“What would happen if someone - an important political figure - were killed just before the election?”
“Who?” she whispered.
“A friend of Russia.”
“The turmoil that followed could crush hard-won relationships,” she answered slowly. “Russians would lose an ally. Worse, they would blame the West again.”
“The hardliners could once again come to power. Old Soviets, old KGB, who would choose absolute power and terror over the common good.”
Her hands flew to his face. “And what would happen to you, Sergei? Trial, deportation - no, no, I cannot bear it!”
“I was told from the beginning that they wanted me to be in a position of power. For access, I thought, for secrets. But -” He turned to her. “Why would they ask me to commit such a public crime, on the eve of the election, just when I am poised to become the next National Security Advisor? I will be caught, of course. They planned it that way. I will go to prison, or worse. A terrible scandal, my future destroyed. And it will all be for nothing.”
“There must be something else, Sergei. Something we do not know.”
He closed his eyes for a long moment. An image swam into his head. He was pinning the Firebird brooch to her breast on the London stage...
He turned to her. “What happened to your brooch, Tatyana? The one I gave you the night of the fire?”
“I hid it, then brought it with me to America. It was the only part of you I could still hold. But it was stolen, my darling. Just weeks ago.”
Weeks ago. Not a coincidence. “Did you report it?”
“A friend took care of the report for me.”
“What friend is this?”
She raised bewildered eyes to his. “An old friend, we have dinner every month. But he would never -”
“Tell me his name, Tatyana.”
“Anthony. Anthony Rhodes.”
Rhodes! Rage blinded him as it all fell into place. Finally, it made sense. His hands curled into fists as he struggled to shield her from the depths of his fury. “I understand now.”
“Sergei -”
He had to get to the theater, to Panov. Had to stop what was going to happen.
He moved then, bending over her to kiss the back of her hand in the old Russian way. “I must leave you, Tatyana, for just a little while.”
“Don’t go, my love!”
He shook his head, his voice so low that she had to lean forward. “I have been running around like a rat in a maze, Tatyana! A man must finally wake up and look at himself in the mirror. All those terrible things I thought I could live with - I cannot any longer.”
“You must decide, Sergei. Are you fighting for the world you once knew? Or helping to destroy the new country born in its place.”
He looked down into the beloved, scarred face. “Forgive me, my Firebird. The choices I made took away your future. But I will make it right. Tonight.”
She smiled at him then through her tears, as beautiful and radiant as the young prima ballerina she had been. “But you gave me my future, Sergei,” she murmured. “You cannot leave me tonight until you know...”
“Know what, Tatyana?”
“There is someone you must meet.”
He was very aware that the hour was growing late. He had to get to the theater! And yet, standing in the silence of the squalid bedroom, he was suddenly unable to move his legs. “Who?” he whispered.
“The night of the fire - I was going to tell you a secret, do you remember?”
He shook his head, suddenly afraid. “I remember.”
“I was pregnant, Sergei. With your child.”
The Firebird closed her fingers over his. “He is a man, now, Sergei. You have a son.”
* * * *
The clock on the wall struck 7 p.m.
God, she was running late.
Alexandra, dressed in a long, simple black dress, stood alone in her living room. Ruby was safely on her way to Queens with Olivia and Danny. She had to get to the theater. Where was the damned cab?
She reached for the invitation and ticket her niece had left on the desk, tried not to disturb her bandages as she slipped the tickets from the envelope.
And froze as the words leaped out at her.
An evening in honor of the Vice Presidential nominee?
She tried to focus on the words, engraved in blood-red print, as panic iced through her
Kirov Ballet
Gala Benefit Performance for the GOP
Stravinsky’s FIREBIRD Ballet
October 31
8 pm
Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center
The Met…
Oh dear God in Heaven.
“It’s the Kirov Ballet,” she whispered, her voice barely audible. “The Firebird. Tonight! That’s the benefit Juliet is dancing for!”
And all the principals in this tragedy would be at the performance.
Memories collided in her head.
Why didn’t I make the connection?
Tatyana, mentioning an upcoming performance of the Firebird.
Juliet, telling her just days ago that she was dancing in a ballet that used masks. Masks! Perfect for Halloween, she’d said. She’d been talking about the Firebird’s mystical creatures…
Ivan, telling her he was finally going home.
And another Russian nesting doll twisted open in her mind.
The ballet! Of course, why didn’t I see it? Last night, Ivan told me that the Firebird was finally going home. I thought he meant to Russia. But he meant the ballet. The Kirov Ballet was his home.
She grabbed her cell phone, punched Garcia’s number.
“Garcia,” she gasped when she heard the low voice. “Where are you?”
Thank God, he was still in New York. The words tumbled out in blind panic.
“Ivan will be at the ballet! You were right, the fire in the lodge didn’t stop him. Whatever he’s planning, it’s going to happen tonight. But here, in New York. At the Met’s performance of the Firebird!”
“The Metropolitan bloody Opera?” Garcia’s voice shouted in her ear. “The Vice Presidential nominee is going to be there. Rossinski!”
The dots connected in a crash. A running mate dies... chaos, and a door opened for the real mole. With a Vice President gone, who would be his successor?
“Senator Rossinski’s the target, Garcia! Just get there. I’ll meet you in the lobby!”
She grabbed her coat and swung toward the door.
Ivan would be at the theater.
And Juliet was right in the middle of it.
CHAPTER 59
“a cunning hunter...”
The Book of Genesis
THE METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE
NEW YORK CITY
The crimson lobby at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York’s Lincoln Center was alive with anticipation. Above the coiffed and gleaming heads of the invited guests, the theatre’s two enormous Chagall oils glowed with inner light.
Garcia moved through the crowd, searching every face. Rens Karpasian was here, he was sure of it. He’d had more than enough time to gain access before the Secret Service and NYPD had been alerted.
There, in the roped off area beyond the great curving staircase and the Secret Service agents, were the Republican Party guests of honor. Garcia identified the Vice Presidential candidate, Senator Rossinski, standing before a row of glittering costumes enclosed in glass. His Secret Service detail had asked him to leave the theater, but the Senator had been adamant. No one was going to scare him off tonight. And who would dare to kill him in the middle of a theater?
“What, he never heard of Lincoln?” muttered Garcia as he moved toward the Senator.
“Jon Garcia, isn’t it?” Anthony Rhodes stepped from the tuxedoed circle of VIPs to grasp his arm. “Didn’t expect to see you here. Are you with Alexandra? I’ve been looking for her. She was to meet me here in the lobby.”
“Ambassador Rhodes,” Garcia acknowledged, forcing a
smile. “She said she’ll meet you at the seats. If you’ll excuse me, I’m working tonight.”
“Wait. She’s well, I trust, Garcia? No more ill effects from the fire?”
Garcia shook his head as he scanned the crowd once more. “She’s fine.” One of his agents signaled. “Sorry, I’ve got to go.”
High above the lobby, the lights began to blink on and off.
Garcia saw Yuri Belankov materialize like an apparition from the shadows. So you’ve become a member of the inner circle, he thought, as he watched Belankov join Rhodes with a comradely slap on the back. In moments they disappeared into the throng, along with the Republican nominee and his party, that swept up the Grand Staircase.
The lights blinked more insistently now.
Where the devil was Alexandra? With a last glance around the rapidly emptying lobby, Garcia melted into the crowd that surged toward the velvet doors.
* * * *
Alexandra stood in the long corridor that led from the stage door deep into the Opera House. Once again, Garcia had come through for her, she thought as she touched the Secret Service backstage security-clearance pass clipped to the neckline of her dress.
It was well after 7:30. Where would Juliet be?
Voices sharp with tension, a throng of dancers, many carrying grotesque masks, rushed past her. Then she was alone in the long, dimly lit hall.
“Jules?” she called. Her voice echoed back toward her eerily.
Moving past photographs and posters dating back 125 years, she stopped to study a small map tacked to a grey wall. Four cavernous stages, rehearsal spaces, orchestra pit, elevators, turntables. The stage, she knew, was somewhere to her left.
“Curtain, fifteen minutes, Ladies and Gentlemen,” called a man’s voice over the loudspeaker.
I’m too late, she thought, as she ran to the first doorway.
Wardrobe. Mirrored rehearsal rooms. Empty.
Costume shop. “Jules?” High on a wall, above the half-dressed mannequins and sewing machines and bolts of glittering brocades, the eyes of a woman in a very bad painting seemed to follow her. She ran on, past billowing, smothering costumes that crowded together on racks left in the hallway.
So many places to hide.
Even the women’s huge dressing room was empty. Alexandra moved quickly past the battered dance bags, rows of steel lockers, bouquets of wilting flowers from fans and well-wishers.
Finally, the sound of voices. She spun around.
Turning a corner, she saw a bank of elevators and the last cluster of nervous dancers, their costumes sparking in the dim light, waiting to be taken up to stage level.
A loud buzzer sounded.
“Curtain, twelve minutes,” warned the disembodied voice.
The elevator arrived, the last of the dancers crowded on. Somewhere above them in the theater, the orchestra’s tuning chords could be heard.
She began to run.
Don’t let me be too late, she prayed.
The elevator doors closed just before she reached them.
Alexandra stood alone in the dim hallway. Then she heard the echo of a slamming door at the end of the long passage.
The doors to a second elevator slid open. She stepped inside and pressed “S” for Stage.
* * * *
The sculpted young danseur noble who would dance the role of Prince Ivan bent from the waist, further warming already loosened muscles, glazed eyes focused inward. A quiver of stage-prop arrows – toys, painted silver – slung behind his costumed shoulder made a small scraping sound as plastic brushed against plastic.
Hidden stage-left in the shadows of the theatre wings, as far as possible from the young hunter, a second hunter waited. Taller, thicker, much older, his ivory hair was covered by a dark green cap. He could sense the audience, unseen beyond the heavy curtain, hushed and expectant in the darkness.
Beneath the emerald costume, his powerful shoulders shifted with impatience. The heavy quiver of arrows slung over his left shoulder, transported so carefully from the lodge in Vermont, glinted with sparks when the stage lights touched the cold sharpened steel.
The hunter kept his face averted from the self-absorbed dancers who brushed past. No one, he knew, would be interested in a member of the ballet corps tonight. At least, not yet. Did the Secret Service know he was here? He’d managed to enter the theater just minutes before the security lockdown.
He peered into the cavernous shadows. No unusual activity.
Relieved, his eyes returned to the huge gold curtain. Soon, he thought.
The orchestra’s horns filled the theatre with sound.
Soon.
* * * *
Garcia slipped into his seat in the huge horseshoe-shaped theater just as the famed crystal chandeliers dimmed and rose slowly to the ceiling.
The seat beside him was empty.
Where are you, Alexandra?
The Senator sat three rows in front of him, next to Anthony Rhodes. And surrounded by Secret Service. So far so good.
Garcia kept his eyes on the Senator’s silver head, and his hand on the .38 pistol beneath his tuxedo jacket.
With a whisper of velvet, the golden curtain rose.
Darkness.
Then a single spotlight speared the great stage and a sinister, mysterious forest in the heart of Czarist Russia sprang to life.
Garcia’s eyes swept the stage, the ushers, the box seats, the rows of guests.
In the deep orchestra pit, the Met’s guest conductor raised his baton.
* * * *
In the shadowed wings, the aging hunter turned his face away as members of the Corps de Ballet brushed past him. For a moment he was filled with a deep longing as he watched young maidens and mystical masked creatures warm up while waiting for their cue.
He missed it still. After all these years. The rolling sounds of moving scenery and the soft tap of toe shoes across a stage, the smell of sweat and well-worn costumes, the heat of the lights on his skin. The hum of the expectant audience, the palpable tension that permeated the backstage shadows.
He took a deep breath, as if he could inhale one final time the world he had loved so much. Then he turned his attention back to the theater.
Beyond the heavy curtains, in a gilded box stage left, a beautiful white-haired woman gazed down at the stage. He imagined that he could see his beautiful Tatyana. And bending toward her, a handsome, dark-haired man.
If only it were true, he thought. If only that was Tatyana, our son beside her…
His son.
The music swelled around him.
A good man, Tatyana had said. A good husband and father, a bistro owner, a lover of ballet - living here, in New York. So close! How he’d wanted to run to him, meet his family, kiss his grandchild.
But I could not involve you in this, my son. I could not risk you knowing…
He felt the tears, hot on his cheeks. This ballet completes the circle, he thought. One final gift.
I will do what I have to do. I will do the right thing. Perhaps, the universe will forgive me. Perhaps, like that child’s velvet rabbit, I will finally become real.
He forced his eyes to the faces in the orchestra.
And there, in the seventh row center orchestra, on the aisle, was his target.
Violins filled the hall with the haunting opening chords of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite.
It was time.
CHAPTER 60
“No! I am not Prince...”
T. S. Eliot
The elevator doors slid open and Alexandra stepped into another world. The Metropolitan’s backstage area was cavernous and dark, crowded with the scenery, ropes, turntables and machinery needed to operate its four great stages. In the pulsing, flickering darkness, costumed dancers, many wearing fantastical animal masks, whirled about like fireflies.
An antlered stag reared its head. A silver wolf slipped through the shadows. A raven with a sharp beak disappeared into the painted forest, its cascade of feathers black
and shining. It was a scene as surreal as a Dali painting. And it was impossible to identify individual faces.
Where are you, Juliet?
A young ballerina in pink tulle whirled by her.
“Jules?”
The girl glanced at her and hurried on.
Alexandra moved on, searching the shadows. One by one, as if the Firebird legend of her childhood had suddenly sprung to life, the lead dancers drifted past her - the Czar and his golden-haired daughter, the evil sorcerer in his flowing black cloak.
And then she saw Prince Ivan.
The prince strode toward her, tall and muscled in his emerald hunter’s jacket, the arrows slung across his back glinting in the shadows.
She reached out to grip his arm. “Ivan!” she whispered.
Bold young eyes stared back at her.
Not Ivan.
Without speaking, the young danseur noble pushed past her.
Out in the theater, the music became more ominous. Soon it would be time for the princess’s hand maidens - and Juliet’s role. Where are you, Jules?
Her eyes searched the dancers. There, in the tangled leaves of the forest scenery, she glimpsed, just for a moment, a leopard mask. Pale eyes shone at her from the shadows.
She turned and ran through the cavernous darkness.
* * * *
Panov moved as steathily as a leopard behind the huge flat of scenery. Had she seen him? No matter. It was too late now.
He knew how to hurt her.
His hand gripped the pistol tucked beneath his jacket. There would be no more mistakes.
* * * *
Flushed ballerinas brushed against the hunter as they left the stage.
Once more the music quickened.
Ivan watched, frozen, as a golden beam swept the air. There was a bright flash of light from the left.
Glorious and triumphant, the Firebird flew into the spotlight. The fantastic creature spun and darted across the stage in a series of high dizzying leaps, shimmering and brilliant as the deep red of her feathered costume. Her dazzling circles and flashing crimson slippers whirled in a band of flame and seemed to leave a wake of fire behind her.
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