Chapter 15
False Dilemmas
Lucas hurried after Sofia as she left the interrogation room and caught her by the arm as he reached her halfway up the corridor.
"Why did you do that?" he demanded, roughly, forcing her to face him.
"Do what?" she snapped, jerking her arm away from him, but he refused to let her walk away from this saying,
"We're handing him over to the FSB now are we?"
"Apparently."
"He could have been a valuable asset Sofia, you know that."
"No I don't and no he couldn't" she snarled, flatly, "We could never have trusted him and I apologise for not wanting to put out every time a Russian diplomat sneezed on British soil." She snarled, succeeding in freeing herself, however she resisted walking away as he said,
"It sounded as though there was more to it was more to it than sniffly politicians..." she knew what was coming and turned to walk away, hoping that he would let it go. Stubbornness had always been a character flaw in Lucas. "What is Night Stalker?"
She froze, eyes closed, halted by the words she had hoped he would not say.
"I can't Lucas." She whispered before continuing to walk away from him.
Those three words concerned him more than anything else she could have said. Nothing was classified between them; they trusted one another and neither denied the other anything. It was out of vulnerability more than anything else. They needed to trust the other, to prove to themselves that Russia had not entirely broken them and left them devoid of any faith in humanity. In their business if you couldn't trust, you wouldn't survive.
What the Hell are you involved in Sofia?
Lucas emerged from the sunken maze of tunnels back onto The Grid his eyes darted to Sofia but it was Ros that he turned to.
All of the spooks had a talent for compartmentalizing their lives, completely separating that various aspects, so much so that several were heard to complain of forcing themselves to develop multiple personality disorder. He would deal with Sofia later for now he had other things to deal with, gone but not forgotten.
"Harry's called the others, briefing in twenty minutes." She told him quietly, not needing him to ask, "Can we trust him?" she murmured.
Lucas, who was currently having serious doubts as to whether or not he could trust her shrugged and said, "We have to."
Twenty minutes later everyone else had filtered back onto The Grid. Tariq had mercifully brought them all coffee, knowing full well that 'rest' would not have been high on everyone's list of priorities. They slowly made their way into the briefing room as Ros called them over, as they entered it, Sofia brushed past Harry, declining the seat beside him in favour for one further down the table, opposite Ros and Lucas.
"What's happening?" Ruth asked, concerned, "We weren't supposed to have been back for another few hours yet."
"We wake you from your beauty sleep Ruth?" Ros asked tartly, "Suck it up you've had more than most of us." Ros snapped, having had no sleep for almost two days.
"That's not what I-"Ruth began,
"I know Ruth." Harry said, tiredly, how he had missed playing referee between these two, "Salko proved to be a little more forthcoming than we originally anticipated."
"Forthcoming? How much has he given us?"
"Everything." It was Sofia who answered, to general shock.
"You made her-"Ruth began in disbelief, turning accusingly to Harry,
"Get off your high horse Ruth, what's done is done and none of it under sufferance."
"Take it easy..." Lucas muttered, gently placing a placating hand on her side, the friendly gesture carefully concealed beneath the table.
Sofia's eyes darted between the two women as they glared at each other across the table, as Harry all but began banging his head off it and she smoothly intervened into the silent argument,
"Salko's given us details about the attack on the President which is due to take place in four days, third day of the talks by which point everyone will have spent ninety percent of the time dissecting the others' lunch choices and deducing their planning a nuclear attack because one of the body guards doesn't like lettuce..."
"Out of interest, why has the President decided to personally become involved from the outset, it's just proved to be a security threat, why are they not doing what the usually do, all of the negotiating behind closed doors, wheel him out to sign things and pose for the cameras, then lock him in the safe again?"
"Ah you've hit that speed bump that all politicians struggle with, when it comes to security versus power, they'll always pick power." Lucas began, "All of the leaders are attending, they're using the talks as a publicity stunt, the elections are all falling around the same time and every nation's leader is keen to make themselves look like peacemakers in these troubled times." He explained.
"So cynical." Ros said ironically, this was not lost on him and he gave her a sideways look of disbelief as she smirked and continued, "Other than them being media whores-"
"I.e. politicians..." Harry muttered, not so privately agreeing with Lucas,
"It also builds some international bridges, begin the talks in good faith, it offers up some kind of trust between the delegations, shows that they're serious about peace if they're willing to send out their President in person, our Prime Minister's attending for the same reasons."
"Who personality swapped the two of you?" Tariq demanded, smirking and knowing he was pushing his luck "Lucas being pessimistic I can just about handle, Ros being optimistic, dear lord prepare for the apocalypse."
"We may have to, clearly no-one spared a thought for the poor security services involved in these talks since we now have the wonderful task of protecting seven of the most influential people in politics." Harry broke in grimly as Ros glowered at Tariq making him shrink back in his chair.
"And what exactly are we protecting them from?" Ros asked, consenting to stop irradiating Tariq with her gaze and refocusing them, sensing that her team were exhausted and in need of several strong coffees as their attention span being dangerously low, except of course for Ruth. As ever, bloody Juliet was hanging on Romeo's every word...
"Salko's told us that an extremist group called 'Hiroshima' is targeting the President. As far as he knows they're doing this of their own volition, mixed nationalities, they're not being manipulated by any specific country. The irony is that they depend on the nations involved believing that that's exactly the case, they need them arguing amongst themselves as their main aim is not to assassinate the President, but to exploit the political fallout and paranoia that follows."
"What do they expect this to lead to?" Ruth asked, incredulously,
"War." Lucas supplied bluntly.
"They believe that the world is riding on a one-way ticket to nuclear war, they want to get it over with sooner rather than later." Sofia added matter-of-factly.
"They can't seriously believe they can cause a nuclear war?" Ruth said in disbelief.
"Why not?" Ros murmured, "If it was us, if someone murdered our Prime Minister during high profile, sensitive nuclear peace talks, with the whole world watching, how would we interpret it?"
"We wouldn't have any choice but to consider it an act of war." Ruth murmured, realising how this group could force the world into their bigger picture of how it should look, "Whoever these people decide to blame for their attack, whoever they claim is backing them, America won't have any choice but to openly declare war on them, everyone else will be swallowed up in alliances and crossfire."
"I forget when the last time we prevented a worldwide nuclear catastrophe was?"
"If you follow that up with 'I'm getting too old for this' I will not be responsible for my actions." Ros told him flatly, earning her several tired smirks from her team members.
"What are our options?" Sofia asked no-one in particular as Harry glared good-naturedly at Ros.
"Warn the Americans tell them that we know about the assassination attempt, no President, no assassination." Ruth suggested,
"No President, no peace talks. The other nations involved will want to know why the American's have pulled out their President; they're all too paranoid to accept a forged sick note signed by his mother. They'll think that we're keeping information from them and God knows what conclusions they'll jump to but none of them will be conducive to a successful nuclear deal." Lucas said flatly.
"Can we get to this group on time? Take them out before the attack?" Tariq suggested, hopefully.
"I doubt it." Ros said with her usual brutal tact, "From what Lucas and Sofia have said, they're too well prepared and intelligent. Unlike most of the idiotic extremist groups out there, they're not intent on shoving their plans for world domination down our throats using the internet and cheap recording equipment, they're focussing on the bigger picture before their own selfish beliefs and that makes them dangerous and unpredictable. They haven't gone looking for media attention, they're planning an assassination on the President, they don't need to, but it makes it difficult for us to trace them in the meantime."
"That said, even if we have a back-up, I still want to know everything about this group, Ruth?"
"I'll do my best, but Ros is right, they're careful, there haven't been any mutterings about this on the usual places online, they'll be difficult to find and as you say, unpredictable, it'll be hard to tell exactly what they're planning until we're much closer..."
"It's weird, it's almost as though, if we didn't know about this attack...We wouldn't..." Tariq muttered, tentatively speaking what had flashed through most of their minds.
"That's what makes them dangerous, and what would have made them successful." Sofia said, softly, not rising to the obvious bait that Salko had been lying to them, that she had been played by him. "They're not going in at this all guns blazing, they're using intelligence, if anyone finds out about their plans they're ruined. They know what they're doing, they're alone and isolated, and they haven't gone hunting for public support and glory, but they're prepared, that could be their greatest strength."
"What if we use that against them?" Sofia said, softly, "Could we go about changing the location at the last minute? Catching them off-guard? Salko's right, the only location that really lends itself to this kind of attack is the Kieran Estate, the others, while not impossible, make it far easier for us to intervene if the worst comes to the worst."
Ruth shook her head, "We can't completely change the location, it affects too many other things and the North Korean's at least will get suspicious, they might even pull out, we can't just expect them to accept a sudden change of plans. Even if they don't pull out completely, they'll start asking questions and creating a fuss we don't need. If we were going to do that, it would have to be kept quiet and the North Koreans won't."
"There could still be something to your theory though Ros, we might not necessarily have to completely change the location..." Lucas muttered, he had been quiet for some time and Ros could almost hear his brain picking over everything that had been said, trying to find an elegant solution, beside her.
"What, you want them to have a secret picnic in the boathouse?" Ros snapped, irritably, fast losing patience with the Olympic dithering that was going on around the table wishing that someone would just have the balls to stand up and come up with something that might actually work.
"Not exactly." Lucas said, patiently, "There must be a room somewhere in that Estate that doesn't lend itself to a sniper attack. It would still accomplish what you're suggesting; it takes more preparation than handing someone a gun, sticking them on a roof, telling them to pull the trigger and keeping their fingers crossed. We could come up with a legitimate reason for not using the drawing room as well."
"There might be someone in that." Harry muttered, considering this as Ros was pacified by someone finally growing a pair and a brain at last, "We would need to get inside and have a look around, I'm not taking any risks just using floor plans."
"Easier said than done." Tariq said, "That estate's been completely locked down for the last four says in preparation for these talks, no-one in, no-one out you won't just be able to flash some ID and ask to check the gas meter."
"Well I love a challenge." Ros said, who was not about to let some officious rich prick who happened to have a gun stop her when they had finally formulated something that might qualify as a plan.
"Good, you and Lucas can go and have a scout around tomorrow."
"Try not to get shot this time won't you." Ros said bluntly, making Lucas smirk and Ruth wince.
"You're concern is truly touching."
"While they're doing that, I want feeds from every camera they have on that estate Tariq," Harry said, also sensing that there might be something in Lucas' suggestion and ignoring him and Ros as he steam-rollered on, "Any other ways you can find of getting eyes and ears inside that building, do it, immoral, illegal, damn right suicidal, I don't care, I want them all."
"You ever worry about professional suicide?" Sofia enquired.
"Not while I'm committing it." He replied, the corners of his mouth twitching into what most people would call a smile, "Sofia, we are going to see the Home Secretary, fill him in on what's happening and get clearance to seed MI-5 officers into the delegations."
"Congratulations, you're Harry's official political buffer." Ros told her with a smirk, "The two of you can get back to reminiscing about the beauty of the Scottish countryside."
Sofia grinned and bit back the retort concerning Ros and Lucas playing happy families in the grand house.
"That's the plan, but it can wait until tomorrow, we have time now and I want you all at your best." He said, sensing that Tariq's drooping eyelids were attempting to speak for the exhaustion of his entire section, "Go home, get a decent night's sleep, I want you all back on The Grid, well rested, first thing."
Harry watched from his office as his exhausted section obeyed his orders, some with open relief, some with stubborn determination, only their acceptance of his instruction betraying their need for sleep, as they gathered their things and filtered from the building, heading home, gratefully leaving their professional problems at the door and picking up the personal ones that would follow them home.
Harry gratefully poured himself a healthy glass of Scotch, becoming miraculously impervious to Ruth's admonishments about the damage he was doing to his poor liver and the look on his doctors face if he ever attended his appointments to find out his blood pressure, as he allowed the soothing liquid to calm his overworked conscience.
Feeling something in his shirt pocket he removed it and balanced it between his fingers on the table as he took another sip of the numbing, non-judgemental liquor, smirking to himself as he began rolling the key card Sofia had slipped back into his pocket between his fingers.
A/N: Thank you for reading and reviewing :)