Red Dawn Rising (Red Returning Trilogy) (8 page)

Now, pummeled as much by the icy blows of winter as by the haunting memories, Liesl was anxious to return home to Charleston.
Next Tuesday
, she told herself, already warming to the promise of gossamer breezes off the harbor. And a wedding.

Pulling her coat tighter around her, she imagined Cade’s embrace. He would soon be hers, joined in matrimony before God, before those who watched from the pews of St. Philip’s Church. Next Saturday!

Her step lighter, she walked briskly toward the door. On this Saturday morning, she’d reserved a private studio for practice. President Travis Noland’s second inauguration was just two days away. She was honored that he’d asked her to perform but nervous about playing outdoors in
such
finger-numbing temperatures. Today she would rehearse in the half-gloves she’d used only once before in her career, in the middle of Red Square with other students from the Moscow Conservatory. She loathed the constraining gloves then, and more so now. But she had promised the president, one of her most avid fans. She would fly to Washington that afternoon.

Just inside the door, she was stopped by one of her workshop students. “Hi, Miss Bower. Thank you again for helping me with the Chopin.”

“You’re welcome, Steve. Just mind your fingering and don’t neglect the scales.”

The young man nodded, then stared at her for an awkward moment. “Uh, do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”

There had been a time when such a request would have caught her breath, but no longer. At thirty-eight, she’d finally found her peace. “No, I don’t mind at all.”

“The fall before last, you appeared at Avery Fisher Hall, and you did something very unusual.”

Liesl knew where this was leading. She leaned her head slightly to one side, trying to smile.

“Before you began to play, you stood very still in front of the piano and stared at the audience for the longest time. I was there. Lots of us students were. And pardon me for saying so, but we thought something was very wrong with you.” He waited for her response.

“And did you afterward?”

“Oh, no ma’am. Not after what you told all those people. That you believed the music you were going to play was about conflict between nations. But that God was the ruler over all the nations. Man, that was powerful stuff to lay on an international audience like that. And then you told them that God said, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers.’ Remember?”

Of course she remembered. “That meant something to you?”

He looked deep into her eyes. “That’s what I wanted to tell you.” Color rose on his face, and he looked away for just a moment, then back at Liesl. “You see, I grew up in Israel. We’re not Jewish, but my parents loved the Jewish people and wanted to help them.”

Liesl was now locked on the young man with the wavy dark locks. “In what way?” she asked.

“Well, my parents spoke Arabic and Hebrew and thought that in some small way they could help relations between the Palestinians and Jews. Imagine that.” He looked toward the floor, his face somber.

“Had they done that sort of thing before?” Liesl asked, imagining the challenge.

“Oh, sure. They were both mediators for the court system in Chicago. They thought that if they could help Americans resolve conflict, they could do it elsewhere. So they kind of worked their way into the graces of both sides in Jerusalem and tried to help them understand each other.” He looked squarely into her eyes. “They were peacemakers.”

Before she found words to express her admiration, he added, “They were killed in the street outside our home, by a man who didn’t want peace with the other side. Only vengeance.” He patted her arm and smiled faintly. “So you keep on telling anyone who’ll listen, Miss Bower. Peace is better.” And he walked away.

She watched the young man until she couldn’t see him anymore. She was too stunned now to think about practicing the Aaron Copland overture she would play at the inauguration, another special request of the president, who admired the robust frontier spirit of the American composer’s work. Practice would have to wait. Her young student couldn’t have known the flame he’d just stoked, the unrest it had caused, especially in the wake of gentler reflections on home.

Casting about for someplace to simmer down her soul, she walked back outside, feeling every swipe of unmerciful cold, and headed for a nearby coffee shop. She was crossing the street toward a sidewalk more traveled than usual for a sleet-prone Saturday morning, when a face in a doorway stopped her midstride. Even the hood of his jacket couldn’t hide the pale, flat cheeks and riveting eyes.

No!

The light had turned and cars now honked as they slid toward the intersection where Liesl remained fixed to the pavement. She jerked around, held a restraining hand against a threatening cabbie, and sprinted to
safety
. Her eyes searching for the face, she nearly tripped on the curbing, but righted herself in time to see the face turn abruptly and the back of the man’s hood blend with others headed away from her.

It’s him!
She drew a trembling hand to her mouth as her eyes strained to find him in the flux of pedestrians ahead. The hood. The gray backpack.

Finally, she put a voice to her alarm. “Evgeny!” she wailed, drawing anxious looks from others. “Wait!”

But why? Why wasn’t she fleeing in the opposite direction, like she had the night Evgeny Kozlov and his kidnappers had come after her? Instead, she now ran after
him
. One block, two, then three. No sign of him. She spun in every direction, scanned every face. He was gone.

Had he really been there? Had the story she’d just heard, the reminder of that night at Avery Fisher Hall, triggered a hallucination? After all, it was Evgeny who’d stolen into her dressing room moments before she was to perform that night. The man who’d once tried to kidnap her had come to offer strange comfort. “No one hunts you anymore,” he’d said. “It is me they hunt.” Before leaving, though, he’d issued her a warning. “Never stop watching them.”

That was Evgeny. Watching me. Why?
In the middle of a crowded Manhattan sidewalk full of Saturday shoppers, she lifted her face skyward and closed her eyes.
Lord, why?

Evgeny slid from behind the dressing-room curtain of a discount clothier and paused before reentering the sidewalk traffic.
How did I let that happen?
he fumed.
She should never have spotted me
. He stepped guardedly out of the store and squinted against a blustery wind. No sign of Liesl Bower. He would find her again, though, should he need to. Nothing had signaled that need, yet. And more urgent matters waited.

Still, he was glad for the risk he’d taken. Glad to see her again, moving freely about and not cowering from the likes of him.

He hailed a cab and headed to his backstreet Harlem hotel. Soon, Viktor would call with whatever news he’d confiscated from the movement’s
communications
bank. They were sketchy at best, but the only leads Evgeny had for finding and disabling the Architect.

Moments after he locked the hotel door behind him, one of the phones in his backpack rang. The secure line from Viktor.

“Yes,” Evgeny answered.

“I only have a few seconds,” Viktor began. “I tapped into an e-mail this morning. The letter you found in the piano, the woman’s letter to Fedorovsky, is true. The Architect is about to strike the United States.”

Chapter 11

J
anuary 21 slid into Washington on frozen feet. The inaugural ceremonies proceeded in spite of the weather. An elaborate, multitiered platform built over the Capitol steps housed many of the nation’s political elite, overseeing the throngs who’d braved the punishing cold to witness President Noland’s public oath of office. Because January 20, the constitutionally mandated end of a presidential term, fell on Sunday this year, Noland—like Eisenhower and Reagan before him—chose to honor the Lord’s Day by taking the oath of office in a private ceremony moments before noon on Sunday, with the public pageantry of the inauguration slated for Monday.

Cass, Jordan, and their friends Reg and Myrna Brockman huddled together not far from the Capitol, their breath almost freeze-dried.

“I don’t think I can take much more,” Jordan mumbled behind the scarf wrapped around his head, already topped by a wool cap.

“It won’t be long now,” Cass said, stamping her feet against the crunchy grass, coaxing her bloodstream to step up the heat. She’d taken her mother’s advice and worn the bulky, ankle-length down coat that visually packed twenty pounds onto her petite frame, though she welcomed its cocooning warmth. If only she’d dressed her feet with as much care, choosing fur-lined boots over the running shoes she now wore. “One more musician and then the oath.”

Jordan rolled his eyes and hugged himself tighter, his short, under-insulated jacket no more a match for the weather than Cass’s shoes. “If you were the nurturing kind, you’d wrap that king-size coat of yours around us both.” His lopsided grin turned to openmouthed surprise when Cass did exactly that. She unzipped her coat and extended one half of it as far as it would reach around him.

“Here, big guy,” Myrna said, reaching into her roomy backpack. “I brought an extra blanket.” She retrieved a plush throw full of peace signs.

Before extracting himself from the half-cover of Cass’s coat, Jordan slipped his other arm inside and hugged Cass to him. “Thanks anyway,” he whispered and kissed her lightly on the forehead.

When he released her and busied himself with the welcomed throw, his kiss lingered against Cass’s skin, its touch warmer than down. She tried in vain to ignore the implication that it was anything beyond a friendly gesture. Friends kissed each other all the time, didn’t they? Had Jordan ever kissed her before? No.

As she watched him envelop himself in the blanket, she heard an announcement from the inaugural platform. Liesl Bower was about to perform. The acclaimed pianist was one of Cass’s favorite musicians. “How is she going to move her fingers in this cold?” Cass wondered aloud.

Jordan leaned close. “I hope she’s relying on a recording.”

“I wouldn’t mind if she did. Her talent is authentic.”

“How many times have you seen her perform?”

Cass shrugged. “Maybe five. She’s incredible.” Cass pulled out a pair of small binoculars and looked toward the platform, watching the tall, slender figure of Liesl Bower approach the grand piano placed one tier above and behind the podium where Travis Noland would soon repeat the oath of office. The pianist’s long hair draped about her shoulders like a warm shawl. Cass had seen her up close only once, at Carnegie Hall where Cass had volunteered to dress the stage for a Bower concert. “She’s very photogenic,” Cass told Jordan. “Very gracious.” She paused a moment. “There was something tragic in her past, though. Many years ago, she watched someone gun down a friend of hers.” Cass didn’t take her eyes off the pianist, now seated. She sensed Jordan’s surprise but didn’t look at him.

“Who was it?” he asked.

“One of her Harvard professors, I think. Not sure of the details, but I’ve been told it sent her into a psychological tailspin. Made her withdraw from everything but her music.” Cass raised her face to the threatening sky, willing a whip of raw air to displace that suffocating thing that had just risen in her.
Get past it
, she told herself. In a lighter voice, she added, “They’d better hurry this along before the ceiling caves in.”

No sooner had she spoken than the first chords of an Aaron Copland overture erupted from the piano and through the giant speakers placed around the grounds. Those first notes soon swelled into a heroic passage that hushed the crowds and almost thawed the bitter pall. Cass leaned into the music as if it were a roaring fire. Next to her art, music—no matter its timbre—soothed and empowered her as little else could. And in the hands of this particular performer, the music sprang from something Cass found inexpressible. From a depth Cass herself had never reached, though longed for.

“Look at Noland,” Jordan said. “The man of the hour, frozen stiff, I’ll bet. No hat. No scarf. Smiling like his face won’t move in any other direction.”

Cass dropped her gaze to the first level of the platform, watching the president she’d come to admire for his humility. Just below him was the ground-level assembly of the Marine Band, which had performed first on the program and now waited—anxiously, no doubt—for the conclusion.