The Phoenix

by Sidney Sheldon

  Ella looked doubtful.

  ‘We’ll get there, my dear.’

  Dix was so reassuring, so kind, that Ella started to well up.

  ‘Oh, now, now, heavens, there’s no need for all that,’ the old man spluttered, embarrassed. Like most Englishmen, excessive emotion clearly wasn’t Professor Dixon’s thing. ‘I have a question for you, if I may,’ he said, deftly bringing the conversation back to practical matters. ‘Are you in possession of a mobile telephone?’

  ‘A mobile telephone?’ Ella laughed. That was the kind of expression Mimi would have used. ‘Sure, but it doesn’t work here. I lost reception about a hundred miles east of the camp. Plus I think the battery’s dead.’

  Dix made a dismissive tsk-tsk sound and flapped his arms about again. ‘Never mind that. Bring it to the lab, would you? I’m going to download a wonderful little application for you. It’s called Babbel.’

  ‘The language thing?’ asked Ella. She’d heard it advertised on the radio. ‘Isn’t that like Rosetta Stone?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘What do I need that for?’

  ‘For your mission training, my dear,’ said Dix absently. ‘Helping you to understand your special abilities is one piece of my job – the most interesting piece – but it’s not much good intercepting and interpreting vitally important signals if they’re all in another language, is it?’

  Another language? Ella rubbed her eyes. She couldn’t keep up.

  ‘I thought Mrs MacAvoy would have explained already,’ said Dix. ‘But, no matter. We have plenty of time.’

  ‘Plenty of time for what?’ Ella asked wearily.

  Dix patted her on the shoulder benignly. ‘For learning to speak Greek, of course.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Gabriel leaned back against the soft leather seat of his Maserati and pressed his foot down hard on the accelerator. He smiled to himself as the car leaped forward, surging up the empty but familiar road like a panther. God, it was good to be back in California. And even better to be here to see the intoxicating, and yet distinctly obstinate, Ella Praeger. Gabriel had thought about Ella a lot since their last encounter. Most of those thoughts had been distinctly X-rated, something he’d wisely chosen not to share with the boss.

  ‘This is probably the most important mission The Group has undertaken in a decade,’ Mark Redmayne had reminded him, unnecessarily, on last night’s conference call. ‘We need that girl on board. But she’s still stalling.’

  ‘Yes, sir. So I understand.’

  ‘She wants more information,’ Katherine MacAvoy chimed in. ‘Not just about her capabilities, about her parents too. She wants to know the truth about what happened to them.’

  ‘I don’t care what she wants, Katherine,’ Redmayne snarled. ‘Just get her ready. That’s your job.’

  The Camp Hope supervisor swallowed hard. Mark Redmayne had led The Group to some of its most brilliant successes. But he was also a bully. Like most of his senior team, Katherine MacAvoy was afraid of him.

  ‘I know that, sir, and I’m trying to do it. I just don’t believe she’ll commit to us unless she perceives we’re committing to her.’

  ‘Then make her perceive it.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t know! Not by telling her about her parents, that’s for sure. Do it by force if you have to, but we need Ella Praeger on that plane.’

  ‘Forcing her is a stupid idea,’ said Gabriel, who seemed to be missing the self-preservation/fear gene that drove Katherine and everybody else when it came to Redmayne. ‘If she’s not committed to the mission, it will fail.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ Redmayne grunted. As usual, though he hated to admit it, Gabriel was right. ‘So what do you suggest?’

  ‘Let me talk to her. Ella knows me. We have some degree of … rapport.’

  Mark Redmayne hesitated. He could imagine the form Gabriel’s ‘rapport’ with Ella might take. The man had bedded more women than anyone could count. Bizarrely, from Mark Redmayne’s perspective, as he was clearly somewhere on the autism spectrum and about as tactful as a bag of spanners in the face, the last thing they could afford around the woman who might yet become The Group’s most valuable asset.

  ‘Ella has asked to see Gabriel in person, sir,’ Katherine MacAvoy added nervously. ‘Several times.’

  She decided not to mention that, according to Professor Dixon, Gabriel had already been in contact with Ella at Camp Hope, transmitting directly to her neuro-receivers, something he could only have done by hacking into the lab’s computer systems. The fact he’d spotted her trying to leave meant he must also have wangled access to the camp’s CCTV feed, none of which said much about the state of their security. Redmayne was in a foul enough mood already. The last thing any of them needed right now was for him to go off the deep end. Katherine would tackle Gabriel about the breaches of protocol herself when he got here.

  And so it was that Gabriel found himself speeding through the California redwoods, charged with changing Ella Praeger’s mind. He was actually relishing the prospect – he’d always enjoyed a challenge.

  Reveling in the engine’s roar, he pushed the Maserati even faster. The boss didn’t like the fact that Gabriel drove an expensive car. Mark Redmayne himself might be filthy rich, but he preferred his operatives to lead more modest lives. To ‘blend in’, as he put it. ‘Be the “gray men in the crowd”.’ That had never suited Gabriel.

  Back before he was Gabriel – when he was still a child, with his old name, his old life – his father, a carpet salesmen from Rockford, Illinois, had been a ‘gray man’. Gabriel’s dad lived a gray life in a gray house full of gray dreams, and he’d died of that grayest of diseases, lung cancer, at the pathetically young age of forty-seven. Those were not footsteps in which Gabriel intended to follow, on any level.

  His dad’s morals had been gray too. A serial, yet oddly joyless philanderer, he had broken his wife’s heart and spirit until she too became gray, a shadowy ghost of her former self. People told Gabriel that his mother’s depression had been a lifelong illness, that it began long before she’d even met his father. But the little boy didn’t buy that. Not at his mother’s funeral, when he was eight years old. And not now. His father had broken his mother. That was the truth.

  Gabriel had vowed never to break a woman. Having inherited his father’s high libido, abstinence was never a realistic option. Instead, a far neater and simpler solution presented itself: never marry. Never commit. A loner by nature, the solitude had suited him well. For the last decade he’d been ‘married’ to The Group, as passionately devoted to the cause as the most ardent lover to his bride, and as addicted to the adrenaline as any junkie. He’d changed his name, partly in dedication to his new life, but also to leave behind a childhood he wanted desperately to forget, to sever like a rotten limb.

  His new life wasn’t perfect. It was true he didn’t like Mark Redmayne, but then who did? He hadn’t joined The Group to make friends, or to gain anyone’s approval. As for romance, while it was true that scores of beautiful women had come and gone from his life, none of them had had their hearts broken. Gabriel wasn’t in the ‘hearts’ business, and he never made promises he couldn’t keep. All in all, it was a highly satisfactory way of living.

  Leaving his car in the usual place, he pulled out his day-pack and began the final, two-mile trek up to Camp Hope on foot. He remembered it well from his own training, and always felt a frisson of excitement, returning to the place where it all began. But today was different. Today the ‘frisson’ had become a raging fire in his chest. His eagerness to see the girl was bordering on the worrisome.

  You’re here to do a job, he reminded himself. A vital job. He forced himself to think about the drowned child on the beach, about the evil insignia burned onto his tiny foot.

  Focus.

  ‘Looks like you’ve got a visitor.’ Christine nudged Ella in the ribs and pointed breathlessly to the handsome man walking up the path towards their cabin.

 
‘He’s waving at you!’ Christine squealed excitedly. ‘Oh my God, is that the guy who recruited you? You never told me he looked like Ryan Gosling!’

  ‘He doesn’t,’ said Ella tetchily, pulling out her earphones and scowling in the man’s general direction. More casually dressed than the last two times she’d met him, in Nike running pants, sneakers and a black sleeveless T-shirt, and with a light film of sweat glistening on his muscular shoulders, she had to admit he was looking disarmingly handsome this afternoon. She, on the other hand, looked ‘clean’, having come straight from the shower after training, but with her scratched, make-up-free face, wet hair and skinny legs covered in bruises, she was hardly at her most alluring.

  ‘You took your time,’ she hissed at him, once he came within earshot.

  ‘You’re lucky I came at all,’ he drawled. ‘Believe it or not, Ella, I have other things to do besides hand-holding you. But when the camp supervisor said you’d begged to see me—’

  ‘Hand-holding?’ Ella spluttered, so angry it was hard to speak. ‘Begged?’

  Ignoring her, Gabriel turned to Christine, his eyes roaming admiringly and unashamedly over her ample assets, displayed to considerable advantage in the tiny denim hot pants and pink bikini top she was wearing. ‘I don’t believe we’ve met.’

  ‘I don’t believe we have,’ Christine panted, staring with an equal lack of shame at his ripped torso. ‘I definitely would’ve remembered you.’

  ‘Likewise.’

  ‘I’ll give you two some privacy, shall I?’ Ella said archly, gathering her things furiously and stuffing them into the bag at her feet. ‘Begged’ to see him indeed! If she’d begged for anything, it was the information he’d promised her and then deliberately withheld. If it weren’t for Dix and the progress she was making controlling the voices in her head, she would have walked out of here a week ago, with or without Gabriel’s help.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ he said patronizingly, his eyes still locked with Christine’s. ‘I’ve come here to talk to you. We’re going for a drive.’

  ‘Oh no we’re not,’ said Ella, folding her arms across her chest defiantly. ‘Anything you have to say to me you can say right here.’

  Ella gazed sullenly out of the Maserati’s passenger-side window as the last of the trees sped past, giving way to open fields and even the occasional ranch.

  ‘Are you always this moody?’ Gabriel asked, a smile playing at the corners of his lips. ‘Or is it me?’

  ‘It’s you,’ said Ella.

  Silence resumed.

  ‘They told me your name was Gabriel,’ Ella said eventually, pronouncing the word as if it offended her. ‘You don’t look like a Gabriel to me.’

  ‘Don’t I?’ No one had ever commented on his adopted name before. It was a bit disconcerting.

  ‘No,’ said Ella. ‘The angel Gabriel? That’s definitely not you.’

  He grinned. ‘Not all of us Gabriels are angels. How are you enjoying your training?’ he asked, changing the subject before she decided to quiz him any more on his name. That was a conversation that could lead them back to his past, and he definitely didn’t want to go there. Especially not with Ella.

  ‘It’s appalling,’ Ella said bitterly. ‘It’s utterly inhumane.’

  ‘You realize that the mission you’re being trained for launches very soon?’

  ‘You realize I’m not going on any mission?’

  He gave her a ‘whatever you say’ smile that made him look even more infuriatingly handsome. ‘How’s the Greek going, by the way?’

  ‘Ante gamisou,’ snapped Ella.

  ‘Impressive,’ he beamed. What Ella had just said translated into something distinctly unsuitable for children. ‘Let’s eat.’

  With a sudden, violent swerve, he turned the car up an unsigned single-lane road that swiftly led them to what looked like an old adobe farmhouse.

  Warily, Ella stepped out of the car. ‘This is a restaurant?’

  ‘When it needs to be. It belongs to The Group. The couple who live here are retired but they make it available when needed. We’re expected.’

  The latter was clearly true. Ella followed Gabriel into a pretty, whitewashed dining room. Inside, a farmhouse table had been laid for two with a feast of hot and cold dishes, fresh flowers, a pitcher of iced water and a chilled bottle of vintage Chablis.

  ‘Help yourself,’ said Gabriel, taking his own advice and spooning mountains of lamb stew, saffron rice and various green salads onto his plate before taking a seat. ‘We can talk freely here.’

  Ella gave a cynical laugh. ‘Talk freely? Does that mean you’ll actually answer my questions?’

  ‘Some of them,’ he replied, admiring the way Ella’s still-damp hair coiled down around her shoulders as far as her breasts. She’d changed into a simple yellow sundress for their excursion, of the sort that would have looked demure on any other woman, even frumpy, but that somehow clung tantalizingly to Ella’s body like a second skin. ‘If you’ll answer mine. Wine?’

  ‘No thank you.’

  Reluctantly, Ella took some food and a glass of water and sat down opposite him. Pouring himself a large glass of Chablis, Gabriel took a long sip and got the ball rolling.

  ‘Shall we take turns?’

  ‘All right,’ said Ella. ‘Who goes first?’

  ‘I do,’ Gabriel announced imperiously. ‘If you aren’t going to go on the mission, why are you still at Camp Hope?’

  For a moment Ella was silent. It was a good opener.

  ‘I told you I’d help you get back to the city if you chose to go. But you didn’t. Why not?’

  ‘I had no way of contacting you,’ mumbled Ella awkwardly.

  ‘Bullshit.’ Gabriel took another sip of his wine. ‘Katherine could have reached me easily. You never tried.’

  ‘OK,’ said Ella, her blood already up. ‘I also stayed because of Dix. He’s been helping me control the noises in my head. To understand what they are, and where they come from and to tune certain signals in and out. He’s helped me with other things too, like how to interpret people better and handle social situations, things I never got the chance to learn as a kid. And I’m getting better. I am! Dix seems actually to know what’s wrong with me, which is more than any other doctor has ever been able to do.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with you,’ said Gabriel. ‘You have a—’

  ‘Don’t say gift.’ Ella held up a finger in warning. ‘Don’t you dare say gift. You have no idea, any of you, what it’s like. Anyway, my turn. How did you know that I was trying to leave camp that day? You must have been spying on me.’

  ‘Don’t be so paranoid,’ he said breezily.

  ‘I want to know how,’ insisted Ella. ‘Are there hidden cameras? Or do you have people inside following me and reporting back to you?’

  ‘Maybe,’ he leaned towards her slowly, ‘I can read your thoughts. See into that tangled, beautiful brain of yours. Did you ever think of that?’

  Ella felt a sick feeling build in the pit of her stomach and her breath start to shorten. That couldn’t be true. Could it?

  ‘No,’ she said with a confidence she didn’t feel. ‘I never thought of that because it’s baloney. Dix already told me I can only receive information, not transmit it.’

  ‘What if dear old Dix is mistaken?’ Gabriel teased her. ‘He’s not God, you know. He makes mistakes.’

  He moved even closer, sliding a warm, dry hand over Ella’s. The sick feeling intensified but it was mingled with something else, something which Ella recognized but refused to acknowledge. Not now. Not for him.

  ‘What if I told you I knew exactly what you were thinking, right now? Would that scare you?’

  Ella swallowed. ‘No.’

  ‘I don’t think I believe you,’ he smiled, making no effort to hide his enjoyment at making her squirm. ‘What is it you’re trying to hide from me, Ella?’

  ‘Stop it.’ She snatched her hand back. ‘You cannot access my thoughts.’

  He sa
t back and laughed loudly. ‘OK, you’re right. I can’t. There are cameras, OK? At the gatehouse and at various places around the camp. And yes, I might have snooped a little bit. Just to check you were OK. Which, on that particular night, you weren’t. So I stepped in to help. You’re welcome,’ he added, in response to Ella’s stony glare. Taking a bite of lamb, he gestured to Ella to eat as well. ‘You’re too thin.’

  ‘Oh really? And whose fault is that? Working me to the bone every damned day,’ Ella grumbled. But she took a spoonful of rice anyway.

  ‘My question,’ he continued, while she ate. ‘How’s it going with Dix?’

  ‘It’s going fine.’

  ‘What does “fine” mean? How long till you can fully use your … whatever you want to call it? Till you can tune into the things you want to and shut out the rest?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ said Ella truthfully. ‘I’ve never done this before. Neither has Dix. A few months, maybe? He’s given me some exercises. It’s a sort of mindfulness, almost like self-hypnosis. I have to—’

  ‘Could you crack it in ten days?’

  ‘What? No!’ said Ella. ‘Of course not. It’s not like flicking a switch, you know.’

  ‘If you had to?’

  ‘I don’t have to,’ said Ella. ‘And before you say one more word about this “mission”, I’ll tell you what I told Katherine MacAvoy. I’m not going anywhere or doing anything for you people until someone tells me something about my goddamned parents.’

  Gabriel hesitated. Mark Redmayne had specifically told him not to stray into this territory under any circumstances.

  Screw it. He could handle it.

  ‘Your mother and father joined The Group together in 1990,’ Gabriel told her. ‘By the time you were born they had become committed members, although the peak of their active service occurred later, around the time that they entrusted you to your grandmother’s care.’

  Ella leaned in, hanging off his every word.

  ‘Their work involved their scientific expertise. As I told you before, your mother was a neurologist and your father was a pioneer in gene replacement theory. Typically they worked together, although your mother eventually achieved a more senior rank within operations than your father and sometimes worked with other operatives.’