A/N: Two more chapters after this one, then I'll start posting Bejerot's Diagnosis, yaaaay. And I've started writing the completely new Heir Apparent too, but don't tell the NaNoWriMo people because, like, it's not November yet.
---
Jackson moved back to his Berlin apartment in February 2003. Two operations were already in the works for the year—one in Serbia in March and the other in Austria in May—so it was in the best interest of the organisation to just keep him on the Continent for that window of time. Besides, he was to actually participate in the second of them, an art theft, so it would be better for him to be able to visit the art museum in Vienna several times before the execution of the plan so there would be less suspicion cast upon him. So he lived from February to September of the year as Karl Müller, citizen of Germany originally from the Schleswig-Holstein region Denmark-bordering city of Flensburg who had absolutely nothing to do with the 12 March assassination of Zoran Dindic. He was just down in Austria visiting his girlfriend and his favourite art museum, of course.
By May, the security guards and ticket people at the Kunsthistorischen Museum in Vienna knew him by name and face, so he felt that it was safe to participate in the theft of the Saliera, which was covered in scaffolding for its reconstruction. Because of the cover, no camera was able to catch him or his team on video, so they all managed to get off scot-free without any issue. When Karl Müller came to visit the museum a couple of days later, he expressed his unhappiness at the lack of the beautiful golden art piece and commiserated with all of the employees, all the time laughing inwardly at the fact that he knew that the piece was, in fact, now sitting safely in the home of his contract employer in rural Sweden.
After the Kunsthistorischen heist, he spent a good deal of time studying the Munch Museum in Norway; a new assignment that had come in from a wealthy Portuguese man who was interested in attaining two of Edvard Munch's paintings for his new trophy wife. By September, he was comfortable enough with the plans of the museum to excuse himself from Europe and return to doing the day-to-day at the organisation's Miami base, where the rumour was that Jackson had spent all that time abroad because Poulain was working on the legality of placing him 'next in line for succession,' as they said, 'to the throne of the World Society.' Jackson had absolutely no idea where they'd attained this information or whether there were any truth in any part of it, but it was slightly suspect how the people 'in the know' suddenly seemed to treat him a lot better after a few of them travelled abroad to a meeting of regional heads.
Jackson returned to Europe in late July, this time settling in Stockholm as Alexei Femerov. It was simple taking part in the August theft at the Munch Museum—he even got to drive the getaway car, which was an Audi A6. He liked how the car handled as he sped along the Oslo roads away from the scene of the crime and made a mental note to test drive new Audis as soon as he got back to the United States. Jackson personally delivered the two paintings to Portugal, flying by private jet from rural Norway (where he had sadly abandoned the Audi) to the coastal Portuguese city of Figueira de Foz; he made sure to pick up souvenirs for his Swedish neighbours and, when he got back to Scandinavia, expressed shock over the disappearance of their neighbouring country's famous works of art, The Scream and Madonna. To be honest, he was surprised anyone would miss them, but of course he preferred a different, more classical art style to the Expressionistic style of Munch. If they'd asked him to steal something from the Mucha Museum in Prague, for example, he'd probably have stolen something for himself also.
Because the December assassination of Heorhiy Kyrpa was to take place in the Ukraine, the recently reactivated Lyna Melinyshyn was put on as the assassin in charge. Rather than ever having to see her or even hear her voice, Jackson sent all of the plans for the post-Christmas assassination to Poulain's office and boarded the next plane back to Miami, arriving back in the country with his American passport just after Thanksgiving. By the beginning of December, he'd received a call from headquarters letting him know that Lyna had settled in as the new toy of Kyrpa and was now living in his Bortnychi holiday home—the assassination date of 27 December had been accepted by the employer and everything was on target, so he rested.
Lisa's life over those two years, however, was stunningly different. Once a very outgoing and overly happy Daddy's girl, she had spent more time falling into herself than interacting with anyone outside of work. She used to drive to Gainesville or other places in northern Florida whenever she had some time off to party with her sorority sisters from college, but immediately after the rape, she stopped going anywhere. She didn't even go out to lunch anymore—once she was safe at work, she was there until she went home that night.
She worked longer hours too, rarely taking a break, dulling the memory of the day by keeping her mind on the constant tasks of being a manager of a popular resort hotel. She was a professional to the core, and within a few months, every single regular of the place knew her by name but no one knew why it was that the relatively laconic manager of the earlier years had turned into such a chatty, helpful woman. Lisa had opted to tell no one, not even her closest work associates, what had happened that day in the parking lot. She didn't want the constant sad looks or the underlying pity in their tones when they spoke to her; she just wanted everything to be the status quo, even if it meant a loss of her innocent personality. She figured that most of them just thought that she'd finally grown up.
Despite the pleads of both of her parents, she'd refused to go through counselling because of the inherent embarrassment of the issue and assured both of them, perhaps falsely, that she was completely fine. She never noticed that she'd stopped doing her normal little things like playing on a local field hockey team, happily calling her grandmother in Texas every Tuesday evening, or spending weekends at her Dad's house. Everything was the here and now and she felt safer that way. Like nearly every victim of rape, she had some twisted idea that it was her fault that it happened, her fault that she'd been so carefree and immature, her fault that she had been so cutesy and peppy. Those measly twenty minutes out of her entire twenty-six years of existence completely changed her outlook on life.
She alienated everyone and it was nearly a year and a half after it happened that she even mustered the courage to start going back to the bar just about a block away from her apartment. There she would sit, always on alert, always being in the thick of things rather than sitting in her old favourite spot in some dark corner where she could people watch. Lisa wasn't exactly sure how to deal with men anymore, so she didn't. Where she was once flirty and slightly cocky, she was now dull and uninterested. Once the girl who brought a new boyfriend home every weekend, she was now the girl who had her father wondering if he'd ever have grandchildren.
Almost every week, she had her mother calling her threatening an intervention followed by her father calling to assure her that her mother was lying. After awhile, her father started sending her self-help books and although she ignored them at first, she began reading them on nights when she had nightmares and couldn't stay asleep. Sitting in her living room with the security alarm on and a bowl of cold scrambled eggs set in her bent legs, she'd read through all of the things that Penelope Russianoff or Gloria Arenson or Milton Cudney had to say about breaking emotional bad habits, emotional healing and freeing oneself from self-defeating behaviours. She had some vague idea that either her parents were in cahoots with one another (despite the fact they'd pretty much vowed to give each other the silent treatment) or her father was longing so much for the company of her mother, he was buying a bunch of books that had to do with her occupation. Both of the possibilities upset her, so she just read every single one of the books without question.
She didn't really cry about anything anymore; she was past the point of crying about every little thing that upset her. It no longer bothered her that she was alone on weekend nights—the idea of any kind of sexual activity threw her back to the parking lot. She was hesitant to even touch her own body, uncomfortable in her skin, and whenever she caught herself in the mirror, she'd zero in immediately to that one blemish on her body where the knife had pressed her so harshly. After awhile, she spun around her full-length mirror in her room, threw a sheet over it and from that point on just used the little hand-mirror she'd inherited from her father's mother for putting on her makeup and do her hair.
When Christmas came around, she became the centre of a fiery debate as to where she'd spend the holiday. Her father insisted that it was too soon, that she didn't need to be leaving the state, especially when she already had an intense fear of flying sparked by 9/11 and the fact that her grandfather had died in a private plane crash when she was six. She sat in the TV room of her father's house listening to her father fighting on the phone with her mother bringing up every sordid detail of her fears and the happenings of the last three years during which Carol was living in Dallas. All she did was turn up the TV to cover their fight and sunk into the chair, savouring in scent of her father's cologne, and she rested.
Lisa and Jackson's Christmas, just like their New Years, was spent twenty minutes apart and alone.
Lisa watched A Christmas Story in her Christmas tree-covered flannel pyjama pants, mouthing the words along with the actors on the screen as she ate the cookie dough she'd bought to make happy Christmas cookies for all of her neighbours. That, of course, was before her neighbours all disappeared to their own families' houses for the holidays and she was left basically alone in the building of mostly twenty-something singles. Sure, there was the guy on the bottom floor with the potted wire clothes hanger sitting outside of his front door, but no one ever talked to him. The rumour was that he had his entire ceiling covered with tin foil, and as Lisa sat there eating the dough and drinking from the container of low-fat eggnog, she wondered if she'd end up like him, but perhaps with a bunch of cats. In response, the cat she'd received from her father for her birthday jumped up in her lap and Lisa scratched her soft head with a sigh.
Jackson had never really celebrated Christmas, so it was nothing but another day for him. When he woke up at four in the afternoon, he looked to the building across from his to see happy blinking lights, a jolly family party, and the remains of wrapped gifts in the windows. With a grumble, he turned his back to the gaiety before wandering out of the bedroom to make some eggnog flavoured coffee, a little gift from his housekeeper for the holidays, and mused over perhaps buying himself a Russian wife before he completely woke up and realised how stupid that idea was. All he needed in his life was another woman from Lyna's region. As he took his first sip of coffee, he decided that if he really did become the head of the organisation, he'd take a Thai-bought bride, but she'd live in a different house. Yeah, that made sense, he thought as he made his way to the couch, stubbing his toe on the way before sitting down and turning on A Christmas Story. He always liked it when that kid thought he'd shot his eye out, which Dr Greene found vaguely ironic when he told him. After all, if anyone were going to shoot his eye out by aiming across a yard, it would be Jackson.
'Oh, life is like that. Sometimes, at the height of our revelries, when our joy is at its zenith, when all is most right with the world, the most unthinkable disasters descend upon us.'
As Jackson smiled into his coffee cup, Lisa picked up Alfie and squeezed the cat to her chest, trying to convince herself that the unthinkable had already occurred and it wasn't going to happen ever again.
---
In the midst of the Orange Revolution, Heorhiy Kyrpa was killed and it was ruled a suicide as he'd supported the now-ousted Prime Minister Yanukovych. Lyna, who already had an apartment in Kiev, simply faded into the background after her assignment was finished, and both she and Jackson quickly received their hefty salaries deposited directly into their Swiss bank accounts. With the management pay, Jackson bought the Audi he'd promised himself back in Oslo and spent a couple of days driving around like a madman in the wee hours of the morning. On New Years, he found himself back at the Lux Atlantic, spending his holiday drinking at the bar and watching the lovely Miss Reisert who stood dutifully behind the counter in her proper white dress and gold nametag. He briefly wondered why she'd be working on that day instead of partying, but quickly forgot about it once he remembered that at times, he'd taken a few terribly scheduled assignments to get a little extra spending money, and considering that her salary would be immensely less than his, he figured she needed the extra hours. Besides, she looked happy enough.
He enjoyed watching her that night but never thought about actually approaching her. By the next morning, he was back to work planning the July assassination of Ihab al-Sherif in his office at the Miami headquarters and Lisa was back to her normal and relatively dull life.
January and February were spent on little jobs: someone who wanted to off his wife, a person who wanted to have a business rival quietly disposed of, a few small robberies of jewels and art, and a couple of actual private investigator assignments. People came to his office—whether they were the actual people paying for the jobs or just representatives, he didn't care—and were led in by his secretary. Once the door was locked, the place was soundproof and he could discuss expectations and the society rules of engagement. From the computer on his desk, he could access the organisation mainframe in Switzerland and crosscheck every potential customer for information like previous assignments with them, whether they were wanted for any crime, et cetera. There were actually a couple of times in his years at the agency where when he gathered someone's picture from the camera in the corner of the office, it was marked in the database so he had to have his secretary come in immediately to kill the person. That, of course, was why he always kept a handkerchief in his suit pocket. It would be slightly socially unacceptable to walk around with blood and brain matter smattered over one's face.
On the last day of February, Jackson received a frantic call from Switzerland.
'We need you on the next flight to Geneva,' said Poulain's secretary, a Pointee from Madagascar named Anaïs. 'I'll send you the information now, but I would recommend you get your personal assistant on the phone to go ahead and buy your airline tickets. Monsieur Poulain expects you by tomorrow morning.'
Jackson looked at his watch. 'The last flight to Geneva probably leaves here in three or four hours.'
'Then I suggest you be quick,' she said quickly, and then hung up the phone.
'Dammit,' hissed Jackson, who was looking forward to a nice evening at home after having to have a possible customer killed. Dialling the phone, he pinched the bridge of his nose as the line connected. 'Hey, Greg, it's Jackson. Listen, I need you to get on this right now. I need to be in Geneva by tomorrow morning for a meeting with Poulain. No, no, if I'd known earlier, I would have told you earlier. I just got the call from Anaïs and she says it's extremely urgent; just get what you can.'
Both of them knew that it was going to be incredibly pricy to get on that flight, but neither dwelled on it too much. As the fax started streaming in from Geneva, Jackson packed the overnight bag that he kept in the office for occasions such as this. He grabbed up the long fax from the printer and put it in the outside of his bag before looking back at the dead man in the chair in front of his desk. He walked over and pushed the call button for his secretary.
'Merit?'
'Yes, sir?' came her voice over the intercom.
'I'll be out of the office for the next few days,' he said, looking about the room with his mouth open a bit and his hands propped on the desk. 'I have business to deal with on the Continent.'
'Of course, sir.'
He thought for a moment. 'Oh, and Merit?'
'Yes, Mr Rippner?'
'I need you to take care of straightening my office.'
There was a pause of understanding before she spoke with a little bit of amusement in her voice. 'I'll take care of that immediately, sir.'
---
'Jackson, come in.'
Jackson strode into the boardroom confidently, not bothering to look at anyone but Poulain. The heads had gathered from around the globe: Marek Osikowicz, Polish leader of the European Office; Saeng Chaiyasan, Thai director of the Asian Office; Ghodsi Pedram of the Middle East Office, who had warned the Organisation about 11 September; Abioye Oshodi, Benin-born head of the North African Office; Yasini Machogu, Zimbabwe-based leader of the South African Office; Cristobal Valencia, Chilean head of the South American Office; Richard Crome of the Australian Office; and lastly Melanie Watson of the North American Office—their pictures were in the entry hall of the head office in Geneva, and one of his first assignments in the society was to learn all of their names. He couldn't understand why this was considered important enough to have everyone there—it seemed like a very cut-and-dry assassination, but there was something slightly off about it. He gave Poulain a look that the older man apparently decoded as 'confusion.'
'This meeting was already called before this problem came up,' Poulain said quickly, motioning to the people around him. 'Although it is of great concern to us.'
'You didn't tell me everything,' insinuated Jackson as he took a seat between Poulain, who was at the head of the table, and Chaiyasan, who was sitting to Poulain's right. 'Why are we being called in to cover up the murder of Georgiy Gongadze?'
Poulain looked to Osikowicz, who was holding a hand up to his mouth, his lips pressed to the junction of the thumb and pointer finger. They exchanged an odd look before Poulain nodded and the Polish man cleared his throat. Jackson looked over at him.
'Five years ago, we received a request to participate in the Gongadze affair directly from the Ukrainian government. It was a rush assignment that was originally intended to be a political kidnapping rather than murder, so the European council decided that the best course of action would be to send a team of advisors rather than have an entire plan already dictated,' said the man, who apparently used his hands a little too much when speaking. 'The team was connected to the Interior Ministry and consisted completely of Ukrainian nationals that work within the organisation.'
The man paused long enough that Jackson was convinced he was finished. 'Why wasn't I included in this? That murder was an absolutely huge international affair and would have looked fabulous on my résumé.'
He glared harshly at Poulain, who gave him a look much like one that a man would give an insolent dog. One-on-one, just the look would silence the younger man, but here in front of the board, he was headstrong. Sitting up straighter, he continued the glare with his hands clamped together as he leaned on the tabletop, his eyebrows raised and he obviously expected an answer, but Poulain ignored him with a jerk of his head to Osikowicz. The man continued.
'One of the men we worked with has a plea bargain with the new government to tell about our involvement in the murder to get off of his jail time,' said Osikowicz, again putting his hand up to his mouth. 'We need to have him taken care of immediately but extremely quietly.'
'That's not a problem. I already have everything planned out,' Jackson replied haughtily. 'But I don't do my own kills, you know that.'
'Why is that?' asked Chaiyasan, one of the two heads that Jackson hadn't worked under.
'Jackson is a very poor shot,' Poulain replied pointedly and the woman closed her mouth, folding her hands in her lap demurely as Jackson pinched his lips a little, not allowing Poulain to see it.
'Why am I in front of the board?' Jackson asked suddenly, looking directly at Poulain. 'Could we not have discussed this matter alone?'
There was an awkward shifting by all members of the board at hearing Jackson talking back to the patron.
'Well, Jackson,' Poulain started, opening a leather folder in front of him. 'As you know, my eighty-fifth birthday is coming up, and since the... incident involving my son ten years ago, there has been no one in line to take over the organisation. Now, I'm sure you've heard from many people that you're being groomed to take over, and that's the truth. Since you first began speaking with Dr Greene so many years ago, we've been paying careful watch to your development as an employee and alexithymic individual through assignment endurance, chemical mental encouragement, and relationship tampering. I must say, we've all been quite pleased.'
There was a general murmur of assent in the room.
Now was Jackson's turn to shift. 'I'm not really sure if I'm the correct choice—'
'You have no say in the matter,' Poulain replied very sharply. 'For nearly twenty years, we've been pouring money into you for schooling and a very comfortable living. As an orphan, you have no one that you have to answer to, no one who depends on you. In other words, you're the perfect candidate.'
'And if I end up having a family?'
Poulain laughed loudly. 'Jackson, you'll never have a family. You're far too egotistical and two-faced.'
There was an uncomfortable few minutes of silence as the board members opened identical leather folders and signed the papers inside. Jackson looked over to Chaiyasan's copy, but it was written in her native Thai, so he couldn't read what she was signing. He looked at Poulain as the old man stood and motioned in his barrister, who had been waiting outside the glass doors. He walked in and stood beside Poulain as the board members passed up their consent forms. The lawyer looked over the pile of papers, fingering through them before setting them in his briefcase and locking it.
'Then, to confirm it, all who approve the placement of Jackson Rippner to the second-in-command of La société mondiale des investigateurs privés, please say aye,' said the man, looking intently at the board.
One by one, each board member submitted his or her vocal vote and then the lawyer had Poulain sign a new will that he had prepared. After blotting his signature, the patron pushed the thick document over to Jackson, raising his eyebrows. He held the middle of the pen aloft and Jackson took it before pouring over the contents of the document.
'There's nothing important to read,' Poulain said, pushing Jackson's hand aside and flipping to the final page. 'Sign the document.'
'I just don't understand why—'
'Do ut des,' interrupted Poulain, and Jackson looked at him, slightly startled. 'I give that you may give.'
After licking his lips a little, Jackson tapped the tip of the pen to the paper and signed it with a flourish. The board applauded politely and the European and North African ambassadors looked at each other quickly before Oshodi looked over at the Middle Eastern ambassador, Pedram. She smiled a bit at the North African woman before raising her hands higher and looking at Poulain and Jackson. None of the three were fond of the younger man—Oshodi and Osikowicz had dealt with Jackson after his two major accidents in the organisation and didn't hold him in very high esteem because of his self-righteousness. Since the meeting had been planned, the three of them had been in contact with one another, completely bypassing the other regions for this. Pedram had been informed that Jackson would be working in her region for his next big assignment, so they decided that with the timing of everything, and the very hush-hush information that Poulain was in for a large amount of medical tests, would call for quick execution of a plan to get rid of Jackson Rippner.
There was no interest in killing him—after all, there would be blame placed on Pedram if something happened in her arena—but all of them knew that Jackson liked to keep his assignments personal. If he was in charge of something, he wanted no one to ever know who did it and no one to take responsibility. So, the plan was for Pedram to request that Jackson take the assassination, which had secretly been funded by an associate of Oshodi's, and for the terrorist network Al Qaeda to take responsibility. At a party to celebrate Poulain's 80th birthday a few years ago, a very intoxicated Jackson had gone on a huge rant about Al Qaeda's policies and by post September 11th, pretty much everyone knew that the man had absolute abhorrence for the terrorist organisation. Therefore, if Jackson's hit were to be claimed by these terrorists, the triad of ambassadors thought that there was a good chance that the already touchy Jackson would be pushed enough to quit the organisation.
So as the triumvirate plotted, the others clapped and the lawyer notarised the new will, Jackson became the legal son of Matthias Poulain and the next head of the world-famous Société mondiale des investigateurs privés.