"Clothes make the man," Smiley said as he and Barnes walked through the safehouse. "My congratulations on a job well done, James. Tiger Shark's suicide was not the desired outcome, but the action bore fruit. It got us on the offensive."

The entire first floor of the house served as a living space. Three bedrooms, a bath, and a kitchen with well-stocked cabinets and pantry could provide ample refuge for anyone needing to stay hidden for a prolonged amount of time. Smiley followed Barnes up a rickety flight of stairs to the second story. The top floor is where the safehouse showed its hand. The room to the right of the second-floor landing served as a makeshift communications center with radio and a computer. The room next to the communications center held couches and monitors where one could watch the feed from the security cameras in the house. Further down the hall were two interrogation rooms with two-way mirrors. At the far end of the hall were two rooms with large steel doors. These were cells where uninclined guests were put.

Fontaine and Stevenson sat in the interrogation rooms while Jackson occupied one of the locked cells. Barnes led Smiley into the room with the monitors and couches. He watched on the monitor as Stevenson and Fontaine nervously shifted in their chairs from inside the sweatboxes while Jackson slept soundly on a cot. Smiley observed the little differences between the three agents body language and what it said about each of them. He turned away from the monitor and placed his briefcase on a card table set up beside the monitors. He snapped it open and pulled out all his reading from the flight. The papers were copies, so he was free to highlight relevant passages and scribble notes in the margins. He thumbed through them and found what he wanted before looking at Barnes.

"Come with me, James."

They walked out into the hallway and towards the interrogation rooms. Smiley stared at the two suspected agents through the two-way glass. They looked close to how he had imagined, Stevenson's large frame even larger in person and Fontaine's beauty a bit marred by the stressful events she was currently under. 

"I need you to only observe for now and make sure the interrogations are recorded in full. I don't foresee either one of them becoming violent, but if it comes to that you will have to step up. Pull up a chair, this may take some time."


--


For sixteen hours Smiley did his dance. To and from the two interrogation rooms, he went over every single aspect of the two agents careers with SHIELD, their personal history, and their role in the blown operations of the past. Smiley never once raised his voice of made anything even approaching a threat. Fontaine and Stevenson already knew the stakes, they did not need to be reminded. He went over their stories with them again and again and again and again. The pattern of long-term questioning emerged. Fear became annoyance, annoyance became outright hostility, the hostility faded to sadness and bargaining, and then finally the need to please. The last stage was always the hardest to work with. As the target's will broke down, they would confess to almost anything just to end the interrogation. Once that subservient stage passed, Smiley went over their stories once more to see what had changed in the ensuing hours.

He would let them take breaks, Barnes escorting them to the bathroom or getting them a glass of water, while he himself would go back through his documents to compare their testimonies with actual fact. Questions sprung out from questions, follow-ups to queries required their own follow-ups. The heat had started to get to Smiley after the first hour. He stripped off his coat, followed bu loosening his tie, then getting rid of it all together, then shucking his waistcoat. By the time it was over, he was down to his shirt with the sleeves rolled up past the elbows and a thick layer of sweat staining the white fabric.

Spent, physically and emotionally, Smiley finally reached a conclusion. He fixed a cup of tea while Barnes helped Fontaine and Stevenson out of the rooms. They both seemed to sag when they sat down on the plush couches in the adjacent to the rooms they spent the better part of a day in. Smiley stared at them over his cup, the steam from the tea fogging his glasses.

"First, let me apologize for the inconvenience I have caused you."

Stevenson let out a weak chortle. He seemed as if he was going to say something but gave up. He was much too tired for something even close to a witty comeback.

"Secondly, I deem you both as having a clean bill of health. Whatever Jackson was into, you two most certainly not."

The relief radiating from the two agents seemed to fill the room. He let them take a moment to enjoy the good news while he sipped his tea.

"After getting something to eat and a much-needed rest downstairs, Captain America shall escort you back to Washington. Director Fury may have his own questions, but he will have read my report by the time you get back and should be satisfied with my findings. I am afraid to say that your time in Jakarta is finished."

"What about our time in SHIELD?" Fontaine asked quietly. "We let a mole operate under our nose for over a year."

"These things happen," Smiley said simply. "You will probably have to serve some sort of punitive sentence, but I will do all in my power to see that it is short-lived. The two of you are wasted here in Jakarta. If you are as capable as you seem to be on paper, there is still a place for you in SHIELD. The new administration rewards good work with important work. Fury aims to run a meritocracy. If you two keep at it, you will find yourself finally doing important work in an important place."

Draining his tea, Smiley stood and shook the Stevenson and Fontaine's hands. He sat back down as Barnes led them downstairs. Smiley went back to his reading while he waited for Barnes to return. He looked up when he heard his footsteps on the stairs. 

"They're asleep?"

When he got the confirmation from him, Smiley stood and looked down the hall towards the cell.

"I want you to burn copies of the interrogations of Fontaine and Stevenson on DVD and seal them in a pouch for transport to Washington. Take them with you on the flight back. Once you've done that, turn off the camera in Jackson's cell. The two of us need to have a private chat."