Valerikova residence,
Kaliningrad, Russia
Nestled in the heart of an industrial suburb of Moscow, amid the slums ravaged by rampant crime and the manufacturing plants belching forth foul black smoke into the atmosphere, lay a two-square-block neighborhood that seemed exempt from the trials and tribulations of a city in transition. The streets were clean, the buildings, constructed during the reign of Nicholas and Alexandra, were in immaculate repair. Even the smog that lay over the city seemed to know better than to cross into this area.
Safe Cracker's Alley, Marina Valerikova called it with an enigmatic gleam in her eyes. The residents of this neighborhood did not engage in criminal activity. They controlled it, and made a healthy profit doing so.
The implications of that statement did not go unnoticed or unquestioned. The tall Russian woman with intense green eyes just smiled again in affirmation of her connection to one of the city's more powerful Mafia gangs and embarked on a lengthy discourse of the evils of prostitution and the booming sex industry in general and the need of that segment of the population to fall under the protection of a union, just as any other group of workers would.
With the advent of glasnost, she said, the free attitudes of the West were forced upon an ill-prepared virgin nation. The availability of Western art and literature to a people who had learned that sex was not to be discussed outside the bedrooms of married couples brought about a sudden change at a dangerous time. Like children experiencing their first taste of the forbidden, the Russian people were intrigued, mesmerized and curious, acting without thought of consequence, for the consequences of such action was a secret carefully guarded by the Propaganda Minister. For the West to know that the social ills of their society had crossed the border into the great Soviet Empire would have been the greatest crime of all.
And so it fell to those who knew, those who had escaped and who had lived in the West, and who had now returned, to guide and teach the others, to provide a safe haven and an education for those who chose to follow that path and to help those who had fallen into it due to circumstances beyond their control if they wanted to get out.
Scully was impressed, not by Marina's justification of her chosen career, but by her forthright nature and innate intelligence. She could have been successful in any field, but this was not the United States, and the fields open to women here, while still diverse, offered little or no chance of advancement. This was changing, but it had not changed in time for Marina, and so she pursued the only course of action she could think of.
In another time and place, they might have been friends. As it was, they were comfortable allies. Again, this was not the United States, not within Scully's jurisdiction, so any crimes Marina might be committing were not her concern. At the moment, her only concern was helping Mulder, and to do that, she needed someone who knew the city and the language, someone with enough connections and influence to keep them out of trouble. Marina fit the bill.
The hastily assembled documents and files she had obtained from the legat were once again spread out across the floor as well as tables, chairs and the bed as Scully struggled to put them into order. Gradually, a picture of Dominika Krestyanova's life was forming. So far, Scully had found nothing that might help them find her, but she was beginning to understand some of the woman's motivations.
Perhaps Mulder's expertise in profiling could provide them a clue, but at the moment, he was still sleeping, ravaged by fever. If she had taken any longer getting to him, pneumonia would have set in, and given what she knew about Russian hospitals, that was an alternative she didn't even want to think about.
Taking a break from the files, she looked in on her patient. Mulder's temperature was gradually returning to normal and he seemed to be resting comfortably, at least for now. Marina had watched him while she was at the Embassy and had reported frequent nightmares. Scully had seen no evidence of them since her return. That might be a good sign, or maybe he was just saving up for a really bad one.
A glance at the clock on the bedside table told her nothing except that it was a few minutes before midnight. With the difference in time zones, she wasn't sure how long she had gone without sleep. She wasn't even sure how many time zones she had crossed or what time it was back home, and she really didn't care. She was tired, but she knew she wouldn't sleep until she was sure that Mulder was all right.
Without opening his eyes, Mulder caught her wrist and pulled her down next to him.
"I should be furious with you," Scully said.
Mulder groaned. "But?"
"But, I'm just glad that you're alive."
With exaggerated effort, Mulder pushed himself into a sitting position and rubbed his eyes. "How long have I been out?"
"Before we found you? I have no idea. Thirty hours that I know of."
"I wanted to talk to you about that, Scully. I remember waking up and you and another woman were in my cell. And I remember you pushing me into a car. The rest is a little hazy." He paused as if he didn't quite know how to ask the question. "Did you break me out of jail?"
She laughed. "Not exactly. I just wanted to get you out of there before anyone had a change of heart."
"How?"
"We bribed the prison officials, the militia, and just about everyone else involved in the case."
Mulder's eyes grew wide as he looked at her, half hoping that she was joking, but he saw no sign of that. "So," he said, "how much is my freedom worth."
"More than I had in the bank. We now owe money to most of my relatives, the Lone Gunmen and... and Skinner." She waited for him to start yelling at her, but his eyes just got wider. "Marina chipped in, too."
"I'm having another nightmare, aren't I? Who's Marina?"
"This is her house. We're staying with her. Her sister is married to Frohicke's cousin." The rest of the story could wait until he felt better. She decided to change the subject. "Are you hungry?" She stood up and headed to the kitchen before he could respond.
"Yes," he called after her, "but... Back up a little. Skinner? How much did you tell him?"
"Only the bare necessities. He's been very helpful." She rummaged through cupboards until she found a bowl and dished up some soup that was warming on the stove. Turning around, she found Mulder standing in the doorway, a quilt wrapped around his shoulders. "Jewish penicillin," she said as she set the bowl on the table and guided Mulder to a chair.
"Don't you mean Irish?"
"It's not my recipe. I only make chicken soup out of a can."
"How much did you tell him?"
She watched him watching her for a full minute. "You'll need a spoon," she said at last. She was disappointed when she found the silverware in the first drawer she opened.
"Scully, you are avoiding the question."
"And I'm doing very well, aren't I?" She sat down across from him. "I had to tell him... almost everything. About Dominika and Kisa. I did not tell him why you were in jail. So, did you do it?"
Mulder nearly choked on a noodle and glared at her.
"Just asking. I'll take that as a no. I take it that Fedor Varvarinski was an associate of Dominika's?"
"Yeah. I met him when Nika and I were together." He told her everything that happened in the bar.
"Do you think they set you up?"
"Sure looks that way. But why would they kill one of their own just to get me out of the way? Why not just kill me?"
"I don't think Dominika would allow it. From what I've learned about her, family is very important to her, and while she may not have admitted to you that you are Kisa's father... You're aware of the use of a patronymic as the middle name?" Mulder nodded. "Her full name is Kisa Lisovna Krestyanova. Lisa means fox. Mulder, what are you going to do when you find her? Demand visitation? It would be a little difficult if she's in Moscow and you're in Washington."
Mulder stared into the bowl of soup as he thought about his answer. "I don't know. Maybe all I really want is just once to hear her tell the truth. You should go home before you wind up in as much trouble as I'm in." He smiled. "At the rate you're going, that won't take long."
Scully shook her head. From her pocket, she produced the scrap of paper Mulder found on the floor of the motel room in Pennsylvania, now worn and tattered, but the name printed on it still legible. She laid it carefully on the table between them. "If Krychek is involved in this somehow, I want a piece of it."
"Scully, you don't know that he was the one..."
"I don't *know* that the sun is going to rise tomorrow morning, but its a pretty safe bet. Besides, you need me. Every time you run off on your own, you wind up nearly getting yourself killed. I'd just have to come back in a few days because some mutant alien Stalin clone is holding you at gun point because you uncovered a Reticulan conspiracy to simultaneously overthrow all of the world governments and turn the Earth into a theme park, and frankly, I can't afford the airfare."
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Moscow University
"I wasn't aware that Dominika had a brother," Mulder said.
Scully wasn't convinced that he was well enough to be out of bed let alone making the drive across the city and walking through the Moscow University campus. He was still running a slight fever and he was pale and a little weak, but he was determined to go, with her or without her.
"There was only a brief reference to him in the original case file of their father's disappearance. Sasha Petrovich Krestyanov. He was nineteen at the time, attending the Gorki State University School of Medical Sciences."
"I wasn't able to locate an address on him, but there is a Sasha Krestyanov listed on the faculty here," Marina said. "Professor of medical ethics and research fellow in bio-engineering. It's not an uncommon name, but we might get lucky."
As they entered the building, Mulder held the door for the ladies then fell into step next to Marina, leaving Scully feeling like an outcast.
When she woke up that morning, she found the two of them sitting on the couch in the living room, drinking coffee and debating the merits of a variety of adult films, analyzing each as though it were an Academy Award contender, considering script, plot, action and cinematography. The television was on, and though Scully couldn't see the screen from where she was standing, she recognized the sounds coming from the set. "The first film my company produced," Marina said. "Care to join us?" Scully declined the invitation.
Watching them now, she realized why she had taken such an instant liking to this woman. She was Mulder's mirror image. The physical resemblance struck her immediately - the same age, almost equal in height. Marina's eyes were a little greener, her hair a little darker, but there was a similarity in their features. They could almost be brother and sister. A chill ran down her spine as that thought occurred to her. Long lost cousins, she decided.
But it was the more subtle features that really troubled her. The way Marina seemed instinctively programmed to search for hidden details. Going over the archive documents this morning, she and Mulder had picked up a dozen little details that Scully had missed, and while Scully had found things they didn't, this made her inexplicably angry. Within an hour, they were completing each other's sentences and anticipating each other's thoughts. At one point, Mulder made an oblique literary reference to Russian leather and godlessness, and as Scully was deciding that she had heard that somewhere before, Marina was quoting the entire passage and identifying the source.
They even dressed alike - expensive suits, usually gray. Today, Marina went so far as to wear a white Oxford shirt and a silk tie that was worse than anything Mulder had ever pulled out of his closet - pale green and yellow with bright red flowers and a '50's style hula girl in a grass skirt. They made a handsome, if incestuous looking couple. That bothered her, too. It shouldn't. She had no claim on Mulder. She didn't want one. It was just that...
He'd been hurt so many times. He was vulnerable. And even though she had every confidence that Marina was basically a good person, she was still... a professional. She was working the management end of the business now, but it hadn't always been that way.
She wondered how much of that Mulder knew and if she should tell him - *how* she could tell him without appearing jealous. There was one way to avoid it all together, and that was to find Dominika and Kisa and get back to Washington as quickly as possible.
Bent over his desk, writing feverishly in his journal, Sasha Krestyanov heard the door open but did not look up. The work that occupied his mind at that moment was too important. Students were coming in and out of his office all day. If it was important, they knew enough to wait until he acknowledged their presence, and if it was not, they knew enough to leave. Interruptions were tolerated only if there was a valid reason and only when he saw fit to allow it.
"Sasha Petrovich Krestyanov," a voice asked.
He slammed the journal shut and hid it among the stacks of books and papers that cluttered his desk before finally glancing at the trio that stood near the door. He had seen enough KGB in his lifetime to recognize certain qualities. But those days were gone. Weren't they?
The man and woman in gray suits and navy over coats certainly looked the part. They other woman, shorter, with hair the color of a sunset. He felt instinctively that she was the one to watch. She was dangerous.
"Do you have a sister? Dominika," the dark haired woman asked.
"What has she done now," Sasha asked cautiously.
The woman stepped forward, around the desk, and took a seat in the only clear spot - directly in front of him. To do so, she had to physically lift his hand from the desk top. She did not release it, but held his hand in her own. "I am Marina Valerikova," she said, her tone nonthreatening, her eyes boring into him like a diamond tipped drill. "My friends, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. We'd like to ask you a few questions."
Sasha was appalled at her invasion of his personal space, but he couldn't find the words to protest. He could only stare at her and try to push his chair back. Marina crossed her legs, elegantly slipping her ankle through the arm of the chair and pulling him closer. On an unspoken command, Mulder and Scully came around the desk and stood behind and just to either side of him.
"Do you speak English," Scully asked in almost perfect Russian. Mulder glanced at her in shock. "Berlitz phrase book," she whispered. "Never leave home without it."
"Nyet."
"Has your sister contacted you since her return to Moscow," Marina asked.
"I didn't know she was in town."
Marina laughed, low and seductive. "We need to talk with her."
"I don't know where she is. I haven't seen her in years."
Pausing to weigh his words, Marina spotted the pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket and extracted one. The lighter was laying on top of a stack of papers on the filing cabinet behind the desk. She didn't want to let this man out of the trap she had him in to go and get it. "Dana?" Her eyes danced between Scully and the lighter.
In a move so smooth and swift that it seemed rehearsed, Scully scooped up the lighter and tossed it underhand to Marina who snatched it out of the air just above Sasha's head. Shocked by the sudden movement, Sasha flinched away from Marina and turned in Scully's direction. As Marina lit the cigarette, Scully moved closer, leaning down to whisper in Sasha's ear a word Marina had taught her. "Lgun." Liar.
Mulder stood back, a bemused expression on his face. He almost felt sorry for this man. Sorry and a little envious of his position, trapped between these two amazing and completely contrasted women. Their apparent friendship puzzled him, but figuring it out was an appealing mystery.
Sasha looked from Scully to Marina, afraid, caught between them, unable to do anything about it and not quite sure that he wanted to.
"Do you know who we are," Marina asked. She blew smoke rings in his face and stroke the back of his hand.
"Nyet."
"Then it's not a very good idea to lie to us, is it?" Her expression turned suddenly harsh. "We *know* you have spoken with her. Where is she?"
Sasha looked at all three of them in turn, searching for the one that would be most sympathetic. Finally, his shoulders stooped as he lost his resolve. "Why should I try to protect her," he asked. "She is my sister. I love her, but I do not approve of the things she does. They should have left well enough alone. We were better off."
Marina nodded. "You are a member of the Communist Party?"
"Yes. She hates me for that."
"Do you know where she is?"
"Why would she tell me? She is afraid I'll betray her."
"Would you?" Marina offered him the cigarette and he gratefully accepted a drag.
"I met with her. It was several weeks ago, just after her return. She told me about the death of her husband and that she had decided not to go back to skating right away. She would start coaching instead."
"Where?"
"I didn't ask. She didn't tell me."
"What do you know about the Russian Democratic League?"
"Nothing. I want no part of that."
"Where do they meet?"
"I don't know."
"Was Dominika alone when you met with her?"
"No. There was a man with her. Tall, thin, dark hair. I think she called him Alex."
Even without knowing what Sasha was saying, Mulder and Scully reacted to the name. Sasha looked at them in a panic, afraid he'd said the wrong thing. Marina patted his cheek.
"Its all right, Sasha Petrovich, you've done very well. There's just one more thing." She looked around and found a black indelible marker on the desk. She turned over his hand and wrote her phone number across his palm. "If she contacts you, you *will* call me.
From the back seat of a silver BMW parked around the corner from the building's entrance, a man in a sable-lined coat and fur shapka watched the trio exit the building. He was not happy.
"Tolenko," he said to one of the men in the front seat. "Follow them. I want to know every move they make before they make it."
Dimitri Tolenko acknowledged the order and got out of the car.
"Give me the phone," the man said to his driver.
The number he wanted was programmed - number three. There were two others he considered more important, but only one person he could consult on this matter.
On the other side of the world, in a smoke-filled office, the telephone rang.
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Go to part three
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