Hawke scowled at the phone set. "You're the Intelligence Agency, I just fly helicopters. Don't you have some experts who can figure out how to spell the man's name?"
"Can you get him to write it down?"
Could we read it if we did? Hawke wondered. What if Zhenya wrote it in Cyrillic? It wasn't as if anyone learned how to spell their name in a completely different alphabet.
"Michael speaks and reads Russian, maybe he knows how to spell it," Hawke replied, annoyed at the unexpected resistance he was getting, wondering if Marella was playing with him out of amusement or because she was still angry with him. He reminded himself, again, not to get on her bad side, if he ever managed to get off her current one.
"Archangel's in Atlanta," Marella said, a slight edge to her patient, cheerful tone. "And I can't promise you anything. There are hundreds of millions of citizens in the Soviet Union, millions alone in Russia. We don't have access to records on ordinary civilians; we just don't keep tabs on them."
"You have access when you want to," Hawke said in a low growl. "Anyway, he was in the Army. You've probably got records on the Russian Army, don't you?
She ignored his question, probably realized it was less rhetorical than simple provocation. "And what did you say was his son's name?"
That hadn't been an easy fact to elicit from the old Russian. Dominic had finally, apparently in his cups, resorted to telling Zhenya about his daughter Sally, about how traumatic her loss had been to an estranged father. Even then, the more reserved Russian had only revealed his son's name after much prompting.
"Vasily," Hawke answered. "Want me to spell that?" He kept his smirk to himself. He wasn't being childish. Well maybe he was. Marella just seemed to bring that out in him. "Anyway, both of these guys came through customs. You should have some records there to track down the son."
He heard a muted sigh float through the phone line. "We will look into this, Hawke, but I'm not promising anything. I'll get back to you in a couple of days."
Hawke was left holding the receiver, dial tone spilling out of it.
"Marella still pissed at you?"
Hawke put the receiver in its cradle, turned around to face Caitlin. "What makes you think she's angry with me?
Caitlin grinned and Hawke didn't really want to know how or what she knew.
"I think you left some things out of the story you told me and Dom about how you got Michael's help when Dominic was grabbed."
Hawke eyed Caitlin, decided that her suspicions didn't mean she knew anything, just that she was astute enough to watch body language and listen to tone of voice. Marella had been a little cooler than usual on the handful of missions they'd run for the Firm since.
"She doesn't like it when you drag her boss into bad situations," Caitlin continued prompting, looking for an answer that she wasn't going to get.
Caitlin was reading his face closely and must have seen something in his eyes because he knew he had kept his expression motionless.
"You're right," Hawke replied blandly.
If Briggs and Marella were keeping their relationship quiet, Hawke was not going to discuss it with anyone, even Caitlin, who was far better at keeping a secret than Dominic. He hadn't quite made up his own mind what he thought about the two of them as a couple, wasn't entirely sure they were a couple; neither had confirmed or denied it and it was possible that Marella had just stayed over at Briggs's house unexpectedly and had had to borrow Michael's robe. Briggs's indirect acknowledgement that he knew Marella loved him was just a statement of fact; something all of them knew but never discussed.
Caitlin sighed. "I really think she should get over the reporting structure and just jump him already. Lord knows he'll never take the first step."
Hawke sputtered, his mind's eye furnishing, incongruously, not Marella but Caitlin grabbing a man and pulling him…. Hawke shook his head. Not going there.
"What?" Caitlin said, mock indignantly, her blue eyes twinkling mischievously. "You think he'll make the first move?"
Hawke let himself smile, a little ruefully. "I think going for a relationship with someone you work with, or work for, is a little more complicated than that, Cait. Especially in their business."
Her eyes softened, merriment tempered with wariness, and Hawke wondered if they were talking about Briggs and Marella or had wandered into personal territory of their own. He hoped not; any relationship he might ever have was dotted with landmines far more threatening than those underlying the complexity of a reporting structure.
She smiled finally, almost hiding her disappointment. "I hope Michael comes to his senses before it's too late. They're both wasting a lot of good years."
Ouch, Hawke thought, and turned away. Caitlin's directness shouldn't have been as unexpected as it was; it was one of the things he most admired about her. He was less surprised at her approach. He hadn't needed Dominic to tell him that Caitlin was both extremely attractive and interested in being more than friends or colleagues. Hawke could say he wasn't ready for a relationship but in truth, couldn't remember ever being truly ready for a relationship; he'd just recognized the potential when it came along and tried to not screw it up if it happened.
If he let it happen. No question that Caitlin had tossed the ball in his court.
