"There's something I have to say," Nick said.
"What?"
"I need to know your judgment isn't being clouded by what you learned about your father."
"What do you mean?"
"It's understandable that you'd be pissed at the Russians. I don't blame you, but we may have to work with Vysotsky."
"He can't be trusted."
"The people who killed your father aren't the people we're dealing with now. "
"You don't know that," she said. "SVR is the successor to the old KGB. Some of the same people who worked for state security back then are still around. Vysotsky, for one."
"Yeah, but Vysotsky has helped us in the past."
"Are you done?" Her tone was cold.
They entered the morass of downtown traffic.
Nick felt himself getting angry. Maybe it was the sessions with the shrink. Things had been going a lot better with Selena since he'd started seeing someone to deal with his PTSD. The Afghanistan nightmare was coming less often but he still thrashed out during the night. It had made it hard to share the same bed. They'd been sleeping apart and the strain was taking its toll.
The nightmare had started after he'd been wounded by a grenade in Afghanistan. A child had thrown the grenade, a boy no more than ten or eleven years old. Nick hadn't wanted to kill him. He'd hesitated, not wanting to shoot. The hesitation had almost cost him his life.
The sessions seemed to stir up things that had nothing to do with what had happened in Afghanistan, things he didn't want to think about, like his childhood. Like thoughts about his father. His father had been a drunk, a womanizer and a bully. Carter Senior beat his wife and Nick with monotonous regularity, until the day Nick had been big enough to fight back. His sister had pulled him off before Nick killed him. His father had always left Shelley alone. She still defended him but she would never tell him why. It was one of the reasons Nick didn't get along with her.
It felt like Selena was shutting him out because she didn't want to hear what he had to say, just like his sister. It pissed him off when she did that. He took a deep breath.
"No, I'm not done. As long as I lead this team I have to know I can count 100 percent on everybody on it. If you can't separate out what happened to your father from what we have to do now, I have to worry about you. I know how you feel…"
She interrupted him. "No, you don't." Her voice rose. "You have no idea how I feel. Don't you dare presume to know how I feel."
They'd reached DuPont circle. She pulled to the curb and jammed on the brakes.
"Get out," she said.
He looked at her.
"Get out," she said again.
He started to say something and bit it back. He got out of the car and slammed the car door shut. She floored it and took off, tires smoking.
Sometimes he wondered what the hell he was doing with her in the first place. He began the long walk back to his building.
CHAPTER 11
The haunting voice of Sarah McLachlan filled the elegant rooms of Selena's luxury condo. Her drink sat untouched on the end table beside the couch. She'd been staring out the windows for the best part of an hour, trying to make sense of the conflicting thoughts and feelings swirling through her mind.
Selena's home was on the top floor of one of Washington's exclusive residential buildings. The wall of the living room was all windows from floor to ceiling. A wide, private balcony with an ornate, wrought iron fence ran outside the glass. The windows afforded a spectacular view of the Virginia countryside across the Potomac. Potted trees and a variety of colorful, flowering plants were spaced at random intervals along the balcony. It was the kind of city living space that inspired the covers of architectural magazines.
Usually the impressive view calmed her and reassured her that there was stability and order in her world. Not today. Today the foundation of that order had crumbled.
Her father was a traitor.
The word traitor echoed in her mind. She remembered the last time she'd seen her father. She'd been 10 years old. Her mother, her father and her older brother were going to Big Sur for the weekend. She'd been looking forward to the trip. But she'd caught a cold and had a fever and couldn't go. Her father had come into the bedroom. She'd been sitting propped up against the pillows, playing with her favorite doll. She remembered he'd smelled of aftershave and cigarettes.
"How's my girl feeling?"
"I'm much better, daddy. Can I go?"
"Not this time, pumpkin."
"Joe." Her mother had called up the stairs. "We need to get going."
"Uncle William will be here with you. We'll be back Sunday night, before you know it. You'll be all better by then. Next weekend we'll go to the beach."
He bent over and kissed her on the forehead.
"Bye, daddy."
"Bye, pumpkin."
He'd gone out the door. That was the last time she'd seen him.
It had taken more than a year and a lot of love from her Uncle William to bring her out of her shell after the death of her family.
The contents of the file Nick had given her had been a series of shocks, one after the other. The first shock was that her father had worked for the CIA. She'd never dreamed he was a spy. According to the file, he'd been under surveillance for almost 3 years before his death. That was a long time to let someone hand over important secrets. It reinforced her belief that the file was false, meant to cover somebody's tracks.
The file contained dates of clandestine meetings with enemy agents. Records of suspicious deposits into his bank account. Old black-and-white photographs showing drop points and meetings in San Francisco and Washington. Records of phone calls. A damning chain of evidence that led to what seemed an inevitable conclusion, that her father had been selling classified material to the enemy.
Langley knew her father was working with the Russians and had allowed him to continue. The only thing that made sense to her was that his involvement with the KGB was a sanctioned CIA operation. If that were the case, he wasn't a traitor, he was an unacknowledged hero. Just because the file accused Joseph Connor of treason didn't make it true.
Nick had said the file was the only record of her father's activities. If that were so, there was no way to prove her father's innocence or guilt, one way or another. Worse, there was no one she could ask to look into it. Except Nick.
Nick.
Selena picked up her drink. The ice had melted. She stood and went to the kitchen sink and threw away the old drink, got some ice from the refrigerator door and poured herself an Irish whiskey. It was a taste she had acquired since she'd met Nick. She walked over to the windows and stared out over the city and sipped from her glass.
Nick had kept the file from her. She didn't know if she should be mad at him or grateful. How had she ended up in love with a man who seemed unable to make up his mind about what kind of relationship he wanted from her? She knew he loved her, she was certain of that. At least most of the time she was certain of it.
She was in love with him, wasn't she? Maybe she should be asking herself what kind of relationship she wanted with him, rather than the other way around.
Lately she'd found herself thinking about children. If she wanted to have children, time was running out. At 35, it was already a little late to be having kids. Not so much because of physical reasons but because of personal ones. She was used to doing things pretty much as she wanted. It wouldn't be exactly right to say she loved her work with the Project, but there was no denying she loved the excitement the unpredictability of it. How could she give that up? Children would change all of that. It would change her entire life, really.