The Spying Game

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

Ronnie turned off her computer, went to stand in front of her window and smiled as she looked out over London; that had been a good days work. She no longer had a regular 9-5 job, but then she had never kept to those hours when she did. She didn't begrudge the lateness of the hour because she knew that she had done good today.

She had been working mostly with section A for the past few weeks, looking into a group in South London who had been ordering an awful lot of specialist equipment and some rather unusual chemicals for a supposed philosophy club. It turned out they were trying to produce and weaponise abrin, which they intended to use to poison some of England's water supplies. Today they had raided the homes and premises of those in the group and recovered more than enough evidence to put them away for a very long time.

Her job was fairly varied usually. She sat in on a number of meetings every week, both to give her opinion on threats and to act as an expert when needed. She consulted with the government and emergence services over policy and procedure. She trained new MI5 staff on the dangers of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons as well as IED's. She explained the law, and procedures that they needed to follow if they believed they or others had been exposed.

The most important aspect of her job though, was undoubtedly the intelligence reports she received daily, to highlight potential dangers. Not many people would know that a centrifuge and alkali were necessary to produce the toxin abrin, nor that the seeds of the rosary pea plant, which were often used as beads in jewellery due to their bright colours and patterns, could be used to produce a such a lethal poison.

But the good guys had won again today and she felt proud of that. As she looked out over London, she couldn't help but think that the city looked beautiful at night. She was glad she had an office in the upper levels with a window instead of working somewhere like section D. She though that would drive her crazy.

Her mood sobered slightly as she saw the river and remembered her night time walk beside it with Lucas. Her thoughts often turned to him and time didn't seem to be doing anything to lessen the hold he had over her.

With a sigh she picked her bag up and turned to leave, but stopped dead when she saw the man standing in her doorway.

"You're alive," she said. She dropped her bag and quickly closed the distance between them, hugging him tightly. "Oh, thank god."

Lucas hugged her back and they stood like that for a long while.

"I was so worried," Ronni said, her voice breaking. "I thought they might have captured you again."

"They did," he confirmed.

"What happened?" she asked as she pulled away and cupped his face, her concern clear for all to see.

"I managed to escape."

"How?"

"Harry. He sent two SAS operatives over there. They couldn't get me out of the facility but as luck would have it, I was moved. They took their chance and blew up the convoy, got me out of the country by cargo ship and into Poland."

Though his voice was matter of fact, she could see that his eyes were haunted.

"How long did they keep you?" she asked, knowing that there was no good answer to that question.

"Six weeks."

"Six weeks?" she repeated. Suddenly there was the sound of a slap as Ronni's hand connected firmly with his cheek. "Do you mean to say that you've been back in this country for almost six months and you didn't think to tell me? Do you have any idea how worried I've been? How many nights I've laid awake wondering what had happened to you?"