A/N: I will confess that a lot of this is a plausible invention of my own so please don't sue any inaccuracies, there's only so much I can verify, if it's ridiculously unrealistic, let me know and I'll change it, otherwise, I hope you've enjoy.

Chapter 3

Postcards and Poetry

"This is a state of the art warship that can be used as anything from a fully armed floating tank to the Ryan Air version of a cruise liner." Harry informed them as a grim, oppressive black ship was displayed on screen for their inspection.

"One I could be sorely tempted to take depending on where this is going." Ros murmured, looking at the bleak boat with mingled curiosity and suspicion.

"One of these is currently sitting, unidentified, within spitting distance of the main Syrian port of Latakia." Harry continued, ignoring the interruption.

"Let me guess, the Syrians have come to the conclusion that it's ours?" Sofia asked, matter-of-factly.

"Correct." Harry said, curtly,

"And they've come to this conclusion because..."

"It is ours." Harry replied bluntly, "Highly classified information by the way." He said, after catching Ruth's widened eye.

"That sentence would be more impressive if you didn't begin every other operation with it." Ros smirked,

"Why is it there?" Lucas asked, trying to get to some sort of point.

"I have no idea." Harry replied flatly, "The government are not being very forthcoming on the subject; I had barely said the words 'ship' and 'Syria' when the Home Secretary palmed me off to the MOD." There was a collective groan around the table at this.

"And you've been on hold to them since..." Sofia grinned, eyebrows raised,

"Friday."

"OK, so, while we don't actually know why it's there, can we assume that the Syrians are having a few guesses of their own, none of which involve the friendly delivery of complimentary tea and scones?" Lucas said pensively,

"Unfortunately. Britain has been receiving threats, direct and indirect, from pro-government groups in Syria since the ship was spotted two days ago, they believe that it's carrying weapons and supplies for the rebel groups based at the port."

"What?" Ruth said, startled, "Britain hasn't taken any stake in this, it's a civil war, it doesn't impact us, only the surrounding Arab nations have become involved so far, the American's haven't even stuck their beaks in this, why do they think we have?" she protested.

"Can you blame them? If we're paranoid what does that make them? They see Western interference everywhere, they'll think we're getting involved because we can, taking matters into our own hands under the protection of supposed anonymity, they've now seen through..." Lucas pointed out softly, "My question is why target Britain directly, surely threats should have been leveled at the ship itself first?"

"Because, to all intents and purposes, that ship is Britain." Harry replied, grimly,

"What do you mean?" Ruth asked, her confusion mirrored in the faces of her colleagues,

"As I said, this is state of the art, modern technology's a wonderful thing, there are a grand total of six crew members on board, as an insurance policy only, everything that happens on there, from what they eat for lunch to where it makes port is controlled remotely from London and the instructions are then sent to the ship. The crew can only take control of the vessel is they are given emergency authorization codes directly from Britain."

"Jesus, it's like a little piece of London broke off and decided to go holidaying in the Mediterranean." Sofia breathed, cottoning on to the implications of this kind of ship.

"If the mountain won't go to Muhammad..." Tariq muttered,

"Then the Syrian extremists must come to London." Ros finished sourly, "Who's bloody brilliant idea was this?" she snarled, "Let's send an unidentified remote-control cargo ship carrying God knows what to a warzone and see how long it takes for them to start sending us their own unidentified cargo in return."

"I don't know who we have to thank for this ingenuity, or how they found out, I just know that we now have to deal with the fallout." Harry sighed, privately agreeing with her.

"I take it this has all been denied, publically and privately?" Lucas asked,

"Publically, a flat no. Privately, it 'hasn't been confirmed'."

"Bloody politicians." Ros and Lucas hissed in unison.

"Is it possible that the MOD's adult version of a ten year old's toy is struggling in the real world, lost touch with us here in London and inadvertently stumbled into Latakia port?" Ruth asked,

"Unlikely."Harry sighed, taking a moment to remind himself why he needed her around to be the voice of optimism in the sea of pessimism his cheery colleagues continually threw him overboard in, "The crew members would have then been given manual control, the electronics and communications are on separate systems. No that ship's there for a reason..."

"Is it vital that we know it?" Tariq asked,

"Maybe, maybe not." Harry shrugged helpfully, "At the minute, I'm leaning towards not, at this moment in time, I don't care whether the entire British Army or the 'Newcastle Knitting Society' is on board, I care about the threats that are being leveled at this country and these security services as a result."

"What?" echoed in chorus around the table at this revelation.

"What did we do?" Sofia demanded, in mock amazement.

"They've decided that we are the font of all knowledge in this country and that our government actually deigns to tell us things that may make our lives easier." Harry replied, grimly,

"Unfortunately, in this instance, we know enough, not enough to know what's going on, but enough to put a target on our backs." Ruth sighed, understanding,

"A target for what exactly?" Sofia asked, "What are they threatening us with specifically?"

"'Specifically', they're not targeting anything." Harry sighed, "That's one of our main concerns, they're targeting 'Britain' which is, unfortunately, rather a large target, effectively, they're threatening to turn almost anywhere in this country into something that resembles a warzone in order to 'make us understand exactly what we are getting ourselves involved in."

"How are they making these threats?" Ros asked, "Do they have a website or are they just sending the Home Secretary 'wish you were here' postcards?"

"They're using the internet, but they're also using intelligence."

"Bad combination for us..." Lucas muttered,

"It's loosely termed Trojan Communication." Harry began, before Tariq interrupted,

"Damn." He breathed, "Very bad for us...As far as I understand it they'll use different sites scattered across the web, bouncing the IP address around the globe every time they post something.'Invitations' are sent out to potentially sympathetic parties, they then 'subscribe' if you like, they're given aunique code to gain access and are sent details of the site the latest message is on, password passwords are given out at the end of the latest instalment;usually each user is given a limited time to access it before it's of whatever they post we can usually get access to but there's never enough for a trace or to know exactly what they're planning...Itake it that all we have some fractions of these messages?" he asked Harry who nodded.

He brought up a grainy video and pressed play, Ruth quietly translated over it, looking repulsed,

"...We slit our throats and watch our enemies drown in the blood of our motherland that they have seen fit to use as their playground. We will take their towns and turn their pretty little English streets into warzones, make them understand exactly what they are getting involved in."

"Charming." Sofia muttered darkly, "They're always so bloody poetic, apparently, 'let's plant bombs in London' just doesn't have the same ring..."

"What about MI-5? What romantic phrases have they invented for us?" Ros asked, grimly,

In response, Harry brought up a second video, again, a blank screen containing only muffled voices and Ruth again consented to softly translate their words,

"Their filthy spies are trying to destroy our beloved government, they think to shock and scare us with their ships and their guns, well, we can shock and we can scare, and we will, we will take their-" she broke off abruptly as the video also cut out

"That's it?" Ros asked, sharply, knowing that it was the next section that would have been crucial.

"That's it, snippets, it was a coincidence that the last one cut out in an appropriate place, that's all we could get from it, the rest of the data was too corrupt to salvage." Harry explained, sighing,

"Have this group identified themselves? Has anyone specifically named themselves and taken credit for this?" Lucas asked.

"Probably, but not as far as our current information goes." Harry replied, "Tariq, I want you to run voice comparisons on the video's audio, I want names, faces, details, if these people have so much as breathed on this country before, I want to know about it."

"How much access do I have?"

"As much as you need. I want the smell of these bastards by lunchtime."

"We're considering them to be an immediate threat?" Sofia asked, quietly, "There hasn't been any British involvement in Syria, or vice versa, throughout this conflict and now you want to go rifling through their underwear drawers because of some vague video clips?" she pointed out, fighting to keep her tone reasonable.

"No, I want to go rifling through their underwear drawers because I think they've already been through ours and I don't want to start whatever this is two steps behind them." He shot back, "They already know too much about this for us not to take these threats seriously, Hell, they knew that damn ship was ours before I did! We cannot, and will not ignore this..."

"Alright." Sofia said quietly, accepting this, "Where do we go from here?"

"You go and visit your new best friend the Home Secretary, squeeze him until he squeaks, we don't have the time and I don't have the patience for you to play houses with him, no niceties, I want to know what he knows, every fiber of my being rejects the idea of having less information relating to our national security than that pretentious oaf."

"Let that be a lesson to you, never disagree with him again..." Ros smirked, conspiratorially across the table at Sofia,

"Noted." She said, looking ecstatic about her 'punishment'.

"Ruth, I need you to look into pro-government, extremist groups currently active in Syria, I'm afraid you'll be spoilt for choice until Tariq can identify the speakers on that video and give you a name but find out what you can, get a feel for them, their policies, loyalties and methods, you know the drill."

Tariq, Ruth and Sofia had all risen and were making tracks, one looking considerably less enthusiastic than the others, when Harry turned to Lucas and Ros,

"We have an asset with strong connections to Syria called Kahlil Attia...Unpredictable springs to mind if I'm going to be delicate, both of you go and meet him, and both of you be careful," He said sternly, eying Lucas, who's shoulder still had stitches from an incident on the last operation, despite Harry's warnings of caution, "Gently, gently with him...I know how you excel at that Rosalind." He said, smirking slightly,

"I think he means you're the muscle on this one." Lucas grinned and Ros gave him a look telling him that, given her way, she would be meeting Attia alone as he would be unfortunately engaged with a coroner.

"Behave." Harry said, rolling his eyes as they began a silent, but good-natured argument as they stood up, "Be back in time for lunch, I want this dealt with quickly and quietly, bring me their heads by the end of the week..."

A/N: Thank-you to all of my readers, in particular my reviewers, if you have a minute I would be grateful for your thoughts.