Chapter 2

Plutonium Tea Parties

The team was gathered around the large, highly polished, rectangular wooden table in the briefing room waiting for Harry to join them.

It had been around a week since Amelin's suicide and the apparent collapse of the Lighthouse network. It had been a quiet week. The only thing of any note had been the localised threat of a bombing that had turned out to be an over-enthusiastic, chemistry-obsessed teenager; a slow week by their standards, something that all of them had, privately, been infinitely grateful for.

The door slid open with soft hiss and Harry entered looking grim,

"Good morning to you to Mr. Pearce." Ros smirked, sensing that he was not about to invite them all out to lunch.

"If only it was." He countered

"What's happened?" Ruth asked diplomatically, putting an end to their childish conversation before it got started.

Harry took a deep breath and began to explain as the wall-mounted monitor warmed up, "Following the drama of the Lighthouse operation, Russia has decided to try and make amends,"

""Dear God help us all..." Ros muttered

"What have they done ?" Lucas asked, smirking at Ros.

"They've called for international peace talks in an attempt to limit the number of nuclear weapons owned by various world powers."

A large map was projected onto the screen, highlighting the countries with nuclear capabilities,

"They should probably have thought about that before they attempted to spark a potentially apocalyptic Third World War." Sofia muttered darkly.

"What do they get out of this? What's in it for them?" Tariq asked.

"Britain wasn't the only country that suffered from the initial stages of Lighthouse, several others were involved, the only difference being that they don't know the true origin or meaning of the attacks. In short it's caused some serious tensions between nations and there are whisperings of the stockpiling of nuclear weapons, potentially leading to an arms race that Russia would be forced to enter into."

"So Russia wants to try and prevented the arms race and calm the tension its created in one neat little peace talk." Lucas nodded.

"Yes and no." Harry said, "Peace talks? Yes. Neat and little..."

"Not so much?" Tariq enquired,

"No, not least because Britain has been chosen to host them." Harry sighed.

"Hold up, Russia's fished the china from the back of the dusty peace talk but we end up hosting the tea party? How did that happen?" Sofia demanded.

"To be honest I'm not sure who we blame for this." Harry muttered, "I've only just been told, it'll be some political move you can be sure..."

"When exactly did the world morph into a chess board?" Ros enquired sarcastically.

"No idea, but don't complain, said chess board employs you." Lucas winked.

"Who are the players in this particular game?" Ruth asked.

"That's where things become more interesting. As you all know in 1968 the NPT was drawn up in a bid to limit and control the use of nuclear weapons. The main five countries that participated in the signing of it were the US, Britain, China, France and Russia. All of these nations have agreed to attend these talks..."

Sensing that Harry was going to become nostalgic about the Cold War once again Sofia broke in, "And this is interesting because the little green men from Mars have decided to..."

Harry scowled at her but obliged, "NO martians, but the Russians have convinced North Korea as well as India and Pakistan to join these talks as well, vital as they have never entered into a treaty that limits their nuclear weapons."

"How did the Russians manage to do that?" Ros asked, incredulously.

"Well the Russians can be very persuasive when they want to...If asking nicely doesn't work their always more than happy to go for a Plan B." Lucas said with a trace of black humour.

"I take it that Israel is still insisting that they've never heard of nuclear weapons while casually kicking the left-over plutonium under the carpet?" Sofia asked.

"Correct, however North Korea, India and Pakistan's attendacnce is enough for us to be concerned with for the moment." Harry told them, "Representatives from each country will be arriving within the week with the talks scheduled to begin on Friday. Despite the fact that most of them will be staying at different hotels, the Home Secretary has decided to host the talks in different buildings across London in an attempt to 'showcase our city's beauty'."

Ruth shook her head and muttered, "Where did they find him?"

"Well it's not entirely clear but we're fairly sure he was found with several unicorns and a talking a talking bunny..." Ros said lightly.

"Whatever the case, he won't be budged." Harry said, returning to business though unable to resist rolling his eyes, "Which makes our jobs about ten times hard than they need to be...Bloody politicians."

"Well we love a challenge." Ros said, delicately, though she agreed.

"How long are the talks scheduled to last?" Tariq asked.

"Between three and five days." Harry informed them,

"Make sure you've got Starbucks on speed dial." Ros said, helpfully.

"Adding to our existing problems is the fact that we have received intelligence about a potential attack during the talks."

"Of course we have..." Lucas muttered, smiling humourlessly,

"From who?" Ruth asked,

"An ex-FSB officer named Artem Salko." Harry began, Sofia's eyes flicked momentarily towards Lucas before returning to her notes but neither of them spoke as Harry continued, "He's not been very specific, all he's given us is what I've told you, he wants to set up a meet."

"Do we trust him?" Ruth asked,

"We don't trust anyone." Lucas smirked, with a half-glance towards Sofia.

"Honestly, we don't know." Harry said, more helpfully, "We've never used him as an asset before, to tell the truth we don't really know much about him...However given the nature of these talks we need to assume the worst. Ruth, do some digging on Salko, discreetly, I want to know more about him before we make contact so I'm afraid you don't have long but do what you can." Ruth nodded and accepted the slim folder that Harry slid across the table to her, Sofia's hand lingered on it a fraction longer than was necessary before passing it on. Understanding that she was being dismissed Ruth stood up and left the room, softly closing the door behind her again.

Harry turned to the others, "The rest of you have the enjoyable task of keeping track of the delegations from seven different nations." He told them in mock cheerfulness, "Tariq I want access to round the clock surveillance from every camera in those hotels, set up a constant live feed to be streamed directly to us. You three, "He said, turning to Ros, Lucas and Sofia, "I want you to subtly book and bug rooms that will be used during these talks."

"I take it our paranoia doesn't allow us to wait until we actually have reason to illegally monitor our guests?" Sofia smirked

"Don't be stupid." Ros grinned,

"I want this done before they arrive and I want to make sure that they don't find our 'illegal monitoring' devices, get creative." Harry told them, ignoring the interruption.

"What about the locations of the talks themselves?" Sofia asked, as they stood up.

"We don't know, the plans are changed daily, if we're doing anything with thos locations it will have to be later on in this process." Harry sighed, "I'll probably want at least one of you inside these talks at all times, but we'll discuss that nearer the time."

They all began to leave but Harry called them back,

"Lucas, Sofia, a moment please?"

Ros left as Lucas and Sofia paused, Lucas was about to close the door again when Ruth stuck her head through it,

"Home Secretary for you Harry." She told him, pointing at the phone in his office.

Harry sighed and said, "Wait here a moment." Before leaving.

Lucas quietly slid the door closed and, after making sure Harry and Ruth were out of earshot turned to Sofia, studying her for a moment he murmured,

"If this is about Salko...I won't lie for you Sofia."

She watched him closely, matching his piercing gaze and refusing to break the eye contact between them she whispered,

"I won't ask you to."

A/N: I hope this is an appropriate place to cut, to be honest I'm feeling a little pressure to match my previous story but nonetheless, thank you all for the reviews! I'd like to know your thoughts on where this is headed as I haven't fully decided myself so having your take on it would be interesting. Hopefully you're enjoying this so far, as ever, let me know :)