The Phoenix

by Sidney Sheldon

  ‘Like I said, it’s possible,’ Gabriel admitted grudgingly. ‘Ella’s also picked up web activity indicating that Mak’s been researching various access routes to the convent on Sikinos, including tidal patterns.’

  ‘A surprising level of effort and direct involvement for a man of his importance if it isn’t Athena,’ Redmayne pointed out.

  ‘True,’ Gabriel nodded. ‘But, we won’t know until we know.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Redmayne. ‘Which is why we need an agent in that convent. How soon can Ella be extricated from Mykonos?’

  ‘Ella?’ Gabriel scowled into his coffee. ‘Ella’s not the best operative for the job, sir. She’s far too inexperienced.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I’d say she’s done pretty well so far, wouldn’t you?’ Redmayne brushed the crumbs from his lips with a linen napkin.

  ‘Yes, sir. But her work on Mykonos was different.’

  ‘I don’t see how.’

  ‘It was intelligence gathering,’ said Gabriel, through gritted teeth.

  ‘So is this,’ said Redmayne. ‘We send her in, she takes one of those “mental photographs” of hers that Professor Dixon keeps waxing lyrical about, confirms Sister Elena’s identity and leaves.’

  ‘With respect, sir, that’s ops. If Elena is Athena, Ella will be in significant danger and you know it.’

  ‘In case you haven’t noticed,’ said Redmayne, choosing to let the insolence go, ‘she’s been under the same roof as Makis Alexiadis for weeks now. Arguably one of the most dangerous men on the planet.’

  ‘Which I advised against,’ Gabriel reminded him.

  ‘Hmm,’ Redmayne grunted. ‘Well, I don’t know what to tell you, Gabe. You were wrong then and you’re wrong now. The young lady is far more capable and more resourceful than you give her credit for.’ He waved a hand airily, as if he could swat away the risks of the Sikinos expedition like a pesky fly. ‘She’s brave. Like her mother,’ he added, a dreamy, nostalgic look flitting briefly across his face.

  Gabriel could have punched him. How could he bring up Rachel Praeger at a time like this? Had he no shame at all?

  ‘Ella’s already proved she can handle Big Mak, which is no mean feat as we both know,’ Redmayne went on. ‘All she has to do is identify “Elena”, not engage her. She’ll be fine.’

  ‘Sir.’

  Gabriel gritted his teeth, but inside he simmered with anger like a slowly boiling kettle. The boss was trying to frame his negligence for Ella’s safety as some sort of compliment, a sign of his ‘faith’ in her, when in fact all he wanted was to hurl her recklessly into the lion’s den. It was almost as if he wanted something terrible to happen to her. Wanted her to be killed. Although, of course, that made no sense.

  ‘You said yourself last week that Ella needed an exit strategy from Villa Mirage,’ said Redmayne, sensing Gabriel’s disquiet and cleverly using his own words against him. ‘That she couldn’t be expected to hold Makis Alexiadis off forever. That she’d already gleaned whatever useful information was to be had from inside that house and we ought to pull her out.’

  ‘I meant pull her out and bring her home,’ snapped Gabriel, exasperated. ‘Or at least back to relative safety in Athens. Not pull her out and send her to confront one of the most dangerous women in the world.’

  ‘Potentially most dangerous,’ Redmayne replied archly, reminding Gabriel of his own doubts about Sister Elena’s identity. ‘As you said yourself, she may just be a go-between. Besides, Ella’s eager to go.’

  ‘You already discussed it with her?’

  ‘Via Nikkos Anastas,’ Redmayne said nonchalantly, ignoring his agent’s dismay. ‘She was keen.’

  ‘Well of course she was keen,’ Gabriel said bitterly. ‘After what you told her about her parents’ deaths? She wants vengeance.’

  ‘What we told her,’ Redmayne corrected him sternly. ‘You’re a part of this too, Gabriel. In case you’d forgotten.’

  Gabriel hadn’t forgotten. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  ‘Sometimes we have to tell people what they need to hear,’ Redmayne rationalized, the way that people without a conscience seemed to do with such blithe ease. ‘Never lose sight of the big picture, Gabriel. The greater good.’

  He drained the last of his coffee, setting the cup back down with finality.

  ‘So. You’re to let Ella know we’ll be extracting her from Mykonos very soon and bringing her back to Athens, to prep her for the Sikinos mission. I’ve given Nikkos four days to organize her new cover.’

  Gabriel shook his head but said nothing. Four days wasn’t long enough. It was nowhere near long enough. But Redmayne wasn’t about to change his mind. Besides which, even Gabriel could see the importance of getting someone inside the Convent of the Sacred Heart as soon as possible, before ‘Sister Elena’ pulled another disappearing act. If indeed she was Athena Petridis, the last time she vanished, nobody heard so much as a whisper from her for twelve long years.

  ‘Remember, all Ella has to do is take the shot and ID her,’ Redmayne said, trying to sound reassuring. ‘If it is Athena, we’ll have an experienced team ready to go in afterwards and do what needs to be done. I won’t put Ella at any more risk than I have to, you have my word on that.’

  Your word! Gabriel thought bitterly. As if that’s worth the paper it’s written on.

  ‘I heard about what happened to the Kouvlaki brothers,’ he observed, deadpan, changing the subject in a way he knew would disconcert Redmayne, and hopefully wipe the smug smile off his face. ‘The murders. The brandings.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ To Gabriel’s irritation, Redmayne gave nothing away. ‘Nasty business.’

  ‘An “A” and a “P” apparently,’ said Gabriel. ‘Some sort of message from Athena?’

  ‘One assumes so,’ drawled Redmayne.

  ‘Unless she was set up,’ muttered Gabriel. ‘Someone using her calling card to make it look like she ordered the hit?’

  Redmayne didn’t flinch. ‘I don’t think so. Not that it matters vastly. I mean, obviously we won’t be shedding any tears over Perry and Andreas.’

  ‘Obviously,’ nodded Gabriel. ‘So you don’t know anything more about the killings then?’

  Redmayne raised an eyebrow languidly. ‘More?’

  Gabriel looked at him directly. ‘Are we sure Athena was behind them?’

  Redmayne returned his glare without blinking. ‘You tell me, Gabriel. Are we sure? I am. But perhaps the question is, are you?’

  Walking down the rue du Boccador a few minutes later, Gabriel tried to block out the sinking feeling pulling his heart down into the pit of his belly. He had Mark Redmayne’s ‘word’ on protecting Ella. But too many of the boss’s words had turned out to be lies over the years, or at least half-truths – like whatever it was he was hiding about the Kouvlakis’ killings. Redmayne’s lies were always in the service of The Group, of course, and the ‘greater good’. But the ease with which falsehoods slipped off the man’s tongue was unsettling. It reminded Gabriel of his father, someone he did his best on a daily basis to forget.

  As for not putting Ella at risk, was that the truth? Gabriel couldn’t get a handle on the boss’s motives when it came to Ella, and it bothered him. On the one hand, he obviously prized her highly as The Group’s new secret weapon. As the human receiver, the biological super-camera, an intelligence tool beyond the dreams of even the CIA, he wouldn’t want anything to happen to her. On the other hand, as a human being he appeared at best indifferent towards her and at worst to harbor an active dislike, despite his nostalgic ‘affection’ for her mother. It was almost as if Mark Redmayne feared Ella Praeger in some way. Although again, Gabriel couldn’t for the life of him imagine why that might be.

  Redmayne’s word meant nothing. Gabriel could only pray that, in the end, Ella’s precious abilities would protect her, not just from Redmayne but from all the other myriad dangers that a life in The Group would expose her to.

  Because the bitter truth was that Gabriel
couldn’t protect Ella. Just as he’d been unable to protect Mira, all those years ago.

  That was the part that hurt the most.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Miriam waited for Persephone Hamlin to finish her espresso, watching from the Gucci boutique across the street as her rival pulled some notes out of her purse and left them on the table.

  Miriam had thought about leaving Mykonos numerous times since Makis Alexiadis threw her over. Lisette and Arabella had long since cut their losses and run, knowing as Miriam did that they were lucky to be alive. Rumor had it that not all of Mak’s exes had survived to tell the tale. And it wasn’t as if Miriam didn’t have options. Another wealthy admirer had invited her to join him on his yacht in Ibiza, and an ex-boyfriend whom Miriam had stayed close to over the years had extended an open invitation for her to come and stay at his ‘party bastide’ in St Tropez.

  ‘Forget the Greek,’ he’d texted her just last week. ‘Come hang at the Voile Rouge for a few days and let your hair down. You know you want to!’

  It was tempting. But not as tempting as knocking the strange, boy-woman Persephone off the pedestal that Mak had decided to put her on. Miriam could give up Makis Alexiadis if she had to, but she wasn’t about to cede her position as his sex object of choice to this alien-faced, kookily dressed freak who, if the rumors were true, was still rejecting his advances.

  Frustratingly, a week of research had so far yielded nothing that Miriam could use against her. The few fragments of Persephone’s ‘story’ that Miriam knew all appeared to check out when she searched online: the addict husband, the rich American parents, the house in Los Angeles. But still, Miriam’s instincts screamed that something about this chick was off. That if she just waited – and watched – a little longer, she would catch her out.

  In the beginning, Persephone spent almost all her time in the luxurious confines of Villa Mirage. On the rare occasions when she ventured out, she and Mak were always together. For two people who claimed not to be a couple, they looked suspiciously close. Mak was always opening doors and pulling out chairs for her. There was a lot of laughter too between them. Intimate asides, private jokes, his hands placed lovingly on one of her shoulders or the small of her back. It rankled, watching him lavish affection on this unworthy American in a way he had never done with her. But the worst part for Miriam was knowing that she wouldn’t see anything significant or incriminating while Mak was present. She needed to catch Persephone alone.

  Today might finally be the day!

  Hiding the entire top half of her face behind a pair of oversized, Oliver Peoples sunglasses, Miriam slipped out of the store and followed at a safe distance as Persephone left the café and walked down the steep hill towards the harbor. This was the third morning in a row she’d ventured out into town without Makis. On each occasion she’d drunk a single coffee by herself and then simply wandered the streets, not shopping or going to the spa or doing anything, other than occasionally checking her phone.

  Today she seemed to be following the same pattern, weaving her way through the morning crowd of tourists, pretending to look at boats. Except this time, she was more anxious than usual, stopping frequently to look around and behind her. More than once Miriam had to duck into a store or double back on herself so as not to appear to be following her, but Persephone didn’t seem to notice her at all. Instead, apparently satisfied that she was safe and alone, she departed from her usual route and took a sharp left turn into an alleyway behind the Friday fish market.

  This was not a part of town where any wealthy foreigner had any business being. Rotting fish heads and empty crates, still reeking of the previous day’s catch, littered cobblestones still slick with blood and scales and spilled drinks, the detritus of a busy morning’s trade. Two large, ugly plastic trash cans were wedged against a crumbling wall on one side, while on the other a pair of mangy cats eyed one another jealously as they searched for scraps.

  While Miriam hung back behind a plane tree on the corner, out of sight, Persephone made a last check before pulling a cell phone that Miriam hadn’t seen before out of her rattan purse. She made a call of around five minutes’ duration. Miriam was too far away to hear anything that was said, but the urgent way in which Persephone’s lips moved and her agitated hand gestures implied it was a fraught conversation. When it ended, Miriam watched, wide-eyed, as Persephone disassembled the phone, discarding the separate pieces – battery and handset – in different trash cans before slipping what must have been the SIM card into her pocket. Moments later, having once again checked she was alone, Persephone exited the alley by the other end and hailed a taxi, hopping inside and speeding off before Miriam had a chance to follow.

  Not that she needed one. What she’d just seen was enough.

  Her heart pounding, she dialed Mak’s private number. Predictably it went straight to message – the days when he automatically picked up Miriam’s calls were gone. But this time, Miriam knew he would call her back. His reluctance at engaging with former lovers was nothing compared to his paranoia. She made sure the message she left sounded suitably alarming.

  ‘I have something important to tell you,’ she whispered. ‘As a friend. You may be in danger.’

  When he called back, she would insist they meet in person. And she would downplay the incident. ‘Perhaps it was nothing, but …’ ‘There may be a simple explanation …’ ‘I just thought you’d want to know …’

  If Persephone Hamlin really was trying to double-cross Mak, she’d just dug her own grave.

  Ella looked critically at her reflection in the mirror, fiddling with the diamond drop earrings Makis had given her last week and wishing her hair weren’t so short. In a full-length, clinging, backless gown in midnight blue silk, and five-inch silver Louboutin heels, she felt like a little girl playing dress up. Gabriel had insisted she ‘make an effort’ for tonight’s dinner; to be sure that, for once, she looked the part of the wealthy heiress and that, when she departed Alexiadis’s presence, she left him wanting more.

  ‘He wants more anyway,’ Ella responded bluntly. ‘He’s attracted to the fact that Persephone doesn’t make an effort.’

  ‘Tonight is different,’ Gabriel insisted. ‘He won’t want you to leave. You must give him some sign that you don’t want to either. That you are trying to keep his interest. That you will return to him. If he believes that, he’s more likely to let you go.’

  Ella wasn’t convinced of the strategy, if that’s what it was. All these conflicting signals and double bluffs were making her head spin. But she’d gone along with it anyway, partly because she didn’t want another battle with Gabriel, who was already upset about her being sent undercover to the convent on Sikinos, and partly because she was nervous. What if Mak didn’t ‘let her go’? It wasn’t her personal safety that bothered Ella so much as the idea that she might miss her window to find Athena Petridis. To confront the one person still alive who was responsible for her parents’ deaths, and for all the misery of her childhood, not to mention that of countless other childhoods. Gabriel and Redmayne might still be harboring doubts, but Ella had convinced herself that the mysterious ‘Sister Elena’ and Athena Petridis would turn out to be one and the same. It was true because Ella needed it to be true. She told herself that this entire past month on Mykonos with Mak had been nothing to do with her growing attraction to him sexually, or the exhilaration, the illicit thrill of playing both huntress and hunted. It had all been purely in order to track down Athena and exact righteous vengeance for her parents’ deaths. If Ella didn’t leave now, or very soon, it might all have been for nothing. If Sister Elena left the convent before she got there … No. It didn’t bear thinking about.

  All Ella’s recent interceptions had confirmed what she already suspected – that Mak was growing tired of waiting for Persephone to go to bed with him and that his excitement at their cat-and-mouse game was waning. In a short space of time, Ella had come a long way from the geeky teenager from Paradise Ranch who couldn
’t hold on to a boyfriend. But a virile, sexually rapacious man like Mak could only be pushed so far or dangled on a string for so long. She had no wish to find out what happened when he was dragged beyond his limits.

  Downstairs, Mak was already seated in the villa’s smaller, ‘private’ dining room, a circular space with two enormous picture windows and a glass roof that opened to the stars. In a beautifully tailored Zegna suit and a silk shirt in sky blue, open at the neck, he too had clearly made an effort tonight. The room was full of flowers (peonies, Persephone’s favorite). But, most tellingly of all, the table had been set for two. Ella had been expecting two other couples, business associates of Mak’s and their wives.

  ‘Your friends aren’t joining us?’

  ‘No.’

  Looking up, Mak took a moment to marvel once again at her beauty. More than beauty. Her radiance. That charisma, that presence Persephone had that he could no more describe than he could capture. She looked particularly ravishing tonight, in that dress that seemed painted onto her body, and that showed such tantalizing expanses of skin. Her smooth back. Her long, slender arms. And she was wearing the Graff earrings he’d bought her, for the first time.

  ‘I thought it would be nicer just the two of us. Do you mind?’

  ‘Of course not.’ She smiled at him warmly, taking a seat as the waiting staff glided in bearing a variety of salads and fish dishes. ‘I feel like I’ve hardly seen you these last few days.’

  He didn’t respond, but seemed to be watching her even more intently than usual. Ella felt her stomach begin to churn with nerves. Something felt different.

  ‘Please don’t think I’m complaining,’ she said, projecting a poise she was far from feeling while her wine and water glasses were filled. ‘You’ve been so generous, having me here. I hope you know how grateful I am.’