MI-5/Spooks Fan Fiction, Part 2
Frau Hunter Ash
Rating: US – R; Australian – MA; English – 15.
# # #
<Tom; you know why criminals come out of prison worse than when they went in? Lock an animals in a tiny cage, take away all distractions most of the day and subject it to constant noise at night. You’ll have an animal ready to rip your throat out after awhile. Either a total killer or a mental case.
<My cell is very small and is in a maximum security ward somewhere. The bed is a solid steel box with two mattresses tossed on. I don’t even get sheets, just two blankets. I guess they fear I’ll tear to sheets into a rope and finish the job I started with your belt.
<Toilet and sink. Hell, I’m not even given a razor unless I’m going out in the field. Stupid camera watching all the time and no laces in my shoes. I’m afraid I’m not a happy lad here. They allow me pad and pencil but no radio, telly or books. I asked for a Bible, just to distract myself and such and they said all anarchists are atheist so I didn’t need a Bible. They don’t even let me out for meals or a shower. Just given a bar of soap and small tubes of shampoo to use here at the small sink. Stupid gits.
<You’d think they’d let me have some sort of distraction if they want me to continue working for them, threat or no. More later perhaps. Peter>
“What the hell do we do to get him out of there?” Danny demanded. “I mean, he was a highly decorated agent! Loyal until that last bit. Even mass murders get better than he does.”
“Well, he does get out for missions,” Zoe said and held up her hands in a “surrender” gesture when Danny glared at her. “Devil’s Advocate, alright?”
Tom shook his head, picturing the small cell his friend and mentor spent his time in.
<Tom; Damn, the cheap bastards won’t give me enough pain pills to get through this. I got a bit banged up on the last mission. Took an auto off a cliff to escape some damned Neo-Nazis. Broke my back on that one and spent a month in hospital. Still hurts a bit, especially with only mattresses and not a real bed here. Killed the bastards though when they came down looking for me in the auto.
<Even here I can’t seem to talk about what I really want to: Andrea. God, I miss her so much, Tom. She probably hates me by now. Who knows what they’ve told her about me. Jules hates the fact I went through Traitors Gate and he didn’t catch it but you did. You know his ego.
<Not sure how much longer I can hold on. Just might let the odds catch up with me on one of these damned missions. They won’t let me have my guitar or music in here. Man can’t live without hope for long. Just remember, Tom, you are the best I’ve seen. Peter>
“I’m not surprised,” Danny said after a few moments of silence between the agents. “Anyone would break under that, even getting out on missions. Either bored out of your mind or stressed beyond limits.”
“There’s no more letters,” Tom said wearily.
“Well, we know what happened in Ireland,” Zoe said, stretching. “He was stabbed and nearly killed. From what I can tell in the reports, he lost a good portion of his stomach and intestines.”
“Is that why he’s so thin?” Tom muttered, remembering the gauntness.
“Yeah, one agent called it a field gastric-bypass, you know, like they do with fat people to get them to lose weight,” Danny shrugged.
“So it comes back to what are we going to do with this information?” Tom growled, bringing their attention back to the matter. “Do we walk away and forget we saw him? Let him die on the next mission?”
“Are you suggesting that we break him out of a maximum security prison?” Danny asked, raising his eyebrows. “Intercept him on a mission and spirit him away somewhere?”
Zoe shook her head. “No, if he wanted to slip away, he would have done so. He stays for Andrea.”
“It’ll get to the point where he feels helpless, that Jules will never let him and the girl go. Peter will go down on a mission then, hoping the girl is released,” Tom agreed.
“That is, if they have the girl and are using her as leverage,” Danny countered. “I still can’t see a respected head of MI-6 doing that.”
“Even if he walked through Traitor’s Gate all the way I still say he can be redeemed,” Tom said firmly. “Get him back to MI-5 with one last mission. The carrot will be full retirement with the girl.”
“What mission though? How could we justify demanding him back?” Zoe asked.
“It’d have to be something that only Peter could handle and would be willing to do,” Danny added.
“I might have it,” Tom commented, his eyes distant.
# # #
Tom stepped off the ferry and glanced around. It was easy to see who his contact was among the Scottish fishermen. It could only be the young man dressed in button down shirt, trousers and a military winter coat. Tom smiled inwardly, this one hadn’t learned how to blend in yet. Not that anyone could on this island where everyone knew each other, your family, and your business.
The island was a small sheep and fishing island off the rugged coast of Scotland near the Orkneys. Rough and almost inhospitable, the villagers somehow managed to cling to existence by facing the rough seas and tending sheep across the cold rocks.
“You must be Crossen,” the young man smiled, extending his hand. “I’m Jackson.”
“Call me Matthew,” Tom said easily with a tinge of pain, remembering that’s what Ellie first knew him as. The agent wondered if retired senile agents ever forgot which name they had been born with.
“Glad to see you,” Jackson said truthfully. “The locals aren’t much for welcoming strangers.”
“I figured that, one way to keep an eye on our friend,” Tom nodded, walking along side the young man through the postcard cobblestone streets of the village. Not that there was much to call a village. A general store, a pub that probably took in an occasional sport fisherman or archaeologist from the mainland, and a few shops.
“Who is this character?” Jackson asked, a slight exasperated tone to his voice.
“Why do you ask?” Tom countered easily.
“They brought him here in handcuffs and hood, in front of
everyone on the island,” Jackson complained. “Put him in the cottage, took off
the handcuffs and left without a word. First thing Target does is check the
place out, finding almost all the bugs and he did find all the vid cameras. The
guy is an agent. Our side, their side, whatever, he’s still an agent. If Home
Office wanted him to fit in here that wasn’t the way to do it, bringing an
Englishman in handcuffed and hooded, the locals barely talk to him.”
”Do they talk to you?” Tom asked with a slight smile.
“Hardly, they know I’m here to keep an eye on him and a few have asked but mostly they ignore both of us,” Jackson shook his head.
“What did Target do next?” Tom asked as Jackson unlocked the door to the rental cottage. Tom barely glanced around at the inside as he followed Jackson to the bedroom. A cot had been set up against a wall, the rest of the room was dominated by surveillance equipment. Several monitors, tape to tape decks, headphones, computer terminals and such.
“This is Howard,” Jackson said softly, nodding towards the man keeping watch over all of the instruments. “Howard, this is Matthew.”
”Hey,” Howard nodded, not taking his eyes off his monitor screens.
“Target then took a shower, changed clothes and went to the pub for a pint and brought home a bottle of Scots whiskey. He spent the rest of the day playing a guitar they left for him,” Jackson continued.
“The next day he walked to the store, got a few odds and ends and took in a stray kitten,” Howard added. “Target works on the computer, which we monitor, plays his guitar and with the cat and is slowly building his strength back. He doesn’t try to call anyone, he hasn’t made any significant contact with anyone, and why are we watching him?”
“Orders,” Tom shrugged, glancing at the monitors finally, catching sight of Peter Salter sitting on a worn down sofa with his legs kicked up on a coffee table and holding the kitten. “Rest of my team arrives at the end of the day, last ferry. What does he do on the computer?”
“Cruises the Internet, chatting with various anarchist groups, debating with a lot of them,” Howard said slowly. “Downloading music, talking on several groups about music. If he’s sending messages or talking code to anyone, we’re not getting it. Even with the anarchs.”
Tom wasn’t surprised by the report, Siviter had basically muzzled one of the best agents in the history of MI-6 and MI-5 by threatening the life of a young woman and holding her hostage for Peter’s cooperation.
“Has he written anyone or kept a journal?” Tom asked, taking in how gaunt and tired looking his old mentor looked.
“Yeah, the most I can get off the monitors is the letters are to someone named Tom,” Jackson nodded. “But he doesn’t try to send them so we can’t get our hands on them.”
“You two pack up and catch the ferry back to the mainland,” Tom ordered. “I’ve got watch until my team gets here.”
“Right glad of that!” Jackson said enthusiastically, picking up his already packed bag from the cot. Howard jumped up and grabbed his from a corner of the room.
“Can’t say I’m sorry to be leaving,” Howard agreed. “Too damned cold, both land and people.”
Tom shrugged and sat down at the monitors as Target picked up his guitar, tabby grey and white kitten still on his chest.
# # #
Danny was grumpy and Zoe couldn’t blame him, she was road tired as well and neither of them were sure if the islanders had ever seen a black person before. Some stared openly, others turned and began talking among themselves.
“Whose bright idea was this? Dragging all of us way to hell up here?” Danny grumbled as they approached the island.
“Tom’s, of course,” Zoe smirked, pulling her coat tighter against the ocean spray.
“Why the hell up here?” Danny growled, stuffing his hands in his peacoat.
“The group that Tom wants to send Target into is bouncing back and forth between the Nordic countries and northern Scotland. Target’s exceptional skill at languages, computers and such should get him in.”
“What is the group and do we know what Tom’s plan is to get Target to cooperate?” Danny asked, glancing around to ensure no one was near them.
“No, only Tom, Harry and Jules know and the rumors are that Jules fought it all the way to Home Office,” Zoe said softly, leaning into Danny so he could hear her over the ferry’s noisy engines.
“Tom managed somehow though,” Danny said, wondering how the hell their ranking agent had pulled that one off. It was no secret that Tom and Siviter of MI-6 didn’t care for each other.
“Yeah,” Zoe nodded as the boat pulled up alongside the dock and the hands began securing the vessel. “We’ll find out soon enough.”
“I’ll fit right in, I’m sure,” Danny grumbled as several islanders gaped, open mouthed at the English travelers.
# # #
Peter leaned against the counter in the small kitchen while he waited for his lunch cooking on the stove. Hannibal the cat purred and rubbed against his leg. The disgraced agent smiled and playfully nudged the animal with the toe of his shoe and the kitten dropped to her back, wrapping her legs and claws around the foot playfully.
Peter Salter looked around at the cottage, also wondering why he was there. He didn’t think MI-6 would drag him all the way to the northern coast of Scotland just to shoot him and he couldn’t figure what job could be waiting up here for him. He wondered if this was his last stop before they just shot him and threw him overboard.
Officially, he was already dead and only one person in the world would miss him and she’d probably follow him to the bottom of the sea if Siviter had his way. Peter sighed, stirring his stew absently. He was quickly losing the fight to live, even for Andrea.
Siviter had promised more frequent visits and to let Andrea go after one more mission. Peter was under no illusions that JS would risk her being loose, especially among the anarchists. Most people wouldn’t believe her tales of being held hostage to blackmail one of Her Majesty’s secret agents but many would and some might even have enough power to start asking questions and Jules couldn’t afford that.
Many times Peter wished he had succeeded in the suicide attempt when everything went wrong. Waking up strapped to a hospital bed with a tracheotomy tube in his throat wasn’t the most pleasant way to wake up when you thought you were dead. Having Siviter waiting was enough to convince Peter he was in hell, even if he didn’t believe in it.
He had been at the cottage for a week and had taken advantage of having the space, venturing out a little further each day and increasing his exercises. Peter was frustrated with how weak his body had become after the last mission. The agent chuckled to himself, for being suicidal, his will to live was apparently damned strong. Surviving the last year had proven that.
All so he could see the girl occasionally and know she was safe.
The agent frowned when he heard a knock at the door. He certainly wasn’t expecting anyone and wondered if it was one of Jules’ boys with his next assignment. If they were sent to kill him, they wouldn’t knock.
Peter opened the door and blinked in surprise.
“Hello, Peter,” Tom said calmly, his heart pounding. Both his and Peter’s future depended on his connection with his mentor and if it was still strong. Getting to this step had cost Tom quite a few favors he had been holding and he had put his career on the line. Either Peter would accept the assignment and succeed or they would both go down. Tom to a desk and Peter to a grave.
“T-tom?” Peter stammered.
“Can I come in?” Tom asked with a smile, hoping to put Peter at ease a little.
“Yes, of course, I’m sorry,” Peter blushed and motioned Tom inside. He crossed the small space to the kitchen area and pulled the pot of stew off the burner and clicked it off. “Just a bit surprised is all.”
“I expected that,” Tom nodded, sitting down at the small kitchen table, just large enough for two chairs. The younger agent figured this was probably had once been the cottage of a bachelor fisherman who didn’t need much space and wasn’t interested in fine furnishings. Functional was what best described what little furniture there was.
“Have you been shifted to MI-6 or is this special? You elected to take me out and put a bullet behind my ear?” Peter asked calmly but bluntly, pulling out a bottle of ale for each of them.
“You’ve been shifted back to MI-5, if you agree,” Tom said, taking the ale and pulling out his opener and opening both of them as Peter stared at him for a moment.
“No way in hell would Siviter give up control of me!” he snapped. “Besides, I… I can’t, he has something over me that I can’t walk from.”
“I found out you were alive and I’ve been working on finding out what the blazes happened this last year,” Tom began explaining. “Then I set to work on getting you back and finding a way out of this for you.”
“Why?” Peter asked softly. “I punched you in the throat and used your belt to try and off myself because I walked through Traitor’s Gate. Why would you help me? And don’t tell me it’s a favor to the Master. We both know it has to be more than that to pull this off.”
“I could give you a dozen reasons,” Tom shrugged. “You are the Master and always will be; you’re my mentor, you taught me the game and how to survive in it; you’re one of the best agents ever; I don’t believe you walked all the way through that gate and there’s an assignment that only you can pull off. That enough?”
Peter shook his head, wincing when he took too large a drink of the ale.
“You right then?” Tom asked softly.
“Eh? Yeah, just carbonated drinks hurt yet,” Peter frowned. “Lost almost everything inside, I hear. Can only eat tiny bits at a time.”
“Well, you sure as hell didn’t need to lose the weight,” Tom teased, taking in Peter’s ill-fitting clothing.
“I’ll agree to that,” Peter smiled. “Jules still has the trump card, Tom, I can’t walk.”
“Want to hear the assignment and then decide? If you make it through this one, you get that cottage, small bit of land, pension, no observation after two years,” Tom offered.
Peter looked down at his ale, thoughtful.
“If not?”
“If you don’t succeed, the group will kill you,” Tom began explaining. “If you don’t take the mission I’m not sure you’ll reach your prison cell again. I’m afraid I’ve compromised Siviter’s secret and if I can’t grab you, he’ll want rid of you.”
Peter nodded, “I think it was coming to that. What’s the job?”
“Bring down Istvan and his new group,” Tom said, watching Peter’s eyes.
The professional secret agent’s face betrayed nothing but Tom knew he was surprised.
“New group? He’s back in England?” Peter finally asked.
“Yes, and the intelligence we have is that he is going to pull off something that will rattle the Empire to the foundations,” Tom continued. “We go in and stop him, get enough to arrest him and you walk away, free and clear. Limited observation for a year or so only.”
“To ensure I don’t go running to anarchs after leaving service?” Peter said bitterly.
“Yes,” Tom admitted.
“We? We go in and stop him? We, who?”
“You, me and the girl,” Tom said softly.
Peter blinked. “G-girl?”
“I got Andrea way from SJ, Peter,” Tom smiled at the hope in Peter’s eyes. “We’ve had a lot of talks in the last couple of months and she agrees to lead us in to stop Istvan.”
Peter growled, standing up and pacing to the sofa and then back again. “No, she wouldn’t. She was totally dedicated to the cause, even to letting me go, knowing I was going to be caught.”
“She didn’t know you would try and kill yourself to protect the group,” Tom countered. “She thought you’d talk you way out and back to them or just be arrested on the burglar charges and not found out. That rattled her, Peter.”
“Enough to turn against her beliefs?” Salter shook his head as he sat back down.
“You were willing to die for yours, she’s willing to live for hers,” Tom said. “Andrea is in love with you, as much as you are with her. She’s willing to stop a terrorist group to save your life and have a future with you. She vows that she’ll work to bring out an anarchist type government but peacefully.”
Peter smiled an impish smile that Tom knew well.
“That’s Andrea,” he muttered. “I still believe in the cause. You’ll trust me with them again?”
In the observation cottage, Zoe and Danny watched the monitors closely. Tom hadn’t given them the details of the operation but they both knew enough about the workings of MI-5 and MI-6 to know Tom was out on a limb for his mentor.
“Yes,” Tom said firmly. “I don’t believe you went all the way through that gate.”
Peter, in turn, was watching Tom carefully.
Danny smacked the table top. “I’ll be damned!”
“What?” Zoe demanded. “He didn’t blink, he didn’t flinch, he didn’t look down or away.”
“He also didn’t demand to know what the hell Tom was talking about. If Tom was wrong and Peter’s actions were in the open, he’d be asking questions and brushing Tom off,” Danny tried explaining his thought process.
“I get it, because he didn’t say anything, he’s protecting something still,” Zoe nodded.
“And if I did?” Peter asked finally.
“We wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Tom shrugged. “You went in with a plan to kill the President of the United States, talked the radicals into it and initiated it. Something went wrong with the plan though, your programming was off slightly and the President wasn’t killed, merely scared when the system went down at Heathrow.”
“And?” Peter prompted.
“By going with your plan, the anarchists didn’t plan another and more lethal attack and were committed to yours. The one that failed and didn’t cost anyone their lives except yours,” Tom continued calmly.
“I was willing to die for that plan, to keep you from learning about it,” Peter countered, his eyes narrow and thoughtful.
“No, you were willing to die for the girl,” Tom shrugged. “Your only option was to risk revealing the plan through interrogation and the anarchists would kill the girl for bringing you in or kill yourself and they’d believe your plan. You’d be a martyr to the cause and the girl a hero for finding you.”
“So I wouldn’t be a traitor, just a screwed up agent,” Peter sighed.
“Yes,” Tom agreed. “Peter, you left MI-6 because you couldn’t stand killing just on someone’s orders. You’re not an assassin, we both know that. You made sure when you joined the group they didn’t carry weapons, you yelled at one member for having a gun on that raid at the university, and your plan, if it had been real, would have only taken out the President’s plane. No civilian targets. Since the plan didn’t work, no one was killed.”
“So, if I intentionally screwed up the assassination plot, I’m MI-5 all the way, just a little side-tracked by a girl,” Peter smirked. “You believe that?”
“Yes, I do,” Tom nodded firmly. “I know you, Peter, damnit. You’re one the best agents ever, you’re a goddamn math and computer genius, extremely clever, inventive, stubborn and unorthodox, always have been. There’s no way you would have messed up that reprogramming of the airport radar. What I don’t understand is why you didn’t come forward with it after you woke up.”
Peter sighed and took a drink of his ale. “Siviter had Andrea, she tried to find me and bail me out from the burglary charges and they nabbed her. If I came forward as a true agent, she’d reject me, they’d have no hold over me and we were both dead. Jules wouldn’t have let me come back even if he believed me, not after trying to pop myself for Andrea. If you tell her now that I betrayed her and the cause you take away what little I have left to live for, Tom.”
“She’ll surprise you, Peter,” Tom said gently. “I’ve spent days and nights talking to her about you. She probably knows more about you and me than my mother ever did. Andrea knows that you betrayed the assassination plot; she believes my assessment of you. She also knows that you didn’t betray her or yourself.”
“She’d still want me after that? After all I’ve done this year?” Peter asked softly, his face showing painful memories. “Do you know what they had me doing?”
“Mainly impossible wet-work,” Tom nodded. The term for government ordered assassination struck Zoe and Danny by surprise. It was something left out of the reports that Peter had been sent in to kill.
“Peter, Andrea will lead us in and we’ll stop Istvan, not to kill him unless absolutely necessary,” Tom said urgently. “MI-5 rules all the way. Harry will be handling us, Jules has nothing to do with any of this, I swear. We aren’t an assassination team.”
“She’s agreed to this?” Peter asked with a frown, bending down to pick up the kitten, wincing slightly. “To betray Istvan?”
“To save you, yes,” Tom smiled slightly. “She also agrees that assassination isn’t the answer. She’s seen what you’ve been through, I showed her the reports. Have you seen her at all?”
“Just through glass, talking on a phone thing at the prison, they were always listening in,” Peter said softly. “Only once a month if I was in the country.”
Zoe looked at Danny with raised eyebrows. “Remind me to start believing in true love after seeing these two.”
“Yeah, never thought someone like Peter would fall that hard,” Danny agreed.
Tom glanced up where he knew one of the cameras was and nodded. He looked back at his mentor, inwardly flinching at how broken Peter looked. “Peter, this place wasn’t chosen as a stopping place for you to disappear. Istvan is dashing between Northern Scotland and northern Europe, smuggling arms and explosives. We think he’s hiding out in a village near here on the mainland and Andrea thinks she can find him through old contacts. You were brought here to get stronger and go back in. Can you do that? You and me? Master and student and your girlfriend?”
“If she agrees to it all, yes,” Peter nodded.
Tom looked over at the door as the doorknob turned and Danny opened it. “Hello, Peter, I’m part of the watch team and this is your inside contact.”
The agent stepped aside with a grin and held the door open for an attractive young woman. Peter whimpered and stood up slowly, handing the kitten to an amused Tom.
“Andrea?”
“Oh God, Peter,” the girl finally spoke and ran into his arms, holding him tightly as he closed his eyes and fought back tears.
Tom sat the kitten down on the table and went to the door and motioned Danny outside and turned to his mentor. “We’ll see you both in the morning for tea, we’ll discuss plans and such.”
Tom closed the door as the couple began kissing desperately, as if making up for lost time.
# # #
tbc…