A/N: This is a bumper update for the holidays, with best wishes for a safe, happy and peaceful festive season to my readers and reviewers. I'll be taking a break over the next few weeks, but Malcolm will be back in 2015 to continue his story (as, despite all the best laid plans of mice and men, I haven't quite managed to stick to my stated goal of finishing this fic by the end of the year!) – Airgead
Once on the Grid, I go straight to the tech suite, shut the door, and work like an automaton for several hours. On one screen I keep an eye on email, noting that Harry, Juliet and Adam are going to yet another pointless meeting at Whitehall; on another, I compile data from the forensic team that is taking apart the Land Rover in which Colin was abducted. In a separate, quarantined environment, I'm running an analysis of the hard drive of Adam's laptop, looking for the worm that Miss Meyers must have used to obtain the decoy list of active field agents that I had loaded up yesterday at Adam's request. The program I'm using is one of Colin's; it seems only right that his brilliance should be working to bring his killers to justice. Although I'm not sure that I want justice to be meted out; revenge would be so much more satisfying. If I was physically capable, I would request to join Adam and Zaf in the field on this op, but I know that I would be more of a hindrance than a help, no matter how much I want to take matters into my own hands. All I can do is to fight them in my own way, with brains and technical proficiency and a burning desire to send the lot of them to meet their Maker, just as they dispatched Colin with no more thought than a gamekeeper wringing a wounded bird's neck; I have never been further from being the local vicar's shy, awkward son. I am a machine, I keep telling myself, feeling nothing and caring less. I'm just like a Cyberman, or a Dalek, or that robot in 2001: A Space Odyssey… Colin had loved that film, but I will never love anything, ever again, for loving inevitably leads to loss and loss leads to grief and grief leads to soul-destroying pain; so I think I will just be a machine, instead. A machine has no emotions, no feelings, no heart to be broken.
The computer examining Adam's hard drive begins to beep incessantly, demanding that I scan through reams of code as it scrolls onscreen. What I see there fills me first with disgust, then with contempt for the bony blonde traitoress from Six, for like Banquo's ghost, Colin accuses her from beyond the grave through his program. She has not only stolen critical operational information, she has used it to try to capture Jo and Rowan; it's only that Adam's sixth sense where these things are concerned had led him to run an elaborate double bluff, and feed her false information. If he hadn't, God only knows what would have happened to them. I had disliked Ros Meyers before, but I despise her now. I shut down that system, its task complete, and return to my main array, where Forensics have logged DNA and fingerprint evidence from the vehicle, absolute proof that Colin was not only an occupant, but from the sharply delineated digital images of his fingerprints on the upholstery, a very frightened one. What he must have been going through, to have left prints like that…I can't even begin to imagine. The now-familiar, hot, prickly sensation threatens at the back of my eyes, and I rub them hard, willing it away. I am a machine, and machines don't cry…
Just then, I hear the door slide open. "Hiya, Malcolm, how's it going?" Zaf says, and I shrug in response, not wanting to look at him until I have composed myself. He must be able to see my monitors from his vantage spot by the door, for he continues uncertainly, "Ah, you've seen it, then. The forensic evidence. Poor Colin, he must have been bricking it… I'm really sorry, mate." After a moment, I say quietly, "Colin's the only one who I didn't mind calling me that." There is an awkward silence; when Zaf speaks again, it is to tell me what he wants. "Um, so I'm about to head out to West Merton Air Traffic Control to pick up this Jensen bloke – he's meant to be starting a shift there shortly – so I need some stuff out of the cage." Sighing heavily, I get up. "Have you done the forms?" I ask, and Zaf treats me to one of his cheekiest grins. "Malcolm, when have I ever not done the forms?" he jokes as we walk down the corridor towards the tech storage cage. "More times than I care to count, actually," I tell him crisply, as I unlock the door and flip on the lights, to which he retorts, "Yeah, but I always do 'em in the end, right? And it's not like Adam's one to stand on ceremony. Whatever gets the job done, that's his style." He's correct, of course, but I'm not in a very accommodating mood today. Turning round to face him, I fold my arms across my chest. "No chit, no kit. You know the rules."
Zaf stares at me, unused to Malcolm the Machine. "You're serious," he says incredulously, and I nod. "I've had enough of people presuming on my good nature. If Adam had thought to clear it with me before he sent my junior officer into the field, Colin would still be here today, because I would never have allowed it, under the circumstances. So you'll forgive me if I've decided not to bend the rules just because a field officer expects it." Zaf looks at his watch, then back at me. "I don't have time for this, Malcolm, I've gotta run. I'll just have to make it up as I go, kit or no kit – but I'm good at doing that, winging it, unlike some." And then he's gone, jogging towards the pods. I step into the cage, thinking that while I'm here I'll do a spot check to see if anything's been taken without permission, and automatically I reach up to the shelf where the Tessina usually reposes in its box. By some miracle, it's still there, and I do a quick recce of the rest of the field gear, before being brought up short as I open the field gear register to sign off on my check. There, in the purple permanent ink he used for everything, is Colin's name, signature, and yesterday's date, against an entry to sign out the high-spec audio gear he would have used on his surveillance op, and suddenly, I'm no longer a machine, but a man who can be completely undone by a line scrawled with a bright purple marker. Oh, Colin…
This time, I let the tears fall, rolling down my great beak of a nose and sploshing onto the open pages, smearing the writing… it's very poor records management, but for now I'm beyond caring, as my shoulders shake and I lean against the sturdy metal shelves for support and all but strangle on my sobs as they force themselves past the great lump in my throat. I don't know how long I stand there, clutching the ledger to my chest, sobbing brokenly, but something – a small sound, or instinct – warns me that I am being observed, and I look up to see her standing outside the cage, watching me, her face unreadable, her fingers twining themselves together nervously. "Ruth." She blinks as I address her, and gives me a wan little smile. "I…I'll come back later, shall I?" She turns to leave, and cut to the quick at her casually callous behaviour, my grief descends into rage as I say, pitched almost too low to hear, "That's right, why don't you run away. Go on, ring Harry and tell him that his senior technical officer's having a breakdown in the storage cage, and get me packed off to Tring so that the pair of you can have a clear go of it without any inconvenient reminders of the past." Startled by the venom in my voice, she stops in her tracks, before spinning around and marching towards me, eyes blazing.
Wrapping her hands around the reinforced steel bars, she pulls hard, but the cage door is locked from the inside. "Is that really what you think of me?" she snarls, and I raise my shoulders in a devil-may-care gesture. "If the shoe fits…" Her knuckles turn white on the bars. "You're not thinking clearly, Malcolm. You're tired and you're grieving and we're in the middle of a huge op and you're imagining stuff happening where there's nothing going on." I glare at her from the other side of the door, and like the evils trapped within Pandora's box, all my ugliest thoughts and feelings suddenly claw their way free. "So I imagined all that…business…on the sofa last night? Even Zaf was dying of embarrassment, the way you were rubbing yourself against Harry and making eyes at him. Have you no sense of decorum, Ruth, no sense of propriety?" She is still looking daggers at me, but at my words a faint blush creeps up her neck and into her face, and recklessly I race on with, "So, did you go home with him last night? Did you finally have him, and was it as good as you've dreamed it would be, ever since you arrived here from GCHQ, playing the timid little mouse? Only you're not a mouse, are you, Ruth. You're a b…b…bitch, a stone-cold, utterly selfish, manipulative, heartless bitch who thinks that sleeping with the boss is still a viable career path. Well, let me tell you, there's a very long list of women before you who thought exactly that, and where are they all now? Not here, and not because they've been promoted. Some left the Service under a cloud, some got decommissioned in the field, one or two were transferred out of Section D, a few died. Each and every one of them thought exactly like you: poor Harry, he must be so lonely with all the responsibility he carries; he needs me, I'm the only one who understands him. And he goes along with it; he's still a field officer at heart, you see, and there's not a single female colleague that he didn't sleep with, back in the day, even when he was married to the woman who was raising his children. But I expect that infidelity won't bother you… after all, you were happy enough to sleep with me when you were mooning after him the whole time."
Not only her knuckles, but her whole face has now turned white. "That's not true, about him being unfaithful to his wife…Harry would never…" she murmurs, shocked, but my blood is up, and I cut across her self-delusional denial with, "Those are three little words that should never be spoken about Harry Pearce. Don't ever underestimate what he's capable of, while you're weaving your rose-coloured fantasies." Her right arm shoots through the bars as if to slap me, but I step out of reach. "Wake up, Ruth, before it's too late. That's all I'm going to say." She exhales sharply, before saying in the voice she might use with a fretful child, "I'm going to overlook all this, the name-calling, the offensive insinuations, and the lying, because we still have a huge amount of work to do on this op, and you're really not yourself at the moment, are you? Why don't you go down and see Dr Chapman; I'm sure she'd sign off on medical leave, considering the circumstances. But if you ever denigrate Harry again in my hearing, I might just feel compelled to report you to Internal Affairs. He's a good, decent, honourable man doing a very difficult job, and I won't hear a word against him." And with fanatical zeal shining from every pore, she stalks off.
After a minute or two, I let myself out of the cage and make my way back to the tech suite on unsteady legs, the adrenaline generated by the confrontation with Ruth draining away and leaving a great weariness in its place. I can hardly believe what my world has become in just one day: Colin murdered, being reduced to ugly scenes with Ruth, and all the while the country teeters between anarchy and a nameless, faceless menace that threatens to destroy our way of life. As I unlock my computer array, a multitude of alerts and messages flash onto the screens. Something has happened, something terrible... I triage the deluge of electronic information in a few seconds, before hastening onto the main floor of the Grid, where the first ripples of alarm are making themselves felt, people glancing at each other, then back at their screens; it is 17:37, and I have to tell them, before the live newsfeeds begin to roll with the story. I deploy my inhaler to try and relieve the tightness in my chest before addressing myself to the room in general, and the back of Ruth's head in particular. "We're getting reports. One of the cars returning from the meeting has been blown up." As I speak, Ruth whips round in her chair, with only one word, "Harry?" on her lips, and the two syllables are spoken as prayer, query, entreaty and declaration. I'm heartily sick of her monomania: what about the other five people in mortal danger?
Taking a deep breath for control, I answer her evenly with "No news yet." Her eyes are enormous in the dim light of the Grid, and she looks very pale as I turn on my heel and go back into the tech suite to glean through the torrent of data that will be pouring in by now from CCTV, from satellites, from Whitehall's own security systems, from the police and emergency services network, and, with any luck, from the targets themselves. This is where Colin and I would have worked as one, dealing with the mass of information, breaking it down, getting the gist of it in minutes; without him, I can only do what I can do. There are coded SMS messages onscreen from Adam and Harry – so at least they're alive – and then a 999 call is made from Harry's number, requesting an ambulance. Switching to the Whitehall CCTV system, I find that the cameras nearest the blast zone have been taken out, but one across the road is still functional, and is showing images that I never thought to see at the heart of our nation's government. One car is a huge fireball, doors blown off, burning with flames licking fifteen feet into the air; the other, pulled up some distance behind, is badly damaged from bonnet to windscreen, but the cabin is mostly intact. There might still be hope for them, then…
Hacking the network takes only a few seconds, and pulling back the camera's focus as far as possible, I finally spot Harry's unmistakable bulk, crouched on the grass next to a very still figure that is too slight to be Adam or the Cabinet Secretary; Harry seems to be stroking the figure's head, and I realise that it must be Juliet. At first, I think she is dead; but then she turns her head towards the sound of the approaching ambulance, and I breathe again, unaware that I have been holding my breath. I may not like Juliet, but I would never wish any harm on her, and I watch with concern as the green-clad paramedics slide a spinal board under her; her legs don't seem to be moving at all. I make the necessary call to St Thomas' to have Five's private ward opened in readiness for them, but Harry is waving the ambulance officers away irritably, so there can't be much wrong with him. Next, I scan for Adam, and find him near the second car, helping up the Home Secretary, who seems rather unsteady on his pins. I IM this to the team out on the Grid, and while I'm doing that, all hell breaks loose on screens three and four. Swearing under my breath, I switch these displays to my central monitors, and stare in disbelief at the real-time MoD satellite images showing two commercial airliners in deadly proximity, barely missing each other by metres in the sky over Central London, while reports of a terrorist detained at West Merton ATC begin to arrive. Zaf, I realise belatedly, had said he was going out there… gritting my teeth, I work feverishly to get on top of the onslaught of information; and as if I didn't have enough to be going on with, the six o'clock news on all channels is leading with the explosion in Whitehall, and there's not enough time to request that they show restraint in their reporting for reasons of national security.
When I do get hold of Zaf, he is uncharacteristically short with me. "Malcolm. Yeah, I'm all right. I'm coming in now. The police have got Jensen." He rings off, and I put the receiver down with a hand that has begun to tremble. It's just the adrenaline, I tell myself, not the primal workings of fear. These…people…will stop at nothing; not even at the mass murder of innocent civilians. Adam returns to the Grid and calls for an immediate briefing in the tech suite, where we are shielded from curious eyes and electronic eavesdroppers. "They would have crashed civilian planes over our capital city," I tell him; and even to my own ears, my voice sounds shocked, while Adam winces at the tone. I can't help myself, though, as I continue to enumerate their crimes. "They've murdered my best friend, they've crippled Juliet: what do they want so badly that requires this?" I really do want to know, for I can't put all of the pieces together in any sort of way that would make sense. It's all senseless, wanton destruction and evil for evil's sake; that's the only conclusion I can come to, but Adam has a different view. "Terror and chaos, to begin with, as a platform for seizing power," he begins, as a bruised and bloodied Zaf walks in; ignoring me, he goes straight to Adam.
"Well done, mate," the other man congratulates him, but Zaf is having none of it. "I just heard they've released Jensen," he says angrily, and Adam straightens up. "Yeah, he's obviously very well connected," he observes, as Zaf asks, "What's going on?" I answer him by adding another outrage to the list. "They've just finished putting out the flames on the Home Secretary's car in Whitehall, the Home Secretary, Adam!" He looks directly at me. "Yeah, I know. Be under no illusions, nothing and nobody's safe." Zaf snorts at this, massaging his neck. "Where's Harry?" he wants to know, and Ruth, who has until now sat silent and still on the other side of the tech suite, looks up at the mention of our boss's name. "Harry's in hospital, I mean, he's waiting in hospital, for Juliet…she's having surgery. On her back, or something…I'm not sure." And then she falls silent, staring into space with that glazed look in her eyes, the one that had filled me with such dread after Danny's death. Now, I merely hope that Adam has the nous to sort her out before she spirals into one of her strange states.
I stay on the Grid that night, unable to hand over the night shift to a trusted friend and colleague; besides, I'm worried about our firewalls, which have been increasingly under attack since all this began. Harry and Ruth leave very late, but within minutes of each other; she hasn't let him out of her sight since he came back from the hospital, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if his driver had pulled round to the front of Thames House, and collected her from the front steps. Not that I care, especially: in a way I hope they are going at each other like rabbits, for it will give Harry a sorely needed mid-operational distraction, and perhaps if she actually does the deed with the object of her affections, Ruth will begin to get over her ridiculous, adolescent infatuation with her boss. Harry Pearce is a highly stressed, overweight man in his late middle years, with hypertension and probably the beginnings of gout, if the way he's been limping lately is any indication. He's also a dangerously heavy drinker, so whatever she thinks might happen between them is unlikely to live up to her feverish imaginings... I mentally flinch from progressing any further down that particular path of thought, and focus once more on the requests for status updates that are coming in from our counterparts in Australia and Asia, already into tomorrow while the UK sleeps uneasily. The world is growing increasingly concerned by events in Britain, and I don't blame them.
Ruth is first back on the Grid, around five a.m., and from the look of her I can tell she hasn't yet gotten what she so desperately wants, for I know her morning-after face, the loose, relaxed way she moves, with a bit more swing to her hips than usual, very well indeed. Instead, she walks onto the Grid with her face set, taking short, impatient little steps. So it would seem that either Harry wasn't up to it, or that for once in his lecherous life he has decided not to sleep with a subordinate. Wonders will never cease… I wish desperately that I could talk to Colin, for keeping all this bottled up in my head is doing me no good. Without him, I'm becoming cynical, bitter, world-weary. I'm becoming like the rest of them; I feel very far removed from everything I hold dear, everything my father taught me. I'm not even sure I believe in a God who could allow such things to happen, who would stand by while my kind, generous, funny, brilliant friend was being hung from a tree and left to die horribly. Quite simply, I don't know who I am any more, and worse, I don't care. Next, I make a routine check on our secure email drop-boxes, and in the fifth one, I find it: a message saved in the Drafts folder from Ros Meyers, spook, turncoat, traitor.
Harry and Adam arrive together, and I watch from behind my screens as Ruth's eyes fix on Harry, pupils dilating while she tracks his every movement. He doesn't look in her direction, and if anything, there's a hint of irritation as he turns his back on her and focuses on what Adam's saying, something about the early morning editions of electronic and print media all running with stories designed to soften up the public with respect to the 'special measures' on terrorism that the Prime Minister is considering. All that will have to wait, though, as I inform Adam, "We've received a coded message for you. Ros Meyers wants to meet." I can't help wrinkling my nose with disgust as I say her name; the woman's rotten to the core, as far as I can make out. Harry seems to have no such qualms, though, as he instructs Adam to go and see her. He even seems to think she might have saved lives yesterday, but I'm willing to bet that she's saving nothing but her own skin. Ruth watches anxiously as her idol departs to meet with the Home Secretary; if she truly was a sheepdog, or a spaniel, her ears and tail would be drooping. Irritated at her inability to school her feelings where Harry is concerned, even though she had no difficulty in keeping our relationship completely clandestine, I take myself off to the alcove that Colin and I used to share, where a camp-bed is now more or less permanently installed. Dropping onto the narrow cot, I unlace my shoes, loosen my tie, slip off my suit jacket, and am out like a light almost before my head hits the pillow. I have been on duty for more than twenty-four hours, and I'm feeling decidedly odd from lack of sleep.
When I wake, Colin is sitting on the end of the cot, peering at me over his spectacles. "Wakey, wakey, hands off…" he grins, as I bolt upright in astonishment. "Colin!" I gasp, and the grin widens. "That's my name, don't wear it out." It's him, all right, the same puckish sense of humour, the same smile, the same intelligence shining in his eyes; yet something is different, and in a flash I know what it is. There's no sensation of weight coming from where he's parked himself near my feet. And the right lens in his spectacles is broken, the jagged pieces still held in place by the wire-rimmed frame. I wonder how this can be; he's usually so careful with his specs. "But…how…what…you're…" He shakes his head, "Are you actually going to finish a sentence, or what? I haven't got all day, you know: things to do, places to be, and most of them not here." This can't be happening, the rational part of my brain protests, even as my heart overflows with joy and relief at seeing him again. I reach out to touch him, but he holds up his hand to stop me. "No can do, I'm afraid." I stare at him, my mind struggling to make sense of an impossible situation. Seeing my perplexity, he adds, "The Doctor, at Bad Wolf Bay…it's a bit like that, now. Think of me as a holographic projection from a parallel universe, burning up the stars to come through to your world…it's kind of cool, really." I blink, but when I open my eyes, he's still there, and so I say it. "You're a ghost."
Impatience flickers across his face, the same look he'd get when he'd grasped a concept that the rest of the room was still struggling with. I'm not used to seeing it directed at me, though. "That's a very narrow interpretation of the data," he observes, "and besides, defining what I am isn't anywhere near as important as the fact that I am. Remember 'Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another'? Einstein, mate; it turns out he knows a thing or two." I can't help but smile at his use of the present tense, and then the smile widens into a grin, and then the grin becomes a chuckle, and then the chuckle threatens to bubble over into full-throated laughter, so overwhelmingly relieved am I to see him again. "Better not, or they'll bung you off to Tring," he warns, and so I swallow it, and it hurts almost as much as holding back tears. "It's so good to see you…I've missed you so much." He nods, "I know. That's the worst bit about all this, but it's necessary. All that friendship, all that love, it has to go somewhere, and so it becomes all the things you're feeling now. But everything in the universe is in a constant state of change, and things won't stay this way forever, Malcolm, you can trust me on that." He gives me the thumbs-up, and a wink.
The lump in my throat turns from laughter into something far more leaden, but I manage to ask, "Why are you here?" In reply, Colin looks, not just at me, but into me, with his warm brown eyes; I feel his presence so strongly, the hairs on the back of my neck begin to rise. He's so completely here, I can almost smell the Aramis aftershave he always wears. "Oh, you know me, I don't like leaving anything undone. Never put off for tomorrow what you can achieve today, and all that. And there's something else, something I can only ask my best mate to do. Would you go and see Jill? She doesn't know what's happened, and she's going out of her head with worry." I nod, too choked-up to speak, and he looks me directly in the eye. "Thanks, Malcolm, for everything. One more thing: Adam didn't send me on that obbo, I volunteered to go. I'd been keeping tabs on them for days, and no-one else knew exactly what to listen for. Don't blame him, and don't blame yourself, OK? I know you, always taking responsibility for everything and everyone, but it was my choice, and my decision." And then he begins to grow fainter: I can see through him to the doorway. "I've gotta go, mate," he adds unnecessarily, for he's fading by the second, "but if it's the last chance I'll get to say it, Malcolm Wynn-Jones, I l…"and he vanishes. Tears trickle down my face, and I put up a hand to wipe them away, only to encounter someone else's hand shaking my shoulder, hard. "Malcolm? Malcolm, wake up, Jo's gone and lost Rowan!" For a moment I think it must be Colin, but the eyes looking at me are not warm brown, but the greyish-blue of a cold Northern ocean: Ruth. Was all that just a dream, then? It felt so real…but it was all muddled up with the last Doctor Who episode I watched, and I've never seen Colin with broken spectacles. Grief and sleep deprivation can play the strangest tricks on the subconscious...
I don't know whether to laugh, or cry, or just go stark staring mad, but in the end I do what I've been trained to do, what I'm expected to do, what I must do: I get up, get dressed, and go into the tech suite to join the search for the Prime Minister's son. The Fledgling has flown the nest, and I for one have my suspicions as to what might have motivated him to behave so inconveniently, for love can be the most painful thing in the world, when it's unrequited. I triangulate the location of Rowan's mobile phone, for like all of his generation, he can't bear to be without it, and let Jo know that he's only a few miles down the road from the safe house. She soon reacquires the asset, sending me a message that decodes as Got him, thanks. I owe you one! Sitting back from my screens and looking about the dimly lit room, I am surprised to see one corner and several screens co-opted by Zaf, who informs me that he's coordinating an online effort to raise awareness of the political situation. He's seeded information on the web, and then used different social networking sites to 'build the buzz' as he terms it. "What is the current political situation?" I ask, and he glances up. "Oh, right. You weren't at the last briefing, because you were having a kip." His tone is neutral, but I sense the disapproval behind it.
Noting the black eye and other injuries he is sporting, I decide to ask someone else; just then, Adam walks in, and reads me into the situation in a few short sentences that leave me stunned, even as I pull up the BBC news and listen to the headlines. Zaf's efforts have not been in vain, for protestors are beginning to arrive in London, appalled at the idea that the Westminster system, honed over centuries as the finest example of democracy on the planet, is about to be signed away under the guise of 'special measures' for dealing with terrorism. If I wasn't so manifestly obliged to stay in Thames House and work, I'd be out there joining them, for what Adam has told me makes my blood run cold. My great-grandfather and grandfather fought for the right to retain our way of life in the two most terrible conflicts in history; surely the British people will not allow hollow men in grey suits to steal our hard-won freedom with a stroke of the Prime Minister's pen? The answer is, not if the people marching out of Waterloo Station and across Westminster, Waterloo and the Golden Jubilee bridges towards the Houses of Parliament have any say in the matter; but are there enough voices of dissent, or will they be dismissed as cranks and crackpots? Far worse, will they be seen as reactionaries and rebels, and dealt with accordingly? There are women and children, old age pensioners and veterans of the last World War on that march…surely they won't be harmed. I recollect Adam's warning, be under no illusions, nothing and no-one is safe, and a shiver runs up my spine.
The truth of these words comes home to roost when we receive word from his driver that heavily armed police – armed police, on the streets of London! – have stopped Harry's car in Parliament Square, and carted him off at gunpoint, citing a 'temporary detention order.' The sheer effrontery of such a bold move is breathtaking, and utterly terrifying: how certain of victory they must be, to snatch the Head of Counter-terrorism from his car in broad daylight and full view of the general public. Adam calls us together immediately and gives us the news; Ruth crumples into a chair, looking stricken. "We have to find him!" she insists, but Adam has other priorities, thankfully. "We have to stop this coup from taking place," he replies firmly, facing her across the table, "By doing that, we'll also help Harry." Standing behind Ruth, I can't see her expression as she realises that we will not be charging in like the Light Brigade to rescue Harry; I had deliberately moved towards the door when she sank into the chair, putting distance of every sort between us. Adam reels off orders around the room – Zaf is tasked with further digging into Meyers' financial background, and I am told to contact GCHQ to find out what's coming out of the newpapers. I leave with alacrity, for I can see Ruth's shoulders trembling, and I have no desire to see what happens next. Let Adam deal with it; it's his job to keep the team together and functioning at times like this. Harry's been in tighter corners than this, and lived to tell the tale, I tell myself as I head back to the tech suite and start calling people at GCHQ. Yes, but not by much, the most cynical part of my soul replies, not by much.
For once, GCHQ has earned its salt: they've intercepted a call from one of Millington's staff to the National Union of Journalists, and its contents are so electrifying, I grab a spare Bluetooth headset and trot towards the Grid in urgent search of our section chief. "Adam, the intercept from Ruth's contact at GCHQ – someone's got evidence that Millington knew about the planes in advance." I hand him the headset, and he loops it over his ear, listening to the intercept with rapt concentration. I've already heard it twice and verified the sources, so when Adam asks sharply, "Was this call made from a landline?" I have the answer. "It was made to the head of the NUJ chapel by one of Millington's journalists on the Chronicle." Adam frowns, "If we can hear this conversation, so can many others. We need to find that locker. Ruth!" he turns and calls into the Grid, and in seconds she is scampering to his side, eyes wild. "What? What is it? Oh my God, it's Harry, he's…"she exclaims breathlessly, and Adam places one finger on her lips before she can say any more. "Get hold of the architect's plans for the SportFirst Leisure Centre in Islington, would you? We're going to play hide and seek." Her eyes couldn't possibly get any bigger; they're like saucers, as she nods in confusion. "Good. Malcolm, d'you happen to have a spare earwig on you?" Smiling, I produce one from my pocket, and Adam inserts it as he leaves the Grid for the car-pool. Ruth watches him go, before turning to me.
"Islington?" she queries, nonplussed, and I decide to humour her. "He's looking for a disc that one of Millington's journalists apparently left there in a locker for safekeeping. Proof that they knew about the plot to crash those planes. So you'd better hop to it, the way Adam drives he's going to be there before you've even hacked the Council's website." She looks at me beseechingly, and I relent, not for her sake, but for Adam's; Ruth may be many things, but a born technophile, she is not. "OK, I'll hack you in, but then you're on your own. I really do have other things to do." It's the work of a few minutes to get into the Council's planning records; in a couple more, I'm accessing the leisure centre's CCTV system as a backup, and by the time I leave her to get on with it, Adam, as I had predicted, is calling already. As I'm about to walk away, she glances over her shoulder, and I stop, thinking that she has encountered another security layer to bypass; instead she quietly says, "Thank you, Malcolm," and for a heartbeat we're all right again, just like we were back in the beginning, before love and sex and secrets and Harry bloody Pearce and life itself came into the equation, and sent us spinning apart. "You're welcome," I answer her cautiously, and go back to my media enquiries before I can say anything else.
Adam doesn't find the disc; someone has beaten him to it, and so he decides to take a two-pronged approach, stepping up the anti-special measures agitprop by staging a scenario in which a baby-faced junior field officer is filmed as a protestor being roughed up and thrown into the back of a van by unidentified security forces. The video is then posted on as many sites and blogs as we can think of, and copies are sent to the media. Operation Phoenix, it's dubbed, in honour of the calf who survived the 2001 foot and mouth cull against all odds, but I'd like to think that there's a grander symbolism at work: British democracy, rising from the ashes, or so I most fervently hope. Miraculously, it works, and within hours, people are pouring into London, filling the streets around Whitehall, arriving on charter coaches and packing out the inter-city trains; it does my heart good to see what my countrymen are capable of, when sufficiently moved. "It looks like Phoenix has awoken Britain's affection for democracy," I comment, watching the BBC news coverage; Adam allows himself the smallest of smiles, before replying, "It's good, but it's not enough. We need to attack them from another flank."
The other part of Adam's plan involves Rowan, the ace up our sleeve. Initially, he had arranged for a driver and satellite phone to be delivered to their current location, a quiet little village just outside the M25; the car and phone get there all right, according to their GPS trackers, but Five's driver apparently does not. I'm keeping a watchful eye on Jo via CCTV as she waits with her charge near the local pub, and so it's quite a shock to see her attack the driver with capsaicin spray, haul him away from the vehicle, and commandeer the big black Lexus, before speeding away with Rowan in the back seat. As she leaves, she flicks her headlamps on and off briefly, just long enough for me to pick up the Morse message from the cameras along her route: P-I-S-T-E, I read, and then she turns the headlamps off. She's going off-piste, making her own way towards the goal of facilitating contact between the PM and his son. I don't know what she has in mind, but it's likely to be both surprising, and surprisingly effective.
What Jo does next stuns us all, as to our amazement, Rowan pops up onscreen, the star of his own media conference, against the background of the march. Using her contacts from college, she has engineered an exclusive interview with BBC News 24, in what is nothing less than a stroke of genius. This, after all, is the world she trained for and once aspired to join; journalism's loss, in this case, is very much the country's gain. Activity on the Grid pauses as we watch the broadcast. Rowan speaks well, and I think what a fine young man he is, a son any man would be proud of; Ruth, who has gnawed most of her fingernails to the quick since Harry's disappearance, chews absent-mindedly at her right thumb, and predicts that he'll be a politician like his father one day. Just as the interview ends, Adam's mobile begins to ring, and he glances up from the screen to say, "Ruth, Malcolm, get ready, whatever happens to the PM, we have to find Harry before they get the special measures." In the next breath, he answers, "Ros," walking away to find somewhere more private; I wish I could go with him. Anything would be better than having to witness the sudden light in Ruth's eyes at the sound of that name, or the excitement that suffuses her demeanour in an instant.
She takes a few steps towards the pods, as if she would go out and find him herself, and I am reminded of nothing so much as a dog that hears its owner's voice from afar as it waits, ears pricked, on the alert. Her whole body seems to be quivering with pent-up emotions as she watches Adam leave the Grid; sighing, I slope off to the tech suite. Ruth soon comes running after me, full of questions. "What does he want us to do? D'you think we'll be going with him? Where does he think Harry is?" Sitting down at my array, I hold up a hand to stop the flow of queries, then tick off the answers on my fingers. "He wants us, I presume, to use whatever leverage we have on Sir Jocelyn Meyers, because he's gone to bring Miss Meyers in from the cold. She seems to be the weak link in their conspiracy, so he's going to bring as much pressure to bear on her as he can. I'm certain that we will not be going to find Harry; he'll take Zaf and whichever other field officers he can round up. And he doesn't know where Harry is, that's why we need to get it out of Miss Meyers." Ruth nods breathlessly, "Right, right, of course. So we're…" Patiently, I add, "Going to play on every emotion, from as many angles as we can think of. Fortunately, we have plenty to work with, as you can see." I open a folder of images, and Ruth gasps, "From Russia with love, thank you very much, Vasily," as she takes a seat next to me. "So, what else have we got?"
Within the hour, we have constructed a damning narrative of Sir Jocelyn's business dealings, his financial history, and his extracurricular activities, and the best part is that it's all true. No fictionalising or fabricating is necessary; when Ruth has finished combing through the departures footage from Gatwick, and I've pulled together the most salient facts on a handful of carefully chosen passengers, we are ready. Out of respect for a fellow intelligence officer, no matter how traitorous, Adam is interrogating her in a briefing room on the Grid, instead of down in a concrete cell in the bowels of the building, where she so richly deserves to be. He begins with the passenger footage, taking her through the stories of those whose lives would have ended in tragedy if it hadn't been for us, and then he cues us to join him. "Are you familiar with your father's business dealings? Let's take a look at your claim that the cause is honourable, that it's acceptable for boys like William Turner to die for the good of the collective; that is the chorus you keep singing, right?"
Stony silence emanates from Miss Meyers as Ruth and I enter, ignoring her, getting our dossiers set up where she can see them. I hand Adam an A4 photograph, and he goes on, "So how come your father's cause is partly financed by a member of the Russian mafia." She looks at it, seemingly without recognition, so I say helpfully, "That's Misha Yelenkovic, ex-KGB hard man and robber baron, currently under investigation for looting Russia's natural assets." Adam continues, "Your father used to visit his dacha regularly, when he was ambassador. How'd you think your father got onto the highly secretive board of Gastream?" More stony silence follows, as Ruth says, "Mr Yelenkovic, through his front company, IProv holdings…" and there it is; Miss Stony Face glances up and away for the briefest of moments, but Adam catches it. "She's heard of it!" he murmurs to Ruth, who presses on. "…is still financing your father's noble mission; so, your father's a traitor in more ways than one." I chime in with, "After the terrorist attack on the gas pipeline, prices were hiked," and she snaps, "Brilliant, Einstein: because of supply problems." I don't mind the rudeness: it means we're getting to her, as Adam picks up the thread. "Strange timing for a huge ex-gratia payment to turn up in your father's account in the Cayman Islands from IProv Holdings, which has long been accused of having a representative on Gastream…now, who might that representative be, I wonder? Show her the paperwork," he instructs me. She looks at him, then dismissively at me. "Don't bother, you'll have forged it." Ruth tucks a strand of hair behind her ears, and proffers a number of photographs. "We obtained these from Vasily Ivanovich at the Russian embassy: they show your father with Misha Yelenkovic."
Miss Meyers replies coolly, "So? My father has had to deal with loads of unsavoury characters," with her nose in the air. It's time for the killer blow, and Adam delivers it. "Do you think we forged these?" he asks conversationally, picking out a couple of images from the sheaf Ruth has laid on the table. "It seems the parties at Misha's dacha did tend to get rather…wild," Ruth observes mildly, shuffling through scenes straight out of a particularly abandoned Bacchanalian orgy; by the sudden heat in my cheeks, I know I must be blushing. "Nothing there, really, to suggest your father was anxious to leave that particular party, or that particular girl. Hard to read "diplomatic duty" into them, isn't it? Or nobility of purpose? Wake up, Ros. This conspiracy has always been cheap and sordid. Your father was prepared to murder British citizens." Her composure is beginning to crack, and there is the beginning of doubt in her eyes, but she fights on. "It's not true, my father knew nothing about those planes. It was Millington and Collingwood." Adam leans across the table towards her, focusing his intensity in his voice. "Do you believe that? Do you really believe it was just them?" She says nothing, but her face gives her away, even as she strives to maintain her impassive expression. Adam gestures to Ruth and I, and we leave the room, our part in the interrogation over. Soon after, they leave together, and I exchange glances with Ruth: mine says, He's broken her, and hers, He'd better have, her whole body tense.
On the Grid, Zaf is monitoring the protest march, which is bigger by many thousands than we could have hoped for; so big, in fact, that he is more than pleased when we both sit down to assist. At first, things look peaceful enough, although the sheer numbers of police make me uneasy; so when Jo calls in on an unknown mobile phone that she must have lifted out of someone's pocket, reporting that the police are beginning to split up the march by forcing them into a side street, foreboding sweeps over me. Kettling, as it is known, is a tactic usually employed against rioting crowds, not peaceful protestors with prams and members of the Great Generation in wheelchairs, their service medals winking in the late afternoon light. "Where exactly are you?" Ruth asks, while I scan through the CCTV cameras in Whitehall, looking for her. But there are so many tall, blonde girls in checked shirts in the huge, densely packed crowd, I can't spot Jo among them. Ruth is on the phone with the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, who dines with Harry at his club; the man is ex-military, and is apparently refusing to listen to someone he deems as rank-and-file; I gather that he is asking for Harry, and when Ruth is unable to produce her boss, he hangs up on her. "Imbecile!" she hisses under her breath, punching in another number, her face fierce. I turn my attention back to my monitors and frown, wondering why the police have isolated so many groups all over the city: the march is effectively at a standstill, held at bay by faceless men in black body armour, carrying riot shields. "Adam? Adam, they're trying to break up and corner sections of the crowd. The armed police have been told the march may be a cover for a terror attack." She listens intently, and replies, "Yeah, who will find a way to kick-start a riot," and I realise that there must be agitators planted amongst the crowd. Even as she rings off, smoke bombs are fired into the penned-up crowds, and I watch in horror as people begin to panic. "Oh, no!" I exclaim, thinking, this is diabolical, there's no other word for it. Jo's called in again, looking for help, and Ruth does her best to talk her down. "Jo, just keep calm, there's rumours of a terrorist attack, but they are unfounded."
My strategic brain has kicked into gear now, and I'm analysing the situation, predicting their next move. "It's easier to mistake a protestor for a suicide bomber in smoke like this," I mutter, and Ruth looks up at my words. "My God!" she mouths silently, still on the phone with Jo, before reaching for her landline and redialling the Met. "I need to speak to the Commissioner immediately," she insists forcefully, "no excuses." The police are moving in on the crowds, beating their batons against their riot shields, and the sense of fear is palpable, even at this distance. I don't see where the first Molotov cocktail comes from, but my screens are suddenly filled with flames and a swirling vortex of movement as the police press the protestors even harder in a dozen kettles all over Whitehall's narrow streets. It's as if one of the more lurid medieval paintings of Hell has come to life before my eyes: there are women being bludgeoned to the ground, fire everywhere, devils in black attacking the innocent, people fleeing… Ruth is hanging onto her line to the Commissioner like a bulldog hanging onto a bone, and when she says, "Thank you!" triumphantly, we all look over to her. "The police have been told to stand down, the Prime Minister's called a halt to this," she announces, and in her headset, Jo screams, loud enough for me to hear, "Standing down?! Ruth, the police are going mad! People are throwing Molotovs, I don't know what's going on!"
Ruth calls Adam again, advising that the countermanding order from the PM is taking too long to filter through; he must tell her to keep trying the police, for she clicks her fingers to get my attention while continuing to speak with him, before holding up a jotter pad with several phone numbers scribbled on it. I understand immediately, and write them down; they belong to the various police commanders on the ground, and getting the message through to them directly is now our only hope of preventing a bloodbath. When Ruth finishes the call, she stands up, face like chalk, and gestures to Zaf. "You're to go immediately to this location… it's where they're holding Harry," she says shakily, handing him a slip of paper printed with GPS coordinates. He leaves at a dead run, and she sinks back onto her chair, staring straight ahead, until I say urgently, "A little help, here?" She shakes herself, picks up the handset, and the two of us wade into battle with the police command structure, who prove resistant to taking orders from anyone but their own kind, and unconvinced that there isn't, in fact, a terror attack taking place.
One by one we call the bronze commanders and their superiors, and one by one we have the same frustrating arguments. I finally get onto SO19, the crack armed police squad, and demand that they stand down now, even as on my screens the violence escalates until it's like something out of Bedlam. "For pity's sake, you could be about to fire on the Prime Minister's son!" I plead, and then I hear it through the roiling moil of sound: semi-automatic gunshots ring out in our headsets, which are now patched into Jo's mobile signal. Dear God, no…not Jo… I finally spot her, standing in a clearing in the crowd, while a young man lies bleeding on the ground and Rowan, the Prime Minister's son, kneels beside him, distraught. And then I see something so heartbreaking, so brave, so despairing, I can't bear to witness it, and yet I can't look away. A young woman in a blue cardigan, anguish etched on her face, is confronting a ring of armoured police holding firearms, staring them down, pushing the muzzles of the weapons aside with contempt; after a moment, the shocked crowd surges forward in solidarity with her. "Stand down, armed response, withdraw, repeat, withdraw," finally comes over my headset, and on my screens the police slowly begin to obey.
The sense of relief that engulfs me is overwhelming, but as I look up, I see that Ruth is no longer at her desk. Instinctively, I scan the Grid for her; she is standing at the doorway to Harry's office, and her face is buried in her hands. My heart plummets, and feeling as if I am moving in slow motion, I go to her, already hearing the appalling words in my head. "Ruth?" I say softly, touching her shoulder, and she spins round, her eyes shining with tears. "He's alive, Malcolm, he's alive!" she exults, and in her joy, she forgets herself so far as to hug me, tight and quick, before saying, "I've got to go and see him; he's on his way to St Thomas' now to be checked over, but isn't it the most wonderful thing you've ever heard?" And with that, she dances over to her desk, grabs her bag, and almost floats out of the pods, while I lean in the doorway to Harry's office, hands in my pockets, and silently watch her go, taking the tattered remnants of my love with her.
Two hours later, Harry steps back onto the almost deserted Grid, smelling of kerosene and with a dragging step, but his back is still straight and his head is still up as he makes his way towards his office. I have been waiting to see him alone, and here's my chance. I pick up a sheet of paper, and walk purposefully towards the inner sanctum. He looks up as I enter without knocking, and his expression alters from one of happy expectation to a guarded wariness. We both know the reason for the change, but neither of us acknowledges it, as he says, "Ah, Malcolm. You should get home," scrawling his signature at the bottom of a field report from Adam. "I'm organising Colin's memorial service, and I wondered if you would do a reading," I begin, with just enough steel in my voice to make him stop shuffling papers and look at me. I will not allow Colin to be forgotten or overlooked: I will not, I add mentally."Yes, of course. Anything in particular?" he enquires, in the same tone of voice that he might use to ask one's preference in whiskies, and I stare at him just long enough for him to shift uncomfortably in his plush executive chair. "His favourite book was The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. That wouldn't really be appropriate, so I thought maybe this." I hand him the sheet of paper, and he glances at it, reading the last line in his sonorous voice. "Comrades mine, and I in the midst, their memory ever to keep, for the dead I loved so well…"
"It's Walt Whitman," I add, and he nods, "Yes, that would be perfect, I think." I give him another long look, while I think about telling him that Colin hated poetry, but loved Monty Python, that he thought memorial services were for the living, rather than the dead, and that just this morning, he had sat on the end of my bed and talked to me… best not, I decide, unless I want a one-way ticket to Tring. It does remind me, though, and I pause at the door. "One other thing; let me be the one who breaks the news to his family, and to Jill." He gazes blankly at me, and I continue sharply, "His girlfriend. You signed the S24 form, remember? They'd only been together for a short time, but he said things were getting serious; as his best friend, I should be the one to talk to her. As for his family, I've known them for years. It will be better if I go and see them." Harry leans back in his chair, steeples his fingers, and regards me over them. At last he says, "Fine, but only if you tell them exactly what I authorise. No going off-piste, Malcolm, no true confessions, understood?" I raise my shoulders, then drop them. "Oh, absolutely. Whatever you say, Harry." It's as close to dumb insolence as I'm ever likely to get, and he studies me narrowly for a moment before dropping his eyes back to the pile of paperwork awaiting his attention, dismissing me without another word.
Emerging onto the empty Grid, I decide that it is indeed time to go home: debriefing won't start until tomorrow at the earliest, and I am more tired than I have ever been in my life, so tired, in fact, that I would gladly take a cab, if there were any to be found. There aren't, though, and so I make my way down to the garage to collect the Rover. Sliding inside, I nestle into the soft red leather upholstery of the driver's seat, and close my eyes, just for a moment… I'm so weary, I'm worn right down to the bone, as my Nain would have said. I must fall asleep, for the next thing I know, I'm being woken by the insistent buzzing of the mobile phone in my breast pocket. Flipping it open, I notice the time first – 23:35, I've been asleep for hours – and then the caller: Aunt Emily, at this time of night? "Hello?" I answer, and she sighs in relief. "You're all right, then. Such dreadful goings-on, and right in the middle of London; I don't know what the world's coming to!" Smiling into the handset, I assure her that I am indeed all right, and enquire after her health. "I'm fine, love, but your mother, that's another story." I almost respond with Tell me something new, but there's an edge in her voice I haven't heard before. "What's she done now?" I ask, and Aunt Emily hesitates, before explaining, "It's not her, exactly. It's more this chap she's been seeing; we've just watched him being bundled into a police car on Sky News, shouting about his rights, and now she's gone hysterical and locked herself in the downstairs loo." Staring straight ahead at the soothingly blank wall in front of me, I ask resignedly, "Are you sure it's the same man you saw bringing her home?" and my aunt assures me, "Yes, I'd know that voice anywhere. It's him."
No. Oh no, it can't be…
But deep inside, I know that it is.
"Funny', he intoned funereally, "how just when you think life can't possibly get any worse, it suddenly does."
A/N: The end quote is another of Marvin's from 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'; I suspect that Malcolm would really rather have a reading from Douglas Adams in honour of Colin, than any poem of Walt Whitman's, whose 'When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd' contains the line that Harry reads. Malcolm's Nain is his maternal, Welsh, grandmother.