"Go ahead Jack, walk away, it's easier than staying to face the truth." Irina called at him as he waited for the security gate to open.

As the gate started to rise Jack returned to confront her. "And what truth would that be, Irina?"

As she placed her hands on the glass wall she leaned into it and said calmly, "That if it wasn't for me, you would have let those women walk all over you and you would have been too f**king stupid to realize what they were doing."

There was something in his eyes that scared Sydney, but Irina stood firm. He clenched his jaw and took two deep breaths though his nose and then he punched the glass and said, "Like I was too f**king stupid to realize what you were doing?"

Irina and Sydney both jumped when his fist made contact with the glass, but Irina didn't lose a beat. "That's right Jack. If you weren't so f**king trusting none of this would have ever happened," she said gesturing to her surroundings. "How the hell did you never realize what I was up to?"

"You know what," Sydney spoke for the first time since being silenced, "I think I should leave. This is something you need to talk about in private."

"In private!" Irina said, surprised that her daughter would forget where they were. "There's no privacy in here Sydney. Everything we just said has been recorded and viewed by who knows how many people in the op center. You might as well stay and hear the rest of it."

Then she looked back at Jack and asked, "So Jack, are you going to answer my question?"

Jack had also forgotten about the presence of the camera. He didn't care who might have witnessed Irina's temper tantrum, at his expense; but answering this question was very personal for him. He spent six months in solitary while inquisitors asked him that very same question. He imagined even Sydney must have wondered why he never realized what she was up to.

Jack looked up at the camera, then his gaze panned to Sydney and back to Irina.

While he was contemplating how best to answer the question, Irina's impatience started to show again. "I'm waiting, Jack." She said with her arms folded across her chest.

Her arrogance gave him the fuel he needed to answer the question.

"I did notice," he said in a very composed voice. Then gesturing with his hands he looked downward as though he was pointing at something, "I noticed... I noticed... papers shuffled on the desk or out of order in my briefcase." Then he looked up; "Sometimes you would ask me a question that made me wonder why you even knew enough to ask it. Sometimes, I knew you weren't where you said you would be."

If he saw these things, she wondered, then why didn't he ever confront her? "Then why, Jack, why the hell didn't you say anything? Why didn't you find out why the papers were moved or why I knew what questions to ask?" Then her voice cracked as she fought to keep her emotions under control, "Why didn't you ever ask where I had been?"

He shrugged his shoulders and shaking his head, he told her, "Because you were my wife. The mother of my child." He swallowed the lump of emotion that was lodged in his throat as well, "Because I loved you with all my heart and soul."

He looked past her, remembering back so long ago. "When I saw something that was wrong, I explained it away; or I convinced myself that my job was making me paranoid and that I had no right to think, for even an instant, that my wife would betray me."

He looked down again, as though he was embarrassed to say any more, but he wanted her to know the answer to her question. He looked up and inhaled a lung full of air. As he exhaled, he continued with his answer, "Irina, I don't know if you can understand this, but the answer to your question is that... is that, I trusted you."

He paused, allowing her a chance to comprehend what he had said and then he added, "I guess, in the end you were right, I was too ....trusting." He decided not to be as descriptive as she had been earlier.

He was right also to assume that his answer would be too simple for Irina to accept. She had never given anyone unconditional trust and surly, she didn't deserve it in return. She could only think of one thing to say, "Then you were a fool, Jack."

He looked directly into her eyes and calmly said, "Finally something we agree on, Irina."

With that, he decided that this visit was finally over. He turned to leave. "Are you coming," he asked Sydney.

"In a minute a Dad." She brushed her hand against his arm as he walked past her.

TBC.....