PPS stands for Parliamentary Private Secretary. About three chapters to go with this one now. Many thanks to everyone still reading, and especially to those who also review! :) Much appreciated.
Chapter Fourteen
When Ros opened her eyes, the ceiling she was staring at was both unfamiliar and out of focus. She stretched out to her right for the glass of water she always left on the bedside table, and ended up flailing at fresh air, so she felt around in the other direction instead. Her fingers slithered over wrinkled sheets and crumpled pillows, both warm.
Ah. Now she remembered agreeing to go home with Lucas the previous night. Guiltily, she wondered how much rest he'd got. Forced to lie flat on her back because any other position hurt her ribs, she had been wakeful, and suspected that her occasional yelps of discomfort whenever she tried to change her position a little had disturbed him too.
With infinite care she levered herself up on her elbows, then awkwardly inched her way around until she was sitting on the edge of the bed. Dr Mainwaring's description of her being 'sore as hell' had been pinpoint accurate, and now she was stiff as well. For a moment she just sat, flexing and easing her limbs and joints. The shadows were still deep in the bedroom, and when Ros checked her watch, she saw that it was only just past six-thirty; Lucas was playing the early bird. Perhaps his mind, like hers, was too preoccupied with the looming disaster the section faced to rest.
She eased on her bathrobe – she and Lucas both kept nightclothes and one spare working outfit at each other's flats for convenience, the closest Ros had come to formal acknowledgement of their relationship – and padded out of the room. The pain had subsided into a manageable discomfort, probably aided, she thought wryly, by still feeling a mild high from the doctor's bloody tablets. Probably just as well. If the developments of yesterday had been anything to go by, she was going to need to be pain-free and fully alert today.
She was heading for the kitchen when she spotted Lucas's silhouette on the terrace, outlined like a paper cut-out against the slowly lightening sky. When she slid the door open he looked round.
"Morning." Ros stepped out and shivered as the fresh, cool air slid probing fingers under her robe.
"Morning." He had obviously been deep in thought, but now he smiled. He looked indifferent to the chill, but then after eight years in Russia, Lucas's idea of cold was more extreme that most people's. He was holding a cup of coffee in one hand, but he rubbed her back affectionately with the other. "How do you feel?" He tilted her chin to examine her face, and grimaced. "Ouch." His eyes darkened, and he muttered 'Svoloch' under his breath.
"Cold." Ros's feet were bare, and the concrete under them was freezing. "And hungry,' she added, meaningfully.
The warmth of his smile scattered the storm clouds that had been gathering in his eyes. "Ah, well that I can do something about. Come on."
He led the way into the kitchen, poured her a cup of coffee and set about making breakfast. Ros knew better than to offer help. If there was such a thing as reincarnation, Lucas North should return to earth as a geriatric nurse. Once they had arrived home from the Grid, he had insisted on running her a bath, helped her to bathe, and massaged arnica cream into the sorest parts of her body with a patience and gentleness that many nurses whose 'care' Ros had experienced would be hard put to match. With anyone else, she would have felt humiliated and resentful, but Lucas's matter-of-fact kindness made the experience feel natural rather than embarrassing. By the time they had eaten a bowl of re-heated spaghetti Bolognese apiece and were lying in bed, Ros had almost forgotten that she had come close to taking a bullet between the eyes a few hours earlier. Maybe he should have tried his TLC out on Callum as well.
The thought amused her, and Lucas smiled quizzically as he put a dish of muesli and a jug of fresh milk in front of her. "What's so funny?"
Ros told him as he removed two croissants from the microwave and placed them and some fresh fruit on the table. Lucas laughed.
"I prefer my blondes svelte. He's a bit on the bulky side for me."
Tell me about it. Ros drained her coffee. It was her favourite, Colombian, strong and bitter, and she felt her head clearing as it hit the spot. She often found herself touched by the thoughtful way Lucas remembered her preferences. The bathroom soap had been the same brand as she always used, too. He never made a fuss, but he always noticed.
"Why up so early?" she enquired. "Got an informant among the larks or something?"
He smiled briefly. "No, I was thinking about yesterday. You know how it is. Trying to find some bloody sense in it all."
Oh yes, I know how it is all right. She had lain awake while he slept, doing exactly the same thing and trying not to wake him by fidgeting. The sudden brief re-appearance of Alexander Pemberton had caused an abrupt 180 change of direction in the operation. Harry had ordered Mamnoon Hamid to be transferred under armed guard to Paddington Green police station and handed him into the custody of Special Branch interrogators. If time had to be wasted on breaking down the man's arrogant obduracy, it wasn't going to be Section D's. He dispatched Chen Liu, in the guise of Sergeant Guowei Tang, post-haste to Collingham Square to interview Sir Roger Pemberton, but Chen returned two hours later deflated and apologetic. Alexander had stayed no longer than half an hour to shower and collect some clean clothes from the room he used when he stayed in London. His father had been impatient, cutting and dismissive of Tang's polite attempts to ascertain from where Alexander had come, or where he had been heading. Chen had received nothing beyond the information that Alexander was 'catching up with some old (unspecified) friends', and a scathing lecture from Sir Roger about police incompetence. He had, he reminded the sergeant contemptuously, told them from the start that his son's failure to communicate would probably be explained by some such casual behaviour, not that he could have expected either the sergeant or that 'blonde bimbo' of an inspector to have remembered. Now, if he'd excuse him? and Chen had found himself outside on the pavement watching the Mercedes glide haughtily down the street and out of sight. Ros's blood pressure rose at the mere thought of Sir Roger Pemberton.
"And did you?" she asked Lucas. "Any light bulb moments?"
Lucas sighed. "More like flickering candles." He raked a hand through his hair. "We can't send an army of plods out with Geiger counters searching for the uranium. It's where they are, if he's still being held by them. If he isn't … if he's already been forced to help them plant it, he should at least know where the damned bomb is." He gestured in frustration. "But why hasn't he come to us, then? We have to find him. Maybe he's in hiding … trying to … shit, I don't know. What do you think?"
Ros shook her head. The truth was, she didn't know what to think. Harry, unwilling to put all his increasingly fragile eggs into the unstable basket of Mamnoon Hamid's cooperation, had ordered everyone to concentrate on the search for Pemberton and Asif Iqbal Mahmood. Ruth was virtually nailed to her desk, surfing the most vociferous jihadist websites, combing through the wispy stacks of hay for the tiniest glint of a hidden, coded needle, and Khalida and Chen had been instructed to squeeze dry every relevant asset they had. Lucas had spent the previous afternoon carrying out exhausting and time-consuming anti-surveillance manoeuvres before holding covert meetings with two publicly virulently anti-Western imams who had been bravely supplying MI-5 with information for several years. Rumours, gossip and speculation had trickled in steadily, but none of it brought any reliable sightings of either man. Meanwhile, Mamnoon Hamid sat in his high-security cell in Paddington Green like a malevolent little toad, armoured in his mocking silence, watching the flies buzz in increasing panic as the time ticked relentlessly down to the deadline he knew, but they didn't.
"I think we're going to need a sodding miracle," she said reluctantly at last.
Lucas nodded grimly. "Maybe something's come in overnight," he had left Harry on the Grid with the night shift. "Ruth was still trawling the websites, and Harry was keeping an eye on her - not that he isn't always." He smiled almost wistfully. "God knows why he hasn't got round to proposing again. They've been making sheep's eyes at each other ever since she came back. It would do him good to have someone to lean on."
"He's got an entire section to lean on," Ros said sardonically.
"Yeah, but not all forty-five of us are in love with him," Lucas pointed out. When she snorted, he said, "Come on, Ros. It would give him someone to go home to. Sometimes you need more than just an office full of colleagues, however okay they are."
Ros cast him a sideways glance. "If you say so." She finished her muesli and sliced up an apple. If that had been a hint, she wasn't taking it. She was fond of Lucas and grateful for his care, but while she valued both their partnership on the Grid and their friendship off it, she had no illusions. He was too much of a romantic, and easily manipulated by women. His own bitter comment about his allegedly being 'a pushover for any woman with big eyes and a good story' had summed it up all too accurately. Ros still remembered the pain of watching Adam Carter dithering between his feelings for her and his attraction to Ana Bakshi; she wasn't about to expose herself to a possible repeat performance. Besides, her own record with men wasn't much better – witness the fate of the only three she had ever really cared for. She had always suspected that if the Bakshi woman had stayed around, she would have lost Adam to her eventually. Jack Coleville, for whom she had nursed a soft spot for years, had used her, betrayed her, and come sodding well close to shooting her, and her father, well. Harry and Ruth might be Romeo and Juliet, Darby and Joan or Podgy and Bliss (delete where appropriate) - she and Lucas would be Felix Unger and Jack Klugman all over again.
"Did I say something wrong?" She looked up, startled at how far she had allowed her thoughts to drift. Lucas looked apprehensive.
"No." She drained her coffee cup and got up. "Just irrelevant." And there's only one way to make sure it stays irrelevant. She pretended not to notice him wince. It's for your own good. "We need to get to work. Let's go."
oOoOoOo
Ros had expected that they would be the first to arrive on the Grid, and was surprised to find Chen Liu clearing the security checks as they came through the doors. The young Chinese looked shamefaced, and was less than his usual ebullient self; Ros guessed he was still angry with himself over his inability to obtain any useful information from Sir Roger the previous day. As they passed the cafeteria he offered to bring everyone some coffee, and Ros, knowing that he didn't want to take the lift with them, thanked him and let him do it.
Despite the early hour, the Grid was buzzing, and the Harry who greeted them at the pods reminded Ros eerily of Olympic Harry – unshaven, tieless, his shirtsleeves rolled up, and his wrinkles reminiscent of the ridges in a sandbank at low tide. Ruth was at his heels, loyal, dependable and oh, so bloody predictable.
"Morning," Ros said briskly. "Anything?"
"Rumours." The single growled word conveyed infinite fury and frustration. "If we're to believe half of them, the bastard's been seen praying in mosques, shopping in Harrods, leaving from Heathrow, arriving at Gatwick and moving into a mobile home in Clacton-on-Sea - probably all at once. And not so much as a bloody sniff of Pemberton since he left Collingham Place." He glanced over to where Chen, accompanied by Khalida, was emerging from the pods, both of them balancing armfuls of cardboard cups and paper bags of pastries. "Over here, you two! Meeting room."
He led the way, and tutted impatiently when the two junior officers delivered their loads and rushed out again to remove their outer clothing. Chen scampered back in as he was beginning to speak; Khalida, Ros noticed irritably, had stopped at her desk and was on the phone. She frowned as the young woman dropped suddenly into a chair. She looked shocked. Ros caught Lucas's eye and saw the same concern on his face as she felt herself. She was about to whisper to him to go and find out what was wrong when Khalida replaced the phone, jumped up and literally ran to the meeting room.
"Harry!" Normally she would never have countenanced interrupting him; now the words tumbled out of her like water from a broken main. "Harry, it is Dominic Hastings." Even as a red-faced Harry opened his mouth to ask the question, she provided the answer. "When the doctors went to do the morning round they found him dead."
"Dead how?" Ros cut through the collective indrawing of breath around the table.
Khalida gulped. "They say he had a heart attack."
"A healthy young man his age?" It was Lucas's voice, but Ros knew that the words could have come from any of them.
"What the hell happened to the police guard?" she demanded.
"It was withdrawn, Ros. Two days ago." Ruth made a helpless gesture. "Staffing. The Met needed the officers."
Ros looked towards Harry. "Do you want it checked out?" All of them knew that there was more than one way of inducing a heart attack and making it look perfectly natural.
He shook his head. "It's irrelevant now. Leave it to the Met." He tapped the end of his pen against his teeth. "Lucas, get onto the people protecting Lidiya Akayeva. And warn Paddington Green; they're not above sending their own to paradise early, either." Lucas strode out of the room. "Khalida, if you have an emergency procedure for warning that asset you had in Brixton – Aideed, was it? - then use it now." Khalida bit her lip, nodded, and hurried in Lucas's wake. Harry met Ros's eyes. "Insurance. They don't know how for sure much Hastings told us, so they're wiping out the traces. Getting rid of the evidence."
She nodded agreement. The world's ethnic and religious patchwork quilt of terrorists had long since embraced that Moscow Centre habit of cleaning up behind them, and used it as S.O.P. They weren't about to leave MI-5 an Olympic souvenir in the shape of potential trial witnesses.
"Harry?" Chen was shifting uneasily in his seat. "If Mahmood really is mopping up, then Pemberton - "
"Will be on the list too,"Ros finished for him. She met Harry's eyes. "And if he is, that's our best chance of locating the bomb gone with him."
The silence that followed her words made the swish of the conference room doors sound almost sinister.
"Harry?" Lucas sounded tense. "Ruth's just had an alert from the news feed. Khalida's asset, Aideed, was one of a gang involved in a fight in Brixton last night." He didn't need to add the rest.
In the silence, Harry closed his eyes and massaged the bridge of his nose.
"Right, that's it." He shoved his chair back from the table. "We stop this damned parade. Chen, get back on the CCTV. Lucas, get Akayeva moved if you have to. Ros, follow me."
In the office, he waved her to a seat, moved behind his desk and picked up his telephone. "I need to speak to the Home Secretary urgently. Scrambled call." Ros gazed out of the window and watched Lucas, who was also on the phone, speaking rapidly and intently, a frown on his face. He glanced up, saw her watching him, and the tense lines of his face melted into a warm smile.
"Ros, how are you feeling now? Pain eased off a bit?"
Startled, Ros turned back to Harry. God, what a couple of worry-guts. Between him and Lucas, she could scarcely clear her throat without the pair of them wanting to hook her up to oxygen.
"Yeah, no problem." That wasn't a lie, actually; the combination of rest, the painkillers and the challenge of the operation had almost made her forget her discomfort. "I'm putting Callum on a bloody diet, though."
Harry smiled just as the telephone rang. He flicked on the loudspeaker so that she could hear. "Good morning, Home Secretary, it's Harry Pearce."
"Good morning, Mr Pearce." Ros and Harry frowned in simultaneous puzzlement; the voice echoing through the scrambler most certainly wasn't that of William Towers. "This is Sam Beckenbridge, Mr Towers's PPS."
Harry's mobile features knotted in exasperation. "I asked to be put through to the Home Secretary." Silently, Ros filled in the unspoken 'not his bloody bag-carrier'.
"Unfortunately, the Home Secretary won't be available for the next two days, sir." Ros watched the knots turning steadily redder. "Is there anything I might help you with?"
"Mr Beckenbridge, with all due respect, this is a security matter. An urgent security matter, not one that can be dealt with by leaving a message with a middle-ranking official and waiting for a call back. You can help by telling me how I can get in contact with him – now."
"I'm afraid I can't do that, sir." The PPS had obviously been briefed on the need to keep cool when dealing with an angry Harry Pearce. "The Home Secretary is away, and I've been instructed that he is not to be reached by anyone until first thing on Tuesday."
Ros could scarcely believe her ears, and the expression on Harry's face suggested that while his ears were working perfectly, he had been temporarily deprived of the powers of speech. He looked at the phone receiver as if he thought it had been hacked by a practical joker with a particularly unamusing sense of humour.
"Away where?" he spluttered when he could finally get the words out.
"That's a confidential matter, Mr Pearce, for security reasons." The PPS sounded increasingly uncomfortable, but he wasn't yielding an inch.
"Security considerations?!" Harry exploded. "I am calling from the headquarters of the British Security Services, Mr Beckenbridge! Is that crystal clear, or do you need Danny Boyle to spell it out in fireworks for you?"
"It's perfectly clear, Mr Pearce, and I apologise for the inconvenience, but my job is - "
"If you persist in obstructing me, son, you won't have a job." Harry's notoriously limited capacity for tolerance of Whitehall and all its works had clearly been exceeded. "You have thirty seconds before I take this to higher levels."
For a moment Ros thought Beckenbridge had hung up. At last, reluctantly, the man said: "Mr Pearce, it is crucial that this is kept from the press - "
"It may surprise you to know that we have some experience in that respect," Harry snapped.
"Yes, yes of course. You see, the Home Secretary is having a minor operation on his bladder today. Nothing serious, a routine matter, but press speculation could be very harmful to Her Majesty's government, should anything leak."
Unfortunate turn of phrase in the circumstances. And the sooner this conversation was over the better, Ros thought, before Harry's blood pressure reached the danger zone.
Her wish was granted as he wound the call up with an expression of his hopes for William Towers's prompt recovery that sounded about as genuine as a three-pound coin. Then he slammed down the phone.
" 'Security considerations'!" His snort would have done justice to a rutting warthog. "A dirty bomb in the heart of London, and they're more worried by the explosive potential of a bloody tweet about the Home Secretary's waterworks!"
Ros clicked her tongue in sympathy. She agreed with him – wholeheartedly – but this wasn't the right time to let Harry embark on one of his anti-politician tirades. Once he reached cruising speed, the flight was usually long-haul, and she was acutely aware that every minute wasted was a minute wasted to the terrorists' benefit.
"So what now?" she asked quickly. The obvious answer was Harry's own 'higher levels', but they both knew that the Prime Minister was out of the country at an EU summit in France. Ros certainly wasn't going to put her neck on the chopping block by suggesting that they brief his deputy; there was a reason why the man's unofficial code name in Section D, suggested by Callum Reed and gleefully approved by Harry, was 'Smuggins'. When Harry didn't answer immediately, she said: "There is one thing we could try."
Harry, who had begun a restless pacing of the office, nodded. "Go on."
Ros told him about Callum's idea of briefing the mayor about the threat. Harry pursed his lips doubtfully. She could understand his reservations. The mayor had a well-earned, much-publicised reputation as a buffoon, but Ros, who had met him once many years ago at a reception hosted by her father at the embassy in Moscow, knew that it was a deliberately crafted image. Underneath the clown was a savvy, highly intelligent man who wasn't afraid of making the occasional controversial decision. Yes, it was risky, but with the danger becoming more immediate with every hour that passed, they were fast running out of options.
"All right." Harry didn't sound convinced, but as he was about to go on, there was a knock on the door. With a mutter of irritation, he jerked it open and almost pulled Ruth Evershed off her feet. Ros watched the ensuing apology-laden soft shoe shuffle with a mixture of amusement and exasperation.
"What is it, Ruth?"
Ruth glanced across in surprise, as if she hadn't noticed her. Most likely she hadn't. With Harry around, Ruth probably wouldn't notice if they were sharing the office with an entire counter-terrorist squad - and its prey.
"Sorry," she said awkwardly. "I didn't mean to interrupt."
"You didn't." Harry patted her arm reassuringly as he spoke, then absently moved his hand to the small of her back and kept it there. Ros felt suddenly superfluous to requirements, and scrutinised a non-existent text on her mobile. "It's all right. What is it?"
"This afternoon's meeting to discuss the security arrangements for the parade," Ruth answered. "They've brought it forward to this morning. Ten o' clock at City Hall."
"Perfect," Harry said decisively. "We'll give it to them face to face." He smiled at the intelligence analyst. "Thanks, Ruth. Tell them Ros and I will be there."
Ruth returned the smile, and glanced at Ros. "If you're not feeling up to it, Ros … I could go, if you want."
I don't want. Ros kept her voice pleasantly neutral and her face completely expressionless.
"You have work to do. And I'm feeling fine. Thank you, Ruth." She twitched her lips into the palest imitation of a smile and kept it there as the analyst left the office. She noticed the expression of mild alarm on Harry's face and smiled inwardly. Poor man. Dirty bombs and religious fanatics he could manage, but the prospect of two females having a catfight in his office made his blood run cold. He caught her glance and harrumphed.
"Right. Shall we get going, then?" Ros stood up obediently as he reached for his coat. "I'll put Lucas in here until we get back. If Ruth carries on trawling the websites, and Khalida and Chen keep pumping every asset we've got we might still get lucky." He held the door open for her. "Chen should be tracking a few suspect mobiles, too."
"He's still trying to cover in the tech suite," Ros pointed out as she carefully eased herself into her jacket. "I know he's good on the gadgets, Harry, but he isn't a specialist; we can't load too much on him." She let out a long sigh. "We need Callum back."
"Speak of the Devil," a voice said from behind them. Both swung round. Callum, holding his strapped right arm stiffly at his side, stood behind them. Ros recovered first, and looked daggers at him.
"They were meant to be keeping you in for two days!"
"Told them you'd miss me too much, boss." His eyes twinkled. "And Lucas needs a rival, it's good for him."
Harry stepped into the silence that was, for a second, the only response that Ros could produce. "How do you intend to use a keyboard like that?"
Callum laughed. "No problem. Just give me Chen as my left-hand man, and I'm good to go."
He didn't look as chirpy as he sounded, Ros thought, he was pale and there were shadows under his eyes, but there was little doubting his determination, and she remembered his comment on the drive to the warehouse. She glanced at Harry, who nodded briefly, and crossed the Grid to join Lucas.
"Help Chen review the CCTV," she said crisply to Callum. "Then check every single phone-tap we have running. Contact me with anything suspicious. Understood?"
"Yessir." He beamed. "Where will you be?"
"Dick Whittington's house," Ros said dryly. More like the bloody Last Chance Saloon.
He grinned. "Keep your eyes skinned for loose ducats."
To hell with gold, I'll settle for the streets of London not being paved with the irradiated sodding remains of innocent people. She nodded briefly at him. Over his shoulder, she could see Harry returning, and Lucas watching them uneasily. Callum half-turned, raised a thumb in Lucas's direction and then looked back at her. Ros braced herself for another crack, and then realised that Callum's smile was sympathetic rather than mocking.
"Don't wake the Green-Eyed Monster." He winked. "I'll keep an eye on him for you, Boss." As Harry joined them, he dropped the mocking air. "Good luck, sir."
"We'll need it." Harry's face was set. The Mayor was a political heavyweight too, and he'd won a few bruising rounds in his time. Ros knew Harry wouldn't pull any punches, but the potential consequences of losing this particular bout went way beyond the loss of a gold medal; terrorists didn't play by the Queensbury Rules. She could only pray that Harry was prepared to hit as far below the belt as it took.
She took a deep breath, followed him into the pods, and prepared to find out.
oOoOoOo
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