Thank you to everyone who has read this story and especially to those who have taken time to review. Thank you.

Also, apologies for the late update. RL and all that.

Chapter Nine: The Fifteenth Floor

Despite the overwhelming urge to drop and everything and run from the flat, Harry forced himself to stay still. If he followed his gut reaction now, he knew he would only be running into the outstretched arms of the IRA; an act as foolish as it was cowardly. A minute to gather their wits was all that they needed, a precious minute to clear their heads and make an attempt at rational thought. But rather than let even that minute go to waste, Bill swung into action by wrenching the boards off the old fireplace and dropping them haphazardly into the hearth. His breathing was laboured, betraying his anxiety as he worked quickly, seemingly uncaring about how much noise he made.

Realising what he was doing, Harry rushed to help by emptying every drawer in the desk and bureau. He came away with great bundles of papers clutched tightly to his chest. Papers containing contact details of agents and assets across the province. Other documents contained details of troop movements across violent hotspots surrounding the Irish border, as well as personal information about their most prized Assets inside the Provisional IRA and the INLA. Information that, should it fall into the IRA's hands, could cripple the British Army in Northern Ireland for years to come. Without thinking, Harry bundled it all into the hearth, crumpling it in his fists before shoving it into the bars of the grate. Before he even finished, Bill had retrieved lighter fluid from his own bag and squirted it liberally over the papers.

"My lighter," he said, tersely.

Harry followed the line of his eye, to the table top where the zippo sat by the speakers. He could reach it if he leaned over, which he did. Flicking the flint himself, the flame barely touched the corner of a jutting paper before the whole lot went up in a startling rush of flame and smoke.

"We need to keep looking," said Harry. "Are there any more?"

Bill didn't answer, but he sprang to his feet and started turning the place over.

"Trash the equipment, Harry," he called out, over his shoulder.

Before he could think too hard about it, Harry found himself yanking cables out of the back of machines, while Bill, having already called for backup, wrenched the phone out of its socket. Tape recordings had to be destroyed, along with their precious intelligence. Months of research and hard, dangerous work going up in smoke. Harry watched it burn; he watched the tape reels wither and melt, dripping into the blackened ash of almost twenty files. Not a word, not even a stray number, could be left behind for the IRA to get their murderous hands on.

"That's it," said Bill. "We're done."

Although the greater danger remained, Harry still felt a weak tremor of relief. Even if they died, no one else would because of any paper trail they neglected. He turned from the flames to look up at Bill, standing over him as he checked his gun one final time.

"They know we're here," said Harry. "They'll be here already, searching for us."

He could feel the tables turning, the rules changing. Moscow Rules. They were in enemy territory and now everyone they met had to be treated as a potential enemy. All they had was each other. Slowly, Bill lowered to his haunches, looking Harry in the eye.

"Stay with me," he said, "Unless I say otherwise. If I tell you to run for cover, then you run for cover. Okay?"

The thought alone horrified him. "I am not leaving you," he insisted.

In the face of the emergency, Bill didn't labour the point. He handed Harry the gun he'd put down while burning the papers and headed for the exit. His hand reached for the door, but then paused as he looked over his shoulder at the fire. Harry couldn't second guess what he was thinking.

"Maybe we should burn the whole apartment?" he said.

Harry frowned. "That would make it rather obvious-"

"That's the point," he cut in, insistently. "The IRA will see that we've been here and head to the top floor while we're busy making for the ground floor. All we have to do is pass each other without being seen."

"Oh, great Bill, and how do we do that in a tower block with only two stairwells?" Harry retorted. One of those, rather helpfully, being a fire escape.

But Bill didn't looked fazed as he added: "And a lift shaft."

Unsure if he heard that right, Harry needed a repeat. The lift shaft. The lift was at the ground floor level, the electrics had already been cut so it wasn't going anywhere. But the mere thought of climbing down a two hundred foot lift shaft made the palms of his hands slick with sweat, before even contemplating the possible consequences for Bill.

"Bill, you get vertigo if you stand up too fast-"

"Yeah well, I'm sure I can man up and take it on a special occasion like this one," he murmured darkly in his own defence. He turned away, looking towards the door that was already off its hinges. "You heard them, the IRA are already here Harry. The fire escape is an external staircase down the side of the building and made of aluminium. We will have no cover at all and completely exposed like that, we'll be sitting ducks. There's only one stairwell inside, and they'll have that covered too. They'll be infiltrating every level-"

"Well what else do you suggest then?" Harry snapped back. "Every flat in this tower is empty. I say we descend a floor at a time, take it slowly and see if we can't give them the slip that way."

Bill sighed heavily, running a hand through his hair in agitation. He turned from Harry quickly, using an old iron poker to knock the burning papers from the hearth. "Open the window, Harry. We want them to see the smoke and draw them up here."

It was too late for reservations. Harry crossed the threshold of the apartment again, to where the telescope once stood and wrenched the window open. On instinct alone, he moved quickly, but almost not quick enough. Bullets shattered the window, splintering glass over the table top. Harry launched himself forwards, pulling Bill to the ground in a rugby tackle just as the volley of gunfire came to as abrupt an end as its beginning. Together they sprawled on the threadbare carpet, breathing in the damp and silverfish. For a long moment, as the echo of the blast faded, they stared into each other's eyes like lovers caught in a cinch behind the bike sheds: dazed and startled.

"I think they know we're here now," Bill panted.

Harry replied with a jerky nod before recovering himself enough to move. He grabbed his gun and headed straight for the door. Bill followed close behind, heading for the exit as the apartment began to burn. Even with the window open, the smoke was fast becoming dense and suffocating, even though only a rug and half an armchair had caught the flames. Slowly, they crept to the nineteenth floor, backs pressed to the wall as they moved. Guns at the ready, loaded with safety catches off. Every footfall was measured, placed softly on the lino covered floor. They kept their ears strained for every small sound, but all Harry could hear was the drums beating endlessly, round and round. A buzz of pipers wending down the nearby Grosvenor Road. Inwardly, he cursed them all again.

"I wish those bands would fuck up and fuck off," Bill hissed under his breath.

They had called for backup, but all the main roads were closed because of the marches. Only ambulances could get through and even then with great effort. Their usual backup team was eighty miles away, watching over a fictional arms dump. False information fed to them by their false asset.

"Brendan must have told them," Harry said, as they circled the stairwell for the eighteenth floor. "He sold us out for a seat on the Army Council."

"That much I had already guessed," replied Bill, under his breath.

"I'm going to skin the little cunt alive-"

"Not now!" Bill cut over him. "Let's get out of here first and then we can deal with McLoan later. Understand?"

Harry, once afraid but now simply seething, had to draw a deep breath and swallow hard before replying. "As you wish."

They continued in silence. Overhead strip lighting flickered on and off, creating a strange strobe affect that illuminated their surroundings in rapid blinks of light. Somewhere, inside one of the derelict apartments, the fizz and hiss of water dripping onto live wires could be heard. Bill paused at an open door on the seventeenth floor, nudging it slowly and soundlessly open. Both hid behind the wall as the room inside yawned into view. Outside, the sun was starting to set over West Belfast and the sparks from the faulty wires hanging from the ceiling light up like so many fireflies.

"We cut the electrics," Harry said, low.

"And they restored it," replied Bill, matter of factly. "Well, that rules out the lift shaft."

They descended to the sixteenth floor in a thickening darkness. Every step of the way, the lower they went, the further they travelled into their enemy's trap. Harry's mind raced, despite his best efforts, conjuring all forms of graphic, brutal end that awaited them between the sixteenth and ground floor. It could come at any moment. It could be waiting around any door, from behind every corner. Harry could feel his flesh crawl with every small distant noise. Even if they could see down the stairwell, the terrorists hunting them wouldn't be so stupid as to make their presence known.

So he and Bill continued. Slowly inching their way downwards, listening out for a footfall that was not their own. Listening for the cold steel click of a gun being cocked and the bullet sliding into place. Bill led the way, with Harry looking back over his shoulder every five seconds, waiting for the trap to be sprung at any moment.

It came on the fifteenth floor.

The passageway outside the two derelict flats suddenly flashed brilliant white as an assault rifle rattled off its stuttering discharge. The noise of it shattering the eerie silence as an elbow violently caught Harry in the jaw, sending him reeling backwards. But Bill returned fire and with a single shot of his handgun, the paramilitary with the assault rifle fell silent and dead on the landing floor. The sporadic lighting blinked down on his prone form, blood spilling from the hole in his head.

"Where's the other?" Harry demanded through a throbbing jaw. "The one who hit me."

Bill's reply was short and terse. "That was me. Sorry."

Without further preamble, Bill jumped the last few steps down to the landing and knelt beside the corpse. Grabbing his ankles, he hoisted the body up and over the railings, letting the corpse fall down and down the echoing stairwell. "Send him back to his friends downstairs," he said, gruffly.

Harry's heartbeat was still racing; adrenaline coursing through his veins as he listened for the sickening crunch of the dead man connecting with the ground floor. It was almost satisfying as it resounded through the building. The pain left his jaw, but he could still taste blood on his tongue. Ignoring it, he and Bill set off again, fully aware there would be many more hidden throughout the tower and lying in wait.

Somewhere overhead, a door slammed shut. Loud music began playing in another apartment, before shutting off as suddenly as it began. Then distant voices could be heard, somewhere in the opaque spaces that lay behind the doors. Sudden, deliberate noises both near and far. Slowly, like cats pawing at broken-winged birds, the enemy was closing in on them. Ever decreasing circles; closer and closer. Harry's heart was pounding, ears full of the rushing blood. It was like moving through a living nightmare. He could almost feel their breath on the back of his neck as his imagination started to collaborate with the IRA, making things even worse for him.

"They're playing with us," he said, voice tremulous now. "We're giving them sport."

He almost screamed aloud as a hand closed swiftly over his wrist, holding it tight. But it was only Bill. Harry could see only the whites of his dark grey eyes now, over-bright and reflecting a good share of the panic he felt.

"We're on the thirteenth floor now," he whispered, leaning close to Harry's ear. "We're almost half-way there."

In that instant, Harry knew it was a well-intended lie. Getting out of the tower was only half the battle. The next half was getting safely back to their vehicles and off the Falls Road. They were caught in a net of the IRA's making and that net was ten miles wide and ten miles long. Already, inwardly, Harry had resigned himself to taking as many of the bastards down with him before he was inevitably taken care of himself.

"How many bullets have you got left?" he asked Bill as they reached the landing of the thirteenth floor.

Bill replied with a shrug. "However many we have, we must hold our nerve and not fire at every little thing. I almost shot a rat back there; a waste of a bullet with these bastards all around us."

Harry could only admire the way Bill was holding his own nerve. He seemed almost cool and collected as he travelled towards his own death. But as they passed the apartments on the thirteenth floor, Bill stopped suddenly and tried one of the doors. It was locked from the outside, meaning no one at all had entered it since the last tenant left. He stepped back and kicked in the door, sending it crashing against the back wall. Before Harry could even form an appropriate expletive, Bill shoved him inside.

In there, the light was better and the window was open, letting in a cool breeze. It was only there that Harry realised they were both sweating like pigs in a slaughter house.

"What are you doing?" Harry asked.

But Bill only grabbed his shoulders, getting his attention.

"Listen, chances are we're both fucked, but…" he said, urgently before pausing and drawing a deep breath. "If by any small chance you get out of this alive, would you… would you look out for her?"

Just for a brief moment, Bill's steel resolve wilted into something so tender it hurt to see.

"Debs, I mean," he said, as though Harry needed the clarification. "And the baby. Tell her to kiss the baby for me and give him that stuffed giraffe toy I got from Belfast Zoo."

It was about six feet tall, if Harry's estimates were correct. But Bill hadn't been able to resist it. He almost laughed at the memory.

"And for fuck's sake, make sure he grows up to be a good, honest Liverpool supporter. If he so much as looks at a Man United jersey I'll come back and haunt you-"

"Bill!" Harry cut in, forcing him to stop. "Stop. They heard you kicking that door in, they are coming for us now."

He nodded. "I know. But I need you to do something."

"Anything," Harry said.

"I need you to stay here and guard this apartment with your life," he said. "We can't go out there, even if we do make it to the ground floor. So we need to establish a clean base here. If anyone comes, defend it and kill them. Okay?"

Harry was far from okay. "Where are you going?"

"You saw that lone gunman on the fifteenth floor," he reminded Harry. "He was alone. There will probably be another lone gunman waiting a few floors down. I'm going to take the fucker alive and, with a gun to his head, force the next one we encounter to negotiate-"

"We can both do it!" Harry interjected, frantically.

"No," Bill was adamant. "I'm going to buy breathing space by telling them you're already dead; killed in that last shoot out, understand?"

There was so many flaws in that plan Harry could use it to strain pasta. "And if I have to shoot an intruder, what then? They'll hear it."

"I'll just say it's another of their men panicking and firing at a rat, or something," he explained. "I almost did it myself."

Harry could not bring himself to agree. But Bill nudged him further into the apartment and backed away, closing the door almost silently behind him. His footsteps could not be heard as he descended deeper into the tower block. Meanwhile, Harry concealed himself in the bathroom, the gun shaking in his trembling hands. Sick with fear and tension, he kept it trained on the door, listening for the slightest noise that could have had a human source. He willed himself to move, to catch Bill up and take on this suicidal mission together. To go out together. But the more he willed himself to move, the more he seemed to take root there. Stranded, alone.

Minutes ticked by. Minutes that bled into hours. If he looked at the base of the bathroom door, he could see the sliver of pale light fading into a slow, agonising darkness. There was only a silence. A crushing, nerve-shredding silence followed closely by a yawning chasm of nothingness. A void into which all his fear and sickening imaginings were relentless sucked.

In the end, Harry emerged at dawn. Walking slowly down the stairs, calling out to anyone. Even instant death would be preferable to being left hanging on like this. Every floor was empty. Every room silent and cold as the crypt. Everyone was simply gone. He emerged blinking and dazed into the pallid morning light. Stepping out into a world equally as silent and empty as the Tower block he had just left. Harry felt like the last man alive on earth.

Will's body was slick with a cold sweat by the time Harry finished talking. He didn't realise it, but he had been leaning further and further across the table, hanging on every word spoken. Once he did notice, he sat back quickly. The older man was pale now, his dark green eyes furtive and clouded by residual fear that still haunted him. But Harry kept his silence, Will realised the next part he was waiting for was not coming.

"But, then what?" he asked, bewildered.

Harry looked back at him, questioningly. "I wasn't there when your father was killed, Will. I was only there when he was abducted."

"So, when you got out of the Divis Flats you just went home?" he asked, disbelievingly.

"Of course not!" he retorted. "I finally got the backup team and a search was mounted immediately. The whole Unit was searching; assets were being grilled in warehouses up and down the Province. But we didn't know anything until two weeks later, when his body was returned."

Will felt as if he was being suspended over a cliff edge by one ankle. He was just hanging there, waiting for information that he now realised would not come. Those final few days, those all important final hours, were slipping away from him.

"There must be a record of what they did to him," he said, voice shaking. "Photos-"

"No," Harry cut over him. "Absolutely not!"

Lied to, again. His temper snapped. "You mean there are, but you won't let me see them!"

"Of course I won't!" Harry retorted, exasperated. "You have pictures of your father, Will. You remember him like that because those last images will be seared onto your mind until the day you die."

Will pushed back his chair and got to his feet in agitation. "I am not a child who needs protecting, Sir Harry!"

"Mister Crombie," it was Valentina who spoke. The Interlocutor that everyone had forgotten existed. Seeing her calm, placid face looking up at him and imploring him to calm down had the desired effect. "Please sit down. Sir Harry has given you very valid reasons for not disclosing those photographs."

Instantly, he resumed his seat and was abashed enough by his outburst to apologise instantly.

"I'm sorry, Sir Harry. I realise this is hard for you," he said, meaning it. "The last thing I want to do is tighten the thumbscrews on you by pressuring for even more. It's just… just everything. I need as much as I can get."

That seemed to satisfy Valentina. But Harry looked almost apologetic himself.

"And I have given you all I can, at this stage," he said, after gathering his own thoughts. "Your father was held for two weeks. He was tortured. Grotesquely."

Will's laboured breathing eased. But before he could reply, a mobile phone rang shrilly, cutting through the tension that was slowly ebbing anyway. All eyes in the room fell on Ruth, who turned scarlet with embarrassment.

"Uhm," she said, pointing to her bag where the phone still rang. "I'm really sorry, but I have to take this call-"

"Get on with it then," Harry snapped at her.

"Yeah, er, right," she stammered, rushing from the room.

Harry turned back to Will with a look of profound regret in his eyes. "I am very sorry about that. It must be from the Grid otherwise she would have had it switched off."

"I don't mind, Sir Harry," Will assured him. "But, I think it's a sign we've done enough for one day."

Now Harry was visibly relieved. "I quite agree. Come down the pub with us and we'll get a few rounds in."

It was the best idea he had heard all day. But, as he left with Harry and Ruth, the thought occurred to him that he should pay Belfast a visit. The city itself may hold the key with which he could lock this door forever.

The bar was mercifully quiet. Just the flat cap and whippet brigade, nursing pints in a quiet, soothing lounge bar. Harry cast a wary eye over them all, before easily deeming it safe. While he waited to be served, Ruth came over to join him leaving Will and Catherine sitting together and chatting away. Briefly, she looked back over her shoulder before turning to him with a broad smile.

"They seem to be getting on really rather well,," she said, with an unmistakable hint of optimism in her tone.

Harry laughed. "You're incorrigible, Ruth. Anyway, what was that phone call about? Anything I need to know?"

Suddenly, she turned serious. "I had Ros and Lucas check out Brendan McLoan for you."

He felt a tremor of distaste mingled with apprehension pass through him. "And?"

"He's still alive and a known member of the Continuity IRA; Lucas and Ros have all his personal information," she whispered, standing on tip toes and leaning close to his ear. Then, she took him by the elbow and steered him into the Lady's toilets nearby. "What do you want to do about it?"

Harry was trying to figure out what it was Ruth wanted to hear. For a long moment, he maintained his silence. A hundred thoughts crashing through his head. He could feel himself being pulled this way and that. Brendan McLoan who not only sold him and Bill out for a seat on the Army Council, but was still an active terrorist in the ranks of the Dissidents. Unrepentant; unreformed, free to do it all again.

"While we were in the taxi Will said he wanted to go to Belfast and try to trace his father's last journey," said Ruth. "I thought you might want to go with him and pay a visit to an old friend."

A knowing smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. But Harry suddenly felt himself descending into a state of empty calmness. "Yes," he replied. "I think I might go with him."

Their eyes met, and Harry slowly wrapped his arms around her, holding her close before kissing her deeply. His hands raked her hair, pulling it out of its ponytail. The silver slide landed in a sink with a soft clatter, but neither of them paid it any heed. When they parted, her lipstick was smudged, but her wide blue eyes were clear and focused.

"I love you," she said. "So stay safe over there."

He managed to raise a pained smile. "I'll come home, I promise."

Thank you again to everyone who has read this. A review would be lovely, if you have a moment.