This Vigil season 2 episode 5 recap contains spoilers
After escaping from Jabat Al-Huria, DCI Silva feels conflicted about who are the real villains in the Wudyani conflict and discovers key information about the attack at Dundair from Sam Kader. Yet further digging leads her into serious danger, as we question the loyalty of Wes Harper and Daniel Ramsay.
DCI Silva wakes up in a military ambulance and soon learns about the collateral damage during the operation to save her and Squadron Leader Eliza Russell. It seems most of the residents of the compound were killed, which leaves Amy feeling very uneasy.
DI Longacre is also conflicted as she watches the aftermath of the operation back in Scotland, yet after a search of the compound the British Special Forces find the missing RPAS console, which they presume was used to carry out the attack at Dundair. Ghazali claimed Jabat Al-Huria had nothing to do with that event, was he lying? Or was the console planted there by the British soldiers?
Why were Grainger and Bilali spared at Dundair?
At the post-mission debrief, Air Marshall Grainger questions Eliza Russell and DCI Silva about their time in captivity and it’s clear they have different stories to tell. Silva has severe concerns about whether lethal force was required, while Russell apparently has none.
DCI Silva is also interested in the bomb casings Jabat Al-Huria had been gathering as evidence against the UK military, yet it seems these have been destroyed by the Wudyanis. However, we do learn that Abdullah Ghazali wasn’t among the dead and is "unaccounted for", while his wife is in custody.
Grainger is keen to send DCI Silva home, but she has more questions and asks DI Longacre to speak to Firas Zaman again in the hope of finding out more about Jabat Al-Huria.
Meanwhile, DCI Silva goes to speak to Sam Kader, who says the RPAS console must have been planted in the compound, although he has no idea who is setting them up. But he does reveal that Wes Harper has been withholding a first-person recording of the attack, which he downloaded from the armament mainframe.
DCI Silva doesn’t have much trouble guessing who he gave that recording to and when she visits Barker they watch it together. It shows how the RPAS purposefully spared Grainger and Colonel Bilali - but why? Whoever carried out the attack stopped the video feed, which means that either Harper had access to that feed or piloted it himself. So was Wes and Alban-X behind the attack?
When Amy speaks to DI Longacre they theorize that maybe the Wudyanis carried out the attack as part of a plot against Jabat Al-Huria, which would also allow them to negotiate better terms with Alban-X.
DCI Silva wants to stay and get to the bottom of it, while DI Longacre explains how she’s struggling with the guilt of what she put Firas Zaman through...
Who ordered Zaman to film the test?
Later on, DI Longacre meets Derek McCabe, Senior VP of Alban-X, at a press conference Grainger is giving. He wants to draw a line under the whole thing by publicly naming Captain Kader, but DSU Ferguson says the attack at Dundair remains an ongoing investigation. DI Longacre starts asking questions about Colonel Bilali and Wes Harper, but it’s clear she’s not going to get the answers she needs.
Meanwhile, at Al-Shawka DCI Silva seeks out Harper and confronts him about the recording, asking if McCabe knows about it. Rather than answering her questions, he tasers her!
Back in Scotland, DI Longacre and Daniel Ramsay are doing some digging on Colonel Bilali and Wes Harper to see if any of them have been bought off by Alban-X. If either has been bribed then it will most likely have been done with crypto, which could be tricky to trace. However DI Longacre realises the same people who paid off Wes probably paid off Ross Sutherland - and they might be able to find that account using his hard drive.
When she speaks to Firas Zaman, DI Longacre explains how DCI Silva believes Sam Kader is innocent and that she needs his help proving it. He tells her of how Alban-X are sending weapons to Wudyan to be used against civilians, which is what Kader was gathering evidence to prove. He then explains how Mohammed Rajab instructed him to film the test at Dundair as it was “important” a week and a half beforehand. But did the messages really come from Mohammed Rajab?
Can DI Longacre trust Daniel Ramsay?
After Harper flees the base, DCI Silva tells Squadron Leader Russell she suspects Colonel Bilali paid him to carry out the attack. Later on DI Longacre explains how Zaman received a message purportedly from Rajab, a week after he was arrested by Bilali.
“They wanted Zaman to be at Dundair and they wanted us to find him because he leads us to Jabat Al-Huria,” says DI Longacre.
Russell warns DCI Silva that she’s been ordered to get on a plane back to Britain and that it will be safer to investigate Bilali from back in the UK, but Amy is determined to get some answers before she leaves.
Meanwhile Daniel Ramsay finds the crypto record of £50,000 being paid to Ross Sutherland, which came from the same account that transferred two far larger sums to a new account, including a payment of £5m just minutes ago. That account was used to rent office space six months ago and we reckon that’s probably where Harper is holed up.
DCI Silva asks Callum Barker to smuggle her out of the base and to the address DI Longacre sent her. She finds Wes Harper destroying data that links him to the attack at Dundair, when a hitman enters the office. DCI Silva kills him and after remembering him from the operation at the compound, wonders if he could have planted the RPAS console.
As she and Harper flee, he explains that he didn’t carry out the attack, but was paid to make sure the consoles didn’t transmit any video after the RPAS went to autopilot. He reckons it was part of a Wudyani plot to get more weapons from Britain, as “the UK joins Wudyan’s war.” It seems Dundair was an excuse to go to war, but who was behind it? Wudyan or the UK?
But there’s more, because Harper says the assassin sent to kill them would have been working with the British Intelligence services. DCI Silva calls DI Longacre and tells her not to share the image of him with Ramsay, but she already has. Is Ramsay part of the plot to take Britain to war in Wudyan? He seemed like a real straight shooter!
Back at Al-Shawka, DCI Silva asks Eliza Russell for help and she says “You better be right about this!” before they take off - but what did she ask for? It could well be the last we see of Russell, as a few moments after take off gunshots ring out. Has Harper killed her?
