They had absolutely no real proof that Blake was involved only their gut instinct, but Jo witnessing a conversation between Connie and the Home Secretary, was sufficient for Ros to have upgraded the threat level to a code red. Arresting him or Connie for that matter, she'd say what? No she had to let this play out. Sitting in Harry's chair but without the usual backing of the Home Office, the fall were it to come would be far greater, especially when they were faced with the real possibility that civilians could be hurt or worse. Not for the first time, she marvelled at Harry's ability to have done this job for so many years and not crumble under the sheer weight of its responsibility. Did the powers that be know or appreciate the full extent of his worth? She very much doubted it. Back to the here and now Rosalind she chided herself, they just needed to be sharper than their opponents and hang onto the positives that they were already several steps ahead.


They'd done as they'd been told and walked the final couple of miles on foot. Helped by a reasonably overcast early evening sky and with a well-honed technique that had helped them survive on the streets, they'd blended into the shadows like the spies that they now were. Young men who had spent months and in some cases years battling to survive on nothing but their wits, transported, if only for a short while into a world that they couldn't possibly have envisaged. Provided with new clothes, food in their bellies, but most importantly, money sufficient to sustain them or change their lives forever if they so wished, were all here at their fingertips.

Avoiding the main body of the building, Jo and Ben ushered what they were now referring to as their associates, into the bowels of Thames House via the back staircase and into one of the rarely used interrogation suites. It wasn't ideal, it wasn't by any means comfortable, but essentially it was well away from the grid and any prying eyes. One by one they filed in, first reading and then signing the official secrets act. By the time that Tariq arrived with Alec who went to join Ros at the head of the makeshift table, it was standing room only. If any of them harboured any doubts as to the seriousness of the situation, then they would surely have vanished the moment that Ros stood up. Cool and calm and with her usual air of authority that didn't broker an argument, she demanded their attention.

'Gentlemen,' she said, as the room fell silent, all bar an out of date air conditioning pump that continued to rumbled like a passing train, somewhere above her head, emitting god knows what into the atmosphere of their cramped surroundings. 'From this moment until approximately 11pm on Saturday evening, I assure you will be the most important forty eight hours of your lives so far. The full impact, should we fail to uncover what we now know to be a plot to endanger the lives of our fellow citizens, will have consequences that reach far beyond the four walls of this building,' she told them, as Alec scanned the sea of faces, looking to see if there were any amongst them that didn't appear to be taking her seriously. There weren't. Ten pairs of eyes were glued like magnets to this formidable woman, as she went on to explain what would now be a very different evening.

'We've taken into account that you may have varying physical abilities, which is no reflection on you,' she assured them, 'but to create the illusion that you're just some of the thousands ordinary competitors who are practising for Saturday's race, your bikes are being discarded in favour of jogging or walking, or a bit of mix and match would be my choice, were I asked to do it.'

As she paused, a sigh of relief and a few smiles crossed the assembled faces. This woman was human after all. 'You'll be working in pairs as a relay, each pair running or walking for five or so miles before handing on to the next one and so on, until John and Rob,' and here paused again, scanning the room for confirmation as to who they were, until two hands finally realised what she was asking and shot up, 'who it's been decided should run the final leg and cross what will be the finishing line,' she concluded, before asking if any of them had any questions before she handed over to Alec.

'It will be painstaking and time consuming, because every electricity junction box along the route has to be checked,' he explained to them, at which point a picture flashed up on the screen to show what was normal and Malcolm handed out their individual route plans. 'If you spot anything at all, no matter how small or you're not confident about you call it in, we'll have a team with you within moments, do you understand?' he asked them.

Leaving Jo and Ben to sort out the last minute arrangements and to answer any questions, he and Ros headed back to the grid in search of some rest.


Unlike Malcolm and Tariq who had spent another interminably long night with their eyes glued to the monitors, Ros and Alec had manged to grab a few hours of sleep in two of the overnight rooms that were available to senior staff. Without Harry's authorisation, convincing Ron, the pig headed guardian of the keys that it was crucial that Alec stay on the grid rather than go home hadn't been easy and it was close to three am before they finally turned in, having shared an extremely tasteless pizza and a couple of beers over what had amounted to another of their 'are we really going to be able to pull this off' discussions.

Now at 7am they were back in Harry's Office. Having had a brief discussion with the troops, they were finally eating something edible that Alec had nipped out for. With Tariq asleep on the couch in the rest room, Jo and Ben had been dispatched to oversee the teams that were dismantling the devices, before they headed home for a short break. Malcolm for his sins wasn't so lucky, and was under instruction to visit Harry and Ruth as early as he felt was reasonable, to update them on what they'd discovered, but more importantly to see if Harry had any pearls of wisdom to offer.

One hour earlier.

When Ruth woke up it was barely light and the bed beside her was empty. Rolling over, the covers were still warm, so maybe Harry had just gone to the bathroom and was coming back to bed, she hoped so? She closed her eyes again, a warm and relaxing smile creeping up from deep within her, as she recalled their outpourings of the previous day and evening. So many regrets had been put to bed and 'never to be spoken of again' Harry had told her, as they'd shared far too much wine, drunk by the sheer wonder of occasion rather than what they'd consumed. Despite her telling him that she wanted to wait until the Op was over before they discussed their future, a smiling and persuasive Harry had been impossible to resist, and their conversation had inevitably drifted towards what would happen once they were free to leave.

'Options?' he'd said, his eyes full of expectation, just as they'd been that night in the restaurant, to the point where she wondered why on earth it had taken a forced incarceration, for them to be so open with each other and be having this conversation.

'New York, you promised me New York, I have it in writing,' she'd attempted as a joke, trying to stay in her seat, when he was obviously toying with her like a cat who had a mouse at the end of a piece of string and was daring it to run away, or more precisely forcing her to come towards him.

'Paris is so much closer,' he'd replied, with the same gentle tone to his voice and an unspoken 'come on Ruth how much longer can you hold out' as his hypnotic hands, with a promise of so much more played havoc with her body, strumming an equally suggestive tune on top of the table.

He was within moments of succeeding, when he realised that his overwhelming desire to seduce Ruth, had inadvertently steered the conversation away from his objective, and that these were just holidays that they were talking about. The conversation about a home and the life together, that they'd both craved for so long, wasn't one to be taken lightly and definitely not when their evening was going to end as it invariably did now, with a tumble into bed followed by a night of discovery as they continued to adjust to what and how to enjoy each other, and certainly not when they'd consumed far too much wine, to the point where they might not even make it as far as the bedroom. So reining in his enthusiasm as far as the future was concerned, it was 'there's always tomorrow Ruth, we'll talk about it in the morning,' as they headed for the stairs.


Malcolm had rung in advance this time, wisely as it so happened, because by the time that Ruth walked into the kitchen, Harry was slumped at the table with his head in his hands. In what Malcolm recognised as not only a gesture of support, but one to keep Harry in check, Ruth walked up behind him and put each of her hands on his shoulders, leaning forward until her face was close enough to kiss the top of his head. If they hadn't had him as an audience, he felt sure she'd have done it.

'Tell me, what's Ros going to do?' It was Ruth who asked the question, after Malcolm repeated that Jo had witnessed Blake in a conversation with Connie.

'Nothing for the moment other than we're going to put a tail on him,' he told them, as Ruth nodded towards him with a gesture that told him to put the kettle on.

'And after this I want a piece of him,' growled Harry, still not raising his head.

'No you don't Harry,' Ruth said so quietly, that Malcolm wondered if he'd imagined it, feeling impelled to turn away and make them all the drink that she'd suggested. Behind his back, he heard a chair scrape across the floor. Ruth had dragged hers and was sitting next to Harry, his hands now held firmly between hers on top of his knees, Harry now calmer, almost defeated.

'What kind of spook does that make me Ruth, that I've trusted a man for years, only to find out that I'm wrong?' Malcolm heard him ask her.

There was a long pause, during which time Malcolm wondered if Ruth was putting together an answer or that she simply didn't have one.

'He's a politician Harry and as you've always told us they're all devious bastards, Blake's just proved you right.'

Malcolm wasn't watching, but he was convinced that Harry had smiled.

'Sorry Malcolm, you look dreadfully tired,' Ruth eventually commented watching him cradling his coffee, and realising that as it was only just gone seven and that maybe in view of the news, that he'd been up all night. Their own dishes from the previous evening were still stacked at the end of the worktop, what on earth must Malcolm think, that they spent their entire time in bed? Had he volunteered to deliver this news, had Ros sent him, thank god it was Malcolm who surprisingly seemed to be able to cope with their crazy relationship.

'I could murder a bacon sandwich and another coffee if you could manage it,' he tentatively asked her, his lop sided grin back in place, before he went back out into the hall for the bags of groceries that he'd shopped for on his way there.

It was another hour, during which time he'd enjoyed his breakfast and explained that they'd now narrowed the list of protagonists down to four, but that it didn't include Juliet. The biggest surprise, was that one of the analysts that they'd briefly employed after Ruth had been exiled was involved. He'd been in contact with GCHQ, who in the first instance had been reluctant to tell him that she'd managed to slip through their net unnoticed, but having pressed them, they'd finally conceded that they were the ones at fault and that she was quite probably the person who had hacked into their files and had passed them on. Connie, who Ros had always suspected, they were sure about and were continuing to keep a track on, but Nicholas Blake and where the hell he fitted in and why they had no idea. All indications were that Tessa Phillips who had all the resources that they would need at her fingertips, was also implicated, but despite their efforts they still hadn't been able to trace her.

'Moving on,' he said, handing them a list of Ben's assets, before going on explain that they'd been vetted before being temporarily recruited and how without them they'd have been up the proverbial creek without a paddle. 'We've got to the stage where we don't know who to trust, not even our own,' he told them, telling them about the long hours that everybody was still working.

He then took them through what he described as the previous night's antics and what they'd found. Alec had been right and they'd found ten devices, one of which had been on Tower Bridge, which if plunged into darkness when filled with hundreds of runners and spectators, had the potential to be catastrophic. The other nine had been timed to trigger simultaneously, within a few miles of the finishing line when the bulk of the fun runners and stragglers, all running for their various chosen charities, some with their children, would be bunched tightly together. They'd concluded that the blackout in itself would result in the runners stopping, but it would take more than that to create the chaos that these people were attempting to provoke. In the current climate where terrorist factions were hitting large cities all over the world, killing innocent civilians indiscriminately, all of which were televised, what easier way was there than to replicate what was seared in people's minds, than to fire a single shot just before the lights went out. It would cause pandemonium as people ran for their lives, trampling on others as they did so, during an event that was labelled the people's race. Added to which, it was the prefect way to bring the services down, suggesting that a single gunman who should have been on their radar, could be the cause of so much harm.

'And this gunman any idea who it is?' was Harry's only question.

'One of those four presumably, it's all we've got.' Malcolm told them.

'No it's not,' said Ruth, cutting across their conversation, having realised that Blake having access to every government building along the embankment, made them the obvious place to fire off a shot.

It was all very well and good being the best analyst that the section had ever had, but when you'd just come up with the solution to discovering not only the gunman, but the building where he'd be hiding, but that it would involve watching the man that you loved and intended spending the rest of your life with, leave this safe haven to wander the corridors of Westminster, because he was not the only best qualified to do so, but could come and go unchallenged, you had one hell of a dilemma on your hands. Not only that, sods bloody law dictated that by the look on his face he knew exactly what you'd been thinking and had come to the same conclusion.

'You know I have to do it,' meant nothing to Malcolm, but everything to them, as Harry asked Malcolm to give them a moment.

Every fibre in Ruth's body was screaming at her to stop him by saying no, to buckle under the weight of her fear and to beg him to stay with her. But this went way beyond personal, it was the other Harry that she was standing in front of, it was what he did, it was what he'd spent the best part of his life fighting for. Whatever the future held for them, he was still nominally head of section D and she had to let him go, no matter what the cost or the overwhelming fear that she was going to lose him.

'Ring Ros and tell her I'm on my way and whatever you do Malcolm, don't let Ruth out of your sight for a single moment,' he called back down the hall. as she followed him.

'I'll be fine, I'll be back before you know it,' he whispered and then kissed her, as they clung to each other for reassurance.

She wanted to tell him not to get shot, to tell him that she loved him, she'd even marry him if he asked her, but the words were sticking in her throat and she could feel the tears coming.

'I must go Ruth,' he urged her, but with a look of such sadness that encompassed everything that they were both feeling, before his kissed her one last time and was gone.