Ruth's Diary No. 25 (4.6)

[almh]

[6th December 2005

We've been having a quiet month, a rarity in our line of work. A time for us to sift through the paperwork, and to sort ourselves out. Our latest recruit, Jo, is just finishing training at the moment - she will probably be in tomorrow. It's always nice to have new people join the team; they bring fresh ideas to the table.

Anyway, tomorrow will see the start of a planned terror campaign. Nazim Malek, who was linked with a planned bomb attack at Heathrow in 2003, is currently in prison. It seems that he is co-ordinating another attack in London, even from within prison. We need to find out how he is doing this, and to solve that particular mystery, we need to let him out of prison. A move which will open us up to the Human Rights Lobby, who have been angrily protesting that he is illegally detained. They have a point. No trial, but he was still imprisoned. I suppose MI5 would argue that they were infringed one human's right to save countless others.

The current plan is for Fiona to go undercover as a PR consultant for the Human Rights Lobby, Liberation, who are currently helping him. His house is being bugged, as is the office. There's nowhere for him to hide now.

[7th December 2005

Malek was released today, amid a media frenzy. Apparently Liberation want to sue the British Government. A lovely touch. Fiona is already undercover in Liberation. The head of Liberation, Rebecca Sinclair, wants as much media attention as possible, rather unsurprisingly. Slightly more surprising, however, was that Malek is refusing to be interviewed, or for his identity to be known, even though he is supporting the case.

Special Branch came for a visit today. Paul Seymour, from Special Branch came over to offer their support, whilst not so subtly hinting that Malek should be back behind bars. He doesn't get it; we're not releasing Malek because we feel like it, he currently poses a credible and serious risk to people within the UK. We need him out of prison, and we need him to lead us to the cell which will carry out the attack. Juliet has been putting pressure on Harry, acting like she never wanted Malek released. I wonder who's giving her the push. She made a career out of it, but she seemed fine with his release before.

It seems Malek is going to lead us to the cell. The Rebecca Sinclair left an envelope behind in the room where Malek is staying. It's now just a waiting game to see when he leads us to the bomb. We have no idea what's in the envelope; it's just waiting. It doesn't seem like we'll be waiting for long. DGSE in Paris say that they are picking up increased mobile activity around Gare du Nord, and at the Eurostar terminus in Lille. What we don't know is "is the tunnel how they're getting in, or is it the target?"

Jo arrived today. Bright, enthusiastic. I wonder how long it will take for that to change. That's what this job can do. All the lying, all the secrets. Sometimes I wonder how many of us survive. Tom couldn't make it through, and he was one of the best Spooks the Service had ever seen. Anyway, I've set Jo to work on writing the Liberation speech Fiona is meant to be giving to them. It's a good speech - she would have made an amazing journalist. Fiona was at the Liberation press conference this evening, listening to Jo's speech being delivered. As they spoke of the right not to be spied on, rather ironically, Jo, Malcolm and Adam were breaking into their offices, placing the bugs that we would use to check that Malek didn't try communicating with the cell that way.

[8th December 2005

We nearly dropped the operation today. There was nothing happening to Malek, the only odd thing was that he hasn't slept. So maybe he was waiting. We had 3 hours to prove that he's waiting, and that we can stop this attack.

Less than an hour later, and he left the hotel. Zaf was outside to tail him. It seemed like the end of the operation was in sight. We nearly lost him - he managed to leave the subway without us noticing, but it didn't take long to find him again. He was sitting on a bench with another man, then left his bag there. We didn't know what was in the bag, but Zaf tailed the man that the bag was given to. Rachid Medi, a member of Free Islam. Rachid's brother, Khaled, was in prison with Malek. That's how we think Malek was communicating with the outside world.

Zaf and Adam found the envelope Rebecca gave Malek, along with the edges of passport photos. Multiple passport photos. Malek was having forged passports made for more than one person. Why we're not entirely certain, but at a guess, it's to get the operatives out of the country afterwards.

Later, Malek met Rebecca Sinclair at the Liberation Headquarters. He's getting her to stop the legal case, and he's going to back in a few days to "pick them up," whoever them are. Whoever they are, it's clear it's not the same operatives used in the 2003 attempt. French Intelligence stormed a suspected terror cell near Gare du Nord, shooting dead two Algerians. One of the men is called Nazim Malek. The Nazim Malek we're following is the wrong one. There were two Nazim Maleks living in North Acton. We picked up the wrong one. The Nazim Malek studying computer science at a West London Poly, the terrorist leader, left as soon as he heard we'd arrested another Nazim Malek, thinking that we'd spot our mistake soon enough. We didn't.

So it turns out that Liberation were right - he did spend two years in prison as an innocent man. Now it seems he is not acting so innocently. He's meeting with known extremists, and the possibility of an imminent attack is present once again. He tried to kill himself by jumping from a multi-storey car park. Zaf managed to pull him in, and explain to him everything that had happened. Rather unsurprisingly, he was slow to trust us. We had just ruined his life, why would he trust us?

This Nazim Malek was an illegal immigrant from France. A former soldier, he had to escape from Algeria with his family when he refused to dress up as part of the enemy soldiers and kill a communist village. Whilst in prison, Khaled Medi spoke to him. If Malek shot a specific member of the Algerian Government, they would arrange for Malek's family to get passports. Malek is waiting for his 'job', in exchange for the passports.

Before we could get to his family the terrorists did. They kidnapped his wife and children, and killed Rebecca Sinclair. Malek fled, obviously disturbed. Juliet was getting itchy feet. Fortunately we found Malek before he could shoot, and rescued his family. It was very close though. His son was nearly shot dead. Malek has now left the country with his family. I dread to think the trauma he's gone through.

Paul Seymour lied to us about Malek. When he was arrested, he explained how he escaped Algeria because he deserted the army there to Special Branch, but they never mentioned it. Harry asked me to get the document to see if what Malek said was true. Rather unsurprisingly, it was. Mr Seymour's future now seems uncertain.

[Nia M]

Another great chapter. Loved Ruth pointing out the irony of Liberation talking about the right not to be spied on, while actually being spied on themselves, and Ruth’s dampening but appropriate admission that Jo’s enthusiasm will soon fall flat from the job.

Did spot an error though where you’ve called Malek ‘Malem’

[almh]

Ah, thank you. I'll edit that now.

[Silktie]

Nice one. I also liked her thoughts on new girl Jo.

[richliga]

At last have read all ch of Ruth's diary and was surprised how much i enjoyed it... Will there be any continuation??? I'd love to read more..)

[JHyde]

Yeah eventually. It's been almost a year since the last entry and I'm the next in the queue. I hoping to get 4.7 done sometime soon.

[hillaria]

I really hope you continue this- it's the first fanfiction I've read in YEARS (read some really bad stuff that gave me a phobia of trying new fics for a long time, but the fics here have more or less cured me).