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[b]March 24th, 2005
07:13am[/b]

Sixteen long hours. Bucky had never seen anything like it. In the forties there wasn't the time for men to break their prisoners down like Smiley did, with words instead of violence, but it was every bit as difficult to watch. There was a directness to the kid of methods men once espoused that although brutal made it less mentally trying than the process Smiley put Stevenson and Fontaine through. Questions after questions, follow up questions, asking them to recall minute details of operations years past, and the dragging through of their personal and professional lives. Smiley picked at their tragedies and flaws until they weeped like an infected scab and unwittingly revealed something about themselves. That type of scrutiny could make a person long after a pair of pliers.

It was revealing to watch Stevenson and Fontaine under duress. There were things you only learned about a person when their back was against the wall and they had no way of escaping. Neither Stevenson or Fontaine seemed like sunshine patriots. They had both endured hardships that had them stashed away in Jakarta but neither chose to leave for the private sector where they could have made a small fortune. They stood their ground and fought. For themselves, for their careers, and for their countries. Bucky wondered how he might have fared subjecting to George's relentless questioning.

Once they appeared and Bucky had taken them both downstairs to sleep, George asked of him to remove the tape from Jackson's room. He knew with some men that meant the pliers [i]were[/i] coming out but with Smiley it meant something different. They'd be talking about something George wanted kept out of the prying eyes of Washington. Though Bucky's part in this mission had all but come to an end he sensed that Smiley's work was far from done.

"I'll be downstairs," Bucky said tiredly to the Deputy Director. "Give me a holler if Jackson tries anything."