Jack heard a step behind him and stiffened in annoyance when he felt a hand on his shoulder. "Bristow! I heard you were here."
Relaxing as he recognized the voice, he carefully lowered his gun and turned away from his target. Sean O'Malley, firearms instructor, was surveying him from head to toe, the eyes in his grizzled face twinkling. "Heard I need to qualify you. Want me to show you where the trigger is?" asked O'Malley solicitously.
Jack smiled with affection and stuck out his hand. "I wouldn't get too close. My aim's not what it used to be," he retorted. "How's the leg?" O'Malley had often been Jack's backup earlier in his career, and had bailed him out of more tight situations than he could count. When O'Malley's field career had been abruptly terminated in a minefield, Jack had helped him to get reassigned to the CIA's firing range.
"'Bout the same. You been keeping yourself busy?" Jack didn't miss the trace of concern in O'Malley's voice. He knew that his time in solitary was a thinly veiled secret. No doubt intentional by the NSC as a warning to anyone else that wanted to "resist authority".
Jack shrugged, suddenly uncomfortable. He trusted Sean with his life, but was unexpectedly hesitant about sharing the details of his time in solitary. "All expenses-paid vacation, courtesy of Uncle Sam," he replied casually. "Caught up on my reading, wrote my memoirs. What's not to like?"
Jack blinked. What was that crawling up the wall of his cell? He blinked again and it disappeared. He wiped a shaky hand across his face. Dammit, Bristow, pull yourself together. He leapt off his bed in agitation, pacing the cell.
Three weeks. More or less. Assuming that they were feeding him 3 meals a day. He looked over at his tally on the wall, etched with the button from his shirt. He had had his first meal of the day some time ago. That meant that exercise would be next. Then the second meal, then the third meal. Numbly he considered the hours stretching in front of him. No books, no pens, no paper. Nothing except his own thoughts to occupy him. Not a particularly heartening notion.
"Bristow! Hands through the door!"
With relief, Jack put his hands through the door to be shackled. Time for exercise. A 30 foot by 8 foot run. No other prisoners present, of course, but a welcome change of scenery. He entered the run and stretched. 2 minutes of stretching. 20 minutes jogging. 8 minutes wind sprints. Cool down back in his cell.
Stretching done, Jack began a slow jog to the end of the run and back. His brow wrinkled in concentration on the return. He had seen something…different? He looked more closely as he jogged back to the other end, this time a little faster. Scratched in the concrete dust at the end, the phrase 'e4'. Jack continued without pause, frowning. Had that been there before? He puzzled over the writing for the rest of the exercise period, and found it dominating his thoughts for the rest of the day. A slow news day, he told himself cynically.
The next day, he only stretched for a minute, then began his jog. As he reached the end of the run his eyes scanned the ground. 'e4?' read the phrase. Jack continued on without reaction, pondering, surreptitiously examining the camera angles. Jog finished, he began his wind sprints, bending low as he reached each end of the run, touching the ground. The 3rd lap he erased the phrase in the dust. The 5th lap he wrote a small 'e' with his finger. The 7th lap he wrote a '5'. There he thought to himself, breathing hard. He slowed to a walk, wiping the sweat out of his face, and followed the guard back to his cell.
'f4'. Jack's step faltered the following day as he made his first turn and jogged back. He had been right – the code represented chess moves. He concentrated, seeing the board in his mind's eye. King's Gambit, he thought contentedly to himself. Take it or not, he wondered? By the time he started his wind sprints, he had decided. When he left the exercise run, 'exf4' was scrawled in the dust.
O'Malley gave him a skeptical glance, but knew Jack too well to press him. "You were gone for a while, weren't you?"
"About a year," replied Jack offhandedly.
Jack gave a grunt of disgust as he saw the Abbe's checkmate in the dust. Damn. He should have seen that coming. After playing the Abbe for almost a year, Jack had a good sense for his strengths and weaknesses. Whereas Jack was strategic, the Abbe was opportunistic. Jack, conservative, the Abbe daring. Jack losing, the Abbe winning, Jack reminded himself acidly. The Abbe was up now, 11 games to 10, with 8 draws. Jack had not been concentrating well the past few days, not since Sydney had resurfaced. You need to get your head back in the game, he told himself.
The discovery of the codes in the dust had been a lifeline for Jack. The connection, however tenuous, with another intellect of comparable ability (probably a serial murderer, Jack had told himself in a moment of dark humor), had focused him. After the first game they had played, when it swiftly became apparent that the competition would be formidable, he had proposed playing two games simultaneously. The Abbe had accepted.
Two chessboards to keep memorized in his head. Two moves per day during exercise. Something to occupy his mind during the 23-1/2 hours until the next exercise session. Weaknesses to probe. Strategies to test. And a daily reminder of the importance of playing for the long term.
Jack bent low on his wind sprint, grateful for the temporary distraction from his worries about Sydney. Time to start a new game. 'd4' he scratched in the dust. Sprint to the end, and back. And on the second game? Sprint to the end, and back. 'Nd5+' he scratched. Take that, he thought with satisfaction, deciding to meet the Abbe's attack with a counter-attack. He sprinted back to the entrance, where the guard awaited him.
With a start, Jack realized he would never find out what the Abbe's next move would have been.
"Care to tell me why you need to be requalified?" O'Malley asked curiously, breaking into Jack's reflections.
Jack grimaced. "No," he said baldly.
O'Malley snorted. "Glad to see that the famous Bristow interpersonal skills remain intact. What're you going to qualify with?"
"9-mm." Jack gestured to the gun in front of him.
O'Malley limped backwards two steps. "Whenever you're ready," O'Malley drawled, pointedly looking at his watch.
Jack didn't answer, just spun around and scooped up the gun in a smooth motion. Without pause, he emptied the entire cartridge at the paper target at the end of the run. Both men waited patiently as the pulley brought the target forward. Silently Jack unclipped it and handed it to O'Malley.
"What a bloody waste of time," was O'Malley's only response, signing his name to the bottom.
*
Jack met his contact over lunch in a dark smoky bar in East LA.
"You want me to *what*?" asked the contact for the second time.
Jack patiently explained the parameters of the op. Timing and communications were critical.
"I want an update each morning at 10am. You'll be on standby for 30 minutes. I'll relay your instructions to you on this phone," said Jack, sliding a phone across the table, "by 10:30am."
"And you want that code scratched into the dust," repeated the contact in disbelief. He stared at the money Jack counted onto the table. "Whatever you say, Mr. Bristow."
****
A/N: Just for the record, this chess scene was written before Jack's game with Brill in Breaking Point. An explanation of algebraic chess notation can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebraic_chess_notation