You guys never fail to brighten up my day, I'm so glad people haven't abandoned this crazy fic haha. Thank you for the wonderful comments. Apologies for not replying to everyone individually; my job has recently been, shall we say, a trifle lively. I hope you enjoy this chapter x

Chapter Ten

Henry thought that the guy was such a… slimeball.

It was a word that Alison might use, one that was very close to Elizabeth's own assessment of slimy, and one that Henry thought was particularly apt to describe Gleb Kodalov, whose face was currently filling the majority of the TV screen as he faced the camera and delivered his address.

The man spoke in Russian that Henry was unable to understand, but he thought from the tone of Kodalov's voice he could just about get the drift. And given the way Elizabeth, who understood more Russian than he did, was standing so tense next to him, quiet fury haloing around her, he guessed that it was about as incendiary as one could expect from a man who had arranged a violent coup, murdered his president and taken his country by force, all timed – coincidentally or not - to coincide with the visit of the US Secretary of State, who was now effectively on the run and trapped in the embassy, caged and cornered.

They should be on their way home and sneaking off to a quiet corner of Elizabeth's plane right about now and putting a do not disturb sign on the cabin door, trying their best to keep the noise down while they found a way to make the overnight flight more fun. Not stuck in Rusapol and startling every time there was a loud noise from outside the building, which was often.

The young Marine Security Guard who Elizabeth had earlier tasked with obtaining the night's duty roster re-entered the room and headed over to them, stopping next to Elizabeth and passing her a paper folder. "Ma'am," he said, "the information you requested."

Elizabeth looked up at him and gave him a grateful nod. "Thank you." She opened the folder while everyone else was distracted by Kodalov on the television, her eyes scanning down the list of names.

The guard caught Henry's eye as he frowned at the television, trying to understand what the slimeball was saying. "He's saying Petria is a great nation that has been on its knees for too long," he translated for Henry. "He says it's unfortunate that President Zembrovko was caught in the crossfire during the attack on the palace, and the people responsible for the sudden violence will be held accountable. In Zembrovko's place he aims to be the strong leader the country needs to restore it to its former glory, that it's a country proud of its heritage and that doesn't need the patronising charity of the United States. And for that reason he's asked Secretary McCord to leave, and he invites all patriotic citizens to come down to the embassy to make sure she goes, willingly or otherwise."

"Damn," Henry said under his breath, casting a glance at Elizabeth, who had her head buried in the folder and gave no outward indication that she had heard what Kodalov said apart from the slightest tic of her jaw that gave away her quiet alarm. His protective instincts ticking over and heading rapidly towards engaging full throttle, Henry said, louder, "He's practically inciting violence against you."

The address came to an end and Kodalov smiled into the camera. He might have been addressing the nation as a whole but to Henry, having witnessed what the man said to Elizabeth in the palace and knowing her history with him and the fact that they were currently quite literally backed into a corner, it felt rather pointed and personal as he fixed his gaze on the camera, like he knew that she was watching. The smile that was supposed to convey benign strength to his people felt predatory to Henry when it was directed at Elizabeth.

Except that she wasn't watching, because she was staring at the folder in her hands, although when Henry looked at her properly it seemed that she wasn't reading whatever it was that was written there but rather was lost in thought and was merely looking in the general direction of the printed list as she turned something over in her head. "Elizabeth?" Henry prompted.

She turned to him then, clutching the folder tight in her hand until it crumpled under her touch. She pressed into his side as she stretched up to whisper into his ear while everyone else was still distracted by Kodalov's address, "I think we have a problem."

"Breaking news."

"What?" Stevie looked up from the stream of concerned text messages she had received from Jareth upon his learning of the situation involving her parents in Petria to find Alison looking earnestly between her and the screen of her laptop.

Alison's brow was creased and was as deadly serious as Stevie had ever seen her when she said, "President Zembrovko is dead."

Dread crept in. "What?" Stevie said again, abandoning her phone where she sat on Alison's bed and swiftly getting up so she could join her younger sister at the desk.

"President Zembrovko is dead," Alison repeated. "And Gleb Kodalov is the new president."

Stevie frowned as she tried to place the name. "The Petrian foreign minister?"

"The slimy one, Mom calls him."

Right, she remembered now. Remembered an evening about a year into her mom's job as Secretary of State when she had come home from the office in a righteous, ranting mood. She had been looking for Henry, but he had been out, and Stevie was the only one in the house and so she had been the one to receive her mother's tirade about how awful the guy was during a video call earlier that day. It had seemed at first like a pretty standard dislike of a pretty standard idiot male politician who didn't like dealing with a woman more powerful than him, which Stevie knew her mother was unfortunately used to dealing with, and she had quite enjoyed listening to her lambast him in a way that suggested that only God could help the man if he ever found himself alone in a room with Elizabeth McCord.

But then after a while the anger had just deflated all of a sudden and she had gone quiet, looking at Stevie with something that she couldn't quite name but that she knew meant her mom was genuinely unsettled by something. She had frowned like she was debating whether or not to say something and then, decision made, she didn't make eye contact with Stevie when she spoke.

"Do you know that thing some guys do when they look at you like…"

She had trailed off without finishing the sentence, perhaps because she caught herself before giving too much away to her daughter, but, Stevie thought, more likely because there were no accurate words to describe it but there was also no need to complete it. She got it.

"Yeah," Stevie answered, curled up on a kitchen chair and watching her mother as she stood in front of the kitchen island, her face as conflicted and open as she'd ever seen it.

Elizabeth nodded and then turned to look at her daughter, softening at the small, understanding smile on the face of her eldest child. "Yeah," she agreed.

She had said nothing else on the subject of Gleb Kodalov, had instead turned the conversation to Stevie's own day, and the guy had never come up again in any talk of her mother's work, but Stevie figured she'd heard all she needed to know about him. "That poor country," she said. "Does it say how Zembrovko died?"

Alison didn't answer, all her attention focused on her laptop screen as she scrolled through the breaking news feed.

Annoyance flared in Stevie at being ignored and she poked her sister's shoulder to try and get her attention. "Hey, Ali."

Downstairs, the front door opened and the heavy footsteps of Jason could be heard in the hall – their brother successfully collected from his friend's house by one of the DS agents. A second, more careful set of footsteps followed him in. "Yo, siblings!" Jason yelled up the stairs. "Blake's here!"

Stevie was just about to leave Alison to commune with the internet in peace and go and see if Blake could give them any useful news when she caught sight of what had captured her sister's attention so completely. Near the top of the breaking news feed, right next to the headline announcing the sudden violent death of President Zembrovko, was a second headline, and it was no doubt that which held Alison frozen.

Kodalov calls time on Secretary of State Elizabeth McCord, invokes Article 9; US embassy surrounded, explosions heard.

And below the headline, a picture of the embassy surrounded by protestors. The camera had managed to capture something of the energy of the crowd – of its fractious mood, as well as a bright orange flash from a point close to the embassy gate, a flash that could only be evidence of one of the mentioned explosions.

Stevie and Alison stared at the headline and the picture below it, unmoving, as though staring at it long enough might make it change, willing the breaking news feed to update with more news, better news. That was how Blake and Jason found them two minutes later when they made their way upstairs, all four of them coming to form a small vigil around the computer in the hope that it would provide something more hopeful – and soon.

It had taken the better part of twenty minutes for Elizabeth to extract herself from the room following the end of Kodalov's address; she had been sucked into a conversation with Helena Garfield and Andreou Flack about the potential for evacuating the embassy in the current climate and what assets they had in the region – dishearteningly, not that many - that they might be able to use. That had been usurped after a while by Matt, happily sporting a clean shirt, telling her that he and Frank and some of the embassy's Marine Security Guards were formulating a plan to find the missing members of their party at the presidential palace – a discussion that Elizabeth was fully behind – and somehow time had got away from her a little.

Through it all, Henry had been sat quietly with the young kid she had trusted to get her the list of names earlier, watching her and waiting patiently while the kid, who was fluent in Russian, re-watched Kodalov's address so he could write down a translation for them.

Eventually, when Frank and a couple of the guards went off to consult a map of Rusapol and try to find the blueprints for the palace, Elizabeth took the opportunity to escape, beckoning Matt to follow her. She went over to where Henry sat with the kid – Corporal Greenwood – and took her husband's hand, giving a slight tug to encourage him to stand. She turned to Corporal Greenwood before leading Henry from the room. "Make sure we're not followed?" she said, tilting her head in the direction of the corner where the ambassador was still speaking with the Regional Security Officer. She looked closely at the kid to make sure he got it.

He did. "Yes, Ma'am."

She gave him a grateful smile and then left the room with Henry at her side and Matt close behind. She led them back upstairs to the chancery's living accommodation, and left Matt stationed outside the door as she tugged Henry with her into their bedroom.

Her husband was watching her intently as she closed the door behind them and flicked on a small lamp to light the space. The sound from the street outside was slightly muted in the room, the location on the inside edge of the building a blessing, but Elizabeth could still clearly hear the noise of the people in the streets and feel the beat of the helicopter flying above. Surely the damn thing had to run out of fuel sometime? She looked down at the paper folder she still held in one hand.

"Babe?" Henry prompted. He took a step towards her so there was no more than a couple of inches between them, and raised one hand to cup her chin in his palm so he could tilt her face up to him. His thumb stroked her jaw softly, reassuringly.

She let herself enjoy the sensation for a moment but then she took a half-step away, causing him to drop his hand. She felt the loss of it, and instantly wanted it back, but she needed to focus. She needed to keep her head in the game, play her role as Secretary of State, and the loving compassion of her husband occasionally made it hard to do that. That didn't mean she didn't need him though. She was pretty sure he was the only thing getting her through, and gave him a look of apology before turning to business. "The protests," she said.

Henry frowned. "What about them?" He glanced towards the source of the noise outside like he thought she was referring to the activity currently going on around them.

She was, but not entirely. "They've been following me around the country since we got here."

"Yeah," he agreed, his voice hard with a protective edge. No doubt it had rattled him to hear about the protests that had plagued her while he had been enjoying the local churches and culture. He always hated it when she got even the slightest bit of negative publicity, sweet man. No doubt watching her being taunted by so many anti-US protestors had been worse for him than it had for her.

"But not just following me," she went on, "pre-empting me. They showed up in places before I got there."

It was obvious that Henry wasn't quite following. "OK…"

"My schedule wasn't published," she explained, willing him to catch on to what she was telling him. "Other than a couple of events specifically for the press, the rest of it was on a need to know basis. Not even Kodalov had a full copy, he only had an incomplete draft." Usually when she travelled abroad, the office of her counterpart in the host country would know her complete schedule for reasons of openness and security, but given her tense relationship with the Petrian foreign minister, she hadn't found it necessary to provide his office with an updated copy of the original draft schedule that had been submitted back when the trip was first being planned.

The wheels in Henry's head were starting to turn. "So that means…"

"The only people who had a full current copy of my schedule were on our side. And only someone with a full copy could have told those protestors exactly where they needed to be and when."

Henry took her arm like he needed the contact, the reassurance of touch at the implications of her words. "You're saying there's a leak," he said, seeking out her gaze and holding it so he could see the certainty in her eyes.

She nodded. "And now there has been a coup."