Firebird (44 page)

Her sister’s killer was in one of these photographs.

As Alexandra adjusted her glasses and prepared to look into the eyes of the young hunter, she pictured, one by one, the famous figures and faces she had scrutinized so carefully at the Foxwood reception.  She knew in her heart that the hunter in the photograph would be Zee Zacarias, Rens Karpasian or David Rossinski.

But would she be able to recognize him?  The fire, or plastic surgery, or simply age, could have altered his face completely.

Holding her breath, she leaned closer.  The hunter’s young face was small, shadowed, difficult to see clearly.  But the Russian Prince’s eyes in the old photograph stared back at her, piercing and familiar.  In spite of the differences wrought by so many years and, quite possibly, by medical procedures, she was almost certain that she recognized the man called Ivan.

She held up her phone and snapped three quick close-up photographs.  As she blew out the small candle and moved with quick silent steps through the darkness, all she could think of was her sister.

I’ve found him, Eve.  I know who Ivan is
.

ACT III

THE COURT OF PRINCE IVAN

“the Firebird escapes, to dance alone...”

CHAPTER 46

“Flee as a bird to your mountain.”

Psalms, 11:1

BRIGHTON BEACH

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30

He was holding his beautiful Firebird in his arms.

As he bent to kiss her, there was a bright flash of light from the left.

Suddenly, as if from a great distance, he heard the ominous warning of the orchestra’s horns.  He raised his head.

Over her feathered shoulder, the painted jade leaves of the Czar’s forest trembled.  When he saw the spark of the flames against the dark foliage, he thought at first it was the fierce shine of the Firebird brooch.  Then the lights went out.

It all happened at once.  Shouts in Russian and English, choking smoke and darkness, hot searing flames.  The painted forest behind him burst suddenly into orange fire. 

There was a roaring noise in his ears, and a great flash of red light.

“Tatyana!” he shouted desperately.  He heard her scream his name.  Then he saw the bright red feathers erupt with fire, and she was engulfed in flames.

“Tatyana!”

He couldn’t breathe.  He was being smothered.  He fought the thick smoke and struggled to sit up.

“Where are you?” he gasped into the darkness.

Ivan flung out his arms, clawing at the blankets tangled around his face.  He blinked into the gloom, saw the thin curtains lit with light, and groaned.  He was in the apartment he kept in Brighten Beach, rented under another name.  It was – what? – Saturday.  The end of October.   Not September…  There was no London stage, no fire.  No Tatyana.

Cursing in Russian, he pushed the blanket away from his sweating body.  After all these years, he still could taste the choking black smoke that had seared his lungs, feel the flames scorch his body, hear the terrified screams as he dragged himself across the burning stage.

He could still see his beloved Firebird burst into flames.

He let out his breath and reached for the glass he’d left on the nightstand in the hours before dawn.  He gulped down the last inch of vodka and blinked at his watch.  After nine.  He was supposed to meet Panov at the boathouse. But the dream was still with him.  As real as yesterday.  He leaned back against the pillows and stared at the high ceiling.

So many unanswered questions.  What was Tatyana about to whisper in his ear that night?  And what had happened to the Firebird brooch he’d given her, just moments before the flames engulfed her?

He closed his eyes.  More than forty years since that night in London, and still he dreamed of fire...

Flames were the last thing he remembered before swimming back to consciousness.  Plane engines throbbed beneath him, sending lightening bolts of agony through his burning body.

He’d cried out Tatyana’s name, then felt the sting of the hypodermic and blessed darkness.

When he’d regained consciousness, he was in a hospital room.  Everything white.  They wouldn’t tell him where he was, only that he was safe, in Canada.  All he could see out the window were pines and sky and mountains in the distance brushed by frost and early winter light.  Not September.

“Where is Tatyana?”  he’d begged over and over.  “What happened to us?”

“There was a fire,” said the doctor, finally, in a distant voice.  “An accident.”

“Tatyana?”

“I’m sorry.  They brought her body back to Russia for burial.”

“Nyet, nyet,” he whispered, his heart twisted by grief.  “It wasn’t supposed to be this way...” 

“Three dancers lost their lives.”  The doctor laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.  “You were the lucky one, my friend.”

No!  No!  Again, the sting of welcome darkness.  That night, the nightmares of fire began.

The third time he’d awakened, he’d refused the pain killer.  In those long, dark hours he’d become aware of a terrible throbbing agony, and understood that he would never dance the role of Prince Ivan again.

Or any role at all.  Yet they said he was the lucky one.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way
.

And so began the long agonizing struggle back to health - and his new life.  Doctors, drugs and operations, wrenching physical therapy, then books and memorizing, photographs and documents and endless language practice.  To his great surprise he found that he was intrigued by the politics and democracy of the West, and discovered that he had an impressive aptitude for languages and history.

And there was, afterall, no one waiting for him.

He was moved to a small apartment near the hospital.  The trees were turning green with buds, the days growing warmer.  Then one day he’d looked out the window and been surprised by an early april snow.  Huge fat flakes that brought memories rushing back of the small house in the forests north of Leningrad.  He’d pressed his face to the window like a child - and seen a stranger staring back at him.  His face had escaped most of the flames, it was true, but he was much thinner and harder now, with prematurely white hair and a dark, remote look in his sunken eyes.  The constant pain from the injuries showed in the lines on his face.

He’d heard the door open, and turned to see a man standing just behind him, holding out a thick briefcase. 

“Your new identity,” said the Russian.  “I am your Control, Prince Ivan.”

“My name is Sergei.  Not Ivan.”

“Sergei no longer exists.  He died in a fire in London eight months ago.  Your code name now is Prince Ivan.  You will leave for the United States next month, with your new identity and background.  You will complete your education. A wife has been chosen for you.”

A wife...

How could he love anyone else?  There was only Tatyana.

Now, in a shadowed bedroom in Brooklyn so many years later, the man who had become Prince Ivan made a sound deep in his throat.

He’d been a boy in Russia, an artist and a patriot, who’d readily agreed to the adventure of an arranged defection to New York.  An idealist who dreamed of starting over in the West with his beautiful Tatyana, of dancing one day with the great Balanchine.  It would be an honor, he’d vowed, to work secretly for his beloved Mother Russia - and to give his own struggling mother and baby sister the two-bedroom apartment in Leningrad they’d always longed for, far away from the howl of the wolves.

His father would be so proud.

But the boy and his dreams had disappeared into the raging flames.  And the man who woke up in the Canadian forests, rising like the legendary Firebird from the ashes, would never dance again, nevermore feel the gentle touch of his lover.

It was why he’d needed the forests, why he’d found the lodge in the mountains and disappeared as often as he could, to be alone, to remember, to hold onto that one secret part of himself.

And yet - he’d followed his instructions and honored his commitment.  He’d crossed the Canadian border in darkness, on a cold spring night, and never looked back.  An ivy-league education, where he’d “met” his wealthy future wife and was accepted without question as an American-born student with Eastern European parents, was only the beginning.  He studied law and foreign policy, traveled, was introduced to New England’s high society.  His Soviet handlers had supported him every step of the way, with faultless birth, education and work documents.

Finally he was ready, settling in Washington in the mid-seventies during Gerald Ford’s presidency - all according to plan, except for his wife’s untimely death.  Suddenly a millionaire, he was now a brilliant and charming widower with a romantic Eastern European accent, well-versed in international politics and the arts and a major contributor to the Republican Party, and he’d had no trouble being accepted into the Washington social and political scene. 

He’d never mourned, never asked if his wife’s death was planned as well.

And the years had passed in a blur of fundraising, dinners, and higher-and-higher-level meetings.  By 1989, he was so well-known and respected in powerful Republican circles that his friendship with George Bush, Sr., and the eventual Presidential appointments, were inevitable.

And then two cataclysmic events had occurred that changed his life forever
.

Glasnost had caused tremendous upheaval in Moscow.  The KGB gone.  And in the Kremlin’s secret underground rooms, thousands of files lost, stolen or destroyed.  Including Operation Firebird.

Just days later, his first Control’s life had ended unexpectedly and much too soon, celebrating Glasnost on an icy ski-slope in West Virginia after a long night of women and too much vodka.

And suddenly he was free.  Free and forgotten
. 

The old guard was gone, replaced by younger
New Russians
- business tycoons and politicians, colonels and criminals - all intent on privatization, on making their millions.  No one remembered, or cared about, one forgotten spy.

And yet, in his heart, he was still a Russian.  For almost two decades now, he’d “run” himself, sending information to Moscow’s power-du-jour under the code name Ivan.  He smiled grimly.  He’d found a career that satisfied him, and the unknown Ivan had become quite the legend in Russia and the West’s inner intelligence circles.

Until, somehow, just weeks ago, his file –
his real identity
! - had resurfaced.  How, he still didn’t know.  But it had landed in Eve Rhodes’ beautiful hands.  Then the old hard-liners from St. Petersburg had sent Panov to track him down.  And after so many years of being lost, the Firebird was found.  

Now, with the new Republican Administration poised to take control once again, he was slated for the most important assignment of his career.  All he had to do was perform one more task in the name of Mother Russia...

Tomorrow night, he would follow his orders.  He would initiate the election chaos they wanted, create an extraordinary opportunity for a Russian agent to gain a position of power and trust in the United States government.  All he had to do was aim and pull a trigger, and his good friend would die.

I am still a Russian in my soul
.  There is still such a thing as honor. 

He flung the bed clothes to the floor and stood naked in the center of the room.  But before anything else, he had to find a way to deal with Alexandra Marik.

Would he be able to save her life?

His heart was pounding in his chest.  He’d already missed his meeting with Panov this morning – by choice.  He moved to the narrow window, pulled the thin curtain aside.  Snow!  He pressed his forehead to the cold glass.  He needed the hushed forests, the snow-covered trees.

The last act was about to begin.  He needed a place to think.

In the final act of the Firebird ballet, Ivan remembered suddenly, the Prince returns one final time to the Palace Court of his past - to search for his future, and meet his fate...

He turned away from the snow-filled window, reached for his cell phone and dialed his assistant.  He would not be coming to his office today.

He turned, caught his reflection in the distorted mirror.  And then he remembered.  Today was his birthday.

CHAPTER 47

“For I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep...”

Robert Frost

NEW YORK CITY

Sleep is no longer a friend, thought Alexandra as she hurried down the rear hall of the Baranski Gallery.  The long, empty hallway was lit by the dawn’s pearl light flooding though the high windows.

She’d tossed and turned for hours as confused images of Tatyana Danilova raced through her mind.  Finally, she’d given up, and now her footsteps echoed hollowly on the hard marble.  Shifting the Starbucks container to her left hand, she reached for her keys and fumbled with the new lock on her office door.  The door opened on her third try and she scanned the cluttered desk.  Everything seemed to be in order.

She dropped her coat on a precarious pile of books, kicked off her boots and curled her feet beneath her on the desk chair as she clicked on the radio.  The newswoman’s voice was low and serious.  More bad news, no doubt.

“…seeing our first light snow of the season here in the city, quite early for this time of year, and we’re expecting a foot or more in the higher elevations.  Tomorrow, Halloween, will be extremely cold.  Trick or treaters will have to wear heavy coats under their costumes, I’m afraid. ”