The Ajax Protocol

CHAPTER 9

The kitchen of Nick's Washington apartment was a comfortable place, big enough for a table and four chairs. It was set off from the living area by a wide counter that did double duty as a bar. A Paul Klee reproduction hung over a Danish modern couch in the living room. Nick liked the clean, uncluttered look of European furniture, just as he really liked Klee's paintings. A genuine Klee hung in the bedroom, a gift from Selena. Selena sat at the table reading a magazine and humming to herself. Nick stood at the stove making them something to eat.

He looked over at her and thought about the file in his top dresser drawer, the one Adam had given him. He had decided that it was time to show it to her.

Nick knew Adam only as a disembodied electronic voice from the other side of a partition in the back seat of an armored Cadillac. He'd never seen what Adam looked like. He didn't even know if Adam was a man or a woman.

Nick would come out of his building and Adam's black Cadillac would be waiting by the curb. He'd get in the car, they'd drive around for a while, and Adam would talk about unpleasant things he thought Nick needed to know, about unpleasant people planning the kinds of things that started wars. The problem was that he was always right. Nick thought of him as a kind of personal messenger from the gods of conspiracy.

Just a week before, Adam had given him a classified CIA file from the days of the Cold War, when records and reports were printed on paper and kept in locked cabinets instead of computers. He'd told Nick it would affect his relationship with Selena. After he'd read it, he wished he'd never seen the damn thing. He'd been unable to make up his mind about when to tell her about it. The contents of that file were going to upset her and make her unhappy. It was about the deaths of Selena's family, killed when she'd been ten years old. Their car had gone over a cliff near Big Sur.

An accident, the police said. Except it hadn't been an accident. The file revealed that her family had been murdered by the KGB. Worse, it proved that Selena's father had been a spy. A traitor. How could he tell her that?

Nick stirred the vegetables and meat simmering on the stove and added a little cayenne, a dash of salt.

"You hungry?" he said.

Selena smiled. "Starving. Whatever you're making over there, it smells good."

"Just stir fry, nothing special."

Nick scooped the food out of the pan and put it in a bowl. He carried the steaming bowl over to the table, dished some onto Selena's plate and his own and sat down. They began eating.

"A lot of people are praying for Rice," Selena said.

"He's tough. He'll make it."

"Who do you think went after Elizabeth?" Selena took a sip of white wine and set her glass back down on the table.

"I don't know."

Nick pushed his food around on his plate.

"Something's bothering you, isn't it?"

After two years with Nick, Selena had gotten good at reading him.

Somewhere in his mind a quiet voice said tell her. He was tired of walking a mental tightrope about it. She'd handle it, or she wouldn't. It was time to come clean.

"The last time I saw Adam he gave me something."

Selena knew about Adam, everyone in the Project did. She waited.

"A file," he said.

"A file? What kind of file?"

"A classified file from Langley. From the 80s. Adam said it's the only copy."

"What's in it?"

Nick sighed. "It's about your father."

"Adam gave you a CIA file about my father? When were you planning on letting me know?"

"That's what I'm doing now."

"Why would he do that? Give it to you?"

"I suppose he wanted me to know what's in it."

She set her fork down "Where is it?"

"In the other room."

"Maybe you'd better show it to me."

Nick sighed again. He got up and went into the bedroom and took the folder from the drawer. He set the file down on the table in front of her and went over to the liquor cabinet. He was going to need something stronger than wine once she'd read the contents. Nick poured himself an Irish whiskey and went back to the table and sat down. He pushed away the remains of his meal. He'd lost his appetite.

Selena read in silence. He watched the impact of what she was reading sink in. She finished reading and went back to the beginning and began to go through the papers again. After a while she looked up. Her eyes were wet.

"Why didn't you show this to me before?"

"Because I didn't know how it would affect you. I knew I'd have to give it to you sooner or later."

"You didn't think I could handle it." Her voice was flat, emotionless.

"I didn't say that."

"This says that my father was a double agent, working for the KGB."

Nick felt helpless. What are you supposed to say when your lover finds out that her father was a traitor?

"I'm sorry, Selena."

"I don't believe this," she said. "My father wasn't a traitor."

"Adam has no reason to make it up."

"You don't know that."

"I know everything he's said in the past has turned out to be true. Why would he make something like this up? It's real," Nick said. "The paper is the right age. It even smells like the 80s."

"Maybe it's a false plant, a trick."

"Why would he do that?"

"I don't know."

She picked up the folder, set it down.

"This says it wasn't a car accident that killed them."

"No."

"The KGB killed him. And my mother and my brother."

"They would have killed you too, if you had been in that car."

"Bastards," she said.

"I'm sorry," he said again. He didn't know what else to say.

"BASTARDS!" she shouted. She stood and hurled her glass of wine across the room. It shattered against the wall. Then she put her hands over her face and began sobbing.

Nick went over and put his arms around her and held her close without speaking. He could smell the clean scent of her hair. After a few moments she calmed. She wiped her eyes, used a napkin to blow her nose and sat back down at the table.

"I want a drink," she said. "A strong one."

Nick poured a double whiskey for her and another for himself. He gave her the glass and sat down across from her. She took a long swallow.

"My uncle knew," she said. "He knew all along. His name was on those papers. He signed off on them. I knew he had ties to the CIA, but I didn't know he worked for them. He had friends at Langley. One of them set up the security at my loft in San Francisco."

"It must've been a hell of a shock when he found out about your father," Nick said.

"How could my father do that? How could he betray his country? He was a wonderful man, a wonderful father. What makes someone turn on the country that gave him everything?"

"I don't know. I don't think Langley knew for sure which side he was really on. It looks like he was feeding the Russians false information along with the real goods. That would give the KGB enough reason to eliminate him. He might have been under orders to give them bad info."

"But if he was passing false information and Langley knew about it, why do these reports make it look as though he was a traitor, another rotten double agent?"

"There could be a lot of reasons. Maybe someone higher up wanted to cover their ass. Or someone wanted to manipulate the truth for their own advantage. When you start looking at Langley during the 80s, it's all smoke and mirrors."

"Bastards," she said again.

Nick wasn't sure whether she meant the Russians or the CIA.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"About what?"

"Are you going to tell Harker?"

"I don't see any reason to," Nick said.

"You don't think this could affect my clearance? Whether she trusts me or not?'

"Are you getting biblical on me?"

"What do you mean?"

"The sins of the fathers being visited on the generations and all that. You're not your father."

"You don't think she ought to know?"

"What good would it do?"

"Selena held up the file folder. "I want to study this," she said. "There could be something in it to clear my father's name. A detail, a name. Something."

"Maybe." Or maybe not, Nick thought. But he kept his thoughts to himself.

"I'm going home," she said. "I need to think."

Nick wasn't sure what to say. He opted for neutral.

"We have a briefing at 0900 tomorrow," he said. "You want to pick me up and give me a ride in?"

"I'll meet you in front of the building at eight."

"Call me. If you want to talk."

"I need to think," she said again.

He watched the door close behind her.