The Firebird Deception

by Dermody, Cate

  As if the sirens were a signal for panic, Alisha’s ears began ringing with the babble of horrified, frightened voices lifting in fear all around her. She stumbled more than once as panicked early-morning Parisians pushed by, some running away from, and some running toward, the scene of violence. She felt Reichart’s hand tighten on hers, a warning not to run. Unnecessary warning, at least in theory, but she thought it was as much a reminder to himself as to her.

  Thirty steps down the street they rounded the corner, Reichart drawing her closer. “They’ll be looking for us together,” he murmured at the same time that Alisha said, “We need to split up.” They shared a smile that had nothing to do with pleasure.

  “The Louvre,” Alisha said. “At ten. Otherwise—”

  Reichart nodded and crossed the street. Alisha shoved her hands in her jeans pockets, discovering she still clutched the loose piece she’d picked up from the sidewalk. Rather than let it go, she knotted her fingers around it as if it were a talisman, then lifted her chin and hurried down the street, leaving Reichart behind.

  “Boyer’s dead.” Alisha sat by the Louvre’s reflecting pool, her head lowered as if she was speaking into a cell phone. Erika’s comm unit was in her palm, too conspicuous to use publicly without masking it.

  “What?” Shock made the question staticky as Erika’s voice rose.

  “A car bomb. Who else knew where he was?”

  “Jesus, Ali, I—I don’t know. Me, but I don’t know who else he told. You’re sure he’s dead?”

  Alisha closed her eyes, the imprint of the burning vehicle too clear in her memory. “Yeah. It was a setup. Somehow somebody knew.” It couldn’t have been Reichart, she told herself fiercely. She’d been with him constantly for more than twelve hours, since long before the meeting with Boyer had been arranged.

  But another memory invaded, the casual invitation to dinner in Rome that had ended with a Catholic cardinal dead and Alisha’s collarbone shattered by a bullet her fiancé had fired. Only three people had known where she would be that night, too, and one had betrayed her. Frank Reichart had betrayed her.

  “Brandon?” Erika asked. Alisha shook her head against her cupped palm.

  “I don’t know. I don’t see how, unless the drones were a distraction so someone or something else could follow us. It had to be someone who knew Boyer was coming. Erika, you’ve got to find out who he talked to before he left.”

  The tech geek at Langley sighed. “I’ll see if I can get his phone records and I’ll check the security tapes to see if anybody went through his office. It shouldn’t take long. I’ll comm you back when I’m done. Ali?”

  “What?” Alisha felt all the gentleness had been stripped from her, leaving nothing more than raw bones and a need for forward motion.

  “You should try to contact Greg. He’s in Europe and he’s next in line for Boyer’s job. Somebody needs to tell him what’s happened.”

  “Greg?” Alisha lifted her head, focusing on the pool’s water, watching the surface pock with occasional raindrop. “Is up for Boyer’s job?”

  “Boyer’d been talking about retiring, Ali. There’s been a lot of political shuffling around here. Greg’s been primed to move into the directorship on Boyer’s retirement for months.” Alisha could hear the disapproval in Erika’s voice. “You haven’t been paying attention.”

  “I haven’t been in the office much.” Alisha thinned her lips. “I’ll call him. Get back to me as soon as you can, E.”

  “He hasn’t been answering his phone. Like some other people I know.” Erika let out a sigh that said she was pushing away exasperation, and added, “Yeah. I’ll comm you when I know something. Bye.” The comm blooped off and Alisha closed her hand around it, still staring at without seeing the surrounding city. There was no way Boyer could have survived the blast. What little, desperate hope she’d held had dissipated when she finally looked at the heavy piece she’d slipped on on the sidewalk. It wasn’t concrete at all, or a torn piece of metal from the vehicle.

  It was the black box, battered and scarred but still whole. Alisha had watched Boyer slip it into his left breast pocket. Its material assured it was nearly indestructible, but the man who’d carried it was far more fragile. Any explosion strong enough to throw the box free would unquestionably have torn the man in the driver’s seat apart.

  Alisha knotted her hand around the box, her shoulders hunched as she stared down at it. Regardless of what else she did, she would find whoever was responsible for Boyer’s death and see them come to justice.

  “I didn’t recognize you.” Reichart spoke from a few yards away, voice pitched to carry only as far as Alisha’s ears. She turned her head, then followed suit with her whole body, studying the man standing beyond the nearest corner of the pool.

  He seemed to have somehow lost thirty pounds in the past two hours, gaunt angles to cheekbones that had always been sharp. His hair was white-blond and gelled into short curls, and the usual darkness of his eyes was now startlingly blue. His clothing had been changed, less in style than in color: a white leather trench coat, soft and supple, hung over a silk shirt so pale blue it was almost colorless, and over sharply pressed white pants. Alisha wagered on more weapons than she could count being hidden beneath the bright costume.

  “That was the idea,” she said after a moment. “Although you should have. We’re a matched pair.” She slid the box into her jacket, then flicked her fingers at her own outfit, as new as Reichart’s. Bronzing lotion had darkened her skin to the deepest shade she could believably carry off, and her eyes were still light from the Mona personality’s contacts. Her own hair had been bleached blond, as well, surpassing its usual tawny shade and contrasting sharply with her newly dark skin.

  The trench coat she wore was thigh-length and daringly sleeveless, showing off her biceps, but as blazingly white as Reichart’s. Her forearms were wrapped in fingerless leather gloves, offering both protection and disguise for bruising, and the puncture in her biceps was tied off with a red bandana. The snug-fitting tank top she wore was scoop-necked and crimson instead of Reichart’s blue. She wore jeans, not slacks, and flexible, heavy boots that she’d already slipped knife sheaths into.

  Alisha rarely felt so much like Leesh, the combat-trained fighting machine, as she did in the white leather and red. She could feel the impulse to flex her fingers and find something to hit itching in her palms, waiting for action. She quashed it, promising herself that she’d have the opportunity to unleash soon. “I know we didn’t go shopping at the same store, but damn, Reichart. We are not inconspicuous.”

  “Sometimes being glaringly obvious is as good as being invisible.”

  “We’d better hope so, because God himself couldn’t miss us in these outfits.”

  Reichart gave her a thin smile. “At least we look like we belong together. If we get through this with the gear intact we should go out clubbing.”

  “I thought you didn’t dance.”

  “I’ve gotten over myself since then.”

  So have I, Alisha didn’t say, in part because it was needlessly mean and in part because she wasn’t sure it was true. “I just talked to Erika,” she said instead. “She’s looking into who else knew Boyer was going to be here, and wants me to get in touch with Greg.”

  Reichart’s jaw worked, sure sign of him swallowing words and choosing different ones. “You sure that’s wise, under the circumstances?”

  “Reichart, I haven’t been sure of anything since you got me into this whole mess.” Alisha pushed through her thighs, standing up from the pool’s edge. “But Greg’s more likely to get us to Simone than anybody else, at this point, and since that’s where Boyer was going before he died, that’s where I want to be going.” She heard flint in her voice, a categorical denial of emotion. Giving in to grief and anger had to be constructive. Later she could mourn.

  The memory of Reichart’s hands on her hips, eyes dark as he watched her above him, came on abruptly, making Alisha glad of the bronzin
g lotion that could hide blushes. There were worse ways to mourn the fallen. The previous night had been as much about Alisha’s acceptance of Brandon’s betrayal as Reichart’s sorrow over Helen. If there was more to it than mutual need tied together with familiarity and a degree of convenience, it could be explored later. Alisha wasn’t yet ready to consider the possibility of more.

  “You’ve changed, Leesh.” Reichart spoke quietly, making Alisha’s shoulders stiffen. “You always used to wear your heart on your sleeve. You could turn it on and off, but I used to be able to see you make the switch.”

  “I’m a lot older than I was when we were together, Frank.”

  “It’s more than that.”

  “Blame the job.” Blame the moment she’d clobbered Reichart in the head and had not even a twinge of remorse. She closed her eyes and breathed, “’Cause I felt nothing,” almost tunelessly.

  Reichart rumbled deep in his throat. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “Not as afraid as I am. Come on.” Alisha pushed the line of thought away. “I need to find a phone.”

  “Do you still wish to tell me this is not a love story?”

  Alisha breathed a laugh and put her forehead against the side of the pay phone, closing her eyes. She could almost feel Reichart standing a few yards away, watching her with the insolent, possessive concern of a wealthy man who could afford to let the beauty on his arm go for a little while. She would come back, his arrogant expression said, because there was no one else worthy of her time.

  Under other circumstances there might have been a certain heady joy in wearing the dramatic matching costumes. Even in Paris, heads turned, smiles directed at the small dark woman matching strides with the tall slender man. Despite the approving attention, Alisha kept her hands relaxed only through conscious effort. As soon as her focus strayed, she found them balling into fists. Even now she felt the leather cutting into her palms, and deliberately opened her hand to put it against the phone’s box. “I’m not sure what to call it right now, Jon. Besides, how do you know I’m with Reichart?”

  A laugh rumbled over the phone line. “It is my occupation to know, no? And this is why you call me. My little bird has flown her cage, and now the cage itself is shattering. This is three favors, mia cara. Someday I will need something and you will not be able to tell me no.”

  Alisha pressed her eyelids harder shut. “I haven’t even asked for anything, Jon.”

  “But you never write, you never call,” the big man teased gently. “Until you want something. And I will tell you what you want, but someday, little bird.”

  “I know.” Alisha wet her lips and lifted her head, turning her focus down the street. “I know, Jon.”

  “No.” Jon’s smooth voice filled with cold steel, making Alisha straighten in wary anticipation. “You do not know, little bird. What I will tell you is very dangerous, dangerous to me. You will not contact me again after this phone call, and you will not hear from me until this debt is to be repaid. You will not hear from my people, and they will not see you. My little bird is on a wire, and it is not strong enough for a man like me to balance on, capisce?”

  “I understand.” Alisha’s head felt light, her voice hollow, and she deliberately flexed her feet against the insides of her boots, making sure she was grounded.

  “I wish to be certain you do,” Jon said, warning rumble coming through the line. “I do not wish to threaten you, little bird—”

  “Then don’t,” Alisha said harshly. Jon went on as if she hadn’t spoken.

  “—but you must know that there is nothing that cannot be had by the right men with the right persuasions. Even strongboxes locked away in banks.”

  Ice sluiced down Alisha’s throat as she tilted her head back, staring at the sky. The idea of having her journals discovered was one she liked to cling to, but in her imagination they were only found after her own death. To have someone—an information broker, no less—aware of them in her lifetime was a thought she hadn’t let herself fully consider.

  “I’ve already left the cage, Jon,” she said in a raw, light voice. “Those can’t ruin me at this point.”

  “No,” he agreed, “but how many names in them might ruin others? Do we truly understand each other now, little bird?”

  “Yes,” Alisha whispered. “Yes, I think we do.”

  “Good,” Jon said. “Then this is what you need to know.”

  Chapter 28

  I make it my business to know. Jon’s words lingered in Alisha’s memory, their simplicity giving lie to the power that they indicated. Spies, couriers, assets and agents, all manner of men and women trucking with the underworld and espionage: to know where any individual piece was on the board at any given time required a network and loyalties beyond anything the CIA inspired. Personal charisma, old favors and the heavy hand of blackmail all fed Jon’s information stream.

  And for the first time, Alisha was on the wrong side of it. I should have worn black, she thought incongruously. Not that it would have hidden her from Jon’s latticework of accomplices any better; not that it would make slipping around the back side of a warehouse in broad daylight any less conspicuous. Gleaming leather outfits, whether black or white, were not subtle. Regardless, in black, Alisha would have felt slightly less like she was glowing whenever sunlight brushed over her.

  Not that she was sneaking. There was no reason to, except the habit of thought. Reichart had circled the building from the other direction, both of them noting enormous double doors at one end of the warehouse and, without discussion, opting to find a less ostentatious entrance. An itchy thrill along Alisha’s spine warned her that it was dangerous to split their forces, but for the tenth time she reminded herself there was no expectation of enemy action inside the warehouse.

  Expectation of enemy action. She shook her head and smiled without humor as she strode toward an ordinary door at the warehouse’s far end. It was the sort of cool, rational phrase the Agency preferred: no emotional content to it. Now, as ever, she didn’t like finding herself using those unsentimental idioms, even—or especially—in the privacy of her own mind. What you really mean, Leesh, is that you don’t think anybody’s going to try to blow you up.

  Boyer had also not expected anyone to try to blow him up. Alisha hesitated with her hand on the knob, chin lowered as she took a deep breath, searching for her center. Later, she promised herself fiercely. Later there would be time to mourn. Now she had bad news and a black box to deliver to Greg, and a rendezvous to arrange with Susan Simone. The European director wouldn’t be happy to see her, but Alisha pulled another faint smile. She was far past caring what the authorities in her line of work were happy about.

  She turned her wrist up, regardless of knowing there was no watch there. The action seemed to trigger the mental countdown she’d begun: two minutes from leaving Reichart; they were both supposed to enter the warehouse from different directions. Twelve seconds left. Alisha overrode the impulse to go in with a drawn gun. There was a meeting going on beyond the warehouse doors, and a warning from Jon’s intelligence lingered in her mind: He will be meeting with others. I am not certain of their loyalties.

  There had been something in Jon’s voice that had triggered alarm, but there was no time to ask questions. The conversation had been over, Alisha left holding a dead line. Greg was incommunicado from Langley, not armed and dangerous, she reminded herself. The reason he’d walked was to go after his badly behaved protégé.

  And she no longer trusted him, much less anyone he was meeting with. Still, going in with guns blazing would assure a bad situation, and there was too much to be said to risk it.

  Zero seconds. Alisha turned the handle, hearing the click, and pushed the door open.

  Rectangles of light spilled across the warehouse floor from two angles, her door and Reichart’s, their shadows cast long. The air rang with the silence of voices cutting off, and before her eyes had completely adjusted to the change in light, Alisha heard her name barked out
in utter surprise.

  Greg broke away from the trio of silhouettes in the middle of the warehouse, taking a few long running strides before falling back into a more cautious pace. “Alisha?” he repeated. “What—how—Reichart?”

  Alisha managed a brief smile as she matched Reichart’s gait, the two of them flanking and converging on Greg as he stood alone, apart from his compatriots. “It’s a long story, Greg.” Her vision settled in the light-and-dark of the warehouse and she glanced beyond him, betraying surprise with an upward dart of her eyebrows. “Director Simone,” she said carefully. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  Below her words, Reichart growled, “Parker,” but his gaze was fixed on the third man in the warehouse, not on Greg. Brandon Parker inclined his head, such a stiff motion Alisha thought it must hurt to make.

  I am not certain of their loyalties, Jon whispered at the back of Alisha’s mind. No wonder, she thought now. Not with the Parkers making up two-thirds of the meeting. No wonder he’d considered the information dangerous. Alisha knew very clearly what happened when the Sicarii no longer regarded an asset as useful.

  “Agent MacAleer,” Simone said sharply. “Gregory was just explaining how it was that you’d seen fit to give yourself fresh orders and blatantly ignore mine.”

  “With all due respect, Director,” Alisha said, not bothering to hide the insolence in her voice, “we’ve got bigger problems than that right now. Boyer is dead.”

  Something indescribable and nasty contorted Greg’s features for an instant after Alisha spoke. Not grief. Not even surprise, though both of those things were in place almost before she had time to recognize they’d been misplaced for that brief space of time. There was no time to hold on to the idea of what that expression told her, though she could all but feel herself filing it away for later examination.