Ruth froze, but around her a frenzy of action erupted. Above her she heard the Imam cry out and fall back against his door. The cat leapt from under her hands and shot up the street, and then she herself was falling. Zaf's voice yelled in her ear to 'get down', and then his weight was pressing her into the dirty concrete of the sidewalk. She felt a stinging pain in her cheek, but forgot about it as her eyes found the Imam, sprawled against the door a few metres away. A big red stain was spreading rapidly over his chest, and when she lifted her eyes to his face bright blood was trickling from his mouth. His eyes were wide and filled with panic as he struggled for breath, and she instinctively made a move towards him. Zaf pressed her down again unceremoniously and a split-second later another bullet smacked into the wall above their heads. She was vaguely aware of Zaf yelling for back-up into his mobile as her eyes stayed locked with the Imam's. He coughed twice, and she realised he was trying to speak. She focussed on his mouth, so full of blood, blocking out the chaos around them. Just for a moment the two of them seemed caught in a bubble where no other sound existed, and she heard him.
"Abdullah," he said, willing her to understand. "Mich atim."
The words were followed by a horrible gurgling sound, before he twitched a few times and was still. The eyes still stared at her, dull and unseeing. She closed her own, and the sounds around her came rushing back, dominated by the wail of sirens approaching rapidly.

- 0 –

The Grid

Harry and Adam were closeted in Harry's office. Adam sat on the sofa, keeping his own counsel, and watched Harry pace to and fro.
"I assume we're both thinking the same thing," Harry said at last, not meeting Adam's steady gaze.
"If you're thinking the mole our walk-in described sounds an awful lot like Ruth, then yes," Adam responded, bracing himself. Someone had to say it, and Harry obviously couldn't quite bring himself to do it.
"But it can't be, surely," Harry half-stated, half-asked, as he stopped pacing and turned towards his Section Chief.
Adam had never before seen such an expression on Harry's face; he seemed flustered, almost pleading, and for the first time Adam truly understood the depth of Harry's feelings for Ruth.
"I don't believe it for a second," he stated firmly. "But you know as well as I do that it counts for nothing against strong evidence."
"What bloody evidence!" Harry snapped as he resumed his pacing. "The spurious claim of a highly suspicious walk-in is not evidence."
Adam was quiet for a beat. "Oliver Mace is on his way, to take 'personal charge of the situation'," he said quietly. "Harry, you can't let him see-"
He stopped himself and Harry swung towards him. "Let him see what, Adam?"
"How much you care for her," Adam completed, meeting Harry's gaze.
The door flew open and Malcolm stuck his head in.
Harry's head whipped round. "Knock!" he yelled, his helpless frustration giving the word extra force.
Malcolm blanched but stood his ground. "Er, sorry, Harry. But there's been a shooting at our tame Imam's house."

- 0 –

The blood drained from Harry's face. All the anger was knocked out of him, replaced by a numbing fear.
Please, not Ruth.
Adam glanced at his dumbstruck boss, then asked the question he knew Harry so desperately needed answered. "Anyone hurt? Ruth and Zaf?"
Malcolm looked at Harry, a hint of compassion in his eyes. It seemed he, too, was now aware just how deep Harry's feelings for Ruth were. "They're fine. But the Imam is dead."

Harry found his voice as relief flooded him. "Where are they now?"
"They've taken the Imam's wife and daughter to a safe-house. Zaf thought it best to do so, until we know more about the motive behind the shooting."
"Good," Harry responded, the beginnings of a plan stirring in his head. "Tell them to stay there until they hear from us."
Malcolm frowned. "Both of them? I could really do with Ruth's help on the Grid-"
"No," Adam cut him off, picking up on Harry's thinking immediately. "Keep them both at the safe-house for the time being. What do we know about the attack on the Imam?"
"We have some cctv footage, but it's not great. Remember we installed a camera high up on the corner of the street to monitor the comings and goings at the Imam's house. Unfortunately the angle is not wide enough to pinpoint where the shot came from."
"Zaf saw nothing?" Adam queried.
Malcolm shook his head. "He said he was too busy keeping Ruth down and safe."
"Okay." He looked at Harry. "I'll send Jo out there to speak to the neighbours."
"I'm running the footage through that new 3D imaging software," Malcolm added, clearly pleased with the opportunity to use his latest toy. "It creates a three-dimensional graphic from the video footage, and it'll allow us to say with greater certainty from which of the apartments opposite the shot was fired."
Harry nodded distractedly, his eyes focussed beyond them on the Grid's doors. Adam looked round to see Oliver Mace step through. "I'll be right there," Adam said. "I have a call to make first."
When everyone had left, he fished out his mobile and punched a few buttons. "Zaf," he said, when he heard the familiar voice at the other end. "Listen carefully. Keep Ruth away from the Grid, and ditch both your mobiles immediately. I'll explain later." He disconnected, and followed Harry and the Chairman of the JIC to the conference room.

- 0 –

Harry took a seat at the table and watched as Mace moved to the glass wall and scanned the Grid. He wished that Juliet was out of hospital and back at the office already – he preferred to have her as a buffer between him and the JIC Chairman. He did not like Mace. The man was of questionable moral fibre and would willingly throw Ruth to the wolves if it served his own interests. At least with Juliet he would have got more leeway, more time to find out what was going on and to save her.
"You seem a little thin on the ground at the moment, Harry," Mace observed.
Harry ignored the comment. "To what do I owe the pleasure, Oliver?" he asked instead, folding his hands on the table in front of him. Adam took up station at the other end of table, watchful and silent.
Mace turned around. "Where is Ruth Evershed?"
A tendril of fear curled around Harry's heart.
"Why?" Adam asked bluntly, taking point in an attempt to prevent Harry's quick temper from erupting.
Mace's pale eyes turned to him, then went back to Harry. "I don't think this is a conversation to be had in front of junior personnel."
Adam bristled. "Are you running this section now?"
"Adam," Harry said quietly, and the younger man closed his mouth.
"He stays," Harry told Mace. "Now, why are you here, Oliver?"

There was a moment's silence as the three men watched each other; the atmosphere crackling with distrust. At last Mace moved to the table and took a seat opposite Harry.
"A report landed on my desk a half hour ago. You've had a walk-in with a rather interesting story to tell."
Adam leaned forward and looked at Harry. "That was quick."
Harry was thinking the same, but before he could say anything, Mace responded.
"I am always interested in what the walk-ins have to say. There is a standing instruction to forward the reports to my office."
"Come on," Harry scoffed, making a mental note to speak to the Security Officers about the chain of command. "The overwhelming majority of walk-ins are sad, pitiful specimens with delusions of grandeur, looking for their five minutes of fame. You can't tell me that those reports land on your desk within half an hour."
Mace conceded the point with a small dip of the head. "They felt this was a special case, due to the information the man provided about the mole here in Five. And that, Harry, as you well knew from the start, is why I'm interested in the whereabouts of Miss Evershed."

Harry stared at Mace, breathing fast and deep in an attempt to quell the panic. "Ruth is not a mole for a terrorist organisation. It's simply preposterous."
"Oh? How can you be so sure? Do you have some… intimate knowledge that no-one else has?"
"What the hell are you implying?" Adam demanded, but Mace's gaze never left Harry's face.
"It's all over this building, Adam. Your boss has been chasing after Miss Evershed's skirt. And from what I hear, has by now probably been inside said skirt."
Harry stood so quickly that his chair skittered backwards and bumped into the wall, and Adam half-expected him to launch himself over the table at the other man. Mace must have thought the same as fear flashed across his face, to Adam's great satisfaction. But Harry somehow controlled his anger, and merely said, "Get out."
The chilling tone of voice left Mace in no doubt as to just how much he had angered Harry, and he sat paralysed for a moment, wondering if he might have gone too far.
"I said get out!" The last two words were yelled so loudly that heads popped above monitors out on the Grid to see what was going on.
Mace hastily stood and put some distance between himself and the irate Harry. His pride would not let him leave without a parting shot, however, and he pointed a finger at Harry from the safety of the door. "Fine, but if Ruth Evershed sets foot in this building before this matter is cleared up, I will have her arrested. And no contact between you and her until then!"

Harry stood immobile until the Grid doors had closed behind Mace, before he slowly dragged his chair back to the table and sank into it. He rubbed his face with both hands wearily, and Adam didn't say anything. He didn't have to; his boss was well aware that the meeting had gone as badly as it possibly could have.
When Harry eventually spoke, his voice was dull. "How did you all know?"
Adam frowned, and Harry clarified, "About the date. Ruth's and mine."
The blond spook thought for a moment, and then he sat up a bit straighter. "Jo got it out of your Security Officer."
Harry's jaw clenched, and both men got to their feet simultaneously.

As they headed across the Grid, Malcolm waylaid them. "I've pinpointed the flat the shot had come from," he informed them with some satisfaction, and headed off towards his station. They had no option but to follow.
The techie pointed at his monitor, where the Imam's street layout was depicted in hordes of thin green lines. The end effect was a three-dimensional impression of the various buildings along the street.
"If I overlay the video footage of the shooting," he explained, tapping the Enter key, "the programme recreates the movements it detects onto the background."
They watched, fascinated, as two little figures moved towards the Imam's house.
"It automatically readjusts to ensure everything is to scale, right down to the last centimetre of Zaf and Ruth's heights," Malcolm elaborated. He was very proud of this programme. It was the last thing he and Colin had done together, which gave it extra meaning. Perhaps Adam was aware of that, because his gaze lifted to Malcolm's face for a beat, filled with compassion.
"Now if I slow it right down," Malcolm continued, "you can see the bullet appear here," he pointed at the screen, "and from there it is child's play to trace back the trajectory to the block of flats opposite."
Adam smiled and patted Malcolm on the shoulder. "Good work. Let Jo know, she's on her way to the street right now."
Malcolm nodded, and Adam followed Harry, who was already halfway across the Grid.

- 0 –

Jo stood at the window of the empty flat and looked down on the street below. Police tape cordoned off the sidewalk in front of the Imam's house, and she could see the dark stain of his blood against the lighter concrete. It was an excellent vantage point from which to monitor the Imam's flat. When she tried the window, careful not to touch anything without gloves, it opened easily. She scanned the floor but there were no casings lying around; the shooter had obviously picked them up. A professional, then. A cursory search of the flat produced nothing, and she hadn't really expected it to. The caretaker had informed her that the flat had stood empty for six months now. She headed outside and began to knock on the other doors along the corridor, but no-one had seen anything. Most people were at work during the shooting, or at least claimed to be. Jo suspected that there was also a healthy dose of apathy involved; this wasn't the most salubrious of neighbourhoods. She sighed and headed towards the lift, and that was when she saw the boy seated on the stairs.

He watched her with dark, serious eyes, clicking a pen flashlight on and off repeatedly. A very familiar make of flashlight. Jo smiled brightly as she approached him. "That's a pretty cool flashlight," she remarked, stopping a few feet away so as not to scare him. "My name's Jo," she added, and the boy frowned.
"That's a boy's name," he declared, "and you're a girl."
Jo's smile widened. He was obviously a precocious lad. "Yes, I am. It's short for Joanna. That's a girl's name, right?"
The boy considered and then nodded, satisfied. "Yes it is." He added, "my name's Khalil. That's a boy's name."
"Yes it is," Jo agreed gravely. She nodded at the flashlight. "Where did you get it, Khalil?"
The boy stopped clicking the on switch and slipped the flashlight into his pocket. "I didn't steal it!" he declared defiantly, and Jo's heart broke a little.
"I didn't mean to imply that you did," she said soothingly. "It's just that it's pretty neat, and I would like to get one too."
The boy relaxed again and nodded. "The man gave it me," he responded, taking it out of his pocket again.
Jo's heart-rate sped up, and she took a chance. "The man that came out of that flat?" she asked, pointing at the door of the empty flat.
The boy nodded again, enthusiastically. "I told him he wasn't supposed to go in there, but he showed me his badge. It had his face on it," he confided.
"Did it really?" Jo said encouragingly. "I bet you couldn't read what it said though."
It worked, as the boy immediately blurted out, "I can read pretty good, you know."
Anticipation tickled at the back of Jo's neck. "You can, huh? What did it say then?"
The boy sat up a bit taller and stated importantly, "It said Spe-cial Branch."

tbc