Chapter 19

Jesus Christ. Lucas could feel his hands shaking as the answer hit him with the force of an exploding bomb. Harry looked as if he too was about to explode - with frustration at the lack of a reply to his question - and everyone else seemed paralysed. The silence in the room was so profound that Lucas could hear his colleagues breathing. He looked at Ruth. She was ashen-white, looked petrified and was visibly trembling, but it was obvious that no-one was going to speak until she had. She cast a look of appeal at Lucas, and then, when no response was forthcoming, across the room towards Tom Quinn. Tom glanced at Lucas, who shook his head imperceptibly. Unprompted, a memory of Ros's unspoken dread of Harry's marriage and its potential impact had squirmed to the forefront of his mind. Since her wedding Ruth hadn't been above occasionally taking advantage of her position - studying official documents in tête-a-tête with her husband off the Grid, taking initiatives without clearing them with Ros first. Not this time. Harry had a habit of metaphorically shooting the messenger if he didn't particularly like the message, and most people in the room had been in the firing-line at one time or another. The only person who usually dodged the verbal bullets was his wife. Lucas knew that Ros wouldn't want him fighting her battles - she was more than capable of doing so herself - but in her absence, he was going to make sure that like everyone else, the analyst took the rough with the smooth. Ruth's status as Lady Pearce wouldn't protect her this time.

"Ruth." He kept his voice flat and business-like. "Tell him."

Ruth shot him a look conveying an emotion that some people didn't think she had in her. Then she gulped audibly, wiped her hands down the sides of her skirt and blurted: "It wasn't 'help' Harry. They - " she caught Callum's eye and quickly corrected herself: "We - we think she was saying 'Phelps'. Jeremy Phelps."

If Harry's jaw had really been made of steel instead of merely looking as if it were, the clang would have rivalled Big Ben's. When he finally spoke, the words came out like the distant rumble of thunder that constitutes the overture to a full-blown storm.

"I beg your pardon?"

This time Tom took pity on Ruth. He gestured to Callum. "Play the enhanced version of the recording, Callum."

Obediently, Callum typed in the necessary instructions and set the volume to maximum. Lucas made a Herculean effort not to display any visible reaction as Ros's voice, and the sounds of the assault on her, rang through the room.

"Tell Harry - Kallima … my father - Harry - He knows … him - Harry … knows … help. Feel … help …"

It was extraordinary how obvious it was once someone had offered you that glorious, poisoned gift of hindsight, he thought bitterly. Along with everyone else, he, neatly misguided by his professional knowledge of Myers's past record and his personal resentment of the man's treatment of Ros, had thought the words 'he knows him' referred to Jocelyn Myers. It was true that her speech had been mumbled, slurred and partially inaudible, which hadn't helped. He hadn't been the only one at fault, either; no-one on the team had dreamt that the Governor of one of the most high-security prisons in the country could be Kallima.

That's no excuse. Their job was to conceive the inconceivable, not to dismiss the far-fetched just because it was far-fetched. Any notion of 'unthinkable' had gone out of the window on 11th September 2001. Had he - had any of them - shown more imagination, they might have been weeks earlier in getting a grip on Crisis Crusade, and seventy-two hours closer to finding Ros. Instead, and despite the signposts that now seemed to be gigantic, painted fluorescent yellow and planted right in front of their collective nose, they hadn't even really known where to look.

Harry's growl prevented him getting sucked any deeper into a morass of self-recrimination.

"Meeting room. Now."

He strode out, followed at a safe distance - even Ruth wasn't scurrying to heel like a well-drilled puppy as she usually did - by the six of them. Lucas joined Tom, and held him back in the corridor.

"They go back a hell of a way. And you know what Harry's like about loyalty. He'll need some convincing."

Tom shook his head. "Not once the case is made to him. With evidence. He believes in loyalty, not blind loyalty."

" Do we have any evidence?" Lucas muttered. "It's all circumstantial - "

Tom's mouth twisted in a grim smile. "We're not in court. And just because evidence is circumstantial doesn't mean it's wrong. He'll listen."

"He must have recognised Ros," Lucas said, half to himself. "From the Scrubs."

"Probably." The other man looked momentarily awkward. "Sorry. I know what it's like when one of your team's in trouble." He hesitated. "And the two of you are obviously close. You're very protective of her."

Lucas stiffened. "Yeah, well. Someone has to take her side sometimes."

"Lucas!" Harry's stentorian bellow bounced off the corridor walls. Both Lucas and Tom broke into a gallop and took the last two seats around the table. Harry remained standing.

"Ruth, go and phone the Scrubs. I want an appointment with the Governor. Tell them it's about Jocelyn Myers, and make it sound urgent but routine."

"Yes." Ruth hurried to the doors. When she was through them, Harry slammed them shut, placed his hands flat on the table with a slap and leaned towards the other five officers.

"I've known Jerry Phelps for almost forty years. Who came up with this idea?"

There was an uncomfortable pause, and then Chen Liu slowly raised his hand. "I did, Harry."

"We did," Callum corrected. There was an underlying challenge in the statement, and Harry's eyes slid to him. Tom Quinn cleared his throat.

"And I agree with them, Harry."

Harry straightened up momentarily and yanked off his tie. "Well, if you can't back up your claim, this," and he threw it onto the table, "will be going round somebody's neck. Talk."

Lucas, feeling somewhat surplus to requirements, opened his mouth, but Chen Liu beat him to it. "Harry, Ros's father described Kallima as 'one of yours'. You know we said at the time that could have meant someone within the Service, but it could just as easily have been meant in a wider sense - someone in the Establishment. Ros's father could have -"

"I know the bastard's Ros's father," Harry cut in testily. "We did give him a code name, or have you forgotten?"

Which is pretty rich, since I don't actually remember you ever using it, either. But Lucas understood. Harry was reluctant to hear his missing deputy's name coupled publicly with that of a convicted - and possibly repeat - traitor. Although it was unfair of him to have bitten Chen's head off, the sympathy for Ros that underlay that reaction eased Lucas's tension a fraction.

"Could have been deliberately misleading us," he supplied now for the discomfited Chen. "It was always a possibility, and it does put Phelps in the frame."

"Why?" Harry snapped, but again, Lucas read between the lines. Tom had been right. Harry wasn't rejecting the idea outright as he, Lucas, had feared he might. He wanted confirmation that their assertion wasn't speculative misinterpretation of the facts, or even worse, wild conjecture encouraged by the intense pressure on them to find a way out of the burgeoning national crisis.

"Several things, Harry." Now Tom took over. "You yourself said there was an experienced military hand behind the organisation of Crisis Crusade somewhere. I don't need to remind you of Phelps's record."

No, Lucas thought grimly. Years spent in counter-intelligence in Northern Ireland, garnering wide experience of the British government's methods of handling civil disorder - experience he could easily now be providing to Crisis Crusade. Injured after active service in the Falklands, he had then spent over a decade in the Gulf. There he had trained the armies of several wealthy but insecure nations that were threatened by tribal uprisings in those same methods. When it came to unseating a government, what worked and what didn't, he had experience and knowledge in abundance.

"The connections," Tom went on. "Lizzie Sandell's … contact, handler- whatever," he said hastily, as Harry's face darkened menacingly. "He lost his job at the Scrubs, that's when he joined the Service. We thought he was the link man to Laverne. It's far more likely he was passing information direct to Phelps. "

"Lizzie's clearance wasn't that high even within the Grid," Harry objected. "She couldn't have given them more than snippets. And she didn't have direct access to opinion, policy or planning outside the Grid at all."

"No." Lucas took the plunge. "But snippets can be enough, Harry, you know that. As for access … well, you do. And Phelps has had access to you." Because of Ros. Lucas knew, because Ros had told him so, that Harry had been in regular touch with Jeremy Phelps in order to provide Ros with news of her father that her family refused to give her. Harry's face turned puce, and rage seemed to make him swell to twice his normal size. "Are you daring to suggest - "

"Don't be bloody daft, Harry." That was Callum; only he or Ros would dare to speak to Harry like that. "Nobody's saying you leaked information to Phelps deliberately."

"Oh, thank you!" Harry snarled with a mock bow that for a second Lucas thought was a prelude to his head-butting the the younger man. He had opened his mouth to try and inject a note of calm into the increasingly heated atmosphere when Ruth burst back into the room. "Harry," she said breathlessly. She took an instinctive step backwards as her husband turned an incandescent glare on her, but then gulped audibly and gathered herself. "The Scrubs says Phelps isn't available - he's on leave, apparently. Family problems."

"On leave?" Lucas echoed in disbelief. He could see from Harry's expression that his incredulity was shared. Every prison of any size in the country was struggling with unrest and disruptive behaviour at the moment, and calling in every officer available to them to contain it. Most staff leave had been put on hold indefinitely. Besides, Jeremy Phelps didn't have a family; like Harry, he was divorced, and unlike him, had no children.

"Where?" Harry barked at Ruth.

The analyst twisted her hands. "Apparently he's gone to Sizergh."

"I repeat - where?" Harry was almost spitting. The name didn't seem to ring any bells with the rest of the team, either, but Lucas recognised it immediately.

"Cumbria, Harry. There's a castle there - National Trust property now. It's about five miles from Kendal." He hesitated before adding the most unwelcome part, the one that suggested Jeremy Phelps was sticking two immaculately manicured fingers up at Section D in general and Harry Pearce in particular. "It's well-known for spotting the rarer types of butterfly. Fritillaries mainly."

There was a sense of the room collectively holding its breath, but the explosion never came. Instead, Harry wiped a hand across his face.

"That's it." His eyes out sought Khalida. "When you first mentioned that name. Kallima ..?"

"Yes indeed. Kallima inachus. The Oak Leaf butterfly," Kallima said nervously. "It is usually found in the Indian sub-continent, Harry."

"Yes. That's what rang a vague bell. Too vague." There was still anger in Harry's voice, but now it was directed at himself rather than the rest of them. "What with all the rest …" He trailed off, then straightened. "His father was an Army officer too. Posted in Kashmir. Jerry grew up there until he came to boarding school here. Bastard." His eyes narrowed dangerously as Lucas sensed him fitting the disparate pieces together - Crisis Crusade's access to what should have been confidential information, Ros's mumbled clues, the mocking code-name for 'one of yours', and the call made from Belinda Laverne's mobile phone to a number within a brisk trot of Wormwood Scrubs. They probably explained the attempt on Jocelyn Myers's life. They almost certainly explained the unmasking of Penny Anderson and the blowing of Ros. Ros. He drew a breath.

"But he couldn't have obtained any level of detailed inside information!" The objection that pre-empted him came from Ruth - inevitably, Lucas thought, trying to protect her husband from the suspicion that he might have talked too freely to an old and trusted friend. He met her hostile look. " 'Snippets can be enough' - that's ridiculous!"

"Bugs," Chen said succinctly. "Somehow, he got a bug in here. Through Lizzie - or what's-his-name - "

"Impossible!" Ruth countered triumphantly. "The whole place has been swept - "

"No it hasn't," Callum interjected grimly. All eyes swivelled to him. "They didn't touch your office, Harry. Protocol. They needed to have an officer senior in rank with them, and there wasn't one. Besides, once they uncovered Lizzie they thought they'd got the leak."

Ruth's face fell. Harry's jaw set. "Check it. Now." Callum nodded abruptly and left the room. Harry picked up his tie and for a moment, twisted it absently around his fist as he thought.

"Ruth, I want a nationwide alert issued for Phelps - with a cover story. Contact Doug Carstairs in Special Branch and tell him to get a warrant to search his home. He's got a cottage in Sussex somewhere - that too. He's thought to be in danger from an old lag. Revenge attack, or something. Make it good and credible, and like Callaghan and his acolytes, keep it discreet. Step up the search for Phelps's car and Callaghan's, and widen to it to anyone else we've identified of interest - that Anderson woman and her husband and the Occupy lot. If we get the slightest sighting or trace of any of them I want them picked up and brought in, and I'm to be notified in COBRA immediately. Chen, get the Watchers' latest reports on those two priests. I don't want them doing a midnight flit as well; we need to talk to them and sharpish. Lucas, which one?"

Lucas thought quickly back to the service at St Christopher's and the meeting in the vicarage. He had seen Patrick Alastair on television twice urging restraint, reason and peaceful protest since then, and he'd been preaching the same gospel from his pulpit. "I'd say Alastair."

"Right. Khalida, you'll do the interviewing." Harry smiled, albeit tautly, at the young Pakistani, who nodded eagerly. "Inter-faith dialogue's all the rage these days. He'll be primed to co-operate without even realising it. Go on! We've no time to waste." He clapped his hands and made a sweeping gesture towards the doors. "Not you two." Tom and Lucas exchanged glances as he closed the doors. "Sit down."

Once they had, he said: "This is strictly for your ears only; it doesn't go beyond this room, and you do not repeat it to anyone else - not even on the core team." His glance flickered out to where Ruth was at her desk, hunched over the telephone. "None of them. Is that clear?" Both nodded uneasily. "We've got forty-eight hours. I can hold COBRA that long." A pause. "I think. But the PM's adamant, and apparently he has the backing of the Leader of the Opposition as well. If we haven't cut the head off Crisis Crusade within that time and things aren't back under control, he's declaring martial law and calling out the army."

Lucas gasped. Tom looked impassively at Harry, but the knuckles of his hands, clenched on the table-top, were bone-white.

"Will the army obey orders?" he asked.

The million dollar question. Lucas wiped his hand over his mouth. With a former paratroop captain in the front ranks of Crisis Crusade and a retired colonel from Military Intelligence as its eminence grise? 'The rot's spread into the last redoubt' . The reliability of the police was already under question. And Clive Curran wasn't the only soldier to have fallen victim to the swing of the Austerity Axe.

Harry shook his head. "Nobody knows. Not for sure." He glanced at his watch and grimaced. "Get Ruth to go through our lists of current assets. If we've got one in barracks somewhere, pump him. All the uniforms down in COBRA are like a bunch of khaki parrots squawking the party line."

Lucas swallowed. "If the army mutinies, or the men are divided, sending troops in could lead to civil war."

"As will doing nothing," Tom pointed out.

"Exactly," Harry said grimly. "Keep everyone here. No-one leaves unless it's for a personal or family medical emergency, and even then check it out first that the request's genuine. If things really go belly-up, there'll be a few rats on board HMS Thames House eager to abandon ship as well." He picked up his jacket.

"Harry!" Lucas blurted as he turned towards the door. When Harry looked back enquiringly, he rushed on: "What about Ros?"

Harry sighed. "Lucas, I told you - "

"I know, I know," Lucas said quickly, desperate to prevent the other man bringing a halt to the conversation. " But that was when we thought she might have - I mean there's no doubt now, is there? We can't just abandon her! You've always said it - always - we never leave an officer in the field." Even as he spoke, he realised that he was living proof - eight years-worth of it - that if operational necessity so dictated, Harry Pearce would do just that. "If Phelps really is going to hole up around Sizergh they may be holding Ros there, and I know that area - "

Harry held up a hand to stop him, but when he spoke, his tone was patient rather than angry.

"Lucas. There is doubt. Think, lad. Assuming that second attack on Myers was organised by Phelps. How did he know where Tom was holding him?"

"Bugs! Like Chen said!" Lucas exploded, but Harry shook his head.

"That location was never spoken aloud on the Grid. Remember? You wrote it down, we memorised it - Ruth, Ros and I - then we destroyed the paper - burned it, the old-fashioned way."

Lucas felt a cold sweat prickling along his hairline as he realised where Harry was going with this, but his fear for Ros drove him on. "Then Transatlantic. Someone - "

"No," Tom Quinn shot his colleague a sympathetic glance, but he spoke with total conviction. "Absolutely not."

"That call you told me about," Harry said sadly. "I think Ros told Lady Annabel where Sir Jocelyn was, and I suspect Lady Annabel then told Phelps. He said she'd been demanding to know to where her husband was being transferred, demanding to see him." His expression darkened. "He couldn't tell her, of course, because he 'didn't know, Harry'. At least not before she obligingly told him." He snorted. "Felt sorry for her, he said."

"That doesn't make Ros a traitor!" Lucas fired back. Any more than you're one for being blinded by your trust in an old friend.

"Strictly speaking, no," Harry agreed wearily. "I think it makes her a very lonely young woman who adores her father, feels terrible guilt for his imprisonment, misses him and her family dreadfully, and took a desperate risk to try and reconnect with them." He shook his head as Lucas would have interrupted. "But COBRA isn't going to swallow that, Lucas. Even Towers won't believe it. Whatever Ros's reason for doing so, the fact remains that she's revealed highly confidential information and endangered an asset in the process. There's no excuse for that. No-one in government - especially in current circumstances - will let me deplete my forces by sending someone off on a search and rescue mission for one - as they'll see it - rogue officer playing for the wrong side. Even if I were to argue her case."

Which you won't. Harry might feel sympathy for Ros - and Lucas wasn't even totally sure of that - but he hadn't unequivocally stated his belief in her loyalty since Saladdin began. And now Ros Myers was going be sacrificed, left to sink or swim alone - exactly as he had once been. A sudden, visceral hatred of Harry Pearce and his willingness to play the loathsome game of political expediency, a feeling largely repressed since Lucas's return from Russia, seared into his throat like acid.

With enormous reluctance and a superhuman effort at self-restraint, he remained silent as the older man buttoned his cuffs and thrust his arms into his crumpled jacket. Harry re-opened the doors, then looked back over his shoulder and suddenly the weariness was gone. His words crackled with the crisp authority to which they were accustomed.

"The best thing we can do for Ros is to stop Crisis Crusade. The situation nationwide is critical. Save it and we save the country - and her. In her absence I'm relying on you - both of you - to do what she'd do if she were here. Follow your orders, do your jobs, and I will get Ros back." His eyes, bleary from exhaustion but still fiercely determined, fixed on Lucas. "I give you my word, Lucas." His last words hung suspended in the air behind him as he strode out of the room. "You aren't the only person in this section to love Ros Myers."

oOoOoOo

It was Lucas who made the announcement that until further notice no officer was to leave the building for anything other than operational reasons without first seeking authorisation. Guessing the opprobrium that would fall on the head of the messenger bringing such unwelcome news, he had suggested to Tom that he do it, but Tom had declined with a wry smile.

"Been there, bought the T-shirt, Lucas." When Lucas looked enquiring, he shook his head. "Long, long time ago, and once is enough. It's all yours." He did stand alongside him as Lucas issued the orders, which were greeted with a stunned second's silence and then an explosion of vocal protest. He raised his hands and his voice, grateful that nature had endowed him with one that could rival Harry's parade-ground bellow when required.

"All right, all right. Listen to me!" When the murmurs subsided, he said: "Anyone with a compelling personal reason - "

"What's compelling enough for you?" someone called. "I've got two kids to look after single-handed!"

"Personal or family medical emergency," Lucas answered. Again the anger swelled, and he shouted over it. "Anyone needs to leave - for those reasons only - you tell -" he hesitated for a second, glanced at Ruth and changed his mind. The analyst was too prone to getting sentimental over children and cats; he'd end up losing half the staff. " - tell Tom or me. If you need to make personal arrangements at home, do it by phone. Quickly as possible, please."

"Who the bloody hell are you two to tell us we can't leave?" another voice demanded. "Where's Ros?"

"Ros's currents whereabouts are classified." Lucas raised his eyebrows. "But she'll be briefed on any developments." He paused for a second. "And any dissent. This is an order - from Harry."

"And where the f***'s he? They're allowed to leave!" The nearby officer who had asked the question threw the headset he was wearing onto his desk. " This is bullshit. They can't lock us up in here!" He glared at Lucas. "Do you know what it's like on the streets out there? Our useless bloody toff of a PM's lost what control he ever had - why should we save his rotten career? We've got families to look after! And what makes Myers and Pearce so bloody different from the rest of us? Whose side are you on?" He turned to face the wider room. "I say we walk out of here!"

Several others muttered approval, although Lucas noticed that many officers looked uneasy. He knew that uncertainty would be taken for weakness; hesitate, and he too would lose control of his troops. What had Harry said? I'm relying on you to do what she'd do if she were here. He half-turned to Callum, who was standing just behind him, and spoke in a muttered whisper.

"Override the system. Lock the Grid down. Now."

"Yup." Callum strode off. Lucas turned his hardest gaze on the dissenter and did his level best to channel Ros Myers.

"Are you refusing an order?" Before the man could reply, he raised his voice. "Anyone else wanting to join him?" Silence. The hostility was still palpable, but the only outward manifestation now was a sullen muttering. Lucas scanned the room, trying to pinpoint any further potential flash points, but no-one, including the officer who had challenged him, would meet his eyes. "This is temporary, but until this order's rescinded, no-one will be leaving this building except under the circumstances I've outlined. Is that clear?" There were a few mumbled 'yes'. "Then get back to work."

"Good job," Tom Quinn murmured as people returned with varying degrees of unwillingness to their desks. Lucas moistened his dry lips with his tongue and ran a hand over the nape of his neck, feeling the dampness left on his skin by his sweaty palms as he did so.

"Ros would have done it better." He led the way into Harry's office and was sliding the door closed when Callum put his head round it.

"Sealed, Lucas." When Lucas nodded his thanks he added, "There was a listening device in here, by the way. State of the art, doubt the scanners in the pods would have picked it up - or even the plumbers, unless they were bloody thorough. Hidden in the base of that," he gestured towards an equine sculpture on the shelves behind Harry's desk. Tom grunted as the technical expert withdrew.

"Good choice. Phelps must have known Harry hates that thing, never goes near it." He glanced at his watch. "All right, what's our next move?"

The whoosh of the doors sliding open again prevented Lucas from answering. Irritated, he span round and found Chen Liu hovering in the doorway.

"What is it?" he snapped. "Someone wanting permission to leave already?"

"Don't think they could," Chen answered, "not now."

"What are you talking about?" Tom asked sharply.

"Demonstration." Chen pointed out onto the Grid, and both men saw a knot of officers gathered in the doorway of the tech suite. "Downstairs, I mean. Outside."

Tom and Lucas followed him out. Chen shoved his way through the group, and Lucas scrutinised the screens. The demonstrators - chanting soundlessly in black and white - looked peaceful, but as Chen pointed out, they hadn't only placed themselves in front of the main doors onto the embankment. Smaller groups were around the back of the building blockading both rear exits and the entrance to the underground garage.

"Alert security," Lucas rapped. "And start trying to identify them." Followed by Tom, he pushed his way out of the suite. "We need to warn Harry."

"Lucas!" The shout came from Ruth, who was waving frantically from her desk, phone in hand. When he held up his hand to indicate 'wait', she jumped out of her seat and dashed across the Grid, slaloming between desks and colleagues like an Olympic skier.

"The demonstration," she said breathlessly.

"I know," Lucas answered curtly. "We're dealing with it."

"No!" Ruth seized his sleeve as he would have turned away. "Wait! Lucas, listen. Listen!"

Lucas was in no mood for patience, but as he tried angrily to wrench his arm free, Tom cut in. "Go on, Ruth." He ignored Lucas's glare at his intervention.

"The doormen have spoken to one of the leaders. They're from Crisis Crusade."

"Ruth, I didn't think they were from the Cats Protection League," Lucas shot back. He had once heard Ros grumbling that Ruth's idea of getting straight to the point usually involved a trip round Hampton Court Maze, but even as he spoke he wondered if he was being a bit too successful in channelling the section chief's cutting sarcasm.

The analyst flushed, but she persisted. "He wants to talk to someone. Face to face. Says it's urgent."

Lucas glanced at Tom Quinn. Walk-ins weren't unknown; thanks to TV drama and transparency, every Tom, Usama and Vladimir knew where Thames House was these days. But he was acutely aware of what Ruth didn't know - that the clocks were ticking the seconds relentlessly off Harry's forty-eight hours. The screws were tightening all the time. He could imagine Harry's reaction if he took time out to parley with the enemy, but at the same time, the prospect of the security service coming under siege from protestors was too horrendous to contemplate.

"So talk to him," he said impatiently. "Have security bring him in." He glanced up at Khalida as she came to join them. "But one of you will have to go; we've got too much to do up here. Does Mr Urgent have a name?"

The younger woman held a print-out towards him. "Most certainly he is having one, Lucas." Beneath her neatly tied headscarf her eyes glowed. "Perhaps this is one time when the mountain has indeed come to Mohammed, peace be upon him."

Lucas frowned and examined the picture. MI-5's closed-circuit cameras were state of the art, yet their output still seemed as grainy, smudged and out of focus as Lucas remembered them being in his early days in the Service. He squinted at it for a moment, and then looked up in shock.

The man in the picture was Patrick Alastair.

oOoOoOo

Thank you for reading. Please review! :)