Gem sighed and glanced back at the computer screen. The computer sat on the desk in one corner of the large living room, the monitor framed in the center of a bank of windows. Shado spent most of her time sitting at the desk, working on her latest project whatever it may be. Detritus of her working hours was spread across the desk and the table next to it, forming an "L" of interesting space. He played with the small obsidian letter opener that she had left laying next to the monitor. The slow computer was still searching for any records on the acronym UNCLE, so far there were no hits, a fact he shared with his compatriots.
The sun was setting against the water turning it the odd shade of twilight that they all loved. Mage made sounds about fixing dinner and headed into the kitchen to scare up something for them all. Faln and Brit, deciding to leave the odd pen on the table, moved back to the box of things they had moved from the trunk. Keeper joined him at the desk and opening the center drawer, pulled out Shado's rolodex. He opened the case preparatory to flipping through it, but Gem stopped the action with a quickly placed finger.
"Are you sure you should be going through that?" he asked quietly. Keeper glanced down at the case of cards, then met his eyes.
"Probably not." He shrugged. "But if we are going to snoop, we had better do it right. Sides, I seriously doubt that anything we find in here would be relevant. She's not stupid."
"No she's not. That's why I don't think going through there would be a good idea." Gem pressed his argument. "Let's just go with what we have already found, ok?"
Keeper looked again at the case in his hand, then nodded his agreement. Gem was right, he decided as he put the rolodex back. He grinned at the other man slightly. The soft bleep of the search engine completing its task caught their attention. Both of them groaned as the dreaded words Search completed without any result shone on the screen. The girls having heard the bleep sighed for a moment. Then Faln snapped her fingers and grabbed the photo album. She flipped carefully through the pages until she found the wedding invitation.
"Gem do a search just for fun on Illya Nickovetch Kuryakin would you? I think on the film his name came up as Dr. Kuryakin. And then see if you can find anything on Pagan Michelle Waverly while you are at it." Skeptical, he input the name at her request and hit the send key.
"I don't really expect to find anything, Faln. Dr. Kuryakin may or may not mean anything." He said. He tapped one of the pictures. "Looks more like he was a cop or something than a doctor. Or a scientist.'
"Maybe, but remember he was working in a lab, and his name was on the door." She said in defense of her theory. "Could be he worked for the government."
"In that case, hon, the chances of finding anything out on him are going to be about as good as finding out who was the head of the Darkside Project." Keeper murmured. He looked out at the now dark water. "We know how well that search has gone." His quiet admonishment carried through the room reminding them all for a moment of their shared history. Faln gently closed the album and ran her fingers over the cover in thought.
"I have a feeling that whatever happened, it wasn't good." Brit said from her place on the floor. She had a cashmere scarf in her hands and was playing with it, eyes lost to something they couldn't see. "I can feel sadness. She was crying when she packed this stuff away. And there is this." She held the scarf up to show something on it. A large dark brown stain marred its white perfection, it covered one end of the scarf completely. "This is blood."
"Oh, man." Faln whispered. "You ok, Brit?"
"Yeah, just caught me by surprise." Brit laid the scarf down. "I mean, I wasn't expecting anything like that."
"Could you tell anything else?" Keeper asked. Brit shook her head.
"No, just that she was crying."
"Well, I would guess that our Dr. Kuryakin is dead." Gem said. "Look, he was a Russian during the Cold War. We have seen him in New York, what do you want to bet that he defected and was sanctioned for it? I mean, we know that the Soviet government was fanatical about that type of thing. Look at what they did to Baryshnikov and he was just a dancer. What do you think the penalty would be if he were a scientist? Or possibly a defecting KGB operative?" at the looks on everyone's face he threw his hands up. "Hey it's something to consider. After all, we have pictures of him carrying a gun, and, let's be real, we know Shado was in Intelligence. What's to say he wasn't also?"
"Gem may have a point. But I doubt that a defector would be an effective intelligence operative. For one thing, I doubt anyone would be willing to trust him after that." Mage said coming in from the kitchen. "Dinner will be done in about 15 minutes. It would make more sense for him to be a scientist that chose to defect and would also account for the lab film." She smiled as Gem blew her a kiss. The beep of the search engine interrupted, Gem glanced at it then whistled.
'Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner." He said and began to read. "Illya Nickovetch Kuryakin, Phd. Physico-Mathematical Sciences; Quantum Mechanics. Born October 31, 1933 Kiev, Russia. Dr. Kuryakin attended the University of Georgia in the Ukraine receiving his Masters degree in Advanced Mathematical Theory in 1950. Two years of his postgraduate work was completed at the Sorbonne before transferring to Cambridge in 1952. In 1954, Dr. Kuryakin received a PhD in quantum mechanics for his doctoral thesis on the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle: Wave-Particle Duality As Demonstrated in Nuclear Fusion. Dr. Kuryakin published several papers in the following two years including ground breaking work within the team of Cherenkov, Frank and Tamm. Dr. Kuryakin dropped from academic circles in 1956. He reappeared briefly in late 1969 to apply for US citizenship which was not granted resulting in his return to the USSR in December of that same year." * He stopped reading. "Can we say sanctioned?" he whispered as the import of the words on the screen sunk in.
"If he got sent back to the Soviet Union..." Keeper's voice trailed off.
"But *if* he married Shado, didn't that make him a US citizen by default?" Mage slid her hand into Gem's as she spoke. Keeper shook his head.
"Not necessarily. There could have been extenuating circumstances that would have prevented his naturalization. We still don't know what happened."
"If he was sanctioned, that would explain the blood stain. They wouldn't have waited until he got to the Soviet Union. Not if he had run once." Faln said. She took the scarf from Brit's hand. "And most certainly NOT if he were KGB. That would have earned him an automatic death sentence." Her words hung heavy in the air. The sounds of the timer on the oven going off echoed in the silence. Suddenly, no one was that hungry any more, their eyes glued to the dried brown stain against the white cashmere.