Jools Siviter was quite pleased with himself.

He'd managed to accomplish so many things in just a few hours, all of them without lifting a finger.  

He had not bothered to wait out the confrontation between CO19 and Nathaniel, leaving Lucas and Liam by the side of the building as he returned to the comfort of his car.  From there, he gave the order for Nathaniel's termination once clear and present danger to someone else was established.  

And for that, he was grateful to Nathaniel George.  For if Nathaniel had not threatened to pull the trigger on Alexa, Jools would have had a lot of explaining to do once a dead man's existence would come to light.

But as he gazed at Nathaniel's body on the autopsy table, having gone to the morgue to see the body for himself, he knew it was all over. 

Ever since Jools finagled a return as head of MI6 with the help of his wife, long after the unfortunate misunderstanding in Washington, he'd been waiting for Arkady's return to England.  That Arkady would return as chief FSB resident in London surprised Jools.   He'd never expected the man to ever return as successfully as he did, his London position cemented for having managed to negotiate the release of an important Russian operative captured in the line of duty in exchange for Lucas North, MI5 operative imprisoned for the last eight years.  

Arkady's move to London, however, had become a problem for Jools.  For as long as Arkady was in London, he knew that his own career would be at risk.  After all, Jools had managed to orchestrate the defection of an important British diplomat without the poor man being aware of what he was doing.  For that was what the trade of Nathaniel George in exchange for Alexa's life had boiled down to - a defection.

Maybe to Nathaniel, the "trade" was a way to save his daughter.   But to Arkady, it meant that he became the key operative responsible for the acquisition and management of a major English diplomat, one whose expertise in nuclear energy policy was unparalleled.  After all, it had been common knowledge that though Nathaniel's career trajectory in the Foreign Office had to do with foreign policy, he also majored in nuclear physics at the university.  Combining the two had made him quite a catch to the Russians. 

But Lucas' return to England as part of the spy exchange had also set many events in motion, prompting Jools to convince Hillary to stay in Bahamas a few more days till it was alright to come back.

Arkady's demand for the file on Operation Imogen told Jools that Arkady had a few tricks up his sleeve.  It told Jools that Arkady knew something he did not.  That, of course, was the knowledge that Harry was Alexa's real father.  

But even Jools could not fault Harry for such weakness.  Every person had a vice, a human failing - an Achilles heel.  And of all such vices, sex always proved to be the most powerful of all, for humans long to feel love, to be loved - even if it meant just a few days or hours.  

That's why honey traps were invented, Jools thought.  Along with spying, prostitution was one of the oldest professions in the world and what was worse, was that there was little to distinguish between the two.  One only had to come up with the case of Samson and Delilah as an example, Delilah being the perfect honey trap sent to discover the giant's source of power.  

And Minerva was the perfect Delilah to Harry's Samson.  If the relationship had occurred twenty nine years or so ago, that would have been during Harry's stint in Cologne - Operation Omega.  Also around the same time Nathaniel would have met Minerva and asked her to marry him just six weeks later. 

But that was Harry's business now.  Jools had no time for domestic squabbles.  He had other things on his mind, other problems to attend to.

For Lucas' return back to England had also produced another problem.  

Mikhael Lubienko, or rather, Michael  Smith, was back in England, and this time Jools couldn't deny that he'd simply forgotten all about the deep cover operative.  After all, Jools had been reassigned somewhere else when Mikhael was requesting a transfer away from Moscow and had neglected to pass on the information to his successor.  

Jools had sent Mikhael to Moscow more than fifteen years earlier, setting up the perfect venue for collecting information.  There was nothing like the combination of women and alcohol to set tongues loose, and Mikhael's operation, black op as it was, had been very successful from the very beginning.  The man became known as "the peddler".

But when Mikhael fell in love with a Russian woman named Oksana, things became complicated.  And Jools hated complications.  

It had stalled Jools' own operation, just when he needed it at full speed.   So when Jools sent one of his men to convince Oksana to leave, fabricating a story about Mikhael dealing with drugs and trafficking women and children, the last thing he expected was for Oksana to laugh at the man's face and pull out a gun on him, demanding he leave before she tell Mikhael who had been out of town that week.  

Unfortunately, from there, things went horribly wrong.  Whether the fire was intentional or not, or whether the man locked, not just Oksana but her one-year old son, Nikolai, inside the apartment or not, it left Mikhael a widower.  And from there, after Jools pretended not to have intercepted any of Mikhael's messages to meet with him for he'd just been sent to Washington, Mikhael went native.  

He disappeared.

But like an unwelcome ghost, Mikhael came back to England.  To say your operative went native on his own was one thing.  But to be the cause of it, was another.  Jools could not afford one more mark against his record.

Jools waited till the attendant covered Nathaniel's face with a white sheet before following him out the door.  

"We'll be doing an autopsy today," the attendant said.  "Harry Pearce wants a full medical autopsy."

"It's only fitting," Jools said.  "Accord him the respect given to any high ranking official."  

As he walked out into the sunlight, Jools heaved a sigh of relief.  He smiled.  

It looked like things were working themselves out - all on their own.  

According to the hospital, Mikhael was dead, having died on the operating table, and Nathaniel was gone as well, his body cold and stiff on the metal table at the morgue.  And as Jools pulled out his phone to look at the photograph that had been sent to him last night, he found himself smiling.

Arkady, it appeared, was dead as well, lying in a shallow grave somewhere in the outskirts of London, shot in the heart by someone whose identity Jools couldn't really be bothered to find out.  For as long as Arkady was dead, his future with MI6 was safe.

As he stood on the corner of the intersection, awaiting his driver to pull up and drive him back to Vauxall Cross, Jools inhaled deeply, smelling London in all its early morning glory.  

Housekeeping never felt so good, he thought to himself.  

>>><<<

Alexa slept for over twenty hours, her body refusing to move more than was necessary, her eyelids too heavy to open more than what was required to see who walked in and out of her hospital room.  Too many nurses coming in to check on her vitals, injecting her with medications - painkillers and sedatives, they said -  every single one of them escorted by two men with guns that for a moment, Alexa thought she was a prisoner.   

But twice, she saw Harry, his face etched with worry as he sat by her bedside just watching her, and the panic dissipated as she felt his hand on hers.  But when she opened her eyes again, he was gone.  She wondered then if it all had been a dream.

She saw Lucas and Liam, too, both of them inseparable as Lucas helped Liam get up on the hospital bed to lay down next to her.  She wanted to talk to him, to ask him if he was alright, but she was too tired even to do that.  And within moments of feeling Liam's body next to hers, Alexa drifted off to sleep again, only to wake up to see that she was alone once more, the space next to her cold and empty.

They said she'd gone into shock and Alexa knew that she must have, for she had no recollection of how she even got to the hospital.  They ran a battery of tests to make sure she was alright, eliminating the possibility of internal injuries.  

Everything had been a blur since she heard that gunshot ring out in the semi-darkness of the refinery ground floor, feel the bullet whiz past her hair, ruffling it and then the sticky mess that followed immediately after.  

No, she had no recollection of anything after that.  

And so she slept, and with the drugs they pumped through her intravenous line, she slept a dreamless sleep till a vision came on so suddenly that it caused her to bolt upright on her bed, stifling a scream of pain in her arm brought on by the sudden movement.  

But Alexa knew right away that this was not just a simple dream.  This had been real.

They never told her their names but she knew what they were.  Psychotherapists, every single one of them.  And every one of them, probably discredited by their respective professional associations - for what they believed in and how they conducted their business lay completely outside of the realm of professional psychotherapy.

For three days, they forbade her from sleeping, taping her eyes open when they needed to and splashing her face with ice cold water, leaving her a quivering mess of a woman afraid of her own shadow.  She remembered the flashing lights, the deafening sounds constantly played again and again, and the drugs they pushed into her system.

In three days, they managed to change her complete biography.  And for almost eight years, she had believed it.

But it hadn't been the first time someone had attempted to rewrite her life.  A bullet to her head had achieved it in Russia, while at Vauxhall Cross, Jools used three crackpot psychotherapists to do exactly the same thing.  

Alexa wiped the sweat that gathered upon her brow and glanced at the clock on the bedside table.  It was four thirty in the morning.

Her body ached all over and her left arm was in a sling.  Her shoulder hurt when she tried to move it, tears springing from her eyes as the pain shot through her whole arm.    But as she slowly moved her arm up and down, she remembered the doctor saying she'd only strained it at the joint.  

But as she slowly sat up, pulling herself up by the rails with her good arm, Alexa stiffened as she realized that she wasn't alone.  She flinched as the figure in the darkness moved, her muscles moving too slow for her to get away and as her heart thudded loudly inside her chest, she watched the figure move towards the light.

"Bad dreams?" Ros asked as she handed Alexa a cup of water, tossing the foldable straw away.  "You're well enough to drink from the cup. These bendable straws are a joke anyway."

Alexa accepted the glass, eyeing Ros suspiciously.  It wasn't like Ros Myers to pay anyone a social visit, Alexa thought.

"It's only water," Ros said.  "If I had wanted to kill you, you'd have never woken up."

As Alexa gulped it down, Ros refilled the glass before sitting back down again.  How long she'd been there Alexa didn't know, but somehow she felt relieved.  It had been awhile since she'd been in the lone company of a woman, and it felt good not to have all that testosterone flying around.   

"Why are you here?"

"I couldn't sleep," Ros replied though Alexa found that reason alone hard to believe.  "I thought you'd like some company."

For a few moments, neither woman spoke and Alexa leaned back against her pillow, pushing on the bed controls so that she reclined.

"You and I are alike in many ways," Ros said quietly.  "We're both daughters of powerful men, both ambassadors - or more precisely, former ambassadors.  And with that comes the burden of responsibility that not a lot of daughters of lesser men have to bear - to always do what's right, no matter what the cost."

Ros was the daughter of Sir Roslyn Myers, a former Ambassador to Russia now spending the next ten years in prison for his involvement in a coup d'tat almost two years earlier.  Alexa wondered if Ros slept soundly at night knowing she was the daughter of a traitor.  

"I'm not his daughter, Ros," Alexa said.  "In case you haven't heard --"

"You and I didn't hear anything, Alexa," Ros said as she stood up and approached the bed once more, her voice cold and firm.  "None of us, not even Harry, heard your father's last words.  Do you understand that?  If you even breathe a word of it, we will discredit you and your foundation as a fraud, nothing more than a way to make money at the plight of hundreds of victims.  Is that what you would like to happen, Alexa?"

"Total deniability," Alexa breathed.  "You want me to pretend it never happened."

Ros stared at her.  "Because it never did.  Nathaniel George died of cancer eight years ago.  The man who held you at gunpoint last night was Sergei Fenix, an insane criminal who fancied himself a designer of nuclear bombs.  And that is the story you and I are going to go along with."

For a few moments, Alexa found herself speechless.  

"Does Harry know what you're doing?"

"It doesn't matter whether Harry knows or not, Alexa.  I'm protecting you most of all from any criminal charges that could be brought against you.  If word gets out that there is a nuclear bomb the size of a suitcase somewhere in London and you are involved, do you know the consequences of that?  Do you know what it can do to Harry?  To Liam and Lucas?"  

Alexa said nothing.

"Now you tell me, Alexa, if it's worth all that," Ros said.

"Where's Liam?"  Alexa suddenly asked as Ros returned to her chair, sitting down and crossing her long legs, her hands folded in front of her.

"He's with his father," Ros replied coolly.  

"How is he?"

Ros shrugged but didn't answer her.  Instead, she asked another question.  "Do you love Lucas?"

Alexa laughed drily, shaking her head as she did so.  "First you threaten me and treat me as an imbecile, Ros.  And now you ask me if I love Lucas North?  Love is a fairy tale people tell one another to make it through each day feeling as if they amount to something.  Besides, it's none of your bloody business."

"I love your rosy view of life but I'm section chief now, Alexa, and I need Lucas to be completely with me on my team, so yes, it is my business," Ros said.  "I need to know you're not playing him."

"I never realized how much you cared --"

"I only care for his performance on my team," Ros interjected.  "Lucas wants desperately to prove himself to everyone - most of all, to Harry.  I wouldn't want you to drag him down.  You've been quite a distraction to him." 

"Somehow, concern such as this is quite unlike you, Ros," Alexa said coldly.

Ros shrugged.  "Harry always said Lucas was once the best, but no one will ever know that if he's too busy protecting you, Alexa.  Most of all, Lucas himself."

"I chose none of this to happen, Ros," Alexa said. 

Suddenly Ros was off her chair and by Alexa's bedside.  She leaned over towards Alexa, her eyes flashing with anger.  "Stop lying to me.  You chose this path the moment you agreed to work with Mikhael, Alexa.  Don't think you can fool me with your feigned innocence because I'm not falling for it like everyone else, even Harry.  I worked for Six before I transferred over to Section D, so don't lie to me now.  I know about Nephthys, Alexa.  I know who you are."

For a few moments, both women glared at each other, Ros' steely gaze never leaving Alexa's face.  

Nephthys was a name Alexa had not heard in eight years, not since Mikhael wrote his last report for his handler just minutes before she had left the club for her last mission - to meet with Oskar Millivic and obtain Tiresias - before everything went horribly wrong and she found herself on the other end a gun.

"I know all about Nephthys," Ros whispered.  "Mikhael was unable to file that last report but I know of the other operations he sent you to do - his perfect honey trap sent out to obtain information.  Now I don't know what happened in Russia to make you into this blithering shell of a spook - I don't know who broke you, because that's exactly what they did - but I want this performance to stop immediately."

"What do you want from me, Ros?" Alexa asked.

"We will always have it tougher, Alexa.  We can never show weakness in this line of work, whether you're an asset or a spook, or just a woman trying to make it in this life," Ros said as she straightened her leather jacket and walked towards the door.  "Your mother knew that rule very well, and she was good at what she did.  She knew how to play the game."

Ros paused, sighing as she reached for the door knob.  "But she had one weakness and that proved to be her downfall.  It's the same weakness that brought your father down and it's the same way everyone else will get to Harry and Lucas."

Alexa looked at Ros, her brow furrowing, but she did not say anything.

"It's you," Ros said quietly.  

"So what do you suggest I do, Ros?"

"I didn't come here to tell you what to do, Alexa," Ros said as she opened the door.  "You'll have to decide that for yourself, though I suspect you already know the answer.  Wake up and smell the roses, Alexa.  Because they're all dead on the vine and the stench is about to get worse."

And as the door shut behind Ros, Alexa looked away.  Her jaw tightened.

Alexa swung her legs to the side of the bed and stepped onto the cold floor, making her way to the closet hoping to find her clothes.  But first, she had to do something.

Nephthys had to find her handler.

>>><<<

Lucas had never been to the Horniman Museum before that afternoon, but he'd heard someone talk about it at the hospital when he and Liam visited Alexa.  She'd been too sleepy to keep her attention on Liam for more than five minutes, the sedative taking effect as soon as the nurse administered it just before they got there after lunch.  

To say Liam was disappointed had been an understatement but the boy kept his feelings in check till they left the hospital, tears streaming down his cheeks as soon as Lucas got him into the car.  Liam was scared that Alexa wasn't going to wake up and  it took another trip back up to the fourth floor for Lucas to allow Liam to speak to the nurse who reassured him that his mommy would be returning home the next day.

"We're just making sure she's not hurt, Liam," the woman said and Liam's face broke into a smile.  A small one, Lucas saw, but it was a smile nonetheless.  He has my lips, Lucas thought to himself as they returned to the car again.  

It was then that Lucas decided that returning to the safe house was not what he and Liam needed.  They both needed a distraction, and the museum proved to be a good way to spend the rest of the day.  Harry had given Lucas a week off, himself too affected by the death of his friend, Nathaniel.

Lucas did not know what had transpired at the refinery platforms, how Nathaniel had managed to grab Alexa and hold her hostage, almost killing his own daughter till CO19 took that fateful shot, killing him instantly.  Lucas had been with Liam the entire time, holding him till the ambulances arrived at the Gordon refinery, never leaving Liam's side