the most important thing is to make some sense of what they know, rather than what they don't.
--
Harry meets Juliet in a smart government office. They don't meet on the bridge anymore, not by the river. Not when mobility is an issue. He swallows his anger: Juliet was a great agent, she could have been so much more. He swallows again. Anger tastes bitter.
"Do you think they'll attack again?" It's not knowledge she's seeking, it's a test of his methods.
"It's highly likely, but we're still waiting for communication."
"Trawling through footage, documents, records… there's something I don't miss." She sounds confident but her voice almost betrays that actually she misses involvement on an operational level very much.
"It's not exactly thrilling. Still if the alternative is bomb blasts, I'm happy to take paperwork."
A smile passes between them. Harry thinks how different it could have been.
The meeting is short, with no breakthroughs. It doesn't feel like time well spent.
--
Underneath an old overpass, Zaf waits for his asset. It's cold now, and Zaf hopes Ali arrives soon. He has no desire to stay here any longer than is necessary.
Zaf turns slowly, surveying the immediate area: an old housing estate, scarred with graffiti. From behind a pillar his source emerges, navy blue hooded top pulled tight over his head.
"Tariq." He speaks with a low, tired voice. Zaf almost smiles. Clearly the security services are not the only ones who are busy.
"How are you?" Zaf respects the formalities.
"Not great. But that's hardly what you're here to talk about, is it?"
"That depends on whether you're state of mind is caused by anything that I might be interested in."
"And what might that be?"
"A bomb that went off in London this morning. Bomber got in under the radar and hasn't shown any sign or motive or intention, other than a pile of dead people, of course." Zaf doesn't enjoy talking about victims of terrorism in such a cavalier way, but it is what his asset understands.
"So you think that the bomber is home-grown?"
"We are investigating that possibility, yes." Zaf is deliberately vague. He trusts Ali's information, but that's about it.
"I don't know anyone who has been directly involved planning any kind of attack…"
"But?"
"But we have one member, Talal Omar, who has a lot of contact with other groups. He has many friends that we don't know about."
"Anything in particular that links him to the attack?" Zaf wishes Ali would just get to the point.
"He's been making calls to someone and talking about an 'act of great vengeance'."
"Vengeance?"
"There was nothing more specific. He persistently makes these calls, apparently to the same person every time."
"Nothing more?"
"He hasn't had time or opportunity to play a larger role. We are relatively strict as to the activities of members."
"Is leaking information to MI5 a common aim of the group, or is it a perk for senior members only?" Zaf allows himself the joke, he doesn't get the chance very often.
His asset replies only with a sharp look. Understanding that the conversation is over he turns and, always surveying the area, walks off, disappearing behind the concrete, back into his underground world.
--
"This is going to take forever."
Malcolm agrees heartily with this comment. Reams of CCTV footage have arrived to be analysed, with only a small chance that anything good will come of their searching. It daunts him. It wouldn't have daunted Colin.
Colin is a common image in Malcolm's mind these days. He doesn't think that his friend will ever let him be. He's not sure he wants him to. Malcolm wonders sometimes if he idolises Colin. He decides he doesn't care.
Ruth and Jo are buried in their work, and Malcolm turns back to the screen in front of him. The footage flickers, the computer whirring away, checking faces against an enormous list of known terror suspects on the MI5 database.
It's midwinter and dusk is settling in. The greys are becoming darker and the people hurrying past Thames House aren't dawdling in the cold. Malcolm focuses on his work. He thinks that tonight will be another long night.
--
Zaf emerges from the pods, ready to share the sliver of information gleaned from his contact. His mouth opens as his colleagues look round, but a beep from the fax machine interrupts his moment.
Ruth runs to get it and at the look on her face, Zaf sees instantly that she now has more to offer than he does.
"It is a communication from the bomber! Sent via GCHQ."
Harry's face contorts. Zaf guesses that he's torn between relief that they have something to work with and dread of what the message contains, of what it means.
"Five roses torn from the soil, only one can rest with angels. Fear not, the rest will follow. Amira is only the first. Evil is rewarded with like evil, yet in evil you will be redeemed."
Silence follows Ruth's shaky reading of the text. Harry sits down, resting his head in his hands.
"Okay. Go through it again."
--
Ruth taps away at the keyboard, glad to have found some real purpose. She's looking up the name Zaf's contact has given them, Talal Omar. As expected he appears in MI5's database. Nothing stands out, he's a worker bee in a couple of anti-American, anti-western groups, with little involvement in serious criminal activity. Ruth decides that Omar himself is not worth further investigation, but that any and all of his contacts are. She brings up the list of known affiliates and checks the first one. There are over fifty, Omar has worked for plenty of people, and she knows that she'll be here a while. It doesn't bother her. She has always preferred logical, incessant research work to action. She lets other people deal with that. She knows her own strengths.
--
"Surely we should be focusing on the part that threatened five more attacks?" Ros is irritable because they've spent ten minutes discussing Amira, and who or what it might be. "From the tone of the note it seems perfectly obvious that Amira is a person whose death was, for want of a better term, 'avenged' by the attack. Does that not seem probable?"
The gazes that meet hers are ones of silent, disgruntled agreement. Ros smiles on the inside. She likes being right. She also knows why they avoided initially agreeing on the obvious point. They know nothing else about the future attacks; not the times or the places. And she says as much.
"We're hardly better off than we were before, in fact it could be argued that we're worse off. We can be certain that there will be more attacks, but we can't say where or when."
"We're blind and deaf." Adam refers to their conversation from earlier. It doesn't escape Ros' notice.
"Or even who's behind it."
"And dumb." Adam doesn't drop the joke. Ros thinks he should.
"We'll just have to hope Zaf's source leads us somewhere." Jo is always hopeful, the eternal optimist.
"Somewhere other than a morgue." Harry makes an uncharacteristically morbid comment. Ros approves, it's something that she would have liked to have said herself.
--
Malcolm sits beside Ruth and they continue to scroll through Omar's contacts. Zahir Sam. Husam Qasim. Ammar Khalil. Abdul-Hasib Amin.
"We looking for someone who has lost family members, friends, colleagues…" Malcolm trails off with the realisation that most terrorists have lost someone. A little like most intelligence officers. The irony of the similarity is not lost on him.
"Maybe we should be looking for wives, sisters, even daughters. After all the message said five roses, if I'm not wrong that a term more common in the description of women."
Malcolm smiles at Ruth's point, as if trying to imagine a situation in which he might call another man a 'rose'. Malcolm doesn't think he'd go that far.
"The message says that in evil you will be redeemed does that mean he's trying to help us?" Ruth once again displays her ability to search for the best in people.
"I don't think so." Malcolm is less positive. He sees it as more realistic. "The use of will implies force. He is certain that his acts of evil will redeem us, a forced redemption is worth nothing. He's giving us an order."
"That we aren't going to follow?"
"I shouldn't think so. The death of five others, or whatever we've done, does not amount to hundreds of British casualties. His mind is twisted, Ruth. He doesn't really want us to be redeemed, he wants blood." Malcolm wonders where this morose attitude has sprung from. He wishes he could lose it, leave it behind, but after Colin, he's not sure he can.
Ruth remembers Harry's morbid joke from earlier. She thinks that troubled times lead to troubled minds. She hopes they're over soon.
--
Adam watches the television screen and wishes that the spy inside him would let him turn it off. The newsreader is relaying details of the number of casualties and Adam feels sick. Amira must have been special for her death to justify those of countless others. Men, women, children… He feels glad for once that Wes has gone to boarding school. He sometimes regrets the distance between himself and his son. But it's moments like these that lead him to believe that it's for the best. Wes' old school was barely a mile from Princess Court. He hopes that the mile was enough for Wes' classmates.
--
Jo's heart is thumping as she comes across something in the files. Something that after hours of research might actually be useful.
She gets up and crosses the Grid, heading for Adam rather than Ros. She doesn't dislike Ros, secretly she admires her a great deal. She just needs a friendlier face right now.
"Adam?"
Adam looks up, but says nothing.
"I think I might have found something." Again he says nothing, so she continues, trying to sound confident. "This man, Sayyid Hadad, crops up a couple of times in our database, nothing particularly interesting or incriminating, but he also shows up on a couple of websites, both extremist and regular Islamic or Arab sites. He lost all five of his sisters in 2003…" For the first time Jo is cut off by Adam.
"All at once?"
"No. That's what makes him interesting to the Arab press, five women dead in five separate attacks or accidents during the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq."
"Well, that's interesting. We'll have to look into it. Ask Ruth to go through it with you."
He turns back to his desk to continue his own research, but Jo puts out a hand to stop him. She has saved the best for last.
"One of them was called Amira."
--
Harry enjoys the cool breeze on his face as he walks back to Thames House. This meeting with Juliet had been more productive than the last one, for that he was glad.
He feels a little better that progress is finally being made, although he knows that somewhere an unseen clock is ticking, counting down the minutes until the next attack. It could be five, it could be fifty thousand. Harry sighs for the twentieth time, ignorance is never better than knowledge. Never.
Fear not, the rest will follow.