-24-
"Hey, it's Tony. I've just gotten the ME's report from the body found off the road." Tony didn't waste time on pleasantries, and Jack appreciated that. Standing in the viewing room, watching as they brought Nina in for her second round of questioning, he didn't have much time.
"What did you find?" Jack asked, checking to make sure he could see Nina's chair and the area directly around it in the viewfinder.
"You were right, 11 weeks." Tony told him. "I take it Teri was pregnant then?" Jack didn't want to respond to him, it was too hard. It had taken him less than a few seconds to realise that the child wasn't his. Eleven weeks was Christmas time, it was a painful Christmas without her and Kim, but he'd already been with Nina a few months then, and evidently Teri had met someone to ease her pain too. He was didn't know whether it was a good or bad idea that she hadn't told him.
"Have you gotten a hold of Nina's family?" Jack asked, moving swiftly on.
"Yeah, they called, and we sent a pair of FBI agents over to their house. They saw her just before Christmas and again in the summer." Tony told him, "They stand by their testimony at the court Marshall, and we checked them out."
"How?"
"Her father's boss, the tutors at her mother's university." Tony explained, "Most have known them for ten, twenty years. I also got an agent over to her brother's house, he checked out too."
"Good." Nina was dropped back into her chair, and he adjusted the focus on the camera.
"All that proves to us is that Nina's family think she's an upstanding citizen." Tony pointed out. "If you asked whether or not they thought she'd ever sleep with a married man then..." Tony finally realised he was overstepping a line, and promptly shut up.
Jack wasn't about to debate the merits of his affair with Tony; he wasn't going to point out he was separated, or that Nina had been initially resistant to the affair. She'd accused him, wrongly, of having a motive in his mind from the day he'd hired her, and complained that most of the people in the office thought she could only have gotten her job by sleeping with him. It'd taken days to get the chance to apologise to her, and when he finally had, she'd shut him up, telling him she very much doubted any of that was a problem. "If Interpol claim that their records are true..."
"So, Nina's not Yelena Drazen. It doesn't mean that they didn't switch the bodies..." Tony was rude whenever he talked about Nina. He'd prefer not to do it; he didn't want to think about her.
"I'm going in to interview her now." Jack ended the conversation. He didn't want Tony to irritate him and have him go into the interrogation already riled up. Just looking at Nina, knowing what she'd done, it angered him enough. "I'll call you if I get anything out of her."
-24-
She was a more co-operative today, more focused. Yesterday he'd come back to see her, and the doctors had told him that he needed to wait another day. They dramatically reduced her medication and she'd had some problems with withdrawal, nosebleeds, headaches, and cramps. They refused to let him interrogate her, although he did watch her sleeping in a windowed room in the infirmary.
He held the door open for the prison guards to leave and then went back over to the table, briefcase in hand.
"Did you shoot, Teri?" He asked.
"That's what they tell me." Nina was fidgeting; she hated sitting for too long.
"The other day you told me it wasn't her. That's what you told the nurses when you first woke up. It's why they put you on all that medication." Jack couldn't understand why all of a sudden she'd changed her mind about talking to him.
She didn't say anything. She raised her eye line to him and challenged him to say anything more.
"Let's say you did shoot Teri. Why did you do it?" He asked her.
Once again she didn't respond, she grabbed the glass of water. Jack gripped her wrist, keeping her hand low, eventually wrestling the glass of water free. He didn't like people to be comfortable when they were being interrogated. Nina gave him a fierce look. She was almost back to her old self. He could believe this woman could lie to him.
"Did you do it for the money?" Nina raised her eyebrows at him, folding her arms and leaning back on the chair.
"Cos, I got to tell you, it doesn't look like they paid you very much." He unzipped his briefcase as he spoke, pulling out a manila folder and scattering her assets across the table. She had two or three savings accounts, several credit cards and a couple of current accounts. She was a single woman, whose social life had been limited by her job, who'd made twenty or so thousand dollars a time on the lecture circuit. Her assets outweighed his, despite the difference in salary and being seven years his junior. Despite the figures on the paper, each contribution could be traced back to a legitimate purpose.
Nina leant forward and glanced at the sheets of paper. She looked at each sheet of paper before sliding it to the left. Jack doubted she was looking to check if she paid her Amex bill, he was beginning to think she might have been innocent, although he still didn't understand why she wouldn't talk to him.
"We've got a recording of a telephone call you made in Serbian. You call yourself Yelena, and rung one of the Drazen brothers." Nina wasn't normally this easy to read, the effect of the drugs she was still on, and the withdrawal made her movements so obvious. Her eyes rolled from inanimate object to inanimate object as she tried to recall what he referred to.
"We've also got video footage of you denying it fiercely until they medicated you." Nina looked up at him suddenly, averting her eyes when she realised how obvious she'd been. "Do you want to see it?"
Nina opened her mouth, she was about to plead with him, and she didn't want to see it. She seemed scared of what she'd become, what her life had been reduced to. It pained him too. "I'll try and remember the tape tomorrow." He said, concealing the videotape under a pile of papers inside his case.
Nina stood, shaking out her wrists, she had time to pace the room once before he stood to join her. She hated being interviewed, interrogated, she couldn't sit in one place for a long period unless she believed it would be productive. Walking seemed to help her think.
He perched himself on the edge of the desk. He was probably booking his video feed, but he wasn't all that bothered, he'd remember whatever she said with video quality anyway. "Come on, Nina, if it wasn't for the money, why'd you do it?" She glanced over for a second, and then looked back around the room as she paced.
For a minute he considered perhaps the drugs had affected her memory, that she actually couldn't remember what he was asking her about. He recalled people needed memory triggers when they forgot things, most people didn't react well to pressure, but Nina thrived under it. Everything worked faster in her mind when she had a deadline.
"If they weren't paying you, come on, why? Tony thought perhaps you were jealous of Teri." Her vision snapped to him, and for a minute she gave the game away, stopping in front of him for a millisecond. "Was that it? You thought, 'I knock off Teri, maybe eventually Jack'll come back to me'?"
She began to pace a different wall, uncomfortable with his proximity, so he advanced, enclosing her against the second wall until she couldn't get past him, and eventually she had to walk around him to avoid his questioning. "Were you jealous, Nina?" He grabbed her wrist and pulled, light as a feather she almost flew back to the wall, landing with an audibly painful thud against the painted cinderblocks.
Then he cornered her, leaning in. She had been claustrophobic ever since a stint in solitary during an intensive course that she hadn't realised was part of her CTU training. It hadn't been a problem, but when high, it might just show.
"Come on, Nina, our first night together?" He let his voice drop, knowing that if he used that tone to interrogate her it would let her feel safe, whilst disturbing her at the same time. "You wanted to relive that right? You could have spent the last three months being helpful, someone for me to lean on right, I'd realise who I could really trust, no worries about me getting back with Teri..."
"No!" She yelled at him. He was taken aback, even though he didn't move. "I wouldn't, you think I could kill Teri because I thought.."
"Because you thought what, Nina?" Behind him, one of the guards came through the door behind him. He ran over and grabbed one of Jack's arms pulling him back and away from Nina.
She was pulled with him, he was still gripping her wrist, and when he eventually let go, she tumbled to the floor. "The nurses told you!" Exclaimed the guard, as another came over, gripping Jack's other arm and successfully getting him away from Nina.
The nurse rushed in to help Nina up as she coughed on the floor. Her shirt had drifted up as she fell, exposing her belly button. Jack noticed a darker line of pigmentation in her skin down her stomach as the guards thrust him towards his briefcase. He got the hint, and packed his papers up as the nurse escorted Nina out of the room.
"Hey, it's Tony. I've just gotten the ME's report from the body found off the road." Tony didn't waste time on pleasantries, and Jack appreciated that. Standing in the viewing room, watching as they brought Nina in for her second round of questioning, he didn't have much time.
"What did you find?" Jack asked, checking to make sure he could see Nina's chair and the area directly around it in the viewfinder.
"You were right, 11 weeks." Tony told him. "I take it Teri was pregnant then?" Jack didn't want to respond to him, it was too hard. It had taken him less than a few seconds to realise that the child wasn't his. Eleven weeks was Christmas time, it was a painful Christmas without her and Kim, but he'd already been with Nina a few months then, and evidently Teri had met someone to ease her pain too. He was didn't know whether it was a good or bad idea that she hadn't told him.
"Have you gotten a hold of Nina's family?" Jack asked, moving swiftly on.
"Yeah, they called, and we sent a pair of FBI agents over to their house. They saw her just before Christmas and again in the summer." Tony told him, "They stand by their testimony at the court Marshall, and we checked them out."
"How?"
"Her father's boss, the tutors at her mother's university." Tony explained, "Most have known them for ten, twenty years. I also got an agent over to her brother's house, he checked out too."
"Good." Nina was dropped back into her chair, and he adjusted the focus on the camera.
"All that proves to us is that Nina's family think she's an upstanding citizen." Tony pointed out. "If you asked whether or not they thought she'd ever sleep with a married man then..." Tony finally realised he was overstepping a line, and promptly shut up.
Jack wasn't about to debate the merits of his affair with Tony; he wasn't going to point out he was separated, or that Nina had been initially resistant to the affair. She'd accused him, wrongly, of having a motive in his mind from the day he'd hired her, and complained that most of the people in the office thought she could only have gotten her job by sleeping with him. It'd taken days to get the chance to apologise to her, and when he finally had, she'd shut him up, telling him she very much doubted any of that was a problem. "If Interpol claim that their records are true..."
"So, Nina's not Yelena Drazen. It doesn't mean that they didn't switch the bodies..." Tony was rude whenever he talked about Nina. He'd prefer not to do it; he didn't want to think about her.
"I'm going in to interview her now." Jack ended the conversation. He didn't want Tony to irritate him and have him go into the interrogation already riled up. Just looking at Nina, knowing what she'd done, it angered him enough. "I'll call you if I get anything out of her."
-24-
She was a more co-operative today, more focused. Yesterday he'd come back to see her, and the doctors had told him that he needed to wait another day. They dramatically reduced her medication and she'd had some problems with withdrawal, nosebleeds, headaches, and cramps. They refused to let him interrogate her, although he did watch her sleeping in a windowed room in the infirmary.
He held the door open for the prison guards to leave and then went back over to the table, briefcase in hand.
"Did you shoot, Teri?" He asked.
"That's what they tell me." Nina was fidgeting; she hated sitting for too long.
"The other day you told me it wasn't her. That's what you told the nurses when you first woke up. It's why they put you on all that medication." Jack couldn't understand why all of a sudden she'd changed her mind about talking to him.
She didn't say anything. She raised her eye line to him and challenged him to say anything more.
"Let's say you did shoot Teri. Why did you do it?" He asked her.
Once again she didn't respond, she grabbed the glass of water. Jack gripped her wrist, keeping her hand low, eventually wrestling the glass of water free. He didn't like people to be comfortable when they were being interrogated. Nina gave him a fierce look. She was almost back to her old self. He could believe this woman could lie to him.
"Did you do it for the money?" Nina raised her eyebrows at him, folding her arms and leaning back on the chair.
"Cos, I got to tell you, it doesn't look like they paid you very much." He unzipped his briefcase as he spoke, pulling out a manila folder and scattering her assets across the table. She had two or three savings accounts, several credit cards and a couple of current accounts. She was a single woman, whose social life had been limited by her job, who'd made twenty or so thousand dollars a time on the lecture circuit. Her assets outweighed his, despite the difference in salary and being seven years his junior. Despite the figures on the paper, each contribution could be traced back to a legitimate purpose.
Nina leant forward and glanced at the sheets of paper. She looked at each sheet of paper before sliding it to the left. Jack doubted she was looking to check if she paid her Amex bill, he was beginning to think she might have been innocent, although he still didn't understand why she wouldn't talk to him.
"We've got a recording of a telephone call you made in Serbian. You call yourself Yelena, and rung one of the Drazen brothers." Nina wasn't normally this easy to read, the effect of the drugs she was still on, and the withdrawal made her movements so obvious. Her eyes rolled from inanimate object to inanimate object as she tried to recall what he referred to.
"We've also got video footage of you denying it fiercely until they medicated you." Nina looked up at him suddenly, averting her eyes when she realised how obvious she'd been. "Do you want to see it?"
Nina opened her mouth, she was about to plead with him, and she didn't want to see it. She seemed scared of what she'd become, what her life had been reduced to. It pained him too. "I'll try and remember the tape tomorrow." He said, concealing the videotape under a pile of papers inside his case.
Nina stood, shaking out her wrists, she had time to pace the room once before he stood to join her. She hated being interviewed, interrogated, she couldn't sit in one place for a long period unless she believed it would be productive. Walking seemed to help her think.
He perched himself on the edge of the desk. He was probably booking his video feed, but he wasn't all that bothered, he'd remember whatever she said with video quality anyway. "Come on, Nina, if it wasn't for the money, why'd you do it?" She glanced over for a second, and then looked back around the room as she paced.
For a minute he considered perhaps the drugs had affected her memory, that she actually couldn't remember what he was asking her about. He recalled people needed memory triggers when they forgot things, most people didn't react well to pressure, but Nina thrived under it. Everything worked faster in her mind when she had a deadline.
"If they weren't paying you, come on, why? Tony thought perhaps you were jealous of Teri." Her vision snapped to him, and for a minute she gave the game away, stopping in front of him for a millisecond. "Was that it? You thought, 'I knock off Teri, maybe eventually Jack'll come back to me'?"
She began to pace a different wall, uncomfortable with his proximity, so he advanced, enclosing her against the second wall until she couldn't get past him, and eventually she had to walk around him to avoid his questioning. "Were you jealous, Nina?" He grabbed her wrist and pulled, light as a feather she almost flew back to the wall, landing with an audibly painful thud against the painted cinderblocks.
Then he cornered her, leaning in. She had been claustrophobic ever since a stint in solitary during an intensive course that she hadn't realised was part of her CTU training. It hadn't been a problem, but when high, it might just show.
"Come on, Nina, our first night together?" He let his voice drop, knowing that if he used that tone to interrogate her it would let her feel safe, whilst disturbing her at the same time. "You wanted to relive that right? You could have spent the last three months being helpful, someone for me to lean on right, I'd realise who I could really trust, no worries about me getting back with Teri..."
"No!" She yelled at him. He was taken aback, even though he didn't move. "I wouldn't, you think I could kill Teri because I thought.."
"Because you thought what, Nina?" Behind him, one of the guards came through the door behind him. He ran over and grabbed one of Jack's arms pulling him back and away from Nina.
She was pulled with him, he was still gripping her wrist, and when he eventually let go, she tumbled to the floor. "The nurses told you!" Exclaimed the guard, as another came over, gripping Jack's other arm and successfully getting him away from Nina.
The nurse rushed in to help Nina up as she coughed on the floor. Her shirt had drifted up as she fell, exposing her belly button. Jack noticed a darker line of pigmentation in her skin down her stomach as the guards thrust him towards his briefcase. He got the hint, and packed his papers up as the nurse escorted Nina out of the room.