SPOILERS: New characters announced by Kudos for series 10 are included in this story. The plot isn't speculative, but it does refer to teaser information in the same press release.

WARNING: The occasional swear word. Geography. Anti-everybody.

SUMMARY: You can kick a spy out into the cold, but that doesn't mean he'll be going all by himself. This is also a farcical description of the reasons why 'Let's get married today!' doesn't happen in Little Britain.

And I forgot the disclaimer in the first chapter. Oops.

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'They haven't officially sacked me yet. Dicky says they'll do it on Friday morning. The chairman of the JIC and the head of Legal will be there too, to dot the i's and all that.'

'What then?' Malcolm asked, prodding the potatoes with a fork to check they were done before taking them off the hob and pouring them into a colander with steamy panache.

Harry barely paused in the process of dishing up sausages. 'I don't know.'

'Yesterday, you spent three hours closeted in my office with the Director General of MI5, and came out with a smirk on your face. Of course you bloody know.'

'You're calling him Dicky. Not Sir Richard or That Complete Dickhead,' Ruth piped up. 'And you didn't mention meeting him here to me.'

She was sitting at the kitchen table with a large glass of red having been told by the men that they were perfectly capable of managing sausage and mash between them. Harry put the grill pan down on the draining board and gave her a look.

'I must have been distracted,' he said.

Ruth smiled beatifically. 'But you're not now,' she pointed out.

The look grew sultry. 'Oh, really?'

'Yes, really. You and I both know that you'd flirt with Osama bin Laden if it suited your purpose. Stop trying to distract me and start talking.'

'You're seriously suggesting that I only flirt with you to divert your attention?'

'No. I'm saying you don't usually do it in front of poor Malcolm.'

Harry sat down next to her and leant close. 'What will I have to do in front of poor Malcolm to convince you otherwise?'

Malcolm blushed wildly and pointed the potato masher at them. 'I'm going to mash loudly. When I turn around, you're going to be behaving yourselves and ready to talk,' he said sternly.

It turned out that Harry had a mission. Over dinner, he explained that it was an ultra clandestine, strictly off the books trip to Russia. If he completed his task, all would be forgiven and he would still have a job and a pension. If he got caught, he was on his own and there would be no one trying to rescue him from Lubyanka.

'Yes there bloody would,' said Ruth.

'Well anyway, the fact of the matter is that Russian relations with the Middle East are comparatively good compared to our own, and much better than America's.'

'That's not hard,' said Malcolm.

'It's remarkable if you think about it. Historically, the USSR sided with the east against the west. But the Russian Federation manufacture arms with Israel and recognise Hammas. They fight Muslims in Chechnya but strike deals with countries all over the Arab world. They build a nuclear power plant in Iran but get cold feet when it comes to providing missiles.'

Malcolm finished cutting his sausages into precise one centimetre lengths and looked up. 'You make them sound open-minded in a ruthless sort of way.'

'Or simply less bothered,' said Ruth.

'Exactly. Russia will deal with anyone if it's good for Russia, and if you weren't part of the Soviet Union, it won't try to influence your religion or your politics. America will do business, but it interferes more.'

'So where do you come in?'

'There's trouble brewing all around the southern half of the Mediterranean. MI6 have an analyst who's predicting regime change in multiple nation states within the next year. Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Libya, maybe Morocco, maybe even Jordan and Bahrain. The UAE and Saudi Arabia will hate it. Oil prices will keep on rising.'

'Jesus Christ,' Ruth muttered.

'Or not. The CIA are worried that toppled dictators with strong ties to the west will be replaced with democratically elected conservative Muslim governments.'

Malcolm sighed. 'They won't like that.'

'No, they won't. I shouldn't think Greece, Italy, France and Spain will be cheering either. Especially not with a global recession and a lot of angry unemployed people looking for someone nearby to blame.'

Ruth grimaced. 'But the EU have to deal with whoever emerges.'

'Or watch America get even more aggressive on our doorstep.'

'Or use Russia as a middle-man with the Middle East, and try to keep things civil,' Harry said, frowning into his wineglass.

Malcolm pursed his lips. 'We cosy up to both sides, and keep buying the oil regardless of the winner?'

'Regnum defende,' Ruth quoted wryly.

'Anything is better than east meets west in a major conflict that can't decide if it's about oil, religion or freedom,' Harry pointed out. 'Who would have the moral high ground in that one?'

'Nobody,' Malcolm replied glumly.

'Who do you have to convince in Russia?' Ruth asked.

'Someone who can convince the Prime Minister.'

Malcolm carefully swallowed his last green bean and prepared to attack his mashed potato. 'Do you really think the suggestion of a member of the British Security Service is going to go down well with this particular Russian Prime Minister?'

'No. Which is why I can't get caught.'

'What's your cover?'

'Ex-MI5 officer embarks on a tour of all the places he couldn't visit while he was working.'

Ruth looked horrified. 'That's pathetic!'

'No it isn't. I took Catherine to see the Berlin Wall come down, but I still couldn't cross the border in case I was nabbed by the Stasi. I've never been to Sofia, or Prague, or St Petersburg, or Warsaw.'

'I notice Moscow isn't on that list.'

'It is as far as the Russians are concerned. Except for a very select group of people.'

Malcolm's eyebrows shot up. 'Sugarhorse!'

Ruth's face took on her default expression of worry. 'Jo made sure I read all the files when I came back,' she explained. 'Are you sure your Sugarhorse agents haven't been compromised?'

'Our old Director General was aware of the operation, but the only people who knew the identities of the western sympathisers we recruited were me, Dicky and Hugo Prince. We split the assets, and everything to do with their handling, equally between us. Nobody had the full list. When Hugo died in 2003, Dicky and I shared his agents by simply deleting the existing computer records and doling out the paper files between us, face-down. But Connie James accessed those hard copies just before we got to them. She passed on the information to the FSB, who chose not to act on it until 2008, when America announced that they were going to build a nuclear defence base on the border of Poland and Belarus.'

Malcolm nodded, remembering the crisis. 'And then they started killing Hugo Prince's assets, forcing us to tell the Americans that our Russian nuclear intelligence was probably dodgy, and they should back down.'

'They suspected you of being a traitor!' Ruth exclaimed. 'The idiots!'

Harry's answering smile was a scorcher. 'Hugo's assets were leaked by Connie. But not mine, and not Dicky's.'

'While they were interrogating you, Sir Richard went through all his names with the Home Secretary, Nicholas Blake,' Ruth reminded him.

'Yes, Blake informed me at the time. The little shit even had the audacity to tell me that he was ashamed of me.'

'Little shit?' Malcolm enquired.

'Treasonous, treacherous, gigantic turd,' Ruth said tightly.

'Crikey. Did he really die of a heart attack after he was sacked?'

Harry met Ruth's eyes again and swallowed a mouthful of dinner. 'No.'

'We should assume that Sir Richard's Sugarhorse agents are compromised too,' she suggested gently.

'Which just leaves mine.'

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