Chapter 1

Ruth looked at her watch, it was half past ten and he did not have a meeting scheduled off the Grid that would explain his absence. In all the years she'd known him, he'd never been this late in the morning, and she couldn't help but worry. She glanced at the other members of the team, and they were all hard at work; all except Lucas who was looking directly at her. When their eyes met, he smiled weakly, stood and walked over to her desk.

"Everything okay, Ruth?"

Ruth's brow crinkled, unsure whether or not she should point it out. She sighed.

"He's never this late, Lucas."

"Have you called him?" He asked simply.

"Erm, n-no." One of Lucas' eyebrows raised in question, and she stuttered slightly. "W-well, I… I just didn't think that it was…"

Her voice died out and Lucas leaned in closer. "Ruth, I know the two of you have had some problems lately—" Her horrified look stopped him and he quickly regrouped. "I just meant that it's been a bit obvious that the two of you haven't been getting on all that well, and—" If looks could wilt, he would have been quite crumpled by her look. "I'm sure he's fine," Lucas finally said, "let's just give him a few more minutes before we sound the alarm, all right?"

He smiled at her and walked back to his desk. Ruth wanted to swallow her tongue. She was overreacting, he was right. But bloody hell, did the entire Grid know that she and Harry were not quite Jean and Lionel Hardcastle? The thought of it made her ill. But then, Harry had been more than just prickly since the muck-up in the churchyard. If only he hadn't said anything; if only he hadn't asked her…

The sound of a pod caught her attention and she felt an inexplicable relief when she saw Harry step onto the Grid. She could feel Lucas' eyes on her and she glanced over at him only to see his "I told you so" smile. It was irritating to say the least. As Harry passed by her desk, she took a good look at him and was alarmed by his sickly pallor. A frown covered her features, but for the moment she thought better of saying anything given the dark look on his face.

She decided keeping an eye on him was the better course.

Harry called for a briefing six minutes after Tariq had brought the intel to his attention. The team gathered around the table and waited for Pearce, who straggled in, looking a little worse for the wear, although he wasted no time launching into the briefing.

"As you know, Tariq has uncovered intel which suggests unusual movements in the Middle Eastern region. Tariq?"

The young man nodded and hit the button on a remote which flashed satellite pictures upon the screen behind him.

"As you can see from these visuals," his fingers continued to advance to the corresponding pictures as he spoke, "there has been a lot of activity moving both troops official and unofficial along with the shifting of assets and supplies over the past 12 hours. Between these photos, internet chatter and some intel from 6 about uncovering a secret Middle Eastern network that's in place here in the UK and other allied nations, we have a credible threat."

Harry reached behind his neck and squeezed the muscles there as he said, "Ruth?"

Tariq sat and Ruth took over.

"The noise that 6 have uncovered is that a network of human time bombs will unleash a biological weapon unlike anything we've ever seen sometime within the next 48 hours. Our colleagues from 6 believe that this chain of terrorists were planted here about 20 years ago as a counterbalance to a network of allied spies in the Middle East."

"Are you saying we have human time bombs planted in that part of the world?" Beth asked incredulously.

Ruth shook her head. "No, no, not exactly. Apparently the allied network are in key positions in the regimes throughout the Middle East to be able to give advanced warning of nuclear or other global threats to Allied nations, nothing more. They were not placed there to sabotage or interfere, they are there only as an early warning system. The allies were of course unaware at the time that any kind of counterbalance was in place; that was only revealed about ten years ago when the United Arab Emirates felt threatened by the Americans and deemed it beneficial to their position to leak the existence of these networks throughout allied nations."

"So," Lucas interrupted, "what brought on the impending attack in the UK now and why did 6 wait so long to let us in on it?"

"Our contacts at 6 tell us it was triggered by an assassination attempt on the PM of Iraq, Nouri al-Malik, by a member of this supposed allied network."

"You sound skeptical, Ruth," Harry commented.

She looked at him and couldn't help but notice the shade of grey that he had turned in the past 30 minutes, but for the moment addressed his concern.

"I spent most of the morning searching our entire archives on anything remotely related to such a thing as an allied network of spies in the Middle East, and I have to admit that I have come up empty-handed. So yes, I am skeptical of its existence." She paused and then added, "Also, if the allied network is 'secret' how would the UAE know who the members of the network are, and if they did, would they not simply eliminate them?"

"These are excellent points she's making, Harry," Lucas commented, staring at Pearce, noticing the sheen of sweat that had broken out over his forehead in the past 15 minutes.

"Do you suppose," Beth pondered, "that the UAE could simply be using the existence of such a network and the recent assassination attempt as an excuse to launch an attack on the allied nations?"

"But to what end?" Ruth asked.

Lucas responded, "What if the UAE doesn't really know that such a network exists – if it in fact does – it would be one way to call a bluff, wouldn't it?"

Harry sighed, wiping a hand across his brow. "Look, whether or not such a network exists in the Middle East is of little consequence to us at this moment. Our concern must be the security of the British public, which at this time is under threat." He loosened his tie in an effort to keep from passing out from the heat in the room. "Beth and Lucas, I want you two to devise two plans. One is best case scenario, as in we can find out who these 20 people are and stop them; and the other is worse case scenario…"

"You mean how do we contain the outbreak of a biological weapon?" Beth said staring at him.

"That's right," Harry responded, once again mopping sweat from his brow.

Lucas frowned. "Harry, are you all right?"

"Fine, Lucas, it's just a little hot in here…"

"No, Harry, it's not," Lucas responded, looking at Ruth.

"Well, I'm a little warm," Harry growled. He paused collecting himself then continued, "Look, Beth and Lucas, you know what to do. Tariq, Ruth, I'd like the two of you to keep digging and see if you can find anything that might lead us to who the members of the UAE network are… I'd rather we implement plan A as opposed to plan B." He stared at his team who were all staring at him, looks of concern on their face. He growled at them, "Get moving, we don't have time to waste on this!"

They all cleared out quickly, except for Ruth, who put a strong hand on Harry's shoulder, keeping him in his chair until the team had cleared the room. She put a hand to his forehead and he was hot to the touch.

"Harry, you're running a fever."

"It's just a little cold, Ruth, nothing more."

She knelt next to his chair then, her hand on his arm. "You look a shade of grey that our species is not supposed to take on…"

He smiled at her then; it was a smile she hadn't seen in a very long time. "I'll be fine, really. Don't worry, Ruth."

She sensed that he was lying to her, but for the moment she let him win. "All right, Harry, if you say so." She stood, concern filling her features.

"I do," he said as he stood slowly.

Ruth didn't like anything about it, but she knew they had a job to do, and she also knew that she could keep an eye on him from her desk.

"If you need anything…"

"I'll let you know."

She walked out and slowly, and he followed feeling more dreadful than he thought any living breathing person could feel.

TBC