Thanks to ButlerSwanBurnett for giving me some answers to questions re the CIA I hadn't even thought about! Forgive my total lack of research as I'm just making the whole thing up in a rather slapdash fashion!
"Tea?"
Margot waited but still no answer was forthcoming.
"Ruth?"
Margot turned away, determining to bring a cup like it or not, Ruth clearly didn't look after herself well enough at the best of times.
There was something strange, distant, even slightly otherworldly about her boss. She shrouded herself in a cloud of privacy but Margot liked her.
She suspected Ruth was lonely. She worked too hard and went home too late but she was brilliant and the Home Secretary clearly thought so … in more ways than one.
When she returned with the two china mugs in hand Ruth had still not moved from the computer.
"Made you one just in case," said Margot, carefully placing down one of the cups having slightly overfilled them.
On the screen she caught a picture of a man she had seen before, a picture she had seen several times on Ruth's terminal, alongside it a search programme was running – a US Security Services search.
"Wanted, is he?"
Ruth glanced up questioningly, looking at Margot.
"Yes," she said eventually, "… he is."
Harry thudded into the wall of the cell.
For the last 48 hours he had been subjected to 'a chat'. That's what his interrogator called it, though there was little chatting and bugger all social niceties. The bruises around his ribs and face attested to that.
When the same questions were asked time after time; when he had reaffirmed for the umpteenth occasion the details of his former connections with Elena and Ilya Gavrik; when the queries had turned from requests to threats and then violence: he thought of her ... Ruth.
He thought of the brightest blue eyes.
He gave himself and the pain over to her. And the man with the indifferent, cold expression had known that he had lost.
'Chat' over.
Ruth's tea was cold and untouched.
Margot sighed as she watched Ruth stride hurriedly towards Towers' office.
The door opened. The Home Secretary was standing by the window studying his growing girth in the reflection of the window.
"Do you ever knock?" he snapped, feeling somewhat embarrassed.
"I've found him," announced Ruth.
Towers did not need to ask who. He knew that she had stayed late every night since Harry had disappeared from Langley. He knew she had searched through every related department in Washington and, god knows how, hacked into Quantico, convinced that he was been held there.
All the expectations he had of Ruth Evershed had been superceded in recent weeks; she was a force; a marvel; a wonder of intelligent, inspirational, intuitive genius. And, he speculated, she was very pleasant to look at.
"He was taken from Quantico six weeks ago by a splinter group from the CIA, charged with covert operations and implicated in the illegal interrogation of political suspects. They're not pursuing the case against Jim Coaver, there's no inquiry, nothing. They're terrorising him. We have to get him back."
The figure at the door leant casually against the frame. He was tall, dark haired, his mirrored shades were hanging from his top jacket pocket, reminding Harry that there was something other than dim, flickering strobes; or blindingly bright artificial tubes: there was daylight out there somewhere, but not for him.
"So many secrets, Harry. You really should have talked to me. I guess our relationship is not so special after all, but don't worry I know several people who are just dying to chat with you."
"I'll look forward to it," said Harry with a forced smile.
"Or rather you'll be dying to talk to them," he grinned and turned away, "You have a nice day, now."
The door banged closed.
Harry leant his head against the wall. He didn't really care anymore. He didn't care if they pushed it too far, if he drove them too far, if one day after all the abuse and pain he just never came round.
He thought of the beach, of the tears welling in her eyes and the sound of her sobs as he walked away.