Connie James
Date of Birth: Unknown
First episode: Series 6, Episode 2 Last episode: Series 7, Episode 8 Job: Senior Intelligence Analyst Status: Deceased (explosion) Portrayed by: Gemma Jones Connie started out as a secretary for MI5 when she was 19. In the intervening years she's become one of the sharpest, most resourceful, no-nonsense operators in the British security services. How? Because she knows all the secrets. She worked with Harry for many years against the KGB, including an operation codenamed Renaissance where she was meant to dupe the KGB that she was their mole in MI5. When the Ministry of Defence was going to de-commission their secret nuclear bunkers (hidden underneath large farmhouses), she offered up herself as housekeeper. |
Only a handful of people in the country know of the existence of these bunkers. Harry Pearce is one of them. He visits her in order to use the bunker as private interrogation rooms and convinces her to re-join the service. She is brought in to handle intelligence analysis in the wake of Ruth's departure. She is instrumental in assisting the Team using her technical skills and tradecraft.
In the seventh episode of series seven, Connie is revealed to be a double agent working for the Russians. She had been turned by the Russians when she had been tasked to dupe them became an actual spy for them. She remained their agent for almost thirty years. Her reason for betraying her country was that she realized that the Cold War was coming to an end and that only one superpower would remain. She intended to keep Russia strong so that balance would remain in the world.
At some point, Connie was in a relationship with Hugo Prince, a high-ranking MI5 official whose importance and reputation matched Harry's. It was through this relationship that she discovered Sugerhorse, the biggest operation ever conducted by MI5; recruiting pro-Western minds in Russia as moles to rise to the highest levels of power to keep an eye on its nuclear capacities and cripple them if necessary. Prince, along with Harry and Richard Dolby, was charged with recruiting these operatives. To prevent the network from being broken, only those three would know the names of their assets and they wouldn't know each other's so that no one had the full list. When Prince died, Dolby and Harry split his assets but Connie managed to get her hands on them as well.
To prevent her treachery from being discovered she attempts to frame Harry and kills Ben Kaplan using the underwire from her bra to slice his throat. She is arrested by Ros while trying to escape. She is later snatched during a section D "black op" when the team hear that a large scale terror operation, codenamed "Tiresias", is being run by the Russians to launch a nuclear assault on London using portable devices. Harry Pearce and the team promise that if she helps them she can leave the country and disappear for good. After Ros and Lucas manage to get her across London using underground tunnels, Connie demands that the bomb is brought to her; she removes the radioisotopes, preventing a nuclear explosion but the conventional detonator explodes in her face, killing her instantly.
In the seventh episode of series seven, Connie is revealed to be a double agent working for the Russians. She had been turned by the Russians when she had been tasked to dupe them became an actual spy for them. She remained their agent for almost thirty years. Her reason for betraying her country was that she realized that the Cold War was coming to an end and that only one superpower would remain. She intended to keep Russia strong so that balance would remain in the world.
At some point, Connie was in a relationship with Hugo Prince, a high-ranking MI5 official whose importance and reputation matched Harry's. It was through this relationship that she discovered Sugerhorse, the biggest operation ever conducted by MI5; recruiting pro-Western minds in Russia as moles to rise to the highest levels of power to keep an eye on its nuclear capacities and cripple them if necessary. Prince, along with Harry and Richard Dolby, was charged with recruiting these operatives. To prevent the network from being broken, only those three would know the names of their assets and they wouldn't know each other's so that no one had the full list. When Prince died, Dolby and Harry split his assets but Connie managed to get her hands on them as well.
To prevent her treachery from being discovered she attempts to frame Harry and kills Ben Kaplan using the underwire from her bra to slice his throat. She is arrested by Ros while trying to escape. She is later snatched during a section D "black op" when the team hear that a large scale terror operation, codenamed "Tiresias", is being run by the Russians to launch a nuclear assault on London using portable devices. Harry Pearce and the team promise that if she helps them she can leave the country and disappear for good. After Ros and Lucas manage to get her across London using underground tunnels, Connie demands that the bomb is brought to her; she removes the radioisotopes, preventing a nuclear explosion but the conventional detonator explodes in her face, killing her instantly.