Sorry for the delay. Holiday and real life so thank you for your patience. Once again can I think those who reviewed, whether named or as a guest.

The Estuary

A few months previously

Kneeling beside Ruth, he sobbed helplessly, too devastated to even rage at fate, his personal awareness limited to one thought only – she lay there, dead - but in those first few moments after her breath had departed, still warm, giving all the appearance of one who'd just fallen asleep, provided you ignored the now clotting, no longer flowing blood. As his breath continued to come in jerks his hand was hovering half way over her eyelids. Unable to find any words to describe the depths of his despair, and shaking with sorrow he slowly ran a finger over both lids in recognition of the permanent closure of those remarkable, wonderfully changeable eyes.

Almost as if that action had burst the self enclosed cocoon he'd been wrapped in he vaguely registered, with a sense of mild shock, that despite her departure into the realms of the dead, the world around him still continued to revolve without pause. The plaintive cry of the birds, indifferent to his grief as they winged their way over the mudflats, diving to seize the odd unwary insect before soaring upwards to be borne away by the carefree air currents, the slight lapping of the wind ruffled river, tidal with a salty tang that bespoke nearness to the fresh sea air, and somewhere the very distant throb of the helicopter arriving too late, much too late to be of use to Ruth, although not for Sasha lying on the ground whimpering from the pain of his shattered leg. Whatever fragments remained of this half dazed, half hypnotic state were dispelled by the sight of Ilya, finally emerging from the bunker and stumbling a little as he dashed across the uneven ground, a mixture of pebbles, sand and coarsely tufted grass, towards the group standing uncertainly as they awaited the guidance of their distraught leader.

Ilya, no less emotionally devastated by the events of the day than Harry, required no explanation as to what had taken place. The sight of his fallen son writhing in agony, coupled with the his old adversary positioned a short distance away, kneeling and weeping over the unmoving body of Ruth, told him the full tale.

To Dmitri, cautiously assessing the Russian as he advanced, the thought occurred that if Harry resembled an aging Pooh bear whose stuffing was unexpectedly leaking, leaving him deflated and directionless, Ilya was presenting as a vampire in the process of consuming his last drop of life giving blood. As the culprit who had of necessity disabled Gavrik Junior with a bone shattering shot in the leg, Dimitri could only hope that Ilya had completed his quota of revenge for the day. Ilya after a quick glance at Sasha had turned his gaze towards Harry, who'd now managed to haul himself off his knees, although even standing upright he still seemed stunned and rendered directionless by the sudden tragic turn of events.

The three younger spooks began nerving themselves to intervene in a showdown which surprisingly failed to transpire. Ilya spoke first, simply and quietly saying, "Harry." While Harry in his turn merely replied, "Ilya". The watching trio, remaining on high alert, were uncertain as to whether this monosyllabic greeting indicated that the pair struggling to articulate anything beyond basic speech, or alternatively whether it represented the remnant of some weird Cold War etiquette, the spook equivalent of the formal bowing at the commencement of a judo contest, after which the opponents would resort to vicious tactics with the express aim of killing one another. Whatever the undertow Harry and Ilya seemed locked into a staring contest, featuring expressions indecipherable to the observers, during which, while no words were uttered by the participants, much seemed to be understood.

Before anyone could speak to establish whether they were eyeballing as friend or foe the silence was punctured by the sound of Erin's mobile, its insistent ring restoring as near a sense of normality as they were likely to experience given the present murderous circumstances. As she took the call Erin's apprehensive expression transformed into one as grim as that of Harry or Ilya's, finishing with a brisk,"Very well keep me informed."

She turned to the group, her business like tone a little less clipped than that she'd used when terminating the call. "That was the Grid." Even before she continued it was obvious from the concerned spark in her eyes that Thames House had not contacted her with the updated weather forecast, "The CIA and FSB have both established our location and are arriving at top speed. ETA approximately fifteen minutes." With Harry and Ilya still emulating living statues she attempted to jerk them into an awareness of a situation that had suddenly increased in gravity. "Harry you have to get out of here now."

Even in his grief stricken state Harry could manage to articulate a forthright, "No." Followed by, "If the CIA discover the truth behind what has taken place here the partnership will fail."

While his staff openly gaped in astonishment tinged with alarm Ilya, in his gently accented English added, "I agree, those that recruited," - stumbling momentarily over the name - "Elena will have won."

If any of the three younger operatives had ever debated why Harry and Ilya, having carved out formidable reputations in their respective youths, remained at the top of their game they were now the captive audience to an exclusive masterclass: subject - devotion to spycraft. The last fifteen death dominated minutes had deprived both men of the women they'd loved to distraction. Admittedly one had met her demise at the hands of her deceived husband, but no one privy to Ilya's devastated expression could doubt for a moment that he'd loved that lying devious psychopathic bitch, while the face of his erstwhile enemy was still tracked with tearstains, his hands covered in the drying blood of the woman who'd just sacrificed herself. Bereaved, with the boy they'd both claimed as a son lying whimpering and wounded a few short steps away, and their immediate concern was focussed solely upon an obsessive desire to serve their respective countries! Birds of a feather, hailing from a generation of spooks formally divided by an Iron Curtain, but characterised by a pedigree endowing them with blood that could, even in the most traumatic of circumstances, convert to instant ice water. It was an example the astounded trio weren't entirely sure they wanted to live up to.

Harry without preamble asked Ilya a necessary, if brutal question, "How did you kill her?" Ilya looking seriously shaken answered in one choking word, "Strangled."

Harry's reaction owed more to expediency than tact, "Good, shooting her might have been more difficult to explain away."

With a stricken gaze at the still stretched out figure beside his feet Harry whispered, "Forgive me Ruth." Dmitri divining Harry's reluctance to leave Ruth's body unattended, as if she were some piece of flotsam washed up with the tide, said gently, "I'll stay with her Harry." Moved beyond words Harry gave a brief nod of acknowledgement. Pulling more heavily than ever before on his joint mantras of 'self control, self denial' twinned with 'Regnum Defende' he suppressed his despair, dredging from the depths of what passed for his soul a more decisive tone with which to bark out his orders.

"Calum stay with Sasha, Erin with me. Calum, Dmitri, if the FSB and CIA arrive before we return from the bunker you say nothing –except if pushed - that Sasha was mentally disturbed by watching his mother commit suicide."

Calum and Dmitri open mouthed at this instruction were left with no time to argue. Ilya unbidden had already set off at speed for the bunker, while Harry and Erin, picking their way more cautiously around the lumps and bumps that composed the shingle and soil mixed terrain, followed as hastily as possible. Erin, as she steeled herself to re enter the grim concrete construction of death, wondering exactly how Harry, the professional trickster, planned to juggle this impossible deception.

The instant they passed into the bunker, substituting the wide open skies for the low ceilinged and wartime metalled decor of dull green and dirty grey, an overwhelming sense of claustrophobia enclosed them. In an atmosphere that would have been oppressive under any circumstances Erin could only marvel at the stoicism with which the two men in front of her were moving as they unhesitatingly prepared to confront, for the second time in minutes, the grisly results of their Berlin endgame. As Erin followed them through the short echoing corridor that opened into the wider room that housed the ancient technology and other impedimenta, a form of secular shrine to decades of covert struggles, it occurred to her that the pair of elderly spooks preceding her were in themselves breathing historical relics, the doughty survivors of an earlier era and unknown, distant battles that had now resulted in a wholly unanticipated alliance. Eyes straining as they readjusted to the gloomy illumination offered by the low wattage light bulbs, the scene was much as it had been when Erin and company had rushed after Sasha in their futile efforts to avert further bloodshed. The glass shards, created by Sasha's frantic shattering of the two way window in his doomed efforts to prevent his father murdering his mother, mostly lay scattered like a malignant confetti over the floor of the previously locked room, some crunched into tiny atoms by the inevitable pounding of feet arriving and departing in various states of alarm. The chair, on which Elena had sat as she leant back into Ilya's gentle deceptive shoulder caresses some thirty seconds before his fatal pounce, still lay upturned and abandoned at the far end of the sparsely furnished room. Until now it hadn't occurred to Erin to wonder how Ilya had occupied himself during that short period in which the screaming and out of control Sasha had murdered Ruth. Entering the room behind Harry and Ilya this suddenly posed question was answered. Elena's body, last seen by Erin being held in Ilya's stranglehold while Dmitri checked her newly dead neck for any sign of a pulse, was now peacefully laid out on the map table over which in the earlier proceedings Harry had threatened to shot Sasha. Her two piece suit smoothed down, her body straightened and seemingly undisturbed. It could only have been the work of Ilya. First killing: then reverently honouring the body of his wife. As she swallowed down the bile that this bizarre imagery summoned up from her stomach Erin briefly marvelled anew at the hold that woman had acquired over both men. She was allowed no time for an in depth speculation. Harry was prowling around the room with intent, hunting for something damnedly elusive. Ilya, willing himself to look afresh at his handiwork, governed his inevitable thoughts sufficiently to ask the question Erin was about to pose.

"Harry what are you doing?"

Harry ceased his restless search for a moment as he favoured them with his reconstructed story,

"We can't hide what has happened so we tell a partial truth. That Elena was behind the efforts to scupper the partnership and that she was working for this group. What we don't say is that this went back for years. For future reference Ilya she was recruited just before you set off from Russia."

Ilya's mind operating at the same lightening speed as Harry's ruminated, "That could work as no one other than your staff know of her earlier involvement, apart from her handlers who are unlikely to break cover, but her motive! And the problem of the jet?"

"We keep it simple. They threatened to frame you for some activity that Putin would find unacceptable – you can decide that one –and they also threatened to kill Sasha who was the apple of her eye."

Recalling Elena's near lack of emotion when confronted by Harry holding a gun to Sasha's head threatening to kill him, forced Erin to wonder if he was indulging in a deliberate irony. That a mother could stand by, and even while visibly distressed, call such a potentially bloody bluff with her own child's live at stake had made her sick to her stomach. Harry, whether his comment was deliberate, or an accidental reference based on a normal parental reaction, was continuing to outline his suggested fiction.

"The jet: when Elena discovered what was going to happen as a result of the partnership being brought forward they hit her line in the sand and she confessed. It was only due to the work of Ruth, who as security adviser had extra clearances, that we discovered that they'd also lied to Elena."

Ilya was nodding, "And I assume Coaver's death was because he about to uncover Elena."

Erin had an objection, "But if he'd done that then her employers wouldn't have had to worry as the scandal would have ensured that partnership would fail anyway, so why did they kill him?"

Ilya, the possessor of an intelligence that could match Harry's twist for twist constructed an answer, "They'd not want to be beholden to America, also they would want to retain Elena as a useful future asset, married to someone with high level connections. Having worked once for them and destroyed the partnership they could blackmail her with the threat of exposure – and the chance to take out Harry, a dangerous opponent, was irresistible."

With that settled Harry was becoming impatient – "We have to get out of here quickly, but first if we are to make this convincing I'm sorry Ilya we have no choice, we have to make it look as though Elena hung herself."

Erin surveying the furnishing of the room, utilitarian enough to make a hardened Spartan feel deprived and therefore minus handy accessories queried, "With what?"

Harry failed to answer directly. Having cast his eyes over Elena's peaceful corpse, and knowing what he was about to do, he was now regarding Ilya with a sympathy he'd never expected to expend on the man, "There is a rope substitute. Turn your back Ilya, I can't ask you to do this. At least not the first part."

Erin's immediate response was to half wonder if everything she'd just observed was an elaborate deception designed to lull Ilya into a false sense of comradeship before Harry murdered him as revenge for Ruth. She'd not put much past her boss, but that brief concern was swiftly superseded by alarm when he hastily approached the table currently performing service as Elena's temporary bier. Erin's puzzlement at his determined set of jaw, combined with a hint of a speedily repressed shudder, was answered when, as he leant over Elena's remains, he swiftly shoved his hand up her dress, and just quickly yanked off her tights. Ten denier, expensive, and now, Erin automatically noted, irretrievably laddered.

Harry's own gut was beginning to perform contortions as he tried to blot out the memory of those occasions on which he'd so carefully caressed those shapely dead limbs, felt them gripping around him, urging him on with whispered, and as he now knew, false endearments. Disciplining his treacherous stomach along with his reminiscences, and conscious that speed was of the essence, his fugitive thoughts were speedily returned to the anchorage of present day reality by the alarming realisation that it wasn't just Elena's tights that he'd displaced. Not wishing to harrow Ilya with the sight of his near obscene actions Harry frantically gestured to Erin. It took her a couple of seconds to interpret this sub standard semaphore. When she did grasp the meaning it was with gritted teeth that she moved forward silently, almost gagging as she hoisted Elena's intimate underwear back into a respectable position. Falling prey to a double standard she would normally deplore and with a crudity that she knew did not become her, Erin was sorely tempted to suggest that it might be more fitting to leave Elena's designer knickers dangling around her well turned ankles. A pertinent symbol of the havoc created by her slavish obedience to her handler's order, 'to drop 'em for Russia'. Regretfully she concluded that Harry and Ilya would veto this undignified notion on the grounds of taste alone, although in practical terms it was also a non starter. The CIA might not boast the brightest of operatives, but even the intelligent deficient gung-ho muscle they employed would baulk at believing that the never less than glamorous Elena would have clambered onto a chair and pulled down her drawers as a precursor to offing herself.

While Erin was reluctantly undertaking his silently issued orders Harry was occupied in tying a slip knot loop in one end of the tights. Checking that Erin had recreated a modicum of temporary dignity for Elena's corpse Harry tapped Ilya on the shoulder, an indication that his help was now required. Swallowing convulsively Ilya moved to take Elena's feet. Working together wordlessly, staggering under the dead weight that was Elena's least malevolent legacy, the two men manoeuvred her body over to the corner where the chair lay. Climbing onto the chair Harry, with a practiced ease almost certainly rooted in his field officer past, threw the unknotted end of the tights around a conveniently placed ceiling pipe and secured it, following up his actions with an experimental tug. Satisfied with his handiwork thus far he nodded to Ilya and with a joint effort, signalled by much huffing and puffing, they pushed their cumbersome burden upwards, stuffing Elena's lolling head through the noose. Releasing her body from their joint grip both men tensed as the corpse sagged, its weight dragging the whole construction downwards as the nylon stretched to its limit, but Harry had judged well, the makeshift rope held, leaving a clearance of about five feet above the floor over which Elena swung free, twisting in the air like a windblown puppet. Having exhaled with relief it took the pair of them, working in wordless concert approximately thirty seconds to set the rest of the scene. Not even the most picky of stage designers would have faulted the telling arrangement of a chair seemingly toppled onto its side, with the hand made shoes artistically placed in a position, implying that they had been kicked away in the throes of the shuddering slow strangulation allegedly produced by the tightening of the homemade cord. Erin looking at her watch was astounded to note that the entire operation had taken just a little over five minutes. She was trying to decide what had shocked her more, the speed, or the clinical way with which Harry and Ilya had set aside their joint personal harrows to collaborate in their necessary but gruesome tasks. Not quite the partnership publically envisaged in the document signing that had taken place only a few hours previously, but remarkably amicable given what had preceded it.

With one final visual sweep of the room to ensure that everything seemed in order Harry suddenly held out his hand, demanding of Ilya who, as a result of their activities was looking even more ghastly than Elena, "Key please."

Ilya passed it over as he stated, "I assume that the story will be that we locked Elena in and you took the key. While I went to try and ring my staff Elena, not wanting the disgrace and fearing reprisals for breaking her cover, hung herself. Sasha saw it, tried to stop her by smashing the window but it was too late and then he..."

Erin finished for him, "Went for Harry blaming him for having the key that prevented Sasha getting in and Ruth got in the way. But Harry..."

Now the adrenaline surge had passed Harry was visibly reverting to his earlier utterly crushed state. Whereas the Harry they knew on the Grid would have responded to her incipient protest with impatience now he merely sounded weary. "Yes Erin."

"Well it will be obvious that the ligature marks are post mortem – the CIA will discover this anyway. Why did we leave her like that? And Sasha knows the truth as well."

Noting that Harry had reached the point of utter exhaustion Ilya intervened, "Given that Elena was already dead we were more concerned with Sasha and Miss Evershed. Elena had, and in death still has, diplomatic protection, so the CIA will not be allowed to either touch or view her body closely. It is sufficient that they see her. Sasha is in no condition to speak coherently and I doubt that the American president wants a diplomatic incident over this." As he completed this statement a factor they'd temporarily forgotten suddenly occurred to him, "But Harry the CIA will still want to take you on the grounds that your extradition was approved."

Harry, in a tone as dead as Elena and Ruth, simply stated, "I don't really care very much, now she's dead."

Ilya, grimacing with an anguish mirroring that of Harry sighed, "I do understand but I think you would mourn better in England that in an American jail, and I can see by those marks on your wrists that you were not well treated."

Ignoring Harry who was now beyond speech Ilya addressed Erin, "I suggest Miss Watts that Harry who is clearly in need of medical treatment departs with the helicopter before the CIA arrive. No doubt your Home Secretary can arrange protection in London pending a reinvestigation into Jim Coaver's death, an investigation that will include my confidential report clearing Harry."

Emerging back into the daylight, blinking as her eyes readjusted to the brightness and space after the depressing gloom of the bunker Erin looking towards Harry for assent realised that he was totally indifferent to his personal fate. She wasn't even certain that he had registered Ilya's expression of concern as he turned away. Watching him trudge despondently back to stand, a forlorn sentinel, over what remained of Ruth, Erin decided that despite the appalling circumstances surrounding Ruth's death at least as she died she and Harry had known that they'd loved and been loved in return. What of Ilya, the man who'd been as thoroughly deceived as Harry, but was minus any form of emotional compensation for being played and exploited by the woman to whom he'd been devoted, and heaven only knew what his relationship with his son would be from now on. Harry's relationship with his children might have been rendered acrimonious by his unswerving allegiance to the state, but at least he'd stopped short of murdering their mother, despite, if gossip spoke true, massive provocation from his estranged ex.

Ilya's quiet query "Miss Watts" drew her attention away from such fruitless speculations as she realised she hadn't responded to Ilya's earlier comments, or were they commands? Aware that Ilya was suffering as deeply as Harry she tried to infuse her voice with sympathy as she replied to his orders,

"I agree and thank you."

Ilya, with a final courteous bow moved towards his now unconscious son. Sasha must finally passed out with pain. Given that a muted Sasha would be unable to gabble out a contradictory but truthful version of the horrendous proceedings, his current non communicative state had to be the one lucky break of the afternoon. As Erin hastened to appraise Dmitri and Calum of the hastily constructed cover story she could only hope that the tardily arriving paramedics would opt not to revive the confused homicidal youth until he was safely ensconced in the helicopter. With an anxious eye she watched as Harry incapicated once more by grief dropped with exhaustion beside Ruth. What of his future she wondered, was this the event that would finally break Sir Harry Pearce, the indestructible legend of Section D?

"And we made it out just before the medical team arrived. When they touched down I was crying beside Ruth begging her to forgive me. That Jane was when I realised how unworthy I was. I'd as good as killed her. Yet within minutes of her death I'd become an automaton for the state, I couldn't even grieve without thinking first about work. She was right not to marry me. I knew then that I'd never have made her happy. I can't live a normal life because I'm damaged and damned. When the medical staff arrived they thought I'd been there all the time. What sort of uncaring bastard prostitutes the demise of the woman he loves? I can't forgive myself for what I did to her in life, or the lies I told even as she lay there dead."

With that, and the entire strain of confession over, the breakdown that Harry had long fought off with whisky and deliberate sublimation overtook him. The dam of the last few months had breached, leaving him, as he'd dreaded if he ever once let go. Broken. Helpless. Despairing. His arms folded across the table, his head sunk over them, he sobbed without ceasing, aware of virtually nothing other than the sounds indicating that Jane had stood up and, from the clipping of her heels across the tiled floor, was walking away. Only now did he realise that without recognising the fact he'd begun to see her as his chink of hope, his life line back to something beyond depression. As the door slammed shut behind her he had his proof that the truth he'd feared to tell had indeed driven her away.

Thanks for reading and please if you have a moment feel free to review. If the site does boast that rare bird an Elena fan I apologise for the content of the chapter.