"That can work for me," Katya said complacently. "So... are we all agreed?"
"Just a moment, if you please," Jack said as he picked up the bottle again. "Before my virtue---Hey!" He exclaimed when both women snorted. "Before my honor and fidelity are compromised, I believe I am entitled to know just what debt I am being used as...currency to repay."
"And you would be a big... bill, now wouldn't you?" Katya smirked, then laughed when her sister rolled her eyes. "Go ahead, tell him," she said, pointing at her sister.
"Welll..." Irina began. "I...."
"Well, what my sister finds so difficult to explain, is that there are several debts from which I could choose. Ranging from small to large, ranging from recompense of... a kiss to an entire night of bliss." Katya smiled. "Ah, my English... it is improving. I rhymed."
"I'll frame you a certificate!" Irina growled. "But..several.... What are you talking about?" she demanded.
Katya pulled a tiny Palm Pilot out of her pocket.
Jack whispered to Irina, "You really need to get a pair of pants like that."
Irina whispered back, "You really need to avoid giving me wardrobe advice."
"But those pants are really quite useful. When I think of the items in that drawer in the bedroom...." Jack said suggestively and touched his bottom lip with his tongue. "And where we might transport them, use them, if you had pockets in which to put those... little toys I've acquired...."
"Katya! Let's move this along!" Irina called out.
"Do you want me to read from my list? Let's see. There's Mexico City, when you might not have evaded---"
"I knew it!" Jack exclaimed. "I knew you had to have help and Sark was safely in custody and---"
"Shut. Up." Irina snarled. "This isn't about you."
"Seems like it's about me," Jack muttered. "Or at least my body."
"And then there's the time I was monitoring your lap top and Jack im'd you and I ran and got you---"
"Well, that was nice of you. Thank you, Katya," Jack said politely.
She sighed. "Ah. I do love a grateful man. So many delightful ways to express gratitude, are there not? But... really, Irina can't spend all of her time sitting around, looking at her laptop and mooning over that screensaver of you she has---"
"Oh? What image would that be?"
"From your time in Kashmir."
"Not when I was wearing the beard that ate the show?"
"No. Although that was amusing, not like the triangle at all."
"Can we move this along!" Irina complained. "Jack, I'll show you my screensaver---"
"Honey, I don't give a crap about the screensaver. What I care about are those videos. I want them destroyed---"
"Oh, well, I---"
"Or perhaps I need to review them, examine them, ascertain how to improve my performance? I know, perhaps we could view them together and you could critique the woman---"
"Or as in Singagpore, women---" Katya began, coughing lightly into her hand.
"I'll destroy them already!" Irina conceded sullenly. Pointing at her sister, she admitted, "I comprehend your point. I owe you."
"Yes. And I am calling in my debt."
"Debt? Singular?"
"Yes. I'll hold the others in reserve pending... further developments, other upcoming occasions."
Irina ground her teeth. "You want me to repay you for--- No."
"What the hell debt is it, already?" Jack exclaimed.
"You are aware, Jack, that Irina and I both were working with Cuvee early in our careers--"
"Why would I know that? I didn't know about Cuvee, that floppy-haired Frenchman, until I saw him standing across from me, licking my wife's face!"
Irina demurred, "He wasn't precisely licking---"
"Do you really want to define licking?"
Irina grinned. "Well, as a former teacher, I do know that some pupils learn best with hands-on experiential techniques, so if you want to define licking for me, I'd be willing to --"
"I'd be willing to settle for watching that definition," Katya interjected.
"So, Irina. Do you really want to have this discussion right now?" Jack growled at her.
"Wellll, maybe later would be better," Irina admitted. Then, her face brightening, she whispered coaxingly, "I'll let you lick anything you want."
Jack crossed his arms and looked away, muttering, "Maybe I won't want to lick anything. Maybe this whole discussion has... ruined my appetite."
"Irina, perhaps you should get to work in the kitchen whipping up some appetizers..." Katya suggested.
"I'm thinking the bar..." Jack said, looking at the top of it longingly.
"Jack, what is your fixation tonight with that bar?" Irina whispered.
"It's an interesting height. I'm just trying to calculate, purely for scientific purposes, of course---"
"Ah, yes. The same scientific purposes that led you to kiss me back?" Katya asked with a smile.
"Kat! Just... get on with it. Go ahead." It was Irina's turn to cross her arms. She once again began kicking at those glass shards with her boot.
"You owe me for the assignment Cuvee gave me. Three years....-"
Irina began to laugh. "Oh. Sorry. I forgot it was that long--"
"I didn't. You--" She pointed her finger at Irina. "You spoiled brat. 'Katya, dear, look after your little sister at the academy. She needs your help. Always remember to protect her.' Always, always, the little one always gets the best toys."
"Toys?" Jack asked.
"Yes. You."
"I am not a toy!" Then he paused to smirk. "Hmm. There are worse fates. Would that be a hand-held toy or---"
"Jack. Wipe that look off your face right now!" Irina exclaimed, slamming her hand into his shoulder.
"Well, somehow I don't think you'd be a toy who would require batteries..." Katya added, just to see what shade of puce her sister might turn this time.
"I believe we've already had the discussion about the fact that I'm always fully functional," Jack noted, with an amused glance at his wife. How long could her face stay that red before she began to melt? Hmm. He wondered what he'd have to do to get her entire body to turn red and begin to melt..... Oh, pay attention. Irina was looking at him with irritation and Katya with amusement. "But, I don't understand. What happened?" Jack asked, coughing lightly into his hand.
"You could have been mine," Katya said with a grin.
"Really? How? Do tell!" Jack said, biting his lip to hide his own grin. He wanted to play the knife game later, but he didn't really want to die.
"Well, he wasn't yours!" Irina said, fighting the urge to stomp her foot. "And he's not going to be! You allowed me first choice!"
"That was the last time I made that mistake, little sister or no," Katya said firmly, putting her arms in her pockets. Once again, Jack wondered what else she might have in those pockets.
"Excuse me...." Jack said politely. "I feel that I am at a disadvantage here, not knowing obviously, the entire story. So, if someone could fill me in..." He added, winking at his sister-in-law.
"Fill me in... Hmm. An interesting image, is it not, Irina?" Katya asked.
"Kat!" Irina began. "Move your mouth---"
"Oh, I can do that without any problem at all. Jack, if you'll---"
"Katya, I don't mean to hurry you, but it is getting a little late and so if you wouldn't mind..." Jack began.
"Of course," Katya nodded. "We were--"
"Let me get this straight. You'll move it along when he asks, but when I--- "
"He has something I want, so of course I'll try and... please him now. A form of foreplay, one might say. You might remember that notion -- pleasing your partner? I'm sure you have a note about it somewhere in your academy textbooks, in case you've forgotten--"
Irina opened her mouth, then sighed. Katya would tell the story how and at the pace she wanted.
But after a moment, Irina grew impatient and prompted, "We were working with Cuvee, as she said and we were both given the same type of assignment. Two different rosters of... choices. She let me pick first and you were in my roster and Cuvee assigned you to me---"
"Wait a minute. So... if she had not given you first dibs, I might have met and married her?" Jack stroked his chin and looked Katya up and down carefully. "This puts an entirely different slant on the entire---"
Irina protested. "She would not have been successful at...." She broke it off. She should not have brought that up.
"Yes, honey. What is it you were successful at doing with me? Exactly? Why don't you define that for me?"
"I...Alright, I... my goal was to seduce you. But...you know, I fell in love with you."
"Who's to say I would not have fallen in love with him, Irina?" Katya shrugged. "And who's to say he would not have fallen in love with me? After all, you and I are so much alike, that---"
"We're not the interchangeable Derevko sisters!"
"That sounds like an interesting toy concept, though," Jack said with a grin. "I should give that idea to Marshall and see what he could do- Ouch!" Jack exclaimed, as his wife hit him. "Or wait! I know, you two could go on the cabaret circuit and do that routine from the old movie, 'White Christmas'"
"What is he talking about?" Katya asked her sister.
"It is... remember the movie with that Bing man and George Clooney's aunt, the snow---"
"Ah yes, the sentimentalist claptrap from the capitalist maw of Hollywood," Katya nodded.
"Yes, I can see you two now in those turquoise dresses and those fans...Hmm." Jack paused and Irina elbowed him.
"Why did you stop?"
"I'm just imagining the fans...nothing but the fans...." Jack said, trying to keep the laughter out of his voice. "Maybe that's a new game we could play..."
"Stop it with the games!" Irina cried out.
"You don't really mean that," Jack said firmly. "Or you won't when you see what I have in that drawer."
"Well... perhaps not," Irina admitted, patting her husband's arm.
"I remember the punch line of their routine."
"Do you?" Jack asked.
"Yes! It was 'Lord helps the sister who comes between me and my man.' So, move it Katya before I demonstrate what the phrase punch line really means."
Katya rolled her eyes. "I am so afraid."
"You should be---" Irina began, putting her hands on her hips.
"Okay. Sisters. Let's not get the feathers of your fans all flying," Jack began. Then he paused and stroked his chin. "But then again...."
Irina reached out to smack him again, then stopped. Rolling her eyes, she muttered, "Oh, what's the point? I've completely lost control of this conversation---"
Bending down, Jack whispered, "And you do know how enticing I find it when you completely lose control, don't you? Do you remember that time in Mexico when...."
Katya smiled at the pink that entered her sister's cheeks as her husband spoke in her ear, then kissed it before straightening back up.
Irina cleared her throat and waved her hand at her sister. "If you wouldn't mind finishing your story....about your unfortunate assignment when you didn't get Jack, I did come here with plans for tonight and DON'T say a word, Jack, don't---"
"About what? Jack asked with a blank face.
"About coming here....ugggh," Irina groaned. "Why, why do I fall for it every time?"
"You fell into luck thirty-odd years ago, whereas I fell into a wagonload of s***," Katya reminded her.
"Oh, that's right. Who did you get?" Jack asked curiously.
"I got this fat old man. From Romania. Where they use a lot of garlic. And where, I might add, they also did not have Charmin available on the grocery store shelves. And let me tell you, that after years in the Soviet Union with the sandpaper that passes for --"
"Katya, are you more upset about not getting Jack or not getting Charmin?" Irina turned to her husband and confided. "I used to send cases of Charmin home to my family. One of the perks of being with you---"
"Soft toilet paper was a perk of being with me?" Jack asked, affronted. "Well, I like that! Not my amazing abilities with---"
"Well...." Irina smiled. "But I couldn't send that home in a plain cardboard box."
"But she could talk about it! Endlessly!"
Irina giggled. "Of course. Just to see you turn green with jealousy."
"You should have seen how green I was every time I was with that man. I used so much pancake makeup I qualified for a discount at IHOP."
"How bad was he?" Jack asked.
"He had hair on his back." Irina shuddered. "And sticking out of his ears."
"And nose! He wanted me to trim it for him."
"That's how he died," Irina confided to Jack.
"From a nose trimmer?" Jack asked. Hmm. A new form of execution was always worth learning about, after all.
"From a poorly-functioning nose trimmer. It shot out a spark, unexpectedly, of course---"
"Of course," Jack and Irina said simultaneously.
"And he electrocuted when the trimmer got caught in a nose hair and he couldn't get loose. Tragic, really," Katya shook her head.
Irina giggled. "That was a good one, Kat."
"Well, he farted. Constantly. Picked his nose. For three years I endured that." Katya snarled. "And you, you spoiled brat. You got him...." Katya waved an arm up and down the length of Jack's body.
"I know," Irina sighed. "I got him alright. Over and over and over and over..." She smiled slowly. Irina sighed again. "Did I ever tell you, Katya, about the night we conceived Sydney? It involved a hot tub and some-- -"
"Yes. You told me. Over and over and over and over. You also mentioned that he kissed better than anyone in the world."
"She did?" Jack asked, smiling.
"Yes. So that was why I had to do it. Kiss him. You see, it was your own fault, dear sister." Katya smiled smugly. "Baby sister, if you hadn't bragged about him and his... talents all the time, rubbing my nose into my bad luck, I wouldn't have been so curious."
"She bragged about my talents?"
"Shut. Up." Irina said flatly. Then turning to her sister, she warned. "My patience is running thin. Thin, Katya! Move this along. I've got better plans for tonight than sparring with you."
"Hmm. So do I, so do I..." Katya said confidently, raising an eyebrow.
"That's it!" Irina said, shooting to her feet.
"Oooh, my," Jack muttered as he stood up. "Maybe I should start preparing the first aid kit."
"Sit down!" both sisters called out together. Jack sat. He was no fool.
"You still owe me, dear sister."
"Owe you? For what else, might I inquire?"
"Beyond allowing you first choice of assignments?"
"That was more than thirty years ago. Surely the statute of limitations on that debt has expired."
"Perhaps. But there are others... Hmm. Let me peruse my database of favors owed---"
Jack pointed at Katya's Palm Pilot. "I'd like to talk with you later about what kind of software application you utilize for that function. I have so many favors owed to me--"
"Yes." Katya looked up from her palm. "I saw the tape of your performance, shall we say, in London. That woman does owe you a favor."
"Oh, she's long since paid that back..." Jack said slowly, grinning at the look of consternation on his wife's face.
"Jack... Singagpore...."
"Irina... Face licking in front of me...."
"I think it might be best if we returned to the....issue at hand. Or hopefully what..." Katya sighed happily as she looked at Jack, "What might be in my hand. Soon. Time's wasting, after all."
"True," Jack smiled slowly. "So many options, so little time."
Irina vowed she would not kill her husband or her sister. She would not. No. She loved them both. It was a bad thing to kill the people you love. A bad thing. And maybe, later, she could torture Jack. Maybe the contents of that drawer might prove helpful... If, that is, she ever got to the damn drawer!
"Katya!" Irina called out. "Just tell me what other favor you think I owe you and let's move this along...."
Katya smiled, looked down at her Palm Pilot and elaborated, "Let me see. Ah. I'll pick something more recent, since you are, oddly enough, engaging in a fit of legality and are worried about statutes. Something much more recent. For setting up that extraction in Korea."
"Wait." Jack held up his hand. "Speaking as a... customer, I want to say that I'm not entirely pleased with the results of that Korean excursion."
"What do you mean? Sydney and her little - whatever he is - are alive." Katya frowned.
"True. But did anyone honestly think they were in real danger? And Vaughn disobeyed my orders to leave Sydney be."
"What? He did what?" Irina asked. "No, no. Don't tell me...."
"Yes, he told her that she was..." Jack rolled his eyes. "The one."
"The one. The one? When? Let me guess," Irina rolled her eyes as well. "Before they were taken to the firing squad?"
"Why would he do that?" Katya groaned. "Didn't he read the script ahead of time and know they would make it out alive?"
"It was supposed to be a poignant moment." Jack rolled his eyes. "The problem is they come out alive and then he comes home and---"
"No. He didn't..." Irina moaned.
"He wouldn't... No...." Katya groaned.
"Yup. Went right over to....her and hugged her." Jack growled. "In front of Sydney."
Irina growled, "Perhaps we should kill him. I grow impatient with his fixation on blondes. Do you understand it?"
"No." Jack shook his head. "I've never been interested in blondes, myself. And especially bottle blondes. I mean, isn't it disconcerting when something doesn't match?"
"What do you... Oh!" Irina exclaimed, then laughed. "But seriously, should we kill him? I'm very upset that he was seeing that... emigre from Wisconsin nine months after Sydney's supposed death."
"Maybe he has a cheese fixation," Katya suggested. "Cheese curds?"
"Limberger," Jack argued. "Because that whole triangle business stinks."
"More like sour cream," Irina groused. "Have you ever seen her pitch a hissy fit in the hallway?"
"Well, they were trying to draw a connection between nine months and the test tube SydSpawn incubation period," Jack surmised. "Or so the continuity girl thought when we shared---"
"How much time are you spending with the continuity girl anyway?" Irina asked suspiciously.
"Not much that time Katya came to visit," Jack said brightly. "So, you should be glad---"
"Shut up," Irina said resignedly. "Back to the triangle."
"Must we? Everyone's tired of the triangle," Jack groused.
"Everyone was tired of the triangle the first time we heard a moo," Irina pointed out.
"But what did she say, when Vaughn hugged her after the Korean caper?" Katya asked, frowning. "Or rather, what did she moo?"
"Forget that." Irina turned to Jack and asked, "What accent did she use this time? Australian or British?"
"I don't know. I try and avoid listening. Believe me that's the best option when she's around. Hit the mute button."
Irina sighed. "So that whole excursion got us nowhere..."
Katya smiled, "Well, I wouldn't say that.... I got somewhere."
"Again! Why did you kiss him? Tell me."
"Well, you asked me to serve as Jack's handler on this op and the way I see that job description---"
"It didn't mean you should handle him!"
"Oooh, your mistake. Be more specific next time."
Jack smiled and then clearing his throat said, "Back to reviewing the op. Since you won't tell me the point of my acting like an incompetent by making an appointment in my own name to visit Sloane and assassinate him while his secretary sits outside---"
"Oh. That's what you're really angry about," Irina noted. "It was not the proper execution style."
"I have my standards. I mean if I'm going to act out of character, as in behaving stupidly, it should be for a better reason than killing Sloane. I could have killed him any number of times over the last few decades in far less public ways and in ways to which I could not be traced.. And I could have also simply used a sniper rifle at any time -- I mean if Lauren can use a sniper rifle, why can't I? Are we implying that Lauren is smarter than I am, because I can assure you--"
"But no one would ever think that! I mean, you wouldn't dress all in black James Bond combat-style gear in the middle of a hot day, carrying a large weapons case out of the Texas Book Depository while the CIA is running around looking for a sniper."
"No," Jack sniffed disdainfully. "I would not."
"Although you do look very nice in black combat gear..." Irina said, trying to placate her husband. "I remember in Kashmir---"
"You mean before he pushed you out of the train?"
"Those were good times," Irina sighed happily and reaching up kissed her husband's cheek.
"Yes. They were... I truly enjoyed pushing you out of the train," Jack agreed and stroked her hair. "Almost as much as the knife game... If Sydney weren't there, when we parachuted to the bottom, I might have---"
"I know. And in the train car. Having a child certainly dampens one's sex life."
"Speak for yourself. Oh wait... Maybe you are. Are you damp?" Jack asked with a grin.
"Jack..." Katya smiled. It was getting time to wrap this up, she thought. "Irina gets...damp when she sees your name on her chat list."
"Kat!" Irina spluttered. Then she gave in and grinned. "Let get back to the story so that we don't have a plot hole here."
"Noted." Jack nodded. "From experience I can tell you that they can eat up a story faster than Weiss can eat a French eclair."
"That's enough about Weiss' sex life, Jack. " Irina shook her head. "So you're angry about the execution style ---"
"There was no style!"
"But his hair looked fairly nice in this episode," Katya pointed out. "Getting long enough to do that wave on the top."
"True! I like the wave. And the curl at the ends right behind the ear sometimes?" Both women sighed.
Jack rolled his eyes. "Are we really talking about hair when we should be reviewing the op?"
"Two things, Jack," Irina said, holding up two fingers. "One. Karenml is writing this story and therefore there must be the obligatory mention of your hair. Two, the op... Is it truly worth reviewing?"
"Well, is Sydney supposed to moon around again and watch the Vaughns canoodling --"
"No one wants to see any more of that!" Katya groaned. "Especially after dinner."
"Jack. Can't you do something about that? I mean, I can't believe it's not a work rule violation to... smooch at work."
"Well, actually, I was intending to work on that tonight when I had a knife put to my throat, then my coffee table destroyed, a knife in my bedroom door, a slice in my chair, a---"
"Jack. Focus. Smooching at work is a rule violation, isn't it?" Irina asked. "After all, isn't that the excuse you gave me for not kissing me or doing anything else when I was in that glass cage?"
"Remember the camera monitors on your cell? Geez! So, the real reason I didn't kiss you is that I am not an exhibitionist. So, speaking of those videotapes of yours---"
Irina cut in quickly. "But... you took off your shirt and were wearing just that tank---"
"They paid me extra money to do that. I'll do anything for money." Jack stopped. "Did I hear something again?"
"Yes," Irina said sullenly.
Katya smiled. "It's the sound of women's wallets being opened everywhere. I do believe there's a collection - to which I would happily contribute - going around for shirtless---"
"Let's get back to the op!" Irina suggested brightly.
"Yes. What was the point of the whole endeavor?" Jack asked again.
"Well, I'm waiting to find out the point of Sydney sleeping with this Will Tippin character in Warsaw," Katya shrugged.
Jack started. "Sydney slept with Tippin? Geez. Too bad. He was a good kid. Now he'll have to die."
"Why?" Katya asked.
Jack shrugged. "All of Sydney's sexual partners die. It's a rule. Only Vaughn had escaped so far." Then he grimaced. "But the next time he canoodles with that woman, whose raison d'etre changes as often as her accent, I may have to arrange for a new partner. One more deadly than his current partner."
"Who is that?"Katya asked curiously. She thought this yoyo man was Vaughn's partner and although their relationship was somewhat... odd, Weiss was hardly deadly. Except if you were a donut.
"His code name is Character Assassin."
Irina shook her head. "Actually, Vaughn's suffered a fate worse than death. He's with Lauren Reed. Isn't that punishment enough?"
"I don't understand how that situation happened," Katya mused. "What does he see in her?"
"It's the eyebrows," Jack said firmly.
"The eyebrows? They are... large," Irina noted. "But..."
"They're bigger than mine! Abnormal. I think they've been enhanced in some way." Jack noted. Then he looked around and whispered, "I think she hypnotized him."
"How?" Irina frowned.
"Her eyebrows?"Katya asked.
"Yeah. She's a blonde ---" Irina and Katya both scoffed. "And her eyebrows are brown. And huge. They're like these.... caterpillars on her face. I keep expecting them to crawl away or start weaving a cocoon. It's distracting."
"And if you find them distracting," Irina mused. "Combining that ability with that amazing changing accent... some little boy like Michael Vaughn would---"
"Have no chance." Jack nodded firmly. "If she kept raising and lowering the eyebrows...."
"A clever ploy. Hypnotic eyebrows." Katya nodded. Looking at her sister, she noted, "We need to mention this to Elena for the research department."
"Hmm," Jack said, thinking hard. "But I'm thinking that all we really need to solve this triangle is a pair of---"
They all looked at each other and called out, "Tweezers!"
"Sister!" Katya smiled. "Do you still---
"Yes! Mother always told us to carry pairs of---" Irina pulled a pair of tiny manicure scissors out of her pocket. "Here's one..." She continued digging in her pocket.
Katya noted, "Good nails can solve half of a girl's problems, after all."
"Oh, well," Jack nodded. "That explains the perfect manicures Irina and Sydney had when you were defusing that mine I'd landed on in Kashmir."
"Of course. While you were removing that ridiculous moustache and recovering from seeing me in my bra---"
"I hardly needed to recover from seeing you in a bra---"
"Yes, you did!"
"No. I was merely shocked that you were wearing one. You never wore one when we were married. Those were good days. But... I have to be realistic." He sighed. "Age is hard on all of us, isn't it?"
Irina smacked him. "Age... Age... And...you were the one having a hard time when you saw me in that bra."
"Irina. Focus. You may have the solution to the triangle in your pocket!" Katya exclaimed excitedly.
Irina nodded and reached into her pocket. "Tweezers! Because a well-shaped brow can open a lot of doors."
"Honey?" Jack asked as he reached out and took the tweezers from her. "You had the solution to the triangle all along? He grabbed for her and hugged her tightly. "See, I told you that we need you here. You could have solved this problem months ago, saved us all the agony of---"
They said in unison, "The triangle."
"Wait, do you have an eraser in there somewhere?" Jack asked.
"Why?"
"So we can just erase the last two minutes of the season finale?" Katya surmised.
Irina shook her head. "I think we need a big magnet to erase the digital recordings."
"True. Got a magnet in those pockets of yours, Katya?" Jack asked.
"Hold on, let me see..." Katya came out emptyhanded. "However, Jack, I bet you have something big and hard that attracts---"
"Katya!" Irina said, slamming her hand down on the bar surface. "That's enough, I want to talk to you in private."
TBC
"Just a moment, if you please," Jack said as he picked up the bottle again. "Before my virtue---Hey!" He exclaimed when both women snorted. "Before my honor and fidelity are compromised, I believe I am entitled to know just what debt I am being used as...currency to repay."
"And you would be a big... bill, now wouldn't you?" Katya smirked, then laughed when her sister rolled her eyes. "Go ahead, tell him," she said, pointing at her sister.
"Welll..." Irina began. "I...."
"Well, what my sister finds so difficult to explain, is that there are several debts from which I could choose. Ranging from small to large, ranging from recompense of... a kiss to an entire night of bliss." Katya smiled. "Ah, my English... it is improving. I rhymed."
"I'll frame you a certificate!" Irina growled. "But..several.... What are you talking about?" she demanded.
Katya pulled a tiny Palm Pilot out of her pocket.
Jack whispered to Irina, "You really need to get a pair of pants like that."
Irina whispered back, "You really need to avoid giving me wardrobe advice."
"But those pants are really quite useful. When I think of the items in that drawer in the bedroom...." Jack said suggestively and touched his bottom lip with his tongue. "And where we might transport them, use them, if you had pockets in which to put those... little toys I've acquired...."
"Katya! Let's move this along!" Irina called out.
"Do you want me to read from my list? Let's see. There's Mexico City, when you might not have evaded---"
"I knew it!" Jack exclaimed. "I knew you had to have help and Sark was safely in custody and---"
"Shut. Up." Irina snarled. "This isn't about you."
"Seems like it's about me," Jack muttered. "Or at least my body."
"And then there's the time I was monitoring your lap top and Jack im'd you and I ran and got you---"
"Well, that was nice of you. Thank you, Katya," Jack said politely.
She sighed. "Ah. I do love a grateful man. So many delightful ways to express gratitude, are there not? But... really, Irina can't spend all of her time sitting around, looking at her laptop and mooning over that screensaver of you she has---"
"Oh? What image would that be?"
"From your time in Kashmir."
"Not when I was wearing the beard that ate the show?"
"No. Although that was amusing, not like the triangle at all."
"Can we move this along!" Irina complained. "Jack, I'll show you my screensaver---"
"Honey, I don't give a crap about the screensaver. What I care about are those videos. I want them destroyed---"
"Oh, well, I---"
"Or perhaps I need to review them, examine them, ascertain how to improve my performance? I know, perhaps we could view them together and you could critique the woman---"
"Or as in Singagpore, women---" Katya began, coughing lightly into her hand.
"I'll destroy them already!" Irina conceded sullenly. Pointing at her sister, she admitted, "I comprehend your point. I owe you."
"Yes. And I am calling in my debt."
"Debt? Singular?"
"Yes. I'll hold the others in reserve pending... further developments, other upcoming occasions."
Irina ground her teeth. "You want me to repay you for--- No."
"What the hell debt is it, already?" Jack exclaimed.
"You are aware, Jack, that Irina and I both were working with Cuvee early in our careers--"
"Why would I know that? I didn't know about Cuvee, that floppy-haired Frenchman, until I saw him standing across from me, licking my wife's face!"
Irina demurred, "He wasn't precisely licking---"
"Do you really want to define licking?"
Irina grinned. "Well, as a former teacher, I do know that some pupils learn best with hands-on experiential techniques, so if you want to define licking for me, I'd be willing to --"
"I'd be willing to settle for watching that definition," Katya interjected.
"So, Irina. Do you really want to have this discussion right now?" Jack growled at her.
"Wellll, maybe later would be better," Irina admitted. Then, her face brightening, she whispered coaxingly, "I'll let you lick anything you want."
Jack crossed his arms and looked away, muttering, "Maybe I won't want to lick anything. Maybe this whole discussion has... ruined my appetite."
"Irina, perhaps you should get to work in the kitchen whipping up some appetizers..." Katya suggested.
"I'm thinking the bar..." Jack said, looking at the top of it longingly.
"Jack, what is your fixation tonight with that bar?" Irina whispered.
"It's an interesting height. I'm just trying to calculate, purely for scientific purposes, of course---"
"Ah, yes. The same scientific purposes that led you to kiss me back?" Katya asked with a smile.
"Kat! Just... get on with it. Go ahead." It was Irina's turn to cross her arms. She once again began kicking at those glass shards with her boot.
"You owe me for the assignment Cuvee gave me. Three years....-"
Irina began to laugh. "Oh. Sorry. I forgot it was that long--"
"I didn't. You--" She pointed her finger at Irina. "You spoiled brat. 'Katya, dear, look after your little sister at the academy. She needs your help. Always remember to protect her.' Always, always, the little one always gets the best toys."
"Toys?" Jack asked.
"Yes. You."
"I am not a toy!" Then he paused to smirk. "Hmm. There are worse fates. Would that be a hand-held toy or---"
"Jack. Wipe that look off your face right now!" Irina exclaimed, slamming her hand into his shoulder.
"Well, somehow I don't think you'd be a toy who would require batteries..." Katya added, just to see what shade of puce her sister might turn this time.
"I believe we've already had the discussion about the fact that I'm always fully functional," Jack noted, with an amused glance at his wife. How long could her face stay that red before she began to melt? Hmm. He wondered what he'd have to do to get her entire body to turn red and begin to melt..... Oh, pay attention. Irina was looking at him with irritation and Katya with amusement. "But, I don't understand. What happened?" Jack asked, coughing lightly into his hand.
"You could have been mine," Katya said with a grin.
"Really? How? Do tell!" Jack said, biting his lip to hide his own grin. He wanted to play the knife game later, but he didn't really want to die.
"Well, he wasn't yours!" Irina said, fighting the urge to stomp her foot. "And he's not going to be! You allowed me first choice!"
"That was the last time I made that mistake, little sister or no," Katya said firmly, putting her arms in her pockets. Once again, Jack wondered what else she might have in those pockets.
"Excuse me...." Jack said politely. "I feel that I am at a disadvantage here, not knowing obviously, the entire story. So, if someone could fill me in..." He added, winking at his sister-in-law.
"Fill me in... Hmm. An interesting image, is it not, Irina?" Katya asked.
"Kat!" Irina began. "Move your mouth---"
"Oh, I can do that without any problem at all. Jack, if you'll---"
"Katya, I don't mean to hurry you, but it is getting a little late and so if you wouldn't mind..." Jack began.
"Of course," Katya nodded. "We were--"
"Let me get this straight. You'll move it along when he asks, but when I--- "
"He has something I want, so of course I'll try and... please him now. A form of foreplay, one might say. You might remember that notion -- pleasing your partner? I'm sure you have a note about it somewhere in your academy textbooks, in case you've forgotten--"
Irina opened her mouth, then sighed. Katya would tell the story how and at the pace she wanted.
But after a moment, Irina grew impatient and prompted, "We were working with Cuvee, as she said and we were both given the same type of assignment. Two different rosters of... choices. She let me pick first and you were in my roster and Cuvee assigned you to me---"
"Wait a minute. So... if she had not given you first dibs, I might have met and married her?" Jack stroked his chin and looked Katya up and down carefully. "This puts an entirely different slant on the entire---"
Irina protested. "She would not have been successful at...." She broke it off. She should not have brought that up.
"Yes, honey. What is it you were successful at doing with me? Exactly? Why don't you define that for me?"
"I...Alright, I... my goal was to seduce you. But...you know, I fell in love with you."
"Who's to say I would not have fallen in love with him, Irina?" Katya shrugged. "And who's to say he would not have fallen in love with me? After all, you and I are so much alike, that---"
"We're not the interchangeable Derevko sisters!"
"That sounds like an interesting toy concept, though," Jack said with a grin. "I should give that idea to Marshall and see what he could do- Ouch!" Jack exclaimed, as his wife hit him. "Or wait! I know, you two could go on the cabaret circuit and do that routine from the old movie, 'White Christmas'"
"What is he talking about?" Katya asked her sister.
"It is... remember the movie with that Bing man and George Clooney's aunt, the snow---"
"Ah yes, the sentimentalist claptrap from the capitalist maw of Hollywood," Katya nodded.
"Yes, I can see you two now in those turquoise dresses and those fans...Hmm." Jack paused and Irina elbowed him.
"Why did you stop?"
"I'm just imagining the fans...nothing but the fans...." Jack said, trying to keep the laughter out of his voice. "Maybe that's a new game we could play..."
"Stop it with the games!" Irina cried out.
"You don't really mean that," Jack said firmly. "Or you won't when you see what I have in that drawer."
"Well... perhaps not," Irina admitted, patting her husband's arm.
"I remember the punch line of their routine."
"Do you?" Jack asked.
"Yes! It was 'Lord helps the sister who comes between me and my man.' So, move it Katya before I demonstrate what the phrase punch line really means."
Katya rolled her eyes. "I am so afraid."
"You should be---" Irina began, putting her hands on her hips.
"Okay. Sisters. Let's not get the feathers of your fans all flying," Jack began. Then he paused and stroked his chin. "But then again...."
Irina reached out to smack him again, then stopped. Rolling her eyes, she muttered, "Oh, what's the point? I've completely lost control of this conversation---"
Bending down, Jack whispered, "And you do know how enticing I find it when you completely lose control, don't you? Do you remember that time in Mexico when...."
Katya smiled at the pink that entered her sister's cheeks as her husband spoke in her ear, then kissed it before straightening back up.
Irina cleared her throat and waved her hand at her sister. "If you wouldn't mind finishing your story....about your unfortunate assignment when you didn't get Jack, I did come here with plans for tonight and DON'T say a word, Jack, don't---"
"About what? Jack asked with a blank face.
"About coming here....ugggh," Irina groaned. "Why, why do I fall for it every time?"
"You fell into luck thirty-odd years ago, whereas I fell into a wagonload of s***," Katya reminded her.
"Oh, that's right. Who did you get?" Jack asked curiously.
"I got this fat old man. From Romania. Where they use a lot of garlic. And where, I might add, they also did not have Charmin available on the grocery store shelves. And let me tell you, that after years in the Soviet Union with the sandpaper that passes for --"
"Katya, are you more upset about not getting Jack or not getting Charmin?" Irina turned to her husband and confided. "I used to send cases of Charmin home to my family. One of the perks of being with you---"
"Soft toilet paper was a perk of being with me?" Jack asked, affronted. "Well, I like that! Not my amazing abilities with---"
"Well...." Irina smiled. "But I couldn't send that home in a plain cardboard box."
"But she could talk about it! Endlessly!"
Irina giggled. "Of course. Just to see you turn green with jealousy."
"You should have seen how green I was every time I was with that man. I used so much pancake makeup I qualified for a discount at IHOP."
"How bad was he?" Jack asked.
"He had hair on his back." Irina shuddered. "And sticking out of his ears."
"And nose! He wanted me to trim it for him."
"That's how he died," Irina confided to Jack.
"From a nose trimmer?" Jack asked. Hmm. A new form of execution was always worth learning about, after all.
"From a poorly-functioning nose trimmer. It shot out a spark, unexpectedly, of course---"
"Of course," Jack and Irina said simultaneously.
"And he electrocuted when the trimmer got caught in a nose hair and he couldn't get loose. Tragic, really," Katya shook her head.
Irina giggled. "That was a good one, Kat."
"Well, he farted. Constantly. Picked his nose. For three years I endured that." Katya snarled. "And you, you spoiled brat. You got him...." Katya waved an arm up and down the length of Jack's body.
"I know," Irina sighed. "I got him alright. Over and over and over and over..." She smiled slowly. Irina sighed again. "Did I ever tell you, Katya, about the night we conceived Sydney? It involved a hot tub and some-- -"
"Yes. You told me. Over and over and over and over. You also mentioned that he kissed better than anyone in the world."
"She did?" Jack asked, smiling.
"Yes. So that was why I had to do it. Kiss him. You see, it was your own fault, dear sister." Katya smiled smugly. "Baby sister, if you hadn't bragged about him and his... talents all the time, rubbing my nose into my bad luck, I wouldn't have been so curious."
"She bragged about my talents?"
"Shut. Up." Irina said flatly. Then turning to her sister, she warned. "My patience is running thin. Thin, Katya! Move this along. I've got better plans for tonight than sparring with you."
"Hmm. So do I, so do I..." Katya said confidently, raising an eyebrow.
"That's it!" Irina said, shooting to her feet.
"Oooh, my," Jack muttered as he stood up. "Maybe I should start preparing the first aid kit."
"Sit down!" both sisters called out together. Jack sat. He was no fool.
"You still owe me, dear sister."
"Owe you? For what else, might I inquire?"
"Beyond allowing you first choice of assignments?"
"That was more than thirty years ago. Surely the statute of limitations on that debt has expired."
"Perhaps. But there are others... Hmm. Let me peruse my database of favors owed---"
Jack pointed at Katya's Palm Pilot. "I'd like to talk with you later about what kind of software application you utilize for that function. I have so many favors owed to me--"
"Yes." Katya looked up from her palm. "I saw the tape of your performance, shall we say, in London. That woman does owe you a favor."
"Oh, she's long since paid that back..." Jack said slowly, grinning at the look of consternation on his wife's face.
"Jack... Singagpore...."
"Irina... Face licking in front of me...."
"I think it might be best if we returned to the....issue at hand. Or hopefully what..." Katya sighed happily as she looked at Jack, "What might be in my hand. Soon. Time's wasting, after all."
"True," Jack smiled slowly. "So many options, so little time."
Irina vowed she would not kill her husband or her sister. She would not. No. She loved them both. It was a bad thing to kill the people you love. A bad thing. And maybe, later, she could torture Jack. Maybe the contents of that drawer might prove helpful... If, that is, she ever got to the damn drawer!
"Katya!" Irina called out. "Just tell me what other favor you think I owe you and let's move this along...."
Katya smiled, looked down at her Palm Pilot and elaborated, "Let me see. Ah. I'll pick something more recent, since you are, oddly enough, engaging in a fit of legality and are worried about statutes. Something much more recent. For setting up that extraction in Korea."
"Wait." Jack held up his hand. "Speaking as a... customer, I want to say that I'm not entirely pleased with the results of that Korean excursion."
"What do you mean? Sydney and her little - whatever he is - are alive." Katya frowned.
"True. But did anyone honestly think they were in real danger? And Vaughn disobeyed my orders to leave Sydney be."
"What? He did what?" Irina asked. "No, no. Don't tell me...."
"Yes, he told her that she was..." Jack rolled his eyes. "The one."
"The one. The one? When? Let me guess," Irina rolled her eyes as well. "Before they were taken to the firing squad?"
"Why would he do that?" Katya groaned. "Didn't he read the script ahead of time and know they would make it out alive?"
"It was supposed to be a poignant moment." Jack rolled his eyes. "The problem is they come out alive and then he comes home and---"
"No. He didn't..." Irina moaned.
"He wouldn't... No...." Katya groaned.
"Yup. Went right over to....her and hugged her." Jack growled. "In front of Sydney."
Irina growled, "Perhaps we should kill him. I grow impatient with his fixation on blondes. Do you understand it?"
"No." Jack shook his head. "I've never been interested in blondes, myself. And especially bottle blondes. I mean, isn't it disconcerting when something doesn't match?"
"What do you... Oh!" Irina exclaimed, then laughed. "But seriously, should we kill him? I'm very upset that he was seeing that... emigre from Wisconsin nine months after Sydney's supposed death."
"Maybe he has a cheese fixation," Katya suggested. "Cheese curds?"
"Limberger," Jack argued. "Because that whole triangle business stinks."
"More like sour cream," Irina groused. "Have you ever seen her pitch a hissy fit in the hallway?"
"Well, they were trying to draw a connection between nine months and the test tube SydSpawn incubation period," Jack surmised. "Or so the continuity girl thought when we shared---"
"How much time are you spending with the continuity girl anyway?" Irina asked suspiciously.
"Not much that time Katya came to visit," Jack said brightly. "So, you should be glad---"
"Shut up," Irina said resignedly. "Back to the triangle."
"Must we? Everyone's tired of the triangle," Jack groused.
"Everyone was tired of the triangle the first time we heard a moo," Irina pointed out.
"But what did she say, when Vaughn hugged her after the Korean caper?" Katya asked, frowning. "Or rather, what did she moo?"
"Forget that." Irina turned to Jack and asked, "What accent did she use this time? Australian or British?"
"I don't know. I try and avoid listening. Believe me that's the best option when she's around. Hit the mute button."
Irina sighed. "So that whole excursion got us nowhere..."
Katya smiled, "Well, I wouldn't say that.... I got somewhere."
"Again! Why did you kiss him? Tell me."
"Well, you asked me to serve as Jack's handler on this op and the way I see that job description---"
"It didn't mean you should handle him!"
"Oooh, your mistake. Be more specific next time."
Jack smiled and then clearing his throat said, "Back to reviewing the op. Since you won't tell me the point of my acting like an incompetent by making an appointment in my own name to visit Sloane and assassinate him while his secretary sits outside---"
"Oh. That's what you're really angry about," Irina noted. "It was not the proper execution style."
"I have my standards. I mean if I'm going to act out of character, as in behaving stupidly, it should be for a better reason than killing Sloane. I could have killed him any number of times over the last few decades in far less public ways and in ways to which I could not be traced.. And I could have also simply used a sniper rifle at any time -- I mean if Lauren can use a sniper rifle, why can't I? Are we implying that Lauren is smarter than I am, because I can assure you--"
"But no one would ever think that! I mean, you wouldn't dress all in black James Bond combat-style gear in the middle of a hot day, carrying a large weapons case out of the Texas Book Depository while the CIA is running around looking for a sniper."
"No," Jack sniffed disdainfully. "I would not."
"Although you do look very nice in black combat gear..." Irina said, trying to placate her husband. "I remember in Kashmir---"
"You mean before he pushed you out of the train?"
"Those were good times," Irina sighed happily and reaching up kissed her husband's cheek.
"Yes. They were... I truly enjoyed pushing you out of the train," Jack agreed and stroked her hair. "Almost as much as the knife game... If Sydney weren't there, when we parachuted to the bottom, I might have---"
"I know. And in the train car. Having a child certainly dampens one's sex life."
"Speak for yourself. Oh wait... Maybe you are. Are you damp?" Jack asked with a grin.
"Jack..." Katya smiled. It was getting time to wrap this up, she thought. "Irina gets...damp when she sees your name on her chat list."
"Kat!" Irina spluttered. Then she gave in and grinned. "Let get back to the story so that we don't have a plot hole here."
"Noted." Jack nodded. "From experience I can tell you that they can eat up a story faster than Weiss can eat a French eclair."
"That's enough about Weiss' sex life, Jack. " Irina shook her head. "So you're angry about the execution style ---"
"There was no style!"
"But his hair looked fairly nice in this episode," Katya pointed out. "Getting long enough to do that wave on the top."
"True! I like the wave. And the curl at the ends right behind the ear sometimes?" Both women sighed.
Jack rolled his eyes. "Are we really talking about hair when we should be reviewing the op?"
"Two things, Jack," Irina said, holding up two fingers. "One. Karenml is writing this story and therefore there must be the obligatory mention of your hair. Two, the op... Is it truly worth reviewing?"
"Well, is Sydney supposed to moon around again and watch the Vaughns canoodling --"
"No one wants to see any more of that!" Katya groaned. "Especially after dinner."
"Jack. Can't you do something about that? I mean, I can't believe it's not a work rule violation to... smooch at work."
"Well, actually, I was intending to work on that tonight when I had a knife put to my throat, then my coffee table destroyed, a knife in my bedroom door, a slice in my chair, a---"
"Jack. Focus. Smooching at work is a rule violation, isn't it?" Irina asked. "After all, isn't that the excuse you gave me for not kissing me or doing anything else when I was in that glass cage?"
"Remember the camera monitors on your cell? Geez! So, the real reason I didn't kiss you is that I am not an exhibitionist. So, speaking of those videotapes of yours---"
Irina cut in quickly. "But... you took off your shirt and were wearing just that tank---"
"They paid me extra money to do that. I'll do anything for money." Jack stopped. "Did I hear something again?"
"Yes," Irina said sullenly.
Katya smiled. "It's the sound of women's wallets being opened everywhere. I do believe there's a collection - to which I would happily contribute - going around for shirtless---"
"Let's get back to the op!" Irina suggested brightly.
"Yes. What was the point of the whole endeavor?" Jack asked again.
"Well, I'm waiting to find out the point of Sydney sleeping with this Will Tippin character in Warsaw," Katya shrugged.
Jack started. "Sydney slept with Tippin? Geez. Too bad. He was a good kid. Now he'll have to die."
"Why?" Katya asked.
Jack shrugged. "All of Sydney's sexual partners die. It's a rule. Only Vaughn had escaped so far." Then he grimaced. "But the next time he canoodles with that woman, whose raison d'etre changes as often as her accent, I may have to arrange for a new partner. One more deadly than his current partner."
"Who is that?"Katya asked curiously. She thought this yoyo man was Vaughn's partner and although their relationship was somewhat... odd, Weiss was hardly deadly. Except if you were a donut.
"His code name is Character Assassin."
Irina shook her head. "Actually, Vaughn's suffered a fate worse than death. He's with Lauren Reed. Isn't that punishment enough?"
"I don't understand how that situation happened," Katya mused. "What does he see in her?"
"It's the eyebrows," Jack said firmly.
"The eyebrows? They are... large," Irina noted. "But..."
"They're bigger than mine! Abnormal. I think they've been enhanced in some way." Jack noted. Then he looked around and whispered, "I think she hypnotized him."
"How?" Irina frowned.
"Her eyebrows?"Katya asked.
"Yeah. She's a blonde ---" Irina and Katya both scoffed. "And her eyebrows are brown. And huge. They're like these.... caterpillars on her face. I keep expecting them to crawl away or start weaving a cocoon. It's distracting."
"And if you find them distracting," Irina mused. "Combining that ability with that amazing changing accent... some little boy like Michael Vaughn would---"
"Have no chance." Jack nodded firmly. "If she kept raising and lowering the eyebrows...."
"A clever ploy. Hypnotic eyebrows." Katya nodded. Looking at her sister, she noted, "We need to mention this to Elena for the research department."
"Hmm," Jack said, thinking hard. "But I'm thinking that all we really need to solve this triangle is a pair of---"
They all looked at each other and called out, "Tweezers!"
"Sister!" Katya smiled. "Do you still---
"Yes! Mother always told us to carry pairs of---" Irina pulled a pair of tiny manicure scissors out of her pocket. "Here's one..." She continued digging in her pocket.
Katya noted, "Good nails can solve half of a girl's problems, after all."
"Oh, well," Jack nodded. "That explains the perfect manicures Irina and Sydney had when you were defusing that mine I'd landed on in Kashmir."
"Of course. While you were removing that ridiculous moustache and recovering from seeing me in my bra---"
"I hardly needed to recover from seeing you in a bra---"
"Yes, you did!"
"No. I was merely shocked that you were wearing one. You never wore one when we were married. Those were good days. But... I have to be realistic." He sighed. "Age is hard on all of us, isn't it?"
Irina smacked him. "Age... Age... And...you were the one having a hard time when you saw me in that bra."
"Irina. Focus. You may have the solution to the triangle in your pocket!" Katya exclaimed excitedly.
Irina nodded and reached into her pocket. "Tweezers! Because a well-shaped brow can open a lot of doors."
"Honey?" Jack asked as he reached out and took the tweezers from her. "You had the solution to the triangle all along? He grabbed for her and hugged her tightly. "See, I told you that we need you here. You could have solved this problem months ago, saved us all the agony of---"
They said in unison, "The triangle."
"Wait, do you have an eraser in there somewhere?" Jack asked.
"Why?"
"So we can just erase the last two minutes of the season finale?" Katya surmised.
Irina shook her head. "I think we need a big magnet to erase the digital recordings."
"True. Got a magnet in those pockets of yours, Katya?" Jack asked.
"Hold on, let me see..." Katya came out emptyhanded. "However, Jack, I bet you have something big and hard that attracts---"
"Katya!" Irina said, slamming her hand down on the bar surface. "That's enough, I want to talk to you in private."
TBC