The Perfect Weapon Ending 1 Chapter 1002: Part 2 section 1 of 3
Ending 1 Chapter 1002 Part 2 Section 1 of 3
“Susan, it’s Jack Bristow. I’m wondering if I can get in to see Judy today or tomorrow?” Jack asked, as he tapped a pencil on the desk.
“Judy?” she mouthed. Then thought, Hmm. Judy? Well, aren’t we all kinds of casual with our therapist now? Hmm, that’s interesting... Then said, “Um, sure, Jack. Standing orders are to squeeze you in whenever you request it.” She bit her lip, if she giggled now, that would blow the entire... Taking a quick swallow, she began again. “Need to talk to her about anger management issues, I presume?” Susan inquired sweetly.
“Are you Stanley and I Dr. Livingston now?” he said without thinking. He rolled his eyes at himself, but smiled when she let out a giggle. “But, anger management issues? I have no idea as to what you are referring,” he added as pompously as he could manage.
“Oh, cut the crap. Color me unimpressed. Again. Even though I heard how you decimated that Caplan chick. In Russian. Made her cry. ”
“Did you?” he asked dryly. He slanted a narrow glance toward Vaughn and broke a pencil in two with one hand. Vaughn immediately looked away and commenced nervously tapping a pencil on his desk. Okay, he recognized meddling when he saw it. And this...whatever it was, was starting to worry him. Pretty Boy needed a project. Preferably one that was complex, tedious and time consuming, occupying much of his waking hours, taking time away from his ‘social’ life. Hmm. Vaughn was a detail man after all; he should find a way to use his staff’s strengths, shouldn’t he? Hmm. Wait. Vaughn still had contacts in India. After scheduling the appointment, he got up and walked over to Vaughn as slowly as he could, watching the younger man’s brow furrow. Did Sydney think that was cute? Humph. He saw wrinkles in the kid’s future.
“Vaughn,” he said quietly, “I have a job for you.” Weiss got up and walked away quickly.
“Coward,” both he and Vaughn muttered simultaneously. Jack raised an eyebrow. Vaughn wrinkled his forehead.
Vaughn decided to dive in. Hell, if he was going to drown, he might as well give himself the push. “Jack, don’t you think you should tell Syd, verbally, good job for getting Caplan and---”
“Are you telling me how to interact with my daughter?”
“I am...making a suggestion.”
Hmm. Vaughn was proving more interesting by the moment. “Let me explain something to you. Son. ” Slamming both hands down on Vaughn’s desk and cutting off any hope of retreat, he said quietly, “Sydney should not be on this task force. You and I both know it. She should not be involved in bringing down or bringing in the woman who had been her mother. And I know you agree because you told her so at the gun range.”
“How did you know that?”
Jack just rolled his eyes. “Moving along. Or tracking back, as the case may be. I never want to have Sydney be the one chasing at and shooting at Derevko again. Am I clear? If no one else is available I expect you to be the one to take the shot. Not her.”
“Me? Why me?”
“Don’t squeak when you talk. It’s unbecoming in a man. Because she can forgive you for taking the shot far easier than she can forgive herself. And the escapade in Italy where she shot Derevko only in the arm, which was useless and no mistake - Sydney is a dead shot - when the directive is to shoot to kill, proves that we cannot expect her to overcome the natural instincts of a child facing their parent with a gun in hand.”
“But her instincts with Elsa Caplan were on target.”
“Yes. Better than mine. I was playing the odds. That type of individual rarely will make the sacrifice of themselves for the sake of their supposed family. And too, I was....”
“Angry. But Caplan forgave her.”
“Of course he could forgive her,” Jack shrugged, straightened and moved back a step. Watched Vaughn take the first deep breath he had for a few minutes.
“Of course?”
“He knew the truth from the beginning. But more importantly, she was sorry. When I offered her defector status, she jumped at the chance. No hesitation. With no hesitation, she turned her back on the game, on her country, on everything that had governed her life for more than a decade. To be with her husband and child. That is...exceptional. And that is not the situation, as we all know, with Derevko, is it? She is predictable. She will keep playing the game until we devise a way to take her out. And that is where I need your help.”
“With what?”
“Background---”
“I know, I know. There is no substitute for extensive background research.”
“I’m afraid that this time, it will be exhaustive.”
As Vaughn watched Jack walk away after giving him vague instructions about real estate transactions, told him he would put him in touch with a contact of his, he wondered, not for the first time, what had transpired that night in Panama. Jack had been a different person. More... something, more likely to show his emotions, anger anyway, his face did not wear the mask perpetually, but... Well. This was Jack. He was playing some game and enjoying it. He turned away nonchalantly and opened his file containing his list of contacts in India as Jack began making a series of phone calls.
“Zamir? It’s Bristow. Yes, Sydney is fine. And your grandchildren? Amina has three girls now? Do you want me to send the usual batch of Barbies over for her during the holidays? Not a problem. No, no grandchildren yet....” He slanted Vaughn a dirty look. “Yes, thank you, I’m aware of the fact that I’m not getting any younger. Very funny. I’m prostrate with laughter. Ha. Ha.”
Vaughn stared blankly at his computer screen. Jack had friends? Jack had friends with grandchildren for whom he bought...Barbies? He rubbed his forehead, saw the wrinkles in the reflection of the screen. Pondered if he should make an appointment with Barnett to discuss this new hallucinatory disorder he seemed to be experiencing.
Then he pondered as he shamelessly eavesdropped on yet another conversation, just why Jack had made an appointment with his lawyer. And why he didn’t care that Vaughn was shamelessly eavesdropping and had learned that he had made an appointment with his lawyer. When Jack hung up, Vaughn walked away into the hallway and dialed Sydney.
“Hey, where are you?” Vaughn asked.
“Just landing right now,” she said, gathering up her belongings.
“Do you know why your father might be calling his lawyer?” Vaughn asked pacing up and down the hallway, keeping his eye on the doorway in case Jack decided to follow him. With one of those damn pencils, no doubt.
“You’re asking me why my father does anything?”
“Well, you could ask him, you know.”
There was a pause. “Okaaay. Let’s pretend I’d do that. And if I did, how would I explain that I knew he called his lawyer? Wait...how do you know anyway?” She exited the plane.
“He picked up the phone and called him right in front of me.”
“And he said, ‘I need to speak to my lawyer’?”
“Yeah.”
“You are so played.” She laughed aloud as she entered the hangar.
“What do you mean?” Vaughn demanded, even as he felt that familiar sinking feeling that he got around Jack far too often.
“My father? Jack Bristow? You know him? Heard of him? Legend in his own time? Master gamesplayer? Master manipulator? Guy who never lets you know anything unless he wants you to know something? That Jack Bristow? Him? So, why would he want you - and I’m assuming you were the only one nearby?”
“Yesss....Damn it. He wanted me to call you and tell you he had called his lawyer. But why?”
“To test the Vaughn Broadcasting System....Hold on, here’s a call and what a surprise. It’s my dad....Hi, Dad. Yes, Vaughn’s on my phone. Just as you expected.”
“When did he call?”
“I’m guessing as soon as he could make it into the hallway.”
Jack said nothing, although she was sure he was smiling inside, he always did seem to enjoy baiting Vaughn. And why was that anyway?
“Dad. You...”
“We all need a hobby.”
“But why did you want him to call me and tell me you were calling your lawyer? Why were you calling your lawyer anyway?”
“I need to tell you something.” He paused and continued, “ I’m going in to pick up the annulment papers, as well as a legal opinion from the circuit court before filing a motion with---“
“Annulment? Wait. I thought, we all thought- Wait. You never said you’d had the annulment papers filed... Because you didn’t. What idiots we were! Damn! We all just assumed.” She just wanted to smack herself for not seeing this as she entered the bathroom and reapplied her lipstick.
“And you know what they say about those who assume-“
“Very amusing.” Wait, had her father just made a joke? Sydney stared at the phone as she recapped her lipstick. “Dad. Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“Will you answer it honestly?”
“Ah. That might be harder. I’ll have to dust off the shelf that contains honest answers. Give me a moment, while you prepare to actually listen to the answer,” he said dryly.
What was going on with him? Ever since the debacle in Panama he had been....different. She shook her head, she didn’t have time to figure this out right now. “Anyway. Why didn’t you have the annulment done earlier?”
There was a long silence. “Because it’s never wise to sever a connection prematurely.”
She paused in mid-stride, wondering what that really meant, thinking she really may not want to know. Then became aware that her call waiting light was blinking. Oh shoot, Vaughn was still on hold. “Dad, I need to go. I’ll talk to you later. Okay?”
He sighed. “Sure. Bye.” He’d at least gotten at least a doubleplay out of that endeavor. Tested Vaughn’s curiosity and his swiftness in calling Sydney and found a way to tell Sydney something critical without making a major event out of it. Maybe that was a tripleplay? And too, Sydney had not asked the questions she might have. A quadruple play? Whatever. Who was counting? He was enjoying this game.
“Vaughn, I’m back.”
“What was that all about? I think that may be the longest conversation you’ve ever had with your father.”
“No. At least I don’t think so.... Anyway, he told me something. Am I supposed to tell you or not? On the one hand, it’s private, family stuff and you know how closed-mouth my father is...”
“No. Really? I hadn’t noticed,” he said dryly, as he kept an eye on the doorway.
“Shut up. On the other hand, he did use you to force me to ask a question, so-“
“He used me to talk to you. I cannot believe I fell for that.”
“Oh get over it. You’ll never outplay my father,” she asserted as she slammed her car door and drove off.
You’ll never outplay my father, he said sneeringly in his own mind.
Jack, Jack, Jack, it was always about Jack! He felt a slow burn. Then wondered if he had just channeled Jan Brady. And anyway...Ha.
He already had outplayed him once or twice or three times, after all. He had figured out Madagascar, after all. And twice, really, if you counted that little moment when Susan had waltzed in and pulled Jack to his appointment. That had been his idea, his plan, his game, thank you very much. One of these days.... But for now, focus, Vaughn, focus, on the current game. “So, are you going to tell me or not? I would assume he wants me to know, but why he couldn’t just tell me....”
“Because why use a straight line when you can use a circle?” she asked absently, as she took the exit ramp too quickly and had to slow down.
“Huh?”
“It’s more fun that way,” she shrugged as she drove toward the office.
“Fun for whom? Yeah, I know. Him. You know, I have no idea....Just tell me already.”
“He’s getting annulment papers. And no, he hadn’t done it before. And no, I don’t know why. Not really.”
“Did you ask him?” Vaughn asked quickly.
“Yeah, he said it’s never wise to sever a connection prematurely.”
Never wise to....Hmm. “And then what?”
And then I realized that you were still on hold and I-“ She stopped when Vaughn began to laugh. “Whaaat?”
“He tells you something that you might find difficult to handle, you ask him why, he gives you a cryptic Jack-type answer, you want to avoid asking a more pointed question. Then you rang off to talk to me?” He laughed again. “After he just told you it’s not wise to sever a connection prematurely. You are so played.”
“Wait a minute!”
“Syd. I need to get back to work. Just...talk to your father, hmm? Bye.”
He hit the ‘end’ button and began walking back toward the Op Center, shaking his head. Annulment, severed connections. Whatever. He had a ton of work waiting for him on that project of Jack’s...... Wait. He stopped. The areas of India and Pakistan upon which Jack had asked him to concentrate were in the control of fundamentalists who had rolled back the rights of women, particularly married women.... He smiled slowly as he put two and two together. Walking back into the Op Center he looked over at Jack, who was staring at him. He nodded at Jack. Jack nodded at him. He sat down at his computer and sent an IM to Jack.
>A game well played is a thing of beauty.
>Which game?>Do you always have to respond with a question?
>Do you always have to take the bait?
>Which leads to a question of my own. What is the bait?
>Ah yes. Every rat responds to different bait. But...Get to work. This project is labor intensive and I’d like to finish it before the second coming. If you can refrain from calling your girlfriend on company time, we just might make it.
Vaughn swivelled around to glare at Jack. Jack was calmly staring at him and tapping his pencil against his cheekbone. He swivelled back and once again began to review what records existed for the region. But he could still see that pencil tap, tap, tapping in the reflection of his computer screen.
Geez! He wished Jack would stop with that pencil business. One of these days, he’d like to take that pencil and insert it somewhere....
“Irina...” Sark began cautiously as he spoke on his cell to Sloane, who was en route to...was it really the Himalayas? Honestly, who went to the Himalayas at this time of the year? Not truly au courant was Mr. Sloane. He absently clicked his pen over and over, enjoying the smoothness of a fine writing instrument even when one wasn't using it for writing.
“Is she still on Cypress?”
“Yes.”
“How is she?” Sloane asked, although he already knew the answer. Being screwed by her husband and shot by her own daughter, well, that might discomfit, as Jack would say, even ‘The Man’. Because who else but Jack would use words like ‘discomfit’ in casual conversation? He sighed, he did miss Jack.
“Not...herself is the only description that seems appropriate at this time.”
“Ah, that is where you err,” Sloane argued. “This is herself. Licking her wounds. Trying to regroup, plan the next step in the game she had not yet realized is the one that truly matters to her. And as soon as she ascertains that he is not chasing after her, as he did not last time because---” He chuckled. “Because he did not know she was alive. If he had known....”
“Why didn’t you tell him she was alive?” Sark asked curiously.
“I didn’t tell Jack because he would have chased after her.”
“And that would have been a negative for what reason?”
“It would have been a waste of his time. His talents. I needed him to form the Alliance. Needed his skills.” Still needed them, as a matter of fact.
“What would he have done if he found her?”
“Killed her, quite possibly.”
“Is that what will happen this time?” Sark asked idly, rolling the pen between his palms.
“No. Jack has only become a more consummate, subtle gamesplayer over time. Hence the passive transmitter. Of course, the irony is that she could have had him at any time, if she had only counted her cards properly. But she was always best in partner games when she partnered Jack, not when she played against him. Especially bridge.” He laughed. “The irony. All she needed to do was play her trump card.”
“What, what did she have on him?”
“What did she have on him? What did he have on her? Love. All she would have had to do was to apologize sincerely and promise to try harder, better, to change.”
Sark burst out laughing. “You jest. Your spouse betrays you in such a manner, lies to you for years and...” He stopped laughing as heard a slight intake of breath on the other end of the phone line. “Ah. Emily.”
“Yes. The power of love.”
“Love? Irina loved Jack?” Was this a joke? That woman was capable of love?
Sloane laughed. “Of course. She loved him. She left him. Then. She still loves him. She still left him. Again.”
“Why didn’t you tell Mr. Bristow the truth about his wife then? You were his best friend, were you not?”
“His best friend was another agent. Psychologist. Psych Ops division. Tragically killed in a landmine incident not long after Jack’s release from...the hospital. I was merely second best friend until that tragic loss.”
“Did you have him killed?” Sark asked idly, while he pared his fingernails with a knife he pulled out of the breast pocket of his jacket. Hmm, this blade needed to be sharpened.
“No. It was just my good luck. If Dave had not died, I would have had to kill him. With Dave in the picture, Jack would have recovered far sooner from what any idiot should have seen was PTSD. Luckily his original therapist was an idiot or Jack would not have been as open to my offer to join me.”
“I am curious. Bristow was a celebrated agent, why would he have been assigned any less than the very best in therapists? After all--” He stopped at Sloane’s chuckle. “Ah. Covered every base, as you Americans say, did you not? But do you think he’s ascertained that you were responsible for the poor quality of his care?”
“Perhaps, perhaps not. We were friends, good friends, for decades, after all. Jack was always remarkably blind about the people he cared for. Like his wife. She was his weakness, as one of his supervisors always accused every time Jack turned down more field work that would have netted him promotions so that he could spend more time with his family. And Laura -- Irina, hated it when he was in the field, hated being alone. Or so she pretended.”
He rotated his right wrist and winced, as he did occasionally when the weather was cold or damp. He remembered vividly the day he had made a pass at Laura while Jack had been away on a mission. She had grabbed his wrist and bent it back so quickly he had heard the sound of his bone snapping before he had felt it. Then, he had only remembered all of Jack’s joking comments about his wife’s strong grip and volatility and had shrugged it off as, perhaps, his just desserts, if he bothered to think about justice and himself in the same thought. Then he had been relieved when she had seemed to accept his excuses that he had been drinking, had lost his good sense momentarily, apologized, agreed not to tell Jack because after all, Jack would have killed him.
Later, after the truth of her identity had emerged, he had grown perplexed. Why had she destroyed an opportunity to seduce another American agent, acquire intel from another source? It made no logical sense, so there had been, he decided, as he worked on the task force, an illogical reason.
She had loved Jack, wanted only Jack, to the exclusion of all else.
Except the game.
But...even still, eventually she had realized her mistake, betrayed her country when she tried to contact him, ended up in prison for the effort. She would do the same again, he knew. She would betray him for her own purposes. Whether it was to pursue Rambaldi herself, to pursue Jack, or some combination. As Jack always said, people had patterns. Yes, she would betray him. He did not need a crystal ball to see that. It was quite simple. She would betray him and therefore she was expendable.
Staring at his own wedding ring, he mused that he had not lied when he said originally to the initial investigators that Jack’s wife had adored him. She had. Still did. The passive transmitter was proof positive of that fact.
Jack was her weakness. He wondered if Jack realized that. And smiled. Perhaps, as always, Jack would do his work for him and take Irina out of the game.
As he walked down the hallway to Judy’s office, Jack considered one form of bait after another, considered the potential damage from each one. Which one - and he wanted to use only one, the simplest plans were always best - was well suited to her weaknesses? Which was her greatest weakness? The game? Him? Or some combination.... He needed.... Well, he knew which was the best bait, but he needed some twist, some...hook to complete the job. What would be best? Aaagh. He needed to stop trying and just let his brain figure this out.
He smiled as Susan looked up as he entered the reception room. Good, this would distract him. Trying to parry Judy’s latest strategies. She was so irritating. But... it was fun. A game in and of itself, he supposed, smiling as Judy came to the doorway of her office. Games were good. He liked a good game, especially a word game, even more when you played them with a---
“Hello, Jack, how are you today?” Judy asked.
“Hello, Judy, how deeply are you into meaningless platitudes today?” Jack asked with a smile as he stepped over the threshold into her office.
Susan giggled as Judy pantomined shoving him behind his back. You either had to love Jack or want to smack him. Or both.
“So,” Judy said as they sat down. Then she got back up and poured them each a cup of coffee. If this was going to be a typical Jack Bristow session, she needed the caffeine. “Decaf or regular?” she asked over her shoulder.
“Decaf. I hardly need the caffeine.” He looked around the office while she dithered with the coffee, idly noting a brightly-wrapped gift on her desk, wondered whose birthday it was, wondered at her air of...was it anticipation? Did she enjoy these little word games as much as he did? Thought again, he certainly needed no caffeine with the fun of all the games he was currently running.
As she sat down again and handed him a cup, she looked into his eyes and thought. No, he did not need caffeine. There was a certain....glee, excitement in his eyes that she had seen occasionally as she would pass him in the hallways since he had returned from Panama. But this was the first time they had talked since that day. She sipped her coffee and thought. Then quickly, quickly, she snapped out, “Describe Irina Derevko to me in ten words or less.”
“Enemy operative.” He said the two words calmly, with no emotion. Then said no more and sipped his own coffee, meeting her eyes calmly.
“Nothing more?”
“Is it a requirement to use up all ten words? You did say ten words or less.”
“Don’t be annoyingly pedantic, Jack.” She put down her cup before she threw it at him and picked up one of her pencils and debated about biting it. But that was a bad habit, one she really needed to break and...
“Don’t be such a wuss and just ask me how I feel, Judy,” he dared, lifting his eyes from contemplating the muddy waters of his coffee cup. Were his eyes actually...alight with anticipation, she thought in shock.
“Would you answer?” she demanded, sensing that there was some new quality, some openness to him, some teasing note to his voice that was becoming more irritating with every passing moment and - “Just answer, already.”
“Sure,” he said with a grin that startled her. “If you say please.”
Without thought she threw her gnawed-on pencil at him. He snatched it out of midair and handed it back to her. “I believe you lost this,” he said.
She tapped it on her knee and gritted her teeth. “I believe I’d like to take this-“
“Tsk, tsk, Judy. Is threatening your patient with a pencil in his eye some new, approved form of therapy?”
“Who said anything about your eye?” she muttered. Then felt her face freeze. What the hell was she saying? Even for her sessions with this patient, her instincts had taken her over a new line. Oh well, maybe it would work, who knew with Jack?
“Interesting tactic. I’ll have to add it to my little black book of torture techniques. Threatening someone with a ... pencil insertion.” She groaned. “I’m sure Dave never tried that therapeutic strategy, but you know what? It works. I’m absolutely terrified.” He gave a mock shudder.
She gripped the pencil so tightly to keep from tossing it again that it snapped in two. As she tossed the two pieces on the table, he picked up one broken half and ran his finger along the snapped end.
“Wow, jagged edges now. You’ve gone into a whole new territory today. Speaking as one interrogator to another, I am so impressed. So, as a professional courtesy, I’ll tell you how I feel,” he offered, watching her head snap up in shock. Oh, he might as well tell her. Why not? “I feel anger-- that’s why I’m here. Because I...kinda lost it for a moment with Elsa Caplan the other day.”
Huh? What was going on? Teasing? Then truth? Had he just said ‘kinda’? Since when did Jack speak so informally? What was going on? What game was this? Who was this man in front of her?
“What did you want, when you talked with her?”
“I...think I wanted to make her cry,” he said haltingly, tapping the broken pencil against his knee. “I think I wanted to see Irina cry, admit that she loved us the way Mrs. Caplan did, be willing to admit her love and need. I wanted to have that moment. What a schmuck I was. But it did get her to break down and reveal, at least to me, the truth of her feelings.”
“And you set her up for defector status, did you not? And, frankly, in my opinion what is the big deal if you made a foreign agent cry? That’s the least you could have done to her, given your knowledge of interrogation techniques. So, that’s not what’s bothering you. Is it?”
“No, but...”
Knowing Jack...“Was it anger or was it frustration or both that you were feeling?”
“Well, both. But whatever it was, it clouded my judgment. ” Jack tossed the broken pencil onto the tablet to join its other half.
“Jack. To be honest, I think until such time as you actually bring Derevko to justice, you’re going to be completely focused on that and frustrated and angry until then. That’s just the way it is. There’s nothing wrong with those feelings, they are perfectly natural. Acknowledge them and you’ll be clear and focused and able to achieve your objective. That’s my advice.” What else did he want today? There must be something. “What are you thinking now?”
“I thought...”
“Had you thought you were done with the anger?” She tossed it out, just going with her instincts now.
“Yes. I did. I came back from Panama and I felt whole again, like myself, a new self with some of my old self, but myself again. But then I became angry...”
Ah. ‘Kinda’, that look in his eyes. Was the real Jack starting to emerge again? She shifted to better look into his eyes.
She nodded. “Jack, of course you did. Anyone in your situation would have. You’d have to be made of stone to be confronted with a replica like that of your own life and not grow angry. I’ve told you before, anger is not an inappropriate response. Certain situations deserve anger. Certain situations will push buttons. In anyone with a pulse. You tend to overreact to your own anger because you are afraid of it. And why is that?”
He knew the answers to all this, she mused. Why was he here? Why was he talking to her, when he should be talking to his fr----. She sighed. He needed friends now, good friends, real friends, not a therapist. But then again, men....Men did not talk about their feelings with their friends. Men talked about sports and sex with their friends. Maybe every man did need a therapist. Or a family or....
“Because of my father. I try to repress it and that only makes it worse. I spend all my energy repressing it and that is what clouds my judgment. Not my anger, my failure to acknowledge it honestly. I need to choose to deal with it and move on.” Like everything else, it’s time to move on, he thought, feeling yet one more weight slide from his shoulders.
“Yes. And you are going to continue to feel anger, to transfer your anger to whatever outlet is available as long as Derevko is out there, playing that game that seems designed to bring you, you and Sydney back into her orbit.”
‘Yes. I know, I need to get my Option C in play and....” His eyes stopped focusing on her and she waited. Then thought, hmm. He’s thinking of some plan. Is he clear on the costs? To himself? Let’s try another strategy.
“You could just feel pity for her,” she suggested, wondering once again if she should be counting the various methods she was using in this session. He was such a challenge, she would miss planning her strategies, playing this....game with him.
“I have felt pity, in some way or other, for almost every criminal I’ve brought to justice. They all have a hole inside somewhere, something missing. But that’s never prevented me from nailing them to the wall. It won’t now,” he said softly. Then sighed, “But that doesn’t answer your question, does it?”
She felt her eyebrows disappear into her hair. What in the world was going on? He was answering her questions? Perhaps she needed something stronger than coffee, she mused as he continued.
“I suppose I could feel just pity, if she were not still a threat to Sydney. If she would not prevent me from moving on with my life.”
Well, that was interesting. Move on with his life. Hmm.
“I could, if she and her obsession with Rambaldi did not present a potential threat to countless people. Her ability to process that virus that nearly killed Vaughn and did kill others for God knows what purpose….She needs to be neutralized.” He just stared off, thinking. There was something, some idea, just tickling the back of his mind....
“Can you forgive her?” No answer. She waited again. Finally, she said, louder this time, trying to provoke, “You could forgive her….just let it go…”
He could feel his face freeze in astonishment. Spat out, “Are you insane?”
“No, I mean, just let it go…”
“Judy, I’m not - in case this fact has somehow escaped your notice - I’m not a let it go kinda guy.”
She had to bite her lip to keep from laughing at what was surely the understatement of the year. “You could be…if you chose….” And pencils would fly out of my butt, she thought, but let’s see what he has to say.
“Yeah, if I chose to condemn others to being her victims. If I wanted to make my ulcer act up again, wanted to make my insides twist and burn in the agony of being used. Again. And you know, I’m not a let-it-go guy for a number of reasons. Not just because of who I am…It’s more a result of what I’ve learned in life. I’ve learned that if you allow someone to take advantage of you, it’s your own fault. I’ve learned that if someone screws you once, they’ll screw you twice, unless they learn that the costs to their behavior outweigh the benefits. I’ve learned I’m of the belief that we respond to positive and negative reinforcement. My…wife learned that lying to me, deceiving me, harming me and my daughter got her what she wanted. She needs to learn….the opposite. She has no natural empathy. She can only understand how another feels if she herself has experienced that emotion, that…” He trailed off, thinking.
“And the reasons for that are---” she prompted, wondering if he knew the answer.
“Partly environment, partly choices. I think her emotional development was stunted due to her parents’ coldness and being sent into Soviet spy kid camp.”
“So her background is--”
“Irrelevant to the question at hand. I, of all people, can empathize about the effects of parental choices on us. But I have never hit a woman or a child in anger in my life and I never will. Even when I feared that anger, I never crossed a line. We all have issues from our childhood or later in life. But we can’t blame our past for our choices today. Every day we make choices. She’s made her choices. Now she has to live with the consequences of those choices. That’s what we call life.”
“But people’s pasts---” That should push a few buttons, she thought, watching his eyes harden.
“Are you saying you believe in determinism?” he asked aggressively, slicing his hand through the air. “That our pasts determine our future? That everything we do is set in stone, that we cannot change who we are? Isn’t that what you’ve been telling me for almost a year? That my past does not have to determine my future? That I can make choices. That I should make choices that will make me happy, make the people I love happy. You can’t hold me responsible for my choices and not hold her responsible.”
“No. No. You’re right. We have free will.” She began to smile. He was going to be fine. More than fine. He was on target.
“Yes, and my wife’s free will tells her that her goals are more important than anything else. In large part she is able to ignore the ramifications of her behavior because she has never had to live with the costs she imposes upon others, only with the costs she has predetermined are acceptable to her” He took a breath and paused. “You know, I am thinking of this poem, about the duty one has as an honorable person in the face of evil. An old poem, but... Okay, Judy, what’s that smile on your face? How have you been manipulating me this time? Did I tell you how irritating you are?”
“Manipulating you? No. I was just trying to ascertain if you will have any regrets once you set the game into play? What the costs to you might be?” Was he thinking about the same poem she---
“Is that a question or a statement?” He asked calmly, as he picked up his coffee cup once more.
She sighed. “You can be so pedantic.”
“You can be so repetitive. You’ve already used that word today. I prefer to think of it as being clear.” She just looked at him. Then had to stop her mouth from dropping open when he continued, answering the question before she had to devise a new strategy. He just answered it? Who was this man? “And clearly, I will have some regrets in the sense that I can’t help but think of what might have been. Even with the passive transmitter, she still does not understand…”
“Understand what?” This, she thought, was important...that look in his eyes...
“What it feels like to have your…hopes raised, think that someone is handing you a chance, than a second chance and then …” He looked down and away.
“And then?” she asked gently, touching his hand when he did not continue.
He looked up slowly. “You know, when she came back, I….”
“You what?”
“I am almost ashamed to admit….”
“Tell me,” she encouraged, knowing he needed to verbalize this so he could own it and then leave it behind.
“I had hope. Just a little, a very little. I didn’t even know that I still had hope for her, for us. And spending time with her, feeling what was once between us, feeling that connection again…” He shook his head and looked down. Thought of that box with the chain, the chain that had once been a source of love and pleasure and a symbol of their bond, that now appeared to him as if it were the font of all his troubles, that he could only look at with repugnance and loathing. “Wondered if I could forgive her. But she never apologized. And no one deserves that much grace without at least a glimmer of repentance, don’t you think?”
“So, you can’t forgive her?”
“I can in the sense that I’ve let the past go. With some regrets, as I’ve said, for the might-have-beens, the if onlys. But the woman I loved...is, for all intents and purposes, gone. What we had is gone. Forever.”
Seeing in his eyes the answer, knowing that Jack had made his choice, she nonetheless felt compelled to ask, albeit softly, “Gone? Forever? That connection you had thought would never be broken? That link between you is broken?”
His head snapped up. He smiled slowly, so slowly, as he looked at her but did not see her.
Link....broken.....forgive....
If it had been your basic sexual seduction, he could have forgiven. Sex? Just another tactic, one he could hardly blame her for using when he’d employed it himself countless times, especially after she had left. No harm, no foul, he had thought, until Dave had made him realized the harm he did to himself.
He could have forgiven her, forgiven himself for being a fool, being a man, if it had just been bodies meeting, melding, then removing.
But what she had done was much worse. She had seduced him not with her body, not with his body. No, she had used something far more insidious, far more destructive. She had seduced him with the mind, the heart, the soul, the human desire, no need, for connections.
That was what required justice, personal justice, beyond the need to run a criminal to ground. And she would keep doing it, keep making those choices over and over and over, in some endless, circular pattern until she was stopped.
How?
What would be parallel, symmetrical? It was right there.....right within his grasp, safe and sound and snug, just waiting for him to pick it up.
Judy was watching Jack. She glanced at her watch, noted the time. Then looked back up. Watched, she knew, the sight of a master gamesplayer at work. It was all internal. Nothing visible moved on him but his eyes. In a face of utter stillness, she saw his pupils constrict, tighter and tighter, watched his eyes narrow as he...what was he doing? Seeing options, running scenarios, accepting some, rejecting others, running one of those elliptical thought patterns of his, finding, seeking, searching...For what?
A perfect kind of justice. To mirror the loss of those connections, the trust that should tie people together but which, in some twist of intimacy, had been employed to destroy him. She had taken the perfect links and turned them into the perfect weapons. Now, he knew how he could return the favor. Ah, symmetry. He smiled.
She saw his pupils flare, his eyes widen, his body relax. He was sitting next to her on that couch, but he was still not with her. Then he smiled again. The kind of smile she never wanted directed at her. Predatory. Cold. It would, she knew, haunt her dreams for days to come. Feeling a frisson of fear she looked down, saw her watch. Felt her eyebrows disappear into her hair. Again. Less than sixty seconds had passed. Someone would be destroyed by sixty seconds worth of planning.
TBC at Chapter 1002 Part 2 section 2 of 3