Chapter 10
The Stranger
Harry leaned across the desk and put the incoming call on speaker. They all waited, allowing their unknown guest to speak first,
"MI-5 I presume?"
"Congratulations. You'll receive your prize within the next twelve working days." Harry snarled, "Who am I speaking with?"
"Well that's a little unfair don't you think Mr. Pearce? I've gone to so much effort learning your names, it seems wrong to just give you mine...Besides, it is not important."
"It may interest you to know that I take no small comfort in knowing that when I have your name, I will have you, something I can assure you, you will take no pleasure in."
"Threats Mr. Pearce?"
"Well they're not prayers for your good health." Ros retorted,
"The lovely Ms Myers I take it?" the voice replied smoothly, "There was no concern or surprise intended, I am merely disappointed. Frankly I had expected better."
"Frankly you should have expected nothing else. You have taken and tortured two of my best officers; you'll forgive me if I'm not in the mood for responding in Shakespearian verse..."
"Well I'm not entirely sure that's accurate Mr. Pearce. I wouldn't say that two of your officers had been tortured under my care. In my honest opinion, I rather think that the charming Miss Evershed is enjoying having the chance to take a little revenge on dear Lucas." Came the silky reply, perfectly pitched with blissful ease.
"Why have you contacted us in this way now?" Sofia asked, quickly intervening in the conversation before Harry launched a violent verbal assault on every man, woman and child in Syria.
"Ah, Miss Sofia, lovely of you to join us. Do tell me, how are you after your recent, very unpleasant dealings with that rather unsavoury Russian?"
"Well since my well-being concerns you so, you may take pleasure in knowing that this phone call, lasting all of about three minutes, has given me more reason to bleach my skin clean than several hours and unpleasant dealings with said unsavoury Russian. So please, do tell, why are you inflicting yourself upon us now?"
"I think that says a little more about you and the quality of service one can expect from the average MI-5 slut than it does about me." He replied in honeyed tones.
Sofia blanched but a small smile curved her lip. They finally had an adversary, a direct opponent, nameless and faceless opponent, but an opponent nonetheless.
Under cover of Sofia's verbal sparring with their caller, Ros leaned towards Tariq and murmured,
"Can you trace this?"
"I can try...It'd be hard enough with a disposable but you can bet he's bouncing the signal around. Still, if you can all avoid insulting him to such an extent that he hangs up in order to plot your gruesome demise for long enough, I think I can get him. "
"Well in that case, I'll do my very best."
Their unknown antagonist on the other end of the line had now seen fit to answer Sofia's question saying, calmly,
"Well, for all the pleasure I've taken in watching you all running around like headless chickens, I thought it only fair to tell you why you were doing so."
"How kind of you." Harry sneered, "If you're planning on telling me at any point in the near future, get on with it, if not, stop wasting my time."
"Which would be otherwise spent how exactly? In your darkened office with a bottle of whiskey and no leads on anything?" came the mocking reply.
"Time well spent in comparison to this." Harry shot back,
"Very well, very well...As you all know there is an unidentified warship floating in the port of Latakia."
"Yes, we do, although I think warship is a slight exaggeration, we know it as a cautious cargo ship." Ros replied evenly.
"You can dress it up in any way you want Ms Myers, the fact is it's there and we do not know why...Have you managed to come up with an answer for that yet?"
"Whether we have or not, I'm sure it doesn't matter, you already have an answer that serves your interests for the moment I presume?" Harry said, evasively,
"Quite." Was the smug reply, "As far as our intelligence goes, we have reason to believe that the ship is anonymously sponsoring the rebels known to be operating in and around Latakia."
"Your intelligence is quite clearly questionable in that case." Ros said, icily,
"Why would Britain have any interest in showing support for one side over the other, this is a civil war, nothing to do with us." Harry added, flatly,
"Again I'm disappointed in your lack of imagination Mr. Pearce. And as for it having nothing to do with you, when has that ever stopped your country in the past?" he sneered, "And as for reason, it, as it so often does these days, is fuelled by money. None of the Western nations have taken a stake in the outcome of this war, as you so rightly pointed out; they apparently have no reason to. However, I'm sure that, even if you have not seen it, members of your ever-interfering government will have; that Syria could be a potentially very lucrative investment option for you. If you were to be the first to begin building bridges and broker an agreement with the aspiring rulers of Syria, help them to achieve their ends, well than I can only imagine the kind of rewards that your country may reap from that..."
"Did he just suggest that our government is having an illicit affair with the Syrians?" Ros hissed as they all digested this,
"I think he suggested they've eloped..." Sofia muttered back in response.
"You have a rather high opinion of yourself and your country if you believe that Britain would risk countless existing and enduring alliances and agreements in order to bend itself to your will."
"I think the problem here Mr. Pearce is not my opinions but yours. It is not high enough. Underestimation is a criminal flaw in our business and is most likely to have many people killed and your illustrious career crucified."
"As you will soon find out, my underestimation of my enemies is not a sin that has jeopardised my 'illustrious' career, and it has been made so by catching ignorant, arrogant little bastards like you when they think that they are big enough and clever enough to play games in the real world."
"I know that I am big and clever enough to play these games Mr. Pearce, and probably to win, you are the one who has been labouring along in a fantasy world for too long. As you will soon find out, if you know what buttons to push and exactly how to do so, then there isn't a country or a person in this world that won't bend to my will. You will find that what I do next will make your pathetic little country forget about your 'agreements' and your scraps of paper."
"Britain has been to war over a scrap of paper in the past." Harry murmured, quietly, Tariq's continual tapping, ferociously on the keys providing a soundtrack to their conversation.
"And it will do so again, over much the same thing...I have more than enough to target you now. I know that that ship is British; however you try to deny it. I know details of its crew members, right down to what they eat for lunch. I know that said 'cautious cargo ship' is too heavily armed for a casual jaunt in the Mediterranean and that it picked up additional arms a few days before docking in port from an unknown source. I know that it has been authorised, by your people in London, to respond to Syria with deadly force if it feels 'threatened', I can only imagine what your government is attempting to cover up by putting that out there already, when we have barely breathed upon your navy's new toy. The only thing I do not know are the ship's intentions, something I don't need to know to feel justified in asking for what I want."
"And what exactly do you want. For all your poetic talk we still don't know what you bloody well want." Sofia snapped, "You have said much while saying nothing at all, so enough with the nuclear Shakespeare speak and tell us something that belongs in the real world."
"You want to live in the real world? The real world is an ugly place Sofia; in the real world I am going to torture and kill your friends and I'm going to torture and kill random members of the public until you give me the authorisation codes for that ship."
"That's what you want? Sofia asked, incredulously,
"Little extreme don't you think? Wouldn't it be easier to leave a polite note under the window asking for it to be parked elsewhere?"Ros enquired mildly.
"Perhaps, but that would rely on my trusting of your government to keep to its word, something that I don't. I have no guarantee that that would remove the threat you currently pose to us. Besides, negotiations of that sort take time, however urgent they are deemed to be and I have never been a patient man when it comes to the slaughter of millions. In that time, while our backs are turned in talks the weapons of our undoing could be smuggled in to the rebels under our noses. No. I want to take control of this situation and I do not want to have to share it. I want those codes. I want total unconditional control of that ship..."
"Well I want a day off once in a blue moon and a few extra zeros on my salary, crazy little world isn't it..." Sofia muttered as Harry said,
"Even supposing this delusional theory turns out to be justified and that those codes are actually needed, what makes you think that I have access to them? I'm afraid you're pushing the buttons of the wrong department."
"Oh I'm sure that if I push hard enough you'll find a way to get this information. Everything that I'm doing to your officers, and soon to the people of the country is happening on your soil, that's enough I'm sure. I know that the lovely Ruth knows already, I know that you can know, I know that I will find out, it's just a question of when and how many must suffer before death takes them or you save them."
"I thought you would have learned by now that this government is not in the business of negotiat-"
"Not in the business of negotiating with terrorists, of course not. But rules are made to be broken."
"Not this one."
"Yes this one, all of them. There are things I can do to this country that will have your government begging me to take the codes if only so they can show that they are trying to stop me. Mother's with dead children do not care about 'government policy', civilians who have been tortured do not care about 'government policy', crippled economies and desperate people do not care about 'government policy' pain and suffering do not care about 'government policy', and very soon, neither will you, because very soon I am going to allow you to see a very persuasive reason why you, and everyone else in this country will not care about government policy...Speaking of which, I must leave you now, I have to go and produce something for you to see...Think on what I've said in my absence won't you, perhaps then they will not suffer too much more..."
With that the call cut out, all of them sickened, and none of them daring to question aloud what Ruth and Lucas would now be made to suffer.
"Have you got anything on that trace Tariq?"
"I might...I think I have enough to find him but it's going to take a little back-tracking and de-tangling."
"Do it. We find him, we find them."
"Right." Harry said, grimly, jerking them roughly back to reality, "In case Tariq can't find him, or he has measures in place in case we do, I want more information. If that conversation has made anything clear it's that we don't know enough. Whether he's bluffing or not we need to know more. I want someone from six here as soon as is humanly possible, even if that means breaking down the doors at Vauxhall Cross and bodily dragging someone in here."
"No need." A smooth, velvet coloured voice said mildly from the door, "Mr Pearce, the legend of MI-5 I take it?"
A tall, young man with soft dark skin and matching deep eyes stood quietly at the door.
"And who the Hell are you?" Harry demanded, too on edge to bother with niceties.
"I thought I just said." He replied, smiling easily as he made their way into their midst. The mood they were in it was alarmingly like Bambi ambling into the path of a pack of rabid, ravenous wolves and almost instantly, their leader leapt upon him,
"I know what you are, I asked who you are, name." Harry snapped,
"So he knows exactly who to order the hit on when this goes belly-up." Ros informed him with poisonous sweetness.
"Jesse Cole, I've been sent as liaison officer from six."
"Finally. I thought I was going to have to storm your lair to find out why you'd all suddenly returned to the stone age and lost the ability to answer civil phone calls." Harry barked,
"My apologies Mr Pearce." He replied, quietly, seeming to have enough sense to know not to argue back.
"I have no use for your apologies, and for God's sake don't call me Mr Pearce." He said thinking back to the infuriating habit of their recent enigmatic caller.
"Right well, lengthy introductions are overrated, I'm sure you'll catch up. Sit, speak." Ros told him, feeling that they had squandered enough time waiting for six and she was not about to give him the chance to ask for an abridged version of their autobiographies before they started.
"What would you like me to speak about?" he asked a little nonplussed as he took a seat.
"The weather." Ros replied, voice dripping with sarcasm.
"I think we might be better discussing the ship situation in Syria, my real point was, what, do you want to know about it, specifically?"
"What is it doing there?" Ros asked, bluntly,
"I was afraid you would ask that..."
"Why? Too many big words?"
"No, too many small ones actually, and since you like specifics, mainly 'why'."
"Really? Do put us out of our misery, as you can see we're all hanging on in anticipation." Harry said, sarcastically,
"As you probably know the ship is ours. It was sent to that general area as a test voyage, see how it handled being further from London than the channel. Everything was going smoothly until a few days ago when things became weird. It was decided, by people above my level and for reasons beyond my clearance, that its course should be changed and it should be sent towards Syria, after an unscheduled meeting with persons unknown in the middle of nowhere. The waters around that area are...Interesting shall we say. It was originally believed by most that the ship had been sent there to test its capabilities in more treacherous waters, but things quickly became a little more uncertain."
"Any particular reason?" Sofia asked it's like pulling bloody teeth...
He hesitated a moment before deciding it was too late to turn back now and continuing, "The ship is controlled from London, that much is true, but not necessarily by London. For obvious reasons this ship, its origins and allegiance, have been kept firmly under wraps. This voyage, as with all others it's undergone, has been kept separate from major government departments, being operated by a small, separate, independent group of people across various areas. They were given full control and information and the rest of us have just had to muddle along on what they deem to be 'necessary' and what we deem to be criminally irresponsible censoring of knowledge."
"Is there any point to this other than how scorned you all feel?" Harry asked, pointedly,
"Yes. We may not have been given control over the ship, but were given full communication with it, its crew and its London coordinators...That is, up until the point that it decided to park itself in Latakia. Since then we've had nothing from it but it has been communicating with people and places unknown..."
"We already know all of this. One of our officers was given a tip-off about this by someone at GCHQ about our ship's secret overseas affair." Harry barked, "What do you have that we don't?"
"Respect." Cole sat, flatly, losing patience, "I was sent here to liaise with you, to tell you what we know, not to provide you with the answers to life the universe and everything." He broke off catching himself before saying, "I'm sorry, I know they have two of your officers and believe me, I would like to help you to return them and resolve this situation quickly but I don't see it happening. This, whatever 'this' is goes up higher than any of us anticipated, someone else is involved and, for whatever reason, the powers that be have decided not to tell us about it."
"So what do you suggest?" Ros asked, sardonically,
"That whatever they won't tell us, we find out by other means...I want to help you, I do, but you need to give me something too. We're supposed to be liaising."
"Yes, yes we are, so, what would you like to know?"
"Have you had any contact from the group responsible, the ones who have your officers?"
"Yes, they kindly sent a video link of their torture before we have a lovely heart-to-heart over the phone just before you arrived." Ros informed him matter-of-factly.
"Jesus, they don't mess around do they...What do they want?"
"The ability to override the ship's London control, they want the authorisation codes."
"If it weren't so serious I would laugh, they can't expect us to just hand over the reins to one of our most advanced recent developments in naval technology with our compliments." He sighed and shook his head before saying, "Have they actually levelled any direct threats against Britain yet?"
"God I was wondering how long it was going to take you lot to start getting bloody territorial. They have MI-5 officers; they are threatening Mi-5 from within this country and therefore, this country's national security-"Harry began, furiously,
"I wasn't implying that you shouldn't be involved in this. I'm just trying to understand what's going on and it's like trying to get blood from a stone." Cole replied mildly.
"There haven't been any direct threats, but as Harry says, they have our people and it has been implied that if they don't start talking, there will be threats made against Britain itself." Sofia told him, as Harry began to pace around the perimeter of the room.
"Alright...I take it your to nip this in the bud before that point, get them, get your officers back and prevent any serious threats to national security?"
"That was the idea, but they're good. Enough to get under our skin but careful enough for us not to know what they're doing under there."
"I see...Incidentally, do we know who 'they' are?"
They hesitated, collectively, synchronised mistrust having been an Olympic class talent on The Grid for some time before Sofia said, after a quick glance in Harry and Ros, "We believe they belong to a faction within the apparently pro-government group called the Shabiha. They call themselves 'The Angel's Lies'."
"Shit." Cole snarled, without warning.
"Unless you haveTourette's, this sounds promising..." Harry said with customary tact.
"I think that this is about more than ships and codes, and if I'm right then your people and this country have a very serious problem..."
"Add it to the list..." Tariq murmured, before anyone could become too overjoyed by this.
"What?" Ros asked, feeling that none of them would like the answer,
"I managed to untangle the line of signal jamming and isolate the location of the call."
"Why is that a bad thing?" Ros asked, confused,
"Because it was made in the foyer of Thames House..."
A/N: Thank you for reading/reviewing. Quick point, I've been splitting the chapters between Grid and Ruth/Lucas to stop either one becoming too heavy, is this working, or does it feel too disjointed?