Firebird (32 page)

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…”

Alexandra 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 religion.”  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.”

“The world has always been divided into them and us,” said Zacarias, gazing at Belankov’s platinum Rolex.  “Communism was a good idea badly executed.”

“I’m thinking of Gogol’s words,” said Belankov softly.  “‘Russia, where are you flying to?  Answer!  She gives no answer.’”

They were all silent.

“Serious questions for serious people,” rumbled Belankov suddenly.  “But far too serious for a party.  I’d rather tell Dr. Marik about my two friends, the new Russians who were driving to Disneyland, eh?  They came to a sign that said ‘Disneyland - Left.’  So they turned around and went home!  Ha!  Come, Anthony, your vodka is water for the soul, no?” 

He bent to Alexandra, murmuring in her ear.  “We will find time to speak privately.”

The men moved toward the bar.  Alexandra stood very still, then let her breath out slowly.  Count on it, she told the departing figures, her eyes on their backs.  All tall, strong, charismatic men.  Belankov swaggered.  Karpasian had a stiff yet graceful old-world gait.   Zacarias moved like a tiger. 

Her eyes scanned the crowded room. 
Where the hell was Garcia
?  

Anthony appeared at her side.  “So, Miss Scarlet, have you discovered that Colonel Mustard used a candlestick in my ballroom?”

“They’re all men with secrets, Anthony.  And the night is young.”  Turning toward him, she was surprised to see him once again watching the high entrance doors at the top of the stairway with ill-concealed expectation. 

“You’ve been staring at that entrance all evening,” she murmured. “Are you waiting for someone?”

He kept his eyes on the wide doorway.  “I told you I had a surprise for you tonight.  All things in good time, my dear.”

“I hate surprises,” muttered Alexandra. 

There was a rustle behind them, a sudden flurry and flashing of camera bulbs.  “Ah, here he is,” said Anthony, laying a hand on Alexandra’s shoulder.  “Not the surprise I’ve been waiting for, but the last member of our Club has arrived.  Doctor Alexandra Marik, may I present Senator David Valentin Rossinski?  Our next Vice President.”

She turned, very aware of the light tapping of the Senator’s cane on the polished parquet floor as he moved slowly toward her.

CHAPTER 33

“and theron heng a brooch...”

Chaucer,
The Canterbury Tales

The library at Foxwood was quiet, lit by pools of soft lamplight.  Anthony Rhodes poured cognac into three huge snifters and turned to Alexandra and the Senator.  “We can talk privately here.  Your Secret Service detail is just outside the door, Rossinski.  No one will bother us.”

Rhodes’ eyes swept the hunter green walls, deep crimson leather chairs, cherry wood shelves lined with gold-tooled classics and political tomes.  “This is my favorite place in Foxwood,” he said softly.  “I asked Eve to marry me right here in this room.”  He raised a hand to the large oil painting above the fireplace.  “She was happy here.  This is the way I want to remember her.”