1985, Vladivostok Labor Camp

Two years had passed since Arthur Trent had crushed Manon's spirit with the revelations of McCall's cold murder at the prison. Trent had even taken her to a shallow grave, among rows and rows of other unmarked graves. Pointing to it, he had said again simply, "Robert McCall," allowing the lie to eat away at her thoughts bit by little bit. Then, after allowing her a few moments at the shallow grave, he had dragged her back to her questioning with the KGB. In the days and weeks after these events, she had become despondent, inconsolable. Not only had the idea of McCall's death crushed her spirit, her hopes of seeing Philip and Yvette had disintegrated as well. She knew that if she wanted to protect them, she must compartmentalize her love for them, neither asking after them nor showing emotion when they were mentioned by her captors. It was her best prospect for protecting the people that mattered most to her. She guarded her hope that the Company had left them alone, and the idea that her daughter's godfather and her husband's oldest friend now lurked treacherously close to them while she was locked away, embarking ever deeper into the endless rings of hell, caused her great distress and countless hours of grief. Her despondency also caused the KGB to begin giving her, forcibly, medication for depression and mood swings, and her interrogators routinely gave her a number of untested drugs as part of her daily drug cocktail regime.

After her long ordeal with the KGB and Trent, Manon had still tried her best to withhold any important information from them, but her sense of what was important had shifted after her ordeal with Trent. Little seemed to matter to her now. The present became ever more important; the past drifted into a foggy haze, overshadowed with the narcotics they gave her on a daily basis. She tried not to think about the future. She hoped that there would be an opportunity to end the present, Midnight Transposition. If she succeeded at Midnight Transposition, she would not have to worry about the future at all. Nevertheless, she had always been a mentally strong woman. And in the interrogations that followed, she still tried to feed her questioners information that was easily verified but of little use to the KGB. Initially, she also attempted to falsify sensitive information such as the names and addresses of her Western European contacts, trying to protect them when no one could protect her, but ultimately, when subtle facts she had given them didn't match their confirmed intelligence, they always returned to her cell, furious. And eventually the excruciating agony of the KGB's brutal torture tactics wrung the true facts from her mind. Unfortunately for the KGB, her exit from the Agency so many years before had made much of her information stale, and even with correct names and places, most of her contacts had moved on long before, leaving her information of little use to the KGB. The KGB had spent more than an entire year debriefing her, trying desperately to recoup their investment in the mission, but although they squeezed some useful information out of her, it wasn't nearly what they had hoped for. It was, in many ways, simply a moral victory - a victory they could never claim nor reveal to their American enemies.

At long last, the KGB signed off on her transfer from their holding facilities to a Soviet labor camp. Per the arrangement with Trent, Manon Brevard Marcel became Prisoner No. 73441 at Vladivostok Labor Camp, where Trent was the Administrator. She came to be known, almost solely, by this number. Only Arthur Trent called her by her name, rather than her number. Whereas before the idea of hearing her mere name seemed commonplace, now the torture of her confinement and her experience made her grateful that she still had a name, any name, in this dungeon of hell. She came to believe that Trent's use of her name was an act of mercy, and she began to live for these little recognitions, these little moments with her captor, because she had no one else, nothing else to cling to in her desperate existence. She hated him, but she could not help her human need for recognition and compassion, and she relished any compassion she found in the cold void that was the Vladivostok Labor Camp.

After Trent had her transferred to Vladivostok, he made it clear to the guards and other labor camp workers that she was his, alone. He would use her however he saw fit, and they were not to interfere, nor to touch her in his absence, without his express orders. On occasion, he used guards to continue her torture while he concentrated on his official duties - sometimes female guards who were better at torturing the most sensitive nerves on a female's body. He often took photos of these torture sessions, tucking them into a file he had prepared on Manon, hoping to make use of them later, much later, when he confronted Robert McCall in the flesh. When he was not busy with his other duties, Trent beat Manon, daily, over trifling matters, and he used every opportunity to take out his anger over his family's deaths on her. He twisted her mind with mental manipulation every day, using her as his primary subject for his disturbing research on memory manipulation. He also examined the drugs the KGB had initiated with Manon and increased the dosage to dangerous levels, purposefully altering her moods and creating a drug-induced haze that would last for weeks, to the point that she became entirely unaware of events occurring around her in the labor camp. Time became meaningless as the drugs took hold, and he forced a number of psychedelics into her system, hoping that the hallucinations would allow him greater insight into his enemies as he guided her memories to events he might be able to use against them. He had researched the idea of altering memories, and he also previous research done in the field to implant greater hatred and fear over perceived past events into her mind. He took pleasure in recounting her memories of McCall, ending them all by helping her relive his sudden death at the hands of the firing squad.

For years, Trent had used other labor camp victims, taking them closer and closer to death, but never letting them perish, always holding them teetering on the edge of oblivion. He used all his experience now to make Manon's time with him even more unbearable, but somehow, deep inside Manon, there was the strength of a woman waiting to take her life at the moment of her choosing, hoping desperately for a way out. She still thought of Midnight Transposition, the one thing she could never reveal to him, the thing she guarded most of all.

One day, Trent entered Manon's cell, smugly settling in to a chair near her. She shrunk into her seat, fearing that the beatings would begin again, in earnest. "Manon," he said, "I want you to tell me about your last mission with Robert McCall."

The drugs in her mind and the mental manipulation games he had mastered brought back that day in an instant, the last time she saw Robert McCall. She could almost taste it. But she shook away those memories, they were all she had left; the one small thing besides Midnight Transposition that her mind had refused to give to Trent. Everything else had melted together in her brain, and true memories were now difficult to sort from the constant barrage of false memories Trent enjoyed planting in her mind. Now, she could hardly sort out the details of her life, but her memories were captured in deeply visceral feelings such as her tenderness for Robert, an unwavering love for Yvette and Philip, an unveiled hatred for Control, and a desperation to leave the place of her torture. Over such an extended time, the drugs had wrecked havoc on her ability to remember events, and the narcotics had twists swaths of her memories, making the insignificant facts of her life before Vladivostok all the more important to her.

"No," she shook her head, but trembled, knowing the beating he was about to give her.

But instead of the fists she usually experienced, Trent laughed. "No? Well, then, what can I persuade you with . . . ?" he paused, a smile curling the corner of his mouth again. He needed this information; he was getting close - very close - in his planning to visit the United States and make the two men who had caused him so much agony feel his rage. Manon was a key part of the plan, but he needed a few details to finish his preparatory work for the mission. He knew Manon had never tried to contact her family in Quebec - she didn't appear to have talked to any of the guards to send a message for her, but he correctly assumed that this would be one item of bait she would be entirely unable to resist. "Manon," he drew out a blank page, a pencil, and an envelope. "You know, Philip and Yvette think you are dead."

"I know," she whispered, not meeting his eyes.

"Wouldn't you like one last chance to say something to them?"

"No," Manon wrung her hands, tears filling her eyes as she thought of her family. "It is better this way."

"Oh, I don't mean that you could tell them where you are now," Trent clasped his hands, "but what if . . . what if you had sent a letter from Paris, before you came here, and it had gotten lost in the mail - until now, of course. Aren't there some things you would like to say to them? Wisdom you would like to impart to your daughter - a last love note to your husband? You'll have to be very careful about what you say, but perhaps a short note would be permissible. If you tell me about your last mission with Robert McCall, I will personally see to it that this letter reaches Philip and Yvette Marcel."

Manon looked up at him. Surely he wouldn't offer something under these conditions if he wasn't serious.

"Besides," Trent went on, "it hardly matters now, does it? With McCall's death, these little details about your missions are of little matter to anyone else.

Manon considered this. It was true that she had tried to keep certain things from Trent, but the mission with Robert - although it had marked the end of their time together - the details no longer mattered to anyone but her. She didn't need to protect McCall - there was no way the information could be used against him now, and Trent always had a way of manipulating her mind to daydream away her miserable existence in the terrible labor camp. Only when she relived her recollections through his attempts to manipulate her semi-pliable memories did she feel as though she wasn't confined by the high walls of the labor camp.

"All right," she reluctantly agreed, wondering if there was any way she could send an encoded message to Philip that he would understand. She would have to try, if she could think of a code he would understand. It might be her last chance. She didn't care if Trent unearthed it or not.

"We were in Paris," she began, thinking back those long years. "We didn't know it would be our last mission; it just happened that way. There was concern that a businessman working closely with the French foreign ministry might be a spy. His name was Pierre Babineaux, but you might know him as Pavel Ryunfelof."

Trent could barely contain a gasp. Pavel Runfelov** was the older brother of Mikhail Runfelov - a man who had risen almost as high in the KGB as Andrei Brish. He had heard that Runfelov's brother had been killed years ago, but his murder had never been solved, and Runfelov had always harbored a streak of rage for his brother's unknown killer. Trent could barely contain his excitement at hearing the name.

Manon continued, "I was set up in the French foreign ministry, working in conjunction with the DGSE to try to entrap Babineaux."

"Runfelov," Trent corrected her.

"Yes, Runfelov. The Company had to be certain that he was a spy before we rolled him up because he was working on some delicate financial matters with Crédit Lyonnais, one of France's largest banks, as an international investor. Robert had been working undercover as another financial investor from London, and we were meeting at dinner when we received the signal from Control that we were to roll him up."

"What was the signal?" Trent inquired.

"It was just a song, a classical piece, it was played in the restaurant where we were dining."

"What was the piece?"

Manon shrugged, shaking her head. "I don't remember; it was so long ago," it was a lie. She remembered it so well.

"Think back," Trent ordered, his tone commanding her compliance.

She blinked, thinking back across the years. She could almost smell the scents of fresh baked bread in that little restaurant and the lingering taste of a dry red wine. Robert had seemed troubled that night - she would only learn later from her closest colleagues in Paris that he had been on edge for weeks, apparently contemplating a decision between continuing their relationship and his career trajectory. He had never worked up the courage to mention it to her. And then, their mission had commenced. That song that had started their mission - Control had chosen it. It was a delicate piano piece by Alfred Schnittke. "Reflections in the Rain," she responded, softly. "We had waited so long, we started to think we would never hear it. We had met with him three times previously."

"Go on," Trent encouraged her. "What happened?"

Manon looked away, sadly. "We received the signal, and I headed off to powder my nose in the ladies room. As planned, Robert offered to take Babineaux - Runfelov - to meet with one of his contacts who worked for Société Générale, one of the largest banks competing with Crédit Lyonnais. We knew Runfelov would jump at the opportunity because the other big banks would pay double or triple the interest rates on his investments that he had negotiated with Crédit Lyonnais. But we also knew he wouldn't do it with a representative of the foreign ministry there - that's why I left. We thought he might have to bribe me later, which would make it very easy to roll him up. Anyway, by the time I got back, they had already left the restaurant. He took Runfelov to the designated place, but Runfelov must have suspected something. He pulled a gun on Robert, and Robert was forced to shoot Runfelov in self-defense. By the time I got there, Robert had already called the Company cleaners. They had discovered Runfelov's Russian passport and KGB credentials at his residence, and when they found out who it was, knowing that both Runfelov and his brother were rising stars in the KGB, the decision was made to send McCall to Bermuda to let things cool off. He never returned to France while I was stationed there."

Trent rubbed his chin. "And the KGB never figured out who killed Pavel Runfelov?"

"No," Manon admitted, closing her eyes as she relived those last moments with McCall, reliving his denial of her, how he had turned his back on her and never called, never wrote, never returned. "No," she repeated, "they never did. I imagine Robert would have run into a very angry Mikhail Runfelov if he had ever found out."

Trent finished his notes and patted her congenially. "Very good, Manon, very good." He gave her a piece of paper and time to craft the note he had promised to deliver to her family. Reading it over, he noted that she had followed his orders to the letter, and he found no evidence that she had attempted to intimate that she was still alive or send a surreptitious message. Nodding, he stuffed it into his pocket. "I'll send it out today." Before he left the room, Trent jotted the title of the song used to signal the beginning of Manon's mission with McCall on a small notepad. He had always found that little details like these made his job so much easier . . . .

After he had exited the room, he found a small lighter and watched the little note go up in smoke. "Delivery complete," he blew out the ashes as he headed back to his office.

Brish's Office, KGB Headquarters

Trent threw his feet up on Brish's desk, waiting for the intelligence chief to return. As Brish walked in, he stared at Trent's feet until Trent removed them, the smirk disappearing from Trent's face. "I've got something for you," Trent said.

"What is it?" Brish sat down and poured himself a noon vodka. His job was stressful enough - at least he had the comfort of his vodka at lunchtime. As his career had entered its twilight years, he had turned heavily to alcohol, but no one dared challenge his authority, even if he added a snort of vodka to his coffee in the morning, a shot to his lunch, or a bottle in lieu of dinner.

Trent smiled, coyly. "Well, I know I have something you want, but I want something in return."

Brish snorted. Of course he did. Trent wouldn't visit for fun. "What is it?" he repeated, annoyed.

"Everybody knows you owe Runfelov."

"So what," Brish bristled. "He is waiting for me to fall and to take over my position, mostly."

"How would you like to even up the score?"

Brish snorted again. "Enough of this nonsense; get to your point - if you have one."

Trent leaned forward, "All right - I have the name of the man who killed Runfelov's brother."

Brish straightened. This was interesting. "Who?"

Trent wrote down McCall's name on a piece of paper and folded it in half. Holding it between two fingers, he waved it toward Brish. "Here is the name. Surely it will cancel any debts you owe Runfelov - but it's not free. I have a minor request, in exchange."

"Get on with it, already." Brish growled, his patience worn.

"Manon Marcel - she's done, washed up, but I have taken a fancy to her. I want her - free and clear of paperwork."

Brish contemplated this idea for a moment. Marcel had interested him when they had taken her two years ago, but she had been of little value. Now, after the past few years, she had served her purpose. There was nothing left for the KGB to wring from her, and now that she was at a labor camp, Brish didn't care if she died in a shallow grave or if she was Trent's personal experiment. "Fine," he shrugged, unconcerned. "She is yours. Just make sure she doesn't cause me any more trouble."

Trent handed over the piece of paper in his hand. He knew that it really didn't matter if he handed over McCall's name to Brish and Brish gave it immediately to Runfelov. Runfelov certainly wouldn't have time to set anything up to steal the vengeance Trent craved before Trent had a chance to put his own operation into effect. With this slight detail taken care of - with his purchase of Manon from the KGB through this little tidbit of information - he was one step closer to putting his own plan against McCall and Control into effect in a few weeks' time.

Vladivostok Labor Camp

Manon looked at the pile of pills she had amassed over the past few weeks, secreting them in her bra, her panties, anywhere she could. Now, for the first time in what seemed like a lifetime, she smiled. Midnight Transposition. Her future would be her own. Taking a deep breath, she forced all the pills down her throat and positioned herself on the chair in her cell, knowing that when she finally passed out, if the pills didn't kill her, surely the fall would.

Upon his return to the labor camp, Trent found the guards in a flurry of activity. "What's happened?" he asked one of them. Seeing the terror in the guards eyes, Trent took the stairs two by two down to Manon's cell. She had been saving up her medication doses, secreting them somewhere, and now she had overdosed on them in an apparent suicide attempt.

"No!" Trent spat out angrily. He was so close to putting his plan into effect, and now she would steal his victory from him. "Get her to the hospital," he pushed the guards urgently into her cell to help him carry her to the hospital. Trent noticed a pool of blood around her head - she had fallen to the cement floor, splitting her head on the ground. Trent grasped at his hair with clawed fingers. Not now! Not now! He had been so close, and now, this! He forced himself to regain his composure. He would make sure she recovered. She couldn't die - not yet.

An hour later, he paced outside the hospital ward, waiting for the doctors to emerge. When they finally opened the door to the ward, he noticed their gazes. "Is she dead?" he asked, a touch of fear in his eyes.

"No," one of the doctors shook his head. "We've put her in a medically induced coma due to both the drug overdose and the concussion she received. We think she may have permanent memory damage, especially with the cocktail of drugs that she just took."

"But will she live?" Trent hissed.

"It will be touch and go for awhile - we think so, but we can't assure you of anything."

Trent ground his teeth in impatience. Now he would have to wait for her recuperation before he could put his plan into effect - and her recovery would clearly take some time. It didn't appear that it would simply be a few days or a few weeks before she was fit to travel to the United States. He hoped Runfelov wouldn't get to McCall before he did.

** Author's Note: The discussion of Runfelov and his brother is a tie-in to the episodes Mission McCall Parts 1 & 2, in which Runfelov is the unseen mastermind behind the attempt to take McCall to Moscow to stand trial for the death of his brother. The events in Mission McCall occurred shortly before the episodes Mystery of Manon Parts 1 & 2.