The Man On The Wall Part I

[Silktie]

Spoilers for season 9.

This story takes place after the end of season 9.

Characters: Harry, Ruth, Home Secretary William Towers, Malcolm.

PART I

I don’t want to feel like I’m covered in blood any more.

I think it’s time for somebody else to stand on the wall for a bit.
- Harry Pearce, Spooks Episode 9.1

10 November
London

He walks. For hours, he strides the streets of the city he loves so much. There are too many memories, and they flit through his mind as he passes every familiar building, every bridge, every bench. Hundreds of people walk by him, none of them realising they’ve just rushed past the man that’s stood between them and terror so many times. It starts to drizzle, but he pays it no heed. He keeps on walking, following the river, passing the Houses of Parliament. The scene of so many unsavoury political battles, and he remembers them all. He remembers every distasteful concession he’s had to make, every little piece of his soul he’s had to sell to save the people around him. He walks with no particular destination in mind, no aim other than to quell the restlessness that’s permeated his mind and taken up residence in his heart.

His suspension and the subsequent Inquiry into his career was announced a week ago. Richard Dolby personally came onto the Grid to announce the decision, trying, and failing miserably, to hide his personal satisfaction at the turn of events. He brought with him Peter Graves, a Section Head from MI6; the man who would fill in for Harry during his suspension. Harry was relieved at the choice; he had worked with Graves before and respected him. As he was escorted from his office, he looked up to see his team stand in the middle of the Grid, huddled together forlornly. Ruth stood a little apart, with a slight frown on her face, fiddling with a pen. When he met her eyes, he couldn’t read her thoughts or feelings. He’d turned to Graves, and asked him to take care of his people; to treat them with the respect they deserved. Then, without hesitation or a backward glance, he stepped through the doors.

And now, here he is, walking the streets of London, thinking about all the decisions he’s made, the things he’s done, the people he’s sacrificed. All in the name of protecting his country.
Regnum Defende.
He wonders whether it was worth it. The Inquiry starts tomorrow, and there is enough in his past to send him down many times over, should they so choose. Getting rid of him permanently, then, will be laughably easy. He knows all this. He also knows that he has enough on anyone who might sit on the Inquiry panel to buy his pardon. But he won’t use it.

Looking up, he finds himself standing across the street from Thames House. He studies the imposing building, revelling in the beauty of it for once. As his eye catches the CCTV camera trained on the street, he wonders what his team are doing, what unimaginable horror they are fighting at this particular moment. He feels the familiar grip of anxiety in the pit of his stomach, the same feeling he’s had every time he stepped through those doors in the last thirty years. Wondering if today is the day that he would fail, and people would die.

It is only now, standing in front of Thames House, that he realises what he is doing. He is saying goodbye. Because if the outcome of the Inquiry is as expected, he knows that he could not stay on in London. There are too many memories here, and it will drive him mad to walk these streets every day, not knowing what is really going on. With a last lingering look at the building, he turns back towards the river. He walks away, head bowed.

* * *

One hour later

Tariq waits until Graves leaves the Grid for a meeting in Whitehall before calling Ruth over.
“There’s something you need to see.”
He shows her the CCTV footage. They can clearly see Harry standing, looking at the building pensively. Then he turns and walks away.
“I had a trawl through the footage from all over the city. He’s been walking around the streets for hours,” the young techie explains, showing her various images of Harry walking in the rain. “He doesn’t even have an umbrella,” he adds a little plaintively.
Ruth has nothing to say to that, and squeezes his shoulder reassuringly.
“Where is he now?”
Tariq flicks through the cameras, finding the one he wants. A lone figure sits on a bench, watching the rain fall on the river. Their bench, Ruth realises with a pang.
“He’s just been sitting there for the last hour.” He turns serious dark eyes on her.
“What is he doing, Ruth?”
She shakes her head.
“I don’t know.” Even as she speaks the words, the knot of fear that’s formed in her heart ever since the loss of Albany twists a little tighter. She is beginning to suspect what he’s doing.
“Tariq, I need you to do something for me.”

* * *

11 November
JIC Offices

Harry waits in the corridor, staring at a rather unimaginative landscape in oil by a painter he’s never heard of. He wonders fleetingly whether it was put there on purpose; its bleak colours perhaps meant to be a subliminal message to the doomed waiting to be called into the Inquiry room. The door opens just as he’s rolling his eyes at himself for the absurd thought, and he is ushered in.

He finds himself facing a half circle of tables. Six people are seated behind them, each with an impressively thick folder in front of them. He can make out the words TOP SECRET and EYES ONLY typed in bold red letters across the cover. His file, he assumes. The usher directs him to a lone table facing the half circle, two chairs positioned behind it. Harry sits down in the left hand chair. He has nothing in front of him. The usher hovers behind him, and Harry realises he is holding a Bible in his hand. There are microphones positioned before each seat, and a camera directed at Harry’s position. He stares into the lens for a few moments, before directing his attention at the person directly opposite him. It is the only person in the room he doesn’t know personally.

The man carefully centres the file in front of him, before clearing his throat.
“Let’s start.”
He regards Harry dispassionately, if a little curiously.
“Will the panel state their names and positions, starting on my left.”
“Gregory Fowler, representing the Office of the Prime Minister.”
“Susan Green, Director General of MI6.”
“William Towers, Home Secretary.”
“Charles Buckhurst, Director General of MI5.”
“Richard Dolby, Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee.”

“Thank you. And I am Judge Stephen Bishop, brought in on request of the Home Secretary to ensure that the defendant receives a fair hearing.”
To have an outsider at the Inquiry of a senior Intelligence Officer is highly irregular. Harry glances at Towers, who looks inordinately pleased with himself.
“Will the defendant state his full name and position?”
And so it begins, he thinks.
“Henry James Pearce, Section Head Counter Terrorism at MI5.”

Somewhere on the Grid, Ruth is hunched over a monitor, earphones on, listening and watching the hacked feed Tariq managed to get.

The judge glances at the empty chair at Harry’s table.
“Sir Harry, have you been informed that you are allowed to have legal council with you? I was told that you would have one of MI5’s lawyers to represent you.”
“Yes, legal council was offered to me. I declined.”
“I see.” Judge Bishop watches the man in front of him for a few moments, then looks around the room. He is an experienced man with many years on the bench, and he can sense the desire for blood from those on his side of the table. This is a witch-hunt if ever he’s seen one. The man on the other side is either very brave, or very stupid to walk into this on his own, he decides. After having read the file in front of him, though, he knows which way he’s leaning.

He nods at the usher, who gets Harry to stand and swear on the Bible to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Harry marvels at the absurdity of getting a man who lies for a living to take this oath, but does as he’s told. He sits back down, wondering whether the judge got everyone facing him to swear the same oath. Somehow he doubts it.

The formalities dispensed with, the usher leaves the room, and Dolby gets to his feet. He is to be the main accuser, it seems. As he begins to speak in that irritating voice, Harry momentarily amuses himself by counting the ways in which he could kill Dolby with what is at hand in the room. It comes to a total of twenty-three.

“We are here today because Sir Harry is accused of handing a state secret to a traitor, who was acting on behalf of the Chinese. This is just the latest and most serious incident in a career riddled with poor judgement, a blatant disregard for authority, and an unwillingness to move with the times. He has run Section D like his own personal fiefdom, expecting his officers to be loyal to him rather than to the Service.”
Dolby is getting into full stride now, and has begun to walk around the room during his monologue. Judge Bishop interrupts, an irritated note creeping into his voice.
“We are not in an American courtroom, Mr Dolby. Kindly stop strutting around like you are.”

Chastised, Dolby returns to his seat. The judge waits until he is seated before addressing the defendant.
“Is this true, Sir Harry?”
Harry’s eyes remain on Dolby.
“Which part?”
Judge Bishop suppresses a smile.
“Quite. Did you hand a state secret to a traitor, causing it to end up in the hands of the Chinese?”
Harry looks down at the table for a moment before answering.
“Yes. I did.”

Only Ruth, who knows Harry so well, hears the note of self-recrimination in his voice.

The judge and Harry keep eye contact. When Harry doesn’t elaborate, the judge asks: “Why?”
The slightest of smiles lifts the corners of Harry’s mouth.
“I found the alternative unacceptable.”
Eyebrows rise around the table at the enigmatic answer.
“You’ll have to do better than that, Harry,” the MI5 DG barks. “Stop playing silly buggers and give us a straight answer!”

Once again, it is only Ruth that recognises the exact moment that Harry capitulates. She sees the slightly longer blink of the eyes, the slight twitch of his mouth, and hears the note of resignation in his voice.

“I’m not going to make excuses for what I did. If I were in the same situation again tomorrow, I would do exactly the same. I hope that I will always have the courage not to sacrifice one of my officers when the alternative does not directly threaten the life of anyone else.” He is quiet for a moment. “It is a rare thing in this job – to actually be in a position to do something to save the life of one of my officers…”
He falls silent again.
“Look, Harry, why don’t you take us through it step by step, and explain the options available to you at any particular time,” Towers requests, not without sympathy.

So Harry does. He describes the events that led to the man they knew as Lucas North kidnapping Ruth, and his subsequent handing over of Albany. His account is precise and as unemotional as he can manage to make it. He doesn’t hide anything: he admits that he let Lucas go after learning of his involvement in the bombing in Dakar, and that he tricked his own team to get his hands on Albany. When he describes his plan to save his officer and get Albany back, he also admits that he knew there was a significant chance that the plan would fail. After he finishes his account, he looks into the faces of each of the six people that hold his fate in their hands. What he reads there makes him close his eyes wearily.

Predictably, it is once again Dolby who is the first to stick in the knife and twist it.
“Well. I’d say this sorry mess illustrates my point perfectly. And to think how you were always agitating for increased efforts to get Lucas North back from the Russians.”
He turns to Harry.
“Of course, this is not the first time one of your officers turned out to be a traitor…”
He counts them down on his fingers.
“Connie James, who you brought back into the fold, and subsequently gave the opportunity to compromise Sugarhorse. Then there was Ros Myers, who fell in with the Yalta group. Together with your former lover, no less. Juliet Shaw?”
He rolls the name around his mouth like one does with a good wine.
“Not to forget Tom Quinn, who actually shot you! I’d say you’ve shown yourself to be an extremely poor judge of character, Harry.”

Harry says nothing. He knows there is nothing he can say. How do you explain the complexities of a spy’s psyche to these people? Or how thin the line between loyalty and betrayal can sometimes be? God knows, even he doesn’t fully understand it himself, still, after all these years.

Dolby, a little irked at getting no reaction from Harry, steps it up a gear.
“Of course, perhaps we should expect nothing less from a man who’s failed so spectacularly in all his personal relationships.”
Harry’s gaze snaps to Dolby, who presses on mercilessly.
“You were barely married when you had an affair with a superior. No wonder the marriage ended in a messy divorce, leading to your ex-wife having a nervous breakdown.”
Sensing that the Home Secretary is about to interrupt, Dolby rushes on.
“Not to mention the fact that your children hate you, and your son has a drug problem.”
Towers splutters. “I don’t think these personal attacks are called for,” he says indignantly. Dolby gives him a challenging look.
“No? I’d say the information is a stark illustration of this man’s inability to form trusting relationships, or meaningful relationships of any kind, for that matter, with the people around him. I mean, he watched the IRA drag his best friend out of a pub in Northern Ireland, and did nothing to save him!”

Harry is on his feet, his face ashen.
“I’m not going to sit here and listen to a litany of the failures in my personal life.”
He turns to Judge Bishop.
“I have said all I have to say about the Albany matter. As for the rest of the accusations against me – I refuse to dignify these proceedings by responding to them. You have my file. My record either speaks for itself or it does not.”
He looks back at Dolby, a hard, murderous look.
“You do what you have to do, and let me know the outcome.”

Then, with a nod to the Home Secretary, he walks out of the room.

* * *

Ruth stares at the screen in shock. Stunned by the viciousness of Dolby’s attack on Harry, she sits motionless. She cannot understand why Harry hadn’t defended himself more vigorously. And to walk out of the proceedings like that may just have sealed his fate. Slowly, her shock turns into anger. She takes off the headphones, gathers her things, and purposefully walks out the door.

tbc

[Tea Lady]

Come on Ruth! Do something woman! Poor old Harry. This is the way I see it going in 10.1 to be honest. Harry having effectively given up. And who can blame him? Hope Towers has something up his sleeve.

Great start Silktie.

[Aria]

Fantastic start to another great story, Silktie. Loved the thought of Harry wandering around London saying goodbye, so sad. When Dolby was laying into Harry, I kept imagining Harry dealing with him like he did in your last story!!

[Obsession]

Very nice Silktie. Strong writing, as usual. Looking forward to part 2

[lwhite53]

Silktie, I think you should send this to Kudos -- perfect beginning for 10.1! Loved Harry looking into the cctv camera at Thames House. Great beginning.

[A Cousin]

23 is my new favorite number.

Go get 'em Ruth!

[BravoNine]

Is it possible for a character to bash Richard Dolby's head in with a baseball bat? At least just one satisfactory thunk? Pretty please!!! I've been wanting someone to do it for ages!!!!!

Honestly, after everything that has happened, I admit I am never gonna be Harry's biggest fan, but whatever my personal feelings about Harry Pearce may be, it does not change the fact that he is the best man for this job, and just like Harry said, his record speaks for itself. This country is safe because of his leadership of his team. Whatever mess-ups and betrayals, he has still been able to keep this country alive, better than any of those higher-ups who just wants to be famous and rich.

I think it's time for Harry's team to band together and put Harry back at his desk!

[watchstrap]

They will, they will. Please eat more cake TL, I'm worried about you again!