Four days later.

Ruth had a meeting with the Home Secretary. She had hardly been at work over the past few days. What with visiting Harry and getting on the trail of the shooters, she'd managed to avoid Towers. She knew what had been going on now but she needed to have this conversation with Towers. To confront him.

"Miss Evershed, good to see you." She ignored the obvious lie and sat opposite him. "So what can I do for you? What was so important that I was pulled out of my meeting with the PM?"

"I'd like to know why you've been trying to kill me?" Ruth said bluntly, with a lot more confidence than she felt.

"What?" Towers said in shock. "I haven't been trying to kill you, Miss Evershed, I take that accusation very seriously."

"Yes, well I don't exactly enjoy being shot at either," Ruth replied firmly. She was not going to back down.

"I can assure you, that I did not try to kill you."

"What did you agree to?" Ruth asked ignoring his denial. "What was the price for allowing the Russians to kill me?"

She looked at Towers without flinching. He was filled with rage for several seconds until he deflated almost in front of her. "We need this deal with Russia to go through. Ilya Gavrik found out about Elena and Harry's past. His… price for his co-operation in the partnership was revenge on Harry. He thought it fitting that Harry lost the woman he loved. He wanted to make it personal."

"Is that why you offered me a job in the first place?" Ruth asked, trying to ignore the way her heart skipped a beat when Towers said "loved". "To get me away from Harry's protection. So I'd be an easier target?"

"Among other reasons," Towers said, at least having the grace to look embarrassed. "I did know what Ilya was going to try and do, and I'm sorry."

"But not sorry enough to stop him?" Ruth asked trying to control her anger from showing. "The Russians came incredibly close to killing me and Harry had to have emergency surgery. Its just… its luck that he's still alive."

"It was a price worth paying to get their signatures," Towers said clinically.

"So it was worth having me murdered?" Ruth asked.

"Ruth…"

"Answer the question. Their signatures were worth having me killed?"

"In essence yes," Towers replied.

"You are going to call them off," Ruth said firmly. "You are going to make it crystal clear that I am no longer part of any deal. You are going to personally make sure that neither myself nor Harry are on any Russian hit lists. Or I will make sure that your political career is so far in the gutter that you'll be lucky to get on a village council by the time I'm finished with you."

"You can't do that."

"Oh, I think I can," she said. "Otherwise a tape recording of this meeting will find its way to several national newspapers. Confirming that you were willing to have a member of your staff murdered by a foreign power on British soil. You were perfectly happy to turn a blind eye, as long as you got what you wanted."

"You can't do that," Towers repeated immediately, trying to hide his irritation that she'd caught him on tape. "You signed the official secrets act when you first started to work for Harry. You can't release the tape."

"No, you're right, I can't. But everyone will have a really hard time proving it was from me. I've been doing this for a long time. You'll never prove it was me. Never."

For the first time in her memory Towers was speechless. She tried to hide her smile and was successful. It felt very good to have got one over on him. "I don't care how you do it but I would like to live for a long time yet and I would like to avoid Russian bullets."

"You can see yourself out Miss Evershed," Towers said in a detached voice.

"Oh, by the way I quit," Ruth said as she got up.

"I assumed as much," Towers said before shutting his office door behind her. Ruth breathed out heavily. Even though Dimitri had been listening in and Erin had been watching over her she had been incredibly nervous and anxious about that meeting. Towers wasn't always predictable but that had gone better than she'd thought.

"Ruth, are you okay?" Dimitri said in her ear. From his voice she could tell he'd asked her more than once.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she replied. "Has Erin got a car waiting for me?"

"Yes," Dimitri said. "You were brilliant by the way. I'll see you back on the grid?"

"Not today you won't," Ruth said as she was out on the street. "I'm going to see Harry." Dimitri smiled and put his ear piece down, relieved that their arguments with the Russians seemed to be at an end, at least temporarily.

Please review! One more chapter to go and its all happy fluff on the horizon.