Author's Note: thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed this story, I really appreciate the support. Thank you.
Chapter Two: Holiday in the Sun
Ros eased off the accelerator as she brought her car up Chapel Street, slowing to a crawl as she pulled over on to Belgrave Square. Faux Victorian streetlamps lit up the immaculate, whitewashed terraces to her left: the Italian Culture Centre, the French Embassy and, in the middle, the Turkish Embassy. She made a note of its precise location, then carried on further down, following the sweep of the road.
Opposite the Embassies, just beyond the reach of the streetlamps, Belgrave Park was in darkness. Her gaze lingered over the wrought iron perimeter fence, watching for signs of movement among the trees and bushes. She saw nothing, tutted impatiently as she returned her full attention to the road ahead and had to slam on the breaks as Lucas materialised seemingly from thin air right in front of her.
"Idiot!" she snapped, opening the car door and giving it a hard shove so it collided with him as he went to get in beside her.
Lucas dodged around the door and got in with a smile on his face. She had begun to wonder whether he enjoyed winding her up; or whether he was still high on happiness at being allowed back into the service, earlier that afternoon.
"You really need to watch the road," he cautioned her, earning himself a withering glare of indignation in response. She had been looking for him; hidden in the bushes opposite the Turkish Embassy as he had tried to scout out ways inside.
"I would have let the Police find you, but you know what they do with strange men they find lurking in the bushes at nights," she condescended to explain. "I thought you might have seen enough of the inside of gaol cells for this lifetime."
That wiped the smirk off his face. But, it gave her no joy; just grim satisfaction that she had put him back in his place. As the car reached the traffic island at the end of Belgrave Road, she stopped fully, parking in a spot reserved for daytime maintenance vehicles and shut the engine off. Beside her, in the passenger seat, Lucas continued looking straight ahead, anywhere other than at her.
"Are you sure you're ready for this?" she asked, softening her tone considerably.
Lucas looked back at her through eyes stained red from lack of sleep. "I can answer that question until I'm blue in the face," he replied. "But how can I prove it unless you give me a chance to actually do my job?"
Clearly, Harry had as much faith in Lucas's abilities as Lucas himself did. With that as her key guiding factor, she nodded in agreement. But she could not banish her shadowed doubts altogether. "Doubting your readiness is not the same thing as doubting your abilities, Lucas," she pointed out, careful to measure her tone lest it should sound like another dig. "But anyway, did you find a way in?"
He'd been discreetly checking the Embassy's weak points for the last hour. Unfortunately, the building was set in the middle of a long terrace, sandwiched between the French and Syrian Embassies. Then, there was the blanket CCTV coverage of the area. If Malcolm knocked all the cameras out, it would raise the suspicions of the Met; the last thing they needed was the Police catching them out. The difficulties were registered in Lucas's pained expression.
"Round the back, a door for the cleaners is the most vulnerable," he explained. "We've got the lock picker. The alarm system is in there and we can get Malcolm to break the codes for us before we even go in."
Ros sighed, resenting having to go sneaking around like a thief. "Very well," she replied, resigned to her fate for the evening.
She revved the engine and pulled away from the parking space, headed towards the back of the terraced buildings. Lucas, meanwhile, recovered from his earlier rebuke and struck up conversation. Thus far, he'd been informed of what he needed to know: that Oliver Mace had left the country with the head of Turkish Intelligence for reasons unknown. Now, he was pushing for more.
"Mace was always a ruthless bastard," he remarked. "But what's he done that merits all this? How did he end up getting the boot?"
Ros smiled, a small fact not lost on Lucas. "Now, there's a story," she drily remarked, eyes darting left as she pulled in to the small backstreet that led behind the Embassy. Once she had parked, she in her seat to face Lucas. "A couple of years ago – not long after I joined Five, in all honesty – Mace framed Harry's Analyst for murder. He tried to make it look like she was part of a terrorist cell called 'Acts of Truth', responsible for several killings and a cover up at the same time. We brought down Mace because of it; but it was too late for the Analyst."
Skirting perilously close to revealing details of Harry's private life, Ros stuck to vagaries rather than expose Harry's own heartbreak. It wasn't her place to do so, regardless of the esteem in which Harry clearly held Lucas.
Lucas frowned at her. "This isn't Connie we're talking about, so what happened to the Analyst?"
"Gone," she replied, matter-of-factly. "On the run, but we found a body to palm off as hers for the records."
For a second, his eyes shone in the moonlight that filtered into the car. "So, Harry's sticking the knife into Mace for the sake of the Analyst? What was his name?" He had forgotten the name of the man who was there before he went to Russia.
Ros's brow furrowed. "Her name was Ruth," she pointedly corrected him. "And yes, so stop wasting time and get a move on. Harry wants results."
They came prepared, already clothed in black; as they anticipated a break-in, they merely completed their ensemble with black gloves and shoe coverings. Lucas got on the phone to Malcolm, waiting for them on the Grid, to get to work on the alarms inside the embassy, while Ros got down to business with the lock pick. Once they were in, and the alarms disabled, they found their way to the main building, relying on the light of their own small torches. The thin beams of light revealed a wide, sweeping staircase that led up to the first floor, where the Ambassador's offices were located. Ros led the way, with Lucas following close behind, flashing his light in the direction they just came from, ensuring they hadn't missed anything interesting.
Wary of listening devices and bugs left by third party agencies, they kept verbal communication to a bare minimum, relying on hand signs and body language instead. In the silence, the empty Embassy echoed hollow; desks stood abandoned in deserted offices, a ghost town writ small. Just the scattered papers on desks, the unemptied waste paper bins and askew chairs betrayed the life that filled the offices by day. Ros and Lucas continued their sweep of the suspended animation inside, looking out for anything of interest. They passed over the junior and clerical desks, they would deal with nothing more arduous than visa applications. Instead, they headed towards the Ambassador himself.
They found the door understandably locked. Ros dropped to her haunches, fiddled with the lock for a second until she heard a click, and the door swung open almost of its own volition. They flashed each other a grin; Lucas stepped aside and motioned for her to lead the way inside. Inside, a backlit tropical fish tank gurgled, causing an ethereal, almost phosphorescent blue glow in the corner. For a second, Ros watched the slack-jawed fish butting the tank walls, as though they were trying to break out. Behind the desk, a neatly arranged Turkish flag was hung on the wall above the imposing, mahogany desk.
Lucas descended on the desk, carefully rifling through the papers stacked in the organiser with one hand, keeping the torch steady with the other. Ros assisted by going through the drawers, careful to leave everything exactly as she found it. She paused, kneeling on the floor while she shone her torch along the walls. All she picked up at first were black and white photographs of old Istanbul. Then, she beamed on a safe with an electronic lock. She produced a plastic swipe card from her back pocket and used it in the slot beside the safe. A series of digits flashed up on the VDU, incomprehensible at first. But numbers eventually froze as the software embedded in the magnetic strip broke the code. After two minutes of a blurry combinations, they had access.
Seeing that Ros had everything under control there, Lucas turned his attention to fitting a bug inside the telephone. Another would be implanted in the walls themselves. While Lucas busied himself with that, Ros looked through the manila files stacked inside the safe. The first two contained diplomatic dispatches, meant for the Turkish Government in Ankara. Oliver Mace's name was not mentioned anywhere. But the second file contained a copy of a visa issued to Mace under a false name: Owen Mason. Details were sparse. Under the section for "reasons for travel" it merely stated: "diplomatic negotiations" and that was it. She photographed the documents before replacing them, but it was a small return for the effort she and Lucas had invested.
"Anything?" she whispered to Lucas as she passed him.
Lucas shrugged. "Nothing," he confirmed.
With phone taps already in place and the eye in the wall, they couldn't do much more. They had confirmation of Mace's location, but infuriatingly little information on what he was doing there. Ros would fail to be impressed if she had broken into the Embassy building of a friendly nation for nothing so, with sagging expectations, she motioned for Lucas to follow her back outside, before Harry's vendetta got them both arrested.
Ruth turned restlessly on one side, inadvertently pulling the blanket off a sleeping George as she did so. Outside, the sun was set to rise; peering, as it was, over the crest of the hills outside her apartment. She had lain like that all night, going over the events of the previous day repeatedly. It was Mace she saw. But was it? She had snatched a fleeting, sidelong glance at a man who resembled Mace, and who sounded like Mace. Now, she felt as though she were being haunted by the man. She tried to convince herself that she was seeing things. That her mind was still troubled by the events of the Cotterdam Scandal, and she had simply imagined the man.
These thoughts were almost always countered by the fact that, fleeting as her sighting was, it still happened. Unable to lie there, inactive and with her imagination running riot, she slipped out of bed and gave George the coverlet back before padding through her apartment, to where her computer sat in the living room. Her Mace-like man was brought here by the excavation in Nicosia, so the first websites she tried were the news sites. She clicked through a few image galleries, studying the features of every pale skinned man present. However, she was not fooling herself. If Mace was there, then he would be just as camera shy as he always was. So, she shut down the windows currently opened on the screen and leaned back in her chair.
The silence was absolute; only the first rays of dawn permeated the darkness, making it curl at the edges. She looked over her shoulder, as if someone might be sneaking up on her before she turned back to the computer. She enjoyed her simple life in Cyprus, with its regularity and reassuring monotony. But sometimes, in the dead of night, she would think back on her days in MI5 and, somewhere deep inside her, the need for a thrill of danger would make its presence felt. Now, here was the excuse she needed.
Despite her fears, she smiled as she bounced her IP Address around several different countries, through several different service providers all over the world. Then, she reached into her top drawer and rummaged for an old flash drive she still had from home. Once in, with software booted, she hacked the Government system with ease. Her only trouble was that she didn't exactly know what she was looking for. She began with going through Government contacts in the British Intelligence Services.
Jools Siviter popped up first and Ruth rolled her eyes at the man she remembered as a pompous arse. As she clicked through the names and faces, she became aware of one other man who was also likely to be on there. Was he likely to be there? Or did she simply yearn for him to be there? But all the same, there he was. Harry Pearce, the face she had only seen in her half-remembered dreams, stared out at her from the computer screen. Her heartbeat quickened, her stomach clenched as she saw him, Oliver Mace faded to the background as she almost forgot why she was hacking the Greek Government's systems in the first place. Her finger froze on the 'next' button, unable to bring herself to move on without reading over the sparse details on Harry's file. She clocked the title, though. 'Sir' Harry Pearce. She smiled at a sad surge of pride in her former boss swept her up.
"Ruth."
She had been lost in her work; hadn't heard George approaching her. She spun round in her seat, saw him standing in the doorway, leaning against the wooden frame. Dishevelled and still cumbersome with sleep, he was squinting at her.
"You frightened me," she laughed, feeling her heart rate come down a little.
Just to be safe, she swiftly ended her foray back into the world of espionage by accidently on purpose knocking the power off on her PC and router.
"I couldn't sleep, so I booked two more coach tickets to Nicosia," she lied fluently, too. But, the tickets were another of her intentions. Before he can probe any deeper into what she was doing up so early, she got up and offered to make coffee.
The breakfast bar led out onto the patio where, during the long summer months, they could watch the break of dawn outside. Just a precious hour before the nearby beach began to swarm with tourists and they themselves had to go to work. Today, however, they remained in doors as Ruth busied herself with coffee and toast.
"You don't mind going back so soon?" he asked, seating himself at the bar.
"Of course not!" she answered. "And, in any case, there's something that I need to double check, as well."
She had vowed never to tell George of what she did for a living, while she lived in England. He didn't need to know, and nor could she ever quite find the words to say. As for Harry, he was locked away in a fenced off part of her heart where no one else was allowed to trespass. But, as she spoke to George, it occurred to her that he could hold some of the answers that would lead her to the answers she sought, as well as bringing her closer to his own story, of what's led him to look for lost loved ones in a pit miles from home.
"How do you feel about the invasion now?" she asked, pouring the percolated coffee out.
He raised a brow, suppressed a laugh. "I was six when it happened," he reminded her. "The only memories I have are of my mother and sisters, throwing what clothes that came to hand in a plastic bag and us running for the car. My father and uncle stayed behind to help resist the Turks. We never saw them again and we never found out what happened to them."
George dropped his gaze, thanked her quietly for the coffee. Unaccustomed to soul bearing at five am, he paused to gather his own personal feelings now that thirty years and more had passed. He gestured expansively towards the patio doors.
"You can go out there and ask anyone here, my age and over, what their memories are and our stories will be remarkably similar," he pointed out. "Whether Greek or Turk, because we lived side by side until the invasion happened, we all lost someone that could never be replaced. Thousands are missing, presumed dead, and there thousands more who, like me and my sisters, have no answers; who've been searching for their loved ones ever since. But the older ones remember what life was like before '74; when Greeks and Turks cohabited in peace. Why can't we go back to that?"
It was the sad lament in all societies pulled apart by war and disorder. The little people on the ground, eternally unaware that their societies were being pushed around a giant chessboard. They can't go back to the way it was before, because more powerful nations decreed it, because they feared the alternatives. But even Ruth was staggered to think why the Turkish invasion of Cyprus had happened.
"You may want to live in peace with the Turks, George," Ruth said. "But, does everyone? Is there still animosity?" What she meant was, anyone who Oliver Mace would attach himself to, for whatever nefarious reasons he had.
"Naturally," he answered. "But it's not like Northern Ireland, with bands of paramilitaries fighting a dirty war. Sometimes, there will be people who try to stir the pot. To be fair, it's people on both sides who do it."
Mace certainly knew how to stir the pot. But with no organisations to attach himself to, if he was the one she had seen, she could only surmise that he still had friends in high places. Was he cosying up to the Turks, or the Greeks?
She pushed her chair back, away from the bar. "I'm just going to confirm those tickets," she said, excusing herself to go back to the computer.
She booked for the next day, leaving her another evening to 'research' her targets before travelling all that way again. If she fully deployed her skills, she could even arrange for George to be busy, leaving her completely free for the evening.
Harry waited until Lucas and Ros were seated until he closed the door of his office behind them. Then, he remained standing while he awaiting their report.
"We found his visa," Ros said, tentatively. "Issued under the name 'Owen Mason', all we know is that he travelled to Turkey for diplomatic negotiations. There was nothing else there, Harry."
Lucas was watching him intently. "It doesn't sound legit though, Harry."
Harry almost laughed. "Then why the false name?" he asked, pacing over to his desk but still too agitated to sit. "Mace has no diplomatic role to play, so what's he doing there?"
Nothing added up. The Government itself had issued a statement saying that Mace's own downfall spelled the end of 'dark days' for the security services. Now, he was globe-trotting once again in the Government's name. And what of Turkey? They were a friendly nation, but with some questionable links. Harry mulled it all over, oblivious to Ros and Lucas looking at him as if he were going mad.
Ros's expression softened, her gaze flickering between Harry and Lucas as though she wanted to speak openly but for Lucas's presence. "Harry, I know the full history between Mace and you," she said, keeping the terminology nice and neutral. "I know how much you want there to be … something amiss with all this-"
"You think I'm scraping the barrel of a personal vendetta," he cut her off, but finished the sentence for her.
His outburst was followed by a silence that made even Ros look abashed. Lucas, however, merely looked confused; like he'd walked into the room in the middle of a joke and only caught the punch line. Even if the whole thing was repeated to him now, he would still have lost the all important context. However, he had been given a mission at a time when he thought he was about to be put out to grass. He had seized upon it like a lifeline, one golden opportunity to prove himself again. He wasn't about to give up without a fight.
"What if Harry's right, and Mace could even be working against the interests of Her Majesty's Government," he chipped in. "With the intelligence he has, he could be handing the Turkish Government all our national secrets on a gold plate. I say we keep digging, if only on the off-chance that he has turned traitor."
Beside him, Ros rolled her eyes. "And what about our friends in the FSB?" she asked, completely about turning the conversation. "Have you forgotten about Kachimov? He was responsible for the death of Adam Carter. That is, real death. Not the type of death one can come back from in another country, with a new name."
Harry bit down on the flare of irritation that her interjection inspired. "No, I have not," he replied, keeping his tone casual. There were only so many vendettas he could handle in a day. "But as Lucas said-"
What Lucas said was not repeated, as the door to Harry's office was flung open and Malcolm interrupted, looking as if he had struck gold. Harry couldn't even get in his customary barb about knocking before Malcolm handed him some printouts.
"Oliver Mace isn't in Turkey," he said, breathless. "He's in Cyprus with the head of Turkish Intelligence. But, he's also been recorded as having cross from Turkish Cyprus into Greek Cyprus, alone. He crossed the buffer zone under his alias not two days ago."
Harry smiled again, his irritation at the interruption melting away fast. "Excellent Malcolm," he said, finally relaxing enough to sit down behind his desk to read the print outs. "But what the hell is he up to?"
"Please don't tell me you want us to go ferreting around the Greek Embassy next?" Ros groaned, turning from Malcolm to Harry.
Harry glanced up at her from over the papers. "No, he's definitely up to something with the Turks," he mused aloud, before turning to Malcolm again. "See if you can find out what hotel he's in, where he's going and who he's speaking to-" he broke off, looking back to Ros and Lucas – "meanwhile, I think you both could do with a holiday in the sun."
Malcolm vacated the office just as Ros's arm dropped limp at her side. She looked aghast, where Lucas merely looked pleasantly surprised. "Harry, you can't be serious?" she retorted.
"How else are we supposed to find out what Mace is up to?" Lucas countered, looking sharply at her.
Harry cut in before either of them could descend into squabbling. "Ros is right, Lucas," he pointed out, careful to placate his new Section Head. "But I want you both to be prepared for it. I suggest we find out what we can about Mace's activities before hand and, if need be, set a tail on him out in Cyprus if the need arises. And I suspect it will."
Understanding themselves to be dismissed, both Ros and Lucas got to their feet to get back to studying the Mace files. It was a neat concession to Ros's indignation, and it bought them more time to get their facts straight. Harry sat back, watching them both disappear to their stations on the Grid, satisfied that both of them – Ros in her grief for Adam Carter, and Lucas, still fragile and traumatised from Russia – were once again hitting their stride.