Alex Krycek (ex_alexkryce879) wrote in voicesinmyhead, @ 2008-05-07 23:58:00 |
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Entry tags: | alex krycek, prompt #01 |
Prompt #1 - Who Are You?
Moskva, Russian Federation
October 18 1995
Kropotkinskaya Station looms, gray against gray in the early afternoon, the dampened silence of the city - sirens nearby - as he crosses the street, ducks between cars, ushanka pulled deep into his face, the collar of his coat up. A glance left and right before the station swallows him in its bowels and he's gone from view. He sticks to the tiled walls as he pushes past the early afternoon stranglers - jobless or homeless, both in mind and body - and into the metro train headed for Okhotny Ryad just before the doors close. Lubyanka is just one stop further and he is cutting it close. Moving from one end of the train to the other he sits between alcohol breath and plastic shopping bags, cradles the bottle of water wrapped in brown paper in his hands as he adapts the air of beaten hopes that lies over the city at the best of days in summer and only gets stronger as the days shorten.
He pushes out between the masses as he switches for the Zamoskvoretskaya Line, bodies too close for comfort but keeping him hidden in their midst. The instruction for the run, down to the second, is the pattern that is layered onto his consciousness, but below, breathing in the piss in the dank corners of the station, there is the comforting presence of the pulsing Moscow soul. Another train for another 10 minutes and he gets off at Paveletskaya and walks, criss crossing around corners - eyes prickling at the back of his mind, still - to Dobryninskaya Station, ducks into the toilets before the eyes have caught up and takes the back stairs to the platform after they passed. Getting on the Serpukhovsko-Timiryazevskaya Line, impatient two minutes pass before it pulls out and he can't be sure he is black any longer. Rolling his shoulders he stands, stares out through the window, slumped with tight fingers on the railing and the bottle in the other hand. Mumbled words next to him and his eyes narrow but they aren't meant for him. Suspicion rekindles either way, and he doesn't take his eyes of the dark walls and lights that rush by outside the window.
Chekhovskaya Station and there is the signal, the open window, opposite it as he steps out through the doors, just catching it before it is slammed in his face by the wind. Brisk steps and he has crossed the street and ducked between the parked cars. Head low he follows the broken pavement then ducks left into Dmitrovka Street and left again the next, then right into the parking lot.
The open window across from Chekhovskaya, the parked car here - blue -, a figure inside - Something feels wrong about this but he cannot place it. A hunch that it is almost too perfect, too easy. There is an odd silence in the lot, no doors that open and close, no-one who gets into cars to come or go, no voices, no life. The figure in the car is staring at him in the rearview mirror. Trusting his instincts he begins to turn. A car passes on the street, he sees that from the corner of his eyes, and then the silence is filled with shouts, five, six men he can see, more behind him. Two of them pull him to the ground, force his arms up behind his back, shoulders strained and a rope, rough on his tongue, forced between his lips. He doesn't resist the manhandling as he is pulled to the van.
Surprise and shock overwhelm him for a moment before his mind catches on. There had to have been a leak. They'd been waiting.
"Strip!" He's shoved over a table in the van and shrugs out of his clothes on automatic. His breath puffs in light gray clouds out from between his lips while guns are not quite pointed away from his body. A finger is shoved into his mouth, his ears, ass as his arms are forced up again, making it impossible for him to move. Shaking fingers pull on the jumpsuit in that one moment of relief. He knows Lubyanka Headquarters are flying past on the right before they pull to a stop.
He is marched into the interrogation room right away, pushed onto a chair, wrists cuffed behind the back of it. Rough wood, barely polished, table in front of him. Lips tight he waits. It's a bare room, clinical, sterile. He can see his breath in the air and forces himself to keep from shivering. There are no sounds that reach him in here, no windows and the hours stretch to infinity in his mind. The run had been planned for weeks - few faces involved, fewer than usual. In the midst of the low-key operations in modern Moscow, no leads, fewer volunteers, assets making themselves rare even when you tried to recruit actively, this one had panned out as valid in all channels. Hesitancy at the first mention, but confirmed good to go for a sniff at the information offered. He is mulling over the last few hours as he sits in silence and wonders where they went wrong. Chances are, right from the start.
The door opens, first sound in a while, the hours must have crossed over to the next day, dead of the night, and it's only adrenaline that keeps him going and alert. The man stands on the other side of the table, forces him to look up to meet the eyes. He does, lips firmly closed. Silence spreads.
"ГРИФ, GTLEAF, SQUARES-" The English is accentuated with the hard Russian sounds of tongue and lips, "Kак вас зовут?"
His eyes are cold as he looks back at the man, and he keeps his mouth shut, even as his mind is racing to make sense of the fuck-up (the leak back in Langley or right here in Moscow?): and figure out just when he'd acquired a workname from them. Vulture, how flattering. There was only a small chance they had something on him, something they could use- It was highly probable they knew nothing.
"Kак вас зовут?" the man repeats, more insistent.
The corners of his lips are quirked. "ГРИФ," he replies with a small mocking smile. The man leaves, the lights are turned off. He blinks into the darkness for minutes after before his pulse slows to normal again and a low breath drawn relaxes his body. He waits for a reappearance but there is none. The chair becomes more uncomfortable as the hours tick by, in the cold, without food or water. The smirk stays on his lips only until his fingers and feet go numb. It seems too late to claim diplomatic immunity now.