The phone was ringing as Hawke unlocked the padlock on the hangar door. "Just a minute," he muttered, turning the key and yanking on the padlock.

"C'mon, c'mon," Caitlin said, her sense of urgency more a need for the washroom facilities than a desire to answer the phone. The local taproom served a decent sandwich and better than average beer on draft, but its lavatories were on a level with 'bad gas stations' according to Caitlin, Marella, and every other woman who'd ever tried them.

Hawke pulled the door open, wisely stepped back and let Caitlin through first, and then jogged to the phone. Based on Murphy's Law and personal experience, now was the time that the caller would hang up, exasperated by no response.

"Santini Air," he said, almost cheerfully, expecting dead air or dial tone in return.

"Hawke?"

It wasn't a voice he'd expected to hear for a minimum of several days, probably never with the priority she'd assign any favors for him.

"Marella," Hawke sighed. "I still don't know how to spell it."

"So I imagine you'll be relieved when I tell you that Mr. Dzhamgerchinov spelled it for us," she answered.

Hawke blinked, sorting his questions as rapidly as possible. The Firm had called Zhenya? Doubtful; in fact highly improbable. Customs? A good possibility.

"In fact," Marella continued, "he spelled it for us on three different occasions."

"You gonna tell me or just yank my chain?" Hawke said, reluctant to rise to her bait and yet more than a little puzzled, even worried that the Firm already knew something about their mystery Russian.

"A Mr. Yevgeniy Dzhamgerchinov has called this office on three separate occasions in the last month, attempting to schedule an appointment with Archangel."

Hawke felt his mouth open, but no words came to mind or emerged. Sorting through all the potential reasons Zhenya would try to call Archangel was getting him nowhere. He focused instead on the smaller details.

"How'd he get the number?"

There was no listing in any business or residential directory for The Firm or its employees. Even if there was a listing for "The Institute of Applied Technology," the name on the sign outside the Knightsbridge entrances, Hawke was pretty certain it would forward to an answering service in another city, someplace anonymous and misleading. To say that the direct numbers to Archangel's office were not easily obtained was more than an understatement.

There was silence from the other end of the phone for a good fifteen seconds.

"That is an excellent question," Marella finally answered.

"Hey, I just met the guy yesterday," Hawke replied, already defensive, interpreting Marella's silence and her non-committal response as implied accusation.

"And after just meeting the man, you felt compelled to escalate his situation to our attention?"

Disbelief simply oozed down the phone line and Hawke scowled at the phone set. Marella had an uncanny ability to highlight inconsistencies, gaps in logic, or fundamentally flawed judgments through simple questioning. Hawke hated it.

"Dominic's been talking to the guy for a couple of weeks," he admitted, "but no way did he give out the phone number."

Marella's "hmmm" announced her doubts about his confidence in Santini and Hawke circled back to his original questions.

"What's he want with Archangel?"

"According to our message logs, he says that he has information to offer."

Hawke took that as a positive sign. "And?"

"We tried to hand him off to someone more appropriate…"

Someone less busy and important, interpreted Hawke.

"Someone in the Intelligence Directorate rather than Field Operations," she clarified, as if in response to Hawke's less than complimentary thoughts, "but he has refused to meet with anyone but Archangel."

"The other guy who supposedly came around here sometimes," Hawke said softly. "Damn." It had been at least a month, probably two, since Briggs had visited Santini Air in person. All of their meetings with Briggs had been at Knightsbridge, or else Marella or another aide had handled the briefing.

Marella remained silent, apparently waiting out Hawke, letting him work out whatever he meant.

"I don't know what information he has to offer, but I think he's hoping Michael can help him find out what happened to his son."

But why Briggs, and how the hell did someone like Zhenya get in touch with Briggs in the first place? Someone gave him Briggs as a contact. The same someone who told him that Briggs might know something about his son.

"Mr. Dzhamgerchinov may be exactly what he says he is," Marella continued, her voice cool and a little wary, "but I find his involvement with Santini Air a little troubling."

"Yeah," Hawke agreed, more than just troubled. Statistically some things could be put down to coincidence, but a mixture of new friends, Santini Air and the Firm had the hair on the back of his neck standing up. "So how do we play it?"

Caitlin approached, her face quizzical as she caught his tone. He shook his head, held up a finger that promised he'd let her know in a minute.

"Does he know that you asked us to investigate the circumstances of his son's death?"

Good question, Hawke thought, wondering if Dominic had hinted or confided in Zhenya. "Don't think so," he answered, letting a little doubt creep into his voice, enough that Marella could hear.

She exhaled rather loudly. "Damn. Well, don't say anything else. We'll check him out."

"Marella, you think if he was dirty he would be trying to schedule an appointment with Archangel?"

The act struck Hawke as open and somewhat above board. Someone after Airwolf or her crew would do as little as possible to draw the Firm's attention instead of making repeated efforts to talk to the Firm's Deputy Director in charge of the Airwolf project.

"I think the pertinent question is why he thinks Archangel knows something about his son?"

"Or who led him to think Michael knows something?" Hawke countered, wondering exactly what Briggs did know. "When is he back in town?"

"Later today. I promise I'll ask him about the Dzhamgerchinov family, father and son, but I can tell you that we have nothing in our files about either of them."

And what Archangel knew, he usually documented and shared with his top aide, unless the level of security made it too dangerous for either. Hawke frowned; nothing about Zhenya triggered the type of mental alarms that usually came with the never discussed levels beyond Top Secret.

Marella rang off and Hawke let the receiver dangle from his fingers for a minute or two, trying to summarize the facts and his perceptions of them for Caitlin. He sighed heavily. And after Caitlin, he'd somehow have to tell Dominic.

"You think Zhenya's dirty?"

Attention returned to the present, Hawke hung up the phone and swiveled the chair around to face Caitlin who'd propped herself up on the desk. Her expression was troubled, blue eyes shadowed with doubt.

"Don't know either way," Hawke summarized. "We know that he's been calling the Firm, trying to set up an appointment with Archangel, and won't meet with anyone else."

Caitlin's mouth opened, and then she shut it and tilted her head sideways, absorbing the information, perusing it for meaning, placing new facts in the existing universe of Zhenya. After a few seconds, she scrunched up her nose.

"Okay, that's weird. Not necessarily dirty, but definitely weird."

Hawke smiled briefly and shook his head in amusement. Caitlin had summed up his emotions fairly well in her choice of words. Even faced with facts that just didn't fit his prior conception of Zhenya, he felt puzzlement, was troubled, but not wholly alarmed, which was enough outside his usually pessimistic view of the world and its individuals that it alone should alarm him.

"We going to ask him why he wants to meet with Michael?"

Hawke shook his head. "Just sit tight and wait to see what Marella digs up."

"And in the meantime, just act like nothing's changed," Caitlin concluded. "Well, I knew something would come along. It's just been too quiet lately."

Hawke shrugged. No guns, no air battles, no dangerous missions, just a mystery wrapped around an old man and his son. All in all, it was just enough to alleviate the boredom without being dangerous, except for the unknown quantity who had directed Zhenya to Archangel; that was definitely trouble, possibly dangerous.

Damn, he was not looking forward to telling Dom that his 'old Army buddy' was up to something odd.