Fic: Condor's Flight, Part V
Previous Chapter: Part IV
Lorne was laughing at him. This evening was starting out well, Elizabeth was getting dressed in the other room and all John Sheppard could think about was how much his friend was laughing because he couldn’t manage to get the damn tie straight. For what seemed like the fiftieth time he undid the tie in front of the mirror and tried again to tie it before a set of hands came from behind him and he saw Teyla in the mirror tying the bow neatly. After finishing she turned him around and brushed a bit of fluff off his shoulder and smiled at him.
“If you break her heart, I will slit your throat.” She spoke in clear English with a serene smile on her face before patting his face and turning to go back to working in the kitchen.
He was so shocked by the threat that it took him a moment to register that she spoke English, and it made him wonder even more what all that scary muttering in Spanish had been.
And Lorne was still laughing.
“This is not starting out well at all.”
“I don’t know, Captain, from my point of view it’s starting out very nicely indeed.” A female voice came from behind him.
He turned to see Elizabeth standing in the door of her bedroom, draped in a red gown that reminded him of an MGM musical and a mysterious dark-haired beauty. Katharine Hepburn. That was who he was thinking of. He couldn’t help but smile at the sight.
“Are you ready, Miss Weir?” He offered an arm to her.
“I am indeed, but I’m driving.”
“Damn.”
The car ride was pretty uneventful and it was a bit into it before Elizabeth spoke up. “There won’t be any friendly faces at this party, except perhaps Janet, but she doesn’t like this crowd much and she can get away with not going. A mix of Spanish anticommunist true believers, Germans, Italians, and maybe a white Russian or two, and I wouldn’t be surprised at all if I weren’t the only agent there.”
He nodded, listening and thinking that this was a little like one of those pre-mission briefings back in England where they told you about all the flak and fighters and then reminded you that you couldn’t do much about either except throw spitballs at them. “What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing. Well, I’d like you to look pretty on my arm. The hostess is a bit old fashioned and she doesn’t like women coming to parties alone.”
“Elizabeth, how is it that you get invited to all these parties with the enemy?”
“I’m good at playing the social games.”
John thought there was probably more to it than that, but she didn’t sound like she wanted to elaborate more. “Are you armed?”
“There is a pistol in my purse, but you can be sure that if I have to shoot anyone we've got bigger problems.”
“Got it, no shooting people at the party.”
She chuckled from beside him and he felt gratified.
The party itself was held at a large estate and John kept wondering if he was going to stumble onto a planning meeting for the Spanish Armada. It was beautiful and obviously quite old, but had the feeling of decaying importance, a dead empire choked to death on its own excesses.
And then there were the uniforms. Most of them were Spanish but there were a few German army and SS uniforms and the sight of the black-clad figures and their death's head badges made him think of the close calls he’d had in France after he and Lorne had bailed out. One of the Germans approached and bowed. “Fräulein Weir, it’s been many years… what was it… 1938? That trip with your father?”
Elizabeth managed to smile and nod, and John was suddenly impressed with how easily she managed to put on a mask for any occasion. “I believe so, Graf. It seems like a decade ago though, a different time and a different world.”
He nodded. “Your father has been a great friend of the Reich and when this ugly business is over I hope to see him again as a guest of Greater Germany.” She nodded, and he gestured over towards a group of men talking. “I’d like to introduce you to someone if your date doesn’t mind.”
John just smiled and she nodded and was led off towards the group. He thought he recognized a face in the crowd before a robust woman approached him. “Isabel always knows how to bring the best men to these things, but you are new!” He tried to reply, but the woman wearing enough makeup to supply a small circus didn’t seem all that interested in listening. “American men are always such good dancers, you must dance with me!”
Before he could stop her he was being dragged to the dance floor and though he kept trying to keep one eye on Elizabeth, the speed and excitement of his partner kept him from really keeping track well. He saw that she had gone onto the dance floor herself with one of the men (who was obviously a much better dancer) and after the song was over he extracted himself from the frightening socialite’s grasp with the excuse of getting some air.
Like the house the garden was probably once an exacting demonstration of money, but with the thin layer of decay and overgrowth he was reminded of the state of the country. The ruin of civilization covered with a veil of progress. And like so many villages around the country, devoid of human life.
“She get distracted by other fresh meat?”
He turned around to see Elizabeth standing with two glasses of wine in her hands. “You enjoyed that.”
“Of course I did, the good doctor was a lovely dancer and the idea of you being Countess Impellizzeri’s latest target is amusing.”
“Latest target?”
“She has a thing for handsome young men, but she has a bigger thing for powerful men. She’s the mistress of Mussolini’s head of secret police so rumor has it being the object of her affections can be a bit dangerous.”
He winced. “Thanks for warning me. Say, what was that bit about your father and the German?”
Elizabeth laughed a bit bitterly. “My father campaigned for Hoover in New York in 1932. For a politician he’s never picked a winning side in his life.”
“In Roosevelt’s home state? That took guts.”
“Or delusions.”
“Is he pro-German?”
“More anti-British, but he and I try not to talk about politics. His idea of the way political parties should be run involves gentlemen’s clubs with a lot of scotch and cigars and rich men deciding what poor men should get out of life. And he doesn’t believe girls have much place in it. Too messy for our delicate sensibilities.”
“I don’t know, I think I’d take you into a knife fight any day.”
She smiled, and looked away after a moment.
“So who was the guy you were dancing with?”
“Some sort of scientist. Heisenberg was his name.”
“Werner Heisenberg?” John raised an eyebrow. “1932 Nobel laureate in physics Werner Heisenberg, creator of quantum mechanics?”
“Ah, take it that you’ve heard of him.”
“Yeah, one of my professors at the University of Chicago used to talk about his ideas. Excitable Italian guy who almost made me go into physics instead of math. Elizabeth, what is Germany’s leading physicist doing in Spain?”
“That’s a good question, and perhaps I should find out. John, I think I need you to entertain yourself for a bit while I go picking some locks.”
“You know, for a society debutante you have a strange skill set?”
She just smiled. “Talk to the countess. She likes practicing her English.”
“Gee, thanks.”
Elizabeth was gone for twenty minutes, and he spent most of that time avoiding the Italian woman who liked to dance. When she returned she put her arm through his.
“John, I’m not feeling very well, can you drive me home?”
“But I didn’t even get a dance.” He mumbled.
She wasn’t even paying attention to him so he didn’t get an answer.
Once they were in the car and heading back to the city he looked over at her. “Get any interesting pictures?”
“Nothing that I understand, but I rarely understand these things. Something about a submarine getting some cargo from the Belgian Congo and shipping it via Spanish waters.”
“U-boat?”
“Yes, U-235.”
John was quiet for a moment, mulling the designation. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it but the encounter with Heisenberg and the reference made him think of his old professor. “I don’t think that’s about a U-boat, Elizabeth.”
“Either way, figuring out what it’s about isn’t my job. That’s for the big brains back home.”
When they arrived back at the apartment everyone was asleep, and Elizabeth seemed to be relaxing after what must have been several tense moments of sneaking around a crowded house. She took her wrap off and laid it over a chair and started laughing quietly.
“Is something wrong, Elizabeth?”
“I just took a handsome man to a party and I was so focused on being a damn spy that I forgot to get a dance.” She seemed to be laughing at herself more than at him.
“You know we can dance now.”
“There isn’t any music.”
“Who needs music?” He slipped his hand around her waist and began to rock slowly to the distant sounds of Madrid at night. She smiled after a moment, and laid her head on his shoulder and for the first time since meeting her John thought she was content.
Next Chapter: Part VI