This is the key to a professional drug amnesia play. In the aftermath the subject should feel incredibly uncomfortable with the idea of asking questions about what they don’t remember, but not so uncomfortable that they want to call the police or alert their employer to a potential security breach. You definitely do not want a software engineer specializing in security wondering whether she might have given up the details of a massively secret project she worked on as an associate a dozen years ago. You would not want her thinking that she had for example given you back doors and exploits and vulnerabilities and the Internet Protocol address of the system’s only contact with the regular interwebs or any of that shit. If she thought that she might call in to work and tell them what has happened and that would put a massive crimp in your robbery and you would need to take steps but Mr. Friday was real clear about the rules of engagement here so those steps would be problematic. No long-term harm he said and there will be none. Just a few days of mild ethical discomfort and emotional woe because she inexplicably forgot her husband somewhere along the road to orgytown and that is not part of their Deal.

No sirreebob. That is a big fat no-no it is on their list of no-nos that they keep on the fridge door beside the little bright colored alphabet magnets and the school calendar. In truth probably her husband would be okay about it he is not a bad guy and he loves her. That slightly makes it worse and so now she has to deal with that fuckup and it is in the forefront of her mind and she wants it gone from there—

“(SCHEIßEREI!)”

—and she is definitely not asking awkward questions about whether she compromised Hans Eiger’s impregnable fortress.

There is no such thing as ethical fair trade kidnapping but if there were it would be this and I am mostly fine with it. We have done a crime to her and a mean one which preys upon her emotional vulnerability and her lifestyle and that is a shitty thing to do. But on the other hand Elena Riccardi will eventually work out what really happened and she will be pissed as hell and she will be right, but in the long and even the medium and actually the short term Elena will be as okay as anyone ever is and unlike let us say Sharkey or Volodya she is alive. In this world you have to wake up every morning grateful about that or you will just blink and miss it.

—

Doc days: “Well that went well.”

“It did?”

“It absolutely did. Charlie has everything she needs.”

“Well that is good.”

“You do not think that is good.”

“I just think we are the bad guys.”