Author's Note: thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed this story, your feedback means a lot. The usual disclaimers apply and I own none of this. Thank you, once again.

Chapter Five: Six Foot Under

Luckily for Oliver Mace, the Greeks guards barely glanced at the passports of those crossing the border. Luckier still, the streets were crowded with afternoon shoppers and parents in the thick of the school run; a human swell that he could lose himself in. Healthy paranoia was what he called it, using it as a security blanket until he reached the offices he was looking for. Squat and shabby, the building was dwarfed by the two on either side of it. The front was even boarded up, adding to its unique urban camouflage, perfectly reflecting the run down nature of the surrounding streets. So close to the contentious Turkish border, this place attracted few tourists and few tourists meant scant investment.

Mace glanced over it all, distastefully, before ducking around the back of the seemingly derelict office his next meeting had been arranged in. He didn't like it. Anything could happen and he barely knew the people he was meeting. He had placed his safety in the hands of his sources alone. Once around the back, the door was off its hinges - clearly, his new friends had kicked it in. He paused, looking around at his surroundings over the top of his dark glasses to make sure no one saw him entering. Satisfied of his solitude, he gingerly nudged the door displaced door aside and stepped in, greeted by the strong smell of dry rot and decay.

"Mister Mace, good of you to join us."

Having expected to find the hallway empty, the other man's voice startled Mace. A sharp intake of breath betrayed his nerves. He whirled around in the gloomy passageway and found an open door leading into a kitchen with cracked linoleum covering the floor. The room was lit up with candlelight; highlighting the dilapidation, rather than softening it. Just one man sat at the table, leading Mace to wonder who the "us" was, exactly. But, he reasoned, they were being listened to, at least remotely.

"You must be Leon Markos," Mace stated, stepping inside and trying to inject a little enthusiasm into his voice. "I am - as you say - Oliver-"

"We know who you are," Markos replied, supreme in his own indifference.

Again, the mysterious collective. Mace decided to ignore it.

"I very much doubt you know everything," he laughed, drawing out the spare seat at the table without bothering to wait for an invite.

Leonidas Markos smiled widely. "Mister Mace, Golden Dawn is a small organisation, as you undoubtedly know," he patiently explained, hands folded neatly on the table top. "But don't for one minute think that means we're stupid enough to be talking to any Brit without doing our research." The whites of his eyes glittered in the candlelight as he rolled them to the ceiling.

Mace bit down on his own ire. "I'm sure you have," he replied, stiffly. "But, if we could turn to the matter at hand-"

"You've been talking to the Turks," Markos interrupted him again. "Why should we trust you?"

"You say you know my circumstances," replied Mace. "If that truly is the case, then that should be proof enough." He was about to elaborate further, but decided against it. Since leaving the service in England he had been down on his luck, but he wasn't yet reduced to begging.

Markos looked back at him benignly. "You appear to be whoring your skills to the highest bidder," he replied just as calmly. "Why should that make you trustworthy? I would say quite the opposite. Tomorrow the Turks will up their bid, and you'll be back at the Embassy and singing like a canary for them. Although, I daresay the day after that you'll be back here again, trying your hand with us. I think your loyalty is perhaps more fluid than even we have imagined. Or, is there more to it than that?"

Mace had anticipated the first, but the question surprised him enough to just ignore it. "I have several years' experience working for the British Intelligence Services, I don't deny that," he said, laying his metaphorical cards out in the open. "I can get you in touch with people who could be very beneficial to your cause, surely you see that?"

"You're leading us into a trap, Mister Mace," Markos stated, still keeping his tone even.

"What on earth are you talking about?" Mace retorted, his temper had reached the limit of its endurance.

"There are other members of the British Security services here on the Island," Markos explained. "Did you think we wouldn't check?"

"There's a British Army barracks not five bloody miles up the road," Mace snapped, fist slamming against the table top. "What do you bloody well expect, you paranoid oaf!"

Markos' placid calm only served to heighten Mace's anger. Nothing disturbed the other man's serenity in the face of Mace's discomfort.

"I don't care about the soldiers," he said, sounding mildly amused - as if Mace had been sweetly naive. "I mean your colleagues from MI5. They're here, somewhere. Waiting for you to give the word and activate them - just as soon as you've led us into your trap, of course. Perhaps you're trying to recover your good name? I don't know, and I don't much care. Just be advised that we do know."

Mace was speechless. Markos, in his opinion, was clearly so far out of his tree he was in another forest altogether. He couldn't do business with a madman, so he got up to leave, drawing back his chair quietly to make a discreet run for it.

"I can see I've outstayed my welcome," Mace offered by way of some excuse for leaving so soon. "MI5 don't even operate beyond the UK."

He got as far as the door, before Markos called out again. "Tell that to Miss Evershed, then."

Mace froze, steadied himself against the frame of the kitchen door. "Who?" he asked, slowly turning back to Leonidas. "Say that name again."

"Your agent," Markos repeated. "Ruth Evershed."

He carried on talking, oblivious to the resounding silence into which his words now fell.

Razor wire topped the ten-foot high fence that ringed the compound. Sun bleached signs wired to the fences, bearing a pirate-esque skull and crossbones, promised death to trespassers in Turkish, Greek and English. But, the only attention Ros and Lucas drew, as they pushed their way through the metal gates, was from a lone Alsatian who sniffed at the fume-poisoned undergrowth around the pillars of the perimeter fence. He jerked his head up, met their gaze and eyed them suspiciously, weighing up the two strangers dragging their suitcases into the empty space of the desolate compound. He gave a perfunctory bark, just to say he was doing his job, before cocking his leg to urinate over the pillar before trotting off back toward the barracks just half a mile away.

Both Ros and Lucas watched him vanish in the heat haze, going the same way as the jeep that brought them to their temporary home. "Must be working for Mace," Ros remarked.

Lucas smirked as he consulted a dog-eared map in his free hand. A few moments later, he bleakly surveyed the compound. "Well, I don't see anything," he stated, glancing sidelong at Ros.

Ros was looking, too. Glacial eyes scanning the waste-ground, taking in the perimeter fence and the empty nissen huts in the adjacent compound; listening as they echoed empty as the soft wind whistled through the rust-eaten infrastructure. Her eyes narrowed as she focused on the far distance.

"Lucas," she said, giving his arm a squeeze. "Lucas look, there's that ghost town, Famagusta."

At her side, Lucas glanced over his shoulder to follow the line of her eye. Just a few hundred yards away, empty hotel tower blocks rose darkly against the clear blue skies. Faded and derelict, they also were ringed off with razor wire and pirate signs. "What of it?"

She took a few steps forward, towards the gate they had just come through and stopped when she reached the fence. "If we get time," she said, looking back at him to make sure he was listening. "We should, you know, let ourselves in and have a look round."

"They'll shoot you!" he pointed out, turning his attention to a thicket of weeds and yellowing brambles in the far left corner of the compound. Everywhere else was barren; it caught his eye.

"Where's your sense of adventure!" she called back at him.

"It got lost in Terminal Five," he retorted, producing a lever from his suitcase as he approached the thicket. "It's probably half way to Bolivia by now."

Grinning, Ros turned away from the view and returned to Lucas' side. "Is this it?" she asked, watching him wrench up a manhole cover. She dropped to her haunches and helped him pull away the heavy iron cover, pushing aside the brambles. Then, together, they leaned over the newly opened chasm that led deep below the ground.

"This is it," he confirmed. "Do you want me to go first?"

Ros pulled her suitcase over and rummaged for her torch. As she shone the beam down the entrance to their bunker, a small, iron rung ladder fixed to the side of the tunnel appeared. Luckily for them, it wasn't too deep. Just six foot below the ground, no more. However, the tunnel did no favours for claustrophobics.

"Breathe in," advised Ros. "I'll hold the light for you."

Once Ros dropped down the hatch, she landed beside Lucas who was already beginning to take a look around. The bunker was surprisingly spacious, with a chill in the air that contrasted sharply with the burning, Cypriot sun. To her immediate right was a kitchen and canteen area. To her left, a men's dormitory and a women's one next to it. Opposite the female dorm was the radio transmitter they would be using to send and receive messages. Then, they reached a corner. Down the left corridor were ladies and gents toilets. Down the right, was a plant room, the filters and servers, and an Officer's room, opposite a recreation area. Through the plant room, Ros shone the beam of the torch on another door, this one leading to a generator. She gave Lucas a gentle nudge and jerked her head in the right direction.

"Down there," she said, "get the electricity working again."

She held the beam of the torch steady as he pulled at some levers, connected some wires to unseen terminals and, eventually, the lights sparked into life. Lucas exited the generator room with a smile on his face, visibly more relaxed, despite the sparse surroundings they found themselves in.

"Now let's get this radio working," he said, sounding chipper and moving round her with a spring in his step.

She knew he hadn't forgotten about Sugar Horse. It had only been temporarily displaced by the fun and games of their arrival in Cyprus, and the desperate urge to touch base with The Grid. He was holding his silence on the matter, only to avoid nagging at her. But, the truth was, Ros had not forgotten Sugar Horse, either. On the flight, that morning, she had noted the name and filed it away in her mind as one would shelve a book. It wasn't an open subject, but it was still there, in case she needed it for future reference.

Harry didn't bother to knock. He swung the door open and took in the dusty old broadcasting suite. It was full of radio equipment made obsolete by the digital revolution; the washed up relics of the Analogue Age. Old transmitters, control panels that Harry couldn't even guess at how to work and ancient, bulky microphones hanging from the ceiling. In the midst of it all, sat Malcolm Wynn Jones, frowning as he twiddled a dial, causing wild oscillations and variances in pitch of the static streaming from the radio speakers. A sort of grating, meaningless whining white noise usually heard being blasted at prisoners in Guantanamo Bay all day and night.

Malcolm's face beamed out at Harry from between two bent antennae. "Oh, Harry, come on in!" he called above the static and waving him over. He looked elated in his Cold War tomb. "Isn't it marvellous?"

Unable to bring himself to puncture his techie's bubble of pure joy, he simple forced a still smile and gave a jerky nod of agreement. "Any signal from Cyprus?" he asked, sliding behind the mixing desk to sit beside his old colleague.

"I've definitely tuned in to the right frequency, but I don't think they've set up the station, yet. All I'm getting is static," he said, still sounding thrilled all the same.

Harry glanced above Malcolm's head, to where a red light was fixed to the back wall of the old studio. It wasn't lit, but he decided to ask all the same. "We're not on air, are we? I mean, no one can hear us if they accidentally tune in to our frequency?"

"No, not at all," replied Malcolm. "I will only push the broadcast button when the call-sign from Cyprus comes through."

"Excellent, we need to talk," he said.

Malcolm's expression neutralised itself immediately as he reached out to turn down the volume. With the static reduced to an almost soothing, background hiss, he spun his chair around so that he and Harry were facing each other.

"Is something wrong?" the question felt foolish, for when was something not wrong?

Harry raised that pained smile. "I'm afraid it is," he admitted. "Lucas came to see me the day before he left for Cyprus; to tell me he had been tortured for information about Sugar Horse."

He was aware that Malcolm had no clue as to what Sugar Horse really was, but that didn't matter. In the absence of Ruth, Malcolm had taken first place among his most trusted confidants and, in return, he knew the feeling was reciprocated.

"I see," he said. "Naturally I don't know what that is, and I shan't ask you to break any vow of secrecy, especially seeing as it's already compromised. But, are you expecting trouble?"

"I'm telling you this, because I need you to know: Sugar Horse was an impregnable ring of Assets at the very highest levels of Government in the Soviet Union. Despite the fall of the Soviets, they're all still in place, just waiting to be activated, should need ever arise. If this gets out, the consequences could be dire."

Malcolm looked at him thoughtfully, carefully sifting through the information. "Clearly, the FSB don't fully know what it is, just that it exists. So, the information didn't come from one of our lot, surely?"

"Malcolm, only five people knew of it: Bernard Qualtrough, Hugo Prince, Sir Richard Dolby and myself. Prince is dead; I've spoken to Qualtrough – who I trust with my life – and, Dolby?"

"He's an insufferable prat, but that doesn't make him a traitor," Malcolm mused.

"Which is what I'm getting at," Harry interjected. "They will come for me, Malcolm. I need someone on the Grid to be aware of that, and I want it to be you."

"But Harry, no one in their right mind would ever accuse you-"

"I know that, Malcolm," Harry cut him off again, despite his well-meaning. "But I don't think the real mole will see it that way. Now, I am working on files and gathering what intel I can and I'll keep you updated."

"What about Connie?" asked Malcolm.

Harry, more than anyone, could understand the other man's need to share the burden. However, this one – he knew – had to be kept strictly between the chosen few.

"I need someone level headed and cool under intense pressure," he said. "And, I need to get cosy with Arkady Kachimov again," he added, feeling almost ashamed.

Malcolm's brow raised, just a touch. "If Ros finds out…"

Harry leaned back in his chair, sighed deeply into the hand that now covered his mouth, as if he might vomit. He was torn between the need for justice, and the need to keep his assets safe. He knew which one would win. Regnum Defende, as always.

"I know," he confessed. "I know. But this is more important than revenge, Malcolm. We've already got him over a barrel because of Adam's death, so if he knows something, we might just be able to get it out of him. Oh, and not a word to Ros, either."

Silence settled over them as Malcolm digested the news. Meanwhile, the static on the radio ceased altogether, causing Malcolm to jerk upwards to turn up the volume. Suddenly, Boney M filled the room: "Ra-ra-Rasputin, lover of the Russian Queen…" Harry almost dissolved into laughter.

A moment later, the two men exchanged a bemused glance as Lucas's exasperated voice clearly intoned over the music, like a radio broadcast gone horribly wrong before the DJ realises what's happening.

"Here, Ros, let me try. You're doing it wrong!"

Ros, equally oblivious, responded with predictable fury, just as the chorus hit full stride. "For God's sake Lucas, how hard can it be? Let me press this button here-"

A click, and suddenly they were plunged back into the crackle of static.

"Well, at least we know we have the right frequency, now," said Malcolm, accentuating the positive. "And they're safe."

"Thank goodness someone is."

"Ra-ra-Rasputin, Russia's greatest love machine…"

The music returned as quick as it had vanished, followed by an angry Lucas storming over the top of it.

"Right, now just leave it, Ros. It's working again-"

"Oh good, so turn this bloody racket off!"

"How?"

"Oh, for God's sake, Lucas!"

Malcolm and Harry listened in on the disagreement with growing amusement, exchanging equally baffled looks as the two slugged it out in Cyprus. Until, Harry suggested stepping in and putting them both out of their misery. Malcolm reached for a microphone, wearily taking a deep breath just as the notes of the song faded into silence.

"Quick, before we're drowning in the Rivers of Babylon," Harry drily urged.

"Ros, Lucas," Malcolm instructed clearly into the mic. "Just press the mute button on your left!"

"MALCOLM!" Ros and Lucas yelped in unison, clearly startled. Their long distance argument ceased abruptly, the muffled sounds of chairs being fallen off carried to the mics.

"Yes, and please use correct call signs from now on," he admonished them both, suddenly turning rather grave. "And numbers only; you're not Chas and Dave."

Despite everything else, Harry was still smirking insanely behind his hand, stifling the laughter that was threatening to erupt at any second. Even in the darkest hour, his team had the ability to carry him through, whether or not they intended it.

Ruth carefully unravelled the scrap of rice paper and noted the time and date written down on it in her dairy. Once done, she brought it out onto the balcony, and used Sophia's lighter to burn it. The flames took easily, and burned the whole scrap to dust within a second. She had caught sight of Mace at eight PM, when he left the hotel and took a cab across the border. She had followed him through the Greek area of Nicosia, onto a rundown part of town and proceeded to lose him. However, she had what she needed: visual confirmation that he was there, and her imagination had not played tricks on her the other day, when she saw him first.

She sat at the aluminium table on the balcony and took in the view before her. Nicosia central, stretched out to the border and beyond. A second later, however, and the patio door slid open again. She turned to find George standing on the threshold. He was smiling, bearing a glass of chilled white wine in his hands, extended towards her.

"A small peace offering," he said, raising a smile as he bent down to kiss her head.

She smiled, gratefully receiving the proffered drink. With one foot, she nudged a chair aside, motioning him to sit.

"I am sorry that I was home so late," she said, sounding genuinely apologetic. "It just, took longer than expected. And when I got back, you were in with Sophia and Nico. I didn't want to interrupt, that's all."

He smiled again, pulled her free hand to his lips and kissed it. "I'm sorry, too," he said. "I was bad tempered and took it out on you. I just wish you would tell me what you were doing."

"I will," she put in, keenly. "When I know a little more."

She had expected him to dig for more, but instead he frowned and sniffed at the air.

"Have you been burning stuff?"

"Just paper. I was bored."

"There are safer ways to pass the time, you incorrigible pyromaniac!"

Ruth laughed, relaxed into her seat as he shuffled his own chair over, closer to her. They both surveyed the view, casually and companionable in their silence. The sun was beginning to set, burning its descent behind the distant hills in a vivid pink glow.

"There was also something I needed to tell you," he said, at length. "Something urgent."

"I hadn't forgotten."

Nor had she. But she was so late getting back from tailing Mace that the squabble had been like an unstoppable chain reaction. Then, when the uneasy truce had been called, it seemed wrong of her to ask.

"Sophia is dying," he said, simply and plainly. "She has an aggressive tumour in her brain."

Ruth almost dropped her glass in shock. George's sister always complained of feeling ill and tired. Guilt crept up on her as she remembered all the times she passed Sophia off as a hypochondriac. She moved forwards in her seat, turning to look at George. His eyes were still fixed on the distance, not really taking in the panoramic sunset.

"I'm so sorry, George," she said, placing her glass on the table. "I had no idea it was so serious."

"We only found out just before we left," he explained. "That's why we were fighting on the coach. She's given up already. That's why she snapped at you while you were looking after Nico."

Nico. The child would be as good as an orphan, once his mother had passed away. But, she didn't quite make that connection.

"What do you mean?"

George's expression turned to remorse. "Perhaps it was wrong of me, but I think she needs to face up to the future. Or rather, Nico's future: I said that I would adopt him."

It occurred to her, then, of why she was so deeply fond of George. Sometimes, he could be so bloody crass, that he reminded her of Harry Pearce. Well, that was at least one of the reasons she had taken so readily to him. His gaze met hers, and his expression fell further.

"Did I do the wrong thing?" he asked, perplexed at why the womenfolk were angry with him. Sensing, for the first time ever, that Ruth had taken Sophia's side.

Ruth arranged her own face into an expression of patient understanding, not wanting to give the impression of being mad at him. After all, like that other man in her life, his heart was firmly in the right place. She selected her next words with care.

"It was a lovely, lovely gesture," she said. "One that will help enormously. But, perhaps, you could have timed it better. You know, once Sophia had had time to adjust. Or, adjust as much as she can to what's happening. I think you just blurted it out, didn't you? … Oh, you're dying? Give me your child."

George looked affronted. "I didn't mean it like that!" he protested.

Ruth sympathised. "I know you didn't, but that's what it must have sounded like to Sophia. Now she thinks I'm in on the plan and gearing up to just take her place."

He looked defeated as he buried his face in his hands, kneading at his temples. "I was just being practical. All this stuff must be dealt with; the sooner the better!"

Ruth drained her wine and got up to embrace him. "I know," she said. "But just take her feelings into account as well, yes?"

"Mmm," came his muffled reply, lost in her shoulder as they embraced.

All thoughts of Mace, of her own problems in general, receded rapidly. She would not – could not – tell him now. But, at the same time, she also accepted that this wouldn't make Mace go away. She would have to keep tabs on Mace now, if only to keep him well away from George and his family – the stakes had risen, so much higher now.

"I hope you understand why I'm doing this," he said. "I hope we can raise Nico together."

But Mace was back on her mind. She was on a knife edge of discovery – him of her, or her of him, she didn't know. But she knew she could not give a definite answer to his question, not with the ghosts of her past so close to home.

"Maybe," she whispered, still holding him close. "Maybe."

Ros stepped out of the shower block, towel drying her hair but dressed in a camisole top and sweat pants. Lucas, to the best of her knowledge, had skulked off to bed. But, the squabble they had still lingered in her mind. On her way to her own room, a large empty dormitory, she paused outside Lucas'. She hated apologies, but this had to be done.

"Lucas," she said, keeping her voice low in case he was asleep already.

She knocked gently at the door and pressed her ear close. No noise beside the transistor radio playing gently in the background. She was about to turn away, when she stopped at the last minute and folded the towel over her arm before trying the handle. The door opened quietly, revealing only semi-darkness and empty beds.

"Lucas," she repeated.

Nothing moved inside. Only the low, distant crackle of the radio, permanently tuned to their numbers station in case of any emergency broadcasts from The Grid. She knew Lucas wouldn't go anywhere without it, not with the state his nerves were in. Just as she was about to back out of the room, she caught sight of his foot on the floor, poking out from the end of one of the iron bedframes. Her heart beat raced, thinking he had collapsed. However, when she reached him, she could see that he had pulled the sheets off his bed and set himself down on the floor for the night.

She swallowed, finding her throat quite dry and constricted at the sight of him lying there. Eight years of abuse, so much so he couldn't even sleep in a bed any more. The body more used to the solid floor than the lumpy mattresses of home. She rarely pitied, she knew he wouldn't want it. But nevertheless, it was there. She wouldn't disturb him, so she leaned down and switched off the radio, instead. He snuffled and turned at the click, but did not awaken. Once the dorm was in silence, she backed out of the room, securing the door silently behind her. She would mention this to no one.