[St. Vincent's, 11:30AM]
Zenya had taken her time getting back to the hospital this morning. She had spent more time with Valery in the last two days than she had in all the time since she joined the FBI, and she had just about reached the end of her patience with him. If she had to hear one more time that all of this was her fault, or that the nurses were rude and just didn't understand how much pain he was in, or that the room wasn't clean enough - and this from a man who had never in his life so much as picked up a dust rag - she was going to lose her temper and say or do something she would probably regret later. Strangling him with his IV tube was one possibility that came to mind.
But this time, she was there for a reason. When she got home the night before, she'd decided to do a little tidying up, and that was when she found the sketch pad. It brought to mind questions she should have thought to ask him before, but with everything that was going on, it just hadn't occurred to her.
Valery was awake, staring blankly at the television screen, when she came in. He didn't look up and didn't acknowledge her presence. Zenya had the distinct impression that he really didn't want her around, and that would have been fine, but she felt obliged to look after him, at least until he was out of the hospital, if not completely healed.
Taking the copy she had made of the sketch she had found out of her purse, she looked at it for a moment - it was slightly pornographic, but all in all probably the best work he had ever done - and handed it to him, then watched his reaction. A shrug.
"Is she why you were at the Sunset Apartments the other night," Zenya asked. More of a rhetorical question than anything since the address was scribbled in the corner of the sketch.
"Yes. What about it?"
"Who is she?"
"What do you care? It's been fairly clear for some time now that we have separate lives, that we're no longer compatible."
Zenya nodded. Finding the sketch had been the final confirmation for her, though she really hadn't needed it to know that this chapter of her life was over with. She'd known that for a long time anyway. The fact was, finding it hadn't really bothered her. It stung a little bit - the idea that he would cheat on her - but it didn't surprise her and she didn't particularly care. She'd had no illusion that he had been living as a monk for these last� How long had it been, anyway?
"I care because she set you up. And if I can find her, maybe she'll lead us to Rebecca Cross, and we can prevent her from trying to destroy any more lives," Zenya said. "So, what's her name?"
"Shayla Kerr," Valery said after he'd thought about it for a minute.
Zenya felt sorry for him, and that did surprise her. The look of pain on his face, not from the wound in his shoulder, but from the one in his heart, told her everything she needed to know. It hadn't been a casual fling, at least, not on his part. And she did want him to be happy. She wanted that for herself, too.
"Tell me about her," she said.
*****
[St. Cecilia's Academy, 3:15PM]
The phone number Valery had for 'Shayla Kerr' had been traced to a convent that occupied the upper three floors of a Catholic girls' school on the northern edge of Washington. School had been out for all of five minutes when Zenya got there, and the hallways were a whirlwind of activity and noise. In the midst of it all stood a nun, arms crossed and look of stern disapproval on her face, though as Zenya approached her, she could see a look of merriment in the old sister's eyes.
"You must be Agent Gorky," the nun said. "I'm Sister Elizabeth George, headmistress and zoo-keeper of this place."
Zenya couldn't help smiling. "Thank you for seeing me, Sister."
"No need to thank me," she said. "But let's find somewhere to talk away from this madness."
They made their way to a fifth floor office at the end of a long hallway, next to the chapel and the ominous statue of the Virgin Mary that guarded its door. Sister Elizabeth George showed Zenya to a chair, and took a seat behind a gargantuan antique desk.
"Now, what can I do for you, Agent Gorky?"
"I'm trying to locate a woman by the name of Shayla Kerr," Zenya said.
The nun looked puzzled. "What could you possibly want with Shayla?"
"You know her, then."
"Of course, I know her. Or rather, knew her. Shayla died nearly twenty years ago, at the age of seven months. She was my daughter, Agent Gorky." Sister Elizabeth George laughed at the stunned expression on Zenya's face. "I wasn't always a nun, you know."
Obviously not, Zenya thought. "I'm sorry. Is this common knowledge?"
"I don't try to keep it a secret, if that's what you mean. I suppose most of the people around here know about it."
Zenya pulled the sketch out of her purse again. "I apologize in advance for the nature of this drawing, but its the only one we have of the woman who's using your daughter's name."
The sister took the paper and looked at it closely. "Nothing here I haven't seen before."
"Do you recognize her?"
Sister Elizabeth George shook her head. "No, I don't think so."
Zenya sighed. She hadn't expected anything else, but it was still a disappointment. "Does the name Rebecca Cross mean anything to you? Or Rebecca Ericsson," she added, recalling Rebecca's maiden name.
"The name Ericsson sounds familiar, but not Rebecca. Amanda. She was a student here a few years ago." She looked at the sketch again and nodded. "That could be her, I suppose." She smiled. "There's two kinds of students you never forget. The saints and the sinners. Amanda Ericsson was no saint."
*****
[5:30PM, ZULU's office]
Zenya had the office to herself for the moment. Normally, when she was doing research, she liked working alone, without distractions. This time, she would have welcomed a little assistance. She longed for the days of endless catacombs of filing cabinets and information on real paper, but those days were gone. Her computer skills were basic at best. What she had learned, she had learned because she had to, not because she wanted to. She could find her way through the bureau's database and usually manage to coax some information out of it, and she did have to admit that it was faster than doing a manual search of files, but it was too sedentary an activity and there was no one to complain to when things weren't going well.
It was amazing how many Amanda Ericssons there were in the United States. Fortunately, Zenya was able to narrow the search significantly, since the school's records had provided her with a social security number. That should have been all she needed. Except that after graduating from St. Celilia's, Amanda Ericsson had all but disappeared. She had apparently never gotten a driver's license, owned a car, held a job, gotten a credit card or had a run-in with the law - at least not under her real name. She had also never voted or filed a tax return.
Over the last ten years, three Amanda Ericssons had had phone numbers in the Washington area. None of them was the right Amanda Ericsson.
Zenya was running out of ideas of where to look. She got up, poured herself another cup of coffee and walked around the office for a few minutes. She felt like this whole search had been a waste of time, but at least it gave her something to do. Sitting around at the hospital had been driving her crazy because she wasn't accomplishing anything and that was starting to make her feel completely useless. She wanted to be out tracking down Rebecca, but without even an idea of where to start looking, it was an impossible task. So far, the team had been lucky, at least relatively speaking. No one had been killed, but how long could their luck hold out?
The phone number was the best lead they had so far. Zenya tried focusing on that for a while. Sister Elizabeth George had said that it would be virtually impossible for anyone to hide out at the school or convent for a long period of time. So the calls must have been forwarded to another number.
A few telephone calls confirmed the fact. All calls to the number at the convent had been forwarded to an extension at Crosstech Inc. Zenya tried the number and got no answer. She tried the main number for Crosstech. The phone was answered by the computer.
[Hello and thank you for calling Crosstech. To speak to the research and development department, please press one now. To speak to�] Zenya tuned most of it out. Eventually, the overly pleasant voice got to an option she was interested in. [If you do not know the extension you wish to contact, please press six now.] Zenya pressed six and waited through a couple dozen names, departments and extension numbers until she got to the one she was looking for. [The extension for Amanda Ericsson is 2947. You may dial your desired extension at any time. For more options, please press nine now.]
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