Title: Baiting the Trap
Fandom: Spooks (MI5)/Sherlock (BBC)
Rating: PG
Length: 397
Summary: The team are preparing to go on the offensive
A/N: Part 3 of Co-operation
Dangle is a term used in intelligence work to refer to an agent or officer of one intelligence agency or group who pretends to be interested in defecting or turning to another intelligence agency or group.  The goal of a dangle is to convince the second or foreign intelligence agency they have changed loyalties by offering to act as a double agent. The dangle then feeds information to their original agency and/or gives disinformation to the second or foreign intelligence agency.

Lucas North read through the note Harry Pearce had given him and then read it again, hoping he had misunderstood the first time.  He hadn’t, and so he screwed the paper up and threw it into the bin.  Later he would retrieve it before angrily tearing it into shreds and feeding them into the shredder.

They needed someone to infiltrate Zarmutek, the organisation they were investigating.  Someone who was dissatisfied with MI5 and prepared to provide information to Zarmutek.  The information would be carefully selected with the aim of tracking who else was involved.  And Lucas would be the ideal person to do it.

Lucas stomped around his flat getting ready to go out, before making his way to the designated restaurant where the plan was to set up his deception.  What better than a discreet departmental meal to prepare the trap.

Lucas was furious and deeply hurt.  He had worked so hard to be accepted by the team and prove his loyalty and yet he was still the automatic choice for the role.  And Harry hadn’t even had the courtesy to discuss the job with him but blithely assumed he would do it without question.

He scowled his way through the meal, answering in monosyllables whenever he was spoken to.  The others accepted this behaviour, presumably assuming he was already in character, although he caught Jo giving him the occasional odd look.  At a signal from Henry he stood up and stormed off to the gents.

Once there he took a moment to slow his breathing and decide on his next move.  There was a rear door from the restaurant and he slipped out of that exit instead of returning to the table as planned.

He shivered slightly for the evening had cooled and the restaurant had been warm.  He therefore strode rapidly along the path by the Thames to keep warm.

His phone beeped with an incoming message.  He was tempted to ignore it, thinking it was Harry or Ros asking where he was.  He looked anyway.

“Congratulations, Mr North. Your plan is working. The bait has been taken. MH.”

He threw the phone into the Thames.

A man drew up to him and put one hand on his back.  “Understandable reaction,” the man said.  “But hardly productive.”

Lucas turned and saw the amusement in Sherlock Holmes’ eyes as Sherlock added, “Coffee?  Or something stronger?”