I'm so sorry for the time it's taken me to write and post this. I hope you haven't all forgotten what happened in the last chapter! Thank you for being patient and staying with me! :)

Chapter 16

Lucas pushed his hair - sodden despite the hood of his allegedly shower-proof rain jacket - out of his eyes, and shivered as a trickle of icy water slid obligingly down his back. The cold and wet he could - reluctantly - tolerate, but carrying out counter-surveillance in a downpour of this intensity was almost impossible. The streets were a largely monochrome swirling forest of umbrellas, and those like himself not carrying one were merely faceless, soggy silhouettes huddled in raincoats and anoracks that could barely be distinguished one from another. He was as sure as he could be that he hadn't been followed onto the train at Walton on Thames, but uncomfortably aware that it was far more difficult to detect any shadow now that he had disembarked into the damply frenetic anthill of central London.

Damn you, Harry. He would have felt much less tense had Ros accompanied him; she was far more skilled at spotting surveillance, and even better at evading it. She would be, she's got an unfair advantage. Slight enough to hide behind a lamp-post, she was physically unremarkable and could slither her way silently through a crowd like a well-camouflaged snake. At a well-muscled six-feet three and with the kind of looks that were an undercover intelligence officer's worst nightmare, Lucas envied her. Harry's orders that he come to the meet alone had deprived him of her reassuring presence. It had also left a vulnerable Penny on her own and, what worried Lucas far more, a broodingly angry and impatient Ros Myers with a freedom of movement he wasn't sure she would use wisely.

He glanced at his watch. His cover for coming up to town had been the possibility of a short-term contract in a City investment bank. Harry had been adamant that he stay completely clear of Thames House, and had given him a grid reference in the Square Mile itself, but he still had over an hour to get to it. He dodged through the surging crowds to the shelter of a coffee stand.

"Latte, please." He warmed his fingers gratefully on the cardboard cup for a while and let his eyes casually roam in a 18O degree arc out from where he was standing. Damp, ill-tempered people were rushing past in an unbroken stream, but Lucas, keeping it as casual as he could, concentrated on those who, like him, weren't moving. For the first time, he felt some sympathy for Harry's irascible monologues about the contagion of smartphones; in the good old days anyone with wires peeping out from their coat or apparently holding a private conversation with the air would have been instantly suspect; these days you could arrest half the population of London on the same grounds. He took a second look at a young man sweeping around the tables at a nearby Costa Coffee. He was a white-skinned European, and Lucas couldn't remember the last time he saw one of those carrying out such a menial task in London. No. Prudence, North, not paranoia. He downed the dregs of his coffee and made one final sweep. Businessmen, tourists, harassed commuters and a gaggle of dripping wet teenage girls shivering in short skirts and bare legs. None of them looked like Crisis Crusade watchers. He moved off. Given the weather, Lucas might have risked the wrath of the finance section in Thames House by taking a taxi; James chose the thrifty option, splashed through the puddles and jumped onto a bus. As it jerked across the river, he stole a glance at his phone. He hadn't been at all happy leaving Ros without one, but when he had urged her to keep it she had shoved it back into his hand with a searing glare that spoke volumes about her simmering anger. Not having spoken to him directly, Lucas had no idea why Harry had insisted that he attend the meet alone and he hadn't dared to ask Ros. She was obviously reading it as a clear sign of mistrust in her; she had spoken in little other than snapped monosyllables since 'Tim's' call, and for the last two nights she had pointedly settled herself on the very edge of their shared bed in a frosty silence. True, Penny had waved James off that morning with tremulous wishes for 'good luck' and every outward sign of her normal quivering anxiety, but the words had emerged through gritted teeth, and she had torn herself from his embrace as Ros and her burning resentment almost broke through her personality. Whatever this summons was for, Lucas thought grimly as the bus ground its way stubbornly through the heavy traffic, it had better be worth it; trying to carry out a penetration op with the atmosphere between the two of them poisoned by a mixture of suspicion, doubt and anger was a seriously over-rated pastime. A dangerous seriously over-rated pastime.

The rain had finally slowed to a sullen drizzle by the time he got off at Monument tube station. For a few minutes he mingled with the tourists thronging around the eponymous structure to check for any sign of a tail and then hurried north, slipping where he could through the narrow lanes weaving their medieval tangle behind Gracechurch Street. His father had brought him here as a boy to show him the glories of the Wren churches, most of which were now barely visible, dwarfed by the pompous, glittering temples to Mammon built since by banks, insurance companies and brokerage houses. Lucas remembered them going to Leadenhall Market then for a rare treat of visiting the ice-cream parlour, if he remembered correctly. Harry's rendez-vous - predictably - was in a pub. It was still a bit too early for the lunch crowd, but Lucas punctilliously made a dry run around the market to check yet again for surveillance before he entered The Lamb.

"Morning," he offered to a tall, dark-skinned African drying glasses behind the bar. Probably from Senegal or Mali. French West Africa, anyway. His dark eyes ran assessingly over Lucas. "Upstairs in the private room." When Lucas blinked in surprise, he urged: "Allez! You know Monsieur 'Arry, chop chop!"

Lucas couldn't help smiling as he ran obediently up the creaking wooden staircase. Over the years Harry had built up an extraordinary network of personal contacts through whom he could conjure up safe houses, secure meeting places and all kinds of unofficial 'help' if required. Most of them were never recorded in the asset files in Thames House. He tapped on the door at the top.

"Come in, don't play bloody peek-a-boo," Harry Pearce snapped as he put his head around it. When Lucas hastily obeyed, he saw Chen Liu seated on Harry's left, and, inevitably, Ruth on his right. For the first time that day Ros's absence was a relief. Her words, however, stayed with him. Not three, Lucas. Four. Four of us.

He winked at Chen and returned Ruth's smile.

"What's up, Harry?" He nodded his thanks to the analyst as she poured him coffee and offered it. "Why the summons?" Everything about it was odd; information could have been relayed through Fatima Ismail at the Job Centre, and the supposed urgency of a phone call from Tim didn't fit with the fact that there had been three days between it and the day of the meet. Harry's face was as black as the clouds hanging over the city, and Lucas frowned. "Is it Ros's father?" Is that why you didn't want her here? "Is he OK?"

"Oh, Sir Jocelyn is very much alive," Harry answered dryly. He didn't add 'unfortunately' but Lucas heard the word anyway. "No, we think we've identified the leak."

Lucas gasped. "Kallima?" Ruth gave what could best be described as a disparaging snort, a habit she could only have picked up from Harry, and an abrupt change from her usual prim 'tut'.

"Probably not Kallima," Harry said sourly. "More likely the source of his - or her - information. Ruth and Chen pieced it together." He nodded to the young Chinese. "Tell him."

"Yes, sir." Chen Liu put down his cup in a clumsy haste that caused drops to splash up onto his glasses. He wiped them on his sweater and squinted short-sightedly towards Lucas's left ear.

"Well you see, she was a - a suspect - like everyone else. And the plumbers looked into her the way they've been doing into all of us, but it seemed so unlikely. Not at first. None of us could believe it."

Unconsciously, Lucas had been gripping the edge of the warped oak table. When he saw Harry's gimlet gaze on him he released it, leaving a betraying print of sweaty fingertips on the wood. He coughed.

"She?"

Chen, his glasses now back on, nodded vigorously. "Yes. Well, we all knew she had money troubles, she'd been going to a special counseller about them. It wasn't a secret, so it didn't seem likely anyone could have blackmailed her. No leverage."

Lucas fought to hide the gush of relief swamping him. For a moment he'd thought his worst nightmare had become reality. He glanced towards Ruth, whose usually limpid blue-grey eyes had turned the threatening slate of a mid-Atlantic swell. "Shit. Lizzie?" Chen nodded. "How?"

"When the plumbers found out about the debts they started to dig." The young man glanced up nervously at Harry's grunt about horses and stable doors, but Harry waved him on. "Turns out she hadn't come completely clean about how much she owed and where. She'd taken out payday loans as well, and they were hassling her for repayments she couldn't possibly make on her salary. Not with inflation and wage freezes and … well, you know."

Lucas knew only too well. Thanks mainly to the world's apparently inexhaustible supply of increasingly savage Islamic fanatics, MI-5 was one of an infinitely small number of government departments to have seen its budget increased, rather than cut, in the last five years, but the money had been spent on staff, not salaries.

"So someone was blackmailing her, then?" he asked.

"She says 'helping' her," Harry snarled.

Says? Lucas swallowed. "Then she's - "

"Being questioned, yes. For the last three days," Harry answered, and Lucas finally understood why the delay between Harry's call and this meet. "And if she doesn't cough every last detail of what she's passed over, she'll be charged under the Act. I happen to know there's a cell at the Scrubs going begging."

Lucas saw Ruth flinch. She would usually have been urging understanding and leniency, but either she herself was too angry at her junior's betrayal or she knew that to do so would bring Harry's wrath down on her head, loving husband or not. He took the plunge.

"Passed over to whom?"

Chen moistened his lips. "She went out for a while with a bloke in Section A. Gary Prentiss. She claims he offered to help her out."

"Just like that?" Lucas was aghast. "He offered her a straight swap - cash for information?"

"No." Ruth took over. "According to Lizzie, it was a loan, long-term, no interest, she could pay it off over time with whatever she could afford. She says he mentioned information about what we knew or were doing about Crisis Crusade later." She flicked a glance up at Harry and added: "It was just innocuous stuff at first. Things he could credibly suggest was necessary for Section A to know." As Harry's complexion turned a colour that almost enabled him to blend in with the damson flowered wallpaper, she went on quickly: "It's possible, Harry. It happens. People do what they think is the right, loyal thing for the wrong reason."

The words were heartfelt, but they had little effect on Harry Pearce who said flatly: "Bull. Shit." Ruth flushed scarlet, and hurriedly, not wanting to get caught in the middle of a marital dispute, Lucas asked: "Is Prentiss being questioned too?"

With both halves of the Pearce ménage glaring, he addressed the query to Chen Liu. The young Chinese shook his head. "He's on sick leave, recovering from long-delayed surgery."

"Except he made the world's fastest recovery," Harry growled, "and apparently decided to flit off and convalesce in Southern Spain two weeks ago."

"Apparently?"

"Yeah, Six have traced him," Chen said. "He took the ferry on to Agadir."

From where we're about as likely to extradite him as we are that bastard Lugovoi from Moscow. Lucas hesitated before putting his next question. "And you don't think he's Kallima? Just a cut-out?" Hell. For whom? Unless they knew that, unmasking Lizzie Sandell would be a reason for satisfaction (tainted, of course, by the failure of internal security or her colleagues in Section D to identify the risk she posed earlier) but bring them no nearer to the mastermind behind Crisis Crusade. "Then -"

"Wait," Harry rapped. "There's more. Go on, Chen."

"We pulled out his records. He was a police sergeant before he joined the Prison Service. Lost his job there when the budget axe fell. That's when he applied to us. He joined two years ago."

Lucas joined up the dots. "From Wormwood Scrubs." The connection was clear. "Laverne. So the bastard is Kallima. And he lied to Myers to throw us off the scent?" He frowned. "But if Prentiss left the Scrubs two years ago he couldn't have done the poisoning."

"No, he couldn't," Harry agreed. "But you said yourself how much disaffection there seemed to be among the staff. He probably wasn't the only one there Laverne won over to the cause. Having served his purpose of leading us up the garden path, Myers was - still is, apparently - expendable." His eyes hardened. "He makes the vicar of Bray look steadfast. They won't want him changing horses in the middle of the stream."

The full stop to his sentence came in the form of a gentle tap. Harry opened the door and ushered in the African barman, who placed a large tray bearing bowls of steaming tomato soup and four sandwiches on the table.

"Fromage, 'am, wizzout meat and er … le poisson." He beamed. "Bon appetit, Monsieur 'Arry!"

"Thanks, Innocent." Harry closed the door behind him. "Tuna," he elucidated. "And he's not. Innocent. Former Foreign Legion. Knew his father at Sandhurst on an exchange from the Ecole Militaire. Fall to."

Lucas didn't need asking twice. As he and the others selected their sandwiches, Harry asked: "Have you and Ros seen sight or sound of Thomas Laverne?"

Reluctantly, Lucas shook his head, but he pushed James's mobile across to Chen. "There are photos on there that Ros took at the meeting."

Chen instantly whipped out a laptop. Harry toyed with his soup. "How is she? Ros."

"All right," Lucas said, cautiously. "Impatient. Frustrated. Obviously she was … shocked … that there'd been another attack on her father, but you know Ros - the operation comes first." Harry grunted non-commitally through a mouthful of tomato soup, and Lucas took a deep breath. "Why didn't you want her here today, Harry?"

Harry Pearce took a second spoonful of soup before he replied. "You realise only she, you and I knew of Myers's new location?"

Lucas stiffened."Quinn knew. And his staff."

Harry's glare rivalled Ros at her best. "I trust Tom Quinn and his work with my life."

But not Ros. Lucas looked at the analyst. Wondering if he was about to sign his decomissioning order, he said: "Ruth knew."

There was a crash as Chen Liu dropped his soup plate. Ruth's jaw dropped almost as far; either she was a finer actress than Lucas had ever dreamed, or Ros's suspicions were as off the wall as he had first assumed them to be. Harry's face worked with fury. "How dare you!" He stormed to his feet. instinctively Lucas pushed his chair back to meet the threat, but Ruth cried: "Harry, no! Don't! Don't," as Harry advanced on the younger man. His fists were still balled, but he stopped. "Lucas is right. We can't be sentimental. It could have been me."

|t wasn't," Harry grated, his eyes still on Lucas. Slowly, Lucas resumed his seat.

"It wasn't Ros, either."

"What's your proof of that?" Harry demanded.

"The same as yours that your wife didn't sell Myers's location to Crisis Crusade. Instinct. Not sentiment, instinct. I know Ros Myers as well as you know Ruth. She wouldn't do that. She didn't. She's loyal." He remembered telling Harry about Ros's phone call to her mother and Harry's immediate dismissal of its significance. He had had no doubts of where Ros's allegiance lay then. Since, and behind Ros's back, doubts had been sown by someone. He glanced again towards Ruth. If he believed she wasn't acting, Harry certainly would. Her shock had seemed genuine, her alarm real, but suddenly Lucas recalled her telling him that she had once played Lady Macbeth on stage at university. Was this too a performance? Ruth was a sucker for a cause - especially one that championed the underdog. Was she, by seeming to defend Ros, in fact protecting herself?

What makes you think it wasn't Lizzie?" he demanded. "Isn't she the obvious source?"

"She didn't have access to the information," Harry said. Suddenly he sounded very weary.

"She could have got into Ruth's system, looked in her files," Lucas persisted.

"The location wasn't in any file on the Grid, computer or cardboard. Just these." Ruth tapped her forehead. "Yours and mine, Harry's and Ros's."

Lucas switched his gaze to Harry. The older man held it without flinching. "Don't be ridiculous. And I refuse point-blank to believe that you could be so stupid. Or would wish to be."

Thanks for nothing. Lucas spooned up his soup until he had slowly counted to ten and was sure he had his temper under control. After a moment, Harry said quietly: "Tell me about that Crisis Crusade meeting. Everything."

Lucas did so in detail, and explained about the bugs that he and Ros had planted. All three of the others listened intently, Chen e-mailing Callum at the Grid to alert him that two devices were live as he did so, and Harry's expressive features hardening into the kind of frozen immobility that suggested someone had laced his soup with Botox.

"You're telling me that after all that build-up he didn't actually reveal details of exactly what his bloody masterstroke was?"

Put that way, it sounded implausible to Lucas as well. He wanted to retort that if Harry was frustrated, he could try putting himself into his shoes or Ros's.

"No. But he may not know it all himself yet, Harry, if he's Kallima - Laverne's - front man. And he's got the charisma - whatever it is, they'll follow him. Although the priests - Cowley and Alastair - they're not happy. They might be a way in." To his relief, Harry nodded approvingly. First the sugar, now the pill. "Callaghan did ask for volunteers. Women. Three or four, to 'prepare the ground'. That's how he put it."

"But no-one would volunteer for anything when they don't know what it is!" Chen objected.

"Yes, they would. They did," Lucas countered. Harry's eyes were fixed unblinkingly on him like a snake about to strike.

"Ros was one of them." It wasn't a question.

"Yeah. " Lucas gulped. "I didn't stop her, Harry. We'd talked things over earlier and decided we have to take risks - step up the pace before the situation gets out of hand. I mean we've seen the news reports, so we know - "

"You don't know the half the media haven't been reporting," Harry said through gritted teeth. "It's a lot worse than what you see on screen. At least three D-notices have been issued."

Lucas's mouth went dry. "On?"

"Work-to-rule action at Faslane in protest against job cuts. Two highly dangerous inmates escaping from Broadmoor in the past week, one still on the lam - staff shortages. And two near-misses between civilian aircraft over the Home Counties since the start of this month, both ascribed to inadequate numbers of night-time controllers. That in itself caused by the refusal of senior staff to do extra hours - unpaid, of course - to make them up."

Bloody hell. Lucas was still digesting that when Ruth said quietly: "You were right, Lucas. We're running out of time on the streets too."

"I know." Lucas replied automatically, thinking of his conversation with the street cleaner. "Civil disobedience."

"We can cope with civil disobedience in normal circumstances," Harry snapped. '"But Crisis Crusade's triggered a centrifugal effect. The social fabric of this country's been under strain for years. We've got racial ghettos, class prejudice and contempt for authority running through society at almost every level, from tax evasion at the top to shoplifting and burglary at the bottom. Top that off with an ego-fuelled sense of entitlement and the belief that everyone should pay the price of our national bloody omnishambles 'Except Me' - " He made a gesture that was midway between disgust and despair.

Lucas swallowed hard. "How long do you think we have?" he asked. Ruth and Harry exchanged glances.

"Not long, Lucas." Ruth toyed nervously with her cup. "The fault lines are already pitting communities against one another. In Bradford and Burnley we've got middle-class Asian districts running vigilante patrols at night to stop kids - mainly white from the estates - from stealing cars and thieving from local businesses. The police are either too over-stretched or too disinterested to stop them."

"And there've been reports from Scotland of properties owned by English residents - 'white settlers', they call them - being vandalised," Chen chimed in. "People have complained about leaflets shoved through their letter boxes telling them to leave, implying consequences if they don't. Protests against Scottish councils having to cut down on expenditure because of cuts in subsidies from London. Things have turned nasty a couple of times - especially in the Glasgow area."

"It's not all Crisis Crusade," Ruth added quietly. "But as Harry said, it's spreading outwards from their anti-austerity action. Whatever this … event … might be, it could take away what time we have left to manoeuvre in."

Lucas could feel sweat adding to the dampness of his shirt. And that's?

"Weeks," Harry said softly, as if he had read his mind. "A month at maximum before the whole thing breaks wide open and we lose control. If we're lucky, Lucas. If Downing Street keeps its nerve. If the police and army stay with us. If."

In the dead silence that followed his words, the sound of sirens drifted in through the windows. It was part of the usual aural backdrop to a busy day in the City, but now their shrieking insistence had a sinister, threatening overtone.

"You're right to take the risks." Harry rubbed his hand over his face. "We have no choice now." He sighed heavily. "But there's something you need to know. We can't be sure that Prentiss hasn't learned from Lizzie about you and Ros. She swears not. I'm going to put her on the lie detector, but I can't guarantee that you and Ros might not already be under suspicion. Ordinarily, we'd pull you out, but in these circumstances - " He stopped.

You're expendable. Chen looked stunned; Ruth was biting her lower lip. Lucas held the older man's impassive gaze. He carried physical and mental scars inflicted by Harry Pearce's willingness to play God with his officers' lives in the name of Regnum Defende - eight years' worth of them. Harry had detonated a bomb under the Thames Barrier in the knowledge that he would likely drown his two senior case officers in the process. He had all but sent Jo Portman to her death. Still, Lucas knew what Ros's reaction would be - a curt 'It's my job', with that fierce, burning loyalty that so many people - including Harry bloody Pearce - seemed so unwilling to give her credit for.

"Even though you think Ros might be playing away?" he challenged.

"You don't." Harry retorted, equally trenchant. "Your call." He checked his watch, and Lucas did the same.

"I need to get back." He got up, hesitated, and then extended his hand. Harry clasped it firmly.

"When a sinister person means to be your enemy, they always start by trying to become your friend.' " Lucas smiled faintly in recognition of the quotation of his favourite poet. " Remember that, Lucas. Stay safe. And stay in touch."

oOoOoOo

Lucas's mind was whirling at such a speed with all he had learned that he was boarding the train to Walton-on-Thames before he remembered that he hadn't carried out a single check for surveillance since leaving the pub. The train was half-empty, but after a cursory look around, he sat back and resigned himself to the fact that the damage was done - or, hopefully, not. In his anxious preoccupation, he could have been followed across London by every hostile foreign intelligence service in the city (which was most of them) and noticed nothing. He closed his eyes and mentally rehashed the meeting as the train rumbled towards Surrey; Ros would demand every detail.

The lengthy walk from the station merely served to increase his tension. By the time he reached the flat, he was burning with impatience to tell her what he'd learned, share his confusion about Ruth and plan their next moves, but when he called Penny's name there was no reply. Lucas checked each room, which didn't take more than a minute, but all he found was a scribbled note pinned to the inside of the door - 'Gone to have coffee with Alice and Miranda' followed by two kisses. No indication of time or destination. Lucas swore out loud. Damn her. He looked hesitatingly at the mobile. Stay in character, play it safe. There was a public call box in the High Street. James ran to it, fished out a few coins and dialled Alex Callaghan's number.

"Alex? It's James." He bit down on his impatience as Alex, sounding as if he really wanted to know, asked about his job interview. James played along, and as soon as he could, asked whether Penny was still with 'the girls'.

"Hardly, James!" The amused laugh made Lucas's hackles rise. "She did come round, but that was ages ago. She only stayed about an hour or so. Wanted to be home when you came back, she said. About … oh, twelve-thirty?"

"She didn't say where she was going?" It wasn't hard for Lucas to let a note of worry into James's voice.

"No. Just home. Least that's what Miranda said." Callaghan hesitated. "She might just have gone for a walk or something? She did seem a bit down."

"Yes … maybe." Lucas had been straining to detect a false note in the other man's voice, but he could hear nothing.

"How about Father Cowley?" Callaghan suggested. "He was holding one of his lunches today."

"That's an idea. Yes. Yes, I'll call there." The pips began to sound as James's supply of coins ran out. Lucas checked his watch - almost 4.45 - and looked down the street towards Netquick. He could send an alert to the Grid under cover of contacting Penny's parents in Matlock. Not yet. He had to be sure there was something to sound the alarm about first. If Ros came back and found he had made a red call for no reason, the balloon would go up so high they'd be able to wave at it from the International Space Station. Wait.

He made a quick call to the vicarage. No-one there had seen Penny Anderson, so he returned to the flat and followed his own advice. He waited until the shadows grew long and paced the worn carpet as his stomach tied itself into knots of tension. His hopes rose and were dashed with every footfall on the stairs. By the time full darkness had fallen and the damp chill of the flat had insinuated itself under his clothes and into his bones, Lucas could no longer deny the evidence that was staring him in the face. Penny Anderson, aka MI-5 Senior Case Officer Rosalind Myers, had vanished.

oOoOoOo

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