A/N Wow - thank you to everyone who has already put this on their alerts/favourites lists! And to those who reviewed the last chapter - you are all brilliant! :D

Please bear with this chapter - it is mostly scene setting for the next lot of action. Its mostly Becker and Jess again (from Jess's POV) but I hope you enjoy it.

BTW I was re-watching series 3 last night and nearly fell off the sofa during the first telephone call between Lester and Christine Johnson - he tells her he thought she was "running the MI6 station in Jamaica"! What? MI6 back as early as series 3? I needed another rum and coke after that! :D :D :D :D :D

Jessica Parker sat in her big red chair at the ADD, a smooth piece of Galaxy chocolate slowing melting on her tongue. She was running a diagnostic on the new security measures that Lester had insisted upon and Becker had begun implementing over the past few months. Security measures that had something to do with an indiscriminate piece of paper that Lester had waved furiously in Becker's face one day in his office. No-one else knew what the paper contained, but the new security protocols were stringent and far-reaching to the extreme. From motion detectors and CCTV in the ventilation system to additional firewalls across the entire ARC computer systems and finally panic alarms for the core team and all security section leaders, including Lieutenant Carter and Sergeant Collier. The panic alarms were linked to the ADD, setting off an loud intermittent blast when pressed. They were to be kept on the person at all times, on or off duty, and only activated in the event of a dire emergency. The down side was the panic alarms were not as sophisticated as the black boxes; the alarm only indicated an ID tag and not a location, an inherent flaw in Jess's opinion. It was Becker's opinion, however, that they would only ever be needed inside the ARC.

Jess leant back in her chair thinking about Becker and his attempts to re-adjust to normality since the "MI6 Incident", as it was referred to. It had taken a while but he was doing much better now. She smiled as she remembered his volatile first week back. That was when Lester had shown him this now infamous piece of paper and Becker had been as jumpy as hell or, as Sergeant Collier had remarked, like the Devil on speed. The soldiers had borne the brunt of it, being drilled to a permanent state of exhaustion, and then being forced to assist in the repairs to the ARC as Becker was unhappy with the rate of progress. Then Lt Carter and Sgt Collier and the newly promoted Sgt Hicks were forced to memorize blueprints of the ARC ventilation systems and crawl spaces in the hope that, should anything like this ever happen again, "one of them would have the brain power to get out of sight and mount a rescue!" Her smile widened as she remembered Becker's exasperated tirade. Becker had spent many hours berating the security team on their ability to secure the ARC, or lack thereof.

Then there had been Dr Patricia Bedford, the newest member of the ARC staff. For all of a week, anyway. Dr Bedford was a Government psychiatrist brought in at Lester's request to assist Becker's recovery from his trauma. It only served to infuriate the soldier who, in his opinion, only required the services of a shrink when he was, in his own words, "sat in a corner, drooling and muttering gibberish to himself!" However, Lester would brook no argument and Becker was forced to sit in an office with Dr Bedford for an hour a day, reliving his experiences. It all culminated on day seven when Dr Bedford fled the ARC, tears streaming down her face, refusing to ever, EVER come back. Becker sauntered out of the office behind her and watched her exit with an extremely smug smile on his face.

He was ordered into Lester's office with demands to explain just exactly what had transpired during his session with the psychiatrist. Becker had shrugged.

"I just informed her of the hundred different ways I could kill someone with my bare hands and asked if perhaps she would care to be the subject of a short demonstration." Becker had paused then added. "Perhaps I was a little too graphic…"

"Captain Becker!" Lester had shouted. "She was here for your benefit! You should be grateful to accept the help offered to you. Perhaps I should have you committed - your behaviour is positively unhinged!"

"I fail to see how reliving the experience over and over and over again is actually helping!" Becker had snarled back in return.

Lester had run his hand through his hair and sneered at Becker. "Well, I shall just have to get another one," he informed the Captain. "And, this time, you will participate fully until you are given a clean bill of health."

"Over my dead body!" Becker had yelled.

Lester had raised one sardonic eyebrow and muttered, "That can be arranged, Captain - again."

"Fine!" Becker had stormed out of Lester's office, without waiting for a dismissal, marched up to his desk and retrieved his beloved shotgun from the locked drawer on the left. Holding it up above his head and waving it at Lester he strode across the Ops Room declaring "I'm going to have a little fun with your car until you change your mind!"

Becker was already in the lift on his way down to the car park before the words registered with Lester and he had emerged from his office, the tiniest show of panic flickering across his face, muttering "No! Not my Jag!"

Lester had followed Becker down to the car park where he had found the soldier, armed and gun raised, muzzle pointed at the windscreen of the Jaguar.

Lester had stared at his Head of Security impassively and asked:

"And this behaviour is not unhinged because -?"

Becker had looked at his boss, his face sulky and petulant. "I don't need a psychiatrist, Lester!" he had hissed, his teeth grinding together harshly. "I just need to get on with my job!"

Reluctant to let anything happen to his car, Lester acquiesced. He held his hands up and with a flick of his head declared: "Fine! Fine! But you are out of active field duty for at least a month - during which time I want all the security measures in place and functioning."

Becker had lowered his shotgun, accepting Lester's terms. Lester turned to walk back to his office, then paused.

"And if there's even the slightest scratch on my car, I will personally feed you to my mammoth," he remarked dryly and Becker twisted a smile at his boss's retreating back.

Becker had calmed down somewhat since then. But he and Jess had hardly had any alone time at all, in between all the anomalies and new security protocols, hence the very overdue and ill-fated date the other night. And there had been no repeat yet of what had transpired between them in Mrs Becker's orchard, much to Jess's disappointment. Becker had spent every waking moment at the ARC, always working, barely sleeping. Jess had calculated from his logged in hours that he had had no more than two hours sleep per night in the last month. He had turned himself into a machine and she was convinced it was only because he felt he had something to prove. To Lester, to the team, or to his men, Jess wasn't sure. But there was one thing she was sure of - Captain Becker needed to give himself some respite before he burnt himself out.

Her attention was distracted by a bleep from the ADD. Blinking her eyes rapidly to regain her focus, she tapped her keyboard and located the source of the noise. She had programmed the ADD to alert her to news stories regarding New Dawn or Prospero just in case they contained any information useful to the ARC team. She had never received a hit, until now. The presenter of the lunchtime news was reporting on a story relating to Prospero.

"There were reports of a break in at Prospero Industries last night, the offices of the late entrepreneur Philip Burton. The renowned scientist, who died just months before being honoured with a Knighthood by the Queen, was a leader in the field of technological advancement and developed the world's first Room Temperature Superconductor.

A Prospero spokesperson has recently confirmed that the break in did indeed take place but stresses that there was no damage done to any of their instruments nor was anything stolen. He stated the most likely culprits were bored adolescents and that Prospero Industries was continuing its business as normal.

In other news…"

Jess paused the screen and rocked in her chair. What did this mean? Who would break into Prospero? Why did her gut tell her it was important? She didn't have time to dwell on it as the lines of code on her other screen, the security diagnostic, suddenly flashed in the corner of her eye.

"Becker!" she called over her shoulder and the soldier appeared at her side almost instantly having been seated at his desk only a few yards away.

He curled his arm around the back of her chair and leaned his head down level with hers, making her heart flutter at his proximity.

"What do you have, Jess?" he asked in a low voice, glancing at her profile briefly.

"Look at this code," she said, pointing at the endless lines of numbers on her screen.

Becker shook his head, mystified. "In English, Jess," he murmured in her ear, making her shiver.

She focused on the screen instead of him. "There are lines of code missing, Becker. Someone has downloaded these files and deleted others. That's just not possible!" she cried, frustrated.

Becker frowned. Were the new protocols not working? As part of his new security measures, all file downloads were automatically logged by the ADD by user login and terminal location so it could be tracked if necessary. Any unauthorised downloads should have triggered an alarm.

"Why didn't the ADD detect it and alert us at the time?" he demanded.

Jess shook her head. "We've only had time to add the new protocols to the New ARC files. This code is from the old ARC archives." She looked at Becker and he gazed blankly back at her. She sighed. "The files downloaded and deleted are from before the ARC was shut down - before Danny, Abby and Connor were lost in the past -" She stopped, letting her words sink in to the soldier's brain.

"What the hell?" he demanded angrily. "What would anyone want with those?"

Jess shrugged. "I only just caught it because I was running a diagnostic on the archives to check their compatibility with the new security measures. They were next on my list," she added ruefully.

Becker ran his hand through his hair. "Can you tell who downloaded them?" he asked, slowly.

Jess bit her lip. "I can try. I could use some help though." She gazed at the lines and lines of code flashing across the screen and sighed heavily.

Becker tapped his earpiece. "Connor, your assistance is required at the ADD," he stated clearly.

"On my way, mate," came Connor's testy reply. He had also had little sleep over the past few weeks, having been bullied by Becker into testing each new security measure to within an inch of its life to prevent any glitches.

Becker stood upright, his hand still on the back of Jess's chair, staring at the offending screen on the ADD, his brows furrowed. Jess could see his mind working behind his eyes, trying to imagine every possible threat that could be posed by the loss of these files. Then Jess remembered the news report and re-played it for the soldier. He frown deepened, his eyes narrowing under his dark brows, his lips pursed.

"Something's going on here, Jess, and its not good," he muttered and absently pressed a brief kiss to the top of her head.

Jess started in surprise. In all the time he'd been back at the ARC he had never let his affection for her show in the main Ops Room. Despite their closeness since the orchard he had continued to keep her at arms length at work. She turned to look at him but he was already halfway across the room, heading for the armoury.

Commander Fred Thompson had worked at MI6 for ten years. He loved his job and thrived in the high pressured environment. He was patriotic, almost to the extreme, and saw the security services as Britain's first and last line of defence against foreign intrusion. Short and stocky, which led to him often being underestimated by his enemies, he was well respected by his peers and was renowned as a formidable adversary in military intelligence circles. He hated to be bested almost as much as he hated MI6 to be brought into disrepute. As such, Sir John Sawers had personally requested he investigate the Commander Rider - Omar Kabir - Captain Becker triangle and exonerate MI6 from any wrongdoing. However, things had not been going so well. So far it appeared that Commander Rider had indeed been a double agent, working for both MI6 and the terrorist, and had been instrumental in the false allegations against the redoubtable Captain Becker. Rider had also been responsible for the brutal murder of his PA, Penny Harper, an exemplary MI6 employee and former soldier.

Thompson shook his head, ran a frustrated hand through his dark brown hair and leaned back in his chair. He had orchestrated the electronic break ins at both the ARC and Prospero Industries and had been intrigued by the information they had yielded. It was not enough yet to convince Sawers or anyone else that MI6 needed to have a greater role in both of these organisations. He still needed to dig a little deeper.

His reverie was interrupted by one of the technicians from downstairs. He had a small army of technical nerds working on, not only the theft of electronic files, but also a painstaking analysis of the evidence used to release Captain Becker from his incarceration at Paddington Green Police Station. He looked at the young dishevelled man in front of him, not knowing, nor really caring for, his name nor which team of nerds he belonged to.

"What?" Thompson demanded, irritably.

"I've found it, sir!" cried the tech, excitedly. "The proof you were looking for!"

The tech proudly placed a computer printout on the Commander's desk. Thompson regarded it, intrigued. His smile began as a small twitch at the corners of his mouth and ended as a huge grin. This was it, this was the smoking gun. James Lester was finished and the ARC was theirs.

A/N So, what will be Becker's next move? And what is Commander Thompson planning for our darling Lester?

Something bad is coming...(and I hope some reviews are too! Please?) :D :D :D :D :D