David let out a breath, and some of the tension left his shoulders.
Ironic, somehow, that it was easier to contemplate the lie rather than the truth he couldn't remember.
"Not...anything like that," he said, slowly.
Because that was what he couldn't say: David Petrovich Kerensky, Special Agent, Central Intelligence Agency. Formerly Lieutenant, Junior Grade, United States Navy SEAL Team One, hailing from Chicago, but more lately, Langley, Virginia.
He couldn't say that he'd grown up playing baseball and going to games at Wrigley Field, that his father had taken him to see the last four games of the World Series when he was eight years old, on the government's dime. Political defectors like his father got perks, and that was one of them. It had been heartbreaking when the Cubs had lost, but he could still remember the thrill of actually being there amidst the screaming crowd.
He couldn't tell Rakitin that the name of the first girl he kissed was Maggie Spencer, and that she had red hair and blue eyes and perfectly straight front teeth and a multitude of freckles. They'd kissed behind the bleachers after school one day, and they'd held hands and stopped by the soda shop afterward and shared a chocolate malt.
He couldn't say that he'd been a Navy SEAL, and had been deployed to Vietnam before being recruited by the CIA. Six months of training in Langley, and this was his first assignment: Operation Snake Eater. Find out what had happened to the operative code-named Snake, a man David had known back at Langley. Snake had taught an advanced form of martial arts called CQC to select students. David had been one of them.
None of that, he could say out loud, because regardless of how well disposed Rakitin seemed to him now, it wouldn't be prudent to let any of it slip. He had to be nothing more than a simple Russian soldier.
Who spoke English fluently.
That was still a problem, but at least Rakitin hadn't brought it up.
"It's...strange," he started, slowly, frowning as if concentrating hard. "It's more like I have impressions of things. Impulses. Things that remind me of things I can't quite remember."
He gestured toward the door.
"Like...that nurse. She reminds me of someone. A woman, someone with a kind voice. It could be my mother."
He shook his head.
"Other things like that...just impressions. It's not all gone, but it's not like I can remember anything useful, either."
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2007-10-28 11:46 am (UTC)Ironic, somehow, that it was easier to contemplate the lie rather than the truth he couldn't remember.
"Not...anything like that," he said, slowly.
Because that was what he couldn't say: David Petrovich Kerensky, Special Agent, Central Intelligence Agency. Formerly Lieutenant, Junior Grade, United States Navy SEAL Team One, hailing from Chicago, but more lately, Langley, Virginia.
He couldn't say that he'd grown up playing baseball and going to games at Wrigley Field, that his father had taken him to see the last four games of the World Series when he was eight years old, on the government's dime. Political defectors like his father got perks, and that was one of them. It had been heartbreaking when the Cubs had lost, but he could still remember the thrill of actually being there amidst the screaming crowd.
He couldn't tell Rakitin that the name of the first girl he kissed was Maggie Spencer, and that she had red hair and blue eyes and perfectly straight front teeth and a multitude of freckles. They'd kissed behind the bleachers after school one day, and they'd held hands and stopped by the soda shop afterward and shared a chocolate malt.
He couldn't say that he'd been a Navy SEAL, and had been deployed to Vietnam before being recruited by the CIA. Six months of training in Langley, and this was his first assignment: Operation Snake Eater. Find out what had happened to the operative code-named Snake, a man David had known back at Langley. Snake had taught an advanced form of martial arts called CQC to select students. David had been one of them.
None of that, he could say out loud, because regardless of how well disposed Rakitin seemed to him now, it wouldn't be prudent to let any of it slip. He had to be nothing more than a simple Russian soldier.
Who spoke English fluently.
That was still a problem, but at least Rakitin hadn't brought it up.
"It's...strange," he started, slowly, frowning as if concentrating hard. "It's more like I have impressions of things. Impulses. Things that remind me of things I can't quite remember."
He gestured toward the door.
"Like...that nurse. She reminds me of someone. A woman, someone with a kind voice. It could be my mother."
He shook his head.
"Other things like that...just impressions. It's not all gone, but it's not like I can remember anything useful, either."