Chapter Twenty-Four
Sometimes the job could catch up to you all at once. The long nights, the stress, people trying to kill or manipulate you or both. Sometimes it didn't wait until the end to come crashing down around you. Sometimes it was a constant state of being, and as Liz glanced over to where Tom was leaned back in the passenger seat of the car that they had rented to drive to a little town outside of New Haven where Alex Cullen - Ilya Koslov - had tucked himself away, she knew he felt it too. It was why he'd wanted to run, and there she was dragging them both back into it.
Or was she? Sometimes it was hard to know where one of them pushed and the other pulled or if circumstances on whole dragged them in before they even realized they were moving. The intel had come in and they were on their way before it had even clicked with her that they were supposed to be running right now, putting distance between them and Reddington and everything that was happening. Agnes wasn't in the back seat, though. She was staying with Aram while they chased down a ghost that had known her mother in hopes that he knew something about Jonas Bauer. There hadn't even been a discussion, though. Tom had called her, they had met, and he'd laid out a plan to rent a car under a false name to drive up to Connecticut in hopes that they wouldn't tip Reddington, Katarina, or anyone else that might be watching off and spook Koslov. They could fly back to DC once they had the answers.
It had been a solid plan, but the six plus hour drive was long enough for the quiet to let her stew in everything they'd filled each other in on. There were too many questions and it left them exposed and vulnerable.
"What are we going to do if he doesn't know anything?"
Tom turned to look at her, blinking like he'd been close to dozing in his seat when her question filled the quiet car. "We have the photo Aram and Park were able to pull. If he doesn't know Bauer, that's one lead we can check off."
"We're not getting away from it, are we?"
He frowned a little at that and a sigh escaped him. "Your mom seems to think we're pretty closely tied to it."
"And you believe her?"
"On that, yeah. On if she's telling us the whole truth, no. Not at all."
"I can't tell if they think we're still kids or pawns."
"Both?" Tom offered and she heard him shift, folding his long legs up into the seat with him. "What's your earliest memory?"
"Why?"
"Something your mom said. I'll explain, but I don't want to lead you on it."
Fair enough. Liz pulled in a breath and readjusted her grip on the wheel. "I had my memories manipulated after a fire where I shot my father. Dr Orchard told me when I first met her that it was possible that they were jumbled because of that, but I think my first memories are at a place that my mother's husband called The Summer Palace. It was this house in Canada that he owned and that I spent some time in. I remember my mother burying a canister with a bracelet in it like a time capsule. It's strange and clipped, but I remember her face. I remember her voice. I remember feeling….. so happy she was there with me." She pursed her lips together in a grimace, blinking back the threat of tears. "I don't know if it's true. The woman that showed up, that hired you and that's been manipulating all of this, she has her face but I don't feel safe with her."
"We're not safe," Tom said quietly. "But we're not kids anymore. It's on us to make sure we're safe. Agnes too."
She risked a look out of the corner of her eye at him and reached out, finding his hand and they laced their fingers together. "What's yours? Earliest memory, I mean?"
"Your mom was talking about the beach and something that Scottie… told me, I guess? The image was so vivid it was like one of my memory sessions."
"You think it was a memory?"
"I don't know. You were there."
"At the beach? With you?"
"Yeah." He tightened his hold on her hand. "When Scottie said she wanted to help me get my memories back, I thought she was just helping. That she cared, but she's had her hand in it and with Katarina trying to…. find some memory…."
"What are you thinking?"
"I don't know, but… I think we're doing the right thing here. Following the leads ourselves. It's the only way we'll know for sure." She nodded and felt him pull her hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. "We're still a few hours out. You want me to drive so you can get some sleep?"
"Sure," she answered, pulling towards the side of the road, not that either of them had really expected to catch any sleep that night anyway.
Of all the calls that Katarina might have expected in the earliest hours of that morning after her failed attempt to coax Tom closer to the memories, the one that said that her father was awake wasn't one of them. The sun was creeping up over the horizon as she pulled up to the alleyway she could park in to make her way several blocks over to the warehouse. The lights were still low, but she saw Raymond standing just outside of the room. He turned as she entered. "I wasn't sure you would come."
The words might have stung once. She had been close with her father. Not just his only daughter, but his protegée. His legacy in the KGB. Until they discovered her split loyalties, that was. That knowledge had shattered so much. "He's my father," she answered and started past him, but he caught her arm.
"Have you spoken to Elizabeth?"
"No. Sometimes you need to let a situation breathe."
"To Tom then," he sighed and there were moments when she hated how well he still knew her. "She'll listen to him. If you've -"
"I'm not the one that stole the love of her life from her," Katarina popped back, wrenching her arm free and breezing past him into the room.
The doctor was with Dom, asking him to follow a light with his eyes. He did, but that sharp gaze swiveled around to the door and came to rest on her. His jaw dropped just a little before he caught himself, his expression immediately snapping back to a more neutral state and he pursed his lips into a long frown. "Could you give us a moment?"
Clemons looked over and gave a short, brief nod before packing his supplies up and scooting out of the makeshift room. Dom's eyes remained on her, feeling like they were boring through all of her defenses to leave them shattered in pieces on the floor. She squared her shoulders and tilted her chin. "Lia's dead."
"Your hand?"
"My bullet."
He made a small sound of acknowledgement and settled into his pillows a little deeper, finally breaking eye contact as if he had lost interest. She knew he hadn't, but it didn't stop an old, deeply buried desire to force him to look around and to acknowledge that she'd done it for him. Her childhood, her life…. so much had been for him for so long. She didn't hate him for it, but this far out she could at least acknowledge it. Emotions were complicated, messy things.
Katarina circled the bed and this time she was the one that initiated eye-contact. "She was posing as me. She was going to hurt Masha."
"I wouldn't expect you to kill her for me."
"Added bonus." The words slipped out, but she let a smirk accompany them and slowly he echoed it.
"It's been too long, золотце," he murmured.
"It wasn't safe."
"It still isn't."
She studied him for a long moment before glancing up quickly to confirm that they were alone. "He's closing in," she confessed softly.
"Who?"
"Alexei."
Dom stiffened at the name, his expression darkening. "Does he know?"
"About Raymond? Not as far as we're aware."
"Only a matter of time," Dom huffed. "He was always a bloodhound. I warned you, if you remember."
"Affairs do require two," she countered sharply.
"That boy was always a fool for you. You should have let him go, Katarina. Let him live his life he'd built, but no. You pulled him back in and look what it cost him. What it's cost you and your daughter —"
A machine sounded a warning and the doctor rushed back in, shooting her an irritable look for riling him up. She took a step back, then another, and finally moved towards the adjacent room where Raymond was sitting on the couch looking very worn. He glanced over to her, but didn't let whatever judgement he had slip off of his tongue. There was something in his expression, though, and for a fraction of a moment she let herself imagine what life would have been like if she had never come into contact with a young Naval Officer that had called himself Raymond Reddington. His career would have flourished. He always succeeded when he set his mind to it. He would have stayed with Carla and raised her little girl as his own. He wouldn't be dying now.
"I wouldn't change my decision," he confessed, and it was a stark reminder of how he had always been able to read her. "You and me. I don't regret it."
"Why?" The question rode out on a breath and she hated how small it had sounded.
He held her gaze and she could see all the years between them. The good, the bad, and everything between, but a single name summed it up. "Elizabeth."
A small smile tilted her lips. "At least we did one thing right."
He gave a small, non-committal sound and she took a seat next to him.
They had driven through the night and had made it to New Haven far too early to go straight to Koslov's apartment and expect any kind of useful results, so the Keens had taken time to grab coffee and breakfast at a bakery and go over their gameplan. Between that and traffic that they landed in, it was nearly eight by the time they parked and made their way towards a set of classic New England, redbrick apartments. Tom risked a look around. He couldn't shake the feeling that they were being watched.
"Probably Reddington's people," Liz huffed. "It just means we need to move quickly."
He nodded, but the instinctual feeling of discomfort didn't wane even as he followed Liz up the stairs to the apartment. He let his gaze sweep the street as she knocked and waited, but there was no clear sign of a threat. He turned as the door opened to reveal a man around sixty, blond, and dressed in jeans and a button up hanging open over a t-shirt. His brows drew together as he looked at them both, but his gaze settled on Liz. No one spoke for several moments, but Tom could see the shift in his expression and Koslov loosed a long breath in the form of a sigh. "I wondered when this day would come."
Liz's shoulders squared a little at the statement. "Do you know who I am?"
"Of course, Masha. Come inside."
She looked back to him and Tom gave a small, encouraging nod as he followed her in and shut the door behind them.
Koslov started for the kitchen. "You have good timing. Linda - my wife - is out. After everything that happened, she wouldn't be thrilled to see Katarina's daughter standing in our living room." As he spoke, he kept a careful look on them both from the corner of his eye, watching and waiting for any reaction. He was trained, which made sense for the company he kept.
"I know that the woman that kidnapped you isn't my mother," Liz offered and a little tension worked out of Koslov's stance as he reached for the coffee pot and started going through the motions of brewing a new pot. "You knew my mother, though, and the woman that was posing as her."
"It was a complicated situation," he answered softly.
"I'm hoping you'll help to uncomplicate it."
"And that's why you're here?" he asked, starting the brew
"Yes."
He drew in a breath and looked past Liz to Tom. "And he is?"
"My husband."
He hummed softly and didn't look like he disbelieved her, exactly, but more like he recognized that that wasn't all of it. There was a moment, then another, and he chewed on his lip slightly before saying, "You come from a family full of secrets."
"I know."
"Secrets that aren't mine to tell." The coffee finished and chimed an alert. Koslov grabbed three mugs from the cabinet and filled them up.
"But they're mine to know," Liz pressed.
He set the coffee mugs on the table and moved to the fridge for the creamer. He set it all down together, took a seat in the chair facing the door, and Liz took the one that put her back to it. She grabbed the third mug and set it across the table for Tom, putting his back to the solid kitchen wall and giving him a better vantage point so that they wouldn't be surprised if someone entered. Tom took the seat as Koslov set to fixing his coffee, not looking up as he spoke again. "What, exactly, do you know?"
Liz took a sip from her black coffee. "I know that you know or did know my mother - Katarina Rostova - her father, the man we know as Raymond Reddington, and the woman whose name I don't know, but was posing as my mother. The woman who kidnapped you for information."
"Lia," he breathed, a sadness seeping into his tone.
Tom took a gamble. "She's dead."
That drew Koslov's attention to him and there was a brief flash of sorrow in his blue eyes. "How?"
"Let's start with this," Liz said firmly. "You tell me what you know about her and I'll give you that answer."
He nodded. "She… worked with your mother."
"As a doppelgänger Katarina Rostova," Liz acknowledged the piece of the puzzle that they already had.
"Yes. She was KGB. Very talented. When your mother became pregnant with you, Lia was the one that helped shield the secret. She would appear - sometimes very intentionally - for jobs under your mother's name so that even if rumours circulated about a child, they remained just that."
"She protected me?"
"She protected your mother. She…. idolized her."
"Then where did it go wrong?"
Koslov sighed, taking a long sip of his own coffee. "There were…. Complications," he said carefully. "A target was put on your mother's back. Two of us -"
"You and Dom."
"Yes," he answered softly. "Dom and I convinced Lia to step into a position to allow your mother to escape. Nothing went as planned, and the people after her didn't believe that she was dead. We staged a public death."
"Of Lia."
"Yes."
"You killed the man she loved instead," Liz filled in the blank and Tom wondered just how many stories that Maddie Tolliver had told her were more than just fragments of truths.
"He wasn't the target, but yes. Any loyalty she had after that was destroyed. We took precautions, changed names, and she must have done the same. She was deep into hiding until Raymond asked me to find her. He was….always conflicted over what happened."
"Was he involved?"
"Connected, yes, but Raymond wanted to pursue other options. He didn't think she needed to die to protect Katarina." His gaze flickered from his mug to meet Liz's. "How did she die?"
"My mother saved Tom and me. She shot her."
He nodded, sadness and what looked like it might have been guilt plastered on his face for the whole world to see. "She deserved more loyalty from us than we could give her."
"She kidnapped you and rummaged around in your memories," Liz said tightly and Tom schooled his own expression. She hadn't mentioned that, only that Tolliver had had Koslov in her custody at one point.
A thin, mirthless smile tugged his lips just a little. "If there's one thing you should know, Masha, it's that nothing - absolutely nothing - in this is simple. If you expect it to be, if you try to….fit it into the perimeters of your or some other morality, you'll be pulled under by it all. Katarina wouldn't want that."
"She's the reason we're in this," Tom murmured and Koslov's gaze slid around to study him for a moment.
Liz reached into her pocket for her phone and pulled up the photo that Aram had supplied them with of Jonas Bauer. He was a thick man in his mid eighties, with a deep frown and dark blue eyes. His hair, what little was left of it, had gone white and was closely cropped. "This is Jonas Bauer, a businessman out of Germany. Do you know him?"
There was a flicker of recognition mixed with fear in Koslov's eyes, but the front door opened and broke the moment. Tom was on his feet in an instant, his hand reaching around for his gun until he heard a voice accompany it. "Honey? Are you home? I was halfway there when I realized I'd left my phone." A blonde woman circled around into the kitchen and stared at Liz. "You. You were on the news a few years ago. Masha Rostova."
"My name is Elizabeth Keen. I'm a federal agent," Liz said calmly, standing and reaching for her badge. "I'm just asking your husband a few -"
"I don't care what name you call yourself. Get out."
"Linda -" Koslov started, but she turned and fixed a hard look on him.
"We had built a life together and these people destroyed it. Reddington, anyone connected to him. We said we'd leave it behind, but it just keeps following us."
Koslov nodded slowly and turned back to Liz. "You should go."
Liz held her phone up again. "I'm going to ask you again: do you know this man?"
"I don't know anyone named Jonas Bauer," he said forcefully and Tom pulled in a breath.
"Thank you. You've been…. very helpful."
"We're not done here," Liz snapped and he caught her gaze, desperately trying to convey that they had to be. Tom had been through every kind of interrogation possible and he knew when it was over. Liz, though, was letting her emotions take hold. She took a step towards Koslov. "Do you know what my mother did to me? Why did my father felt like he had to take me from her? There are too many questions."
"I can't answer those for you," he said softly.
"No, you won't. This is my life. I built a life too. With my husband and our little girl and all of this…" A sob choked her and she swallowed hard. "I won't let them destroy that."
"It's not them that you should worry about."
"You need to go," Linda said firmly.
Tom circled the table. His touch was light on her arm, but she turned to look at him. Her expression shattered something inside of him and all he wanted to do was pull her into his arms and promise her it would be alright. They would make it alright. He couldn't, though. Right then they needed to make themselves scarce and regroup. There'd be another path to follow. There always was. "C'mon," he coaxed softly.
She cringed at that, but nodded, pocketing both her phone and her badge. "Thank you, for what you could say," she offered and started for the door.
"Hey," Koslov called out to Tom and he turned. "Raymond would do anything for her. Anything."
"It's what he does to her that's the problem," Tom answered and followed his wife out to the street.
TBC
Notes: Fair warning, I don't speak Russian, but according to the phenomenal invention that is Google search, золотце / золотко (zolotse / zolotko) means gold and is used for a child. While, at least in this story (and I wonder about canon with the garage full of American toys Dom had), Katarina spent some of her childhood Stateside, I love the idea of Dom having a sweet nickname for his little girl.
Next Time: The Keens divert to Texas to speak to Howard and the Task Force receives yet another surprise.
