Red Dawn Rising (Red Returning Trilogy)

by Duffy, Sue

  In the midst of the good-natured exchange at the table, Liesl looked away and remembered another day years after Max’s clownish prank in Moscow. It was the day he led an Israeli commando squad to evidence that his father was a Russian spy—the day the light went dim in the heart of Max.

  Liesl looked about the table and caught the concern on Cade’s face. And there it was on Ava’s, too. Liesl knew why. There was a burn hole in the piano she’d played last Monday, and no one was willing to forget it, certainly not the federal agents who roamed about Tidewater Lane.

  She smiled weakly at Ava. The woman may appear to have lost the razor edge of a veteran CIA agent, but Liesl knew that Ava Mullins—even retired and settled into a new life in Charleston—was temporarily back on task and once again running security for her famous charge.

  Ridiculous! Liesl refused to believe there was intent to harm her. That’s over. And she certainly wasn’t going to let unwarranted fear spoil the most joyous day of her life. In just hours, she was going to marry the man she loved so desperately, and nothing was going to interfere with that.

  Then she thought of Ben Hafner. He and Anna had called the night before, begging her forgiveness for canceling their intended trip to the wedding. “Fallout from the attacks on Monday,” Ben had told her. He was dreadfully sorry, he’d said, but there was something else in his voice. Few besides his wife knew his subtle intonations as well as Liesl. Ben had been like a brother to her since their Harvard days. Why wasn’t he here?

  She recoiled from the mental jabbing that threatened to undo her. No more of this! she scolded herself, glancing about the table. Climb out of this pity hole and be thankful. “This is the day the Lord has made,” she recalled from the psalms. “Let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

  She looked up to see Cade smile reassuringly at her as if he’d heard her thoughts.

  Ava, however, had pulled on her professional mask. Liesl decided she’d put an end to that.

  “Ava, we are going to make divinity candy this morning, aren’t we?” Liesl affected a buoyant, oversized smile, visibly urging Ava’s agent-on-guard countenance to relax.

  “I did bring the ingredients,” Ava allowed, but her face was still grim.

  Liesl brushed her hands together and rose from the table. “Ava and I have serious work to do,” she told the group, most of them still lingering over the last crumbs of Ian’s potato pancakes.

  Later, Liesl was chopping pecans and Ava was measuring out corn syrup when Cade brushed past them and turned on the small television mounted on the wall. “Someone just bombed the Supreme Court Building,” he announced.

  Ava set the measuring cup down hard on the tile countertop, and Liesl dropped the knife. They both pivoted toward the small screen and latched on to every word. When the reports of the three explosions finally turned from fact to conjecture from contributing analysts—meaning no one was sure of anything beyond the first reports—the three looked at each other, trying to piece together something they couldn’t see.

  “Just five days after the inauguration,” Ava noted. “No one claiming responsibility for that, either.”

  Without a word, Liesl hurried out of the kitchen. She wouldn’t listen to any more of this. Not another horror, not on this day. She would fight her way around it and keep going. Lift another prayer for protection. Then force her way back to peace.

  She was pulling on a light jacket, bound for a restorative stroll in the garden, when the bell on the sidewalk door rang. Ah, the florist, she hoped. And her spirits lifted.

  “I’ll get it,” she called, her voice rising with expectation. Few things could flood a house with celebration and renewal like fresh flowers. And lots of them, which Liesl had ordered.

  But when Liesl opened the ground-level door, there was no florist. Instead, a young couple she’d never seen before greeted her nervously. “Are you … Liesl Bower?” said the young woman. Her short blond curls fringed a pretty face with a fresh-scrubbed look. But the face made no attempt to smile.

  Liesl tensed. She was used to fans approaching her in public places, but not here. How did they know where she lived? Then she remembered a few tour guides who, since her move back to Charleston last year, had begun pointing out her house to their patrons. That is, until Ava Mullins put a stop to it.

  Liesl studied the two before her now. Just tourists, she presumed, then wondered what Ava would do if she knew they’d come right up to the door and rung for admittance.

  “Yes, I am,” she said with no inflection, looking about for the security agents. “How may I help you?”

  The girl hesitated too long and her friend answered for her. “Ms. Bower, this is Cass Rodino, and I’m Jordan Winslow. It’s very nice to meet you.”

  Liesl looked from the pleasant expression on his face back to the severe set of his companion’s. Smiling politely, Liesl was about to repeat her question with more emphasis when the girl found her voice. “We need to talk to you, Ms. Bower,” she said too firmly. “I have information about the bombings in Washington.”

  The words tore into Liesl.

  “Is there someplace we can talk … right now?” the girl asked, her voice tight. “I’m afraid it’s urgent.”

  Liesl stepped back and glared at the two strangers. What could they know? Who were they? She looked quickly around her. It was a practiced move, done too many times. Check the streets, the yards, the parked cars, those passing by. Anything unusual? More importantly, where were the two agents charged with watching the house?

  “Ma’am, are you all right?” the young man asked.

  “What is it you have to tell me?” Liesl asked bluntly, then immediately reconsidered. Surely she didn’t want to discuss such a thing on the sidewalk in front of her house. “No. Never mind. You’ll have to come inside.” But she looked away and briefly closed her eyes. I can’t invite these people into my home. What if that’s exactly what they want? Lord, help me! Tell me what to do!

  “Ms. Bower, I’m so sorry for upsetting you,” the girl said. “This is deeply troubling to me, too. But I had to tell you in person.”

  Liesl wouldn’t prolong this another second. It didn’t matter where they were. “Tell me what.” It wasn’t a question.

  “I have every reason to believe that … that you were the target on Monday. Not the president.”

  At that instant, Liesl’s mind slipped through a portal to the past—to retrieve something improbably relevant to the moment. How clearly she now heard her dad’s Mayday cry on the marine radio that day nearly twenty-five years ago, heard him hail the Coast Guard, screaming for help. That Liesl’s beloved aunt Bess would soon bleed out from an accidental spear wound to her abdomen if they didn’t come immediately. The deadly words struck a fourteen-year-old girl eating frosted cornflakes within earshot of the radio, refusing to believe what she’d just heard. It wasn’t until Liesl saw her aunt’s body lifted from a helicopter, fully covered by a gray blanket, that the words were proven true.

  Now, the portal closed over, and Liesl refocused on the strangers standing before her. How long would it take for her to believe these words the young woman had just spoken? Who else would die before she accepted them as true?

  “Please do something to protect yourself,” the girl pleaded.

  Liesl felt lightheaded, but something caught her eye and anchored her to the spot. It was just a passing van, a white van with slightly tinted windows and no markings. Why is it creeping past? Liesl looked back at the girl.

  “What makes you believe such a thing?” Liesl hurled the question at the same time her eyes cut back to the van now turning the corner at the end of the block and disappearing. She looked once more to the girl, this time more impatiently.

  “That’s a bit of a long story,” the girl replied, then turned to her companion. “Jordan, would you please get the files from the car?” The young man headed toward a small sedan parked at the curb a few doors down.

  “Are you sure there’s no place we can talk priv
ately?” the girl urged.

  Before Liesl answered, she looked down the street again. One of her neighbors had just led his dog onto the sidewalk and headed away toward the harbor. He passed a postman reaching into his mail pouch as he walked toward the Bower home. Across the street, a middle-aged couple wearing matching fanny packs strolled leisurely down the sidewalk, gesturing, as many tourists did, toward the regal old houses lining the narrow lane.

  Any other time and Liesl might have invited this young woman and her friend onto her porch, but not this time. Something was wrong here and she wouldn’t open the doors of her home to whatever it was. “I’m sorry but I can’t—” Her words fell away.

  The same van she’d just watched turn the far corner came roaring down on them from the opposite direction and lurched to a halt at the curb. The side door slid open and the driver yelled, “Liesl, get in!” He pointed down the sidewalk. “That is no mailman!”

  But Liesl couldn’t move, couldn’t focus on anything but the face of the man in the van.

  “Liesl! Get in now!” screamed Evgeny Kozlov.

  Only then did Liesl turn to look where he pointed, at the uniformed postman coming toward them, his eyes locked on her, his hand now pulling something from the pouch strapped across his chest. Liesl grabbed the girl and yanked her to the ground an instant before a silenced bullet struck the tree behind them.

  “No!” Liesl screamed. She looked back at the house, fearing someone from inside might appear at any moment. What was it she’d just asked herself? Who would die before she accepted the truth of what this girl had just told her?

  But it was Evgeny who nailed the answer. “Liesl, they will kill you and your family! Get in! Both of you!”

  Liesl and the girl hurled themselves through the open side door as Evgeny jumped out, crouched, and fired at the escaping gunman. But the man ran down a side alley and disappeared. Evgeny lunged back into the driver’s seat.

  “Get her out of here!” Cass hollered at him. She slammed the side door shut and dropped next to Liesl on the floor between the seats as the van launched from the curb.

  “I have to warn my family!” Liesl cried to Evgeny, trying to raise herself from the floor. “That man’s still out there!”

  “Stay down!” he ordered. “It is you they want. They will come after us.”

  “They?”

  But Evgeny’s attention was no longer on Liesl. “Who are you?” he demanded of the girl, even as he ran a stop sign at the end of Tidewater Lane. “And your friend behind us?”

  Both women turned to look out the back window at Jordan Winslow’s rental car on their tail.

  Liesl now glared at the young woman, suspicion rising like an angry tide. “Answer him!” She felt hysteria ride in on that tide and knew she was losing control.

  “I’m Cass Rodino,” she answered. “Who are you?”

  “You would not believe me if I told you. But before I kick you out at the next corner, you need to—”

  “Please listen to me,” Cass cried. “We know things about the threat to Liesl.”

  Evgeny narrowed his eyes and studied the girl in the rearview mirror. “Go on,” he said as the van skirted downtown Charleston.

  But there was something of greater urgency to Liesl. “Please let me warn my family,” she begged, not caring how pitiful she sounded.

  “Yes, you should,” Evgeny conceded. He fished a phone from a bag beside him and handed it to Liesl, who was still wondering why he’d come for her. “It is untraceable,” Evgeny said of the phone. “You must use it only. But make no call without clearing it with me first.” He looked sternly at her. “It just has to be that way.” They were racing up I-26 now toward North Charleston. “And tell Miss Old Lady CIA she had better get to your house quick.” Liesl saw the smirk on his face as she punched in Cade’s number.

  “Are you Russian?” Cass asked.

  Evgeny ignored the question.

  Liesl tucked Evgeny’s phone to her ear and tossed a response to his earlier comment. “Ava’s already there.”

  “Of course,” he said mildly. “The wedding police. Well, she has probably reached optimum panic by now. But tell her you are safe with me. She should have no trouble believing that.” Liesl registered the sarcasm.

  Cade answered, the pitch of his voice too high. “Hello! Who is this?” Liesl could almost see the anxious clench of his jaw.

  “Are you okay?” she cried.

  “Am I okay? Where are you?”

  “Cade, keep everybody inside. A man out front just shot at me! Is Ava still there?”

  “What! Are you hurt?”

  “You have to stay inside the house! Tell Ava I’m with … tell her Evgeny Kozlov just saved me from a killer.” Liesl watched the back of Evgeny’s head. He was driving hard, though Liesl didn’t know where they were going.

  There was silence on the other end. Then, “Liesl, that isn’t funny.”

  “It’s the truth, Cade. He pulled up in a van and warned me. I’m with him now.”

  “Where?”

  “North of town on I-26.”

  “No!” Evgeny warned, shaking his head. “Just tell him you are okay and hang up. You can call again later. Much later.”

  Liesl hesitated and Evgeny turned around in his seat to issue the warning again, but Liesl held up a compliant hand.

  “Was that him?” Cade asked. “Tell him I’m coming to get you.”

  “No, Cade. None of you are safe near me. I don’t know when you will be. And Cade … this is not going to be our wedding day.” Her voice broke.

  “Liesl, please!” Cade cried. “Tell me what’s happening!” She’d never heard such fright in his voice. Not Cade’s. “I love you. Let me come to you.”

  She couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. “Not now,” she sobbed. “Stay inside. Ava will know what to do.” The words spilled wet and hot. “I’ll call you soon. I love you.” She clicked off and covered her face with her hands, her body convulsing.

  Then someone’s arms encircled her and held her gently. “I’ll help you, Liesl,” Cass said in a voice edged with steel. “You don’t know me. And you sure don’t know what I’ve survived. But I did survive. And you will too.”

  Liesl raised a sodden face to this girl who’d also been shot at and now sat on the dirty floor of a van speeding through Charleston, driven by a man she couldn’t know was an assassin. And she was assuring Liesl that all would be well?

  “This is the day the Lord has made,” Liesl had recited just an hour ago. “Let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

  Glad for what?

  Chapter 19

  Evgeny exited I-26 and wound his way into a North Charleston industrial neighborhood that had seen little industry in recent years, the streets edged with weeds and abandoned cars. One more wouldn’t be noticed, Evgeny knew, as he drove the van behind a flat, cement-block building he’d discovered the night before. It had once been a metal-fabricating workshop, but now a faded sign hanging on the front door issued a kind of death notice. Closed.

  Parked behind another building down the street was a late-model Ford Taurus he’d acquired with little effort. An undercover agent who couldn’t seize whatever he needed with haste and stealth was eventually exposed. And an exposed agent was often a dead one.

  He couldn’t afford to take this mysterious young couple to the car he’d hidden. They couldn’t describe to authorities what they’d never seen, so he braked sharply behind the metal-works shop and pulled a small handgun from under his jacket. Turning quickly in his seat, he leveled the gun at Cass, drawing a gasp from her. “Again,” he said, “who are you?”

  Before she could answer, Jordan screeched to a stop behind the van and jumped out. “Open the door for him,” Evgeny ordered Cass, who complied.

  Seeing the gun pointed at him, Jordan stepped back.

  “Get in,” Evgeny barked. And soon, three sets of eyes drilled him from the back seat.

  “I’m a set designer, and Jordan owns a shoe
store,” Cass answered hotly. “I hardly think you need protection from us.” She looked down at the gun. “And we see those all the time. We’re from New York.”

  “Why are you here?” Evgeny asked Cass, deflecting her anger. His glance wandered to Liesl. She is strangely quiet, he thought.

  “We found something in her … in someone’s files,” Jordan answered, “that led us to believe someone was aiming for Liesl.” He glanced regretfully at her. “It was a diagram of the inaugural platform showing the position of the piano and Liesl’s name marked beside it, along with the exact time she was to perform. And …” He seemed unsure whether to proceed.

  “And …” Evgeny prompted.

  “Well, there was a drawing of, uh, sort of a bomb blast over the piano. And then we found—”

  “Wait just a minute,” Cass interjected, looking defiantly at Evgeny. “Why should we tell you anything? Who are you?”

  “The one with the gun. Keep going.” Evgeny’s veteran instincts had already told him these two were harmless. But he needed their information.

  He watched Cass and Jordan exchange some kind of silent go-ahead. “In this same person’s files,” Jordan continued, “we found blueprints of the Supreme Court Building.”

  Evgeny barely contained his surprise. How could such fortune have been handed to him? Again? Nothing had ever come so easy. An inside track to this someone could lead Evgeny to the Architect. These two couldn’t possibly know what they’d uncovered.

  He steadied the gun on Cass. “Whose files?” he demanded.

  Cass glared at him, then cast her eyes toward the floor. When she looked back at him, her face was clouded.

  “My stepfather’s.”

  The boy’s arm slipped protectively around the girl’s shoulders.

  “Who is your stepfather?” Evgeny pressed.

  Cass answered absently. “He used to be a good man. I don’t know what happened to him.” She paused. “The same thing that drags us all down at some point, I guess.” She pulled herself up straight. “But I won’t tell you his name. I won’t bring my mother down with him.” She looked back at Jordan. “Somehow, I have to get her away from him before it’s out of my control.”