These Are Very Dangerous and Difficult Times [dated to 10/31]

[chesspolitik]

By the day of Halloween, Anatoly was completely convinced that danger was lurking around every corner and that no corner of the island was safe. There was simply no telling where Molokov or de Courcey could be and he was afraid that if he stepped outside, even for a moment, that they would find a way to snatch him. He could only begin to imagine what sort of things they would have in store for him and he did not want to find out how the reality matched with his fears.

But as inconvenient as it was, he did need to do things like shower and eat and for that, he had to leave his hut. If Lex had not been there to act as his faithful bodyguard, he would have been content to remain a hungry and rather ripe grandmaster. Their trip to the compound passed without incident and after being reassured several times that Lex would be waiting in the rec room for him, Anatoly went to take a shower.

When he emerged and headed to the rec room, clean (if not exactly clean shaven), he found not Lex but a note in his handwriting. Opened, it simply said that Lex had spotted Molokov lurking about and advised him to leave the compound as soon as possible. He would be waiting outside and then the two of them could go to the IPD.

Without thinking or even stopping to pack up his chess set, Anatoly fled the rec room, heedless of the startled looks around him. He burst outside of the Compound and turned the corner, expecting to see Lex waiting for him. Instead, he found Molokov with de Courcey besides him with a nasty smirk. There was a burst of pain as Molokov's fist connected with his face and then he knew only blackness.

When his consciousness finally returned, he found himself tied to a palm tree on a deserted stretch of the beach. Lex was tied to a tree beside him, looking rather worse for the wear. Molokov and de Courcey weren't in sight but he had no doubt they were near, concocting some devious plan.

"Molokov, you Chekist bastard!" he shouted in Russian as he struggled futilely against his bonds. "What do you hope to accomplish by this?"

Comments

[pitythetrumper]

Unbelievable. Anatoly hadn't showed up for their game. Freddie's immediate thought was that it was because he was sick. What other reason could their be for him to miss a game? Though he thought that even sick, Anatoly would at least drag himself to the table if not be entirely coherent. The problem was that there was a chess board in their usual spot. There was Anatoly's board in their usual spot and that just made his stomach clench. No. Impossible. Freddie refused to believe it. As much as he might have wanted Anatoly gone at one point, things were different now and he refused to believe that he was gone for good. Refused.

Steeling himself, he decided to look. It had done a fat lot of good last time, but he wasn't just going to break down without at least a fight. He'd done that once in his life and he wasn't going to do it a second time.

That meant doing the rounds. Unfortunately, he didn't know Anatoly's life as well as he had Prior's. The Compound, Anatoly and Lex's hut, and...and he wasn't sure. Except he was and he just didn't want to risk it. So before stopping off at Florence's, he went to go see if he could find the boyfriend. As much as Freddie didn't want to formally introduce himself, he didn't want to see the look on Florence's face if she was his last resort in finding Anatoly and he wasn't with her.

Now all he had to do was find...what was his name again?

[travellingjack]

Jack was just coming out of their hut, a confused look on his face. He'd checked everywhere, but Florence was nowhere to be found. She'd obviously gotten the fire lit...but it wasn't like her to go far while it was getting ready. He'd checked the rabbit hutch, the beach, then checked the hut again for a note. Nothing. Zip.

He refused to let himself think that she'd....that like Wolf she'd....

With a swift shake of the head, he'd turned towards the rabbit hutch again, thinking maybe they'd just missed each other.

[pitythetrumper]

"You," Freddie called out. Damned if he could remember the guy's name and he didn't want to think hard enough to remember it. He was the man sleeping with Florence and that was all Freddie knew. All he cared to know. A part of him relaxed now that he'd found the man and another part tensed up all over again because damned if he wasn't a little nervous about what it might mean if the guy didn't know where Anatoly was. ...or Lex, come to think of it. Shouldn't he have run into Lex by now?

"Where's Sergievsky?" He folded his arms across his chest and waited for an answer.

[travellingjack]

Jack turned, frowning at the guy. Then the frown turned into an eyeroll; he knew who this was, of course, but he frankly didn't have time for Flore's ex at the moment. It took a lot of effort to not plow a fist into his jaw just on principle. Then he reminded himself that if he hadn't hurt Flore so bad, she wouldn't be his now. Still, he occasionally felt the whole caveman thing in spite of his best intentions.

"Where's who? I have no idea who you're talking about, Freddie. Now if you'll excuse me...?" Jack didn't wait for an answer, just turned back towards the hutch.

[pitythetrumper]

Freddie grabbed his shoulder and stopped him from going anywhere. "Your girlfriend's ex. I'm assuming you know that he's on the island, right? The man who stole her from me and then left her out in the cold?" Most times, there would be a bite to that, but now it sounded more worried than anything. "Maybe if you tell me where Florence is, I can find her and get her to tell me." That was just what he didn't want to do, but he was getting desperate. He couldn't lose another person, he just couldn't.

"So where is he? Or she?"

[travellingjack]

"I don't have the first clue where he is," Jack said, his mind already working, "but Flore should be here. The fire pit's going, we were going to make lunch..."

The initial worry over her falling victim to the island's twisted sense of shaking people out of pure bliss and toss them into agony left him pretty quickly. In its wake was the memory of his conversation with Anatoly about the ghosts from people's pasts that had been cropping up a lot more often lately. Couple that with what day it was?

"Shit. I'm starting to get a twist in my stomach. The same thing that always happened just before everything went to hell when I was a cop. Florence isn't here, but she should be. And if he's missing, too? Seriously not good."

[pitythetrumper]

Freddie snorted and relaxed a little. "Maybe if they're both gone, they're gone together if you know what I mean. It wouldn't surprise me. He's done it before. Cheated on someone. His wife. And she's cheated on someone before, too. With him." If that was the explanation, it was something Freddie could live with. Lex wouldn't like it and this guy wouldn't like it, but it would be an explanation. Freddie didn't want to wonder if the explanation was something else, like maybe a certain American someone and Russian someone who liked to play games with people's lives. Funny how that hadn't occurred to him until now.

"Don't worry, I'm sure they'll show up soon with some sort of excuse about how they were both missing...separately." Although now he was starting to get his own twist in his stomach.

[travellingjack]

"I know exactly what you mean and there's no way in hell that's what it is," Jack fired back immediately. "I don't care what she did before she came here, that's not the woman she is now." There was no sound of rationalization in his voice because he wasn't rationalizing anything. He knew Flore, he'd seen her face when she talked about what life had been like when she first stepped off that elevator and onto Twisted Fantasy Island.

And speaking of twisted.

"I talked to Anatoly not long ago. He was shaken, like he'd been spooked. The same spooked look I've seen on a lot of faces around here lately. During that conversation he made me promise to look after Florence." Jack ran a hand through his hair. "I think this is more the island fucking around than a pair of old lovers nipping into the trees for a quickie."

[pitythetrumper]

"I would have preferred the quickie," Freddie muttered. "Although I think you're deluding yourself. She's still the same woman. I've known her for a hell of a lot longer than you have." He let that comment sit for a moment and then swore profusely. Gone might even be preferable to this. Molokov and Walter on the island or Anatoly crazy. Neither were alternatives he really wanted to deal with, but they were the only alternatives he had.

"All right, we need to find them. He thinks that there are two people on the island and maybe if Florence is gone, he's right. That means they're both in a crapload of trouble."

What was making him nervous was that he hadn't seen either of them. There was still the option that maybe Anatoly had taken Florence because he thought he could keep her safe. No, neither of the possibilities were ones he liked.

"Has she told you about Walter and Molokov? The two people manipulating our lives behind the scenes?"

[travellingjack]

For her, he'll keep his comments to himself about anything other than what's going on now. It'd just be a waste of valuable time to stand here bickering about it and, lets face it, it's not like he's ever going to be best friends with this guy.

"She's told me a little," Jack responded, walking into the hut and grabbing the taser he'd checked out a week or so before. "But since those aren't some of her favorite memories, I haven't asked. So maybe you can fill me in on the basics?"

[pitythetrumper]

"Think CIA and KGB and you might get an idea of just how screwed we are if they're really here." Of course, he wasn't sure that either man was part of the organizations he'd mentioned, but it had sure seemed like it from the time he'd watched those musicals. If they got one part of the story right, it was entirely possible that they'd gotten the other part of the story right and in both versions, the men had seemed to work for something greater than a chess grandmaster and Global Television.

"And their greatest joy seemed to be from causing us misery. The best thing we can do is find them and find them as soon as we possibly can. If we're lucky, he's only being paranoid. If we're not..."

Well, he for one didn't want to find out what two spies could do on an island when they were bored.

[travellingjack]

"So a whole truck load of joy," Jack snorted, then shrugged. Maybe it was why he'd always been a good cop, but to his mind, if the bastards after you couldn't use magic or any other supernatural crap - like unleashing a werewolf with a taste for human flesh on a 12 year old kid - it never seemed as bad as it could be.

"Right. So. We've got a whole island to search. Any thoughts on where Pain and Suffering might take them? Would they find a building, a hut, head into the jungle and camp?"

[pitythetrumper]

"If I had any ideas on that front, don't you think I would have searched there? If I had any hope at all, do you think I would have come here of all places? You were my last resort. ...my second-to-last resort and you already said you don't know where Florence is." That meant that Freddie didn't have one clue where Florence was, where Anatoly was, or even where Lex was. He was more concerned about the first two than the last, although if he were honest with himself, he wouldn't have wanted to see Lex go, either.

"So no, I don't know where they are." His fists clenched and unclenched as he thought about what might be happening. Nothing good, that was for sure.

[travellingjack]

"Actually, I thought you came here on the thought that Flore and Anatoly were off shaking the trees behind my back," Jack commented. "Okay, so, not helpful and not a fucking clue where to search. No way to track them, either, since sand is crap for holding a decent footprint. Christ, what I wouldn't give to have Wolf still here...." Jack waited for the sting of pain and loss - it was there, but duller than it had been. Bittersweet.

"Let's head in towards the Compound," he said at last. "Feds don't often make me think of guys out camping."

It wasn't much, but it was a start.

[pitythetrumper]

Freddie ground his teeth and bit his tongue. He'd been there already. He'd been there and scoured the place and had found nothing. And these guys weren't feds. At least Molokov wasn't and if the pair of them were working together instead of against each other... The idea was horrible, but he didn't have any better options for finding them. He'd run out of them. He'd failed.

"Fine," he said shortly. "Even though I've looked there already."