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Chapter Six: Playing Dead

It was always cold six foot underground, but especially so during the long, frigid hour before sunrise. No natural light entered their subterranean world, but Leon could sense the creeping dawn all the same. He sat on the top bunk and drew his knees up to his chest, shivering against the cold draught that somehow managed to steal through the solid packed earth and steel. Even in a small bunker with eight other people, he still felt like the last person alive at the break of day. A peculiar and unique loneliness he could never quite give voice to, no matter how often he lived through it.

Emergency lights still lit the dormitory, a pale blue that barely reached the bedframes where he still crouched. Outside, he could hear people moving in the far distance. The hatch was opened and people climbed in and out to escape the slowly simmering claustrophobia inside. He hadn't escaped it himself; he too felt the walls closing in as time dragged on. Before he could sink into self-doubt, he slid down off his bunk and crossed the room to where Lucile was spread out on a thin mattress she had dragged to the floor. But for the slow rise and fall of her chest, she was motionless.

He paused, thinking she was asleep and unwilling to disturb her. But she heard his approach and sat up with her back to wall and wide awake. The look in her eyes was empty and listless now. Exhaustion had done for her fear.

"Can you not sleep, either?" she asked, breaking the silence.

"Not really. You?"

Lucile shook her head as well, a slow and jerky motion. Now that they were talking again, Leon found himself desperate to break the deadlock that had arisen between them.

"What's the worst that can happen if you do broadcast our message?" he asked. "Your employers can't argue. Just tell them your life was in danger. Which it isn't, but they don't know that."

He realised that Lucile would tell them about him, but it hardly mattered. Even if he did end up behind bars, Emma and the others would get him out again. When he met Lucile's gaze, she was as devoid of emotion as before, but there was just a hint of defiance in the way she tilted her chin up. Her gaze steady.

"Whose life will be in danger if I do broadcast that message?" she asked.

"No one's," he replied, exasperated. "You heard them: that's not what we're about. Look, we have comrades in the North East and we just need to get a message to them-"

"But why this channel?" she cut over him, her voice rising. "If I broadcast a message from this station, the only person who gets that message will be my colleague who is coordinating the security detail of a Government Minister. I already know they want me to change their route, but why? Your friends have gone to an awful lot of trouble just to make the Minister take the scenic route to Durham. So what it is? An ambush of some sort?"

Leon couldn't answer. He rocked back on his heels, suddenly unbalanced and knocked his hood down. Growing annoyed with the boiler suit, he stripped it back to the waist in annoyance. Lucile laughed. "Watch you don't spill your DNA everywhere."

"It's a bit late for that," he replied, acknowledging the fact he had blown his own cover a long time ago.

"It's too late for a lot of things," said Lucile, quietly.

He glanced at his watch: five am. Not too late for some things, he thought to himself. He leaned back, stretching his legs out in front of him so he could drag himself fully out of the boiler suit. Footsteps still paced the corridor outside, attraction Leon's attention only briefly before Lucile spoke again.

"How did you get mixed in with these people?" she asked, leaning forwards and almost appealing to him. "Weren't you at school?"

His thoughts had begun to race and her question made him pause.

"Boarding school," he explained. "I was … alone …" his voice trailed off as he tried to think of the right words. It sounded so desperate, even to his own ears. "It was online. I was a Communist back then-" Lucile laughed, making him stop mid-sentence. "Why is that funny?"

There was a twinkle in her eye as she laughed; she was finding his political convictions genuinely amusing. After a moment, she managed to compose herself. "You weren't a Communist, Leon. You were a schoolboy."

His felt his whole body stiffen at the condescension; something Lucile noticed also. Quickly, almost as soon as she said the words, she threw her hands up in a gesture of surrender.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry. Please, carry on. You were saying…"

That was his cue to pick up where he left off, but he waited a moment while the irritation inside him burned itself out.

"When I was fourteen I figured out how to over-write the school's fire walls," he admitted sheepishly, as though he suspected Lucile might put him in detention. "I could visit any site I wanted and spent time searching for Marxist and Leninist forums-"

Again, Lucile was grinning and Leon thought he knew what was coming next.

"I know what most fourteen year old boys with unfettered internet access would do, and I don't think German philosophers feature too prominently in it," she remarked, still grinning. Pre-empting another maturity related upset, Lucile was quick to placate him. "I'm sorry, I know you're not like that."

However, Leon wasn't upset at all. He could feel his face flush as he found himself confessing to another juvenile misdemeanour. "Actually, I did. But only for others and for a price."

Lucile looked impressed. "That's very enterprising for a Marxist."

As quickly as he veered off course, Leon found himself quickly jolted back on it again.

"Which is where Emma comes in," he said. "On the forums, she and I sort of built up a relationship and we moved from there on to Skype, which I had on my phone for when I needed to talk to Dad. About a year after we first spoke, she told me that she only frequented those forums to find potential recruits for her own group. She said, Communists usually had the right ideas but we were being misguided. Some of the key tenets of Communism, like the dictatorship of the working class, could never work and would always lead to tyranny. Her way was far better, because there will be no dictatorship. The Government will fall, but will be replaced by Unions that were directly accountable to the workers. She has loads of brilliant ideas on how to run the country, but with no way to implement them."

He paused there, sensing he was going into information overload. Lucile looked unmoved. If anything, her stance seemed to have hardened.

"Revolutions are sometimes bloodless; I'll give you that," she replied. "But the civil wars that inevitably follow never are. Have you thought about that? Have you thought about what will happen to the old regime once you've built your little Anarcho-Syndicalist Utopia? People like the current PM, the royal family and all the different political groups you will inevitably be fighting against. You can't make them magically disappear and what's needed now, before you throw your life away, is a reality check."

Leon didn't answer. He sat on the floor with his gaze directed at the lino under his feet. Truth was, he hadn't expected to get this far. He hadn't expected any of them to give this a shot and, as such, hadn't thought beyond the end of the week. Even less had he thought of what they'd do if they actually did get real power? He closed his eyes, trying to marshal his thoughts and only opened them again to check the time. It was nearing six am. One more hour until the broadcast deadline. Emma would be on her way soon.

He got up and extended a hand to Lucile. "Come on," he said. "We're leaving. Now."

Ruth winced against the intrusion of the alarm clock and rolled over in bed. No matter how deep she buried her head, however, it didn't drown out the sound of the siren-like wailing. She groaned audibly as Harry stirred beside her. One deceptively strong arm reaching out and jabbing the snooze button so hard Ruth though he might have broken it. But it was too little, too late. Both of them dragged themselves reluctantly out of bed and stared at one another, bleary eyed and still too sleep-drugged to articulate so much as a 'good morning'.

However, twenty minutes later and undergoing the restorative process of morning coffee, conversation slowly took shape.

"Before last night's scrabble row," said Ruth. "I was meant to ask, do you want to break into a Government Lab with us tonight?"

Uncertain as to whether he'd heard that right, Harry glowered at Ruth down the length of the kitchen table. "What?"

A frown creased Ruth's brow. "I didn't explain that very well, did I? Well, it's for Lucas actually. Ros will definitely be up for it and I think I can rope Jo in as well. Ben's still away, so I'll be needing all the help I can get-"

"I'm sorry, Ruth, you're still not explaining this terribly well," he butted in incredulously. "You want to get the whole of Section D in on your newly awakened criminal desires?"

"For Lucas!" she cried back, dropping a slice of toast in the process. "We still have contacts with the guy who runs that lab in Surrey, don't we? We can arrange it all before hand, get everyone kitted out in black overalls and masks and fake some footage of a break-in."

Finally, the penny dropped. "Oh, for that blog and website of his."

"Yeah, he needs 'extras' so to speak," she explained. "It can't just be him on his own, so I was thinking of maybe getting a few stand ins to be his ready-made network of activists. Make him look like the real deal."

Harry was deep in thought for a minute. When he spoke again, he sounded keen.

"Good idea, actually. But I have a few other suggestions I want to thrash out in a full team meeting," he explained. "Delay the break in until tomorrow, or maybe even Thursday. There's something else I've been thinking of."

"Sure, but we don't want to delay for too long," replied Ruth. "If Black Flag strike again before we do, things could go very badly for us."

Harry didn't need to say anything to that. However, he reasoned to himself that it could at least wait until their working day had begun properly. With that in mind, he turned his attention towards fixing them both some proper breakfast.

Lucile, still pressed against the wall, looked at Leon's hand suspiciously. He had thrown her a lifeline and she had no choice but to trust him. But still, she hesitated and thought of his colleagues pacing the corridor outside and, undoubtedly, guarding the hatch. Slowly, she lifted her gaze from his hand, up to his face. His expression was steady, resolute; where she was full of doubt.

"And how do you propose we fight our way out of here? Two against seven."

"We don't," he replied, lowering his hand. "Now play dead."

"What?"

"Lie down, go all floppy like you passed out," he whispered low.

Already, he was hauling her into a fireman's lift. With no time to argue, Lucile cooperated but as soon as she went limp, he dropped her. The pair of them sprawled out on the lino. She could feel Leon extricating himself from her and when she opened her eyes again, he was kneeling over her looking breathless and apologetic.

"I'm really sorry, but I'm going to have to drag you out there."

"Get on with it!" Lucile hissed back at him.

Before the words had even left her, however, he had already moved and grabbed her ankles. Moments later, she felt herself being dragged across the floor like a sack of potatoes. Once more she let her whole body go limp, her arms dragging behind the rest of her and her eyes closed. She slowed her breathing, willing her heartbeat to recede at the same time. It was only a short distance to the hatch, which was enclosed in a small ante-room, screened by double doors from the rest of the bunker.

"She's passed out!" Leon called out to one of his unseen colleagues. "Maybe she's diabetic or something, I don't know. She just fell over and went all limp."

"Shit, Lee!" a woman's angry voice called back from some distance. "You were supposed to be looking after her. Is there any insulin in her bag? What about other meds?"

During the small commotion that followed, Lucile concentrated on keeping every muscle in her body relaxed and limp. She didn't even dare move her eyes. A task made all the more difficult as adrenaline began to course through her and every innate instinct she had was screaming at her to fight. She had to ruthlessly suppress every reaction when, suddenly, two burly men – not Leon this time – suddenly picked her up. Just one tense muscle or one involuntary movement and her cover would be blown. She couldn't tell where they were taking her, but one man was delivering a running commentary as they went.

"She's breathing; she's alive, but she's freezing…"

It washed over Lucile, who had to concentrate on ignoring a blinding pain in her head as it collided with a door as they entered another room.

"Careful, you fucking idiot!" Leon shouted at her handlers.

Mercifully, it wasn't so bad. A sharp pain gripped the side of her head where it had connected with what felt to Lucile like a door handle. But she remained utterly still and let the pain wash over her until she felt herself being spread out on a table.

"Now give her space," the woman ordered. "Leon, you stay. Did she see you?"

"What?"

"Did she actually see you?"

Lucile guessed she was talking about Leon's disguise which he'd binned about an hour ago.

"Oh, that. No," Leon replied. "I just panicked when she passed out and took the damn thing off. It was getting in the way."

"Fair enough," replied the woman, "but don't let her see you if she comes round. I need my cell intact and I need you most of all."

While this exchange was taking place, Lucile could hear the two other people moving around. A tap ran, and Lucile guessed she was in the kitchen, arranged on the table. More than one, Leon made an attempt to lose the woman, so they would be alone again. All she had to do was play dead until seven, miss the broadcast and either Black Flag would abort the mission and Ben would raise the alarm. All she had to do was play dead.

Before long, however, two hands were placed gently at the sides of her head. She could sense the person close to her, looking down and scrutinising her slack features. She could hear them breathing and smell the stale sweat on their body. Lucile could even feel herself being silently assessed before the other person held her head steady. When she was let go again, she felt a towel being draped over her face. Whatever Leon was planning, she could only hope he would get on with it.

"Hold her," the woman instructed Leon. "Like this."

"What are you doing?" Leon asked. "Look, just give her five minutes in peace and she'll be fine. Maybe get her outside in the open air?"

"Let me try this first."

Despite the small, budding sense of dread building up in her, Lucile remained perfectly reposed and relaxed. Dust from the towel over her face was irritating her nostrils, but she knew it was set to get a lot worse than that. The taps ran again, a glass or container was filled with water. Even now, seconds before her worst fears were confirmed, she clung on to the desperate charade.

"Emma, that's torture," Leon was pleading. "This is against everything we stand for."

God, he is so hopelessly fucking naïve, Lucile thought to herself.

"Yeah, that's after our mission is complete, Lee," replied Emma. "You know we have to play by their rules until we get there."

Just as the first few drops of water hit her face, the towel was suddenly whipped away. The cold liquid ran down her face, into her hair completely missing the target. A row broke out immediately as Leon fended off Emma. All Lucile could do was lie there helplessly and silently pray for some kind of divine intervention. Even if she decided to fight, the Black Flag goons were just outside the door and they wouldn't stand a chance. Instead, Lucile kept herself immobilised, playing dead, on the kitchen table and trying not to think of anything. Before too long, however, the towel was back and Leon banished from the kitchen, replaced by a more reliable henchman.

In a last ditch, desperate attempt to work her way out of the situation, she tried to stop breathing altogether. As the water drenched the towel, she held her breath for as long as possible. But her chest soon hurt, her lungs swelling with the effort and the water kept falling and falling. The water was still running down her nose and getting in her mouth and when her survival instincts did finally override her, she sucked it all deep into her chest making her cough and choke like a landed fish. Reactions she had no control over, completely involuntary. In a panic, she rolled over and regurgitated the water she had ingested over the side of the kitchen table.

"Feeling better?"

Lucile's head was spinning to the point where she worried she might pass out for real. Like Leon, the woman had taken her mask off. She was fair haired and blue eyed, late twenties and slim built. She was looking at Lucile beside a masked and suited henchman.

"Where's the other one?" asked Lucile, as soon as she was able. "The younger one."

She didn't want to give away that she knew Leon's name.

"Never mind him," replied Emma. She was leaning casually against the kitchen counter, regarding Lucile carefully with her arms folding across her chest. "You're just in time for the broadcast."

"No-"

"Jono," Emma said, nodding towards Lucile.

The henchman moved, pinning Lucile back down to the kitchen table while Emma filled another jug of water. The towel was back over Lucile's face in an instant, despite her struggling with every ounce of strength she had left. She tried lashing out with her legs, but with a burly man bearing down on her chest, there was little she could do. She screamed out, the sound cut off half-way through as the waterboarding started again. The more she struggled, the more she panicked, the faster she heartbeat raced, forcing her to gasp for the oxygen she was being starved of. This time, it went on and on, until Lucile really did start to feel herself going limp. By the time it stopped again, her lungs felt like they were on fire. Once more, she was soon gasping and retching up water that had gone into her lungs. When her vision cleared, she could see that Emma had arranged the kitchen knives in a row along the counter. All in order of size, from the largest down to the smallest, all neatly in line. She knows, Lucile thought, she knows Leon was helping her escape.

"Where is he?" demanded Lucile, glaring at Emma. "What are you doing?"

Emma was completely unperturbed. "What do you care? All you need to do is read out this message and you can go free and unhurt."

No matter how half-arsed their plan had been, it was all they had. But Lucile knew it was vital that she didn't come across as actually caring about the boy. "Do you what you like to him," she spat. "I'll broadcast your message, but I must speak to the other one. The boy. Tell him to bring the one time pad."

The henchman and Emma exchanged a look, but the woman nodded her head. "Do it," she said.

When the henchman left, Emma and Lucile were alone. Her whole body still ached from the waterboarding, but she was fine to sit on the kitchen counter. The clock on the wall read fifteen minutes to seven.

"You are helping us," Emma said, her voice suddenly soft. She was like two different people. "I know you don't see things our way. But you are helping bring such wonderful changes to pass."

"Then why do you feel the need to justify yourself?"

Emma was about to answer, but her explanation was cut off by the arrival of Leon and the henchman. The two women exchanged a glance during which Lucile tried to read Emma, to see what was going behind her outwardly passive expression. But Emma merely excused herself to make the station ready for broadcast. As she left she instructed her henchmen to guard the door outside, leaving Leon and Lucile alone. Lucile breathed a sigh of relief: they still trusted Leon, after all.

"What did they do to you?"

"Never mind that," she cut him off. "Go and make sure we're alone."

She watched him as he checked the doors, looking both ways down the corridor outside. He returned a few seconds later. "Jono's a few feet away, but we'll not be overheard. Is this thing what you wanted?"

He held the one time pad in his outstretched hand.

"Burn it," she instructed him.

Leon looked up at her, confusion clouding his expression. In here, the lights were working properly and she could see him clearly for the first time. Only his eyes were still as dark as they were in that dorm room. Dark, and lined with lack of sleep and worry. He was sickly looking, too. It occurred to her then, just how vulnerable he was. But he had tried to help. He took a risk, even when the odds were stacked firmly against him. There was hope for him yet, and she had none for herself.

"There's something inside me that I can't get back," she explained. "It's got your name on it-"

"I don't follow," he said, cutting over her.

Tears were welling his big, dark brown eyes now and it made her want to kick him.

"You don't need to understand it yet," she answered. "Just remember what I'm telling you. It's inside me. When this is over, I need you to go to call Thames House and ask for a woman called Lady Lazarus to call you back. They won't put you through, so don't bother trying."

"That's MI-5," he murmured.

"Yes, but you know what your friends are really doing," she replied, swiftly. "You saw them torture me, didn't you? They did it to me; they'll do it to others and I bet the Minister is the next victim. If you really want to make this world a better place, then do as I ask. Call Lady Lazarus and tell her what I told you."

She could feel the fake tampon still sliding up her cervix and causing sharp, stinging pains as it moved. Even if Leon didn't get in touch, she had used a simple substitution code and that could be broken by any professional cryptologist within a few hours.

"You tried to save my life, Leon," she said, keeping her voice low and cupping his face to make sure he listened. "Now I'm trying to save yours."

"They won't kill you," he insisted.

"True," she replied, magnanimously. "And if they don't, then get in touch with Thames House and ask for Lucile Adams to call you back. For what it's worth, I really hope it will be you and I working together to stop these people."

"You?"

She nodded. "Well, I'm not a field agent, but I've met the man who'll probably be assigned to you. But for now, do everything Black Flag tell you. Carry on as you were."

She could tell that she'd utterly perplexed him, but she hoped for his sake he followed her advice. While he used the toaster to burn the one time pad, she found herself thinking over her "worst case scenario" mantra. If she survived, she would hunt these people down personally. But that was for then. Even when they came to take her to the broadcasting suite, she followed with heavy, aching limbs. All the time, repeating the words "worst case scenario".

Outside the station door, they grouped in a little knot. Lucile found herself surrounded by masked men in boiler suits, with just Emma and Leon showing their true faces. She and Leon looked at one another for a long time, before Emma ordered him to wait outside in the woods for her. The others left right away, but Leon lingered. Just go! Lucile silently implored him. But his gaze never left hers, as he shook his head.

"No, I want to stay," he said.

They had no time to argue. Emma led the way into the tiny broadcasting suite, pulling out Lucile's chair so she could sit down and begin reading out the message at seven am precisely. They knew her call sign, so she couldn't even give Ben warning by reading out a fake one. That was the sort of thing a professional spy would notice immediately and disregard the message. But Emma was watching over her like a hawk as she read out a long sequence of numbers.

Lucile found herself wondering if she had caved in too easily. Even as she continued broadcasting, the wondered if she had been a coward. But she had seen no way out. Either they would kill her and slink back into the shadows, or she could lure one into their Asset trap while playing the game in order to crush them later. But it was too late now, the message was done. The station went off air and, already, Ben Kaplan was at the other end of the country decoding her sabotaged message. Lucile felt sick.

"It's done," she said. "I've done as you asked, and you promised to let me go."

It was a small hand gun concealed in Emma's boiler suit. Lucile had wondered if there was a weapon down there, but she didn't have long to ponder the matter before it was fired directly at her chest.

Lucas managed to pull over before his mobile rang off. He and Ros were on their way to Thames House but had time to spare, so it wasn't much of an inconvenience. Especially when the name Ben Kaplan was flashing up on the caller display.

"Ben, what is it?" he asked, by way of greeting.

"Hi, Lucas, I got this message from our woman in the bunker there," Ben explained. "But she wants me to divert our route to Durham. Any idea what's going on? We're due to set off in half an hour."

"Hang on a minute," said Lucas.

Moving the phone away from his face, he consulted with Ros. She was section head, and if any changes had been authorised, she would know about it.

"It really could be anything," said Ros. "Road works, traffic jams, road closures. Anything. Tell Ben I'm seconding Lucile's changes and to go with it. She knows what she's doing."

With no conceivable reason to argue, Lucas relayed Ros' instructions to Ben and ended the call.

An hour later, they were convened in the meeting room and pouring over floor plans for a Laboratory in Surrey. Ruth had already called the man who ran the place and cleared a staged break-in. Harry had highlighted weak points in the perimeter fence already and Lucas and Ros had agreed, rather enthusiastically, to be the ones doing the breaking in, with Jo Portman agreeing to make up numbers.

"We need wire cutters," Jo put in. "But how are we going to fake releasing the animals back into the wild?"

Lucas had already thought of that. "We don't," he said. "We get some from a pet store, take photos of them running around a field and then donate them to a petting zoo once they've served their purpose. Then we just edit the pictures and footage to make it look like its all part of the same film."

"We could just make a nice coat out of them once we're done."

"ROS!" the others chorused.

"Joking," Ros drawled back at them. "You have to admit though, the irony would be wonderful."

"I can do the editing," Malcom chipped in from the end of the meeting room table and bringing the banter to a standstill. "It's fairly easy to do and we already have advanced editing software."

"Hey, my niece keeps rabbits, I can get photos of them to use," said Jo, eager to get more involved. "That'll do it, won't it?"

"I don't see why not," Ros replied.

Before Lucas could join in again, his mobile rang once more. Harry turned to him in indignation.

"Will you turn that damn thing off before you come in here!"

"Sorry!"

Lucas was already on his way outside to take the call in private. It was Ben again, so Lucas merely closed the meeting room door before answering.

"How's it going?"

Ben didn't answer immediately, but Lucas could hear him breathing heavily, like he'd just run a marathon.

"Shit, Lucas, it was a fucking ambush," he finally wheezed between breaths.

"What?" Lucas' heart rate shot through the roof. "What happened? Are you hurt?"

Already, he was on his way back into the meeting room and calling out to Harry. Everyone inside fell silent, looking at Lucas expectantly. Harry got out of his chair, turning to face Lucas with an expression like thunder.

"I'm not hurt, but the Minister's been shot twice," said Ben. "Shit, Lucas, she's dead."

Thanks again for reading and sorry we didn't see much of the team. From now on, it will be almost exclusively Grid based. Reviews would be great, if you have a minute, thank you.