Early morning, Sunday 7 August 2006
Disbelieving, I replay the recording I have just made; surely Ruth cannot be serious. This time, I listen with my eyes closed, trying to visualise the scenario at that cheerless East End doghouse and straining my ears to extract every inflection, every nuance of their voices.
Ruth (brightly) – I've got the answer!
Adam (glumly) – He's ready to sell himself down the river, there's nothing we can do.
Ruth (still upbeat) – I step back into the frame.
Adam (startled) – What?
Ruth (enthusiastically) – So, OK. It just says someone from Section D, so let it be me. I was Fox. You discovered I was at that meeting, and you bring the documents to light. You discredit Harry's confession as someone looking after a friend, I don't know, a lover. Say what you like, but I pushed Maudsley because Mace and the others told me to.
Adam (alarmed) – Hang on a minute, you're running on with yourself. Do you know what you're doing?
Ruth(slightly annoyed, now) –Yeah, I'm making sure that we can still expose the torture scandal without Harry being buried with the blame!
Adam (concerned) – What about you?
Ruth (dismissively) – Something… life in a different direction…I don't know… we can't think about that now.
Zaf (worried) – This is madness, we can't let you do this.
Ruth (zealously) – Well, think of a better solution if you can, because I'll tell you how I see it. Harry goes, and then what happens to MI5? This is only round one in an ongoing battle. He has to keep fighting this. The authorities in this country cannot be allowed to intimidate and torture. Harry is the only one that can take on this fight. There's no choice, is there. If I can save him, then I will.
Adam(disbelievingly) – You'll be admitting to murder. A murder you didn't do. You don't have to do this.
Ruth(stubbornly) – Yes, I do.
Adam (pleadingly) – Ruth…
Ruth(quietly adamant) – Adam, don't even try to talk me out of it. You know it's right.
A dead silence falls for almost seven seconds, and then…
Ruth (businesslike and sounding pleased , now she has got her way) – We need to Photoshop the meeting between me and Mace.
The faint echo of her footsteps dies away as Adam and Zaf remove their earwigs, and I hear no more. I had only insisted they wear them as insurance, should they be picked up by Mace's people; not in my wildest dreams could I have envisaged a discussion like this would take place. There's something else, too, an elusive quality to Ruth's voice which I find profoundly unsettling; it tugs at the edges of my subconscious like a fretful child, demanding attention I don't have to spare as Jo and I desperately try to keep up appearances in the absence of the entire leadership of Section D.
I listen one more time, concentrating fiercely, and there it is. When Ruth announces that she will set herself up to save Harry, I hear not starry-eyed eagerness at the prospect of saving the man she loves, but the cold decisiveness of a true spook. It's as if she had already decided to go, as if the events of this week have merely provided her with the pretext she needs to carry out her ultimate mission. This is such a worrying thought, I decide to keep it to myself. There's no point burdening the others with what might well prove to be no more than the most tenuous and fanciful of speculations.
My mobile phone buzzes: Aunt Emily. "Hello, love. Just to say your mother passed a very quiet night, the new tablets Dr Chapman left for her are marvellous! We're about to have a nice pot of tea and some bara brith fresh out of the oven for our elevenses." I thank her for the update, and thank her again for dropping everything to come to my assistance, as I haven't been home since she arrived. Jo and I have been taking it in four-hourly turns to sleep and staff the Grid, with assistance co-opted from those other sections that can spare it. The treacherous Ms Meyers has not seen fit to report for duty, but her absence is no loss, as far as I'm concerned. "It's quite all right, love. It's a good thing I got here when I did; she was very taken with that nice young psychologist. He was glad to go, I think." I groan inwardly: Oh, Mother. Will you ever be reconciled to reality? "I'm sure he was. I hope to be home tonight, so perhaps we could talk some more then?" Aunt Emily agrees and I ring off, just as Jo rushes into the tech suite, her face white with shock.
"I just heard from Zaf…it's not true, is it? She can't really mean it! Harry wouldn't allow her to throw herself under the bus. I know she's mad about him, but this is taking it too far, isn't it?" Overtired and overwrought, Jo is desperately seeking a reassurance I can't give. "I don't know, Jo. She sounded very determined, and it is certainly a…a logical solution. Which is not to say I agree with it," I add hastily, seeing the incredulous expression spreading across her pale face. "I don't understand; why isn't Harry out of custody yet? Why aren't Adam and Ros here, if Harry's not? We're starting to get calls from the DG's office and I don't know how much longer I can put them off." She drops into a chair and runs her fingers through her hair distractedly. Hesitantly, I put a hand on her shoulder, turning her towards me. "Jo, these are extraordinary circumstances and I know you're already doing everything you can, but it's up to us to hold the fort now." I give her the nearest approximation of a smile I can manage as her eyes search mine; after a moment, she returns it with one of her own. "All right, I'll try to stall the DG for a bit longer, even if I have to faint on that nice plush carpet upstairs."
After Jo has gone, I shut the door of the tech suite, and leaning against it, take a moment to marshal my thoughts, which are flying in all directions, and summon up what little courage I can find. I am going to need all the resources I can scrape together: if the wind is blowing true, a storm is coming which will roar through the Grid like a Force Ten gale, leaving us all adrift, or run aground on the sharp shoals of political expediency. Oh, Lord, I pray, Save and deliver us, we humbly beseech thee, from the hands of our enemies...and strengthen this timid, quaking heart of mine… As I open my eyes it seems that Colin is leaning against the workstation to mine, but it is just a trick of the light, or a figment of my most wishful thinking. It jolts me back to reality, though, and when I resume my seat, my fingers move over the keyboard as of their own volition, forging a nice, detailed field report for Jo to feed to the DG's office, and to anyone else who may be nosing about Section D like hounds casting for the scent of a fox... So let it be me; I was Fox… her words, spoken in a tired, tight voice, are looping endlessly in my head, and I can't help but wonder if there is more truth in them than we may ever know.
Dragging my attention back to the monitor, I review what I have written with grim satisfaction: it should keep the higher-ups off our backs long enough for me to work out what is going on, and do what I can to help Harry, and Ruth. Once more, I hear her saying, "Something…life in a different direction…I don't know!" and again I notice the faintest note of excitement as she speaks, teasing at the furthest reaches of my memory; somewhere, sometime, I've heard it before. As I don't have the luxury of being able to give this thought my full attention at present, I try to put it out of my mind and focus on the day's tasks, but the uneasiness remains. From the doghouse recording, I deduce that Adam, Ruth and Zaf are most likely heading to Adam's Docklands flat; but as to what they might be doing there, I can only speculate. If they're working on a computer, it is an air-gapped machine I can't access, and they have turned off their phones. Sighing in frustration, I turn my attention instead to Harry, and retrieve his charge sheet from the Met, using a neat little hack that Colin taught me. There's something to be said for default passwords and IT managers who are too lazy, or incompetent, to change them… Gloomily, I read through the amended charges, which now include conspiring to murder Mik Maudsley, as well as the assault on Mace. I could erase it all with a few keystrokes, but I know I mustn't interfere, especially when I don't have a clue what the others are planning.
The only thing I can do, in the absence of any other orders, is to keep section D ticking over; the daily intelligence reports still need to be analysed, various threats assessed, persons of interest kept under surveillance and dozens of leads and tip-offs sorted through. Jo and I work furiously to get on top of it all, and just after eleven p.m., Adam finally appears, apparently to take the graveyard shift. "Where's Ros?" he wants to know, looking around the deserted Grid, and I shrug; it's not my place to tell him that Ms Meyers hasn't been in. Jo volunteers, "She said she was going to visit her father; she was in a foul mood when I dropped her home after she was released from Kennington police station." Adam eyes her thoughtfully. "Thanks, Jo. Now, both of you should go home and get a good night's sleep. You've done a great job; I know it hasn't been easy with so few staff." Ah, Adam, you're the absolute master of understatement, all right… I stand up slowly, wincing at the tension in my shoulders and back. "Long day?" Adam asks, but before I can reply, he calls over to Jo to log off now, adding that he doesn't want to see either of us in the next five minutes; his tone is jocular, but I recognise a veiled order when I hear one, and I take a closer look at our senior field officer, my curiosity piqued.
Outwardly, he's his usual self, moving with that unconscious grace of his, wearing trainers, jeans and a black fleece jacket with a faded Blur t-shirt underneath. As it often is, his appearance is too casual to my way of thinking, but there's nothing casual in the way he is glancing around the room, then back to Jo and I, impatient for us to leave. It's clear that Adam doesn't want either of us around, and I'm quick to take the hint, even though there's a nervous energy emanating from beneath his outwardly calm exterior that can mean only one thing, in my experience: an operation is in the offing, and not one that he wants us involved in. I've been in this job long enough to know that sometimes it's best to know nothing, but I can't help wondering what's going on. Oh, Adam, what are you up to, and why don't you want us to know what you're planning? Instinctively, I sense it must be something to do with Ruth's harebrained scheme to save Harry, but I can't believe Adam would allow her to do anything so reckless. Our section chief would hang him from the highest point of Thames House, if anything happened to her, for one thing, and for another, she's not equipped for life on the run: Ruth is not a field spook, much as she might wish she was.
It is with deep uneasiness that I take my leave. "Very well, I'm off, then. Jo, would you like a lift?" I offer, but the young officer shakes her head. "I'll take a cab, thanks." Ordinarily I would insist, but the coyness in her voice makes me wonder if she is indeed going home as I head for the lifts, and the Rover. I am surprised to see that the house isn't in darkness as I pull into the garage, until my aunt meets me at the door. "Hello, love, you look all done in. When was the last time you ate a hot meal?" Too tired to speak, I blink at her, swaying slightly with weariness, and she shakes her head. "The hours you work are ridiculous, Malcolm. You'll end up in an early grave if you go on like this. Go and have a long hot shower, and I'll have supper ready when you come down. Milly went to bed hours ago, so we'll have a nice quiet chat." I embrace her silently, grateful beyond words, and wearily climb the stairs.
It's a cool night, and after I emerge from the shower I put on not only pyjamas and slippers, but my old wool dressing gown, pulling it round me as I walk into the kitchen, where Aunt Emily has been busy making a pot of tea, and Welsh rarebit. "That smells heavenly," I tell her as I sit down at the table; she sets the savoury dish in front of me, pours tea for us both, and takes her own chair opposite me, providing cheerful company while I eat. A comfortable silence descends over the warm kitchen, and not for the first time I wonder how it is that two sisters can share the same DNA, and yet be such polar opposites. There'd be a PhD in that for a geneticist, or a psychologist, I muse as I finish the rarebit; Aunt Emily gets up and refills my plate without asking. As she returns to her seat, she says gently, "We have to talk about Milly, fy nai." Her kind brown eyes are full of concern, and my heart plummets. "Yes, I know, but I'm very tired now. Can this wait until…until I've finished what I'm working on?" I ask, only half-hopeful of an answer in the affirmative. My aunt picks up her tea cup and regards me thoughtfully over the rim as she drinks. "I'm sorry, love, but I don't think it can. You know we can't keep going on like this, don't you?" Oh, Mother, what have you done now?
I push my plate away, no longer hungry, and in the same movement slide my chair back from the table and fold my arms defensively: whatever she has said, or done, she's still my mother. "What's happened?" Aunt Emily shakes her head. "Oh, no, it's nothing like that. It's more that we seem to keep finding ourselves in the same situation, don't we, with Milly in crisis and the two of us trying to manage her. It's exhausting enough for me to deal with her for a few days or weeks; I have no idea how you've done it for all these years." I know the answer to this; I've known it all my life, but somehow the words refuse to form themselves into an orderly queue in my mind. I promised Father I would always look after her…I gave him my word as Mother sat rigid and unseeing on a chair outside his hospital room, compulsively straightening the fingers of the black kid gloves in her lap over and over again, trying to smooth out every last wrinkle and restore them to unworn perfection. And I'm nothing, if not a man of my word. This is the response that should be tripping off my tongue, instead of tripping it up and causing a great lump in my throat, and that horrible, hot, prickly feeling behind my eyes.
"I p…promised Father…I promised him," I manage to get out, after an internal struggle of Herculean proportions. My aunt smiles sadly, "I know you did, but I knew your father too, Malcolm, and I don't believe he would ever have intended for you to live like this, alone except for your mother and her madness, or bi-polar disorder, or whatever you want to call it. Milly has never been normal, for want of a better word, and this life, surrounded by every comfort that money can buy, and with you always trying to make her happy by any means possible, isn't helping her. I think it's making her worse, if anything, because she never has to face the consequences of her histrionics. Dr Chapman agrees, by the way." She sits back, watching me kindly as I absorb her meaning. "I'm afraid I don't quite understand. Mother is… that is to say… she's not… I'm not going to… I can't!" To my horror, a fat tear, and then another, rolls down my cheeks; I can't get my breath properly and my chest is two sizes too small, squeezing my heart tighter and tighter, until black spots dance before my eyes and the world recedes from my vision like a wave sliding back down the shore. "Malcolm, where's your puffer?" I hear my aunt asking urgently, but I am too busy trying to suck air, suddenly as thick and intractable as setting concrete, into my shrivelling lungs to be able to speak. Aunt Emily pats rapidly through my pockets before turning to the kitchen drawers, searching for my medication. She presses the little grey cylinder into my shaking hand and sits next to me, patting my back soothingly, until my shoulders stop heaving and I can once again focus on something other than the huge task of breathing.
"I'm so sorry, I've been overdoing it at work, rather," I begin tremulously, but Aunt Emily shakes her head. "I didn't come down in the last shower of rain, fy nai." I look down at the silvery grain of the scrubbed oak table, tracing a deep knot with my forefinger, round and round, and wishing I could disappear inside it. I can't tell her anything about what's going on at work, of course, or my fears for Ruth and, to a lesser extent, Harry; but that's not what she is asking about. "It's just that M…Mother… she's all I have, and I know she can be difficult, but I don't really mind; she doesn't mean most of what she says, and we…we need each other." And I can't say which of us needs the other more; I might be forty-eight years old, but too often, I still feel like a little boy who's afraid of the monsters lurking under the bed. If not for Mother, I would be entirely alone, and that thought frightens me most of all…
As if reading my mind, my aunt sighs, "I know, but that's just the difficulty. In the general way of things, you would have met someone and your mother would have had to adjust to the changes, like every other parent since the dawn of time. How things are now, though…it's not healthy for either of you. That nice young doctor spoke about co-dependency, and he said Milly needs to learn to manage her own illness, and you need to be free to live your own life." My heart twists within my aching chest at these words: my best friend was murdered senselessly, the woman I loved beyond all sense and reason has turned out to be a chimera, and I've spent the prime of my life in surveillance vans and server rooms, going unnoticed amongst the outsized egos and personalities of Section D. I'm pragmatic enough to realise my colleagues, even Jo, are just that: co-workers, who will one day move on. What life, I wonder, and flinch at the bitterness of this unexpected thought.
"Malcolm?" my aunt says softly, "Let's talk more tomorrow, or whenever you're feeling up to it. No one is going to make you do anything you don't want to." As she stands up, she slides something across the table to me, something that scintillates and winks like sunlit water…or a very rare, very beautiful blue diamond pendant. "I happened on this in your dressing gown pocket when I was searching for your puffer, and thought you might like to put it away somewhere a bit more secure. Well, I'm away to bed; goodnight, love." With that, she drops a kiss on my forehead, and leaves me sitting at the table, staring at the gift I made to Ruth at the Midsummer Ball…was that really just over a year ago? And more to the point, how on earth did it get into my dressing gown? An alarming thought strikes, and I hastily check both pockets for the Tessina which I had tucked in there a fortnight ago, intending to lock it into my safe, and then forgotten about in the uproar over Cotterdam, but it is gone.
Wide awake now, I race upstairs two at a time: perhaps the tiny silver camera fell out when I carried my night clothes into the bathroom, or maybe it is lying on the floor of my dressing room, but there is no trace of it. I didn't really expect to find it, but the hurt and outrage I feel at having been played by Ruth yet again demands answers, and almost before I know what I'm doing, I snatch my mobile phone from the bedside table and punch in Ruth's number. Her phone rings out; Ruth almost always answers immediately, so I dial again, and this time it rings twice before the call is abruptly disconnected. I stare at the 'call ended' icon on my screen and wrestle with the almost overwhelming temptation to throw the phone across the room, exasperated at Ruth's seemingly superhuman abilities to go wherever she will, and at my own naïve gullibility. If I were Harry, or Adam, or Tom, I would have realised that Ruth was looking for much more than a night's shelter; but I had taken her at her word, believed her when she said she needed a friend, that I was the only one she could turn to. I don't know what she could possibly want with the Tessina; I don't understand why she has returned my first, and best, gift. The idea of her creeping about in my quarters last night while I slept is deeply disturbing, too; how the hell does she do it? How does she get in and out from the most secure locations like the most accomplished cat burglar? Endless questions without answers chase each other round my weary brain, all of them underlined with the faint sense of dread that has accompanied me home tonight. Eventually, sheer exhaustion claims me, and with limbs heavy as lead I get into bed, wishing only to escape into the dark oblivion of sleep.
What ensues instead is a jumbled confusion comprised of those horrible falling sensations that sometimes occur on the far edge of consciousness, strange flashes of wakefulness and even stranger dreams, like a badly edited film of the last week's events, with everything hopelessly mixed up. I watch Mother appearing on the Grid to dig holes while a little red MG roadster speeds down Horseferry Road with Ruth at the wheel and Harry next to her: most disconcerting, and not at all restful. I toss and turn, first throwing the duvet off, then shivering awake to retrieve it from the floor. Finally, I give up, blearily blunder downstairs, and pour myself a large medicinal cognac from the drinks cabinet in the drawing room, and then another, before lighting a small fire for warmth, stretching out on one of the Chesterfields, and indulging in a slightly squiffy contemplation of the couples curvetting across the ceiling. They're dancing a minuet, I decide, or perhaps a contredanse; waltzes and polkas were still a century away when Robert Adams was sketching out this design. The fire, burning low in the grate, throws flickering shadows that give the plaster figures the illusion of movement, and my eyelids begin to flutter shut, lulled by the excellent brandy, the gently crackling fire, and the warmth of the striped Welsh wool blanket I have wrapped myself in.
"Malcolm?" I turn over, muttering, at the sound of my name. It is far too early to get up, for it is still dark; the glowing red embers of last night's fire provide the only light in the room. "Hey, mate. Wakey, wakey, hands off…" Colin. It's Colin! I open first one, then the other eye: he is sitting on the Chesterfield opposite, watching me with amusement as I nearly roll off my sofa in shock. I scramble upright, my heart racing. This must be a cognac-fuelled dream, but it feels so real: the dying firelight glints off Colin's spectacles, and the sofa dips beneath his weight as he shifts position to lean forward in the eager way I remember so well. Oh, but I've missed you dreadfully..."Colin. Is it really you?" I ask, levering myself upright, and he rolls his eyes. "More or less. What's real, anyway? I mean, a few years ago, quantum computing wasn't real in any tangible sense, was it?" Groaning as the cognac fumes waft through my brain, I try to focus on him, but he's as unsubstantial as smoke. "Quantum computing? Colin, what are you talking about?" He grins at me, and it's so good to see him, I can't help but smile back. "You're not usually this dim. You know how GCHQ has been working on developing a quantum computer for some years now?" I do, but I hadn't thought they had made much progress beyond theorising the possible architecture of such a machine. "Yes, but they haven't gotten very far with it. There are huge problems to be overcome with fragile quantum superpositions, to begin with, not to mention the miniaturisation and integration challenges; and then, they're mathematicians, not physicists." Colin nods in agreement, and says, "But what if not all of them were? What if one of them had figured it out? What if two of them had?" I stare at him, still muzzy-headed, and he prompts, "Qubits, mate. Ever wonder why that worm Andrew Forrestal demanded a king's ransom in diamonds?"
Diamonds: of course! Now that Colin has jogged my sluggish memory, I recall reading a paper written by an international team of physicists positing that microscopic defects in diamonds might form the basis of quantum computing architecture, if nitrogen atoms occupying two different spin states could be introduced into a stone. Every nitrogen "defect" would then be trapped in a microscopic optical resonator made of two mirrors, and tiny glass fibres could be used to couple photons to the quantum system to create a quantum bit, thereby allowing superpositions of states. Hypothetically, a quantum bit, or qubit, could be in the state one, and the state zero, at the same time, unlike a standard bit, which can be either one, or zero. The possibilities for increasing computing power in this way are quite simply astronomical, the stuff of science fiction. What if…
"Exactly!" Colin exclaims gleefully; I must have been musing aloud. He continues, "The research suggests that slightly flawed diamonds are best, because they already contain nitrogen; only the very best stones are pure carbon. So, what makes a blue diamond blue, mate?" Closing my eyes in concentration, I visualise the atomic structure of carbon: each has four electrons available for bonding, and when all four are bonded to other carbon atoms, the resulting crystalline lattice structure permits light to pass straight through. So, in order for a diamond to appear blue, there has to be an unused electron in the lattice, which blocks red light…Boron! Boron has three electrons…could boron atoms be induced to enter spin states like nitrogen atoms? What would be the effect of three, instead of two, different spin states? And what if Ruth had been told about the GCHQ quantum computing program by none other than the originator of the G&J algorithm himself?
When I next open my eyes, I am alone, but I have answers, or the beginnings of answers, for the first time in what seems like forever. Despite the cognac-induced ache in my head and the dull heaviness of my overburdened heart, I shower and dress quickly, but with care, and leave Hampstead before the sun has begun to ascend in the grey sky that blankets the sleeping city. I'm not bound for Thames House, though; instead, I'm going on a field operation of my own, with the blue diamond pendant safely tucked into the inner breast pocket of my best suit as the Rover purrs along the M40 towards Cheltenham, and the Doughnut, as the main GCHQ installation is referred to colloquially. In satellite images, it looks more like a flying saucer, with its smoothly curved surfaces and slightly alien appearance amidst the green fields and outlying suburbs of the elegant Regency resort town; and to most civilians, it would seem equally alien on the inside, filled with banks of supercomputers and boffins talking to each other in technical shorthand, incomprehensible to an outsider. I don't know how a technophobe like Ruth managed to stick it out for almost a decade; I have no idea how I've managed not to be seconded from Five years ago, for this is my natural milieu. I suppose Harry must have decided he wanted to hang on to me, and there was an end of it, as usual.
Today will be different.
Today, I'm going off-piste in the best tradition of Section D, and instead of the queasiness and nerves I have come to expect whenever I contemplate colouring outside the lines, I'm feeling surprisingly good about my decision. It is still early when I pull into the visitors' carpark, but already it is difficult to find a space; GCHQ operates round the clock on a scale undreamt of at Five. I take a moment to order the multitude of thoughts and facts whirling through my brain, and check my appearance in the rear-view mirror one last time: God is truly in the details, and they are converging and shifting to reveal an entirely new design. And just as the crystalline matrix of carbon fused with an organic impurity creates coloured diamonds whose beauty lies in their imperfection, I'm beginning to realise that this is true of people, too. Right, Wynn-Jones, it's time to go… Straightening my tie one last time, I get out of the Rover and stride purposefully towards the intimidating razor-wire topped gates and the battleship grey sentry boxes occupied by heavily armed guards. Colin has reminded me that Forrestal hadn't come to Five alone; there had been another.
"Malcolm Wynn-Jones, Senior Technical Officer, MI-5. I'm here to consult Gregory Howes on a Priority Alpha One matter." The guards confer with each other before the taller one turns to me. "Confirm your security clearance, please, and state the purpose of your visit." I rattle off the long string of characters, symbols and numbers comprising the GCHQ password of the day, as I flash my ID and fix them with my best approximation of a belligerent stare. It seems to work for Harry and the rest of the field staff, and it works for me, too, somewhat to my surprise. I am escorted into the main entrance of the Doughnut, shown to a reception area, and instructed to wait; Mr Howes will meet me shortly. I am disinclined to take a seat, preferring instead to examine as much of the layout as possible. It's all glass and metal, very modern and surprisingly open-plan, and I hate it. A building, I feel, should reflect its purpose, rather than ignoring it entirely, as this one seems to. I don't have to wait for long; Gregory Howes appears from the main lift bank, escorted by two tall, blank-faced soldiers.
Howes is shorter than I remember him, colourless eyes wary in the prison pallor of his face. Professional courtesy dictates that I offer my hand, but he ignores it, abruptly demanding, "What do you want?" Wordlessly, I extract the diamond pendant from my inner breast pocket and hold it up; it catches the sunlight now starting to edge through the floor-to-ceiling windows, and Howes stares at it, then at me. "What's happened to her?" he asks, with a considerably more civilised demeanour. I shake my head, and he catches my meaning. "You'd better come through, then." The two squaddies on either side of him exchange a glance, and I produce my ID again. "Section D," I say, by way of explanation – best not to mention Harry just now – and after scrutinising my credentials minutely, one of them jerks his head in the direction of the lifts. "Right you are, sir. Come with us."
After what feels like a freefall descent of hundreds of feet in a stainless steel lift car, our odd little party emerges into a well-lit wide concrete corridor, or more accurately, a tunnel, and Howes sets off without a backwards glance. I follow him, and the squaddies silently bring up the rear. We walk for a good ten minutes, and the air grows colder and drier as we go along. Howes stops abruptly in front of an air-conditioning intake grille set into the wall, pulls it open, and disappears inside. Stepping through the aperture after him, I find myself in a narrow, brightly lit passage lined on both sides with steel doors. At the far end of the passage, I glimpse the stark white walls and double airlocks that denote a clean room environment, and I realise we must be in the anteroom of GCHQ's fabled supercomputer, TURING, the fastest and most powerful machine in the UK at 15.7 petaflops of computing power, boosted by banks of GPU-type accelerators to deliver double-precision peak floating point performance, capable of performing the most complex decryptions in a thousandth of a second, and if the possibilities that seem likely with qubits and crystalline matrices are considered, then; but I digress. Suffice it to say, TURING is truly impressive, and I see the necessity of our military escort in a somewhat different light; this machine is the core of intelligence, encryption and code-breaking for the entire British security community.
"Suit up!" Howes instructs, handing me a pale blue hooded coverall and matching booties, as per standard clean-room procedure. Once we are properly attired, he turns to the airlock; first he presses his right thumb to an LED touchpad, then his retina is scanned, followed by a request for his voiceprint. "Stay close," he tells me as the first set of doors sighs open. I am right on his heels as we step into the vast, glass-enclosed, curving space, so large there seems to be no end to the gleaming black server stacks; the first row alone dwarfs the Grid's system. The air around me crackles with the vast amount of power concentrated in the room, and the sharp tang of ozone fills my nostrils. Howes leads me towards a user interface unit on the far side of the stacks and holds out a surgical-gloved hand. Reaching inside my coverall, I extract the blue diamond from the inner breast pocket of my suit jacket, and Howes takes it from me carefully and slips it off the fine gold chain, before mounting the stone between two slender metal pins, glinting in the blue LED lighting of the interface; I deduce that the metal pins must contain the tiny glass fibres that will connect the diamond to the quantum system. Howes' fingers move rapidly across the touch-screen, and the diamond begins to spin between its mounting pins, faster and faster as a bright red light is beamed through its heart, so it glows ruby-red; at the same time, the great black banks of server stacks begin to light up like the Milky Way on a clear night, thousands of tiny lights flickering into existence. "It's the G&J key, isn't it?" I observe quietly, and Howes shoots me a sharp glance as I continue, "You've encrypted it into the diamond. That's how she's been able to come and go wherever she liked. Ruth was carrying the master key for any computerised system; she could override all our security without leaving a trace." It's all so clear to me now, the only wonder is how I could have been so slow-witted and dim as not to have realised it sooner.
With his attention focused on his screens, Howes favours me with what might be a grunt, but I'm getting tired of his taciturnity. "I say, Howes. Are you always so uncommunicative?" He shrugs, turning away abruptly, and that's when something inside me snaps. I really can't describe it in any other way; one moment I'm watching this obnoxious man turn his back on me, and the next, I have hoisted him off his feet and pinned him up against one of his own stacks by his skinny shoulders. His eyes are wide with surprise (surely it can't be fear?) and he makes feeble efforts to free himself, but I'm having none of it; my fingers tighten their grip, eliciting a whimper in response. Outside, the two soldiers seem to be watching with mild interest, but they make no move towards us; they probably feel like doing the same thing to the little wretch on a daily basis.
For too long I have been tormented by the suspicion that Ruth is running some sort of unsanctioned operation, and the discovery of the G&J key in her possession, this facility, the myriad of unexplained moments – the Midsummer Ball at Toad Hall, when I first realised she had taken the Tessina, and all the times after; the fleeting glimpse of a woman who looked exactly like Ruth flitting through the foyer at Claridge's last Christmas; the little gold USB of GCHQ security swipe records, with Ruth's missing even when she had claimed to be there, and a thousand more inexplicable events – it all seems to point towards the same shockingly awful conclusion: Ruth is a rogue spy, or worse, a double agent for some unknown entity. "Hey! Let me go!" Howes protests, and aims a kick at my shins; he connects, and I gasp with pain. Ordinarily, I shrink from confrontation, and flee from physical affray, but not this time. "Oh, I don't think so," I say in measured tones, "Not until you've explained what Ruth's been up to." Howes' face sets mutinously, so I apply just enough pressure to a handily-placed nerve at the side of his neck to help him change his mind; squirming with discomfort, he finally mutters, "I only know about the diamond. She came and saw me the summer after Forrestal was killed. When he had her in his house (when that bastard had abducted her with intention to kill, I correct him silently), apparently he'd told her about the work we were doing with diamonds in quantum computing applications, and one day she turned up with that" – jerking his head towards the blue diamond – "and told me to encrypt it with the key. She had orders from on high, and I'm not exactly in a position to argue, locked away down here, am I?"
I search his eyes, before deciding he may in fact be telling the truth. I set him down, the earlier surge of enraged energy ebbing away, and he flinches away from me, rubbing his neck resentfully. "They punished you because you were Forrestal's partner; they thought you were in on it, too," I say slowly, and he nods. "It was this, or getting banged up for years, without access to so much as a Gameboy. At least here I can still work." I don't know what to think, so I ask another question. "Whose orders was Ruth following?" Howes looks at me resentfully. "So they don't tell you lot everything, either," he notes, before adding, "I've had enough of this. Why did they send you, anyway? You're hardly one of Harry Pearce's attack dogs, even if you do have one hell of a grip." I look away as the tell-tale heat rises into my cheeks, but I'm not fast enough. "Ah, so you're not here on official business, then. Wish I'd known that sooner, but you had the diamond… where is she, anyway?" It's my turn to shrug. "I don't know. I haven't seen her since Friday evening." Was it really only three nights ago? I wonder wearily. Howes frowns, "She always said if the diamond turned up without her, she'd be in dire straits." My heart flip-flops in fear at these words, before I recollect that Adam and Zaf are looking after her. Surely they wouldn't let her do anything dangerous…
Howes sidles past me warily to remove the diamond from its mounting pins, and TURING responds immediately by powering down several server stacks. "Here, take it. I can't have it, for obvious reasons." He holds it out to me, swinging on its chain once more, scattering arcs of refracted light; a pretty bauble, indeed. I take it carefully, noting that it is still radiating heat from its time in the supercomputer, and follow Howes out of the clean room. As we're peeling off our disposable protective clothing before rejoining our escort, Howes says, so quietly I think I've imagined it at first, "It was Mace, the JIC chair." He noisily wads up our discarded coveralls, and tosses them into an incineration chute. I struggle to fit this new piece of information into the puzzle; Oliver Mace has been signing off on Ruth's clandestine orders? It's incomprehensible, unbelievable, beyond all bounds of sense and reason. And yet, the sudden queasiness in my stomach, the harshness in my breathing that causes me reach for my inhaler, the way in which my brain is rearranging and re-evaluating the facts in light of this new information, all point towards a horrifying truth. I have to get back to Thames House; I must test this new theory, and quickly.
It is still relatively early as I walk onto the Grid, although later than my usual starting time; no one seems to have noticed my absence, though, in the welter of activity emanating from the inner sanctum, where Harry is back after his night in Mayfair police station, and irascibly demanding information. Jo, looking tense, catches my eye and rolls her own as Harry bellows for Adam. "Briefing in fifteen minutes," she informs me, but I simply nod in acknowledgment, hastily booting up my systems and logging in with unsteady fingers while trying to ignore the fraught atmosphere, charged as the air before a summer storm. Despite deploying my inhaler, I am struggling to breathe normally, my chest constricted by tight bands of anxiety and fear, my brain racing like an overstressed engine; I don't think I can process one more iota of new information without imploding.
Nevertheless, I dutifully attend the briefing, where I am appalled to learn of Ruth's actions last night. Not only has she blatantly faked evidence to prove she's been taking orders from Mace (a brilliant move, I have to admit, doubling back on her own tracks like, well, like a fox), but she went to the home of a supposed witness to Maudsley's murder, and threatened her with the Type 67 pistol recovered from that poor man's home, before spending the night somewhere along the Thames embankment, albeit with Zaf; and all this has been sanctioned by Adam… Harry's face, broken-veined and high-coloured to begin with from too much strong drink over too many years, is perfectly puce with rage by the end of this little recital from his senior field officer. His mouth opens, closes, opens again, and this time an inchoate roar issues forth, followed by a stream of barrack-room invective that would curl the hair of the most hardened sergeant-major, chiefly directed at Adam; but not entirely. "What have you got to say for yourself, sneaking in more than an hour late?" he barks at me, but Adam intervenes. "We don't have time for this, Harry. I have it on good authority the Defence Secretary's on his way to Number Ten to tender his resignation. We have to find Mace right now." Harry lowers his head and snorts like a bull about to charge, ready to take us all on, driven by his fear for Ruth; but a lifetime's training in self-discipline and self-denial finally prevails, and when he looks up, it is with his usual clear-eyed command of the situation. "What are you waiting for, then?" he snaps, and Adam is on his feet and out the door in the next instant, Jo and Zaf hard on his heels; I am about to follow suit, when Harry says, in a voice that brooks no argument, "Sit down, Malcolm. I want a word with you."
I obey, striving to remain composed; inwardly, however, I feel anything but as Harry glares at me with bloodshot eyes and growls, "I want to know what's been going on, and I want to know right bloody now. What's all this about Ruth threatening people with a gun? Why is Adam going along with whatever madcap idea she's dreamt up? What were you doing at Cheltenham this morning? Have all my senior staff lost their marbles? Damn and blast it all to hell, Malcolm, speak up!" Blinking nervously, I try to order my thoughts, only for them to scatter like wildfowl rising from cover as the hunter blasts away. I'm not yet ready to share any of my nascent theories about Ruth, and whether by accident or design, I have not been kept in the loop by Adam or Zaf, but to admit that would only further incense our already incandescent section chief. Before Harry can fire more questions at me, I hear myself say, "S…sorry, but I don't know anything about what happened last night; I wasn't on duty. I went to Cheltenham this morning to confer with colleagues about an urgent technical issue, something I needed to run directly through TURING."
Harry leans back in his chair, folding his arms and fixing me with a gimlet stare. I lock my hands together in my lap to hide their trembling, and force myself to meet his eyes. "You're my longest serving officer, Malcolm, and your role is at the heart of everything that happens in this section. Do you really expect me to believe that you don't know what Ruth is planning?" He speaks in a conversational tone, but there's an edge to it that makes the hairs on the back of my neck rise in response. "That's true, and I'd hope that all those years of loyal service will count for something when I tell you I know no more than you about what happened last night." My voice is surprisingly steady, but I have to remind myself to take slow, deep breaths as Harry snorts, "Come on, Malcolm. You two are as thick as thieves. How else would she have gotten hold of that damn Chinese pistol?" I bolt upright in my chair, offended at the implication, and repeat slowly, emphasising every word, "I know no more than you about what happened last night, Harry." He scrutinises me for a long moment before nodding almost imperceptibly. "All right. I believe you. Now get out." I stand up with alacrity, in spite of knees that nearly give way; as I pass him, he says, almost under his breath, "Ruth, you silly, stubborn mule, what are you up to?"
I wish I knew.
A/N: We're back! It's amazing what a lot less extracurricular typing and a lot more anti-inflammatories will do for an OOI. I still can't write for long stints, but I'm working on it, a bit like our hero, who's trying to piece everything together. A big thank you to everyone who has been patiently waiting for the next instalment of H,L &S, and especially to those readers who leave reviews. I hope you have enjoyed this chapter, and I will endeavour to avoid such a long gap between this one and the next.
Oh, and in case you're wondering, quantum computers powered by flawed diamonds are not just a figment of my imagination. No, indeed, and nor is the rather endearing nickname for GCHQ.