Author's Note: Thank you, as always, to everyone who has read and reviewed this story, it means a lot. The usual disclaimers apply. Thank you again, and I hope everyone enjoys the story.

Additional Note: for the sake of simplicity, the number code I'm using is counting down from 26 (A) to 1 (Z), but with each letter's numeric multiplied by 3. So A is actually 78 and Z is 3. Naturally, the real MI5/6 would never, ever, use any code so simple to break. The phonetic alphabet in use is Standard English.

Chapter Eight: The Numbers Station

Ros was off air. The red light above the door of the radio broadcaster was dulled, but before she did anything, she let the shipping forecast finish one more rotation. While she waited, she reached for a stopwatch from one of the draws and set the timer to two minutes exactly. As soon as the forecast was done, she flicked the switch to go on air. Simultaneously, the over-head lights dimmed, making way for the warm, red glow of the transmitter LED above the door. Once on air, she set off the stopwatch, keeping her eye on it as precisely two minutes of silence was counted down before she played her call sign. A rendition of Green Sleeves, one that sounded like it had been recorded off an Ice-cream van, chimed out across the air-waves. To distract herself from the infuriating jingle, she set the timer on the stopwatch to count down another two minutes of silence, the time which her Thames House colleagues would use to get ready to receive her message.

When, finally, the process was complete, Ros cleared her throat and glanced down at the papers in her hands. TARGET MIA, followed by the relevant numbers in Lucas's neat hand, written on the first page of rice-paper.

"Twenty-one. Seventy-eight. Twenty-seven. Sixty. Sixty-six. Twenty-one. Forty-two. Fifty-four. Seventy-eight. Mike. India. Alpha."

Message concluded, she let her colleagues know by playing the Green Sleeves jingle again, before switching back to the shipping forecast. The rice paper on which the numbers were written was burned instantly, and she left to return to the recreation room.

Outside, in the passageway, the lights were dimmed. The digital clock informed her that it was gone midnight, but tiredness eluded her. She never thought she would care about the fate of a man like Oliver Mace, but the clues were compelling her to dig ever deeper. The signs of struggle; the opacity of evidence. One minute he was there; the next it's as though he vaporised. The only clue they could glean from his mobile records was Golden Dawn and the Turkish Ambassador. Two groups, diametrically opposed. Then, there was their numbers station, continually going off-air for no reason, switching to another frequency they could not fathom, before mysteriously returning. Lucas had noticed, but she had not shared her fears in case he, too, read too much into it. In his fragile state, the consequences could be disastrous.

Ros paused outside the ladies dorm and leaned against the wall, letting herself slide to the floor. Doubts flickered through her mind; something had been amiss on the Grid since Lucas's return. All she had for clues were footprints in the snow, rapidly smothered by a fresh fall. Like the day Lucas told Harry about Sugar Horse. Harry passed it off as a curveball question. But as soon as Lucas left the office that day, Harry mysteriously vanished for several hours. Then there was Connie's almost grandmotherly concern, the way she rushed to defend Harry's stance. Even Malcolm's suggestion of using the numbers station in the first place had begun to take on a sinister hue. Harry, Malcolm and Connie – the Cold War old-guards all working together to keep Sugar Horse, whatever it was, in the shadows. The man who almost compromised it – Lucas – shipped off on a convenient foreign operation. It had begun to look too convenient. Only her implicit, absolute, trust in Harry Pearce buoyed up her confidence in this op. Whatever it was he was playing at, she knew he would have his reasons.

Still sat on the floor, Ros gave herself a firm mental shakedown and inwardly admitted her powerlessness to act at that moment. Sugar Horse would have to wait, because those footsteps she thought she heard probably wouldn't. Slowly, she got back to her feet, keeping her keen eyes trained on the direction of the kitchen. The sound came again, a muffled thump.

"Lucas," she called out softly, trying to peer around the corner.

Lucas was already in bed; he had excused himself just before she made the broadcast. Still, she strained her ear, listening out for an answer. Nerves stretching in the silence, she gradually eased the door to the ladies dorm open to retrieve her gun. Stepping back outside, she pulled back the hammer and aimed the weapon in front of her as she went to investigate the unexplained noise. Another thump and a soft moan, quickly followed by an agonised shout shattered the silence. The intruder was nothing more than Lucas's Russian demon.

"Lucas!" Ros gasped, relieved as the moment of panic passed.

After she had disarmed her gun, she quickly replaced it before dashing back to Lucas's door. She knocked, hoping the noise alone would wake him. But the sounds of him lashing out in his sleep continued uninterrupted. Hope diminished, she let herself in and knelt at his side, where he slept fitfully on the floor. In the grip of a moment of inertia, Ros hovered over him for a moment, arms open as she assessed the most gentle way of waking him.

"I dunno …" he shouted. "Not Sugar Horse."

"You and me, both," she replied to his unconscious lamentation. "Lucas, wake up!"

She grabbed his flailing arms by the wrists before he could do anymore damage to himself, given the proximity of a metal filing cabinet at his 'bedside'. She gripped him tight, holding him down as his struggles slowly ceased and his eyelids flickered open.

"Hey," she whispered. "You were dreaming again."

He looked dazed, then ashamed. Ros let go of his wrists, satisfied that his wits had returned, and helped him to sit up and get his bearings back.

"I'm so sorry," he muttered, not meeting her gaze through shame. "I-I-"

"Ssh!" she cooed, pulling him up.

She didn't know where it came from, it hadn't been a conscious decision, but as she pulled him up from the floor into a sitting position, she folded her arms around him.

"Don't be afraid anymore," she soothed, holding him close. "No one's going to hurt you."

As the tension dissipated, her eye fell on the digital radio at his side. He used the forecast to lull himself to sleep. But now, the lights were all on but the station was silent but for the distant crackle of static. The station was off-air, again; had her message even reached home? For a moment, she almost forgot that she was holding Lucas, and felt herself tense up. Eventually, Lucas extricated himself.

"I'll be alright now, boss," he said, still hanging his head in shame.

"No," she replied. "No, you won't be. Get up a minute."

Finally, he turned to look at her. His blue eyes appeared colourless in the pale light. After a moment's hesitation, he did as she asked. He climbed to his feet in stages, still stiff from sleep. His pale skin, spattered with dark patches of prison tattoos, soft to the waist where his dark tracksuit bottoms hung low on his hip bones. She couldn't pretend she wasn't looking.

"You can't keep doing this, Lucas," she said, bundling up his bed sheets from the floor.

"I can't help it," he protested. "It just happens."

"No, not that," she said. "But you can't keep sleeping on the floor. You're not in prison anymore."

She was brisk, business like as she spread the sheets out on a nearby bed. It wasn't exactly hospital folds, but it was passable for one night.

"I like being on the floor," he feebly put in, helping her arrange the sheets anyway.

"You'll like breaking out of that prison in your head even more, I promise," she retorted. "Now just get in and try to get some proper sleep."

She held the duvet up by one corner and stared him down, defiantly. Not being given much choice in the matter, he followed her silent order. But, as he passed her, she caught hold of him again and, before she even knew what she was doing herself, their heads butted together as their lips met in a firm kiss. It lasted for barely a second and, instantly, she was filled with horror at what she had done. She pulled away, sharply, frozen in the moment. Lucas, also, looked up at her in surprise.

"Well, I didn't see that-"

"I'm sorry, that was unprofessional," she blurted over him. "I'll see you in the morning."

She turned around and marched towards the door, refusing to look back and see the expression of horror in his face.

"Ros, wait!" His voice trailed after her, but the door slammed shut on any further implorations.

Ros didn't stop until she was safely back in the lady's dorm, alone with the door locked shut. Her face burned with embarrassment; emotions reaching boiling point. Sugar Horse, numbers stations, disappearing enemies and the footprints in the snow; it was all piling on top of her. To compose herself, she sucked in several deep lungfuls of air, bringing her heart rate down. Thoughts and feelings rationalised, she calmly returned to Oliver Mace's dropped memory stick. That, with Lucas, simply didn't happen.

Neither Ruth nor George had gotten any sleep. They had moved indoors, where they had ready access to coffee and sandwiches as they ran through the evidence together. She had explained, again, what led to her downfall at MI5, why Oliver Mace was the worst possible news, and why she needed to clear her name. But that alone didn't bring them any further forward. On the table in front of them, Ruth's dairy with times and dates of sightings, sat open at the relevant page. Sheets of paper with diagrams, theories and evidence, were strewn about in no particular order. Looking at the jumble of papers, Ruth realised just how out of practise she was.

"It still makes no sense," said Ruth, slumping forwards across the table. "We just don't have enough to go on."

There was a moment of silence as George continued to read through a page of notes. Ruth had already called the hotel as "Owen Mason's wife", which informed them that Mace was still missing. George had also called them, posing as a former customer to complain that a watch had been stolen from his room in an effort to glean information about the cleaners. Tall, dark haired, pale skinned and English. That was the cleaner blamed for the "theft", but they refused to give out personal details of staff members and forwarded him to the Police. In accordance with Ruth's innate sense of justice, the watch was conveniently rediscovered at the end of the call, before any real staff members could get into any real trouble. That little attempt at subterfuge achieved precisely nothing. But, once more, he was struck with inspiration.

"You hacked into the Greek and Turkish Government databases, yes?" George asked, peering over the top of his page of notes.

Ruth nodded, not in the least bit abashed.

"Then, you can hack into Golden Dawn just as easily?" he added.

Ruth sat up straight again, accidentally pulling more strands of hair free from its bindings as she went; giving herself an almost hedgehog like appearance. Her brow creased as she mulled it over. "Yes," she replied. "More than likely."

"I mean, you did it from our house without being traced-"

"I used to do it for a living!" she laughed.

"It's just, I am worried about you staying here with this Mace on the loose," he said. "I would be happier if you went home and continued the investigation from there. You can hack from anywhere, no?"

He had a point. Every corner she turned in Nicosia, she expected to walk straight into Mace. In every queue she waited in, she expected the man behind her to be Oliver Mace. He was in every shadow; lurking down every dingy side street. She could feel her own paranoia flourishing in the dark, and that was on top of everything else. And she was tired. Tired of chasing shadows in a strange city, waiting for a breakthrough that seemed to grow ever more distant.

"Will you be okay here, on your own?" she asked. "I mean, with Sofia and Nico?"

George flashed her a reassuring smile. "Of course!" he replied. "So long as you understand why I need to stay. Sofia needs me and I think she still wants to check for information on our father. I promised her I would help with everything."

No matter what was happening in Ruth's life, the search for the missing victims of the invasion went on. More remains were exhumed with each passing day and, soon, George would be called upon to provide a DNA sample. Ruth had already resolved that they would not come this far, only to be halted by the ghosts of her past.

"I understand, George," she assured him. He really was a good man. "Remember, not a word to anyone. Even if Sofia asks, you tell her work needed me as a matter of urgency."

Reaching down for the laptop by his feet, to book her a ticket online, he breathed a sigh of relief. "You should try to get some sleep on the coach," he advised. "You look exhausted. And I'll get Marko to collect you from the station."

Ruth suppressed a yawn. "Actually, I think I'll get some sleep now," she said, turning towards the balcony doors, beyond which the day broke, bright and beautiful.

George agreed readily and Ruth didn't hesitate. She rose to her feet, wrapping her shawl around her shoulders, before lurching towards the bed in the next room. She was virtually asleep before she even got there, safe in the knowledge that would be back in Polis before nightfall.

Back at Thames House, concentration came reluctantly to Harry Pearce. Alone in his office, he could only look through the window, out over the Grid and guess at what the others were doing. Periodically, his gaze fell on Malcolm Wynn-Jones, watching as he studied his computer screen intently. Making the anticipation worse, teasing him into a state of permanent restlessness, was the knowledge that the techie was watching over the FSB. He had to fight hard against the temptation to interrupt every ten minutes, demanding to know if anything was coming up yet.

In the meantime, he turned his attention to the files on the Sugar Horse Assets. Richard Dolby, Hugo Prince, Bernard Qualtrough. All men who had given their lives to the service, whether he liked them or not. He raked over each file, searching for the slightest of clues. Prince may be dead, but he could easily have betrayed the service before his union with the Grim Reaper. For reasons he could not quite fathom, the knowledge that not even the dead were beyond suspicion, saddened him greatly.

Carefully, he cross referenced each one, in person. But the truth was, the files in themselves would reveal nothing. The mole would have to be flushed out, and their best hope of that remained with Arkady Kachimov and the false information Harry had already fed to him.

He got up, about to relocate himself to the paper archive for further research, when Malcolm finally caught his eye. Harry motioned for him to come into the office, where they could speak privately. Not another soul on the Grid had been informed of the breach, and he wanted it to stay that way. As Malcolm crossed the Grid, Harry tried to read his expression: happy, frustrated, or sad. But, his people reading skills failed him.

"Come right in," Harry instructed his old friend. "Anything exciting?"

"I've intercepted email and recorded every phone call," he said. "Jo's helping, but she doesn't know why we're doing this."

Harry nodded his approval. "Well, are they saying anything?"

"Yes, after a fashion," Malcolm replied, enigmatically. "They are talking, but there's still vital bits of information missing. It's like they have another channel of communication to pass through, and only certain snippets are going through electronically."

Harry leaned back in his seat with a deep sigh. "So, what are they saying?"

Malcolm cleared his throat. "Well, Kachimov is gratified that you think Lucas is the mole. You see, he thinks that because Lucas' mental state is so, er, fragile, that these allegations will only serve to turn him. Oh, the irony of a self-fulfilling prophecy."

Harry couldn't help but laugh.

"Has he said anything about Lucas' possible whereabouts?" he asked, once he had composed himself.

"No," Malcolm replied. "Sounds like he's been put on a back-burner, for now. They're more concerned with the real mole, whose name is being firmly and methodically, left out of all electronic communication."

"Which means it's deeply encrypted somewhere on the FSB's databases," Harry conjectured. "Sounds like you've got some hacking to do."

"Hmm," Malcolm agreed. "It shouldn't be too difficult. By the way, there was one more thing I needed to run past you."

It didn't bode well. Harry's scowl became more deeply entrenched as he regarded Malcolm across the desk. "Which is?"

"Ros failed to make a broadcast last night," explained Malcolm. "Or, if she did, we didn't get it."

"Are you able to scan for signal blockers?" Harry asked, voicing the first concern to pop into his head.

Naturally, it was all second nature to Malcolm. "Nothing, there's no reason why we shouldn't have got that message."

"If neither she nor Lucas makes contact tonight, I will break protocol and phone them," he said. "If something's happened to them, we'll soon know. If it's being sabotaged from outside, we'll more than likely have our mole. It's too much of a coincidence that Lucas is being targeted yet again."

"Not a word to anyone, then," Malcolm smiled, feeling the net close a little further round their quarry.

They understood each other, as always. Harry dismissed him with a nod of thanks and a Cheshire Cat smile. In amongst the Sugar Horse business, he had almost forgotten about Mace and his antics abroad. He had let it slip, assuming that Lucas would be safely out of the way there, with the added fortress-like protection of Ros at his side. If they were being sabotaged, he could have grossly miscalculated the whole affair. He closed his eyes, blotting out his surroundings for a few precious moments, as he let the morphing shape of the problem expand in his mind. He would find a way; there was always a way.

Lucas scrolled slowly through the information on the memory stick. Every so often, he paused, jotted down a note of interest, before picking up where he left off. In the darkness of his dormitory, the contrasting brightness of the screen made him squint through the early fog of a headache. No matter how lost in his work he became, however, every sound from outside made him jump to attention. A few hours before, he heard the heels of Ros's boots marching past his door. He'd dropped everything, strained to listen to see if she slowed down outside his door. But, she didn't. If he heard her in the kitchen, he chose that moment to get himself a cup of tea; only for her to outright blank him as she disappeared into her own room.

At that moment, he heard a muffled crash followed by some profound swearing from Ros, drifting through the walls. Deciding to end the impasse, Lucas dropped his work once again and left the room. He stopped outside the Lady's dorm, listening for a few second as whatever had fallen was put back into place. Once it seemed that order had been restored, he knocked sharply on the door.

"What?" came the blunt response.

"Ros, it's me. It's Lucas."

"Seeing as there's only two of us here, I'd worked that out for myself. What do you want?"

He sighed, rolled his eyes. "To talk."

"Better come in, then."

Finally, he seemed to be getting somewhere. He let himself in and found her sat at a computer, searching through Mace's phone records for the second time. She didn't turn to look at him; nor did she invite him to sit down. Instead, he hovered uncertainly near the door. Neither fully inside, nor outside; just in some limbo. Something he'd become used to.

"Look, Ros, about last night-"

"Yeah, about that," she cut over him, still looking at the screen. "I was thinking we should now extend the search for Mace to the rest of the country."

He was grateful for her inattentiveness, so she couldn't see the look on his face. "That's not quite what I was thinking-"

"Have you got any better suggestions?" she demanded, growing more waspish.

For the moment, he decided he would play along with the ice-queen act. "Yes, I agree about extending the search. But I think we need to talk about-"

"Golden Dawn, Lucas, we need a way in with them," she talked over him, yet again.

It was like being a child, with his parents arguing over his head. He couldn't get a word in edgeways. He was making a noise, but he was simply invisible to her. She was every bit the Queen Bitch he had been first introduced to. Only now, he wasn't so beaten down and timorous as to be willing to tolerate it – a small feat that Ros had herself to congratulate for.

"Look, what is your problem, Ros?" he demanded. "Why are you doing this?"

Finally, she turned from the screen and glared at him. "Because it's our job, Lucas. I suggest we remain focused exclusively on it."

He threw his hand up, a gesture of defeat. He had better things to do than argue with a woman, when all was said and done, he didn't really know – less still, understand.

"Fine then," he retorted, hotly. "I'll do that."

Like a teenager in a strop, he let the door slam after him as he left. He barged through his own door and gave that a kick shut for good measure. To his eternal irritation, the radio had gone off again. Only this time, instead of trying to retune it, he simply picked it up and threw it at the wall in frustration. The resounding crash of the device hitting the wall snapped him out of his anger and he flopped down on the bed, dropping his head into his hands. Slowly, he took deep breaths and massaged his temples, soothing away the tension that had built at his temples.

He was about to lie down, when the call sign jolted him out of his reverie. He hadn't realised that the radio was even back online. Hastily, he snatched it up to check the frequency. It was several kilohertz above the normal one they used. The call sign ended, two minutes of silence followed in which he snatched up a pen to write down the numbers, anyway.

"Thirty-three. Twenty-seven. Thirty-six. Thirty-six," it began. Lucas recognised Connie's voice and breathed a sigh of relief. All along, they had the incorrect frequency. The numeric message continued: "Forty-five. Fifty-four. Twelve. Fifteen. Fifty-four. Thirty-six. Sixty-three. Nine. Three. Fifty-seven. Forty-two. Forty-five. Fifty-four. Sixty. Twenty-four."

Two minutes of total silence elapsed, before Connie repeated the numbers again and Lucas checked them off, making sure he had each one and in the correct order. The message ended again, and Lucas reached for his cypher. However, another voice came over the airwaves. The voice of an older man, not Harry or anyone else he recognised. Lucas frowned, wondering what was happening as he reached for his pen again. The man responded with the phonetic alphabet:

"Charlie. Oscar. November. Foxtrot. India. Romeo. Mike. Echo. Delta."

The call sign chimed out again as the message ended on that peculiar note. He turned to the numbers, but soon realised Connie was using a different cypher. For a moment, recent events with Ros slipped his mind and went to get her opinion. But, then he remembered and swore again. He sat back down and resigned himself to having to decipher Connie's message himself.