Chapter 9
"Go wake the Countess. I'll keep him covered," said one guard to the other.
Richards watched the support base erupt into action. Weiss was on the phone with the CIA station chief in Prague; Vaughn barked orders by satellite radio to the local backup team outside the villa. They looked, he acknowledged grudgingly, like seasoned professionals.
Dixon was the only stationary point in the storm. He stood to the side, studying the monitor, a thoughtful expression on his face.
"The team is in place, sir, awaiting your order to attack," reported Vaughn.
"How many times did you say you had lost transmission?" asked Dixon pensively.
Vaughn looked puzzled at the apparent non sequitur. "I don't know. 6 or 7? What should I tell the team?"
"What was Agent Bristow's evaluation of the feasibility of rescue if he were captured inside the villa?"
"He didn't think the backup team would be much use," Weiss volunteered, putting down the phone. "It would take them 20-30 minutes to breach the perimeter defenses; he figured that a hostile attack would force their hand and he'd be dead before the team reached him."
Dixon nodded "Put the team on standby. Let's see if Jack can pull this one out."
The furrows on Vaughn's forehead stood out in sharp relief. "And if he can't?"
"Then by his own reckoning, Agent Vaughn, he's no worse off than the alternative."
**
"You b*stard." The Countess swept in, wrapped in a large robe tied around the middle. "You used me."
Jack, clothed in only his boxers and his glasses, had his arms pinned behind him by two very large guards. Three others stood back, armed with rifles.
"Just returning the favor."
The Countess' eyes flashed dangerously. She nodded at one of the guards, who stepped forward and buried the butt of his rifle into Jack's stomach, then expertly flipped it and smashed it across his jaw.
Blood drained from Richards' face as the crack of the rifle butt and Jack's grunt of pain echoed in stereo through the small room. The Countess's face, contorted with cruelty, loomed in Richards' screen and he shrank back involuntarily.
Grabbing Jack's hair in her hand, the Countess tilted Jack's face up to hers. "Who are you, Professor?"
She turned to one of the guards. "Get Vasek!" she ordered through clenched teeth. She gave Jack's head a vicious jerk. "Had a little help, did you? Do you want me to show you what happens to spies?"
Vasek was dragged in, trembling. "Countess, please, I don't know what -." His pleading ceased abruptly as she pulled a gun from the pocket of her robe and shot him in the face at point-blank range.
Richards gasped as Vasek's head exploded in front of him. He paused the tape, feeling slightly ill. With Bristow wearing those glasses, it was like… he'd been there. And field work no longer seemed quite so glamorous. His hands shook as he typed, "Vasek shot and killed by Countess as example to Bristow." He gulped, and wondered how Analysis had obtained the glasses. Had Bristow worn them out? Or had they been recovered… later? He hit the play button again.
The Countess turned back to Jack. "Now, Professor, I think it's time you answered a few questions."
A dull boom echoed on the far side of the villa.
Dixon looked inquiringly at Vaughn. Vaughn spoke briefly into the radio, then turned back to Dixon. "It's not our team, sir."
Dixon nodded. "Thought not."
"You! Handcuff this man," ordered the Countess to one of the guards. She pointed her gun at Jack. "Leave him with me. Two of you remain outside in the hall. The rest of you take care of whatever caused that explosion."
The guards scrambled to secure Jack and hurriedly exited. "If those are friends of yours," said the Countess menacingly, "you're a dead man." She glanced meaningfully at Vasek's body.
"And if they're not?" Jack leant casually against the wall, hands handcuffed in front of him. He noted the Countess was careful to maintain a reasonable distance between the two of them.
The Countess shrugged. "If they're not...it will take a little longer." She studied Jack for a moment, lips pursed, taking in the muscular chest and shoulders, and the multiple scars on his torso. He had dropped all the Professor's mannerisms and tentative speech; she could only wonder that she had mistaken him for an academic. "So you're shy?" she said sarcastically. "Only undress in the dark?"
"Don't get around much," replied Jack. "Do you mind if I pull on some clothes?"
"Shut up."
Another explosion rocked the villa, this time a little nearer. Shouts could be heard out in the hallway. The door opened and one of the two remaining guards poked his head in. "Countess -,"
"Deal with it," she snapped. The two guards took off running.
Jack reached his hands up toward his head.
"What are you doing?" demanded the Countess. "Put your hands down."
"Just adjusting my glasses," said Jack.
The support base, which had been eerily silent, erupted again.
"Lost transmission! Damn those glasses." Weiss pounded his fist against the video monitor.
"I'm sure Marshall did his best," said Dixon mildly. "I think you'll find they start working again in a half hour or so." He stretched and looked at his watch. "I'll be in my office. Contact me when transmission resumes."
Vaughn and Weiss watched him leave in astonishment. "He's sure got a lot of confidence in Jack," Vaughn observed. They both resumed guard over the blank screen.
Richards stared at his screen in perplexity. Every other transmission failure had been explainable; this one, when Bristow's peril was arguably the greatest and his wife nowhere to be seen…"Ohmigod," he breathed, and turned back to the glasses.
"Why don't you go and check on how the guards are doing?" suggested Jack.
"Do you think I'm stupid?" hissed the Countess.
"I think," said Jack, "that the answer to that question can only be," the unmistakable click of a safety being released sounded behind the Countess, "yes'."