It was a pitch black night with a real dampness hanging in the air as Lucas parked the car in the entrance to a field alongside the small team from CO19. A mile back from where they now stood, an emergency ambulance and two paramedics sat waiting for their call. Without the aid of their night vision glasses, it would have been impossible to see and to make the quick progress that they needed, along what was a very high hedged and narrow lane. There was no other means by which they could reach the front of the house and they had had to gamble that there were no cameras to observe them. Juliet had already attempted to kill Ros in way that was burned into Harry's memory and the thought that she would do the same to Ruth was terrifying him. As he, Lucas and Beth crept ever nearer CO19 fanned out across the fields and were surrounding the house on the other three sides. A message from Tariq had told them that in addition to the front door, there appeared to be a second door to the right hand side of the property and that the only light that was on, was in a room at the back on the first floor. Apart from that they were working blind, with less than fifteen minutes in which to reach the house, gain access without being heard and save Ruth.
During the journey there, Lucas had reiterated what Ros had said that no matter what happened Harry should not get involved until Juliet had been eliminated. It wasn't a large house and the chances were that there was only one staircase which was quite probably narrow. The plan was that he and Beth would approach the room via the stairs whilst the hired help as he called them would gate crash the party via the roof, but only if they got his call. Harry knew it made sense, it was years since he had been an active field operative and he wasn't as fit as he used to be, besides which his desire to save Ruth no matter what the cost was overwhelming and if he ended up getting himself shot in the process, then he'd be no use to her whatsoever.
'Keep you head old man.' Malcolm had said to him as they left, 'we need you both safe when this is over.'
No more holding back, no more denial of his feelings, he was not going to let her down this time he kept telling himself.
Ruth who was now tied to the bedhead with what felt like cable ties had got to the point where any fight that she had once had, was completely gone. She was hypothermic, totally dehydrated and barely conscious. She tried to picture Harry, the one she loved and the one that loved her, not the Harry that Juliet had so cruelly described. She saw his face which lit up when he smiled at her, his eyes that made her heart rate rocket and her speech falter and how it had felt to fall asleep in his arms which by now felt more like a dream than reality. Through the fog that was now enveloping her she watched Juliet appearing to get more and more agitated, until in the background she heard a phone rang and Juliet laugh.
'No surprise there,' she said 'and you're sure he's not coming here?'
'Absolutely, I can see him,' were the last words that Juliet heard, as turning her back on the door she put her hand in her pocket and walked towards Ruth.
Outside on the landing, Lucas and Beth crept ever nearer to the door. Information from CO19 had been relayed to them by Tariq and they now knew the layout of the room. Ruth was lying on a bed against the far wall directly in front of the door. A second person presumably Juliet was pacing the room from left to right, which meant that there was a fair chance that if they could go through the door almost simultaneously, that one or the other of them would be able to get a clear shot. They were now in place and with one minute to go before the five minute to midnight deadline, Lucas nodded to Beth and raised his gun.
At the bottom of the stairs Harry stood waiting, his hands gripping the banisters and his heart hammering in his chest. A huge crash a single shot and then what sounded like breaking glass had him taking the stairs at a run as Juliet fell to the floor at precisely the same moment that Ros and Dimitri reached Connie.
Beth was ringing for the ambulance and Lucas was telling CO19 to stand down, but Harry heard nothing of what was going on in the background. Having frantically cut the cable ties that had been round Ruth's wrists he had rolled her onto her side and was pleading for her to wake up as he cradled her apparently lifeless body in his arms. The thundering of footsteps on the stairs announced the arrival of the paramedics who having bundled Harry out of the way, had in minutes connected Ruth to a drip, an oxygen mask and had double wrapped her in thermal blankets.
'Go,' said Lucas to Harry as Ruth was lifted into the ambulance, 'we'll deal with the rest.'
During the half hour ride to the hospital, Ruth drifted in and out of either consciousness or sleep, Harry didn't know which. Her breathing was slowly becoming less laboured but the colour of her cheeks was still a deathly white.
'Talk to her sir,' said the paramedic sitting next to him as he watched him stroking her hair.
It was a further two days in the critical care unit before Ruth's doctor told Harry that she was out of danger and another two days before he told him that he could take her home. During all that time, apart from going to the hospital canteen for a meal each evening, he had never left her side. Malcolm had been to his house and brought him changes of clothing and a wash bag whilst Beth had brought pyjamas and some toiletries for Ruth. For almost all of that time, firstly with the aid of sedatives and later because of sheer exhaustion, Ruth had slept. It was the best medicine her nurse had told him.
'Why don't you go home sir and get a good night's sleep,' she had suggested on the second evening, but one look at Harry's face had told her she might just as well have asked him to jump off the roof. In the end, she had opened the door to the adjoining room but doubted that he had ever slept there. Every time she had looked in, he was asleep in a chair with his hand in hers and his head resting on her bed.
'Lucky girl,' she said to herself as she wrapped a blanket round him and quietly closed the door.
It was on the fourth morning on the day when Ruth was due to go home, that she woke first. It was still dark outside but in the dim lighting of her room, the face that she had last seen sleeping on a pillow in Harry's bedroom was once again next to hers. He was in a deep and more peaceful sleep than she had ever seen and the feeling of pure joy that flooded through her was overwhelming. It was something that just a few days ago she had imagined would never happen and with the realisation as to how lucky she was, the tears finally fell.
Harry was on compassionate leave Ros told the Home Secretary, when she had arrived at the Home Office to brief him about the Op. They had eliminated two home grown traitors and yes, it had been done very discreetly.
Their colleagues had stayed away other than Beth who had been designated their only visitor. On returning to the grid, never once did she tell them anything other than the fact that Ruth was getting better. The absolute devotion and love for Ruth that she had seen radiating from Harry was theirs and theirs alone and it was not her place to gossip. She had read the file and if these two didn't make it after all that had happened to them then there was absolutely no justice in the world.