This story deals with Irina, Sydney and Vaughn. After adventures in Moscow and Europe, everybody's home, but Irina has an obligation.
JJ Abrams owns the characters. Enuff said.
Enjoy :ph43r:
POINT & COUNTERPOINT
Part One
Los Angeles
Vaughn and Weiss stood watching the monitor. Each man was agitated and kept making movements with their arms and shoulders. The monitor screen showed the cellblock beneath them. Large mats had been placed inside. Kendall, with Devlin’s approval, had ordered them for Irina’s use. She had asked for more strenuous exercise for herself. She had orchestrated the return of two-thirds of her operations manual and had, with Sydney’s help, given it to Jack.
Now on the screen the two men were watching some extraordinary karate, ju jitsu, and almost every other kind of martial arts fighting. Sydney had joined her mother in the cell and the two were putting on a dazzling display of defense and attack fighting. Unfortunately Sydney had spent a few more minutes on her back than her Mother had.
“She’s really is better shape than I thought,” said Vaughn admiring the way Irina was handling herself.
“Owww!” Weiss cried in concert with the take down Sydney had just performed on Irina.
However in the next two seconds, Irina had reversed the situation and it was Sydney who was totally at Irina’s mercy. Her take down had been done so smoothly and without any effort, that Sydney was in shock.
Irina’s leg pinned Sydney across her back and neck in such a way that if she moved, she would break her neck. Irina leaned down, “Give up?”
Sydney nodded and her mother’s leg came away. “What was that move?’
“Sit next to me,” instructed Irina, her back to the camera. “What I just showed you was a death move I was taught years ago.”
“KGB?” said Sydney quietly.
Irina nodded. “You don’t have to have a gun to provide yourself with a weapon. Your body can be a weapon and a deadly one in certain circumstances.”
“But you can use karate, any of the martial arts, to kill.”
Irina smiled slightly, “Yes, but no one really knows these. If someone you are engaged in battle with is tougher, faster, the use of these moves will be so sudden and so quick, they will have no defense. Now pay attention.”
A few minutes later, a buzzer rang twice; indicating the time allowed was up. Sydney and Irina got up. The U.S. Marshal came to the door to let Sydney out. Irina stood back careful not to move toward her daughter. The men who guarded her were not forgiving. She was still under a death warrant. Only her continued cooperation in the war against SD-6 and the Alliance kept her from a federal prison. She had no illusions about her status.
The door shut and locked. Sydney was standing at the window, looking at her. “I’ll see you in a couple of days,” she said, “unless they send me on a mission.”
“Fine. I’m not going anywhere,” she responded, smiling, “and try to practice what I showed you.”
Two days later, Sydney was gone on a mission for SD-6 that Sloane and Sark had set up for her. Jack had not been in the loop. When he confronted Sloane about it, Sloane smiled. “Don’t worry, Jack. It’s a pick-up mission. Should be easy.”
“Where?”
“Moscow!”
“Wait a minute,” Jack snapped, “didn’t we send someone to Moscow last week to pick up some information and they disappeared?”
“Yes, but the man wasn’t as experienced as Sydney. Sark thought the other agent had been careless. Sydney doesn’t get careless. We’ve told her to make sure she has a clean pick-up before going in.” Sloane patted Jack on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Marshall inserted a tracking device into her shoulder. We’re tracking her now. Come, I’ll show you.”
They walked over to Marshall Flinkman’s office and lab. A television was on and Marshall was watching it carefully. He straightened when the two men entered. “Hi, just was watching our Sydney’s point.” He gestured at the
screen.
Jack turned to look. The screen showed a map of Moscow in the broadest of scenes. There was a small blinking light visually on the screen. Jack peered at the map. “Where is she?”
“We’re not able to get the exact location pinpointed, but she is in the district where she is to make the pick-up.”
Jack looked at Marshall. “You’d better tell me if that point stops blinking.” His voice was menacing and unsmiling.
“Absolutely.”
That night, Jack went to the United States Intelligence Task Force Center, to see his wife, Irina Derevko. The cell doors opened into the cellblock. He walked to the window. Irina had been in her bunk. She had pulled the prison robe over her naked body when she heard the first cell door move. “It’s a little late, Jack!” She commented sleepily.
He stared at her. He remembered all the nights they had spent together. He knew she liked sleeping nude. He swallowed, then said, “Sydney’s been sent to Moscow and Sloane won’t tell me anything other than it is a simple pick-up. The trouble is the man they sent last week is currently missing. He did not return for extraction when he was supposed to come out.” He looked worried.
Now he had Irina frowning. “And they don’t know where she is?”
“Marshall put a GPS tracking point in her shoulder and the Alliance’s satellite is tracking her.”
“Where in Moscow?”
“The map was too generalized. I couldn’t tell anything about streets. Arvin said she was in the district where the pickup was to be made.”
“And --?”
“What could she be picking up?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know, not really. There are too many possibilities.”
Jack’s pager went off. He looked down. “Christ, it’s Marshall.” He ran to the cell doors, motioning to the guards to let him out.
“Jack! Tell me.”
It wasn’t good. Marshall reported to both Jack and Sloane that the point had disappeared off the screen. Jack was furious. They had no way of knowing where she was and who was involved. Jack’s usual cool demeanor was destroyed by the thought of his daughter missing. They had become closer than ever since working as double agents together. Add to that, someone had to have surgically removed the tracker and that made Jack twice as worried. Marshall had faded into the background. He was no hero.
“Tell me what she was doing in Moscow?” Jack growled.
“She was picking up the names of the Russian Mafia bosses.”
“From who?” He glared. “
“Ivan Schmerzinskiy, one of Derevko’s men. He claimed to have their names.”
“Do you know how close you are to dying?” Jack glared at Sark. “You sent her in after one man went missing? Do you know this – this Schmerzinskiy?”
“Not really. He was a Derevko operative. Since she went missing, her men have been drifting. I think he got some Intel that he wanted to pass on for some money.”
“If anything has happened to Sydney…” Jack was angry and worried.
Moscow
It was close to midnight when Sydney slipped out of the apartment building and entered a cab. She gave him directions to the bar where the meet was to take place. Paying off the driver, she waited a full ten minutes. in the shadow of a building. Then she crossed the street to where she was to meet Ivan Schmerzinskiy in a small dimly lit bar. She glanced in the dirty window and saw some tables, a bar and a couple of drunks. The men looked up when she entered. They saw only a dimly lighted figure, tall, wearing a leather jacket over tailored pants and shirt.
“Ivan Schmerzinskiy?” The voice was that of a woman.
The bartender nodded toward a man seated at a table in the back of the room. Sydney turned and walked toward Ivan, who half rose in his chair as she approached.
“Do you have the money?”
“Da.” She took out an envelope from her inside pocket. It was the money to pay for the names of the two men who were members of the Russian mafia. “First, the names!”
He handed her a slip of paper. She looked at it and handed the paper back. “Don’t you want them?” He was confused.
“Here’s your money,” she said, turning to go. Suddenly she saw a big powerfully built man, who was advancing on her with a knife. “Come with me,” he said. He outweighed her about one hundred fifty pounds.
“No!” She answered sharply and attacked. That caused a moment’s hesitation in his action. The man struck at her with his knife, missing her only by a hair’s breadth. He feinted and then ducked one of her kick moves. He leaped at her, the knife again swishing in the air. This time it nicked her in the shoulder blade. Suddenly, she made the slickest move the bartender had ever seen. All he saw was her legs suddenly around the thug’s neck. The man seemed startled, as she twisted her body and legs. The bartender heard a snap and the thug fell like a stone to the ground, his head hanging at an odd angle. The bartender knew his neck was broken.
Ivan was in shock. The fight had taken only a minute. He had a hard time believing what he had seen. He turned and ran to the rear of the room, scrambling past chairs and tables, to get out.
The front door opened and two uniformed men entered. They were the politzei, police. “Hands up,” one cried at Sydney as she tried leaving the same way Ivan had. She put up her hands.
“What happened here?” Asked the senior of the two. The younger officer was handcuffing Sydney’s wrists behind her back. He began pushing her out the front door towards their police car.
The bartender nodded to the man on the floor and told the officer he thought the man was dead. The woman had killed him while they were fighting. He said he hadn’t seen that kind of a killing move for many, many years.
“What do you mean, killing move?”
“That was an old KGB technique.”
The officer looked at the dead man. “We’ll see what we can learn from the prisoner. She doesn’t look old enough to have been a KGB agent.”
PART 2
POINT AND COUNTERPOINT
Moscow
The policemen put Sydney in a cell. She felt a sharp stinging in her shoulder. Reaching behind her, she touched the area. Looking at her hand, she saw blood on her fingers. It was her blood. The gangster had evidently gotten closer to her with the knife than she knew. It was also the shoulder area where Marshall had implanted the tracking device. If it was gone, she was somewhere in Moscow alone with no one to help her.
Los Angeles
At the U. S. Center for Intelligence, Jack was talking quickly to Kendall and Vaughn. Sydney was missing. Somehow the tracking point had fallen, been taken or lost, but now they didn’t know where she was in Moscow. Arvin was going to send in an extraction team to see if they could locate her, at least that was the plan. Jack told him, he was going with the team. Arvin had agreed. Jack was leaving in two hours for Moscow.
“I need to talk to Irina.” He told Kendall.
The cell doors opened. The buzzer sounded a warning to the prisoner she had a visitor. She was standing by the cell’s window. Jack’s face told her that something serious had happened.
“Jack, is Sydney all right?”
He shook his head. “We’ve lost the GPS tracking point Marshall put on her. According to our last read, she was in the district where the meet was scheduled to happen. We don’t know if it did or not. However, Arvin is sending in an extraction team. I’m joining them.”
“What was her mission?”
“Ivan Schmerzinskiy was going to give her the names of the two Russian mobsters who run gangs in Moscow.” He sighed. “For money, of course.”
Irina looked at him for a moment. She leaned one arm against the window. “You have to get Kendall to let me out for forty-eight hours. I can get Sydney.”
Jack looked exasperated. “I know you were born in Moscow, but you are also a prisoner of the United States. He did it once because Sydney and I were along. Do you seriously expect another pass, this time to go back to your country where you can easily disappear?”
“Jack, you owe me.” Her eyes never left his. “You nearly had me killed. You have never apologized nor said you were sorry. If it hadn’t been for Vaughn—“
“—and Sydney.”
“What?”
“Vaughn just figured it out that I did what I did. Sydney was the one that got me a pardon and you a reprieve.”
She stared hard. “We’ve never talked about the incident. Now, you still owe me. I swear I will come back with Sydney.”
“And what is the SD-6 extraction team going to do, twiddle its thumbs?” He snapped.
“Jack!” She cried. “You know I know Moscow inside and out. I have contacts there.”
“Look I came down to tell you about Sydney, Irina. We will be doing our best to get her back.” He turned, walking back towards the cell doors, which were already raising to let him through.
Irina swore, banging her fist against the thick glass. She knew they wouldn’t find her daughter before something drastic happened. Shouting, she called the Marshal on duty.
“Please ask Agent Vaughn to come down. I need to speak to him.”
Ten minutes later, Michael came through the cellblock doors. Irina was waiting for him.
“Michael, do you love Sydney?” The question was blunt, direct. Her eyes never left his face. He nodded. “Have you ever told her?”
“Not in so many words.”
“Fool!” She sighed. “I want you to ask Kendall to let me go find Sydney. If you do, I will give you something – I will tell you what happened to your father and how I knew him.”
The green eyes stared back at her startled. “We already k-know.”
“Do you?” Irina’s gaze never left him. “ Well, the truth is you don’t know the whole story.” She gazed at him. “Look, I can find her and bring her back long before SD-6’s extraction team does, if in fact that’s what they are going to do. I will wear any tracking device you want to put on my body. I’ll even wear one of those bloody necklaces laced with C4, but you have to get Kendall and Devlin to agree to let me go before it’s too late!!!”
Moscow
Irina had done a deep drop parachute jump where she fell nearly 5000 feet before opening her chute just 500 feet from the ground. The rigging tore at her body, leaving it sore all over. She dropped silently into a small park. The tactical GPS indicator she had been given, allowed her to drop so precisely that she couldn’t miss. Vicki Crane, the op-tech at the Task Force Center, had also implanted the tracking point.
“It has to be someplace no one would look for it.” Irina stared at the smaller woman.
“There’s one place. It will be painful.”
“Do it!”
She buried the parachute. She now was on her turf. She strolled out of the park to join other late night Moscovites. Checking the nearby street signs to get her bearings, Irina turned north towards the Kremlin and where her apartment was located.
Sydney shivered. She was lying on her bunk. They had wanted to know why she killed the man in the bar, but even more menacing was the questions about the kill move she had used. It seems not many people knew the KGB technique of how to kill with a leg twist. She had told them he had come at her with a knife and in the ensuing battle, it had just happened. She was sorry, but she had a knife wound to prove he had attacked her. They cleaned and bandaged the wound. They warned her they were not going to be patient much longer. If she didn’t tell them, they would just put her into prison. No trial they said.
Sydney shivered again. Her shoulder was aching and she hoped it wasn’t infected. The jail garb was made from flimsy material and there was no heat, of course. She heard a guard coming, but didn’t move.
Suddenly there was a key in the lock and the cell door was swung open.
“Get up. Hands behind back!” The guard jerked her out of the bunk.
Sydney stood while he put on handcuffs. Then he put on leg shackles. “Move out.”
Sydney walked slowly down the hallway to the next door, which the guard opened, pushing her through. She then walked down another corridor to another door. It opened from the outside. She stepped through. Someone was at the desk where the sergeant on duty was waiting. He looked her over carefully. “O. K. Major, the prisoner is yours.”
Sydney looked around and nearly gasped when she saw her Mother dressed in an SVR officer’s uniform. She would never have guessed the CIA or FBI would let her Mother out. Maybe her father was close by.
“Come with me,” her Mother said sharply. She half saluted the sergeant and that made him feel good. “Thank you.”
Warsaw
Vaughn sat at a laptop computer. He was watching the tracking point that Irina Derevko was wearing. She had dropped into the heart of Moscow just six hours ago. She had 42 hours left to find Sydney and get back to the extraction point that was on the Polish side of the border. That’s all Kendall and Devlin would give her. She had promised. It was her daughter she was going after and the two men knew she would be back on time with Sydney.
He was still worried, however, since no one knew exactly where Sydney was.
Part 3
POINT AND COUNTERPOINT
Moscow
Sydney awakened five hours later to find some disco clothes laid out for her on the chair near the bed. Her mother was in the other room. She picked up the party dress, heels and accessories and began to dress. They looked like they came from the same company that made her costumes for SD-6 and the CIA missions.
The door opened and Irina came in, wearing a gorgeous green silk outfit. It wasn’t disco, but it was tailored perfectly to fit her six-foot frame. She also wore some spectacular jewelry. Sydney glanced at her hands and noticed a rather plain gold band on her left ring finger. She caught her breath. She looked at her Mother, who gave her a tiny smile and nodded. It was the wedding ring her father had put on her Mother’s finger thirty some odd years ago. She had kept it.
“Where are we going?”
“To a party.” Irina looked in the mirror, applying some lipstick.
“Why?”
“Sydney,” she looked at her through the mirror, “one of my – um, contacts told me that Oleg Kostov, one the men whose name you got has a prisoner. I’m pretty sure it’s Jack.”
“Dad?” Sydney gasped. “What’s he doing in Moscow?”
“He supposedly was sent by Arvin, along with an extraction team, to find you.”
“But why do you think he’s a prisoner? And what happened to the extraction team?”
“My contact who works for Kostov says someone from the Alliance offered him a lot of money to get Jack. I think I know who.” She straightened up and looked at Sydney who had finished dressing. “Kostov likes to play and throws a lot of parties. We’re going to see if we can find your father.
“— And your husband,” thought Sydney with a smile.
“I’ve a hunch he’s at the dacha Kostov owns and where the party takes place tonight.”
Sydney thought a moment, “ Who do you think in the Alliance is after him?” She remembered Ariana Kane with a shudder.
Irina shrugged. “I’m not sure. Jack is getting close to being uncovered as a double agent AND that ‘s puts you in serious trouble also.” She picked up a purse, tucked it under her arm and left the room, Sydney following.
The lights were blazing. People were driving up to the door. Kostov’s men were parking the cars. Irina had Grigor stop. She ordered him to let the man take him to the parking place, and then he was to drive elsewhere. She wanted easy exit from the parking area.
As planned, Sydney entered the house and melted into the scenery. Her outfit no less outrageous than many others. Her job was to get to Kostov’s office and rifle the safe. Then she was to leave quickly as Irina planned to give Kostov the scare of his life.
Sydney entered the office without being noticed. She had a communications miniaturized mike on her costume and a miniaturized hearing aid. “I’m in,” she reported.
“I’m going off mike, but you can talk and listen.” Her mother answered in Russian. She was paused in the doorway. Many of the men were openly staring at her. She smiled. “I don’t see Oleg.” She told a man standing in front of her.
“He’s here. Let me get him for you.”
She stepped down inside the room. A waiter came up with a tray of vodka drinks. She took a shot, downed it and picked up another. Irina gazed about her at the other guests, some of who were watching and others who did not care who she was. She sighed, wondering what happened to the man who was going to find Oleg for her.
“I’m into the safe.” Sydney reported. Inside the office, she had penetrated the safe’s alarm system and pulled the override as Irina had instructed. The door opened silently. Sydney quickly went through the papers. She found the one she was looking for, took out the tiny camera from her small purse, snapped a picture. As she had a moment or two, she took more pictures of other files and papers. There was a curious looking box also inside. She took it out and opened it. “<o>” was imprinted on a dial. “Rambaldi!” She thought. She removed the box. This was something they had not counted on finding.
“I’m out.” She closed the safe and making sure the hall was clear, left the room.
Irina did not respond. She was watching a heavy-set man approach her, holding out his hand. He was about five seven, with greasy gray hair that he had combed over to mask his bald spot. His eyes were set close together and were sharply going over her body from top to bottom. He reminded her of a weasel. He would not like the introduction she thought, smiling.
“Oleg Kostov,” he held out his hand.
“Ahh, Mr. Kostov!” She smiled. “I’m Irina Derevko!”
There was a sudden silence around them. People turned and looked.
Oleg began to sweat. “Derevko? I don’t remember seeing you on the guest list.” My God, she was The Man.
“I am sorry, but one of my men received an invitation. I thought I would come to see what kind of parties you give.”
Kostov reddened as though he were a child who had been caught with his hand in someone else’s pocket. It was well known that coke, heroin, and other drugs were always available at these parties. There were women for those men who came without a dinner companion. “I could not be happier to have you as my guest.”
He beckoned a waiter over. “Would you like some caviar? A drink?” Then he saw she had one in her hand. ‘”Sorry.”
“I want to see you in your office immediately.” She leaned forward and looked down, dominating his gaze so much he had to look away.
He nodded and gestured to the back of the room and then led the way to a door located close by. Oleg opened the door. She entered looking around.
She smiled, “Do you know what happened to your predecessor?”
“No, “ he answered nervously.
“He died suddenly when he refused my offer. Now I’m here to make the same offer. You will make plenty of money and never have to worry about ending up dead.”
“You, you cannot come to my home and – and threaten me.”
“Threaten?” She stood over him. “I have not threatened you, Oleg Kostov. If I had threatened you, you would not be standing.” She gestured
at him. “I am going to give you until tomorrow morning to make up your mind. After that, we’ll see.”
“I found Dad!” The words came as a relief to Irina’s ears.
“I will think about it.” He said nervously. Then he thought, “The bitch I’ll show her. She is not going to steal my business.”
“Good, I’m glad to hear that.” She smiled at him again. It was a cold, deliberate smile.
Out in the barn, Sydney had found her father bound and gagged in a storeroom. As far as she could tell he had been beaten, but not severe enough to prevent him from walking. She had already disposed of two guards. Jack bled from the mouth and he held his sides as though his ribs hurt.
“My God, Sydney!” He cried.
She put her hand to his mouth. “Don’t talk.” She helped him to his feet. She made a tiny adjustment on her miniaturized mike. “Grigor, bring the car to the left side of the dacha.”
Irina walked out of the office, her arm around Oleg’s shoulders. People stopped to look. She seemed to be having a very friendly conversation with him. He grinned, nodding. She stopped by a waiter and took another shot glass of vodka. She downed it in a swallow, handing the glass back to Oleg as though he were a waiter. At the door, she turned and touched his cheek that was wet with sweat. “Remember, Oleg,” she said softly, “I will be seeing you tomorrow.”
Moscow
Making sure that no one had followed, Irina and Sydney with Grigor’s help, got Jack up to the apartment. Irina told Grigor to pick her up in the morning. She had a couple of errands to run. She glanced at her watch as he closed the door behind him. It was twelve midnight. Sydney had her father on the bed, checking him for other wounds not visible. Jack was not being cooperative.
“Sydney, let me,” Irina said softly. “You sleep on the couch tonight.”
Her daughter looked at her, then at her Dad. She smiled too. “I put out some bandages and other stuff you might need. He’s a bit snarly.”
“I know.” She nodded toward the door. Sydney left.
Irina turned to Jack who seemed to be sleepy, almost groggy. She gently turned his head from one side to the other. She felt the lump. Someone had hit him hard on the head. He groaned and tried to push her hand away. There was no blood there. Sydney had put some water in a basin and a washcloth was lying near by. Irina swiftly used it to cleanse Jack’s bloody face, neck and chest. She undressed him carefully, making sure she didn’t cause him more pain. There were bruises along his rib cage, stomach muscles and thighs. Someone had kicked him several times.
“Kostov will pay for this, Jack, I promise.” She pulled the covers over him. She took the basin of bloody water into the bathroom. Moments later she turned on the shower.
Sydney heard the water. She tiptoed to the door, gently knocking, and looked inside. Her father was asleep.
Sometime in the night, Jack tried to turn over. He grimaced in pain. Then he realized someone was in bed with him. An arm was gently lying across his chest. He put his hand on it. It was a woman’s. Then his tactile senses told him she was naked next to his body. He wondered who it was, but sleep once again overcame him. He drifted back to sleep comfortably aware it was someone he knew.
When dawn arrived, Sydney got up, stretched and walked into the kitchen. As quietly as she could, she turned on the gas under the teakettle and rummaged around for the tea. She again walked to the door to the bedroom and opened it a crack to look inside. After moment, she shut it quietly, a tear rolling down her cheek. She leaned against the door trying not to sob. Her mother’s head was cradled by her father’s left arm and her arm lay peacefully across his chest. It was as though the past terrible twenty years had never happened.
The teakettle’s whistle brought her back to the present. She ran to turn it off before it awakened everyone. She poured herself a cup. She sat sipping the hot tea. The tears were rolling down her cheeks. A few minutes later, the door behind her opened. She quickly wiped her face, struggling to maintain composure, as her mother came up behind her, putting a hand on her shoulder.
“Good morning,” she said quietly.
“Ummm,” answered Sydney not daring to speak yet.
“Did you sleep all right?”
“Um, hum.” Sydney mumbled, then yawned, successfully hiding her feelings. “How about you?”
“Just fine.”
Sydney felt she had herself under enough control to look at Irina. “How much time have we to get back?” she asked.
Irina looked at her watch. “I have two errands to do first. You get your father up in another hour. I should be back by then.” She stood up, looking out the window to the street. “Grigor is here. I have to go. I will be back!”
Jack awakened about an hour later and the door opened. Sydney stood there looking at him happily. “Dad, you’re feeling better?”
“Yes!” He looked around. “Where are we?”
“Mom’s apartment.”
Now he sat straight up, wincing at the sudden pain in his rib cage. “Her what?” Suddenly he remembered last night. The comfortably familiar body next to him.
“Irina’s here?”
She nodded, a little concerned about the tightness in his voice. “Well, she’s due back any minute.”
“Where’s Vaughn?”
“Michael’s in Warsaw, waiting to hear that we’re on our way.”
“Where’s the pickup point?”
“A town on the border, Karscow.”
“Sydney, where are my clothes?” He looked around for them.
She opened the small closet and found them hanging up on a hanger. She pulled it out and laid it on the chair.
“I’ll get you some tea. Could you eat?”
“Yes, whatever. I’ve not eaten for at least 24 hours.” He waited until she closed the door. Jack took a shower and toweled off with some difficulty. After dressing, he entered the livingroom just as the door to the apartment opened. Irina paused a moment as she looked at Jack, then shut the door behind her.
“Jack? Are you feeling better?”
“Yes, thank you.” He stared at her not quite knowing how to act or what to say. He felt strange and conflicted.
“Dad,” Sydney said, “your breakfast is ready.”
Warsaw
Vaughn waited by the laptop, watching the tracking point beep, knowing it was the only connection he had to Irina Derevko. She had been on the move during the past hour, but had returned to her apartment.
The phone rang. He jumped by the suddenness and shrillness of the ring. “Vaughn!” His face broke out in a grin. “Hey!” He smiled. “I’ve been waiting for 24 hours to hear from you. Are you all right?” He listened. “Oh?
What? Jack? Yes, we have a big enough helo. How soon?” He nodded. “I’ll let them know in Langley and they’ll tell Los Angeles. Glad everyone is O. K. Bye!”
He dialed the cell phone. “ Mother Hen this is Boy Scout, Voice I.D. Alpha Frank 878. We have three to pick up. Will download debriefing from Reinsdorf!” He listened. “Yes sir, she’s with them.’’
Germany
Six hours later, the copter landed at an American airbase. It had been forty-seven hours since Irina Derevko had left the custody of the U. S. Joint Task Force Intelligence Center. She had kept her promise. Two U. S. Marshals waited for her and then handcuffed and shackled her.
“Damn it,” Sydney said, “is that necessary?”
“You know the protocol,” Vaughn reminded her.
“It’s all right, Sydney.” Irina said quietly. She looked at Vaughn. “Remember you and I have a date when we get back.” She gave him a small smile.
He nodded.
She turned around and was led off by the marshals.
Sydney came up beside him. “A date with my Mother?”
“Yes, it’s personal.”
Jack suddenly fell to his knees. Sydney ran to him. “Dad, what’s the matter?”
“I guess I’m not as fit as I thought.” He coughed.
Part 4
POINT & COUNTERPOINT
Los Angeles
Vaughn sat at his desk staring at the screen. Irina Derevko, the woman who killed his father, was standing at the window of her cell watching the camera. She was saying something. He zoomed the lens in closer. She was mouthing his name.
She wanted to talk to him. The sweat began to pool underneath his clothes and on his face. He was almost shaking as he entered the cellblock, hearing the doors raise and shut. She was waiting by the window.
“I want to tell you about your father, but not here, not like this.” She faced him, watching him. “Can you get permission for the two of us to talk up on the roof?” Her gaze never left his face.
“I’ll try.”
“Tomorrow.”
Irina was on the roof, when he came through the door. Her back was to him as she stared out towards the heart of the city. She heard his footsteps and turned to face him. Three U. S. Marshals stood guard at various positions on the roof, but none were close by. Vaughn stopped, waiting.
“In 1982,” she began, “you know I left the U.S. to return to my country. I had spent ten years in your country. I had married Jack and we had a child, Sydney. After I was debriefed, I was arrested, suspected of being a traitor. I was transported to a KGB prison in southern USSR, what is now the area around Mazafarabad.
“KGB prisons did not necessarily hold criminals. They had suspected traitors and spies. I was the former. Your father was the latter. I was placed in a cell with no running water, no lights, a slab of wood they considered a bed, and a washbasin. The first week I was interrogated daily regarding my life in the U. S. and why I came back to Russia. Why wasn’t I happy living there? They asked the same questions repeatedly. If you deviated a syllable from your previous answer, they became accusing, derisive and even physical.
“After the third week, I was crazy with grief as well as anger. I realized they had not wanted me back after being here for so many years. If I was caught, then they didn’t have to worry. Your government would make me pay the ultimate penalty. I believed what they had told me before I came to the U. S., but now, I began to hate these men. My faith in my country was diminishing. I was waiting for them to come for me one day, when the doors to the corridor opened. Two guards brought a prisoner in and threw him into the cell next to me. It was your father.” Vaughn swallowed but said nothing.
Irina looked away toward the city’s skyline. She sighed and then turned to face him. “Bill Vaughn! I will never forget him. You look so much like him. It’s almost uncanny.
“Anyway, they caught him in Kiev. He had no papers or identification on him to verify his mission or reason to be in the city. They evidently had been following him. He was arrested and brought to the prison.
“At first they simply tried interrogation, but with each succeeding day, the questioning kept getting worse for him. They began to systematically break his bones beginning with his feet, legs, hands, wrists, and arms upper and lower. Every day it was a different bone. Finally, he couldn’t walk. They had to drag him to and from the interrogations.” A single tear rolled down her cheek as she remembered. “He was the bravest man I think I’ve ever met.”
KGB Prison 1982
Irina was thrown into her cell. The door slammed shut behind her and locked. She crawled to her bunk, lifting herself up and lying down. They had been relentless. She had not given them anything and she thought they were beginning to accept the fact she had come back to the USSR of her own desire. She heard the door to the corridor open. They were bringing Bill back.
She had gotten to know the American pretty well the past four weeks and was devastated by the brutality of his interrogation. Still he had said nothing nor given up the name of his Russian contact. Irina thought him to be the bravest man she had ever known. She didn’t know what Jack would do under similar circumstances, but she suspected he was made of the same caliber.
The cell door opened and they dumped him on the floor. They laughed when they heard him scream in pain. Irina stood up, walking slowly to the bars separating them. She looked down. Even in the pale light from the bulb overhead, she could see what had happened. They had broken his jaw.
“Bill!” She called softly.
He turned his head to look at her. She grimaced. He had been a very good-looking man when they brought him here, but no more. He was bleeding from his mouth and nose. He tried to smile and but couldn’t.
“Hi Russkie,” He groaned. He called her Russkie and wanted her to call him Gringo. He said if they didn’t know each others name they could be friends.
“I wish I could do something. If you can crawl over, I’ve some water you can have.”
He made an effort. “Sorry, kid, I can’t.” He sighed and passed out.
Irina cried herself to sleep that night. Bill was going to die. She knew that was going to happen. How soon, would depend on the interrogators figuring out if he could take anymore.
The next morning they came for Bill. He hadn’t moved and was still on the floor where he had fallen. She sat on the edge of her bunk watching them take him out. He was moaning now. The cell door shut with a terrible loud clang that had finality to its sound.
“He’s going to die today,” she whispered to herself.
The hours passed. Irina wondered why she wasn’t being questioned. Maybe, she thought with passion, they had believed her and were going to let her go home. A tear fell from her eye and rolled down her cheek. She wanted to see her father. He had some questions to answer. It was late afternoon when two guards came for her.
They marched her down the corridor, not stopping at the room where she was usually questioned. At another door, the guards holding her arms opened it and shoved her inside.
Irina gasped. It was the room where they interrogated Bill Vaughn. He looked terrible and although sitting in a chair, lay face down on the table. Three KGB officers, the interrogators, were watching her reaction. She looked at them and then at Bill. “He’s dying! Why are you still beating him? Just let him be.”
They motioned her to them. “Did he ever tell you anything?”
She shook her head. “He’s too smart. He probably thought I was a plant.” After what they had done to her, she would tell them nothing.
One of the officers took out his pistol and cocked it. “Here take it. Put him out of his misery.”
“What?” She was both stunned then angry. “Why me?” She looked down at Bill.
“Because it will tell us you are loyal to the Motherland. We can let you go home back to Moscow where you can be with your father. We will return you to full pay and duty.”
Irina was horrified.
“Please…Russkie. Do it.” Bill’s voice was barely audible. “Please!”
She backed away from them all, staring at Bill.
“Please, please!” pled Bill, choking even as he said. “Be my friend and do it.”
Irina stared at the three officers, then at Bill. Blood was visibly seeping from his ears now, It meant they might have fractured his skull or at least hit him hard enough to cause a severe concussion. She walked to the officer who had the gun and took it. She turned around to Bill, pointed at his head and fired. The bullet entered, leaving his brains and pieces of skull all over the other two officers who had not gotten out of the way. One of them had just taken a picture.
“Now let me go,” she said, tossing the gun back to the first interrogator. She knew there was only one bullet in the gun. Cowards, they had loaded the gun with only one bullet to prevent her from shooting them. In her heart, she promised that one day, when she was free, they would die for this.
Vaughn stared at her not knowing if he should believe her. There were tears in her eyes as she remembered that awful moment.
Vaughn swallowed hard. “Why should I believe you?”
Irina laughed sardonically, “Yes, why should you? In fact, I have no proof that what I’ve said is the truth. However, I do have a message for you, from your father.”
“Message?”
“Yes. He told me if ever there was a chance I could get the message to his family, they would be grateful.”
His heart nearly stopped. A message from his father after twenty-two years! On the one hand, he wanted to hear it and on the other he didn’t. He kept staring at her. Then he said quietly, “And the message…”
“Hickory, dickory dock, time ran out of my clock.”
“Oh God,” he cried, turning and running to the stairs. Irina stared after him. The Marshals came up and handcuffed her. They would be taking her back to her cell. The meeting was over.
