Byrd Man

The Pickett County War: A Rural Noir RP

John Norman clung tightly to the shotgun as he walked through the door of Ray's. He nearly ran into the back of the man shuffling towards the front door in reverse. Ray, Jed, and Scott Andrews all let out little noises of surprise as John leveled the shotgun in their general direction. Andrews had a gun on his hands, but it clattered to the floor after John struck him across the face with the shotgun's butt.

"Anybody makes a wrong move, they get shot in the head," John said cooly.

He kept the barrel trained on Jed and Ray as he hoisted Andrews up by his shirt collar and pushed him towards the bar. He stumbled, but soon recovered after John prodded him with the shotgun.

"You're fucking dead," said Jed. "I am going to personally snap your goddamn neck."

"Ray," John said with a look towards the old man. "Open the safe in the backroom."

"Go fuck yourself."

He squeezed the trigger. The shotgun bucked and a round of pellets blasted Ray's leg just below the knee. He yelled out in pain and collapsed to the ground. John racked another round into the gun and looked at Jed.

"Jed, open the safe in the backroom."

With Ray bleeding out, Jed stepped over him and opened the door leading into the backroom. John escorted him and Scott into the small office and watched the big man as his shaking hands spun the combination back and forth. It snapped open and revealed an interior packed to the brim with cash and drugs. Jed poured it out on to the floor and spread it out for John to see. There was no papers, no files, nothing but cash and drugs.

"No... where's the rest?"

"That's it, motherfucker," Jed snarled.

"Where's the blackmail Billy has on Parker?"

"The fuck you talking about?"

John felt his stomach go cold. Son of a bitch. Mike was right, this whole goddamn thing was a setup. He was about to say something else when he saw Jed flinch. A loud explosion, followed by a portion of the wall being blown into atoms, sent him down to the floor. Down but not out was Ray Champion. He lay on his side by the doorway, a large revolver in his bloody hands. John rolled away as another shoot boomed and blew off the side of Jed's face instead of his. Another cannon blast hit the back of John's leg and went into his upper thigh.

He squared his shotgun up on the ground and shot Ray in the face with buckshot. Before he could turn, Sott Andrews' big hands wrapped around the shotgun barrel and tried to wrestle it out of John's hands. The two fought and tussled on the floor to get the gun from the other. Andrews let out a grunt as the barrel was shoved into his stomach and Scott pressed the trigger. The blast ripped through Andrews stomach and peppered the other side of the wall with his guts.

John stood up and stumbled towards the bar as he heard Andrews calling for backup on his radio.

--

"Calling all cars, calling all cars. We have a report of shots fired, officer down at Raymond's Social Club on the highway."

Danny Johnson looked up from his desk at the scanner in the office he shared with Echols. The bored dispatcher from the 911 center repeated her words. Clint Land and four other deputies on patrol rogered that they were en route. Danny's partner was down the hall, grabbing coffee for the two of them. On both their desks were files on all the murders of the past week. And now, from the sound of things, something was going down again.

"Mark!" He yelled as he stood. "We gotta get to Ray's!"

--

John sat at the bar and drnk gin straight from the bottle. In the adjacent room he could hear Andrews dying, those last little gasps and rattles before death set in. In John's hand was Jed's cellphone, picked up from his dead body. It rang and he waited for the line to be picked up.

"Jed?" Carol Johnson said from the other end of the line. "Where are you, baby?"

John let out a little sigh, imagining it was he she called baby and not the dead man on the floor.

"It's John."

"John? Where's Jed? Why do you have his phone? What did you do, John?"

He ignored the questions and instead said what he called to say.

"I'm sorry about earlier. I didn't mean to hurt you. I always loved you, even from the time we were kids I loved you. Always will."

He hung up as Carol was launching into another round of questions. John heard gravel on the parking lot outside Ray's and took one final pull off the gin bottle before rising, grabbing the shotgun, and limping towards the door. A small squad of armed deputy sherrif's met him outside, uniformed ones and two plainclothes detectives with pistols.

"Drop the gun right now," they all said in a loud din of commands.

John laughed and raised the shotgun up to his chest. On cue, the cops opened fire. In that last moment before the bullets tore apart his body he saw the truth of the whole damn thing. He was always going to end up like this. VIolence and untimely death were his birthrights. He was a Norman. Pickett County born, Pickett County bred, and now... Pickett County dead.

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All that breakfast food ruined. You maniac! Goddamn you to hell!

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Quick, everyone scramble for your best puns!

@Lord Wraith

I suddenly feel like Alec Guinness at the end of Bridge on the River Kwai.

"What have I done..."

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We figured out the meaning of life was related to very bad egg based puns.

Guardians of Infinity

:(

Too much duck?

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Smiley sat in silence as Brent Jackson ate a sandwich cross-legged on a cot. The cot and a steel toilet were the only accoutrements part of the cell, Smiley's metal chair coming from outside. In his lap was a selection of papers and files on Jackson and the whole mess. Jackson kept his head down as he ate, glancing up occasionally to see if Smiley was still watching him. He kept his hands resting on his paunch and watched the prisoner eat with half-closed eyelids.

"Whatever this is, it's all been a big mistake," Jackson said between bites.

He let the comment pass without adding to it. This was Smiley's style of interrogation. Lots of questioners liked to constantly talk and badger and bullied their subjects. Smiley let the silence work to his advantage. The man under scrutiny's mind raced in anticipation of what question was to come next and how to answer it, what to say and not say. The interrogator had just the one question, their mind cleared of nothing but the answers and the truths that even a blatant lie would reveal. Plenty chaffed under the long silences that went well past awkward.

"Hours before the operation to take in Tiger Shark, I sent a cable to your station." Smiley thumbed through papers until he found what he wanted. He passed it to Jackson to let him see the message.

"It was marked FLASH, for Captain America's eyes only. In the message, it says evidence has come to light that an agent inside SHIELD has been supplying Tiger Shark with classified intelligence. Documents identifying the double agent should be found on Tiger Shark's yacht. All documentation are to be handled by Captain America alone and sent back to Washington for review. Captain America, Fontaine, and Stevenson have no knowledge of this message coming in. We received confirmation from Jakarta Station that the message had been successfully received. You are communications officer for the station and you were found with those documents hidden on your person, Jackson."

Jackson stuttered and sputtered as he tried to grope for an excuse. Smiley let him twist in the wind. He cast aspersions on his fellow agents. Stevenson had intercepted the message, he said. He forced him to steal the documents or he would kill him. When Smiley asked how Stevenson bypassed the biometric passcode that locked SHIELD communications devices, he said he was forced at gunpoint to read the message and gave it to Stevenson.

"It wasn't me, you see. It was always--"

The next papers Smiley handed him stopped Jackson cold. It was a surveillance photo of an Indonesian woman and a small child. Further photos showed Jackson behind them, catching up to them, taking the child in his arms.

"These photos were found on Tiger Shark's yacht. As was a ledger detailing payments to an unknown Swiss bank account. Cross-referenced to SHIELD's operations against Tiger Shark's pirate network, each payment took place within two days of some misfortunate development in the hunt for the man. A routine computer check by Indonesian national police discovered withdrawal of those funds from the computer of the woman in the photo. Brent, does your wife in Virginia know about your second family here in Jakarta and what you do to support them?"

Smiley took off his glasses and cleaned them against his shirt. When he slid them back on, he saw Jackson's face was a pale green. He was searching for something to say, some way to deny what was the cold, hard truth. He looked close to puking the sandwich he just finished. Smiley handed him a napkin in case he couldn't keep the bile down.

"Do you have children, Mr. Smiley?" Jackson asked once the moment passed.

"No," Smiley said without any emotion. "It's for the best, I'm afraid. Me or my ex-wife were never parent material."

"It's hard to support a wife and three children on a government salary, and then... my loved ones here in Jakarta. Tiger Shark came to me with the photos of me and them and threatened to send them to my wife bac home. He threatened me with exposure and offered me money to help him avoid SHIELD capture. The stuff in Yemen... I had no idea it would happen."

Smiley's thoughts were on Ann. She had once said that coercion was a myth. The things we did were of our own accord, all coercion did was to give one an excuse to do or not do whatever it was that was in their heart's desire. Jackson's infidelity was his flaw, his need to be the perfect husband and father, was as much to blame as Tiger Shark's thuggish methods.

"Under normal circumstances," Smiley said after a long pause. "You would be thrown into a deep, dark hole somewhere and would never see the light of day again. But the circumstances here are not anywhere near approaching normal. You will continue to work for SHIELD, you will be transferred to another part of the world where you will have access to classified material. Eventually someone will come calling, someone above Tiger Shark in the HYDRA hierarchy. You will report it directly to me and you will in effect become a triple agent, feeding HYDRA disinformation created by me. It's either work for me or dying in prison, Brent."

Smiley leaned forward, placing his hands on his knees. Jackson wiped his mouth with the napkin he'd been given and seemed to be on the verge of making a decision. Smiley stood with the bundle of files under his arm. He looked down at Jackson. If they were face to face, the man would tower over him. But here in this cell with him on the cot, Smiley loomed large over Jackson. It was as much mental as it was physical.

"I'll do it," Jackson finally said.

Smiley nodded and left the cell without another word.

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"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."

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Jakarta
14:55 Local Time

Smiley kept his head down as the chauffeured car sped through the streets towards the city outskirts. In his lap were files on Brent Jackson, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, and Michael Stevenson. On the long flight from the States, Smiley had poured over every page in the three thick files. He had to know if Brent Jackson's treasonous behavior had spread to his teammates. The small station in Jakarta had been together for a number of years and appeared on the surface to be very close-knit. Behavior like Jackson's ran the risk of spreading like a cancer. The lure of revenge against superiors and easy money served as powerful incentives for even the most moral beacons.

Fontaine's file contained the most surprises. She was from an aristocratic Italian family. That reminded Smiley of the old days of spying, back when the blue bloods on both sides of the pond were the driving force behind espionage. Fontaine fluently spoke four languages, and could speak and additional four conversationally. Intelligence levels were off the chart. So why was she in a backwater like Jakarta? Smiley answered his own question a few hours later when he read of an incident shortly before her stationing in Jakarta. In Vienna, Fontaine was the bait in a honeytrap plot against a Russian oligarch. The op got blown and made the papers and created a scandal for SHIELD. She was quietly shuffled off to Jakarta with a junior agent, Brent Jackson, who served a minor role in the plan.

By comparison, Stevenson was a ghost. He was a ten-year veteran of SHIELD, and nearly every bit of his file was off-limits to Smiley and his deputy director security clearance. Stevenson's recruitment tests were just as impressive as Fontaine's. The big man was smart, excelled at tradecraft, and was a physical specimen. Smiley was still learning SHIELD's structure, but if the man was in the Circus he would have been marked as scalphunter material from day one. Whoever did the nasty work for the Americans, there was no doubt Stevenson was part of their crowd. He made his way to Jakarta a year after Fontaine and Jackson arrived. Three talented individuals, one now a known double agent, in close quarters and with potential axes to grind with the powers that be. Smiley knew from personal experience that friends of traitors were not always wittingly accomplices of those traitors.

Smiley also had a record of every operation the Jakarta Station carried out, or were even tangentially involved in, since Fontaine and Jackson's arrival. Overall, the wins outweighed the losses. That was until a year ago. Smiley noticed that was the time that Tiger Shark started to first appear in SHIELD reports. Jakarta Station's primary task from then on out was finding the pirate. After that, every attempt to find Tiger Shark or anyone in his organization met with failure. Potential informers went missing, raids always ended up just one step behind the man. Cables between Jakarta and Washington contained frustration between both sides.

He looked up as the city faded away to the Indonesia countryside, a flat and broad plain that stretched out for miles. They passed over a muddy brown river where farmers pulled horse drawn carts across the bridge. His driver, an American working out of the embassy, honked his horn as he drove past the carts. Smiley tucked the files into his briefcase as the car approached a squat, two-story concrete building two miles from the river. The site served SHIELD as a safehouse. Under his orders, Barnes kept the three SHIELD agents under guard and awaiting his arrival. The car pulled up to the building. Smiley informed the driver to turn off the engine and wait there.

The warm climate hit Smiley hard when he got out the car. The humid air created a film of sweat between his back and shirt that made it stick to his shoulder blades. He wiped beads of sweat from his forehead and pressed the buzzer beside the safehouse door. He knew a camera from above watched him as he calmly waited for Barnes to recognize him and open up the steel reinforced door that kept people is as well as it kept people out.

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On the other side of the world, Smiley looked down at a sheet of paper in his hands. The sheet contained the names of the six agents he concluded were likely working with HYDRA. Three names were crossed off, three agents passing Smiley's barium meal test. Now it was time for number four.

"Sisyphus..." Smiley didn't have the man's name on his list. It violated protocol, but time was of the essence. "Agent Jackson is to be searched as soon as you return to the mainland. If he is discovered smuggling documents from Tiger Shark's yacht, he is to be arrested immediately and held in the local safehouse until I can arrive in Jakarta. If you understand, simply sign off and proceed with the part of the mission as instructed."

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Triskelion
Washington D.C.

Smiley surveyed the SHIELD operation center with a bit of bemusement. The whole thing was bright and shiny, lots of graphic displays to show technicians and staff rapid-fire information. It was like something out of science fiction, Smiley thought to himself. It was a far cry from his operations center at the Circus. Back then it was a card table, a radio, a teletype machine (later fax machine) and a faded map of Europe with pins in it. Now Smiley could watch from above as a geosynchronous spy satellite floated 36,000 kilometers above the Indian Ocean. Smiley saw two ships and some sort of ruckus going on. There seemed to be muzzle flashes. The sheer fact that he could see that much should have been mind-blowing in and of itself.

"Are they on radio?" Smiley asked a technician.

"Patching in via satellite now, sir. The chief of station on site has callsign Contessa."

Smiley picked up a headset and slid it onto his head. He heard a slight crackle before the line cleared up

"Contessa? This is SHIELD callsign Beggar Man."

He heard a bit of confusion from the woman on the other end of the line. Then there was the shuffling of something as she scanned the code list. Smiley knew she found his name when the papers stopped ruffling and she cursed in Italian.

"Yes, Beggar Man. I copy."

"Situation report on Operation Fish Fry."

"The fish was hooked, but was picked clean by sharks during reeling in."

Smiley swore. Tiger Shark was dead, either by his own hand or from one of his men. That was a possibility he was prepared for, but not one he wanted. Still, one of HYDRA's men was dead. That was a win for their side at least. Now came the other part of the operation, the only one Smiley himself was aware was taking place.

"What about our man on the ground?" Smiley asked, looking through callsigns until he found Barnes'. "Sisyphus. What's his status?"

"Heading back to land shortly."

"Contessa, Patch me through to him."

"I copy, Beggar Man. Stand by."