Firebird

by Helaine Mario

  “There are none. Nothing you do will bring Eve back.”

  “I need to know why my sister died!”

  “This is a damned dangerous game you’re playing, Alexandra.” In the shadows, his eyes glittered like cold blue stars.

  “This is no game, I promise you. Please, try to trust me, Anthony. Just for tonight.” She could almost feel the anger burning in him and turned away from his pain to gaze out across the darkening paddock.

  “You have more of your sister in you than I realized,” he said, too quietly.

  “I just want people to talk to me, Anthony, that’s all. I want to meet the men and women who knew Eve.” She took a deep breath. “I want to meet your Lions.”

  He stared down at her, his expression unreadable. After a long moment, he shrugged and said curtly, “Talk with whomever you like. You won’t find your answers here.”

  Once more she turned away from the coldness in his face. Her gaze swept the house and gardens. “Foxwood is even more beautiful than Eve described,” she told him, offering an olive branch.

  She heard him inhale, as if he were trying to regain control. She looked at him, saw his body go rigid with the effort to curb his anger. Finally, he expelled a long breath and she saw the tension ease in his face.

  “Eve loved it here,” he said softly. “Juliet, too. Especially the horses.”

  “Jules was supposed to be here tonight. For her birthday. You’re sure she’s all right?”

  “I’m sure.” His smile was enigmatic. “Come with me.” He drew her around the curving porch, then across a terrace to a white-fenced paddock. They leaned against the fencing, shoulders close. The jingle of a bridle drifted toward them on the breeze. In the distance, a bow-legged groom led a lone horse across the paddock against a deepening sky. The horse’s coat shone like black glass in the dusky light.

  “Welcome to Foxwood, Alexandra. Ground zero for horse country. Your sister’s favorite place.”

  Alexandra gazed at the postcard scene. Foxwood, the last place her sister had come before she died. Did you come here to hide the Firebird brooch, Eve?

  She turned to her brother-in-law. “It’s only been two weeks since Eve died. Playing host here tonight has to be the very last thing you want to do.”

  “The very last. But those children in the hospital – they’ve been Eve’s cause, my dear, for many years. It’s the very least I can do to honor her.” He turned to her. “No, it’s you I’m worried about tonight. Dressing like Eve…” Again, she saw the unsettling light in the blue eyes. “I can’t lose you, too, Alexandra.”

  Alexandra took his hand. His fingers were warm and comforting against her skin. “Dear Anthony. You won’t. We’ve all had enough of loss.”

  She turned away, ambushed by sudden sadness. “This was going to be Juliet’s night, too. Eve wanted Jules to spend her sixteenth birthday at Foxwood. She was trying, reaching out to her daughter, after all the years of being apart. She was going to surprise her with a cake at midnight.”

  “Juliet hasn’t been forgotten. I’ve planned a special birthday surprise for my incorrigible step-daughter this year.” Rhodes’ silvered brows spiked like birds’ wings. “Your sister wasn’t the only one good at keeping secrets,” he added cryptically.

  A sharp whinny tore through the air.

  Alexandra started, half-turned, moving away from Rhodes. “What was that?”

  “That, my dear Alexandra, is my newest stallion, Dark Victory. He’s only just broken, still unpredictable. He senses we’re here.”

  In the blue twilight, the jet horse in the paddock was cloaked in shadow. As the massive animal raised his head and turned toward them, she felt an inexplicable sense of foreboding.

  Rhodes looked down at her, his face hard and still as a stone mask. “I’m asking you one last time, Alexandra. Let this go.”

  She stood frozen, unable to answer. Another wild stallion cry split the air just as headlamps speared the oak trees.

  Once more, she saw the anger flash deep in his eyes before he could hide it. “So be it,” he said softly. And then, “The first guests are arriving. Tonight you will see seduction at the very highest levels.” His smile was cold. “You will not be the only one with a hidden agenda. Be very careful.”

  His arm slipped around her waist and drew her toward the terrace doors.

  “Come, my dear. Let the games begin.”

  * * * *

  Taking a deep breath, Alexandra turned once more to scan Foxwood’s crowded ballroom. The gathering was elegant, dramatic and sexy. Over-the-top, just like Eve herself. She could just imagine Eve making her entrance there, at the top of the high curving red staircase lifted straight from Gone with the Wind.

  For a long moment she kept her eyes on the landing, waiting.

  Are you there, Eve?

  But the crimson staircase remained empty.

  The music of Strauss floated down around her from a quartet in a gold-curtained balcony. Tall mirrors circled the ballroom, reflecting the hundreds of lanterns and glittering ice sculptures, the shimmering sweep of silken gowns and platinum hair. The far wall of windows framed a broad terrace lit by starlight. And everywhere she looked, there were faces.

  There, by the buffet, the patrician Supreme Court Justice who had kissed her hand so gallantly. Holding court on the carpeted stairs, the acid-tongued liberal editor from The Washington Post. In a shadowed alcove, the wizened Secretary of Homeland Security whispering to an Indian woman swathed in an emerald sari. And there, in a crowd of admirers, stood Billie Jordan. Tonight she looked like an African queen in a dramatic, intricately-patterned gown. A huge beaded necklace graced her neck, and wide silver cuffs wrapped around her biceps.

  But where was Jon Garcia? Still delayed at Justice? Just as well, she told herself. Those unsettling dark eyes were definitely the last thing she needed tonight.

  Once more she scanned the room. Ivan had been a young man in Russia in 1966. She’d not yet been born. For years they’d lived parallel lives in two very different worlds, each unaware of the other’s existence. Until now. Now, because of Eve, their collision was inevitable...

  I will find you, Ivan. And you will tell me why my sister died.

  A sea of mustaches and tuxedos, smooth bald heads and snowy manes, medals and ivy league pins swallowed her as she walked slowly into the swirl of faces. Rigid postures, full jowls and clipped beards. Pocket watches and enough foreign accents to populate a small country. Veined hands gripping every style of carved cane. Tinted glasses that could be hiding pale blue eyes…

  Glasses clinking, everyone clasping shoulders and leaning closer in a dizzying haze of cigar smoke to exchange the latest Washington scandals and secrets. Lobbyists, Senators, thoroughbred owners, board members from Children’s Hospital. The guests closed around her in a crushing wall of black tuxedos and Patou perfume.

  She felt the prickle across the nape of her neck, as if someone had just touched her, and she spun around, eyes searching the dense crowd. Fear snaked up her spine as the sweet scent of musk cologne lingered near - the same scent that had enveloped her in the kitchen in Maine. Just before she was attacked.

  He’s here...

  “Eve always liked to say that Anthony made the money, she gave it away. In spectacular style, I might add.” Billie’s low voice, behind her.

  She turned quickly. “My God, Billie, I’m glad it’s you.”

  “It’s hard, isn’t it, being here without Eve and Charlie. But it feels good to be doing something for my Charlie tonight. Eve’s dress is perfect on you, my alterations are just…” Billie bent closer. “Alexandra, what’s happened?”

  She took a deep, steadying breath. Not a hint of musk cologne. “Just my imagination in overdrive. Have you seen Garcia?”

  “He just got here,” said Billie, glancing over her shoulder. “He was over there, by the door. The way his eyes follow you…” She cocked a brow. “Or maybe it’s the way his eyes don’t follow you…”

  Alex
andra felt the heat rise on her skin and held out a hand in a ‘stop right there’ gesture. “It’s not what you think, Billie. He just doesn’t trust me to stay out of trouble.” She gave a faint smile. “Nothing more.”

  “Way more,” said Billie softly. “Because I’ve seen the way you look at him, too. You like him.”

  More than I want to. “So I have a weakness for dark eyes! Maybe he has his moments, Billie, but a woman would have to be crazy to want to get close to him.”

  “You’re just afraid to trust again, I get that.”

  “Maybe. But it doesn’t matter because tomorrow Jon Garcia will be out of my life for good. I’ve got to get back to New York. End of story.”

  Billie just smiled, touching Alexandra’s arm as she slipped into the crowd. “I’ll find him for you.”

  The way his eyes follow you. The way you look at him. Ridiculous! Don’t go there, Alexandra told herself. Clearly, Billie Jordan needed glasses. Garcia didn’t even want her here tonight! Fine. He was nothing more than a means to an end. She shook her head and, once more, searched the faces swirling around the ballroom.

  For an instant, the crowd parted, and she saw Garcia across the room. Their eyes met, and then the crowd surged, shifted, and he was gone.

  “Everywhere I look tonight, I expect to see her.” Rhodes’ voice, sudden and low against her ear.

  “Being here without Eve is harder than I thought,” she murmured.

  Rhodes looked down at her, his blue eyes unreadable. “Several of the men you asked to meet are over there.” He gestured to a quiet corner. “My old friends Yuri and Rens, along with our dashing new Director of the CIA and the Defense Secretary. Come along. Against my better judgment, Alexandra, you are about to beard the lions.”

  Alexandra glanced over her shoulder, hoping to see Garcia or Billie, but the crowd was too dense. Alone into the lions’ den, then, she told herself, gazing at the men so deep in conversation across the crowded ballroom. Each wore a distinct air of power as casually as a silken scarf.

  She fastened her gaze first on Yuri Belankov, the Russian entrepreneur who’d first told Charles Fraser about Operation Firebird and the existence of Ivan. The man she’d met with Eve, at the German Embassy. The man still under investigation by Garcia…

  Yuri Belankov looked hard as a barrel, with a wrestler’s build and strong bulldog face. He had a close salt-and-pepper shadow across a strong jaw and a bullet-shaped, smooth-shaven head that gleamed in the candlelight. Standing with feet apart, he waved an almost empty flute of champagne as he spoke. She glimpsed a bright red suspender beneath the designer black silk jacket as he moved.

  Rhodes’ smile was cryptic. “Our flashy ‘patron of the arts-cum-telecommunications tycoon’ lives in the border town between genius and madness. Since he’s rich and famous, we call him eccentric. Otherwise we’d call him crazy. Crazy like a fox, I’d say. Yuri’s what we call an ‘unofficial’ Presidential Advisor. I think you’ll be impressed by his extensive knowledge of Czarist art as well.” He lowered his voice. “And you should know he had a serious crush on Eve.”

  How serious? “Point taken. And the others?” She recognized Rens Karpasian, the handsome, bearded Georgetown Counter-terrorism expert known as ‘The Professor.’ With him were the charismatic director of the CIA, Zee Zacarias, and the Secretary of Defense, Admiral Alcazar. The only suspect missing was Senator Rossinski.

  Alexandra watched the Admiral reach for his cell phone, listen, and step away from the group. Good, she reminded herself, he’s not on your list. Concentrate on Karpasian and Zacarias.

  “You’re looking at several of the future leaders on the next administration’s short list,” said Rhodes. “Kissinger-types, all. Blazing intelligence, ambitious, political powerhouses, linked together like tangled vines by history and families who emigrated from war torn communist countries years ago. Men who have seen atrocities first hand in Eastern Europe, Asia and Cuba. They’re a brotherhood of survivors who refer to themselves privately as ‘The Club’.”

  And one of them could be a murderer, thought Alexandra. But which one?

  Rhodes turned once more to scan the room. “I still haven’t seen -” He stopped speaking as they approached the men.

  “The newly rich Russian smashes his car in a terrible auto wreck,” Belankov was saying in a rumbling baritone. “‘Oh, my Mercedes!’ he cries. A passerby notices that the man’s arm is missing. ‘Forget your car!’ he shouts. ‘Look at your arm!’ The rich Russian gazes at the place where his arm used to be, then moans, ‘Ohhhh, my Rolex!’ Ha!”

  “Do you ever get tired of those jokes, Yuri?” said Rhodes.

  “I laugh at the New Russian to feel superior to him,” said Yuri Belankov, turning his head. “I miss the good old days of the Czar!”

  Rhodes bent until his lips were next to her ear. “I am doing this for Eve,” he murmured. “Not you.” Then he straightened and gestured expansively to the group. “I’d like you all to meet my sister-in-law, the Baranski curator, Dr. Alexandra Marik.”

  “Good God,” exclaimed Rens Karpasian, paling as he turned to her. “For a moment - I thought you were Eve!” He tilted frameless glasses to stare down at her, the clear blue-grey of his eyes like the color of a Russian winter. The slightly-accented voice, smooth and rich in timbre, sounded like a bass oboe.

  Rens Karpasian was a blunt-faced, broad-shouldered man whose curling ivory hair just skimmed his collar and made him look younger than his sixty-odd years in spite of the silvery beard. He was powerfully built, but stood with his left leg angled to one side, as if it pained him.

  “I’ve enjoyed you on Meet the Press,” she told him. “And I believe we met at the German Embassy several months ago.” You only had eyes for my sister.

  “We all call Rens ‘The Professor’,” murmured Anthony. “The pundits predict that our brilliant foreign policy expert could be our next National Security Advisor.”

  “Anthony is just jealous because the networks don’t ask him to be their star foreign policy commentator on the Sunday morning shows,” said a rasping voice as the CIA director stepped forward. “I’m Zee Zacarias, Dr. Marik.” He leaned close, with an admiring smile, and looked deeply into her eyes. “You resemble your sister, yes. But no man could mistake the torch of your hair. The question is, why would you want to look like her tonight?” The light eyes sparked. “This evening has just gotten much more interesting.”

  The man before her was tall, athletic looking and handsome. Short wiry silver hair cut in a Grecian style framed a tanned face, rough-hewn as a rock. A small diamond glittered in his ear. He reminded her of the bust of Caesar Augustus in the Baranski’s sculpture gallery.

  Zacarias took her hand, raised it to his lips, and kissed her fingers in the European greeting. She extricated her hand as gracefully as possible, and saw, as he shifted, the puckered white scars on his palms and wrists that disappeared beneath the white cuffs of his shirt.

  “You walk in beauty like your sister,” said a low accented voice to her right. It was a voice rich with resonance but wearied by life.

  Alexandra turned to stare into Yuri Belankov’s dark sable eyes. With a handshake just a shade too tight, the wealthy Russian moved closer. He smelled of warm spice and soap. A thick gold chain sparked around his neck.

  “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Doctor,” he said with a small bow. “I’m looking forward to the opening of the Baranski’s next exhibit. One thousand years of artistic life in Russia. Quite an undertaking.”

  She smiled. “An overwhelming undertaking. We hope to take a provocative look at the link between Russia’s identity and her art.”

  “No doubt you will include the impressionists Gritsai and Popov. And the cubist Malevich, of course.”

  “Brilliant works,” she acknowledged, “coming from a country with such a tormented past.”

  “Suffering forces us to seek greater meaning in our lives, Dr. Marik, does it not? Art is simply one response to that need. Like relig
ion.” His eyes locked into Alexandra’s. “Five times as many people die as are born in the ancient villages every year. Yet even in the struggle for survival, there is time made for a piano lesson.”

  “I’d like to talk with you in much greater depth,” Alexandra said, in a voice that only he could hear, before turning to Rens Karpasian.

  “For once I agree with Yuri,” said the Professor. “Most Russians still have roots in some remote cluster of crumbling houses, deep in the snow birches, where an aging babushka lives. But the ancient roads lead to cities of golden cupolas, and so Russia reveals her paradoxical blend of poverty and universities, mud and music. They call it derevnya.”

  “We’ve been debating who lost Russia,” interjected Zacarias, turning to include the others with a sweep of his hand.

  “Who stole Russia, you mean!” retorted Karpasian, staring pointedly at Belankov. “The really powerful Russians today are not bureaucrats or academics but the ones who are sitting on top of a half trillion treasure trove in Western investments.”

  “Since the Magna Carta,” said Anthony Rhodes, “Westerners have taken for granted a society where stable currency and private property are a given. No wonder we thought we just had to say Ready, Set, Privatize. And no wonder we were wrong.”

  “That’s because Russia is a country of deep and dangerous contradictions,” Belankov added. “It is a country that pretends to send a magnificent and powerful war fleet to sea, but cannot find a way to open hatches in submarines. Dissent is tolerated until it gets too loud. Then out come the syringes, or the bullets. Which of these conflicting sides will prevail, my friends?”

  “The businessman,” replied Zacarias dryly. “When everybody’s crying, someone is going to make money selling handkerchiefs.”

  “You talk handkerchiefs,” murmured the Professor, “while the newly rich are plotting a resurgent Russia.”

  “You can’t change the Evil Empire into the Magic Kingdom,” said Belankov. “You can see it in the vulgarity of the bizniz meni, the men who park their Bentleys on the sidewalks where the children play. The last time I visited St. Petersburg, I had a massage from a woman who used to train Olympic gymnasts. It’s no wonder people want to turn the clocks back.”