The Phoenix

by Sidney Sheldon

  ‘You.’

  ‘No need to sound so pleased to see me.’

  Gabriel’s face looked darker than she remembered it, more tanned, as if he’d just returned from a vacation. When he smiled, as he did now, he was still provokingly handsome. Christine Marshall’s ‘Ryan Gosling’ comment floated back into Ella’s mind.

  Camp Hope.

  Christine.

  Lunch with Gabriel at that adobe farmhouse down the coast.

  How long ago all that felt now.

  ‘I’m not pleased to see you,’ Ella said sullenly, turning her face away. She wasn’t sure why she was angry with him. Some lingering distrust, perhaps, but mingled with other, deeper, more troublesome feelings that she didn’t want to think about.

  Looking around her she took in her surroundings. The bare white walls and clinical smell suggested she was in a hospital, although her wooden bed with its expensive linens said otherwise, as did the stunning vase of peonies propped on the small rococo table beside her bed. A single window set high in the wall was the source of the golden light, but provided no clues as to her whereabouts. From Ella’s prone position all she could see was an evening sky, and even that was half hidden through slatted blinds.

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘At a private clinic in Genoa,’ Gabriel replied. He was still smiling, apparently unoffended by Ella’s standoffishness. ‘You realize you’re lucky to be alive? The lifeboatmen who pulled you out of the water took almost a full minute to get you breathing again.’

  ‘And you?’ Ella looked up at him, realizing belatedly that his hand was still over hers. ‘How did you find me? Did you bring me here? I don’t remember anything.’

  ‘That’s not important,’ he replied, with typical arrogance. ‘I told you not to go back to Makis. I told you you would be in danger. What were you thinking?’

  ‘I was thinking that without Mak we had no leads to Athena. None!’ Ella shot back angrily. ‘I was thinking that Persephone might give me a way back in.’

  ‘So what happened?’ Gabriel asked.

  Ella blushed and looked away. ‘I overheard him on the phone to Cameron McKinley. He knows who I am. Who my parents were.’

  Gabriel withdrew his hand. Clutching his head he let out a long, low groan.

  ‘I know,’ Ella said meekly. ‘It’s bad.’

  ‘You actually heard him use the word Praeger?’ Gabriel asked, still too depressed to look up.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ella. ‘On the speedboat on my way out to the Argo. He knows I’m William and Rachel’s daughter. I don’t think he knows anything about … you know … my gifts. But he knows I’m connected with The Group. If I’d boarded that yacht, he would have killed me.’

  ‘No question,’ said Gabriel.

  ‘So I jumped. I didn’t know what else to do.’

  Gabriel stood up and started pacing. Ella assumed he was working on a plan, what to do next. But when he turned back to face her, he surprised her.

  ‘Did you sleep with Makis Alexiadis?’ he asked Ella bluntly.

  ‘No! Never.’

  ‘Were you planning to? When you joined him on the yacht?’

  Ella hesitated for a second before answering. ‘Yes.’

  Gabriel took an audible breath, as if he’d just been punched in the stomach.

  ‘He would have expected that from Persephone. Demanded it, I think,’ said Ella. ‘I had to get close to him, to regain his trust. I’m not saying I wanted to sleep with him.’

  ‘But did you?’ Gabriel’s eyes bored into hers. ‘Want to?’

  Ella thought guiltily about all the times she’d fantasized about making love to Makis. About the electric jolt of longing she felt whenever his hand touched hers, despite knowing he was a murderer. The only other man she’d ever felt that much attraction for was the one grilling her right now. But she wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of getting her to admit it.

  ‘No,’ she lied. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Good.’

  It was the closest he’d ever come to acknowledging his desire for her. But the moment this intimate exchange was over, it was straight back to business.

  ‘Mak knows who you are. Obviously that means you’re in danger,’ he began.

  ‘From Mak, yes,’ agreed Ella. ‘But not necessarily from Athena.’

  Gabriel shook his head. ‘It’s over, Ella. The boss wants you back in the States, as soon as you’re well enough to travel. I’m to deliver you there personally this time.’

  ‘And what if I won’t go?’ asked Ella indignantly.

  ‘You will go.’

  ‘Says who? I’m a free agent, you know. I’m not a piece of freight that you guys get to ship around at will.’

  ‘Don’t yell at me. I’m just the messenger. Redmayne won’t let you compromise the safety of The Group, and that’s that. He has countless operatives to think of, not just you.’

  ‘Redmayne can go to hell!’

  Gabriel sighed. ‘Do you ever simply do what you’re told?’

  ‘No. Do you?’

  He grinned. ‘Not very often.’

  With an effort, Ella sat upright, hauling herself back against the stacked goose-down pillows. ‘I know you don’t like Redmayne.’

  ‘How could you possibly know that?’

  She tapped the side of her head. ‘I know a lot of things about you.’

  His eyes narrowed playfully. ‘Oh yeah? Like what.’

  ‘I know Gabriel’s not your real name.’

  He looked at her, trying to fathom whether this was intuition speaking or whether, somehow, she’d actually found out information about his past. The latter possibility was deeply troubling.

  ‘Lots of people change their names when they get older,’ he said, trying to sound casual about it.

  ‘Only if they have something to hide,’ said Ella. ‘Or run away from.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ he countered. ‘What if they were christened Humperdinck? Or … Derek?’

  His ploy worked. Ella laughed loudly.

  ‘Is that your real name? Derek?’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘Sure, Ella. If you want it to be. I’m Derek Humperdinck, if that makes you happy. But weren’t we talking about Mark Redmayne?’

  The laughter died.

  ‘I don’t trust him,’ said Ella.

  ‘OK.’

  ‘And I know you don’t either.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Gabriel, not denying it. ‘He’s our boss.’

  ‘You trust me, though?’ asked Ella.

  ‘I worry about you,’ Gabriel answered truthfully, after a pause.

  Ella was touched. Apart from her grandmother Mimi, and Bob back in her old life in San Francisco, no one had ever worried about her.

  ‘Tell me what you know about Athena.’

  ‘Ella …’

  ‘Tell me everything. Including the things Redmayne told you not to.’

  He hesitated, but she could see his resolve was weakening.

  ‘Trust me. Not him. Trust me, so I can trust you. And then – maybe – I’ll do what you tell me.’

  ‘I’ll believe that when I see it,’ he grinned. ‘But OK. This is what we know today: Athena’s no longer in Greece. She left the country the day after you saw her on Sikinos—’

  ‘So it was her on Sikinos! You admit it!’ Ella jumped in.

  ‘Of course,’ said Gabriel. ‘Please stop interrupting.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘We don’t know where she is. The couple of leads we had on possible safehouses all came to nothing. But we’re confident she’ll resurface soon.’

  ‘Why? It took her twelve years last time.’

  ‘That was different. For whatever reason, back then she didn’t want control of her husband’s empire. Now, she does. What we’re witnessing now is the beginning of a civil war between Athena and Makis. It’s being fought through proxy armies – her people versus his people – and it’s going to get bloody.

  ‘Nikkos was an early casualty.
It looks as if Athena’s – not Makis’s – loyalists were behind his death.’

  ‘Which means …’

  ‘That she probably also knows who you are. Or at least suspects it. The only plausible motive for Nikkos’s murder lies in his connection to you.’

  So it’s my fault either way, thought Ella. And my job to avenge his death.

  ‘Did she get a good look at you that day at the convent?’

  Ella’s mind flew back to ‘Sister Elena’s’ room. Her grotesque, melted face. Her eyes, neither angry nor frightened, but calm, curious, searching, looking over Ella with a sort of fascinated surprise as Ella stood, frozen, a deer in the headlights.

  She nodded. ‘Unfortunately, yes.’

  ‘And what about the man? The one who knocked you over and attacked Sister Elena with a knife.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Can you describe him? You said he was tall.’

  ‘Not just tall. He was enormous. Broad shouldered. He looked like a giant.’

  ‘Age?’

  Ella shrugged. ‘Early thirties? I’m not sure. He was dark skinned. I’m guessing Arabic. He had dark hair but I didn’t get a good look at his face. I was too focused on her.’

  ‘That’s OK,’ said Gabriel, lapsing into a thoughtful silence.

  It sounded like him. Like the man Redmayne had warned Gabriel about, and had already, privately, asked him to track down urgently. But he mustn’t jump to conclusions. Nor could he allow himself to sidetrack Ella.

  ‘I can’t go back to New York.’ Ella’s voice broke his reverie quietly but with intent. It wasn’t just that she couldn’t let Athena go, although that was certainly a part of it. She couldn’t go back to the person she had been before. To the frightened misfit with a head full of jumbled noise. The lonely observer who saw the world only in black in white. Now, for the first time, Ella’s world was in glorious color, and she was in it, a part of it, doing something meaningful, not standing on the sidelines. Maybe one day she could go back, but not yet. Not until her transformation was complete.

  ‘I hope you understand. And I’m sorry if it gets you in trouble. But I can’t go back until Athena is dead. For my mother. For Nikkos. For myself. I have to see this through.’

  To Ella’s surprise, Gabriel made no protest. ‘OK. You can stay. I’ll handle Redmayne.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really,’ he said gruffly. If he was going to track down Redmayne’s target, he would need Ella to keep the hunt for Athena alive while he was gone. ‘But from now on, the two of us work as a team. No going rogue. No disappearing into the night on your own, unarmed, to have sex with psychopaths.’

  ‘OK. But that has to work both ways,’ Ella countered. ‘No more half-truths and withholding information. No more, “You’ll be told when the time is right”.’

  Gabriel nodded grudgingly. Then, opening up a large file of pictures on his iPhone, he handed it over to Ella.

  ‘These are all known and active members of the Petridis organization. Most work for Makis, but one or two go way back and are fanatical Athena loyalists. Do you recognize anyone?’

  Ella began scrolling through the images. There were a lot of them, over a hundred faces. None leaped out at her.

  ‘Right now, officially at least, they’re still all one big happy family,’ said Gabriel. ‘Big Mak is “delighted” about Athena’s return to the fray, and excited about the two of them wreaking havoc together. But behind the scenes it’s daggers drawn, and these guys are starting to choose sides. Once they—’

  ‘Him!’

  Excited, Ella passed the phone back to Gabriel.

  ‘This guy?’ He zoomed in on the face of a bland, nondescript-looking gray-haired man in his mid-fifties, with a neatly clipped mustache.

  ‘He was at the convent.’

  ‘This guy?’ Gabriel asked. ‘You’re sure?’

  Ella’s expression darkened. ‘Again with the sure? Yes, I am sure. That’s the priest. Father Benjamin. He felt my ankle, when I was hurt.’

  Leaning down, Gabriel took Ella’s face in both his hands and kissed her on the top of the head, unable to conceal his delight.

  ‘Well Father Benjamin also goes by the name of Antonio Lovato. Believe it or not, he used to be Athena’s personal trainer back in the day. Rumor had it their training sessions got to be mighty personal, but Spyros turned a blind eye. Athena set him up in business, bought him a chain of gyms all across Italy that Spyros used to launder money through. Lovato made out like a bandit.’

  ‘I remember thinking he didn’t look especially holy,’ Ella mused. ‘His robes didn’t seem to suit him.’

  Gabriel smiled wryly. ‘I guess you could say that about a lot of priests these days.’

  ‘So he’s a lead, then?’ asked Ella.

  ‘Oh he’s a lead, all right,’ said Gabriel. ‘Even better, he’s a lead that Mak knows nothing about. And it just so happens …’ he made a few more taps on his phone, his long fingers rapid-firing like pistons, ‘that I also have …’ tap, tap, tap. He handed the phone back to Ella with a look of triumph. ‘An address. How would you feel about a trip to London?’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Dimitri Mantzaris held the note up to the light with shaking hands. At eighty years old, the former premier’s eyesight wasn’t what it used to be. But it was good enough to read the four lines in front of him, lines that filled him with a mixture of anticipation and dread.

  Written in a code Dimitri hadn’t encountered for many, many years, the note said simply: I am coming.

  Soon.

  Need your help.

  Contact to follow.

  It wasn’t signed. It didn’t need to be.

  The enormous breakfast the old man had just eaten – six bougatsa, traditional Greek breakfast pastries, filled with custard and rolled in powdered sugar – churned in his distended stomach now like sour milk, all the pleasure they had brought him gone. Not even the soothing sound of the waves crashing on his beloved Vouliagmeni beach could calm his jangled nerves.

  Athena’s last ‘message’ had been indirect, a sign sent to the world. But now she was reaching out to him directly, enticing yet deadly, like a black widow spider, eager to mate.

  Unlike the male spider, however, Dimitri Mantzaris did not have the option of refusing her.

  It was too late to run, and he was too old to hide.

  Athena was calling in a debt, and Dimitri must prepare to honor it.

  On the northern bank of the Thames, not far from Vauxhall Bridge, Dolphin Square in Pimlico was one of London’s iconic addresses, considered a landmark example of 1930s architecture. Once the height of modernity with its red-brick façade, grand art-deco arches and, to modern eyes, tiny windows, the flats had become synonymous over the year with political intrigue. Occupied by the Free French in the 1940s and a temporary home for General de Gaulle, and later by Mandy Rice-Davies and Christine Keeler, the girls at the center of the Profumo scandal, according to Ella’s Hidden London guidebook, Dolphin Square was also the London address of Maxwell Knight, the inspiration for ‘M’ in Ian Fleming’s James Bond books.

  A jaded lothario and former personal trainer like Antonio Lovato might not merit a mention as one of the famous flats’ ‘celebrity’ residents. But one could argue he had earned his place as part of Dolphin Square’s long tradition of secrecy, espionage and dirty politics. Like just about everyone who had once been part of Athena Petridis’s inner circle, a strong whiff of corruption surrounded him and his growing empire of gyms and ‘wellness centers’.

  Ella landed at Heathrow on a Monday afternoon, and spent the night at one of the countless Pimlico bed and breakfasts surrounding Victoria Station. Her room was dingy and depressing and smelled of wet towels, and the breakfast was quite the most revolting mess Ella had ever seen on a plate, consisting of congealed animal fat, deep-fried stale bread and something that might or might not have been an egg. But the Excelsior Guesthouse did at least provide a quiet space where
she could practice tuning in and out of different frequencies amid the deafening clamor of London’s unrelenting data traffic. Dix’s techniques had worked faultlessly in the relative peace of Camp Hope and the remoter Greek islands. But Ella had yet to put them to the test in a major metropolis, and she had to admit that a growing part of her was excited by the prospect. So far Athens had been the only urban center she’d spent time in whilst in the field, her first taste of city life since San Francisco, back when the signals she received had been a frightening, debilitating jumble of white noise. But comparing Athens to London was like comparing the ‘Moonlight Sonata’ to hardcore thrash metal, cranked up to full volume. This was going to be a challenge.

  If she were going to be able to isolate any of Antonio Lovato’s emails, texts or phone communications, she would need to get physically closer to him. Tailing him in the street or on public transport would have been the simplest way to achieve this, but by Wednesday he hadn’t left his flat once, other than for two short excursions along the river to walk his Pekinese, Mitzi.

  ‘He’s a recluse,’ Ella complained to Gabriel, after a second fruitless day of observations from a café across the road. She was itching to make a move, to feel the adrenaline rush she’d started to learn to love, just as her parents had. ‘Not one trip to his new London gym. No coffees with a friend, no shopping, no nothing. What the hell is he doing in there all day?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Gabriel. ‘But he may be contacting Athena. Can you really not pick up anything from his devices?’

  ‘I’m trying!’ Ella said defensively. ‘It’s not like tuning in a radio, you know. It’s like trying to isolate one instrument in a concert hall the size of two baseball fields, where ten symphony orchestras are playing different pieces, all at once. I need to get inside the building.’

  ‘So?’ Gabriel hit the ball back to her. ‘What’s your plan?’

  Antonio Lovato pouted at his reflection in the mirror as the doorbell rang. He resented being disturbed, almost as much as he resented the deep grooves on his forehead that would insist on returning each time his Botox wore off, or the fact that, no matter how many crunches he did, his ‘six-pack’ was now forever destined to be marred by his sagging, aging, paper-dry skin. Age was a ruthless enemy, and one against which his vanity had no adequate defense.