by elfin

Panic over.  Tragedy averted?

"Harry?"

"Doesn't anyone ever knock?"  He spoke the words as if it were simply habit, not looking up from computer monitor, at a file and a colour photo of a blond haired man with a half-amused smile that turned his boyish good looks into something almost devilish.

There was an expression on Harry's face that Tom had never seen before.  One he didn't recognise and couldn't place.

"Who's he?"

Harry still didn't look away from the baby blue eyes staring sightless from the flat screen.  "His name's Adam.  He's an SIS agent, working undercover in the Yemen.  His name's on that list."

"All our names are on that list."

Harry seemed not to hear.  Or possibly, at that single moment, not to care.  "I recruited him."

"I thought you just said he was SIS."

"He is.  Oliver Mace stole him from me with promises of more exotic locations than London and Leeds."  There was a bitterness in his voice that went beyond professional pride. 

Curious, Tom perched on the edge of the desk.  "How old was he?"

"Twenty-one, just finishing University."

"He's... good-looking."

Harry smiled, a little sadly.  "Back then he was... achingly beautiful.  Still is, in a way."  He shook his wise head once, slowly, remembering.  "Looks like an angel, screws like the devil."

It was a second before the words unravelled themselves in Tom's astounded brain.  "You said..."

"...I said I recruited him."

"Yes, you did."

"Things were... different back then.  Ask Malcolm."  He hesitated, and glanced at Tom.  "On second thoughts, don't.  I recruited a lot of agents.  But Adam...."  He took a deep breath.  "Now his name's on a CD in the hands of a man I wouldn't trust to wash my car.  I have to warn him."

"No.  Harry you can't."

"I have to.  If the people he's working around find out who he is....  They hang traitors from meat hooks out there." 

Tom saw a rare flash of panic in his boss' eyes.

"If word gets out about that CD you'll be putting every MI5 and SIS agent around the globe at risk.  We don't need to panic anyone, not yet.  Adam's one of three thousand names.  Even if Marks sold the CD to the highest bidder, the odds of someone picking his name out by chance are tiny.  Come on, Harry!  You know as well as I do that at this moment we're the greatest risk to those people.  Ride this one out.  Let Marks come to us with the disk."

Harry looked back at the screen.  "When he asked if those peoples' lives were worth fifteen million pounds...."

"Adam's alone is."

"Priceless.  If anything happens to him because I let Marks walk...."

Tom dropped his hand to the older man's shoulder.  "He'll be fine.  We all will be."