Ruth woke up on Monday morning feeling absolutely rotten. Harry had gotten an early call from the Home Office that Towers wanted to see him. He got out of bed immediately, pausing only to kiss her gently. She rolled over and went back to sleep.
"You feeling alright?" he asked gently as he put on his suit.
She opened her eyes just enough to see him tying a pearl white tie with some elegant pattern in the mirror. "Fine," she lied hoarsely.
Harry frowned, obviously not believing her. "I know you've never taken a sick day in your life, but…"
"I'm not sick," Ruth insisted. And that was the truth. She wasn't sick. She just felt awful. Not physically—well, sort of, but that wasn't really the problem—but her heart felt heavy and her mind was twisted with all kinds of dark thoughts. It wasn't too unusual an occurrence for her, and she could push through just fine. It was just hard on days like this. Every day was hard in its own way, but today would be especially dire, she knew. Ruth could feel it in her soul.
In the mirror, Harry was watching her suspiciously. "I've got to head out. I suppose I'll see you on the Grid later, then?"
"I'll go shower in a minute," she answered. It was a way of saying that yes, she would see him on the Grid later, but also not bothering to actually answer the question or invite any further discussion.
Ever since their drive on Saturday, and even before that, Ruth had been plagued by doubt. Not doubt in Harry or their love for each other. That was very settled between them by now. And she did not doubt what she wanted. She wanted the same as Harry. She wanted them to be married and live happily ever after together. And yes, maybe even leave MI-5 together. She wanted their future. She wanted a future with him.
But lately, the nagging doubts in her traitorous mind had started to get louder. Harry certainly hadn't helped things. She wanted to marry him and to be with him, but maybe that wasn't the best thing to do. Ruth was worried, more and more, that this commitment to Harry, this life they were trying to build together, would be their downfall.
He had said time and again that he would do anything to keep her safe, to rescue her if she was ever in danger, that she was the most important thing in the world to him. And as his fiancée, those were lovely, beautiful words to hear. But as someone who worked with him on the Grid, someone who knew firsthand the kinds of decisions that Harry Pearce was entrusted to make…those words were troubling indeed.
There had been a day, a terrible day, when Harry had sacrificed Ruth's wellbeing for the greater good. He had allowed Mani's men to murder George and make her watch it happen, even when she sat there, screaming and begging him to give the information about the plutonium so that George—innocent and beautiful and hers—might live. Looking back, Ruth was ashamed of herself for asking such a thing of him. But Harry had made the right choice, and she could not blame him for it. Not anymore. Harry had allowed Ruth to suffer that loss and that trauma rather than give in. And as ashamed as Ruth was now at her actions then, she was proud of Harry's strength. He'd done what needed to be done. It was just as she'd told him that day he'd tried to resign, when he had to order the EMP be detonated under Parliament. These were the decisions he did not want to make but that they all needed him to make.
But things were different now. Ruth had been with him again for more than a year, and they had reconciled and she was back on the Grid and they were engaged to be married. And now Ruth doubted whether Harry could still make those difficult choices. He had told her that he would sacrifice anything to save her. And for all they knew, that might be a circumstance in which they might find themselves. And Ruth would not be able to live with herself if Harry did something to save her that put others in danger. She didn't want to believe he'd ever do something like that, but she wasn't so sure anymore. The doubts were getting louder.
Today, given the storm of everything else she was suffering, Ruth couldn't manage to silence those doubts any longer. She stood under the stream of water in Harry's shower, staring at her engagement ring and twisting in around her finger. It slipped right off. She held it in the palm of her hand. Staring. It looked so small like this. It was much more imposing on her finger, the pear-shaped diamond with its halo of diamonds surrounding it and going all the way around the band. Beautiful, still, but somehow different when she held it like this.
A sudden mad urge filled Ruth to drop the ring down the shower drain, but of course she pushed that away. In fact, she immediately slipped it back on her finger and shut off the water. She'd wasted enough time this morning. She needed to get to work.
An hour later, she was hurrying up the stairs from the Embankment station. She'd skipped breakfast, so she planned to stop by the coffee cart by the river that she and Harry liked. Maybe they'd have those almond croissants that she liked. Something to chase away the heaviness that still lurked in the pit of her stomach.
Her mobile rang, and Ruth picked it up immediately. "Hello?"
"Where are you?" came Harry's voice. No pleasantries. Must be work-related.
"Coming out of the Underground. What do you need?"
"The talks are back on."
"Really? With the same parties? The same chair?"
"That's what Towers has just told me," Harry said. "I'll need you to start organizing things. Location and such."
"Of course," Ruth answered. "I'll go right in and review our list of approved hotels. We want a hotel, yes? Three days, maybe five to be safe? We'll want to go in the day before to clean up and such." Her mind was whirling with the details she'd need to arrange for, the things she'd have to coordinate with Tariq and Lucas.
"I'll leave you to it. I'm heading back to Thames House now."
"See you soon." And with that, Ruth hung up the phone. She skipped her coffee and croissant. She had work to do.
And all that work took about three days. The hotel had been arranged. The Prince Edward could be completely secured by their team, and it had availability in both of its highest-quality suites. Ruth spent a lot of time speaking on the phone to the organizers on the Israeli side in Hebrew and on the Palestinian side in Arabic. Her Hebrew was a bit rusty, but she got by alright. And as much time as Ruth spent translating Arabic, she hardly ever got to speak it, so this was a nice change of pace.
For three days, Ruth was entirely occupied with this project. For three days, she slept in her own bed while Harry slept in his, because these preparations meant that they were both busy coordinating with others and one or the other of them was out late and keeping odd hours. Ruth honestly would have slept on the Grid if it weren't for needing clean clothes each day and knowing she only had one set of things at Thames House for emergencies.
It was good to be busy. Ruth really did enjoy her work, especially when she could be so focused on something like this. Preparations were often her favorite part, making plans and figuring out options and contingencies. Nothing in their world ever went exactly according to those lovely plans she made, but anticipating possible problems and making arrangements for what to do just in case was something of a specialty of hers. It consumed her, and it had successfully pushed all personal concerns right out of her mind. Instead of her mind spinning about the worries she had about marrying Harry, she was instead thinking about these talks and what she still needed to figure out. A welcome reprieve from the difficult things she did not want to face.
Thursday morning, Ruth was able to give her briefing to the team. Harry sat at the head of the table, watching her intently, as she described the talks, the role of Lighthouse—codename for the President of the United States—and precisely where and how everything would happen. Dimitri would be playing Home Office babysitter to the Israelis while Beth would be doing the same for the Palestinians.
Harry surprised her by explaining the unfortunate history about Levi Cohen and his daughter, Anna. Ruth knew all this already, of course, but she did not know that Harry himself would be at the hotel with Levi as a personal favor to him. It looked like she would be on the Grid with Tariq and Lucas while the rest of them were at the Prince George. That wasn't a problem, obviously, but having Harry in the field, even for clandestine peace talks, always made her a bit nervous.
Having Lucas on hand like this made her a bit nervous as well. Lucas hadn't given Ruth any real reason to suspect him of anything lately, but her misgivings about him had not entirely gone away. She'd thought he was up to something, and while she'd not learned what it was, she'd not been given any evidence that there wasn't something about Lucas North that was cause for concern. Maybe it would be better to have him under her supervision for this. She might get a better sense of what might have been going on with him, if nothing else.
Everyone went to prepare for when Lighthouse was due to arrive in just over five hours. Harry was going to meet Levi Cohen at the hotel when the Israelis landed. Lucas was giving more detailed instruction to Beth and Dimitri. Tariq went to do his final security checks. And almost as soon as Ruth finished her briefing and went back to her desk, she received a message from the CIA about a journalist who had gotten wind of the talks and wanted to publish about it.
Somehow, it became Ruth's task to convince Ms. Donna Morrison not to run a story about all of this. And it wasn't easy.
Ms. Morrison felt very strongly about freedom of the press. "If the President is chairing talks between Israel and Palestine, then the public have a right to know about it. So no, Miss…Hall, I'm not going to sign that. Instead, I'm going to take your overtures as confirmation of my source's report and go to press. Today. This is a matter of principle."
"Normally, I'd agree. But these talks need to be kept secret. If you blow them open, we can't guarantee security and they'll be cancelled," Ruth explained.
"Then why do them in secret at all?"
Ruth was starting to grow annoyed. She agreed, as a matter of principle, that transparency by the government and freedom of press were vital to a free society. But Ruth also knew far better than Donna Morrison how the world actually worked. She tried to impart this on the journalist. "The President feels they only have a chance if they're away from the spotlight. Having them in public brings a certain…pressure not to compromise."
"Maybe." Morrison was starting to crack, though she quickly added, "But it is always in the public good to know."
Ruth grimaced slightly, trying to keep from getting cross. "Almost always." She paused, trying to find the right words. "I see pictures you don't see. I read transcripts you never will. I've watched people destroy their bodies for causes that began hundreds of years ago in countries they've never even visited. This isn't some abstract political goal you're putting at risk, Miss Morrison. It's a living thing."
And with that, Donna Morrison signed off on the non-disclosure agreement. Ruth gazed up to the camera in the briefing room. She knew Lucas was watching and keeping Harry informed. And Ruth was pleased that she had successfully gotten the journalist on side.
With that crisis averted, it was time to get back to work. The President would be landing soon. They needed to find the source who leaked the information about the talks to the journalist.