-24-
Her break up with Jack last night rebounded in her head like a hangover. It threatened to wail up at any minute, and refused to be off put by coffee and fresh air. All it wanted was twelve hours of nonstop work sitting at her desk at CTU.
Of course, the hangover similarities could have been there because after their easy break-up, she'd gone home and downed whatever was left in her bottle of tequila mixed with as much juice as was left in the carton in the fridge. She couldn't remember ever liking the taste of the stuff.
She hadn't intended on drowning her sorrows. It was just something to do to put her out. She wanted to sleep, not to think, not to revel in her evening. She had intended to revel in the weekend, but now those memories were spoilt, and she just wanted to forget them. It was a pity that alcohol didn't remove the memories of things you did before you got drunk.
She pushed the keyboard to the back of her desk as bile rose in her throat again. She hunched over the control pad and pressed a hand to her mouth and chest, she was not going to vomit on her keyboard, and she was not going to bolt to the bathroom, Tony was already giving her looks across the partition. One more and... "What?"
Her sudden and raised voice elicited a response from several agents, Dana, who'd been heading over to talk to Tony, turned around and went back to her tiny cubicle. Tony raised his eyebrows and softened his focus. "Nothing, you just seem a little distracted today."
Nina looked down at her clothes for a moment, pulling the blouse, and then back to her computer. The urge to wretch had subsided, so she pulled the keyboard forward, brushing off Tony. "I'm fine, Tony, get back to work."
She was almost tempted to feel sorry for the dejected, soulful look on Tony's face, but her body was begging for caffeine, even though it wouldn't appease the terrible headache. She decided to ignore her somersaulting stomach and head for the conference room.
Which was where she bumped into Jack, changing the filters on the cafetiere. She paused at the door and took a quick breath before she went inside. She didn't call attention to herself; she walked around the back of Jack and took a quick stock of the mugs around the sink. Even though hers was just one plain black mug out of many, she knew it wasn't there, and bent down to the cupboard underneath, taking her mug from the front row of the upper shelf.
Jack must have noticed she was there at some point whilst she was knelt on the floor, because he spoke her name, reserving his comments for when she rose to her feet. "I was just about to head upstairs." He pressed the 'on' button on the machine and folded his arms.
Nina nodded, slowly, not wanting to shake her head too much. She placed her mug next to his on the counter. Jack would fill it up with his when the kettle boiled. He watched his arms as the sleeve ran up on his right arm, which, as it was folded was closer to her.
There was a love bite on his forearm, inside the wrist, just above the joint. It was a painful spot to get a love bite, but Teri used to do it to him, she remembered the fading scars from the beginning of their relationship. She took a deep breath, and averted her eyes when Jack began to sense what she was looking at. The silence had already dragged on for a long time.
"Nina, we can't let this affect our work ethic." Jack lectured. He tried to make it sound anything but, but the love bite spoke for itself.
"I know." She met his eyes for a second before rolling them. Jack, ever the tortured soul, ever the patient listener, hard to up hold at this moment, with that giant vacuum sucked red poker patch on his wrist. "I just don't know what to say to you right now."
The kettle boiled in silence, and she collected the mug from the counter. Not a word to Jack as she brushed past him and left the room. Her coffee mug went down on her desk with a bang, and her blotter mopped up the spilt coffee. She snatched her phone from the desktop and wandered down the storage corridors under Jack's office.
Being married gave him some rights, but screwing his wife the night he'd broken up with her was out of line. He'd said he wanted time to get his life back together, he loved his daughter, and he needed to sort himself out before he could think of going back to Teri. Sort himself out with what? A pack of condoms from the drug store and a bottle of wine. The love bite didn't confirm it, but it was proof enough. Jack would never have left her if she'd been turned on enough to do that to him, why would he leave Teri unsatisfied? Problems in their marriage aside, if they really wanted to sleep together, would it have made any difference? They would just hop into bed and deal with it all later, like she and Jack did that first night.
She didn't care that it was irrational. She felt scorned; she was the spurned lover who was never meant to be one in the first place. She was meant to be isolated, to be objective, and here she knew her emotions had taken over and that it was unfair, but none of that stopped her from making the call.
Her eyes darted around her as she spoke. She wasn't about to get caught. "Hello, I need to speak to Luzhin." She said, in German, to the assistant who took the call.
He knew better than to ask who was calling. That simple question could cost him his life. It only took a moment for the handset to be held to Ysenkov Luzhin, a man in his fifties, a lawyer with the German federal prosecution service. He moonlighted as a mercenary, working out of western Germany. His thick Russian accent may have obliterated his German, but when he spoke English, it sent a pleasant chill down Nina's spine. "Hello."
"I'm in." Nina said simply, switching back to English. Ysenkov had greeted her in German, but she wasn't going to tax the linguistic centre of her brain unless she had to. "The thing with Andre, I'm in."
Ysenkov recognised the voice of his young protégé, an agent working for the CTU in LA. He'd given her the code name Yelena because she was a 'torch light' - often able to find people of things others couldn't because of her contacts at work. She'd told him she wouldn't help during their last conversation, that poor Andre and Alexis, the Drazen brothers, would have to cope without vengeance on their mother and sister if it meant that someone she cared about had to suffer. He'd accused her of getting too attached to her normal life, but she didn't care, and neither did he. Ysenkov had made arrangements on the behalf of the Drazens anyway, and if Yelena talked she would soon find that any of her claims would be unsubstantiated. He could move the entire operation to another city at a moments notice. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm in." Nina was adamant she would get her point across to him. "What do you need me to do?"
Ysenkov sighed. "There is an agent at your office that has compiled some data on a keycard."
Nina backed away from the main corridor as she saw two agents come towards her. "And?"
"She compiled it from your computer, apparently you didn't come in this weekend." Ysenkov told her. This agent was providing links to the computer system at CTU, and Ysenkov had taken a little time to watch her, to see what she was doing.
"No, I didn't." She told him, her voice a little wet.
"I need you to clarify those accesses, as though..."
"...As though I did them, because there's no chance in hell I did." Nina finished for him, feeling a little more business like.
"Exactly. Do you have a witness for your whereabouts?" Ysenkov asked her. "An unimpeachable witness." He knew about her affair with her boss. The agents under his thumb at the Federal agencies district control board fed him office gossip.
"Yes." Nina replied simply. She wasn't stupid enough to name him; she also knew that Ysenkov knew exactly whom she'd been with.
"Is it over between you?" He asked her. Ysenkov had only had her once, and whilst he didn't want to act the jealous lover, the question begged answering.
"Completely."
He wasn't a completely emotionless man. He wanted happiness for many of his operatives; unfortunately, it wasn't an easy thing to have in their jobs, either their real ones or what they did for him. At the same time, Ysenkov Luzhin wasn't strong enough to comfort her. "Contact me when you've done that." Either way, he wasn't going to give her any more information until he was more confident she'd be willing to work for him.
Nina shut her phone, effectively ending the phone call. She took a quick glance up and down the corridor before stepping back out onto the floor. It was time to stop being a moping lovelorn loser; she had to get back to work, to what she was good at. Jack wasn't going to give her any crap. It was over between them, and it shouldn't have even happened in the first place.
It was time to get back to what she did best, being a manipulative, scheming bitch.
-24-
See, so there's a guy called Luzhin, who Nina uses as a defense against Jack, and like the book this starts by being about chess. So I have to power to write the novels that aren't about what they say they are. Not that this qualifies as a novel, per se. Feedback much welcomed, use my new email address - aria@ctunetwork.zzn.com
Her break up with Jack last night rebounded in her head like a hangover. It threatened to wail up at any minute, and refused to be off put by coffee and fresh air. All it wanted was twelve hours of nonstop work sitting at her desk at CTU.
Of course, the hangover similarities could have been there because after their easy break-up, she'd gone home and downed whatever was left in her bottle of tequila mixed with as much juice as was left in the carton in the fridge. She couldn't remember ever liking the taste of the stuff.
She hadn't intended on drowning her sorrows. It was just something to do to put her out. She wanted to sleep, not to think, not to revel in her evening. She had intended to revel in the weekend, but now those memories were spoilt, and she just wanted to forget them. It was a pity that alcohol didn't remove the memories of things you did before you got drunk.
She pushed the keyboard to the back of her desk as bile rose in her throat again. She hunched over the control pad and pressed a hand to her mouth and chest, she was not going to vomit on her keyboard, and she was not going to bolt to the bathroom, Tony was already giving her looks across the partition. One more and... "What?"
Her sudden and raised voice elicited a response from several agents, Dana, who'd been heading over to talk to Tony, turned around and went back to her tiny cubicle. Tony raised his eyebrows and softened his focus. "Nothing, you just seem a little distracted today."
Nina looked down at her clothes for a moment, pulling the blouse, and then back to her computer. The urge to wretch had subsided, so she pulled the keyboard forward, brushing off Tony. "I'm fine, Tony, get back to work."
She was almost tempted to feel sorry for the dejected, soulful look on Tony's face, but her body was begging for caffeine, even though it wouldn't appease the terrible headache. She decided to ignore her somersaulting stomach and head for the conference room.
Which was where she bumped into Jack, changing the filters on the cafetiere. She paused at the door and took a quick breath before she went inside. She didn't call attention to herself; she walked around the back of Jack and took a quick stock of the mugs around the sink. Even though hers was just one plain black mug out of many, she knew it wasn't there, and bent down to the cupboard underneath, taking her mug from the front row of the upper shelf.
Jack must have noticed she was there at some point whilst she was knelt on the floor, because he spoke her name, reserving his comments for when she rose to her feet. "I was just about to head upstairs." He pressed the 'on' button on the machine and folded his arms.
Nina nodded, slowly, not wanting to shake her head too much. She placed her mug next to his on the counter. Jack would fill it up with his when the kettle boiled. He watched his arms as the sleeve ran up on his right arm, which, as it was folded was closer to her.
There was a love bite on his forearm, inside the wrist, just above the joint. It was a painful spot to get a love bite, but Teri used to do it to him, she remembered the fading scars from the beginning of their relationship. She took a deep breath, and averted her eyes when Jack began to sense what she was looking at. The silence had already dragged on for a long time.
"Nina, we can't let this affect our work ethic." Jack lectured. He tried to make it sound anything but, but the love bite spoke for itself.
"I know." She met his eyes for a second before rolling them. Jack, ever the tortured soul, ever the patient listener, hard to up hold at this moment, with that giant vacuum sucked red poker patch on his wrist. "I just don't know what to say to you right now."
The kettle boiled in silence, and she collected the mug from the counter. Not a word to Jack as she brushed past him and left the room. Her coffee mug went down on her desk with a bang, and her blotter mopped up the spilt coffee. She snatched her phone from the desktop and wandered down the storage corridors under Jack's office.
Being married gave him some rights, but screwing his wife the night he'd broken up with her was out of line. He'd said he wanted time to get his life back together, he loved his daughter, and he needed to sort himself out before he could think of going back to Teri. Sort himself out with what? A pack of condoms from the drug store and a bottle of wine. The love bite didn't confirm it, but it was proof enough. Jack would never have left her if she'd been turned on enough to do that to him, why would he leave Teri unsatisfied? Problems in their marriage aside, if they really wanted to sleep together, would it have made any difference? They would just hop into bed and deal with it all later, like she and Jack did that first night.
She didn't care that it was irrational. She felt scorned; she was the spurned lover who was never meant to be one in the first place. She was meant to be isolated, to be objective, and here she knew her emotions had taken over and that it was unfair, but none of that stopped her from making the call.
Her eyes darted around her as she spoke. She wasn't about to get caught. "Hello, I need to speak to Luzhin." She said, in German, to the assistant who took the call.
He knew better than to ask who was calling. That simple question could cost him his life. It only took a moment for the handset to be held to Ysenkov Luzhin, a man in his fifties, a lawyer with the German federal prosecution service. He moonlighted as a mercenary, working out of western Germany. His thick Russian accent may have obliterated his German, but when he spoke English, it sent a pleasant chill down Nina's spine. "Hello."
"I'm in." Nina said simply, switching back to English. Ysenkov had greeted her in German, but she wasn't going to tax the linguistic centre of her brain unless she had to. "The thing with Andre, I'm in."
Ysenkov recognised the voice of his young protégé, an agent working for the CTU in LA. He'd given her the code name Yelena because she was a 'torch light' - often able to find people of things others couldn't because of her contacts at work. She'd told him she wouldn't help during their last conversation, that poor Andre and Alexis, the Drazen brothers, would have to cope without vengeance on their mother and sister if it meant that someone she cared about had to suffer. He'd accused her of getting too attached to her normal life, but she didn't care, and neither did he. Ysenkov had made arrangements on the behalf of the Drazens anyway, and if Yelena talked she would soon find that any of her claims would be unsubstantiated. He could move the entire operation to another city at a moments notice. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm in." Nina was adamant she would get her point across to him. "What do you need me to do?"
Ysenkov sighed. "There is an agent at your office that has compiled some data on a keycard."
Nina backed away from the main corridor as she saw two agents come towards her. "And?"
"She compiled it from your computer, apparently you didn't come in this weekend." Ysenkov told her. This agent was providing links to the computer system at CTU, and Ysenkov had taken a little time to watch her, to see what she was doing.
"No, I didn't." She told him, her voice a little wet.
"I need you to clarify those accesses, as though..."
"...As though I did them, because there's no chance in hell I did." Nina finished for him, feeling a little more business like.
"Exactly. Do you have a witness for your whereabouts?" Ysenkov asked her. "An unimpeachable witness." He knew about her affair with her boss. The agents under his thumb at the Federal agencies district control board fed him office gossip.
"Yes." Nina replied simply. She wasn't stupid enough to name him; she also knew that Ysenkov knew exactly whom she'd been with.
"Is it over between you?" He asked her. Ysenkov had only had her once, and whilst he didn't want to act the jealous lover, the question begged answering.
"Completely."
He wasn't a completely emotionless man. He wanted happiness for many of his operatives; unfortunately, it wasn't an easy thing to have in their jobs, either their real ones or what they did for him. At the same time, Ysenkov Luzhin wasn't strong enough to comfort her. "Contact me when you've done that." Either way, he wasn't going to give her any more information until he was more confident she'd be willing to work for him.
Nina shut her phone, effectively ending the phone call. She took a quick glance up and down the corridor before stepping back out onto the floor. It was time to stop being a moping lovelorn loser; she had to get back to work, to what she was good at. Jack wasn't going to give her any crap. It was over between them, and it shouldn't have even happened in the first place.
It was time to get back to what she did best, being a manipulative, scheming bitch.
-24-
See, so there's a guy called Luzhin, who Nina uses as a defense against Jack, and like the book this starts by being about chess. So I have to power to write the novels that aren't about what they say they are. Not that this qualifies as a novel, per se. Feedback much welcomed, use my new email address - aria@ctunetwork.zzn.com