Bond had managed to shower and get a few hours of sleep before he headed to Havel’s room.  They would be in a bullet-proof car, with a lead and follow vehicle.  The major concern was the airport itself.  Once Havel was surrendered to the clutches of the Czechs, their ability to protect him was non-existent, but by then the Soviets would only lose face and credibility were anything untoward to happen to the well-known playwright who had never lifted a hand in violence to anyone.

          The burly morning guard was still on duty and nodded to him as Bond knocked on Havel’s hotel room door.  It was opened by MacLeod, dressed in the same clothes he had been in the night before. 

          Bond nodded to the Scot, then moved past him into the room.  Havel was closing up his rather battered suitcase, shoving in several manuscripts on top of his clothes.  He looked up at Bond, and smiled at the Englishman’s questioning look.  “They will probably confiscate them,” he shrugged.  “But I thought I would try anyway.  My trip has drawn enough attention that they might feel some embarrassment about treating me like a criminal.”

          “I’ve been thinking,” MacLeod offered quietly.  He had retreated, leaning up against the wall, his arms crossed tightly over his chest.  “I could go with you back to Prague.  Stay with you as a personal bodyguard.”

          Havel smiled affectionately at his longtime friend.  “You are a good man, Duncan, and I appreciate your offer, but not only would they not let you into the country, I cannot live like that, nor would I want you to.”

          MacLeod pushed himself away from the wall, approaching the playwright, hovering over him protectively.  “Vaclav, your life, your work, is important to the future of a whole country.  You can make a difference, but only if you are alive to do so.  I can find a way to get in, and I can find a way to stay close, believe me.”

          Bond decided it was time to intervene.  “MacLeod, that’s enough.” He had no idea what had gotten into the man, but if there was one thing it was not wise for agents to do, it was to get personally involved with their assignments.  He had learned that the hard way.  “Mr. Havel is correct.  The Czech security service will never allow you in, and if you got in, you would either be “disappeared” entirely, imprisoned or thrown out.  That would only make his situation worse than it already is, and as a British agent, could create an international incident.”

          The Scot flashed a dark and dangerous look at his fellow agent.  “Whether I go is my choice and my judgment, Bond.”

          “Is it?” Bond snapped, stepping close, squaring off with MacLeod’s broader frame.  “The last time I checked, you were still an employee of Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Mr. MacLeod.”

          MacLeod leaned closer, his face settling into a hard, almost feral smile.  “That could always be changed,” he replied softly.  “Don’t test me, Bond. I can be full of unpleasant surprises.”

          “You won’t like any test I choose to give,” Bond hissed, leaning even closer.

          “Boys, boys,” Havel laid a hand on each of the two larger men’s shoulders and pushed them apart.  “Stop this.  Duncan, while you speak my language admirably, you are not a Czech and do not belong in our struggle.  And if an entire regime has decided that I must disappear or die, one man will not be able to protect me anyway, and you will have thrown your life away for no purpose.”

          “But I could…”

          “No.  You could not,” Havel stated definitively, daring to look the intimidating and determined Scot in the eye.

          Finally, MacLeod broke the contact, shaking his head and resting a big hand on the playwright’s shoulder.  “I just want you to be safe, Vaclav.”

          Havel shrugged and smiled.  “If I wanted to be safe, I would have become an accountant, Duncan.  In order to be truly alive, one must take risks, personal and professional, no?  Isn’t that what you and Mr. Bond do, as well, just in a different way?  Eh?” he prodded, now grinning at both of them.

          Bond gradually let go of the tension he had been holding as he watched MacLeod slowly smile, tightening his grip on his friend’s shoulder.  “I mean it. Your country doesn’t need another martyr, Vaclav,” he said gently.  “And Olga would be very unhappy, and we can’t have that.”

          Havel chuckled, then put his hand on his chest in mock horror.  “By all means, then, Duncan, I cannot afford to die.  She gives me a hard enough time about my smoking!”

          The trip to the airport was made mostly in silence, with MacLeod and Havel occasionally conversing about writers and plays presented during the festival, although how the agent had had time to read all the works he seemed to be familiar with was another mystery. 

          Bond felt his teeth grind as they drove.  It seemed the more he was around MacLeod the more questions seemed to crop up.  And he had never had a chance to ask exactly how all that blood and those bullet holes had appeared on his clothes in the midst of an automatic weapons shoot-out, without him ever having actually been hit.

          As usual, Roissy-Charles-De-Gaulle Airport was chock full of French military.  They patrolled the wide linoleum halls in pairs, dressed in camouflage, jaunty berets and black boots, their automatic weapons cradled in their arms.  Despite the show of force, it was a dangerous spot both because it was the last out-of-country opportunity any assassin would have, and because it swarmed with people of every shape and kind.

          Frankly, Mac was not expecting an attack from Kuyler here  – not when the man knew another Immortal was guarding his prey.  But that didn’t preclude him from farming the job out.  They would be spending several hours there, since Bond and MacLeod had to first get clearance from airport personnel to carry their weapons, then they had to get Vaclav safely through check-in, security clearance, passport check and to the gate.

          It was a tense situation for all three men, and conversation became strained and laced with terse comments or absurd gallows humor.  Havel let the two larger men flank him, the situation intimidating no matter his courage.  Both Bond and MacLeod had to flash their identification and security clearance badges again and again as they endured the slow bureaucracy of international travel. 

          As the three men got on the long upwardly moving sidewalk towards the gate area, Mac felt the tension gather in a spot between his shoulder blades.  That and the vague tickle at the base of his neck were sending off warning signals he couldn’t identify, but also couldn’t ignore, not after almost 400 years of learning to trust his instincts, no matter how ill-formed.

          “What’s wrong?” Bond asked quietly.

          Mac glanced sharply at the other agent, then had to acknowledge Bond’s sensitivity with a small smile.  The man had instincts of his own.  “I’m not sure,” Mac answered, moving slightly closer to Havel.  “Just a bad feeling.”

          There was a scattering of travelers across the huge room of moving sidewalks headed in alternate directions, each separated by broad, waist-high metal barriers.  He glanced up again across the high-ceilinged space, where one end of the room ended in a balcony to the next level.  Most people were moving briskly towards a destination, but one young couple stood leaning against the balcony railing, talking together.  Another scan of the walkways yielded more business and family types clustered with their luggage.

          “Gun!” Bond snapped.  A clatter of noise, and a man – one of the dozens of men in business suits traveling in the nearest sidewalk in the opposite direction – had leapt from the moving sidewalk onto the wide metal barrier between, and was only a step away, looming over them as they travelled inexorably right into the sites of his weapon.  MacLeod swirled, throwing himself over Vaclav, pressing him into a crouch, trusting in Bond to deal with the assailant as he heard gasps and screams from the people around them.

          Bond reacted without thought, noting all the details of movement of Havel, of MacLeod and most especially of the slight man with the Sig Sauer handgun, complete with silencer.  He had spotted the man reaching into his coat, had started to move the second he realized the man was vaulting onto the metal housing that created the barrier between their moving walkways, but the combination of their automatic movement in one direction and his automatic movement in the other threw his timing slightly off, and the defensive motion of his arm to knock the man off his feet was off by millimeters.

          As though in slow motion, he saw the gun sweep out from behind the dark coat, the ugly muzzle pointing directly towards Havel as Bond leapt onto the blessedly stationary metal barrier and kicked out.  The gun spat with a small burst of smoke and flame, filing the air with an all-too-familiar smell almost at the same instant his foot swept up, catching the assassin full on the chin and sending him tumbling onto the moving rubber surface, taking him away and out of range.

          He spared a quick glance back, and felt his mouth tighten.  MacLeod was hunched over Havel, as the sidewalk carried them away from him, but there was an ominous smear of blood along the polished metal barrier and Bond could see a small hole in the dark leather of Duncan’s coat.

          “MacLeod!” 

          “Go!” Duncan waved him towards the fleeing assassin.

          With barely a second of hesitation, he was off, putting on a burst of speed and jumping onto the moving sidewalk, trying not to injure any bystanders as he flew by them, keeping his eyes always on the fleeing dark suit now a good sixty feet in front of him.

          It seemed bizarre that, for all the visible security the airport was famous for, he could chase a man at a full run halfway around the semi-circle of the airport terminal, scattering people and luggage in his wake, and not draw the attention of any armed assistance.  He lost sight of the man twice, but subtle movement in the crowd, glances, small clearances between milling passengers, were clues he had long ago learned to read, like a well-trained tracker in the woods knows the bend of a twig or a small indentation in the ground.

          He burst into the almost deserted portion of Terminal 2, with its multiple levels, his eyes scanning the area for the gunman.  There he was, standing placidly among the passengers waiting for the next train to Paris, reading a paper.  Bond had kept his gun holstered, mindful of the innocent passersby in the busy airport, but now he slipped the Walther out and into his hand.  The man’s eyes flickered up and looked over the top of the paper at him with no expression, except for a small flicker of focus…to just behind him.

          Bond tensed to turn, but felt the sharp prick of a blade through the fabric of his coat and shirt.  A smooth voice purred softly in his ear.  “I don’t think so, my friend.  Not today.”  When he tried to move, the knife jammed deeper into his flesh and a hand reached around to take the gun away.  Bond breathed shallowly against the hot pain of the knife in his back, staying very still as the train arrived, the doors opened, and the platform cleared when all the passengers boarded, including his prey.  The train pulled away with a rattling huff, leaving Bond and his new adversary standing alone for the moment.

          “Walk straight ahead,” the low voice instructed, adding to the motivation with a slight push on his shoulder.  Bond complied, biding his time.  They walked in lock step towards the dark shadows of the end of the platform, turning a corner into an unlit deserted access hallway where Bond was pushed against a wall.  “Well, well.  Aren’t you the clever fellow,” the voice said.  A hand reached around into his wallet and pulled it out, the knife digging through cloth and deeper into flesh when Bond started to resist. 

          There was a slight pause while the man behind him thumbed one-handed through his wallet.  “Well, they did send the big guns after me.  I'm flattered,” he sounded amused.  “But, Mr. Bond of His Majesty’s Secret Service, you are in a bit of a pickle, aren’t you?  Met your match, I think.  And then some, but then you should know not to hang around with the likes of Duncan MacLeod and…myself.”

          “What’s that supposed to mean?” Bond asked, turning his head to try to see the man at least out the corner of his eye, but the knife dug deeper, and he grunted in pain.

          “Just that there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” the voice quoted.

          “Come on, Kuyler,” Bond gasped.  “It is Kuyler, isn’t it?  We’re in the same business.  I know you do this for hire, for money.  You could always come work for us, you know.  Much more respectable and you get the protection of government sanctioned actions.”  Bond was just marking time.  The man was standing too far behind him now to actually be holding a knife in his back, so why did he still feel a blade in his ribs?  The blood trickled down his side, and the warm dampness soaked into his clothes.

          “Respectability has never been a particular concern of mine, Mr. Bond.  As a matter of fact, I truly enjoy my work.  Don’t really get to talk about it much, though.  Not with someone like yourself who can appreciate the skill and artistry of a well-executed assassination.  Do you know I did that little job with the umbrella point and the castor bean poison in London a decade or so ago?  Took them weeks to figure out it was actually not a death by natural causes.  I was particularly proud of that one.”

          Bond nodded, ignoring the grinding pain in his back, carefully controlling his breathing, gathering himself.  “Excellent work, Kuyler.  That one has become a classic in the field.  You have a real gift.”

          The voice leaned close and the blade dug deeper.  “Let’s just say I have a lot of experience,” he whispered.

          Bond wasn’t sure how he knew, maybe it was the tone in the voice, maybe it was some invisible tension in the air, but something warned him that his delaying tactics had just run out.  He twisted, unable to stop his cry as the knife ripped sideways through even more flesh.  He lashed out with a closed fist, catching a hard jaw and Kuyler staggered back further into the shadows. Bond was stunned to see that it wasn’t a knife that had been in his back, but a full fledged, sharply honed sword straight out of the Knights of the Round Table, its enormous, highly polished length catching what visible light there was in the dark hallway.

          Survival instincts took over and his foot lashed up and out, and it was Kuyler’s turn to cry out as the bones of his hand cracked with a loud ugly snapping sound and the blade clattered to the floor.  Kuyler dropped and rolled like a circus performer, somersaulting easily to his feet, and then Bond saw a hand go inside his coat to retrieve the gun Kuyler had taken from him only moments before.

          Bond ducked low, feeling the breath of a bullet sizzle over his head and smack into the concrete block wall behind him, the sound reverberating painfully off the hard surfaces.  His hand went out, groping the floor and he caught up the dropped sword.  It was heavier than he expected, and he had to grab it with both hands as he lunged forward... and looked straight into the muzzle of his own gun.

          The weapon was inches away from his forehead, Kuyler’s finger on the trigger.  But the shot never came.  Bond’s gasping breath was the loudest noise he heard until the sword’s point, now protruding from Kuyler’s back, grated harshly along the wall as the assassin slowly slid down, then sideways, the gun falling harmlessly from nerveless hands.

          Bond was pulled down as well, his grip still firmly around the hilt of the sword, watching in the dark shadows as the black hole of a mouth worked soundlessly for a moment before blood was expelled with a final, ugly cough.  He stayed on his knees for a minute, getting his breath back, then he yanked out the long blade, a little surprised that there wasn’t more blood spilled when he did. 

          The adrenaline was still singing through his system and turned into a moment of mild euphoria.  It was over.  He had survived, and Havel was alive. The unsuccessful attempt on his life would generate even more sympathy for him in his own country and make it more difficult for the Soviets to act against him.  And if MacLeod wasn’t badly hurt, he could count this, all in all, a successful mission, except for the addition to his already-burgeoning collection of scars.  That thought, and the increasing awareness of dizzying pain brought him a little closer to earth.

          He looked around, but the area was still dark and deserted.  It occurred to him that Kuyler might very well have planned to kill his fellow assassin here, leaving that body to be found later.  No witnesses.  No connections.  He left the sword by the body and retrieved his gun, slipping it inside his shoulder holster, steadying himself on the wall as he pushed himself to his feet with a groan.

          He needed to check on Havel and MacLeod.  They could come back to clean up this mess later.

          If MacLeod had trusted the Czech security guards waiting for them at the gate, he would have left Havel to go look for Bond, but not only did he have no idea where to search for his fellow agent, he didn’t trust the surly looking Czech agents as far as he could throw them.  And at the moment it seemed unlikely that he could have thrown them at all.

          Mac sat with Havel while the playwright chain-smoked, his churning emotions betrayed by the trembling of his hands as he lit one cigarette off the other.

          “You must find out if James is all right,” Vaclav kept insisting, over and over again, but Mac refused to leave his side.

          “Bond can take care of himself.  We are here to protect you, and that’s what we will do,” Mac responded calmly, despite his intense need to go to the aid of his fellow agent.  The local security forces had finally taken notice and were searching the area.  Then Mac stood and swirled as he heard footsteps behind him.

          “Easy, monsieur,” a young soldier cautioned, stopping a distance away as MacLeod tensed into a defensive posture.  “I just brought some water.”  The young man cautiously handed over two bottles of water, and Mac unscrewed one cap and handed it to Havel, whose hands were still shaking from his close encounter.

          Then he uncapped and took a drink from the second container, deliberately turning away when he coughed after a long swallow.  He grabbed for a pocket handkerchief, grateful to finally be able to surreptiously cough up some of the blood that had gathered in his lungs from the bullet that had slammed into his back.  He had been breathing shallowly and carefully for long minutes, willing himself not to react to the pain as it gradually faded.  But the fluid in his lungs had been an increasingly insistent irritation.

          Havel stood, pounding him on the back, not realizing he was causing his friend pain by beating on the bruise that the gunshot wound had left behind.  “Are you all right?” Vaclav asked.

          “Yes,” Mac gasped, managing to straighten up, taking a deep breath at last.

          “Are you sure?”  It was a different, lower voice, and Mac turned.  “I could have sworn…” Bond was looking at him oddly.

          “James!  What happened?  Did you track him down?” Mac demanded.  Bond’s face was ashen, except for two bright spots of color from recent exertions.

          “Yeah,” Bond sighed, and sank heavily into a chair, a pained grimace crossing his face.

          “You’re hurt,” Mac stated.  He had seen that look far too many times not to be certain of its origin.

          Bond arched back a little, twisting in his seat to get comfortable, but Mac reached over, pulling up his suit coat to reveal a tear and a messy bloodstain.  “My tailor is going to give me hell over that,” Bond noted with a tight smile.

          “We need to get you to a hospital,” MacLeod said softly.  Blood was already beginning to pool in the plastic seat of Bond’s chair.

          “When Havel is safely away,” Bond looked at him in stubborn determination.

          “James…” MacLeod started to insist.  He didn’t want to have to worry about his fellow agent as well as Vaclav.

          “Do your job, MacLeod,” Bond snapped.  The two agents eyed each other for a moment, then MacLeod turned away as the flight’s boarding announcement was made over the intercom. 

          “What about the man you were chasing?” MacLeod insisted, keeping his eyes on the various uniformed and non-uniformed guards surrounding them.

          “He got away,” Bond grimaced.  “But your friend Mr. Kuyler didn’t,” he added.

          Mac’s head snapped around at that bit of news, noting the look of satisfaction on Bond’s face.  “What?  You met Kuyler?”

          “We had a little confrontation.  The man carried a sword, of all things.  Practically skewered me with it.”  He smiled up at MacLeod.  “But he ended up being the skewee instead.”

          MacLeod leaned over Bond’s chair, his blood running cold.  “You killed him?”

          “Yeah,” Bond sagged back against the chair, then winced.  “You’ll find the body in a passage at the end of the train platform.  I sent some local security to guard the scene until we can get over there.”  Bond cocked an eyebrow at his fellow agent.  “Said some odd things about you, though, MacLeod.  I think you have a few questions to answer.”

          Mac couldn’t help the combined sense of relief and concern from showing on his face.  That the agent had survived his confrontation with an Immortal killer like Kuyler was a minor miracle.  Bond must be even better than his reputation would imply.  But if Kuyler had revealed something to Bond in the belief that the mortal would not survive to tell…well his life might just get a lot more complicated.

          Bond noted the change of expression with a grim smile.  “I knew there was something about you, MacLeod,” his voice trailed off and he shifted again in pain.

          “Sit still, James,” he said gently.  “Let me get Vaclav on board safely and we’ll get you some help.”

          Bond waved him away.  “I’m fine,” he insisted.  "Just take care of Vaclav."

          But Havel had heard it all and now stood looking down at the agent who had watched over him so carefully for the past four days.  “You take care of yourself, Mr. Bond,” he insisted, then offered his hand.  “Thank you.”

          Bond pushed himself to his feet as MacLeod watched, ready to catch him if he wavered.

          “Thank you, sir,” Bond replied, taking Havel’s smaller hand in both his own.  “It is courageous people like you that make our jobs worth doing.”

          Mac walked Havel to the gate, but was prevented from escorting him all the way onto the plane by Czech security guards obviously there for just that purpose.  He faced off with one of them, ready to challenge them, but Vaclav stopped him with a hand on his arm.  “No, Duncan,” he insisted.  “You have done all you can.  From here on,” he shrugged fatalistically, “Que sera sera, as the Italians would say.”

          With one last glowering look at the security guard, Duncan sighed in resignation.  Darius was always telling him he couldn’t save the world.  But it would be nice to save this one man, at least.  He took Vaclav’s hand, but the man pulled him in for a brief kiss on each cheek.

          “Take care, my friend,” Mac whispered, then watched the small figure disappear down the passage to the gate.

          Telling Andre that she wasn’t going to marry him had been the hardest thing Tessa had ever done in her 22 years.  The fact that he simply refused to believe she actually meant it only made it worse, and the argument dragged on for hours, wearing her down.  Some rational part of her brain agreed with Andre, that his proposal was the obvious direction their relationship should go, that her other choices were completely irrational.  But in her heart, which Tessa had always listened to first and foremost, she knew she could not make the commitment he was asking, but she truly didn’t know whether to be sad or angry or frightened that she had made such a momentous decision on the basis of nothing other than an ill defined sense of discomfort and discontent. 

          The few moments she had spent with Duncan MacLeod had not helped at all, leaving her confused and breathless and unfocused so that she couldn’t really say all the things she knew she needed to say to Andre.  Finally, she had just walked away, insisting that she had to go to the studio to work on her senior projects while she still had time.

          And now here she was, back at it again after work, not wanting to go home where she was certain Andre was waiting, still convinced she was just having silly second thoughts.  She stared at the two torsos, one male, one female.  So close, yet so very far apart.  Ever since she had started the sculpture, the piece had seemed too balanced, too controlled, lacking the yearning and passion she wanted to express.  Slowly her hands started to move, altering the angle of a neck here, shaving a little off a hip.  Then she added a little clay on the man’s shoulders, making them broader and smoother, defining the muscles just a little more…and time stopped as all the longing and uncertainty that had paralyzed her for so long poured into her hands and, through them, into the clay.