Chapter 6

Once inside Alex offered Jack a seat looking slightly uncomfortable.

"Jack I need your help," he began. "We've known each other a long time and I know that I can trust you."

"Of course," replied Jack. "Anything I can do to help, you know that I will." Alex paused and took a deep breath, considering where to begin.

"About two months ago I was on an assignment in Europe when I received a message from Mrs Henderson. Someone had tried to break into this room. I sometimes keep information of a sensitive nature here in theory it should safer here than at work." Jack nodded. "It was at night and Mrs Henderson neither saw nor heard anything. Whoever it was knew how to get in here and how to disable the alarms. Fortunately, Daisy and Claude saw them off otherwise who knows what they would have done. Apart from forcing the desk drawers, they didn't have time to do anything else. Nothing was taken."

"Daisy and Claude?" questioned Jack.

"My guard dogs. When I'm not home they have the run of the downstairs. I don't think that the burglars knew about them so they must have had quite a shock. They left behind a bit of jacket but not enough for the lab to be of much help."

"What do you want me to do?" asked Jack.

"The chatter is that some-one is prepared to pay a great deal of money for the file that I have in safe-keeping. I'm expecting them to try again and soon," replied Alex, grimly. "There is a lot that we can do on this side of the pond but our contact says that there is a link to your side and I was hoping that you could use your contacts to work that angle. We are looking for a terrorist who you have had some dealings with."

Jack leaned forward slightly, "Who?" he asked.

"Arif Dessa," announced Alex.

"Not possible," Jack stated, emphatically. "He was arrested and imprisoned. He is under surveillance at all times, there is no way that he could be involved."

"And that is where Jason comes in. He came to tell me that Arif Dessa escaped from prison yesterday. No-one knows where he is but they believe that he may be on his way here." Alex rubbed his hand across his face, the worry evident. Jack slumped in his seat. He had really believed that Arif Dessa, the Prince of Terror, was no longer a serious threat and now that had all changed. He wasn't looking forward to the next few days at all. He thought for a while before saying, "I need to tell Sue. Dessa poses a threat to her as well. Besides she has unique skills which will be of use to us. Not to mention that if we don't tell her and she finds out about this, and she will," he added. "Our lives will become very uncomfortable!"

Alex thought about this for a while. Already more people were involved in this than he would like but he agreed it would be beneficial to be able to use Sue's lip-reading skills.

"Alright," he said. "We can't really do any more today but I ought to introduce you both to the rest of the team tomorrow and we can plan out what action we are going to take. I haven't decided yet if having a house party here is a good thing or not, I don't want anyone to get hurt but it will at least hide some of what we will be getting up to." He looked at the clock on the wooden mantelpiece. "There is an hour until dinner. I'll leave you to get ready and join you in the sitting room, you can meet the other guests then."

Jack rose from his seat, "It will all work out, Dessa will soon be back where he belongs," he said, trying to sound positive but he was worried, very worried.

Quickly he made his way back upstairs and towards his room. Just as he reached the door to their corridor he saw Sue coming up the other set of stairs.

"Everything OK?" she asked, a curious look appeared on her face. Jack wrinkled his nose, "I'll tell you later," he signed. He turned the doorknob and was surprised to see Millie behind the door again. "How did you get here?" he asked puzzled. She grinned at him and scampered down the corridor towards the sitting room.

"How odd," commented Sue "You don't suppose some-one has been in our rooms do you?"

"Why would they?" replied Jack but after his conversation with Alex he felt a little worrying niggle. Was somebody keeping an eye on them? "Perhaps she can open the door from the outside and then not be able to get back out." He suggested and Sue nodded remembering the times that Levi had managed to shut himself in her room like that. They separated at their doors and began to change for dinner.