The Fire (47 page)

But at this point, I figured it would seem silly to act naive and say, ‘
List? What list?
’ So instead I opted for, ‘Who’s all this “
we
”?
What
“compatriots”?’

‘Those men up at Euskal Herria,’ Rodo assured us, taking a seat at the table and motioning for us to do the same. ‘They like to dress up in berets and red sashes and pretend they are Basques, though, as it proves, trained dervishes
can
be trained to do the high kicks in the
Jota
quite well.’

He’d whipped out a flask from his pocket and extracted some shot glasses from his other one. ‘Basque cherry brandy.’ He filled the glasses and handed them around. Then he added, ‘You’ll enjoy it.’

Being plenty ready for a drink, I tasted the brandy. It was wonderful, tart and fruity, and it went down my throat like liquid fire. ‘The Basque brigade are actually dervishes?’ I said, though already I was beginning to get the message.

‘They’ve been waiting a very long time, the Sufis, from the time of al-Jabir,’ Rodo said. ‘My people in the Pyrenees have worked with theirs for more than twelve hundred years. That motto over my kitchen door about Basque mathematics –
4
+
3
=
1
– you know, these numbers also add up to
eight,
a game your mother knows very well. That moment, ten years ago, when Galen told her the truth behind your father’s death and the schism created in the White Team by it, she came directly to me.’

‘Schism?’ said Vartan. ‘You mean the one Rosemary Livingston created?’

‘In a sense, it was she who triggered it,’ Rodo told us. ‘When her father was killed, she was yet a mere child. The first time that Rosemary, as a child, met your mother, it appears that Cat handed her a small White Queen from a pegboard chess set – which deceived her father, El-Marad, into believing Cat was a White player, though he quickly learned otherwise. From the moment you began to play chess yourself, though Rosemary was never completely certain what part you were to play, she began to move in as a predator stalks its prey. She’s still quite young for such a ruthless player, though no one knew quite how ruthless she could be.

‘When Galen March, along with Tatiana Solarin, his descendant whom he’d rescued, realized that the only way to bring the pieces together, at least in the manner that was originally intended by al-Jabir, was to bring the
players
together, they knew that their best chance in this was to bring Tatiana’s son Aleksandr, and through him, his wife, Cat, back into the Game. Taras Petrossian was the instrument through which they executed this plan. Once they knew that a final chess game would definitely take place at Zagorsk, they brought the Black Queen there to be put on display. No one realized that this was the very opportunity Rosemary and Basil were seeking: They turned the tables, had Solarin shot before he could depart with this information, and seized the Black Queen for themselves.’

‘So,’ said Vartan, ‘you are saying that my stepfather, Petrossian, was not involved in their plot?’

‘Difficult to know,’ said Rodo. ‘All we
do
know is that he helped save the life of Alexandra’s father by removing him from there. But Petrossian was forced to flee Russia shortly thereafter, though it appears that Livingston continued to support at least one of his chess tourneys in London, at any rate.’

‘Then,’ I asked Rodo, ‘if the Livingstons stole the Black
Queen at Zagorsk, where were they hiding it all this time? How did Petrossian obtain it, so he could get it into the hands of my mother?’

‘Galen March smuggled it to Petrossian to send to your mother
,’
said Rodo. ‘That’s why your mother arranged her birthday
boum
in Colorado the very moment she learned that Petrossian had been killed. She was desperate. She had to draw all the players away from the place where the piece was now hidden until she could contact
you
somehow. But what of that
Washington Post
that I left on your doorstep a week ago? Your mother wanted us to alert you, but with no fanfare, when Baghdad was entered. She felt sure you’d make the connection for yourself. But then when we overheard your conversation with your uncle, we realized we’d overlooked something mentioned there in the paper – the covey of Russian diplomats that was strafed when departing Baghdad. The Livingstons knew they’d been betrayed by someone, but not by whom. Galen and I made copies of the paper to send to those who needed this very vital piece of information—’

He paused, for he could see that I now had found the answer to almost all my questions.

‘Of course!’ I cried. ‘Rosemary hid the Black Queen in Baghdad! That secret room at the Baghdad airport! Basil’s Russian connections! Their party here at Sutalde last Monday with all those oil magnates – they must have set it up the moment they learned that the Queen was already missing from Baghdad, that Galen might have taken it, that it might already be in my mother’s hands.’ But I had to laugh at my next thought. ‘Rosemary must have done a pretty fast U-turn from here to Colorado and back again, if she thought that my mother was somehow, somewhere, going to pass that hot chess piece on to
me
!’

But then came the sobering recognition of exactly what that must mean.

‘If Rosemary had my father killed at Zagorsk so she could grab the Queen and prevent him from passing information about its very existence to anyone,’ I said, ‘and if ten years later, once she’d learned of Petrossian’s betrayal, she had him killed for exactly the same reason – to prevent him from telling anyone at the chess tourney where he’d sent the Queen until she herself could arrive at that destination—’

I looked at Vartan. From the grimness of his expression, and the fact that we both knew the parts of the puzzle I myself was holding – the drawing of the board and the location of the pieces, starting with the Black Queen – I probably didn’t have to state the obvious.

I’m next.

Rodo saved me the breath anyway. ‘You are safe for the time,’ he said calmly, pouring us all a splash more brandy, as if any danger were far from this room and a thing of the past. ‘The moment that your prankster friend Nokomis sealed us four into that hotel suite, Nim was headed for the door, phone in hand, to dial security and to try to break open the lock, when Galen March stopped him in both endeavors, putting a hand on his arm. That’s when Galen told us.’

‘Told you?’ said Vartan.

‘That this had all been planned by Alexandra’s mother,’ Rodo continued. ‘He’d already said that Key was the new White Queen. He said that this was, as people say, a new ball game, but one with completely new rules. That Alexandra had a drawing of the board and would soon have knowledge of the location of the pieces, as well.’

‘He said what?’ I gasped, as I saw Vartan flinch from the corner of my eye.

This was worse than my worst imagining! Mr Galen ‘Holy Roman Emperor’ March had set me up royally. And there was something else, wasn’t there? I racked my brain to reconstruct
the context inside that room at the Four Seasons, at the instant when I’d left it: my uncle Slava, Galen, and Rodo…

And Sage Livingston.

Sage Livingston sitting there toying with her tennis bracelet.

‘Sage’s bracelet was bugged all that time!’ I told Rodo.

‘
Mais bien sûr,
’ he said with his enduring sangfroid. ‘How else could your mother have protected you all these years – have communicated what she wanted the Livingstons to believe – without Sage’s unwitting assistance?’

‘Her unwitting assistance?’ I said.

I was horrified. Sage’s mother had pressed her to befriend me, and my mother had used her, among other things, to cut the real estate deal that had moved Galen March to center board in Colorado. And what did Rodo mean by ‘all these years’? Had Sage already been running this Mata Hari racket in grammar school?

‘That is why Galen was upset earlier,’ Rodo went on. ‘When your mother suddenly vanished and Galen couldn’t contact her, he planned, along with Nokomis Key, to meet with you and your uncle privately and reveal everything. When Sage continued to attach herself to him like so much chewing gum to the bottom of a shoe, he sought my help. But at the Four Seasons, when he saw you drag Sage into the locker room to interrogate her privately, he became alarmed and returned down the stairs of the club. He was afraid that, without intending to, you might reveal something to her, or she to you, which could find other ears outside and ruin everything. At last, when Nokomis arrived and saw Sage there, she took matters into her own hands. Galen felt that his only solution was to draw Sage’s attention – and that of the ever-present Livingston security guards – back toward the Game. And away from that mystery that your family were protecting.’

Now at least I could guess how the eavesdropping ‘Secret
Service’ had gotten on our tails so fast, until Key ditched them crossing the river. But if the Livingston clan were out there somewhere with even that much data, my own life wasn’t worth a plugged farthing.

‘How can you claim that I’m “safe for the time”?’ I refreshed Rodo’s comment. ‘Exactly where is this motley crew of villains right at this moment?’

Rodo said, ‘Once we were rid of Sage, Galen revealed the truth about Solarin; then he and Nim were able to form a plan to protect you. I was empowered to share this as soon as you both returned tonight. Your uncle has managed to spare you the effort of dealing any further with the Livingstons. Ladislaus Nim is, after all, one of the world’s great computer technocrats. Once he’d grasped the situation, as I understand it, he ensured that, through cooperative antiterrorist channels, the Livingstons’ funds in a variety of countries were instantly frozen pending criminal investigations: in London, the investigation into the assassination of a former Russian citizen living on British soil. An arrest order has also been served, of course, over a certain Colorado oil and uranium baron’s complicity with the former regime in Baghdad.’

Rodo glanced at his watch. ‘As for where the Livingstons are at this precise moment – since there is only one country likely to refuse to cooperate with such extradition proceedings – just now I should imagine they are somewhere in the air above Arkhangel’sk, headed for St Petersburg or Moscow.’

Vartan slammed his hand on the table in frustration. ‘You all believe that merely by seizing the Livingstons’ assets and exiling them to Russia, that will protect Alexandra?’

‘Only one thing will protect her,’ Rodo told him. ‘The truth.’

Then he turned to me.

‘Cat was more realistic,’ he added. ‘She knew what was
required to save you. She sent you to me only when she understood that it was a kitchen, not a chessboard, where you should go to learn the lessons required of an alchemist. And she realized that we all need some kind of a chariot driver to pull our forces together, like those horses of Socrates, one pulling toward heaven, one toward the earth, like the battle of spirit and matter. You see it all around us: people flying airplanes out of the skies and crashing into buildings because they hate the material world and want to destroy it before they depart it; other people despising the spiritual so much that they want to bomb it into their idea of normality. That’s not what we would call being “well-balanced.”’

Until this moment, I’d had no idea that Rodo had any thoughts on this – or on any other such subject – though I wasn’t sure where this ‘opposites must attract’ theme was exactly leading. But then I recalled what he’d said about Charlemagne and the Montglane fortress.

I asked, ‘Is that why you said my mother’s and my birthdays are important? Because April 4 and October 4 are opposite in the calendar?’

Rodo beamed a smile at both Vartan and me. He said, ‘That’s how the process takes place: April 4 lies between the first spring zodiac signs,
le Bélier
and
Taureau,
the Ram and the Bull, when the seeds of the Great Work are shown to be sown in every alchemy book. The harvest is six months later, between Libra the Balance and Scorpio – symbolized in its lower aspect by the scorpion, but in its higher aspect by an eagle or firebird. These two poles are described by the Indian proverb,
Jaisi Karni, Vaise Bharni –
our results are the fruits of our actions.
As ye sow, so shall ye reap.
That’s what
The Books of the Balance
of al-Jabir ibn Hayyan are all about: Sowing seed and harvesting means finding the balance. Alchemists call this process the Great Work.’

Rodo added, ‘The man we call Galen March – you’ve read
his papers, so you know – was the first in one thousand years to solve the first phase of this puzzle.
’

I looked at him and said, ‘He’s played so important a role in all of this. But what’s become of Galen now?’

‘
En retraite
for a while, just like your mother,’ said Rodo. ‘He sent you both this.’

He handed me a packet, similar to the one Tatiana had given us but smaller. ‘You may read it when I’ve gone tonight. I believe it will come in useful in your quest tomorrow. And perhaps even longer.’

I was filled with questions, but when Rodo got to his feet, so did Vartan and I.

Rodo said, ‘Since Cat has led you to the first of the hidden pieces, right here in D.C., I can guess – even without seeing that map you’ve hidden from me – just
where
you two may be doing your reaping tomorrow.’ When he got to the door, he turned back over his shoulder to us. ‘Both of you together, that’s perfect. It’s the secret, you know,’ he told us. ‘The marriage of black and white, of spirit and matter – it’s been known since ancient times as “the Alchemical Marriage” – the only way the world will survive.’

I felt my face turn more than a little pink. I couldn’t even look at Vartan.

Then Rodo was out the door and into the night.

We sat back down and I poured us each another splash of the cherry brandy as Vartan slashed open Charlot’s letter packet and he read it aloud for me.

The Alchemist’s Tale