In the heart of London – Surveillance at a glance…

The establishment of the Internal Threat Assessment Unit (ITAU) gave Emma and Jake authority, but it didn’t give them peace. For weeks, they lived in the shadow of Alistair’s betrayal, auditing files and ruining the careers of agents who had been unwittingly compromised.

But the true nightmare was Alistair himself. He was currently being held in “The Glass Box,” a hyper-secure, soundproofed holding cell in a sub-basement of the Thames House, accessible only by biometric scans from the Director General, Emma, or Jake.

He hadn’t spoken a word to the standard interrogators. He was waiting for his “children.”

The Interrogation: The Final Layer

Emma and Jake entered the observation room. Alistair sat perfectly still in the white room, wearing grey prison fatigues that looked jarringly out of place on a man who had worn Savile Row suits for thirty years.

They buzzed the door open and entered. Alistair didn’t look up.

“You’re auditing the European desk,” Alistair stated calmly. “You’ll find the budget discrepancies in the 2018 ledger. I hid the payments to The Curator under ‘Translation Services’.”

“We found them, Alistair,” Jake said, sitting opposite him. “We found everything. The Curator, Nightingale, the tech exchange.”

Alistair finally looked up, a faint, patronising smile on his lips. “You found the machinery, Jake. You haven’t found the purpose. Do you really think the SVR spent twenty years and millions of pounds just to steal counter-terrorism strategies?”

Emma leaned against the wall, arms crossed. “You were destabilising the agency. That was the purpose.”

“That was the method,” Alistair corrected. “The purpose was to protect the Platinum Asset.”

The room went cold.

“There is one more,” Alistair whispered. “One deep-cover operative I didn’t run through the Nightingale network. I didn’t recruit him. I protected him. My job was to create enough noise—the IRA, the terror plots, the leaks—to ensure that MI5 never looked closely at Whitehall.”

He leaned forward, his eyes locking onto Emma’s. “I was the lightning rod. Now that I’m grounded, the lightning is going to strike the summit. And you have exactly six hours before he executes his ‘Exit Protocol’.”

The Hunt for “The Wraith”

Alistair refused to give a name, offering only a cryptic clue: “He drafts the words that the world hears.”

Back in the ITAU command centre, Jake frantically cross-referenced Alistair’s movements with high-level government officials. “He protected him… that means Alistair suppressed vetting files. Emma, look for security clearance upgrades that Alistair personally signed off on outside of standard protocol.”

The search took an hour. Amidst thousands of files, one stood out. Five years ago, Alistair had personally intervened to expedite the Top Secret clearance of a rising political star: Julian Harrows, the current Director of Strategy and Communications for the Prime Minister.

Harrows was the man who wrote the PM’s speeches, controlled the press narrative, and sat in on every COBRA meeting. He was the voice of the government.

“He drafts the words,” Emma repeated Alistair’s clue. “It’s Harrows. He’s the Platinum Asset. He’s not stealing secrets; he’s influencing national policy for Moscow.”

The Downing Street Infiltration

They couldn’t arrest the Prime Minister’s right-hand man based on the riddle of a traitor. They needed hard proof of the “Exit Protocol” Alistair mentioned—likely a final data dump or an extraction plan.

They moved to Number 10 Downing Street. Using their new ITAU credentials, they bypassed the standard police cordon, claiming a “routine sweep following the Thames House security breach.”

The atmosphere inside Number 10 was frenetic; the PM was preparing for a major summit on NATO expansion—a policy Harrows had been instrumental in shaping.

“Harrow’s office is on the second floor, near the Cabinet Room,” Emma whispered to Jake as they navigated the plush, narrow corridors.

They found the office empty. Harrows was in a briefing with the PM. This was their only chance.

Jake immediately went to Harrow’s terminal. “It’s air-gapped,” Jake muttered. “He’s smart. No remote access. I have to do a physical mirror of the drive.”

As Jake connected his forensics kit, Emma stood watch at the door. Her earpiece crackled. It was Alistair’s voice, played from a recording Jake had set up to monitor the cell. “The Exit Protocol isn’t an escape, Emma. It’s a scorched earth policy.”

“Jake, hurry,” Emma hissed.

“I’m in,” Jake said, his face pale as the data streamed onto his screen. “It’s not just policy documents. Harrows has been recording private conversations between the PM and foreign leaders for three years. Blackmail material. And… he’s uploading it right now.”

“I thought you said it was air-gapped?”

“It is,” Jake pointed to a small, innocuous-looking digital picture frame on the desk. “That frame. It’s a high-powered cellular transmitter. He’s pushing the entire archive to a server in St. Petersburg. The upload is at 90%.”

The Corridor Confrontation

Jake ripped the power cord of the picture frame from the wall, severing the connection. “Upload failed. But he’ll know.”

The door handle turned.

Julian Harrows entered. He was a man of polished charm, wearing an immaculate suit. He stopped dead when he saw them, his eyes darting to the disconnected frame. The charm evaporated instantly, replaced by a cornered, feral intensity.

“You’re out of your depth,” Harrows said smoothly, stepping back toward the corridor. “I’ll have you arrested for espionage. I am the Director of Strategy.”

“You’re ‘The Wraith’,” Emma said, stepping forward, blocking his exit. “And we have the recording archive, Julian. We have the draft of the NATO withdrawal speech you were pushing the PM to give.”

Harrows sneered. “You think arresting me stops it? The seeds are sown. The distrust is already there.”

He suddenly lunged, not at them, but at the fire alarm on the wall. He intended to create chaos, to use the evacuation to slip away into the crowd of staffers.

Emma reacted with the brute force she usually reserved for the streets. She slammed Harrows into the wall before his hand could reach the glass. It wasn’t a graceful arrest; it was a desperate tackle. Jake moved in, securing Harrows’ wrists with zip-ties.

“Quietly,” Jake commanded, breathing hard. “We are walking you out the back service exit. If you make a scene, if you shout, we release the blackmail file on you to the press before we even book you. Do you understand?”

Harrows, realising his political immunity had just evaporated, slumped.

The Last Laugh

Hours later, Harrows was in a holding cell adjacent to Alistair’s. The “Platinum Asset” had been neutralised. The damage to the Prime Minister’s credibility would be managed behind closed doors, but the immediate intelligence leak was plugged.

Emma and Jake returned to the glass box to face Alistair one last time. They expected him to be angry that his final piece had been taken off the board.

Instead, Alistair was smiling—a genuine, chilling smile.

“You stopped Harrows,” Alistair noted, nodding respectfully. “Good tradecraft.”

“It’s over, Alistair,” Emma said, exhausted. “The Curator, The Alchemist, The Rook, The Wraith. The board is clear.”

“Is it?” Alistair asked softly. “You arrested the PM’s Director of Strategy inside Number 10. You audited the agency. You investigated the Royal archives. Don’t you see?”

He leaned back, closing his eyes.

“I didn’t need Harrows to succeed. I just needed you to catch him. Look at what you’ve become, Emma, Jake. You are the Internal Threat Assessment Unit. You investigate your own. You doubt your leaders. You suspect your colleagues.”

Alistair opened his eyes, the victory clear in them.

“I haven’t destroyed MI5. I’ve turned it into a place where no one trusts anyone else. I’ve turned you into the jailers of your own freedom. That was the mission. And it is accomplished.”

Emma and Jake walked out of the sub-basement, leaving Alistair in the silence. They emerged onto the street, the London rain cooling their faces.

“He’s trying to get inside our heads,” Jake said, though his voice lacked conviction.

“He’s already there, Jake,” Emma replied, looking at the imposing fortress of Thames House. It looked different now—less like a shield, and more like a cage. “But we keep watching. Because if we don’t, who will?”

They walked toward the car. The war was over, but the long, cold watch had just begun.

[END OF SERIES]