- Chapter six -
Berliner
"You have to love dancing to stick to it. It gives you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that single fleeting moment when you feel alive." ― Merce Cunningham, one of America's most renowned dancers and choreographers.
To Illya, Gaby would always be full of surprises.
Despite her being a private person, he was proud to say he knew many things about her. She was stubborn and headstrong, like her father had been. He had learned that her fashion taste was much better than Cowboy's (though this was not a hard thing to accomplish), yet she would always prefer her stained overalls to a pretty dress.
He also knew Gaby preferred her coffee black. She was an incredible lightweight. Her truffle risotto was unexcelled. She was decent at judo, but she sucked at chess.
And she had a habit of raising her eyebrows at people she both liked and disliked, a trait Illya would always find confusing about her.
But a ballerina? Like he said: full of surprises.
Illya tried to watch the crowd, and the way the people trickled slowly into the building like the dripping of a mild morning shower. Despite his efforts to stay focused, his eyes kept gliding back to the outline of Gaby's back, like a magnet kept pulling at his pupils. He could catch glimpses of her as she moved backstage, just a couple of feet behind the red curtain. Illya strained his eyes to see more.
"Hummingbird has entered the building."
The crackle of Solo's voice startled him, and Illya silenced the walkie-talkie before he scanned the crowd, until he spotted Mary. In less than two hours, Mary was supposed to give the opening speech, and announce this year's winner of the Albert Lasker Award. It was an annual event, meant to honor those who had done the clinical medical research a great service by understanding, preventing or curing a certain disease.
She might be brilliant, but her judgement is clouded. The thought intruded Illya's mind as his eyes skipped over Hummingbird. Their plan was very time-sensitive and dependent on one of Waverly's newest gadgets. Both factors increased the likelihood of failure while the stakes remained high. Hummingbird could lose her job. Blackbird could lose his life.
"We all know how messy drug-cartels can be." Waverly's words on board The Brave Challenger echoed in Illya's head.
Out of the corner of his eye, Illya saw Solo maneuver through the mass of people, his hand supporting a silver platter with glasses of champagne. He passed Mary, allowing her to take two glasses from him before she joined a group of colleagues, and they didn't spare each other a second glance.
Good, Illya thought absently, Cowboy was right about her poker face.
"Performance is starting in 15,"
Gaby whispered through the earpiece, and Illya watched as she pulled at the red curtain in an attempt to seal off the backstage area from the prying eyes of visitors. Or perhaps she'd caught Illya staring. Cowboy had always told him he wasn't a very subtle man. He cleared his throat and his hand instinctively reached for the device in his pocket.
"Copy that, Swan. Peacock, get ready for phase 2."
Illya moved slowly to the proscenium, a narrow curve separating the stage from the crowd occupied by a chamber orchestra of about 40 to 50 men and women. If he wanted to monitor all three levels of the Colonial Theater, he needed a better view. To an outsider, the Colonial Theater of Boston looked like any other building; grey, worn and unsuitable to host even the smallest of parties. Despite its shabby exterior, the theater was the oldest continually-operating theatre in Boston, built in 1900 and recently renovated—less than three years ago, if Illya recalled correctly.
Having reached the proscenium, Illya turned around to admire the beauty of the theater. Seats of rich mahogany wood adorned with dark emerald-colored fabric filled the spacious room before Illya, placed so snugly together that there were already hundreds of guests seated and only two horizontal lanes separating their excited faces.
Both balconies which floated above the crowd had less depth compared to the ground floor, yet their curved design made room for four individual sets consisting of about a hundred seats each. Railings coated with gold arched themselves around the edges of the balconies, and its beautifully curved pattern reminded Illya of a jungle bursting with leaves and flowers.
His eyes travelled upwards, towards the circular fresco above him. Three winged men, their arms spread wide and chests bare, stared back at him. The ceiling was too high for Illya to read their facial expressions, but his best guess was that they were meant to be the protectors of this grand theater.
The Russian agent huffed. There are only three people present who will protect this theater, Illya thought to himself, his eyes pulled back to the crowd. Neither has wings, and one of them is definitely a woman.
With that, Illya removed his earpiece, pulled a small black box from his pocket, and pushed the button.
While agent Kuryakin watched the crowd, Gaby's eyes were transfixed on the outline of the Russian's broad shoulders.
When Waverly had asked him how long it had been since she had last performed The Nutcracker, Gaby's mind had flooded with memories of her childhood. The first time she'd danced The Nutcracker as first soloist, she'd barely been a woman and much more a gangly sixteen-year-old; awkward and clumsy with everything that wasn't a screwdriver or didn't involve old-timers.
9 years before that, at 7 years old, Gaby's father had left her at a foster family; the Schmidts. The abandonment of her only family had left deep marks on her fragile psyche, and during the first couple of weeks she had wanted absolutely nothing to do with the Schmidts, constantly locking herself in her bedroom to distance herself from the unfamiliarity of this family. Naturally, her surrogate parents had tried to coax her out of her bedroom, offering her presents and promising to cook her everything she could possibly wish for.
There wasn't anything she wanted. She only wanted her father.
Then, on a brisk Saturday morning at the beginning of the fall, a sharp knock at her bedroom door had pulled her out of bed. She hadn't been sleeping—she could barely sleep those days—so she'd pulled on her favorite overall in less than ten seconds before pressing her ear against the door.
"Wer ist da?"
"It's Harry! Can you open the door, please?"
Reluctantly, Gaby turned the key in its lock and peeked around the corner of the baby blue colored wood. Harry Schmidt's round face smiled back at her. He was a British mechanic who had moved to Berlin approximately 20 years ago, in 1925. Harry came from a long line of talented mechanics, and during the first World War he had personally served the British Royal Family. After three years of working for the palace, he had fallen in love with the Royal Ballet's first soloist, Elise. She was a beautiful 18-year-old dancer, with angel hair as brilliantly white as her ballerina dress and a reputation so grand that she had performed countless times for the Queen of England.
Two years post-war, Harry had followed Elise to Germany, to ask her father for his daughter's hand in marriage. They were married less than half a year later, and staying with her in Berlin, away from his loving family and friends, was what he had described to Gaby as the most profound act of love he had never thought himself capable of until he had met her.
It had taken Gaby several years not to feel envious of the way Harry and Elise loved each other so deeply. It was something she had never seen between her own parents, and never would.
Harry smiled his lop-sided smile. "Here's the thing, Gaby. I've been having some trouble repairing my old lady," he had said, his eyes twinkling. "She's awfully stubborn sometimes, and I'd ask Elise to talk to her, woman to woman, but she won't be back for another two hours."
"Ich weiß nicht—"
"Don't worry about that, I can teach you."
He had taught her everything he knew, and she had flourished under his tutelage. It was therapeutic to her; every time she took apart the greasy pieces of an old engine, the battered pieces of her own heart seem to crawl back together. Her bedroom door hadn't been locked since that Saturday morning.
Gaby shook her head, physically trying to force the memory back into her subconscious. This was not the time for nostalgia. Phase 2 had been completed, and in less than a few seconds, Illya would initiate phase 3. She needed to be on top of her game.
Scanning the guests, Gaby's eyes glided across the eager faces. Many of them were forty-something Caucasian males, their wives glued to their sides with young faces and shimmering form-fitting dresses. Rolling her eyes at this, Gaby tried to spot doctor Summers.
Instantly, Gaby's heartrate spiked.
Mary Summers was looking straight at her.
It was impossible to read the doctor's face from this distance, but there was one message that the doctor was clearly trying to convey. Without another thought, Gaby spun on her heel and disappeared into the right wing.
The entire crowd was seated. The roar of their happy chatter was deafening.
Illya thumbed the button again as he monitored the guests vigorously.
Why is no one standing up?! Illya thought irritably, frustration fueling his impatience. He pushed the small button again. Perhaps it is broken? As inconspicuously as he could, Illya shook the device and tried again. Nothing. One of the guests seated at the front row was watching him warily.
Illya blinked and checked his watch. They only had a couple more minutes before Gaby went live. The Russian squinted his eyes against the bright lights of the spotlights overhead. A glint caught his peripheral vision, and Illya automatically turned towards the source of the offending light.
Immediately, he spotted his colleague.
Gaby was standing behind the red curtain, her body obscured by the darkness of the right wing. She was talking at a continuous pace, but it was too fast for Illya to lip-read. A small mirror was clutched in her right hand, and her left hand was swinging back and forth over the glass in a repetitive matter.
Morse code. The same three letters over and over again. M…I…C…
Promptly, Illya turned off the black device and pocketed it. He put the earpiece back in his right ear.
"—empty seat. Lower balcony, third set, fifth row, first seat from the right. Mary has seen him leave for the bathroom six times, and he just left again."
Illya took a startled breath. "Peacock, did you—"
"Roger that, Swan, Eagle. My feathery behind is on it."
Illya rolled his eyes, but nonetheless he felt his pulse pick up pace. Tonight's stakes were too high to ignore coincidences. Either this guest had a serious bladder problem, or he had other business to attend to. Illya tried to suppress his grin. Maybe that explained why their earpiece interference system hadn't worked out. Perhaps their moll was communicating the old-fashioned way: whispering tonight's progressions through a dirty bathroom window.
Above Illya, the chandeliers dimmed and the spotlights were moved manually. The chamber orchestra readied their instruments. In response, the entire crowd stood and clapped enthusiastically. Feeling slightly awkward, Illya stepped further into the shadows of the stage, but the faces before him weren't paying any attention to him. Their gazes were focused on something, or someone, behind him.
Illya followed their lines of sight and his breath caught in his throat.
It was his chop-shop girl, alone on the stage. Her arms were elegantly curved together, her feet poised only centimeters apart. Illya's eyes travelled the length of her long and defined legs, hidden by white thin fabric but tense with anticipation. The layers of her skirt seemed to bristle as they travelled horizontally, the frilly lace barely covering the gentle curve of her hips.
Illya's gaze strayed further, up and up. A tight golden corset had seemingly woven itself around Gaby's petite frame; the edge of the sweetheart neckline laced with diamonds which dazzled in the spotlight. His eyes wandered the familiar path of her slender neck, to the sharp jawline and eyes as dark and gravitational as the earth beneath his feet.
Illya was entranced. His lungs burned with a lack of oxygen. He sucked in a sharp and long breath just as the orchestra started to play, and Gaby moved in harmony with the rise and fall of his chest. As she whirled around, more graceful than her codename ever could be, Illya had only one thought in mind.
This job will be the death of me.
I'm going live in 5 minutes.
Mary was frantically pacing back and forth behind the tall curtain of the left wing. On her left, a golden envelope with beautifully calligraphed letters lay forgotten. Its contents held this year's winner of the Albert Lasker Award. Mary couldn't find it in herself to care.
What's taking them so long?!
The bakery girl turned protective detail turned prima ballerina, Liesel, Mary thought her name was, had just given the performance of a lifetime. There was no way this woman was a regular security for hire. Mary had only seen someone dance like that when she'd been a young girl, back in London, when her mother had brought her to a performance of the Royal Ballet.
A young red-headed woman materialized behind Mary. The young doctor jumped visibly.
"Two more minutes, doctor," the woman announced, glancing nervously at the envelope. Upon seeing Mary's face, the friendly smile on the redhead's face wavered. "Everything alright, doctor?"
No, everything is not alright. My son is kidnapped and his life depends on a team of three security guards consisting of a Russian judo teacher, a librarian and a ballerina who was twirling in circles on stage only seconds ago. We're a lost cause.
"Yes, quite alright, Hannah. Just stage-fright, I suppose."
Hannah smiled politely. "That's perfectly normal, doctor. I am confident you will do brilliantly out there."
Oh, you won't think that when you're going to hear what I have to announce to the world.
Mary forced a smile on her face. She straightened her spine, picked up the envelope, and ignored Hannah's encouraging nod.
With lead in her shoes, Mary walked to the center of the stage.
A thunderous applause greeted her. Sweat trickled down her back, pooling at the base of her spine behind the fabric of her long navy-blue dress. Her eyes had difficulty adjusting to the lights, and when she dipped her head she caught the silhouette of the Russian on her left. He was mouthing something, probably speaking into his earpiece. Mary gripped the envelope a little tighter. Without the paper, she was sure her hands would have trembled.
Fear wasn't a familiar emotion to Marianne. She had witnessed its destructiveness regularly, the way its vines gripped the hearts of her patients and left them hollow shells when they realized death was near. However, defeat was no stranger to her. While it usually left her as empty as her patients, it was now the catalyst of her wobbly knees and soaring heartrate.
A microphone stand stood tall before her. She unclenched her jaw and spoke directly into the curved silver transducer.
"Thank you. I would like to give all of you a warm welcome and thank those who have made this year's edition of the Albert Lasker Award possible."
Another applause. A lone drop trickled down her neck and rested in the hollow behind her collarbone. She hoped that the bright lights wouldn't accentuate her glistening skin.
"It is a great honor to stand before you, on this special day. To celebrate the mind-boggling progression of medical science is a tribute to an equally special businessman, Albert Lasker. It was he who introduced this award in 1945. As you might be aware, I was a rebellious fifteen-year-old teenager at the time, sneaking out of my parents' house in London at four in the morning."
The unexpected moment of honesty drew a startled laugh from the audience.
"I was off to the library, mind you," Mary added mischievously, and the crowd laughed again. For a minute, she felt more at ease. She turned over the envelope clutched in her hands. It felt heavier than ever.
It's worth it. He's worth it, Mary.
She blew out air through her nostrils and pushed on.
"I had wanted to be a doctor then. I read every medical journal I could get my hands on, and while my friends went out to the local pub, I pondered the marvels of human biology. At fifteen, I never realized that no amount of literature could prepare me for the hardships of my chosen destiny." Mary breathed deeply, maintaining eye-contact with the men and women before her. "I lost my first patient when I was 26. I had been an anesthesiologist for only two months. I didn't have a lot of experience with life, and I didn't have a lot of experience with death, either."
The crowd kept silent. An elderly woman coughed.
"My patient had passed due to rapid metabolic acidosis. Quite literally, her insides had turned acidic. She'd been too far gone at the time to prevent it, but if we'd detected it sooner, she might still be alive today. This experience was the drive behind my collaboration with doctor John Severinghaus and powered our quest to develop the first useful blood gas analysis apparatus by combining the technology we already have. I am delighted to say that I haven't lost a patient to metabolic acidosis ever since."
The crowd erupted in applause. Their bright faces beamed back at Mary.
"However," Mary continued, and the crowd quieted down again, "A war has been raging against us and against our patients. A new enemy has risen from the darkness of this city, and we all have been struggling to repel the poisonous distribution of diamorphine. We're capable of treatment, but in contrast we are consistently too late. I feel responsible for their losses. No, let me rephrase that, I am…"
The crowd was mumbling. Mary hadn't realized she had closed her eyes until she opened them. A blonde man was pointing at her. No, he was pointing at someone beside her. Bewildered, Mary's head snapped to the right.
Nathan Harris flashed her a disarming smile.
Mary was dumbstruck. By the sound of their chatter, she was certain that the crowd was equally confused. In one fluent motion, the dark-haired man grabbed the microphone and turned to the audience.
"Pardon my intrusion, ladies and gentleman. It seems that there has been a mix-up concerning the envelopes. Terribly sorry, allow me to set this straight at once."
An awkward chuckle reverberated through the hall. Turning away from the microphone, Nathan handed her an envelope. Mary felt rather than saw how Nathan deftly plucked his own envelope out of her hand as they pretended to swap under the scrutiny of hundreds of spectators. His strange behavior conveyed to Mary a message that nearly made her faint with relief.
He's safe. Alexander is safe.
Blinking hard to hold back her tears, Mary once again addressed her colleagues.
The bottle of scotch was taunting Waverly from the other side of the room.
The red diagonal label lined with gold was an expected addition to every hotel room, especially ones in this price range. Normally, he would have instructed the staff to remove all alcoholic drinks, as a precaution. He hadn't put a bottle to his lips for almost 20 years, yet he never trusted himself enough not to slip up when a mission was challenging.
And challenging it was. Mary was his sole remaining relative, the only breathing family he had left, so he'd fought hard to keep her out of his life. In his profession, his relatives ended up killed. His younger brother, parents and mother's brother could account for that.
Alexander recalled in perfect detail the first—and apparently, not last—time he had compromised his cover. His actions had been vital for the success of a mission, and as a result he had received the George Cross; a symbol of recognition for acts of the highest bravery. That had been more than ten years ago.
"You didn't have to break your cover," Solo challenged, his tall frame leaning against the leather chair opposite Waverly. His other agent, Kuryakin, was standing in front of the television, watching a repeat of today's news broadcast. The blonde's head turned marginally at Solo's voice.
"You could have kept her in the dark. Besides, you can only win that medal once, can't you?"
Waverly sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose with the fingers of his right hand. Solo was right. Of course he was. He didn't have to reveal his true identity to Mary. Knowledge is what got people killed. The only reason he broke his cover was—
"Kompromat, I believe is the Russian word. Mary had attempted to reach me soon after you visited her, Solo. She left a message. She's always been quick on her feet."
"You could have denied it," said Kuryakin, stepping forward to stand next to Solo. The way his two agents synchronized drew a laugh from Waverly, and he stood up abruptly.
"You know," Waverly said, and damn him if he couldn't keep the fondness out of his voice, "I liked it better when you two were trying to murder each other."
Solo nodded, and Kuryakin responded with a short "Da". Both men took this as their cue to leave. Waverly had intended it as such.
Waverly fingered the label of the bottle, his thumb tracing the little man with the walking stick. Kompromat. Telling Mary about his true identity wasn't exactly damaging material, but it was dangerous. She could be captured. They might torture her. They would kill her. He wasn't naive enough to think the latter wouldn't happen.
In his defense, he had initially planned never to meet his niece. She'd been a little girl, last time he had seen her. Many years after, in 1951, he'd gone to London on an undercover op. Posing as a Geophysicist at an annual conference, he had met Peter Summers. The 23-year-old man was a brilliant and incredibly driven scientist, engaged to a beautiful woman, and they were expecting their first child.
Peter had reminded him so much of his younger brother that it had repaired some of the battered pieces of his heart. Keeping in touch with the younger man had been a rookie mistake, one that Waverly would have to live with for the rest of his life.
Barely a year had passed, and Peter's wife had died giving birth to their son, Alexander. Death found Peter a year later, just when things had started looking up for him. Peter had fallen in love with another woman, and they had sealed their love in marriage only days before the car accident.
Sometimes, Waverly wished he had never found out that Peter had married Mary Waverly, the only child of his mother's brother. How could anyone blame him for slipping up? Mary and Alexander would have been dead by now if it hadn't been for his meddling. He was sure of it.
It didn't matter that he had interfered by calling in a favor from the head of Anesthesiology of Massachusetts General Hospital. It didn't matter that he had arranged the beautiful house with red bricks on Walnut street to be vacant and within Mary's price-range. All that mattered was that he had kept her and her son safe.
"Hummingbird, huh?"
Mary snorted, then laughed aloud. "What, because I hover over my patients?"
Waverly grinned at her and nodded. He watched as Mary pulled a carton of milk from the refrigerator.
"And your…spies?" Mary laughed again and shook her head, as if the entire situation was simply ludicrous. To her, it probably was. "They're your henchmen, or something?"
"Or something," Waverly replied playfully. The mock-scornful look she sent him made his chest clench.
"Well, I'm glad they were there. They saved Alex. I'm eternally grateful to them. And to you, for that matter."
Waverly shook his head, and for a moment he wasn't quite sure what to say. Emotions were compromising, this was compromising. Allowing himself to have this…this connection…it was blasphemy.
He would have to disappear after the mission. He had chosen this life without strings, and thus he would have to live with by the rules.
He just prayed he would be brave enough.
Alexander shook the milk carton. Empty. The cold emanating from the fridge did little to wake him up. He needed to get his act together. Focus on the facts, Waverly thought. The facts are inalterable.
Simon H., code-named Robin, had OD'ed in the hospital. A little digging had showed that Robin had been dating Nina Bova, the daughter of the Bakery's owner. Nina Bova hadn't been sighted for years: rumor had it that she had left Boston after a fight with her father.
They had nothing on the handler who Kuryakin had encountered on Tuesday. The man they'd intercepted at the theater—a young anesthesiologist—had denied everything but had been stupid enough to hide a slip of paper with Alexander's location in his pocket. They had found the boy tied up but unharmed in an abandoned garage, just around the corner of the Bakery.
Which left them with nothing. No leads. Frustrated, Waverly bit his tongue. All of his efforts to keep them safe had been nothing more than a futile struggle with faith.
He twisted the cap of the bottle. The aftertaste of his failure was as bitter as the scotch in his hands.
A/N: Jeez! Longest. Chapter. Ever! I've been away for a while (thank you, captain Obvious), but this time off gave me some insight on how to finish this story. Don't worry, though: there are plenty of chapters to come! Next one up will be a little more centered about Gaby (remember folks, she's the star). Also, Jeffrey will make an appearance! Why? Honestly, I have no freaking clue. Whether he will hit it off with Gaby or with someone else is something I'll keep secret a little longer! Please hit that lovely little button before you go to let me know what you think!