8:50 a.m.
The last five hours had been a tumult of horror and desperate, frenetic activity. Harry stood by Lucas's desk in the center of the Grid, staring at the photograph of the boy who had been Lucas North, cursing himself for not seeing it sooner. Lucas's distance, his unpredictable behavior had lately grown from a sort of moody personality defect into a truly worrying indicator of untrustworthiness, and yet Harry hadn't seen it. He thought Lucas was just tired, just grieving for Ros and Jo, as Harry himself had been. Harry had been too consumed by his own sorrows to see what was right in front of him.
A check of Lucas's phone records had led them a doctor named Maya Lahan, and a quick trawl through her past had connected her to John Bateman. Bateman had been a bartender in Dakar, and it was in Dakar that he had met the real Lucas North, the young man in the photograph Harry held in his hands. A young man Harry had never met.
The real Lucas North hadn't turned up anywhere else, and all trace of John Bateman had vanished some fifteen years ago.
Just after the bombing of the British embassy in Dakar.
Lucas North, John Bateman, the embassy, Emilia; it all went round and round in Harry's mind, an endless, frantic cacophony of memories and fears, half-forgotten images and whispered conversations.
He struggled to control it, to pull himself out of the quagmire of dread and self-doubt that threatened to drown him. He had done this, he realized. Had brought Lucas North – John Bateman, whoever – out of a Russian prison cell and back into the fold, had given him security clearances and control over the team. Bateman had chosen them, Beth and Dimitri; were they part of this, too?
Harry paused in his self-recrimination for a moment, turning his attention to the pair of them.
No, he decided; no. Beth and Dimitri seemed to be as devastated and confused as he was. He couldn't see either of them being involved in this. There had been a million indications of Bateman's impending betrayal over the last few weeks, but Beth and Dimitri remained true.
He hoped.
Harry had forbidden them to refer to the man who had been Section Chief as anything other than John Bateman, and Harry wanted to be sure none of them forgot that he had never truly been a friend to them. Lucas North was a ghost, no more than a figment of what might have been.
It should have been easier for Ruth, who had never worked with the man who called himself Lucas North, but she seemed to have been hit as hard as by the news as any of them. A member of Harry's team had betrayed him, betrayed them, and she had taken that personally. At the moment she was sat behind Harry's desk, easily visible through the glass walls of his office, dark hair spilling across her face as she poured intently over a stack of files. The sight of her calmed him, as it always did. She was here, she was real, and whatever happened next, whatever John Bateman had done, Harry was determined to make it right. He had to, for her sake. For Emilia's sake.
"Harry!" Beth's voice was shrill as it echoed through the Grid, and Harry saw Ruth leap up from behind the desk, rushing toward the sound, before he turned his attention away from her and onto Beth.
"What is it?" he asked, as Beth and Dimitri all but ran toward him.
"We found her, we found Maya Lahan."
Ruth made her way to his side, and not for the first time that night he fought the urge to wrap his arms around her. She looked wan and pale, even more exhausted than he was, but she remained fixed on their purpose.
"Where?" he demanded, and Beth passed him the print-out of a grainy CCTV image.
"She's in a hotel in the city. I've contacted the staff, and they sent over the footage from their private cameras. Tariq's going through it now, checking to see if Bateman is with her. Both of their phones are turned off, so we can't track them that way, but we can use the cameras to build a timeline."
"Do we go in?" Dimitri asked.
Harry hesitated. He doubted that Bateman had orchestrated this whole thing alone, and until the kidnappers made contact, he was hesitant to overplay his hand. What if Bateman was in the hotel with her? If he wasn't, what if he had people watching her? It could very well be that the moment they moved in on her, Bateman would cut his losses, kill Emilia, and run; that had to be avoided at all costs.
He opened his mouth to say so, but was cut short but the piercing ring of his cell phone. He checked his watch.
9:00 a.m.
They were out of time.
Next to him, Ruth gasped as the same realization dawned on her.
Harry pulled his phone from his pocket, answering the call and switching it to speaker. Without a second thought, he reached out and took hold of Ruth's hand. She grasped him fiercely as he spoke.
"Pearce."
"Harry," came the answer. It was Bateman.
He wanted to shout, wanted to roar his murderous intent, wanted to fling the phone against the wall, but he didn't. Self-control, self-denial, these are things which keep us together in this job.
"Lucas," he said. He didn't want Bateman to know how much they knew, didn't want to spook him.
"I apologize for my hasty departure earlier. I knew the minute Ruth hacked into French security you'd be on to me." The man sounded tense, but present, in control. "She's too smart for her own good, that one."
Harry bit back a sharp reply, saying instead, "What do you want, Lucas?"
"My name is John Bateman, Harry. And I want Albany."
Jesus Christ.
Ruth clung to Harry's hand, her lifeline in this sea of madness. She could feel the rage rolling off of him in waves, could see it in his face as he struggled to keep his voice steady.
"You know I can't give you Albany," he said, giving Ruth's hand a little squeeze. She was certain it was meant to be reassuring, but her heart was pounding in her chest and she was finding it difficult to breathe.
"You can, and you will," Bateman answered. "A straight swap, Albany for the girl."
"And if I don't?" Harry asked, his voice deadly quiet. Beth and Dimitri were staring at him, but Ruth found she couldn't look at him. She closed her eyes and tried to breathe, tried to focus on the warmth of his hand, wrapped around her own.
"If you don't, she dies."
She'd been expecting that response, but it hurt her just the same. She dies. The words twisted in her gut like a knife.
They were all watching her now, she knew; even with her eyes closed she could feel their pity and their fear for her. She hated it, hated feeling this weak and useless.
"How do we know you haven't killed her already?" Ruth demanded, the sudden intrusion of her voice into the conversation surprising everyone, herself included.
Bateman laughed, a harsh, mirthless sound.
"I thought you might ask me that," he said. There was a shuffling sound on the other end of the hone, and then there came a small, frightened voice, tinny through the cell phone speakers.
"Mummy? Mummy, I'm scared."
Emilia.
"I'm here, love, Mummy's here," Ruth said in a rush, fighting back a sob. "I'll find you, love, I will-"
"You have ninety minutes, Harry," Bateman's voice cut in. "I'll call back with instructions."
The line went dead.
Ruth took a deep, shuddering breath and opened her eyes.
Harry was still beside her, staring at the phone in his hand as if it were a snake poised to strike. Tariq was pecking away at his keyboard, swearing; no doubt his attempts to trace the call had failed. Beth and Dimitri were just standing there, staring at them. Regretfully, Ruth eased her hand out of Harry's grasp. The time for comforting one another had passed. The time for action had come.
"What is Albany, Harry?" Beth asked quietly.
He just shook his head. "The less you know about it, the better," he told her. "You three need to start putting together a plan. Focus on Maya, see if you can get to her without Bateman finding out. He's brought her back into his life, stashed her somewhere safe; chances are his plans for escape will include her, and we need to use that to our advantage. Whatever happens next, don't let him get away. I don't know if I'll be able to communicate with you once this gets started. I'm trusting you with this."
And with those words he turned and began to walk purposefully towards the pods.
Ruth didn't think, couldn't think; she simply reacted, tearing after him.
"And just where the hell do you think you're going?" she demanded.
"Ruth-"
If she'd been only marginally less furious she would have blanched at the love and sorrow she saw in his eyes, but at that moment, nothing could stop her.
"You're not going alone!" she insisted, crossing her arms in front of her. He reached for her, but she pulled back, refusing to give in, refusing to let him pretend like he was the reasonable one in this situation.
"Ruth-" he tried again, and she could tell he was starting to get angry with her, but she honestly didn't care.
"She's my bloody daughter-"
"I will not lose you both!" Harry bellowed, and every eye on the Grid turned to focus on the pair of them. Ruth couldn't have cared less.
"What are you going to do, Harry? Order me to stay behind? Discipline me for insubordination?" She scoffed. "I'm dead, remember?"
"Ruth-"
She was determined not to let him speak.
"You're wasting time," she said flatly. "Let's go."