I began writing this part ten months ago very late one night; in fact, it was so late that when I reread it later I didn't even remember parts of it! It was also when I reread it that I realized how twisted this story could become . . . so at long last, the part that I've been holding on to for forever. ;)
Twenty—Revelations
She curled up on the window seat, carefully tucking her legs under her. She watched as the storm continued violently outside, the waves crashing up on the shore. She looked over at the man who slept soundly in bed. Some things never change, she thought fondly to herself.
She allowed her mind to wander back to an earlier time, a time she hadn't allowed herself to dwell on in the busyness of the last year. But on this night, the memories wouldn't recede, the questions wouldn't go away.
And so she remembered.
"I would never let any of my agents perform this kind of mission."
"Why not?"
"These missions never end well. Too many unnecessary people get hurt in the process."
On her darkest days in the prison in Kashmir, she wondered bleakly if a better agent, a stronger agent, would have done a better job with the mission. If perhaps an agent who had been better trained could have followed the script for ten years and not allowed her heart to get involved.
As the temperature outside her cell grew colder, so did her heart, effectively buried underneath layers of regrets and what ifs. In its place her analytical mind sharpened even more as she watched those around her, examining relationships, the balance of power.
On the second anniversary of the day she finally tasted freedom, she proudly examined the profitable syndicate she now ran and vowed that one day she would prove to herself once and for all that she had not failed during her years as an American.
All she needed was the perfect subject.
"Ms. Derevko, I'm Agent Thompson. I am here to ask you a few questions about an operation you were a part of many years ago."
At first she had planned on using Sydney as her test case. However, the roles would have to be reversed—Sydney was not the manipulator, the double agent in her relationship; that role fell to her boyfriend Noah. Irina had laughed many times as she watched her old friend Arvin Sloane unwittingly be duped by her organization. Fool. In the end, she decided that it was more important that Noah be out of Sydney's life than stay in it merely for the sake of her examination. There were always other agents she could study.
"Who sent you here?"
"Excuse me?"
"Who. Sent. You. Here."
Irina had watched with a mixture of fascination and amusement as her only child, now with shocking red hair, stole the Mueller device and promptly joined the real CIA. In the following months, as mother and daughter grew closer and closer to the point of their reunion, Irina began to make plans for an extended leave of absence.
It had taken her some time to convince her senior associates of the merits to the plan. Their true objections remained unspoken, always slightly beneath the surface, as the day drew near. "You're doing this to see the child you had with that damn American." Even as a foreign feeling—maternal urges, perhaps?—stirred through her, she kept her mind focused on the game.
Jack was right to suspect her when she turned herself in to the CIA. Sydney was right to warily open up to her and get to know her as the months passed. The dichotomy might have driven them all crazy, but it was the only thing they had that was real.
She did have an ulterior motive—two—for submitting herself to a heavily guarded cell in the labyrinth of an American government agency. But the idea of seeing her daughter face to face, learning about her first-hand rather than through young agents who needed to practice their honed skills, was also very appealing.
It was both a desire to see her daughter and a desire to finally test her theory that culminated in her walk-in. While she sat in her cell, minus a pillow and a blanket, her daughter slowly began to open up to her. And in South America, a twenty-eight year old field agent was extracted and placed in Los Angeles with a new identity and new orders to fulfill.
Orders that Irina devised as she watched the lab in Taipei explode, the Mueller device now safely in Sydney's hands.
"Because once you're in . . . the rest of your life will be altered. Permanently."
There was a threat of biological warfare against the United States, Irina had to admit. Pyper-Ferguson was an organization which needed to be closely monitored. But Burke was not a nefarious evildoer. He was just an ordinary man . . . who was about to run headlong into a fiercely independent agent.
"Hot date tonight?"
She had known the teasing was unnecessary, but she had been unable to resist. And the expression that crossed Grace's countenance made the comment all the more worthwhile.
It was selfish on her part, she knew, but she reveled in the opportunity to watch this young woman, so like her daughter in so many ways, slowly fall in love. She had not been allowed the opportunity to chat with Sydney the night after she was introduced to Danny, or prompt her in the first few months after meeting Vaughn. Sydney and Vaughn's relationship was already firmly established in many ways by the time she reappeared from the dead, so this rare chance to mentor another woman was very special to her.
"It's simple really. How do you endure ten years undercover, pretending to love someone you're supposed to hate?"
"You don't."
At first it was nothing more than an assignment. A job that needed to be completed. Irina knew this, saw the way that Grace said Burke's name with disdain when they were speaking privately. She could tell through their conversations that while Grace wasn't miserable spending time with the man, it wasn't high on her list of pleasant ways to pass an afternoon. When it was all said and done, it was a job. Nothing more.
But then things began to change. Grace was . . . different. She was smiling more; she stared off into space without realizing it; she was calling him "Chris" now. But perhaps most telling of all—Irina had to call her by her real name three times before she responded.
After that meeting, Irina laid down on her cot, hoping to rest for a few hours. Instead, she was assailed with memories of another dark-haired agent with similar hopes and dreams. An agent who had scornfully declared that her op was nothing more than a means to an end—namely, power.
How wrong she had been. It seemed as if both she and Grace were easily duped.
And cautiously loved every minute of it.
"It's time to move in for the kill."
The op had barely begun before Grace was engaged to her mark. This did not surprise Irina, who had anticipated this. The mission was too important, the intel too necessary, for the CIA to allow Grace to take her time. Lives hung precariously in the balance while she gained access to Burke's life, his work—his heart.
So even though they barely knew each other; even though under ordinary circumstances she was sure they would not have rushed things; even though Grace was losing confidantes left and right and becoming more and more isolated in her new life, she said yes.
Just like Irina had done years before.
"The torch of love is lit in the kitchen."
She could still remember where she was when one of her informants handed her the pictures of Grace and Burke leaving the courthouse. The marriage itself was not a surprise, but the news that it was Grace who moved up the date concerned her. She knew the circumstances of the previous months—the death of her father, her strained relationships with the few friends she still saw on occasion . . . losing her. And later Jack.
It reminded her of her own mission. All alone in a new set of surroundings. No family. No friends. No confidantes.
All she had had was the man who offered to buy her a cup of coffee after she picked him up on a street corner. Her target.
Memories of that earlier time with Jack were at the forefront of her mind as she handed off the wrapped present to her oldest sister, who mailed it from Los Angeles. She was confident Grace would get the message.
Great Aunt Laura was always available if Grace needed her.
"After all, if KGB Assassin of the Year couldn't compartmentalize, who's to say that I could? Not only does it seem that you betrayed your country, and Jack and Sydney, but . . . but . . . you betrayed yourself. It scares me that you were able to do that."
And therein lay the crux of the matter. Put one agent in an impossible situation, taking on a new life. Place her in a foreign environment, isolate her from everyone and everything she's ever known. Have her superiors pressure her to work more, look harder, dig deeper, gain more intel faster than before. Order her to immerse herself in this new life, in this new companion, then reprimand her when the lines begin to blur.
Irina had told Grace the truth when she said that it wasn't worth the little intel that was gained. Because when she looked back on her own mission, she could recite the facts about Project Christmas. She still remembered the codes to the safe and Jack's briefcase and where exactly the bugs were placed in his office.
But more importantly, she remembered the first time she said "I love you" and meant it. The day when it was she who soothed Sydney's cries and felt an overpowering stirring within her. The kiss goodbye she gave Jack, the tight squeeze she gave her little girl, before she drove away in the night and destroyed them all.
True, the KGB gained her intel. But they lost something far more valuable in that ten years.
Her.
"A preliminary investigation of Bentley's home indicates he worked with Mr. Sark. In a project that was orchestrated by Irina Derevko."
There were very few people whom Irina trusted. Everyone had an angle, a motive, an endgame, which might or might not agree with hers. She had thought she could trust Julian.
Apparently, she was wrong.
He followed her initial plans to the letter—forcing his way inside SD-6, forging an alliance of sorts with Arvin Sloane. For a time it seemed as if he was also following her directions on this op; it was he who told her on the phone in Kashmir that Grace had been pulled from Bogotá just weeks earlier. He who dead dropped intel so her prison guard—now his prison guard, she smiled to herself—could pass the information on to her inside her cell.
Julian and Bentley thought they could double-cross her, that this was nothing more than a bored woman's scheme while trapped inside a cell of her own making. The men erroneously believed that once she escaped in Panama, she would leave it behind, and they could do as they wished with the information.
Obviously, they were wrong.
And thanks to her sisters, she had photos of Bentley's corpse to prove it.
Not only had they deviated from her plan, not only had they hired a plant to find out for themselves what Grace knew, but she had reason to suspect that Bentley was hoping to use this intel to gain power in a new organization. The . . . Covenant, she believed it was called. It was a name that was only receiving slight attention in the underworld, but Irina had been around long enough to know that that could change in an instant. One assassination, one transfer of power, and everything could shift.
She always came out on top; she had the amassed wealth and arms to prove it. But even she had to admit that her organization was not her prime concern, that her alliances and her quest to keep Arvin away from Rambaldi didn't really matter to her anymore.
She had more important things to concern herself with now. Two, in particular.
"911 emergency response."
"A car just went off the road. I think it's on fire. Whoever's inside it is trapped—"
Sometimes when she couldn't sleep she would morosely play the two 911 tapes over and over, letting the words and the voices crush her heart. Two calls from two events, a scant eight weeks separating them.
To lose both of her girls by fire . . . she refused to accept it. She knew they were both alive, both out there somewhere. They only had to be found.
The thunder boomed outside the window, too close for comfort. Irina sat up straight, breaking out of her reverie. Perhaps she was thinking of Grace so much because it was easier to focus on her than on her missing daughter. Or perhaps it was just her curiosity getting the better of her—had her plan worked?
She slowly eased back into bed and nudged her companion. "I need to talk to you," she whispered urgently.
He swatted her hand away. "Later," he mumbled, still asleep.
She shook him impatiently. "Now, Jack."
He warily opened one eye. "What?"
She turned on the bedside lamp and faced him. "Thompson. I need to see her."
"Why?"
"I just . . . need to see her."
Jack rubbed his eyes and propped himself up on one elbow. "You know I don't have that kind of security clearance anymore. Besides the fact that she died last year. I went to her funeral."
She arched an eyebrow at him. "Do you really believe that either one of them were in that car?"
"Of course not," he said in a low voice. "But she's not the person we're looking for. We can't lose our focus, Irina."
"I'm not losing my focus," she snapped back. "I'm just widening it."
He rolled over and rested his head on the pillow.
"Devlin would know where she is," she pointed out haltingly, breaking the silence.
"Devlin is not exactly my friend these days," he remarked dryly. "I highly doubt he will be willing to do me any favors."
"It wouldn't hurt to ask," she shot back.
He sighed and turned over once more to face her. "Fine. The next time our search takes us near Los Angeles, I'll see what I can do."
She turned off the lamp and lay down, closing her eyes. "Thank you."
tbc
