Survivalist - 12 - The Rebellion by Jerry Ahern

felt stupid that she had not seen it earlier. Because if the secret of Mona Stankiewicz’s death were to be found, it had certainly been with Mona.
    And Annie had found it there. She had not found the killer yet.
    But she had found the reason.
    She stopped before the tent, looking behind her—no one lurked beside another of the tents, and no one watched furtively from the edge of the camp.
    She pulled back the tent flap and went through, sitting down beside Paul on the small chair next to his bed.
    Annie stared at him—and Paul opened his eyes.
    She had learned she could make him do that, and it frightened her a little. “Annie?”
    “Paul, are you awake?”
    “Yeah. What—ahh—”
    “It’s almost sunset. I found something in Mona Stankiewicz’s personnel file. I haven’t found a clue to who
    the killer is, but I know why anyway.”
    Paul started to sit up and she gently nudged him back. “You rest. You can lie down and hear this just as well.”
    “Not even married yet.” He smiled—“and you’re telling me what to do.”
    “You can tell me what to do all you want and I’ll do it— or I’ll make you think I am.” She perched on the edge of the chair, the hem of her skirt brushing at her ankles as she moved her feet. “All right. Mona Stankiewicz was first generation American. Her parents were born in Poland— that do anything for you?”
    “Before The Night of The War—”
    “The Russians invaded Poland—it was a good number of years before, wasn’t it?”
    “Uh-huh.” Paul nodded. “Yeah. Polish trade unionism was the apparent rationale—but Poland was becoming too uncontrollable and the Russians cracked the whip.”
    “What if Mona Stankiewicz had relatives living in Poland and the KGB threatened to harm them? And the only way she could prevent that was to sell out? I talked to Jane Harwood for a while after Captain Dodd gave me permission to use the onboard computer. And I found out something very interesting. The primary and back-up flight crews had been given special briefings and special training sessions that were with classified material. All of the primary and back-up flight crew personnel were Americans except for the flight officer on Eden Six—an Englishman. Jane Harwood insisted they had no inkling that the Eden Project was a doomsday contingency, but some of the special training included use of radiation monitoring equipment, landings with various types of aircraft on various types of runway surfaces, stuff like that. So Mona would have had all the’ special training and the secret information. This is the juicy part—”
    “Women.” Paul Rubenstein laughed.
    “All right, smarty. But anyway—the flight crews and the backup flight crews were the only ones that got any detailed information at all about the criogenic process, hmm? And the serum. The way you and Daddy and Natalia talked about it—well, Karamatsov had a lot of information he shouldn’t have.”
    “So, someone in the flight crews was a KGB agent and threatened Mona Stankiewicz’s relatives and forced her to give information.”
    “That’s what I just said.” Annie heard Madison stirring behind her and turned and smiled at the girl as she sat up. She had been sleeping curled up in a ball near the foot of Michael’s cot. Michael’s breathing seemed even and Annie dismissed checking him. “Hi—you slept for a long time, Madison.”
    “I—I didn’t know I was so very tired, Annie.”
    “Pull up a chair. We’re solving a murder mystery.”
    “The poor Mona Stankiewicz?”
    “That’s the one.” Annie nodded, smiling still.
    Madison stood up, stretching like a house cat—Annie had seen house cats in videotapes and read about them in her father’s Britannica. Madison straightened her clothes, walking across to their side of the tent, then turning around and taking the second chair. Annie watched her—Madison still looked half asleep as she sat down in the chair placed near the foot of Paul’s