Chapter Eleven
They didn't speak for almost a minute after Henry finally realised what Elizabeth had figured out – and understood why she really wanted the list of people on duty in the embassy.
He had thought she wanted to check up on the loyalty of any Petrian employees, hopefully unnecessarily but completely understandably in the circumstances.
But no. It wasn't just the Petrians. They could be looking for anyone. That thought didn't sit comfortably with Henry. They had been staying in the chancery building for the past three nights while someone was using their advantaged position to leak Elizabeth's schedule to groups of protestors, telling them exactly where they needed to be to have the maximum impact, and inspiring Elizabeth's DS agents to step up their level of protection until it was so restrictive and conspicuous, it almost wasn't worth continuing with the trip.
Henry had thought the incidents were just unfortunate – worrying in themselves, of course, but just one of those things that happened sometimes as part of the job. He knew that was how Elizabeth had seen them; more used to security issues on overseas visits, she had paid them much less attention than he had. Now to find out that they had been orchestrated, that someone was deliberately trying to unsettle his wife while laying the groundwork for the violent assault earlier on the palace and the gathering now outside their embassy… it left him feeling shaken.
He scrubbed his hands through his hair, a gesture borne out of stress, and then wiped his palms across his face and shook his head in the hope of clearing his thoughts. It didn't work. All he could think was that they were supposed to be safe in the embassy. They had come to the embassy because it was supposed to be secure, somewhere they could take stock and plan a way to get out and to the airport.
How the hell were they supposed to do that when there was a leak? And what exactly did the person doing the leaking hope was going to happen?
There wasn't much they could do about the protestors outside, Henry knew, but damn it, they were supposed to be safe inside the embassy.
He only realised his hands were clenched into fists when Elizabeth reached out to gently run her hands down his arms so that she could carefully uncurl his fingers, smoothing her thumbs over his palms to prevent them from curling inwards again. "Henry. It'll be OK," she said.
Something in the way she said it reminded him of the night before she went to Iran, telling him that she'd be OK – insisting that she'd be fine – and look what had happened on that particular trip. He was aware that he was breathing heavily, the instinct to fight and defend building within him, and he knew he'd do whatever it took to get the pair of them out of there, home safe and sound, back to their children. He used his hold on Elizabeth's hands to tug her into him, not giving her a moment to protest as he wrapped his arms tight around her, sliding one hand into her hair to direct her head to his shoulder. He couldn't agree with her statement that it'd be OK. He hoped more than anything that she was right, and he had more than enough faith in her to believe that she was genuinely confident at being able to figure something out, but he just needed a moment to be the worried husband before he forced himself back into the role of experienced, supportive field operative.
He kissed the top of Elizabeth's head and she pulled back slightly in his embrace so she could stretch up to kiss him properly. Her hand slid gently into his hair, fingers stroking lightly down his scalp in an effort to sooth him as she broke the kiss. "Henry," she said.
He tipped his forehead against hers, not yet ready to break their connection. He had been so close – too frighteningly close – to losing her not long ago, his own inability to accept reality driving a rift between them that for a time he had genuinely had no idea how to heal. Even just the threat of not having the solidity and foundation of their relationship to fall back on when he needed it was too much to bear, and he knew he could never let anything like that happen again. The risk was too great. He needed to keep his wife close, and now he had her again and they were back on track and rediscovering all the reasons they had chosen to build a life together, he took any threat to what they had seriously.
Their current situation was most definitely a threat, albeit an external one, and he needed just one more moment of physical closeness before dealing with what lay before them. Maybe that made him desperate, but he didn't care.
And then he understood the certainty of Elizabeth's statement that things would be OK. She was right. They would be OK. They absolutely had to be. They couldn't lose each other.
"We're going to sort this out," he said, lifting his head to press a kiss to her forehead and then pulling back so he could look her in the eye while still keeping her in the circle of his arms.
She nodded. "We are." She smiled at him and stroked her hands over his shoulders, her touch doing little to calm the buzz of adrenaline in his veins but working wonders to distract him from it by sending warmth shooting through his torso.
Henry felt his body responding to Elizabeth's innocent – mostly innocent – touch and knew how easy it would be to sink into her and just abandon everything else for a while. He was so tempted, and almost gave into the temptation to lose himself in her, but just then the helicopter made another pass above the embassy, lower this time, low enough that he could feel the vibrations passing through the building in response to the beat of the chopper blade, and it was just enough to focus his mind on the task at hand. "We need to identify the leak."
"Yeah." Elizabeth stepped back out of his hold so she could open the folder of names and pass the list to him.
His body instantly missed the feel of hers pressed up against him, but mercifully she stayed close so she could read the names over his shoulder as he worked his way down the list. He started with the big question. "Who do you trust absolutely?" he asked.
"You," she answered without hesitation, bringing a smile to Henry's face even as he knew she had taken his question seriously in the context he meant it. "My DS agents. Daisy and Jay."
Henry nodded. He agreed with her assessment. He'd put his faith in everyone they had bought with them on the trip, but everyone else was a relative unknown.
Beside him, Elizabeth hesitated. "I want to trust Helena..?"
"Me too." He liked the US ambassador to Petria. He thought she had her head screwed on straight and he had enjoyed her company during the time they'd spent at the embassy. But there was one glaring issue that meant Helena Garfield had to be a prime suspect in their search for the leak. "But babe, this evening, at the reception…"
"I know," Elizabeth said.
"She got a call to leave early." He hadn't thought anything of it at the time, but given the events of the past few hours, in hindsight the ambassador had been conspicuous in her absence during the coup.
"To come and deal with the protest outside," Elizabeth pointed out.
"That's what she told us," Henry said. Then he added, "She was probably telling the truth."
She nodded. "Probably."
"But…"
"Yeah."
"No one else got a call."
Elizabeth frowned. "But why would she do it? She got her doctorate in the narrowing of Petrian culture under Soviet rule – she knows what communism did to this country. She's been vocal in her role at developing US influence in the region. She's on our side. She's an ambassador!"
Henry shrugged. "I don't know. And maybe it's not her. But she's a suspect. Right?" He could see Elizabeth was still reluctant to tarnish her ally with a negative assessment.
Eventually she nodded and sighed. "Right."
"Now who else?"
"I think we can narrow the list to anyone who had access to my complete schedule."
Henry glanced down the list of names in his hand. Some of them he recognised, most of them he didn't. He looked to Elizabeth for elaboration. "OK, so that includes..?"
She reached out and took his wrist to tilt the paper towards her and get a better view of the names. Her side pressed against his as she answered, and it was just as well she was so close, because the crowd on the street outside seemed to suddenly double their noise as a loud explosion went off, loud enough and close enough for Henry to be able to feel the resulting tremor and for the wardrobe door to rattle against its hinges in the corner of the room. He could only guess at the level of carnage in front of the embassy and their prospects of finding a decent escape route any time soon, but that wasn't an issue for the present moment.
One disaster at a time.
Still, the shock of the explosion and the resultant shouts of the protestors threw him slightly, but next to him Elizabeth was focused on the task at hand.
"The first political secretary," she said, drawing one finger down the list and pausing at five names in total to make a list of six including the ambassador, "the advance security guys, I guess the chief tech person would know how to get to it if they were so inclined… and the Regional Security Officer, Andreou Flack."
Corporal Isaac Greenwood rewound the tape of Gleb Kodalov's television address for the fifth time. He almost had the translation complete and just wanted to make sure he had got all the nuances correct before he passed his work to Secretary McCord. He was fluent in Russian, but had only been in Petria for a few months and was still getting used to the colloquialisms and slight variations in the language to the way he had originally learned it.
He took his task seriously; he knew that the Secretary had chosen to trust him, and he wouldn't let her down. It wasn't his place to ask questions, but he could read between the lines and figure out why she had wanted a list of everyone on the staff at the embassy.
Perhaps she was just being cautious given the circumstances, but something told him that she was suspicious of someone. He just wished he knew who.
Greenwood looked up as Helena Garfield approached, apparently having finally finished her conversation with Mr Flack about the resources they had at their disposal in the embassy. He paused the tape of Kodalov and pushed his translation notes to one side when she stopped by his desk. "Ma'am," he greeted her.
The ambassador pushed her hair back off her face and gave him a smile. Her red satin dress shone under the light of a small lamp; she still hadn't found time to change after dashing back from the reception.
Greenwood wondered about her returning so early.
"Where did the Secretary go?" she asked him. "I need to update her."
"She's with Dr McCord," Greenwood answered. "She asked for some privacy." He figured that was a vague enough answer but one that hopefully wouldn't invite too many follow-up questions.
Helena shook her head. "This can't wait."
Greenwood shrugged as if to say he had no control over the situation – which he did not – and then stood when the ambassador made to move past him to the door. He put his hand out to stop her. "She didn't want to be disturbed, Ma'am." He said it apologetically, like he'd help if he could, but he was just the enforcer. It usually would have been enough to get the ambassador to back down; she could be stubborn at times but she was generally reasonable, and a realist.
Apparently a violent coup changed things a little bit. "Where did she go, Corporal?"
He didn't answer, but kept his arm across the doorway so she couldn't pass through.
"Might I remind you that I outrank you." There was just enough humour in her voice when she said it that Greenwood knew she wasn't threatening him – yet.
He nodded. "Yes, Ma'am. Except when your security is at risk." When her security was at risk he was authorised to overrule her in order to get her to safety, as she well knew.
"And is it?" she said.
Outside, the helicopter made another pass overhead and a loud shout went up from the protestors in front of the embassy. Helena jumped at the sudden noise of it. Corporal Greenwood raised one eyebrow.
The ambassador backed down.
The smell of grease and meat permeated the Situation Room as Russell Jackson unwrapped his lunch of a double cheeseburger and fries – what his wife didn't know wouldn't hurt her, and Russell thought that given the current situation, if he was going to have a heart attack that day, it wasn't going to be because of his cholesterol. He might as well enjoy his lunch.
He scrolled through the emails pinging almost relentlessly onto his phone while he ate, half-listening to the Director of the CIA, who was at the other end of the table making a series of increasingly urgent and irate phone calls to his underlings, trying to get some better intelligence on the situation in Petria. Seriously, the guy would be better off just checking Twitter if he was after eyewitness accounts, as it seemed there had been something of an oversight with regards to making sure they had sufficient assets to call upon in Rusapol to help them.
Russell was just on the verge of intervening – of taking the Director's phone by force and doing the damn job himself – when Admiral Ellen Hill re-entered the room and took the seat to his left, happily blocking his view of the CIA Director.
Ellen Hill looked at his lunch disapprovingly. "Trying to kill yourself, Russell?"
He took another bite of his burger and chewed and swallowed it before he replied. "I'm looking for any bright spot in an otherwise shitty day, Ellen. Dead cow and deep fried potato is currently all I have."
The look on the face of the National Security Advisor was not inspiring confidence. "In that case you might want to save some of those fries to cheer yourself up after I tell you what I have to tell you."
Russell took her advice seriously, pushing his meal aside and waiting for her to hit him with whatever new gem of information she had discovered to ruin his day. "Hit me with it, Ellen. I bought a brownie for dessert, it's OK. I have enough carbs to take the hit."
Ellen grimaced and pushed a folder towards him. She told it to him bluntly, straight to the point. "I looked into it, and there are no Mi-24 helicopters currently in the service of the Petrian army."
Russell closed his eyes and released a breath. This was it. This was what was going to give him the heart attack. "You're telling me…"
"The helicopter over the US embassy in Rusapol? Most likely belongs to Russia."
