| Subject: Photographs 1/1 |
Author:
grit kitty
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Date Posted: 22:06:32 03/23/01 Fri
In reply to:
grit kitty
's message, "Photographs" on 22:05:34 03/23/01 Fri
_._._._._._._._._._
Courier duty to South Korea: a simple mission.
Maybe Operations assigned it to Michael and Nikita because they were both raw. Nikita snorted softly. Operations would have to consult a dictionary to find out what ‘mercy’ meant, and then attend some human relations workshop where they stacked furniture, or put shoes on their heads, trying to find matches, just to discover that he was genetically unable to support the emotion anyhow.
No, Madeline was the most likely force behind the assignment. Her job required her to know that losing his son and widow would affect her top operative, Michael Samuelle. Her recent task list included measures to be taken to raise morale after the sudden death of Comm’s young leader, especially the listless despair of his closest friends, including Nikita Wirth. Nikita suspected this mission was just…maintenance. Killing two birds with one stone, so to speak: the data had to be hand-carried to a top-ranking government official, and Michael and Nikita both needed a vacation. Space to breath. Time alone.
Time to grieve.
Nikita sighed, trying vainly to push out her melancholy, but only managing to fog the jet plane’s window with her breath. Outside, golden sunshine blazed on bleached clouds below. You’d think cruising at 33,000 feet above the earth would impart a little serenity, maybe a little peace, she thought. She spared a glance for her seatmate. Michael read a book, gently turning a page as she watched, a monument to serenity.
She knew the outward calm was a lie to the torrents of grief within, and she found that, much as she wanted to reach out to him to give and take comfort, at this moment she couldn’t, not without dropping guard on her tears. Weeping would not fit the profile of a young couple on a sight-seeing tour of Asia.
A simple mission. Cruising above the clouds.
Nikita stared out the window, her thoughts numbed by blinding white.
_._._
In Korea, the customs agent held out his hand, waiting for Michael’s passport. Nikita refolded her own, newly stamped, and watched Michael retrieve a rich, soft leather wallet from an inner pocket. He flipped it open and slid out the passport, offering it to the official with a friendly smile. Nikita glanced down at his open wallet, noting neatly tucked credit cards and various identification, appropriate for this mission.
And…pictures.
Pictures, snapshots of smiling faces all tucked neatly in plastic sleeves, were a standard element of the traveling spy’s wallet. Nothing tipped off police quicker than a wallet full of nothing but plastic. Nikita’s purse contained a wallet. Inside, it held a license, credit cards, a receipt for dry cleaning, an old fortune from a fortune cookie, and pictures of happy people she didn’t know -- ostensibly her friends and family. Such a prop was SOP, and carefully assembled by knowledgeable people back in Section.
The face looking out of Michael’s wallet looked familiar.
She reached down and pulled the plastic holder free from the wallet. Michael reached up as if to stop her, then lowered his arm. A husband wouldn’t prevent his wife from looking at pictures from his wallet.
Nikita looked at the first face. A man her age, smiling slightly, his light brown hair brushed back from his face and curious, intense eyes. Recognition startled a gasp from her open mouth. “It’s --!” She blinked, then began again. “Michael, I’ve never seen this picture before; I didn’t know you had one like this.”
He took the pictures from her. “It’s an old photograph, from when we were in school together.”
School. Section. It was Jurgen, a younger Jurgen, with long hair and no glasses.
The customs man returned Michael’s passport, stamped and ready.
“Thank you,” said Michael. He tucked it and the pictures in their place and returned his wallet to the pocket over his heart.
From the airport’s curb, they hailed a taxi and climbed into the back seat. Michael gave directions to their destination, the rendezvous for the drop. The car lurched forward at a frightening speed.
“Michael, where did you get that picture?”
“I’ve had it a while.”
“What else do you have in there?”
Michael looked away. His reluctance seemed to be the most truth he could share.
“Do you have a picture of Adam?” she asked softly. “I’d like to see it.”
“No,” he replied instantly, his voice hard.
Nikita met his sudden stare, blinked. “I can’t see it?”
“I don’t have one.” He looked out the window. His face remained turned away as he said, “It wouldn’t be right.”
Nikita heard self-castigation in his voice, and then she heard nothing when he said nothing more. She found it difficult to breach his silence, so she dropped the matter and instead picked up his hand, holding it between both of hers, on her lap, until they arrived at the hotel and the cab stopped.
_._._
At the hotel desk, Michael asked the concierge if a message waited for him. One did; Michael opened the creamy envelope and scanned the contents of a single sheet of paper before folding it and tucking it into his pocket with his wallet.
“We’re to meet our host in the bar,” he said. Nikita nodded, and together they walked into the lounge.
Within moments, it was done. The man took the disc and walked away.
No egress. No hostiles. No gunfire. No blood.
Simple.
_._._
They left the hotel; having checked in, they didn’t actually need to stay. It served them best to choose some different establishment, in the odd chance that there might be hostiles on the lookout. Michael led her through the city to a different hotel, opulent and far from the first. He paid using a credit card with an embossed name different from that on his passport, giving Nikita another chance to glance at his photographs.
She laid her hand on his wallet as it lay open on the desk, and glanced up at Michael. He said nothing. She flicked Jurgen’s picture over with a fingernail; two faces looked out at her. One she recognized right away; Mowen. The other, she didn’t know. Mowen’s picture was taken from behind; he looked over his shoulder, as if to say ‘what?’ in an annoyed voice to whomever took the picture. The background looked like Munitions.
“Walter took that,” Michael said, unexpectedly. “He was testing a new camera.”
“So who’s this?” Nikita pointed to the other man, an older gentleman with silver-streaked, dark hair.
“No one you’d know. A former Comm operative. He died before you came in.”
The hotel clerk returned with Michael’s credit card. The wallet closed.
“You hungry?” asked Nikita.
“Yes. The food is very good, here.”
_._._
Good food mellowed the world. Nikita closed her eyes as she slid the last bite of seafood and sauce into her mouth and slowly chewed.
“Ohh, I wish my stomach were bigger,” she sighed.
“I’m glad you liked it.”
Nikita opened her eyes. Michael smiled at her over the rim of his wine glass.
“Oh, I do, Michael. It’s marvelous. I wish we didn’t have to go so soon. I’d try everything on the menu.”
Michael nodded and took another swallow of wine. The smile hovered around his eyes, and it seemed to Nikita that he telegraphed his pleasure at her obvious enjoyment of her food through a warm and amused gaze. Their server approached the table, inquiring about their needs and breaking the rising heat Nikita felt in her face when Michael’s eyes slid off her; Michael dismissed the waiter to fetch the check with a curt word.
“Show me,” Nikita said impulsively, and leaned forward. “You have to take out your wallet anyway; show me more pictures.”
Michael set down his wine glass and slowly retrieved the wallet. He opened it, and laid it flat before he turned it around and pushed it closer to Nikita. He flipped past Jurgen’s picture, and Mowen’s and the man she didn’t know. The next two pictures were of women; again, one Nikita knew, the other was a stranger. A smiling blonde woman was Belinda, Walter’s doomed wife. Nikita had met her only a few times; looking at her picture reminded her of how sad and desperate Walter had been after her death.
The other woman smiled as well. She was dark, exotic, and beautiful. Again, the realization hit her -- this is a younger version of someone I know! The sparkling beauty had been tarnished when Nikita had met the woman, wounds and time had demolished her splendor, but Nikita recognized a stubborn spark in the almond eyes.
It was a young Simone.
Nikita looked at her picture, tracing the features with her forefinger. She’d never seen that face smile in life; the harsh realities of Glass Curtain had seen to that. This picture showed a strong woman, a woman beautiful and filled with humor, her smile radiating joy. Nikita wondered who had taken the picture, and where, and when.
“Thank you,” said the server. Nikita looked up, startled; she hadn’t noticed his return with Michael’s credit card. Michael put it away, along with his pictures.
“I wasn’t finished,” she protested.
“Later,” he promised.
_._._
In their room, Nikita watched Michael prepare for bed. She’d had first crack at the bathroom, and now lay in bed, hands behind her head, watching him through the open bathroom door. Michael stood in front of the sink, brushing his teeth. He wore loose, drawstring pants the color of poplar leaves, and a white cotton tank top, comfortable clothes for lounging. Somehow, Nikita found the sight both confounding and comforting -- Michael, being human.
Deep down, Nikita felt a solid contentment in the simple domesticity of nighttime ablutions. The entire evening had eased the raw edges she’d lived with for as long as she could remember but were only months old, stemming from the numbing of her emotions and painful, abrupt recovery, carrying through the heinous acts of betrayal against good men and children, and blooming an evil and dark flower of Michael’s unbearable loss with the disappearance of Adam and his mother. Even the pain of Birkoff’s death had receded, if only a little; like a deep wound healing, it only throbbed if she paid attention to it. She closed her eyes, shifted her thoughts, unwilling to bring that grief closer.
Michael rinsed and spat and wiped his mouth. The bathroom darkened, and he came to bed, sliding under the covers after checking the door’s security one last time. He settled quickly, and gathered Nikita into his arms with a solicitous affection that again made her smile.
Michael. Normal.
It was an act she could appreciate when he turned off the light.
_._._
The customs official could have been the very same man, looking and acting the same as the one who’d processed them on the other end of their journey, but his name badge said different. He examined bags, and stamped passports, hurrying for the line was long and tempers were frayed, so Nikita missed her chance to look at Michael’s wallet.
When they found their seats on the airplane, she stowed her bag and decided this was later enough.
“Michael, let me see those pictures again.”
He looked at her, holding her gaze a moment, his face inscrutable. Then, he acquiesced, pulling the wallet from his jacket, the pictures from his wallet, and handed the sleeve to her.
Jurgen. Mowen. Belinda. Simone. Some men and women she didn’t know, some that she did know. Nikita’s fingers paused.
“I don’t get it. Why would they allow you to have these?”
“Allow?” Michael tilted his head a sliver of an inch. “There’s little security risk.”
Nikita suddenly recognized the relationship and flipped backwards through the pictures to confirm her theory. Jurgen: dead. Mown: dead. Belinda: dead. Simone: dead.
“Oh.” Nikita knew why no picture of his beloved son resided with the others; Michael hoped he still lived.
She turned the pictures forward again, like pages in a book, reading the instants caught in time that they represented. She flipped slowly through to the very last picture, the identity inevitable now that she knew the pattern. With surprise out of her way, Nikita didn’t gasp, but the import of the picture’s presence clutched her heart, twisting it hard. Birkoff, no older than fifteen. His hair was thick and wavy, but that same glowing smile, the same serious, wise, smart-alec eyes beamed out of the picture like he was right there, in the plane with her. The image smeared and ran, dancing through the watery veil of her sudden grief.
“I wish I didn’t have so many,” Michael said softly.
_._._._._._._._._._
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