The Perfect Weapon Chapter 12 part 4 section 1 of 3
Chapter 12: Part 4
"My informant tells me the subject in question is in the building and available." Susan leaned into the doorway to Barnett's office.
"Well, go get him. He's late. Wait - your 'informant'? 'The subject in question'? Susan, don't get caught up in the idea that you too are in the espionage business. You're just--"
"On a mission."
"C'mon," Barnett rolled her eyes.
"You don't think getting Jack Bristow to go somewhere he kinda, sorta, maybe, perhaps doesn't want to admit to wanting to go isn't a mission? You don't think that requires courage?"
"Or stupidity?" Barnett mumbled. "I'm certainly not going."
"I heard that. I'm outta here. Time to rumble."
"Oh, lord, I've created a monster. Hmm, wonder if she knows Weiss," Judy thought, biting a pencil between her teeth and staring into space. Then she got up and readjusted the files for the thousandth time since she came in this morning. She had to have faith, if not in herself, than in Dave. Faith was the key.
'Somehow I doubt it,' he mimicked to himself, tapping the pencil against his cheekbone. 'Somehow I doubt it,' that we'd be bored with each other in 30 years? Then why the hell did you leave, why are you leaving again, why didn't you ever come back? Contact me once, once!' he asked himself, breaking the pencil in two and tossing it into his wastebasket. 'Somehow I doubt it.' Unbelievable! Could you stick the knife any deeper, Irina? Somehow I doubt it...I'd like to take that doubt and wrap it up nice and tight and stick it… And I never did get that photo of your waist with the chain. How unfair is that! He snapped another pencil and tossed it into the basket. Then noticed that there were feet standing next to his basket doing the dance of someone who needs to pee or…."Yes?! What is it, Marshall?" He looked up.
"Well, sir, see, Jack. No, Mr. Bristow. See, I don't know what to call you. I mean Sydney calls you Dad. But that's hardly appropriate for me, since you're not my dad. Did you know my dad died fifteen years ago? That it's just me and my mom? And even if she remarried, I mean I was too old to start calling this guy, whoever he might be -- I mean, where would my mom meet a new guy...she doesn't have many hobbies, you know. Do you know anybody...maybe a fix up? Maybe she knows somebody you might...No? Jack, I mean, Mr. Bristow, you really have to do something about that stress. I mean, you have a flotilla of broken pencils in your wastebasket. A flotilla -- you know, how they use to run the logs down the rivers in the spring in logging territory? It was a really dangerous job..Not that your job, isn't, you know, dangerous, but you're hardly likely to get a log skipjack - you know that thing that looks like a harpoon for logs -- in your head on this upcoming mission--"
"Clearly, you haven't read the profile on my ex-wife," he gritted out.
"Wait -- was that a joke, Mr Bristow? Wow. That's good, very good. Humor is very good way to relieve stress, did you know that? I mean---"
"What. Is. It. Marshall?"
"I...got you a present."
"What?" Jack snapped out, raising both eyebrows and sitting up straight.
"A present. You seemed stressed and I was out shopping the other day -- for well, you know," he looked side to side and whispered, "underwear. And I saw this and thought, now there's something Jack, Mr. Bristow, Sydney's dad could use. I mean, between the wife, ex-wife -- I mean, that's gotta be confusing. I know I'm confused---"
"Marshall...."
"Oh. Well, anyway, I saw this and thought of you." He held out a small rubber doll that consisted of a bowling pin shaped body and a bald head. "Watch..." He squeezed the middle and the eyes and ears and hands popped out. "See, if you squeeze it, the physical act releases some tension and then this looks so ridiculous, it should...Well, I mean, actually it," he looked side to side and whispered, "It reminded me of Assistant Director Kendall. The bald head--"
"I get it."
"And the way his eyes seem to pop out of his head when he's talking to you. I mean, you. Not me, although sometimes I get the feeling, don't you---"
"I see." He gingerly took the rubber doll Marshal handed to him and stared it, trying not to smile at the thought of its resemblance to Kendall. Hmm, did he have any pins handy? Wait, if he sharpened one of those pencils to a fine point, he could…
"So, I thought -- hope I'm not stepping out of line here, I mean sometimes people don't seem to appreciate my gifts, like that time with Mr. Sloane and the tie. But then again, he's evil, isn't he? Went over to the dark side and all. Didja ever think maybe he didn't have a good paternal role model, that maybe someone convinced him to go to the dark side and he didn't have the grounding from, say, oh I don't know, Yoda to help him keep the faith in the Force? To resist Darth Vader, even though he was his father? Because it's kinda hard to resist your parents, isn't it? I mean, my mom calls and says," he put his hand up to his face mimicking a phone and speaking in a falsetto said, "'Marshall, stop at the store and pick up pickles and say, oh, frozen waffles.' And I'd really rather stop at the comic store on the way home and pick up the latest issue of the Amazing X-Men, but hey, it's your mom, what are you going to do? Not that I, no, I'd never, think that Sydney couldn't resist it if her mom wanted her to do something wrong." He put his hand up again, imitating a phone, "'Sydney, sweetheart, can you blow up that building on the corner of First and Main?' Now, Sydney would say, 'No, Mom, can't. I have to stop at the video store on the way home, pick up dry cleaning, get some Chinese takeout….Really, I'm just too busy. Talk to you tomorrow!' And see, she'd be off the hook…I can never come up with a good excuse, but of course Sydney can lie at the drop of a hat …Oh, wait - you didn't take that as an insult did you? And about your wife, ex-wife," he swallowed and shook his head. "Sydney's mom? What should I call her?"
"'Irina Derevko' works for me."
"Oh, okay. But I didn't mean that as an insult. Not at all and well…" He took a breath. "Well, he --- Sloane -- did have you, all those years, you were his friend, although were you really? I mean, you were working for and against him all that time? Wow, that must have been confusing too. Wow, your wife was a spy and your best friend was the head of SD-6, the bad guys. Wow, a lot of the dark side in your life, huh? You must have had a good sense of yourself, like Yoda."
"Are you saying I'm Yoda? A little green man with pointy ears?"
"No, no," Marshall said, waving his hands side to side in front of him. "You're too tall. Way too tall. And not green. Plus, Yoda wasn't a man, strictly speaking. Humanoid, certainly, but technically…You know I have a whole theory about that and --"
He had to get away this moment, or he was going to start screaming or laughing hysterically or...The phone rang. He stared at it. Unfreakin' believable. What the hell, what had he just said, thought? Tell me I only just thought that, he groaned to himself. And where had that come from, anyway? He looked around. Weiss. He had been spending too much time with the gruesome twosome before and this is what happened. A lapse into the English spoken by idiots. Well, then, that was probably appropriate.
"YES?" he snarled into the phone.
"Boy, Jack, someone is a leetle testy today, aren't they?"
"Who the hell is this?"
"Jack, this is Susan," she said slowly and enunciating carefully as if she were speaking to a child. Watching his hand clench around the rubber man until the creature's eyes popped out and stayed out, he jumped when Marshall gave him a pat on the shoulder and a thumbs up signal before moving away. Then he spun around the other way, someone was staring at him. Oh. Vaughn. Big deal. Vaughn was always looking at him as if he were a Jack-in-the-box whose head was filled with C-4 and awaited only a particularly hard turn of the crank for the inevitable explosion. He shrugged. Good, if the boy was a little nervous, after all… "Jack, are you listening? Where are you and why aren't you in Dr. Barnett's office right now?"
"I'm running late on setting up this mission and---"
"Ha. You're probably sitting at your desk doing that thing with the pencils."
"What thing?"
"Bopping it against your cheekbone. Or snapping a whole box of pencils into little pieces and throwing them in your wastebasket as if they were guided missiles.
"How the hell--"
"Language, language, Jack. My virgin ears and all. Oh, by the way…. I'm on my way to get you and I'm not taking no for an answer."
"I think not."
"Think again. I'm on my way down the hall to the Op Center and whaddya know, here I am."
He swiveled toward the entrance. "What the hell do you think you're doing? And why are you talking like that?"
"I'm a woman on a mission. You're either coming quietly with me or I'll make a scene."
"You would not dare," he began, still talking into the phone as she entered the rotunda and began walking toward him.
"Wanna bet? Jack, where am I from?"
"New York. The Bronx."
"And you think I would have a problem being loud? Voicing my opinion? Making a scene in public? Puh-leeze. You think I give a crap about what anyone thinks of me? You think this low tone of voice is my normal one? That I don't have a really big, loud voice that I would hesitate to use to start talking about you…? How say, oh I don't know, how nice and charming and funny you can be? To say nothing of somewhat reserved? Although I understand, as a former English teacher, that there is another word for reserved….I don't even need to open my thesaurus for this one syllable word…."
"You are in so…" he growled as she reached his desk and snapped her phone closed.
Taking his phone out of his hand, she plunked the receiver down into the holder. "You can either come with me quietly or we have the aforementioned alternative. Your choice, Agent Bristow?" When he just stared at her incredulously, wondering if the Op Center had been taken over by clones from the local nuthouse branch of Sloane's DNA-R-US franchise opportunity, she put her hand on his elbow and pulled. He got up. They began walking away.
"I see and note the look of death directed my way, Jack. Color me unimpressed."
"I. Cannot. Believe. You. Did. That," he said, clenching his fists as they walked out.
"Ah. But that ploy gained me two results. A doubleplay, we call it in baseball." He swiveled to look at her in surprise. "One, it got you where you need to be. And two, it made you forget all about the awkwardness of finding out I had a little crush on you, didn't it? Well, me too. Don't worry, I'll get over it and we can still be friendly. Or heaven forbid, even friends?"
"Oh," Jack said. Then moving to more comfortable territory, he asked, looking back into the Op Center as they continued walking. "So…who's your informant?"
"Informant? Who said anything about an informant?" Susan asked, looking up too innocently.
"Who was that woman?" Weiss asked, watching them walk out.
"What woman?" Vaughn responded nonchalantly, making Weiss narrow his eyes on him.
"That blonde that hauled Jack out of here."
"Barnett's assistant."
"She was something. Color me impressed. Why can't I meet women like that?"
"Because you're not, as odd as it seems to me, deemed screwed up enough to need a shrink? Although I'm sure you could provide a reasonable facsimile of insanity if you tried just a little. Think about it."
"Very funny. Was she really pulling Jack along by the elbow, arguing with him? And he was going with her? Wow. She's tough."
Vaughn looked up. "Yeah, talk about---"
"Balls of steel," they said simultaneously and looking at each other, cracked up.
"I could love a woman like that," Weiss said solemnly, watching her walk away. "Do you think Jack would introduce me?"
"I could probably do it. If you give me enough incentive."
"Well, I'm always here for dating advice."
"As I recall, your last bit of dating advice nearly led to the compromise of national security."
"As I recall, my dating advice did not include leaving the airport together, Boy Scout."
"Ha, ha. I am prostrate with laughter."
"Well, when Jack has a talk with you about that little incident, I'm sure you'll be prostrate, but it won't be with laughter."
"Oh, s***. I never thought of that….I wasn't thinking of anything but---"
"Getting me my éclairs? Which I might remind you, I never got."
"I was a little busy knifing goons to pay a visit to a boulangerie to satisfy your sweet tooth!"
"Well, now that Elvis has left the building, satisfy my curiosity." Weiss said, sitting on Vaughn's desk.
"Yeah?"
"Ya want to explain to me just who you were calling about five minutes before that assistant showed up here?"
"Huh?"
"You can wrinkle that forehead as much as you want, my friend, but it's not gonna distract me. I'm not Sydney and I don't think it's cute."
"She thinks it's cute? Really? How do you know? Did she say something?"
"Give me strength," Weiss moaned and got up and walked away. Vaughn smiled. Eh, what do you know, that misdirection business of Jack's really does work….
"C'mon, Jack. You're not afraid, are you?" Susan asked softly if challengingly when he stopped at the door to Barnett's office. "You're already late. Time is…". He shook his head, tuning her out. Hearing something, someone else...
It's time, Jack. It's time to start recovering, get on with your life. Or close to it. And I'm not going to give up until you admit it. At a certain point you'll be ready. You'll say, 'Its time, Dave.' And I'll be waiting for you.
No, you won't. You'll be back there pushing me or in front of me, pulling me.
He started. Susan was standing next to him, her hand on his back, looking up at him. "Go ahead, you're the bravest man I know. You can do it," she said gently. "Open the door."
He put his hand on the knob and turned slowly. Blinked at the sudden glare of sunlight streaming in through the windows.
"Come in, Jack," Dr Barnett said, gesturing toward the couch. He sat. Feeling...damn it, he did not want to feel anything. Where was a pencil? He looked around.
"I want to talk to you, first of all, about the amount of time you'll be spending in proximity with your ex-wife and what that might mean for you, therapeutically speaking."
"Oh?" he said, his eyes opaque, picking up a pencil from the coffee table in front of him.
He stared at it curiously as she commented, "You thought it was dangerous for Sydney to spend time with her. " He paused for a thought, she could tell after all these months with him, and began lightly tapping the pencil against his cheekbone.
"What are you doing?
He held the pencil out before him. "Why does this pencil have all these teeth marks?"
"Oh," she smiled self-deprecatingly. "I do that when I'm thinking or stressed. A bad habit. One I need to break."
"There are worse habits," he shrugged and tapped the pencil against his knee. Like meddling, obsessive-compulsive meddling….
"Yes, I know. And I understand that you also break boxes of pencils into small pieces. That someone in your office is planning on buying you a case of pencils for your birthday as a joke."
"Well, isn't this interesting, in a Twilight Zone kinda way. Today, Marshall gives me a present and now 'someone in my office' is planning on another gift. "
"Marshall gave you a present?"
"Yes. One of those bald rubber dolls you squeeze and their eyes pop out."
She covered her mouth and whispered,"Kendall?"
"No comment. So, is the person planning a birthday gift the same person as Susan's informant?"
"No comment."
"Is it Vaughn or Weiss? Wait, there's no way for Susan to have met Weiss, is there? Although she probably should, don't you think they'd be perfect for each other?" Barnett rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. "So....as I suspected it's Vaughn as the informant. Pretty Boy thinks he's going to inform on me? Gee, wonder if Sydney knows that tattoo of his is from a former girlfriend? I see pain in his future, pain when that tattoo is excised when she finds out." Then he grimaced and began tapping the pencil on his cheekbone again.
"Jack, what are you doing with that?"
"Oh. I told myself, promised myself, I'd stop meddling in Sydney's life. So to convince myself to do it, I decided that every time I had one of those thoughts I'd have to stick a pencil in my eye. But since self-mutilation is not among my score of issues, it's better, is it not? Healthier to just tap and repeat, 'pencil, eye, pencil, eye'," he said demonstrating.
"So, you're doing some behavior modification on yourself?"
"One might say."
"One might say that was a good try at misdirecting me too," she threw his way.
He raised an eyebrow and said nothing. He thought, she's good. This will be interesting. Where will we go today on the journey to find a way to reach Jack? 'You were saying, Judy, something about the amount of time I've spent with her. Irina."
"Well, actually I was talking about the forthcoming trip, but let's talk about the last few months." She forced herself to speak calmly and not to do the happy "Gotcha" dance. He had actually misspoken consciously or unconsciously and given her a hint, an opening. "You didn't want Sydney to spend time with her. Why? Let's review."
"Yes. I was...afraid, as you so helpfully pointed out last time, that she would be drawn into her...web. It's so easy to be taken in by her, to fall victim...." He paused and she saw his mind fall into some memory. She waited.
The truth is, Dave, that we are all whores or victims of whores. I'm choosing to not be a victim.
"Isn't the truth, Jack, that you were also afraid of falling victim yourself? That... your unresolved feelings for her left you vulnerable? That you were afraid not only of her, but of yourself? Afraid of her power and your own weakness, as you saw it?"
He forced himself not to strangle her. "Are we back to fear again? Taking up right where we left off?"
"It's important. But I must say, from a therapeutic standpoint, seeing Derevko as much as you have was a wonderful method of--"
"Of what? Making myself bleed from within?"
"Is that what it felt like?"
"I swear, if you ask me how seeing Irina makes me feel, I'll…"
"No, Jack, I won't. No one has ever called me self-destructive. And there's a note in your file stating quite emphatically, from your last therapist, that that particular question elicits nothing from you."
"My last…Oh," he said looking away. He swallowed hard, thinking, please, please tell me we are not going to talk about my breakdown today. Please. "My file -- the one you have -- goes back that far? That's SOP?"
"Well, no. I had to put in a special request."
"Why?"
"You are a complicated man, Jack---"
"No, I'm not. I'm pretty simple. My wants--"
"And needs are simple? Is that what you think? I think not." She smiled at him gently, noting his momentary flash of confusion when she finished his sentence. "It was best, in my opinion, if I had all the resources available. And the therapist you had initially, I don't think was too---"
"Intelligent? Helpful?" Jack scoffed.
"You probably knew more about analysis and techniques than he did, that's why you were able to snow him into accepting the persona of your field profile as the totality of Jack Bristow, wasn't it?" He reared back in surprise. How had she figured that out? "Let me ask you this? Did you want to be helped or did you want to wallow in your own mud puddle of guilt and self-disgust?"
"Are you equating me, Dr. Barnett, with a pig?"
"Well, if the nose ring fits…" They both smiled.
"Now that you've insulted me.... interesting tactic by the way for a therapist. Is this some new technique with which you're experimenting and for which I am the guinea pig?"
"Puns are the lowest form of humor, but I'm glad to see you making any attempt at all. A giant step for Jack Bristow and all. And actually, I'm willing to try any tactic, anything at all at this point." She leaned forward, "Jack, I feel you are on the edge of something, something critical. It's time...finally, it's time. You're ready. That's why you're here, isn't it? You would not have allowed Susan to drag you in here if you did not truly want to be here. Isn't that true?"
"I...don't know."
It's time, Jack. It's time to start recovering, get on with your life. Or close to it.
"Don't lie to yourself." She waited. He said nothing. "Okay, back to Derevko. I was concerned at first, when I saw how much time you were spending with her, the interactions with her. It made me wonder just what you were---"
He interrupted her before she could complete her thought. "You saw the tapes? he asked incredulously.
"Yes, I checked out the tapes of your interactions with her - well, those that remain. It's such a shame that so many tapes seem to have been accidentally erased, isn't it?"
"Yes, a terrible shame that the techs seem to have so much trouble archiving the digital masters," he said blandly, although a muscle at the corner of his mouth twitched ever so slightly. Then his mouth flattened. "You checked out my interactions with Irina? You spied on me?"
"Well, to quote her, I don't have the advantage of observing casual interactions, so…"
"There are no casual interactions between Irina and myself," Jack said flatly and then wanted to kick himself.
"No, there aren't in any stage of aversion therapy."
"Aversion therapy," he parroted, a crease forming between his brows.
"Yes. You remember that agent in your team who was bitten by a poisonous snake on some op and nearly died? Remember, he became terrified of snakes? Saw them everywhere? Even a little garter snake was enough to--"
"I remember. Someone thought they were being funny and put a rubber snake in his desk and he actually vomited."
"So, when he came to see me, I did some aversion therapy. First, I showed him photos of snakes...." Jack nodded. "Jack, what did you do with the photos of your marriage that included Laura?" she asked quickly.
"Burned them, tried to....What?"
"So, when he could look at photos of snakes without breaking into a cold sweat, then we saw videos of snakes...Perfectly safe, he could turn them off at any time, right? Did you ever watch tapes of your interactions with Irina?"
"Yes, but--"
"Then, we went to the zoo and it took a while before he could walk into the reptile house. How long did it take you before you could make that initial walk down the hall to her cell that first time?"
"No time. I just told myself to do it and I did it. But--"
"You have extraordinary self control when you choose to exercise it. Much more than that agent, who I thought was going to deck me for walking him up to the door of the reptile house that first time. But I notice no such anger on your part with any of the guards stationed with Irina."
He forced himself to neither smile nor assume the mask. Good thing he had destroyed the tape of the little glass shattering moment with the Sunglass Hut guard. "Are you equating Irina Derevko with a snake, Doctor Barnett?" Jack asked in mock surprise, now allowing himself to smile.
Not saying anything, but thinking, well if it has fangs and can shed its skin.... "And your goal is to, shall we say, defang her, Jack?"
"Is that what you think my goal is?"
"You tell me."
"I think not. But...do you think she could be? Defanged?"
"You're a brilliant man. If anyone could....manipulate her," she wondered at the fleeting light of humor in his eyes and continued. "It would be you. But perhaps you need to manipulate yourself into health." What was he finding so amusing in her words, she asked herself in exasperation. "And in reviewing your psych assessments during the time before your imprisonment and even after--"
"You reviewed those too?" He looked over at the stack of files piled near and on her desk, the manila folders looking almost yellow in the bright sunlight streaming in. "Are all those...mine? You did that much research?"
"Yes. Let me ask you this. Your psych assessments were flawless during your time as a double. Did you ever feel, all those years you were a double, lost in the game?"
"No. I always knew what I was doing, never got confused."
"Why is that? Why not you?"
"I don't know. Never thought about it." He shrugged. She gave him a hard look. He continued, sighing, "You have a job to do, you've made a commitment...I don't know. Getting lost in the game of being a double? I mean...what kind of...."
"Yes, what kind of person gets lost?"
"Someone who has trouble focusing on the big picture. Or someone who ignores the implications of the details in the pursuit of their goals. Both. You have to have...balance. The worst part is...."
"What, what's the worst part?"
"Having to engage in...negative behaviors to achieve a positive. Steeling yourself to that...is difficult. Truth is so...malleable. It's difficult to keep that particular layer of truth -- the negative -- from defining your...self, from accepting it as a given, from welcoming it. Am I making any sense?"
"Yes. So, you need a self-awareness. What else? Strength, does a double need strength?"
"Yes. A weak person, like...Haladki, for example, is the weak link in an operation and will endanger not only himself but everyone around him."
"So strength. Did you applaud Sydney's strength when she walked into the CIA? No doubt keeping that to yourself, of course." She held her breath, would he see the circle she was drawing around him? Could she misdirect him? Only if he wanted to be misdirected, perhaps....
"No doubt you meant that little dig at my...reticence to be very amusing. Ha. Ha. I have told her that I am proud of her."
"When?"
"When we were in Kashmir..."
"When you were afraid, appropriately so, that you two might not make it out alive from this op with Derevko?"
"I meant that I was proud of her in general. And yes, I was proud of her the day when she walked into the CIA; worried for her too, that she was putting herself in that kind of danger."
"The danger of being a double. The physical danger and the emotional danger?"
"Yes, both. But proud that she had the courage and strength to do it. To see evil, to want to confront it, even if part of her motivation was Danny's death. Still..."
"And you? When you walked back into the CIA and offered yourself up to be a double so long ago? Didn't that require strength and courage? Especially to return to the CIA, the site, you must have felt, of your humiliation? It would have been far easier to just continue working with Arvin, your friend, wouldn't it?"
"I..." He looked at her and grimaced.
"So if Sydney had strength and courage, don't you?"
"Very funny. You won that one. You wrapped me up quite nicely in that little circuitous argument. I bow to you."
"Yes, I led you down the primrose path there, didn't I? So, I won and I'm going to claim my forfeit. Repeat after me, I..."
"You must be joking."
"Do it. I won. I...."
"I..." he rolled his eyes.
"Have strength and courage."
"Have..strength and...courage?"
"Very good. Say it again with no question mark at the end this time."
"I'm not a five-year old child!"
"Then stop acting like one."
You're being a petulant child.
When he said nothing, just seemed lost in thought for a moment, she waited and then continued. "You have been afraid in part because you didn't think you had the strength to resist temptation. That if you were with her again, you might succumb to what she offered, that you wanted what she offered and you would take it, like Adam taking the apple. But that this time, it would be worse, because this time you know there's a snake hiding, possibly, in that tree. Right?"
"What's with the analogy?"
I say this not because of the truth, that snake in the garden that was lying there all along, just waiting.....
"You like analogies, don't you? Let's continue with the snake analogy..."
"Must we? It's so...obvious."
"Heaven forbid we be obvious. So.... This time you've been spending with her. I could ask you how you feel now and how that differs from how you felt initially, but I know that will get me zip. So, if you ask my opinion--"
"As I recall, I didn't!" Just like being with Dave, he thought, feeling the confusion deepen within. The shifting of time…
"But you see, that's the advantage of being the therapist. I get to tell you what I think. And I think that first of all, you performed the really clever trick of undergoing your own aversion therapy. Each time you spent with her, the vision of her you had in your head got chipped away, back to realistic proportions."
"Okay. I'll bite. What was the vision of her I had in my head?"
"Tell me if I'm right?" He nodded slowly. "That you had created this vision of her as all-powerful, larger than life."
You put too much faith in her, in your relationship and not enough in yourself. And I say this not because of the truth, that snake in the garden that was lying there all along, just waiting....I would say that even if she had been just Laura Bristow. Before you held her up in your mind, even though you saw her faults, as some kind of... savior. Now you hold her up in your mind as the other, the opposite. And she's neither. She's somewhere in between. He shook his head, his face showing both confusion and intensity, but clearly not listening and so she waited.
When he was back in the room with her, she continued, "The way you looked at her with the eyes of love, when we see everything wonderful in that person, transformed itself, when you looked at her with the eyes of pain and betrayal and even hate, into everything terrible. The beauty turned into a beast. Our greatest strength..."
"Becomes our greatest weakness. The perfect weapon against us, even if we are wielding the knife ourselves. And the knife we wield ourselves or give inadvertently to someone else by trusting them, is always the sharpest, most perfect weapon of all."
"Yes. You've thought about this?"
"Oh, I've had thoughts on the perfect weapon. After all, I'm an expert on game theory and manipulating...people, aren't I?"
'How about yourself? How about you use those gifts, those talents and help yourself heal even more?"
"What do you mean?"
"Jack, you have many gifts. Many gifts you tend to ignore because what have those gifts wrought? Pain." He looked away. She paused. Okay, not just yet. "One of those gifts is a certain kind of self awareness that allowed you to be a double all those years, to not get lost. That self, buried deep within is what has sustained you. You just need to tap into it consciously and then you could almost heal yourself. Almost. You just need a little direction, a little push."
Its time, Jack. Its time to start recovering, get on with your life. Or close to it. And Im not going to give up until you admit it. At a certain point youll be ready. Youll say, Its time, Dave. And I'll be waiting for you.
No, you won't. You'll be back there pushing me or in front of me, pulling me.
"Dave....said that. Or rather I did...."
She touched a brown portfolio file sitting next to her, but did nothing with it, arousing his unwilling curiosity. "You said the last time we spoke that Dave helped you. How?"
"He convinced me that I should drop a type of mission that he felt, and he was right, was not a..'good thing'. To go all Martha Stewart on you."
"Do you watch Martha Stewart, Jack?" she asked curiously.
"Once, saw it while I was in the hospital. That woman scares the crap out of me. What a control freak!" Barnett raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, yeah. Pot meet kettle. But the way she was torturing the petals of countless tulips to bend them back and spray them with a fixative just so she could have one tulip that looked like a cosmos flower? I ask you, if you want a cosmos flower, why not just find a cosmos flower? Why torture a tulip?"
"Jack, what does that analogy mean?" she said quickly.
"It means I was screwing over other women, as many as I could find, because I could not screw over my dead wife." Sh*it! That had been a mistake. Speak up quickly, cover, cover, before it occurs to her that I now do have the opportunity to screw over my very live wife, he told himself. Okay, let's give her this, he decided and said, "Dave talked me out of these missions which I had resumed after my release and...recovery."
"Yes, I know. He was reprimanded for his interference with the performance of your duties."
"I didn't know that....My ass of a supervisor. He never forgave me for breaking his nose."
"You broke his nose? I didn't see that in your personnel files."
"Sloane. But of course, I...."
"Of course, if he had not done it for you, you would have found a way yourself...." He smiled. She rolled her eyes. "Forget it. How did Dave do it? Beyond the fact that you trusted him? Tell me what happened? Is this the time he helped you that you referred to last time?"
"Yes. It was a long conversation…." He took a breath. "You have my duty sheet, I presume?" Barnett nodded. "Okay. Before I met Laura, I occasionally---"
"Occasionally?"
"Okay. I often engaged in the seduction and snatch missions, only Dave and I didn't call them that..." he looked away.
She said, "In and out? That's what the Soviets called it."
He shook his head. "We called them, screw and skedaddle," he mumbled, supressing a smile of his own.
"Screw and skedaddle?" She bit her lip, he knew to keep from laughing.
"We. Were. Kids when we came up with that phrase, just kids really and…"
"What happened to that kid, Jack?" she asked softly, lightly touching his hand.
He looked her in the eye. "He grew up and faced reality," he said shortly.
"Define reality. Tell me what you told Dave when he tried to convince you to drop those missions that you resumed after you were deemed fit for the field again."
"I want to talk to you about the s&s marathon you've been on for months now," Dave had said, as he sat down on the taupe couch in Jack's too-white living room.
Jack paused in the act of handing his friend a beer. "What about it? I'm good at it. Shouldn't we do that at which we excel?"
Dave took the beer and plunked it down on the table. Waited until Jack sat down next to him and put his feet up on the table. "Your sarcasm slays me. Yeah, yeah, you wrote the manual. Big whoop. What about the manual on Jack Bristow? What about what he needs? What about the fact that you haven't looked at another woman outside those you screw over in the field? What about the truth?"
"What truth would that be? The truth, as I've come to understand it, is infinitely layered," Jack drawled.
"Okay, well, here's one truth. That you need to get back into the game of life. Stop selling yourself so cheaply. Stop being a damn whore! You are better than that, you deserve better than that," Dave said fiercely, leaning forward.
Jack sucked in a breath. He parried, "The truth is, Dave, that we are all whores or victims of whores. I'm choosing to not be a victim."
"You're choosing to ignore the truth. Including the truth about yourself and what you need. And what you don't need are these soulless encounters in which you are f**king some foreign operative in order to screw over your wife. Your dead wife."
"She was never really my wife. She was a whore. And I was her trick."
"Is that what it felt like? When you were intimate with her? Did you ever feel like that? Ever?"
"You're asking me to judge? Clearly, I have poor judgment when it comes to her. Clearly I was projecting my own feelings on to her. She could not have---"
"Answer the question. Now. When you were intimate with her, did you ever feel cold?"
"No. I never felt that," he said so softly that had Dave not been sitting right next to him, he would not have heard.
"What did you feel?" Dave asked quietly.
"I don't remember," he said flatly, trying to keep all emotion, all fear out of his voice as he rubbed his hands on his thighs. Lying to Dave...how low had he sunk? But the truth, even to say to Dave....
"You do. You just don't want to. So, I'll tell you because I do. I remember what you told me. You told me that being with her made you feel free. Could you have felt that way if your feelings were not true?
"My feelings were never in question!" he protested against the lump in his throat.
"I meant your instincts! Jack, you're too good a gamesplayer to have been taken in. We know now that she was not the first operative sent to target you and you never fell for any of them, so give yourself some credit---"
"No. Give her the credit. She was brilliant. Her skills at deception...truly remarkable. I never, never doubted her. She won. I lost at the game."
"Did you? I think she was the one who lost, was lost."
"Why? Because she's dead?"
"No. Because she turned her back on you and Sydney. I pity her as much as I despise her for what she's done to you. And Sydney. But, here's the problem. You're making a mistake, these screw and skedaddle missions you've taken for the last several months. This is a bad choice for you, Jack. You know better now. You're not a kid anymore, who doesn't know the difference between making love and having sex. This behavior is detrimental to your emotional health and ---"
"I don't know. Feels good to me," he shrugged and took a gulp of his beer.
"Does it? Does it really? You don't feel colder and emptier inside every time you do it?"
Jack plunked his feet down on the floor in a thud. Carefully setting down the bottle, he said quietly. "At a certain point, the coldness feels...good."
"Because it's a lack of pain. But you deserve more than a lack of pain. And because it's, the coldness, it's familiar. We all tend to stay with the familiar even when it's not in our best interests. You know that, remember the rat experiments?"
"Are you equating me with a rat?"
"Well…" Dave smiled. Then he closed in, "It feels good because you either see her face when you're screwing and stealing from these women or because you know, you know, how incensed she - surely the most possessive person I have ever met in my life or work - would be that you were with those women and you're seeking revenge. But the only person you're really hurting is yourself."
"Really," Jack said dryly. "So, why take so long to say something?"
"I thought at first that it wasn't such a bad idea, that it might help you recover some of your self esteem."
Jack rolled his eyes. "Are we back to that again?"
"We'll keep coming back to it until you are on the road to recovery."
"Must we?" He groaned.
"We must. And we will. You know I love you like a brother, Jack," he said quietly, putting his hand on Jack's shoulder.
"I...know. I..how do you say those things so easily? I..." he shook his head, feeling the knot in his tongue that prevented him, these days, from saying what he had learned to say so easily years before.
"Because, my friend, I have loads of self-esteem, something you lack."
"Oh brother! C'mon!"
"I'll keep on saying it, self-esteem, self-esteem, self-esteem--"
"Alright! I love you like the brother I never had, too." He gave a deep sigh, feeling something small inside him loosen slightly, ever so slightly.
"See how easy that is, Jack?"
"Oh, shut up."
"You know I was always afraid, in the back of my head, that you depended, always, too much on the opinions of others for your own self-worth. I thought it would be okay, though, that you'd just grow out of it with time and maturity and success and your friends and Laura. But unfortunately, you were betrayed by her, this person you chose and in light of the stress disorder, you did what many do -- you slipped backward in your development. Right back to a scary, but comfortable place."
He looked over at Barnett. Said no more.
"Stress disorder. He was right, of course, you realize. If only...What happened? After he talked you into dropping those assignments? Did he talk to you again, help you again?
"I wasn't ready yet. I…was too afraid. Afraid to confront myself. And then Dave died."
"What happened then?"
"Well, then, I took Sloane up on his offer and left the Agency to go to SD-6."
She asked hesitantly, "Do you think Sloane had anything to do with Dave's death?"
He looked at her curiously, but said flatly, "No."
"How do you know? How are you so certain?" she asked, sitting up, sensing….
"Dave..I brought his body home, I…" He trailed off.
"Did you identify him?"
"Yes, so his family didn't have to."
"Weren't you his family too?" she countered.
You know I love you like a brother, Jack.
....
Alright! I love you like the brother I never had, too.
He continued, "I was the best person to do it. After all, I was there, sent there…Well, that's a mistruth---"
"'Mistruth?'" She asked with a small smile. "Is that a word actually found in the dictionary or thesaurus, Jack?" These agents were amazing. Telling lies for a living had a way, though, of allowing one to tell the biggest whoppers to oneself.
"Okay, a little lie. I requested that I be the one to investigate his death, the deaths of everyone in his team, myself."
"Requested or demanded? Or pulled every string you had in that big ball of blackmail in your desk drawer?"
"I have no idea as to what you are referring, Doctor," Jack said blandly. "I merely made a request and it was granted."
"Apparently you think I'm a blind fool."
"Actually, no I don't," he said firmly. "I think you're thorough, persistent and talented. "
She looked up from his duty sheet, startled. "Thank you." Had he said that to distract her or was he just being honest? Jack, honest? Giving a compliment…he must want to misdirect her. Back to business. "Here it is on your duty sheet, it was your last project, listed as a recovery and reconnaissance?"
"Yes, it was my last project before I left the Agency. I needed to do it."
"Closure?"
"Yes. And justice."
"Justice? Define justice."
"Reward or penalty as deserved."
"Have you ever served on a jury?"
"No. Agents are...recused, but once when I was just working at SD-6, not as a double, I was called because of course, I was just a salesperson at Jennings Aerospace. But I didn't serve."
"Why not? Wait, let me guess. The defense attorney challenged you?"
"Yeah, could have something to do with my answer to the question of the appropriate sentencing for the alleged perpetrator of a rape. I told them I thought that real justice would be served in crimes against the person if the victim got the authority to mete out the sentence."
"But the sentence might not be fair..."
"Define fair. And according to whom."
"Later. Don't try and misdirect me. Tell me, if you can, what happened to Dave. Please." She waited. To her surprise, he merely swallowed once and began speaking.
"Basically, they were led into a trap by a contact we'd had for years, trusted. They stepped on land mines." He shook his head. "Stupid, stupid way to die. As you die, you must think, 'Damn! If only Id stepped two inches to the right!' The regret…"
"And you're sure Sloane had nothing to do with it? Beyond a shadow of a doubt?" Given what she knew about Sloane she would not find it outside the realm of possibility for him to remove Jack's best friend to find a way to get that much closer to Jack. After all, look at what else he'd done to keep Jack close...."You're certain?"
"Absolutely, Judy. I handled the interrogation of the contact myself." His voice, so cold, so precise, could have cut human flesh, she thought.
Looking into the coldness of his eyes, she shivered internally and forced herself to regroup. "And…I…see. And Dave's death then, was a result of…"
"Simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Stupid way to die. So wasteful, so…."
"Ah…Some might say that was bad luck, being in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"Yes. Some might," he agreed stiffly.
"And this contact? Was there any reason to suspect him? Had he continued to check out, prove reliable?"
"There was no reason to suspect anything, he'd been our contact, totally reliable for more than ten years, passed all the routine checks. They made a mistake, trusting someone he, they, had every reason to trust. But a completely understandable one, no one's fault....but that contact."
"You said before that you went on this mission for closure and justice? Did that contact pay for his choices? Or did he get off scot free?"
"The contact made some poor choices. Unfortunately, he did not survive the interrogation. A….pity," Jack said coolly. The fact that he did not bother to assume the mask made the nonchalance on his face more chilling.
"I…see. Let's backtrack for a moment." Yeah, Judy, backtrack and get your bladder under control before you pee in your pants at the coldness emanating from the man, the cold power that allowed him to do what was necessary regardless of his personal feelings. This was the ruthless man of his field profile.
"Must we? I fail to see…."
"You fail to see many things, Jack. Allow me to help open your eyes."
If you would open your eyes, you would see.
"Dave made a mistake when he and his team trusted a contact they'd had for so many years, correct? A fatal mistake, but just a mistake, understandable, correct?" Barnett asked quickly, beginning her press.
"Yes, but---"
"And there was no reason not to trust this contact?"
"No, but---"
"No reason and he'd checked out, his background was acceptable, more than acceptable?"
"Yes, but---"
"And so they made a mistake, then had the bad luck of stepping left when they should have stepped right, in essence?"
"Where the hell are you going with this?" Time to flip the circle around, misdirect, Judy, she told herself. Move it quickly, quickly….
"Once you got over your grief, did you blame Dave for dying?"
"Of course not! He made a mistake and trusted someone and well, that could happen to anyone---"
"Anyone except you?"
"What?"
"You can't make a mistake? You can't make the understandable mistake of trusting someone after their background check comes back clean? You're perfect?"
He gave a short, derisive laugh. "Clearly, you need to read my file a little more closely. Even a cursory glance would inform you that I was, am, an idiot when it comes to personal choices."
"And it was a choice for you to trust Laura, wasn't it? That's why her betrayal stabbed so deeply, because you had to convince yourself to trust, you had to make the choice to hand her that knife and then slice! You're dead." His mouth fell open slightly. He snapped it closed. How did she know that? What--- "You just don't trust anyone naturally, do you, Jack? Not then, not now. Not Laura, probably not even Dave, not Sydney, not yourself. Especially not yourself. Why?"
He shook his head trying to regroup. "Because I am far, far from perfect when it comes to analyzing people. At least at times, when I allow my emotions, my desires, to cloud my judgment."
"And also, because even as gifted a games theorist as you can and will be surprised by the choices other people make."
"Yeah, when I don't do my homework and account for all variables," he said harshly.
What is most hurt -- you as the man or you as the game theorist, the analyst? Or are the two so closely bound that you cannot separate them and the anger you feel rightly at her as a man, just a man, just a human being who was betrayed is feeding your hurt pride that she beat you at a game? Its an endless, vicious, self-destructive cycle from which you need to extricate yourself. She beat you at a game. Yes. But she was the loser, not you. She gave up what matters most, not you. She was the idiot, not you. She lost at the most important game of all. Life. Dont make the same mistake, Jack. Please.
"C'mon! You can't, aren't allowed to make mistakes?"
"Not when the lives of others depend on it, NO! In this game I'm in, I cannot afford and will not make any major mistakes. The stakes are too high to gamble. I'm betting on a sure thing."
Dave, stop it. If you made a mistake, which I dont see....Its not....We all make mistakes, stop beating yourself up over it.
Really?
Yes. Really.
How about you? Are you allowed to make mistakes? Or do you have to be perfect?
She stared at him. What, what was he doing? What was he thinking? She pressed again, sensing she was accessing something…."You can't be human? You can't be less than perfect?"
He shook his head to clear it. Mumbled, "Not when it comes to match point."
"What would happen if you're less than perfect? Just think about it...."
"I don't have to think about it! You make a mistake in this game and you pay. Worst case scenario - through which I've already lived, mind you - is that my daughter pays for it! My little girl, crying every night...." he bit his lip and closed his eyes. "I don't want her to ever pay that price again. Never, never again. She's lost her memories of her earlier years, the best years...what another betrayal might do..."
"Jack, we can help her recover her memories. You know that. You probably know how to do it yourself, don't you? You have an idea, don't you?" He nodded, but still looked away. "Sydney is an adult now. She can ---"
"Handle it better? Oh, like I did?" He scoffed, harshly. "No thanks. I'll walk away from that game. The deck is loaded. That gamble is too risky. The odds are not in my favor, her favor. The price is of taking that leap of faith is…. making a mistake, an error in judgment about who is trustworthy and who is not…. is not a risk I'm willing to take on her behalf."
"And you?" she asked softly, touching his hand lightly and then withdrawing it, trying to ground him. "And you, do you pay for it? Is it a cost you can no longer afford?"
"I can't afford any major mistakes this time. There will be none. I don't make the same mistake twice. I like to think I'm smarter than the average rat," he said with a grim smile, clearly pulling himself together.
She relaxed slightly, deciding to let him lead this part of the conversation. Jack's conversational gambits, even when they were designed to misdirect were always interesting and often, quite revealing. "Hmm, rat? Oh no, some of Dave's research again! Did you ever think of going into psychology yourself? You certainly have an interest in it."
"No thanks," he said quickly. "I'll stick with manipulating… people. After all, I'm so good at it. I wrote the man--" He broke off speaking.
One of these days she would have to find out about this manual. But for now, "The research on rats, Jack. What's your interpretation of it?"
"We learned that there are basically two kinds of rats. The typical kind, who when hit with random or repeated negative reinforcement, pain, will curl up and become submissive, even to the point of death. And the other kind, who either immediately or eventually fights back and for lack of better terms, become…."
"I've read the research. They can become vicious, but what they are really doing is fighting back, fighting for survival." Staring at him, she thought about that research. Yes, some rats submit and some fight. Interestingly, the rats that submit continuously have a far worse recovery rate than the rats who fight back. The former will always be governed by their fear, no matter how much tlc they get, while the latter, once they are removed from the source of pain and get some tlc can have, in time, a normal life. For a rat.
"Yes, for a rat," he repeated, his mouth quirking. She looked up, realizing belatedly that she had spoken her thoughts aloud. "Are you equating me with a rat, Doctor Barnett?"
"You're the one who made the initial analogy," she said, smiling. Getting up, she walked over to the small office refrigerator and pulled out two water bottles. Handing him one, she fought the urge to dump hers over her head. She'd love to remove her jacket, but then he -- with such tremendous eye for detail, she thought sarcastically -- would see the dampness of her shirt. She could only hope her deodorant lasted.
"Let's talk about Dave's diagnosis of a stress disorder. I'm sure if he had lived, he would have explained it more thoroughly to you. Someone certainly should have."
"Stress disorder? So there's a fancy name now for a nervous breakdown? A failure of will, of strength? We call it a stress disorder now?" he said in self-derision.
She threw out, "Jack, has one of your team ever suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?"
"Sure. Early intervention is usually best and I've put in tons of recs for people on that....but what does that have to do with---- You think I had PTSD?"
"It's a convenient if not perfectly accurate label. For you and Sydney both. It will do for this discussion."
TBC at Chapter 12 Part 4 section 2 of 3