Chapter 3
Jack sat down heavily. Of course, it would have been Irina's idea to implant cyanide in the targets. He looked back over at Elsa. "Tell me," he said abruptly, "about the protocols of your mission. The ones that were built on Irina's work." As he asked the question, he felt his stomach twist. He wasn't sure he wanted the answer.
"Are you interested in my mission or Irina's?"
"Just answer the question," he snapped.
Elsa shrugged. "Derevko's first innovation was in the area of target choice. Up until her mission, a single target would be defined and the agent would attempt to complete her assignment irrespective of compatibility. Irina insisted on hand selecting her target from a list of 7-8 that the KGB provided. According to her notes, she reasoned that it would be impossible to deceive a reasonably intelligent target over a long period of time, and that genuine attraction would need to be present to form the basis for a long-term relationship."
That was at least partly true, Jack thought grimly to himself. He remembered Cuvee's boast in Kashmir:
Not to brag, but I'm kind of responsible for matchmaking you and Irina. Didn't she tell you? I was a supervisor at the KGB. I was the one who gave her the assignment to go to the US and marry a CIA officer. Now, you weren't the only prospect, of course. But you had the most potential. Ha! I actually thought it would dawn on you that a woman like this would never go for someone like you.
Luckily for me, your ego was too big for that.
"She selected me for 'potential'," Jack said flatly.
"Well, actually, her handler's notes indicated that you were selected based on career potential. It was clear from Irina's notes, however, that she had done extensive research on your personality, temperament, likes and dislikes. Later analysts concluded that you were selected because Irina felt she would not need to feign attraction to you – a prospect that would have been exhausting and risky over the course of 10 years."
"Are you telling me I was selected because she was attracted to me?" Jack demanded incredulously.
"You'd have to ask her. I'm just telling you what her notes said. Based on her recommendation, I was given wide latitude in my target choice. Neil was the result. And based on my experience, without that attraction the mission would have failed miserably. It's one thing to simulate desire in short bursts during a 6 month liaison; it's something entirely different to maintain that kind of fiction with a colicky baby at 3am in the morning, or when the sump pump has failed and the basement is filling with water."
Jack stood up, ostensibly to walk around the room. In reality so that Elsa could not read his face. He could remember every detail of his courtship of Laura. At no point had he sensed that her attraction to him had been anything less than genuine. When had it changed, he wondered bitterly. What had prevented that attraction from blossoming into the full-fledged love he had thought they shared?
"What else?" he asked gruffly. "What other protocols were based on her work?"
Elsa's eyes followed Jack around the room curiously. "There were some modifications she recommended to the contact policy. At the start of her assignment, her handler would meet her once a month in a hotel room." Out of the corner of her eye Elsa could see Jack's jaw tighten. "Derevko's notes highlighted the risk this represented. Not only was she at risk of exposure due to the frequency of contact, but it would be disastrous to her marriage if others suspected she was meeting a man in a hotel room, let alone her Russian handler. Her handler's notes indicated only grudging acquiescence – he had apparently enjoyed those meetings more than she had."
Elsa paused and looked over at Jack. The situation had been clear to her when she had read the case file; the flash in his eyes indicated that it was clear to him as well. "In short order she had converted the contact to once every 4 months, by phone, which is what my contact policy was based on."
"Do you… do you remember when she shifted to phone contact?" Jack asked brittly.
Elsa noticed that Jack was gripping the back of one of the chairs so tightly she could see the whites of his knuckles. "It was right before you were married. I remember because it was included in her handler's observations of your wedding."
Jack closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Thank God. Not Sydney.