She'd already spent two hours on it last night after Joe's call. Ivy had gone through Treasury databases first, looking forweapons manufacturers, defense contractors, shell companies. Anything that might use Volkov as a designation or code name.
Nothing.
This morning she'd expanded the search. Came in early, before most of her colleagues arrived. Used the more comprehensive databases. Ran Volkov through import/export records. Searched for it in customs declarations. Checked it against known arms dealers and black-market networks that Treasury tracked through financial transactions.
Still nothing.
She'd found Volkovs, plural. Historical figures that kept appearing in different databases. A nineteenth-century Russian general named Pyotr Volkov who'd fought in the Crimean War.
A Soviet poet, Aleksandr Volkov, who'd died in Stalin's purges in 1937. A composer from the 1950s who'd written symphonies nobody remembered. A chess grandmaster who'd defected to France in 1972 and died there five years later.
Dead men. Old men. Irrelevant to anything happening in 1990.
She'd also searched for locations. Spent forty minutes going through geographic databases. Cities, regions, military installations. Ran the name through every map Treasury had access to. Eastern Europe, Soviet Union, satellite states. Checked for code names of facilities, operational designations, anything that might be hidden behind a single word.
Nothing matched. No city called Volkov. No region. No known military base or research facility using that designation.
Which left the simplest option. The one she'd been circling around since last night.
Volkov was a person.
Ivy leaned back in her chair and looked at the ceiling tiles. Water-stained, yellowing. The Treasury building was old.Beautiful from the outside, crumbling on the inside. Like a lot of government institutions.
If Volkov was a person, and if that person was important enough to be written on a slip of paper found at a murder scene, then he probably wasn't in Treasury's files. Treasury tracked money. Transactions. Financial crimes. They didn't track people unless those people were moving money illegally.
She needed intelligence files. Personnel records. The kind of information that lived behind higher classification levels than Treasury maintained.
The walk from Treasury to the CIA records facility took twenty minutes. Ivy could have driven, but the morning was clear and cold, and she needed to think.
She walked down Pennsylvania Avenue, past the White House, then cut north through streets that grew progressively quieter. Fewer tourists. Fewer pedestrians. The buildings here were older, more anonymous.
The CIA records facility was tucked into one of these buildings. Six stories of gray stone, no markings, no signs. Just an address. You either knew what it was or you didn't.
Ivy pushed through the heavy glass doors into a lobby that had marble floors and high ceilings. A security desk with two guards who looked former military.
She showed her Treasury credentials at the front desk. The guards checked them carefully. Checked her ID photo against her face. Then one picked up a phone.
"Purpose of visit?"
"Research request. Interagency cooperation. My Director should have sent over confirmation."
The guard spoke quietly into the phone. Ivy couldn't hear what he was saying. He listened, nodded, hung up.
"Third floor. Someone will meet you."
He handed her a clipboard with a sign-in sheet. She filled it out. Name, agency, time in, purpose of visit. He took it back, examined it, then gave her a temporary keycard in a plastic sleeve.
"Elevator requires the card. Keep it visible at all times. Return it when you leave."
"Understood."
The elevator was at the back of the lobby. Ivy swiped the card and the doors opened immediately. No buttons inside. Just a card reader and a small camera in the corner. She swiped again and selected the third floor.
The elevator rose smoothly. No music.
Third floor was a long hallway with unmarked doors.
A woman in a gray suit was waiting when the elevator opened. Late thirties, dark hair pulled back, no jewelry except a watch. She looked at Ivy's temporary badge, then at Ivy.
