Chapter 8
"How much longer, Richards?"
Richards looked up to see his supervisor peering in through the door. He checked the remaining memory. "Should be done today, sir."
"Excellent. I just received a call from LA. They wanted to know if the transcription was underway yet. I assured them you were almost finished."
"Countess, it was very generous of you to invite me back for coffee."
"It was my pleasure, Professor."
"It's getting quite late -,"
"Oh, but I haven't given you the tour yet," cooed the Countess. "Let me just show you around." She took him by the hand and led him through the villa, gradually working her way to the second floor.
"…and in here you can see a fine portrait of Emperor Rudolph II, who made Prague the seat of the Hapsburg -,"
"Th-this must be your *bedroom*," Jack protested, eyes probing the room and the study beyond. "Surely it is not appropriate for -,"
"Professor. Frederick. By now you must have noticed how attracted I am to you?"
"W-why yes, we seem to have become good friends."
"Very close friends," she agreed. "It seems a shame that tonight will be our last night together. Why don't we relax here and chat for a while?" She pulled him down forcefully next to her on the loveseat.
"Uh, okay, if you think – what are you doing?"
The Countess finished unknotting his tie and slowly threaded it through his collar. "I thought you might be feeling a little warm."
Richards stared at the Countess in his monitor. *He* was certainly feeling warm. He glanced over at the video of the support base and noticed that the scene was getting rapt attention from Vaughn and Weiss as well.
"Y-yes," Jack stuttered. "I am." He reached up to loosen the button of his collar and paused as the Countess laid her hand on his. "Here. Let me," she urged.
Jack watched silently as the Countess unbuttoned his shirt all the way down, his jaw tightening imperceptibly. "C-Countess?" he asked timorously.
"It's all right, Frederick," she soothed. "Why don't you wait right here while I - ,"
...go and change into something more comfortable, Jack thought sarcastically to himself.
"- go and change into something more…comfortable?" Without waiting for a reply, the Countess left the room. Jack looked longingly towards the study, but dared not make a move. In his experience, the length of time for this phase was highly variable.
A short time later the Countess reemerged. What she was wearing was clearly more comfortable. "What do you think?" she asked coquettishly.
"...doesn't leave much to the imagination, does it?" observed Weiss to Vaughn, his hand covering the mike.
Jack looked flustered. "I-it's very p-pretty, Countess, but I don't know if..."
A knock on the door interrupted him. "As you requested, Countess." A butler proffered a tray with two glasses.
"Thank you, Vasek." Turning to Jack, the Countess offered him a glass. He noted without surprise that it had a distinctive chip on the base. "I thought this might help you relax, Frederick."
This plus a half-bottle of scotch, Jack thought to himself. "I am a little n-nervous," Jack admitted.
"Drink up," the Countess urged, lifting her glass to her lips.
Obediently, Jack lifted the glass and gulped it down, praying that the antidote he had taken earlier in the evening worked.
"You'll feel better shortly," the Countess assured him. She took the glass from him and set it down. "Perhaps, if you took off your shirt...," she began to advance towards him, her intent clear.
"C-could we turn out the lights?" stuttered Jack. It was the one obvious flaw in the plan. He might have the body of someone in his 50's, but not that of a reclusive academic. The number of scars alone would arouse comment.
"Oh, you're shy," she twittered. "Of course."
Jack heaved a sigh of relief as she extinguished the lights and made her way back to him. She stumbled slightly and he caught her automatically as she lurched forward.
"Oh, dear," she laughed. "How clumsy of me." Her arms slid under his shirt and around his back. Slowly she caressed his skin, tracing lazy circles.
Jack's eyes closed briefly in revulsion.
"Kiss me, Frederick," she breathed.
Steeling himself, Jack lowered his lips to hers, gracelessly bumping her nose. His lips parted as her tongue demanded entry, invading his mouth. He issued a soft moan.
Pulling back, the Countess looked up at him, a calculating gleam in her eye. "Tell me, Fl-Frederick, about the work that you do." She steered him towards the bed.
Richards took a deep breath. This was it. The full monty. "Tell me, Frederick, about the work you do," he typed. He bit his lip. How much additional detail should he add?
"W- well, you know that I work with viruses."
The Countess pushed his shirt off his shoulders and ran her hands over his chest. "Your paper was most intriguing. I imagine viruses are very difficult to aerosolize." She struggled for a moment as she removed the shirt completely, and pushed him to a sitting position on the bed.
"Not so difficult with the proper equipment. Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to include the latest techniques in my paper. C-countess, what are you doing?" Jack slurred his words slightly, trying to give her the impression that the drug was working.
"Making you happy, Flederick." She went down on her knees and began to fumble with his belt while groping him through his pants. "What kinds of techniques?"
Jack looked down at the blonde head poised over his groin and a bead of sweat began to form on his forehead. He drew in a ragged breath and reached his hands down to help her with his belt, the complexities of which appeared to be eluding her.
"A two-stage process, we've found, is most efficient -," he undid his pants and, swallowing the bile rising in his throat, leant back, "- to separate the individual cellular components -," he reached up and switched off the glasses,
Richards glanced over at the support base tape to watch the reaction.
"Damn! Can you believe it? What a time for those glasses to switch off!" Weiss looked at Vaughn in dismay. "He was rounding third!"
"Don't tell him. Somehow, I don't think he'd appreciate the interruption right now."
"Interruption in transmission was noted at Base, but no action taken due to sensitive nature of agent's activities at the time," typed Richards.
"-prior to insertion into -," Jack heard the sound of his zipper slowly opening and, staring at the ceiling, issued another moan. What was taking so long? Why couldn't she just get this over with? He waited a moment longer, then looked down in puzzlement. The Countess had not moved. "Margit?"
"Yes?" she answered placidly.
"Are you okay?"
"A l-little d-dizzy. Is there something you w-want?"
Jack stared at her in astonishment, noting her glazed expression and slurred speech. Surely she couldn't have….he glanced over at the glasses. She had given him… the wrong glass? A surge of exhilaration shot through him, leaving him almost weak-kneed with relief.
"Margit, stand up and sit on the bed," he ordered experimentally. He watched as she docilely obeyed his command. He thought carefully for a moment, rapidly developing and discarding tactics. Making his decision, he stood up and stripped.
Turning his attention to the Countess, he removed her robe and negligee, artistically dropping them along with his clothing at different points on the floor. He guided her over to the bed and tucked her in.
"Go to sleep, Countess. When you wake up you'll remember that you had," he paused. He had been about to say 'the best sex of your life'. Reluctantly he continued, "that the Professor was pathetic in bed, as you feared, but that you got the information you wanted." He sighed and climbed into bed next to her.
**
Jack lay wide-awake in bed two hours later, thinking about coincidences. Absently he reached up to his glasses and turned transmission back on. He wondered what Irina was up to.
Weiss looked at Vaughn as the screen flickered on to show a view of a ceiling.
"Base to Watchtower. Do you read?"
"Yes," replied Jack softly.
"What's that noise?" The Countess' gentle snores punctuated the darkness.
"The Countess," he said quietly.
"She sounds happy," smirked Weiss.
"Weiss -," The menace in the tone was clear.
"Watchtower, when do you project accessing the safe?" interjected Vaughn hurriedly.
Jack paused a moment to listen one more time. The rest of the house was still.
"Now," he answered, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and pulling on his boxers. Stealthily he made his way over to his shoes. A gentle twist on one heel yielded the components of a stethoscope, which he quickly assembled; the second yielded a small flashlight.
"Monitoring your transmission," Vaughn assured him through the glasses.
Jack padded into the study and approached the bookshelf concealing the safe. Studying it carefully, he slowly ran his hands around the molding. He grunted in satisfaction when he found the release, and swung back the shelving to reveal a safe of modest technology. He paused in dismay.
"Base to Watchtower. Is there a problem?"
"There may be a failsafe," muttered Jack quietly. "The setup's too easy."
There was a brief pause. "Base to Watchtower. Confirm that we have no intel on a failsafe."
"Sh*t." Jack scanned the room, studded with portraits, shelving, statuary, and furniture. It could take him the entire night to locate the failsafe. Assuming there was one. He heard the Countess rollover in the adjoining room and glanced at the clock on the desk. 3am.
"Base to Watchtower." Dixon's voice came over the comm. link.
"Watchtower."
"Vaughn reports you believe there is a failsafe."
"It seems likely. A child could crack this safe."
Dixon paused. "Watchtower, there is no exit strategy for you if you trip the failsafe."
"Give me an hour to locate it. Watchtower out." Jack's voice was abrupt. He knew where Dixon was heading.
Despite moving with careless disregard for the noise he was making, Jack came up empty-handed after an hour's searching. The number of possible locations to secrete a button, he concluded, far exceeded the time available. Which left him with only one option.
Richards turned once more to the support base tape as Dixon re-entered the room.
"Any luck?" asked Dixon.
Vaughn shook his head. "What do I tell him?"
"He's going to have to abort," said Dixon heavily. "But I'll tell him. He deserves to hear it from me." Dixon pulled on a headset as Vaughn watched him soberly.
"Base to Watchtower."
"Damn!" said Weiss, as the screen in front of them went blank.
"What the hell is going on?" demanded Dixon.
"We've lost transmission. It's happened periodically throughout the mission."
"You mean he can't hear me?"
"And we can't hear him," said Vaughn, keeping his thoughts to himself.
Dixon muttered an expletive under his breath. "Stay at your post," he ordered. "If I'm not mistaken we should get transmission back any minute now."
"Director Dixon unable to issue order to abort due to technical difficulties," typed Richards.
Jack lowered his hand from his glasses. The minute he had heard Dixon's voice, it had been obvious what the communication would be. And the consequences for Sydney.
He moved to the safe and taking a deep breath, put on the stethoscope and began to concentrate. As anticipated, the safe combination was easy to crack. With one hand on the lever, he readied himself. He should have, he estimated, 20 seconds if he tripped a failsafe. He turned on the flashlight, switched on the glasses, and pulled on the safe door.
"We have transmission," announced Weiss.
"What a surprise," said Dixon dryly, as Jack began to rapidly page through the document in the safe.
"No audible alarm," confirmed Vaughn.
Jack came to the end of the document.
"Base to Watchtower. All pages received. Well done," said Weiss in relief.
"Watchtower, if you ever pull a stunt like that again -," came Dixon's voice through Jack's headset as he carefully laid the pages back inside the safe in the exact order he had found them, "so help me I'll –,"
The study door crashed open behind Jack and he whirled around to face two guards aiming AK-47's at his chest. "You may not get the chance," muttered Jack, slowly raising his hands into the air.