Girl of Vengeance

  Carrie took his hand. His hand was warm, and dotted with age spots. His eyes were tired, but they were her eyes. She smiled at him, trying to reassure, and said, “Why don’t we start with a drink, then, and we can talk.”

  Gratitude flashed openly in his eyes. She glanced over her shoulder at Alexandra and Dylan. They’d sunk into a couch, whispering to each other, oblivious to everyone else in the room. Carrie turned back to Andrea and pulled her sister into another embrace.

  “I’m so glad you’re safe,” she whispered. “We were so afraid for you.”

  Andrea shook in her arms.

  After a moment, they broke apart, and she said, “And who is this?”

  She knelt down in front of the little girl.

  “I’m Jane,” the little girl said. She wore a blue dress and patent leather shoes, too formal for a child this young.

  Jane, Carrie repeated in her mind.

  “I like your dress, Jane. I’m Carrie.”

  “Daddy says we’re sisters. You and me and Andea.” She stumbled over Andrea’s name. “I never had a sister before.”

  “Well,” Carrie said, suddenly stifling a sob. She couldn’t force her eyes to stop watering though. She tried. Every time she cried, she thought she’d run out of tears. But there were always more. “Now you’ve got a lot of sisters. Now and forever, if—if our father says it’s okay.”

  “I want nothing more in this world,” George-Phillip said, his voice low.

  “Can I pick you up?” Carrie asked Jane.

  Jane nodded, and Carrie stood. She reached out and lifted Jane up and slid her onto her hip. She said, “I’ve got a little girl too. Though she’s a lot smaller than you are.”

  “Smaller? I like that. I’m always the smallest,” she said, her voice sounding sad. “What’s her name?”

  “Rachel,” Carrie answered.

  George-Phillip smiled and led them into a sunroom. As they walked in, he said to Dylan, “We’ll be in here, whenever you two want to join us.”

  Dylan looked up and said, “Thank you, sir.” His voice was rough.

  Jane asked, “Is Rachel a sister?”

  Carrie smiled and sat down on a wicker couch, keeping the little girl in her lap. “No, she doesn’t have any sisters yet. I’m her mommy.”

  Jane said, “My mommy’s in heaven now.”

  George-Phillip looked stricken, his eyes bleak. He whispered, “Pancreatic cancer.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Carrie said. She looked back at Jane and whispered, “Sometimes sisters can be like mommies too.”

  Andrea slid in next to her and said to Jane, “It’s true. Sometimes they can take you to the zoo. Or give you Band-Aids when you’re hurt. Or get you ice cream, and give you hugs, and take care of you when you cry. Sometimes big sisters do things like that.”

  Andrea gave her a meaningful look, as if to say, I remember. Then she said, “Carrie was like that for me when I was little, just like you.”

  Goddamn it, Carrie thought, stifling more tears.

  “You know, I never thought I would see you—the three of you—in the same room. If only your mother were here,” he said.

  Carrie looked up at George-Phillip. “Can you tell me about her?”

  George-Phillip tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

  Carrie took Andrea’s hand in hers without even thinking. “What I mean is … what we know is a mother who was … erratic. Mentally ill. Sometimes the rage got so bad she would completely lose it. She’d scream at us, and … rarely … would hit us. I want to know why. Why did you fall in love with her? Who was she before … before all that happened?”

  George-Phillip’s face took on the bleakest expression she’d ever seen on a man’s face. Jane stirred in Carrie’s lap and said, “Da, may I go play?”

  “Of course, Jane. Let’s go find Miss Adriana.” He stood, and said, “Excuse me just a moment.”

  As he walked out of the room, Andrea said, “I’m not sure I care what she was like.”

  Carrie sighed. “I’m not sure what I want anymore. Except the truth. I want to know the truth. All of it.”

  “Do you think he’ll tell us?”

  Carrie shrugged. “As much as anyone else in the world will.” Her eyes shifted to the glass and the grounds outside. “So … please tell me … how you ended up here anyway.”

  Andrea shrugged. “Alexandra told Dylan to Google George-Phillip. We did—and so we drove over here. Dylan crashed his car into the gate to distract the guards and I climbed over the back wall.”

  “It’s a good thing you weren’t an assassin,” Carrie said.

  Andrea said, “They caught me before I got to him. But I screamed loud enough he came looking for me.”

  The door opened, and George-Phillip walked back in. He smiled and said, “Young Dylan and his wife are still sitting on the couch. They love each other very much, don’t they?”

  Carrie smiled. “They do.”

  He sat and said, “She reminds me a little bit of her mother too. Though Alexandra does have a look of her father about her.”

  Carrie glanced at Andrea, then back at George-Phillip. “He raped her, you know. When he found out I wasn’t his daughter. He beat her nearly to death, and raped her.”

  George-Phillip flinched. “I’d have done anything to prevent it,” he said. “I didn’t know until much later. She named her Alexandra as kind of a poke in the eye. Your mother’s a courageous woman, but she’s also been trapped in a prison for many years. I tried to persuade her to leave, but she was always convinced Richard would harm one of you, or her brother.”

  “Luis?” Andrea said.

  George-Phillip nodded. “I don’t know if it was a real fear or not. But it was enough to keep her entrapped.”

  “You understand,” Carrie said, “how difficult this is? Everything we’ve ever believed is upside down.”

  He nodded. “I’ll try to give you everything I possibly can. I can’t even imagine the difficulty you face.”

  “When did you meet her?”

  He smiled. “We met in February of 1984, just a few weeks after your mother arrived in Washington, DC. I was on assignment here at the Embassy then. Though I didn’t live in such luxurious quarters.” He said the last with a wry smile. “My office was next to the boiler in the basement back then.”

  He smiled. “Your mother hosted a dinner party—that’s when we met. For a nineteen-year-old, she was incredibly poised. Everyone believed she was older, of course. I remember she captured the attention of everyone there. I thought Colonel Rainsley was going to embarrass himself, to be honest.”

  “Rainsley was there? Senator Rainsley?”

  He nodded. “That’s right. Your mother ended up being good friends with Brianna, though I don’t think she ever confided the nature of her marriage. But they had music in common.”

  “And why did you end up involved with a married woman?” Carrie asked.

  He sighed. “Of course, that was my downfall. I could see even at that party that something was broken between the two of them. He was so much older than she was, and she was terrified of him. But I had no idea how serious it was. Remember that back then, she was not much older than Andrea.”

  Fascinated at this view of a mother she’d never really understood, Carrie leaned forward and said, “What … what was she like?”

  George-Phillip smiled, his eyes twinkling. “She was fierce. Passionate. Your mother loved music … did you know she’d played for the National Youth Orchestra? She smiled, even when she was falling apart inside. She was fiercely protective of you girls. When we first met it was just Julia, of course. What a little rascal. Two years old and full of fire. I think your mother would have gone to hell and back to protect her. Adelina was the strongest woman I’ve ever known.”

  Carrie shook her head. “I find that difficult to believe. All of it.”

  “Can you imagine any other reason she stayed with him all those years? Other than to protect you?”

  “T
ell me more.” Carrie’s words were a demand. She felt an urgency to ferret out this woman who she’d never known.

  George-Phillip shrugged. “We weren’t together very long then. A few short months. Richard spent much of the spring going back and forth from Afghanistan and Pakistan, trying to bury any backlash from the Wakhan massacre before it destroyed him. We took advantage of that. Whenever we were in public—not often—Julia acted as chaperone. I finally rented a studio apartment in Chevy Chase, not far from your condominium. We could meet discreetly there. She was terrified Richard would find out and harm her brother, or harm Julia.”

  He closed his eyes. His voice shook unevenly as he said the next words, “I married, many years later, but I’ve never loved anyone the way I loved her. I’ve regretted it my entire life that I did not just—take her. That I didn’t fight hard enough, or strong enough to pull her away from him. When I think about how much he hurt her, how changed she was when I met her again in China, so many years later…”

  He shook his head, bringing his hand to his mouth. “I would do anything. Anything. To take it back. To protect her.”

  “Why did you leave? Was it because you found out she was pregnant?” Carrie didn’t voice the words, with me. But they fell in the room anyway.

  George-Phillip shook his head. “No … Carrie. Adelina broke it off with me without explanation in late April ’84. I swear to you, I didn’t know you existed until 1996.”

  “Tell me. What happened in China?” Carrie’s demand was sharp.

  George Phillip. May 1996.

  By the time Prince George-Phillip got off the airplane in China—commercial, of course—and cleared customs, he’d been en route for more than seventeen hours, thanks to an unnecessary layover in Paris. He was hot and tired and desperately needed a good night’s sleep.

  That, unfortunately, was not to be. A young woman, perhaps twenty-five, waited for him at the end of the terminal with a cardboard sign discreetly labeled “GP.” He’d been told to expect her. Wendy Li was a British citizen, born in Cambridge, but her parents were native Chinese. She spoke fluent Mandarin. Purportedly a protocol officer for the Embassy—she was, in fact, the deputy chief of station for MI6. She was exceptionally young for that role, but the combination of an internal shakeup and her own expertise had catapulted her career forward.

  “Hello, Your Highness,” she said. “Is this all your baggage?” She directed an assistant to collect the bags. “Come this way.”

  “Thank you. Miss Li, is it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  George-Phillip was thirty-three years old, and his actual job in China was to be the chief of station for the MI6 in China—the most senior position he’d held to date. His “official” position was Senior Attaché with diplomatic service, a job with so few specifics that he could do virtually anything he needed. Like Wendy—and anyone else who works for the secretive intelligence organization—he required an official, diplomatic cover for his job, which was, of course, to spy on the Chinese.

  It wasn’t the glamorous job people would expect. Spying typically involved finding people in sensitive positions, determining their weaknesses, and exploiting them. Sometimes the weaknesses were simple—greed, sexual peccadilloes and other means of turning people against their country. Sometimes they were more complex: people who sold out their country believing they were patriots. The most useful asset MI6 had in the Chinese government was secretly a Christian convert who worked in the Chinese Foreign Ministry. The Chinese government, of course, suppressed Christianity along with all other religions. That oppression gave spies a wedge.

  As they got into the chauffeured car, she said, “Forgive me, Highness, we do have one issue. Are you fully up to date on the tensions between China and the US?”

  “Yes, unless something happened while I was in the air.” She was referring, of course, to the spying scandal erupting in the United States, which was severely straining relations in Beijing. Chinese intelligence operatives had stolen significant nuclear secrets from the United States, and as of yet no one knew the extent of the damage.

  “Nothing new, sir. Except the American Ambassador had an extremely … tense … meeting with the Chinese premier today. There’s some concern that the Chinese may retaliate in some way, so most of the NATO allies and Australia will be attending a large reception this evening at the US Embassy. As a show of solidarity, sir. I’m aware how long you’ve been in the air—but the Ambassador would like you to attend.”

  He frowned then said, “All right. I’ll need to shower and shave, and someone to press one of my suits. They’re certain to be rumpled. And perhaps some coffee.” George-Phillip didn’t typically drink coffee. But he’d been awake so long now it was necessary.

  “Of course, sir.”

  “Who is the US Ambassador anyway? Isn’t there a new one?”

  “Richard Thompson, sir. Previously he was the US Ambassador to NATO.”

  George-Phillip felt a chill. He didn’t answer, just murmured, “Hmmmmm.”

  “Sir? You know him?”

  Damn. His expression had betrayed him. “I do. But it’s been many years. What’s your impression?” George-Phillip asked the question just to get her talking so he didn’t have to.

  “Honestly, sir, something about him … bothers me. I’m usually a pretty good judge of people. But I can’t make him out. He’s stone cold.”

  “Is he married?” George-Phillip didn’t breathe after he asked the question.

  “Yes, Your Highness. Younger woman, her name is Adelina. They have five children.”

  “Five? That’s quite a lot, isn’t it?” Five? She’d had four more children with him? What the hell?

  “I believe the last two were twins, they were born this April. Confidentially, sir … I think she’s afraid of him.”

  “His wife?” he asked. He arched an eyebrow, trying to look surprised.

  Wendy didn’t look fooled. She raised a skeptical eyebrow right back. “Yes. His wife. I think she’s afraid of him. You know her too, don’t you, sir?”

  George-Phillip frowned. “You don’t miss very much, do you, Miss Li?”

  She shook her head. “Very little. Is there something there we should be worried about?”

  George-Phillip grunted. On the one hand, it wasn’t an appropriate question for a subordinate to be asking. On the other—she had a point. “No. There might have been, many years ago. But that’s long since over.”

  The look of concern didn’t leave Wendy’s face. But she wisely chose to steer the conversation away from Adelina. “Thompson has been the Ambassador since last October. It’s been a difficult time—with the spying revelations, relations with China and the US are souring rapidly.”

  “Indeed,” George-Phillip said. “Spying is one thing. Nuclear secrets are another. It’s difficult to blame the Americans for their response.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Ninety minutes later, George-Phillip and Wendy Li arrived at the US Embassy compound and were cleared through the gate. He felt somewhat refreshed after the shower, but nothing would completely do it other than a lot of sleep. Which he was unlikely to get in the next couple of days. So be it. He had a job to do, and sleep wasn’t in the job description.

  George-Phillip and Wendy were late, but not too much so. It never hurt to be close to the last to arrive anyway. As he walked into the ballroom in the Embassy, his eyes scanned the room and the sixty or more guests who were crowded in various circles and groupings.

  He immediately recognized some faces. Rick Smith, the Australian Ambassador to China, and of course Ambassador Ronald Easton, who stood next to his American counterpart—Richard Thompson. Thompson stood in profile to George-Phillip. His expression was grave as he and Easton spoke. Richard had aged, his hair gone grey in the dozen years since they’d encountered each other. He must be in his mid-forties.

  Adelina wasn’t standing with Thompson, which was a good thing. After a moment, George-Phillip found her. She was standing n
ear the back wall of the ballroom, talking with a young girl. Adelina’s back was to George-Phillip. She looked much the same, her back still well toned, exposed in a backless dress. After five children, her body had changed, of course—broader hips and larger breasts. She was lovely. He froze, unable to focus clearly as he looked at the young woman.

  Fourteen, he guessed. Curly brown hair, large pretty eyes. Julia. She wouldn’t remember him, of course—she’d been a mere toddler when he last saw her. She’d turned into a beautiful young woman.

  For a moment he gave into a fantasy that she was his daughter, that he and Adelina could have had children. But of course, that was impossible. Five children. He wondered if she’d finally been emotionally seduced by her husband.

  For the last decade and more his mother had constantly harped at him. Get married. Have a child. But he’d kept a false hope, all along, that one day she would leave him, that a miracle would happen and he would be with the woman he loved. But at the moment he saw her again for the first time, he didn’t feel that longing, he didn’t feel that love. What he felt was anger and hurt and grief he hadn’t imagined he was capable of.

  “Your Highness! Welcome to Beijing.”

  Startled, George-Phillip averted his eyes from Adelina and Julia, only to come face to face with Ronald Easton, the US Ambassador, and Richard Thompson.

  Automatically, a smile lit across George-Phillip’s face, though it was no more sincere than the friendly face Thompson showed.

  “Ambassador Easton! Ambassador Thompson! A pleasure to see both of you again!”

  Easton smiled. “Prince George-Phillip, I’m pleased to have you here. So you know Richard?”

  Forcing his thoughts away from Adelina, he replied. “Indeed. Ambassador Thompson once hosted me for a very interesting dinner at his condominium in Washington, DC.”

  Julia was walking away from Adelina now. Likely leaving, she was young to attend a diplomatic ball of this nature. Adelina turned around and her eyes locked on his. The shock was obvious. Her eyes widened and watered, and a hand involuntarily covered her mouth. Almost instantly, however, a mask descended on her face, her hand dropped to her side, and she looked away.