A/N: My original plan was to cover the Havensworth summit in one chapter, but there's so much going on in this ep that I felt I wasn't going to do justice to it all, so here is Part the First of my take on 5.4. Enjoy, and Part II shouldn't be too much longer in the works...thanks, as always, to those faithful reviewers, and all the readers who are following this fic.

Addressing Africa Summit, Day 2

The heady aroma of freshly brewed espresso drifts into the tech suite at 6:28am, and my nostrils twitch in anticipation as Jo appears looking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, her short blonde hair still damp at the ends from her ablutions. "Good morning, Jo," I greet her, as with a little twinge of disappointment, I see that she is carrying only one coffee. Perhaps she just forgot, I tell myself, struggling not to yawn as she smiles, "Yes, it's lovely out today. I've just been for a run along the Embankment." Ah, to be young again… "So, let's do a handover, then it's your turn," she continues, and I frown, puzzled. "Erm, I'm really not much of a jogger," I begin, and she looks at me in confusion, before shaking her head, grinning. "Oh, no, I meant it's your turn to go and get some sleep. You've been on duty nearly round the clock, and I can take over now. The day staff will be in soon, too." She notices that I'm looking at her coffee, and her face colours slightly as she explains, "I didn't forget, Malcolm. Would I ever? But coffee and sleep don't go together, and you badly need some. Sleep, that is." Her eyes meet mine, and in them I see only kindness and good humour, her simplicity and directness a balm to my battered soul after the contorted confusion that is being with, or even around, Ruth. Why can't all women be like Jo, I wonder, straightforward and nice and not mysterious and moody? Aloud, I say, "Right, then. Here's the rundown…" as she pulls up a chair and settles in to listen, her face in her hands, concentrating intently as though utterly enraptured by surveillance reports and personnel movement logs. And perhaps she is, at that: she's certainly one of the best and most diligent recruits I've ever known.

Fifteen minutes later, after a hastily swallowed breakfast in the staff canteen, I'm standing under the hottest stream of water the Thames House plumbing can deliver, rolling my shoulders and easing my spine from side to side, trying to work out my aches and pains as the shower head splutters fitfully. I wish I was in my own well-appointed bathroom at home, instead of in this tiny chilly cubicle tucked away at the far end of the men's room. Giving up, I turn off the water and reach for the thin towel hanging on the back of the door. I'm meticulously drying in between my toes, hoping to avoid contracting a verruca or tinea, when I hear them. One voice that I recognise immediately, and the other, less familiar, but still known to me. "Are you sure?" says First Voice, and his companion rumbles, "Oh yes. No doubt about it. It was a jolly bad show, all that. Treason, you know. In my father's day he'd have been hung, or shot." First Voice persists, "Yes, but…" Rumbly Voice growls, "I'll thank you to remember who I am. If I say he's going away for twenty years, he is." First Voice drawls, "She's not going to like it at all," and there is a sort of malicious glee in the words. "She's damned lucky she's not joining him in there," Rumbly Voice retorts irritably, as two sets of footsteps fade away. I'm still hunched over my foot, propped on the tiny bench, and as the footfalls recede I come back to myself with a start, and hurry into my clothes, shivering, while my tired mind turns over what I've heard: what was the Director General doing in here, talking to Jools Siviter, and about Jocelyn Meyers, of all people? I'm still wondering about it as I fall asleep on the camp bed, with Jo's sleeping bag rolled up neatly underneath; my dreams are uneasy ones, filled with falling sensations and faceless dangers, and Colin, always Colin, his crooked smile gleaming at me in the dark.

I'm back on duty, if not feeling very refreshed, by two p.m., and Jo is pleased to see me. "Malcolm! It's been a pretty quiet day so far, the delegates have been in talks most of the time, they just spout endless rhetoric about forgiving debt and reducing tariffs and making medications more easily available, and all the while I know they don't mean any of it, and so does everyone else in the room. Zaf's had no luck getting into Fortress America, you'd think they're minting gold in there. I've emailed Ros and told her we have to find out what's on Styles' laptop no later than tonight – we know that the US is offering them cheap oil, but I think there's more to it than that. The US offers everyone cheap oil, it's their standard opening gambit, but Japan could get cheap oil direct from the Middle East. Ros is working on something for Styles now – she asked if you'd catalogued that ice hockey footage you wangled from Sky? And Ruth's asking for all the recordings from the negotiations, she wants to listen to them herself, don't know why because they're not actually saying anything, but…" "Jo, you're a marvel," I tell her, giving her shoulder an affectionate little pat as I walk past her chair and take my place; she tenses beneath my fingers, and when I sit down there's an unfocused look in her eyes that sends a shiver down my spine. "Everything all right?" I ask gently, and she blinks. "Sorry, a goose walked over my grave, that's all. Here, I've got the rundown for the five o'clock news from the Beeb, and Monsieur Becker and our little school outing to Havensworth is second from the top…" Her smile is blindingly bright, but a thought has started to niggle at me, just on the edges of consciousness...what if... before I can go any further along that path, Diaspora chooses that exact moment to fall over. Groaning, I slave the server running Diaspora to my terminal, and start the analytics that will allow me to find and repair the break. Jo and I work hard, and within minutes the tracker programme is back on line. Just as Jo had said, the delegates are all in the negotiating hall, on their final session for the day. Adam and Ms Meyers are talking in the main atrium of the hotel, Zaf is out the back with three other staff who are enjoying an illicit cigarette break, and Ruth is in the onsite operations centre.

As for Harry, he's out in the grounds, apparently making the most of his time away from Thames House with a member of the French delegation, a policy advisor called Veronique de Roussy, according to Diaspora. Harry's French had once been very good; he's probably just taking a turn around the lawn with this woman for the purpose of sharpening up his language skills, or pursuing some delicate diplomatic line of enquiry. Probably, but not necessarily… I switch to the CCTV system and maximise the window for the control centre, thinking to see Ruth sitting there: instead, I find an empty room, her mobile phone clearly visible on the desk. Hell's bells, where is she? I scan through the feeds fruitlessly; she is nowhere to be seen. I try again, using the external and satellite cameras as well, and yes, there she is, out on the terrace under the wisteria, from which vantage point she has an uninterrupted view of the grounds, and of Harry and his very attractive little French friend, talking by the hideously ugly fountain at the foot of the main walk. She stands stock-still, watching them, before turning back into the hotel, head down. From her staccato walk, I can tell that she's not happy. Well, and what does she expect? Harry's still Harry, and if she's decided she doesn't want him, then she can hardly be put out if he moves on. An ungenerous thought flickers through my mind, but I quickly squelch it, seeing the tight, unhappy lines of her face as she hunches down behind her monitor. I know only too well what it's like to long for someone, to wish that terrible yearning on anyone else. ''Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all', is, in my considered opinion, a highly overrated sentiment. Sighing, I pick up the negotiating hall camera feeds. "Everything OK over there?" Jo wants to know, and I give a little start – I had quite forgotten that I wasn't alone – and mumble, "Erm, er, yes, yes." She peers at me from across the top of her screens. "For a spook, you're a terrible liar, Malcolm." Well, quite… "I suppose that's why they never put me in the field," I joke weakly, and am rewarded by a sparkle in Jo's eyes. "Oh, was that why?" she banters, and I smile back, "That, and the fact that I'd stand out like a sore thumb in a terrorist cell." She laughs out loud at this, and I find myself chuckling along with her. "Oh, there's a message from Ros. She wants a DVD of the 1985 Stanley Cup final, formatted for Region 1 and sent out ASAP," Jo informs me, and I nod. "Right, I've got it here. Could you have it messengered, please?" I've been expecting this, after receiving a terse email from Ms Meyers yesterday, and I had spent part of last night embedding Spy-da spyware – one of Colin's best inventions – onto the disc. I slide the DVD case over to Jo, who rises gracefully from her chair, and is out the door in three long strides.

Thanks to the electronic blackout prevailing in the Americans' rooms, I have to rely on Ms Meyers' verbal intel, or what there is of it, much to my chagrin. Of course I could get through it, but I don't want to risk drawing the attention of a vigilant CIA operative; their counter-surveillance, unfortunately, is excellent. One hour and twenty-three minutes after Jo dispatches the DVD to Havensworth, Ms Meyers inveigles her way into Styles' suite, her mission to infect his laptop with our spyware. As hoped, Traynor Styles is the world's biggest, and most bored, Kansas City Flamers fan, and Ros has no difficulty in inducing him to view the DVD, which of course will only work on his American laptop. Shortly after, Spy-da starts uploading the contents of Styles' hard drive to Five's servers, as he goes online to check for e-mail; Colin had written Spy-da to be very fast, but even so, we only get about eighty percent of the files, plus the email inbox, before Styles logs off a couple of minutes later. Ruth downloads everything remotely as soon it's copied across to our servers, searching through folders for any sign of a major commercial transaction involving Japan. With Jo helping, it doesn't take Ruth and Adam long to discover that some of the files are corrupted, due to Styles going offline so precipitately, and others are password-protected. With that uncanny knack of hers for finding a scent to follow in a jumble of seemingly random bits of information, Ruth asks Jo for a list of Kansas City players. Colin's password decryption programme can run 10,000 data matches in five seconds, so it's literally the work of a moment before the right combination is identified.

"My God, Global Cordon," Adam mutters, still wearing his earwig, and my heart skips a beat: the American high-tech military inventory, or at least the bits of it that the US is willing to sell to friendly countries bordering other, less amicable nations. What on earth does Japan, a country whose armed forces are only for the purpose of self-defence, a nation bombed into pacifism by the horrific events at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, want with attack aircraft and other weapons? I wonder, taking a puff of my inhaler to dispel a sudden shortness of breath and tightness in my chest at the thought of a rearmed and resurgent Japan. The answer is, they don't: or, rather, they don't want it for long. They appear to have agreed to act as go-betweens for the US and Taiwan, which, while it makes a lot more sense, is no less alarming. Global Cordon is a classic US military strategy, one based in the Cold War, and one which has effectively turned the world's leading superpower into a rogue arms dealer. I wonder what Harry will say when he finds out that the American Trade Secretary is trading, all right, in weapons that the UK couldn't legally buy under the arms treaties we signed up to as part of the 'special relationship' we like to think exists with our cousins across the pond. Much as I would like to give this frankly frightening development my full attention, I can't: my job is not to bury myself in intel, but rather to collect and channel it to people like Ruth and the rest of the team at Havensworth, and there's still only Jo and I in the tech suite to monitor all the goings on there. "But…Taiwan, the only logical reason they would want anything like this is because of China!" Jo exclaims, scrolling through the Traynor files, and I realise that she's not paying attention to her half of the CCTV feeds; her journalist's instinct to follow the story is side-tracking her.

"If there's more to be done, I'm sure that Adam or Harry will tell us. Jo, we have to keep our minds on the job we've been tasked with." She looks at me contritely from behind her screens. "I'm sorry, it's just that sometimes we see and hear the most incredible stuff, things no one would believe, only they're real and they're scary and they're happening right now…" "I know, but that's all part of what we do, learning how to filter out the what-ifs and focus on operational objectives. Colin used to call it going down the rabbit hole, to that place where you shut everything else out and just concentrate on what's right in front of you, what you've been asked to do." Jo's big blue eyes hold mine steadily from across the room. "You really miss him, don't you?" she says softly, and I reply, even more softly, "Yes, I do, every day." She looks back at her array, and the room falls into silence; we're just two people alone with our thoughts and our ghosts. Comrades mine, and me in the midst… oh, Colin. You're in every bit of technology and every line of code in this place, there's nothing that doesn't speak to me of you. It's almost unbearable, except that the alternative would mean leaving everything we worked on together, everything you created, behind. I'm not ready to do that yet, not ready to leave what has become a vast electronic mausoleum to your memory…

"Malcolm? Harry's called an urgent briefing. Come on!" And Jo's out the door and halfway down the corridor to the conference room before I've locked my screens. I find a night worker on the Grid, a junior analyst who's been drafted in to sift through the mass of intel being gathered at Havensworth, and despatch him to the tech suite to keep an eye on things while Jo and I are in our meeting, then hasten to join her. It is just after nine-thirty p.m., and the faces looking back at us from the hotel suite are showing signs of fatigue. Ruth, inexplicably, is still wearing the same clothes as she had on yesterday, and looks decidedly dishevelled, with black circles beneath her eyes and her complexion grey-tinged with weariness; normally she's fastidious about her grooming and personal appearance. Harry, standing next to her, has undone the top two buttons of his shirt and loosened his tie; for her part, she sits as still as a mouse when it feels the hawk's shadow pass overhead, staring fixedly at her monitor. Nothing's been resolved there, then. Adam looks decent enough in his suit, but I recognise from the way he is pacing the room as he speaks that he is both worried about the Global Cordon development, and very tired. Zaf isn't looking too bad, but he takes care to keep his left side off-camera, presumably because the girl he has been canoodling with in dark corners has left him with some rather too obvious mementoes on his neck. Jo ignores him pointedly, and focuses on Adam.

Ros is the only one who isn't showing signs of wear, but that's because she is actually an alien in disguise: this, I have decided, is the only possible explanation for her casual cruelty and constant coldness towards the rest of Section D, and for all I know, the rest of the world too. Standing at the end of the conference table, Jo and I absorb what Adam is saying. "The Prime Minister called the White House at 9 o'clock this evening, threatening to expose Global Cordon if the Americans don't sign tomorrow, causing the summit to collapse. The White House is apparently considering its response." Yes, I just bet they are. Let's hope they're not too long in coming to the same conclusion that we've reached, and acting accordingly. Harry adds, "We have no idea if or when Washington will call Styles, so let's monitor all incoming calls." With that, I recognise my cue to get back to work; Harry says, as I leave the room, "Well done everyone, we've done everything we can." Yes, but will it be enough? I wonder, as I make my way back to the Grid. Harry's last instruction to me causes quite a bit of bother, as we have to do the paperwork sanctioning the tapping of phone lines and get it signed off by the Home Secretary before I can get to work. Finally it's all done, and Jo, who is taking the graveyard shift tonight, chases me away. "Go home, Malcolm, don't you have a mother who'll be wondering where you are? God knows mine does, and I haven't lived with her since I left for uni." She settles herself at the desk, a console like the command interface of a starship before her, several cans of Red Bull at the ready. "Erm, no, Mother's away at present, so I'll stay here again tonight. If anything happens, you must wake me immediately. I won't mind." Jo rolls her eyes, smiling. "You're the biggest mother hen I know. Go and have a kip; I'll mind the fort."

Addressing Africa Summit, Day 3

Several hours later, I'm back in the tech suite, taking over from a red-eyed Jo. "Don't politicians ever need to sleep? Or are they actually some strange subspecies of vampire?" she quips, rolling her chair back and standing up slowly, pushing her knuckles into the small of her back and groaning as she rubs at the knots accumulated from a night on duty. "There were no less than three different parties last night – actually, the one in the Russian suite is still going strong – and as for people sneaking into each other's rooms, it's worse than Freshers Week. I've logged it all. Who was with whom, that is, not what they were doing with each other. Ros and Adam have sent through a couple of housekeeping requests, which I've forwarded to you. Oh, and there was a call from Washington to Styles at 0400 GMT, on an encrypted line of course, so we couldn't listen in, but I let Adam know. He thinks it could be the Americans, backing down." She picks up the dustbin, sweeps her Red Bull empties into it, and suppressing an enormous yawn, heads off for a quick bite and an even quicker shower. This is always the hardest time, the third day into a major operation, when the physical and mental exhaustion has begun to mount up, but there's still so much to be done.

Rubbing my eyes wearily, I peer at my screens, checking the various CCTV feeds, before turning my attention to my encrypted email inbox. Adam has been up all night, it seems, if the timestamps on his messages are anything to go by. I worry about him spending so much time away from his little boy, even though the nanny Ruth has hired is, by all accounts, both competent and reliable. Outside his work, Wes is Adam's world now, and I'm not convinced that our esteemed team leader is anywhere near as together emotionally as he would like us to believe. It takes one to know one, after all… Sighing, I look at Diaspora to check everyone's whereabouts, before maximising the window containing the CCTV feed for the central atrium of the hotel, and picking up Adam on the mezzanine floor, in conversation with none other than President Manu Buffong of Guadec. He certainly is moving in all the best circles, this week…come on, Wynn-Jones, focus… Through his earwig, I listen to him talking with Buffong, a small, genial man with an appealing sense of optimism and a wide smile, even as I email Ms Meyers at the concierge desk to let her know that the Japanese delegation is presently in Lift 3 and headed to the negotiation hall. "Did I miss anything?" Jo asks, slipping into her seat and picking up her headset. Frowning, I rebuke her gently, "Not really; they're all in the room and ready to sign, and you're still meant to be on a break," to which she replies, shrugging, "You know what they say, no rest for the wicked… oh, here's a message from Six… hell's bells!" Before I'm aware of what she's doing, Jo has red-called the field team, something which is done only if there is imminent danger; in the next second, she's on her feet and headed for the secure video link in the conference room. On CCTV, Harry trundles purposefully towards the operation centre, his face like thunder.

As soon as I find someone on the Grid to monitor the tech suite, I join Jo, just as Adam explains to Harry that she is being patched in. "MI6 have been conducting routine surveillance of all domestic politicians in countries attending Havensworth. They've recorded a conversation in the home of Solomon Kabate, a leading opposition politician in West Monrassa." Adam notes, "That's Gabriel Sekoa's country." Jo plays the recording embedded in the file from Six: We should prepare for an immediate seizure of power. If the Havensworth Operation is successful, with Sekoa dead there will be no way to stop us. "The Havensworth Operation?" Harry muses, as Adam asks, "What reason would they have for killing Sekoa? He's the future." Harry growls, "There may be certain people in Africa who don't want the future." Ruth wonders aloud, "But wh…why kill him here?"

Ms Meyers flicks a contemptuous glance in her direction, nose wrinkling slightly, before saying in excellent French, "Pour encourager les autres. Maximum publicity for the assassination will ensure that no African president ever lifts his head above the parapet again." I can't fault her logic, much as I dislike her as a person. Adam begins to issue instructions: Ruth is to contact Six and ask them to find Kabate and find out what he knows, and at the same time authorise them to round up all West Monrassan dissidents currently in the UK, but Harry baulks at this. "That's not possible, word would get out that something was wrong. That's just what James Allan doesn't want. This could be a hoax, aimed at stalling the agreement." Adam counters with, "OK then, let's screen all staff, interpreters, NGO's, press, anyone within the complex." Jo speaks up, indignation evident in her voice, "We've done it." Adam replies sharply, picking up on her tone, "Do it again. Check for any connection to West Monrassa." Ah yes, Day Three, and everyone's getting cranky tired, as Colin would have said… Harry wraps up the video conference, giving his trademark terse orders. "Let's call a recess. I'll talk to James Allan. Adam, you talk to Sekoa." Jo leans forward and switches off the VC system. "I can't believe Adam wants us to go through all that stuff again. Does he have any idea how long that's going to take?" I give her a wry half-smile as I straighten up from where we've been leaning against the end of the conference table. "About three hours, if you start now. Come on, I'll give you a hand."

Working together, we complete the re-checks in considerably less time than I had predicted, feeding the information through to Ruth, who is liaising with Six's Africa bureau for any connections to West Monrassa, amongst other things. She's been busy going through the hundreds of files Spy-da managed to pull off Styles' laptop, by the look of the server usage reports in a small window on the lower right hand side of my main screen. She had looked exhausted during the video conference, with great dark shadows beneath her eyes, her hair hanging lankly around her face and still, inexplicably, wearing the same clothes she arrived at Havensworth in, two nights ago. There had been, too, a certain tension in the way she had been sitting, flinching away as Harry had passed behind her chair. Harry had shown no signs of discomfort, but then he wouldn't; he's a past master at dissembling. Whatever is, or isn't, between them, is none of my business, of course, and yet, I can't help but feel concerned, seeing Ruth's eyes huge and glassy in a face drawn with exhaustion, and her shoulders hunched defensively. Oh, Ruth… Shaking my head to prevent such unwanted thoughts settling in my weary mind, I look once more at the metadata Spy-da pulled from Styles' laptop, trying to find patterns or connections that may give a clue as to what the Americans are up to under the cover of the summit. Everyone's got an angle, as Colin used to say, and a spook's job is to find and exploit these weaknesses. This time, it's Ruth who finds it, and I mentally tune back in to the audio feed in my left ear when I hear her say, "I think there's a connection between Styles and the assassination." I don't have visuals on the operation centre where Ruth is working, but there's something about her voice, pitched low, yet with a shiver of suppressed excitement in its timbre that tells me she must be talking to Harry, back from his chat with the Foreign Secretary, and a cursory glance at Diaspora confirms this supposition.

For his part, Harry seems unbothered, keeping Ruth waiting while he takes a call, before enquiring briskly, "What connection?" She replies, "I've been going through Traynor Styles' files to see if there's any other connections to Taiwan: there aren't, but there is a file on West Monrassa…" and as soon as she says this, I realise where she's headed: this is one of the corrupted files, and my heart sinks when Harry asks, "What does it say?" Sighing, Ruth explains, "It hadn't finished downloading when Styles logged off. We need to get into the West Monrassa file; we need Styles to go back online so that we can complete the download." As always when there's a technical issue, I can't help but feel responsible, even though I recognise that Styles choosing to log off his laptop so precipitately was out of my control. If only I had looked at the Spy-da programme before this op, perhaps I could have optimised it, made it faster, or its algorithms more intuitive… but in my innermost heart, I know that Colin's spyware is as close to technically perfect as it's possible to come. Turning my attention back to the chatter in my headset, I hear Harry saying that Kabate has gone AWOL and Six can't find him. We need to meet, now. Diaspora shows that he is calling Adam's mobile, and I see a chance to redeem the technical side of this operation, if only I can do what Six hasn't been able to. Closing my eyes, I rub at my throbbing temples, willing the weariness and tension away. "Are you OK, Malcolm?" Jo asks solicitously, and I nod, before beginning to enter the long strings of code that will enable me to access all flight arrival information for the last month. Once into the records, I use a cascading search to find Kabate's name, and within minutes, I'm feeding it all to Ruth via her earwig, for her to relay to Harry, who is still talking to Adam. "Styles and Sekoa are involved in negotiations connected with Global Cordon, we're trying to get the file."

I switch my primary AV feed to the operation centre just in time to see Ruth waving a manila folder at Harry, trying to get his attention. My dear, if only you'd taken the time to change your clothes and wash your hair, you'd have no trouble catching his eye, I think cynically, even as she finally succeeds. "Harry, Solomon Kabate flew here for one night last week. Now, he arrived at Gatwick on the Sunday evening, then he travelled in to Victoria." I push CCTV footage to her laptop, still talking briskly into her ear. "This is him entering Stripes wine bar, just outside the station." Ruth parrots my words, and Adam frowns, "He came all the way from West Africa just to meet somebody in a wine bar?" Oh, but that's not the most important thing, Adam... "The thing is, he never came back out again. Three hours later, we have footage of him back at Gatwick, flying home." That should pique his interest, and it does. "Call the bar," he instructs her, and just as she does, Jo pipes up with, "Styles is going online! I'm downloading the Sekoa file…"while in my other ear, Ruth burbles on to the wine bar about her husband having an affair and her following him to the bar one Sunday night, until I turn down the audio feed in order to concentrate fully on the Sekoa file; and what a frightening file it is. "Agent? What the hell's that?" says Adam, peering over Ruth's shoulder at the screen. Harry growls, "I dread to think. What is clear is that Sekoa is being nurtured as the first line of defence against the Islamic threat in Central Africa." Adam questions, "Is that why someone's trying to kill him?" Underneath their conversation, I can just barely hear Ruth, in full bunny-boiler mode, as Colin might have said, rolling his eyes to indicate that he was joking… just. "Could he have left through a fire exit at the back? Oh, only if he was with a member of staff? Do you use agency staff? What agency?" The manager of Stripes must be very docile indeed, to obligingly answer all these questions from a slightly manic-sounding female; or maybe it's par for the course, in their line of work, I muse, as I drop Ruth's audio feed and tune into Adam's, waiting for my next instructions.

I don't have to wait very long, for Ruth has confirmed that the same staff agency supplies both Stripes, and Havensworth, and I send an SMS to all agency staff, calling them into the staffroom for an urgent briefing. I count them in, all twenty-five, on Diaspora. When they're all assembled, Ros haughtily informs them that their service is complete; they are to leave on the coach waiting downstairs immediately. She adds that they will be paid an additional day's wages in lieu of notice, and they troop out happily enough at this. Someone who shouldn't have has managed to pass even our rigorous vetting, so clearing out the entire batch of staff is the only feasible solution. Zaf goes with them, still undercover as a waiter. Once the coach has passed through the heavily-guarded main gates, Jo draws my attention to the negotiating hall, where the Foreign Secretary is announcing that they have reached a consensus; the Havensworth agreement will be signed by all parties at a specially arranged press conference this afternoon, in direct contravention of Harry's explicit instructions. Politicians...they're all alike, all desperate for attention, living for the next media moment in the relentless, senseless 24-hour news cycle. Harry is evidently of the same mind, for he says a very bad word in reference to the Foreign Secretary's overweening ambition to get his face in the national press one way or another. Of course, the man is positioning himself as Prime Ministerial material, now that the incumbent has announced he will not run again; but to fly in the face of security advice from the head of Counter-terrorism himself is an act of extraordinary hubris. Adam looks up from his screen in the operation centre. "I thought you told him…" he begins, perturbed, and Harry snarls, "I did," before stalking out, doubtless to upbraid James Allan, for all the good it is likely to do; the man's insufferably smug and self-satisfied, in my opinion, and far too fond of the limelight, as are most of his ilk.

Whatever Harry tells the Foreign Secretary, it's not enough to deter him from the delights of holding a full press conference: by the time the five o'clock BBC news bulletin goes to air, the Havensworth agreement is the lead story, and James Allan's toothy grin is being beamed into sitting rooms around the nation, and the world. Jo and I stop for a moment to watch the headlines; just as the live coverage rolls and the news reader announces that the agreement is about to be signed, something catches my eye, something that makes me uneasy, a feeling that increases by the second; and then, I know what it is. "Jo, could you please have another look at the Diaspora records from the staff switch-out?" I rewind the newscast, pause, and zoom in, peering closely at a small figure in the background, hovering around the edges of the crowded media centre. What on earth is she doing there? I thought she was… Jo, simultaneously reviewing data from Diaspora and CCTV, confirms my unvoiced suspicions: Diaspora is far from foolproof. "Call Adam," I tell her, "Call him now." She glances at me over the top of her screens, "But don't you want to let him know yourself? I mean, you spotted it first." I shake my head, gesturing to her to make the call. "No, no, you should be the one to tell him." She flashes a dazzlingly bright smile of thanks at me; pleased, I return to watching the newscast. Well, and why shouldn't she win a few Brownie points? She's a young woman in a notoriously tough profession, and heaven knows I've got nothing further to prove, after more than fifteen years as the resident geek. Besides, I'll be busy enough sorting out the glitches in Diaspora… typical of Six to fob their bright ideas off onto us to do the beta testing for them, without so much as a 'by your leave'…

Adam picks up on the second ring, and with the call routed to my earpiece as well, Jo launches in with, "We've been looking at the staff swap in Diaspora and there's something I don't like – two phones seem to walk all the way together from the third floor corridor to the coach." I can almost hear the frown in Adam's voice as he queries, "Friends?" I join in, "No, too close for that, I suspect the phones may be on the same person, which would mean someone is missing." "Who?" Adam demands, and Jo reassures him, "I'm about to find out," as she scrolls through Diaspora. The line crackles slightly, and Zaf's voice breaks in, sounding slightly less casual than usual as he speaks to Adam. "I've just got off the coach, with the agency staff, and the waitress I met earlier, she's not here." Adam interrupts abruptly, "Name?" and Zaf answers almost as brusquely, "Michelle Lopez." "Hang on," Adam instructs the field officer, before turning his attention back to Jo, who confirms the phones belong to Sophie Brewster and Michelle Lopez. As they talk, I rapidly review the internal CCTV footage from Havensworth, focusing on the few minutes before and after the staff swap, until I find what I'm looking for.

"Adam, she made the switch on the second floor," I inform him, the exact moment when Miss Lopez slips her phone into Sophie Brewster's rucksack frozen in black and white on my monitor. Adam's response is instinctive and immediate: he sends Zaf to check the staff quarters and Ros to stop waiter and bar staff entering the media centre, and seal off the main building. "Get CCTV for every face," he tells me, and my fingers fly over the keyboard as I obey, opening dozens of thumbnail-sized windows on my main monitor, each showing a different feed from the hotel. In the process, I see that Adam is talking intently to President Sekoa, on the stage that has been erected for the press conference, and Zaf, racing through the second floor corridors until he turns into the Ladies', where neither the law, nor my conscience, will permit hidden video cameras. He's talking to Jo, who responds, "Patching you in now," as she transmits his call on the field ops frequency for all of us to hear. "She's not in her waitress uniform, repeat, she's not in her waitress uniform," Zaf says urgently, and almost at the same second, both Adam and I spot Lopez in the media crush; she is working her way to the front of the room, where President Sekoa poses for a photo-call, standing on the podium with President Buffong and the odious Allan, grinning broadly. My God, she's got a gun… No sooner has this thought flashed into my brain, than it's all over: Adam reaches her, arresting and disarming her in a single, efficient movement, aided by Ms Meyers, who causes a distraction by knocking a heavy silver tray to the floor. I doubt that anyone in the room even knows what's happening, as he hustles her through a convenient side door.

Letting out the breath I hadn't realised I was holding until my lungs began to protest, I retrieve the Michelle Lopez file. There's work to be done, and I'm not the only one who's thinking along these lines: a few minutes later, Ruth IMs me, and we start the process of reassessing everything in the file. It doesn't take us long to determine that it's a legend, given what we now know, and I start to go through the immigration records of all young women arriving from West Monrassa in 1994, looking for our detainee's true identity. There aren't all that many, and of those few, one stands out from the rest, her background so tragic, her circumstances so unusual that she must be the one: her name is Baptiste Kadala.

While I'm still skimming through the file, Ruth calls me, her voice tight with urgency. "Malcolm, Adam's just come from interrogating Michelle, or Baptiste, or whatever her name is, and she's given him the details of what she believes will be an act of genocide against the people of the North of her country. She says that Sekoa will get away with it as he is now an African hero with respect and recognition from the West." Just then, Adam's voice breaks in; he wants to contact Styles directly. "We'll need to hack into Styles' secure messenger service – it's tricky to pull off but it should be OK if I can analyse the codes from the last downloads in time…" I tell him, and he snaps, "Malcolm, can you do it?", strain evident in his voice. In my most professional tones, I say, "Give me ten minutes," even though I only need five; it's always good, when about to attempt something tricky, to manage expectations. Under-promise and over-deliver, the techie's mantra. Taking a deep breath to try and release the growing tightness in my chest, I close my eyes, gathering my faculties for one of the hardest hacks in the world: breaking into the NSA, and the secure messenger service of the President of the United States of America. "Malcolm?" Adam's voice barks impatiently into my earpiece. My eyes snap open, and with a tiny prayer for success, I begin.

The Almighty answers my silent plea: four minutes and fifty-one seconds later, I'm accessing the Presidential account, which operates under the alias of 'Headhorse'. "I'm in," I advise Adam, and with a few more clicks I remotely share my screen with him. From there on, we perform an odd duet; Adam telling me what to send, my fingers doing his bidding, both of us barely breathing as we try not to think about the enormity of what we are doing. We learn that Sekoa has a deal with Styles for Global Cordon materiel, including planes and biological warfare agents, and Adam, thinking aloud, reasons it out. Sekoa is going to use this against his own people, and no one will touch him – not the Americans due to Global Cordon, and not us, because of his Havensworth connections. From her desk in the operations centre, Ruth pipes up, "James Allan will want proof," but Adam leaves the room at a dead run. In his wake I can hear Harry shouting after him, "Adam. ADAM!" Oh dear, he's got the bit well and truly between his teeth… but what he does next is sheer recklessness, even by his standards.

I'm following him via the CCTV when he bursts into the drawing room where Sekoa is talking with his aides, and because we're still linked through the operational comms frequency, I find myself listening as Adam lays out Miss Kadala's allegations to Sekoa, who unsurprisingly denies everything in an unctuous voice. From what I can only assume must be a mixture of exhaustion and frustration, Adam oversteps the mark: he mentions Global Cordon, and I see Sekoa's eyes flare wide in surprise for a heartbeat, before his face clouds over and he glares threateningly at my impetuous colleague. Adam meets this forbidding gaze with a disarmingly bland smile, and my blood chills at the sight, for this is the aspect of Adam that worries me most, what Jo calls his 'crazy-brave' side; it's as if he has no regard for his own life at times like this, and sometimes, I think that it's only that he has Wes waiting at home that stops him from going right over the edge, and joining Fiona. Colin once compared him to a character played by Mel Gibson in a film called Lethal Weapon. I'd not seen it, so he had explained the allusion, and then I had understood; a man who has lost what he most holds dear in the world is a man who is capable of doing almost anything. For the present, though, Adam seems only to have brought wrath of a diplomatic sort on himself. Sekoa, followed by his aides, stalks out of the room, and within half an hour, the Foreign Secretary is telling Harry that Sekoa has filed a complaint of harassment. I listen with horrified fascination as everything the three men say is transmitted directly into my earpiece. They might be meeting outside, but it's not totally safe from surveillance, as Harry and Adam well know. The Foreign Secretary, though, may not be quite as smart as he thinks he is. What, I wonder, are those two up to?

"Sekoa is planning a genocide against his own people," Adam begins, and Allan immediately asks, "Do you have any proof of that?" Adam returns passionately, "You're letting him get away with mass murder!" The Foreign Secretary drawls, "So what if I am? Our PM told me to get a high-profile deal at this summit. I have a deal, and you are not stopping it." Harry enquires mildly, "Is that what Havensworth is about, Foreign Secretary?" and I realise that he is baiting the other man, as Allan reacts beautifully, nearly shouting, "Damn right that's what it's about! Do you think this summit is actually going to change Africa? Dream on. That continent is nothing but an economic albatross around our necks, a continent of genocidal maniacs living in the dark ages. Havensworth is about garnering a bit of decent PR, getting ageing rock stars off our back and granting the opportunity to give our Prime Minister a decent send-off." And there it is, the truth in all its ugly cynicism and political expediency, but Adam is still not satisfied. "As well as putting yourself in the front line to take over?" he ripostes, and with that he goes too far; furious, Allan orders Harry to disband the MI5 presence at Havensworth forthwith, and the next image from the satellite camera shows him stalking off across the lawn. Well, that's torn it. Nicely done, Adam. I'm not aware I'm speaking aloud, so tired am I, until Jo says softly, "Adam knows what he's doing, even if it doesn't always seem like it." I look over at her, at those big blue eyes shining with her belief in her leader, so young, still untouched by the murky realities of the world we live in, and my heart lifts a little at the sight.

Was I ever so innocent, I wonder, and then I remember my life before Five, before Ruth, and I know that I was, although it feels like centuries ago. Out of the blue, I'm filled with longing for my father's gentle voice and wise counsel, and for the rolling green hills that we used to walk over together, in that long-ago and far-away time. Everything was so much simpler, then… "I think I'll just stretch my legs for a moment," I tell Jo, and she nods. "You haven't been out of this room all day. Go on, I'll be fine, and you look like you could do with a break." I give her a wan half smile in return, and get up, groaning at the knots and sorenesses that have accumulated over the course of the day. I make it as far as the Obelisk on the Embankment, before the hard lump in my throat and the hot, prickling sensation behind my eyes warn me that I am dangerously close to tears. Wobbly-kneed, I sink down onto a nearby bench, alone and unnoticed by the people hurrying home, or heading across the river to the National Theatre and the restaurants along the South Bank. I don't know what's come over me, but I had better pull myself together smartly, or I'll find myself back at Tring, whether I like it or not. Sniffling into my handkerchief like a small boy who's skinned his knee, I try to sort through my roiling emotions, looking for the cause of this outbreak, and come up against something unexpected: the look on Ruth's face as she slipped out of the media centre earlier. There had been such raw pain in her face as she had sought for Harry in the crowd, such longing, such hopeless yearning, but at the time I had been more concerned with wondering how she had come to be there, when Diaspora clearly showed her in the operations centre. She had finally caught sight of him, although he hadn't noticed her; and she had made her way from the room, head bowed and shoulders hunched, the very picture of despair.

I can't erase the memory of Ruth's unhappiness from my mind, despite everything that's passed between us, and it seems that witnessing the resignation in her eyes as she had gazed at Harry from afar has awakened an answering sense of loss in my own soul. Father, Colin, Danny, Fiona, and so many others: and most of all, the life that I might have had, before I wakened from my foolish dream, and relinquished Ruth. It's an oppressive burden to bear; should I be so amazed if my spirit sometimes falters beneath its weight? Taking slow, deep breaths, I get myself back under control again, realising that I must return to the Grid, or Jo will wonder what's become of me. Jo… I stop in at a café on the way, and arrive at the tech suite with two steaming hot jacket potatoes, laden with baked beans, cheese and bacon. "That smells heavenly!" she exclaims, and then her face falls. "You go ahead and eat, and I'll heat mine up later," she says, gesturing towards her screens, but impulsively, I step over and hand her one of the potatoes, for I can't bear the idea of eating alone yet again. "Here, tuck in." She looks at me in confusion. "But we're not allowed to eat in here…" I sit down and open my own foil-wrapped supper. "Just this once, Jo, we're going to break the rules," I answer her, and suit action to words. She blinks, then follows my lead, raising her umpteenth can of Red Bull in a small salute to Malcolm the rebel, Malcolm the rule-breaker, Malcolm the man most likely to do anything, and I have a tiny glimpse of what it must feel like to be Adam, or someone like him, choosing my own course, steering by stars that only I can see. It's liberating, and terrifying, all at once.

Turning back to my screens, which are displaying all the CCTV feeds from Havensworth, a movement catches my eye, and I focus more closely, to see Harry, alone, hoisting himself onto a stool at the hotel's lounge bar, with what looks like a double whisky in hand. His shoulders are slumped with fatigue, and he throws back his drink, before asking for another in almost the same breath. Curious, I check the CCTV access log, to find that Ruth has been monitoring precisely the same feed for the last few minutes; even as I watch, she abruptly logs out, and my heart twists painfully as I think of her gazing hopelessly at the man she has turned away from, even though it's obvious to anyone with eyes that she is in love with him, and he with her. Perhaps it would have been better if Ruth had never come to Five, I muse, to another view, this one of the hotel foyer, but even before I've finished this thought, my heart heaves at the idea of a world in which I had never met Ruth, never had the extraordinary experience of intimacy with her, and with that thought comes another, as shocking as a thunderbolt in a clear sky: she has a sliver of my soul in her keeping still, and even more astoundingly, I realise that I wouldn't have it any other way.

Oh, Ruth.