Firebird

by Helaine Mario

  “No.” She shook her head. The staff had been questioned, several times. She’d read the detective’s report. Eve had never even made it through the inn’s front door that night. Her eyes found the graveled parking lot. I saw headlamps blink, Lou Goldberg had told her. “Let’s go,” she said to Garcia. “Eve didn’t stay here that night. Ivan must have been waiting, signaled her from the parking area. And then – they went to the river.”

  “To the river, then.” But he did not restart the car.

  “What is it?” she asked him finally. “What are you thinking about?”

  He slipped off the Raybans, hooked them onto his shirt and looked into her eyes. “Canaries.”

  “Canaries… I’m not going to like this, am I?”

  “I’m having second thoughts, Alexandra. About tonight. And I’ve made a decision.”

  Tree branches cast sharp, shifting shadows on his face. “You don’t want me to be the canary in the mine,” she said softly.

  He gave her a slight smile in acknowledgement. “I don’t want you anywhere near Foxwood. I’ll find another way to – ”

  “Save your breath, Garcia. I’m going.”

  She saw something flare in his eyes. “What do you really know about this Ivan, Red?”

  “He’s a murderer.”

  “Maybe. Maybe he killed your sister, maybe someone else did.”

  “Where are you going with this?”

  “Following threads. It’s what I do, remember?”

  “An extraordinary skill.”

  “It is. Which leads me to the next question. If Ivan killed Eve… why?”

  “To protect his identity.”

  “Why?”

  “Because exposing him would expose his plan. His secret.” She stared at him, daring him to ask ‘why’ again. He got the message.

  “Si. He may be a cold blooded killer. But he also may be planning to move into a sensitive job – become an agent ‘in place.’ Whatever it is, he needs to protect his secret. That’s a fact.”

  “That’s why you need me! I can provoke him, push him to let his guard down, to show himself.”

  “The provoking is what concerns me, Chica. And speaking as a recent ‘provokee’, it’s one of your best events.” He smiled at her. “Esta bien, this man has kept his identity secret for decades. He’s smart. He won’t suddenly let his guard down for you.”

  “I’m only going to mention the brooch,” she lied. “We know that the brooch must be important to him. He would want to talk with me, find out what I know.”

  His hands tightened on the wheel. “And if he is a killer? And thinks you have the brooch? What then? You’ve awakened the dragon, Chica. You’ve already been pushed off a cliff. I don’t want you playing Nancy Drew tonight.”

  Anger flared. “You don’t get to decide what I do, Garcia. I think for myself.”

  “Then think! If Ivan murdered your sister, Red, he’s a very dangerous man.”

  “You don’t get to decide what I should be afraid of, either!”

  “Impossible woman!” he muttered. Cursing in Spanish, Garcia turned on the engine, pulled into the road, accelerated. They drove for another mile without speaking, into the gathering dusk. Then the car slowed, turned left, headed downhill. Gravel and leaves crunched under the tires. An old wooden sign announced the entrance to Maryland’s Great Falls Park. Welcome to the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. She thought she saw a deer disappear into the woods.

  “I think you’re right about Eve,” said Garcia into the tense silence. “Someone must have been waiting for her at the inn with a car. It would have been too far to walk here, especially so late at night.”

  “If we’re right, she probably knew the person. But Charles Fraser was already dead. The note I found hidden in Eve’s nesting doll said, ‘I know about Charles Fraser’s death.’ Of course she would have come to the inn. She had to know what happened to Charles.”

  ”So whoever wrote that note knew about their meeting place. But whether Eve came here to the river willingly or not is another question.” Garcia parked, cut the engine, and turned to look at her, waiting.

  Alexandra shook her head, pulled the blue quilted jacket closer to her body as if for protection, took a shuddering breath and opened the car door. The sound of rushing water filled the car.

  She fell back as if punched. “Oh, God.”

  “Dios, Alexandra…” He reached toward her.

  But she slipped from the car, squared her shoulders and lifted her face to the wind. “No, Garcia. I have to. I have to see where my sister died.”

  Together they walked toward the sound of the tumbling river. Hoover, released from the confines of the Explorer, ran ahead.

  The towpath, nothing more than rutted, rock-strewn earth, followed the narrow canal. Just past the small Visitor’s Center, a boardwalk crossed over the canal and disappeared into the darkening woods. A small sign pointed towards a path to Olmstead Island. They were alone. The wind was cold on her face and she could hear the roar of the falls, louder now, crashing against rocks. She stopped.

  He stood silently beside her, waiting.

  Just ahead, Hoover dashed through a deep drift of oak leaves, sending them spinning high into the air like bright gold stars.

  Oh, she thought, surprised. There is still beauty in the world... She took a deep breath and stepped onto the boardwalk. The Lab came to walk close behind her, as if he knew she needed him near.

  “Are you okay?” asked Garcia.

  “Yes.” Another lie.

  They followed the old wooden walkway as it twisted through the trees toward the Potomac River. Minutes later they emerged onto a narrow wooden bridge, suspended low over the rapids. A small scrap of yellow crime scene tape, still tied to a post, fluttered in the wind. A television image of a narrow bridge suspended over rapids. Water thundered in her ears. Alexandra froze.

  “Here,” she whispered. “This is where Eve died.”

  Raw, jagged grief surged through her. She swayed, suddenly light-headed. Gripping the cold metal railing, she forced herself to look down into the close, narrow gorge.

  Just breathe.

  Foaming rapids rushed and surged just below her, cascading with a roar across huge sharp boulders. A silver river of death.

  “Eve,” she whispered. The crash of the water swallowed her sister’s name. Pain, sheer and sharp as a knife’s blade, sliced through her. She bent over, ambushed by the crushing loss and guilt. “Oh, God.”

  Garcia’s voice, close behind her. “Grief is the price we pay for love. Let the feelings come, Alexandra. Don’t think. Feel!”

  Feel.

  “It hurts!” she gasped. “The feelings are all tangled together. Anger, regret. Guilt.”

  “I don’t see guilt when I look at you, Alexandra. I see a broken heart.”

  Holding on to his words as if holding on to a life raft, she forced herself to open her eyes. Feel what you need to feel. These trees, these rocks, this old wooden bridge, black water – they were the last images her sister saw. The terrible roar of the river, the last sound she heard. The scent of wild water and wet leaves, and then - was there a hand, pushing hard? Panic as she fell into nothingness, the shock of ice cold water. Were those the last things her sister felt? Was it that moment when Eve realized she was going to die?

  Alexandra looked down at the leaf-strewn earth. And pictured the red high-heeled shoe she’d seen on the news - all that was left behind.

  Horror filled her, engulfed her. The water pounded in her ears. She staggered, blindsided by a pain so fierce, so sharp that she couldn’t breathe. Her vision shattered into shards of black glass. Stunned and defenseless, she rocked back and forth on the old bridge as the grief seared like a sword through her body. Above the roar of the falls, she heard a wild, keening sob.

  She didn’t know how much time had passed. But suddenly she became aware of the dog nudging against her thigh, and felt Garcia’s hand on her arm, strong and calming, turning her toward him.
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  “Red.” Like a lifeline, his voice pulled her back from the black swirling storm of emotion. “Stay with me.”

  Stay with me. She looked blindly up into his eyes. His thumb wiped hot tears from her cheeks, tears she hadn’t known were there.

  Tears that had finally come.

  “I’d forgotten what it feels like to really cry,” she whispered.

  “I’m taking you home, Red.”

  Without asking, he settled an arm firmly around her shoulders. She was too exhausted to resist. With one final glance at the roiling water, she followed Garcia and his dog back across the bridge.

  CHAPTER 31

  “secrets cry aloud...”

  T. Roethke

  GEORGETOWN

  Ivan’s fingers reached for the diamond and ebony studs and inserted them one by one into the snowy pleated tuxedo shirt.

  The tuxedo was a symbol of his acceptance into the inner circle, a reminder of how far he had come from the ill-fitting wool sweaters of his childhood that smelled of cooking grease and goat.

  Three months earlier, in this same Armani tuxedo, he had attended one of many award dinners at the State Department. He and his fellow guests had been greeted in the reception rooms lined with portraits and antique furniture while champagne flowed.

  In the Benjamin Franklin banquet hall, fresh flowers and elegant china graced white linen beneath magnificent crystal chandeliers. It had been an easy matter to slip away during the cigars and speeches, easier still to hide the powerful electronic device in the chair-rail molding of the conference room just down the “mahogany row” from the Secretary’s office.

  Just look and act as if you belonged.

  Now Federal Investigators were questioning State employees, cleaning crew and repairmen, and anyone else who had had access to the seventh floor room. He knew they were concerned over the sophistication of the device, and an installation that had required intimate knowledge of State’s floor plan.

  They were not the only confused agents, he thought with cynical amusement. Back in St. Petersburg, officials and agents in drab FSB offices were scratching their heads over the unknown identity of the legendary agent “Ivan” who’d managed to send back so many startling secrets from so many high-level offices over the years.

  Ivan adjusted the black cumber-bund and checked his starched shirt cuffs. Diamond cufflinks flashed in the light. What, he wondered suddenly, had happened to the diamonds in the Firebird brooch he’d given to Tatyana the night of the fire? Untraceable gemstones that were to have been his financial reward for a life of secrecy. His pay-off. Gone up in smoke, no doubt, like the rest of his life...

  He reached for the silk tie and turned to the mirror. The eyes that stared back at him were deep and lonely. You knew what you were giving up, he reminded himself.

  Images swirled into his head and the memories unrolled like an old movie, settling in a dark hallway outside the bare rehearsal hall of the Kirov Theatre in Leningrad.

  That February of 1966, just after he’d met Tatyana.

  It had been snowing for days. There was little heat in the drafty rehearsal room but he’d been hot, sweaty and exhausted when he’d turned off the music and lights and left the hall, just before midnight. Concerned about the intricate steps in the second act of Giselle, at first he did not see the two men from the KGB, waiting for him.

  In the long night that followed, they’d offered him an opportunity to do something extraordinary. He felt himself falling deeper into the memory.

  The air had been white with snow…

  * * * *

  The air was white with snow. Huge crystals fell on the official black Zil limousine parked at the edge of the tarmac at Pulkovo Airport. At this time of year, the dusk was constant. The old buildings were blurred by the shadows and pale spinning flakes.

  A tall officer waited by a small, dimly lit hanger, stamping booted feet in the cold. Neon Cyrillic letters above the door lit his high-peaked hat and furred earflaps with a green, unearthly sheen. In the front seat of the Zil, his driver sat with face carefully averted, staring at the snow that drifted against the dirty hanger wall.

  A scrape to the left, and two men appeared through the white veil of snow. One figure, the bodyguard, remained in the neon shadows. The second man moved toward the officer. His breath came out in crystals that crusted on the fine golden stubble of his beard. His eyes, intensely blue in the hanger lights, gleamed from a narrow, square-jawed face. With a shake of his head, the man pulled his boot-length fur coat tighter around his body. “Only February,” he said softly, “but I long for the warmth of our summer nights.”

  The door to the hanger opened and the young dancer stepped into the light. “What do you want from me?”

  The two men turned to him.

  “Your father was a brave soldier,” said the bearded man. “Is the son as brave, we wonder?”

  “I would make my father proud!”

  “Well spoken. Would you be willing to leave Russia?”

  “Leave my home? But... my mother, my little sister. The Kirov. Why?”

  “You have been chosen to be a hero. We want you to defect, during a Kirov tour. Your family would be rewarded. You would dance in the West, and help us whenever we needed you.”

  The West.

  Ivan blinked, saw himself in the mirror of his townhouse bedroom, dressed in his silk tuxedo. He looked down at the diamond and ebony cufflinks. That night in St. Petersburg had changed his life.

  He’d returned to the rehearsal hall later that night and danced with all the confusion and longing of his young heart until his body was totally exhausted and he’d fallen to the bare floor. The next morning he had agreed, and his future had been settled.

  Or so he’d believed. He’d never planned on falling in love.

  The price for freedom, he thought, is loneliness.

  Ivan turned away from the mirror. It was time to go to Foxwood. The limo was waiting. And so was Alexandra Marik.

  He reached for his keys and turned out the light.

  CHAPTER 32

  “Find one face there...”

  Charles Kingsley

  FOXWOOD ESTATE. MIDDLEBURG, VIRGINIA

  “Oh, Eve, no wonder you loved this place,” breathed Alexandra as the town car slowed to pass through a high, open iron gate.

  At the end of a long alley of oaks, Foxwood sat on a green rise, surrounded by a dense border of clipped English boxwood hedges. Hundreds of lanterns lit the tall arched windows and white-columned porch that wrapped, plantation-style, around the gracious old house. Beyond the porch, twilight still shimmered above jade hills that fell away toward white-washed stables, paddocks and forest.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to calm her tripping heart. She’d only had an hour back in Georgetown to recover from her emotional visit to the river and prepare for Foxwood. Now, too soon, it was showtime. Garcia had been called to a meeting at Justice. She was on her own.

  She opened her eyes. Just do it.

  The car slowed on the circular driveway, came to a stop. The French doors to the porch swung open and Anthony Rhodes appeared, a tall, dark figure against the flickering light.

  Okay, she thought, bracing herself. Here we go. I’m sorry, Anthony, but I have to do this. Heart drumming, she grasped the small gold evening bag, reached for her sister’s silken shawl and stepped from the car, lifting her long skirt and walking slowly toward him up the broad marble steps. She heard the sharp intake of his breath.

  “Is it you?” Rhodes’ voice trembled with shock. A heartbeat later, “Alexandra? My God, for a moment I thought... You look just like her tonight.”

  Alexandra looked down at the shimmering folds of the long copper sheath that skimmed her body and bared her back. Her sister’s dress, altered by Billie just hours earlier. Her hair was slicked back from her forehead in a sophisticated cap, the heavy golden discs on her ears borrowed from Eve’s jewelry box.

  Yes. I want to look like her.


  “Eve - ” he murmured. Her name caught in his throat.

  She felt his warm fingers under her chin, tilting her face toward his and searching her eyes. For a long moment she heard only the soft chords of a Haydn concerto and the distant whinny of horses carried on the night air.

  “Eve’s dress,” he murmured. His fingers dropped to touch the narrow shoulder strap, sending an involuntary shiver across her skin as he brushed her bare shoulder. “The last time Eve wore this dress...”

  She felt the longing rise in him and closed her fingers around his. “Don’t, Anthony,” she murmured. “I didn’t do this to hurt you.”

  She saw the sudden leap of understanding, the quick pain that flared in his eyes. His expression hardened, eyes burning at her like blue torches.

  “What the hell is going on, Alexandra?”

  “Please, I know you’re angry – ”

  “Angry? Angry doesn’t begin to cover it. You’ve deliberately dressed like my wife! I told you to let this go, dammit. Why couldn’t you listen to me?” His hand dropped away from her as he shook his head. “Good God, what are you thinking, dressing like her? What the devil are you trying to prove tonight?”

  I’ve gotten someone’s attention. I’ve scared him. I’ve awakened the dragon, and now he’s coming after me, just the way I want him to.

  She said, “Someone has taken an interest in me.”

  “Who? What interest?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said honestly. “But I think it’s someone who will be here tonight, someone who knows the truth about Eve’s death.”

  “We know the truth about her death!”

  “Do we?” She looked down at her sister’s dress, then her chin came up. “I want to encourage that interest, Anthony.”

  “And what if this interest is in stopping you?”

  “Eve was in trouble, Anthony, we both know it. She was being blackmailed, she was expecting something to happen here tonight. Maybe I can make that something happen. I need answers.”