Chapter 10
Waverly raised his unruly eyebrows at the sudden cessation of communication from Solo. He kept the connection open in hopes that his CEA would speak soon, though he doubted he would hear anything else other than the breaths of his agents.
In the meantime, he, with Lisa Rogers' assistance, mustered a team of six agents from the Shreveport operation to deal with the satrapy and sent a deputy sheriff, a part-time Section III agent, from an adjacent parish to find and rescue Solo and Kuryakin.
MFU
In his speeding squad car running siren and lights, Deputy Sheriff Beauford X. Pendergast, a former Section II due to partial deafness brought on by a THRUSH device, led two ambulances toward the signal from Solo's communicator he had finally homed in on. He drove as far as he could in the area rich with plant life but poor with passable roads.
He cut the engine and was out as soon as he turned up the volume on his hearing aids, his communicator in hand. The two pair of ambulance attendants were already hauling out litters and medical bags. "Okay, fellas, this way."
It was nearly a mile in with twilight closing in before Pendergast spotted the gone-to-ground agents. He ran ahead of the medicos, ready to ensure they were still alive and to retrieve the samples and notebook unobserved by the civilians.
Pendergast went first to Solo. Alive, he confirmed on watching his chest rise and fall. Keeping his back toward the approaching help, he whispered, "I seen you look and smell better, Napoleon." Efficiently he extracted the purloined items, then deposited them in his pockets and inside his shirt. It bothered him, though, that Napoleon didn't react at all. Concussion?
"Oo-ee, these guys've been through the wringer," declared Clancy, the most senior of the attendants. "Okay, Herb and Les, y'all take that scrawny fella and me and Harry'll take the other. And not a bad idea to use some of that VapoRub."
"Clancy, I need to talk with this one," Pendergast said, pointing to Solo.
"Okay, but I ain't sure this here'll wake 'im. He looks all done in." He broke an ammonia capsule under Napoleon's nose.
Solo shook his head, grimacing from the new stink and the renewed awareness of pain. He tried but couldn't swat away the smell tormenting him. Moments later, the smell disappeared. He opened his eyes, blinking several times to clear blurry vision. His brow furrowed when he finally focused on the face hovering above him. "Toto?" he rasped.
Pendergast laughed boisterously. "Th'enemy been messin' with your head, Napoleon? It's me, pal, Bex."
It took Napoleon several seconds until his memory kicked in. A fond "Bex" and a grateful smile was all he could produce.
"Your take is safe and now so are you and your Russkie. Hot damn! I get to meet me a real Russian!"
Napoleon cleared his throat but the sound that came out was still rusty. "Watch him … danger … to himself … everyone."
"Waverly briefed me. Fully. Don't worry, ol' buddy. I'll cuff 'im to the stretcher. Anything else I gotta know?"
With no energy to speak off, Napoleon feebly mouthed a No and returned to the kindness of unconsciousness.
"Let's load 'em up and get outta here A-SAP." Pendergast made way for Clancy and Harry, staying close enough to help if needed.
"Dang!" Herb uttered as he and Les lifted Kuryakin. "This here little feller's heftier than he looks."
Pendergast snickered. Well, deception is part of an agent's stock-in-trade. "Careful, boys. Don't let that fool ya. He can be dangerous, too. They both can."
Kuryakin, very dimly aware, registered hands on him and micro-tremors tumbling helter-skelter through his body. The low-grade desire to hurt himself abruptly swelled, needling him to give in, so he fought the cuffs. It was that excruciating pain that sent him back to full oblivion.
The deputy observed the struggle. "One of y'all needs to ride in the back and watch 'im, but don't get too close."
MFU
On arriving at the local hospital, Pendergast wasn't surprised to see a sketchy character who he read as THRUSH at the emergency entrance. He mentally crossed his fingers that they wouldn't dare assault the two agents in public, but THRUSH wasn't exactly known for being discreet.
Pendergast's suspicion was confirmed when he saw the man extract a device from his jacket's inner pocket that he recognized as a short-range THRUSH comm, essentially a souped-up walkie-talkie. Which meant reinforcement agents were close by. He uttered an oath as he pulled into one of the parking slots at the ER entrance.
He radioed the local police to request an urgent protection detail. In the meantime, he'd be there for them; he was all the vulnerable agents had.
"Step on it, boys," he said to the attendants as they began to unload the agents. I got a real bad feelin' about this.