CHAPTER SIX

That evening in Paco's wine bar certainly gave me food for thought for the next couple of weeks. Lucas's outburst about his time in prison had caught me completely by surprise, although I think I managed to keep the traditional Ros Myers 'blank face' mask in place and conceal from him just how taken aback I was by it. It emphatically proved that I was right in suspecting that his habitual calm, relaxed façade wasn't necessarily any more substantial than one of those in Potemkin's villages, so I suppose I should have felt proud. But strangely enough, I didn't. I did feel incredibly sorry for him, although of course I couldn't put my 'hard nut' image at risk by saying so. Anyway, I've often found sympathy a double-edged sword. It doesn't always help people to cope; often it engenders self-pity rather than strength, and that, it seemed to me, was the last thing Lucas would want. Respect, I thought, would do him more good, and that he deserved.

I half-expected him to be distant with me on the Grid in the days that followed. Certainly, if I had been as open in my feelings towards him I would probably have gone into purdah the next week, or as close to it as you can get on the Grid, out of sheer embarrassment. If anything, Lucas actually seemed less wary around me rather than more, as if that evening had dispelled some of his mistrust. It was perhaps as well that he didn't know that I had spoken to Harry and urged him to switch the surveillance we still had on Lucas to Elizaveta. I didn't really believe any more that Lucas was a traitor. Clearly, his feelings towards Kachimov were still ambivalent, but with the latter pushing up daises in an anonymous suburban cemetery, that no longer constituted a security threat. I was however, still uncertain about the ex-Mrs North. Lucas believed he had convinced her to work for us, but in my opinion he was still emotionally attached to her, and it was colouring his judgement. What was more, she was still vulnerable to FSB pressure. I didn't trust either the FSB, or Lucas's ability to listen to his head rather than his heart.

That minor caveat apart, I certainly couldn't fault his work. He was especially good with the junior officers, for which I was grateful, because 'mentoring' them (bloody stupid word) was one of the privileges of my position that I could have done without. Ben had never quite accepted my reintegration into Section D, and my relationship with Jo had always been strained. The fact that they both liked and admired Lucas took away from me a little of the burden of keeping an eye on them. In fact it was Lucas who quietly mentioned to me that he thought Jo was still having trouble coming to terms with her kidnap and rape, and that it might be affecting her work. Irritably, I snapped at him to tell her to talk to the shrinks. She should have seen them anyway, after being caught in the market bombing. I knew Connie had urged her to do so, something on which, I admit, I should have followed up. I might have been slightly less dismissive if I hadn't been trying to cope with my own personal demons, which, of course, unlike Jo, I never shared. Lucas hadn't mentioned my reaction to his description of his prison conditions, but I knew he must have found it strange. He would have found it even stranger had he known that for several nights afterwards I had been barely able to sleep for worrying about my father. I knew Wormwood Scrubs wasn't bloody Leshanko, but Lucas had inadvertently brought to the forefront of my mind all the guilt and anxiety about him that I usually kept firmly locked away in a sealed compartment at the back. After a fruitless telephone call to my mother who, as usual, hung up the instant she recognised my voice, I sent my father a letter instead. Initially, I had done so once a month, but they were repeatedly returned unopened with Sender Unknown stamped on the envelope, and gradually, I had almost stopped writing. At least he was consistent; with impeccable bad timing, this one had arrived back in my box on the morning Lucas spoke to me about Jo. Angrily, I shredded it, and verbally – and probably unfairly - did the same to him.

Fortunately, in a way, I had distraction ready to hand. Through labyrinthine channels and several cut-outs, we had received an offer of 'contact' – no more – from Al-Qaeda's number three, a man who had drifted across Section D's radar while I was still in Six, a Mohammed Khordad. And it hadn't started well; the intermediary Lucas had gone to meet ended up in hospital with a stab wound. Lucas returned seething, and with a dressing on his hand courtesy of the hired Ukrainian hit man. Fortunately, he also had the SIM-card that enabled us to contact Khordad.

In retrospect, I should have recognised that I had troubles brewing within the team then. Connie irritated Harry by smelling Russian involvement immediately. Her stubbornness about it made me smile, and I couldn't understand why he was so touchy. After all, it was nothing new; Connie saw Russians under every stone, and for all I knew, had spotted KGB officers lurking behind the rubber plants in the cafeteria as well. It was Jo, protesting that we shouldn't be talking to Al-Qaeda at all, who should have set my alarm bells going. That kind of a reaction hinted at one of three things – one: she was still angry over the bombing, two: Lucas was right, or three: even now, after all these years, Jo was still too naïve, and too influenced by Ruth Evershed's moral posturing, to accept Connie's far more realistic assessment of the situation. Exasperated and under pressure, I foolishly ignored her. Instead, I nabbed Lucas.

"Contact Elizaveta," I said quietly. "See if the Russians are involved."

He didn't look happy, and objected that she wasn't a spy. Another one with bloody moral scruples. I sometimes wondered how my colleagues developed such a taste for exotic luxuries in this job. I wanted to snap: 'well, she is now' but instead I quietly but pointedly reminded him, 'No, but she can be manipulated'. Once he had left, I alerted the two Watchers I had on her and threatened them with dire consequences if they let Lucas see them. Slowly but surely, he and I were really coming to trust each other, but that trust could be destroyed in an instant if he realised that the Service – on my orders – was continuing surveillance on the woman I knew he still thought of as his wife. I was just starting to feel that we might one day be able to work together at least as well as Adam and I had done, and I didn't want anything to spoil the improvement in our working relationship. So I'd pretended not to see the disappointment, tinged with hurt, in his expression when I gave him his instructions. I knew he would much rather have gone with me to meet Khordad than played messenger with Elisaveta, but the terrorist had insisted on Harry's presence. So it was Harry and I, suitably wired and tracked by an array of Malcolm's most sophisticated little devices, who set off to make Mr Khordad's acquaintance.

oOoOoOo

Whatever comments my fellow-officers had made about me over the years – and there'd been a great number of them, many less than complimentary, most of which I wasn't meant to hear – I didn't think many would have accused me of being easily scared. I'd seen a lot in fifteen years in the Service, and it took a lot to turn my stomach to water, but Mohammed Khordad came close. The gorillas he sent out of his makeshift bunker to escort us into his presence, all of them built like fridge-freezers and with lumps under their armpits that were unlikely to be due to bubonic plague, didn't bother me; that kind usually had bulging muscles and shrunken brains and were easily dealt with. Khordad himself was flat-footed, round-shouldered, and wasn't much taller than Harry. He looked more like my bank manager than a terrorist, but when he started speaking, his entire personality altered. A fanatic, yes - but an educated, intelligent one; the most dangerous kind. He never raised his voice, but he spoke with a conviction that I knew wouldn't have altered under any torture you cared to name, and it burned in his eyes, too. Convinced and convincing.

I'd rarely admired Harry more. I knew his every sinew must have been straining to reach across the table and grab Khordad by the throat, but his face never betrayed anything he must have felt. I did try to challenge the man – twice – but it was more out of bravado than anything else; I was afraid that if I didn't I would give away exactly how ill at ease I was. Perhaps he sensed that, because he silenced me with a casual put-down that chilled me with the depth of knowledge he had. I don't think I'd ever mentioned even to Harry that my grandfather had died serving in the International Brigades. Khordad certainly shouldn't have known. Knowledge is power, and Mohammed Khordad knew exactly how to wield that power. By the time we left his little lair I had to make a real effort not to let the quivering I felt inside turn into visible trembling. I wouldn't give the bastard that satisfaction.

It was an enormous relief to get back outside; for once, I had some idea of what Lucas must have felt during his claustrophobia attacks. My personal feelings aside, I did think that, thanks to Harry, the match between them could at least have been called a draw and that, with care and skill, we might eventually be able to win the next leg.

That, though, was before the politicians and the CIA combined to screw us royally, respectively offending and snatching Khordad, and forcing me to send Lucas back to Elizaveta yet again to see whether the FSB was involved. At least this time he didn't argue. I didn't have time to ponder the meaning, if any, of his change in attitude at the time, and after we managed to extract Khordad from the tentacular hospitality of the CIA, I thought Elizaveta's information probably wasn't of immediate importance. Certainly not once Harry's incredible gamble of releasing Khordad paid off and we got the target of the impending attack he'd mentioned. But then, of course, Lucas dropped his own personal sodding bombshell on us.

"She said what?" I hissed, when Connie explained what Lucas had told her. He seemed to have been deprived of speech, certainly of the ability to sit still; as we all sat in a huddle around the table in the conference room, he prowled round the walls like a tiger trying to decide which of us he'd prefer for lunch. I didn't think it was the claustrophobia this time, because he wasn't agitated in the same way. His face was a mask of concentration; I could almost see his mind sifting the facts, weighing the options, trying to find the safe way out. I didn't think he would have noticed if we'd all got up and left.

Inevitably, it was Connie who coolly summed up the dilemma in her precise, schoolmistress voice, pre-empting me. I sometimes looked at her and saw myself twenty years down the line. If we stop the bomb, Lucas's cover is blown. The Russians will kill him. If we don't, then dozens of people will die.

I looked at Harry. He would do almost anything to avoid sacrificing Lucas. The ball and chain of guilt about him that he carried around was so real that there were days when I could almost hear it clanking. But he said nothing, so I did.

"Well, that's no choice at all." As I spoke, I saw Lucas's eyes flicker up towards me. Connie had stated the bald facts; I had uttered the unthinkable, and he knew it. I could see it in his face. I waited for a plea or a protest.

Of course, there's always a third way.

Harry, Malcolm, Connie and I looked at each other, then at him.

Make-believe.

oOoOoOo

To say I had my doubts would have been like saying that Harry had a mild dislike of politicians. But both Lucas and I felt better once we had completed evacuation of the targeted restaurant. Now at least we 'only' needed to deceive the Dynamic Duo of Al-Qaeda and the FSB, and we only had two skins left to save – our own. We set about it with a vengeance. The clock was ticking, and so, somewhere in there, was a bomb.

I was preparing the distraction devices and smoke bombs when Lucas found the real one tucked away in a kitchen cupboard. At that point I made a discovery of my own; that I wasn't the only field officer in Section D who used a shield of humour to deflect attention from sweaty palms and a rapid pulse. Lucas looked slyly at me over his shoulder.

"OK, so what are you better at? The real thing, or faking it?"

It was a bloody incongruous setting for sexual innuendo, but when the Grim Reaper's standing a few feet away from you checking his watch, bravura is sometimes the only appropriate response.

"What do you think?" I shot back.

His smile widened, lighting up his face, and I couldn't help responding to it. It was Malcolm who broke the hiatus by instructing us to look for a microwave oven and then heat up the bloody mine. For a second, we looked at each other in disbelief. Then Lucas winked at me, for all the world as if we were still engaged in nothing more dangerous than flirtatious banter.

"OK, Malcolm, so how many minutes does an Italian landmine take on full power?"

Twenty seconds should do it. Incredible how long twenty seconds can be. The hand of my watch was creeping inexorably towards ten to three. I closed my eyes. As I did so I thought I felt Lucas's hand grip mine. Then a crashing roar, a wave of heat, and a choking, blinding cloud of dust knocked us both off our feet.

The emergency services needed some convincing – irascibly provided over the phone by Harry - that the two dust-covered, bruised, and slightly dizzy scarecrows they found inside the building really were MI-5 officers on an operation. Even then, they ignored my wheezing coughs of protest that we were fine and had to go, and insisted on 'checking you over' as they put it, in an ambulance. Lucas had managed to collect a couple of cuts in the face from flying glass, and – I did try, and failed, not to laugh – had a bump on his temple courtesy of a Le Creuset saucepan that had been knocked from a shelf during our fake explosion. A female paramedic, who, for once, seemed completely immune to his charms, cleaned and dressed his wounds while her colleague wrapped me in a red blanket like something out of Hiawatha, and snapped an oxygen mask on me. That was a relief, although I didn't say so; God knows what they put in those bloody firecrackers, but my lungs felt as if someone had just given me twenty seconds on full power.

When each of us was given a plastic cup of tea and left sitting side by side on the ambulance steps like a pair of refugees, Lucas managed a lopsided smile through the dirt smudging his face, and lifted the mask so that I could drink.

"All right?" he asked. I glared, and he laughed. "Yeah, you're all right." He sipped his own tea thoughtfully for a moment. "May I ask you something?"

His expression was suddenly uncertain, and the bantering tone had gone from his voice. I frowned, and tried breathing without the oxygen. It was easier. I loosened the mask. "What?"

"You said 'that's no choice at all'. If I hadn't suggested this, you'd have sacrificed me, wouldn't you?"

Despite the shrieking of sirens and the honking of horns all around us, it seemed suddenly quiet.

"Yes," I answered. "I would." I watched him nod slowly. "My duty was to stop the bombing and save lives, Lucas. I would never deliberately put any of my team in harm's way. But for the greater good …" I shrugged. "Harry did the same when Adam and I were on the Barrier. It's what the job entails. I'd have said the same had it been Jo, or Ben – or any other member of the team, including myself. Don't take it personally. You're no different from anyone else. We're all equal in that respect."

I thought the last few words sounded harsh and unfeeling, and waited for him to tell me so. Instead, a smile sketched wrinkles in the dirt on his face, as if I'd paid him the warmest of compliments.

"That's all I've ever wanted, Ros." Now, incredibly, he was struggling not to laugh. "Sorry. You've got an oxygen mask-shaped white line all round your mouth, and your nose is as red as that blanket. All you need is a bowler hat and you could join the circus."

He gave a rich, bubbling chuckle that I'd never heard before, and I couldn't help joining in. I suppose it was relief. I could hardly remember the last time I'd really laughed like that – at Oxford, back in the day, on the rare occasions when I went out for a drink with friends. When I had them. I shot a quick, surreptitious glance at Lucas North as the treacherous thought crossed my mind. Could we be friends?

"Oof. Sorry." Lucas finally controlled his mirth. "Adrenaline crash." He gave me a quick hug with his free arm, and for a brief minute I let him do it before I shed the blanket and got to my feet. We were still on duty.

"Come on." I looked at my reflection in the ambulance window and grimaced. I looked as grimy as he did. "We both need to clean up. Let's get back to the Grid."

oOoOoOo

I went straight to brief Harry when we got there, but sent Lucas off to shower and sort himself out; he was still looking a bit cross-eyed from his encounter with the saucepan. By the time I'd finished my report, washed and changed my own clothes, most people were leaving or had left the Grid, and there was no sign of him. I asked Harry where he was.

"I let him go home," Harry answered. "He wanted to go and see Elizaveta." He wagged his finger at me. "You too, Ros. Go home and rest. No hanging around here all night. Go on. Shoo."

I shooed, but only as far as my desk. Ben muttered a 'goodnight' as he left; Jo had already gone. I checked my e-mails and then sat back and looked around the half-empty Grid. Today had been a good one. Against all the odds, we'd won a round. God knew about tomorrow. Time to go.

I stuck my head round Harry's office door to say goodnight, and found him and Connie having a glass of Scotch together. Unusual. I remembered Lucas's comment about Connie being Harry's type. Hurriedly, I swallowed back a smile and went back to shut down my computer. The newsflash came in just as I was getting up.

Just for an instant I thought I saw defeat in Harry's expression, and I certainly heard it in his words. But it was only fleeting, and then he gathered himself as I'd seen him do hundreds of times before. Call Lucas. Get Jo and Ben back on the Grid.

I nodded, red-flashed the two junior officers and phoned Lucas's mobile. When he answered, I could hear traffic in the background.

"Where are you?" I demanded.

"Vauxhall." His voice was flat. "What is it?"

"Red-flash. We need you back."

There was a long silence. I frowned. "Lucas? Did you hear me?"

"Yeah." He sighed, heavily. "Yeah, I heard."

What's the bloody matter with him? Even allowing for a feeling of anti-climax after the operation, which I had experienced only too often myself, he sounded miserable and depressed. Then I recalled that he'd gone to talk to his ex-wife. Shit. Don't tell me there's trouble there, too.

"Have you seen Elizaveta?" I enquired. "Is something wrong?"

"No, no, she's fine. In a rush, picking Sasha up on her way home to cook dinner."

Ah. Now I understood that what I could hear wasn't a tired irritation at being called back on duty, but personal hurt at realising that he no longer had a place in Elizaveta's life … and never would have again.

My exasperation at the way he was clinging to the past like a little boy who resented growing up warred with my sympathy for his predicament. It had grown, slowly but steadily, ever since that first debriefing session. He'd said himself that in his worst moments in Russia only the thought of Elizaveta had kept him from absolute despair. I'd found it hard enough sometimes facing the void that Adam's death had left me with, but death is an absolute, and at least Adam hadn't actively sought it. In a way, Lucas's situation was far more painful. Elizaveta had made a calculated decision to leave him, and however he might try to justify it, seeing her with a full and happy life must have been in almost unbearable contrast to the emptiness of his own.

"Ros?" I started at his voice and collected myself in a hurry. What's the bloody matter with you, Myers? Wallowing in bloody sentimentality with him was hardly going to help. From my own experience, I knew of only one thing that might fill that emptiness – work.

"We've got a problem." I made my tone as crisp and businesslike as I could. "The shit's about to hit the fan." I watched Connie trot from Harry's office, still draining her whisky glass. "I need you, Lucas."

I'm glad someone does. The words were murmured so quietly that I thought I might have imagined rather than heard them. Then I heard him clear his throat, and his voice became firmer. "Has anyone eaten?"

"Doubt it," I answered.

"OK. I'll get a couple of frozen pizzas on the way. We can shove them in the microwave." He paused. "Twenty seconds on full power?"

That's better. "How about some soup we can heat up as well?" I suggested.

I heard a smile. "Only if you do it. I'm off saucepans."

"That's what friends are for," I said, smugly.

"Yeah, so they say. Fifteen minutes." Lucas hung up. I did likewise, and turned to meet the next crisis.

oOoOoOo

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