A/N - Sincerest thanks to all of you who continue to read this little fic and to those of you who have taken the time to review. Last time round, I forgot to thank the lovely transmissonends64 for sharing a few tidbits from Harry's Diary that I used in the previous chapter. I think after the next chapter I may bump the rating up just to be on the safe side. Hope you find more to enjoy. Cheers!
The tide of the Grid flowed around him, a constant stream of activity, moving on its own course, stopping for no one. One day in the future, someone else would stand in his spot, issuing commands, barking orders, paying the price for decisions made. Every act destined to be repeated in the great echo chamber of time even as his own life was a succession of reoccurring events. Mistakes made, lessons learned, colleagues lost. His eyes landed on Ros' desk, still standing stubbornly vacant. He looked away from it, unwilling to fall under its shadow. As he turned around, his eyes alighted on Ruth's empty chair and before he could stop it, a wave of painful memory surged inside him. It had all happened before, she had left him, and he had stood alone, everything in his world carrying on without her. The entire room was awash in loss and his failings. He was fast coming to the conclusion that it was time for him to leave. His hands were dirty, his instincts shot, and he was left immobilised by his inability to replace Ros.
He rubbed his brow. He needed to pull himself together. He still had Ruth, she had not left him again; she was merely on an operation. She would be back by evening. She was safe, no harm would befall her. He needed to focus on the present. He walked over to the bank of monitors where Tariq sat.
"Has she arrived?"
Tariq turned to the monitors displaying the CCTV coverage in front of Romaldi's office tower. "It's only eight-forty. She's not due in until nine. I'll let you know when she arrives."
"I'll wait."
Tariq shrugged his shoulders and turned around to the other monitors, checking the feeds for Lawrence's service, leaving Harry to stare fixedly at the screen.
It's wasn't too late; he could pull her out and cancel the operation. He closed his eyes trying to discern what his gut was telling him. He didn't know all the facts, wasn't familiar enough with the players. He would have to trust the legend they had created and her own ingenuity should any crisis arise. He opened his eyes in time to see a small dark figure enter from the corner of the screen. Ruth split off from the main crowd and then moved up the steps of the office building. A second camera showed her at a closer angle. She looked down, searching through her bag and bumped into a man. He grabbed her arm to stop her from falling. Harry held his breath. They stood talking, Ruth smiling up into the man's face, giving a nervous laugh, her hand touching his arm. Was she flirting? After a brief conversation, they moved to the entrance of the building, the man holding the door open for Ruth as she entered.
"She's in," Tariq commented, having silently watched along with Harry
"Your powers of observation are second only to your skills in maths." Harry motioned to the monitor. "Find out who that man was."
"There's nothing we can do now till she leaves at five," Tariq advised as he isolated the frame and dumped the image of the unknown man into the facial recognition software.
Harry nodded. "What's her get out clause?"
"Sick mother."
"Does she have a mobile?"
"The mother?" Tariq asked.
Harry pursed his lips and gave Tariq a withering look. "No. Ruth."
"Outside devices won't work in the building." Tariq continued to type, his attention only half on Harry.
"Then how will we know if she needs to get out?"
"She should have access to their landlines." Tariq gave the keyboard one final tap. "The man is Vincent Leslie. Forty-three. Works in Romaldi's IT department."
Harry had no idea what to do with the information but he was glad that he had it.
"You let me know if anything happens. Anything."
He retired to his office, hoping to muster sufficient intestinal fortitude to spend an afternoon in the company of those he usually did his best to avoid. As he sat in his chair, he looked out onto the Grid, Ruth's empty chair once again falling within his eye line. He tried to ignore the nagging seed of worry taking root in his stomach.
...
The church, a sanctuary to him only the day before, was now claustrophobic and stiflingly hot. Intermittent coughs punctuated the air along with the faint rustling of paper; members of the congregation using the order of service as makeshift fans. Harry rested his elbow on his knee, holding his head in his hand, half-listening to a droning voice recite a prayer, invoking his own plea that the day would pass without incident. The crowd sat up en masse and his head lifted with the others. He looked out over a sea of dark suits, ties of red and blue, his black, the one he always used for these occasions.
The church overflowed with bureaucratic well-wishers, attending either out of duty, or influence, or political motivation. Did any of them really know Andrew Lawrence the man? He shifted in his seat, the hardness of the pew as unrelenting as his thoughts. Would it be like this at his funeral? Who would truly mourn him? Jane? His children? Ruth? His eyes roamed over the congregation noting how many Members of Parliament sat alongside their wives, partnered off in their complacent lives. Where was his partner? She should be there with him, sitting by his weight of loneliness pressed down on him. His eyes rose to the stained glass window high above the altar, and he stared at it, trying to conjure up the sense of peace he had felt the day before. It eluded him.
The congregation stood in a sea of uneven waves, voices raised in a hymn, their singing like the cawing of gulls. He spotted Stanhope standing next to Clarence Bancroft. He casually glanced back to see Romaldi a few pews behind. He took solace in the fact that Romaldi was not in his office today. The hymn concluded, Harry having barely paid attention to the proceedings and they all sat once more. He patted the mobile in his pocket, reassuring himself that it was there. He was not on comms, his phone was set to vibrate. He was in limbo between two operations, dependent on others for information.
He sat back, resigning himself to the discomfort of the pew and closed his eyes, letting his mind wander to thoughts of Ruth. What was she doing now? Sitting at a desk pushing papers he hoped. Unbeckoned, an image arose in his mind of her on a desk, of papers falling off and, in that most sacred of places, he let his mind wander to the profane. What did it matter, his soul was already a lost. He imagined her lips, her hair, the column of her throat. Illicit thoughts that he had entertained about her from years past, so long packed up and locked away, spilled out, rising to the surface of his consciousness. In that long ago time, he had taken every day with her for granted. Was he braver now? He sighed. Not even St. George could slay the dragon of combined misery stood between them.
The service ended and the congregation stood, the event transitioning into a modem for political hobnobbing with the obligatory exchange of greetings and pumping of hands. The crowd moved slowly towards the doors and he found himself deposited in the sunlight standing alongside Richard Dolby. They stood as everyone else did, exchanging pleasantries, surveying the crowd, assessing the conversational value of the assembled personage. Harry immediately reached for his mobile, checking the screen and flicking through messages. Nothing. Dolby tapped Harry with his elbow. Harry looked up as Miles Stanhope and another man approached them.
"All's well then?" Stanhope asked.
"Everything's in order," Dolby responded obligingly, far better at politicking than Harry could ever be. He motioned to the man who stood beside Stanhope. "Harry, you know Clarence Bancroft."
"Indeed, we have passed in the halls many times," Harry responded keeping his tone neutral.
"Both Whitehall and concert," Bancroft said, giving Harry a friendly nod. "Missed you at the last performance."
"Someone has to look after the shop." He looked at Bancroft speculatively, watching for any signs of duplicity.
Bancroft looked around with a patrician air of detachment. "These things are always tedious, aren't they?"
Harry gave him a blank look. "Honouring a life given in the name of one's country is never tedious."
Dolby cleared his throat and looked away, suppressing a smile. Stanhope once again looked like he was in the middle of a minefield. Bancroft eyed Harry warily, his posture stiffening, at tight smile stretching across his face.
"Sorry to hear about your officer," said Bancroft, attempting to regain ground. "I hear she was remarkable."
"She was." He gave Bancroft nothing else. Let him stew in his tactless comment, a politician should know better.
"Ah look it's... if you'll excuse me." Bancroft walked away, forgoing all diplomacy in the situation, leaving Stanhope to trail behind him.
"Always winning friends and influencing people, aren't we Harry?" Dolby tilted his head, his voice lowered to a conspiratorial volume. "He's angling for Secretary."
"I know."
"You don't sound impressed. Something you care to share?"
"Not at the moment."
"We need to discuss your last report. There are a few irregularities, to say the least." Dolby pulled out his phone and scrolled through his calendar. "Tomorrow at three?" He raised an eyebrow at Harry.
"Should I bring the guillotine?"
"Nothing so drastic, the fruits of the operation did outweigh the loss."
Harry quickly looked away, his throat constricting. Is that what Ros had been reduced to, an operational loss? Before he could school Dolby on exactly how great a loss Ros was to the Service, the dark head of Lucas emerged above the crowd. The agent caught Harry's eye.
"I have to speak to one of my officers," Harry said, extracting himself from the conversation.
"And we need to talk about a new Section Chief," Dolby called out after Harry's retreating back.
Harry continued over to Lucas, ignoring Dolby's last comment. He spoke to his agent while keeping a look out over the crowd.
"All good?"
"Very quiet," Lucas assured him.
"Ruth?"
"Haven't heard anything. I wouldn't take that as a bad sign."
Harry reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his phone once again. If she were in trouble she wouldn't call him, she would contact the Grid. A tendril of worry grew inside of him, refusing to be choked off by any rational thought.
...
He sat at his desk, fingers tapping the laminated wood, doing his best not to look at his watch for the twentieth time. It was past seven. She was late. Tariq had combed through the CCTV in front of the building to no avail. She had not left the office tower. Her mobile had gone unanswered. There were no sign that she had successfully uploaded the USB containing the virus to Romaldi's severs. He should have listened to his instinct. It was a mistake to send her. The ticking of his watch grew louder, winding his apprehension tighter, each passing minute adding fuel to his anger. He had already yelled a Lucas and torn a strip of Tariq, everyone else had the sense to flee when they saw him.
Tariq poked his head around the doorway of Harry's office. "She's here." He barely paused before he was out again.
Harry closed his eyes and let out a long sigh of relief. He quickly rose from his seat and followed the young man to the briefing room. Striding into the room, he found Ruth calmly sitting in a chair, Lucas at her side, leaning against the table. He wanted to simultaneously hug her to his chest and punish her for putting him through such worry. He came to a stop and stood before her, all politeness pushed aside.
"What hell happened?"
"Nothing. I'm fine, everything is all right."
Ruth looked at him, eyes bright, her whole demeanour exuding the glow of a race well run and finished. He knew that look. Adrenaline.
"There was a bit of a hitch," said Lucas
"The USB stick didn't work." Ruth held up the ring.
"So this was all for naught." Harry crossed his arms, finding no satisfaction in being proved right.
"No, I figured out a way in."
Tariq reached over to Ruth and took the ring from her hand. Harry quelled the urge to snatch it back from him, using every ounce of his reserve to dampen the anger that was rising inside him. He had placed it on her finger the day before but the sentiment had obviously meant nothing to her evidenced by the cavalier way she handed over. She carried on.
"After what I thought was a suitable amount of time, I plugged in the USB stick, but the system wouldn't recognise it. I realised that they had disabled any external drives. I sat for a while staring at my screen and then I did everything I could to get myself locked out of them system. When I did, I called Vincent."
"The IT fellow," Harry said, his voice laced with suspicion.
"How did you know?"
"We saw you run into him," Tariq volunteered.
"Yes, well, that was fortuitous as he gave me his card and said to ring him if I needed any help with my system."
"Haven't heard that line before," Lucas commented wryly.
Harry flashed him a look and turned back to Ruth. "Go on."
"So he when arrived at my workstation, I suggested that he might need to reset the BIOS, hoping that I could get his password.
"Good move." Tariq nodded at her in appreciation.
"It didn't work. But I noticed that he had a little flash drive on his keychain. We were chatting and I said I was recently divorced and hadn't gotten out much, he asked if I'd like to go for a drink after work and I said yes and that's why I'm late."
"You should have phoned us," Lucas reprimanded.
"The bar was part of the complex and I couldn't get my phone to work."
Harry looked at her incredulously. "You went for a drink?" The calmness of his words masked his growing anger, dangerously straining at rivets of his control. Any thought of worry completely forgotten.
"And I got this." She pulled out a flash drive, holding it aloft with the thieving pride of Prometheus. "I lifted it from his keychain."
"What is it?" asked Lucas.
"I have no idea but I thought it might help us."
"Brilliant." Tariq snatched up the flash drive and ran out of the room, Lucas following hot on his heels. Ruth rose from her chair and took a step to join them.
"Do you realise how dangerous that was?" His voice was deceptively calm, his words halting her in her tracks.
"It was a risk, I know-" Ruth stammered.
"You went off piste." He moved towards her and she stepped back, coming up against the table.
"It's not as if any lives weren't at stake."
"Yours was."
"Not every operation ends in death, Harry."
"They know who you are!" His palm slapped down on the table with a furious crash, barely missing her arm, causing her to flinch.
"I don't know why you're upset. I'm here, aren't I?" The injustice of his anger overrode her fear of him and her voice rose defensively. "How about 'Job well done, Ruth'?"
"You know nothing about that man." He brought his face closer to hers, the tendons in his neck straining as he fought to reign in his anger.
"He was just a lonely man from the systems department." She drew herself up to her full height, her tone matching his.
"For Christ sake, Ruth, so was Andrew Forestal!" His anger picked up speed, swirling like a funnel cloud. "We know how these people work. They will stop at nothing. They took Ros and I'll be damned if I lose you too!"
The force of his words stirred the strands of hair at her temple. She looked back at him, eyes shining with defiance, her skin flushed from the heady rush of adrenaline, more alive and beautiful than he had seen her in the entire time she had been back. He knew that feeling of invincibility, dancing with danger and coming away unscathed. Her chest heaved with an anger of her own, the movement catching his eyes, drawing his gaze down to her breasts. He shifted toward her and whether by accident or intent, his thigh brushed against hers, the sound of her breath sharp in his ears . He dragged his gaze back up to her mouth, her lips parting as her tongue flicked out over them, his own mouth becoming dry in response. He slowly raised his eyes to hers. The blue of her irises lost in the blackness of her pupils, full of a hunger as deep as his own. His flesh pulsed electric, nerve endings tingling with triumph. He could not help a sly smile from pulling at his lips. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. There was no denying it. He wanted to take advantage of it, be alive with her, push her back onto the table, and release his anger into her.
"Harry."
Her voice was soft and low, cautioning him, pulling him back from the edge of his anger fueled lust. He blinked. He took a deep breath and then another, the dark intensity of his emotions slowly dissipating.
"Who would I have left? Who would stand beside me?" The words rose up from the cavern of emptiness that he had carried with him since sitting in the church.
"I'm sorry Harry, I didn't mean to..." Her words trailed off and she leaned back against the table for support.
He took a step back and her eyes followed him, her face mirroring his own sense of suspended shock. This was nothing like the seductive pull he had felt in the kitchenette the previous day; this was a hunger far more raw and urgent. They stood as if they had narrowly avoided a crash, acutely aware that they had pushed up against a dangerous line. He moved his shoulders under the weight of his jacket, tilting his chin at the tightness of his collar. He had said too much, revealed his weakness. One by one, the shutters came down; emotions locked away, desires contained, his expression coming to rest in stern command.
"You should go home you've had a long day."
She silently bobbed her head in acquiescence, her former fire now doused. She pushed herself away from the table, giving him a wide berth as she walked toward the door. He spoke before she left.
"Ruth."
She turned back to him.
"Job well done."
"Thank you."
She stood in the doorway, unable to subdue the rise and fall of her chest, the after effects of the encounter still evident. Against his better judgement, he met her eyes. Even at a distance, the current they had created still ran between them, pulsing with a life of its own. For him, tomorrow evening could not come soon enough.
