The five police officers reached them. They were wearing the standard black pants, white shirt and black tunic uniform that Goren had come to recognise as standard for a British police constable. Four were wearing helmets. The fifth was wearing a peaked cap with a chequered hatband, making it difficult to see his face, but Goren would have sworn he'd seen the man before, something about the way he walked, his lower face…. Oh shit, what do we do now? He began to frantically run through different scenarios in his head.

The three officers reached them, and Davenport began to speak urgently, his knuckles white where he was trying to unobtrusively keep Jane Collins restrained. "I'm sorry, officers, we were just kidding around, don't want to waste your time…" He trailed off suddenly and a faint expression of surprise crossed his face, then he smiled.

The peaked-cap officer spoke in a familiar voice. "Really? It didn't sound that way to me, sir. Lads, get this lot in the back of the van. Miss, we'll be wanting a statement from you." He laid a paternal hand on Collins' shoulder as two of the four constables began to shepherd Goren, Eames and Davenport towards the back of the police van. Behind them, they could hear her begin twittering "Oh, really, that's not necessary."

"Oh, I think it is," replied DS James Hood, smiling grimly now. As they watched, he produced his handcuffs and snapped them on Collins in almost one movement, turning towards the van and motioning the other two officers to help him load her in. Goren turned to see Davenport grinning widely; he mouthed Did you plan this? Davenport shrugged, and mouthed back No, but who cares?

Two minutes later, they were squashed into the back of the police van, trying to ignore Collins' plaintive pleas to be let out because it was all a misunderstanding, and occasional threats that they would be sorry for this. Since she was handcuffed to the inside of the van, these rather lost their effect. DS Hood, having removed his cap, was squashed in with them, whilst the uniformed officers drove them swiftly back to Scotland Yard.

"Not that I'm not grateful, but what brought you here?" Davenport asked.

Hood smiled ruminatively. "Well… like you I wasn't too happy about the evidence we had against Khaleel. Then I asked myself, given what I know of Andrew Davenport, is it more likely that a) he's gone off in a huff, or b) he's doing something remarkably stupid? Then I ask myself, if b) and not a), how do I keep an eye on him?" He smiled again. "Did you know that Duncan Ampirelli is listed in your file as being a known contact?"

"We merely happen to train at the same dojo," Davenport replied neutrally. "And how exactly do you come to have a file on me?"

Hood smiled, a touch smugly. "I know people who know people. We keep files on you, you keep files on us… anyway, your friend Ampirelli merely happens to have an unofficial record for acquiring fake council vans for criminal purposes. It seemed to me that the best way to do this would be for me just to keep an eye on you… one advantage of being Special Branch is that you do acquire contacts here and there. I asked DS Hunter to keep an eye on Ampirelli to let me know if your friend 'borrowed' any painting kits from the council over the next day or so. And here we are. What do you have on Collins?" he asked urgently.

The three of them filled him in, quickly, aware that Hood hadn't actually confirmed whether he had definitely decided to arrest Collins and not them. They breathed a sigh of relief when he finally nodded, and murmured "I'm not surprised. Been wondering who provided the idea for the gas attack – Khaleel and company would never have thought of that on their own."

"You really are good, aren't you? Shame you're still only a DS." Davenport commented.

Hood shrugged. "I pissed off the wrong people, you know how that goes. But I think that will change soon, if Ms Collins here-" he jerked his thumb at the suspect, who had given up arguing and was staring resentfully at them "- is in a more co-operative mood when we get to Scotland Yard."

"You could have let us know that you were willing to help," Eames remarked.

Hood shrugged. "You could have been wrong. Sorry, but unlike you-" he looked at Davenport, then Goren "-I'm not one for career suicide, and I have to play by the rules."

"So how are we going to play this when we get back?" Goren mused out loud.

"An interesting question." Hood fell silent, and the rest of them followed suit, apart from Collins, who was still murmuring. Goren noticed with interest that she was staring intently at him. Of course. He recalled what he knew of her and of Andropov from the files Whitefield had sent over. Andropov was dark-haired, moderately good-looking and had presented himself to Collins as a paternal figure, a fascinating older man who would protect her… Collins' own father, according to the files, had left her and her mother when Collins was twelve. It was basic psychology, he thought. Suddenly, he knew what they had to do.

"Hood?" He leaned across and murmured into the British detective's ear. "I know how to get her to talk." Eames, displaying her usual ability to read situations, promptly began talking to Collins, keeping her busy and unable to hear what was going on.

"Do you indeed?" Hood murmured back. "You realise, it would be highly irregular to allow two foreign police officers interrogate someone who may be involved in planning one of the biggest terrorist attacks on British soil in recent history?"

"Not necessarily, if said police officers were officers from our main ally in the War on Terror, with a proven track record in getting the unwilling to talk and who know more about the suspect plus the man we're really after than any of us here," Davenport commented quietly. "Besides, it's not like our lot have exactly covered themselves in glory on this case so far."

"Hmm." Hood considered. "Okay. We'll discuss this at the station."

This time, the interrogation room was the standard one, the set-up familiar to Goren and Eames from any number of interrogations they had carried out over the past four years; a table, four chairs, one suspect, two officers, and a hellish amount of pressure. Goren grinned. After a quick read-though of the files on both Andropov and Collins, he knew exactly how they were going to play this. It all depended, he thought, on just how much Andropov trusted his girlfriend.

After a hasty discussion with DS Hood, they had agreed that Goren and Eames would interrogate Collins, and that if they turned up anything useful, Hood would immediately alert the remainder of the Special Branch team. (The fake council van had been swiftly disposed of; Davenport had kept his word as far as ensuring Duncan Ampirelli didn't get into further trouble. Jack McAllister, having swiftly faded into the background when Hood's small squad "arrested" Davenport, Goren and Eames, was back at his house awaiting further news, after Davenport had called him to say that they were fine and fill him in on what was happening.)

The official reasoning – that was currently on the paperwork as the reason for Collins being brought into the station - was that she was linked to Mikhail Andropov, and thus of interest to them in the murder of Ranjit Elahi. Officially, they were waiting for her lawyer to make an appearance. Hood and Davenport had pulled a few strings to ensure that that wouldn't happen any time soon, so that Goren and Eames could have a nice friendly chat with Collins.

Unofficially… they all knew what they were really after; intelligence on whatever Andropov had planned for the match. Ideally, they wanted to turn her, have her call Andropov, use her as bait to capture Andropov and wreck whatever he was intending to do. That was another unsolved mystery he and Eames were expected to find the answer to…

He was struck again by how different this was from his regular work, and thought that he could begin to understand Davenport's the-hell-with-the-rules approach to life. He could also understand why the issue of civil liberties for terrorist suspects was such a hot potato on both sides of the Atlantic. On the one hand, what Collins knew – what any suspect might know – needed to be got out of them as fast as possible in order to save lives. On the other hand, if it turned out you were wrong and they knew nothing… Even terrorist suspects were still people. And the one thing no-one wanted, he thought, was to turn into what they were fighting. Where you stare into the abyss, remember that it is staring back into you.

He breathed deeply, pushing all other thoughts out of his mind. He lived for moments like this, when every minute, every hour of his experiences to date, as an Army Intelligence officer and then later in the various posts he'd held in the NYPD, came on-line inside his head, guiding him. Like a fencer facing an opponent, it was the perfect marriage of rationality and instinct. You thought it through, you made your plan, you started it, and then you used every ounce of instinct and judgement you possessed to guide you through as the situation happened, not only reacting as the situation changed, but changing your plan, thinking as you acted, dancing along to the rhythm of the confrontation, learning your opponent, their movements, their style, waiting for the exact right moment to strike the killing blow.

No battle plan survives contact with the enemy… he reminded himself. All of his instincts told him that Andropov would have told Collins as little as possible, and that, ironically, was what they were counting on. Please, he thought to himself, almost praying, if we get any interrogation right, let it be this one.