The Firebird Deception

by Dermody, Cate

  “How do you feel about that?” Reyes’s tone was perfunctory enough that it pulled a faint smile from Alisha’s lips, and she turned to look at the doctor.

  “Say it like you mean it, Doc.”

  “I’m sorry.” Reyes sat forward, her hands clasped and her eyes widened in a mockery of conciliation. “How does that make you feel, Agent MacAleer?” she asked, infusing the question with syrupy tones and a lilt that was full of false interest. Alisha laughed aloud.

  “That’s much better.” Her laughter faded and she turned back to the diplomas with a guttural, “Eh. I don’t blame Erika. I mean, I’m going to kick her ass later, but I’ll give her a running head start first, so she’ll probably be able to MacGyver her way into kicking my ass instead. Either way, I might’ve done the same thing in her shoes.”

  “Would you have?”

  Alisha watched her faceless reflection in the glass. “I have no idea. E’s gone out on a limb for me before, but never when I was working directly against orders. You have to have hierarchy and rules for this kind of operation to work.”

  “But you decided to forgo those rules this time,” Reyes said. Alisha deliberately stilled another shrug, then found herself holding her breath, as much a giveaway of her state of mind as the shrug. She let the breath go in noisy exasperation.

  “I never got a chance to ask Cristina why,” she said after a moment of working to arrange her thoughts. “She was my best friend, and it was all a lie. I mean, the FSB—the KGB, then—recruited her when she was eleven. Everything she did in her whole life was toward the end of getting into the CIA so she could report back to her bosses in Russia. And when she was finally exposed, it seemed like there was about three minutes between her cover being blown and her dying.”

  “How long was it really?”

  “I don’t know. Days.” Alisha closed her eyes momentarily. “Eight days, fourteen hours, twenty-seven minutes. And nine seconds. Between me finding out and Cris’s suicide.” My life, she thought, not for the first time, is a series of countdowns.

  “Greg wanted to pull me from the chase,” she added. “He thought I was too close to the situation. But I knew her better than anybody. Even if I didn’t know her at all.” Alisha huffed a laugh that had no humor in it. “I chased her over half the globe. I knew how she’d jump, where she’d twitch to, what she’d try next.” Her shoulders rose and fell again, helpless shrug. “I actually got to Peru before she did. I kept hoping she’d surrender.”

  “And instead?”

  Alisha looked over her shoulder at the doctor. “You’ve got to know the story.”

  “I’m familiar with your case history,” Reyes agreed. “But I haven’t heard it from you.”

  Alisha sighed. “And instead of surrendering or making me shoot her, she jumped off a mountain in the Andes and fell into a crevasse we couldn’t even retrieve her body from.” She closed her eyes again, remembering the tiny smile Cristina had offered her in the midst of the Peruvian night. There’d been a hundred emotions in that fragile expression, and the worst of them all had been the understanding in Cristina’s blue eyes. Regret and determination, fear and desperation, maybe even apology, but without question, there had been understanding. There were higher ideals to answer to than friendship and partnership, and when those ideals schismed as violently as the FSB’s and the CIA’s, the only way for it to end was down the barrel of a loaded gun.

  The report of the Glock firing came an instant too late. Cristina had already fallen, a backward fatal dive into thin, icy air. “I had permission—orders—to terminate,” Alisha said thinly. “But I was aiming to disable. I wanted to understand why she’d done what she’d done. And instead she died, and I’ll never really get it. I’m not mad at Erika.” She lifted a hand to rub her eyes, then lowered her forehead against her fingers, as if a headache needed tending. Position of weakness, she thought wearily. Giving away too much with body language.

  “I’m not mad at Erika, but I goddamn well want to understand for once and all what’s making Frank Reichart tick. You guys are probably right,” she said, lifting her head again with a sharp movement. “I probably don’t belong on any case dealing with him. I don’t have my head on straight. And the truth is that even when I was engaged to him I couldn’t get an answer out of the man to save my life. Maybe that’s why I don’t seem to be able to stop trying.”

  “How many times have you let him go without getting the answers you wanted?”

  “Let him go? Once.” A blustery day in London, years ago. “Had him disappear when he’d promised he’d stay, or when I thought he couldn’t escape? More than that. Does it matter?”

  “It might. Why do you trust him to stay?”

  “Hope springs eternal.” The answer was flippant, but laced with more than a little truth. Alisha shook her head as she said it, adding, “I guess I want him to be better than he is.” Just as she’d recognized; just as Brandon had recognized. “Maybe to justify my bad taste in men.” She gave a thin smile to her own reflection, blocks of light making the expression ghoullike. Speaking of which, she thought, but didn’t say aloud, and asked, “How’s Brandon doing? Nobody on the flight could give me an update.”

  “Speaking of which?” the doctor asked drily. Alisha’s shoulder blades pinched together as the woman echoed her own thoughts, and she didn’t answer, no doubt as telling a response as words would be. “He’ll be all right,” Reyes said. “His father’s concerned, so they’re keeping him for observation for a few days. I’m sure Greg can tell you more.”

  “If he’s still speaking to me,” Alisha muttered. She heard Reyes’s quiet chuckle.

  “He’s your handler, Alisha. I think he’s under orders to be speaking to you, and even if he wasn’t—” she paused significantly enough that Alisha imagined her eyebrows rising in warning “—I’m sure he’s got a few choice things to say to you.”

  “Thanks,” Alisha said. “That’s very reassuring. Maybe I’ll just stay hidden in here.”

  “I’m afraid I’ve got another patient in a few minutes,” Reyes said with an audible grin. “I’m throwing you out to face the wolves on your own. I’ll see you tomorrow, Alisha.”

  “Great.” Alisha sighed and headed for the door. “Just great.”

  Chapter 13

  Greg waited outside Reyes’s office, leaning against the wall with his head lowered and his hands shoved into his pockets. Brandon stood like that, Alisha thought. She came up short and folded her arms over her ribs defensively, mouth thinning as she put pressure against the cut there. “I expected you to be at the airport.”

  “I was.” Greg raised his head, tired wrinkles showing around his eyes. There was more silver in his curling hair than Alisha remembered; maybe Brandon’s injuries had taken a toll on the father, as well. “They whisked you by me so you’d make your psychiatric appointment on time.” He tilted his head down the hall and began walking without waiting to see if she joined him. Short of going out the third-story window, she had no choice, and that, Alisha thought, was a greater extreme than she was willing to go to just then.

  Besides, she’d be going out the window onto CIA ground anyway, and in broad daylight. That was no way to stage an escape, if escape was needed.

  It only took a step or two to fall into rank next to Greg Parker. He was a small man, shorter than Alisha herself, and her stride was easily longer than his own. Today he was walking faster than usual, an outlet for anger and frustration, Alisha suspected. She let the silence ride out, sure Greg was choosing his words for greatest effect.

  “You don’t trust me anymore, do you?” The question was sufficiently unexpected that Alisha missed a step, looking at the dapper man by her side. “Not since China.”

  “Greg, I saw you there with Brandon. You lied to me about where you were and you lied to me about the Attengee program. You knew about it. You knew about the production facilities. You were even in contact with Brandon, the son you weren’t supposed to have spoken to in years.” Al
isha caught herself as her voice rose, inhaling through her nostrils as she put her teeth together to stop the litany of accusations. “I know Director Simone provided all the paperwork for your undercover contacts with Brandon while he was working for the Sicarii, but you lied to me. How am I supposed to trust you again?”

  “You lied to me, too, Alisha,” Greg pointed out. “You went above my head for mission protocols and set yourself up as a free agent without telling me.”

  “Because by all appearances you were one of the bad guys,” Alisha said through her teeth.

  “And now I’m not.” Greg stopped abruptly and stepped in front of her, halting her progress. “Alisha, it’s our job to lie to people, but in our situation we have to be able to trust that we’re telling each other the truth.”

  “Why is this coming up now, Greg? Why not fifteen months ago? Because Brandon got hurt? It’s part of the job, and he wanted to be in on it. He wanted me in on it. I set up a situation that looked viable. It went bad. It happens.”

  “You didn’t clear that situation with me first.”

  “You’re too close to it.” Alisha felt nasty triumph flash through her smile as she turned Greg’s stance back on him. “Brandon’s your son and yes, I did send him into a dangerous situation, and I don’t have a problem with that. If you do, maybe you shouldn’t be handling this case, either.” She stepped around him and stalked down the hallway, ignoring the sound of her name being called after her. She knew it was petty to savor the tiny victory, and she should be above it.

  Should, she thought, and shrugged. Welcome to being human, Leesh.

  Boyer wanted to see her. Alisha closed the door to her Vienna apartment behind her and leaned on it, her head thumping back. He hadn’t said when. Morning would be good enough, she thought. An evening at home, refamiliarizing herself with her own belongings, might even her temper out enough to make the meeting with Boyer less confrontational.

  There was a lingering scent of chlorine and dust in the air, telling her that the maid service had visited while she was gone, but long enough ago that the dust had had time to resettle. The faint smell of cleaning fluids undisturbed by human habitation still rode the air. She would get used to it in a few minutes, and by morning her presence would have helped to dispel it. Alisha dropped her bag by the door, letting it fall and spill her gun, a phone, a handful of other materials, onto the polished hardwood. No scuffs, but then, there was no traffic in her house most days to mar the floors.

  She left her shoes by the door and walked into the middle of the living room, toes curled in the braided rug by a glass coffee table. She squeaked her finger over the glass, picking up a thin residue of dust, and rubbed it between her fingers as she turned around to study the room. The sofa and love seat were fashionable, big square cushions in dusty green with purple throw pillows for accents. There was an empty basket on the coffee table, meant to hold fruit. Alisha couldn’t remember the last time she’d been home long enough to bother filling it. She padded to the window, pulling drapes a few hues darker than the couch open to flood the room with afternoon sunlight. Dust sparkled in the light, making her nose wrinkle.

  Looking around the room left her cool and uncertain, as if she didn’t entirely belong. As if she visited the apartment, rather than lived there. Even the art on the walls went with the furniture more than it had any of her personality attached to it. All except one piece, she thought as she pushed her bedroom door open. Next to the bed hung a poster of Sean Astin as Samwise Gamgee, and she gave it a silly, teenybopper grin the way she always did. Beyond that—

  Beyond that, she didn’t feel as if she knew the person who lived there at all. Alisha sat down on the edge of her bed, then turned and curled up in it, drawing a pillow over her head in hopes of blocking the world away. It was a lousy course of action, but the only one that took no thought, and she felt remote from even her own thoughts.

  The feeling of displacement would pass; she knew that. There was even something of a familiarity to the distance her own thoughts seemed to be from herself. It felt not unlike moments of stillness in yoga, when everything came together and was for a brief instant clear. This was its antithesis, a holding place of silence where nothing seemed easy to understand. It could mean a dozen things, maybe nothing more profound than she was tired, or maybe that her mind was at work on a problem she wasn’t ready to acknowledge yet. Alisha wrapped her arm over her pillow, and let sleep wash away the uncomfortable silence in her head.

  “Alisha?”

  Alisha came awake reaching for a weapon that wasn’t at hand, then shoved her weight around, pivoting on her hip, to bring her leg in a broad sweep. Recognition settled in the instant before the kick connected, and she pointed her toe, slapping Erika’s hamstring with the arch of her foot instead of driving her heel into the muscle hard enough to cause a charley horse. Even knowing who was there, the move finished with Alisha’s fist drawn back as she came into a sitting position, a punch waiting to be thrown.

  Erika skittered back toward the door, her hands lifted and her eyes wide. “Whoa, babe, it’s just me, not the bad guys. Wow, what the hell was that about?”

  Alisha drew in a breath through flared nostrils, her jaw set and tight: the fight impulse on waking hadn’t taken into account the healing slice across her belly, and it shot needles of pain through her torso. It took a few long moments to breathe the pain away, and then to convince herself to lower her fist. She wet her lips twice before speaking, her voice rough and low from sleep. “Bad dreams, I guess. You okay?”

  “Yeah. You pulled the punch.” Erika looked down at her legs. “Kick. Whatever. You didn’t answer when I knocked, so I let myself in. I think I’m glad you didn’t have a gun.” She squinted. “Why didn’t you?”

  “It’s in my bag,” Alisha muttered. She raked her hair back, pulling it into a ponytail that she had no holder for. She climbed off the bed, lips pressed together, and went into the bathroom to find one. Erika followed at a judicious distance, stopping a few steps outside the door.

  “So does pulling the punch mean you’re not gonna kick my Yooper ass?”

  Alisha planted her hands on either side of the sink and lowered her head, watching a few curls escape the ponytail and dangle around her cheeks. “You were doing your job.”

  “Yeah,” Erika said, “so are you gonna kick my ass, or what?”

  “I don’t know. You going to apologize?”

  “For doing my job? No.” Erika shrugged, a motion Alisha could see from the corner of her eye. “For busting my friend? Yeah. Look, I really am sorry, Alisha.” She folded her arms under her breasts and shrugged again, uncomfortable. “The whole situation’s a mess. Nothing was the right choice, you know?” Her vowels looped up in the last two words, accent coming through strong.

  Alisha lifted her head enough to study her friend through the frame of the bathroom door. Erika wore a black leather biker’s jacket that hung loose on her slender frame, theoretically adding some bulk to go with a height a couple of inches greater than Alisha’s. To Alisha’s eye, the oversize jacket gave Erika an aura of waifishness, making her seem a little delicate and vulnerable. Her skin was sun-browned, freckles scattered across her cheeks, and long brown hair was lightened into paleness by summertime hiking. She wasn’t as fragile as she looked, but neither would she stand a chance in an honest knock-down drag-out with Alisha.

  “C’mon, Ali,” Erika said in a low voice. “I’m sorry.”

  Alisha sighed explosively and pushed away from the sink. “Yeah, I know. How’d you find me?”

  Erika twisted a smile. “I know you pretty well. You don’t take planes when you’re leaving a city. After you called I had a watch put on the train stations and car-rental agencies.”

  Alisha shook her head. “Knew I should’ve walked out. Damn it.” The reproach was for herself, not Erika, whom she glanced at again. “I’m not pissed. I mean, I am, but it’s cool. I don’t blame you. Did you bring dinner?”

  Relief brighten
ed Erika’s eyes. “It should be here in ten minutes. A pizza bigger than our torsos combined and enough pop to drown an elephant in.”

  “Elephants can breathe through their trunks,” Alisha pointed out. “Haven’t you ever seen pictures of them walking on the bottoms of lakes?”

  “It’s a lot of pop,” Erika promised. “And I brought ice cream. It’s melting all over your counter right now.”

  “What’re you trying to do, weigh me down so they can’t send me out again?”

  “No.” Erika puffed her cheeks out. “I figured you wouldn’t have much food here, and we’re going to need it.”

  “Why?”

  Erika crooked a smile. “I might’ve turned you in, Ali, but I’m not a total jerk. I brought everything I could dig up on Reichart. I mean…” She lifted an eyebrow curiously. “You’re not just gonna let him go, right?”

  Alisha felt a grin start to spread over her face, like a black dog leaving her shoulders. “Shit no, I’m not. You’re the light of my life, E. All is forgiven.”

  “Yeah?”

  “No,” Alisha said, grinning more widely, “but between pizza and soda and some good old-fashioned paper-shuffling, I’m willing to consider it. Show me what you found, Mighty Brain.” She shooed Erika out of the bedroom and sprawled on the living-room couch as the tech geek went into the kitchen to put the ice cream in the freezer.

  “Why am I doing this?” she asked as she went. “If I’m the Mighty Brain, that should make you the Mighty Brawn, and you should be doing the grunt work.”

  “Consider it penance,” Alisha suggested.

  “You’re not going to let me live this down, are you?”

  “Not until I’ve got all the answers I want,” Alisha said.

  “Dude, that could take years.”