Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed this story, your comments really are valued. Usual disclaimers apply: I own none of this. Thanks again for reading and reviews would be most welcome.
Chapter Eleven: Nicosia Calling
After a few hours' sleep, Harry arrived back on the Grid armed with fresh information gleaned from the Pilgrim file. He scanned over the faces of his colleagues, relieved to see that Malcolm was not among them and his old friend had finally left to get some much needed rest. They were both none of the fired up youths they once were, and pulling all-nighters at their age was probably nothing more than an invitation to madness. Instead, he singled out Ben Kaplan from the ranks of younger Agents and gestured to him to follow him to his office.
Once inside, Harry handed Ben the Pilgrim file and pointed out some especially relevant pages. While Ben took a few minutes to read through the notes, Harry straightened his tie and replaced his jacket, arming himself for what lay ahead in the interview room. When he turned back to Ben, he was looking at Harry in casual disbelief.
"Qualtrough was going to frame you, Harry," he pointed out. "He was leaving a paper trail right to your door, while 'im and Connie ran off to Russia to rebuild a Socialist Utopia in defiance of Capitalist oppression, or something like that."
The younger Agent's assessment of Connie and Qualtrough's intentions amused him enough to induce a flicker of a smile.
"Hm," he replied. "Qualtrough has already fled without her. So much for solidarity."
"Did Kachimov warn him?"
"In all probability," Harry answered. "Have you found anything else out, this afternoon?"
"Not much, just some mobile phone records from Connie to Qualtrough," he replied. "But it's enough to bolster what we already know. I think we have enough to bring a prosecution, now."
Harry pulled out his chair and sat down for a moment. The fall of Connie James was never going to be cause for celebration, but he still had a feeling of grim satisfaction that another bad apple was rooted from the cart. But, why her? Of all people, why Connie? Her forthright, no-nonsense manners; her grounded common sense and fierce intellect had saved them on so many occasions that this new, traitorous Connie felt like another person altogether. It was something he didn't think he would ever be able to come to terms with, and that was before he got to Bernard Qualtrough – the man who taught him everything. Maybe, Harry pondered, this was Qualtrough's last lesson to him: how not to end your career? How not to invest your precious trust in anyone? Whatever it was, he hated it.
As though he sensed his boss's lapse into maudlin self-reflection, Ben closed the file and placed it on Harry's desk. Giving it a nudge towards him, he spoke firmly but kindly.
"Let's get this over and done with."
Unwilling and unable to argue, Harry led the way to the interview room, where Connie was once again waiting for them. When he entered, he was relieved to see she had at least dispensed with the hair net. Instead, she sat there, stoic and staring at the far wall of the room. Her expression betrayed nothing; passive and still, she kept her focus fixed in the same spot even as Harry and Ben placed themselves directly in front of her. It was something many prisoners did, before they were eventually broken.
Casually, Harry flicked through the file and showed Connie the evidence inside. Photographs, details of meetings, records of phone conversations. Ben even played a few of the sound files he had managed to recover from her mobile. All the while, she looked back at them with that same, unreadable expression on her face. However, faced with the evidence, she could no longer argue with it. Harry leaned forwards in his seat, frowning at the biro in his hands as he tried to avoid asking the question that had been on his mind ever since this sorry business began.
"Why?" he asked, lifting his gaze to meet hers.
"Why what?"
Beside Harry, Ben disguised his incredulous laugh as a cough. Connie's pale blue eyes briefly flickered over to the younger Agent, before returning to Harry.
"I gave my life to this service-"
"Which only makes your betrayal even worse!" Harry cut in, suddenly finding himself unable to listen to her attempts at self-justification. "We would have laid down our lives for you. Now you're trying to frame me. Just tell me why, Connie?"
Although no confession had been forthcoming, she was at least no longer denying it. It was a small victory bought through irrefutable proof of her treachery. He glanced down again at the old photograph of Connie with Qualtrough, the two of them having a cosy chat over tea and crumpets with the then head of the KGB, as it was at that time. It made his stomach churn all over again.
"You and I both know what would really have happened, when push came to shove," Connie said, looking directly at Harry. "You would have hung me out to dry. Regnum Defende, Harry. It's almost your middle name. So don't try all that false bonhomie, camaraderie horse shit with me. I know you too well."
"Oh! Don't you play the victim with me, Connie. We look after our own, too, if you remember rightly," he countered, growing increasingly angry. "You cannot justify this wholesale betrayal of not just MI5, but the nation as a whole."
Harry noticed a flicker of anger darken the woman's features. Satisfied that he had at last got a reaction, he leaned back his seat, arms folded across his chest as he continued to meet her gaze. He had finally wrested control of the interrogation from her, and he wasn't about to let it go.
"Betrayal?" she shot back. "Betrayal of what? A nation that raped, pillaged and looted its way around the world but threatened hell and damnation on another, simply for defending itself? A nation that subjugates-"
"What is this, a History lesson?" Ben cut her off, mid-flow. "Are you really punishing Britain for stuff that happened centuries ago?"
Connie snorted derisively. "That's what you think!" she retorted. "But some people still have a conscience and I, for one, will not stand by as the West acts the bully-"
Mercifully, Connie was cut off mid-flow by a knock at the door before Harry could die laughing at Connie, and her damn conscience. It opened a fraction and Jo peered nervously through a small aperture while holding up a sheet of paper that Harry couldn't identify from that distance. Excusing himself to Ben, he got up to see what Jo wanted.
"What is this?" he asked, closing the door behind him on the way out.
Jo took a deep breath as she handed over the file she had copied.
"Eight years ago, Pilgrim passed information to the head of the FSB about an Agent codenamed Dragon Fly operating in Moscow," she explained.
Harry raised a wan smile as he filled in the blanks. "Dragon Fly: known to us as Lucas North."
Jo replied with a small nod. "That information came from Connie."
Harry sighed deeply as he took the copied files.
"Thanks, Jo. Good work. Concentrate on finding Qualtrough now, please."
Another dark suspicion confirmed, Harry returned to the interrogation room where Connie and Ben sat staring each other down in silence. The atmosphere was thick with tension, as though each party longed to break down and hurl insults around at will. Without saying a word, Harry placed the new evidence on the table, where Connie could see it. Unable to look at her properly, he paced over to the far wall and studied the peeling paint intently. He had felt Connie's betrayal. He had let the anger get the better of him because he had regarded her as a friend. But at least she hadn't sold him out to her handlers and been subjected to eight years of hell in a foreign country and given up for dead. That special right to be absolutely fucking incandescent with rage belonged only to Lucas North. In his absence, Harry could only partially hope to step into his shoes.
"Lucas North suffered eight years of beatings, torture and abject humiliation because of you," he said, his tone dangerously low. "His family thought he was dead. He is traumatised and, in all likelihood, scarred for life. Because of you. I supposed you're already pre-armed with some self-righteous bullshit about the greater good and comrade solidarity against counter-revolutionary activities. But just, for one moment, think beyond your own twisted self-interest and ponder what your actions have done to others. That's if you're even still in possession of that capability!"
Slowly, he turned round to look at her again. He needed to know if there was even a shred of humanity or remorse present in those cold blue eyes. There would be no deals, now. He would throw her to the wolves and be glad to be rid of bad rubbish.
"Then I shan't say it," she replied. "But I did what I thought was right; not even you can take that away from me."
"Ben, go to the front desk and ask for the Police to be called. We have a common criminal to be charged with high treason."
Connie finally smiled, revealing her teeth like a wolf. He looked at her for the final time, before walking from the room without so much as a backwards glance. He paused only to instruct some spare Agents to guard her until the Police arrive and took her away for good. If he never saw her again, it would still be too soon.
Lucas looked impressed as they made their way up Ruth's driveway. Their former Analyst's home was set on a hillside, overlooking a plush, middle-class district of Polis. On one side, an azure sea lapped the bronze beaches. On the other, hills rolled into the surprisingly green countryside. Around the back of the house, he and Ros could just make out the placid surface of a private swimming pool. The house itself was a single storey bungalow that stretched out into a good acreage of land. Made from sandstone sourced from local quarries, its finish was immaculate. Ros let out a high whistle of approval at her former colleague's elevated living standards.
"Very nice," she observed as the full home came into view. "Much nicer than anything she would have got from us."
Lucas wrinkled his nose. "I can't imagine Ruth in a place like this," he said. "She looks like a librarian. She'd be happier in a period house, plenty of character, surrounded by bulging bookshelves and ten cats. She looks the type."
"After all, you know her so well after your two minute meeting with her," Ros joked, rolling her eyes. Nevertheless, she was surprised at his accuracy.
They approached the house together, ready to ring the doorbell when Lucas pointed out the door frame. The lock had been picked clean from the frame, the door itself was slightly ajar. He raised a hand to stop Ros from going any further, and immediately started looking around for security cameras. If entry had been forced, hopefully, they would be able to find out who had been here.
"Knock on the door anyway," Ros instructed him. "If we get no answer, just go in. She will remember me."
Lucas didn't know exactly how long Ruth and Ros had been colleagues, but he knew it wasn't long at all. Still, he did as she asked, noticing the echo left by the rap on the door. They exchanged a glance, before Ros nudged open the door and stepped inside. As they both suspected, the place was devoid of human life. They searched the living room, noting the hard drives taken from the computer in the front room. Lucas went to check them more closely while Ros investigated further back, in the passageway between the living room and the bedrooms.
Nothing more was to be found in the front room, and the furniture was all as it was expected to be. Nothing had been stolen, so they could rule out burglary straight away. When Lucas got up to see what Ros was doing, he found her gingerly picking up a rag from the floor with the point of a pen. She sniffed at it cautiously before looking over at him, holding the offending garment up higher.
"Chloroform," she said, laying it to one side. "Get an evidence bag while I check the bedrooms."
They carried evidence bags as part of their kit, left in the back in the car. As he left the house, he scanned the homes of the neighbours. The fruit trees out the front formed a privacy shield over the front of the house, meaning that no one would have seen anything. He suspected similar fences and strategically placed shrubberies also existed to the rear of the house. Although he could well imagine a Spook on the run feeling more secure like this, it didn't help their investigation at all.
When he returned to the house with the evidence bags, he saw Ros standing in the doorway of one of the bedrooms holding a stocking. Her head was bent over a small note, held delicately between her fingers. Once she had finished, she read it out to Lucas and fished for her phone to call home. Meanwhile, Lucas had the numbing feeling of having hit another dead end. First, Oliver Mace had vanished off the face of the earth without witnesses, now Ruth had done the same. Dejectedly, he listened to Ros relaying information to Harry over the phone. Starting calmly, she soon raised her voice as she tried to calm their panicking boss down. Lucas kept forgetting that there was something of a romance between Ruth and Harry. He leaned forwards from the armchair he was propped up against and studied a photograph on the wall. If that was anything to go by, Ruth had moved on from Harry, even if Harry was still hung up on her, if the man in the photographs was anything to go by.
"Is Harry okay?" he asked as Ros reappeared in the front room.
She shrugged her shoulders. "Not really," she answered truthfully. "First this business with Connie and now Ruth. He's going spare, naturally. Connie's been arrested, by the way. I don't think she'll be troubling anyone else for the rest of her miserable life."
Lucas didn't know what he felt, or even how he should feel about Connie's arrest. Accordingly, he kept his clashing thoughts to himself and chose to channel them into the task at hand: recovering Harry's long lost love.
"Sorry, I keep forgetting that there was something of a romance between Harry and Ruth," he stated, lifting up a nearby photograph that showed Ruth arm in arm with another man. He showed it to Ros. "Still, seems like she's moved on."
He felt some empathy with Harry. He knew what it was like to be forcibly exiled, then to come home and find even the love of your life had moved on without you. But this was different and well he knew it. Ruth was the exile everyone had to believe was dead, for her own safety.
"You can't blame her, Lucas," Ros replied, rather reprovingly. "Anyway, find out who he is and we can get a contact number for him. He might know something – if he hasn't been bloody well kidnapped as well. Abduction is beginning to feel like a national pastime."
There was a stack of unanswered mail piled up behind the front door, but Ros had already swooped down on it and started to rifle through it. Clicking her tongue in disapproval when she noticed Ruth was still using her real name.
"Hello, George," she muttered to herself, reaching for an address book that had been left by the telephone. "You'll do for starters."
Eventually, Lucas found a mobile phone number for someone called George on a pad of post-it notes left in a kitchen drawer. He tucked it into his breast pocket before returning to Ros who was still rummaging through the drawers in the hall. He showed her the note and nodded towards the door. To him, it always felt like trespass when they went rummaging around other people's houses, even if it was for their benefit.
Once outside, he retrieved his phone from the dashboard of the car and dialled the number. Ros restarted the engine, but shut it off again as Lucas signalled to her after getting an answer.
"Hello, is this George I'm speaking to?"
Ros looked over at him expectantly.
"Oh, good. We're some old friends of Ruth-"
"Speaker!" Ros hissed at him.
Quickly, Lucas jabbed at the speaker button on his mobile so Ros could listen in on and join the conversation.
"Ruth doesn't have any old friends," George's voice replied to them. "What's going on? I've been calling her all day, with no answer."
"Where are you now, George?" Ros asked, raising her voice slightly. "We need to talk."
"Nicosia," he answered. "I'm due home tomorrow."
Ros stifled a groan at the thought of having to drive all the way back to Nicosia that day. However, they couldn't bring George up to date over the phone. Sensing Ros's frustration, Lucas decided he better deal with the situation. He handed Ros a spare pen and piece of note paper from the glove compartment.
"We need to talk, urgently," said Lucas. "Tell us where you are and we'll be there as soon as we can be."
They already knew the hotel, it was close to the border with the Turkish half of Cyprus. As soon as Ros noted down the address, Lucas hung up the call with the assurance to George that everything would be alright.
"There's something else you need to know," Ros said, carefully manoeuvring the car down the steep hill.
"What's that then?" he asked, curious.
"Harry made me promise not to say anything until we were safely back at the barracks," she explained, pulling out onto the main road, northward bound.
"You're making me nervous."
"Then I'll tell you straight: it was Connie who sold you out to the Russians," she answered.
He had suspected as much, but it didn't make the confirmation any easier. A moment of pain, of inner-turmoil was quickly replaced with relief. Of all the conflicting feelings he had expected, relief was never among them. But there it was. It felt as though a shadow had been lifted from his life, or an unseen obstacle suddenly cleared from his path. He turned to look out of the window as they picked up speed, the countryside whizzing past in a sunny blur and it hit him, like a speeding train that he was a free man, after all. Knowledge is power and the truth can, literally, set you free. Except if your name was Connie James. The truth, at last, was anything but liberating for her. Still, that was no longer Lucas' problem.
"Good," he replied. He turned to look at her, but she was watching the road as she had her foot down on the accelerator. "It really is good, you know."
Ros smiled. "I thought you might like it."
Ruth managed to drag an old chest of drawers over to the window of her new prison cell. When she climbed onto it, she could see better over Mace's partition, as well as look out over the abandoned city of Varosha, Famagusta. Ever since her arrival in Cyprus, almost two years ago, she had itched to see what lay beyond the razor wire that ringed this place. She had also hoped that the circumstances would be rather different than these. Still, if she looked down from the window, she see the beaches. Miles of golden sands completely untouched by the marauding feet of human beings. In the sea, she could see the colonies of rare sea turtles that had set up home there, safe from the human animals who had destroyed their habitat on the rest of the Island. It was strange to see something so beautiful amidst the wreckage of the surrounding ghost town.
But as the sun rose on her first full day in captivity, she noted how long her 'companion' had been silent for. It was entirely possible that Mace had been able to sleep. But, with his injuries, she wouldn't be surprised if he had slipped into a coma, either. After everything he had done to her, she couldn't begin to fathom why she even cared. But she did. She climbed onto her chest of drawers and looked over the partition. She could see him, lying on a mattress on the floor. She could see his chest rising and falling, betraying signs of life.
Ruth picked off chunks of loose plaster from the walls, and began pelting Mace's sleeping body with them. After all the trouble he had caused, the least he could do was keep her entertained. The first few bounced off his head, making him roll over but otherwise ignore her bombardment. Eventually, however, a particularly juicy chunk managed to wake him.
"For God's sake woman," he complained. "Can't you even allow me the oblivion of unconsciousness?"
"No," she replied, peering over the top of the partition. From up there, she could see that this was one large hotel room, simply divided in two. "We need to get out of here."
"I quite agree. But I'd love to know how."
She had already thought of that. "He brings us fresh water, doesn't he?" she asked. At least, he had brought them fresh water before nightfall.
"Yes," replied Mace.
"Well then, I'll wait until he comes back in and knock the bastard out," she explained. "There's all sorts of things in here. Loose wood, fallen masonry."
He opened one eye and looked up at her. "You?"
"You're not going to be very good at it, are you?" she asked, purely rhetorically. "Look, you might be willing to just hang around here, waiting to be killed, but I'm not. I have a life out here-"
His laughter broke her off.
"Even if you do get out of this alive, it won't be safe for you to stay here," he pointed out. "Not now the local neo-Nazis know who and what you are."
That thought had occurred to her, but she still didn't see it as a reason to give up altogether. She had to force herself not to think of George, or of the child they planned to adopt. Once again, she had come within touching distance of a normal, happy life, only for it to be snatched away at the last minute. She had been something of a doormat in her previous life, but the knocks that kept coming made her get back up again, that little bit stronger than before. That little bit more determined. This would be the same, she would see to that.
Painfully, Mace sat up and looked up at her from his grubby old mattress. He looked at her through his one good eye, his expression softening. "Adam Carter died a few months ago, you know," he told her.
"What?" she yelped back in shock. "How?"
It didn't seem possible. Field Agents died all the time. Even the best. But still, it didn't seem possible that Adam could have fallen, too. After the impact of the shock wore off, memories of Wes, now an orphan, reared up in her mind. He's what, ten or eleven years old? Memories of both his parents would be sketchy, at best.
"He was driving a car loaded with semtex away from a crowded street," he replied. "And up it went. Zafar Younis was killed by rogue Agents just over a year ago, too."
Ruth turned away from the partition. She could not permit herself to shed tears in front of Mace, under any circumstances. She didn't even care if he guessed why she looked away and it wouldn't have taken a genius to work out. She could guess at why he was telling her all this. Mace was trying to put her off. Don't do anything silly, Ruth, Agents far better than you have been killed in the attempt. If that was the effect he was hoping for, he was set to be sorely disappointed. That Ruth Evershed, the silent mouse sitting in the corner, really was dead.
This Ruth Evershed slid down from the chest from the chest of drawers and prized up a loose floorboard and made sure there some handy, rusty nails sticking out of one end. She tip-toed silently to the door, and took up a position so that she would be behind Jason Belling when he next entered the room. She would not move from that spot until he was lying unconscious at her feet.
The truth was out and Connie was gone for good. She was to be tried like a common criminal in a court of law. Malcolm arrived back on the Grid in time to see her being carted away in a Police van. He, like Harry, felt little beside that stony satisfaction of a job completed. The two of them shared a whiskey in Harry's office, pointedly avoiding all talk of Connie James.
Malcolm looked across the desk at Harry, a smile crinkling the corners of his eyes.
"I know I've said it before, Harry, but I'll say it again," he said. "You need a Holiday."
Harry couldn't disagree. "Well Malcolm, it's funny you should mention that. I was just browsing through some brochures."
Malcolm nodded his approval. "Apparently, Cyprus is nice at this time of year."
A grin teased the corners of Harry's lips. "Purely by coincidence, I was about to book a ticket."
Malcolm returned the grin. "You do surprise me, Harry."
They chinked their glasses and toasted their good health. Malcolm downed the shot in one and got up. "I'll see you when you get back, then."
Harry watched Malcolm walk off the Grid and through the pods. Once he was lost from sight, he reached down to the side of his chair, where a bag was already packed. On top, threaded through the handles, was a flight ticket already paid for. One way, to Nicosia International Airport, courtesy of Her Majesty's Government. He glanced again at the image on his computer screen, from where Ruth smiled out him. He knew full well that, had it not been for Connie James, he would have been out there days ago. Honey trap or no honey trap. For a minute, he simply looked at Ruth on the screen. Inwardly, he decided she would be out of captivity alive and well within three days and no longer. He had decreed it so, and he would see that it was done.
He finished his drink, picked up his bag and tickets. He didn't want to keep his driver waiting.
Apologies to the hairnet fans. It's role in this story was brief, but glorious. Thanks again for reading!