Spooks / MI 5 series 1
A car bomb explodes in Liverpool and Zoe is sent undercover to investigate. Tom's life gets complicated when he falls in love with a woman he met while working undercover.
One of Danny's agents, Osprey, feeds him the information that 20 bombs have gone astray in the Liverpool area. Unfortunately she can’t help with who or where they are destined for. Everything comes more clearly into focus when a car bomb explodes in a suburban street, killing a family-planning doctor and her daughter.
Tom is furious when he finds out a known pro-life extremist, Mary Kane, has been allowed to sneak into the country without being noted. He knows she’s dangerous. She’s already been sentenced to death in her absence in Florida for a major bomb attack. A bit of background work shows that the first bomb marked an important anniversary. When the team realise her beloved husband’s execution is soon to take place they know when to expect the next atrocity.
Unfortunately MI5 are not the only people on the trail of Mary Kane. The CIA want her back in the USA and they want her now. But Tom’s not so keen to hand her over. He knows that if she’s just packed back to America that leaves 19 bombs on the loose, and it’s a risk he can’t take. Mary Kane’s house is bugged and Zoe goes undercover.
Posing as a sympathiser Zoe tricks one of Mary Kane’s supporters into giving away the plan. Zoe heads undercover again. This time she is posing as the intended victim. The team lure Mary Kane right into their trap her bomb is jammed and she’s arrested. Tom persuades Mary to do a deal. She gives away her accomplices, and in return he makes sure that when she’s sent back to the USA it’s not to Florida where certain death awaits. However, Tom has the last laugh. He hands her over to the CIA and gives her a Florida tourism brochure. Looks like she’s only going back for a short visit.
Episode 2 Looking After Our Own
The team uncover connections between racist ring-leaders, politicians and mass killings of immigrants. The gang have sophisticated equipment to protect themselves from electronic infiltration. Tom is forced undercover, and recent recruit Helen pretends to be his wife …
The team are on the trail of Robert Osborne, they suspect he’s involved in provoking escalating race riots across the country. But all doesn’t go to plan. When the team try to bug his house they find it packed full of security counter-measures. They decide the only way to get close to Osborne is to send Tom and Zoe in, deep undercover.
Tessa has other plans. She calls Zoe off to help work on a project with customs and excise. Helen the admin assistant is called in to replace Zoe. They know Osborne’s wife, Claire is being beaten and they pose as a married couple to befriend her. Everything goes well and they even get invited to dinner.
Osborne is a canny man. He starts checking up on Claire’s new ‘friends’. Although their cover story is flawless and all backstops are in place, he manages to trip Helen up over dinner. She covers well, and he appears to accept her story. Tom finally reveals to Claire his true identity and offers to protect her from Osborne in return for her assistance.
Osborne has worked out more than Tom and Helen realise. They are captured and taken to the kitchen of his factory. Osborne is aware that Tom is the senior team member and tortures Helen by putting her hand in the deep fryer to try and make Tom reveal the information. Tom won’t give in and Osborne kills Helen.
Zoe finds herself in the Turkish embassy just as it's taken siege by Kurdish rebels. Meanwhile, Tessa proves herself to have some dark secrets in her past.
Working undercover, Zoe attends a function at the State Consulate of Turkey. Whilst still inside, the building is dramatically stormed by heavily armed Kurdish freedom fighters. Led by the beautiful Leyla Ahmed, the terrorists demand the release of fellow paramilitaries back home.
The Kurds use the threat of violence to impose a siege. Tom and Danny mount a surveillance operation to gather intelligence by feeding optic cables into the barricaded room. Surprisingly though, counter measures have been put in place, so it takes time to establish a link.
Back at the Grid, Tessa is stunned and confused to see a man whom she thinks is Johnny Marks, a former British spy and secret lover of hers, in the CCTV footage taken before the siege. Marks was supposedly killed in a car accident fifteen years ago. Tessa convinces Harry that it is Marks – he’s clearly alive, and connected to what is happening inside the State Consulate.
At the siege, the situation deteriorates as the Kurds’ nerves fray. While the Attache General, wired to a bomb and placed outside on a balcony, begins to show signs of being unwell, Leyla Ahmed finds equipment in Zoe’s handbag that makes her suspicious. Harry is horrified to discover that they have a second hostage situation. Johnny Marks has abducted the daughter of a banker who administrates the Ministry of Defence payroll. The banker’s identity is known only to a handful of people, but somehow Marks is now one of them. The bank contains information on all of MI5 and 6’s undercover agents, as well as millions of pounds. The security breach could be catastrophic.
The bank in question is five doors down from the State Consulate of Turkey; Harry surmises that Marks provoked his Kurdish contacts into staging the siege to create a diversion. Back from the dead, Marks’ real goal is theft, and access to every agent’s name and details. Tom and Danny finally find a way to secure Zoe’s safety, but Tom is shot! Luckily he'll live. Before Johnny Marks escapes he pays a visit to Tessa, who informs him she once was pregnant with his child. This shocks Marks and instead of using the information to bring British intelligence to its knees, he has a change of heart, leaving with only the money.
Ellie starts to doubt whether she can cope with dating a spy. Tom's mentor is working undercover, but his methods start to appear dangerously unconventional. Meanwhile Zoe discovers Tessa is up to something.
Storming the State Consulate of Turkey leaves Tom wounded and his girlfriend, Ellie, unable to accept any more of his lies. Tom is forced to reveal his real role to her and Maisie, but at work a more serious situation appears to be gathering momentum.
Anti-Bush and anti-globalisation rallies are planned in London and Danny and Zoe are sent to observe. Things become confused when they recognise a top MI5 officer, who appears to be undercover, but whom they weren’t told would be on the operation. Peter Salter, however, is a respected officer, so Zoe makes the decision to let him go.
With Tom being Salter’s official confidante, Zoe calls him in. Harry admits to Tom that Salter is on a joint secret operation between MI5 and 6, in an effort to catch Istvan Vogel, the leader of an extreme anarchist group. MI6 suspect Vogel of planning to disrupt President Bush’s imminent visit to the UK.
As Tom struggles to remain calm with the exasperating Jools Siviter of MI6, an increasingly tangled web yields unexpected news: Salter has fallen for one of Vogel’s followers, Andrea. A showdown sees Tom order Salter off the case, but Salter flees. Unsure now whose side he is on, Tom and his team try desperately to find him. Things become further muddied when Harry, keen to regain control, commands Tessa contact one of her covert agents who, it’s thought, is undercover with a related anarchist group. Zoe goes to meet the agent, only to find Tessa waiting. The corrupt Tessa has been running phantom agents and pocketing their pay. She hands Zoe £10,000, in return for her silence.
Whilst MI5 search for him, Salter, Andrea and other members of Vogel’s group break into a university campus, where Salter hacks into a computer. Security catches them in the act and, although the others escape, Salter is caught and hauled back to Harry and Siviter. Tom uses all the tricks he learnt from Salter, and gets him to admit to betrayal but beyond this obvious admission, the secret services are still in the dark - and Bush’s visit is getting closer. What was he doing in the university? Before Tom can attempt further interrogation, Salter takes his own life and keeps his secret to himself.
Later that night, Danny suddenly realises what Salter’s computer hacking means, he's been tampering with the Air Traffic Control system. However, Danny is a quick thinker and his intervention, results in the President's plane being diverted to Paris.
Episode 5 The Rose Bed Memoirs
An ex-MP is released from prison, proposing to publish his memoirs. Plenty of people are interested, and when a double agent is murdered, the plot thickens.
It’s a media scramble when ex-MP Hampton Wilder is released from prison, having served a sentence for embezzlement. He is swiftly driven away in a car, accompanied by Danny: Wilder has requested an urgent meeting with MI5.
It is widely "known" that Wilder was involved in illegal arms dealing whilst in government, and he is intensely disliked, particularly by those in MI5. Harry greets him in the underground car park of Thames House, and a bizarre interrogation ensues. Wilder says the reason he wanted a meeting is that, whilst in prison, he wrote his memoirs, in which he fingered a current serving minister of the MOD as his successor in the arms trade.
However, he then found God and tried to destroy the memoirs but they had gone from his hiding place… The minister in question is Richard Maynard, best friend of the PM and shining star of the government. The memoirs would create a scandal big enough to bring down the existing government. They must be found. Tom and Danny are despatched to the prison, but there is no sign of the manuscript.
Wilder also mentions ex-KGB spy, Sergai Lermov, as being involved somehow. Lermov is well known to MI5 and Tom questions him, only to be shocked that Lermov also names Maynard. Perhaps he is guilty, and he, Maynard and Wilder all worked together. Lermov immediately goes to see Jools Siviter, where it transpires that he is a paid MI6 agent. However, Lermov is mysteriously killed later that night. Jools comes round to lay the blame at Harry’s door – but not before giving Harry the manuscript: MI6 has had it all along.
Maynard is called in for a "briefing" at the Grid, in order to establish whether or not he is guilty of anything. Tessa is tasked to take special care of him, which she does, enthusiastically. They are in the midst of a secret affair and she later tells him what is really going on. Maynard vehemently denies any involvement.
At home, Zoe is struggling to come to terms with Tessa’s corruption, and Tom is having problems dealing with Maisie’s father, who has suddenly appeared on the scene. However, there is no time to deal with personal problems when the manuscript is mysteriously leaked to the press. All fingers are pointed at MI5, but Harry has other ideas.
Following the leak, Maynard announces his resignation from government. Tessa is appalled and goes round to see him, whilst Tom pays a visit to Wilder, and Harry and Jools spend some time over a bottle of whiskey.
Maynard informs Tessa he is leaving the country for the United States, where he intends to take a teaching job at Harvard University. Wilder confesses that his memoirs were a complete fabrication and Jools tells Harry that Maynard had to leave the government as he is a CIA assett.
Episode 6 The Lesser Of Two Evils
Tom is confronted by an Irish terrorist who seems to be trying to help MI5, but nothing is as simple as it seems. Ellie and Maisie move into Tom's house, just as he's tricked into bringing a bomb home in a laptop…
The Grid was taken by surprise when an Irish splinter group's leader, Patrick McCann, walked into a safe house, armed with a grenade, demanding to talk to Middle East terrorist group Asabiyah.
He had crucial information on the group and would only talk to someone high-ranking, who had prior knowledge of its existence. After an emergency meeting Tom Quinn offers to meet McCann. Harry Pearce had his doubts and was deeply suspicious of McCann’s motivation. After a vote was called, it was agreed that Quinn would meet McCann without wires and back-up, as requested.
The meeting took place in a field, where both men undressed, to prove they were not wearing wires. McCann informed Tom of what he knows. Asabiyah were planning to hit a British nuclear power station, Sefton B. His group has all the information MI5 needs. However, there was a catch. In return for the information on Sefton B, McCann wanted his group to go unwatched for 30 hours. Otherwise, no deal.
At the Grid, Pearce is appalled by the fact that Quinn and the rest of the team wanted to agree to the deal. Pearce pulls rank and says no, but Quinn went over his head, straight to the DG, and is given the go-ahead. However, Harry may have been right. It became apparent that McCann planned to bomb a busy London railway station. Pearce then admits that he had Quinn tailed, and he sends a take team to McCann’s hideout, but he has already gone.
Quinn takes Danny Hunter and Zoe Reynolds aside, and tells them that they’re going to run an MI5 within MI5 – they organise a cover-up at the station, but let Pearce think they are following his plans. Although Hunter and Reynolds are unhappy about misleading Pearce, it seemed like the only thing to do, in order to stop the attack on the nuclear power station.
The cover-up was a relative success – the roof was made to look as though it had collapsed, leading to the station being closed. The bomb exploded with no human injury, but was it enough to fool McCann? It didn’t escape Pearce’s notice that he'd been fed lies, and Quinn was made to explain his reasons for going over his head, again. It was just a matter of meeting McCann and getting the information they need, in order to prevent a national disaster.
Meanwhile, the terrorist's plant a bomb in Agent Quinn's laptop, unfortunately, he was working from his maximum security home. With his family trapped inside will he have time to defuse the bomb??
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