THE RUN-UP TO APRIL 3 and 4, 1993

It was only an accident that Philip had been in the travel agency's back office, the day of all the excitement.

It was the end of March, and Elizabeth and he had yet to settle their tiff over Reverend Doctor Susan Hyack's 'disposition', as Philip had referred to it.

"You've now brought Rene Beeman down on top of us. Way to go, Boris Badenov!" Elizabeth had scolded. It had been when back in the Soviet Union that she had used that mocking, Russian-ish name when trying to express her displeasure with him. That was one thing which was different on this current Pacific-Northwest tour - she now also finally put together who 'Moose and Squirrel' were.

But that day at the end of March, Philip had been alone in the back office while his staff was seeing to a surprising number of walk-ins. Seattle's school's Spring Break was just over, so seeing the number of customers at the agents' desks at this time was a pleasant surprise.

His Seattle travel agency was miraculously avoiding the problems which had driven the old D.C., Dupont Circle Travel into the ground.

Then, all the excitement broke out.

Five large men in suits, and with obvious ear-pieces came into his Seattle agency, two stood by the door and three walked purposely around the office, drawing attention to themselves by opening cupboards and asking agents to open the drawers to their desks. They weren't cops, cops wouldn't be doing a security sweep. One even opened Philip's back-office door - he didn't come in, didn't even particularly look at Philip before closing it and returning to his colleagues.

Since 1965 in the States, Philip had felt many things. But it was on this, his second tour, this time for the SVR, that he felt a panicked fear. He had no instinct which had i.d.'ed those well dressed goons. He realized that he was staring at his phone - paralysedly so. He was panicking, wanting to warn Elizabeth. Badly. 'Do I call her, give her the codeword?' was racing through his head.

Instead, his door opened again, and a man with both an ear-piece as well as a thick, East-Slavic accent said, "the Ambassador wishes to speak with you. He can come in here, or you can sit with him at one of your agent's desks if you prefer."

The Ambassador? What the hell?

Now, welling up with rage, he said strongly and in a fierce whisper, "if he's in a car, I'll go see him. Don't you dare let him out of his car!"

Yes, Philip (SVR-illegal Mikhail Andreiovich Petrov) had vented actual anger at a Russian superior, one vastly above him. One rarely risked that on Russian soil, not unless one coveted a Lefortovo prison mailing address.

Looking out to the main office, he noted that it had now been cleared. No travel agents, no customers. Just men with suits and earpieces.

"I'll meet him, let's go," he said. Philip got up, looked at the drawer in which Elizabeth had kept her self-named, 'girl-gun', but thought better of it.

He went outside, and noted the stretch limousine parked outside. The sidewalk had been cleared. His suspicion as to whoever it was behind the tinted windows, didn't deter or abate his rage.

Yes, inside was no less than Russian UN Ambassador, Yuli Mikhailovich Vorontsov. The man who'd been on the commercial airplane from Frankfort to New York a year previous. Once the 'temperature' cooled, Philip found out that Vorontsov was en route to the Yeltsin-Clinton Summit a few days hence in Vancouver.

But that 'lowered temperature' was not immediate. Philip's overwhelming emotion as he was ushered into the limousine's back seat, to sit across from the ambassador…..?

"You fucking do that to me again, and we're gone," Philip spat. "Both of us. We're gone, you'll never find us. What's the matter with you? Are you purposely trying to paint cross-hairs on us?"

Elizabeth had worried that they'd been blown by the Seattle Methodist Reverend Doctor. That had been taken care of. Now it was their own people. A bunch of fucking Russians.

Yet there was Yuli Vorontsov, no less, exceptionally conspicuously smiling, waiting for his SVR-illegal's anger to end.

"Have you taken even basic counter-surveillance measures?" was Philip's accusation. Vorontsov just kept smiling, patient waiting. "Jesus Christ," Philip cursed, "this is downtown Seattle, you've just hustled away our premium customers, every one of which is now back in their offices, regaling their colleagues with all this!"

As a smiling Vorontsov sat, he quipped to Philip, "we haven't seen each other since you landed, Mikhail Andreiovich. How's it going?"

Assuming that he and Elizabeth were now blown, Philip actually calmed down. He was not above lecturing the UN Ambassador about the difference between high level diplomacy vs. on-the-ground, illegal and secretive operations.

When Philip had vented his wad, and when he'd gone silent, Vorontsov said, "are you finished? With your tantrum? Now, let's discuss important matters."

Philip's next contact with The Centre? It was a threat, a threat that if a stunt like Vorontsov's was ever pulled again, like he told the Ambassador, he and Elizabeth would disappear, and the SVR would never find them.

All Vorontsov had said, really, was that he disapproved of the handling of the 'World Council of Churches' solution that Philip had come to. It made Philip wonder two things - why did the validation merit Vorontsov's voice, in person? With much risk?

And why the order to 'leave Rene Beeman alone'? Could not The Centre or Zotov have just ordered that?

As Elizabeth later said, "maybe The Centre and Vorontsov disagree. Maybe he felt the need to come directly to us?" Then she asked, "has The Centre even said anything about the UN Ambassador, or even a Rezident, contacting field agents?"

"Not a peep," offered Philip. "They're now silent about Rene, so as a loyal and obedient servant," he quipped sarcasticly, quoting H.G. Wells, "me, I salute my new insect overlords."

Elizabeth sighed, "it's the fall of communism which is at fault. We now don't have The Party to guide, speak for and strengthen us. Everyone can be their own little-Tsar."

Philip was now less concerned that he and his wife should make an immediate run for SeaTac airport. They'd not discussed it, but he knew she was thinking it.

But, Philip did vocalize a well-used Americanism, one that expressed well his new fatigue with those spycraft games he used to weather with no effort.

"I'm too old for this shit."

FALLS CHURCH

"Henry!" Stan called out as he settled his keys onto the small table beside the front door, closing it behind him. There was no answer, not even one from a distant corner of Stan's house.

Beeman walked into the kitchen and put his briefcase up on the middle counter-island. Sandra had once scolded him for doing that, but now it didn't matter. Looking at the stove and oven, it was also clear that no one had started dinner.

Was Henry out? If so, that would be a first. Out on his own, without telling Stan? Henry's new-found, post-1988 agoraphobia had always prevented that.

He called again, this time with some purpose, "Henry!" Still no answer.

Stan went upstairs and checked Henry's bedroom. Nothing. He went the short distance down the hall to the master bedroom, still no Henry. He checked the bathroom as well as the spare bedroom. Remembering when Henry had first moved in, Stan included the closets.

Coming down, Stan stopped to ponder what they even had in the house, what dinner might look like. He thought to himself, 'well, I'm not going to start cooking until I know where the boy is!'

He went further down to the laundry. To check the garage, he had to briefly come back up to the main level, then descend…

…... there he was, Henry. Seated on the cold concrete of the garage, knees up hugged tightly.

Stan had not seen this kind of thing for a while, he'd genuinely thought Henry was past this. It turned out that the old saw was true, 'if the pain is deep, letting go once will not be enough.'

Before she'd disappeared, Rene had told Stan to quit trying to make things better for Henry. Quit 'talking at him', as if 'talk' was the elixir which the boy had needed. In his anger at her, it was tough to remember that that was the one thing he valued about Rene, her advice on how to deal with the world that had crashed in on the Jennings' boy.

The only real regret Stan had? As he sat on the cold concrete beside him, he'd cursed that he'd not first got a pair of beers from the kitchen fridge. Beer had been Beeman's superpower - with both Henry, as well as his father, Philip.

While now concrete-cold-silent, it was clear that Henry had been crying. When Stan sat, Henry hugged his knees tighter, and began rocking gently back and forth.

Rene's counsel notwithstanding, Stan offered somewhat oblique words, "it never goes away, does it?"

Henry lifted his head, looked straight ahead. He then said, "she called, Stan, she called."

There were at least three 'shes' in Henry and Stan's life right then, who could have rated a 'she called'. Uttered in an almost catatonic drone. The only 'she' that Stan was convinced that Henry would not be thinking of right then, was Sandra.

Sandra was still the subject of Stan's sleep, not Henry's. So, Stan hunched, it wasn't Sandra who had called.

He asked, "who called, Henry?" With the silence which ensued, he repeated, "Henry? It's important that I know."

Henry turned to look at him, then said soberly, "Right. You FBI people, that's all I am to you. A lead."

"Look, Henry," Stan said trying to recover ANY momentum they might have…. "this is me sitting here. Stan. Henry, you - you're not a 'lead' to me. You could never be. I normally don't make this guarantee, but I promise you, you can tell me. I won't go all 'special agent' on you."

Henry returned to hugging his knees and looking ahead. "She called, Stan. Paige. Paige called."

Stan took a sharp breath inwards, "what!? When." He immediately regretted promising that he'd not go 'all FBI'.

Henry said, "today. She called here. Voice."

Wading through the cobwebs in his own mind, Stan tried to remember that he was still an FBI special agent. That even though Henry's parents, Elizabeth and Philip Jennings - that they had been pardoned by an outgoing president in 1989, and the record about them had been expunged - Paige Jennings was not included in all that. Indeed, even though there were no formal charges pending in 1993 against her, if she'd ever been located - if on US soil, she still would have been arrested. Stan remembered seeing the CIA report from 1988 of a sighting in Moscow of Elizabeth and Philip, a report which had made no mention of Paige.

As mysterious as Philip and Elizabeth were, Paige was now a riddle wrapped up in an enigma.

"Slow down, Henry, slow down," Stan said, slowly recovering his senses. "She called here? Was she calling for you?"

"She was calling for me, Stan. I'd told her not to."

Confused, Stan said, "okay, slow down, I'm going to need this even more slowly. What do you mean, you'd 'told her not to'? Have you communicated with her before?"

"Fuck, Stan, I've been lying to you." Henry looked at his mentor right in the eye, "we've been in touch, the two of us, for more than a year. On UseNet mainly. But the bitch, she hacked my computer. She fucking turned on my modem remotely, started going through my files and e-mails."

"What?" Stan said, now really out in left field. "I don't know what that is, Henry."

"She'd doxxed me, Stan," Henry said with tears flowing afresh down his cheeks. "I got a buddy to load anti-virus software and IP intrusion, safety-ware. She removed even that. She went through it like a hot knife through butter."

"But you said she called, Henry."

"Yeah. Today."

"Do you know where she called from? Was it local?"

Henry stopped crying and almost spat at Stan. "There you go, all G-man, Stan. That's the one thing I hate about living here."

"Henry, let's not do this. Not now. Where is she?"

The boy released the grip on his knees and started to rub his now cold, almost frozen backside. Henry got to his feet, but had to wait, he couldn't flee from Stan while one of his feet had gone to sleep.

"Where was she?" Henry said. "I'd rather do this over a beer, Stan. But she called from Vancouver."

"In Canada?" Stan asked.

"In Canada, where else? Just north of Seattle."

Just that week, Stan had himself put in to go with the small FBI detail to Vancouver, in light of the Yeltsin-Clinton summit coming up in a few days.

Stan had been refused. That refusal had hit him hard. Apparently, they don't send fossils out to do real FBI work.

As Henry started to get the feeling back in his foot, he said, "that's not all, Stan."

What could possibly outrank this revelation? This piece of intel that had eluded FBI counterintelligence over 4 years, coming up five, what could eclipse that!?

Henry said evenly, "she said she's seen mom."

Out loud, loud enough for neighbours to hear through a closed garage door, Stan said sharply…..

"Fuck me."