Chapter 367 - The Sketch

Halia walked in through the front door of her new home and Coco ran up to greet her. Because of the call from Trisha, she had finished a little bit later than expected but Jackson did not look upset. Instead, he was on the phone chatting to someone and looking at her with a loving smile.

That morning, when she left for work, they were moving out of Father Feng's place, so this was their first night at their new home. 

Jackson had already moved her things into the house and fully furnished the place while she was at work. As she looked at her man sitting on a light grey leather sofa on top of a white rug and glanced at the oak coffee table in front of it, she couldn't help but feel impressed by his tastes. She then scanned her eyes around the rest of the house. Everything was in a similarly light white and grey color palette with accents of beige and oak wood. The house looked clean, minimalistic and elegant.

Previously, Jackson's apartment in Beijing was a lot more masculine because the colors were darker and there were metal accents, but this time, the house felt warm and soft with a slightly more feminine touch. Halia never knew much about design, but she suddenly realized this was exactly the style that she liked.

"Wow!" she gasped as she approached Jackson and saw him put down his phone. "I love what you've done to the place."

Jackson smiled, "Its Scandinavian-inspired; a type of style that is very popular at the moment. I thought you would like it."

Halia nodded in approval.

But...it didn't take long before she remembered that she had something serious to discuss with her husband.

Jackson immediately noticed something was wrong. "Did something happen today?" he asked as he walked up and placed a kiss on Halia's forehead.

Halia closed her eyes for a moment to enjoy the kiss before she lifted her head and looked into her husband's eyes.

"Jackson, we have a serious situation..." she said straightforwardly.

Jackson understood the tone in his wife's voice and the look in her eyes. Although he had told her to put her work with the police aside, he was not mad because he knew it had to be something really serious.

He held onto her hand and pulled her down to sit on his lap.

Halia felt a weight lifted off her shoulders as she saw how patient and understanding her husband was. She then took a deep breath and started explaining everything. She told him about the phone call she received from Trisha, the flashbacks she had, and the man in military uniform.

"Trisha said you're really good at sketching faces..." Halia said.

Jackson lifted his wife off his lap and placed her on the sofa. He then went to grab a pen, some paper, and a laptop from the bedroom.

"Back when I was undercover, I was often asked to identify criminals to my handler. At first, I could only describe them to him verbally and it worked sometimes. However, I wasn't satisfied with the accuracy, especially when the criminals didn't have any unique identifying features. So, I tried to find another way. I developed a system with my handler which is similar to what police sketch artists use. I found images online and stitched together different features from different people to create a similar face to what I remembered. But, you know me, I couldn't just leave it at that. I gradually started teaching myself how to sketch. First, I replaced the eyes I found online with my own sketches of eyes. Then, I moved onto the nose...then the mouth... And, eventually, I managed to sketch an entire face."

As Jackson spoke, he had his eyes down the entire time while his hands scribbled something on the paper in front of him. Halia leaned over with curiosity, but couldn't quite see what he was scribbling. However, it didn't take long before Jackson stopped. With a smile, he held up the paper in his hands and revealed what he had been scribbling. Halia opened her eyes wide in surprise.

He had sketched a quick portrait of her!

It was a simple sketch without any fine details, but it had all the main features that were enough to identify her. Most importantly, he even included the earrings she was wearing and a bit of her top. Sure, he looked at her face every day so it wasn't hard for him to remember how she looked, but her earrings and clothes were new, she had bought them specifically for work, yet he sketched them confidently without lifting his head once.

No wonder this man headed an entire branch of Interpol at such a young age. He was even more impressive than she thought.

"You're amazing!" she gasped.

Jackson chuckled. It was always nice to be praised by one's wife.

But, he quickly composed himself and handed Halia the laptop in his hands.

"I kept the files I used to identify people in the early days. It came in use a few times when I had to help others identify people on the spot and we had no sketch artist around. I would ask them to pick out similar features from the database I collated over the years and then I would sketch it out with them by my side and make slight tweaks and adjustments along the way," he explained.

"Have a look and see if you can piece together the face you saw. I have a folder on the desktop called, 'faces'. I'll go heat up dinner."

Halia turned on the laptop and opened up the folder that Jackson was referring to. Inside, there were other folders that were labeled, 'hair', 'eyes', 'ears', 'nose', and 'mouth'.

She remembered that the man in her memory was wearing a hat that covered all his hair, so she skipped the 'hair' folder. But, she slowly worked through the other folders and started to get something similar to what she remembered. A few times, she had to close her eyes and check Trojan's memory to make sure, but she eventually settled on a combination that she thought was the closest.

Just as she finished, Jackson arrived with two bowls of fishball noodles that he had made. He knew how urgent the situation was, so he did not force Halia to eat at the dining table. Instead, he placed it on the coffee table and started to eat while drawing a sketch with the images that Halia selected.

"You didn't pick any hair?" he asked.

"No," Halia replied as she also ate beside him. "He was wearing a furry hat that covered all his hair. It looked like a traditional Mongolian fur hat that is worn in winter. They wear it in Russia too."

Jackson nodded his head and started sketching a hat, "Like this?"

"Yes, but a little shorter and it covered the top of his ears. Also, the top of the hat was flat."

Jackson patiently drew and erased until Halia was satisfied.

"He has dark eye bags and some wrinkles... His nose looks a bit crooked and leans ever so slightly to the left... He has a mole under his right ear..."

Finally, after about an hour, the sketch was finished.

Halia held onto the sketch and looked at it with amazement. It felt like the man was standing right in front of her. "This is it! That's him!" she exclaimed.

She then jumped up to grab her phone, "I will send this sketch to Trisha right away!"