Chapter 6

Monday AM

As she sat down with a cup of tea at her desk, Ruth stared at the parcel for a long time. They'd made a good effort – even the German stamps appeared franked and it would be enough to fool virtually everyone that looked at it. Virtually everyone. Ruth felt a small thrill as she silently ticked off the reasons in her head. Firstly, the brown paper wasn't the standard Deutsche Post wrapping paper that was universally used. Germans were very predictable, especially in their postal habits. Secondly, the numbers weren't written in the European style – an elongated "one" and a curly tailed "nine". Finally, and most obviously, although it had been three years, she'd recognise Malcolm's writing anywhere. A smile played on her lips as she ran her fingers over the package, the touch of it made her feel...connected somehow. She was touching something that had until recently, been on the Grid, that had sat in the same room as Harry. Maybe Harry had reached out his hand and run his fingers over the lettering, imagining her receiving the parcel in the same way. It was silly really but she'd learnt to find comfort in the smallest things where she could.

Ruth knew she should be cautious. She couldn't imagine a scenario where Malcolm would send something explosive or harmful to her, but no doubt the contents weren't just a Red Cross parcel from home. On the other hand, it would look stranger still at work to not open the package along with her other post so she steeled her nerves and excitement and slipped her letter opener under the flaps.

An hour later, Ruth knew exactly what she had to do. In fact, she felt alive, as if she'd been woken for the very first time in years. The system was relatively simple due to the sophisticated technology at play. The transmitter in the Koenig Bücher shop was voice and fax machine activated and would transmit a signal to the receiver on her desk. She could slip the book into her bag at the end of the day and connect to her laptop once home to run a particular software package that would isolate certain conversations with trigger words or translate electronic fax signals. It would take most of her evening, but she'd then write an intelligence report to upload to Section D as Malcolm instructed. The tiny dim red LED on the recorder was already flashing, indicating that it had already began recording since placed on her desk.

Thursday AM

Both Adam and Malcolm felt the buzz of their mobile phones at the same moment and checked to find a text from Harry that read simply "alpha omega 34 10"; their eyes met across the Grid and Adam frowned. AO-34 was a pretty secret safe meet place. It was on the list that Harry had the top tier of the team memorise in a meeting around 8 months ago and the briefing had been off the official radar. Emergencies only. Adam frowned again and Malcolm looked worried. It was also 9.30am already which didn't give them much time to get to East London.

Harry thrust his hands in his black double breasted winter coat and breathed out white frost as he waited for the two figures hurrying from opposite directions to approach him. They were in the middle of a deserted park near Mile End – more of a scrubland really and he cursed himself inwardly for choosing such a cold location. It was safe though and private. That was more important, especially if his hunch was right.

Malcolm reached him first and glanced upwards at Harry, not quite meeting his eyes then turned round to Adam who was trying to conceal his nervousness with a confident purposeful stride. Harry couldn't contain himself any longer. He whirled round to face them both, his eyes like steel.

"So." Harry said "Either there's something you two aren't telling me about our source of intelligence in Bavaria or someone has found a very clever way to fuck with my head. So which is it?" Adam was shocked. The old boy rarely swore and even then it tended to be...public schoolboy words like "bloody".

Harry continued, his voice sinking to almost a whisper. "One of the highlights of my miserable working week was reading her erudite reports on whatever was the latest rabid threat to our national security. I'm assuming that rather than someone feeding us some well crafted hoax intelligence, you two actually thought that I wouldn't recognise this has Ruth Evershed written all over it?". He waved the plain manila folder emphatically and Malcolm winced as if Harry was about to swat him with it.

"Harry..." Adam began.

"Save it Adam" Harry snapped, his face like thunder. "If you have dragged her into this and compromised her safety, I will personally bury you. And that isn't a figure of speech."

"Where is she, Malcolm?" Harry quietly demanded as he handed over a pen and a small piece of paper. Malcolm silently wrote:

Helene Meer

Welfenstrasse 101, Haidhausen

Schiller Bücher, Thereisenstrasse, Schwabering

Harry studied the information carefully, his eyes flickering over the piece of paper three times or so. Then he folded it, placed it in his mouth and after a couple of chews, swallowed. He then looked at Adam and quietly said "The Grid's yours, use these reports and stop the threat to Merkel." Putting his hands in his pockets once more, Harry strode away.

They both looked very relieved. If it hadn't been such a sobering situation, Adam would have been tempted to laugh. He glanced at Malcolm and remarked "He's seriously old school isn't he?" Malcolm managed a wry smile and turned to leave, dryly replying "Don't they teach data disposal at new spy camp anymore? No wonder we have so many leaks."