PART 7
Narrative C

Krycek finds out more about what makes Marita tick

When I left Pavlodar, I flew back to Moscow and left my report with Petrovich, and then it was off to the U.S. to make my usual rounds while the big clock ticked slowly closer to the day our first batch of vaccine would be ready.  I met with the Brit; checked in with Ché, who'd been keeping tabs on Mulder. Spent some time looking for an apartment I could keep in D.C  Flew back to New York and met with Marita.

In a way I guess I'd sort of assumed that Marita had sprung full-grown from a briefcase.  Sometimes it seemed that way, as if she were the kind of woman who'd had no past, maybe no childhood or learning curve but just the present, where she was always capable, always on top of things.  Not that it came without effort; it was obvious that she worked hard, putting in long hours at her UN post and then having to deal with the old men and her own contacts after her workday was over.  By the time we'd meet, you could see the drawn expression, the hollow spaces under her eyes.

It could have been the fatigue that made her slip during our meeting that time, when she let out that it was her brother's birthday.  It made me realize that I'd never pictured her having roots, or connections to things other than this project or the father I only knew as a name.  She also told me that her father's old friend, the doctor he'd positioned inside the consortium, wanted to see me the next day.  It made me curious as to what he wanted.  But I was also determined, in the process, to see if I could get him to fill in some of the gaps in this woman I'd ended up allying with.

Anyway I called Ansbach and he gave me a time and an address, some little import-export office a friend of his owned.  Made sense; he had to be watching his back like anybody else in the organization who didn't actually buy into the party line.  I took a cab to the place, went inside, and when I asked for Bill, the secretary took me upstairs, to what served as a lunch room.  Ansbach was there waiting for me.

"Alex," he said, rising from the chair where he'd been sitting in front of a checkerboard.  He seemed glad to see me, more casual than the first time we met.

"Miguel." I shook the hand he held out.

"Sit, sit," he said, and I made my way around to the far side of the table and took a seat.  Ansbach was wearing a button-front sweater and a tie, looking more like somebody's grandfather than a consortium researcher. 

"Coffee?  Cerveza? 

The beer sounded better, but it might mean a bottle with a top I couldn't get off without giving away the arm.  But Ansbach was already reaching up into a cabinet.  He brought out two glasses, pulled a couple of bottles from the fridge and reached for an old-fashioned bottle opener attached to the edge of the counter. 

All smooth enough that it made me wonder if Marita'd told him about me.  Not sure whether I liked the idea that she might have.

"I suppose you're wondering why I asked to see you," he said as he sat down and passed me one of the glasses.

I took a drink.  "Marita said something about the vaccine."

"Yes, that's one thing.  All these years while we've had nothing real to work with--just hope--I've been researching topical vaccines.  The current production will be wonderful, of course, an admirable start."  He stopped to take a sip.  "But in the larger scheme of things, the greater the number of people you can save, as we've discussed previously, the better off we all will be.  A topical vaccine--say, one that could be disguised as perfume or suntan lotion, infused into restroom soap or painted on children at fairs as face paint--"  His arms reached wide.  "The possibilities are endless."

I found myself pulling forward.  It was a damn good idea.

"The critical difference is the use of a plasmid-DNA vector rather than the traditional viral vector..."  He paused, realizing he'd already lost me.  "But I won't bore you with the technical details.  At any rate, I'll be needing a vial of the vaccine you'll be picking up three weeks from now."

Something inside me tightened.  "You don't need my permission for that." 

"No.  Though Marita wanted me to run it past you."

I shrugged.  "An undetectable vaccine?  It'd be a dream come true."  A damn sight better than having to think up scams to get people vaccinated; there were so many ways for things to go wrong.  I nodded past him.  "Where are you planning to work on this?"

Ansbach stood and broke into a grin.  Obviously, he'd been waiting for me to ask.  "Come," he said, "I'll show you."

And he took me up three flights to a room outfitted as a lab... and not a cheap one, either, if I knew what I was looking at.  The room was hidden behind a false wall, which meant the old men and their snooping were obviously on his mind.

"Everything I should need at this stage," he said, waving a hand to encompass the various pieces of equipment.  Gradually his expression changed, though, his exuberance settling into something more sober.  "But this isn't why I asked to see you." 

He pulled out a stool, sat and motioned for me to do the same.  Cautiously I took the hint, wondering where this was leading.

"I was a good friend of Martín's, and since his death I think I've come to look at Marita as my responsibility.  Not that she's asked me to, mind you.  She's an independent one.  Still, old loyalties die hard, entiende?"

I raised an eyebrow, wanting to offer some kind of neutral response, but I was beginning to feel like a teenager ushered into a side room by his date's dad.

"Marita has been under a lot of stress.  Not just recently, but for years, really.  To her credit she adapted remarkably well to being moved here when her father was forced into the project fourteen years ago.  She continued with school, went on to the university, got good marks."  He paused for a second.  "She'd planned a career as an art dealer, you know."

My mouth opened.

"Of course, when her father explained the larger picture to her, good soldier that she is, she returned immediately to the university to get a degree in international relations.  And, in due time, she hired on at the United Nations... and, unfortunately, out of necessity"--he sighed--"with the group."

"She mentioned a brother last night," I said, to see what kind of reaction that would get.

Ansbach paused, surprised.  "She spoke of Colin?" 

"Didn't mention any names.  Just that he was younger than her and died in a riding accident."  I shrugged.  "It was kind of a passing remark.  Not sure she meant to make it."

"She rarely speaks of Colin."

"Or her father," I said, seeing my opening.  "She seems to avoid the subject, actually.  There doesn't seem to be a single picture of him in her apartment.  Seems odd for somebody who's taken over the family mantle, don't you think?"

Ansbach gave me a look--not exactly hostile, but a search for where I was going with this, what my motives were.  Finally he sighed and looked away, out through the foggy glass of a bank of old windows. 

"Look, this is something I need to know from you," I said, pulling closer, trying to keep it low-key, though I could feel the intensity ratcheting up in my voice.  "I was talking to someone the other day--someone on the inside--who told me Martín's autopsy showed signs of poisoning, that it didn't kill him but probably shortened his life."  I waited for him to look at me before I went on.  "This source thought Marita might have had something to do with it."

I couldn't tell whether Ansbach was shocked by the accusation or just by the fact that I'd bring it up.

"Now, I'm in this for the long haul," I went on.  "I know how critical it is to save as many people as possible; without this program we're all dead.  But I need to know if I should be watching my back as well as the sky.  This vaccine is everything I've ever worked for and I'm not about to let anybody cheat me out of it."

It took a second before Ansbach's mouth closed.  "Alex, I--"  He gave a helpless shrug.  "I understand your concern.  I realize you haven't known Marita long, and certainly it's been fortuitous that you met, each of you holding a key element to the success of Martín's plan.  Let me assure you that Marita has dedicated her life to this project.  She's laid aside any aspirations for her own life, any sort of personal fulfillment, in order to see this plan through to its proper completion.  She would never do anything to jeopardize this program."

"What about the poison in her father's system?"

"As I said, I've been a close friend of the family's for many years.  Martín requested that I join the research so he would have an ally on the inside to forward his secret plan--"

"You were supposed to steal the vaccine when they were successful?"

"Yes, but it never came.  And in the meantime I've had to do many things--sometimes terrible things--to hold my place within the organization, to be ready if and when the plan came together.  And then before anything did, Martín was diagnosed.  He had six months.  It quickly became evident that his treatment was going to be in vain, and much as he wanted to fight his disease, Martín was a realist.  He saw no purpose in putting his daughter, his only remaining child, through the trauma of watching him deathly sick from the therapy when there was no hope of recovery. 

"So he made the decision to quit the treatments, to try to live as best he could in his final months.  For the first six weeks or so he was fairly comfortable, lucid... He and Marita took a short trip to Mallorca, stayed in a friend's home with a private beach where he could sit by the water."  He let out a deep sigh.  "Well, and that was it.  They returned, Martín almost immediately took a turn for the worse, and--"  Ansbach turned away momentarily. His Adam's apple dipped. 

He stood up, went to the window and stared out through the dirty glass.  A sigh came out of him and his shoulders sagged. 

"He was soon bedridden, and he began to ramble, to talk semi-coherently.  The group's doctors continued to attend him, of course, and when once we'd heard him mention his beloved vaccine plan, there wasn't much choice, really." 

Slowly he began to walk the perimeter of the room, his hands moving in explanation as he talked. 

"The plan was Martín's penitence, in his eyes, and his salvation as well--to know he'd done something worthwhile, something that made up for the actions he'd been forced to take after he came to New York."  He looked up at me.  "It was either save the plan, or preserve what little time Martín had left, thereby destroying the plan he'd devoted so many years to developing."

"He could have exposed you two."

"Quite easily.  But it meant far more than two lives saved. It wasn't as mercenary as it would sound to a novice.  Surely you realize that."

I nodded, looking at nothing.  It's one of those places where life bites you.  We hope for loyalty in the people we deal with, but being loyal when something critical's at stake--sometimes it's just not in the cards.  

"Our personal safety was nothing compared to what the world could lose--what humankind stood to lose--without the blessing of Martín's foresight, and the plan he'd set in motion."  Ansbach glanced down, then up again and paused a long moment.  "The toxin was my idea.  The one we selected interfered with his reasoning and speech, so if he managed to say anything at all, it was rarely coherent.  At first we only administered it before a doctor's appointment, or when we knew one of the Elders would be coming to see him.  But the farther he progressed, the more he focused on the plan, and we couldn't take that chance."

Ansbach had finished his loop of the room. Now he was standing in front of me.  He wiped a hand across his brow and dropped into his chair.  He looked older somehow.  "It shouldn't have shown up in the autopsy results.  It was only an unfortunate interaction with another drug he was being given at the end that caused it to show up in the tox screen."

"And the old men?" I asked.  "It didn't raise any kind of red flag for them?"

"Oh, they saw it.  But it was a low-level dosage, and though Marita had been taking care of him, they could see no reason why she should have been the cause--"

"No reason she would have for getting him out of the way."

"Yes."  He took in a deep breath.  "Of course they regarded her with suspicion for a time just on general principles, but Marita is careful and thorough in her work, and Martín was, to their mind, never more than a lower-level functionary, not so very important.  So in time all was forgotten and things ran along as always."  He glanced toward the window again.  "As if Martín had never been."

My mouth opened slightly, but what was there to say?  I'd taken out my share of inconvenient people, but there'd never been a need to do it to anyone who would have made a difference to me.  Now, if we were talking about...

Hell, what did it say that nobody came to mind?  Maybe a girl I knew for a while when I was still pretty much fresh off the boat.  Or Mulder. If the old man were to tell me to take out Mulder, slowly...

For as much a pain in the ass as Mulder'd been, I couldn't say.  I had no idea what that would be like.

"Which," Ansbach continued, "brings us full circle to what I'd begun to say.  Marita is a driven woman, perhaps more driven than most because she's had to give up everything she's ever had, or desired, and what is left?  Now she works, works, works to make this plan a reality."  He gestured toward me.  "And you, we're very glad to have your contribution to this project, the vaccine and your background and input, and what I'm about to say to you I don't broach out of anything personal you may have done.  But the fact is, behind it all, that you're a man and she's a woman.  Sometimes, even in the middle of a deep investment in other things, when you least expect it, what's only natural creeps in.  Just remember what she's already had to bear, Alex; that's all I'm asking.  Don't make her load any heavier or more cumbersome than it is already."

Three weeks later his remark would light up like neon in my brain, but in the moment I nodded, still a little dazed by everything he'd said, and by what he'd slipped in there so neatly at the end.  The last thing on my mind was screwing Covarrubias.

"No, we're in this together," I heard myself say.  "What shakes one of us is going to shake the other.  I'm not going to do anything to rock the boat."

At that point we were both getting a little awkward, but somehow we managed to close the conversation.  I mumbled something about having to get to another appointment.

On the way downstairs, what Ansbach had told me continued to run through my head.  Fact: Marita was completely dedicated to making this plan work, whether for the promise of salvation or through guilt or sheer drive.  It should have put me at ease, but the fact was I was still jittery.  Maybe I just needed to know her better in person, though the background definitely helped. 

And I sure as hell wasn't going to do anything to sabotage it, or her. That would be suicide.  It wasn't like some financial scheme, where there's motivation for one party to get rid of the other so he can keep all the money for himself.  In this plan the payoff was survival, and neither of us was going to get there alone, or at the other's expense.

I admit I spent some time afterward trying to fit the woman I knew to the things Ansbach had told me, but I reminded myself that in another two and a half weeks I'd probably know more because Marita and I would be meeting in Cali to pick up the first batch of vaccine, and we'd be spending a couple of days there.  Every meeting I'd had with her had its little unexpected, revealing turns, and I wondered what this trip would bring.

In the meantime I returned to D.C., managed to finally find myself that apartment I'd been looking for, and then decided I was overdue for a change of scenery.  I'd been doing nothing but running, and even my dreams were starting to be filled with a constant blur of things I needed to do but couldn't quite manage to accomplish.  I'd been thinking for a while about setting up some sort of a safe house in case the alien hordes showed up on our doorstep early--someplace far enough north that the Oil wouldn't be on its best game, but an area with enough infrastructure to get by on its own if it were cut off from the rest of civilization.  The East Coast seemed like a bad gamble--too many strategic cities the aliens would likely be gunning for--and I'd had this tickle in my head about the West Coast ever since I'd passed through Vancouver on my way to Singapore after the car bomb.  So I decided I might as well check the area out. 

Once I got there, though, the desire to get away from the insanity that had been my life for the previous few months overwhelmed everything else, and I ended up taking a ferry out to the Gulf Islands, to a place called Mayne, and stayed there for a week.  It was the off season by then and nearly all the tourists were gone.  I rented a little cabin above a beach and it was more amazing than I can say to just sit there in the big, lazy old rocker on the porch and fall asleep in the sun, then wake up a few hours later to find everything still peaceful; only the sky and clouds had changed.  I did spend my last couple of days back on the mainland, checking out the various areas there as potential safe house material, and then it was off to Cali to see what my weekend with Marita would bring.

There was no way I ever could have imagined how that weekend would go.  What can I say?  Picture two people meeting in a tropical country to pick up the first shipment of a vaccine that could save the world.  Picture a hot, humid weekend spent in an apartment with a swimming pool and a broken air conditioner.  Picture two jet-lagged people who are used to guarding their privacy slipping up and letting out a lot more than they'd intended. 
 

Author: bardsmaid
Archive: only as part of 'A Rat's Life' when it's complete, and then please let me know where it is
Spoilers: mytharc through Season 4
Rating: worksafe
Summary: Krycek finds out more about what makes Marita tick.
Disclaimer: The X-Files characters are the property of Chris Carter and 1013 Productions, but the real spirit of Alex Krycek belongs to Nicholas Lea, who brought him to such vivid, nuanced life.
 

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