"A Voice in the Dark" (Lucas/OC; Thriller/Romance- PG13/R) Chapter X
TITLE: A Voice in the Dark
AUTHOR: Lexie aka lillianschild
FANDOM: Spooks/MI5
RATING: PG13/Mild R
PAIRING: Lucas/OC
SUMMARY: Section D has a traitor in its midst and a mysterious man arrives with what appears to be the key to rid MI5 of the mole. This fic is my own version of Series 7.
Disclaimer: all recognisable characters belong to BBC and Kudos Productions; I'm just playing with them for a little while without making a profit. No infringement's intended.
READ THE BEGINNING HERE
READ THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER HERE
A/N: I'm amongst those who hated the whole John Bateman storyline
and wondered what show the writers had been watching for two years to ever come up with the idea that Lucas and Bateman could ever have been the same man.
I've put a different spin on the JB affair that I hope you'll approve. Enjoy!
CHAPTER X
Annabelle climbed up the stairs and, wrapped in darkness, navigated the first floor corridor in search of his bedroom. Doubt and regret assailed her as she stopped in front of the door she'd left ajar and heard his even breathing. She'd set the ball in motion and now there was no turning back; she only prayed her decision had been the right one.
Closing the door quietly behind her, she took a few moments to make sure he still slept and then moved towards the bed. Getting back under the covers without waking him up was tricky and made her heart beat in trepidation; what would he do if he were to discover where she'd been?
“You're an ice block, Golubushka,” he whispered all of a sudden, tightening his hold on her as he spooned her from behind, nuzzling her neck with his nose. Annabelle's heart skipped a beat; had he been feigning all the time? “Go to sleep. I'll keep you warm,” he added, pressing a kiss on her nape and gathering her closer to him in a move that felt more achingly loving than threateningly possessive.
She told herself she'd just done what was expected of her as a member of the service. She was a cog in the wheel that kept the nation safe. Regnum Defende. It was her job, and so far she'd never questioned it; she'd even felt proud of it. But now she felt resentful and torn. Tasting the salt of tears on her lips, she wondered why duty felt like betrayal all of a sudden.
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The first rays of sun were touching her freckled skin when she woke up to find him gone. The imprint of his head on the pillow and the lingering perfume on the sheets were the only visible proof he'd lain next to her.
Looking into the mirror of the mahogany wardrobe across from the bed she noticed her tear-stained face and a pair of eyes which reflected the devastation of heartbreak and guilt. It was a sight that she couldn't allow either man to see.
After a reviving shower she wrapped herself up in a light-blue terry robe and, combing her wet hair, decided to approach the door to try the knob. The latch moved unhindered; further proof they didn't consider her a prisoner but a guest.
Standing in the middle of the corridor she felt tempted to explore the house in daylight but then thought it better and decided to get dressed in her room and wait for Tom to bring her breakfast. She'd promised her colleague she'd go upstairs and wait for the rescue team to arrive. That had been her original plan until the sound of two gunshots and the thud of a body falling stopped her dead in her tracks.
“Now, no more tricks. Where is she? You'd better keep your hands where I can see them or he won't be the only one bleeding today.”
“I'm afraid you've been misinformed. There's no woman in this house,” replied the voice which had murmured Russian endearments in her ear only a few hours before.
“We can make this last for hours. I have an extra clip. So far your friend's wounds aren't lethal... What do you say? One in the knee this time?”
“Stop!” shouted Annabelle, bursting into the library.
The man she'd grown to love these past weeks was seated in a swivel chair behind the desk while the agent who had filled in the vacancy left by Adam Carter was holding a gun against his temple. Edwards' fingers were pulling her lover's dark head back by the hair, but all she was able to focus on was the strong profile her hands had learnt last night.
“Annabelle, are you all right? “ asked her superior without releasing his prisoner.
“I'm in one piece. We're going to need them alive if we want to discover the truth,” she told him, crouching down next to Tom, who was lying on the carpet but still awake, blood oozing from two gunshot wounds.
“Check him for guns," Edwards ordered her.
Annabelle ran her hands down Tom's body in search of any weapons and felt a finger tapping on her right thigh, the one hidden from Edwards' view. Morse code. The message was repeated three times before Tom's left hand slipped a Walther P99 into the pocket of her terry robe. Her gaze shifted to the wounded man's and saw an imperceptible nod of his head.
“He's clean,” she assured the Chief of Section D, stealing a glance at the profile of the spy she loved.
Edwards turned his body slightly, swivelling the desk chair with his movement and revealing what her captor had sought to conceal with the shelter of darkness. The moment Lucas' face came into full view the world stood still and everything around them simply vanished. Annabelle felt the treacherous pricking of tears at the sight of his handsome visage marred on his left side by the physical reminder of some of the unspeakable demons he still fought alone at night.
Edwards released the seated man's head with a jerk and removed the gun from his temple to bring Tom closer and have both suspects within range. Lucas' beautiful long dark eyelashes, which had been lying on his pale cheeks, fluttered open and a pair of mesmerising blue-grey eyes met Annabelle's across the room for the first time.
“Where's your backup?” she asked her superior, desperate for a lifeline not to drown in the depths of that look, which was a strange mix of strength and vulnerability.
“They should be on their way. It'll be over soon,” Edwards replied, touching her arm reassuringly.
“Why not call CO19 to wrap this up now?” she insisted, moving away from him and crossing her arms over her chest as if she were suddenly cold.
Something didn't add up. She felt it in her bones.The eerie calm of her captors, whose eyes she was able to feel trained on her, made Annabelle suspect they must know she'd contacted Edwards the previous night. They must have been expecting him and decided not to stop him. She hadn't dared look at her mystery man again after his damaged face had been unveiled, but she did so now. His blue-grey eyes were fixed on her alone and revealed nothing, so she based her assumptions mostly on what her honed senses perceived. They were waiting for something.
Despite the fact that Edwards was the one holding the gun, she just knew the man in the swivel chair was the one in control. Should she trust him? She felt the bulk of the protective weapon in her pocket and wondered who she was supposed to use it against.
Suddenly, the pregnant silence that hung over them was broken by the unmistakable sound of a helicopter rotor, and Edwards' apparent cool cracked.
Smoke and mirrors. The mesmerising blue-grey eyes held hers fast as Tom's message in Morse code repeated itself insistently in her mind.
Edwards' face turned several shades paler and a colourful expletive was heard under his breath when he saw the helicopter land on the lawn just across the study.
Getting ready for whoever might step out of the chopper, Annabelle slipped her right hand into the pocket of her robe and felt the comforting presence of the gun Tom had given her. Although she'd never taken a life, this would be as good a time as any to put her excellent marksmanship on the range to the test.
“It's Harry... and Ros,” she told her superior on seeing the Head of Section D alight closely followed by Sir Jocelyn Myers' daughter.
“He's one of them, remember?” replied Edwards after reading an unmistakable note of relief in her voice.
“We have no definite proof of his actual involvement. I only said there might be a connection because I heard his name mentioned and that, until we knew more, it'd be wise to take precautions,” she clarified, noticing his unwavering attention on both prisoners and the persisting tension of his body despite the recently arrived backup. “You know Myers. Her being here should be enough to believe in Harry's innocence. She would never sell out or stand by someone who went rogue.”
The sight of Harry walking across the lawn in their direction reassured Annabelle but also filled her with renewed incertitude. If he wasn't the traitor in their midst, it meant the mole was still at large, pretending he was one of their own while working against them from within.
“You can do better than him, Annabelle.” Her captor's words rang in her ears again, and all of a sudden a piece of the puzzle fell into place. Edwards' reaction to Harry's arrival had given away his best-kept secret, he was the key to the deaths in Section D and the betrayal of the asset who had laid down his life to bring down Tiresias.
Locking her eyes with her lover's, she voiced her thoughts.
“He's the one, isn't he? You did nothing to stop him so that he could lead you to the man who gave us Tiresias.”
“No, Golubushka,” replied the beautiful and slightly-accented voice. “I was expecting him because I knew he wouldn't let the opportunity to obliterate the past pass him by. And I was right, wasn't I, John? A seasoned agent like you should have known better than to leave loose ends.”
“Shut up!” snapped Edwards, moving away from the French windows and aiming the gun at his prisoner.
Lucas knew riling the man he used to call John Bateman back in Dakar, a lifetime ago, was a dangerous move. And yet the guilt of knowing himself the instrument, albeit unwitting, of all that destruction and death drove him to court his rage as some sort of deserved punishment.
He could still replay doing Bateman a favour by driving to the British Embassy in Dakar to return the man's “girlfriend” a mobile phone she'd supposedly left behind at the older man's flat. It'd been a simple errand on his way to work at the casino. He'd walked into the building, handed the mobile back to the exotic young woman who worked as an assistant there and climbed back in his car. Had it not been for the malfunction of the car ignition, he would have been several blocks away and never found out the role he'd played in the drama. But fate had wanted him to be there and witness the slaughter without being able to stop it when he saw Vaughan's “girlfriend” leave the Embassy, crouch behind a vehicle and dial a number while staring at the building.
Everything that happened between the detonation and his arrival at the bedsitter he rented with an Australian friend he worked with at the casino was a haze. He just remembered getting home to find his flatmate dead and Bateman waiting to finish him off. The fight that had ensued was fierce and ended with Lucas running away from the flat after struggling over Bateman's gun and seeing the agent collapse when it was accidentally fired. His mind in a whirl, Lucas grabbed his passport, a change of clothes and some cash and took a taxi to the airport, making a stop on the way to make an anonymous call from a payphone, providing the police with Bateman's name and location as well as the woman's description and personal details.
Running into Tom Quinn on his return to Britain had been serendipitous and becoming an MI5 operative became the perfect way to atone for the massacre that even eight years of torture in Lubyanka couldn't erase from his mind and his nightmares.
Annabelle's heart beat like a runaway horse on seeing the muzzle of the weapon a few inches away from Lucas' sharp angles and pale skin. She felt for the gun in her pocket and a movement to her left caught her eye. Unfortunately, Edwards noticed it too and reacted swinging his Walther P99 and shooting Tom in his left shoulder before pointing it again at Lucas.
“Edwards!” she shouted at Bateman's alias, holding Tom's gun in her hand and trying to divert the mole's attention away from her mystery man.
Her strategy worked and she found herself at the end of the muzzle and answered to the imminent threat by raising her own weapon and firing smoothly as if she were once again on the range.
The traitor's glazing eyes looked at her with undisguised surprise as the bullet pierced his forehead and life slipped away from him.
Suddenly, Annabelle felt a rush of heat overcome her and her Walther P99 dropped from her nerveless fingers before her wobbly body collapsed on the carpet. Her head was swimming and, lulled by the musky scent of the beautiful stranger's aftershave, she finally let herself be embraced by darkness once again.
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The sun was setting when she awoke in a hospital room surrounded by beeping machines.
“How do you feel?” asked a smiling Harry Pearce, sitting beside her bed.
“Like a punching ball,” she mumbled.”How's Tom?” she added after a slight pause.
“Still in the operating room. The prognosis is good.”
“And...” she began, closing her eyes,”the other man?”
“In custody with a few cuts and bruises.”
A strangled sob escaped through her lips. Crying was all she'd seemed to be able to do lately.
Harry took her surrogate daughter's hand in his and remained with her in companionable silence until a nurse popped in to give Annabelle a new shot that allowed her to drift back into the blessed oblivion of unconsciousness.
GO TO CHAPTER XI