'For his first trick, the terrorist presents....' Ch. 3

[JHyde]

Please read chapters 1 and 2 before proceeding. Spoilers and disclaimers as before.

A massive thanks once again to Tea Lady. I could not have written this fic without her assistance in answering my many questions about catching the Eurostar across the Chunnel. This is for her x

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Lucas and Ros stood outside the interrogation room, watching Henrik on the monitors. The man had openly protested his innocence and was clearly terrified. He had only stopped shouting a few moments earlier, and even then, it seemed, because he was losing his voice. Now he clutched the steel table frantically, and shut his eyes tightly, trying to calm himself.

Ros regarded him coolly, as though she was witnessing a toddler throw a tantrum in a supermarket. But Henrik's behaviour was troubling her; his background, his demeanour...nothing made sense. It was not necessarily that everyone who protested they were innocent were telling the truth, but rather that it was unusual for someone to claim so after being caught with a backpack lined with Semtex.


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Ruth waved the CD slightly, then crossed the room in a beat, reaching across Harry to eject the DVD drive on his computer. Harry looked up into her face, momentarily distracted by her proximity, and she flashed him a shy smile as they waited for the disc to load.

"It's the surveillance footage I asked Tariq to track down for me; it wasn't easy as the Met must have had the staff at St Pancras try and hide it all. Who knows why, but the point is that I think there's something rather disturbing taking place while there's that hysteria over Henrik taking place."

Harry turned his head a little as she stepped back. "When they arrest him, you mean?"

She nodded, with urgency, willing him to understand. The disc loaded and she bent back over the desk, fast forwarding to the point in the footage that troubled her. "This is the ten minutes or so preceeding his arrest, and the twenty minutes or so after it, while he was being asked questions. I want you to look at something happening in the background a few minutes after they stop him. Here."

The grainy footage from the St Pancras CCTV filled the computer screen. Ruth stood a little straighter and seized Harry's hand, placing it over the mouse so that he would be able to stop the footage when required. The Section Head wondered when he had left himself open to being directed in such a way, and reflected that he really didn't mind. But it was a fleeting thought, as he paid Ruth the respect of concentrating on what she had brought him.

"Watch what happens.... here, stop it," she instructed, "now, take it frame by frame."

On the screen, Henrik was being frisked by an agent while surrounded by several others, as well as two police officers. One agent remained sitting checking those still trying to clear the gates.

"They're obviously onto something being wrong, and everyone comes up and watches," Ruth continued, "and people still need to get through."

"Public entertainment on the job!" Harry murmured. "All the sharks smell blood."

"Exactly!" Ruth remarked triumphantly. "So they're searching his bag, find the Semtex, and more people start watching. Stop caring about other things. And so.....see this......"

She took the mouse from Harry's hand and scrolled the counter forward slightly. "There's only one man actually screening people coming through. Quick searches." She paused it and looked at Harry while events unfolded. "This man sets off the scanner but is waved through by the guard on duty. Waved through without being checked, because he's known to the watcher."

Harry pounced. "Who is the guard and who is the man?"

Ruth shrugged. "I'm not so worried about the guard. I think he was just being lax. But I suspect he wasn't bothered because the man exiting the gate was the guard on the Eurostar that Henrik arrived on."

A smile hovered around Harry's lips. "And you're about to tell me something rather interesting about the Fat Controller, aren't you?"

Ruth giggled. "The Fat Controller wasn't the guard, Harry," she admonished, "but yes, the guard is a man of little means and a penchant for painkillers called Tim Piggins. Who this morning received a sizeable bank deposit from what appears to be the same bank as Henrik's contributors."


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Harry and Ruth met Ros in the hall between Section D and the interrogation room. It was a stretch of hallway perpetually darkened; the only light that filtered through was the quality of a late afternoon shadowed by constipated clouds and threatening thunder. An appropriate ambience for Thames House and Section D.

Ros set her jaw after learning of the transaction. "Lucas and I will find Piggins. But Harry, just because Piggins may well have carted something through that gate, it doesn't make Henrik squeaky clean. Despite the fact, I'm not convinced he was planning to detonate the damn thing, there are still things he needs to answer. He hasn't said anything, he's been too busy throwing his guts up."

Harry took a deep breath. "I agree that he isn't a classic terror suspect. This whole incident smacks of the Hindawi incident."

"The Jordanian from 1986 who duped his girlfriend into taking a backpack rigged with explosives?" Ruth looked confused. "He was Syrian, Harry, and I'm not sure this looks like a Mossad operation."

Slightly exasperated, Harry shrugged his shoulders. "No, but it is rather similar to the pregnant Irish woman who brought the backpack through. You're right Ruth, this is all misdirection, but we still don't know why our banal banker is being used as sleight of hand."

Ros grinned. "It's nice to hear that operation be used as an example in anything other than 'A Guide To Interrogate A Suspect'. They love to use that at the HR conferences. In any case, I'll leave Lucas to Henrik's panic attacks, and go find our Houdini."


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Lucas took a deep breath, steadying himself for the task ahead. This was the part he did well in this job - the gradual earning of a suspect's trust, followed by the breaking revelation that he knew their secret. And finally, the reveal. When he forced his participatory audience to declare their cards that he might move to the next step of the performance. He blinked, straightened his shoulders and entered the interrogation room.

Henrik raised his head from the cold, steel table as Lucas crossed to his side. His tear stained face could not have been more pathetic and it was easy enough to Lucas to see him as being duped. He placed a hand on the young man's shoulder and smiled convincingly.

"Rashid. I just want to talk to you. Just you and I, no Margaret."

Rashid hiccoughed a little. "She's quite something, her. Bit scary though."

Lucas resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Ros hadn't been keen on her legend, but her impressively cold exterior in the interrogation room was always tempered slightly by her good looks. There was no doubt, however, that for a man like Rashid, such an attraction would only serve to make him more afraid of her. She was remote, foreign, untouchable. Which meant he had to be more accessible. He allowed his slow smile to reach his eyes, twinkling.

"She is. It can be useful in bars though, I'll admit." Build the rapport. Make him feel safe. Lucas anticipated Henrik's next remark.

"Is it a puller for the ladies? The spy thing?"

Lucas forced a laugh. "For the young and pretty ones, certainly."

Henrik smiled and his agitation began to lessen, his pose relaxing. "Never underestimate the public perception of Bond, eh?"

"Works every time." Lucas sprawled back in his chair, and Henrik mirrored him, lulled into a vague sense of security. The officer looked him in the eye and willed the clearly vain young man to tell the truth quickly. "Rashid, I want you to tell me about the prescription drugs in your backpack. We know they're not yours."

Henrik buried his head in his hands, but managed to keep himself together. "It's France, mate. It's not difficult to get hold of 'em, they're like sweets. My job's hard and the hours.....," he trailed off, and Lucas was quick to assauge his fears.

"I know what that's like." Lucas got up, and fetched the water from the table in the corner where he had asked the guards to put it. When used well, props were an important part of the performance. "Especially with all the travel you do for work, and the banking business isn't exactly in great shape...."

"Exactly." Henrik nodded frantically. "I have a friend of a friend, he organized for me to get them cheap, but he said I had to take them in the bag he gave them to me in."

Lucas couldn't believe how quickly the show was passing. "So they sold you the tablets and said you had to keep them in it. The tablets were in the top part of the bag, right?" Letting the suspect tell you small details you already knew.....

"Yeah, they were. He knew I was worried about getting back through the tunnel, even though it's heaps easier than the airport. But because I'm dark and, you know, I look the way I do," he gestured to his face, "they always look me and my gear over pretty thoroughly. So I did what he said."

Lucas smiled again. "OK, so your dealer gave you the backpack, Rashid. That's not great, but this is good. It means all you've done is smuggle some pills back into England, and it's not like you'll get in trouble for blackmarket drugs with Britain's stance on the EU." The weak joke got the chuckle Lucas looking for. "The point is, you're not trying to blow anyone up, right? So you're going to tell us everything about your dealer you can. Where you met him, what he sells, how you contact him....."

Henrik cut him off, eager to help. "He's Tim. They call him Tim the Pig. His number's in my phone, I can get it for you, but they took my phone....'

It was Lucas' turn to interrupt. "Tim? Tim the Pig?"


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Piggins' house was clearly empty, so Ros slipped quietly in through the back door. She assessed the house and calculated that Piggins was out spending some of his money earned in his smuggling escapades. She rifled quickly through the desk in the small study and then the bedroom. With a sigh, she settled in the easy chair, the door to the flat visible to her, but not so that anyoe who entered could see her right away. But then a key turned in the lock and Ros moved slightly to her right, judging her footing so as to best surprise the man she immediately identified as Piggins. He was clearly inebriated, even though it was barely 11am.

Piggins stumbled slightly as Ros caught him from behind and clapped a hand over his mouth. He struggled in vain, Ros reflecting that it was almost too easy. But the skirmish was enough for her to miss the shadow looming outside the back door bare feet away, and she only came to her senses as sound of a lock turning broke the silence that followed Piggins passing out from her accurately placed stranglehold. Her only advantage lay in the knowledge that she could not be seen from the back door either, which meant that the intruder did not yet know that their target had company.


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I love reviews, please leave one. Lots of Tariq to come - I'm sorry I couldn't squeeze him in!

[Aria]

Lovely story so far. Love the HR and Lucas bits and again with the cliffhanger. You are making it very difficult to patiently wait for the next part of the story. Keep up the great work.

[Tea Lady]

Glad chapter 3 was here when I signed in tonight. The plot is getting thicker. I love it when Ruth gets all excited, like a kid at Christmas.

I did do a double take though when I read "HR conferences." I read that as a Harry/Ruth conference! Doh!

Yes bring on the Tariq.

[YourFutureMuse]

Yay another cliffhanger And go Ros
You really would make an awesome Spooks script writer Can't wait for next chapter

[Beatriz]

(13-02-2010 12:21 AM)Tea Lady Wrote:  I did do a double take though when I read "HR conferences." I read that as a Harry/Ruth conference! Doh!

Me too!! lol HR shippers have this thing in the brain

I'm hooked on the story!! Eager to see what happens to Ros, and I want Tariq too!!

I liked how you described what was going on on Lucas head while interrogating

[JHyde]

You know what? When I wrote it, I hesitated and wondered. And then I thought 'Ah well, if they do, they can just put it on the YKYAFOS thread'. LOL!!!

[Silktie]

So the plot thickens. Lucas is really good at the soft interrogation approach, isn't he? I've wondered how he would react if he ever had to interrogate a suspect like Adam did in 3.9, whether it would be easier or more difficult for him because of his own experiences.

[JHyde]

Silktie are you hacking my computer?????

[Silktie]

Well, we are on a Spooks thread... You should have learnt by now that we seem to think about things in a similar way most of the time. I refer you to the HR thread for ample proof. Great minds, and all that.

Are we gonna get a little more HR cuddling in future chapters?

[lwhite53]

Now I'm starting to feel sorry for Henrik. Loved Lucas' internal musings and the nice little H/R moment. And Ros as a "bit scary" -- you don't know the half of it, mate!

This is moving along nicely -- thanks.