"Alpha 2 in position."
"Okay, Gazelle. Officer in place. Got your back."
Ruth heard Beth's voice in her ear followed by Lucas. She briefly thought, not for the first time, that she really wasn't properly trained or cut out to be in the field. She could manage having people talking in her ear while she stood on a stage translating English to Mandarin and pretending to be a professional translator called Kendra Scott, but Jesus, she would much rather not have to do it. But there was no use thinking about that. Not now—since she had to focus on the task at hand—or any other time. She'd said it before: what else was she supposed to do? After all these years with Five, after her exile, after George and Nico, there was nothing else for her in the world. She was stuck on the Grid. Though, all things considered, if she had to be stuck anywhere, she couldn't have asked for a situation better suited to her skills and interests.
The presenters decided to take a break, thank god. Ruth took the opportunity to do what she needed.
"This is Gazelle," she murmured softly so the microphone would pick her up. "I'm on the move."
"We haven't got long," Tariq answered.
"You try remembering the Mandarin for 'quark'," she grumbled.
"You did well. Keep focused," Harry said.
"Oh shut up," she answered.
She could hear the sound of Harry's wheezy little chuckle. And that was why she was really here. She was at Five and on the Grid for him. If not for Harry, Ruth would have moved on a long time ago. If not for Harry, Ruth would have probably let her loyalties stay with Tom Quinn and been shipped back to GCHQ not six months after arriving in London. She loved this job, had done since the beginning. But it was brutal and horrific and painful more often than not, watching friends burn out and get hurt and die before her very eyes. No, if not for Harry, Ruth would have saved herself long ago. There would have been no Cotterdam, no exile, no George and Nico, no Mani, none of it. She would be safe and whole and probably happy. But her life would have been small and simple, and she would have always felt that little niggling in the back of her head and the pit of her stomach that she'd felt at GCHQ, that there was something more she could do. She knew, now, that she could do more and be more and have more. It came at a terrible cost most of the time, but the rewards were greater than she could have ever imagined.
Tariq's voice interrupted her thoughts as he directed her where to go. She had to find the priority access terminal in the lab to hack into the system so that Tariq could gain access to the QMK files on Amphitrite.
"Okay, there's a guard and a very locked-looking door," she informed Tariq.
"Sorry, there was no indication that would be secured," he answered. His voice sounded far away, likely because he was apologizing to Harry who was stood next to him.
Obviously that was no help to Ruth. "Okay," she said, letting her mind wander for a moment to figure out what she was going to do about it. If Tariq didn't have any information about that guard, he obviously didn't have a plan. Ruth would come up with something. That was what she did best, after all, figure out things that others couldn't.
She walked along the corridor with purpose, pretending she belonged there and knew where she was going. A woman came out of an office and walked down the hallway, and Ruth slipped into the vacated office. She'd find something in there. Something to help. Something to give her a clue as to what she could do. "Okay…um…" she whispered to herself, wracking her brain for some kind of idea. Glasses, half-eaten sandwich, pens, files, lipstick case and perfume bottle all on the desk, a coffee table with a plant and a spray bottle, a sofa with a pillow on it… "That'll do," she said herself, the idea forming in her mind.
Ruth gathered a few items, sort of making it up as she went. She'd fake a medical emergency and blag her way through the door. Spray bottle to the face, perfume sprayed into her hand so she could dab a bit into her eyes, get them proper red and irritated. To really sell it, she started exhaling aggressively to make herself hyperventilate a little. Christ, that perfume in the eyes really hurt!
"You're alright?" Harry asked with concern.
"I'm gonna get through that door," she answered, assuring him at the same time that she was just faking distress.
"Good. Well done," he replied.
Tariq's voice mumbled something.
"What was that?" Ruth asked, hoping she wasn't missing something.
Harry answered for him. "I've just been told we're very cute."
"Oh god," Ruth groaned. She pushed aside the way her chest constricted. She didn't need to think about that. Not now or ever. No, focus on the task at hand.
She started stumbling through the corridor towards that guard, trying to be as convincing as possible.
"God, are you alright!?" he asked worriedly.
"No, sorry, I've got hypoglycemia. I need to get to a bathroom. Got to take my shot," Ruth told him, her voice breathy and full of suffering.
She held up the black case she'd grabbed from that office and then half-collapsed onto the guard's station.
"Can you let me…? Look, I'm sorry, I know you're not supposed to…" she moaned pathetically, gasping for air.
"I'll get some relief," the guard said, swiping his badge. "I'll check on you in two minutes, okay?"
"Thank you," she answered, hurrying through the door when it opened.
The door closed behind her, and Harry's voice sounded in her ear again. "At the risk of being cute again, that was brilliant," he told her.
Ruth just hummed in response. She straightened up and hurried to the lab. She'd gotten through the door but the job certainly wasn't done. The case was tossed in the bin, she grabbed a stray lab coat and a set of goggles, and made her way through the crowd of scientists. Thankfully, they were all very focused on their petri dishes and test tubes and computer screens and didn't pay any attention to another body dressed in their same attire.
When she reached a terminal without anyone nearby, Ruth took the mobile out of her pocket that Tariq had given her with the server hack to upload. Just the proximity was enough to get into the network. The little red progress bar moved, but nearly fast enough for Ruth's liking. "Come on, come on, come on," she begged under her breath.
And then the terminal screen started displaying the information. The upload was still in progress. Almost there…
"Alpha 2 to all units," came Beth's voice in Ruth's ear. "I've just received a report from our asset. The Chinese have a bomb planted inside QMK. They could detonate at any moment."
"Gazelle, get out of there immediately," Harry said sharply.
Ruth knew that tone. He was worried. Probably on the verge of panic. But that wasn't important right now. She had a job to do, and she was going to do it. "One minute," she answered. The upload finished and she slid the keyboard and started searching for the files they needed.
"They don't want to steal the desalination tech, they want to destroy it," Lucas said in realization. He instructed Tariq to jam the cell signals to prevent remote detonation and red flash the bomb squad. He also told Beth to prepare to evacuate.
"I'm in," Ruth informed them.
"It's moot. Leave immediately," Harry ordered.
Ruth went to the wall and hit the fire alarm. The alarm sounded and the speakers filled the room with instructions to go to the nearest exit. All around, everyone started to evacuate, and Ruth went right back to the terminal to see what came up on the screen. It was a personnel file.
"Okay, Home, you need to hear this," she said. "Amphitrite's not the code name for the desalination project. Amphitrite is its creator. It's a female scientist, Chinese-born, Jiang Li. Do you copy, Home? She's in the building. Lab T15."
"It's an assassination," Lucas realized.
"Agreed," Harry answered. "Gazelle, find that scientist. Fast. And get both of you out safely."
"I will," she promised, running through the hall to find the right lab. She pushed past people on their way out of the building. The alarm blared around her, setting her teeth on edge. She pressed on.
Finally, she found the correct door. Locked.
Ruth pounded on it and called out, "Miss Jiang? Miss Jiang!"
And before anything else happened, strong arms pulled her away and a hand covered her mouth to cut off her yelp of surprise.