Chapter Two-Shades of Truth
Saint Luke Orphanage 6 May 1988
This was where the definitive answer lay.
Alexander Khasinau was trying to make the frustratingly incalculable decision whether he wanted to find it. Keeping a habitually straight back, the former doctor let out a tense breath, forcefully unclenching his fists.Could it be possible that his former charge could have betrayed him so completely?
Betrayal was far too strong a word. Their relationship was based on mutual exploitation. He had brought her up from obscurity, crafting Irina Derevko's brilliance for his own designs. She in turn had surpassed him with ruthless cunning, rising through the ranks displaying clinical efficiency. Alexander had once given himself credit for creating the 'man;' it was not without bitter emotions that he admitted to being nothing more than a useful starting pawn in a true mastermind's game.
If he could not claim to have her, he could at least claim to know her. Khasinau had spent years analysing and critiquing her every gesture, mapping out and anticipating responses. Perfecting the already talented deceiver was how he discovered the truth after a then unknown catalyst.
It had begun with the pooled talents of the techs doing a slandered systems overhaul. Following his explicit instructions, the team of 12 was reconfiguring the entire mainframe, in carefully individualized sections.
He had been sipping his morning coffee when the pasty-faced man had cowered at his door, clutching a file of papers uncertainly.
"Dr. Khasinau?" the timid query was followed by his hesitant pause in front of his superior's desk; all this was prefaced by erratic breathing and profuse sweating. "Is the resequencing complete?" Alexander demanded, observing the man's fear but not commenting on it. "No…I've found something you may be interested in"
Khasinau took the offered report from trembling hands impatiently.
"The report specifies the transaction of $500..uh American per month to the account of Dr. Nicholas Klin… I did some investigation, this man runs a remote privately founded orphanage outside Moscow"
The tech's ramble was quite pointless. Everything was there in black and white. It was his experience that people revealed things during apprehensive rambles that they would not disclose under normal circumstances.
"Is this budgeted?" he asked, already suspecting that it wasn't.
"No, the only connection I can make is Kara Acarlin, which was one of Ms Derevko's pseudonyms which is why it showed up as an anomaly in systems." The last part was said at hurried stuttering intervals.
"Does anybody know about this?"
"Nobody sir… It was only my program that caught it." No pride laced the statement and the man was looking precariously close to fainting.
"Keep it that way."
The concluding pieces of the puzzle had been relatively easy to find. Once he had dug a little deeper into Irina's voluntary reintegration process, Khasinau had come across several inconsistencies. First, the reports sent from St. Petersburg were sporadic and lacked her usual detail. Closer inspection of fanatical records had shown the paying of a qualified midwife under the guise of physical examiner. Most telling of was the 3 months of complete com blackout, which was only broken by her unscheduled return.
The only thing he'd questioned at the time was the newness of the still pink scars from her surgery to remove evidence of her pregnancy but it had faded when he saw the sheer volume of intel she had accumulated first hand.
He should have questioned further.
Idiotically the first thing he had felt was jealousy. Jealousy that Irina had given her body to Bristow without scheduling it or even reporting her actions. Jealousy that he had apparently been so far from her mind that she had forgotten to take her rigorously ordered birth pills. For some obscure reason, he could not stop thinking about the tenderness she would have doubtlessly given to Bristow. He doubted that Irina could have successfully distinguished between her roles anymore.
Or if she really wanted to.
He was about to view the unknown product of that unclear line.
Jack and Laura Bristow had conceived a second unplanned child.
After getting over his primal sense of possession Khasinu had stopped to consider the potential benefits. A great loss to him had always been Irina's age of recruitment. She was already too independent. Having a child with Irina and, he reluctantly admitted, Bristow's intellect while still at an impressionable age could be of incalculable advantage to him.
If the child proved to be a disappointment she could still be useful leverage.
**
Nicholas was nervous.
Beside him Izabel was doing a far more creditable job of concealing any potential emotions. The child was impassive and calm. Her pale hands were clasped over newly purchased track pants. A sender frame showed no obvious signs of tension and blue eyes were regarding him quizzically.
He really wanted this to work out. The girl who had renounced her birth name stubbornly had endeared herself to him. She was impossibly bright; to the extent that he had used some of her "blood money," as it was colloquially referred to, buy textbooks, much to the disapproval of the long-suffering matron. As well as being intelligent, her compassion was amazing. Izzy had insisted, using her rapidly expanding English vocabulary, that she would help care for the bedridden children.
Her chosen name had come from the shadow puppets she created for them. "Izabel," the magical healer. She had declared that her birth name was like Jako's, the butcher's son aka the mean bully.
Nicholas had made the unusual decision to thoroughly screen the person that had applied to adopt her, acutely aware of the dangers Izzy could face. He had received glowing, or albeit surprised, recommendations from the people he contacted. When he had visited the home he had found a wealthy couple eager to adopt; not trusting the public channels, they had gone to an influential friend who knew of his work. While he would love to be able to look into every family, it realistically was not possible.
The doctor had never met the patriarch of the family.
Christopher Majink.
The man who would be taking Izbel to her new home.
"You ready, Iz?"
She nodded, her eyes fixed on the figure approaching the entrance.
He was nondescript. Short brown hair, lightly flecked with grey, gave way to sharp eyes and stern features. His posture spoke of confidence carried by an almost military correctness; Nicholas could not help the fleeting thought that his smile, while not particularly forced, was not natural either.
"Dr. Klin I presume?" The man's grip was firm with just the right amount of softness.
"I'm assuming, since we've gotten to this stage, that everything is in order?" A note of concern was evident in his voice.
"More then adequate, Mr. Majink. If it is alright with you, Izabel has asked to bring her school work and to keep in contact with me as her tutor."
"Of course." Khasinau turned an interested gaze on the girl for the first time. Her resemblance to her mother was unmistakable, if understated. The same posture and facial features. "What do you want to be, Izabel, when you grow up?" he asked, putting an unfamiliar softness into his tone.
"I'm going to be a doctor," the girl replied, staring him full in the face as she stood up from the chair.
Khasinau swallowed down a surge of irrational hatred.
It was Jack Bristow's eyes that stared at him as she extended her left hand to him.
Izabel would always bear a constant reminder of her true linage.
Alexander Khasinau would be the only one affected by this sole truth, in an already spinning web of lies.
He silently resolved this as he smiled and took her hand.
