Black Rose

CHAPTER 40

"It was terrible," Selena said. "Those poor people had black…things…all over their bodies. Then the building blew up and it rained blood and body parts on us."

It was a Monday morning in Virginia. Through the French doors of Elizabeth's office, Nick saw the cat dozing in the sun on the warm stones of the patio.

"Thank God you weren't infected," Elizabeth said.

"We were buttoned up and lucky," Nick said. "What's happening in Brazil?"

"The government quarantined the entire state of Roraima. There aren't many roads up there and it was relatively easy to isolate. But that doesn't mean the plague won't spread. It's certain the disease got onto the reservation. If they want to, the Indians can travel without being seen. They can go wherever they want and the government can't stop them. So far not much has been done except for the quarantine. Brazil isn't equipped for something like this."

"Have they requested aid?" Selena asked.

"They're playing it down. They don't want to scare off the tourists."

"Reminds me of Jaws," Lamont said. "Come on in, the water's fine and there ain't no sharks out there."

"It's not our concern anymore. The question is, what is AEON planning next?"

"Maybe Gutenberg will send out another email that tells us what he's up to," Nick said.

"We can't count on that."

Elizabeth glanced out the window. Burps was awake, eyeing an unreachable bird perched on the roof. His tail twitched in frustration.

"Steph, has there been any unusual activity from Gutenberg?"

"Not really. Although there is one thing that's odd."

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows and waited.

"He's been trying to contact the Russian, Kamarov. There's been no reply. I can tell that he's getting annoyed."

"SVR installed a bug on Gutenberg's computer. That means Vysotsky knows AEON was behind the raid in Russia and that Kamarov was involved. He'll want to interrogate him. That could explain why Kamarov isn't answering Gutenberg's emails."

"You think Vysotsky arrested Kamarov?" Nick asked.

"It's what I'd do," Elizabeth said. "Perhaps not an official arrest. Kamarov's nephew is Vysotsky's boss. He has to be careful. If I were him, I'd grab Kamarov in secret and take him someplace where I could take my time questioning him."

"I might be able to find out where Kamarov is," Stephanie said, "or at least where he isn't. That might tell us something."

Elizabeth nodded. She looked around. "Anyone have anything else?"

No one did.

"Then that's all for the moment. Nick, Selena, please stay for a few minutes. There's something I want to talk with you about."

Ronnie, Stephanie and Lamont left the room. Elizabeth opened a drawer and took out the file on Selena's father. She opened it to the first page and turned it so that Selena and Nick could see it.

Selena drew in a breath when she saw her father's name.

"Selena, do you know what this is?"

"It's a CIA file about my father."

"Have you seen it before?"

"Shit," Nick said.

Elizabeth waited.

"Yes, I've seen it. I thought it had been destroyed."

"You knew about this, Nick?"

"I knew about it. We didn't tell you because we weren't sure how you'd react. Finding out that Selena's father might have been a Russian spy wasn't exactly a great item for her resume. We were afraid you'd think she was a security risk."

"I don't know what's more disappointing," Elizabeth said. "The fact that you didn't trust me or that you thought I would judge Selena by who her father was."

"He wasn't a traitor." Selena's face was flushed.

Nick said nothing.

"How did you get the file?" Elizabeth asked.

"Adam gave it to me," Nick said. "He said it was the only copy."

"You seemed angry every time Russia came up in our meetings," Elizabeth said to Selena. "Stephanie wondered why. She went looking for reasons why you might be upset. She found this file in a restricted archive at Langley, buried behind a half dozen layers of added encryption."

"Spying on me," Selena said.

"I don't want to hear that," Elizabeth said. "I know that's not what it was and so should you."

"How would you feel? The KGB killed my father, my mother and my brother. I have every right to be angry with the Russians."

"How long have you known?"

"I've known for months."

"You knew about Valentina?"

"Valentina?" Selena said. "Who's Valentina?"

Elizabeth looked at her, surprised. "I think you'd better tell me about the file Adam gave you. What did it say?"

"It was a classified file, obviously old, clearly authentic."

"An actual paper file?"

"Yes."

"Go on."

"It said he was an agent, something I didn't know about him. It said he'd been giving information to the Russians. It listed deposits in his name, hidden in accounts located offshore. There were photographs of him in East and West Berlin, meeting with people identified as Russian agents. There were a lot of details. It said that his death wasn't an accident and that the KGB executed him. The last part concluded that the Russians acted because they no longer trusted him."

"And that was it? Nothing more?"

"The only other thing I discovered was that my uncle also worked for the CIA. I didn't know that, either. His signature was on many of the papers in the file."

Elizabeth sighed. "I can only imagine how you must've felt when you read that."

"No you can't," Selena snapped. She took a breath. "I'm sorry. Yes, it was upsetting. I thought I knew who he was. That got turned upside down."

"There was no mention in the file of any one named Valentina? Or Antipov?"

"No."

"What you getting at, Director?" Nick asked.

"There's more to the story, another section of this file that you haven't seen. Selena, the rest of it is going to come as something of a shock to you."

"I don't think there could be much about this that would shock me after finding out my father was a spy."

"I just wanted to prepare you," Elizabeth said. She pushed the file across her desk. "Read it, and then we'll talk."

Selena took the file and began reading.