A/N: Thanks to everyone who's following and favoring this story. And to RedHotLover for the review. It's genuinely appreciated. I apologize for the long delay in updating; I will try to update as quickly as possible but no guarantees. Also, not going to lie, writing for this show, especially for Red, is hard.

Ch.2

2005

London, UK

The rain was coming down light but steady. An early morning fog enveloped the streets as he pulled the brim of his hat down lower and flipped up the collar of his jacket. Street lamps and porch lights did nothing to guide the way down the narrow sidewalks and around the tightly knit brick buildings. It'd been awhile since he'd been there but he was able to remember the house as clearly as if he'd lived there himself.

He even knew where the spare key was hidden behind a loose brick in the porch wall. At half pass one in the morning the interior of the house was dark but not silent. There was the faint sound of music drifting softly in the air. Having been there many times before, he didn't need a light to maneuver through the rooms. The office was on the other side of the house. The smell of the place was one of old books and coffee, cigar smoke and cognac. There were no plants or flowers, no homely scents or feels. This was a workaholics home. There was no need for unnecessary items like plants that would just wither and die.

Stepping into the kitchen, the music became louder and he recognized the song that was playing. It was 'Time' by Tom Waits from the album Rain Dogs. He could see light coming from under the door to the office, illuminating the tile floor in front of it. He took off his hat and hung it on the doorknob. After tapping on the door twice, he opened it.

Liam was slumped back in the chair, Brandy Snifter in hand, and a file open on the desk. He jerked his head up when the door opened. After a moment of surprise, he smiled and stood. "Well, well, what a pleasant suprise. If it isn't the ol' rain dog himself," he said referring to not only the song now playing but album title as he extended a hand. "How the hell are you, Ray?"

As they shook hands, he couldn't help but think that in all the years they've known each other it seemed that Liam Michael Neville hadn't aged a day. With salt-and-peppered hair that was cut short, high cheekbones, and sharp blue eyes, the man was still as opposing yet inconspicous as a spy should be.

Liam let go of his hand and looked to the door. "Where's Dembe?"

"The South Sudan, fighting for freedom," he stated as he took off his wet jacket and slung it over the back of the chair.

Liam was smiling as he sat back down. "Good for him."

Once seated, he told him, "I saw the press conference."

Liam narrowed his eyes at him, confusion and suspicion clouding his blue eyes. "You came all the way to London because of a press conference?" He reached over and turned off the player, cutting the music off.

"I was curious." When he only received a look from Liam in return, he said, "And there's a production of Il turco in Italia at the Royal Opera House, it's first...am I right?"

"Yes. How'd you get an invitation?" he asked as he opened the top right desk drawer. Taking out two cigars and passing one over.

Red only smiled as he took it while saying, "Your wife."

Most men would have gotten offended or angered, Liam laughed. He continued chuckling as he pulled out a lighter and lit his cigar before leaning over the desk to light his. "She always liked you more than I, my friend. I couldn't manage to wangle an invite to our twenty year anniversary dinner."

He laughed as he blew out the smoke, saying, "That's because she spent it with me. Took her on a boat ride down the River Thames to Adventure Island."

"Adventure Island? You don't say."

"She has a fondness for Ferris Wheels," he deadpanned before sticking the cigar in his mouth. He hadn't heard Liam laugh so hard in years.

"If I didn't know my wife any better, Ray, I'd think you were actually telling the truth. She's terrified of heights." He reached over picked up a liquor bottle as he asked, "Cognac?" After getting a nod in response, Liam reached behind him to grab him a Brandy Snifter then filled it three fingers worth before passing it over before refilling his own glass.

"The bombing outside the Embassy," he got down to business as he took a sip of the brandy. "Horrible, all those people..." He sipped slowly at the drink as he studied the MI6 agent and enjoyed the way it eased his racing mind. "Then there's the issue with the press conference. They said there was a leak. In other words, a possible mole in the agency." He tilted his head as he regarded a man he'd been privileged to call friend for nearly thirties years now. "I want the truth. And I want to hear it from you."

Liam looked to the file on his desk as he absently tapped it with the fingers that held the cigar. After taking a sip of the brandy, he told him, "What's really going on is someone screwed up. Upon screw-ups, scapegoats are needed. I am the senior case agent, so...all fingers point to me." He rubbed at his face and leaned back into chair while taking puffs off the cigar. A few moments later, after he downed the cognac, he told him, "I've been placed on administrative leave. I don't blame them, really. Once I get close to this son-of-a-bitch, this...Perses, as he calls himself, he slips away. This bombing at the Embassy marked the one year anniversary of his first bombing at Waterloo."

"So that's the name he's going by now. Perses, the Titan god of destruction." He brought the glass down to his lap as he studied the suspicion coursing through the other man. "When he was with the IRA, I knew him as Sebastian."

Liam stared over at him; his voice barely above a whisper as he said, "You know him."

"I knew him. The man he was then and the man he is now are completely different in both ideology and agenda. The man I once knew would never have risked the deaths of innocent civilians, no matter the gains."

Liam was quiet a long moment, studying the file in front of him. It held all the information about this bomber reaking havoc over London. "Any idea what caused his drastic change in behavior?"

"Certainly. Eight years ago I killed his brother in a hotel bathroom in Brussels. Beat him to death with a shower caddy."

Eight Years Ago

1997

"Who's there?"

Red waited for the next line that followed the one Dembe had spoken and when it didn't come, took the cigar out of his mouth and said to Newton, "Did the Fool run off?"

"No, sorry," he said as he sat up on the sofa and refocused on the book. ""Marry, here's grace and a cod-piece; that's a wise man and a fool"." Newton looked up from the book and asked, "What does that mean, grace and a cod-piece?"

He laughed a little as he blew out the smoke from the cigar. "King Lear is symbolized by royal grace whereas the Fool by his cod-piece. It's slang for penis."

"So, he just called himself a dick?"

"Actually, since he was speaking ironically because he pointed out that the King was now the foolish one, he called King Lear one." As Dembe started laughing, he himself chuckled as he said, "I so love Shakespeare. Even in the worst of tragedies he had a sense of humor," right before he stuck the cigar back into his mouth.

Dembe pulled the book back over onto this lap, away from Newton, as he contined reading, "Alas, sir, are you here? Things that love night love not such nights as these. The wrathful skies...frighten the very wanderers of the dark, and make them keep inside their caves. Since I was man, such sheets of fire, such, bursts of hor-rid...horrid?" He gave a nod and Dembe continued, "horrid thunder, such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never remember to have heard. Man's nature cannot bear the...af-flic...affliction, nor the fear." Looking up from the book, he told him, "your turn."

Red didn't need to take the book from Dembe's lap to recite King Lear's next lines. Having read this story many times, he could recite most of it by pure memory alone, especially Lear's verses. They were his favorite. "Let the great gods that keep this dreadful commotion over our heads find their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch, that hast within thee undivulged crimes, unpunished by justice. Hide thee thou bloody hand; thou perjured, and thou pretender of virtue that are...incestuous. Wretch, to pieces shake, that under covert and convenient seeming hast practiced against man's life. Secret pent-up guilts split open your concealing coverings, and cry these dreadful summoners grace...I am a man more sinned against than sinning." Seeing both Dembe and Newton staring at him, he asked, "What?"

"That was really good," Newton said as Dembe just smiled in agreement.

Dismissing the compliment, he said to Dembe, "Your turn, Kent."

"Why're we reading Shakespeare anyway?" Newton asked. "He's only been at this for less than a year. There're easier stories to read."

"Because if you can read Shakespeare, you can read anything. Dembe, please continue. I think Newton's feeling a bit overwhelmed."

"I'm not a fan of Skakespeare. His stories are hard to understand," Newton protested.

"That's why I'm using the Oxford Edition that they use in universities. It translates better into modern English, and if you still can't understand what's going on then the problem isn't with Shakespeare."

Newton stared at him for a long moment before saying, "You think I'm an idiot."

"On the contrary, I think you're capable of so much intelligence, Newton, that if you start to actually think for yourself you'd be nearly unstoppable in what you could accomplish...but you don't. Instead, you've given your life over to the servitude of others and in doing so you bend to the will of others. Their thoughts become yours. It's the one thing that makes you the best right hand man I could ever hope for. As for the story, subtlety is hard to understand if you're not used to recognizing it. Not everyone is as blunt as I am." Turning back to Dembe, the told him, "You're doing splendidly, go ahead and continue."

The phone in the hotel room shrilled to life, breaking him from his concentration. He watched as Newton got up to answer it while he half-heartedly listened to Dembe's voice reading over the lines. Blowing out the smoke from the cigar, he heard Newton's normally soft tone grow louder as he spoke into the phone right before someone knocked at the door.

Newton turned to look at him as he looked toward the door just as it opened and in walked one of the hotel's bellboy and a man whom he'd recognized by the name Declan. Getting up off the sofa, he turned to Dembe and gestured for him to leave the room, which he did soundlessly.

Once he heard the door shut to the bedroom, Red turned and walked toward the two men who'd entered.

"I apologize, Mister, but-"

"You can stop your futile attempt at an acceptable excuse," he said to the bellboy as he stopped in front of him. "I hope that hefty sum of money he gave you, the one that's fluffing up your pillow, makes it easier to sleep. You can go now." As Newton saw the bellboy out, he called out, "Newton. I'm expecting room service to arrive shortly...in about, ten minutes."

Newton gave a nod before shutting the door behind him.

Red then turned to the other man in the room. "Declan, what are you doing in Brussels...and in my hotel room?"

Declan had been eyeing the closed bedroom door before turning his attention to him. He was a tall broad Irishman with brownish-blond hair that was graying. A pair of emerald green eyes stared hard at him as he tried to a friendly smile. They both knew there was nothing friendly about this visit. "Am I interrupting?"

At realizing what he was hinting at, he quickly answered, "It's not what you think. And, quite frankly, yes."

There was a sudden glint in his eyes as he said, "I never would've thought you had a taste for young boys."

He felt an ignition of anger spark deep within him at that implication. Stepping right up into Declan's personal space, making the man have to look down on him while he looked up, he told him, "You better come to a revered understanding of exactly who it is you're speaking to and watch what you say or so help me God, I'll make it so your own mother won't be able to identify you."

With a huff of air and soft chuckle, Declan stepped back as he held up his hands. From the humor in his eyes it seemed like the Irishman wasn't taking him seriously at all. "We had a deal."

"Yes, we did. I honored it and it's done." He turned away and walked over to the wet bar to pour himself a glass of Scotch, three fingers worth. He didn't bother to ask Declan if he wanted a drink. He wouldn't be staying long.

"The shipment was seized."

"When? After it cleared customs and was taken into possession by your men? You can't blame me for your own people's incompetence, Lance." At seeing the redding of Declan's face, he mockenly apologized, "Oh, I'm sorry...I forgot you don't like being called that. Does it bring up distressing childhood traumas? You know, I know a therapist in Chesapeake, Virginia that can do wonders-"

"I want what I was promised!" Declan interrupted.

Giving a shake of his head, he took a sip of the scotch. "I can't help you with that."

He heard the bedroom door open and saw Dembe quietly walk across the hall to the bathroom before shutting the door behind him. Moments later, the shower was running. He looked over at Declan and saw an amused smirk on his face as he eyed the bathroom door. Taking another sip of the drink, he walked over to the window and peered out over the Belgium city toward the Brussels–Charleroi Canal. Red could care less what Declan assumed and didn't, he knew who he was and what he was capable of. And if Declan continued to not take him seriously, well, he would just have to make him.

"Once word gets around that one of your shipments got confiscated, it'll be very bad for you, laddie. This business empire you're trying to build will cease to exist."

"Are you threatening me?"

"It doesn't have to be this way, Red. All I'm askin' for is a favor."

He laughed as he turned to address Declan face-to-face. "A favor would suggest that we're friends. Either way, friend or foe, favors are a slippery slope; one that I intend not to go down, especially if the hand I'm holding is yours. You know how favors can go. One day it's an innocent request to get a crate of illegally shipped weapons out of police evidence. The next, it's blackmail." He downed the rest of his drink just as the hotel room door opened and Newton peered in.

"Sir, room service."

Setting the empty glass on the window ledge, he excused himself as he went out into the hallway with Newton. Once the door was shut, and checked the hall to make sure it was empty, he turned to him and said, "Call Garrick, have him get his team ready."

"Right away, sir." Newton crossed the hall to the opposite door and opened it and slipped inside to make the call from that hotel room's phone.

He really didn't want to deal with Declan, but the Irishman had a point. This was bad for business and he couldn't risk those weapons being traced back to his associates and to himself. The moment he opened the door to an empty room, his stomach dropped.

The next thing he noticed was that it was silent. There was no running water from the shower. In seconds he was across the room and using his shoulder to plow open the bathroom door. The sight before him, a shivering and wet Dembe, towel clinched tightly in his hand, and Declan standing in front of him, he snapped.

Feeling that anger that had ignited earlier consume his whole body, his arms were around Declan's neck in an instant, choking the very life out of him. He knew there was only one way out of there for the Irishman, and that was in bodybag.

The bigger, taller man didn't give up so easily as he rammed him back into the wall. A breath of air escaped him and he was squished between the wall and the man's back, but he didn't let go. There was something digging into his gut from the man's back. The handle of a gun was protruding out of Declan's back. He couldn't let him get the gun and he couldn't loosen his grip to get the gun himself.

He heard more than saw Newton take Dembe out of the room and to safety as his grip around the man's neck got tighter. An elbow jabbed into his ribs as he threw his head back. He'd turned just in time so the impact cracked against his temple and splinter open a gash over his right eye. That blow would've broken his nose.

Planting his feet back against the wall, he pushed off, sending Declan stumbling forward as he fingernails scrapped over his forearm. The big man was running out of air quick but he still had fight left in him as he bucked his body forward, flipping him up and over onto his back against the tile floor. Declan took in a deep breath as he kept stumbling forward and into the opposite wall.

Blood was stinging his right eye as he rolled up off the floor and took in short labored breaths as he grabbed the nearest available thing he could reach, a shower cabby. He wasn't going to give Declan time to recover and go for the gun. As Declan's hand shot back for the gun, he'd already advanced, drew back, then swung; the first blow was jarring, did little damage. All the rest splattered blood. It was on the ceiling, the walls, over the sink and toliet seat, and then pooling on the floor.

Dropping the bloodied shower caddy to the floor, he turned away from the lifeless body of Lance 'Declan' McCain and left the bathroom.

Newton was approaching with a gun in his hand. A little too late. Looking him over, he said, "I'll call Mr. Kaplan."

"She's in New York," he said as he let out a deep sigh. "I'll call. Wipe the room and keep house-keeping out."

"Yes, sir."

He left the room and went across the hall to the other hotel room. Shutting the door upon entering, he saw Dembe, completely dressed, standing across the room with his eyes staring out the window. At hearing the door shut, he turned. His body had been tight and on alert and it barely sagged in relief at seeing him standing there. Red stood there as he watched as Dembe's sharp eyes took him in from head-to-toe before turning and crossing the room.

His breath caught a little as he watched as Dembe turn his back on him and leave the room. There was so much he wanted to say, to apologize for and promise. The truth was there was nothing he could say, no promises he could make, because the truth was that he wouldn't be able to protect Dembe every second of the day for the rest of his life. He could try and do what he could but in the end the only person who could protect Dembe, was Dembe.

Running a hand over his wet hair, wet from both sweat and blood, he let his head drop in disappointment as he tried to regain some sense of control. The adrenline he'd been experiencing was dying down, making him feel so much older, and tired, as he crossed the room to the window Dembe had been staring out of moments before.

Behind him he heard something being placed on a table then Dembe's voice reached his ears, "Raymond, you need to sit down."

When he turned from the window, he saw a hand towel, wash cloth, a bottle of water, bottle of hydrogen peroxide, and a first aid kit open on the dining table. Looking it over, then resting his eyes on Dembe, he walked over and sat down in front of him. "Are you all right?"

"You're bleeding," Dembe told him as he got the wash cloth wet with water and started wiping the blood off his face. "I am not."

He wanted to laugh, so he did. "Yeah, you're right. I'm the one bleeding."

Dembe took his time as he cleaned him up and bandaged his cuts. Once he was done, he handed him a couple of ibuprofens and the rest of the bottle of water.

"I much prefer scotch to pills, but I appreciate the thought." He regarded the frown on Dembe's face before asking again, in all sincereity. "Are you really okay, Dembe? It's perfectly fine if you're not. If you're scared, or angry...If you hate me for any-"

The hug took him by surprise. First, he hadn't been expecting it. The second, Dembe hadn't welcomed any physical contact since the day he'd carried him to his car then to his plane to get him out of Nairobi.

Ending the embrace and taking a step back so he could look at him, Dembe asked, "Did you kill that man?"

With a moments hesitation, he opted instead for the truth, "Yes."

"Because he wanted to hurt me?"

"Yes."

Letting out a deep sigh, Dembe patted the back of his head then placed his forehead against his as he said, "Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi rajiun...To Allah we belong and to Him we return." He stepped back and regarded him for a moment before telling him, "There is a saying, "If you do something bad, follow it by doing something good"."

Giving a nod, he told him, "I think I can do that, Dembe."

Dembe smiled, one of great joy and forgiveness, before asking, "Now what?"

"We leave." But not before he used the phone to call Mr. Kaplan.

Back to 2005

London, UK

Liam regarded him closely; his suspicion was gone but that didn't mean his guard was down. "You want to help me catch him?"

Red took the cigar out of his mouth as he smiled. "Call it a good deed to rectify a bad one. Several years ago an associate of mine brokered a deal with Sebastian behind my back, one that I would never agree with. I took care of the associate after I found out, but it wasn't until a few months ago that I discovered that these acts of terror in London were the result of that deal."

With a soft laugh and shake of his head, Liam said, "Why the hell not. I've got nothing to lose, only everything to prove."

"There's the spirit." Putting the cigar out, he stood and took his jacket in hand. "I'll be in touch. Give my best to Eleanor."

"I always do. Need an umbrella?"

"Thanks, Liam, but no thanks. I've never trusted the things since I was shot by one in West Berlin," he said off-handly as he left the office and retrieved his fedora from the doorknob.

He left the dark house and went back out into the rain and headed toward the corner where Newton was waiting in the car.

TBC...