The Trial of Lancelot
Philosophers liked to say that power is an illusion, the shadow of a sword that people cower beneath because they don't know that the blade is made of cardboard. Aisling was fairly sure that those people must have never been trapped, never been in a position where another's callousness and cruelty would have horrific and permanent impact on their lives. It's easy to compare power to the shadow of a sword when you're not the one being cut by it.
These were the kinds of things that Aisling thought of as she sat in an interrogation room in a federal blacksite in D. C. She wasn't sure what agency held ownership over it, but she would guess CIA or FBI. Both groups had been crawling all over the East Coast like an absolutely furious colony of ants, hunting for Raymond and Elizabeth Keen. It had been a little over a month since Conolly and the bombing, and the CIA especially had been working far outside the law, burning through informants and leaving a trail of dead or mutalitated bodies in their wake.
Aisilng had had a hood over her head when she was put in the room, but she replayed the turns they had taken to get here over in her head, committing the path to the exit to memory. She had been alone in the room for perhaps a half-hour now, and for the camera's sake, she put on a show of growing bored, drumming on the arms of the chair she was handcuffed to and humming a few songs. Then she pointedly looked at the door, leaned back to kick her legs up on the table in front of her, and began to sing. After two songs, she tilted the chair back on two legs, closed her eyes, and rested her hands on her stomach as she belted out The Trial of Lancelot. She had always been a sucker for Arthurian lore.
"Sir Tristan spoke, 'I love my uncle's wife. For her I'd gladly suffer, she is my heart's delight--"
The door opened, but Aisling pretended not to hear, and as the person settled in the seat across from her, she continued, "'Isolt, the one who tempts me, and she for whom I'm pure'-"
"Ashylnn Doyle." The man said, and Aisling opened her eyes and tilted her head to flash a shit-eating grin at him. He was perhaps mid-thirties, blond-haired and blue-eyed, with a muscular frame that filled out his cheap black suit. Classically handsome, but not in a way she found particularly interesting.
"'My love for her confounds me and is all of which I'm sure'-"
"Doyle-"
"'I understand my brother's contradictions'. And Lancelot, his head held high, said-"
The agent had set a file down on the table in between them, and he slammed an open palm onto the metal table next to it with a loud BANG. Aisling stopped short and flashed a thin but self-satisfied smile.
"For someone who likes to play waiting games, you have remarkably little patience, my boy." She teased with only the slightest hint of condescension.
"This is not a game, Miss Doyle." He replied sternly.
" Of course not. And it's Misses Doyle." It was actually an alias borrowed from an ex-boyfriend. After two years with no commitment on his part, she'd joked that she'd take his last name one way or another. "And who might you be?"
"Special Agent Ressler." FBI. Well, it's better than CIA. "Do you know why you're here, Misses Doyle?"
"I can't imagine." In all reality, the use of the name Ashlynn Doyle had dramatically narrowed down the exploits they could possibly know of. "Please enlighten me, Agent Ressler."
Ressler flipped the manila folder open and layed two photos out in front of her, one of Raymond and one of Elizabeth.
"Do you know these people?" He asked.
Aisling leaned forward to scrutinize both photos. "Have they been on the news lately? I apologize, but I don't really keep up with American goings on. I've only just arrived from Dublin." In fact, as far as any official papers would say, Ashlynn Doyle should still be in Ireland.
Ressler tapped on Ray's photo. "Raymond Reddington, international criminal. Calls himself the Concierge of Crime." He tapped on Keen's, which looked to be the ID photo for her badge. "Elizabeth Keen. A month ago, she was involved in an act of domestic terrorism and shot the Attorney General."
"Tom Conolly? Good for her." Unfiltered shock flashed across Ressler's face at the crass statement and it's jovial delivery, and Aisling added, "We've rubbed shoulders before. I'm not surprised someone shot him."
"So you sympathize with these fugitives?" Ressler asked, tone accusatory. "Maybe you even wanted Conolly dead yourself."
Aisling cocked an eyebrow and regarded the young man with bemusement. "Disliking the man isn't a crime. Why am I here?"
Another photo was pulled from the folder and slid across to her. It was a satellite photo of a property, and she squinted down at the tree-covered mountains and valleys, the roof of a house just barely visible through the canopy. She looked up questioningly, genuinely at a loss, and Ressler was already pulling out another photo, this one well-shot from ground level and showing a sprawling house in the forest, modeled to fit the 'modern cabin' aesthetic.
It clicked into place. The house was in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the property was absolutely breathtaking in the fall. Three weeks after Anslo, she had convinced Raymond to spend the day there, and she'd sent him a key in case he got there ahead of her. She hadn't asked for it back, and he hadn't returned it. He must have used the place, and somehow, the feds had followed their trail there.
"You recognize the property?"
"It belongs to my realty company. My execs and I use it for a vacation property. And company parties, sometimes." She looked back up to Ressler. "That still doesn't explain why I'm here."
"Reddington and Keen were tracked to this property two days ago." He paused, settled her with a hard look. "Do you know what the sentence for aiding and embedding in treason is, Misses Doyle?"
The statement hung in the air between them. "Firstly, Agent Ressler, I'm an Irish citizen." Aisling began, low but uncertain. She knew that it probably couldn't be proven, but Ashlynn Doyle, heiress and businesswoman, would be rattled by the threat. "So I can't commit treason against the United States. Secondly, I didn't aid anyone."
"Then who did?"
"I don't know!" She pitched her voice a half-octave higher, as though nervous but trying to contain it. "A dozen people at the company have access to that house, plus the staff. And what if they just broke in? You said the guy is a known criminal."
"No signs of forced entry. Looks like they had a key."
"I didn't provide it."
"So you're blaming a dozen people, plus staff." Ressler repeated thoughtfully. "And all those people are employed by Corvus Realty?"
"Yes."
Something small passed his face then, something triumphant but joyless, almost bitter. Unease slid across the back of Aisling's mind. Ressler pulled another paper from the folder and set it atop the pictures. She glanced across it, and unease turned to cold shock as she saw a list of company names and bank account numbers. Shell companies. Her shell companies. They didn't have all of the ones she used to buy and sell properties, but they had enough to show that Corvus Realty wasn't legitimate.
"What's this?" Aisling said flatly, leaning forward to inspect the list. She tried to memorize it; when she got out of this, she would have to offload all of the properties associated with those companies.
"Corvus Realty doesn't exist- not in anything beyond a name. It's part of a network of shells used to buy and sell safehouses in the criminal underworld." Ressler let silence hang for a second before he added, "Whoever put this all together did a hell of a job, but not good enough. You should have asked Red for his guy."
Aisling's face fell cold and impassive. "I want my lawyer."
"Oh, I almost forgot." Ressler said dryly. "Ashlynn Doyle doesn't exist either. So," He leaned forward, both arms on the table, eyes gleaming in the dim light, "What overdramatic title do you go by?"
Aisling's lips twitched towards a snarl, and she leaned forward to match him. "I want my lawyer."
"Lady, you're at a federal black site. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, you've dropped off the face of the earth." Bullshit, she thought. If Anslo can find it, my boys can find it. But Ressler continued, "We even have a lovely glass box we can stick you in for-" He shrugged, "As long as we want. I bet you have an idea of what sensory deprivation and social isolation does to a person. Or, you could tell us where Red is, and we'll stick you in a public prison with walls that aren't see-through and two hours of rec time a day."
"I don't know where Red is." Aisling flashed a cold, cold smile. "And if I did, I'd tell you to bugger off."
Ressler smiled slowly, but it was a hard, bitter thing that was miles from reaching his eyes.
"You realize he's the one who gave you up, right?"
Her face was impassive, her cool expression fixed in place even as she internally recoiled. Would he really? She had told him to do it if he had to, but she remembered his face, how gutted he had looked at the idea. Or was that only because he knew he'd do it eventually?
It wasn't betrayal or anger that settled over Aisling; she'd meant it when she said it, even if she'd hoped it would never come to this. She was sure Red had hoped the same thing. Instead, it was as though all the energy had been sapped from her body. She wasn't yet sixty, and yet she suddenly felt ancient, worn-out.
Aisling realized that Ressler was watching her expectantly, waiting for some kind of reply.
"It wouldn't change anything." She told him flatly.
He raised an eyebrow. "He threw you under the bus to save his own skin. How does that not change anything?"
"I told him he could."
"...What?"
Some part of her immediately regretted having said that. If they thought there was more to her relationship with Raymond than business, they would try to use her against him. Ray wouldn't fall for it, she thought distantly. And it was almost worth it, to see Ressler staring back at her like a startled deer. Shock melted into realization, then something akin to horror, and he leaned back in his chair.
"Christ. You're in love with him." She didn't respond, but he didn't need her to. "How could you be in love with a man like that? He has another woman in every country, probably every city. But he gives you, what, a few hours of his time a year, and you're willing to go to federal prison for him? Do you realize how pathetic that is?!"
"For the record, boy," Aisling replied lightly, bemused, "I pull more women than he does, and I'm mostly into men."
For a long second, he only stared at her. She wasn't surprised he didn't understand. He seemed like the All-American, traditional-values type, who wouldn't comprehend the idea of being unable to give the people you love complete access to your life and time. How could she expect more of a lover than she herself could give in return? How could she demand monogamy when she and Damian had enjoyed another man for most of their marriage? But Aisling rather suspected that the agent's brain might short-circuit if she tried to explain that, so she didn't elaborate.
There was an insistent knock at the door, and agent and crimelord alike glanced over. Ressler crossed to it, and for a second Aisling caught the beginnings of several arguing voices before he stepped fully into the hallway and shut the door.
In the silence of the room, dread and a twinge of fear settled over Aisling like a sheet of ice. For the moment, she was completely trapped. And she knew, from both personal and second-hand experience, that this glass box they were threatening her with was far from the worst the American government would do, especially when they were so desperate to catch Red and Keen.
The door swung open and Ressler stalked through, face tense and angry and perhaps a bit guilty. He put both hands on the table across from her and leaned forward, grim and deadly serious.
"Doyle- whatever your name is-" Ressler began imploringly, "I can't help you if you don't help me. If you-"
"Agent Ressler," Aisling interrupted, "You can't help me at all. Whoever is outside that door doesn't believe that I don't know where Raymond is."
Now he definitely looked guilty, the weight of it settling over his face, his frame. That more than anything confirmed to her that Ray had been working with the FBI. A battle-hardened agent wouldn't have that level of feeling for sending a criminal to have information extracted, but a man might have it about sending a friend's lover to a horrible fate.
Ressler slowly straightened, evaluated her for one long second, and then turned and left. The door was caught from he other side before it closed, and another man walked in. He was somewhere around her age or a little older, with almost completely white hair and sharp, pointed features that matched his thin and willowy frame. Also handsome, and in a way she found more interesting.
The new man motioned to the camera in the corner as he crossed to the table. Something about him was vaguely familiar, and Aisling scanned him. His suit was of a better quality than ressler's, and he was wearing wire-frame glasses, the frame caught somewhere between white and clear in color- probably to be less noticeable. Aisling would bet he hadn't needed them when he was young. She began to build a picture of what he would look like twenty years younger, with darker hair and no glasses.
Spook, some instinct from deep in her memory told. CIA? Military intelligence?
"Have we met before?" Aisling asked with a charming smile as he took a seat. "I'm thinking.." She snapped, "That fundraiser for Senator Diaz?"
"I'm afraid we haven't met." He replied, smooth but serious. "But I've certainly heard of you. Aisling MacDuncan. The Morrigan." He overdramatized the name, and Aisling's charming smile turned bemused. "A person of interest to the Irish CEA, Europol, Interpol... Even the ATF and the FBI. Heir to a rather unremarkable crime family in Dublin that has since become-"
"Exceptional?" Aisling interrupted, flashing a grin.
"Noticeable."
She laughed. "I'm wounded, really. You know how impressive an Irish Catholic has to be to get her husband to take her last name?"
"My point, Ms. MacDuncan, is that I know exactly who you are. I know about your association with Raymond Reddington. And you're going to help us find h-"
"Damascus!" Aisling said suddenly. "A weapons deal outside of Damascus in '83. That's where I know you from. That makes you CIA, yeah?"
He paused, blinked. "Do you have any idea of the gravity of your situation, Ms. MacDuncan?"
"Mate, as you Americans say, this ain't my first rodeo. A few weeks from now and I'll be a free woman, one way or another."
His face twitched towards a scowl. "Then you should know that everyone talks eventually. One way or another, we'll find your little boyfriend, and we're going to take him apart limb by limb. If you want to avoid the same fate, now is your only chance."
Aisling spent a half-second picturing how to kill him. She could vault over the table with her free hand; he'd go for the door, and she'd swing the chair around with her handcuffed hand and knock it closed again. She didn't have all the muscle mass of her youth, but once she got her hands on him, she could still snap his scrawny neck like a twig long before help could arrive.
Instead, she pulled her lips back from her teeth, more a snarl than a smile.
"I'm excited to see what Raymond does to you."
Anger spasmed across the man's face. Without a word, he slowly rose to his feet and stalked from the room. Immediately, four more men in black suits poured in, fastening another black hood over her head, uncuffing her from the chair and yanking her to her feet. They secured her hand behind her back again and led her from the room, prodding and pulling her along the same route she remembered entering by. She began to hum along the way, picking back up the song that Ressler had first interrupted.
They entered the large room adjacent to the only elevator; Aisling could tell by the many hushed voices around them, the way all sounds echoed differently in the open space. She felt the weight of eyes on her, and for the audience, began to quietly sing.
What she could not see was Aram and Samar and even Cooper, watching from their usual work station with grimness and a hint of guilt as Aisling was drug away to die in a CIA blacksite. Aram looked downright pained when she sang,
"'And Lancelot, his head held high, said 'I'd die for love of Guinevere. I'd die for love…'"