One thing I've always observed about Irina is that she is intimately aware of her body, how it moves, how it reacts and what it is capable of accomplishing. She has had that way about her from the beginning. She knows its strengths and weaknesses and knows exactly how far she can push it before it needs rest. It was one of the things that the instructors at the training facility first noted about her. She has the ability to use her size to her advantage in a fight and many men are deceived by her lithe shape and have paid considerably. This does not only apply to her physical prowess.
A large part of her mystique is how mesmerizing and enticing she is to people in general and men specifically. She can make everyone in a room notice exactly when she enters. Or, if she is trying to be un-noticed, she has the ability to become invisible and completely blend into a crowd or into thin air. The way she moves her body speaks volumes and the way she walks is entrancing. Her hair and eyes are a lethal combination and have been the downfall of many powerful and seemingly untouchable men. But the most dangerous part of her, and she knows it, is her mind. She is brilliant and cunning and has analytical skills far and above most of our analysts. She is truly one of the most dangerous (in so many ways) agents the KGB had ever produced.
When I first received this assignment as her handler, my superiors warned me about her and about getting close to her. Soon I was under her spell and completely enthralled. She is a magnificent creature and her allure is unprecedented. It is almost legendary. And there was a time I would have given up everything to make her mine. I did try once and was so expertly rebuked I harbor no ill will.
However after time, I really got to know her. She is the most ruthless person I have ever met.
Her assignment for these past years has been to become involved in Jack Bristow's life and obtain as much information about the CIA, and primarily Project Christmas, as she could. Her secondary assignment has been to execute missions on an as needed basis. Most of these missions have involved obtaining information for the KGB, sometimes against CIA agents. Some of these missions have resulted in the death of CIA agents. Sometimes her methods have been extreme and these measures have aroused suspicion with our superiors.
However, my superiors were more than satisfied when she announced that she and Bristow were getting married, allowing her 24-hour access to his life and to what he knows. She was able to obtain copies of several key Project Christmas documents and assist in filling gaps in the KGB's knowledge of the hierarchy of the CIA branch here and at Langley. And so her sins were forgiven and she again returned to exulted status within the ranks our swallow agents and my superiors.
But I am no longer captured in her web and I am not as easily convinced.
Then she announced that she was pregnant. The Director did not authorize this and I was ordered to have her abort the baby before Bristow found out. We, the Director and I, were thoroughly outsmarted and the pregnancy continued its full and natural progression. And now the baby, Sydney, is two years old.
Somehow she convinced our superiors that she needed a hiatus from extemporaneous missions while pregnant and while the baby was young. She cited that Jack would not allow her to travel when pregnant and then again while the baby was young. Now that the Bristow's have a live-in nanny Irina is again available for additional missions much to the joy of those in the chain of command above me. I am not so sure.
But now she informs me that she is moving to Los Angeles with Jack, as he's been reassigned, and this complicates everything. Surely I will move too, as I have been directed. She seems too happy to be out from underneath my immediate grasp and I am beginning to doubt her alliance. There haven't been any large indicators that Irina's loyalties are shifting and her commitment to the cause is waning, just a series of small lies, half-truths and looks. And those little things have piqued my suspicions in a big way.
These Americans have an expression "cover your ass" that I believe applies to this situation. I have decided to take things into my own hands and make sure that when Irina is found to be a traitor, I will be exonerated.
I sit here watching the moving van pack and load up the Bristow's belongings. The workers look like a stream of ants between the house and the van. Boxes and boxes of clothes, books, kitchen appliances, toys stream by. One of the workers carrying a box marked "books" looks my way and nods.
It has been done.
The names of the seven CIA agents that Irina has killed have been planted in her precious novels, using invisible ink. If found and the Cyrillic writing decoded, the names of the deceased will identify Laura as an agent for the KGB and a traitor to the United States. I have also taken the precaution of setting certain information aside that will arouse suspicion within the KGB once Irina is pulled from this assignment and returns to Russia.
I wish that these precautions were not necessary, but this is Irina and that in its self is enough to warrant this and much, much more.