The Perfect Weapon Ending 1 Chapter 1002: Part 3 section 4 of 4
Ending 1 Chapter 1002 Part 3 section 4 of 4
A few days later, Sark woke from, he decided blearily shaking his head, the deepest sleep of his life. Rubbing his forearm across his forehead he involuntarily winced. What...hurt? He wondered, his brain so sluggish...his vision not completely focused. Huh? What the hell? He blinked several times and slowly some...colors came into view. What...was that red...what blob was that on his arm? Had he, was he bleeding? He blinked again, moved his arm gingerly toward himself, trying not to wince at the pull on his muscles. What in the name of- He sat up with a snap, then moaned. His head was killing him. Perhaps he was just dreaming....
The last thing he remembered was...the Bristows coming in for a friendly visit with a bottle of wine and....Friendly visit? Wait. He opened his eyes slowly. Groaned again. There on his forearm was a large red heart with...no, no, no. This was sick. Even for Jack Bristow this was....twisted. Sick. Twisted. He blinked, hoping it would disappear. But there it was: “I’m Bubba’s big boy” inked, in black on a bright red heart. He rubbed at it, spat on it, trying, hoping it was just ink, washable ink, some sick little joke. But seeing the redness around the edges...The edges. Wait. Was that, hidden the scrollwork and loops of the edge...were actually a series of... monkeys? He knew with a grinding sense of inevitability that he had just been a victim of Jack Bristow payback.
“Hi, there. Big boy,” Sydney cooed from the hallway. “What a fiiiine-looking tattoo. I’m sure it will do so much for your efforts with the ladies. Or perhaps, you’re anticipating a transfer to a regular prison?”
“Why, Sydney, why?” Sark asked, crossing to the glass. “Just tell me why you and your father-“
“I’m shocked, simply shocked, Sark, that you would think my father and I would have something to do with this.” Sydney put her hand over her heart and gasped.
“The last....” he said with narrowed eyes, trying to recall what had happened. “The last thing I remember I was....”
“Running for the door. Trying to make an escape from your cell. So...unpleasant, after my father and I brought you a bottle of wine just trying to be neighborly. We had to shoot you with a tranq gun.”
He rolled his eyes. “Sydney....You shot me again?”
“Again?” Jack asked as he walked up behind Sydney. “Tsk, tsk. Poor man, I fear you are hallucinating. Sydney never shot you before the other night, Mr. Sark. Or should I say....” Jack said softly, with that annoying smirk of his as he walked up next to his daughter. His eyes flicked downward to Sark’s arm and paused. “Or should I say, Mrs. Sark?”
’Jack: Where have you been? You do know that I never really had PMS, don’t you? It was just a ploy. Irina.’
‘Honey: I have been busy. I do have a life, you know. And you never had PMS? Yeah, right. You did not live with yourself. You had PMS. Believe me, you had PMS. And I know all about your ploys. So, what was it you wanted again? I seem to have forgotten. Jack.’
“Dad, when will Vaughn come home?” Sydney asked hesitantly as they walked away from the new monkey habitat at the zoo.
“It’s taken a while to get to the site, even with the coordinates. They have to approach very cautiously. No black helicopters. They need to blend in with the locals.” He smiled.
Sydney looked at her father suspiciously, then groaned. “Daaaaad. What did you do? What trick did you play on Vaughn?”
“Nothing. Nothing. Why would you think I would do that?” Jack said with another smile.
“Because the two of you are developing a very...odd relationship,” Sydney asserted, albeit with a quizzical look.
“Odd? In what way? I mean, I don’t want to kill him.”
“Is that progress?” Sydney laughed.
“Definitely. Don’t worry. Vaughn will come home safe and sound. A little....dusty, but safe and sound. So, stop worrying. Vaughn can live with a little dust.”
Sydney laughed softly, then looking at her father, asked, "It's time, isn't it?"
"Yes. It's time. I have to talk to Vaughn. Then tonight I'll send the final email and...."
"Then, it will be---"
"The endgame will be in play tomorrow."
----
The next day in Kashmir:
She looked out the window, watched the wind swirling the dirt and dust around in the arid landscape. She sighed. What she wouldn’t give for some greenness and....a glider. This damn dust. It obscured her vision, to say nothing of the glossy, mirror-like finish she preferred on her furnishings. She ran a critical fingertip across the bureau top as she heard footsteps approaching. Brushed her hands together to clean them, cursed again. Damn this dust.
----
But earlier, back at the Op Center:
“Jack, it’s Michael Vaughn,” he began, then engaged in a fit of coughing.
Suppressing a smile, Jack waited and then asked, “Why aren’t you using your new call sign?”
“Are you insane? I am NOT using that.”
“But, it was a directive from Kendall, who has operational authority,” Jack said in mock surprise.
“Do you think I’m stupid?” Vaughn snarled, then spoke quickly, “Don’t answer that! ‘Pretty Boy’? That has your...sick sense of humor all over it!”
“Vaughn,” Jack gave a melodramatic sigh. “Don’t you think I have better things to do than think of ways to torment you?”
“No. You need a life.”
“And soon, hopefully, I’ll have one.” Jack sighed, “But speaking of which, what do you have for me?”
“A hockey stick to the head,” Vaughn muttered, then coughed again.
“I beg your pardon,” Jack said in his frostiest voice. “What did you say? I must not have heard you correctly, because it sounded like-“
Cough, cough. “Ahem. Must be all the static. And the dust.”
“I am so sorry about the conditions, Michael.” He rolled his eyes. “But what do you have?”
“Direct hit.”
“Carrier, battleship, destroyer, patrol boat or submarine?” Jack asked lightly.
“Huh?” Vaughn shook his head at he stared at the endless expanse of brown and tan dirt around him. He wanted to see green. And the ocean. And Sydney.
“Just a joke.”
“Since when do you joke...” Vaughn had an idea, “Wait, that’s the game Battleship? You know the game, Battleship?”
“What, was I hatched fifty years old, wearing a suit and tie on the morning of my birth?” Jack asked as he pulled a pencil out of his desk and began contemplating it.
“I have trouble picturing you as a little boy. Playing games,” Vaughn said truthfully.
“Give me a break. I am a games theorist. Even as a kid I...Why the hell are we talking about this?” Jack asked, disgruntled.
“I’m just surprised you know that much about Battleship,” Vaughn argued.
“Of course, I know the game Battleship!” And so did Irina after Panama, he thought wryly.
“I mean it’s a pretty simplistic game for someone of your advanced abilities and renowned experience, too simple really, I would have thought---” He stopped at Jack’s snort.
“Battleship simple? Depends on how you’re playing it and for what stakes. And with whom.”
“Am I missing something?” Vaughn asked, then winced. Stupid, to give Jack an opening---
“Aren’t you usually?”
“Are we having a fight about the game Battleship, Jack?”
“I believe it’s merely a symbol of the larger issues between us,” Jack said softly but with a chuckle in his voice.
“You want to get into that now?” cough, cough.
“No. But what kind of hit is it?” Jack asked eagerly.
“We will sink her entire fleet and take her down with it,” Vaughn said softly.
“She’s there?”
“Yes. Just arrived this morning. Came home, I believe you could say, to her safe haven. As you suspected. Can I come home now?” Vaughn asked, hoping, even though he knew it was unlikely. Jack was growing more impatient to end this game by the minute, he thought.
“Nah. Stay there. This will happen faster than you think. Wait for Dixon and Weiss --”
“Wait...Weiss and Dixon - how are you going to get them here fast enough?” Vaughn asked suspiciously, knowing, just knowing that somehow he had been had.
“They’ll fly into the market town on a local plane,” Jack said calmly as he tapped a pencil on the desk. Smiled as Dixon rolled his eyes at him.
“They’ll what?” Jack held his phone away from his ear as Vaughn worked himself into a snit fit. He bit his lip to keep from laughing aloud as Vaughn went on and on and on, “I had to travel here on the back of a rum truck, unload barrels and cases, listen to Zamir’s brother wax rhapsodic over his plans to corner the Pakistani market on Indian rum, which seems unlikely given how many Muslims live in the country, but he’s confident and and I actually had to drink that crap! It’s the worst tasting--- Damn you, Jack!”
“Doesn’t he also sell snacks?” Jack asked casually.
“Yeah. Sells a lot more of them in this area. I told him he should concentrate on the snacks.”
“What kind?” Jack asked, as he tapped a pencil on the desk.
“Beer nuts.” Vaughn listened carefully. Was Jack tapping that damn pencil of his again? He thought one advantage to being half a world away was that he wouldn’t have to hear that pencil!
“You want to explain how you sell beer nuts in an area that does not permit the consumption of beer?”
“Do you want to explain how you corner the market with a product that is undrinkable?” Vaughn snapped.
“Life is full of mysteries?” Jack asked.
“Yeah. Well, he also sells pretzels. Lots of them.”
“I’ve always been a chip man, myself, “ Jack offered.
Without thinking Vaughn replied. “Chips would break on these roads. And I like cheese puffs myself.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Jack said with an audible smile in his voice.
Why were they talking about snacks! Wait....“Okay, that’s enough misdirection, Jack. Why the hell was I on the beer nut and pretzel truck trip from hell?”
“Wow, Michael, I’m impressed. But say that five times fast. Pretzel truck trip---” he began as he tilted his chair back and spun around to smile at Dixon, who was chuckling.
Honey: Am I irritating you, perchance? Life is good. I only wish I could see the evidence of that irritation. Or feel it with my fingers. Or use my mouth on it, taste your irritation. Then I would hear you moaning as you told me all about your irritation. And then, too, I always loved your scent when you became irritated. Honey. So, am I irritating you? Now? Right now? Tell me. Jack.’
‘Jack: If I say, yes, you are irritating me, I know I will just receive a reply saying Who? Me? So, I won’t. And who uses the word perchance in casual conversation? You. Only you. But, I do love your way with words. I miss our word games. Do not make me wait to long too play with you again. Timing is important. As you know. Irina.’
“Jack! Why?”
“Gener---” Jack began.
Vaughn interrupted to say, “Do not say general purposes.”
“Honestly, as the first wave in, you and Amina needed to be completely unobtrusive, blend in.”
“But what was the doubleplay?” Vaughn asked. Then sighed, “You were punishing me for...?”
“Oh, any number of offenses.”
Such as sleeping with his daughter, Vaughn thought sourly, and getting caught doing so on a videotape of which Jack had inadvertently seen a few seconds. He shuddered too, that had effectively ruined his and Sydney’s love life for a while. Such as, too, not taking the shot when he should have. Such as...just another practical joke, like those dolls. Which was also a doubleplay so...”Jack, how are we going to use that truck?”
“Ah. You finally ask? It’s a transport vehicle," Jack said softly.
Vaughn nodded, realized Jack could not see it, and merely said, "I see."
"So, use your time to suck up to the local law enforcement,” Jack suggested.
“Suck up?” Since when did Jack Bristow use a phrase like suck up?
“Yes, use that charm you can practically ooze at times, why don’t you?” Jack suggested dryly.
“Ooze? My charm oozes?” Vaughn protested indignantly.
“Yeah, like an open sore,” Jack muttered.
“What was that?” Vaughn snapped out suspiciously.
“Oh nothing,” Jack said quickly. Vaughn wondered if it was possible to hear a sneer. “Is Amina in place? Everything set?”
“Yes. She’s good. No problem getting a job. Told the house steward some sad story about her husband abandoning her and as you expected he took her in right away, apparently Derevko’s left standing orders to help out women in trouble in this... God, I don’t even want Sydney to step one foot in a place like this.”
“I know. But that’s what is going to help this play work. And the records - was my supposition correct about the deed?”
“Yes. Unlike the normal snail’s pace in this area, it didn’t take long to confirm that or to file your paperwork. Amina knew someone who knew someone. Zamir’s father’s son’s...something---”
“Yeah, Zamir is his own grandpa, as the song goes. Amina is good, though, isn’t she?”
“Yeah. Too bad she retired,” Vaughn said absently, as he watched a bird suddenly dive, no doubt toward its prey.
“She does the occasional odd job," Jack chuckled. "To keep her skills fresh. But she has all the equipment she needs?”
“Believe me, like Sydney, she can take care of herself. Perhaps you and Zamir should start a freelance father-daughter spook agency?”
“I’ll consider it in my retirement. But is Amina prepped?”
“Yes! Stop questioning me. I am a detail person remember? A handler? I knew how to set up an agent for a job!” Vaughn protested indignantly.
“Okay, okay, I believe you. I wouldn’t have sent you out there if I didn’t trust you to do the job properly, Vaughn. You know that. I apologize if it seemed otherwise.”
“What? What did you say?” Vaughn said, his eyes narrowed in concentration. And to keep out the dust. This damn dust was annoying!
“I said I was sorry. Why, is that such a shock? I’m not Kendall, after all!," Jack asserted. Then sighed, "I do apologize. You are there because I know I can rely upon you. And it’s just, I’ve known Nia since she was a little girl and her father would never forgive me if---”
“She’s okay, Jack!” Vaughn realized suddenly that Jack must be a nervous wreck inside when Sydney was on a mission. He calmed down and continued, “She has first of all, her own bare hands, which I'm getting the feeling might be enough. And guns, knife. Costume. Communications courtesy of Marshall. Oh, and a screwdriver.”
“Good, good.” Jack paused. “Did Amina report on the bedroom yet?”
“Yes. Mirrored doors on the closet. Red walls. She said actually and I quote, ‘The house is a frightful amalgam of bright colors that, when seen in the late afternoon sun, is quite proficient at inducing migraines in the most stalwart of individuals.’”
“Good British accent there, Vaughn,” Jack said with a laugh.
“I try,” Vaughn said, then engaged in a fit of coughing.
“But she said frightful? Hmm. I never thought....”
“Don’t take her interior decorating criticism too seriously. After all, this is a woman whose house is done, it seemed to me, mostly in Barbie pink. Blech,” Vaughn added, remembering Amina’s collection, which was ostensibly for her girls, but....Maybe she and Sydney and Carrie should meet and compare notes on their.... Ken dolls!
“Ah, true, “Jack said remembering that collection. “But what did you think of her girls?”
“Holy frickin’ terrors.”
“Really? They remind me of Sydney at those ages,” Jack said with a snort.
“Give me strength,” Vaughn moaned, imagining the future.
Jack muttered, “Give me grandchildren, legitimate grandchildren and we’ll call it good enough.”
“WHAT was that?” Vaughn asked incredulously.
“Good job, Michael. I’m supposed to tell you that.... Sydney’s worried and misses you.”
“WHAT?”
“Sydney says she’s worried that Sark wants to kiss you. He’s had quite the change-of-life while you’ve been gone. I’ll be in touch. Out.”
Vaughn shook his head as he flipped the cell phone down. What had Jack been up to while he was gone. Or...worse yet, Sydney and Jack? The mind reeled at the notion of the Bristows tag teaming.
Dixon shook his head as Jack hung up his phone. “You are a bad man, Jack Bristow.”
“I know," Jack grinned. "But it is fun. And I have no other hobby at the moment.”
“Maybe you should find one,” Dixon suggested as he turned off his computer and prepared to leave himself.
“Dad, were you teasing Vaughn again?” Sydney asked as she came in and reminded him that he had agreed to have Chinese takeout at her apartment tonight.
Laura Bristow: I know you are not in Cypress or Morocco or southern Italy. I’ll find you. And don’t worry that I will make you wait too long. If nothing else, I have always understood the value of timing. Are you sure you don’t want chocolate or the earrings? Jack Bristow.’
‘Jack: Very good work. I suppose those locations are useless to me, now. What is your fixation on chocolate these days? And no, it’s not the earrings I want. Irina alias Laura Bristow.’
“Who?--”
“Don’t try that with me, Jack Bristow,” Sydney said with a smile. “I can pull the same innocent look, so you aren’t going to fool me with it. You were teasing Vaughn.”
“Guilty. But it keeps him on his toes. Makes him less likely to take you for granted if he knows I’m--”
“Who you are. And you enjoy it.”
“That too,” he said absently, as they left the building. She looked at him, sensing the game had reached a critical juncture. Over dinner, he filled her in. When her questions were finished, he stood quietly and said, “I should go. I need to send an email.”
“Don’t go,” Sydney said equally quietly. “Do it here.”
He looked at her carefully for a long moment and then opened his laptop that he had brought in with him and logged onto his email server. Sydney sat down next to him. He raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure you want to see this?”
“Teach me the code, Dad,” she said softly. “We can use it - us two. Just in case, we ever need to.”
“We’d need to alter it at least slightly, but...” But he thought, using it with Sydney would allow him to reclaim this memory too. “Okay,” he agreed and pulling up Irina’s last email, he quietly showed her how to decrypt it. He smiled when she quickly caught on. “Very good, sweetheart. You inherited her skill at this work,” he said carefully.
“Is that good?” she asked equally carefully.
“Why not?” he shrugged.
“As long as I don’t use it to deceive my husband?”
“That would be a good plan,” he said lightly, sensing there was something else in her mind. He sat there, waited.
“Dad...How did she....You said you two used this code for your private research, for private reasons, for notes---”
“For games, too,” Jack reminded her.
“How...I mean, I know you had told her you were CIA, but how did she convince you that her ability to perform encryption and decryption was natural, normal? I mean, you are too smart to be taken in like that....I’ve wondered,” Sydney asked softly, willing him to answer, but halfway afraid to hear the truth.
“Irina excelled at creating opportunities and exploiting every natural opportunity. Every... weakness. The truth is that it never occurred to me because, of course, I trusted her, but also...” He shook his head. “She was good. Damn good. Did I ever tell you how we met?”
“No.” Sydney also wondered why she had never asked that question before? Was she truly as self-absorbed as Susan had accused her?
He sighed, leaned back. “She came into a psych lab test that my friend Dave was running. It was ostensibly a word jumble test. She completed it very rapidly and made a comment - to me, of course, since I was the mark - about how the jumble was just a front for what we were really doing---”
“Which was what?” Dave... that name sounded familiar. But later, she would ask him later. For now, concentrate on this story, she told herself. It was important.
“Experiments on the impact of positive and negative reinforcements on skill testing. But the point is,” he sighed. “The point is, I thought she was beautiful and smart and amusing and liked games and seemed to like me. So....I asked her out and she wrote her name and whatnot on the back of the test paper. I...kept it, that sheet of paper, inside one of my books on -- isn’t this ironic? - game theory.” Sydney nodded. He continued, softly. "She was packing up our books when we were moving from an apartment into our house. So she found it, that paper from the moment we first met, that I had carefully folded up and kept. I remember, she came to me as I was moving boxes, showed it to me with this...happy smile on her face. I was kinda embarrassed." But to Sydney's surprise, he did not seem embarrassed as he told the story, just...calm. Calm. How could he be so calm, she thought as she blinked rapidly herself. "But she hugged me, thanked me for being so sentimental. And...on one level I believe she truly did appreciate it, that sentimentality, that evidence of my feelings. On another level..."
She bit her lip, wanting to cry for him for the first time as she realized that his, as he called it, sentimentality, but was really his soft heart, must have been used against him. No wonder he had seemed to view love as a liability, as a weakness. In a way, it had been. Irina had exploited his love, she truly understood now, she thought as he continued. “She did appreciate it personally. That was real, I believe. And what was also real was that then....she used that sentimentality, that weakness professionally. She knew -- and why not? I never tried to hide it, why would I? -- I mean, I loved her, she loved me, right? And,” he sighed. “That much was true. What was false was that I thought it was forever.”
Into the silence, Sydney heard the echo of her father’s voice from so many years ago, so many times, hearing him say, in response to Laura’s query, “How long will you love me?” Hearing him say, “Forever, forever and a day.” He, damn it, she thought, he had said that in response to Irina, Laura, whoever. She had asked for it and he had given it, forever, out of love.
Hadn't that...she remembered now, those words, 'forever and a day,' he had had them engraved into her mother's wedding band. But looking into his eyes now, she knew that sometimes, forever came too soon. Or rather, she thought, looking at his bare left hand where his wedding ring had been, wondering what in the world her mother had had engraved into his wedding band, that circle of gold, that symbol of their connection. Then looking into the calmness of his eyes, but remembering the bleakness that had been there before, she knew that sometimes you didn't own forever anymore, because sometimes forever was twisted. Broken. Taken from you. Like a thief in the night.
"So, anyway, she knew that I looked upon that word jumble test with...fondness because, I thought, it had brought us together.” He stopped for a moment and looked away.
Sydney realized he was remembering the day he and Irina had met. For the first time she understood what the betrayal had done to him. Every memory, every moment must be tainted, spoiled by the doubts, the question of what was real and what was false. What had been true and what was just a shadow in the mirror? She thought as she watched a muscle in her father’s jaw clench in the glare from the screen of his computer.
He sighed. “Well, she knew too, how I liked encryption work.” He stopped, looked at the computer screen and his brows came together in concentration. He began typing. Sighed. Then started again. “The code, a code just for us, by us, was the perfect combination, I am sure she thought, of personal and professional goals. And so, the day after we moved in, she left me a note. Truly just your typical husband-wife note. ‘Jack. Don’t forget to get a spare key made for Dave. We need milk. Love, Laura.’” He stopped when he saw Sydney bite her lip, heard her sniffle a little. “Are you okay, sweetheart?” he asked, putting his hand on top of hers. “If this is too upsetting, I’ll stop?”
She shook her head. She could surely listen to this. Squeezed his hand as she urged, “No. Go on. I want to know how she did this.”
“Okay. So, this note was in a simple little code, not much more than a jumble, just a little code. Not this one obviously--” he said, pointing his chin at the computer screen. “This one we developed together over time, as I said. This code grew out of this little game...In response to that note, I left her one, in a more difficult code. And so on and--”
“So on until she, you, you both had this code?”
“Yes. She did the final work, the final coding, the final level.The final note that led to this code. Which we used for some games, lots of little notes, tons of notes, and my, our private Project Christmas files. It never occurred to me. I thought she was an English major, then teacher whose ability with words just....I always thought, knew, she was so intelligent. Brilliant. That was one of the many attributes that I found so attractive about her. I even....” He ran a hand through his hair.
“What?” Sydney asked softly.
“I even considered asking her to come to work for the Agency or State with Emily. I joked about it once or twice, but...I thought it was best if one of us had a safe job given our hopes for a family. And she would just laugh back and-“
“But...wait. If she could have gotten inside...”
“Sydney, she didn't need to get inside. She practically was inside,” Jack sighed. “I screwed up. I did. Because I trusted her -- although I... feel like I finally learned that the mistake was not in trusting someone...Well, anyway, I told my wife all of that information, included her in my research. I told her just about everything, voluntarily. At that carousel, in the kitchen, in the car, in-. Wherever. Although, the truth is that given her bugs on me, in my briefcase, my colleagues - at parties, she planted bugs. She joked about it in Panama," he said softly, watching Sydney wince. He sighed. "So, she would have learned almost everything anyway. I used to...be more talkative at work, at home....” He stopped when he saw Sydney’s brow crease as it did when she was remembering something.
“I...remember that. I remember you and your friends around the table playing...cards or some game, and you talking and Sloane making jokes about how much you talked and....” She shook her head, aware suddenly that her father had been talking more since his return from Panama than in months combined before that fateful trip. Aware that his...silences probably had seemed like a wise response to the pain caused by his previous volubility. That he had received negative reinforcement for his trust, his words, his love. She would have to think about that. But...for now, concentrate on this story, his story, she told herself. His story. “So, you joked about her working with the Agency, but you think...What exactly?”
“Well, if she had applied, her backstory would have never held up under the scrutiny of an agent background check. So there was too much to lose and relatively little to gain by her coming inside. So, she would just laugh about it. Say she liked her nice, safe job pounding English lit into the brains of her students. And she did seem to like it, seemed to love her job, her work. And it made sense. It was all so gradual, so natural.” Jack spoke quietly as he spoke the truth in the last glow of the sun setting outside the windows. “So real. Our relationship. That code. Everything. Everything. The mix of reality and the game we were in. The game I didn’t know. The game I did know, that between a man and a woman. All of the games. Plural.”
“Dad...It’s just... Dad...Is it confusing for you?” Sydney asked carefully. “I mean, she used real moments, real feelings, to distract you, to...misdirect you from what she was doing, didn’t she? That code...that grew out of how you met, the little games you two liked to play, that she then used to frame you? I mean... Was it confusing, is it still confusing sometimes, what was real and what wasn’t? With her?”
To Sydney’s surprise, Jack laughed, “Confusing? That’s a vast understatement. That question, what was real and what wasn’t...in some ways kept me distracted from what was important for twenty years. She was, without doubt, the best game theory teacher I ever had. How she was able to exploit my real feelings, my weaknesses not only to further our relationship for professional reasons but to fulfill personal desires...? Yeah. That was confusing, distracting. What was truth? What was a lie? What was both? Just as this....” His voice trailed off and he sat up straight once again and began typing.
Sydney watched him, aware that she had just seen some click occur in his brain, even as she absently decoded his words as they flickered slightly on the screen of his laptop in the grey light of the encroaching twilight. Raising her eyebrows, she finished and sat there. She wondered absently if she should turn on the light, when Jack looked at her fully. He nodded slowly. She could not move, take her eyes away as she realized he was ready to set the final game into play.
His eyes cold, almost black in the dimness, his hand poised over the keyboard, he said softly, “One final truth I learned from her? In this game every weakness is exploitable.”
He hit the button.
“And I have the perfect weapon,” he finished, as he closed the computer with a soft snick.
Darkness fell as the night encroached.
Shortly thereafter, Irina Derevko received the message for which she had been waiting.
Irina sucked in a breath. It had worked. This gradual evolution of their relationship via email had worked. He was hers again.
She felt a broad smile overtake her face. She had won. He could no more resist the game between them than she could.
She hit the print button on her computer and watched with a smile of feline satisfaction as his email printed out. She smoothed the paper out on her desk and read it again. It was so much more satisfying to hold the words in her hand. Just as she would soon have in her hands the very thing she wanted more than anything.
’Dear Irina: I have been teasing you. And I have been enjoying imagining you say the word chocolate in your accent in my head. Almost as good as hearing you say sabotage or salacious. I do know what you want. Despite what passed between us in the past, or rather, because of what has passed between us, this is something I want you to have. I truly wish I had given it you previously. Please indicate to me where you would like the dead drop. I promise that no one will be following the package. I’ll find you on my own. But I want you to have this first. I do not see the point in delaying the inevitable. We both know I was going to give this to you eventually. Jack.’
She knew it. Just knew it. It was just a matter of time.
She had him.
Or so she thought.
Proving that the most dangerous lie of all was self-deception.
TBC at Chapter 1002 Part 4