Chapter 35

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Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of Kudos and BBC. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:  THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS MATURE CONTENT

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*Contains mature content

Harry found Jools inside the gentleman’s club he regularly frequented, holding court at the first floor alcove with a few other men who were listening intently to something he was saying.  But as soon as Harry appeared, Jools stopped and jokingly told the men to leave him for he had urgent business to attend to.

Within minutes, the private alcove was left to both men and together they sat on two large leather chairs at the far end.  Jools didn’t offer Harry anything to drink and when the host asked Harry if he cared for one, Harry shook his head.

“No, thank you,” Harry said, smiling and watching the host walk away.

“So,” Jools said, as soon as they were alone again.  “What has gotten the venerable Sir Harry Pearce out of his little section in the middle of the day to come pay me a social call?”

“Oh, this is no social call, Jools,” Harry said.  “I’ve come here to warn you.”

“Oh?” Jools cocked an eyebrow, smiling.  “Harry, you know that report is useless, just the words of a bitter traitor against his own boss.”

“I don’t particularly care how you view the report, Jools, but the allegations are serious and they are with merit.  The JIC is currently reviewing all the materials and at the moment, it doesn’t look good for you.”

Jools’ expression hardened, the smile vanishing from his face.  In the past, the head of the JIC owed his position to Jools himself, allowing Jools to extract favors, and there had been many.  But these days, the JIC had changed since he had last held the position as head of MI6 more than five years earlier.  

The establishment had undergone a coup and so much more, and now the current head was someone who took no prisoners.  If what Harry said was true, then Harry had chosen the right time to produce Lubienko’s report.  He took a sip of Scotch and placed the glass back on the table, his muscles tense.  Jools had one more card to play.  

“You have no proof, Harry, and you know it.”

“That’s up the JIC to decide, Jools,” Harry said.  “Besides, you’d be surprised to know that I didn’t hand over the information.  I didn’t have to.”

If Jools was surprised, he managed to conceal it well.  

“I’d talk with the red office, if I were you,” Harry said.  “And find out what they really think about you now.”

As Jools appeared to mull over what he had just heard, Harry got up and said good-bye.  As he walked away, Harry felt a sadness descend upon him.  

For years he’d viewed Jools as a pompous aristocratic bully who chose to use his wealth and blue-blood heritage to get whatever he wanted.  And for years he had succeeded. 

But to have to fall to the depths that Jools was about to fall to, Harry would never have wished it on anyone, especially not one of their own.  Yet there was no denying the fact that Jools was a traitor and had been for over twenty years.  How many lives had he endangered?  How many lives had his treachery really cost the secret services - on all levels?

As Harry got into the car that had remained double parked outside the club, he remembered how he’d gotten the call from the new man who’d taken over Arkady’s position so quickly after his disappearance.  The call had arrived shortly after he’d questioned the hypnotherapist Coultron.

While Arkady had been as equally pompous and arrogant as Jools, Valentin Durev appeared quite the opposite.  Suave, charming and disarmingly polite, he offered Harry a deal.

It was true that Jools was a double agent, Valentin said, but that would now be something of the past.  

“The past?” Harry asked, surprised.  He’d just been reeling over the information Coultron had given him minutes earlier and even Harry had to admit that he wasn’t ready to hear more just yet.  “I’m afraid you will need to elaborate what you mean, Mr. Durev, for I’m afraid I don’t quite understand you.”

“Call me Valentin,” laughed the man on the other end of the line.  “What I mean is this, Mr. Pearce.  Mr. Siviter is no longer of  use to us and he is now, and has been in the last few years, nothing but a liability.  The only reason we have maintained him is because of Nathaniel George and of course, his daughter, Alexa.  You see, she had information we quite sorely needed and now we have it.  And her father is dead.” 

“You’re willing to surrender your own double agent?”  Harry asked carefully.  Surely there was a catch somewhere.

“Would you rather that we tell the news agencies ourselves?” Valentin asked pointedly.  “You see, Mr. Pearce, while I’m head resident here in London, I’m making it my responsibility to do some cleaning up, or shall we say, a reassessment of our country’s interests here in London.”

“You’re the consummate diplomat, Valentin,” Harry said.

Valentin chuckled.  “Yes, that’s been said before, and I must admit, it’s true.  But think about what I just said, Mr. Pearce.  It is best that the information come from someone else other than another agency within the same establishment, don’t you think?  Just imagine the distrust it must sow throughout the entire Secret Services should your peers learn that there is a snake in their midst, ready to expose them at the first opportune moment?  Not that I’m saying that you are, of course.”

“What about the information that Alexa retrieved from Gemini?”  Harry asked, ignoring Valentin’s remark. 

“You can make copies of it, if you want that as insurance, but we will need them to hand along with the report that Mikhael Lubienko drafted nine years ago,” Valentin said.  “One is useless without the other, I hear.”

“How do I know you can be trusted?”

“Do you know where Miss Myers is right now?” Valentin suddenly asked and Harry frowned.   Ros had left twenty minutes earlier to go after Lucas but it wasn’t something that Harry was ready to divulge just yet.  

“Why do you want to know?”  Harry asked.

“Tell her to wait at the north end of the alley where Gemini is located,” Valentin said.  “I’ll have your precious daughter and Lucas North headed that way after I take care of a few pressing problems.”

Before Harry could say anything, he heard the sound of a door being kicked open and the screams of women in the background.  A woman with a gruff voice screaming obscenities suddenly became silent as Valentin said something to her.  And as Harry grabbed hold of the edge of his desk for support, allowing himself to sit down on his chair weakly, the sound of gunfire erupted in the background.

“North end of the alley,” Valentin repeated, his voice suddenly taking on an air of danger.  “And you will learn soon enough whether I can be trusted or not, Mr Pearce,” he said before hanging up the phone.

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Outside, the rain had begun to fall and Alexa emerged from the shower, drying her hair as she gathered the robe about her.  She exhaled, and as if a heavy weight left her shoulders, they lowered for just a fraction and she looked around her.  The flat was beautifully decorated, one of the best safe houses that MI5 had to offer her, thanks to Harry Pearce and the fact that she was allegedly his daughter.  

It was a discovery that Alexa was not ready to accept just yet, and even she knew that Harry wasn’t about to do so either.  She was aware that at the beginning of her debrief just five days earlier, shortly after she’d surrendered the three thumb drives to Harry, he’d requested a blood test to be run.  

Just protocol, he had said to her, smiling faintly but Alexa could see it in his eyes, and she understood.  

And for the past five days, she had lived here and Alexa knew that she’d be here till after Jools would finally face the tribunal and account for his treachery, the proof against him irrefutable this time, even for someone as powerful as the head of MI6.  

Alexa opened a bottle of wine and poured herself a glass.  She played some soft music to complement the sound of the soft rain outside her window, and sat on the sofa before the television set that was on but was on mute, shadows playing upon her face.

Mikhael had died two days after she’d last seen him.  They told her that he had died from a pulmonary embolism but she had insisted on viewing the video of that day, scanning every face that walked past his room, freezing the frame on every single person who had entered and left it, cross checking each face to every employee on file that she’d convinced Malcolm to retrieve for her from the hospital database.

And when Alexa found the one face that could not be accounted for, she had the photograph printed and kept it for herself.  She would memorize that face, she thought, just as Mikhael had taught her to do many years earlier.  

She had asked Malcolm to identify the face for her and when he finally did, though reluctantly, a feat that took him three days to complete, Alexa kept the piece of paper he had handed her as well.  And just as Mikhael had taught her, she would remember the name, and never forget it.

The time alone in her opulently furnished safe house had given Alexa enough time to think things over.  She knew that the debrief was necessary and that if she wouldn’t agree to it, she’d be viewed in an unfavorable light, as someone who had something to hide.  

But if the debrief was necessary to take Jools Siviter down, the man responsible for turning her mother into a Russian asset and the same man who had engineered her father’s defection to Russia, after threatening to have Alexa institutionalized at Bethlem, Alexa would do anything it took to do so.  

She would help take down the same man who had ordered the death of an innocent wife and infant son of a once-valued MI6 agent just to protect his cover.  

But as she sat in the room with Harry watching her every move, the interrogator pummeling her with countless questions for the last five days, Alexa realized that she only had to give them the answers they needed to bring Jools down, and nothing else.  

Alexa still had secrets to keep, and she was going to keep them.

The faint scratching at her door caused Alexa to look up and almost spill her drink.  She pulled open the drawer next to the sofa and pulled out the gun that Harry had left for her.  She crept over towards the door and waited till the knob turned and the door was gently pushed open, her heart beating racing.  She wondered where the surveillance team was and whether they were on their way.

The barrel of the gun touched Lucas’ cheek as he pushed the door open and he stopped, looking at her questioningly.  Alexa lowered the gun and turned away as Lucas slipped in quietly and locked the door securely behind him.

“Your deadbolt wasn’t secured,” he said.

“We really should stop meeting like this, Lucas,” she smiled.  “You could have knocked.”

“I did,” Lucas said. He wore a deep blue shirt that complimented his eyes, and tight jeans that hugged his long legs.  “I even called you just now, but you didn’t answer. You had me quite worried I had to  make sure the surveillance van was still there.  Almost got myself caught breaking into your safe house as it is.”

"You mean they don't know you're here right now?" Alexa asked, surprised.

Lucas smiled mischievously. "No, not that I want all of Section D to know everything that you or I do.  But you really should have your phone close by at all times.  You never know when  you'll need it."

Alexa ran her hand against her damp hair, blushing. “I’m sorry, Lucas.  I had the phone on mute and I forgot to turn the volume back on.”  She leaned forward to kiss him lightly on the lips, catching Lucas by surprise.  "But I'm glad you broke in.  After five straight days alone, it really isn't fun drinking by yourself.  Besides, I was getting lonely."

Alexa returned the gun back into its drawer and turned to face him.  Lucas was wet from the rain and she handed him a towel to dry his hair.  She hadn’t seen in five days, and she felt her chest tighten as she watched him wipe his face and drape the towel over the back of the nearest chair.  

He was no longer as skinny as he had appeared when she first ran into him more than two weeks earlier.  He’d acquired a bit more color to his face, the once sharp edges of his cheek bones having slowly filled in with a softness that seemed to beg for a touch and a caress.

“If it's any consolation, I missed you,” Lucas said as she poured him a glass of wine and handed it to him.  Alexa could smell the scent of him as she drew closer, the tension in her muscles building slowly.  It almost felt like an uncoiling, she thought, the experience of it sending a tightness deep inside the depths of her belly.

“Harry didn’t approve of us seeing each other during the debrief, Lucas,” Alexa said, her face reddening.  “But if it's any consolation to you, I missed you, too.”

Lucas took a sip, smiling, as his eyes followed Alexa as she walked towards the living room.  He hadn’t spoken to her since the day he found her at Gemini, since the last exchange they’d had just before they entered the car with Ros at the wheel, and he was glad for the playful banter they had just exchanged. 

But there was still so much work to be done.  There was so much to cover between them, he thought.

“Liam says hello,” he said.  “I was with him today when he played his first rugby game since returning to school after...” He paused and did not continue his sentence. There was no point bringing back the past that included his son standing in front of him with a gun pointed at his head, Lucas thought, his jaw tightening at the memory.  And it was something Alexa didn’t need to know.  

Lucas was grateful that Liam had looked at at him the entire time, hardly ever seeing that gun behind him.  He shuddered at the thought but forced himself to push the memory back to the past where it belonged.

“Not that you could probably call it an official rugby game, but he did quite well,” Lucas said, chuckling. “He’s looking forward to seeing you tomorrow.”

“Harry wouldn’t even let me see him till the debrief was over,” Alexa took another sip from her wine and set it down.  “He really wants this thing with Jools to be over as soon as possible.”

“I don’t blame him,” Lucas said, pulling her down onto the sofa with him.  “Twenty years as a double agent could only mean so many lives lost, so many operations compromised.  I would have done the same thing, Alexa.  Besides, you’re here now and the debrief is over.”

“Is it?” Alexa asked.

“The debrief, yes,” Lucas replied.  He played with her hair as he spoke, inhaling the scent of her shampoo as he turned to look at her.  “Harry told me that you were excellent, Alex.  Are you alright?”

“What do you mean?  Of course I’m alright,” Alexa smiled.  “You worry too much about me, Lucas.  I think I can take care of myself just fine.”

Lucas smiled. “I can see that.”

“But what I really meant was, is it really all over?” Alexa blurted out, and Lucas could see that behind her green eyes, there was a layer of panic that seemed to filter through, no matter how hard she had tried to hide it. “When Jools faces the tribunal, do you really believe that he’ll just accept everything they give him?  It could be twenty years in prison, or even a life term, but what about  me?”

Lucas finished his glass of wine and set the empty glass on the table next to him.  He took Alexa’s face between his hands, feeling the soft skin of her cheeks.  “The Russians handed the report and the proof to the JIC, Alexa, not Harry, so Jools can’t really assume that you were part of it.  And as far as Jools is concerned, you’re an untouchable to him.  You’re Harry’s daughter and he knows better than to do anything stupid.”

“I wouldn’t put it past him,” Alexa whispered.  “He’s done worse, Lucas.  Far worse.”

Lucas looked into Alexa’s wide eyes and realized exactly what she meant.  Jools had ordered the deaths of Mikhael’s wife and child, and even though he may not have done the deed himself, he hadn’t even blinked when he ended up facing Jools himself at the hospital after he was shot at the Mekanik Rada, both men forced to pretend that they’d been friendly rivals when Harry arrived shortly after.

“I’ll do everything I can to protect you and Liam, Alexa,” Lucas said.  “I promise you I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“You can’t be everywhere, Lucas,” Alexa whispered.  “But I know you will do everything you can to protect Liam and I.”

“You and Liam are all I have, Alex.”

For a few minutes, they simply sat there, looking at each other, Lucas grabbing hold of her hands and caressing it with his own, his eyes observing each tapered finger he held in his hands, feeling the softness of her skin.

“Would you like me to fix you dinner?” Alexa asked him, pushing herself up from the sofa, but Lucas’ gentle hand on her thigh stopped her.

“I’ve already had dinner, thanks,” Lucas said, his eyes pinning her down with its intensity and Alexa found herself sitting back down and leaning back, almost mesmerized.

“Would you...would you like anything else?”  She asked, aware that her breathing had suddenly quickened as he continued to gaze at her.  There was something in his gaze that seemed to leave her breathless, just like the first time she’d met him nine years earlier, his eyes darkening along with the light of the room, or the intensity of his emotions.

“Just you, Alex,” Lucas whispered as he brought a hand up towards her face, his fingers touching her cheek softly and Alexa found herself closing her eyes.  “All of you.”

Alexa felt his lips touch hers, soft and fleeting as he drew her closer to him.  He kissed her lower lip gently, capturing it for a brief moment before leaving it to favor the equally sensitive skin of her upper lip, and Alexa breathed against him, captivated by the softness of his hands against her face.  

“What will it take for you to trust me completely, Alex?” He asked and Alexa lowered her eyes for a few moments before forcing herself to look up at him again, his eyes intense and focused only on her, awaiting an answer.

“I’ve trusted you the moment I first saw you, Lucas,” she whispered, feeling his fingers push an errant strand of hair behind her ear.  “If I’ve ever doubted you, it’s only because I was so afraid I’d lose you.”

When Lucas’ lips curled into a faint smile, one that reached his eyes, Alexa  pulled him closer, catching his lip between hers and sucked it tenderly, her arms wrapping around him to draw him ever closer.  For a few minutes, they did nothing but kiss, their lips meeting each other playfully, tasting and savoring the tenderness they found there till Lucas brought both his hands around her and pulled her onto his lap.  

Straddling him, Alexa kissed him, harder this time as his arms wrapped around her, pulling her even closer as they tasted each other with a hunger that threatened to overtake her completely.  The time for tenderness was over as the heat that had lay contained within their bellies threatened

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