Defense Secretary Warner is well and truly on the warpath - on her way to the UN to make the case for regime change in Tyrgyztan. If they can get a resolution there will be US planes in Central Asia by nightfall.

Mark meanwhile is in a dark place. Eshan has been murdered. Downing Street are recalling him to London. Just as it seems that his career is over a lifeline is thrown from an unexpected place. Defense Secretary Warner calls to say that the White House would be unhappy to see Mark Brydon removed from office. Mark's deputy Phil Lonsdale is forced to stand by his boss.

Restored to duty Mark attends a function at a downtown hotel then, suspecting he's being bugged, slips away to meet James Sinclair.

James is shattered and frightened. Eshan's death has been apocalyptic for him. He realises that he has been a pawn in a terrifying game and stresses to Mark that the people behind this will stop at nothing.

Mark tries to persuade him to stay at the Embassy - diplomatic immunity will protect him - but James takes advantage of a diversion to slip away, leaving Mark standing in Union Station with James's son Azzam, no sign of James anywhere.

As soon as he can Mark contacts the one man he trusts in the US Administration, National Security Adviser Carl Garcia. He has a hypothesis: Defense Secretary Warner is behind Eshan's death, a necessary sacrifice to enable her to start a war. Carl doesn't deny that it's possible.

There aren't too many people for Mark to trust now. But he does trust Jane Lavery so when she invites him to join her in a Washington hotel he accepts. They make love for the second time and both of them are grateful for the comfort. Mark begins to open up, telling Jane of his losses, not just James and Eshan, but Saida - the woman who ten years ago brought them all together. Jane is startled - she's heard that name before. She puts two and two together and realises that the woman Mark loved is the woman she saw murdered in Luke's video.

Immediately she shares what she knows and Mark realises they are both in danger. He looks out of the window. The familiar figure of Vinnie Swain, neatly suited, in a black Mercedes - the killer who has dispatched so many others over the last two weeks - is parked up at the other side of the road. This is the hit that Christopher ordered.

Mark smuggles Jane out of the hotel and straight into a car chase. They shake off their pursuer and go to the airport. Jane should leave the country. It isn't safe here. After delivering her to the check-in desk for the flight to London, Mark heads for Nicholas's apartment. All that's happened over the last two weeks - the leaks, the buggings, the secrets - they have a spy's fingerprints all over them, and Nicholas is MI6's man in the British Embassy.

The minute Nicholas opens the door Mark hits him. Finally there's honesty between the two men and it becomes clear that Nicholas has been watching Mark's back all along, trying to derail the express train to war while keeping his Ambassador clean. Now Nicholas supplies a missing part of the puzzle. Warner hasn't had enough evidence to go to war against Usman until now. Since the plane went down Nicholas has been on the trail of the triggered spark gap switches that Anthony Hanley drew to his attention.

If it was proved that these essential components of a nuclear warhead had been ordered by Usman the US would be able to make a case for war. Nicholas suspects that Usman is innocent of the charge but that a Pentagon Black Op run by Warner and Styles will have ensured a paper trail that leads all the way back to him. What he needs to do to keep it all tied down is find the missing switches.

As the two men pool their knowledge Caroline Hanley and Gordon Adair are in a Boston customs shed looking without understanding at a consignment of triggered spark gap switches addressed to Usman from Hanley International. Warner has achieved her resolution.

As a sober end to a sober day, James Sinclair's body turns up in the Potomac. And Mark returns to the Residence to tell his son.

 

Jane meanwhile has defied her instructions and taken a flight to Tampa where she has stashed copies of Luke's incendiary DVs . Unfortunately Vinnie Swain knows she's there and is on a mission to eliminate her. A professional kidnap, bundled into a waiting car, and it looks like Jane can be silenced just like everyone else, but Jane isn't going to go down without a fight. Taking advantage of a momentary lapse in the driver's concentration she kicks out, the car crashes. At least if she goes she'll go on her own terms