Author’s Note: This is a what-if story that takes place near the end of Truth Takes Time. I like to do these because it gives the reader an option to what did happen in Alias, Season 2. Besides, it’s fun to write.
Sorry for the delay, but a number of factors interfered with an earlier posting.
SUMMARY: The premise here is that when Sydney shoots her mother, she hits her in the shoulder, not the arm. Irina falls, unable to make it over the edge of the hatch. Meantime Sloane and Emily run for the helicopter, but Emily is killed. Sark and Sloane get away.
DISCLAIMER: The characters in Alias belong to JJ Abrams and ABC-TV except those I create.
RATING: PG-13 for language and violence. You’ll be notified if it escalates into something more.
FREEZE!
By Lenafan
Irina fired, as she ducked, she caught a glimpse of her adversary…it was Sydney! “Oh dear God,” she thought. She didn’t know that Sydney had also seen her and was going through the same emotions. Irina fired again knowing her shots wouldn’t hit Sydney, but might keep her pinned as she ran for the ladder out of the tunnel. Sloane and Emily had already made it to the exit and were running toward the field where the helicopter would land.
She leaped for the ladder. Twenty feet up and she’d be safe.
“Freeze! Or I’ll shoot!”
Irina looked up four or five more rungs to go. She glanced down at Sydney, whose weapon did not waver as she pointed it at her. Would her daughter do it? She heard the helicopter. She might make it if Sydney didn’t fire. She reached for the next rung and stepped up. The shot echoed and the bullet struck her in the left shoulder. Severe pain ripped through her. The bullet tore out of her anterior shoulder after snapping the collarbone.
The disc fell from her hand, landing at Sydney’s feet. Irina gasped as waves of pain tore through her body. In the distance, she thought she heard another shot. She forgot it, as she gripped the ladder with her right hand and fought to overcome the pain, but was losing.
“Unnhh!” Irina moaned and began to lose her grip. Blackness crept into her consciousness. If she fell, she might hurt herself even more. She felt nauseated. She closed her eyes, felt her fingers slide slowly down the ladder. “Ohhh,” she cried, falling the last seven feet, landing at Sydney’s feet, unconscious and bleeding.
“Mom?” Sydney cried, tears in her eyes. Irina’s eyes were closed and a large amount of blood appeared on the front of her shoulder above the breast.
“Sydney,” said a voice from the shaft’s opening above them. “What happened?” It was Vaughn.
“Get a medic. I’ve shot my mother.”
Irina lost consciousness.
Irina heard voices. She seemed to be swimming out of deep water. She wasn’t sure how far she had to go.
“Oh Dad, I—I had to do it.” That was Sydney’s voice.
“Sweetheart, of course you did. She’s going to live.” Jack was with her. “She didn’t obey the order, so she got the bullet. Somehow, I think she might forgive you.”
“You think?”
Irina kept swimming. She saw a light. “Ummm,” she moaned and slowly opened her eyes to see Jack at the foot of the bed, Sydney beside him. She couldn’t move her left arm. It was in a sling plastered to her body. She couldn’t move her right arm. It was handcuffed to the bed. She tried to shift her body a little. Her shoulder ached like sin. “Sooksin,” she managed to murmur.
Jack laughed softly. “Yeah, isn’t it, sweetheart?”
“You shot me,” Irina murmured, looking at her daughter, who looked somewhat pained.
“You didn’t ‘freeze’ Mom.” Sydney said quietly.
“I guess I didn’t and I underestimated you.” Irina sighed. She turned her head slightly and looked at Jack, “Now what?”
“I suspect you are going to be returned to prison.” Jack said.
“Put to death, you mean,” Irina said.
He shook his head, “In spite of everything, Irina, you provided good Intel on several occasions. I imagine we can get you off with just a life sentence.”
“Chyort!”
“How do you feel,” asked Jack.
“Pain is not too bad,” she answered. Irina closed her eyes. She’d felt worse pain in her lifetime. As it went, this was a piece of cake. She drifted off to sleep.
Jack looked at Sydney, “We’ll come back tomorrow, sweetheart. She’ll be a little more lucid.”
The next day, Jack stood outside Irina’s door with two US Marshals and Kendall. He was talking about when they would be transporting her back to prison.
“The doctor told me she should be moving around. She can’t be handcuffed to the bed.”
“No Jack, she stays as is.” Kendall said stiffly.
“If she gets bed sores, she’ll stay longer in this facility,” Jack retorted. “Let the Marshals stay inside the room. She won’t be going anywhere for a few days.”
Kendall reevaluated Jack’s statement. “Very well. They stay inside as long as she is not handcuffed. Understood?” He looked at the three men. Jack nodded.
Moments later, he was inside with the key in his hand. The two Marshals stood on either side of the door. Both had served as her guards while she was in CIA’s custody. Jack went to the right side of the bed, reached in, and unlocked the cuff holding Irina still. Grateful, Irina turned on her right side, away from the two men standing guard.
“Thank you,” she whispered. She had pain in her shoulder, but turning onto her right side, felt as though she’d experienced a kiss. She closed her eyes, sighing.
Jack leaned in saying, “The guards stay inside as long as you are not cuffed. That’s the only way Kendall would go for it.”
“Thank you,” she whispered again and then she stretched both legs. “Raise my bed a little would you?”
“Here, do it yourself.” He handed her a small box attached to an electric cord. “Punch this button to raise it and this one to lower it.” He let her operate the box.
“Jack…I need to tell you something. Bend down,” she said softly.
“What is it,” he leaned closer, knowing she didn’t want the Marshals to hear.
“Maybe you will believe it and maybe not, but that night in Panama…I loved every minute we were together. I know you think I betrayed you, but…” she saw his eyes take on a wary look. “Jack, bring Sydney tonight and handcuff me. I want to talk to you both alone. Please.” She gripped his hand hard.
“Irina.” Now he saw desperation on her face and in her eyes. He sighed. “All right.”
It was after eight before Jack and Sydney arrived at the hospital. Jack had one of the Marshals handcuff Irina; then he asked them to leave.
Sydney was bending over her mother, talking softly when Jack returned. “Emily is going to be buried again tomorrow.”
There were tears in Irina’s eyes. Irina had been her friend earlier while married to Jack. They had just become reacquainted after twenty years. Of all the people in the world, aside from her own family, Emily was the one person she was truly sorry about; Sloane and Sark could take care of themselves, but Emily had no idea about the devil she married.
“Big funeral?”
“No, we’re doing it quietly since the first was a lie.”
Jack stood by the bed. “Irina, we’re both here. What did you want to tell us?”
Irina looked at Sydney, “Let me raise the bed first.”
Sydney watched Irina as the head raised her up. Irina closed her eyes for a minute as she processed her thoughts, then she looked at Jack.
“You wanted to know my endgame. The one that brought me to CIA?”
“Yes, but then we know you just wanted to be a part of Sloane’s team of terrorists.”
Irina bowed her head slightly. She shook it slowly. “No, Jack, that wasn’t the real reason.” Her eyes pinned his. “I was pregnant when I left in 1981. I gave birth to another girl in Moscow a month after I left Kashmir prison. Her name is Nadia and I haven’t seen her for the past twenty years.”
Jack gaped at her. Sydney was stunned.
Irina plunged ahead. “The KGB took her from me the day after she was born. When she was six, a Friend of Rambaldi follower stole her from a KGB laboratory and hid her. He hid her so well that I have not been able to locate her. I do not know if she is alive or dead.”
“Why didn’t you tell us when you were in CIA custody,” growled Jack angrily. He was shaking.
“Because I didn’t know if she was alive or dead. How could I tell you that when you had to deal with my being there. Now, however, I’m going to prison. I can’t hunt for her any longer. You and Sydney have to find her.”
“Of course we will, Mom,” Sydney was positive.
“What does this have to do with your endgame?” Jack rumbled.
“She was my endgame. The disc I dropped contains the DNA of three million people. Sloane was going to use it for a different purpose. I wanted to check it for the possibility she was on it.”
“Three million is not the population of the world. There are five or six billion people on the planet.” Jack said.
“Yes,” she answered, “but she is on this disc. It comes from an area of the world not well explored…South America, most likely Argentina.”
“How did you narrow it down?”
She told him. “I hacked into every DNA file I could find while I was The Man. Nadia has to be twenty if she is still alive. Her birthday is 15 July 1982. When she was born, her eyes were dark like mine, her hair black like Mama’s and skin like hers too. Other than that I have no other description.”
Jack was trying to deal with the fact he had another daughter and couldn’t answer immediately. Sydney took her mother’s right hand. “We’ll do our best. I’ll get Marshall to run the disc immediately against our DNA.”
“Thank you. Let me know if you find her, please.” Irina glanced at Jack, who was trying to get his emotions in order.
“Would the old KGB files have her picture,” he asked.
“I tried to find them. I could not. Even my father could not. Everything was destroyed by the KGB hierarchy when the USSR fell.” Irina studied the wall in front of her, trying to decide if she should tell Jack and Sydney more. She decided not to do it until they found her. “I do want to tell you one more thing: my sister Yelena may be looking for her and may have found her.”
“Why?” Jack and Sydney said at once.
“I have an aunt too!” Sydney gasped.
“You of two of them,” rumbled Jack. “Ekaterina is the youngest.”
“Dad, you knew this and didn’t tell me?”
He stared at Irina, “When you are betrayed, you want to know by who and all about their family.”
Irina said nothing for a moment, and then added, “Yelena was an archivist with the KGB. She became enamored with the information the KGB was collecting on Rambaldi. I understand when she left the organization, she took some Rambaldi manuscripts with her.
“What do they have to do with Nadia,” asked Jack, frowning.
Suddenly Irina realized she better tell them both everything. “She is The Passenger.”
Sydney gasped.
Jack stared. “Our daughters…both of them, are a part of the cursed Rambaldi legend?” His eyes pinned those of Irina’s.
She met his furious gaze without flinching. “Yes!”
“I don’t believe it,” he snapped.
“Sorry, but it’s true, Jack. That’s why the KGB took her. They had come into possession of a manuscript, which said The Chosen One’s sister would be The Passenger and that the Passenger would have the answer to Rambaldi’s most prized artifact. It did not tell what it was.”
“I thought it was Sloane who had a connection with Rambaldi. Now it seems…” He stared at her. “It’s you,” he said, probing her face and locking onto her eyes.
“It could be you,” she said.
“Wait!” Cried Sydney. Her parents looked at her. “I have a sister and I don’t care about this Rambaldi stuff. I just want to find her.”
“Get Marshall to work on the disc.” Said Irina to Jack and Sydney. “I believe you said he could work miracles. She’s on it and you can go from there.”
Sydney leaned down and planted a kiss on Irina’s cheek. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“We will keep you informed,” said Jack, still stunned by the revelation he had another daughter somewhere in the world.
The next evening, Jack was back with the news it would be another few days or so until the encrypted disc was solved and they could start processing the DNAs collected on it. He wanted to talk to Irina. Because he wanted to talk to her alone, he left the marshals outside.
Irina was sitting up slightly, at least as much as the handcuffed wrist would let her. Her face lighted up as he walked into the room. “Hello Jack,” she said.
“How are you feeling?” He asked, pulling up the only chair in the room. He shoved down the side rail on the left side.
“Better.” She looked at him. “Have you found her yet?”
“No. Sydney said to tell you she’s working with Marshall to break the encryption code. As soon as they get it, she’ll come over.”
“She’s a wonderful young woman, Jack. I meant it when I said I was grateful for you raising her.” She gave him a tentative smile.
“Irina,” he pulled the chair closer. “It would have been easier if you had told me a long time ago.”
“What would it accomplish?” She answered. “I didn’t know where she was. There was very little DNA science then and my life was not good. I—I was in prison for six months before they released me. It was not pleasant. I spent all my energy getting as much good food as possible in me, still it was not enough. They performed a caesarean on me. I was sent to Central City the following week.”
“Your father…sisters…couldn’t they help?”
She laughed a deep scornful laugh. “Father had to protect himself. He had worked himself to a Lt. Colonel in the Operations Directorate. He wanted to stay out of Andropov’s ire, but he didn’t have to worry. Andropov died a year or two later. Yelena hated me, so she wouldn’t lift a hand. Besides I had not seen her since I left for America. Katya, well, she was busy making herself a name in the KGB and bedding every young man she could entice.”
“Couldn’t you get word to me?”
“By phone, maybe?” She laughed again. “Jack, I know you may not believe this, but at that particular moment in my life, I didn’t think you would take my call.”
He snorted and ended in a laugh, “I guess you’re right. You broke my heart, you know.”
“I know,” she said softly. “You might laugh at this, but my heart broke also. I had to leave you…and Sydney. I believed they would kill you and her if I didn’t. I couldn’t risk it.”
Jack let her words sink in and smiled. “Today, what would you do?”
She hesitated, surprised, and then answered, “Today I might do something different. Maybe I would do a walk-in.”
“Well, that’s something.” He said quietly. He stood as if to go.
“Jack?”
“Yes?”
“Will you kiss me? I’m going to prison and I doubt they will allow you do get this close to me again. I’d like to take the kiss with me, to hold onto, and remember.”
He looked at her, a little surprised. His heart gave a thump. His pulse raced. He took a step forward, leaned down. She raised her face toward his. He took her chin in his left hand and took her mouth in his. Irina’s heart raced and she barely heard the monitor behind her increase the number of beeps, but she didn’t care. He kissed her and he did it well.
TBC
Translation
Sooksin - Son of a bit*ch
Chyort - Damn
Sorry for the delay, but a number of factors interfered with an earlier posting.
SUMMARY: The premise here is that when Sydney shoots her mother, she hits her in the shoulder, not the arm. Irina falls, unable to make it over the edge of the hatch. Meantime Sloane and Emily run for the helicopter, but Emily is killed. Sark and Sloane get away.
DISCLAIMER: The characters in Alias belong to JJ Abrams and ABC-TV except those I create.
RATING: PG-13 for language and violence. You’ll be notified if it escalates into something more.
FREEZE!
By Lenafan
Irina fired, as she ducked, she caught a glimpse of her adversary…it was Sydney! “Oh dear God,” she thought. She didn’t know that Sydney had also seen her and was going through the same emotions. Irina fired again knowing her shots wouldn’t hit Sydney, but might keep her pinned as she ran for the ladder out of the tunnel. Sloane and Emily had already made it to the exit and were running toward the field where the helicopter would land.
She leaped for the ladder. Twenty feet up and she’d be safe.
“Freeze! Or I’ll shoot!”
Irina looked up four or five more rungs to go. She glanced down at Sydney, whose weapon did not waver as she pointed it at her. Would her daughter do it? She heard the helicopter. She might make it if Sydney didn’t fire. She reached for the next rung and stepped up. The shot echoed and the bullet struck her in the left shoulder. Severe pain ripped through her. The bullet tore out of her anterior shoulder after snapping the collarbone.
The disc fell from her hand, landing at Sydney’s feet. Irina gasped as waves of pain tore through her body. In the distance, she thought she heard another shot. She forgot it, as she gripped the ladder with her right hand and fought to overcome the pain, but was losing.
“Unnhh!” Irina moaned and began to lose her grip. Blackness crept into her consciousness. If she fell, she might hurt herself even more. She felt nauseated. She closed her eyes, felt her fingers slide slowly down the ladder. “Ohhh,” she cried, falling the last seven feet, landing at Sydney’s feet, unconscious and bleeding.
“Mom?” Sydney cried, tears in her eyes. Irina’s eyes were closed and a large amount of blood appeared on the front of her shoulder above the breast.
“Sydney,” said a voice from the shaft’s opening above them. “What happened?” It was Vaughn.
“Get a medic. I’ve shot my mother.”
Irina lost consciousness.
Irina heard voices. She seemed to be swimming out of deep water. She wasn’t sure how far she had to go.
“Oh Dad, I—I had to do it.” That was Sydney’s voice.
“Sweetheart, of course you did. She’s going to live.” Jack was with her. “She didn’t obey the order, so she got the bullet. Somehow, I think she might forgive you.”
“You think?”
Irina kept swimming. She saw a light. “Ummm,” she moaned and slowly opened her eyes to see Jack at the foot of the bed, Sydney beside him. She couldn’t move her left arm. It was in a sling plastered to her body. She couldn’t move her right arm. It was handcuffed to the bed. She tried to shift her body a little. Her shoulder ached like sin. “Sooksin,” she managed to murmur.
Jack laughed softly. “Yeah, isn’t it, sweetheart?”
“You shot me,” Irina murmured, looking at her daughter, who looked somewhat pained.
“You didn’t ‘freeze’ Mom.” Sydney said quietly.
“I guess I didn’t and I underestimated you.” Irina sighed. She turned her head slightly and looked at Jack, “Now what?”
“I suspect you are going to be returned to prison.” Jack said.
“Put to death, you mean,” Irina said.
He shook his head, “In spite of everything, Irina, you provided good Intel on several occasions. I imagine we can get you off with just a life sentence.”
“Chyort!”
“How do you feel,” asked Jack.
“Pain is not too bad,” she answered. Irina closed her eyes. She’d felt worse pain in her lifetime. As it went, this was a piece of cake. She drifted off to sleep.
Jack looked at Sydney, “We’ll come back tomorrow, sweetheart. She’ll be a little more lucid.”
The next day, Jack stood outside Irina’s door with two US Marshals and Kendall. He was talking about when they would be transporting her back to prison.
“The doctor told me she should be moving around. She can’t be handcuffed to the bed.”
“No Jack, she stays as is.” Kendall said stiffly.
“If she gets bed sores, she’ll stay longer in this facility,” Jack retorted. “Let the Marshals stay inside the room. She won’t be going anywhere for a few days.”
Kendall reevaluated Jack’s statement. “Very well. They stay inside as long as she is not handcuffed. Understood?” He looked at the three men. Jack nodded.
Moments later, he was inside with the key in his hand. The two Marshals stood on either side of the door. Both had served as her guards while she was in CIA’s custody. Jack went to the right side of the bed, reached in, and unlocked the cuff holding Irina still. Grateful, Irina turned on her right side, away from the two men standing guard.
“Thank you,” she whispered. She had pain in her shoulder, but turning onto her right side, felt as though she’d experienced a kiss. She closed her eyes, sighing.
Jack leaned in saying, “The guards stay inside as long as you are not cuffed. That’s the only way Kendall would go for it.”
“Thank you,” she whispered again and then she stretched both legs. “Raise my bed a little would you?”
“Here, do it yourself.” He handed her a small box attached to an electric cord. “Punch this button to raise it and this one to lower it.” He let her operate the box.
“Jack…I need to tell you something. Bend down,” she said softly.
“What is it,” he leaned closer, knowing she didn’t want the Marshals to hear.
“Maybe you will believe it and maybe not, but that night in Panama…I loved every minute we were together. I know you think I betrayed you, but…” she saw his eyes take on a wary look. “Jack, bring Sydney tonight and handcuff me. I want to talk to you both alone. Please.” She gripped his hand hard.
“Irina.” Now he saw desperation on her face and in her eyes. He sighed. “All right.”
It was after eight before Jack and Sydney arrived at the hospital. Jack had one of the Marshals handcuff Irina; then he asked them to leave.
Sydney was bending over her mother, talking softly when Jack returned. “Emily is going to be buried again tomorrow.”
There were tears in Irina’s eyes. Irina had been her friend earlier while married to Jack. They had just become reacquainted after twenty years. Of all the people in the world, aside from her own family, Emily was the one person she was truly sorry about; Sloane and Sark could take care of themselves, but Emily had no idea about the devil she married.
“Big funeral?”
“No, we’re doing it quietly since the first was a lie.”
Jack stood by the bed. “Irina, we’re both here. What did you want to tell us?”
Irina looked at Sydney, “Let me raise the bed first.”
Sydney watched Irina as the head raised her up. Irina closed her eyes for a minute as she processed her thoughts, then she looked at Jack.
“You wanted to know my endgame. The one that brought me to CIA?”
“Yes, but then we know you just wanted to be a part of Sloane’s team of terrorists.”
Irina bowed her head slightly. She shook it slowly. “No, Jack, that wasn’t the real reason.” Her eyes pinned his. “I was pregnant when I left in 1981. I gave birth to another girl in Moscow a month after I left Kashmir prison. Her name is Nadia and I haven’t seen her for the past twenty years.”
Jack gaped at her. Sydney was stunned.
Irina plunged ahead. “The KGB took her from me the day after she was born. When she was six, a Friend of Rambaldi follower stole her from a KGB laboratory and hid her. He hid her so well that I have not been able to locate her. I do not know if she is alive or dead.”
“Why didn’t you tell us when you were in CIA custody,” growled Jack angrily. He was shaking.
“Because I didn’t know if she was alive or dead. How could I tell you that when you had to deal with my being there. Now, however, I’m going to prison. I can’t hunt for her any longer. You and Sydney have to find her.”
“Of course we will, Mom,” Sydney was positive.
“What does this have to do with your endgame?” Jack rumbled.
“She was my endgame. The disc I dropped contains the DNA of three million people. Sloane was going to use it for a different purpose. I wanted to check it for the possibility she was on it.”
“Three million is not the population of the world. There are five or six billion people on the planet.” Jack said.
“Yes,” she answered, “but she is on this disc. It comes from an area of the world not well explored…South America, most likely Argentina.”
“How did you narrow it down?”
She told him. “I hacked into every DNA file I could find while I was The Man. Nadia has to be twenty if she is still alive. Her birthday is 15 July 1982. When she was born, her eyes were dark like mine, her hair black like Mama’s and skin like hers too. Other than that I have no other description.”
Jack was trying to deal with the fact he had another daughter and couldn’t answer immediately. Sydney took her mother’s right hand. “We’ll do our best. I’ll get Marshall to run the disc immediately against our DNA.”
“Thank you. Let me know if you find her, please.” Irina glanced at Jack, who was trying to get his emotions in order.
“Would the old KGB files have her picture,” he asked.
“I tried to find them. I could not. Even my father could not. Everything was destroyed by the KGB hierarchy when the USSR fell.” Irina studied the wall in front of her, trying to decide if she should tell Jack and Sydney more. She decided not to do it until they found her. “I do want to tell you one more thing: my sister Yelena may be looking for her and may have found her.”
“Why?” Jack and Sydney said at once.
“I have an aunt too!” Sydney gasped.
“You of two of them,” rumbled Jack. “Ekaterina is the youngest.”
“Dad, you knew this and didn’t tell me?”
He stared at Irina, “When you are betrayed, you want to know by who and all about their family.”
Irina said nothing for a moment, and then added, “Yelena was an archivist with the KGB. She became enamored with the information the KGB was collecting on Rambaldi. I understand when she left the organization, she took some Rambaldi manuscripts with her.
“What do they have to do with Nadia,” asked Jack, frowning.
Suddenly Irina realized she better tell them both everything. “She is The Passenger.”
Sydney gasped.
Jack stared. “Our daughters…both of them, are a part of the cursed Rambaldi legend?” His eyes pinned those of Irina’s.
She met his furious gaze without flinching. “Yes!”
“I don’t believe it,” he snapped.
“Sorry, but it’s true, Jack. That’s why the KGB took her. They had come into possession of a manuscript, which said The Chosen One’s sister would be The Passenger and that the Passenger would have the answer to Rambaldi’s most prized artifact. It did not tell what it was.”
“I thought it was Sloane who had a connection with Rambaldi. Now it seems…” He stared at her. “It’s you,” he said, probing her face and locking onto her eyes.
“It could be you,” she said.
“Wait!” Cried Sydney. Her parents looked at her. “I have a sister and I don’t care about this Rambaldi stuff. I just want to find her.”
“Get Marshall to work on the disc.” Said Irina to Jack and Sydney. “I believe you said he could work miracles. She’s on it and you can go from there.”
Sydney leaned down and planted a kiss on Irina’s cheek. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“We will keep you informed,” said Jack, still stunned by the revelation he had another daughter somewhere in the world.
The next evening, Jack was back with the news it would be another few days or so until the encrypted disc was solved and they could start processing the DNAs collected on it. He wanted to talk to Irina. Because he wanted to talk to her alone, he left the marshals outside.
Irina was sitting up slightly, at least as much as the handcuffed wrist would let her. Her face lighted up as he walked into the room. “Hello Jack,” she said.
“How are you feeling?” He asked, pulling up the only chair in the room. He shoved down the side rail on the left side.
“Better.” She looked at him. “Have you found her yet?”
“No. Sydney said to tell you she’s working with Marshall to break the encryption code. As soon as they get it, she’ll come over.”
“She’s a wonderful young woman, Jack. I meant it when I said I was grateful for you raising her.” She gave him a tentative smile.
“Irina,” he pulled the chair closer. “It would have been easier if you had told me a long time ago.”
“What would it accomplish?” She answered. “I didn’t know where she was. There was very little DNA science then and my life was not good. I—I was in prison for six months before they released me. It was not pleasant. I spent all my energy getting as much good food as possible in me, still it was not enough. They performed a caesarean on me. I was sent to Central City the following week.”
“Your father…sisters…couldn’t they help?”
She laughed a deep scornful laugh. “Father had to protect himself. He had worked himself to a Lt. Colonel in the Operations Directorate. He wanted to stay out of Andropov’s ire, but he didn’t have to worry. Andropov died a year or two later. Yelena hated me, so she wouldn’t lift a hand. Besides I had not seen her since I left for America. Katya, well, she was busy making herself a name in the KGB and bedding every young man she could entice.”
“Couldn’t you get word to me?”
“By phone, maybe?” She laughed again. “Jack, I know you may not believe this, but at that particular moment in my life, I didn’t think you would take my call.”
He snorted and ended in a laugh, “I guess you’re right. You broke my heart, you know.”
“I know,” she said softly. “You might laugh at this, but my heart broke also. I had to leave you…and Sydney. I believed they would kill you and her if I didn’t. I couldn’t risk it.”
Jack let her words sink in and smiled. “Today, what would you do?”
She hesitated, surprised, and then answered, “Today I might do something different. Maybe I would do a walk-in.”
“Well, that’s something.” He said quietly. He stood as if to go.
“Jack?”
“Yes?”
“Will you kiss me? I’m going to prison and I doubt they will allow you do get this close to me again. I’d like to take the kiss with me, to hold onto, and remember.”
He looked at her, a little surprised. His heart gave a thump. His pulse raced. He took a step forward, leaned down. She raised her face toward his. He took her chin in his left hand and took her mouth in his. Irina’s heart raced and she barely heard the monitor behind her increase the number of beeps, but she didn’t care. He kissed her and he did it well.
TBC
Translation
Sooksin - Son of a bit*ch
Chyort - Damn