Thanks for reading and for the reviews to the last angst ridden chapter. Now on with Harry's POV

2 May 2002 (8.15 pm) Preliminary assessment of information from Liverpool and resultant actioning.

a) The bomb has been confirmed as originating from an Irish source. No warning given and no one has claimed responsibility which would seem to confirm that the Intel stating the bombs were sold on to another possibly non-sectarian buyer was accurate.

b) The Lynott family were first targeted with death threats twelve months ago, with a recent follow up stating that they would be attacked today. This has been confirmed from the material handed to the local police/Special Branch last year (negative results to investigation) and examples of the more recent hate mail obtained by Tom Quinn.

c) Due to the content of these communications current working theory is that the perpetrators belong to a group including a person or persons with links to Irish contacts and an anti abortion organisation. Alternatively it may be the work of a lone wolf with a similar profile.

d) Staff members Danny Hunter and Malcolm Wynn-Jones are researching known pro-life groups in the UK but none has any history of violence or threatening behaviour. Current status: most have been on low level watch list for several years. No significant change in behaviour has been detected.

e) In the absence of any further Intel an operation tracking the asset and her contacts has been prioritised with the objective of acquiring a more positive lead or leads. Zoe Reynolds has been designated the named officer coordinating the surveillance.

Note if another bomb is detonated the current cover story will not hold. Keith Burns the Special Branch officer who attended the scene in the first instance, now acting as the MI5 Section D/Special Branch liaison, has already expressed concerns relating to maintaining the current line. Section on standby to issue a D notice and a distraction story as planned.

I was forced to contact the Home Office with an update. Not that I really had much choice. If I hadn't kept them informed they'd have consulted Special Branch and I'd rather get in with my advice first. My resultant confirmation that this latest outrage was almost certainly not the unconstructed Irish at play was greeted with huge wafts of relief echoing down the secure line. If it wasn't quite, 'Rejoice, rejoice – All is well. Ring out the bells of London', it was damn well near it. Truthfully I wonder what planet these spin doctors inhabit. I'd be tempted to lump the civil servants in with that assertion, but will refrain on the self serving grounds that technically I suppose I'm one of that fellowship, although when I'm confronted with the unrestrained glee I've just heard – it's not the Irish so whoopee - I tend to transform into a very uncivil servant indeed.

Let's see, a normal working day within this Section requires us to cope with:

a) the remaining threat from Ireland,

b)Islamists, who while acting in the name of Allah, the merciful and peaceful, are attempting to bomb everyone to buggery,

c)the rebuilding of the Cold War under the aegis of Putin, who's crawled out from underneath his stone, and is now busily re-establishing democracy in Russia, KGB style,

d) provide back up and support for joint operations with other sections with reference to the nefarious activities of assorted drug dealers, porn merchants and bunny huggers.

And now, with that tidal way of terror drifting across my desk on a daily basis, the prats I report to consider that the introduction of an untraceable group of rampaging anti abortionists (killing in the name of life, as Tom so succinctly put it to me) into that toxic mixture is good news! Give me strength – or failing that a triple single malt.

As if I didn't have enough problems courtesy of the weird mental processes of the Home Office Tom also told Keith Burns rather more was necessary on the usual need to know basis. His excuse was, and is, that Burns has been unusually helpful due to his having a young son the same age as Sarah Lynott. I've since been advised from the first stage vetting that coincidentally Ellie Simm has a daughter who is their contemporary age wise. I just hope Tom hasn't gone soft. A wobbly Section Chief I can do without. Fortunately Burns is an older man and, from what I can make out, is well thought of within his own service so with luck he won't be too PC about how we go about getting the bastards.

From the strictly operational pov it will be interesting to see how Zoe copes with this extra responsibility as she hasn't had to co-operate with the Manchester crowd before, and they are bound to feel a certain parochial resentment at being superseded by a young fast tracked officer, especially one from London. When Tom announced his decision, while I wouldn't go as far as to call it annoyance, I got the distinct sense that Danny was a little peeved at being passed over for the task. Understandable when he and Zoe were appointed at about the same time. It wasn't a call I envied Tom, both are fine young talents and should go far - provided they survive and/or avoid capture by a hostile power. I didn't comment, although if pushed I would have endorsed Tom's decision. Danny tends to be a little impulsive and overreach himself. He reminds me very much of Lucas North, another promising officer, currently being housed in Russian prison.

That was a few years ago, and while Lucas might be gone he's not been forgotten, by me at least. I won't rest until we get him back. I keep angling for a prisoner exchange – and I'll continue doing so. One day I will succeed, I simply have to wait impatiently for the spying weathercock to turn in the winds of temporary détente. The realisation that I'm one of the few to remember Lucas, along with other issues make me feel very old at times. Today, for example, I overheard Zoe and Danny saying that none of the pro-life groups seemed to be an active threat. I felt impelled to remind them both that anything can seem innocuous and non- threatening until suddenly it is. Oh to be young and optimistic again. I remember how burnt out and disillusioned Clive McTaggart was when he retired. I can only hope that doesn't happen to me a few years down the line.

If the surveillance throws up nothing helpful I really don't know where we go from here. Given that the section's walking encyclopaedia, aka Malcolm the usually infallible, can't discover even a whisper for us to start working on really worries me. It implies that the culprits are completely under our current radar. Even worse, if possible, is that as a result of this almost total ignorance we've no idea how long we have before all Hell is let loose via bomb number two. For now trapped inside their tunnel vision, while it has the advantage of keeping them off my back somewhat, it seems to have entirely escaped the notice of our political masters that we still have nineteen dangerous devices secreted somewhere in the ownership of set of murderous fanatics we can't trace. Knowing the mindset of our glorious leaders, ie it isn't an emergency unless it happens in London, their current blase attitude will snap into blame mode the instant one of the unaccounted for bombs explodes in the capital, which my unspoken risk assessment regards as a distinct possibility.

To be effective in my post you have to think like the opposition in order to defeat them. If I were the enemy I'd pick small target as a test run, and then if successful - which the effort in Liverpool undoubtedly was - extend the mayhem into London as the bigger, more public stage on which to announce my arrival.

That I'm fighting on several fronts won't stop the Home Office from howling at me if we don't catch the culprits in time to prevent this scenario. I know that tracking down these nutters is our job but, despite the persistent rumours about Malcolm's sexuality, we aren't a bunch of fairies who can solve all problems by flitting around waving a magic wand.

Now there's a thought to conjure with on sleepless nights. My own private list of one hundred people to hex before I die, and number one would be…..

Thanks for reading. if you have a moment to spare please review.