 
The Lost Ballet

By Richard Dorrance

Copyright 2013 Richard Dorrance

Smashwords Edition

This book was written at

The Charleston Library Society.

Thank you for downloading this no cost book. Although this is a no cost book, it remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied, and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

# Chapter 1 – The Secret Compartment

Helstof called Gwen June and said, "If you want to come over for coffee, we have something interesting to show you. You brought something back from Russia you didn't know about."

"I'm on my way. Should I invite Roger, or is this girl stuff?"

"Bring him. And bring the four ballet geeks, if you can. We haven't seen them in a while, and this is about ballet. Oh, I shouldn't have given that away. It's half the surprise. See you."

Gwen called down to the rehearsal hall, and got Peter. When he answered she said, "Who's down there today? Are Selgey and Bart there? Can you get away for an hour or two?"

"They're here. So is Pater. What's up?"

"Helstof wants us to come over to her house; says she has a surprise about ballet. Says we brought something back from the heist we didn't know about. Can you come now?"

Peter yelled something away from the phone, then said, "Yeah. See you."

Roger showed up first, and gave his wife an American kiss, then gave Helstof a European double kiss. He liked the direct, American style of smackaroo right on the lips, better than the prissy European thing. But the double kiss was different, which made it interesting. He shook hands with Henric, Helstof's husband, and said, "Where's the baby horse?"

Henric said, "Outside, running the beach."

"How much you paid in fines so far, letting her off leash every day?"

Henric looked at Helstof, who held up five fingers.

"$500?"

With her hands, Helstof pantomimed stretching.

"$5,000?" Roger said.

Henric beamed with pride. Helstof rolled her eyes.

Gwen said, "Jesus."

Henric's baby horse was a borzoi dog that weighed 140 pounds, and was dumb as an ox. It was only ten months old and not fully grown. The huge dog was lucky its master was wealthy and owned a 10,000 square foot house for it to run around in. It would follow Henric around all day, from the garage on the ground floor to the bedrooms on the fourth floor. This blockheaded but sweet-natured dog would run up the stairs and down the stairs; around the garage and around the wine cellar; around the kitchen and around the sunrooms. It loved Henric, and Henric loved it. But god, was it dumb.

The door to the kitchen opened, and in came Peter, Pater, Selgey, and Bart - the four ballet geeks. Now there was a lot more European kissing, because Peter and Pater were Russian, and even though Selgey was American and Bart was English, they had lived in Europe for a while, and liked that gesture. So between the eight people, there were like, forty-four kisses dished out. If the dog had been in the room, rather than running around loose on the beach, breaking the law, there would have been lots more.

Roger said, "What's the surprise?"

Henric pointed to a desk across the living room, which was eighty feet away. The Gromstov's have a really big living room. The group walked over and stood looking at a large hole in the side.

"Dog," Henric said. "Running around the house, slipped on the polished floor, did a header into the desk." He looked at the hole. "Didn't hurt her a bit. Really thick skull."

Helstof said, "That's not the surprise, though that caused the surprise." She looked at Henric, who nodded. She pointed at the hole, said, "Secret compartment. Had stuff in it. Stuff about ballet." The desk was one of several hundred small objects the Gromstovs, the Junes, and the Ps (Peter and Pater) had stolen from warehouses of the Hermitage Museum, in Saint Petersburg, Russia, about a year earlier. All the items had been smuggled back to Charleston in huge shipping containers, and some of them now were in the Gromstov's house on Kiawah Island.

The Junes had masterminded the Hermitage heist. They are real Charlestonians, meaning both their families had lived there since before the Civil War. If your family came to town after the Civil War, say 1870 or so, you are not a real Charlestonian.

Peter and Pater, the Ps, no last name, had been security guards at the Hermitage, and had been bribed to let the heist team slip out of the museum compound in the dead of night. The bribe had consisted of an offer they couldn't refuse. After the heist, their employment status at the Hermitage changed from "satisfactory" to "hunt them down like the rats they are, and exterminate them." So they had vacated the premises along with the stolen goods, and been transported to Charleston on the container ship, in one of the containers. Before becoming trusted members of the Hermitage security force, both of them had been dancers in the Mariinsky ballet corps. When Peter tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee, Pater also ended his career. Partners, for better or for worse.

Selgey and Bart, also dancers, had fallen in love during a performance of Swan Lake. According to Selgey, it happened just after Bart threw her upwards toward the ceiling of the Royal Opera House in London's Covent Garden, and just before he caught her. She said she had been thrown around a lot of stages by a lot of guys during her illustrious career as principle dancer with the American Ballet Theater, but no one other than Bart had thrown her upwards with just one arm, and then caught her with just the one other arm. No one. During that weightless interlude, similar to what astronauts in outer space experience, between the throw and the catch, that was when she decided she was in love with Bart.

Bart, on the other hand, said he fell in love with Selgey when, accidentally, he saw her standing naked in front of the mirror in her dressing room. Selgey was the romantic of the two; Bart the pragmatist. They decided to leave the life of world class ballet performance at the same time, get married, and retire out of the limelight to the quaint cultural charms of Charleston. The four dancers, and Henric, were toying with the idea of starting a ballet academy, and had rented a rehearsal space in an old theater on John Street, traditionally called The Hall.

Now the four Russians, three Americans, and the one Englishman stood together in the really big living room, looking at the busted antique desk, waiting for Helstof to tell them about the surprise.

Pater said, "The dog did that, with her head, and she's ok?"

Henric said, "Russian dogs, very tough."

Henric sat on the floor in front of the center of the desk and demonstrated how the secret compartment worked. He stuck his head into the space where a person's legs were when they sat at the desk. The desk was small, but beautifully crafted, with ornate detailing and finishes, and had one drawer on each side. Henric looked carefully at the inner wall of the side, and at the top, just under the bottom of the drawer, was a small wooden latch, made from the same wood as the side, and very unobtrusive. He turned the latch, and the entire inner wall panel popped away from the outer side, towards him. This panel was connected to the desk by a hinge at the bottom, completely invisible unless the desk was laid on its back or top, which hardly was thinkable, given the quality and beauty of the desk.

Carefully he held the top edge of the panel, and lowered it downwards. There was a squeak from the invisible hinges, but the mechanism worked perfectly. The entire inner wall panel folded down until its top edge touched the floor. He pointed to the narrow compartment between the inner and outer walls, and said, "Papers."

# Chapter 2 – The Composer and The Impresario

Helstof showed them the papers they had found in the secret compartment. She made everyone sit down, explained about the two letters and the two newspaper articles from 1914, and passed them around. She said to the four former dancers, "I guess you know who Stravinsky and Diaghilev were?" They did. She looked at Roger and Gwen, who nodded, yes. Helstof picked up a letter and unfolded the single sheet of paper. She looked at the Russian script, and read aloud:

Dear Sergei:

The days are warmer here in Petersburg than when I left Switzerland two months ago. It is pleasant, but I don't fancy spending another winter here.....ever. I long to get back to Lausanne to see the little boy and the baby.

I spend my days here in the main city library, and at the Hermitage. I have found some interesting material that will help me with Les Noces, but I think I will have to make up much of that story as I go along. I am used to doing that after the last six months, working on the ballet. I could not warm myself to the story you proposed for the ballet, as I am sick of thinking about old Russian gods running around the forests, making life miserable for everyone. So I wrote the score based on some paintings I saw recently in Lausanne by some Frenchmen. They are wild, and that matches my mood over the last six months.

When I am bored reading in the libraries, I take out the ballet score and sing it in my head. I am not sure the music is any good, and that may be because I don't understand the paintings. But they consume me.

I must get back to Lausanne soon. Katerina is poorly.

Yours most fondly, IS

Petersburg, July 1914

Henric opened the flap of one envelope and extracted two articles, cut from a newspaper. He said, "They're from a French newspaper," and handed them to his wife, whose mother was French. The two articles were from _Le Monde_ , one dated August 1913 and one dated September 1913. Helstof said, "They are reviews of a performance by the Ballets Russes, in Paris in August 1913. It was The Rite of Spring, by Stravinsky. One is about the music, and one is about the choreography. The person who wrote the article about the music hated it. The person who wrote about the choreography and the dancing loved it."

She set the articles on the table and translated the second letter.

1914, January the 13th, My Dear Friend Igor,

In another post I have sent two more reviews of Rite. The one man is a fool, who wouldn't know great music if God himself stuck a celestial trumpet in the man's ear and blew a choir written by angels. The other man also is a fool for praising Bakst for the movements. When it comes time to do Les Noces, I will get someone else who understands the direction you are heading in your musical phantasies, and will not choreograph so as to make all the dancers seem to be in straightjackets and from the lunatic asylum.

I have paid off almost all the debts from the Rite production, and soon shall send you funds. We did well on this, and will do better on the next.

If you cannot come to Paris to discuss the next dance, I will come to Lausanne. We must speak. We must continue this work. No one can write dance songs the way you will, and I have people who will give us the money to make the productions. You will have as great and large of an orchestra as you want and need. I promise you this, my great friend, and any dancer you want. They all want to fly to your music.

Do you still mean to go back to Petersburg? Are things there not very unsettled, dangerous even? The damned Bolsheviks are trouble-makers, and they are serious. Can you not come to Paris and do the research?

Please write to me soon and tell me about the new music. It will be wonderful. I await your next work.

Diaghilev

Helstof picked up printouts from Wikipedia articles on Diaghilev and Stravinsky. At the end of both articles were lists of works, which showed that Stravinsky and Diaghilev had collaborated on the following ballets:

The Firebird, 1910

Petrushka, 1911

The Rite of Spring, 1913

Pulcinella, 1920

Les Noces, 1923

Helstof looked at the others and said, "Nothing from the time period of Stravinsky's letter that we have here, 1914. Nothing between 1913 and 1920. But in the letter it says he has written another ballet, and he's not sure he likes it. But he says he takes it out when he's bored, and sings it in his head." She paused. "Why is it not on the encyclopedia list of articles? Where is it? What's it called?"

# Chapter 3 – The Second Secret Compartment

It was clear Stravinsky had received the letter and articles Diaghilev had sent him in January 1914. It also was clear he never sent the letter he had written to Diaghilev in July 1914. Helstof said, "So the mystery is, why didn't Stravinsky send the letter he wrote to Diaghilev, and why did he put these papers in the secret compartment of the desk in Saint Petersburg?"

The eight friends sat in the living room and pondered on the question. Roger closed his eyes, which Gwen knew was a sign he had kicked his brain into high gear. He repeated Helstof's question, and focused on the "secret compartment" phrase. Why did the desk have a secret compartment? Why have desks throughout history and around the world had secret compartments? Simple. To hide stuff. Roger opened his eyes and looked across the eighty feet of living room space at the desk. Like most desks, it was symmetrical: one drawer in the center, and one on each side. Symmetry. Symmetry. One drawer on each side. One secret compartment on the left side. So....

He got up, went over to the desk, and stared at it. Gwen knew something was up. Roger had a special skill, a special intuitive characteristic called the Divvy Sense. A Divvy is a person who can sense the presence of a work of art, even when they are not looking at it. If an antique or painting or piece of silver is near them, they feel it. And, Divvys can sense fake works of art; even very good fakes. Roger had employed this special skill when the team was stealing stuff from the Hermitage Museum warehouses. He turned it on now, looking at the desk with the secret compartment on the left side. He stared at the right side. Bong, bong, the Divvy Sense spoke.

Roger said, "Henric, did you look at the other side of the desk?"

Henric stood up and said, "No." He walked across the room, picked up a flashlight, and sat on the floor in front of the desk. He shined the light at the right side wall panel, and saw a latch at the top, just like the latch on the left side. He turned first to Roger, and then to the others. "Another compartment." He turned the latch and lowered the panel to the floor. Inside the compartment was a very large paper document, not at all like a letter or newspaper article. It measured about twenty inches from left to right, fifteen inches from top to bottom, and more than an inch thick. A faint musty smell drifted first to Henric's nose, and then to Roger's. Henric took it out of the compartment and handed it to Roger. He raised the panel, turned the latch again, and stood up. Together they walked back to where the others sat and watched. Gwen moved the letters and articles, and Roger set the large document on the coffee table. Everyone looked at it, wondering, smelling the old paper. There was no writing, no markings of any kind, on the outside.

Roger looked at Helstof and said, "Go ahead, it's yours."

Helstof opened the document by turning the first page, and saw something she never had seen before. A musical score. Bars and clefs and notes and measures. Musical notation. She had seen this before on television, and in movies, but never the real thing, in front of her like this. Across the top, written in pencil by hand, in Russian, was, four dances for Ballets Russes, 1914, IS. Below that began the staffs of standard printed musical notation. And on the printed staffs were notes and other symbols, written in pencil. Surrounding the staffs on all sides were handwritten notes, jammed wherever there was a little blank space on the page. Quickly Helstof read all the notes on the first two pages. Then she sat back in her chair and looked at the others.

"It's a story. The beginning of a story. The notes say a girl is lying in bed at night, dreaming about a family of crows she had seen in a field that day, the birds flying around, shrieking at each other, playing. There are to be two male dancers and two female dancers, dressed in black, that represent the crows. It says _courante_ ; I don't know what that means. And _expressivo_. That's what's on these pages."

Selgey and Bart looked at each other, then at the Ps. The four dancers knew what _courante_ and _expressivo_ mean, and they knew about the Ballets Russes. And because of the other items Henric had found in the first compartment, they knew what this document was. It was the score Stravinsky had mentioned in the letter to Diaghilev. It was a lost ballet.

# Chapter 4 – The Lost Ballet

Gwen looked at her husband, silently asking him if the score was genuine. His Divvy Sense was bonging ever so sweetly and profoundly, so he answered her silently, yes. Gwen said, "It's real. It's Stravinsky."

Selgey said, "I know something about music. If Pater can read the Russian notes, I can try to understand the score." Roger picked up the document and took it to the dining room table, where Selgey and Pater sat down together and began to turn pages. The others went into the kitchen, where Helstof made coffee. Everyone sensed they would be together for many hours.

Gwen said, "Let's recap what we know. Stravinsky and Diaghilev did three ballets together in Paris, for the Ballets Russes, between 1910 and 1913: Firebird, Petrushka, and Rite of Spring. The Wikipedia articles don't show any ballet works for either of them until Pulcinella in 1920, but they do say Stravinsky went from Switzerland to Saint Petersburg in mid-1914, where he researched another piece, Les Noces, which was produced in 1923. What we know from the letter we have, that no one else has seen, is that for the previous six months in 1914, he worked on a ballet based on some French paintings he had seen in Lausanne, Switzerland. He wasn't sure he liked the music, but he had the score with him, because he would look at it when he was bored with the research." Gwen looked around at the others for confirmation. She said, "What else? What else do we know about Stravinsky from that time period?"

Bart got up and went back into the living room, where he got the Wikipedia articles from the table. He read the following. "While the Stravinskys lived in Switzerland, their second son, Soulima, was born in 1910, and their second daughter, Maria Milena, was born in 1913. During this last pregnancy, Katerina was found to have tuberculosis, and was placed in a Swiss sanatorium for her confinement."

Gwen said, "So Katerina is his wife, right?"

Bart nodded and went on reading. "After a return to Russia in 1914 to collect research materials for Les Noces, Stravinsky left his homeland and returned to Switzerland, just before the outbreak of World War I brought about the closure of the borders. He was not to return to Russia for nearly fifty years." He looked around the kitchen table at the faces of his friends. Gwen closed her eyes and parsed the data. In ten seconds she made the connections. She said, "So he's in Saint Petersburg in mid-1914, with a score he wasn't sure he liked. At home in Switzerland he had a wife, a four-year old, and a new baby. And the wife was sick with tuberculosis. Europe was tense, and a world war was about to break out. What if," and she paused, "what if he found out something about his wife's health, which made him go back to Lausanne unexpectedly. But he thought he would be going back to Saint Petersburg right away. So he hides his letters in the desk he was using, and hides the score there too, that he's not sure he likes. He thinks he'll be back for them. But the war breaks out, and the borders are closed. He can't go back to Russia, and doesn't go back for fifty years. And he forgets about the score, or doesn't care. And it sits in the desk. Until today."

Roger said, "It's possible. It could have happened that way." The others thought about the information they had, and no one could offer an objection to Gwen's analysis. It appeared they had an original ballet score by Stravinsky, sitting on the table in front of them.

Selgey and Pater came into the kitchen. She said, "It's a complete score, in four acts. He called them dances. I don't know enough to tell you what style it is, but I can tell you it's not like Rite of Spring, which was written for a very large orchestra. This score is for a small orchestra, and it's unbelievable. Every page is full of scribbles and notes about the story. The music and the story correlate perfectly through the entire score. Tell them," looking at Pater.

He said, "Each act, each dance, is based on a different painting. He didn't write down the titles of the paintings, but he did note the painters. Guess who?" The others waited. "Van Gogh, Cezanne, Matisse, and Picasso. He saw all the paintings in 1913 at a show in Switzerland, and they had a major impact on him. He began to write the music immediately. The story of each act is different, but the music is in the same style throughout the entire score, and his notes say the dancers and the dancing should be the same throughout the piece. So there's a difference in content between the acts, but the music and dance tie them together."

Henric got up and went into the dining room, where he spent a half hour paging through the score. He'd never seen anything like it before. The world of art was new to him and it rang a bell. Over the last year, since buying a house in Charleston where he and Helstof now lived part time, retired, he had found a new love. Sailing. They owned a very nice boat, and had made a trip in it over to St. Barths. It was a great time, and unlike anything he ever had done before. It had expanded his horizons, far out into the ocean. Now he was looking at a book, filled with unknown symbols. He felt himself wondering about music and dance. Was this another new challenge for him?

# Chapter 5 – Seeds of the Production

The four retired dancers sat on the edge of the stage at The Hall, eating scones and drinking tea. They felt depressed, and weren't doing much talking. On one of the long folding tables behind them was a musical score for a ballet; not the Stravinsky score. But like the Stravinsky score, this one had never been produced on stage. Unlike the Stravinsky, it was young, only six months old, a baby waiting to take its first steps. This score had been written by two friends of theirs, a young Russian woman and an older American man. Selgey and Bart had played around with creating choreography for the music, and had produced some good stuff, and some not so good stuff. They were enthusiastic, but in learning mode. The composers had finished a first draft of the music, and had done some revisions, when the Russian woman was offered an opportunity to be in a movie in France. The couple had left Charleston a month earlier, and since then, progress on the choreography had slowed.

Between bits of scone and sips of tea, the dancers now thought about the discovery of the Stravinsky score. This had the effect of dulling the light that had been shining on their own efforts to do the choreography for a new work. After all, Stravinsky is world renown. What was going to come out of the discovery of a lost ballet?

Selgey hopped down off the stage and looked at the other three. She said, "God, what an unbelievable thing, finding the music in the desk. What are we going to do with it?" Selgey had not been part of the Hermitage heist team that stole the desk from a warehouse in Saint Petersburg, but over the last year or so, she and Bart had become close friends with those who had, and she now thought of herself as one of the team. Bart felt that way too. Which is why Selgey was cutting herself into the decision-making apparatus which would determine what to do with the Stravinsky score.

A half mile away, Gwen and Roger played with their dog in the back yard, and asked themselves the same question. The Junes know a lot about art and antiques, and they know a lot about fine wine, and Roger knows something about private investigating, which he does when some interesting case comes his way. The Junes don't know much about ballet, other than that they like going to performances, which they have done many times, at theaters in Europe and New York. They threw the ball around for the dog, and thought about the document that now sat on the Gromstov's dining room table, smelling musty.

The Gromstovs were in the Kiawah Island town offices, making another contribution to the new fire engine replacement fund. Their dog, the big, lovable, but dumb borzoi puppy, was lucky in that his master would let it out of the house regularly, where it ran for miles and miles on the Kiawah Island beach. Town regulations prohibit dogs off leash on the beach, and town police enforce the regulation. When the cops first encountered the puppy, it only weighed sixty pounds. They got it on a rope, figured out which house it came from, knocked on the beachfront patio door, and informed the wealthy residents with the thick Russian accents that the dog couldn't run loose on the beach. When the beach patrol found the dog running loose the next day, they presented its owners with a $40 ticket. Henric did the math. If he got three tickets a week for the next ten years at $40 per, that would come to $67,200. He could afford that without even blinking. His dog was bred to run down wolves in Siberia. It had to run, right? Let it run.

The Town of Kiawah Island also did the math. If they tripled the cost of the tickets, at the end of a ten year term, they would have collected $201,600 from this resident, which just happens to be the cost of a new fire engine. The Town is used to dealing with rich residents, and is very skillful at coming to mutually beneficial financial arrangements. In this case, the dog pretended to chase wolves down the Kiawah Island beach on a regular basis, and the fire engine replacement fund grew on an exactly equivalent basis. Now that's cooperation. Helstof wrote out a check for $400, which covered the last ten tickets the police had issued.

When they got home, they let the dog out the front sliding glass doors, and it took off down the beach, looking either for some wolves to chase, or some kids to play with. They sat down at the dining room table and looked at the pages of the book that was covered in squiggles and quarter notes and arpeggios and clefs. They had found the document in the desk they had gotten as part of the Hermitage caper, and so technically it was theirs. But the Gromstovs knew that possession of the desk and the document was the result of a team effort, so they felt they were looking at group property. What to do with it had to be a group decision.

Helstof watched her husband as he sat staring at the score. Something was going on with him, and she didn't know what it was. He never really had been into art in any significant way. With his high level position in the Russian bureaucracy, they had been to more than their share of cultural events, but these, for Henric, had been more of a duty than a pleasure. Something had captured his attention, and Helstof waited to find out exactly what it was.

He looked up at her and said, "Remember the dinner at McCrady's, when Gale ran around the private dining room in her underwear for half an hour?" She nodded. "And the maître d' kept trying to get in, but the sommelier kept the door locked, because Gwen told him if he let anyone in to see what was going on, she would shoot him?" Helstof nodded again, remembering the dinner well. Gale was a friend of the Junes, a fashionista of the highest and wildest order. Get a few glasses of champagne into her, and you were guaranteed an interesting evening. Henric said, "Remember what else happened that night? Selgey and Bart?" Helstof couldn't forget that either. Gale wasn't the only one who shed clothes there in the back room of the restaurant. Selgey, the retired American Ballet Theater prima ballerina, had gotten into the spirit of the event by springing onto the long dining room table, posing gracefully, and peeling off her cashmere sweater. Unlike Gale, she wasn't wearing underwear. Bart decided he had to match his wife's lithe demonstration of the dancer's prowess, and with one twitch of his massive leg muscles, he was on the table next to her. Selgey had had to take a single step towards the table in order to launch and achieve blastoff trajectory. Bart didn't. He stood perfectly still on the floor, and then he was up on the table, no step necessary.

"That was one of the most incredible things I've ever seen," he said. "And I'm not talking about Selgey's knockers, though those were nice. I'm talking about her and Bart just standing there on the floor, and then the next second, they were on the table, perfectly balanced, perfectly posed, no exertion evident. Amazing. I loved that."

Helstof said, "And they're retired. Think of what they used to do when they were at their peak."

"This book here, with all the notes in it, was written by a great man, a Russian. Written a hundred years ago. And we're the only ones in the whole world that have seen it, and know it exists. We gotta do something about this. We gotta get involved in making some stuff happen like what Selgey and Bart did that night after dinner. Only bigger. Lots bigger. Big as Stravinsky. Big as Russia. Can we do that?" He looked at his wife.

She said, "What's it take to make something great happen? First, it takes talent. We have that here, in the score. We have Stravinsky. Second, we have Selgey and Bart. When they were working, they were among the best dancers on the planet. They know about dancing and choreography. So we have talent there. What else does it take? Money. How much are we worth today, anyway?"

Henric sat back and thought for a moment. He said, "I have no idea. I used to keep track, but when we started coming to Charleston, I kind of lost interest. We're worth less than four years ago, that's for sure. Everyone's lost money since then. We're worth between one and two billion."

"What are you planning on doing with it?"

"Well, after I learn to sail better, we can buy a bigger boat."

Helstof didn't ask why a 52 foot Beneteau that sleeps six in luxurious comfort wasn't enough boat for him. She knew when to clam up. "So, what else? A bigger boat doesn't cost a billion dollars."

"Ah, I got no plans for the rest of the money. I'm pretty happy here, hanging out with the Junes. Whenever I'm around them, something interesting seems to happen. Not just interesting. That's not the right word. Something unusual, and fun. What do you want to do with the money?"

"Umm, maybe buy some new shoes. When I'm around Gale, I feel underdressed."

The rich Russians sat thinking about this state of affairs. They also kept looking at the book on the table. By now the musty smell had dissipated. The object was fascinating, even though it was written in a language neither of them understood. After five minutes of silence, Henric rose and went into the kitchen. He returned with a bottle of champagne and two glasses. He poured and they sipped. He looked at his wife and said, "I guess we know what we're gonna do with the money."

She said, "I guess we do."

# Chapter 6 – Stirg and Nev

It was 9pm, and Nev was on his way to the airport to pick up his boss. He was pissed because he was going to miss a great movie on TV, The Hunt for Red October. He wasn't Russian, like his boss, he was Israeli, but he loved the way Sean Connery played the Russian sub commander in the movie. Who knew that a thick Scottish accent could be tweaked to sound like a thick Russian accent? Nev had been living alone in the mansion hanging out over Charleston harbor for the last two weeks, while Stirg was in France, trying to find out which movie his granddaughter was in, and where it was shooting. She had told him she was in the movie, and that it was in France, but hadn't given him any details. It had been a long time since he went on a trip, and he decided he might as well go find her.

Which he had. She was in Paris, and they had had lunch twice, but her shooting schedule was full and the work was exhausting. Anna really didn't want him there, which is why she hadn't told him the details. Still, she was glad to see him, and then glad to see him go. Now he was back in Charleston, and Nev hoped he wasn't still crazy, the way he had been six months earlier, when he and the Junes had gotten into it. That had been a serious affair.

"How was France? How is Anna?"

Stirg got into the Rolls and settled into the deep leather seat. He said, "Anna's good. She gets better looking every year, and that's saying something. Did you know that Greta Garbo wasn't that hot when she was a teenager, when she was young? Something changed in her mid-twenties, and she became the most beautiful woman the world has ever known. Anna's not going to get up there, but she is something to look at."

Nev never knew what to say when his boss started talking about Anna. One time Stirg had asked Nev why he never had made a pass at her, and Nev knew dangerous territory when he saw it. He had answered, "Because she's a nice girl, and she's your granddaughter, and you're my boss. And because I'm not crazy." Then Stirg had asked him if Anna was a girl or a woman or a babe. Nev saw landmines all around that question, and saw a need to go fix them both fresh bloody marys, thus not having to answer.

Stirg said, "She was very busy. I only got to see her twice, both times for lunch. But that was ok. That was enough. I just wanted to make sure we still are friends."

Anna had sided with the Junes when they and her grandfather had gotten crossways over the Hermitage heist. Stirg had been royally pissed at them for stealing Russian heritage items, and smuggling them to Charleston. One evening, the entire June team was out in Charleston harbor on Henric's boat, eating fresh fish and drinking champagne. Stirg had gone crazy, and attacked them out on the water, using his huge power cruiser as a battering ram. Roger had outmaneuvered Stirg and saved their asses. Anna had been on board Henric's boat with Stirg not knowing that before the attack. So for a while, he and Anna had been at odds, but now they were reconciled. That's why Stirg went all the way to France, and what he meant when he said he wanted to make sure they still were friends.

Stirg said, "What have the fucks been up to while I was away?" Nev knew he meant the Junes and the Gromstovs and the rest of the Hermitage heist team.

"Don't really know, Boss. Haven't been keeping track of them. Been busy."

"Busy doing what?"

"Taking care of the place. Lots of work to keep up a house like yours."

Stirg's place was big. It was situated halfway out the length of a massive concrete dock that extended 100 yards into Charleston harbor, off the tip of the peninsula. He looked at Nev, sitting behind the wheel of the Rolls. "You been doing the Otis thing, haven't you?" By this he meant the Otis Redding thing, sittin' on the dock of the bay, watchin' the tide roll away.

"Working, Boss, working almost all the time. No time for Otis."

"Well, I'm back. I want you to find out what the fucks are up to. I wanna know."

# Chapter 7 – Ballet in Charleston

The team had known each other for about a year, since the heist, and had developed a common perspective about a lot of things. The two Russian gay guys, the American and English ballet stars, the Russian billionaire couple, and the Charleston aristocrats had become friends. They had developed some complimentary perspectives on things that made their lives more interesting, and they found themselves in tune with each other a lot of the time. So it wasn't surprising when Pater tried to call Gwen, and at the same time Roger tried to call Peter, and Helstof tried to call Bart, and Selgey tried to call Henric. There were four phone conversations happening at the exact same time, everyone wanting to know what they were going to do about the Stravinsky score. Actually, they all knew what they were going to do: They were going to put on a world class premiere of the ballet, right here in little ole Charleston - the hell with New York or London. The phone calls were just to stir things up, and everyone knew who the main players in the group were: the Gromstovs and Gwen. Henric and Helstof Gromstov were the money people, and Gwen was the nucleus of the atom around which the other team members, the little electrons, orbited. Everything always revolved around Gwen, because she's the bomb.

Gwen was waiting for the phone call web to happen. She had intuition of a special order and knew not only that it would happen, but when it would happen, and how it would happen. When the calls did happen, she was ready, and the word went out: Be at The Hall for lunch, 2pm, catered by McCrady's. And they all were there, on time, hungry for food, and hungry for action. When Gwen put out the word for a team meeting, it meant something was up. Usually, but not always, something good.

The first thing Peter and Pater looked for whenever they got together with Gwen was whether she was carrying her gun. Over the course of the last year, and especially when the war with Stirg was raging, their eyes had gotten practiced, and usually could detect the bulge under her silk jacket, just to the rear of her right hip. They looked now, and couldn't see a bulge, which was good. They breathed a small sigh of relief. Evidently this was not a war council, thank God. They had been through a number of those recently. Let's get on with the ballet thing, they thought, and so did everyone else. Henric and Helstof were into it, and of course, so were Selgey and Bart. Roger always was into his wife, because he loved her.

The seven electrons sat in the first row of the theater's seats, while Gwen, the nucleus, sat on the edge of the stage, facing them. She said, "We all know why we're here. I can feel it. You want it, and I want it. Right, Roger?"

He said, "Want what?" teasing her.

She ignored him, and looked at Henric, not saying anything. She didn't have to.

He said, "What, what is it we want?"

He was not nearly as convincing a tease as Roger.

Gwen knew these two fools would play a game, and knew, anyway, that Helstof ruled the Gromstov roost. So she looked at her.

"We're broke," Helstof said. "Henric blew it all playing cards in Monaco. That is, what was left after the Brazilian woman got done with him." So Helstof was in a teasing mood, too, loosening up all those high latitude Russian strings, joking around now in the warm Charleston sun. Gwen liked this. She said, "Ok, we know what we're here for. The ballet. What to do with it, if anything. Who wants to start?"

Peter said, "The four of us have been working on the score that Richard and Anna wrote, the first draft they did before they left for France. We've been playing with that, working up the choreography. Well, they have," pointing to Selgey and Bart. "We help. When Anna and Richard left, we kind of lost steam. Now we have this other thing. We have a lost score by Stravinsky, with story notes. It's incredible. Somebody has to do something." Pater squeezed his hand.

Bart, short for Bartholomew, said, "I've been around the world, doing ballet. China, Moscow, Berlin, Buenos Aires. I've been with women like Selgey, and choreographers like Martins and Robbins; Selgey was with Balanchine, when she started. We've pretty much done it all. And this Stravinsky thing, this new piece, this opportunity....it trumps everything. A lost ballet, by him, and we've got it. After a hundred years, sitting in that desk. We've got it, which is unbelievable. We must do something with it. That's what I want."

Gwen looked at Selgey, "This would be something completely different than dancing. It's choreography, which is a different world. It would be such a challenge, which is why Bart and I said we would work with Richard and Anna, and the Ps, on a new piece. Now we have something truly great in front of us. An unbelievable challenge. This would cap a career in ballet, to make this a reality. To choreograph and produce a ballet. Yes, I'm in. I want this thing, whatever it will be."

Gwen figured this would be the reaction, and knew Roger was interested. He had nothing of great interest on his plate, not after Stirg had stolen the Hermitage artifacts from the Charleston warehouse where Roger had them all stashed. All that stuff, gone in the night. Stirg had gotten his revenge. Roger was playing with his wine collection, and getting bored. He was in. From the joke Helstof had told about their money, Gwen knew they would finance the project; the project as it had been forming in Gwen's mind over the last week. A major, world-class production of the Stravinsky piece. She looked at Henric, not fooling around. "Henric, how much are you good for? You've heard the others. We all want to do something with this opportunity that fell into our laps. You do to. We're all thinking the same thing. Do the ballet. Do the production. Here in Charleston, with Selgey and Bart doing the choreography. We would figure out how to do the music, from the score. We have the story from Stravinsky's notes. We can do this, but it will cost money. A whole lot of money." The heads of all the electrons swiveled away from Gwen, and focused on Henric and Helstof.

Helstof said, "How much. How much do you think it would take?"

Gwen looked at Roger, and said, "I dragged him out of the wine cellar yesterday, and told him to figure it out. What'd you come up with, dear?"

Roger closed his eyes, visualizing the dozen or so sheets of yellow legal paper on which he had charted the costs of such an operation. The others thought of this venture in terms of a production, but Roger thought of it as an op. Like the Hermitage heist had been an op. He said, "For a world-class ballet, here, major operation, everything....$25 million."

All the heads swiveled back to Henric, who said, "That's all?"

# Chapter 8 – The Production Begins

The Hall was the place where Anna and Richard had written the first draft of a score for a modern ballet, and was where Selgey and Bart had begun to choreograph the dancing. Richard wrote the story, which was about a girl from New York City meeting a boy from Charleston. It was a love story enmeshed in the clash of northern and southern culture, and found its way from paper onto large white boards set up on the stage. As the story evolved, Richard also wrote the music on his synthesizer, which Anna then transcribed for piano. All of the music was collected, digitally, into a computer.

The Hall now became the command center for the Stravinsky production. Seven of the eight team members showed up each morning, and spent most of the day there. Henric decided they could handle most of the production, and that his needs would be better met out on the waters of the Atlantic, practicing his sailing skills. He was in love with sailing.

There never was any doubt about Gwen's role in the production. She was the impresario. Some of the other roles defined themselves equally well, and some didn't. Selgey and Bart were the choreographers, and the Ps were dance advisors and gophers. That left Roger and Helstof. How did they fit in? Roger's role was to be defined a week later. Until then, he was another gopher.

The earlier attempt to produce a ballet, based on the score by Richard and Anna, was a serious effort. They had hired an experienced theatrical administrator, recently retired from the San Francisco Ballet, who had moved to Charleston to be near family. This woman was ensconced in an office in the back of the theater, and had laid a lot of the groundwork required for a production, as it had been envisioned earlier. Gwen now invited her out to lunch, and told her there had been a change of plans. Immediately, the woman thought the ballet gig was over, and she was being laid off. The thought was not fatal to her, because she had come to Charleston to retire, and had taken the part time position for something to do. On the other hand, she felt disappointed, because she had discovered something new, which was the way Selgey and Bart played around with their choreography. They would dance up and down the aisles of the theater, practicing movements, fleshing out ideas, having fun, keeping in shape. Being as how they had been world-class dancers, even this playing around mesmerized anyone present. When they did this, Peter or Pater would go into the office in back and get the administrator, because they knew she loved to watch. After seeing this a few times, the woman realized she could sell tickets to it; the action was that good. She also had a new thought: sell tickets to seats in the theater for $25 each, with Selgey and Bart flowing up and down the aisles, and sell tickets to chairs set up on the stage for $100 each, from which people would watch the dancers flowing up and down the aisles. She was disappointed that she would not be able to try this new idea of hers, this dance production with a twist. These thoughts flowed through her head as she and Gwen ordered their food. She sipped her sweet tea with four lemon wedges in it, and waited for the shoe to drop, when Gwen explained the change of plans.

"Something has come up and we have to stop the project. It was too bad when Anna and Richard left to go to France. You kept going then, but things slowed a little. Selgey and Bart lost some of their inspiration, which came from working with Anna and Richard."

The woman said, "That's ok. It was great while it lasted. I didn't really come to Charleston to work full time. I have lots of stuff I can do with my family. Too bad I won't get to see if my idea of putting the dancers down among the seats, and the high-dollar patrons up on the stage, would work. I bet it would."

Gwen took a bite of her fried green tomato with pimento cheese spread sandwich. She said, "Were stopping the production because something else has come up. I still want you to work here. In fact, if you can, I want you to work more. Full time. Something, ummm, more interesting has fallen into our laps. Something secret. Can you keep a secret?"

The woman stopped chewing her bite of dill shrimp salad, and looked at Gwen. What could be more interesting than working on a new ballet; on a new production Gwen had said was financed at a cool million dollars?

"Yes. I don't really know anyone here, other than my family. I can keep a secret from them."

"We're going to do another production. Another ballet. Much bigger, much more important, and I'm going to be the chief. I don't know what I'm doing, with ballet. I need your help."

The woman thought, "What's bigger than a million dollar premiere? That's a lot of money for Charleston." She said, "How much bigger? How would it be more important?"

Gwen ate more of her sandwich, trying to figure out how to explain the situation. She decided just to spit it out (not the sandwich); she didn't think the woman would blab. "You know Stravinsky? You know how important he is in the history of ballet music? We found an unknown score of his. It's ours, and we're going to put it on. Here. Major production. Selgey and Bart will do original choreography. We're thinking world-class production. I'm ready for the challenge of coordinating all that, but I need help. Your help. What do you think?"

The woman ate more of her shrimp salad, trying to figure out if this was a joke. Gwen didn't appear to be joking. A lost ballet score by Stravinsky. World-class production, and being part of that. More shrimp. A little sweet tea. Being an administrator, and not an artist, she asked an intelligent and practical question. "Who's financing, and how much?"

Gwen said, "Same guy. More."

"How much more? Takes a lot of money to do what you're talking about. Really a lot."

"We have $25 million to play with. We should be able to give you a raise."

The woman put down her fork, forgot to swallow, kept the shrimp in her mouth. No single production at the San Francisco Ballet ever had been underwritten at that level. In fact, no entire season of multiple productions ever had been financed with that amount. Gwen was talking a level that would half fund The New York City Ballet for the season. And here, in Charleston, she meant a single production.

Gwen hoped the woman would swallow soon. She hoped the woman would remember her mouth was full of shrimp before answering. She did. She said, "I'm in."

Gwen now had the expertise she needed. She sat back and thought, "This is the big time. And we will succeed." She issued her first order: "Get with Helstof. Tell her she's doing the costuming. When she says yes, help her."

The woman nodded.

# Chapter 9 – Nev and the Bug

During the war with the Junes over the Hermitage artifacts, Nev had had private investigators compile basic information about them and their associates. Information like street addresses, phone numbers, types of cars they owned, and email addresses. The investigators also had learned that Henric had leased an old auditorium on John Street, and had renovated it into a modern theater. Anna had told her grandfather she was working there, part of a team that was creating a new ballet. He hated the idea that she was working with the fucks who had done the Hermitage heist, but he couldn't do anything about it. She was twenty-seven and had chosen a new course in her life, away from him, and towards the Junes. He could, and did, do something about the fucks. He raided the warehouse where they had the artifacts, and stole the entire lot, just as they had stolen it in Saint Petersburg. He had exacted revenge.

So Nev knew about The Hall, and he followed his boss's orders to find out what was going on there. He went to the bank one morning and made a cash withdrawal. Then he went to the offices of the private investigators, which six months earlier had provided him with basic information about the Junes and their friends. When he was seated across the table from one of the firm's principles, he took a manila envelope out of his tote bag and laid it on the table. He said, "I need you to do some work for me. Some private, confidential work, of a special kind. Can you do that?"

The guy said, "Maybe. We've done private, confidential work, of a special kind, before."

Nev opened the manila envelope and took out $20,000 in hundred dollar bills. The guy looked at the money, and said, "We probably can help you with this private, confidential work, of a special kind."

Nev said, "I need to get a bug into a place. A theater here in town. Then I need you to forget that you did this thing. Is that possible?"

"Do you need video or just sound?"

Nev thought, said, "Just sound, I think."

"Do you need sound from every room in this place, or just one central area?"

"I don't need to hear everything that's said there. Just some stuff."

"Is there a computer in the central area?"

"Don't know."

"We'll get back to you right away, and let you know what we can do."

The next day one of the firm's men made a UPS delivery to The Hall. It was a case of wine, which can't be left on the front doorstep of an address, because shipping rules say alcohol must be signed for by someone twenty-one years of age, or older. The guy got a signature from Pater, who wondered why Roger had had the wine delivered to The Hall, rather than to his home. Roger was a wine nut. The delivery guy took in the layout of the building, entrances, exits, side rooms, stage, balcony, back rooms, everything, including the fact that sitting on a table on the stage, with a printer and copy machine, was a computer.

When Nev had gone to the firm six months earlier, asking them for information about the Junes and a few other people, they had acquired that information by hacking into an email account, which then provided access to several computers. The hacker, the hackett, was the sixteen year old daughter of one of the investigators. It had taken her four hours to get the email addresses of the Junes and their friends, and to print out a collection of emails between the parties. For this, her father paid her $25 an hour. His boss had paid him a bonus of $1000. Nev had paid the firm $8000.

So the principle of the firm again went to his staff member, and asked if there was a way to get a bug into the place, without an intrusion, without actually planting a device in a teapot, or under a chair. The guy asked his daughter, who just had turned seventeen. She said, "If there's a computer in the place, I can get you sound."

He said, "How?"

"All new computers have video and sound components built into them. People always leave their computers running all the time now. I can activate the sound pickup on that computer, if there is one."

"How?"

She looked at her father like he was a simpleton. "I just can."

"Have you done this before?"

"Maybe."

"Who, maybe?"

"Jonny."

"Jonny, who?"

"Jonny the guy that comes to pick me up for dates."

"You bug your boyfriend?"

"Only on weekends."

"Why?"

Again she looked at her father like he was totally dense.

Her father thought about the bonus he would get if he pulled this off, and didn't ask any more boyfriend questions. He said, "What do you need?"

"Is this part of the thing I did before? Is this the same people?"

"Umm, yes."

"Then I don't need anything. Just the address of the place where the computer is. And more money."

"What do you need more money for? $25 an hour is good pay for someone your age. Most kids are making minimum wage."

"I turned seventeen last month. You remember that, right?"

"So?"

"So, I got responsibilities now. Stuff."

"What kind of stuff?"

She looked at her father, who she liked a lot, but didn't answer him. She had learned that the less he knew about her, the better.

"Ok," he said, hoping his bonus would cover this increase in his costs.

The next day she went to her father and asked, "Where do you want the sound?"

"What sound?"

"The sound of the computer in that theater? Did you forget?"

"You got that already?"

Patiently she said, "Where, Dad, just tell me where. I need some money."

The guy went to his boss, said he needed information about where the bug sound should go. Said it had to go to another computer. The boss called up Nev, asked for his IP address.

Nev said, "What's an IP address?"

The boss couldn't explain, so he asked his investigator, who asked his daughter, who told him. Nev then figured it out. Later that afternoon the daughter told her dad it was ready, who told his boss, who told Nev. Told him how to listen on his computer. Nev logged into some sort of messaging thing on his computer, and typed in a command. He waited a minute, and then heard sounds. Talking, some music in the background. Then he heard Pater ask Peter, "How's your knee? You're not supposed to jump around like that. The surgeon said you could tear it up again. Be careful."

Peter said, "I gotta do something. Watching Bart down there makes me want to dance again. I can't, but I feel like I want to."

Nev couldn't believe it. He was sitting in the sunroom of Stirg's mansion, listening to a conversation a mile away at The Hall. He was listening to two of the fucks talking. Those investigator guys were good. Worth the $20K.

The daughter was happy with her $150, which had come at the rate of five hours at $30 per. Her father was happy with his bonus of $2000, less the $150. His boss was happy with his $18K, which had taken less than forty-eight hours to earn.

# Chapter 10 – Costumes and Music

Gwen, Helstof, Roger, and the admin woman sat on folding metals chairs on one side of the stage. The four dancers worked together on the other side. On a folding table was the Stravinsky score, and positioned around the table were the four large white boards on rollers. Selgey, Bart, and the Ps were trying to figure out how to transfer the story notes from the margins of the score to the white boards. The Ps translated the Russian into English, and the other two wrote this down on the boards. It wasn't going too well because there were so many notes on the score. And Selgey and Bart had to get the story onto the boards in order to start the choreography. Working on the first ballet, the one written by Richard and Anna, Selgey and Bart had developed a method of writing pictograms on the white boards, and then using them to create dance movements. They were going to use the same method now, but they had to figure a way to condense all the Stravinsky notes into a smaller set of pictograms.

Gwen watched the choreographers struggle. That was ok. They would figure it out eventually. What she didn't like was seeing the score sitting on the table. What if something happened to it? It was one of a kind, and priceless. Gwen said, "We can't leave the score like that. We have to copy it, and put the original in the safe deposit box. After we're done with the production, maybe we'll donate it to some library. College of Charleston Library, or the Charleston Library Society. Either one."

The admin woman said, "I agree. We can do that. We should the scan the whole thing, have it digitally, and can print out pages whenever we need to. There are places in town that can scan oversize pages like those. Should I do that?"

Gwen nodded yes, said, "As soon as possible. I don't want Roger spilling a glass of wine on that thing."

Roger didn't mind the teasing. Not from Gwen.

Nev and Stirg were in their kitchen, listening to the conversation, not understanding anything yet. They heard Peter saying something about crows, and how the dancers had to be dressed in black. What did that mean? They could hear everything that was being said on the stage at The Hall, but that didn't mean they could understand the various conversations that were taking place. It was like listening to a TV without the picture.

Stirg said, "I can hear good, but why didn't you get film?"

Nev said, "Video. It's called video. I just figured we could learn what they were doing there if we heard them."

"Well, keep listening then, and tell me what they're up to. I wanna know."

Nev wondered if he'd gotten his money's worth, with just sound. Now he had to sit and listen to this stuff until they said something interesting. He'd rather be hanging with Otis. Outside. Maybe fishing a little.

Helstof said, "Can I bring Gale on board to work with me on the costumes? You know she's great with clothes."

Gwen said, "She's great with clothes, and she's also great with blabbing her mouth about everything, to everybody. We can't afford any leaks about this until we get down the road on the production. Maybe we need to hire a professional costume person."

"Then we'd have the same problem with that person. At least Gale's one of us. She knows about a lot of stuff we've done." She looked at the admin woman.

"Costumes are not all that difficult, and neither is the lighting, really. If you have great music and great choreography, people will like the other two parts. If confidentiality is really important to you, I would bring in as few people from the outside as I could. Can't you just tell Gale not to blab, on point of death?"

The word confidentiality caught Nev's attention. He stopped thinking about Otis, and listened to the computer.

"Maybe we could," said Gwen. "Maybe we could condition her to keep her mouth shut. I know she'd like to be part of this project, and she learned something important from the episode out in the harbor, with the boats. She learned that people are serious about certain things, and that Stirg is a serious guy. That pretty much scared the shit out of her. We can tell her if she blabs, Stirg will be after her ass again." Gwen and Helstof smiled. The woman didn't know what they were talking about, and wasn't sure she wanted to.

Nev knew what they were talking about. He had been part of that episode, out in the harbor, hidden behind Fort Sumter, where Stirg tried to torpedo the Junes and their friends, and send them to the bottom. Stirg failed, getting both himself and Nev dumped on their asses, hard, running their ship onto a sandbar, and having to get pulled off by a tug. Humiliating. Nev remembered all too well. Both he and Stirg had been a little crazy back then. What were these women talking about now? Another scheme, evidently. Project, the June woman called it. First the Hermitage heist in Russia, then Stirg stealing all that stuff from them here in Charleston, and now this. Something new. What?

Roger said, "Let's talk music for a minute. You said if the music and choreography were great, the costuming and lighting would take care of themselves. We have Stravinsky's music, which might be great, but who's gonna play it? Selgey said the score is for a small orchestra. How do we hire a small orchestra, and keep a lid on the production? No way. And if we want world-class, we gotta bring musicians in from out of town. The best. That's a big problem."

Nev started to find the conversation interesting. What were they talking about when they said world-class? World-class what? Who's Stravinsky, a rock band?

From the way Roger was talking, Gwen knew he had something on his mind, and she waited for him to spill it. Helstof had been around the Junes long enough to know how they communicated sometimes. Telegraphically, it seemed. She could sense Gwen was waiting for Roger to take the lead, so she waited, and the woman, ditto.

Roger said, "Do you remember what Richard said when he told us he could write the music for a new ballet? That he had been playing synthesizer for many years, just for his own amusement?" Gwen and Helstof nodded. "Do you remember what he said inspired him to take up the synthesizer, learn to play?" Neither Gwen nor Helstof could remember that, so they didn't nod. "Richard said it was a song on an album he loved, a long time ago. Said it was the greatest rock song ever written: "Love Reign O'er Me", by The Who." Now they nodded. "You know who wrote that song?" he asked. Gwen knew. "Pete Townshend. Wrote the rock opera _Quadrophenia_. That was a major musical work. He's still in the business, though not as prolific a song writer now as he was."

Gwen got the picture. She understood Roger's thinking. He hadn't spit it out yet, but she knew where he was going. Wild. Why not?

She said, "You think he would do it?"

"Don't know. Don't really know anything about the guy. But I do know that when Paul McCartney organized the tenth anniversary concert, in New York, of the 9\11 concert he had organized right after the tragedy, Townshend was there, on stage with McCartney. And I also know about the New York City Ballet's recent premiere of _Ocean's Kingdom_ , with McCartney scoring the music. Maybe...."

Gwen said, "Maybe what?"

"Maybe we contact Townshend. Tell him what we're doing. Remind him about what McCartney has done recently. Tell him we'll pay him a lot of money if he transcribes the Stravinsky score to synthesizer, and performs it live, at the premiere. Try to set up a little competition between him and McCartney." Roger paused. "You never know what might inspire an artist like Townshend. Remember, this is going to be a modernist ballet, not classical. Why not do the music on synthe, rather than with an orchestra? That's what Richard was going to do. And Townshend is a master musician. Just listen to _Quadrophenia_. He could play all the parts Stravinsky wrote for a small orchestra, on the synthe. Transcribe, record, and perform. The genius of Stravinsky, modernized."

Gwen just smiled. She loved her husband.

# Chapter 11 – Nev Spies

Towards the end of the first day of listening to the bugged conversations at The Hall, Nev figured out he needed to take notes, because he couldn't really understand what the fucks were talking about. He wrote down confidential, Stravinsky, costumes, and world-class. When it was time to fix Stirg's dinner, Nev shut down the communications software the hackett had set up for him to use, hoping he could remember how to open the connection tomorrow. This eavesdropping was boring work. He was a commando and bodyguard, not a peeper.

At dinner he asked Stirg if he knew about Stravinsky. Stirg said, "Of course. Great Russian composer. Wore big ugly glasses. Had a long face. Wrote some nice music and some weird music. Famous guy."

"Well, I heard the fucks mention him today. I didn't know who he was. They also talked about making costumes for something. Maybe they're going to have a costume party and play Stravinsky music. One of the Russian guys talked about his knee, and how he couldn't dance like he wants to. Maybe this party they're going to have will be a dance party."

Stirg said, "Keep listening. Why are they talking about confidential stuff? That's got to mean they're up to something. Tell me if they say anything about going back to Saint Petersburg. Or anywhere else, for that matter. Gromstov is loaded. I wanna know what he's up to; what he's spending his money on. Keep listening."

Nev nodded.

Stirg said, "Someday soon we need to go to the warehouse again, see what kinda stuff is there."

"You decided if you're gonna give that stuff back to the Hermitage? Ship it all back to Russia?"

"I don't know. I don't wanna deal with that now. As long as they don't have the stuff, I'm happy. Just let it sit, for now. I want to see if there's anything in the warehouse that would look good here. I want a painting of a borzoi, or a big still life of some dead rabbits hanging from a hook. Something like that. Something that reminds me of home."

"Boss, that was pretty slick, how we stole all that stuff from them. All gone in the night, out of their warehouse, and into ours. Every little rug, every china pot, every table. That was slick. That stuck it to them."

Stirg grunted. It may have been slick, but it was nothing compared to the things he had pulled off during his Nazi hunting years. Now, those were ops. After dinner Nev looked at the Wikipedia article on Stravinsky. Russian composer, lived for a long time in America, wrote music for ballet. Oh, that Stravinsky. Nev had heard of him. When Anna told her grandfather she was working on music with the fucks, she said it was ballet stuff. He and Stirg had looked at websites of ballet outfits. Those women had some legs. Beautiful. Three quarters of their bodies were below their waist and one quarter above. Weird, but nice. That was where Nev had seen the name Stravinsky. So, maybe that was what the fucks were talking about. Not a dance party with costumes, but a ballet party with costumes. What was that? Nev figured he better get back to listening to the bug.

The next day he heard the following conversation:

The admin woman said, "I just checked the account. I've never looked at an account that had three million dollars in it. The money just showed up. Yesterday, zero. Today, three million. In San Fran we had accounts with a couple hundred thousand in them, but only the Board had authority to spend that. And the money went out as fast as it came it. Who, by the way, has authority to spend this money?"

Gwen said, "You and me. That's it. Not even Henric can spend out of this account, and it's his money."

"I've only worked for you for three months, and you're giving me authority over an account with that much money in it?"

Peter said, "Don't mess with Gwen. See that mark up in the ceiling?" pointing to a patch in the plaster up above the racks of stage lights. "That where I had a handy-man fix a hole. Know what made the hole?" He paused for effect. "She took out her gun, fired two rounds through the ceiling. Blam Blam. Scared the shit out of me. Don't mess with her." Both Peter and Pater remembered that demonstration.

The woman said, "Ok." Then she said, "I have the digital file of the score. The shop scanned it yesterday." From her purse she took out a flash drive.

Gwen said, "Where's the score?"

"In my office, safe and sound."

"Good. When I leave today I'll take it to the bank and put it in our safe deposit box. We need several copies of the digital file. Copy one to this computer, and put a copy on your computer in your office. Then give me the flash drive, and I'll copy it to our computer at home. Then we put the flash drive in the box at the bank. Did you make sure the person at the scanning shop didn't make and keep a copy?"

"I watched her like a hawk. No copy."

"Thank god the score will be safe, the only copy in existence, and now we have working copies on the computer. Selgey and Bart can print pages if they need to, but make sure they shred them when they're done. They can keep getting the story from the notes on the score, and putting it up on the white boards. I'll talk to them later about the choreography."

Helstof said, "What about the music angle? What about the English guy, Townshend? Has Roger made contact yet?"

"I don't know, but I don't think so. I'll check tonight at home. Roger has to get on that."

The woman said, "What about a production schedule? That's important. If we do that, and it's realistic, it will keep us on track and will be a motivator to get tasks done."

Nev still didn't know what was going on, but he found the story about Gwen shooting a hole in the ceiling of the theater interesting. He wished he could have seen that. This Gwen babe was no ordinary woman, as he had seen first-hand on more than one occasion. He wrote a few notes, but they didn't add up to what the fucks were doing. It was something big, because of the three million dollars. That wasn't huge for Stirg, but it was nothing to sneeze at, either.

The dancers were out in the aisles, trying out some movements. Roger was, where was Roger? Why wasn't he here, helping get this show on the road? Gwen called the four dancers up to the stage, and commandeered one of the white boards that didn't yet have story pictograms on it. She had seven out of the nine team members here, and wanted to do a first draft of the production schedule.

She said, "One way to do this, the way we're going to try first, is to work backwards. I want to pick the date of the premiere, and then see if we can accomplish all the required tasks by then." She picked up a calendar and scotch taped it to the corner of the whiteboard. "One year from today is Saturday, March 1st. That is the height of the cultural season in most American and European cities. What do you say we set up a little competition with the heavy hitters, and open the performances then? It's ambitious, but what the heck. No guts, no glory."

Bart said, "Ambitious is fine. I'm feeling ambitious, and I think you all are too. The problem is the dancers. Who's going to do this? Not us," looking at Selgey and the Ps. "We're over the hill. We said world-class, and that means world-class dancers. Even good dancers are committed far in advance, two to three years. And they have contracts, some of which are exclusive. No dancing for anyone else. So one year from now, how can that work?"

Gwen said, "Back at you. You figure it out. Let's see if it's possible. You have connections. And, we have one really big arrow in our quiver. Money. We can offer a hefty payday for those who want to come here and do this."

The dancers didn't say anything, which was half good because they didn't say Gwen was crazy, couldn't be done. They sat there, meditating.

Gwen said, "Look, we have the same problem with Townshend. What's it going to take to get him here to Charleston, sitting on this stage, working on the music? And then performing it on synthe, live, for the performances? He's a wealthy guy. I'm betting it's going to take two things: Henric's money, and the challenge of out-doing Paul McCartney. Roger was brilliant to see that possibility. Remember, Townshend was onstage with McCartney at the recent 9\11 anniversary benefit concert. Those guys have known each other for forty years. Townshend did rock opera. McCartney just did the _Ocean's Kingdom_ ballet score, in New York. If we put together the right incentives, Townshend might bite. We have to do the same thing with some great dancers." She looked at Selgey and Bart, then at the Ps. "Maybe we can get some Russian dancers." She looked at the woman. "Can we steal some from The San Francisco Ballet? I don't know, but that's the goal. Anything goes. Blank check," she said, smiling at Helstof. "Premiere, one year from today. Townshend doing the Stravinsky score on synthe, you guys doing some great choreography, excellent dancers on stage. Let's get to work."

Nev got most of this down on paper. He didn't follow some of it, like who the Townshend guy was, but he got a lot. He got enough to understand that the fucks had this one-of-a-kind Stravinsky music in their computer, and were going to make a ballet production using world-class dancers. The music was going to be played on something called a synthe, not by an orchestra, and the date of the show was one year from today. And money was no object. That was important.

He took his notes outside, walked down to the end of the dock, where he sat down, a la Otis, and thought things through. Earlier the fucks had stolen stuff from the Hermitage Museum warehouses. Stirg had stolen these artifacts from them, but some of the artifacts were in the Gromstov's house on Kiawah Island. They had found this music in a desk there, this one of a kind Stravinsky score. And now they were going to do a ballet thing based on the score, world-class, one year from today. Let's see. Stravinsky is a famous Russian, and the fucks have his music, the only one of its kind in the world. Russian music. Famous Russian. Stolen from Russia. Now in Charleston. Americans plotting with Russians to use this music stolen from the Motherland; use it in America, to make art, and make themselves famous.

Oh, god, no, please, no more craziness. That's what Nev thought, sitting out on the dock. This was going to be World War III, all over again, only here in Charleston. Nice, quaint, charming Charleston. Nev thought, if I wanted crazy in my life, I'd still be an Israeli commando. What I want is to be like my man, Otis.

When Stirg found out the Junes had another piece of Russian heritage, famous Russian heritage, and were going to produce it here, for the first time ever, and that it was going to be modernist and not classical, he was going to go berserk. Nev could kiss Otis good bye.

# Chapter 12 - Complexions

Gwen and Roger sat in the sunroom the morning after the Complexions performance. Complexions is a modern ballet troupe out of New York City. The Junes always try to start their day together, chatting over coffee. No newspapers are allowed, until later. Both are morning people, their fertile minds are at their best early in the day, and sometimes they like to tease each other with verbal joisting.

Gwen said, "Those were some hardbody dudes last night. Very sexy. If I was in bed with one of them, I could start at his knees, climb up his legs, experience the abs and pecs, roam over his shoulders, and climb back down the other side. Wherever I went, there'd be something strong to hold on to. I'd be like one of those guys that climb the face of El Capitan out in Yosemite National Park, no ropes allowed."

Roger said, "They were amazing. The tall white guy had an incredible body. I thought tall guys weren't supposed to be able to dance that well. I liked everything except his shaved head. White guys can't do shaved heads. They all look like dorks. Someone should tell the guy."

"Now, the black guys, they can do the shaved head," said Gwen. "I wonder why the difference? The one black guy was the best dancer out there. Too bad he wasn't two inches taller. That would have made his presence on stage even stronger."

"I wouldn't mind going to bed with that redhead," said Roger. "She was something, too. Very hot."

"Dear, if you did get into bed with her, she'd cut you in half with those incredible legs. You couldn't stand up to that. She'd be too much for you."

Roger said, "I loved the whole performance, but especially the second and third acts. The U2 music was great, and I don't even like them. If I see one more photo of their guitar player wearing that goofy skull cap, I'm gonna scream. He can play guitar, though, I'll give him that."

"I really loved it. We have to get tickets to the Spoleto dance shows. I wonder if those troupes will be different than Complexions."

"In what way?" said Roger.

"Look, what was the outstanding characteristic of the entire performance last night?"

Roger blinked his eyes at his wife, the signal to go on.

"The male dancers were much better than the women. There was not one exciting female dancer on the stage, and there were, like, four or five exciting guy dancers."

Roger smiled at this, always loving his wife's perspicacity went it came to art and culture. "Yes, I agree. What's up with that? The guys really had it, and not one woman did. How can they put together a troupe like that? When the guys were out front, it sizzled. My attention was all there. When the women were out front, I kept waiting for something interesting to happen. Waited all night. Never showed itself."

"Remember the two black guys, dressed in red, doing the duo thing. That was one of the best dances. They were great. Can two guys do a _pas de deux_ , or does it have to be a guy and a girl?" Gwen asked.

Roger shrugged.

"I'll ask Selgey on Friday; we're having lunch," she said.

"Ask her if she agrees with us, that the guys were lots more interesting than the women. Ask her why that was. I can't figure it out. Tell her we think she should come out of retirement, get up there with them, raise the talent level."

Roger kept talking. "Did you notice the shape of the women's legs? They're not the same as the shape of classical ballet dancer's legs. Those legs last night were more muscular."

"What do you know about it?" Gwen said.

"I know we sat in the front row center both years Anna Ananiashvili came here for Spoleto, and her legs weren't like those last night. Her legs are regal. Like they were sculpted by Donatello in 1575. Works of art."

"So you think every ballerina's legs should be exactly like Ananiashvili's legs?"

"Wouldn't hurt. World would be a better place. And I've seen pictures of Gelsey Kirkland, and her legs aren't like those last night. They are muscular, but thin."

Gwen sipped her coffee, hoping Roger would get off the subject. Sometimes he was a dork. She said, "Now that you mention Ananiashvili, her last performance here was kind of like last night. On stage, she was an adult among children. Remember how great she was, and how not-great all the rest of the dancers were. Same last night....the men so good, and the women, not-so-good."

Roger said, "I didn't watch any of the other dancers that night at Spoleto, just Anna. Mesmerizing."

"She wasn't on stage the whole time. What did you do when she was off stage?"

"I pretended she was there. I have a good imagination when it comes to dancing women."

Roger wasn't boasting. He did have a great imagination, which is one reason Gwen loved him.

She said, "Did you see the guy sitting behind us last night. He was about eighty-eight years old. When they played the U2 music really loud, he was grooving. Can you imagine, being that old, and liking rock and roll?"

"I saw him. I've seen him at the Gaillard before a couple times. I tried to say hello once, but he's stone deaf. He wasn't grooving to the music, he was just grooving at still being alive, still able to get out of the house, go to shows. Will you still love me when I'm like that; having to shout at me to wipe the drool off my chin?"

"Yes, dear, I'll still love you."

"It's too bad an eighty-eight year old guy came, and so few college age people. I saw like, five or six. Why? Isn't that what all the intense music was about, appealing to younger people? They didn't come last night. Too bad. God, I loved the show."

Gwen said, "There was one part I didn't like so much. The "Amazing Grace" piece. I thought the choreography was all wrong. The singing of the tune was very slow, and the movements of the dancers were all fast, very herky-jerky. Frenetic. The music and the movement were not in sync."

Roger said, "I thought that too. Maybe we just don't understand something. Why don't you ask Selgey about that, too, when you see her. Maybe she knows something about that particular choreography."

"Ok."

"I bet it's lots harder to dance beautifully when the musical rhythm is very slow, than when it's fast. Ask Selgey, ok?"

"Yes, dear."

"You guys are gonna have fun at lunch, talking about this stuff, aren't you?"

"Yes, we are."

"Can I come?"

"No, dear, girls only."

With that, the conversation lapsed. They both sipped coffee, and thought about the day ahead. Gwen noticed Roger staring down the front of his shirt, and wondered what he was thinking.

He was thinking about his wife saying she really liked the hardbody dancer guys from last night. Wanted to rock climb them like El Capitan, all those muscular handholds. He was staring at his stomach. Yes, there was something there, and it wasn't muscle, like the guys from the performance had. It was the opposite. It was fat. He looked over at his beautiful wife, and got up.

"Where're you going, babe?" she asked.

"I'm gonna go do some sit ups."

"How many?"

"100."

"Do 200, ok, dear," and smiled at him.

# Chapter 13 – Stirg Wants to Dance Too....On Their Graves

Nev had been trained in the toughest army in the world, so he knew about following orders. He knew he had to tell his boss what the fucks were up to, but he really didn't want to. Just plain didn't want to. He knew what he wanted out of life at this stage of the game, and going to war with the Junes was not it. He didn't care if the Junes produced the world premiere of some dance show. He didn't care if the show was done in Russia or America or on the dark side of the moon. He wouldn't mind front row seats, up close and personal with the long legs of the ballerinas, but that was an aesthetic issue, not a political issue, which was Stirg's problem. If the fucks had stolen an important item of Israel's cultural heritage, things might be different. Might be. Maybe. In that case, Nev would consider retribution so as to attain a measure of social justice. But he couldn't generate those feelings for Russia, no matter how many years he worked for his boss. Still, duty called. Damn that army training.

He didn't tell Stirg the news that day. He wanted one more evening of peace and quiet, before the storm broke. One more evening, out on the dock...with Otis.

He told Stirg the next day, who then replied, "Explain this to me again. I don't understand about the Junes, and what they're doing. I don't like these little feelings I'm getting, these inklings. You have that word in Hebrew? Can you explain things in a different way than you did before, about the Junes, and Mr. Stravinsky. About this thing they're doing?"

Nev seriously had considered adding some barbiturates to his boss's oatmeal that morning to soften the impact of the news. Sprinkled on the cereal with the non-sugar sweetener. He hadn't done that, and now he was sorry, because steam was coming out of Stirg's ears, and the guy didn't even understand, yet, the whole reality of the situation. Stirg was boiling just on principle. Just because Nev had said the Junes were working on a project that involved Stravinsky. Igor, the Great. Igor, the Man. Igor, Mr. Ballet, himself. When God wanted to produce a ballet, he went to Igor for the music.

Slowly and carefully, maintaining a soft quality to his voice, Nev again laid out what he knew: desk from the Hermitage caper containing a lost musical score by the great one, modernist production of the ballet rather than classical, funded with blank check by the Russian billionaire traitor Gromstov, beautiful ballerinas, world premiere in Charleston rather than Saint Petersburg. And worst of all, behind this madness; behind this travesty; behind this immorality....are Roger and Gwen June. Nev painted the picture again, and ducked.

Stirg said, "You heard all this yesterday on the computer bug?"

"Yes, boss."

"They have a piece of music by Mr. Stravinsky that no one else has, that they found in one of the things they stole from the Hermitage?"

"Yes, boss."

"They're going to make a ballet with this music, one year from now, funded by Gromstov, here in Charleston?"

"Yes, boss."

"The music is going to be electronic, instead of played by an orchestra, and the show is going to be modern style, instead of old style?"

"Yes, boss."

"Who's in this other than the Junes and Gromstov?"

"Gromstov's wife, Helstof, and the two gay guys from Saint Petersburg that helped them steal the stuff from there, and an American woman who used to be a ballet person, and her husband, an English guy who also was in ballet, and some woman whose name they never say, I don't know who she is. She's someone new. Oh, and maybe another American woman to make the ballet clothes, who was...."

Nev stopped there, catching himself almost saying...."on the Gromstov's sailboat when we attacked it out near Fort Sumter, and ended up on the sandbar, me having gotten dumped on my tailbone, and you having gotten dumped on your head."

Stirg said, "She was what?"

"Out on the boat in the harbor....that night."

"Let me count them. Junes, Gromstovs, gay guys, dancers, and two other misfit women. That makes ten, right? So there are ten graves I'm going to dance on. One way or another, ten graves. You didn't know I was a choreographer, did you Nev?"

# Chapter 14 – Seeking The Whosey

The next morning after coffee Gwen informed Roger that he no longer could mope around in the wine cellar, playing with his bottles of Burgundy and Châteauneuf-du-Pape. There was work to do, and he would be doing it for the next year. Roger wasn't aware he had been moping. It was true he had been spending a lot of time in the cellar of their house, which formerly had been a cistern. Their house, built ca. 1810, like many of the houses of that era, had cisterns that had held the household water supply. The Junes had turned this brick lined space into their wine cellar.

Was that what he was doing? Moping and playing? Well, he was an aristocrat, and that's what they do, right?

Actually, Roger had been trying to figure out how Stirg had found out where he had all the Hermitage artifacts stored (those that weren't in the homes of their Russian compatriots who had participated in the caper), and how Stirg had stolen them right out from under his nose. We're talking nine shipping containers of stuff; the big containers that sit on the deck of huge container ships that carry them all around the world. A warehouse full of rugs, tables, paintings, silverware, and sets of china. How had Stirg done that? Roger did some of his best thinking down in the cellar, but he hadn't yet been able to figure that out.

"What's your number one job; the job you're going to work on this morning, down at The Hall?" Gwen asked.

"Umm, deciding what wine to serve tonight with the sea bass? The Santa Barbara chardonnay or the Languedoc viognier?"

"It was your idea to go after Townshend. It's important to get the music angle of the production going. Music is central to a ballet, isn't it, dear? We gotta have that, right?"

They walked to The Hall together, where Roger sat in a chair and watched the Ps slowly translate the notes from the score to the white boards. Then he watched Selgey and Bart change what the Ps wrote on the boards from words to pictograms. He heard Helstof talking on the phone with Gale, asking her to come to The Hall. The woman came out of the back office and said hello. "I have access to three million dollars, Roger. Where do you want to go? We can be out of town before Gwen knows we're gone."

"Kansas City."

"Why Kansas City? Why not Rio?"

"I want barbeque for lunch. It's very good in KC."

"I think my new bank card can cover that." The woman went over to Helstof to see if Gale was coming.

Roger sat at the computer, looking at a photo of Pete Townshend from the 70s, doing his trademark windmill guitar flailing thing. Roger had no idea how to contact a former rock n roll star, now in his early sixties. He thought of a diversion. "Hey, everyone, can you come over here. I need some help." The four dancers, the admin woman, Helstof and Gwen joined him around the computer. "How much should I offer Townshend to do the job? He's rich, so money may not mean a lot to him. I know I have to present the whole competition with Paul McCartney thing to him, and that may be what makes him want to do this, but we have to offer him money, too. How much? Have you done a budget?" looking at the woman.

"Yes, Roger, I've done a budget. That's what I do. Subtracting our plane fares to Kansas City, one night in the presidential suite of the Ritz Hotel, and $18.95 for the world's best barbecue, we start with $2,996,981.05."

Gwen said, "Who's going to Kansas City?"

Roger and the woman said, "We are. For lunch."

"Oh."

The woman went on, "Then subtracting the dancer's salaries and travel, the PR, the costuming, the catering, the promotions, the utilities, the insurance, the lighting, and all the other stuff, we have about five million left for the music. Is that enough for this Whosey guy?"

Everyone thought about that. A five mill fee to do the music for a world class production of a lost Stravinsky ballet, which, if successful, would propel Townshend far ahead of McCartney and his original _Oceans Kingdom_ score for the New York City Ballet; a production which, by the way, had gotten distinctly lukewarm reviews from the critics. When no one offered an opinion, the woman said, "As far as I know, no one has ever been offered a fee of that magnitude to produce the music for a ballet. And we're not even talking original music here. Big Igor wrote that in 1914. The Whosey guy is just going to fiddle around with it, right? Seems like a lot to me."

When no one else commented, Gwen made the executive decision. "The music has to be great, no matter who wrote it or when. It's key. Roger, you have five mill to get Townshend. Now stop schlepping around, and go get him."

"Can we still go to KC for lunch, followed by a little rolling thunder at the Ritz?" the woman asked.

Everyone smiled. They liked the woman.

Just then Gale arrived. The woman asked her, "Wanna go to Kansas City with me and Roger, for barbeque lunch?"

Gale looked at Gwen, asked, "You going?"

Gwen shook her head, no.

"Anyone else?"

The rest shook their heads, no.

Gale looked at Roger and the woman, said, "Sure. We coming back tonight, or laying over? If laying over, where?"

Woman said, "Ritz."

"Ya'll ever drunk champagne with barbeque? Very nice." Gale would drink champagne with potato chips, and call it very nice.

Helstof interrupted the goofiness by grabbing Gale and dragging her over to a table on which were photos of past ballet productions. They started talking costumes.

Another place Roger likes to go when he needs to think is The Battery. This is a promenade walkway that stretches along the tip of the Charleston peninsula, and is lined with beautiful old mansions. So he headed down King Street until it dumped out at The Battery, and commenced his cogitative strolling. How the hell was he going to make contact with a semi-retired rocknroller who lived three thousand miles away in London? He walked up the promenade, and down. Up, and down. What was London famous for? Fish and chips. St Paul's Cathedral. The Thames River. Tabloids.

TABLOIDS. That scourge of English culture. No one does slimier reporting than the English tabloids. Roger had five million dollars at his disposal to get Townshend. Maybe he needed to take a small portion of that, and invest it in the initial contact. He assumed the tabloids would do anything for a fee. Could he pay one of them to print something that would find its way to Townshend's attention? If so, what would it say? More walking and promenading. More cogitating and cogitations. What else was famous from over there? The Beatles, of course, which brought Roger's thoughts back to Paul McCartney, and the idea that Townshend might find it interesting to compete with McCartney in the arena of music for ballet.

It didn't take Roger long to pursue these thoughts to a logical conclusion. First, he jettisoned the idea of a London tabloid, and replaced it with _The Times_ of London, which was the opposite of a tabloid. It was one of the most respected newspapers in Europe. He would buy the entire second page of the Sunday arts section, which would read something like this:

TOWNSHEND AND MCCARTNEY DO MUSIC FOR BALLET. In Response to Paul McCartney's recent triumph in New York, with his score for _Oceans Kingdom_ , Pete Townshend has agreed to act as musical director for a new ballet production in Charleston, South Carolina, USA. Townshend was quoted as saying, "Paul did well recently in New York, but the Charleston production will be something very special, especially the music. No one ever has done anything like what we will do there, a year from now. Paul, are you listening? I'll keep two tickets for you, opening night."

Roger sat down on a park bench under a giant bronze statue of a Confederate Civil War General, sitting ramrod straight on a huge stallion. It reminded Roger of a cartoon he had seen which showed a similar statue. Two horses stare at it, with one saying to the other in the caption, "I don't know who the guy sitting on top is, but _Lightning_ there distinguished himself at the battle of Gettysburg."

He thought through his contact idea, and then searched for others. None appeared, so he headed back up King Street, stopping at the Charleston Place Hotel bar for a martini. Roger believed in providing positive feedback to himself whenever he accomplished something important. At The Hall he found the others eating deli sandwiches and swilling sweet tea. Gwen said, "Well?"

"I got something. Might work. Might not."

"Have you been drinking, Roger?"

"No. Been thinking. Working very hard. Been very productive. I told you I have something."

Gwen believed him about the thinking part, but not about the drinking part. She knew all about his theory and practice of accomplishment\reward. If Gwen thought her husband had been drinking in the middle of the workday, the others thought so too, and they were envious. Roger had spent two hours on the job, and now he was done for the day, enjoying a martini, while they continued working away, long after lunch, having to wait until five for their reward, which didn't seem fair. So they figured they had a right to judge whatever he had come up with very severely, and waited, poised to jump on him.

"I'm going to place a full page, color ad in the Sunday edition of _The Times_ of London, announcing a competition between Townshend and McCartney. It will say that in response to McCartney's recent triumph in New York with his _Oceans Kingdom_ score, Townshend will produce the music for a world premiere ballet in Charleston. One way or another, Townshend will see it. I'm hoping it will motivate him to contact us, and ask us what the hell we're doing. When he does, we tell him about the Stravinsky score, that we want him to transcribe that music to synthesizer, and then play it at the premiere. Act as music director for the whole production. I hope the ad will place the idea in his mind of a competition with McCartney. This will be something new for him, music for ballet. Then, we top off the offer with the five mill fee."

Gwen got up from her chair, went over to Roger and sat on his lap. She looked at him for a moment, then kissed him on the lips. "Good job, babe," she said. She looked around at the others, and said, "He has been drinking. Martinis. Beefeaters. But I think he earned it."

# Chapter 15 – Stirg's Decision

"Nev, how old are you?"

Nev went on alert, like when his boss asked him questions about his granddaughter, Anna. This could be another minefield. He said, "Forty-nine."

"How many pushups can you do?"

"You mean how many can I do now, or when I was in Mossad?"

"Now, Nev. You're not in Mossad anymore."

"Umm, twenty-five."

"How many could you do when you were Mossad?"

"Umm, two hundred fifty."

"So you're out of shape, is that right?"

Nev didn't answer. He felt like he was surrounded by mines.

Stirg said, "We didn't do too well last time we attacked the fucks, did we?" Nev understood this was a rhetorical question. "We're going to attack again, Nev, and we have to do better. We have to stick it to that fuck Roger June and his wife. Do you know what we're going to do?" Nev was afraid to ask. "We're going to get that Stravinsky music from them. Steal it from them and take it back to Russia, where it belongs." He looked at Nev, who thought this sounded interesting, even though he was embarrassed at the current state of his commando\bodyguard fitness. Former commando. "That music is a national treasure. It's going back. When we get it back there, I'm going to make the ballet thing from it. There, in Saint Petersburg, like they made ballets from his music before. The old style. They call it classical ballet. I've been reading a little. You been looking at those ballerina websites?"

Nev had been looking at those sites, though not exactly for a lesson in history or culture. It's just that he had gotten hooked on those legs. Those long, long, legs. He liked Gelsey Kirkland's legs best, even though she was American. He was not as prejudiced against Americans as Stirg recently had become, due to the actions of the fucks. Some of the Russian babes had great legs too, but not as nice as Gelsey's. He said, "Yeah, I been looking at some of them."

"The Mariinsky Ballet in Petersburg is still good. They have a full program, and a school, and they have the great theater on Theater Square. I'm taking the music back to them. Tell them to do it. Tell them if they do it before the fucks do theirs here, I'll fund the whole thing. All the money they want. I don't care what their schedule is, I'll get them to change it and do this Stravinsky piece. What do you think?"

"Sounds good boss. When do we steal the music from the fucks?"

"As soon as you can do two hundred fifty pushups again. You're going to do the stealing. Get in shape, Nev, get in shape. While you do that, I'll be talking to the Mariinsky people. Tell them what's coming. Tell them to start planning. Maybe I'll fly over there, talk face to face. I don't know. You better start figuring out how you're going to steal the music. Need to do it soon. The sooner the better." Stirg got up and left the room.

Nev felt energized, knowing his boss still had faith in his abilities. He was going on an op, just like the old days. He dropped down and did twenty five, right then and there; got up puffing a little. If he increased his quota by ten each day, he'd be in shape in....in....he went and got a calculator. They didn't require a lot of math in Mossad.

That afternoon he began his reconnaissance of The Hall, doing a walk around. He checked out John Street, and the alley in back, and the surrounding blocks. He was tempted to knock on the front door and try to get inside, but his old training kicked in, and he restrained himself. Nev went and got a cup of coffee, and started his attack planning. The first big decision was whether this would be a strong arm op or a clandestine op. Would he burst into the theater in the middle of the day, broad daylight, armed to the teeth, threaten the fucks with death, and demand the score? Or would he infiltrate in the depths of a dark night, man in black, all movements cloaked in a graveyard like silence? Either way would be great fun; he liked both styles of attack.

He wasn't sure he needed to wait until he could do all two hundred fifty pushups. He felt ready to go right now. But orders were orders.

# Chapter 16 – Public Notice

That was the last time Roger only had to work a half day. It also was the last time he indulged in a mid-day martini. Gwen cracked the whip on the team, and that included him. All ten members sat in comfy chairs on the stage, which meant Gwen had pried Henric out of his sailboat for a day. She hadn't told anyone what was on the agenda for the meeting, but the practiced eyes of the Ps had detected a bulge under her silk jacket, just behind her right hip. As far as they were concerned, that portended the worst. They thought they were past the days of armed conflict with Stirg, and had resumed their rightful positions as valued members of an elevated cultural institution. Now, here was Gwen again, packing heat. Oh, shit.

She said, "We're at a breaking point in the production. Roger has a plan for contacting The Whosey and getting him on board. That's a very important part of our production approach. If we don't succeed in that, we have to go back to the drawing board. The thing is, when Roger implements his plan, our operation is out of the hat. It will put the public on notice about our production, and about our discovery of the Stravinsky score. Originally I thought we would keep this secret well into the process. But with this need to get Townshend, we're going to have to disclose a lot very soon. Anyone have any ideas, any comments?"

The woman said, "As soon as this becomes public knowledge, all hell is going to break loose. The first thing that's going to happen is that tons of people are going to want to know about finding the score. How that happened? Who? When? The second thing is that people are going to want to know about the ballet. Who is producing this? Why in Charleston, of all places? Who is choreographing? Who are the dancers? What's this about a competition between The Whosey and Paul McCartney?" She looked around the circle of faces. "None of those things are going to be easy to explain. Obviously we can't say the score was found in a secret compartment of a desk you all stole from the Hermitage Museum. So what do we say? People are going to want to know why you have control over a major, lost piece of music by one of the most important composers of the twentieth century. And then, when people find out about the money we're spending on this, holy shit. That's never happened before."

Gwen could see the woman was getting worked up, which was ok because that was the purpose of this powwow. Gwen knew all this stuff the woman was bringing to the table was not the most important issue. She knew the issue was Stirg, and his reaction. Based on his reaction when he found out they had stolen a ton of stuff from the Hermitage warehouses, Gwen knew he was going to go ballistic again. Which was why she was carrying her handgun, clipped to her belt under the $600 silk jacket. She knew she had to re-arm her team, the way they had been six months earlier, and was leading by example.

The woman went on, "Then people are going to want to know about this competition between The Beatle and The Whosey. What are we going to tell them? That we're making all this up? Are we going to tell them we're paying this guy five mill to play around with Igor's music? Five million dollars? Cause then these investigative types, and believe me, this is going to bring them out of the woodwork, are going to ask questions about our benefactors." She looked at Helstof and Henric. "You all ready for that? Have people prying into your affairs? And what about you?" she said, looking at the four dancers. "And you?" looking at Gale. "You ready to have people camped out on the doorsteps of your houses, ringing the bell at all hours of the day and night?"

Roger thought the woman was a riot. This was great, laying it all on the line like this. Gwen did too. Saved her having to do it, which she had come prepared to do. The Junes sat quietly and looked around at their friends. No one spoke.

So Gwen got up looked at the woman. "Thank you. All that had to be said, and you captured the essentials perfectly. Except one important thing." She reached around her waist and pulled her gun. Instinctively Peter covered his ears, and Pater clutched at Peter's shoulder. Gwen had fired her gun in The Hall once before. She didn't fire it now, but laid it on the table in full view. "In addition to all those realities, and those distractions, we're going to have Stirg on our asses. Again. You remember what happened before. He's not going to like us doing what we're going to do with this ballet, any more than he liked us stealing the stuff from the Hermitage. He's going to view this as a desecration of Russian heritage." Gwen looked at each team member, straight in the eyes. Each person looked back her, still, composed, attentive. Pater had let go of Peter's shoulder, and was relaxed now that he saw Gwen wasn't going to fire her gun at the ceiling. Slowly she walked around the circle of chairs. Intensity radiated out from her to each of the others. She gave a double dose to the woman, who was the newest member of the team.

She said, "We are going to do this. Does everyone understand that? We are producing this ballet, just as we planned. We are going to be successful. It is going to be a great work of art. We face serious challenges ahead, just as you have described," indicating the woman. "And the biggest challenge is going to be Stirg. We will meet those challenges; we will overcome all of that. We are going to do something great, and contribute to culture." She paused, and sat down in her chair. "Now's the time to go home if you don't want the trouble that's going to come from this. Nothing great ever happens without some trouble."

Gwen knew what their old friend and Hermitage heist teammate Little Jinny Blistov would say at this point, if he were here. He'd say, "Hot damn!" She looked from person to person, starting with her husband. He smiled and blew her a kiss. Then at the Gromstovs, who held hands and gave a thumbs up. Then the Ps, who also held hands, and said, via Pater's voice, "This is ballet. This is our new life in Charleston. Being scared isn't so bad, as long as we can overcome that, and get done what we want to do."

Gwen looked at the American ballet star and the English ballet star. Selgey said, "I've never held a gun before. Can I hold that?" Gwen knew there was not a round in the chamber, so she picked up the 40 caliber Glock and handed it to her. She said, "Keep it pointed at the floor." Selgey did so, moving it around, feeling its weight. She looked at Bart and said, "Have you ever held a gun before?"

"Never even been in a room with one before."

She handed it back to Gwen, and said, "So it's going to be like that, eh?" She looked around at the others and said, "Do you know what it feels like to give command performances at places like the White House and the Paris Opera House? It's scary as hell. But we both have done that many times. Always scary, but we did it anyway, because we believed in it." She looked at Bart, "Are we in, or out?"

"We're in," he said, without hesitation.

Gwen knew Gale also was in. Gale had not been part of the heist team, but she had been adopted by the team afterwards, because she was a live wire, always interesting, fun as hell. She had been on the boat out in the harbor on the night Stirg had attacked. So this wasn't her first time facing a threat. Gwen's gaze passed on to the woman, and rested there. What would she say?

"I came here to retire. Be with my family, learn to like shrimp and grits, drink my iced tea sweet, and not complain about the humidity. Now I'm sitting on a theater stage, looking at a gun. I've never seen a gun before, except on TV. None of my former bosses at the San Francisco Ballet carried guns; or at least they didn't bring them to work. None of the dancers, either," looking at the Ps, who she knew had carried them in the front of their pants for a period of time when Stirg was actively threatening the group. "Now you're telling me you guys stole stuff from the Russian government. Discovered a lost score by a world famous composer. Want to produce a ballet, and two of you have twenty-five million dollars you're willing to spend on it. And lastly, you're telling me some guy named Stirg attacked you in the recent past, actual physical violence; and he may, no, he likely, will attack you again. Physically attack you, with violence." The woman kept looking at Gwen's gun, sitting on the table. "Why do you want me? Why tell me this stuff? I'm a bean counter, an administrative person. I do budgets and PR. Maybe I'll just tell the cops all this. Maybe I'll call up this Stirg person, tell him all about what you're up to. What's up with all this, and me?"

Roger said, "You're funny."

The Ps said, "We like you."

The ballet stars said, "You know ballet administration, and we need that to pull this off."

Henric didn't say anything, but looked at her kindly, with reassurance.

Helstof spoke for herself and Gwen. "We trust you, and we know you can handle this. We know you won't squeal."

The woman said, "How do you know?"

"Intuition."

The woman said, "Oh. Ok. I'm in."

# Chapter 17 – Attack, Act One

Nev had seen the Junes in action on two occasions. The first was when four women in bikinis had landed at the end of Stirg's dock in a boat, and scammed their way into his house, at which time they pulled guns hidden in pockets in their towels. After the women had secured the area, Roger and a Russian accomplice had come out of the boat and joined them. These six intruders had spent two hours in the house, talking shop with Stirg. Gwen June had kept her gun trained on Stirg and Nev the entire two hours. Hers was one of six guns in evidence that were not part of the Stirg household. At one point, Roger had clobbered Stirg in the head with the butt of his gun, practically knocking Stirg unconscious.

The second occasion was the retaliation move by Stirg, two months later. The entire June crew was out on Charleston harbor, eating, drinking, and relaxing on Henric's sailboat, when Stirg attacked them in his massive power cruiser, which was more of a ship than a boat. The end result of that escapade was minor damage to both vessels, and Stirg's ship aground on a sandbar on the backside of Fort Sumter. It had to be pulled off the next day by a tugboat.

So Nev had a healthy respect for the Junes, and their willingness to resort to violence when the situation called for it. Nev did not know that during this period of antagonism between the two camps, Gwen had fully armed and trained all the members of her crew. Each of them had carried a concealed handgun for about four months, and each of them knew how to use it. The Ps had been the most resistant to this new regime of personal protection, but Gwen had given them no choice in the matter. They had spent many hours at the outdoor gun range on the Francis Marion National Forest, just north of Charleston, and under Gwen's tutelage had become proficient in gun operation, safety, and psychology.

If Nev had known about the basic gun training that Gwen had inflicted on the Ps, and that Gwen had made them carry their guns every day for four months, he might have decided on a different course of action than he did, so as to comply with his boss's order to steal the score. Nev had decided on the direct approach to the problem, the daytime approach. He would grab the Ps as they arrived for work in the morning, brace anyone else that showed up, and demand they give him the score. After all, he was a former commando, and they were two gay ballet dancers. If the Junes showed up, so much the better. He would brace their asses, too.

And that is what he did one morning, a week later. He hadn't yet worked up to the two hundred fifty pushups his boss had demanded, but he was up to one hundred fifty, which is nothing to sneeze at for a forty-nine year old guy, and he was ready to go. He looked forward to securing a modicum of revenge against the Junes, who had heaped humiliation upon him with their successful attack on Stirg's house, perpetrated by four women in bikinis. And on him, the supposed bodyguard.

Nev knew where the Ps usually parked their white Lexus convertible, and he waited for them at 8am one Monday morning. They were the first to arrive for work at The Hall every day, they being so incredibly excited to be back in the world of art and culture, after having been exiled formerly to the duties of night-shift security guards at one of the Hermitage Museum compound back gates, for three years. The only contact they had during their work shift at the remote gate was with strange nocturnal creatures scurrying around just outside the lighted zone of their guard post structure. That was where they had met the June's a year earlier. Now they were living in Charleston, driving a Lexus, and were part of a team that was going to produce a world-class ballet premiere. Every day, for them, was a good day.

Nev followed them down the sidewalk, around a corner, and up to the front door of The Hall. When he mounted the four steps up to the door behind them, they sensed his presence and turned around. The Ps never had met Nev, but they pretty much knew who he was, right then and there. "Morning boys. How we doing today?" he said.

"Things were good," they said in unison.

"Still can be a good day, all in all, if you do what I say. Otherwise, could be a bad day. Understand?" He showed them the gun he was holding down below his waist.

"Yes," they said in unison.

"Let's go on in, then. You got something I want."

Peter unlocked the door, which led into the rear of the theater, and they walked down a side aisle to the stage. Nev looked around. Nice place. On the stage he saw the folding tables, on one of which sat a computer. Ah, source of his bug. He also saw the white boards on wheels, and other tables, and ten comfy upholstered office type chairs with high backs. He motioned them to sit down. They both removed long, gauzy cardigan style wraps which came down to hip level, the Ps dressing the part of artists. When they also removed lightweight scarves, Nev saw both of them were wearing dancer's tights and mid-calf height boots. Very la la. Nev never had seen this style of dress in the commando training camps he had frequented in the Sinai when he was younger. The Ps' shirts hung out the front of their tights, partially covering up rather large bulges, front and center. Nev had seen this thing on the ballet websites he had been looking at recently. He didn't spend much time looking at the male dancers on these sites, not when he could watch the females, those with really long, amazingly beautiful legs, flounce around the stage.

"I guess you know what my boss wants?" he said.

"Dance lessons?" said Peter.

"We have an advanced age class, Thursday evenings from 5-6pm. We can fit him in," said Pater.

Cute, Nev thought. He said, "What time do the rest of the fucks get here?" He didn't need to ask. He knew they would show up around nine. He didn't care one way or the other if he had to confront them, or not. If these two gave him the score, he would get out of here. If not, he would pick off the fucks, one by one, as they came in. Have a nice party, like they had had at his house. Stirg's house. "If you two give me what I want, I'll be out of here before the woman shows up. She doesn't have to see this gun. Get scared. She's your bean counter, right? Maybe not used to guns?"

Peter said, "You want the score, right? The Stravinsky score."

Pater looked at him, realizing there was no sense in denying that was what Nev wanted.

"You got it. Give me the music, and I'm outta here."

"What's Stirg going to do with it?"

"What do you think? Take it back to Russia. Make the ballet there. Russian heritage thing."

"We can't give it to you. We can give you a few pieces, but not the whole thing. Sorry," said Peter.

"Why? This is where you're doing your thing. Must be here, for you to work on it. Give it up. Now." And he waved the gun at them, commando style.

Peter got up and walked over to one of the white boards. He spun it on its wheels so it faced Nev. Then he spun it around so Nev could see the other side. He said, "Here it is. Part of it."

Nev saw pictures. Diagrams. He'd never seen anything like them. These were the pictograms Selgey and Bart were using to do their choreography. "What's that?" asked Nev.

"These are from the score. They're what the dancers are going to do. Along with the music."

"I don't care about the dancers. I want the Stravinsky music. The thing you fucks found. The papers with the music that he wrote in Russia. I want it, now."

Pater got up and went to one of the tables, where he picked up some large pieces of paper. He handed them to Nev. Nev looked at them and saw musical notation: clefs, bars, and half-note symbols. Ok. This was it. He counted six sheets of paper. "Where's the rest?" Pater looked around the tables, found four more sheets, and gave them to Nev. "This still isn't all. I want the whole thing."

Peter looked at Pater, and said, "That's all we have. We print out a few pages at a time. It takes a long time for Selgey and Bart to chart the dance movements from the score onto the white boards, and then onto the dance floor. Long time. What you're holding is a week's work, maybe two."

Nev said, "I don't care about that stuff. I want the thing you found. The thing that came from Saint Petersburg. Where is it, the old thing?"

"In a bank vault. Not here."

"What do you mean? You're using it. Making this dance stuff from it. It's gotta be here. Come on."

"It's not here. The original is in the vault. We have a computer copy, and we print a page or two at a time, when Selgey asks for more. That's all we have printed out now."

Nev thought this over. Computers were everywhere, infesting the world. Couldn't do anything without looking at a computer. "Ok. Turn on the computer, and print it all out. The whole thing. A copy. A complete copy, no fucking around. I'm getting tired of this."

One of the Ps said, "The computer is on. Go look. We leave it running. But we can't print out the whole score, because that file is password protected. Only Gwen and the woman have the password. They're the only ones that can open the file and get it up on the monitor."

Now Nev was really pissed at the computer, and was tempted to put a couple of slugs into it, but then thought better. Ok. He would wait for the June woman, or the other woman, the bean counter. Whichever one showed up first, Nev would invite her to open the file, and print the document. He hoped it was the June bitch. He had a score to settle with her, and it wasn't a musical score. It was a personal score. Nev motioned the Ps to sit down. When they did, he pulled up a chair facing them, and sat down too. He kept his gun resting on his thigh. The Ps hoped for the same thing Nev did. They wanted Gwen to walk in first, not the woman. Gwen would handle this guy, commando or not. For the first time in a while, they hoped Gwen was packing.

It wasn't Gwen or the woman who walked down the center aisle after the three men on the stage heard the door open and close. It was Roger June. He made it halfway down the aisle before he saw Nev sitting in the chair, facing the Ps. He stopped and looked. Yes, that was Nev. Looking comfortable, staring out at him from the center of the stage. Roger thought, not a typical Monday morning. Not a typical start to the work week.

Nev lifted his hand from his thigh, and let it drop over the arm of the chair, hanging towards the floor. Roger saw the gun in the hand. Of course. What else. Nev said, "Come on up, Roger. Join me and the boys. We need some help."

Roger continued down the aisle to center stage, turned to stage right and came up the stairs. By this time Nev had his gun pointed at Pater. Roger walked up beside Pater's chair, and stopped. Nev said, "You heeled, Roger?"

This was the second time in the last year that someone had asked Roger that question. And it was a very unusual question. It would not have been unusual if Nev had asked him if he was armed. But using the word heeled made it very unusual. The word heeled came out of the American nineteenth-century west, and was a cowboy word that meant armed with a gun. A year ago, a Russian crook had entered an expensive French restaurant where Roger and Gwen were eating dinner, walked up to their table, and asked him, "You heeled, Roger?" And now this Israeli commando had done the same thing. What was going on? Is the lexicon of the American west no longer sacred? Is it right and proper that Russian crooks and Israeli commandos were appropriating it? Using it for their nefarious purposes?

Roger came back from his mental detour, and said, "Well, I guess I am."

"Let's have it."

Roger slowly pulled out his nine, and handed it to Nev, butt first.

Nev looked at it carefully. "Is this the one you hit my boss with?"

Roger thought for a moment, said, "Yes, I believe it is. Gwen and I keep so many guns in our house, I had to think there for a minute."

"I remember that. I remember you hittin' my boss in the head. With this."

"Not as vividly as he remembers it, I bet."

Nev stood up and stuck Roger's gun in his belt, behind his back. "We'll save that issue for another time. I'm here for something. The music papers. These fucks say the original is in the bank, and the copy you're using is in the computer, except for a few sheets, here. They say only your wife and the woman can get into that file, get it up on the screen so it can be printed out. The whole thing. The whole document. Is that right?"

Roger understood the situation. He knew Nev was serious, not here to fool around. Stirg had sent Nev for the Stravinsky score, and Nev was going to bring it home with him. He would do what was necessary to get it. That was the Israeli way. And Roger knew his wife was coming shortly. Then what? Well, then Nev would get the score, which wasn't the end of the world. Keep cool. But Roger had another thought. An interesting thought. What about the Ps? What was their status, vis-à-vis being heeled? He knew Gwen had given the order to the whole team to carry their weapons at all times, when they left their houses. And he knew the Ps didn't mess with Gwen. The question was whether Nev had de-heeled them.

Roger said, "I know the password. I can print the document for you. Leave them alone." And he walked over to the table with the computer on it and sat down. Nev followed him, and stood behind him, watching as Roger launched the software programs. It took time for them to boot up, and him to logon. While this was happening, the Ps also got up and came around the table to watch. Nev kept an eye on them and an eye on Roger. Roger glanced at them, noting the bulges in the front of their tights, partially concealed by their gauzy shirts. Then he glanced at their faces. He wondered.

The music software opened, and Roger called up the dialogue box asking for the file password, which he entered. When the file of the scanned Stravinsky score opened, he motioned to Nev to sit down in the chair next to him, and look at it. He said, "There it is." Nev never had seen a musical score on a computer screen before. For a moment it mesmerized him, all those little black symbols, and he dropped his guard. The Ps were hoping for this, waiting for this, and Gwen's training kicked in. In two smooth motions they raised their shirts, pulled their Berettas out of the front of their tights, racked the slides, and pointed them at Nev's chest. Pater's hands wobbled a little. Peter's were steady.

Nev didn't move. He debated moving, raising his gun and shooting, but he decided against this. Not worth it. Not just to assuage his boss's sense of cultural sacrilege. He stayed motionless, not looking at the Ps, but looking at Roger, sitting next to him. Roger cocked his head sideways just a bit, indicating a sense of irony. Slowly he reached across the space between them, and took hold of Nev's gun. He stood up and moved behind Nev's chair. Carefully he pushed Nev forward and got his own gun out from Nev's belt. He racked the slide in his Beretta nine, and stuck Nev's gun in his belt, at his back. Nothing like role reversal. He stepped away from Nev, looked at the Ps, smiled, and said, "Ok, all over. Ease down." They lowered their guns, Pater's hands now shaking noticeably. Peter took Pater's gun away from him, and led him over to the chairs. Roger motioned to Nev to stand up, put his hands on the table, and stretch his feet backwards away from the table. He frisked him, head to toe. Roger said, "Have a seat."

About this time they heard the door at the rear of the theater open, and voices. Gwen, Selgey, Bart, and the woman all entered, and began walking down the aisle. Gwen looked ahead, stopped the others, pulled her Glock, and pointed it at the stage. Roger said, "It's ok, babe. The Ps got the draw on him." And he smiled at Nev. This was not going to put him in good with his boss.

# Chapter 18 – Empty Handed Nev

There weren't any fireworks on stage later that morning. Nev didn't put on an action performance, engaging Roger and the others in hand-to-hand commando combat. He didn't have any weapons in his shoes or strapped to his arms. After Gwen, the woman, Selgey, and Bart arrived, so did Helstof and Gale. Henric, as usual, was out on the water. So there was Nev, surrounded by nine of his implacable enemies, all of whom wondered what they had gotten themselves into. Helstof had been part of the June's invasion of Stirg's home several months previously, and she had come to The Hall today, armed. Heeled. She sat down in a chair, said, "How ya doin', Nev?" The last time Nev had seen her, she was standing in Stirg's kitchen, wearing a bikini, and holding a gun. He didn't answer her greeting.

Gwen said, "We have a visitor this morning. Mr. Nev. Works for Mr. Stirg." She looked at her husband.

"He wants the Stravinsky score. Or rather, his boss wants the Stravinsky score. Says Stirg wants to take it back to Saint Petes; Stirg says that's where it belongs; says he's going to do the ballet there. Nev came early and asked the Ps for it. Then I showed up. The three of us talked it over and decided we didn't want to give it to him. Decided this should be an American deal, here in Charleston. Didn't we, boys?"

The Ps nodded vigorously.

"Nev started waving his gun around." Roger took Nev's gun out from his belt at his back, and handed it to Gwen. "So the Ps took it away from him. Asked him to sit in the chair, and be polite. Right, Nev?"

Nev didn't answer, but looked around at his nine adversaries. When his gaze found the woman, he said, "You're the new one. The bean counter. You scared of guns?"

The woman said, "If you had one, if you had your gun, the one you came in here with, rather than Gwen having it, and you were waving it around at me, yeah, I'd probably be scared. But seeing as you don't, seeing as how two gay ballet dancers took it away from you, well, I'll reserve judgment. That ok with you?"

The Ps didn't smile at this, but Gwen, Roger, and Helstof did. They liked the woman more and more. Guts.

Nev looked at Selgey, and said, "You're one of the dancers, aren't you? Can I see your legs? I've been looking at ballet websites, and those babes have great legs. Do you?"

So Nev had guts too, keeping his cool in the middle of this embarrassment. Gwen had to hand it to him.

Selgey hadn't met many commandos in her travels and associations within the world of the international ballet community. She was a little intrigued by Nev, knowing something of his background. She thought for a moment, stood up, walked towards him sitting in the chair, and when she was seven feet in front of him, took two steps, and jumped. Over him. Over his head. Landed en pointe behind him, poised with perfect balance, holding. Slowly Nev rotated his chair until he faced her. Looked at her. Looked at her legs. Looked at Roger. Said, "God."

Selgey stepped out of the poise, not looking at Nev, and walked across the stage into one of the offices at the rear. The woman followed her saying, "You want me to make coffee, Selgey?"

Bart looked at Nev, said, "You should have seen her when she was really good."

And that was the end of the atypical start to the team's work week.Gwen and Roger escorted Nev out of the building, and watched him walk down John Street towards King Street They now had another gun for their collection. Gwen said, "You want some coffee?"

Roger shook his head, and they went back into The Hall and back up on stage. He said, "Are we ready to go public? Can I put the ad in The Times of London? We gotta get Townshend working on this."

Gwen thought for a moment, then said, "Let's check with the woman, first. She gave us a pretty good description of what was going to happen when we did this. She said all hell was going to break loose. We better see if we are ready for that, or not."

# Chapter 19 - Going Public

"Roger wants to put the ad in the English newspaper, and he thinks it's going to cause The Whosey to pick up the phone and call us. Are we ready for that?"

The woman lifted her Bolshoi Ballet coffee mug and sipped. She's is the kind that thinks before she speaks. "Look," she said, "we're going to have to face all that shit sooner or later. Press, phone calls, job seekers, contractors, locals. All that. I'm ready for it now, as long as I can have the Ps and Gale and Helstof to help. You're the boss, Gwen, but all this stuff that's going to flood us is admin business. I'll sort it all out as it happens, and come to you for decisions. If you're ready, I'm ready."

Gwen called the others over to the chairs, and asked them the same question. "Are we ready to go public?" Everyone thought for a moment, and nodded. They were placing a lot of faith in the woman, and if she said she was ready, then they felt they were ready. Gwen looked at Roger and said, "Let er rip, dear." He went over to the computer and started working. The others dispersed to their tasks. The woman said, "Gwen dear, you mentioned something about a raise. Now might be a good time to give that some consideration."

Gwen said, "Oh, yeah, right, sorry." She closed her eyes for a moment, then said, "I'm considering giving our admin person a raise. What do you think? How much?"

The woman said, "Well, it ought to be commensurate with what her counterparts in similar positions at world-class cultural institutions make."

Gwen said, "You think so? Hmmm. Do those counterparts normally have Israeli commandos coming into their offices, brandishing loaded hand guns, threatening people and trying to steal stuff?"

"Well, that never happened out in San Francisco. One time we had some gay activists picket the offices for a couple of days because they thought one of our productions wasn't quite politically correct enough. But they had signs, not guns."

"Do any of these counterparts have a disgruntled Russian billionaire former Nazi hunter as an antagonist, who very much wants to torpedo our production, and may be willing to resort to violence to do that?"

"Ummm, no, not that I know of, but one time a few years ago the janitors at the Australian National Opera refused to clean the bathrooms for the week leading up to opening night, and then during the opening act of the performance, stood in the balcony and threw toilet papers rolls billowing down on the audience. They wanted a raise and better working conditions. My counterpart had to deal with that."

"Are any of your counterparts responsible for a twenty-five million dollar, single production budget?"

"Never been done; not to my knowledge. Not in New York, not in London, not in Paris."

"Well, there you have it. How about two hundred grand? For the next year."

"That sounds ok. What about overtime?"

"Don't push it. But, we also will purchase life-insurance policies for the whole team. Cover you if Nev comes back. How's that?"

"That's very reassuring, Gwen. Thank you."

As Gwen went to see what Roger was doing at the computer, she thought, "I may have to give the woman a gun, and some training. Don't want to be unfair to her."

The woman thought, "That seems to be Gwen's answer to everything: guns, guns, guns."

Roger was staring at the screen. Gwen asked, "What are you waiting for?"

"I sent the copy of the ad to them, and all the requirements, like second page, Sunday entertainment section, full color. Waiting for confirmation."

Gwen pulled up a chair, and commenced watching the screen with him. They held hands, waiting for five minutes, ten minutes. Then the computer donged, and a message appeared from The Times: Your ad has been accepted for publication, contingent upon payment in full, by prior Wednesday, 5pm London time.

Roger smiled. Gwen asked, "How much?"

"50,000 pounds."

"How much is that?"

"Ummm, about $75,000.

"Isn't that a lot, dear? For one ad?"

"If we don't get Townshend out of it, it's a lot. If we do get him, it's not a lot."

"Whatever you say, dear."

Roger went in to see the woman. He handed her a printout from the newspaper, with instructions for making international payments. She looked at it and said, "You're paying $75,000 for a newspaper ad? Are you crazy?"

"I'm paying $75,000 to attract a genius to our project. If he says yes, you will write him a check for five mill. You ever written a check that big before?"

"I can't wait to meet this Whosey guy? He better be good."

"He is. This is going to be a rockin' great Stravinsky ballet."

# Chapter 20 – Facing the Music (and it ain't Stravinsky)

Nev had to go home and face the music. He was getting used to that, this being the third time the Junes had kicked his commando ass. If Gwen June wasn't so beautiful, and if she didn't look so hot with her Glock in her hand, he might feel irked. He stopped for lunch at Rue de Jean, the French place four blocks down John Street from The Hall. They had the best pommes frites in town. He was tempted to order a bottle of wine, but figured alcohol on his breath might not play well while he explained his latest failure to achieve mission goals to his boss, the former Nazi hunter. Instead, he ate half a roast chicken along with a second order of fries. Then he headed home.

"Well?" Stirg said. "You get the music thing? Are we heading to Saint Petes?"

"Not exactly."

"Not exactly, what?"

"I got some of it." And he handed Stirg the ten sheets of the Stravinsky score that Peter had given him.

Stirg never had seen a musical score before, either, so it took him a couple of minutes to assimilate the weird symbols he was looking at on the oversize sheets of paper. "Is this the whole ballet? What do you mean you got some of it? If this ain't all of it, where's the rest? And how come this ain't old paper? I thought this thing was a hundred years old. This don't smell like old Russian paper."

Here we go, thought Nev. "That's not all of it. I don't know how many pages make up the whole thing. The rest of it is in two places. The old paper is in a bank vault. But it's also in the computer."

"How can old Russian paper be in a computer?"

"They scanned the original score into a digital file, then put it in the bank vault. The digital thing is in the computer. When they want to work on a part of the music, to make the dance part, they print some pages, then they write the pages on big white boards in magic marker, then change the music thingies to picture thingies, then the ballet geeks make the dance part from the pictures." Nev tried hard to obfuscate this process in order to deflect Stirg's attention from the fact that he had failed in his mission. An Israeli commando, failing the mission. Tsk Tsk.

Stirg was getting old, but he wasn't stupid. "You didn't get the music thing, did you?"

Nev shook his head. "It's in the bank vault, and in the computer," like that was a good answer.

Stirg looked back at the papers, wishing they would morph into the full score, and he wouldn't have to yell at Nev. He said, "I been reading about ballet. They say most dancers are washed up by the time they're thirty. Gymnasts are washed up by twenty-six, and dancers by thirty. How old are you Nev? I asked you that a few weeks ago. Are Israeli commandos like gymnasts and dancers, washed up at a young age?"

Nev was tempted to ask Stirg if all Nazi hunters were washed up at a young age, but he held his tongue.

"What am I gonna do, Nev? I can't let the fucks do this ballet thing here. It belongs back in Saint Petes. It's a Russian thing, not an American thing. It's gotta have its first performance there. It's gotta be old style, classical. It's gotta be done by the Mariinsky, at their theater on Theater Square, in February, when everyone is freezing their asses off. That's the Russian way. It's gotta be that way, Nev. Not this fucking American way." Stirg sat down, looked off into space.

Nev looked off into space for a while, too. Then he said, "I got an idea. Gimme another chance."

# Chapter 21 – The Whosey Replies

Sunday evening at 9pm the Junes were in bed with glasses of port, watching a movie starring George Clooney and Renee Zellweger. Roger had claimed half a dozen times that Zellweger's performance was Oscar material, and that as an actress, she was the heir to such stars as Katherine Hepburn and Emma Thompson. Gwen was waiting to see what all the hubbub was about, though she had to admit, secretly, that Roger had good taste in women. It didn't hurt her sense of anticipation any that she would have to struggle with watching Clooney.

Usually Roger turned his cell phone off after dinner, enjoying the peace and quiet of home, alone with his wife, dog, and cats. It was one of his favorite social activities. But today, something told him sub-consciously to leave it on. Momentarily, he was pissed when it rang, right in the middle of the great scene in the hotel lobby, when Clooney is trying to pick up Zellweger using a witty repartee. Everything he says, which is pretty good, she tops, sticking it back in his face, rebuffing his advances. Roger loved this scene. It was great enough that once he'd had thoughts of leaving his wife, getting in the Jag, driving to Hollywood, and trying to peep into Zellweger's living room window.

"Hello," he said, into the stupid phone.

"Hallo, Pete 'ere, from England. What you blokes got going on there in Charleston, USA? Isn't Charleston where you lot started your civil war, and called it an unpleasantness? Never been to Charleston. Anyway, read your ad in The Times. What you saying 'bout Paul and me? What's this 'bout ballet? Paul did the New York thing six months ago. I've listened to the music, but not seen the dancing. Music's nice. I love old Paul. What's this 'bout me inviting him to a Charleston ballet performance? Eh? You there?"

Roger managed to find the pause button on the TV remote. He wasn't going to miss any of Zellweger's dialogue with Clooney; not for a phone call, even from Pete Townshend. He held his hand over the phone, said to Gwen, "The Whosey." Then he hit the speaker button on the phone so she could hear. The pause button on the remote had frozen a close-up of Zellweger. Perfect. "I'm here, Pete. We're here, me and my wife, Gwen. I'm Roger. We're the Junes. Thanks for calling. It's late over there, isn't it?"

"Late? It's 2am. I'm getting old, but not dead yet. Haven't been to bed before 2 since I was a nipper, fifteen years old."

"Oh, well, anyway, glad you gave a buzz. Thanks very much. How's the weather over there? Foggy? Cold? Not here in sunny Charleston. Great here. Going to be great here for months to come. No fog. Still have a synthesizer, do you? Still playing music, are you? Still get around ok, are you?" He paused, then said, "Pete, do you know Renee Zellweger, the actress? She's got great style and presence. Love her in that movie with Clooney. They're like Hepburn and Grant."

Gwen grabbed the phone away from her babbling husband. "Pete. Gwen June here. We have a proposition for you. That's what the ad was about."

"You paid 50,000 pounds just so I'd ring you up? Nice to feel wanted in Charleston. Guess I'd better hear this proposition. Gwenny?"

"Yes, Pete."

"That's a lovely accent you've got there. I've always liked the American southern accent. On women, that is. Not so much on the blokes. Keep talking, Gwenny."

"We know you're friends with Paul McCartney. We saw you playing together on the two 9\11 concerts in New York. We know he composed the score for the New York City Ballet production of _Oceans Kingdom_." Now Gwen paused, but not just to look at George Clooney on the TV, the way Roger had, at Zellweger. She paused for effect. "Pete, we have something going on here in Charleston. Something special. A world-class artistic event, involving music. We thought you might find it interesting. It's kind of like a competition. With Paul. A music composition and performance competition."

"I'm listening, Gwenny. Keep those southern sounds coming."

"You know Stravinsky, Pete? The Russian guy."

"Old Igor. I know his stuff. Some of it was pretty wild, for his time."

"We have a Stravinsky piece. A score for ballet. No one other than us has ever seen it. It's a lost score, Pete. A hundred years old. And we've got it. We're going to produce the ballet. A world premiere, here in Charleston. It's funded, Pete. Very well funded. We want this to be a great artistic event, and we have an unusual idea for the music. Not only Stravinsky's music, but something else, too."

"What else, Gwenny?"

"Well, umm, how to put it? Umm, can you imagine a newspaper headline of, 'Townshend Plays Lost Stravinsky Score'? Can you could see that in print, Pete. Or maybe 'Townshend Outshines McCartney in Ballet Production'. Or 'Townshend Plays Stravinsky World Premiere'. Like in big ads in the arts section of _The Times of London_. Or _The New York Times_. Or in _Le Monde_. Can you see those ads, Pete? I bet Paul can see them."

"Keep talking, Gwen. I can almost see them, just as you say. Big ads. Always liked old Igor's stuff. You gonna have good ballerinas? With long legs?"

"We're going to have the best ballerinas, Pete. You ever worked with world-class ballerinas?

"Haven't Gwenny. But doing new things is a good way to stay young. Paul seemed to think it was a good thing to get involved in. Ballet, huh? Ballet. Music and the dance. What's Igor's score like? What's the music like? Can you send me a CD?"

"Pete, understand this. It's a lost score. He wrote the music in Russia in 1914. He got called back to Switzerland, unexpectedly, because his wife was sick. He left the score in the desk where he was working, and never went back to Russia to get it. We just found the score, hidden in a secret compartment of that desk. Here in Charleston. No one has seen that music since he finished it way back then. It's never been performed. He wrote it right after his great, world famous composition, _Rite of Spring_. We don't know what the music sounds like. No one does. We need someone to figure that out, and play it."

"But Stravinsky was a classical orchestral composer. I'm a rock n roller. Where's the match?"

"Pete. It would be a great challenge, wouldn't it? Ballet. You've done opera. There's the match. You can do big pieces, where the songs are linked by themes. Opera tells a story. Ballet tells a story, too, through the music and the choreography. Huge challenge. Incredible opportunity for whoever can figure out the score, and make it work for a world-class production."

"Gwenny, are you really married?"

"I am, Pete. Roger is here next to me, in bed. He's the guy who answered the phone, started raving about Renee Zellweger."

"No offense, Rog. You guys aware that I've worked with a guy named Roger before?"

"We're aware, Pete. We love his singing."

"Roger, do you like Gwenny's voice as much as I do? That southern thing is so, so....seductive. You don't mind me saying that, do you, Rog?"

"I don't mind. I've been around that voice a long time. I still love it, though I guess I'm used to it. She's seductive in other ways, too, Pete. Wait till you see her."

Gwen said, "Can we get back to ballet? Pete, do you see what would happen if you got involved in this? You'd be competing with McCartney. He did the music in New York, something new for him. Now, you'd be doing the music, here, in a Stravinsky production. A friendly competition, on the world stage."

"I'm getting interested, the way you put it. What else?"

"There are two main forms of ballet. Classical and modern. Our production is going to be a modern production. Stravinsky wrote the music for a small orchestra. We know that much. We could produce the music that way, and have classical dancers, doing classical choreography. Or, we can do the music differently. And that is what we're thinking."

Townshend said, "How would the music be different?"

"It would be all you, Pete. You on the synthesizer. You would transcribe the score from orchestra to synthesizer. You would play all the parts, all the instruments. You would BE the music. Just like you did thirty-five years ago with _Quadrophenia_. A one man orchestra, playing music by one of the twentieth century's greatest composers, with the world's greatest dancers moving to it on stage. Vision it, Pete. Vision it."

"And McCartney would be there, watching. Is that the plan?"

"Umm, Pete, we don't actually know him. That would be your job, to get him here. You'd have to play the friendly competition thing with him."

"What's the schedule for this thing, Gwenny? I got stuff going on."

"Less than a year. The premiere, eleven months from now. But, you would have to get going on the music right away. Come here soon and figure out the music, so we can keep going with the choreography. Can you do that?"

"Not sure about that, Gwenny. Like I say, I got some commitments, a contract or two, involves money."

"Pete. Remember me saying the production is funded? Well-funded."

"Yes, I do. That's the sort of thing that catches my attention. I remember."

"We know your time is valuable, and we want to pay you a fee. That's part of our budget. But, Pete, on our end, we have to get going on this. So the fee is for a quick start. I hope that sounds fair to you."

"That fairness thing, which would be connected to the amount of the fee. What might that fee be, Gwenny?"

Gwen took a deep breath, said, "The fee we had in mind is five million."

There was a pause on the London end of the line. Then, "Would that be dollars, or pounds, Gwenny?"

"That would be dollars."

"A fee of five million pounds would be more than fair, Gwenny. More than fair. Would be very, very fair."

Now it was Gwen's turn to pause. "Pete. We love you. We love your songs. We want you to do this. But, we have to pay the dancers, too. You're the best, and they will be the best. So, umm, dollars is what we have. Five million of them." She added, "It's the competition, Pete. With Paul. You're the MEN in the rock n roll world. And now this. A new, and great, opportunity. Think of the value of that."

"Would I get to meet some of the ballerinas? Hang with them?"

"Yes, Pete."

"How soon is soon, Gwenny?"

"Next week would be good."

"You going to be around?"

"Yes, of course. I'm the boss."

"You still going to have that accent of yours?"

"Yes, Pete. I'll still be me."

"See you next week, Gwenny. You too, Rog."

# Chapter 22 – Two Down, One to Go

Roger never considered taking offense at Townshend's familiarity with his wife. Over the years he had seen her deal with much tougher hombres coming on to her than an aging rock n roll musical genius. One time they were sitting in the bar of a nice restaurant, enjoying a drink, when a couple of young, athletic, football player sized bozos starting talking about her, like Roger wasn't there. Comments about her very considerable physical charms. These guys weren't even drunk; they just lacked judgment and anything amounting to propriety. When Roger and Gwen left the restaurant, the guys followed, walking behind them, still with the comments. Roger didn't feel the slightest need to get involved by challenging them. He felt sorry for them.

Gwen let them carry on for a few minutes, then smiled at Roger, spun a quick about face, pulled her gun from under her jacket, and jammed into the gut of one of the guys. She made sure the other guy saw it, too. Then, looking the guy in the eyes, she said, "You lack two important qualities, moron. You lack good judgment, and you lack a sense of propriety." She took hold of his belt with her left hand, pulled, and stuck the gun down the front of his pants. "I'm going to teach you something your mother, bless her heart, failed to teach you. The lesson is simple. It's not nice to make lewd and suggestive comments to strange women. We don't like that. Get it?" And the gun went a little farther down the pants. "Tell me you understand, please. If I sense you do understand, you'll go home with your package intact. If I sense, in any way at all, that you're not getting this message, that you're not learning this lesson that your mother didn't teach you, then I'm gonna lighten your load for you. Understand?"

The guy nodded vigorously. "The health and welfare of your package also depends on your buddy learning the lesson. Is he? Is he learning just as well as you are, moron?" The guy looked at his buddy with pleading eyes. Pleading eyes. The buddy also nodded vigorously. Gwen pulled the gun barrel out of the guy's pants and let go of his belt. She stepped away from them, looked them in the eyes, said, "Propriety, gentlemen. Propriety." And turned back to Roger. "Ready, dear?"

Roger looked at Gwen, next to him in bed, held up his glass of port, and said, "You did it babe. You got the big guy. He's coming. Two down, one to go, so to speak. We have the choreographers, and now we have the musician. Last big thing on the list to acquire is a troupe of dancers. How we gonna do that?"

Gwen sipped, letting a sense of accomplishment settle over her. She relaxed. "We'll deal with that tomorrow. When everyone shows up at The Hall, we'll tell them Townshend is coming next week to start the music, and we'll talk over the dancer thing. She stared at the TV, studying Clooney ogling Zellweger. "What happens?" she asked. "Does he get her? She didn't seem all that thrilled with his repartee. She was sticking it back at him pretty good, when Pete rang up."

"Can we just watch, and see? If she got more roles like this one, instead of some of the dumb movies she's made, she could be one of the truly great actresses. She could produce an oeuvre like Hepburn's, or Streep's."

"Ok. You watch her, and I'll watch George. Did you ever think it was him that made this movie so good?"

"George, who?"

The next morning everyone except Henric was on stage at The Hall, sitting in the oversized office chairs on rollers. Helstof had brought the borzoi, the entity that had started all this by crashing head first into a three hundred year old desk, thus revealing its hidden compartment. She had asked Gwen if it was ok to bring him to work, saying they had to curtail the running on the beach practice during turtle nesting season. So now the horse sized dog was lopping up and down the aisles of the theater, chasing imaginary South Carolina wolves. Canis caroliniana wolvus.

Roger held up a DVD, said, "Anyone want to see the greatest living actress, in a great role, in a great movie?"

Gale, the fashionista, said, "Who might that be?"

"Renee Zellweger. She rules in this movie. If I wasn't ball and chained to Gwen, I'd hop in the Jag, head to Hollywood, and try to meet her. All class, all the way, top of the list."

Everyone looked at Gwen to confirm or deny this wild claim. Top of the list?

Gwen nodded. "She has it all, in this movie. As good as Myrna Loy, Garbo, Dunaway, Kelly, all of them. He's right. Stunning."

"I'll rent out the DVD. Twenty dollars per night," he said.

Gwen waved his goofiness away by saying, "We have good news. The Whosey called last night, and he's in. He's coming next week, starting on the score. So, we're off and running on the music part." She looked at Selgey and Bart. "How's the choreography coming?"

Bart said, "Look, without hearing the music, we've just been playing around. With the Ps translating, we've made it through all of Stravinsky's story notes, and we've tried to understand the tone and style of the music from the score. We know something about how to read music, but that's limited. So we've just been guessing about possible choreographic movements. We can't seriously create those until someone is playing the entire piece. Townshend has got to produce as soon as possible."

Selgey said, "In the meantime we can do two things: we can write out Stravinsky's notes, like a play or a novel, so everyone understands the story, and we can start the search for dancers. Like we said before, the best dancers have commitments long in advance. We have no idea who we can get on this short notice. The premiere is eleven months away." She looked at the woman for confirmation.

The woman said, "Can you actually write out Stravinsky's story, or just tell it? If you know the story and can tell it, who do we get to write it down?"

Bart looked at Selgey. "We know the story, and can tell it. It would go faster if someone else could write it out on paper."

All heads swiveled to Roger. He said, "I'm not sure I have time. I have Zellweger movies to watch. I gotta get a better handle on her greatness."

None of the eight other people in the room even smiled at this joke. He got eight stone faces, transmitting variations on the theme of "leave off the stupid shit and get to work." He got the message.

Gwen said, "Ok, that's settled. Selgey, Bart, and the Ps are going to tell the story to Roger, and he is going to write it down. As soon as that's done," and she glared daggers at her husband, "Selgey, Bart, and you," looking at the woman, "are going to start the search for our dancers. Ok?" They all nodded. "Why don't you go over there," pointing to stage left, "and get working."

"That leaves you two," looking at Helstof and Gale. "What are you going to do?"

Gale said, "Helstof and I are going out to lunch. We need to do some more research about ballet costumes. Historical research about great costuming in the past." Helstof smiled at this.

"You're going to do this research at a restaurant?"

"Well, we're going to observe current sartorial adornments as displayed at fashionable culinary venues, so as to make sure our professional costuming is contemporary and relevant."

Gwen could see she had to get some separation among her staff right away. Roger's bullshit was rubbing off on the others. Invoking the dagger look she previously had directed at Roger, she now said, "It's ten o'clock in the morning. A little early to be thinking about luncheon. How about going over there," pointing at stage right, "and getting something down on paper that will guide your design of great costumes. I know you don't have the complete story yet, that's what they're doing over there now, but they've told you most of the main points, so you have enough to get going."

Gale looked a little hurt, but acquiesced, and rolled her chair over to a table stage right. Helstof rolled with her.

Gwen saw the real work was just beginning.

# Chapter 23 – An Invitation to Lunch

Stirg and Nev sat on a bench at White Point Gardens, watching the promenaders on The Battery. Nev was thinking that maybe his boss, at age sixty-seven, was getting soft, because he hadn't yelled at him for coming home from his visit to The Hall empty handed. The ten pages of the Stravinsky score Nev had gotten didn't really count for much. Stirg wanted to see that 100-year-old Russian paper with all the squiggles on it, sitting right on his kitchen table. He wanted Old Igor, right in his house. Stirg had looked more exasperated than angry when Nev told him that the original score now was in a bank vault. Nev had reported the status of the historic document but he hadn't reported that he had returned home minus his gun. He wondered if Stirg might hire some big-time safecracker to try to rob the bank. He knew there are lots of bank robbers out there, practicing their trade, but he didn't think very many people actually broke into bank vaults anymore. Do they?

Stirg said, "What's your idea? Three days ago you said 'gimme another chance, I got an idea'. What is it?"

"I ain't got it figured out yet. It's a stealth approach, not a frontal commando one like I tried last time. That didn't work so well. I'm talking with some people about this next try. Gimme another day or two."

They watched one of the horse-drawn carriages plod past, with the driver providing ludicrously inaccurate commentary on the bombardment of Fort Sumter, towards which he pointed in the distance. He was telling the tourists that some drunken Yankee soldiers at Fort Sumter had fired the first shot of the Civil War at a group of southern gentlewomen, who happened to be drinking sweet tea and walking their bird dogs, right here, on the Charleston Battery. Right here, the driver reiterated. One dog was killed, and three of the ladies had their hats blown off. That pissed their husbands off, and they had returned fire at the fort the next day, which was the start of the war.

Stirg and Nev believed the guy, and thought, damn, those old Charleston boys were a touchy lot. So that's where these June people get their orneriness from. Stirg said, "I got an idea, myself. How bout we invite all the fucks to lunch. Try to reason with them. Tell them it ain't right to steal stuff. Ask them nice to give us the music thing."

Now Nev knew his boss was getting soft. Ask them for it? Nicely? He said, "Yeah, boss, good idea." He wondered if Stirg ever had asked any of the Nazis he found down in Argentina if, maybe, they would consider going back to The Hague to stand trial for war crimes. Wondered if he ever had asked them to come back to Tel Aviv with him, answer a few questions. "Where we gonna have this lunch? Them and us. Our place?"

"No, I don't think so. Not our place." Stirg stared out at the tiny flags flying over the fort, snapping in the breeze. "How about one of their historic places? Some place famous to Charleston and South Carolina. Some place with lots of art and antiques in it; stuff that is important to these people. Stuff from their past. You see where I'm going with this?"

Nev could see. Not bad, from the old boy. Make the fucks feel guilty about stealing all the stuff from the Hermitage, and now doing this ballet production using Igor's music. Guilt can be a powerful force. Nev didn't think it would work, but it would be an interesting lunch time event. "Where's someplace really famous, lots of neat historic stuff lying around?"

Stirg looked out across the water at the flags flying. The one big flagpole surrounded by the five small flag poles. He pointed out at Sumter, and said, "How about out there? At the fort? That's a famous place. Maybe we can rent the place for a couple of hours. Have lunch catered." He looked at Nev, said, "Find out."

# Chapter 24 – Gale and Helstof Do Costumes

As soon as Gwen left The Hall to run an errand, Gale looked at Helstof, and they headed out for an early lunch. They were much braver than the male team members, none of whom would even consider contravening direction from Gwen. When they arrived at the restaurant at 11:15am, they looked wistfully at the wine menu. Then they looked at their watches. Then at each other. Smiling, Helstof ordered a bottle of Vouvray, from the Loire Valley. Her motto is, you only live once.

Taking her first sip, guilt descended, and she said, "How are we going to pull off this costume thing. We're not professionals, and this production is going to be the bigtime. Maybe we should hire someone, the way we hired the woman to do all the admin stuff."

Gale said, "You want to eat and drink first, or work and drink first?"

"I think we better eat first, otherwise I might get sloshed immediately."

"And what's wrong with that?"

"Might make it hard to solve the issue of how to do the costuming."

Gale waved that away because she was, well, Gale.

They ordered, ate, and drank. Lovely wine, balanced between fruit and minerals. Gale said, "You ever been to the Loire Valley?" Helstof shook her head, no. "That's where some of those fairyland castles are, the ones with the white spires, and colored pennants flying." Gale motioned to the waiter to take away the dishes (don't touch the wine glasses, brother), and opened her purse. She took out an iPad, and turned it on. She said, "Look, the costume thing is not going to be that hard to do. The music is going to be hard for The Whosey, and the choreography is going to be a huge challenge for Selgey and Bart, and the admin stuff is going to break the back of the woman. We have the easy task." She waited for the waiter to set the coffees on the table. "We're doing a modernist production, which means modern costumes. If we were doing a classical thing, these costumes would be much more complicated and expensive. Look at this."

She turned on the computer, called up the website of the New York City Ballet, and went to the Costume Shop page. She scrolled through several dozen photos of recent productions that included old standbys, like _Afternoon of a Faun_ , and new productions created in the last five years. When she go to the end of the photos, she scrolled through them a second time. Helstof looked at her, and said, "Wow. How simple."

Gale said, "Very simple. We can do that. After the Ps and Roger get the story written out, we'll take the four acts, come up with a costuming theme for each one, and get down to drawing some sketches and laying out some fabrics. We'll have to hire some help to cut and sew. I don't know if we should try to keep this secret or not. Maybe just tell the help that they are working on a world premiere production. We'll ask Gwen and the woman. Remember, the secret is out now. That happened when Roger put the ad in the London newspaper. Gwen and the woman are going to start getting questions from people any day now. Maybe today, who knows? Anyway, we have to wait for the story before we can do much. Maybe we should go out and look for the help, get that lined up."

Helstof said, "Yes, let's do that this afternoon. Then we can tell Gwen we're working."

With that decision, they both looked at their watches. 1pm, on the dot. Gale said, "It's six o'clock in Paris," picked up the wine list again, she motioned the waiter over to the table.

# Chapter 25 – Hints of the Story

Back at The Hall, Gwen asked, "Where are Gale and Helstof?"

Roger thought fast, said, "They went out to hire some help. They need a cutter\dyer and a seamstress." Roger had a suspicion where they had gone, and was envious, him still here, working. But he covered for them. Gwen also had a suspicion about where they had gone, but let it slide.

She said, "What's a cutter\dyer?"

The woman said, "It's a costumer that cuts the bolts of fabric into costume shapes, and dies the fabric the special colors that the costumers always want. Costumers never think commercial fabric colors are good enough, they always want to do custom colors. It makes them think they're being oh so creative. One time in San Francisco we told them their expenses were too high and they had to use commercial colors. They went ballistic. Walked out for a week. We caved, brought the dyers back. They buy white fabric, then every little piece has to be custom dyed." The woman shrugged her shoulders. Artists.

"At which restaurant, exactly, are they looking for these people? The Cutter\

Dyer\Seamstress Café?" On second thoughts, Gwen had decided to not let it slide.

Gwen thought, as long as they get the job done, back off. She directed her ire at her husband and the Ps, who through this short interrogation had remained mute. The Ps loved Gwen, but were terrified of her at the same time. They'd never met anyone who was good with both art and guns. "How goes the story?" she asked. Then she thought, what is the story, anyway? It's about paintings Stravinsky saw in a show in Switzerland in 1914. But what specifically? She said, "Where do you stand on figuring that out?"

The Ps were having fun working through the notes in the score, translating to English, and helping Roger write it down in an intelligible form. Pater said, "We've almost got it. We've made it through the entire score once. We'll have to do that again, probably more than once, to get all the details and nuances of the story. But we know the gist of it now."

Peter took over, said, "It's not one story. There are four distinct stories, one for each of the four paintings Stravinsky saw, and that made a strong impression on him. We don't know the titles of the paintings, but we know the artists, we have a description of the paintings, and we have his feelings about the paintings. Those are all in the notes. Dozens of notes for each painting, some general and some specific. It's all there."

Roger said, "We should wait until the whole team is together to go through the story in detail. Helstof, Gale, Townshend, Bart, and Selgey all will need to hear that, and we can have that meeting as soon as Townshend gets here in a couple of days. In the meantime, we can go through the score at least once more. But here's the basic picture. The Van Gogh painting was of a corn field filled with a flock of crows. The Picasso was a cubist piece. The Matisse painting was a Fauve work, and the Cezanne was a landscape. Stravinsky never had seen stuff like this, and it knocked him out. He didn't exactly understand it, but he liked it, on an emotional level."

Gwen said, "Ok. We wait for Townshend to arrive, then have a team meeting to go through the stories. What do we need to know about this Whosey guy?"

Just then the back door of the theater opened, and Helstof and Gale walked down the center aisle towards the stage. Everyone except Gwen was envious of their condition. Selgey and Bart came out from the offices in the back. The sloshed ones slumped in chairs, smirking. Gwen gave them the evil eye, but didn't say anything. Roger went on. "Townshend is a bone fide musical genius. No one has ever played guitar like him, or written songs like him. Absolutely unique. Look, there are many great singers, many great song writers, many fabulous performers. But there are only five truly original bands from the seminal era of the 60s and 70s: The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Beach Boys, Jimi Hendrix, and The Who. Everyone else is derivative, out of jazz or the blues or some other cultural influence. Those four bands each had a genius or two who created an original sound. And we have one of them showing up here, in a day or two, to work with us. To interpret Stravinsky and play the score on synthesizer. Our production is going to go down in history."

# Chapter 26 – The Whosey Joins the Team

It was 10pm on Sunday night, and the Junes were in bed, watching another George Clooney movie. They had made a deal: they would alternate Zellweger and Clooney movies until they just couldn't take it anymore. Tonight they were watching _Oh Brother Where Art Thou_. Gwen always had hated bib overalls with a passion, especially during that horrible period when a lot of attractive women had considered them fashionable. And here she was, watching an entire movie in which Clooney wore bib overalls. Gwen got over it quickly, since the movie was hilarious, the story was intriguing, and the hero was endearing. If Clooney suddenly had materialized out of the ether, Gwen would have kicked Roger right out of bed on one side, and held up the covers on the other for George to slip under.

George and his hillbilly friends were spying on the hillbilly girls from the bushes, watching them wash their clothes in the stream, down to their underwear, when the June's dog stood up and looked at the bedroom door. It didn't growl like it did the night a year before when a Russian woman had entered the June home at three in the morning, armed with a Walther PPK, and crept up the staircase. It just stood there. Fifteen seconds later, the doorbell rang. Roger opened the drawer of his night table and took out his Beretta. Gwen went back to watching the movie. Roger kept the gun behind his back when he opened the front door, and looked at Pete Townshend, who was looking very dapper in a three piece suit done in light gray wool, with white shirt and pink tie. My god, he had a gold watch chain hanging at his front. And this guy had been one of the original wild boys of rock and roll. He looked at Roger's arm in its unnatural position, behind his back, thought a moment, and said, "What, Rog, trouble in this paradise of Charleston? Gwenny ok?"

Roger said, "What makes you think that, Pete?"

"Umm, the gun. Not many people answer their front door holding a gun behind their back."

Roger though, oh shit. Another person with special powers of intuition. His wife had them, their close friend Catherine Deneuve, the iconic French actress, had them. And the Russian woman who had invaded their house a year ago, had them. Now, apparently, The Whosey has them. Roger was surrounded by superior beings. Could his self-esteem take another one of these types?

"Come on in," he said. "I'll get Gwen."

He took Pete into the living room, then went upstairs. "It's Pete. Somehow he knew I had a gun behind my back when I opened the door. How could he know that?"

Gwen kept her eyes on Big George, talked to Roger at the same time. "You saying he's got the intuition thing?"

"Must have. Couldn't have known otherwise."

"How's he look?"

"Dapper. Very dapper."

"Is he drunk? Drugged?"

"No. Looks nice. Not all sixty-three year old rock n rollers are drug addicts, love."

Finally Gwen tore her eyes away from the movie. "You're right. I shouldn't start off biased."

Just then they heard music emanating from the Steinway in the living room. Trills and arpeggios. Couplets and actaviations. Then melody. A beautiful melody from _Quadrophenia_ , from the song "I Am the Sea". Gwen muted the sound on the TV and they listened as Townshend played the entire song. Stunning. Gwen abandoned her boy George on video for a new hero, right here in her own house. She grabbed a robe and headed downstairs. Roger took the time to pull on pants and a shirt, put his gun away, drink a glass of water from the bathroom, and follow. By the time he entered the living room, his wife was sitting next to Townshend on the piano bench, and the guy had his right arm around her shoulders, tinkling the keys with his left hand. Roger recognized notes from another great _Quadrophenia_ song, "The Real Me". He sat down on the sofa and watched.

"Hope you two don't mind me dropping in. What's up with the gun thing? That associated with the ballet project, or something else you have going on? Nice piano. He took his arm off of Gwen's shoulders and brought both hands to bear on banging out a rendition of The Real Me. Mesmerizing. When he finished, he swung his legs to the left and around the bench, so he was sitting with his left shoulder near Gwen's left shoulder. He looked over at Roger and said, "When do we start working? When do I get to see the Stravinsky score? When do I get to meet the ballerinas?"

Gwen said, "Where you staying, Pete?"

"I was hoping you'd be working tonight, so I didn't book into a hotel. I'm excited. Want to get going, see the music, start putting it into the synthe. Oh, shit. It's outside, I forgot." He got up and opened the front door, Roger and Gwen behind him. Down at the bottom of the steps they saw a pile of luggage, including a long, flat case. Pete said, "If I left that out like that in London, be gone in a flash. Nice place, this Charleston." He looked at Gwen.

"Stay here tonight," she said. "We'll find a place for you tomorrow." And the three of them schlepped the stuff up the stairs and into the house.

Roger said, "How about a drink? Help decompress after the flight. What can I get you?"

"How about a Courvoisier and soda."

Roger mixed him a double, said "We're working most days, now. Gwen's the slave driver. You can meet the team tomorrow morning, if that suits you, down at The Hall. That's our rehearsal and performance space. What are you going to need?"

Pete drained half the glass, looking satisfied. "I brought my main sythne, the one I like. I may have to rent another one, depending on the type of music we do. The only other thing I need is a computer. I brought all the software I need with me, too. So I don't need much. Ready to go. How are you all doing?"

Roger said, "We have the stories pretty well figured out. We'll go over them tomorrow. When everyone understands them, then the choreographers can get going, and so can you. Those are the two most challenging parts of the production. We only have one ballerina for you to meet. That's Selgey. She's one of the choreographers. We don't have any of the dancers yet. That's going to be another big challenge. Tomorrow you'll also meet Bart, who is Selgey's husband, and who danced with the English National Ballet for years. And the Ps, Peter and Pater, who danced with the Mariinsky. And the others, Helstof, Gale, and the woman."

Pete said, "So who's the boss of this gig?"

Roger nodded at Gwen. "Like I said, a slave driver. Better be ready to produce, tomorrow."

Gwen smiled at Pete. She had very nice feelings about working with this bloke. This genius. She hoped she wouldn't have to kick his ass too hard, too often. She knew she was going to squeeze the best he had in him, out of him; that was for sure. She got up from the piano bench and headed for the door. As she left the room, she turned and looked at him, said, "Roger's favorite song of yours is "Love Reign O'er Me". My favorite song is," and she started singing as she headed up the stairs, "Momma's got a squeeze box she wears on her chest; when daddy comes home, he never gets no rest...."

Pete said, "You got a winner there, Rog."

# Chapter 27 – Lunch Arrangements

Nev drove over to Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island. That's where the headquarters of Fort Sumter National Monument is, and the offices of the folks that run Fort Sumter. He had an appointment with the Superintendent at 1pm. After introductions, Nev said, "I represent a man who would like to organize a private lunch out at Fort Sumter. We know it's a very important and significant place in American history, and we respect that very much. This man would like to have a few of his close friends out there, who also like and respect history, and historic artifacts. Is that possible?"

The Superintendent got requests like this every once in a while, so he knew what to say. "Unfortunately, that's not possible. We're part of the federal government, and the citizens of the U.S. actually own Fort Sumter, so we can't have private parties benefit from the place. We have to provide equal opportunities for everyone to have access. Sorry."

Nev sort of had expected this, so he was ready. He said, "I understand. But I was wondering if, perhaps, we made a contribution to you, to the fort, if maybe that would provide us access for an hour or two?" As he said this, Nev sent out money vibes to the Superintendent, who received and understood that non-verbal communication.

"What exactly do you mean by a contribution?"

"Well, what do you need out there? Maybe we can help?"

The Superintendent thought for a moment, said, "Well, two of our Civil War cannons are showing some rust. It's very expensive to have experts go out to the fort on the island, and strip off the rust and old layers of paint, and then put on new paint. Very expensive. We could use some help with that."

Nev smiled. "How much would it cost to take care of those two valuable artifacts?"

"That would take $5,000."

"I see." Nev paused, for effect. "Are there only two cannons that have rust? Maybe you have four cannons that need preservation?"

The Superintendent saw the light, immediately. "Yes, there are four cannons that have rust problems. Very valuable artifacts. Very important."

"Well, if we helped you with that, paid for the work on the four cannons, would that allow us access to the fort for two hours, for our heritage lunch?"

"If you made a donation of $10,000, you could have private access to the fort for a three hour lunch, on the day of your choice. You would have to get your guests out there by boat, and pay for the lunch. The citizens of the U.S. would thank you for your generosity and caring spirit."

Nev took out Stirg's checkbook and wrote out the check. He said, "I'll let you know the date."

When he got home he told Stirg the lunch venue was arranged. Stirg said, "Ok, pick a date. Hire a boat and a catering company. When it's all set, I'll send an invitation to the fucks, and we'll have a little chat out there over food and wine. I'll try to make them understand the error of their ways. If they don't understand, well then, it's back to battle."

# Chapter 28 – The Team Forms Up

First thing the next morning, while having coffee, Gwen called each team member and told them to be at The Hall at 10am; the Whosey had arrived and she was bringing him to meet them. She said he was eager to get to work, and also said she hoped all of them were equally eager to get to work and they caught her drift.

Pete descended the stairs of the June's house at 9am, wearing a two piece seersucker suit with a sky blue shirt, white tie, and buff colored alligator wingtips. Roger stared and Gwen smiled. She loved this guy. He said, "How's this? I tried to educate myself about Charleston fashion."

Gwen said, "One of your teammates is going to love this getup. That's Gale, our resident fashionista. You want coffee?"

"You got any tea? East Indian Premier."

Gwen didn't have any East Indian Premier, but she found an old dried out Lipton bag that had been in the far back of the top cabinet for about twenty years. She brewed up, hoping it hadn't been compromised by any roaches. Pete tolerated it.

The trio arrived at The Hall at 9:45, knowing the Ps would have been there for two hours. They were ballet geeks, in spades. Gwen, under The Whosey's influence, had dressed in an emerald green silk pants suit, yellow pumps, and white scarf. Roger, less under the influence, was dressed in blue jeans, cordovan tassel loafers, and a simple, white silk button-down shirt. When Gale arrived and saw how Gwen was dressed, then looked at Townshend, she gave Gwen the eye, signifying that Gwen should have warned her about the day's dress code.

As each team member arrived, they were introduced to The Whosey. Henric had decided to stay on shore for the day in order to meet the guy to whom he was paying five million dollars for services rendered. Everyone could see that Gwen was under a spell, and that portended good things for this collaboration. The Ps were relaxed because there was no place in Gwen's tight pants suit for a gun. There were no bulges anywhere that weren't organic and natural.

Finally, the entire team was together, all eleven of them. For Pete's benefit, Gwen ran down the roster. "Let's start with the guy who's making this possible and paying your salary. Henric Gromstov is from Saint Petersburg. He spends most of his time out on the water, wanting to sail around the world."

Pete said, "Thank you, Henric. You're a very important person."

"Helstof is Henric's wife, and our close friend. She cooks great French food, understands people very quickly and deeply, and is doing the costumes with Gale." She didn't add, "When they're not out getting drunk at lunch. "Gale, this is Pete. He likes to dress up, as you can see. Pete, this is Gale, and she likes to dress up too. She's not married, by the way." Pete got up, crossed the circle of chairs to stand in front of Gale, and kissed her hand.

He said, "Very pleased to meet you. Maybe we can get dressed up together sometime."

Gale had to bite her tongue not to say, "Rather get dressed down with you sometime, Pete. Anytime, in fact." This flew over everyone's heads except Gwen and Helstof, both of whom could see fireworks erupting from this duo. They wondered if Pete and Gale knew of the stricture that co-workers shouldn't get involved. Gwen went on, "This is Peter and this is Pater. We call them the Ps. We met them in Saint Petersburg a year ago, and they came home with us." She didn't tell Pete they came to Charleston because the Russian police were after their asses for participating in a heist of artifacts from the Hermitage. "They both danced with the Mariinsky for several years, and are working with Selgey and Bart on the choreography. You can go to them if you need anything. This is Selgey and Bart. Selgey danced with the New York City Ballet company for a long time. Bart is from your neck of the woods, where he danced at Covent Garden, also for a long time. They retired together and moved to Charleston. We're lucky to have them doing the choreography, which you'll understand when you see them dance around here." Lastly, she looked at the woman. "Our administrative officer came from the San Francisco Ballet. She thought she was retired here, but we got her interested in our project and she's doing everything to get this project off the ground."

Everyone sat back in their chair, getting accustomed to seeing the entire team together at last. Pete exuded energy, and the others felt his presence. They all wondered what this aging rock n roller would make out of the 1914 Stravinsky score. Could he do it? Could he transform this classical piece into something modern, something that would grab the world's attention in a major way? Could he work with Selgey and Bart to meld music with movement? Gwen stood up, and all attention flowed away from Townshend and onto her. Those who had worked with her before knew what would happen next: She would do the Deneuvian thing. This was named after their friend who had a natural talent for influencing those around her, both men and women. Roger had seen Catherine Deneuve do this in France and in Charleston, and had watched as his wife learned the skill from her.

Slowly Gwen walked around the circle of chairs. The yellow pumps did their job, slightly changing her posture from one of natural grace to one of artistic grace. Her steps around the circle were slow. She took the white scarf from around her neck and held it in her hand. As she came in front of each person she looked them in the eyes, and let the scarf touch their laps. Her mouth expressed a smile; her eyes expressed intensity. At each man she bent down and kissed him on the cheek. At each woman, she took one of her hands in both of hers. As she completed her circumnavigation of the team, she went to the center of the circle, and said, "Tomorrow morning the project begins in earnest. This is all about achievement and commitment. We will achieve our goal of creating a world-class production of the Stravinsky ballet. We will bring the lost score to the world stage. We will contribute to our culture and society. We will succeed." She turned 360 degrees as she said this, ending by facing Townshend. She pointed at him, with the scarf hanging from her hand. "Tomorrow, Pete, you start work on your greatest musical challenge. This production will cap your career. You and Selgey and Bart and the rest of us are going to shine. We have faith in you, and you will have faith in us. Tomorrow, it all begins."

Gwen sat down in her chair, slipped off the pumps, tucked her feet under her, and nodded to her husband. Roger then nodded to the Ps, who went into the back office area and returned pushing two carts, one loaded with baskets and the other loaded with coolers. Quickly they set up folding tables in the middle of the circle, covered them with white table clothes taken from one of the baskets, and proceeded to lay out a spread of sandwiches and champagne. Roger popped the corks on two bottles and filled eleven glasses. Still in her chair with her legs tucked under her, looking relaxed and commanding at the same time, Gwen offered a toast: "Our great adventure begins. Music, dance, stories, art, performance. That's our quest, and our mutual work. To tomorrow!" Everyone drank. Then to Gale and Helstof, she said, "And this is the last time the two of you are going to get drunk at lunch for a long time."

# Chapter 29 – An Invitation to Lunch

Gwen was wrong about getting drunk at lunch time. In fact, everyone but her got drunk at lunch time, just a week later out at Fort Sumter. The day after Gwen paraded around the circle of chairs in her yellow pumps, Nev paid another visit to The Hall. He came just after lunch, not bothering to knock at the rear doors, but walked down the center aisle and stood at the center of the stage. He was not heeled, and Gwen sensed this. In turn, Nev sensed that she was heeled. He loved that about this woman.

Immediately Nev noticed the new person working on the stage. The Whosey had set up the synthesizer he had brought with him, and was connecting it to the team's computer. He had Pater loading his software, and had Peter connecting everything to the theater's sound system. There were wires sprouting up everywhere, and the Ps were having fun. Nev looked at Gwen and said, "Who's the new guy?"

"He's our orchestra."

"What do you mean, orchestra?"

"He's going to play the music. For the ballet. All the music. The Stravinsky music."

Nev didn't understand. He didn't know about synthesizers. He held out his hands.

"Nev, why should I tell you anything?"

"Because I came here in peace. Mr. Stirg wants to invite you to lunch at a special place. Wants to talk to you about what you're doing here. This ballet. Isn't that a nice thing? Lunch invitation. In return, you tell me about this one man orchestra."

"Invite who to lunch? Just me? Or me and Roger? Or who?"

"All of you. Your whole group. He wants to see if we can come to terms on this thing and avoid more conflict. He wants to hear your side of the story, and he wants you to hear his side."

Roger walked over to the front of the stage, said, "What's up, Nev?"

Gwen said, "Stirg has invited us to lunch. All of us. Wants to talk about our production. Have a powwow. That is so touching. So unlike Mr. Stirg, isn't it?"

Roger said, "Maybe he wants to sponsor it. Donate some money to the cause. We can always use more money, can't we?"

"Is that is? Does Mr. Stirg want to sponsor our production? Get his name listed in the program as a major contributor? Maybe, Gold Level, one million dollars and above."

"Not exactly. He just wants to have lunch. Talk a little."

"Ok, we'll bite. Where and when?"

"Out at Fort Sumter. Week from today. 1pm. He thought we should meet in a history place. A place with lots of artifacts around. American artifacts. Things that are important to Americans. Important to you. Just like there are things that are important to Russians. Things like desks from the Hermitage, and music written by Russians. He thought that might be a good place to talk about what you're doing here."

"You got the feds to agree to a private lunch in the middle of a national park?"

"Money talks, even to them."

Gwen looked at Roger, who shrugged. He'd never heard of a private party out at Sumter. That would be a new one. "Ok, one week from today. Where?"

"We'll have a boat at the marina at 12:30. Have you back by 3:00."

Gwen said, "You gonna be heeled, Nev?"

"What do you think?"

# Chapter 30 – Townshend Rocks The Hall

Nev left and everyone went back to work. Well, everyone, including Gwen, stood around pretending to work, but actually they were watching The Whosey set up his equipment. He had said earlier he might have to buy or rent another synthe or two, but right now it was just the one big one he had brought with him. Wires ran from it to the computer on the table, and more wires ran from the computer to a connection box recessed into the floor of the stage. The box was connected not only to the theater's sound system, but also to its lighting system. Everything could be controlled by theatrical software on the computer. The Russian Peter had asked the English Peter who was going to work the synthesizer software, and he had said, "How about you and Pater?"

"We don't know how."

"I'll teach you, if you want to learn."

Unbelievable. The Whosey would teach the Ps how to be sound engineers. God, were they glad they had decided to help the Junes and Henric and Helstof steal stuff from the Hermitage, even if it meant they had to leave Russia, have the secret police after them, and have Stirg after them. They were doing ballet, and now they were going to help a genius make music. They loved their Charleston.

About 3pm Townshend moved a chair over to the synthe and turned on the power switch. He made a few final adjustments on the computer, showing the Ps what he was doing, and said, "I think we're good to go." The woman came out of the office and Bart brought Selgey back to earth, having lifted her above his head with one arm, trying out a new move. Helstof and Gale watched from the table where they were drawing sketches of leotards. Townshend sat down and closed his eyes. His hands came up to one of the three keyboards on the synthe, and poised. Then, it happened.

First a trill by the right hand. He adjusted volume. Then a simulated pizzicato by the left hand. He adjusted a setting. Then both hands touched the keys and sound exploded from the theater's forty speakers. Townshend crashed into a rendition of "White City Fighting", the bass and drums coming from pre-recorded tracks, him playing David Gilmour's guitar lines on the keyboard. He played for a minute, getting into the groove with the base and drums, then began to sing, no mike, so it was hard to hear the words:

The White City, that's a joke of a name

It's a black violent place, if I remember the game

I couldn't wait to get out, but I love to go home

To remember the White City fighting.

The White City Fighting, remember, remember

The White City Fighting, remember, remember.

And he was gone. Playing, playing, singing, making setting adjustments, looking out at the seats, cocking his head at the tone coming from the speakers, bringing on another pre-recorded track to fill a gap in the instrumentation. Roger and Gwen knew this song, and were mesmerized by the power and the melody. They moved closer to him so they could hear the words. Townshend didn't notice them as he calibrated the synthe with the recording software on the computer. The Ps waited for direction, but he was gone, into a zone. He truncated "White City Fighting", and launched into "Let My Love Open the Door":

When everything feels all over

When everybody seems unkind

I'll give you a four-leaf clover

Take all the worry out of your mind.

Let my love open the door

Let my love open the door.

Then it was another song, and another, and another. He played the lead instrument on the keyboard, calling up the other instruments on recorded tracks. The Ps watched the computer, and could see how the synthesizer interacted with it. Townshend controlled the computer software using controls on the synthe. Some of the recorded tracks were on the computer's hard drive, and some were on the synthe's hard drive. Only Townshend knew what was where. He played the final chorus of "Blue Red and Gray", the synthe sounding exactly like a ukulele, him singing:

Some people seem so obsessed with the morning

Get up early just to watch the sunrise.

Some people like it more when there's fire in the sky

Worship the sun when it's high.

Some people go for those sultry evenings

Sipping cocktails in the blue, red, and grey.

But I like every minute of the day

I like every second

So long as you are on my mind.

Every moment has its special charm

It's all right when you're around, rain or shine.

I know a crowd who only lives after midnight

Their faces always seem so pale.

And then there's friends of mine, who must have sunlight

They say a suntan never fails.

I know a man who works the night shift

He's lucky to get a job and some pay.

And I like every minute of the day.

I dig every second

I can laugh in the snow and rain.

I get a buzz from being cold and wet

The pleasure seems to balance out the pain.

And so you see that I'm completely crazy

I even shun the south of France.

The people on my hill, they say I'm lazy

But when they sleep I sing and dance.

Some people have to have the sultry evenings

Sipping cocktails in the blue, red and grey.

But I like every minute of the day

I like every minute, of the day.

And then he was back. He sat in the chair, looking around, and smiled. He said, "I'm ready. Where's Old Igor's stuff?"

# Chapter 31 – Lunch at The Fort

When Helstof told her husband they were going to have lunch with Stirg and Nev out at Fort Sumter, he looked at her like she was crazy. Six months earlier, out on the back side of the fort, Stirg had attacked the team while out on an evening pleasure cruise in Henric's sailboat. Only Roger's quick thinking and experience at handling boats had kept them from being cleaved in half by Stirg's monster power cruiser. At the time, Stirg was infuriated over the theft of heritage artifacts from the warehouses of the Hermitage Museum by the June's team, and had decided on revenge. Now he was inviting them to lunch.

At the marina, the entire team went on board a boat Stirg had rented to take them out and back. Twenty minutes later they climbed up the ladders onto the Fort Sumter dock, where they were met by a park ranger. Also at the dock was another boat that had been rented by the catering company. The ranger had been told this was a special, two hour event. She should give them the standard ten minute talk about the history of the fort, and then stand by for any questions, or to provide any assistance needed. She led the group down the long concrete dock and through the Sallyport of the fort.

Emerging onto the Parade Ground they saw a small tent under which were long folding tables graced with white table clothes, vases of flowers, and wine buckets filled with champagne. A team of five caterers stood by in white jackets, ready to pour wine and serve food at Stirg's order. Stirg and Nev were standing high above the Parade Ground, on top of Battery Huger, the massive concrete gun emplacement the Army built in the middle of the fort in 1899. When they saw the June's team enter through the Sallyport, they waved and headed for the metal staircases leading down to the Parade Ground level.

Seven of the eleven team members had been on board Henric's boat when Stirg and Nev had attacked out on the water. They remembered the murderous look on Stirg's face as he stood on the flying bridge of his power cruiser, bearing down on the much smaller sailboat at flank speed, intent on hitting the sailboat directly from the side and cleaving it in two, and they remembered Nev, next to Stirg, holding his 50 caliber Desert Eagle handgun. And they remembered the outcome of the attack, with both Stirg and Nev lying on different decks of the cruiser, semiconscious, and the cruiser plowing a deep vee into the sand and shell bottom of Morris Island, from which it had to be pulled off the next day by a tugboat.

Selgey, Bart, the woman, and The Whosey had not been present at that event, and Roger and Gwen had debated whether to tell them about Stirg's attack six months earlier. On the one hand, why worry them about something that happened in the past. On the other, they thought the newer team members had a right to know, considering the very real possibility that Stirg might take action against them in the near future because of the ballet production. That issue is what this lunch was all about. To talk about the production - Stirg hadn't arranged this get-together because he liked and admired the Junes and their associates. So Roger and Gwen had told the others they had had a conflict with Stirg in the past, but they didn't tell them this conflict was over the theft of nine large shipping containers of artifacts from the warehouses of the Hermitage Museum, and the smuggling of said artifacts into Charleston. They didn't tell them Stirg had found out about this, and had objected to so many pieces of Russia's heritage ending up in the living rooms of well to do Charlestonians. They just said that Stirg was a serious man with whom they had had disagreements, and that, upon occasion, he was prone to resort to violence to express his feelings and opinions. Gwen and Roger knew that Gale, the Ps, and Helstof would fill in the details, as warranted. They knew how to delegate.

With that as background, the team now found itself face to face with an ebullient Stirg, striding across the Parade Ground towards them, arms outstretched in a welcoming gesture. Nev followed, his demeanor hardly ascending to a level that could be described as friendly. Gwen could see a very large bulge under his Hawaiian style shirt that certainly indicated the presence of a Desert Eagle. Gwen had not armed the four newer team members, but the remaining seven were. She sincerely hoped she and Roger were not going to be responsible for the first gunfire to erupt at the fort since hostilities ceased out there in 1865.

As Stirg approached the group, he dropped his arms to his sides. Neither he nor Nev offered to shake hands, and there wasn't a lot of inclination for that salutation on the part of the Junes, either. But he did maintain a smiling countenance, for which you had to give him credit. He really hates the Junes. Stirg said, "Welcome to Fort Sumter. Don't you love all those flags? I can just barely see them from my house. It's a very patriotic display. The park ranger told us each of the flags signifies a different era in the fort's history, or the association of a different group with some event here. This place has a long history and symbolizes a turning point in American culture. It's just the place for us to have a little talk about matters that concern us. But, I think we should eat and drink before we talk, don't you. Try to be friends, understand each other. That's what this lunch is about. Understanding. Ok?"

Helstof did what Gwen hoped she would do. She answered for the group. In Russian she said, "Look Stirg, we're happy to drink some wine with you and eat some of whatever you brought out here. It smells really good. Maybe we can get past our differences. But remember, it was you who sent an agent into the June's house in the middle of the night. And it was you who tried to drive your big fucking boat through the middle of our little boat. And it was you who sent Nev to brace our little brothers, the Ps, in our rehearsal hall. You know he scared the shit out of them? You know they're artists, the sensitive type?" She didn't wait for an answer. She wondered how Russian swear words came across to Americans. Her language was vulgar but her tone was quite civil. She hoped the Ps weren't offended by what she said about them. "So, as long as you understand our general perspective on things, let's, by all means, sit down. See if we can get along."

Gwen didn't understand Russian, but she understood Helstof. Bravo, babe, bravo. Everyone got the gist of her speech, except maybe Gale. Gale understood clothes and pretensions to aristocratic culture. Gale the fashionista. Gale the good-hearted snob. Gale, who now carried a Beretta in her Louis Vuitton purse. Stirg took the dressing down well, and maintained his friendly face. He led the way to the tent, and told the caterers to pour and serve. The next forty-five minutes went well. Nev was civil, and, sitting between the Ps, actually apologized for scaring the shit out of them. Gwen sat next to Stirg, making polite conversation with him, asking how much it cost him to get his cruiser pulled off the Morris Island beach, and that they appreciated he hadn't asked for his Bosendorfer piano back, which still sat on the stage of The Hall, having been used by his granddaughter, Anna, to compose the music for the team's first attempt at staging a ballet in Charleston, now in abeyance until she returned from filming in France. Gwen also introduced Stirg and Nev to the woman, Selgey, Bart, and Pete Townshend. She said, "This is Pete Townshend, of The Who."

Stirg is sixty-seven years old, and Townshend is four years younger, so it was reasonable to think that Stirg had heard of this famous guy. But, remember, while Townshend was doing all his crazy shit with from the middle 60s to the middle 70s, Stirg was getting involved in Nazi hunting. Even in his formative years, his twenties, Stirg knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to avenge the murders of his parents at the hands of the Nazis during World War II. Maybe that explains, to some extent, the nature of Stirg's intensity of purpose, even now in his declining years, here in Charleston. He is just one heavy dude.

Anyway, upon the introduction, he said, with no pun intended, "the who?" Townshend had heard this stupid joke fifty thousand times over the last forty years, and this was the first time he actually believed it was said in earnest. Townshend looked at Stirg, and Stirg looked at Townshend. It was like a Martian looking at a Venusian, and vice versa. Gwen intervened and got the conversation back on line. The food was excellent and the bottles of champagne cost $300 each. Nev noticed Gwen was the only one on her team not drinking, and she noticed the same about him. The two bodyguards. Nev guarding one body, Gwen guarding her ten. That made things about equal. The young park ranger didn't notice the bulges under so many of the shirts, or if she did, thought they were cell phones. The advent of cell phones was a boon to those who carry concealed weapons. Cops can't tell one bulge from another.

They didn't have all day to shoot the shit out there, so after forty-five minutes, Stirg stood up and led the group away from the tent and over to one of the walls. He let them cluster around him, and then pointed to the wall, where they saw a metal object sticking out from the brick, which the astute among them recognized as an artillery shell. It was one of four such shells that still are embedded in the masonry of the fort, their trajectory from outside the fort to inside dating to the eighteen month bombardment that occurred during the period 1863 to 1864. That bombardment had reduced a monumental masonry fortification to a pile of rubble. The greatest military bombardment to occur in the western hemisphere.

Stirg let them look at the shell for a minute, then led the way fifty yards down the wall, and pointed to another shell. He said, "Your history, right there. American history. Your Civil War, which set America on the course it has followed to this day. One country, not two." He let those statements sink in. If the park ranger had heard, she would have been impressed. The group went into a row of casemates that had not been destroyed in the bombardment, and looked at the eleven identical cannons, pointing towards the harbor channel. Stirg said, "These cannons protected the City of Charleston, one of the most important ports on the entire east coast. Ports mean maritime trade, which means commerce, which is the economy, which is the backbone of countries and societies. These cannons are your heritage."

They moved out of the casemates and up the metal stairs to the museum, built into one of the gun emplacements of Battery Huger. The museum is full of interpretive panels, cannonballs, Civil War artifacts, models of ships, and historic photographs. Stirg led the group to a wall against which leaned a large glass and wood case, twenty feet from left to right and ten feet from top to bottom. Inside was displayed the Storm Flag, which was raised over the fort during that fateful three-day engagement that marked the start of the Civil War. Pointing to the flag, Stirg said, "Flags are symbols. Symbols of countries, people, places, causes. This flag is one of the most important symbols of America. It says that one group of people believed in something they were willing to fight for. Fight to the death. This flag symbolizes your history; it is your heritage."

The group left the museum with Stirg in the lead and Nev bringing up the rear. He wondered where and when his boss had learned all this American history stuff. He must be hiding books under his bed, and reading late at night. Back down on the Parade Ground, sitting under the tent again, Stirg had the caterers pour coffee, then waved them away. He said, "You know why we're here. I want to see if we can come to terms on the ballet thing. The Stravinsky thing. We've had battles, and you've won some, and I've won some. You guys stole the stuff from the Hermitage, and got it here. Then I stole it from you. I came after you out in the harbor, and ended up on my ass, with my boat beached on a sandbar. You came into my house, where Roger hit me in the head with his gun. Now we have this ballet thing, and once again, you're stealing my country's heritage. Stravinsky was Russian, not American. Just because he lived here for many years doesn't make him American. And you're going to do the first performance of his lost ballet here. It should be in Saint Petersburg, not Charleston." He paused, sipped some coffee, trying not to get emotional.

This was the first time the woman, Selgey, Bart, and Townshend had heard a few details about stealing stuff from Russia, physical conflict on the high seas, and hitting people in the head with the butt of a gun. The woman and the two former ballet dancers got a little nervous, the woman wondering if there was another glass of wine sitting around somewhere. Townshend, the former destroyer of hotel rooms, thought it all sounded rather interesting. Maybe this Charleston gig wasn't going to be so boring after all.

Stirg stood and got to the point. "What if I stole your Civil War flag? What if I came out here with a hammer and chisel, and took those shells out of the walls of the fort; took them back to my house as souvenirs? Pinned that flag up on one of my walls? What would you think of that?" He looked around at the surrounding faces, his own face becoming agitated, wiggling in places, involuntarily. "I want the Stravinsky score. You found it in one of the Hermitage artifacts you stole. It belongs in Russia, not here." He sat down, and leaned back in the chair. "Ok. We've had lunch together. I told you what I think and what I want. Now you tell." He looked first at Gwen, and then at Roger.

Gwen was pleased there wasn't going to be any shooting on the Parade Ground, as that would have been hard to explain to the Park Service. She found Stirg's presentation to be fascinating. Really. The old boy had created a play to express his feelings, and it had been dramatic. The setting of the fort, the cannons and shells, the museum and its artifacts, the lunch under the tent. All very impressive. And of course the $10,000 price tag to buy the setting. He was something of an impresario himself. Gwen had figured all this out during the boat ride over to the fort, at least the basics, if not the details. She knew he was going to demand they stop the production and give him the score. She knew he deserved an answer, and that she would be the team's spokesperson. She knew all this before she set foot on the fort's dock.

She stood up and looked at Roger. "You ever eaten lunch out here? Private, like this?" Roger shook his head. "You ever hear of anyone eating lunch out here, private party?" She looked at Gale, also a native Charlestonian, who shook her head, no. "This is great, Stirg. A first. We'll be the envy of Charleston's luncheon circuit. And not only a nice meal with nice wine, very nice wine, but a history tour and lesson, all in one. I doubt if that nice ranger could give a better spiel than you did. I'm impressed." Gwen looked across to the far side of the Parade Ground, and saw the ranger there, cooling her heels and chatting with the waiters, waiting for these hoity toitys to finish their fancy lunch, and get out of here, so the regular people could come back on the commercial tour boat. Carefully Gwen pulled her gun from under her jacket at the rear of her hip, and laid it on the table between an empty champagne bottle and a carafe of coffee, so the ranger and waiters couldn't see it. Nev resisted the temptation to do the same. He could see that Gwen's gesture was symbolic.

"You made your point, Stirg. And you did it really well. We know you were pissed that we stole the Hermitage stuff, but that took a lot of work and a lot of risk on our part. We're kind of pissed that you stole it back. Where is it, anyway?" Neither Stirg nor Nev answered. "Ok, fair enough." She looked at Roger, said, "Babe, you working on finding out where it is, so we can steal it back from him?" Roger nodded, yes. Helstof and the Ps knew all about these incidents, and the rest of the team was intrigued, especially Townshend, who was new to the whole scene. He kept looking at Gwen's gun lying on the table, then at her, trying to reconcile this incredibly beautiful woman with someone walking around packing heat. Gwen worked hard to find more ways to tease Stirg and Nev.

"We also know you don't like the idea of us having the lost Stravinsky ballet score. You know what we know; that no one has seen this music since Stravinsky stuck it in the secret compartment of a desk he was using in Saint Petersburg in 1914. We're the only ones ever to have seen it, other than him." Gwen left her place at the table and slowly walked around the perimeter of the tent, talking. She knew Roger was covering her gun on the table, because he always covered her. Always. "So, we have this Russian thing, this piece of music. We have it here, and we're going to produce the ballet. We have money, we have talent (looking first at Townshend and then at Selgey and Bart), and we're committed. That's our problem, isn't it, Stirg? You're committed to your viewpoint, and we're committed to our viewpoint." She came back to her chair, but kept standing. She poured herself more coffee, added cream, gave the cup a single stir, but she didn't drink any. She was thinking, and everyone else was waiting, especially Stirg.

"We're something alike, Stirg. Me and Roger and you. Sometimes we're nice and good, and sometimes we do things that a professor of ethics and morality would question. Or condemn. You did very good things, hunting down expatriate Nazis, and bringing them to justice. In our smaller way, we sometimes do good things, too. We taught your granddaughter how to use her intuition, and that made her a very special person. We're going to make a great work of art here in Charleston, with our ballet production, and that will be a contribution to our culture.

"But both of us also do some not so good things. We stole the Hermitage stuff, which makes us thieves. Aristocratic thieves, but still thieves. And you, Stirg, have done some not so good stuff, too. Not all of those Nazis you caught went back to The Hague for trial, did they? Some went directly into the ground, didn't they? Ok. So. Well. Some good things on both sides, and some not so good things. We choose, we act, we live with our decisions." She picked up her china cup and saucer, and took her time sipping the coffee. "I feel pretty good about things in general. I like my life, I love my husband, I enjoy eating great food and drinking excellent Burgundy, and Charleston is a beautiful place to live. How about you, Roger?"

"Umm, I like sleeping with you. The other stuff is ok, but sleeping with you is tops. Really good. I'll do a lot of bad stuff to keep doing that." Sometimes Roger was complex, and sometimes, like now, he was simple, and Gwen enjoyed this diversity of personality. Of course, occasionally Roger was simple-minded, and she didn't like that quite as much, but who's perfect? Townshend thought he, too, would do a lot of bad stuff in order to sleep with Gwen. A whole lot of stuff.

Gwen didn't bother going down the line of her team, asking them if they were ok with being involved in this ballet caper. She knew the conflict was between Stirg and her and Roger. The rest were accessories. Valuable, wonderful, talented accessories, but not the source of the conflict. Not the principles. Not really responsible for what would come next, so she got back to addressing Stirg. "We get the point of your play out here today. We stole your heritage, which was a bad thing, so you'll steal ours. We believe you. We know you can do that sort of stuff." She paused. "We'll just have to live with that. We want to do this production, and we're going to do it. It's who we are, right now, and it's going forward. All the way. Sorry, we can't do what you want, and quit. Sorry." She checked on the ranger and waiters, picked up her gun, looked at it, and stuck it back in the holster on her hip. "Nice lunch, Stirg. Nice lunch."

Those were the last words spoken by the group that day on the Parade Ground out at the fort. Stirg didn't say anything to answer Gwen. He just stood up, looked around the tables under the tent, and nodded. He understood, everything. The war was on.

# Chapter 32 – The Music Happens

When Pete Townshend was growing up in the 50s in a rough part of London, there weren't a lot of guns around. There was a certain amount of violence, and people he knew got hurt, but it wasn't the permanent kind of violence from guns that seems more common today in most cities around the world. So he was duly impressed when Gwen showed her gun at lunch the previous day, even if it wasn't shown in anger. She hadn't even racked the slide or pointed it at anyone, which are associated actions that raise the level of impression the presence of a gun has on a person. Everyone else in his group seemed to accept this as a rather ordinary luncheon occurrence, so Pete didn't ask any questions on the boat ride back to the marina. Even Pater, the more sensitive of the Ps, was getting used to Gwen and her antics. Not that he was happy about the outcome of the latest test of wills between Stirg and the Junes, but he had confidence that Gwen and Roger would look out for his interests. If war with a former Nazi hunting, billionaire Russian Jew was what it took to make this ballet happen, then so be it. The Ps are all about ballet.

Townshend wondered a little bit about the woman. She was in her late fifties, and he knew she was an administrator, but basically she was a bean counter, and had spent her life in an office, where it was likely that guns and violence were rare. Maybe some group, like the costume dyers\cutters, had been on strike, and maybe they had yelled at her that she was a management tool, a suit, but that likely had been the worst thing she had experienced in her former career. Now the woman, by proxy, was in a conflict with Stirg, and had eaten lunch with a fully functional 40 caliber Glock handgun sitting on the table in front of her. Yet she seemed completely nonplussed. On the boat ride back she chatted it up with the Ps, talking about what tasks they wanted to tackle the next day back at The Hall. Townshend looked over at Gwen, and wondered if she ever messed around. He didn't think it likely, but even at his age he was susceptible to sexual fantasies. In men, that was the case from cradle to grave. Is it the same for women?

The next day, things were back to normal at The Hall, meaning no guns or confrontations, whether in anger or more benign, but that didn't mean things were ordinary. They weren't, and they weren't because The Whosey got his first taste of Old Igor's music. Roger went to the bank and got the score from the safety deposit box. He could have printed out a complete copy of the score from the digital file on the computer, but he thought it would make more of an impression on Townshend to see and feel and smell the original thing that Stravinsky had produced ninety-eight years earlier. He was right. Rather ceremoniously, Roger laid it on a table in front of Townshend, saying, be careful. The others watched for a minute, but figured it would take Townshend a good while to absorb the enormity of his challenge, and went back to what they were doing.

Like Paul McCartney, Townshend had dabbled in classical music in recent years, and like McCartney, being a compositional musical genius, he had been able to understand the genre quickly, if not exactly deeply. He could read music, and thus could read the score for small orchestra sitting on the table in front of him. He couldn't read the story notes, written in Russian, that flooded the spaces on the pages, but Roger told him not to worry about that. Townshend was to spend the morning looking through the music, and after lunch, the team would have a work session at which Roger would present the four stories Stravinsky had conceived, based on the four paintings by Van Gogh, Cezanne, Matisse, and Picasso.

The Whosey didn't move in his chair or raise his head from the score for two hours. At a perfectly even pace he absorbed the music he was looking at, then turned the page. Study, absorb, turn. Learn, understand, turn. Groove, feel, turn. At each turn the smell of old paper suffused his senses. At each turn, the meaning of the composition leaped off the page. Within minutes he discerned the melodies; within minutes he understood the rhythmic parameters. He saw how these were common across the four acts, melding into a single masterful composition. At the end of two hours he closed the last page of the document and turned it so the cover faced up. Standing, he stretched, but didn't look at any of the others. Helstof and Gale were looking at photos of costumes on the Internet. Roger, Gwen, and the woman were back in her office, wondering how they were going to find enough world-class dancers on short notice to form the troupe. Selgey and Bart were fooling around together, dancing out in the aisles, waiting for Roger to tell them the four stories. The Ps sat around waiting for someone to need something.

Townshend was oblivious to all this, juggling Stravinsky's themes and overtures, motifs and melodies, trying to make sense of the thousands of notes floating through his mind, all linked and organized by clefs and measures, bars and notations. He walked to stage left and descended the four steps. He wandered up the side aisle, and down the center aisle. He crossed to stage right and started up that side aisle, unaware that Selgey and Bart were parading down it from the back. At the halfway point the musician and the choreographers collided. Townshend looked at them blankly, even in the face of a warm smile from the beautiful Selgey Landkirk. She knew what was going on with him; he was in the creative zone. He continued up the slope of the aisle and they continued down. Gwen and Roger watched this, wondering if it was a good thing or bad. Was this old rocker goofy?

He wasn't goofy. After twenty minutes of aisle walking, Townshend looked up and around. He ran down the center aisle and vaulted onto the stage center, no stairs. Over to the synthe, into the chair, power switch on, crackling from the forty speakers, flipping switches. Head down, hands on the keyboard, eyes closed, feeling Igor's intensions. Then....then.... Stravinsky's music poured forth, filling the theater, a basic melody coming from his right hand, a basic rhythm coming from his left. Act I, the first story, manifested itself in sound, those present the only ones ever to hear this music other than Stravinsky himself, who heard it from the piano in Russia, as he composed it. Selgey and Bart stopped, knowing this was what they had been waiting for. The music to which they would create the movement of the dance. It flooded them, surrounded them, embedded itself in them, moved them. They held hands and absorbed it.

For the next forty minutes Townshend played. It came in fits and starts, lumps and loads, splayed out from the synthe, through the computer, through the speakers, through the air, into the ears and minds of the team. The woman came out of the back office with Gwen and Roger, and they sat down in a ring of chairs with the Ps, who held hands. As Townshend got in the groove his hands went more and more from the keys to the switches. Each switch controlled a sound, or tone, or echo, or pre-recorded track. As he sorted through the settings, the listeners could begin to discern replicas of different instruments. There was a violin. Here a trumpet. There a cymbal. Here a piano. At first the instruments came out weird, sounding distorted or bent or sour. But as the minutes passed and his hands fiddled with the knobs, the tones became correct. They became true to their nature, to the key of the composition, to each other.

Townshend stopped playing, and sat for moments in silence. Then his hands moved again across the keys, and it wasn't Stravinsky they heard, but his own music, the melody from his song "They Are All in Love". He sang:

Where do you fit in, to the zzzzip magazine

Where the past is the hero and the present a queen,

Just tell me right now, where do you fit in

With blood in your eye and a passion for gin.

It was a momentary interlude, a respite from the struggle to understand and play the new music, an element of a ditty, and then he was back at it, playing with the rhythms of the Stravinsky third act. Somewhere in his sub-conscious the entire score had registered; had come to reside; had found a home. There in the synapses and conduits of his brain, there in the intricate wiring, melody and rhythm had become fixed, loaded and ready to be explored and manipulated. With a final andante that skidded out from the speakers, he was done. The mass of sound dissipated into silence, the switches and knobs were flipped and turned, the power ebbed out of the synthe and back into the walls. Townshend sat back and looked around, a real person again in the theater space, searching for his friends.

They were there. Selgey and Bart sat in the front row, the Ps stood ten feet behind him, and the others sat a semi-circle of chairs. He stood up, said, "Incredible stuff. I think I understand it. The themes, melodies, and rhythms follow through all four acts. I'll have to practice it, play with it a lot, to really get it, but....it's in me now. I can feel it. It's here. This is going to be a wild project. I'm really going like this job." He paused, then said, "Unless Stirg shows up. Is he going to fuck with us?"

Pater came up behind him, put his hands on The Whosey's shoulders, said, "Don't worry. Anybody fuck with us, they face Ms Gwen. Roger. Helstof. You heard what Helstof told Stirg out at the fort." Townshend thought for a minute, but nothing registered. Pater had forgotten that Helstof had spoken to Stirg in Russian.

Gale said, "You looked at the score for two hours, then you played for forty minutes, and you know it? You know the music? The whole thing? The whole ballet?"

"Well, I don't know anything about ballet. You all have to teach me that but I know the music now. Not everything. Not the details. I can't play it yet. But I know it, yes. I know what he was trying to do with it, trying to say with it. I know the main melodies. Those are complicated. The rhythms are nice, not so complicated. It won't take me long to get them down on tape."

Gale looked at Helstof, said, "Must be nice to be a genius at something."

Helstof said, "You're a genius in your own right, being Charleston fashionista. You got game, babe."

Roger stood up, motioned for Selgey and Bart to come up on stage. They all sat around in a circle, looking at The Whosey. The music man. Roger said, "So you feel good about the music part? About being able to transcribe it from orchestral score to single performer synthe? Being able to work with Selgey and Bart on the choreography?"

Townshend said, "Yeah, I can do that. There are eighteen orchestral parts, and I see how he put them together. It'll take me a couple of weeks to sort all that out, get it recorded into the computer, but I can do it. Then we can start on the dancing thing. I don't know how to do that stuff."

Roger looked at Gwen, then at the woman. The three organizers. Secretly he breathed a sigh of relief, hearing his man from The Who say he could produce the musical part of the production. He could see his wife and the woman also looking relieved. So he said, "Ok, that's a wrap for this morning. Let's take a lunch break, and come back this afternoon for the story part. We have lots to tell about that."

# Chapter 33 – The Four Stories

The entire team, minus Captain Henric, reassembled after lunch. Roger and the Ps turned their chairs to face the others. Selgey, Bart, and Townshend were intensely interested because they knew the choreography and music had to reflect Stravinsky's stories to the audience. Roger opened the discussion, saying, "We have two paintings of landscapes, one of people in a landscape, and one of a cityscape. Act I is based on a painting by Van Gogh, done in1890, the year he died at the age of thirty-seven. So Stravinsky saw the painting in Switzerland about twenty-three years later. We did some research, and it's clear this was one of several landscape paintings Van Gogh did in the last years of his life. It's also clear the painting is titled Wheatfield With Crows, and now is in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Here's a photo of it." Peter passed a paper around the circle of chairs. They saw a dramatic composition of a yellow wheat field sprinkled with a large flock of black crows, crowned by a swirling dark blue sky. "Stravinsky's interpretation of the painting is quite weird. In his mind the crows represent people; a large, extended family of gypsies, camping out in a field, all together for some big gathering. There are young adults, old adults, and lots of kids, all hanging out together, doing different things."

Pater took over telling the story line. "Stravinsky wants the dancers to symbolize all these family members doing things at this gathering. The kids are running around playing, some of the adults are working, some talking, some walking around, some playing musical instruments like the accordion and mandolin."

Peter said, "The crows symbolize people in the landscape, and the dancers on stage will symbolize people, too. He wants the dancers dressed all in black, with wavy costumes representing the wings of the crows. The dancers are to flow around the stage the way the crows are flying around the field. Get it?"

Selgey jumped out of her chair and reclaimed the photo of the painting. She looked for a few seconds, then broke out into a huge smile, raising her arms above her head like wings, and said, "Oh God, of course, of course. Dancers as crows as people. Beautiful. Ok, Bart. We can do that."

Bart got up and went to his wife. He knelt down on one knee, and extended his right arm out from his body, parallel to the floor. Selgey understood instantly. She positioned herself behind his arm, facing in the same direction he was, nodded, and fell forward, with her stomach across his arm, balancing perfectly. Bart stood up, holding her on one arm out away from his body, her parallel to the ground, light as a feather. She spread her arms like wings, and he slowly walked her around the outside of the circle of chairs. Then he increased his pace, and increased it again, and then he was running around in a circle, Selgey gracefully flapping away, not holding on to him in any way, flying. Townshend, having seen them waltzing up and down the aisles only once, and him at the time being lost in his own world of music, thought, Holy Shit! So this is ballet.

The Ps jumped up and fell into place behind them, running around the stage in a widening circle, flapping like crows, though not as gracefully as the two prima dancers. Pater started crowing loudly, Caw Caw, Caw Caw. Bart brought his wife back to her chair, where he stopped, her still perfectly balanced across his arm parallel to the floor. He looked at her, and in one smooth movement, she rolled forward into a three quarter somersault, him catching her with his other arm, and deposited her into the chair in a sitting position. Her feet never touched the floor. He sat down next to her and stared out at the theater seats, both assuming unaffected looks, as if they just had finishing sipping a cup of coffee at the kitchen table. Their breathing was normal.

Gale looked around at the others, said, "So I guess that's a go on the choreography for Act I. No problem."

Roger said, "Ok. Act II is based on a painting by Cezanne, another landscape. Cezanne was born before Van Gogh and died after him. From Stravinsky's notes in the score, we think the painting is Road Before the Mountains, Sainte Victoire, done around 1900. It's now in the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, but he probably saw it in Switzerland." He took another sheet of paper from his folder and passed around a photo of the painting. It showed a gray, angular mountain in the background, surrounded by green vegetation, and a strip of brown road in the foreground. "For much of his life, Cezanne was estranged from his wife. They had an on-again, off-again relationship. He had a cabin built in an area of southern France known for stone quarries, and this was the isolated studio where he painted many great pictures. Stravinsky saw the side of the mountain in the painting as a huge, denuded quarry; a place of hard, back-breaking work, incessant hammering of chisels on stone, men sweating and choking in dust. He called it the rape of the mountain." He looked at Townshend. "Does that correlate with the music of Act II?"

Townshend said, "It does. The percussion is very heavy, and the tone of the entire act is heavy, bashing, almost bruising. The rhythms are slow, and dominate the melodies, which are very simple, almost in the background. There is a lot of dissonance, and I can see him using that to express the suffering of the workers, the pain of long hours performing this hard manual labor. I sense the presence of no women in the music of this act."

Pater smiled and said, "That's exactly right. Amazing. In the notes on the score he states explicitly there are to be only male dancers in this act."

Peter looked at the woman and said, "If you can't find enough guys for this, maybe Pater and I can fill in."

The woman knew the Ps hadn't danced formally in seven years, and were in no condition for a mojor production. And one of them had six inches of scar lancing across one knee. She said, "Ok, Peter, if we can't find enough guys."

Gwen knew that wasn't going to happen.

Roger moved on to the third painting, by Matisse, titled Le Bonheur de Vivre (the joy of living). "This was done around 1906, and now is at the Barnes Foundation, outside Philadelphia. It's a riot of bright colors, showing six or seven naked people lying around a wooded glen." He passed around a photo.

Pater said, "The score notes say Stravinsky never had seen a painting in which the painter had not tried to match the colors of an object to the colors in real life. The grass in this painting is yellow. The sky is brown, rust, and green. He thought this was weird, but on an emotional level, he liked it. The notes say he wants certain instruments to sound like something they're not. What's that mean, Pete?"

Townshend said, "I have no idea, but give me a little time. I'll figure it out."

Peter of the Ps said, "The costumes for Act III should be easy. He wants all the dancers naked, flowing around the stage like ethereal nymphs."

Gale said to Helstof, "Great, we can go to lunch the day we were going to work on costumes for Act III. Drink two bottles of wine."

Bart said to Selgey, "We can do nymphs, right?"

She nodded.

Roger said, "The story of Act III is the most abstract of the ballet. There isn't a lot of real life in it; it's a fantasy, which provides a lot of room for interpreting both the music and the choreography. Ok?"

Everyone who had an opinion on the matter, nodded.

"Now, for the last act. The artist is Picasso, and the painting is cubist. Does everyone know what cubism is?" Everyone nodded, so Roger handed around the last photo. "From the description in the notes, we think the painting was Factory, Horta de Ebro, done in 1909. It shows a factory with a smokestack, some smaller buildings, and a few palm trees. Stravinsky thought this painting was weird too, the whole thing made up of planes, including the sky behind the smokestack. But he liked it."

Pater said, "He probably decided to write music about this painting, as Act IV, because it is similar to the quarry painting of Cezanne's, Act II. Both are about people doing manual labor at a site. And Cezanne was a precursor to cubism, so the flavor of the two paintings is the same, and they were done about nine years apart. Stravinsky could see that the music of Acts II and IV could be similar in tone. He wanted to express his feelings about workers, those at a country site, and those at a city site."

Peter of the Ps said, "Pete, there's a specific challenge for you in Act IV: Stravinsky tried to write music that would emulate smoke billowing from the stack. Can you do that?"

Townshend said, "If he did it in the score with a small, traditional orchestra, I can do it on the synthe. I'll watch for that part."

"As for the choreography for this act," said Pater, "the notes say 'the dancers should convey the drudgery of workers entering the factory', and 'movement should be mechanical'." He looked at Selgey.

Selgey looked at Bart, said, "Can we do mechanical? I've never danced mechanical before, have you?" He shook his head, no. She looked around at the group, all of whom detected bewilderment on her face. Hmmm.

Gwen, seeing this, stood up and said, "They will do the choreography for this act, and it will be great. The Ps will assist, and we all can brainstorm about it. We're a team, and the different dances of the four stories will be in sync with each other. Now we all know the stories, and we have our tasks to perform. Let's get to it, tomorrow morning, early. See you all here."

# Chapter 34 – Fashion Week in Paris

Gale and Helstof boarded the Gulfstream at 7pm. They would arrive at Charles De Gaulle airport at 7am Paris time, a system they hoped would alleviate as much jetlag pain as possible. They could sleep on the flight and then start a regular day on local time over there. When they were in the air out over the Atlantic, Gale said, "Who owns this anyway. You guys?"

Helstof said, "The plane? I don't really know. I know Henric uses it when he travels, but I don't know if we own it. I don't travel a lot to far places, and when we go around Europe we usually take the train. That's what I prefer. But this is nice, isn't it?"

Gale wondered about a person who didn't know if she owned a private jet or not, but didn't dwell on it. She was excited about the trip because they were going over to attend the Paris spring fashion week. Now that's fashionistaville. She had made pilgrimages to all four of the primary events several years before (London, Milan, Paris, and New York), but this was the first time in a while, and the first time on a private jet. Helstof never had been to a fashion week, and was curious. She wanted to see the weird clothes, the skinny models, and the beautiful people. "Are we going to have to stay up all night, every night? Isn't that what all these people do? Take drugs, get in fights with each other, have sex in public, and make money. Are we going to do that a lot?"

Gale said, "I will if you will, except the fighting part. And the drugs part, except wine. And the making money part. I up for all the rest, though."

"I'm not very good at staying up late. You may be on your own in that department. Are we going to do any work while we're over here?"

The purpose of the trip; the ostensible purpose of the trip; was to get ideas from the new fashions for the ballet costumes. It had been Gale's idea to attend the show, and the others had acquiesced, though none of them thought it was necessary or had a lot of faith that much actual work would get done. But as money was no object, and there was a small possibility that something good would come out of it, Gale and Helstof had grown wings. Six hours after takeoff they landed in France, and an hour later they checked into a four room suite at the Intercontinental Grand. The Gulfstream refueled, and took off to parts unknown. It was due back to pick them up in four days.

Both felt a hint of jetlag, but decided to stick with the game plan of pretending they were starting a normal day, in the morning. They had a wimpy French breakfast, and then a long planning session with the concierge. It took the concierge two hours to secure tickets to three days of shows, starting at 9pm and going to 3am. Helstof said, "Why did we schedule the flight to arrive early morning Paris time, if we're going to be up all night? How is that supposed to minimize jetlag?"

"Stop worrying about stuff like that. We're two hot babes in Paris, doing fashion week. Even though we don't do drugs except wine, and don't have anyone to diss, and are not here to make money, we still can have lots of sex, can't we, and act like mega-fashionistas, can't we? We're rich, right? Well, you are. I can pretend."

Helstof said, "I'll try, but it's been a while since I stayed up past midnight. You didn't tell me about the late night part."

They headed over to the Carrousel du Louvre, which is where the shows are, even though they would be nine hours early. They figured they could shop, or look at art in the museum, or people watch. They ended up not doing any of these, because while sitting at a café, Gale got an email from Gwen:

Dear Gale and Helstof: Hope the flight over in the Gulfstream wasn't too uncomfortable (smile). Guess what? Anna and Richard want to see you in Paris. They are filming in the Pyrenees, but finagled a few days off when I told them you are doing fashion week over there. They are having fun making the movie, but say the days are long and sometimes boring. They don't have much time off, so need to meet you right away. Here is Anna's cell phone. Call her pronto. Don't do anything I wouldn't do. Gwen.

Gale squealed and showed Helstof the email. Helstof smiled and got a dreamy look on her face, which Gale understood, and which immediately created in her a sense of envy. Helstof was going to see two of her lovers, here in Paris. A year earlier, at the height of their previous conflict with Stirg, Helsof, Richard, and Anna had had a brief but glorious affair, that included Slevov, another member of the heist team. This fourway was the envy of most of the remaining members of the team, especially Gale, who then, as now, was romantically unattached. All thoughts of ogling fashion models, and achieving spiritual reveries while staring at masterpieces of religious painting in the Louvre, evaporated from both of their minds. They were replaced by visions of the four of them, achieving stellar states of Elton John's universally desired condition of "thunder, under the covers."

Laughing like children

Living like lovers

Rolling like thunder, under the covers.

And I guess that's why

They call it the blues.

Anna and Richard had been in France for four months, working on a film together, her one of the actors, him the screenwriter. These opportunities had torn them away from Charleston and their first attempt at a collaboration with other team members on the creation of a ballet. Richard had conceived the story of the ballet, and he and Anna had produced a first draft of the score. Then the French film opportunity had appeared. One reason they had accepted the film proposal was to allow Anna some time apart from things in Charleston. Her name was Anna Stirg, and her new friendships with the Junes and their associates had made things difficult with her grandfather.

Gale immediately dialed the number, and Anna answered. "Where are you? How are you? Is Helstof there?"

"We're both here, and can't wait to see you and Richard. Is he with you? We're at the Louvre, studying Renaissance religious paintings. Thank God you've saved us from that. When can we meet?"

"How about now? We only have today and tomorrow, then we have to be back at work. I had to sleep with the producer to get this time off."

"Huh?"

"Just kidding. About the producer. But we do only have a day and a half. Gwen said you were at The Grand, so that's where we came when we got here. Shall we meet here or at The Louvre?"

Gale figured if she was going to engineer some thunder under the covers, and thus enter into the rarified world of a foursome with good friends, she'd better get back to the hotel. "We're coming. Stay there. Don't start drinking till we get there. Ok?"

"Yes dear. We'll see you in the dining room. We're starved."

"So am I, believe me."

All hints of jetlag evaporated in both Gale and Helstof. So did any residual hint of responsibility for viewing the fashion shows with the objective of bringing home ideas for their ballet costumes. They made a quick pilgrimage past the Mona Lisa, bowing down before the most perfectly drawn human hands in all of western art, and were outside, into a cab, and headed back to The Grand. When they arrived they bypassed the formal dining room and went into the other one, through whose windows you can see the facade of the Garnier Opera House. Sitting at a large window table were Anna and Richard. Gale let Helstof take the lead in the kissing department, hoping she would secure an embrace more intimate than the standard European double smooch; thinking if she did, that she, Gale, could follow suit, and get something rolling. It was 2pm, and Gale was ready to rumble.

Helstof gave both Anna and Richard an American style kiss, right on the lips, and Gale followed suit. This surprised Anna and Richard, who had gotten into the European habit. They were happy to see such good friends from home, and were wondering what the next day and a half would bring with this as the start.

After the kisses came the seating, and after the seating came the waiter, and after the waiter came the champagne, of course. This was de rigueur with all June associates in social situations over which they had command. The drinking and loving commenced.

# Chapter 35 – Ballet, Fashion, Sex, and Drinking

Helstof asked about the film, and Anna had started talking, when Gale's phone vibrated. It was another email, this time from Selgey and Bart:

Galey: Have you met up with Anna and Richard yet? Hope so. If you are thinking of drinking, STOP. Save that for later. We just got off the phone with people in Paris, who want to meet you later at the fashion show. The guy is a producer with the Paris Opera Ballet, and his wife is a musician. We told them Anna and Richard have an original score for a ballet, and we told them about our project here. They can't believe we have a lost ballet, by Stravinsky, and tons of money to produce it. Anyway, they say they must meet you tonight. GALE, YOU CAN'T MEET THEM DRUNK! UNDERSTAND? They will save you seats on the runway at the Valentino production. You get it? Four seats at Valentino. Tonight. That's like, $20K. Gale, Gale, don't show up drunk, ok? Tell them what we're doing with the Stravinsky and Townshend. Have fun. We wish we were there, you lucky dogs. Selgey and Bart. PS. No champagne till after the show. We mean it!

The waiter arrived at the table with the bottle of 2002 Krug. Helstof was about to approve opening it when Gale said, "God damn it, we can't. We can't open the bottle." She was pissed, because she had grand visions of a grand romp in the hay, with her three grand friends, in the grand town of Paris. God damn ballet, always screwing up the fun times. Gale's not a dancer. She's not a composer, or a producer, or a musician. Why should she suffer for art? She wanted champagne and sex, and now this. And the hell with fashion too. She handed the phone to Helstof, who read the email, and then handed it to Anna. Gale sat in her chair, looking like a five year old who'd had her lollipop taken away from her.

Helstof said, "Well, there goes the champagne, but looks like fun this evening." She told the waiter to take the bottle away and bring a pot of coffee. Gale wasn't the only one disappointed. The waiter realized his tip on a pot of coffee was going to be a lot less than with the $200 bottle of Krug, and food. Helstof opened her fashion show program and saw that Valentino was scheduled for the Seine River Ballroom at 11pm. They had about six hours to kill before they had to dress for the show. They killed one of the hours drinking coffee, with Anna and Richard describing the movie, and Helstof describing the Charleston scene. She talked about working with The Whosey on the music, and about the four ex-dancers working on the choreography, and the woman working on getting all the primetime, best in the world dancers lined up, on short notice. Anna pretty much knew how Gwen and Helstof were doing, because they were best friends and exchanged emails a lot. Still, it was great to hear about the ballet production, first hand.

Gale had been quiet since the bottle had disappeared back to the cellar, from whence it had come, perfectly chilled at 54 degrees Fahrenheit. Richard looked at her, said, "What have you been up to? Are you working on the production?"

Gale summoned up a quasi-smile and said, "You know what I've been up to for the last few months? Being a good girl, that's what. Not doing what I want to be doing. Doing a lot of what I don't want to be doing. I'm not a good girl in that department, so being a good girl is a bad thing. Not fun, and fun is what I like. I usually have a lot of fun when I hang out with the Junes, but not lately. Everyone at home is very serious. Working, all the time. The great artists at work. All that boring creativity. No time for Gale. No time for what Gale wants, what Gale needs. Ballet, ballet, ballet. Music and dancing. How boring."

Anna and Richard looked at Helstof for an interpretation of the rant.

"She's horny. Gwen's been driving us, night and day, seven days a week, on the production. Everyone's into it, so we don't mind. Gale and I have an easier job than the others, with our costumes task. But I also work with The Whosey on the music. I share computer recording duties with the Ps. I learned the basics with you when you were working on your score. Now we're doing it again, but The Whosey knows everything about recording, and he's teaching us lots of sophisticated stuff. So I have two things to work on, and Gale only has one. And she hasn't been getting any. She's driving us nuts; wants to party all the time, invite guys over. She actually hit on the Ps at one point and they threatened to complain to Gwen, so she knocked it off. Gwen keeps her close to The Hall. On the flight over here she said her goal was to sleep with five male models during our four days here. I reminded her that most of them are gay. She said she's going to hunt down all the ones who aren't."

Anna looked at Richard. Richard looked at Gale. Helstof looked at Anna. Everyone looked at their watch. Six hours to kill before the show. What to do? What to do? Anna said, "You guys feeling any jetlag?"

Helstof said, "A little."

"What have you done since you got here?"

"We just showered and then went to the Carrousel to see what the place is like. We're trying the stay up when you get to your destination system of anti-jetlag. Then we got the emails about you being here."

"You going to tough it out, then go to the late show tonight? Or, maybe, maybe, take it easy? Or something?"

Richard sipped his coffee, and looked at the three women at the table. Helstof had clocked the message, but Gale was dense about it. Helstof said, "Where are you guys staying?"

"We came here straight from the train station, wanted to find you right away."

Helstof said, "Oh. Well. Maybe we should take it easy for a while. Rest up for tonight." She looked at Gale. "Maybe we should go up to the rooms. Relax a little. So we're ready to meet these ballet people tonight at the Valentino. What do you think?"

Gale, the dawn finally arriving, said, "Yes, we probably should do that. We have a responsibility to the team to be fresh for the fashions and to meet these people Gwen wants us to talk to. We should go upstairs."

Helstof said, "We have a suite. If you want to join us, take it easy till the show, we have room."

Anna looked at Richard, who looked at the three women and, with a dead straight face said, "I wouldn't want to intrude. You're jetlagged, need some down time. We can find a room somewhere, leave you two to rest."

Anna, the bomb, said, "You're the one who's going to need down time, in a while."

They paid the check, with Gale saying to the waiter, "Keep that bottle on ice. We're coming back for it, later."

# Chapter 36 – Female Energy

Two hours later, Gale, Anna, and Helstof were sitting in their underwear on the small balcony overlooking the Rue Scribe. Gale had wanted to order up the bottle of bubbly, but the other two told her no, be satisfied with what you got, we have to meet these important people later. Hearing them say the word satisfied placated her. She definitely was satisfied, and she wasn't the only one. Richard was comatose in one of the bedrooms, devoid of all energy save that required for breathing. Satisfaction was a poor description of what he felt. The Buddhists have a word that describes a spiritual state, satori, and he wondered if it was sacrilegious to apply it to his present condition. He did so, promising himself not to tell any of his Buddhist friends, and to leave a donation at the next shrine he came to on Rue Scribe.

The suite was on the third floor and the balcony had an ornate iron railing. Down below, the late business crowd and the early dinner crowd paraded past. The women had demitasse cups of coffee on the small table between them, all three wishing they were drinking a Provence rose instead, but thus far maintaining discipline. Richard had not heard the arrival of the room service waiter with the coffee. The balcony was small even though the suite was large. Gale's leg leaked out through the railing, trying to gain a little more room for its languorous swinging, and immediately drew a whistle from below. She leaned over and waved at the admirer. Helstof, normally a soul of discretion, was stimulated, and let her milky white Russian extremity slip through the railing on another side. This drew a salutation from a Swedish gentleman sitting on a second floor balcony some three rooms to the side. When Anna followed suit, offering her display on the third side of the balcony, foot traffic below came to a standstill and the catcalls erupted. Swing, swing; point the toes like ballerinas; relax and extend; massage the calf slowly; stand up and look at the sky; nonchalantly pirouette and sit down again. The ladies played the crowd for all they were worth, channeling their female energy into having fun. All three had managed to get their panties on before going onto the balcony, with Helstof, being the oldest and most conservative, putting on her bra. Gale had draped her silk jacket around her shoulders, while Anna, being the youngest, simply had wrapped the European style chemise scarf she was wearing earlier that day around her neck. There they sat, enjoying the evening air, the attention from below, and their feelings of sexual satisfaction. The three of them were humming, and the night was young.

Richard was awake when Anna entered the bedroom, reluctantly having returned from his voyage to sartoriville. He was just a regular guy again, trying manfully to re-engage with the prosaic world that didn't consist of being in bed with three beautiful women. Life could be so hard sometimes. Anna sat down and said, "Remember doing that at the Sullivan's Island beach house, with Slev. That was fun, and this sure was fun. Gale is something, for her age."

It wasn't likely that Richard would not remember the fourways he'd had back in Charleston. If he lived to be two hundred and twenty, a hundred of them with Alzheimer's, he would remember them. If for some reason he had a lobotomy, he would remember them. He might forget the thrill of his first solo bike ride as a child; he might forget his first sip of a vintage champagne; he might even forget the first time he had sex; but never would he forget the fourways at Sullivan's, or in Paris.

"You need to get up. It's seven thirty and Gale wants to leave for the Carrousel around eight thirty. We have the Hermes show at nine, then an hour break, then we meet the people at eleven for Valentino. What are you wearing?"

"I'm going like this. Au natural is very hip this year. Not even going to take a shower. I will rule as king male fashionista."

"You will do as we say, from here on out and forever. Call the valet service and have them press your John Galliano yellow jeans and your white silk shirt. What shoes are your wearing?"

He said, "Shoes, shoes, kings don't wear shoes. They interfere with the ablutions of our subjects. We must make ourselves available for the ablutions."

Anna picked up a pillow and tried to smother him. She left the room and said to Gale and Helstof, "We've created a monster. We may have to leave him here and go alone. If he doesn't recover more, he's not fit for mixed company tonight."

Gale said, "If he can't get it together, I volunteer to stay here, babysit him. You two can go on to the show." She was one horny creature, and a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

# Chapter 37 – Hermes and Valentino

At 8:30 the four troopers piled into a cab and headed for the Carrousel du Louvre. None of them wore couture except Richard, because he needed it and the three women didn't. The less the women wore the better off everyone was. Richard had on his Galliano jeans with razor crease, an Alexander McQueen white silk shirt with gold embroidered hems at the shoulders, collar, and back, and Stella McCartney white lace-up suede shoes like her father wore at his wedding to Linda. No belt. Gale kept trying to stick a puce colored handkerchief in his shirt pocket, and he kept taking it out, in out, in out. Finally Anna said, "Look you idiot, have you forgotten this afternoon already? Are you dense? If she wants the handkerchief in your pocket, then it stays in your pocket. Got it?" He got it.

Helstof wore light gray flannel pants, trim cut all the way down to her ankles, with huge pleats at the waist, and a simple black cashmere V-neck sweater. Her pumps were purple with black trim. Hanging in the V was a platinum necklace graced with a single violet tinged antique diamond, which at auction would bring somewhere in the neighborhood of $500K. She had declared it at customs.

Anna flaunted a butter yellow pants suit, full cut and with side pleats running down to her knees. The jacket had a single gold button on one side and a black accent band at the pocket on the other. The sleeves truncated four inches above her wrists, and the pants did the same above her ankles. Her pumps were black suede. On the ring finger of both hands were identical bands, very wide, so as to not be mistaken for wedding bands, each lined with small yellow diamonds all the way around the inner edge. In one ear she had a disk of gold that matched the rings, with a similar yellow diamond stud in the center. In the four months they had been together in France working on the film, Richard never had seen this jewelry, and wondered where she had it stashed.

Gale, of course, was flaming. She wore print-clashing pants and top, with a black three-quarter length light-weight silk jacket that came down to her knees. The pants were a paisley pattern dominated by jade green color, while the top was a herringbone pattern print, mostly gold and silver. The top and the silk jacket had huge matching buttons carved very thinly from alabaster. Her pumps, an inch taller than Helstof's and Anna's, were silver. Her jewelry consisted of two simple silver bracelets on each wrist, and huge high gothic silver earrings, one shaped like the left steeple at Chartres Cathedral and the other shaped like the right steeple.

The Carrousel was a trip, with hundreds of people exhibiting the range of personal taste from the gloriously beautiful to the garishly banal. Finally seated in the Notre Dame ballroom for the Hermes show, the three neophytes and Gale caught their breath. A minute later one of the ushers came up to Richard and handed him an envelope. She pointed across the room at a tall brunette, totally draped in a skin-tight synthetic fabric covered in a kaleidoscopic array of fish scales. Small scales, large scales, red, blue, green, yellow, and silver, all colors, all shapes, and all fish scales. He opened the envelope and took out a room entry card from the Hotel de Crillon. Looking over at her, she smiled at him, then looked away. Whatever nationality she was, she wasn't bashful.

The lights went down and the walkway parade began. The first model looked like she was draped in an army parachute. Like the jumper had gathered it up after landing on the ground, taken it over and wrapped it around her, using the cords to tie it in place. Anna wondered if she was wearing combat boots on underneath, her feet being obscured by billows of the camouflage painted material. The second model wore a beautiful open weave cloth coat, three quarter length, an Irish gray color trimmed in a creamy frilly fringe. Helstof loved the material and cut of the coat, but was puzzled by what looked like a massive leather yoke from around the neck of a draft horse, that someone, the designer presumably, conceivably, had wrapped around her waist to serve as a belt. The model weighed about eighty pounds and this thing weighed about the same. It was straight off a Clydesdale, assuming Budweiser didn't have a lock on them and they had some in France. An extraordinarily beautiful woman floated down the path, garbed in a mess that reminded Helstof of something her Ukrainian grandmother had worn at her grandfather's funeral. There were bits of fur hanging from strange places on the model's body, breaking up fields of black lace and black ruffles.

There was thunderous applause at the end of the show, non-stop camera flashes, accolades of adoration cast at Christophe Lemaire, the perpetrator of the designs. None of this came from any of the Charlestonians, all of whom thought they just had witnessed footage that Busby Berkeley had rejected from one of his early projects. Helstof looked at Gale and said, "You brought me over here for that?"

Gale said, "That was just the warmup. It's like a rock concert, where the opening act always stinks, so the headliner seems great in comparison. Though I gotta say, what in god's name is that man thinking?"

"You saying Valentino is going to be different? Good? Not crazy shit like that?"

"Creative people are different, Helstof. They just are. They need lots of room to play around in, to get that stuff out. Accept it. It's just the way it is."

Helstof pulled in her legs so a man dressed like an ostrich could get out of the row of chairs. They all stood up and followed him out into the lobby where he was joined by a woman resembling an emu. They pecked at each other, very affectionately, and went over to the bar for pernods. The woman in fish scales stopped next to Richard, who was holding hands with Anna, and said, "Love those yellow jeans. Hope to see you later. Bring your friend," and swam out through the lobby crowd, into the river called Rue Saint-Honoré.

Gale wanted a Pernod too, a double, but Helstof led the way to the will-call window and asked if there were any messages. There was: "Pleased to meet you in the Seine River Ballroom at 10:30pm, prior to Valentino. Will be at end of train tracks. Stephan Derenencourt." Also in the envelope were four tickets, each stamped 3750 Euro.

Helstof looked at the clock on the vestibule wall, and said, "Let's go. We're meeting them in five minutes." Richard still was looking at the doorway through which the fish scale lady had swum, but was jerked along by Anna and Gale, neither of whom had seen him get the room entry card. They found the ballroom, showed their tickets, and were escorted to front row seats by two willowy legged, barely legal ushers, one with straight hair down to her butt, the other with hair, short and slicked down with product, making her look like a teenage Hitler must have looked, minus the mustache. They sat for a minute, staring at fifty yards of metal train track that stretched back into the draperies hiding the changing rooms. No runway. Train track. Gale said, "This is going to be wild."

Helstof stood and said, "We're supposed to meet them at the end of the track. Over there." She led the way to where a handsome man was standing with a woman cloaked in a cream colored leather jacket and black leather skirt. Stephan Derenencourt introduced himself and his wife, Ingrid.

"Bonjour. Hello. I am Stephan, and this is Ingrid."

The women and Richard introduced themselves. Gale pointed to the train tracks and asked, "What is going to happen tonight?"

"We don't know. These things are kept very secret. The French government intelligence agencies couldn't find out, if they tried. But it appears a train is coming our way. Please, can we sit down and hear about your two projects in Charleston. Your team is very ambitious."

They sat in the five thousand dollar seats, and Helstof told them the short version of the current project to produce the lost ballet, and then Anna told them about her and Richard's postponed effort to write and produce an original ballet. She ended her summary, smiling and saying, "We have absolutely no idea why our friends in Charleston decided to move forward with the Stravinsky production, rather than wait for Richard and me to finish the film here and return to Charleston to finish our ballet. Really, I mean, what does old Igor have over us?"

The French couple got the joke, and Stephan said, "I would be interested in hearing more about your ballet. Are you still in Paris tomorrow?"

His wife said, "Selgey told me about the Stravinsky score, how he composed it for small orchestra, and how you are going to do the music with one man playing all the parts on synthesizer. I know this Pete Townshend. I love his songs. May we come to Charleston to see how you are doing this? It is fascinating."

Just then the lights dimmed, and the ballroom was filled with the loud sound of a train whistle. Overhead was a large, illuminated clock with Roman numerals, just like the one in the Gare du Nord. The whistle sound was replaced by the hissing of a train's air brakes, and at the far end of the tracks, a large curtain was pulled aside. Then, chug chug chug, and from behind the curtain, the engine of a train appeared, shining a bright light down the fifty yards of simulated track. Jesus, the Valentino crew had built a fake train that actually moved, and that contained people in seats inside the single passenger car. The people inside were the models, wearing the new designs. Was this a fashion show or a circus?

Chug chug and hiss hiss, huffing and puffing the engine and car moved slowly down the track past the rows of awestruck viewers, who, upon realizing the models were in the car, began to applaud and cheer. Steam billowed out from under the train, engulfing the seats in a fog scented with Valentino perfumes. When the engine reached the end of the track, the sound system emitted a loud squeal of brakes, followed by another blast from the whistle. The smoke cleared and the spot lights shone on the rear end of the passenger car, where the crowd saw the models get up from their seats. Out of the rear door came the first one, accompanied by a baggage handler carrying a small piece of Valentino luggage in each hand. The model was tall and thin, while the handler was male and short. The juxtaposed duo turned and walked down the simulated train platform the entire length of the train in front of the viewers. When they reached the front of the engine they crossed the track and walked back the length of the train on the far side, giving those viewers the same experience.

After the first duo came the second, and the third, and the twentieth. Twenty tall, beautiful models accompanied by twenty short, swarthy men. Almost all of the clothes were a shade of earth brown, and all the models wore tall, fabric hats that made them look like they were out of a Dr. Seuss book. The expression on every model's face was absolutely neutral, with not a hint of a smile or a frown. Despite the beauty of the faces, the women walked like robots, one following the other in a line.

Anna found the whole thing bizarre, but the crowd erupted in applause and cheers. Richard wished the models weren't bundled up like they were returning from a trip to Siberia. He wanted to see some swinging ass, even if it was skinny swinging ass. Helstof looked to see if the train had a real motor in it, or if it had been moved down the track by men pulling on hidden ropes. Gale was screaming with the rest of the crowd, because this was a fashion spectacle. After the models had disappeared behind the curtain at the rear of the train, the designer came out and walked the runway. He was about five foot three, had a three day growth of perfected coiffed beard, and wore black sneakers, black socks, black shorts, and a black t-shirt. He looked like a ball boy at an LA Lakers basketball game.

Anna, Richard, and Helstof were glad it wasn't them who had paid the $5000 per ticket. Gale would have paid it, if she'd had it. They chatted for a few minutes with Stephan and Ingrid, and headed back to the hotel. So much for Paris fashion week.

# Chapter 38 – Back to Ballet

The Gulfstream flew Gale and Helstof back to Charleston in comfort, while Anna and Richard headed back to work on the film. Both were sorry to see Gale and Helstof go, especially Richard. Four is his number. The Ps picked them up at the airport and bombarded them with questions about the show and about Anna and Richard. How is the film going? When are they coming home? Are they still in love? What did the male models look like? Are they as skinny as the female models? How old are they? Whose designs did you like the best? What's it like to fly in a Gulfstream?

Gale immediately started to tell about the fun and games in the hotel suite, but Helstof shushed her. "Gale, that's private, put a sock in it (they had that saying in Russia, too)."

Gale said, "Oh, yeah."

The Ps looked at each other, silently agreeing to wait until Gale had had a couple of drinks some time, knowing they would get it out of her. Helstof knew too, but had to try. Gale told them about the train carrying the models, the guy in the crowd dressed like an ostrich, the $5000 seats, and meeting the couple from the Paris Opera Ballet.

Pater said, "That's the oldest ballet company in the world. Older even than the Mariinsky. What do they want?"

"They want two things. When Anna and Richard are done with the film, they're going to get together in Paris with them, and look at the story and music for the ballet they created. The other thing is our production here. They're coming over in a couple weeks to meet the rest of the team, and see what we're doing in the rehearsals. They are really interested in how we're taking an orchestral score and transcribing it for synthesizer. No one's ever done that before. At least not at this level. And they're really interested in how we're spending $25 million on one production. That's almost as much as their budget for an entire season."

Peter looked at Pater, and said, "How are we spending $25 million? I haven't been paid anything, have you?" Pater shook his head, no. He looked at Gale, who shook her head, no. Of course, thus far Gale hadn't done much work, preferring instead to drink wine at lunchtime. Peter said, "What did you learn at the shows that you can use on our costume design? Some great stuff?"

Gale looked at Helstof, and said, "We were supposed to bring something back for our project?"

Helstof said, "Yes, Gale, that was our reason for going over there, to get stuff for our designs. Remember?" The Ps wondered how much champagne Gale had drunk over the four days she was gone.

"Well, I can't say I saw anything I'd want to put my name on, in our production," said Gale. "How about you?"

Helstof shook her head, said, "If we were doing a circus, we could have brought back plenty. But for a ballet, nyet."

Gale said, "How's the production going? Did things grind to a halt while we were away?"

The Ps thought Gale was kidding, and looked at each other. She had to be kidding, right? Pater said, "The Whosey is a madman, working twelve hours a day, which means we're working twelve hours a day since we're running the recording computer." Peter thought he would stick it to Gale a little, having abandoned her post in order to screw around in Paris. In his thought process he used the word screw figuratively, not knowing he very well could have used it literally. He said, "Gwen says you're gonna work twelve hour days too, like the rest of us."

"Doing what?"

"She didn't say exactly, but she had that special look on her face, the one she gets when she's holding her gun."

"We'll see about that. What's The Whosey doing during these long days?"

"One third of the time he's looking at the score, one third he's at the synthe, playing, and one third he's with Selgey and Bart. They're getting along great. He really wants to learn about choreography; how someone takes a story and some music, and turns it into dance movement. They talk a lot about the story, what Stravinsky wants to say through the music."

Pater said, "You know what happened one day? Townshend asked Bart what it felt like to be a dancer. Then he asked what it felt like to dance with Selgey. Bart started to answer him, but Selgey said, 'Don't tell him. Show him.' So Bart picked Townshend up under one arm like a sack of groceries, and danced up and down the theater aisles for a couple of minutes. He waved him around, then switched him to the other arm, flowing up and down, Selgey cheering him on. Then he put Townshend down, and he and Selgey got him in a sandwich. They waltzed around the stage for a while, sometimes Townshend's feet were on the ground, and sometimes not. We played a little of the score from the computer, and they tried to dance to that, but mostly they just flowed around using their own music."

Peter said, "The Whosey loved it. He's a pretty small guy, and Bart can carry him around easy. He told us he fell in love with Selgey, after that, and we told him we wouldn't squeal on him to Bart."

Helstof said, "How's the search for dancers going? Has the woman hired any?"

"She hasn't really tried yet. Says she's going to do PR stuff first, a whole campaign. But we think she's scared she won't be able to get enough under contract on this short notice. We think she's just putting off the search. There are good dancers out there, but every company in the world is competing for them."

Pater said, "You want to go home, or to The Hall?"

Gale looked at Helstof, then said, "We slept on the plane. The bed on that thing is better than the one in my house. Might as well go to The Hall, see what Gwen wants us to do."

They parked in the alley behind the theater and went in through the old employee entrance. Stravinsky's music was blaring through the speakers, the synthesized sounds of trumpets and oboes discernible. The Whosey stood at center stage, waving his arms like a conductor, at Selgey and Bart, who stood together in the center aisle. Helstof looked over at the synthesizer, saw no one sitting on the bench. Townshend had played the music that morning, and captured it in the recording software on the computer. He was sending the playback out to Selgey and Bart, and at the same time speaking to them, correlating the story to the music. Gale and Helstof sat down in chairs next to Roger and Gwen, and they all listened. The Ps took up their station at the computer, watching the recording software, waiting for direction from the musician.

Townshend said, "The gypsy parents are yelling at the kids to run faster. Telling them if they don't, the police are going to catch them, sentence them to four years of college, a fate worse than death. Telling them if they get caught, they're going to end up as stockbrokers or dentists. Can you hear the derision of the parents in the tone of the oboes? The tempo picks up here, meaning the kids, symbolized by the smaller crows in the painting, start running around the field faster. The parents are training the kids for a non-conventional lifestyle. The traditional gypsy lifestyle. How are you going to dance to that faster tempo?"

Gwen got out of her chair and went to the front of the stage next to Townshend. To Selgey and Bart she said in a loud voice, to be heard above the music, "How many dancers are you going to have in this scene? The flock of crows in the field symbolizes the entire gypsy encampment, all the adults and kids. There are a lot of different activities going on throughout Act I, but this scene is about the parents teaching the kids about their lifestyle. So how many kids and how many adults do you need right here?"

Selgey leaned against Bart and whispered to him. He nodded, said, "This is a key scene in Act I. The tempo builds from slow to fast, and the orchestration from simple to complex. So we need a lot of dancers here, playing like the whole flock of crows. We need about fifteen dancers portraying the kids, and about ten portraying adults."

Townshend nodded at them, and Gwen turned around to the woman. She said, "We need twenty-five here, ok?" The woman nodded, thinking, where am I going to get a total of forty world class dancers? Twenty-five for this scene, fifteen for Act III, thirty for Act II. Oh, shit. Am I going to screw this whole thing up? Townshend took a remote from his pocket, pointed it at the computer, and pressed some buttons. The music stopped, then started again at the beginning, doing a loop. He adjusted his arm waving back to the slower tempo of the beginning of the scene. Selgey and Bart watched him conducting, then began dancing together up the aisle, tuning their movements to his direction.

Gale leaned over to Roger, said, "How long has this been going on? They seem to be working well together. Is everything ok?'

Roger said, "Since you left. All day, every day. The three of them are indefatigable. Townshend works at the synthe early in the morning, then in the afternoon he plays what he has transcribed to them, and they choreograph to it. The Ps video everything, and then late in the day, we watch it on the computer monitors. We have four of them set up now, all connected wirelessly to the computer. When they see some movement they like, the Ps capture it in a video clip and save it. Same thing for Townshend. When he plays something he really likes, he saves that part to the computer. They're figuring out this system as they go, but so far, it's working."

Helstof said, "What's Gwen do?"

"She's just watches everything, all the time. When the three of them get stuck trying something, she's there to unstick it. So far, so good."

This went on another hour, when, synchronously, the three artists stopped work. Townshend jumped down off the stage, went out to the dancers, and put his hands on their shoulders. They spoke together in whispers for a few minutes, then walked to the side of the theater and came back up onto the stage. Everyone sat down in a circle of chairs, Gale and Helstof saying hello, the others asking them if they'd had a good trip.

The team was back together, and work on the production had ratcheted up to full steam. Roger, intensely curious about the Paris fashion models, asked the same question the Ps had asked on the drive from the airport. "What did you two bring back from the show that we can use for the costume design?" Knowing Gale as he did, he doubted that much, if any, real work had occurred, but he wanted to set the stage for more questions about the models. Like, "Who are the people that think rail thin women are sexy? Is it the management of the fashion houses that pressures the women to eat one meal a day, or do they do it on their own, motivated by competition? What's it like to, you know, with one of them?"

Helstof said, "The whole trip was boring, except seeing Anna and Richard. We spent time with them both days, went out to restaurants. They're doing great. The fashions were weird, and the people viewing them even weirder. We met Stephan and Ingrid, and they are coming here in a couple of months to see our rehearsals. Very nice people, very interested in what we are doing. Nothing very exciting happened."

The Ps looked at Gale, then at each other. They'd find out what really happened and tell the others.

Gwen said, "We're doing good on the music and the choreography. Great start. We're working on a PR plan, and when we get something preliminary together, that we can put out, then we'll start the search for dancers." She looked at the woman, who flinched ever so slightly. "Do you two need a day off to get over jet lag?" she said. Helstof and Gale shook their heads, no. "Ok then, everyone here again tomorrow, 8am sharp. Back to work."

# Chapter 39 – Waiting for Action

It had been a month since the special luncheon out at Fort Sumter, and both Stirg and Nev were bored. With Anna out of the country, Stirg had lost his reason for behaving like a simple citizen. He spoke to her regularly by phone, and kept asking when she was coming home, but her answers were vague: the film was taking longer than scheduled, she was getting other acting offers, she didn't know when she was coming home. And what could he do about it? Nothing. So he concentrated on what the fucks were doing with their production. That's what he and Nev talked about every day. During the month since Gwen told him they weren't ending their production, he had come to think of the Stravinsky score, the ballet, as his ballet. He hardly knew what was involved in a world-class production, yet that was how he viewed things. Not Russia's ballet, but his ballet. Nev wasn't quite so squirrelly, but he was looking for redemption. Commando and bodyguard redemption.

Roger and Gwen hadn't forgotten about Stirg, and they talked about him a couple of times a week, but what could they do? And they had lots of work to do, of a type neither of them ever had done. This was one of the great challenges of their lives, so they were preoccupied.

Stirg, Nev, and Otis all hung out on the dock, waiting. Which was fine with Otis, as that is his raison d'être. It wasn't so fine with the other two, who still had the old stirrings that motivate men of action. They wanted revenge, justice, and redemption. Stirg wasn't the slightest bit interested in fishing, but he let Nev play with his pole out on the dock in the same way that owners of retrievers let their dogs keep tennis balls in their mouths until they disintegrate from the slobber. One day he joked with Nev, saying, "What have you been doing with all the fish you been catching out there? I sure haven't eaten any. You know I like fish, salt cod especially." Stirg had eaten a lot of salt cod when he was a poor kid, growing up in Saint Petersburg. He had yet to make the transition to the modern day penchant for fresh fish.

Nev's feelings were hurt by the joke, but he had the wherewithal to play the game with his boss. "I been donating everything I catch to the kid's orphanage here. Pretty much been supplying all the lunches for the whole place. They send a small boat to the dock every other day, and I fill it up with non-mercury containing fish. They said they're going to give me a humanitarian award soon. I figured you can afford to buy all the fish you want. "

Stirg let the game lapse. He really wasn't in the mood. He was in another mood, and said, "When's it going to happen? I'm tired of waiting. When are you going to steal the ballet?"

"Soon, boss. Gonna happen soon. Just another week. Hang in there. I'll go to the store, see if anyone here in Charleston has any salt cod."

# Chapter 40 – Preparing the Announcement

While Nev searched for tins of fish caught five years ago in the eastern North Atlantic, the woman was putting the finishing touches on the PR package she and Gwen had worked on for the last month. She knew she should have been searching for dancers at the same time, but she was avoiding that task. She was scared she wouldn't be able to find enough of them, and then where would the production be? Gwen knew she was avoiding it, but decided to let her do her job her way. She had more faith in her than the woman had in herself.

On the other hand, the PR package was comprehensive. There were press releases, social media postings, a long email list of people and organizations in the biz, appointments for TV and press interviews, and a beautiful webpage. The webpage had an account of how the score had been discovered. It wasn't a true accounting, of course, but only the team and Stirg knew that. Fabricating the account had been Roger's task for the last week.

He had concocted a story of how the score had been found in an antique Russian desk the Junes had received as a gift. The fake part of the account consisted of a provenance for the desk, which charted a path from Saint Petersburg, circa 1914, to Paris at the advent of the Russian Revolution (1917), to Charleston a year ago. The part of the provenance documenting the move from Russia to France was forged by an English friend of Roger's, Harmond Flourcroft Richland IV, aka, Henky. Henky lives in London, and is a shady antiquarian of the type made so wonderfully famous by the British fiction writer, Jonathan Gash. Only, Henky is the real deal. He knows a lot about a lot of old things. Among other subjects, he knows watercolor paintings, old wine, Roman ceramics, and illuminated manuscripts. Roger knows him from the wine business. Henky was involved in the international scandal over fake Thomas Jefferson Bordeaux bottles that had implicated a bunch of rich and famous wine connoisseurs around the world. Henky had stayed out of jail, but his reputation had not. Roger knew him from wine, but now thought of him for manuscripts. Henky can forge just about anything, given the right monetary incentive. He can produce sixteenth-century Italian invoices, eighteenth-century wills, and twentieth-century contracts. Henky loves to forge documents.

Henky's first document done for Roger showed an inventory list of possessions of the aristocrat from Saint Petersburg who had owned the desk in 1914. He had been a patron of Stravinsky, and had scampered the hell out of Saint Petersburg when Lenin's boys began their reign of terror in 1917. His second forgery showed the sale of the desk, along with other objects, to a Parisian dealer, now long out of business. The third forged document, another receipt, had been given by the dealer to a wealthy Parisian family when that family bought the desk in 1964.

Not only was this wealthy Parisian family real, but Roger and Gwen had close connections with the patriarch. They had made this connection one day when they were in Burgundy on holiday, walking through the region, tasting wines and eating Burgundian foods. At a restaurant, the wealthy Frenchman was with his family enjoying a late lunch, and the Junes were at the next table, also enjoying a late lunch. Then something happened. A young boy, the son, had inhaled when he shouldn't have, and a piece of food got sucked into his windpipe. His gasping alerted everyone to the problem, and the rapid change in color of his face from pink to ashen emphasized the problem. The members of his family did not react with the Heimlich maneuver, but Roger did. He grabbed the boy, executed the squeeze successfully, and from that minute forward became a de facto VIP in the father's eyes. A very special person. Indeed, the person who had saved his son's life.

In a straightforward manner Roger had told the man part of the story of the discovery of the score in the desk. He didn't tell him they had stolen the desk in Saint Petersburg, only that he had a desk in which he had found the lost ballet score. He asked the man if he would allow Roger to put his family's name on a document showing the desk had come into their possession in 1964. They guy understood what was going on, and was glad to help. He was a man of the world of business. Roger also asked him if he would write a letter in which he gave the desk to Roger and Gwen on the tenth anniversary of the date on which Roger had saved the boy's life, as a token of gratitude. The man said, "That and more, Roger, that and anything else you ask of me."

This account of the discovery of the score was one page on the ballet's website. The website homepage gave the basic information about the production: newly discovered music by Stravinsky, choreography by Selgey Landkirk and Bartholomew Thorley, costumes by GALE, music performed live by Pete Townshend, at The Hall in Charleston, and the dates. Gwen didn't think they needed a lot of detail. She knew awareness of the production would spread by word of mouth when people in the business came to understand about the lost ballet score, who was doing the choreography, and how the Stravinsky score for small orchestra would be performed by The Whosey.

The woman had been fielding questions about the production since the Sunday when Roger had posted the full page ad about Townshend and McCartney "doing ballet" in The Times of London. At that point she and Gwen had devised a strategy for answering these inquires, which was to confirm the existence of the production, with Townshend as Musical Director and performer of the Stravinsky score, but to provide few details, saying that press releases, a website, and a full press conference were coming in the near future. It was getting to be that time.

When Gwen showed the website to the rest of the team, the Ps asked, simultaneously, "What about the dancers?" With an understanding look on her face, Gwen turned to the woman.

"We're not, ah, there yet."

Pater said, "I know we're not there yet. When are we gonna get there? You can't have a ballet without dancers."

Peter said, "How can we do a press conference and launch the website when we don't know who the dancers are? That's what people come to see. The dancers."

Gwen, understanding their frustration, didn't challenge the Ps on their dancer-centric view of ballet. She said, "Look, we know we have to do that. But we have a lot of firepower in the names of Stravinsky, Landkirk, Thorley, and Townshend. We can play this like the seventh game of the World Series, when the two managers wait until the last minute to announce who is going to pitch for their team. Or when Spielberg says he's going to direct a new movie, but doesn't say who's going to star in it. It's possible we can turn this deficit to our advantage by playing up our search for the best dancers in the world. Everyone will wonder who we're going after, especially dancers around the world. When word gets out about the details of the production, everyone is going to want to know all about it. And," she paused, "we may want to leak something about our budget. Who else has had that amount of money for one production? Lots of people have that for a movie, but no one has had that for a single ballet." This placated the Ps, but it didn't do a lot to mitigate the fears of the woman. She was on the hot seat.

Helstof said, "When's the formal announcement of the production? The press conference and website launch?"

Gwen looked at the woman, who said, "Following Gwen's strategy, we're ready now. The Mayor, the Senator's wife, and Catherine have agreed to make the announcement at City Hall. We just have to tell them when. How about a week from today?"

Bart said, "Catherine's coming? Oh, wow, great. Perfect. If she says something about the production, half the population of Paris will fly over for the show." The Ps nodded. They loved her. The team had met her during a visit to Charleston.

The Whosey said, "Catherine who?"

"Deneuve."

"You're kidding. Catherine's coming? Here? You know her? You can get her here, to announce the show? How?"

Selgey interrupted the woman's explanation, asking The Whosey, "YOU know her?"

He said, "Yeah, from way back. From the Polanski days. I wrote a song for _Repulsion_. We met him and the cast, including Catherine, during the filming, at a party. It was filmed in England, outside London. He asked me to write a song, then the bastard never used it."

"How well do you know Catherine?"

"I'm not at liberty to say. Code of the English gentleman."

Gale said, "You're an English gentleman? I thought you're a rock n roll star."

"I was a rock n roll star. Now, I'm a gentleman, playing Stravinsky for girls in tutus."

Selgey said, "You know Catherine Deneuve, and you imply some sort of relationship, and you're not going to tell us about it?"

"Can't. Sorry. Code."

Gwen said to her, "Don't worry, I'll tell you later."

Townshend said, "How do you know?"

"She told me. Catherine lives by another code. French. Not so squeamish as the English gentlemen's code. Also, we're friends. Close. When she heard you were part of the show, she spilled it."

At this, Townshend looked very pleased. The secret was out, and he had maintained his oath.

Gwen said, "Ok, then. We announce one week from today. I'll call Catherine."

Helstof said, "Tell her we'll send the Gulfstream for her, wherever she is."

Gale said, "How do you know if it's available? When I asked you about it, you said you didn't know if you owned it, and didn't know where it went, or when. Don't you have to ask Henric if it can pick up Catherine?"

Helstof looked at Gwen, rolled her eyes, looked at Gale, sniffed the aristocratic sniff, and said, "Don't worry, darlin'. Wherever and whenever Gwen and Catherine want it to be, that's where it will be."

# Chapter 41 – At City Hall

The Whosey counted down the days until Catherine's arrival. They were about the same age, and it had been thirty years since his tête à tête with her. What was she like now? What was he like now? Was he really a gentleman, or an aging rocker, or what? He felt great, with the exception of his hearing, which wasn't so good anymore, and he kept in shape. He watched his buddy McCartney, still performing around the world, who looks good, and still sings fabulously. And now he was in competition with him over a ballet composition. Will wonders never cease? He hoped the wonders would keep flowing with The Deneuve.

The entire team went to the airport to meet the Gulfstream. Townshend hoped like hell she got off alone, and not with some thirty-something stud. His hopes were dashed. The plane's door dropped down, the attendant lowered the steps, and two people emerged, a man and a woman. A half hour later, after customs, Catherine ran past the baggage carrousel and hugged Gwen. Then Roger. Then the Ps, Henric, Helstof, Selgey, Bart, and Gale. Gwen introduced her to the woman. Then Gwen got hugged by the guy, the stud hunk Jorgee, whom she had met on an escapade with Catherine in France. Gwen started to introduce Jorgee to the rest of the group, then, in a flash, remembered The Whosey, and decided to have a bit of fun at his expense. During the last week he had been easy to read during rehearsals. Gwen could see he hoped for a replay with Catherine. She reached through to the rear of the group, where one of the bad boys of rock was hiding, took hold of Townshend's arm, and pulled him forward, face to face with The Deneuve. "Catherine, an old friend of yours."

Catherine stood looking at him for a few seconds, then stepped forward, took hold of the lapels of his Anderson and Shepard sport coat ($1,299), pulled him down to her, and kissed him, American style. All the others had gotten the Euro double peck thing (such a joke), but not The Whosey. He got the royal, Deneuvian, vravravroom treatment. All the way. When she finished rocking his world, she said, "Just like old times, eh?" And she smiled. Pater got on one side of him, Peter on the other, keeping him upright while the luggage came from below. Gwen had intended to introduce Jorgee as her boyfriend, and thus stick it to Townshend a little, but now, witnessing the fondness Catherine held for him, she didn't have the heart. She said to everyone, "This is Jorgee, Catherine's assistant and protector. He makes sure her stock of champagne always is full, he kicks paparazzi ass when they get out of line, and he wears men's cologne better than anyone else." Remembering Roger, she looked at him, said, "Other than you, of course, love." She put her arm around Jorgee's shoulders; well, halfway around, seeing as how his shoulders were, like, four feet wide; said, "What's the name of Catherine's cologne you were wearing when she introduced you to Anna, who was wearing OPIUM?"

"THE SHIMMERER. That's Catherine's stuff."

"I remember Catherine saying she wondered what would happen if OPIUM met THE SHIMMERER, up close. Got mixed together, with some good old personal sweat. Did that ever happen, Jorgee?"

He looked over to Catherine for guidance. He wasn't English, and he wasn't French, so sometimes he didn't know exactly which code to follow in circumstances like these. She gave him the twist of the lips signal, locking the vault. He said, "Tell you later, Gwenny."

With the fun and games over, the group headed back to town. They reconvened at noon the next day in Washington Park, right behind Charleston City Hall. The Mayor had set the formidable machinery of his Office of Cultural Affairs in motion, and the small park was packed, with the crowd flowing out the ornamental iron gates into Broad Street. He opened the event with a spiel about how the opulent historical character of Charleston meshes with its wide range of cultural institutions and events. He talked about how thirty-six continuous years of hosting the international Spoleto Festival had established Charleston, along with New Orleans, as the cultural centers of the south. And he praised the Junes for their leadership in producing the premiere of a world class ballet production.

The Senator's wife spent her ten minutes talking about how her husband was a great supporter of the arts, and defending his attempts, as chairman of one of the Appropriations subcommittees, to zero out the budget for the National Endowment of the Arts, claiming that it's funding of the children's TV show _Teletubbies_ was a brazen attempt to encourage sex among four year olds.

Sanity was restored when the Mayor introduced Catherine as "the most beautiful woman in the world, and an honored visitor to the most beautiful city in the world". The Mayor can lay it on. The catcalls that had emerged during the senator's wife's speech dissipated the instant Catherine rose from her chair and stepped onto the podium. The Mayor and the Senator's wife both had spoken from behind the lectern, but Catherine eschewed it, choosing to stand in front of it, close to the crowd. She looked at the people in front, and then at the rows of cameras and microphones behind. She was in her element.

News agencies and arts groups present included: AP, all the local stations both TV and radio, CNN, the _New York Times_ dance critic, the _Atlanta Journal_ , the _San Francisco Examiner_ (the woman had tipped them off), _Slate Magazine, Pointe Magazine, Dance Magazine, The Ballet Blog, Findingdulcinea.com, 4dancers.org, The Times of London_ (the geezer rock critic still loves The Who), the College of Charleston, and _Le Mon_ de (they track Deneuve wherever she goes around the world).

Catherine wore a simple yellow dress, reaching just below her knee. All the hems were trimmed in narrow, parallel bands of green and burgundy. Her belt was gold silk, very narrow, and matched her Pomonisi pumps, also gold silk. Her broad brimmed hat was cream colored, around which ran the same bands of green and burgundy that graced her dress. On her right ring finger were four Tiffany bands, one with diamonds and emeralds, one with rubies and diamonds, one with diamonds and sapphires, and one entirely of yellow diamonds. Around her neck she wore the pearl necklace that Grace Kelly wore when she kissed Cary Grant for the first time in _To Catch a Thief_ , outside her hotel room door. That was such a great kiss. Hitchcock gave the necklace to Catherine in 1966, when, after being introduced at a screening for _Torn Curtain_ by Paul Newman, she had kissed him. He said anyone who would kiss an ugly old man like himself so soulfully, and was at least as beautiful as Grace Kelly, deserved her necklace, which he had kept after the filming of _To Catch a Thief_.

Catherine removed her hat and shook out her dark blond hair. Alternately looking at the cameras and the people in front of them, speaking in a loud but mellifluous voice that carried through the park and out onto the street, she said, "In a few months the eyes of the art world will be on Charleston. You will have a great production of ballet, a form of fine art. Ballet mixes the two mediums that people around the world love most: music and movement of the human body. Something lost to the world for a hundred years has been found, and it will be shown here, first and best. It will be created in your beautiful town, Charleston, and it will be another event in a long history of cultural events to transpire here." Deneuve paused, her left hand on her hip, her right arm raised above her head in as graceful a gesture as that of any ballerina on the stage. She snapped her fingers, sending a signal through the ornamental iron fence surrounding the park, to a group waiting in trucks at the curb. Waiters poured out of the trucks like ants from a kicked hive. Dressed in black and white, carrying ice chests and cardboard boxes, they filled the spaces between the people and the cameras and the podium. Out of the cardboard boxes came champagne flutes. Not cheap plastic ones, but real glass ones. Out of the ice chests came bottles of champagne, and the corks were popped. The manager of the waiters, in full sommelier regalia, stepped onto the podium carrying a silver tray, three glasses, and a bottle of Bollinger. He handed a glass to the Mayor, the Senator's wife (a teetotaler) and Catherine, and filled each with the sparkling wine. The other waiters handed flutes to everyone in the crowd, including the reporters and crew. Fifty bottles of champagne were emptied, everyone knowing, intuitively, not to drink immediately, but to wait for Catherine, commanding this performance. Not counting the kids in the crowd, only two people refused to take a glass.

With her golden glass in her left hand, and her right arm raised again above her head, she said, "Before we drink to us, to Charleston, to art and culture, to ballet, I will introduce the people behind the production of the lost ballet." She stepped to the side of the podium so she could see the eleven people sitting on folding chairs behind it. "After you see the ballet, thank these people. Gwen and Roger June, impresarios." They stepped onto the podium, getting kisses from Catherine. "Henric and Helstof Gromstov, benefactors." They got the double kiss thing. "Selgey and Bartholomew, choreography." Four glasses were heard breaking on the ground, two dropped by men upon seeing Selgey in a costume she had worn in Giselle, and two dropped by very attractive woman upon seeing Bart, front and center, in a pair of shimmering golden leotards. "Costumes by, GALE. Administration by...." Oh, merde, Catherine realized she didn't know the woman's name. God, what was her name? What had people been calling her? How had she been introduced the day before, at the airport? Merde. "Administration, by THE WOMAN." Catherine gave her a full hug and kiss to distract the crowd from this oddity of an introduction. "Artistic advice and consultation by, Peter and Pater." When they had heard Selgey was going in costume and Bart was going to wear leotards to the press conference, they were in a quandary. Should they wear ballet gear? Should they try to compete with Selgey and Bart? Should they go the other direction, and minimalize their appearance? They had consulted with Gwen, who suggested a tribute to old Charleston. So they stepped onto the podium dressed in matching seersucker suits, Peter in blue, Pater in rose, white suede oxfords on their feet, gold watch chains, Sam Sneed style golf hats made from the finest tan wicker material. Glasses in one hand, arms around each other's shoulders, they bowed to the crowd in unison. Cheers went up in lieu of clapping, precluded by the glasses of champagne in everyone's hands.

One person remained sitting behind the podium, and Catherine now turned to him. Setting her glass on the lectern, she motioned him onto the podium with one hand, snapping her fingers again with the other. One of the waiters brought a small case to her, shaped like a miniature guitar. Townshend, dressed in a black Armani suit with a simple white silk Tshirt, stood next to her, shoulders touching and arms linked. Catherine said, "The Musical Director of the show, Pete Townshend."

The Whosey took a pure white ukulele out of the case and proceeded to sing, in his lovely lilting voice, the song he had played on synthe at The Hall some weeks earlier, "Blue Red and Gray". "And so you see that I'm completely crazy, I even shun the south of France. The people on my hill, they say I'm lazy, but when they sleep I sing and dance. Some people have to have the sultry evenings, sipping cocktails in the blue, red and grey. But I like every minute of the day." Even the Senator's wife smiled, genuinely.

Catherine again motioned to the waiters, two of whom now carried forth a larger case that contained a small synthesizer they had rented for the occasion. In a minute it stood on four telescoping legs, and was hooked into the power and PA system of the podium. Townshend took off his coat, handed it to Catherine, and motioned to Selgey and Bart to join him. Now Catherine stepped behind the lectern, and, using the microphone for the first time, said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, you are the first people in history to hear the music of _The Lost Ballet_ , by Igor Stravinsky, written one hundred years ago."

Selgey stood at his right and Bart stood at his left. Townshend's hands flipped switches, and then it came. The introductory trumpets melding into a rhythm set by bass lines, against which Stravinsky had set a chorus of oboes. The sound flowed across the city park and reverberated off the rear wall of City Hall. As the melody and rhythm linked up to people's senses, feet began to tap, and the kids in the crowd began to bob up and down. Selgey and Bart watched this, waiting for the music to take hold, as they knew it would. When they saw it was established in everyone's mind, they began to dance, in place at first. Selgey's costume included a flowing scarlet outer piece that reached to mid-thigh, covering a pure white two piece jump suit, with the top held up by a single shoulder strap, the bottom piece high at one hip and flowing loose and low at the other hip. She kept her left hand on Townshend's shoulder and gracefully gesticulated with her right. Bart also wore an outer garment, a sky blue jacket with golden trim, sleeves to mid-forearm, one side coming to a point low at one hip and the other side cut in a V pointing upwards to his armpit. He kept his right hand on Townshend's other shoulder. In place, their movements were slow, perfectly matched to the music coming from the podium speakers.

Three minutes into his playing, Selgey glanced at Bart, who nodded. Simultaneously they shed their outer shells and stepped away from the synthe. Selgey's midriff was bare; Bart was naked from the waist up, clothed in the shimmering gold leotards below. And they were off, dancing together through the aisles in the crowd, slowly but surely establishing a counterclockwise pattern around the podium. Instinctively the kids followed, then the less inhibited of the adults, and then everyone. The mass and momentum of the swirling circle of people increased, just as Stravinsky had imagined it. Townshend controlled the tempo of the music and the tempo of the crowd, each of whom watched Selgey and Bart come together and part, together and part, them keeping their arms above their heads like tour guides leading their groups through the crowd in Saint Peters Square.

The Senator's wife stood up and rotated in a circle, her eyes never leaving Bart's frontal quarters. It felt like the old days for Townshend, commanding a crowd with his playing. The group made three complete circles around the podium, created a vortex of movement and music. Then Catherine motioned to Townshend to shut down the Stravinsky rhythms, which he did slowly and skillfully. As that happened, the motion of the crowd dissipated, and they looked at Catherine. Through the microphone she said, "The lost ballet is coming to life. You have heard it. Music and the dance is coming to Charleston, music and dancing never heard or seen before. This is for you. This is for everyone."

Townshend stepped away from the synthesizer, and the other team members stepped back onto the podium. The Mayor rose, along with the Senator's wife, who sidled over and squeezed into the group next to a glistening Bart. She didn't seem to mind the sweat. They all linked arms, over or under shoulders, and waved to the crowd. Then they turned to the rear of the podium and did the same thing for the people on that side of the park. The cameras kept rolling, and the reporters sliced through the crowd to the podium, where they virtually attacked Catherine and The Whosey for interviews. Jorgee stepped close to Catherine in case any of them got overly aggressive with her, the way the Italian press had a habit of doing. None of them approached the Mayor or the Senator's wife. The rest of the team got out of there, happy to have been part of the PR session, and to see how well the production had been received.

During the circular swirling of the crowd around the podium, just about everyone in the park had joined in the movement, with only a few people resisting the lure of the Stravinsky music. One was an old guy in a wheelchair, and his attendant, and there were three city employees who stood in the background with plastic garbage bags at the ready, their job being cleanup detail after the event. There was a small group of teenagers, two girls and four boys, all skinny and wearing raggedy clothes, possibly from playing games with meth, who thought Bart looked ridiculous, redolent in his muscles and gold leotards. The only others who had not joined the celebration movement were two men who stood on the bluestone sidewalk at Broad Street, just outside the ornamental iron fence, watching through the bars. One kept his hands in his pants pockets the entire time. The other held onto the bars, watching between two of them, the only grim faced look on the block. As the crowd dissipated, Stirg let go of the bars, letting his cramping hands drop to his sides. He turned to Nev, and said, "The fucks."

# Chapter 42 – Fallout From the Press Conference, and Back to Work

Later that evening Roger suggested giving the team the following day off, as a gesture acknowledging the success of the big national press conference. Gwen said, "Huh? Day off? You know what it's going to be like tomorrow? Phone calls, emails, requests for interviews, ticket requests, third-rate dancers wanting tryouts. That's all we're going to do tomorrow, you, me, the woman, Helstof. Field all that stuff; sort through it all and reply. Day off? Sorry, dear. See you at The Hall, 7am."

Roger said, "Oh," and turned on the TV. They scanned through the local news channels and saw full coverage of the press conference on all of them. Later they tried the national shows, and saw at least blurbs on CNN, the Atlanta channel, and Entertainment Tonight. At her house, Gale crawled through websites, finding footage on all the entities that had sent crews and reporters. The New York Times, The Times of London, and the San Francisco paper had short stories that said they would have full coverage in their Sunday arts sections. She called up Gwen and reported. After Gale hung up, the phone rang again. It was a reporter from _Le Monde_ , asking for Catherine.

Gwen covered the phone and asked Catherine, "How did they get our number? It's unlisted."

Catherine motioned for the phone, said, "Yes, darling," and talked for thirty minutes. After she disconnected she said, "They're going to do a story of yesterday and today, Ballet Russes in Paris in the 1920s, and Ballet Charleston, today. I told them to call you at The Hall tomorrow. By the way, what's the name of your company?"

Roger said, "We have a company?"

Catherine looked at Gwen like she was married to an idiot. "Your dance company. What's the name? They want to know how to bill you in their story."

Gwen was just as idiotic as Roger about the name of their outfit, but she didn't let it show, like he did. She said, "The Charleston Ballet Guild."

"And the name of the production?"

" _Stravinsky's Lost Ballet_."

"Oh, Gwen, they're lovely, both names." And she gave Gwen a kiss. Roger liked the names, too, but felt piqued that he hadn't thought faster, and thus earned a kiss from The Deneuve. Roger would give many, many things for a kiss from her.

At the same time the Ps also were watching the tube, switching channels to see how many places were carrying blurbs or substantial stories about the show. They watched footage on one of the local channels that showed Townshend playing the synthe. Then the camera panned to show the Mayor and the Senator's wife, who could be seen staring at Bart's crotch as he and Selgey led the counterclockwise procession. The camera was positioned at the perimeter of the park, where it could follow the circular and swirling mass of people. It panned from the Mayor to Bart to people in the crowd. The Ps could see the back of their heads, then Catherine's back at the front of the podium, and then the iron fence separating the park from Broad Street. Pater grabbed Peter's arm, and said, "Look, there, at the fence. Look!"

"What?"

"The two guys. The two guys outside the fence, looking through the bars."

Peter strained forward towards the TV. The camera was panning slowly, but by now it had passed the iron fence, and was completing its 360 degree visual of the park, the crowd, and the procession. Pater looked at Peter, who looked back. He said, "Was that who I think it was?"

"Who was it?"

"Who do you think it was?"

"I think it was who you think it was."

"Who's that?"

"Well...."

"Well, who?"

"You know who."

"But I'm not sure."

"Yes you are."

"How do you know?"

"Because."

"Because what?"

"Because you know it was. You saw them."

"I did?"

"Yes, you're just scared to admit it."

"So what. You're scared too."

"So. Ok, I'm scared."

"So who did you see?"

The Ps looked at each other, then at the TV, which now was back to showing The Whosey playing again.

"Shall we call Gwen, tell her?"

"Tell her what?"

"Tell her we saw them, at the park."

"Saw who?"

They didn't call Gwen. Instead, Peter got up, went into their bedroom, and came back with their guns and the gun cleaning kit.

After an early breakfast the next morning at the June's house with Catherine, Helstof, and Townshend, they all drove Catherine to the airport where she boarded the Gulfstream for Paris. Catherine kissed each of them goodbye, saving The Whosey for last. She said, "Pete, darling, I wish I had more time here. It's so nice to see you again after all these years. You know now how close I am to Gwenny and Roger. Your show is going to be a smash, a wonderful success. You have a great team and truly great material to work with. I know you'll do well. I'll be coming back for the premiere, and I'll spend some extra days here, afterwards. We'll see each other again, then. I want that. I really do."

And she kissed him. Before she let go, she whispered something in his ear, and he nodded. Then she was gone.

When they arrived at The Hall, they faced low-grade pandemonium. The woman, the Ps, and Selgey all rushed at Gwen, trying to speak to her first. Gwen's sharp eye immediately noticed the bulges in the front of the Ps pants, and knew they weren't from their natural adornments. She glanced at Roger, which instantly put him on alert.

"What's wrong?"

Pater said, "They were there. Yesterday."

"Who?"

Pater looked at Peter. "Stirg. Stirg and Nev. They were at the press conference."

"How do you know?"

"We saw them on TV. Outside the fence, looking in."

Peter looked at Pater, said, "We did? We saw them?"

Gwen didn't have time for any nonsense, with the woman jumping up and down with her news. If the Ps were packing, that meant they were scared. She said, "So what if they were there?"

Pater said, "It looked like Stirg was trying to bend the bars of the fence with his hands. Either there was steam coming out of his ears, or out of the heating system grate in the sidewalk behind him."

Peter looked at his friend, at the same time admiring the dramatic picture Pater was painting for Gwen, and wondering at Pater's new found penchant for exaggeration. He hadn't seen any steam coming from anywhere in the TV footage. Gwen looked at Roger and said, "Please take over here, dear," and she turned to the woman.

"I've been here since 5:30am. The phone voice mail is full, twenty-five messages. I tried listening to them all but gave up. I have forty emails about the production, and you have thirty or so. There were six students from the College of Charleston dance class waiting outside the door when I got here, wanting parts. I gave them each five dollars for coffee and bagels and told them to come back tomorrow."

"That was kind of you."

"I told them to come and see you, tomorrow."

Gwen smiled. "Well, we knew this was coming. We'll deal with it. We have Roger to help us. He can answer the phone." She smile over at her husband, who had made the Ps show him their guns, and was checking and reviewing safety with them. He wondered how they could walk around with them in the front of their pants like that. He certainly would have found it uncomfortable. "If we need more help dealing with all the attention, we can use Helstof and Gale. They have a package of costume sample fabrics and cuts ready for us to look at. We need to schedule a time for that."Now it was Selgey who was jumping up and down, needing attention, though she was doing it with inherent grace, unlike the woman. "Yes, dear?"

Selgey said, "Late yesterday we got an email from Stephan and Ingrid. You remember them?"

"Yes, dear, the Paris Opera Ballet people."

"Right. They saw the press release on the _Le Monde_ website, and it blew their minds. They asked if they can come over right away and meet with us about the production."

"Ok with me." Gwen looked at the woman.

"Crazy is as crazy does. That's all it's going to be from here on out. Let them come."

Selgey said, "Ok, so then I thought, maybe, if the Gulfstream is coming back here after dropping off Catherine, maybe they can come on it?"

Gwen looked at Helstof.

"I don't know where it's supposed to go. I'll check." She picked up her phone and dialed a number. She spoke Russian for a few seconds, then waited for a minute, then listened for a few seconds. "It's not booked for later today. If you want it back here, it can come."

Gwen looked at the woman, who she knew was approaching overload, to confirm. The woman nodded yes. Gwen then nodded yes to Selgey, who went to Helstof to work out the flight and hotel details. She looked over at Roger, who was trying to convince the Ps to carry their guns just behind their right hip, like normal people, but they wanted them in the front of their pants, god knows why. Maybe it's that artistic temperament thing.

Ok, the emergencies were taken care of, now on to dealing with the voice mails and emails. And that is what the team did for the rest of the day, except The Whosey, Bart, and Selgey, who willingly got back to their music and choreography. Gwen broke up the Ps, assigning Peter to run the recording computer for Townshend, and Pater to act as her personal gopher. She scheduled a team review of the costume package for 9am the day after tomorrow. Gale said, "Day after tomorrow? 9am? That's Saturday." She looked at Helstof. "But we were going out to lunch today. The new place on King Street. French. Dying to try it. Dying. Aren't we?" Helstof remained noncommittal. Gwen did not.

"9am, Saturday. Full review of your ideas for materials, colors, shapes, and how they will convey the characters of the dancers. You can do it in sketches, in PowerPoint, or bring in the actual materials for us to see. I don't care. Just so it shows us where you stand, what you've done."

Gale said something under her breadth, something like, "There goes trying the Beaujolais Nouveau today," which Gwen heard but pretended not to. She and Helstof went over to their set of tables at stage right, and started pawing through mounds of photos and magazines and scrapes of material.

The whole team was back at work.

# Chapter 43 – Catherine's Influence

Over the last weeks The Whosey, Selgey, and Bart had worked out a system of alternating their focus on music and choreography. This was because Townshend had two responsibilities: transcribe the Stravinsky composition from small orchestra to synthesizer, and play the music for Selgey and Bart while they created and danced the movement. He would spend a day working on the music, doing the transcription and recording it into the computer, and then would spend the next day playing it on the synthe in ways that Selgey and Bart could understand how it expressed one of the four stories, and how the stories could be expressed in the choreography.

Now that the press conference was over, the woman had gotten serious about finding the dancers. On the days when Townshend was doing the musical transcriptions, Selgey and Bart would hang out at The Hall, sometimes playing with the choreography without the music, sometimes helping Gale and Helstof with the costume design, sometimes hanging out with the Ps. Now they started hanging out with the woman, helping with the search for dancers. Today, though, was a day when Townshend was supposed to play for them. They were doing the choreography chronologically, from Act I to Act II, and so on. They were working on the principle _pas de deux_ for Act II, and it wasn't happening. Townshend kept drifting off, when he should have been watching them, playing for them, stopping and starting over, when they stopped and started.

Selgey said, "Let's take a break," and went to the offices at the rear of the stage. Bart went and sat on the bench next to The Whosey, keeping him company. Selgey asked Gwen for a private word. "Pete's not here today. He's distracted. Bart and I are doing well on the _pas de deux_ ; we have it going. We need him to stay with us, play, replay, keep up with us. We need the music. Can you do something?"

Gwen said, "We've all been working hard. Maybe he needs a break. Maybe I'm pushing too hard."

Selgey shook her head. "No, I don't think so. We're hot, and he's been hot. He's incredible, which is why I can tell there's something different today. I don't think he's tired. He's really into this ballet thing, because it's new and different for him, and he likes it. It's something else that's distracting him. Instead of watching us working the movement, and playing for us and with us, he keeps staring at the keyboard."

Gwen said, "Ok," and went out across the stage to where Pete and Bart sat. She looked at Bart, said, "Can you go back to the woman's office? She wants to ask you and Selgey about some dancers she has a line on." When he got up from the bench in front of the synthe, she sat down next to Pete, facing away from the keyboard, loveseat style. "Your mind isn't on Stravinsky today, is it?" He shook his head. "What did Catherine say to you at the airport?" He looked at her, surprised; then shook his head. "I know what she said to you."

"How do you know?" he said.

"I just do. Tell me."

"It's private."

"She asked you to write a song for her, didn't she?"

Townshend swiveled his hips away from her on the bench so he was facing her directly. He said, "Yes. How can you know that? Did she call you and tell you that?"

"No. She didn't."

"Then how do you know?"

"I just do. It doesn't matter how. What are we going to do about it? What are you going to do?"

"I guess it's distracting me. I should be working with Selgey and Bart. It's just that...."

"I know what it is. I know what Catherine does to people. This is a good thing. She has given you something special, and you have to take it, and use it."

"She's given me something? What? She asked me for something."

"No. That's not how it works, with her. That's not what she does with people. She does special stuff. It doesn't take a lot from her to influence another person. Sometimes a little talk. Sometimes just a smile. A question. A request. She did this with you, and you have to act on it."

The Whosey sat for a minute, alternately looking at Gwen and the keyboard. "Yeah, she has me. That's right. She does. I gotta write a song for her."

"Yes, you do. But not today. Today you have to work on our project, with Selgey and Bart. They have it going, and you have to commit to them. Now. You can write the song for Catherine another day. That will be all right."

Townshend smiled at her and nodded. She got up and went back to the office where Selgey and Bart were talking with the woman about dancers. From out on the stage they heard the middle chorus from Act II. Stravinsky was online again; the Whosey back at work. Selgey and Bart jumped up and ran out on stage, where Bart picked Selgey up with one arm, inverted her, and carried her over to the synthe, where she high fived Townshend. The music flowed, and the movements followed.

# Chapter 44 - The Stolen Ballet

Not being allowed to go to lunch and try the seasonal Beaujolais Nouveaux that just had arrived in the restaurants, and being told the team was going to review her work the day after tomorrow, were not the only thorns in Gale's side that day. Helstof's phone rang with information about the return trip of the Gulfstream. Stephan and Ingrid were pleased to have been offered a free, luxury plane flight to Charleston, and they jumped on it. Whoever controls the plane told Helstof it would land in Charleston at 6am the next morning. That would give the pilots a decent layover in Paris, and worked for Stephan and Ingrid. When she told Gwen, Gwen told Gale she was making the airport pickup. Which meant getting up at 4:30am. Gale wondered if she should even go to bed. Gwen told her to take them to a hotel, let them decompress, and then bring them to The Hall. Gale wasn't so sure about this stuff called hard work.

Ingrid and Stephan were installed in a suite at the Charleston Place Hotel by 8:30, and arrived at The Hall shortly after lunch. Helstof introduced them to the rest of the team, minus Henric, who was on an overnight sail down to St. Augustine, where he wanted to see Castillo de San Marco, the seventeenth-century Spanish fort. The Ps took them on a tour of the theater and showed them the renovations. They pretended to be impressed, the pretense stemming from the fact that they worked at the Palais Garnier, built in 1875, and one of the grand theaters of Europe. The Whosey and the dancers interrupted their practice, and the group sat in a circle on the stage. Selgey, Bart, and the woman all had heard of the Derenencourts, but had not met them.

Gwen walked them through the genesis of the project and its subsequent history. She told them how they had discovered the Stravinsky score in the old desk from Saint Petersburg, leaving out the part about the borzoi dog crashing head first into it, as she thought that might diminish some of the mystique. Nor did she mention anything about Stirg and his objections to the ballet being produced by a couple of Americans, in Charleston, rather than in Russia. Ingrid, the musician, asked Townshend how he had come to be involved. He told her about the ad in The _Times of London_ that had mentioned Paul McCartney, and McCartney's score for the The New York City Ballet production. That had intrigued him, and he had contacted Roger and Gwen, and soon he was on his way over the pond. He didn't mention the five million dollar fee he was earning.

Stephan asked, "What about the story of the ballet? Did Stravinsky give any hints about that?"

Roger told them about the copious notes Stravinsky had left in the margins of the score describing the four paintings by the famous artists, which express his interpretation of the paintings. Act I, the Van Gogh field of crows; Act II, the stone quarry of Cezanne; Act III, the Matisse wooded glade with nymphs; and Act IV, the cubist factory by Picasso.

Stephan said, "That is fantastic. What material; four stories based on the art of four of the world's greatest modern artists. Unbelievable. And he left you his notes, his guide to the source of his musical composition, and a guide to his vision of the dance. Fabulous. I'm envious of the stories you have to work with. Producing a new ballet is the greatest of challenges. How is the choreography going? And the dancers?"

Selgey talked about the process of melding the stories with the music to form the dance movements. About her love for Stravinsky, and the feelings she had for the opportunity to create the first choreography for a new ballet. Gwen could see there was no fear in Selgey, no uncertainly or insecurity regarding her capability to do this. Everyone could sense this in her enthusiasm and commitment to the project. She brought the experience of her years as a dancer to this new mission, this new way for her to express her love of the dance. Bart spoke with equal assurance, though with a more intellectual orientation to the creation of the choreography. His perspective was rooted in an appreciation of the four storylines, and how they could be realized on stage, in concert with the music and the movement. Everyone could sense that his energy and motivation came from his feelings about, and understanding of, the four paintings.

Gwen said, "Tomorrow morning we would like to talk with you about the dancers. But now, maybe you would like to hear a little of the music, and see some of what Selgey and Bart have come up with so far?"

Of course, and with that, The Whosey went to the synthe, the choreographers did some stretching exercises, and an impromptu performance commenced. Townshend went right into the _pas de deux_ they had worked on the day before, after Gwen had slapped his Deneuvian stricken head, and gotten him back into working shape. Selgey and Bart started dancing on the stage, but it couldn't contain their exuberance, and their dancing leaked down the stairs at stage left, up one aisle, down another. Townshend pounded out heavy poly-rhythms that mimicked the sounds of hammers and workers in Cezanne's stone quarry, and the choreography reflected these rhythms in the bodies kept low to the ground, arms flailing up and down, up and down, heads donging from left to right, right to left, dripping the sweat of heavy labor.

Gwen left the Derenencourts to the spectacle, attended by the Ps, and the rest of the team went back to work. Soon Ingrid went to sit on the bench next to The Whosey, while Stephan watched the dancers from his seat on the stage. Two hours later the team stopped for the day, the intricacies of the _pas de deux_ worked out to Selgey and Bart's satisfaction. The hours of practice had been captured on video by the Ps, using cameras installed on the overhead gantries. Gwen invited Ingrid and Stephan to her house for drinks and dinner, but they begged off, saying they wanted some time at the hotel to shake off the jet lag, so they would be fresh for tomorrow.

The Derenencourts showed up at The Hall the next morning at 11am, which Gwen thought was a little odd. They had come all the way from Paris, and it seemed they weren't putting their time to good use. In the meantime, the team reviewed Gale's and Helstof's costumes, which went well. When the Derenencourts arrived, Gwen took them into the woman's office, where they talked about the availability of high performing dancers. They didn't have much of value to offer in the way of suggestions, saying simply that world class dancers are in short supply. Gwen and the woman knew that. After this chat they went out to the stage and listened to Townshend working on the music. Like the previous afternoon, he played music for Selgey and Bart. Ingrid sat on the bench next to him, watching him, and watching the dancers work. More than once she eyed the video cameras mounted on the gantries.

After lunch, before the three artists got back to work, Ingrid asked Townshend how he did the transcription. How did he get the music from the Stravinsky score into the synthe and the computer? He waved Pater to come over, and said, "Show Ingrid the score. Show her how we work with it and get the new stuff into the computer."

Pater reached into a box under the synthe and took out an oversized file folder. From inside the folder he took out a thin stack of oversized paper, and spread them on top of the synthe. He pointed to them, and said, "Stravinsky." Ingrid looked at the sheets, and saw the newly printed copies of a few pages of the original score, complete with Stravinsky's hand-written story notes.

She said, "Where's the rest of the score?"

Pater pointed to the computer, said, "The original is in the bank. The working copy is in the computer. When he finishes transcribing a few pages, we print out a few more. The system is working great. He works on transcribing every other day. The in-between days, he plays for Selgey and Bart to do the choreography."

Ingrid nodded, and stared at the computer, saying, "What a system. Fascinating."

At the end of the day, profuse in their praise of the Charleston production, Stephan thanked Gwen and the rest of the team, saying he and Ingrid had to get back to Paris. This surprised the team a little, but at the same time they were thankful to be left alone. They had lots of work to do, and distractions were just that.

Roger thought Ingrid was a very hot woman. He didn't mention that to Gwen, but he did say he thought they should take her and Stephan out for a top of the line dinner, complete with fine wine, supplied by him. Gwen agreed, and after checking with the team members, reserved the private dining room at McCrady's for that night. When she suggested 7pm, Stephan asked if it could be a little later, say 9pm. He said they still were in Parisian cultural mode.

Gwen and Roger arrived at McCrady's at 8:30pm so Roger could unload the box of wine and discuss them with the sommelier. The others arrived at 9, including Henric, who they hadn't seen in a while, and who wanted to meet the couple from the Paris Opera Ballet. The sommelier poured champagne aperitifs, and everyone relaxed and chatted. At 9:20 a waiter appeared with a tray of hors d'oeuvres. At 9:30 Gwen asked Gale to give them a call, which she did. No answer, which everyone thought was odd. Gwen wasn't one to dally around, and gave the order to serve dinner. After the second course Gale called again, and again, no answer. After the third course, Gwen took Roger out of the dining room to a private alcove, and said, "I smell a rat. Where are they? Why no answering machine when we call their cell? They have Gale and Helstof's cell numbers. If they are held up by something, they would call. Right? Something's up, and I have a bad feeling about it."

Roger nodded, knowing that his wife's intuition rarely was wrong. He had nothing to suggest. They returned to dinner, where they just shrugged their shoulders and told the others they had no idea. Roger was miffed that he had brought some special wines; not that he begrudged sharing them with his friends; just that they were, special. He had wanted to impress the heavyweights from the Paris opera. When the last course of food had disappeared, and coffee had appeared, everyone looked at Gwen. By now, everyone smelled a rat. She looked at Helstof and Gale, said, "How did you meet them? Did you go to the offices of the ballet? Did you call them there? How?"

Helstof said, "In Paris we got your email telling us to meet them at the show. The email had the time and place, and that's where we met them. We never went to their offices, or called there, or anything."

Gwen turned to Selgey and asked, "How do you know them?"

She said, "I know their names, as people high up in the business. He has been a producer in Paris for many years. She's a musician. I never had met them until the other day here. Why?"

"How about you," Gwen asked, looking at Bart? "You ever actually met them?"

He shook his head, no.

"How did they contact you?"

"I got an email from Ingrid. She introduced herself and Stephan. Said they had heard through the grapevine about our show. Someone had shown them the ad from The Times of London, and they said they knew about McCartney's score for the New York City Ballet's recent premiere of _Ocean's Kingdom_. She said they were intrigued by the components of our production, and asked if they could come over for a visit. That's it."

Gwen and Roger looked at each other, then Gwen said, "Let's go. To The Hall." A five minute drive brought them into the alley behind the theater, and they were through the back door. Pater turned off the security system and turned on the lights. The team came out from the back, onto the stage, where they looked around.

Immediately Peter said, "The computer. It's gone." The table was empty except for the keyboard and the mouse; cables lay on the floor.

Gwen said, "Let's check everything. The offices, especially."

Reconvening at stage center, Roger looked around at the team and said, "They weren't from the Paris Opera Ballet. They were from Stirg. They were his agents." This was getting old.

# Chapter 45 – The Competition Begins

As if the team didn't have a steep enough learning curve; didn't have enough tasks and challenges; didn't have enough pressure on them to produce a great work of art. Now they were in a serious competition, which they learned about at lunchtime the next day. Without knocking, Stirg and Nev came into The Hall from the main doors at the rear of the theater. Nev carried a large portfolio under his arm; Stirg carried a large smile. Neither carried guns, which was a relief to the artistic types on the team. The Whosey stopped playing the introduction to the Act III, and Selgey and Bart separated from their embrace. Gale and Helstof stopped sketching the transparent suits the dancers would wear in Act III, the nymphs in the wooded glade, and Pater ran to the office to get Gwen.

When Gwen came out, hand under her jacket to the rear of her hip, Stirg and Nev were standing at seating level, hands resting on the center front of the stage. Stirg said, "Good afternoon. How nice to see you all today. It is a glorious day. A glorious day for Russia." He stood erect, smiling up at the Charlestonians on the stage. "We won't take up much of your time, because as of this morning, we are very busy men. Very busy, indeed. We have lots of work to do, and can't dawdle here, but I did want to have a brief chat. Ok?"

The team got the drift of the conversation. Gwen pulled a chair to the front of the stage and sat down. The others followed suit. The group resembled musicians surrounding a conductor, except in this case there were two men in the conductor's position. Stirg nodded to Nev, who opened the portfolio and removed a thick stack of oversized sheets. The team recognized the document as a full copy of the Stravinsky score, freshly printed. "I'm sure you know what that is," Stirg said. "It's the thing that used to be your property, but now is the property of the Russian people. It's back where it should be. It's going home."

Pater was incensed, now that he knew guns weren't going to make any appearances. In a squeaky voice none of them had heard before, he said, "You stole it. You stole the ballet. Our ballet. Give it back."

Nev smiled. Stirg smiled. "Yes, I stole it. After you stole it. Now it's back to us, and we're going to produce it. That's what I came to tell you. It's going back to Saint Petersburg today, and we're going with it, and tomorrow we start the Russian production of Stravinsky's lost ballet. The true production. The rightful production. We will bury you."

Only the older members of the team, like The Whosey, recognized the Khrushchev quotation, but the others were impressed by it forcefulness.

Stirg looked at Helstof, and said, "You're Gromstov, aren't you? You and your husband. I've heard of him. Very rich. You used to be Russian. Now you're traitors. American thieves are bad enough, but Russian traitors are worse. We will bury both of you. You are the money behind this, aren't you? Of course. Bringing money you earned in Russia here, to do this thing. This travesty." He paused. "It doesn't matter how much money you put into this. I will put more. I, too, am wealthy. And this matters to me. A lot. I am the savior of this Russian art work, and it's going home, where it belongs, and the production there will be glorious. You will be a footnote to the history of ballet."

None of those sitting on the stage had anything to say after Stirg's speech. He gave them the finger, turned, and walked up the center aisle to the rear doors. Nev left the copy of the score on the stage.

When the doors slammed, Gwen rose from her chair, jumped down to the seating level, and took the exact position Stirg had used for his speech. She waited a moment, looking each team member in the eye. Then she raised a hand and pointed a finger at each person, in turn. "We're going forward with the project. Our project, our ballet, our production. We have our goals, which are to produce a great work of art, here in Charleston, and to contribute to culture. We have a unique opportunity, and we are going to succeed. We have something he doesn't: a new way to exhibit ballet music." She looked at The Whosey. "No one has ever taken an orchestral score for ballet, and played it in its entirety on synthesizer, for a major production." She looked at Selgey and Bart. "And we will have great choreography, done by great dancers and artists. Movement based on stories from paintings by the greatest of nineteenth and twentieth-century artists. All the ingredients are here, in this room, right now. We have the spirit, the motivation, the talent, and the monetary backing. If it's competition he wants, it's competition he'll get."

Roger smiled at his wife, as he had so very many times over the years. The Ps were relieved, them being of delicate artistic temperament, thinking, "Thank god, no guns." Selgey and Bart wondered who Stirg would get as his choreographer. Helstof wondered, exactly, how much this new wrinkle in the project was going to cost her and Henric. The woman just thought, "Great, now they're going after the same dancers we're going after." But it was Gale who closed out the meeting.

"Gwen's right. Fuck him. Let's get back to work."

# Chapter 46 – Hanging Out

With that said, Gale stood up. "Helstof and I are supposed to design costumes that make the dancers in Act III look like nymphs running around in the woods. Why don't we just have the dancers be naked? That way, we're true to Cezanne's vision, and Stravinsky's vision, and Helstof and I can use the time we would have worked on those costumes to try the Beaujolais Nouveau at the new restaurant on King." This was Gale's idea of getting back to work. She was working at getting out of work.

The Ps looked at each other, then looked at Bart. Bart shook his head, sending the task back to them. Peter looked at Pater, who looked a little confused. But he rallied, and took on the task. "Gale, you can't have naked ballet dancers."

"Why not? You scared? This is the twenty-first century. Take a risk. Charleston needs to get modern."

"It's not that, Gale."

"Then what?"

"It's one thing for female dancers to get out there naked. It's another for male dancers. Not the same. Not the same at all."

Gale looked at Gwen, who remained impassive. She was going to let Gale learn this lesson the hard way. Gale then looked at the woman, who shrugged. No help there. Then she looked at Helstof, who said, "Think, Gale. Think. But not too hard."

Gale looked back at Pater, who squirmed a little, and said, "Look, guys could get....um....injured out there. Flying through the air, doing scissor kicks, jumping around." Gale's face remained blank. "And there's the question of decorum. Ballet is supposed to be beautiful. Naked guys, dancing, maybe not decorous, all the time. Right? Understand?"

Gale did not understand. Her frame of reference to naked guys was different; it was mostly the bedroom, her bedroom, where decorousness and beauty were not exactly the purpose and goals of the interlude. Those were not the primary criteria by which she judged performance in that space and time.

Pater tried another tack. "Gale, look at this," and he assumed a male dancer arabesque position, one leg lifted parallel to the floor pointing behind him, one arm raised at forty-five degrees to the floor, the other arm also parallel to the floor." Remaining perfectly still, perfectly balanced, he said, "See, see what I mean about decorum? Wouldn't exactly have it now if I was naked, would I?"

Gale looked at him for a minute, picturing him naked, then said, "Oh, yeah. I guess so. Not a good thing. At least not good for ballet, on the stage. Now up in my room, that would be ok. No, that would be interesting. That would be great. I'd like that up there. Up in Gale's room."

Gwen cut this off, jumping back up on the stage, saying, "Come on, let's go. Back to work." Looking at Gale and Helstof she said, "You two, get to work on the Act III costumes. And remember, Stirg is going to get some good designers. You're up against them, now. We all have to remember that."

# Chapter 47 – The Russian Production Begins

The Aeroflot 747 touched down in Saint Petersburg at 4pm, with Stirg and Nev leaving the first class section and walking down the ramp, through the concourse. It was the first time in several years that Stirg had been home, and he was excited. He had a lot to be excited about; and a lot to be apprehensive about. He was biting off a big piece of life here, the creation of a new ballet. He was involved in something very new and very different from anything he ever had experienced. But he had guts and lots of self-confidence, not unlike the Junes. Both projects were being run by amateurs, with unlimited budgets. Was this a recipe for disaster? Or was something great going to happen?

The Derenencourts had brought the computer directly to Stirg's house, and Nev had set it up on the kitchen table. It had taken him three hours to find the Stravinsky score file, not being that good with computers, but eventually he got it up on the screen. He was elated, and yelled, "Got it, boss." From that moment on, Stirg's mind was a whirlwind of computations. He had figured out three options for his Russian production. First, he could take this to Vladimir Putin, turn it over to him, and make this a state government project. He had no doubt the powers that be, when they understood the circumstances of the discovery of the score and the fact that Americans were threatening to produce the premiere, would sponsor and support the project. The second option was for him to go to the Mariinsky Ballet and buy their entire operation as a package: dancers, orchestra, marketing, and choreography. No matter what they asked for in compensation, he would pay it. The last option was for him to go the route the Junes had taken, which was to piece together an ad-hoc team, and manage it himself.

Midway over the Atlantic he ruled out the last option. His ego was tempted to take on management of the production himself, but the instinct for self-preservation won out over valor. By the time he and Nev were ensconced in their hotel suite with a bottle of ice cold vodka on the table in front of them, he also had eliminated the first option, involving the government. He had been spared the machinations of monolithic bureaucracies for a long time now, and wasn't eager to return to those strange and frustrating worlds. So the Mariinsky it was. He would buy them, lock, stock, and barrel.

Before he left Charleston, he contacted his money manager, and told him to liquidate funds. The guy asked, "How much?"

Stirg thought for a moment, and said, "I'm not sure. Enough to do a ballet."

"What do you mean, 'do a ballet'? You mean go to a ballet? Like in New York City, or somewhere?"

"No. I mean make a ballet. The dancing. And the music. Make a show. A ballet show. Make it from scratch. New."

"You mean you're going to back a production, like backing a Broadway show? Underwrite it?"

"Yeah. Like that. Underwrite the show."

"How big a percentage are we talking about? Ten percent? Twenty?"

"The whole thing. One hundred percent. I'm paying for everything."

The money manager had no idea how much it cost to produce a ballet, but if it was like a Broadway show, it would cost a bundle. He said, "So how much is that? Where is this show? How big a deal is it? Will it be in Charleston? You gotta give me some information, here."

Stirg asked Nev how much he thought a ballet would cost. Nev thought for a minute, said, "I don't know. Maybe a hundred thousand. It's not like making a Bruce Willis action movie, is it? That costs millions."

Stirg knew it would cost more than a hundred thousand, but really had no idea how much more. He said, "Better get me ten million, cash. Right away." The guy said, Ok.

In the hotel room Stirg said to Nev, "We're going to buy the Mariinsky. The whole thing. Make them do the ballet, here. They know what they're doing, and we don't. I'll be the boss, but they'll do all the work. What was that ballet word that means the boss? That'll be me."

Nev said, "Impresario. Impresario means the ballet boss. That's you. You're gonna have to wear a black suit with a coat that has tails on it. You ready for that?"

Stirg liked the sound of impresario, but he wasn't so sure about the tails thing. He hadn't worn one of those while he was hunting the Nazis, but he would give it due consideration. He was ok with traditional stuff. He said, "Find out who the boss of the Mariinsky is, and get me his phone number. We gotta get going on this if we're going to beat the fucks."

"Boss, what if the Mariinsky is all booked up? What if they have their shows set for the year?"

"I'll make them an offer they can't refuse."

"You're going to shoot some of them?" Scenes from _The Godfather_ have permeated culture worldwide.

"No, I'm not going to shoot the ballerinas. I'll just offer them enough money where they can't say no. Enough so they'll change their plans, their schedule. Besides, I think they'll want to do this lost music from Stravinsky. Shouldn't they be willing to give up the stuff they have going, to do this? I would hope so. Christ, it's original Russian stuff. Art. Isn't that their business?"

Nev didn't know about that. He knew something about commandoing and bodyguarding, though he hadn't really done very well with those lately. He went down stairs, corralled the concierge, and got the name and phone number of the Mariinsky Artistic Director, Valery Gergiev. He also got the current schedule of the troupe, noticing that it had a full schedule for the upcoming season. It was performing at the Mariinsky Theater in Saint Petersburg for the first, and main part of the season, but then was off on a world-wide tour for the later part of the season. It looked like Stirg was going to get a chance to make them his offer. When he returned to the suite, Stirg was napping. Nev unpacked for both of them, showered, and came back into the living room to find Stirg awake, trying to decide between coffee and vodka. When the coffee tray arrived and he had downed a cup, he put in the call to Gergiev. An hour later, he and Nev were sitting in Gergiev's office in the Mariinsky Theater.

Back when Stirg had decided to steal the ballet score from the Junes, he had mentioned the Mariinsky, and having them do the production, but he never had called them. So this was his first contact. He said, "I have something important; something you will be very interested in. Something you have to be interested in."

His use of the imperative phrase "have to be" caught Gergiev's attention. Was Stirg from the government? From the Ministry of Cultural Affairs? Oh, shit. Stirg went on, "Do you know who Stravinsky is?"

This dumb question almost clinched it that Stirg was from the government. "Um, yes, I've heard of him."

"Do you know he wrote a piece of music that no one knows about? That no one has ever heard?" Gergiev's placid stare at Stirg changed. "Music for a ballet?" Gergiev didn't say anything. It wasn't unheard of for quacks to make claims about finding lost works of art. But, Stirg didn't come across as a quack. Stirg had a presence honed by many years of dealing with Nazis. And there was Nev. Nev still couldn't do two hundred fifty pushups the way he could when he was a Mossad guy, but he was back in shape, buff, and also presented a certain presence that commanded attention. Gergiev was on alert, but still didn't say anything. Stirg had expected him to come unglued, start panting with anticipation. He was an artsy person, right? "Look, I'm not gonna fuck around here. You're the Mariinsky ballet guy, the boss. I have this music, this Stravinsky music. Russian music, the real thing, that no one has heard or seen. I want you to do it, make it. Make the ballet. Now!"

Gergiev really came alert. There was command in Stirg's demand. He didn't come across as a quack, but he did come across as a little out there. He looked at Nev, who was stone cold. Nev, with his own vibes, was backing up his boss's demand. Now! Gergiev said, "Gentlemen, tell me more about the music. I am all ears." Stirg motioned to Nev, who opened his briefcase, removed the copy of the score, and dropped it on the desk in front of Gergiev. Gergiev looked at the blank cover, then leaned down and smelled the document. He said, "Not the original. Where is the original score?"

Stirg said, "Don't worry about that. Just worry about making the ballet." He was terse.

Gergiev turned the first page and read, at the top, four dances for Ballets Russes, 1914, IS. Then he looked at the first measures of Act I, and touched the pages where he saw hand-written notes. What are these? He saw the name van Gogh, and the word _painting._ What does this mean? He got a funny feeling. Could this be real? Are these guys serious, not quacks? Was his life about to get very complicated, in a good way? He turned the page and looked; turned the page again, and looked; turned twenty pages, and looked; turned to Act III; Act IV; turned to the last page. And then flipped the entire score over, turned to the first page, and again read four dances for Ballets Russes, 1914, IS. "Where did you get this?" No answer. "Stravinsky wrote the ballet _Rite of Spring_ in 1913 and an opera, _The Nightingale_ , in 1914. He wrote the ballets _Pulcinella_ in 1920 and _Les Noces_ in 1923. What is this? I've never heard of this piece. There is no ballet between _Rite_ and _Pulcinella_. What is the title? There is no title on the cover." He looked hard at Stirg. "Where did you get this? I cannot accept something like this without more information. It could be a fake. What is the provenance of this music?"

Stirg looked at Nev, silently asking what the word provenance meant. Nev shook his head. He hadn't learned that at the Mossad spy and commando school. But then he remembered the June's website about their production. One of the pages provided the fake provenance, and Nev now recognized the word. He leaned over to his boss and whispered in his ear. Stirg said, "Oh, you want to know if it's a fake. I have this provenance thing, but it's a little tricky. I can work that out for you later. Let me tell you, this is real. It was discovered recently, and now I have it. Ok? What you need to do, what you are going to do, is figure out how to make this thing happen, here in Saint Petersburg. Soon." He turned to Nev. "What is the date of the fuck's show?"

Nev told him the date, which was five months away. Stirg looked at Gergiev and said, "You got five months till show time."

Gergiev's head had a tennis match going on inside, swinging left to right, right to left, from, are these guys crazy to, is this thing real and am I going to do something momentous? He stared at Stirg, at Nev, at the score with Stravinsky's name on it.

Stirg could see the man was confused, so he attempted to ameliorate the confusion by using a technique he successfully had used many times. He said, "Look, this is a big thing, I know. And important. Very important, to me, and to Russia. It's our history and our art. We gotta protect that, and you can be part of that. You're going to be part of that. Here's the good news. I'm paying for it. The whole thing. I'm the, the...." and he turned to Nev, "what am I?"

"Impresario."

"Yeah, I'm the impresario. The money man. You're the art guy. You know how to get the ballerinas to do their thing. And the musicians. And the, the...." he turned again to Nev, "what is the dancing thing?"

"Choreography."

"Yeah, the choreography. You're the choreography guy, too. We're a team. You make the show, I pay for the show. Including, of course, something for your time and effort. Get me?"

The tennis ball continued sailing back and forth over the net in Gergiev's head. Now it wasn't just the possibility of producing the world premiere of a lost ballet by Stravinsky, it was money. How much money? Did these guys have a clue? Are they real? Is this serious? He said, "Gentlemen, this is a very big proposal. A very big surprise. Maybe we should go out to a restaurant, have a cup of coffee, something to eat. We can talk more. You can tell me more."

Stirg sat back in his chair and stared at Gergiev. After a moment his intuition told him Gergiev was ok, that he could do the job, he just was a little scared. Stirg could understand this, something new getting thrown in his face. A big job, on a tight schedule. Being a little scared was ok. He decided to help the man through his fear, and reached into the inner pocket of his sport coat. He removed an envelope, and from the envelope he removed ten pieces of paper, all the same size and shape. He looked at them, assembled them into a short stack, and pushed the stack towards Gergiev. Gergiev looked down at the paper on top of the stack and saw it was a cashier's check, issued from a major Saint Petersburg back, made out to CASH. The amount was one million dollars. When Stirg saw he had absorbed the amount, he peeled off the top paper and set it aside. Gergiev saw an identical check below it. Stirg peeled that one off the stack, then the third check, and the fourth, and finally the tenth check, all for one million dollars. He looked at Gergiev and said, "These checks are yours. To make the show. The ballet. If this is not enough, there is more. There are as many of these checks as you need to do it. By the deadline. There is no end to these checks. You understand? But in return, Russia gets the best. The best dancing, the best music, the best, the best...." and he turned to Nev, "the best what?"

"Choreography."

"Yeah, the best choreography. That's the deal. Ok?"

The tennis ball inside Gergiev's head had stopped soaring back and forth, from left to right, right to left. It was suspended in midair, right over the net, and symbolized Gergiev's state of mind. His thinking was suspended between the ten million dollars sitting on the table in front of him, and the proposal of producing a world class ballet premiere in five months. Was this possible? Could he do it? What are the ramifications, both good and bad? The good ramifications are obvious. Glory in the world of Russian art. The bad ones, nullifying all the existing commitments of the company, could be very bad. He would get his ass sued off. The tennis ball went back into motion: glory vs. courtroom; glory vs. courtroom; art vs. lawyers; art vs. lawyers; money in vs. money out; head on his shoulders vs. head lying at his feet. He closed his eyes, sitting at his desk in his office, in the Mariinsky Theater, located on Theater Square in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Stirg watched him. Nev watched him. He watched the tennis ball. Back and forth; back and forth. The ball slowed its velocity and lowered its trajectory. Gergiev watched it slow, and was thankful. Gravity won, and the ball dropped on one side of the court. Gergiev felt the pressure release, and he opened his eyes. Looking at Stirg he said, "If you show me the provenance, and it proves this score is real and as you say it is, I'm in. I'll make the ballet."

Stirg nodded, collected nine of the ten checks, put them back in the envelope, and rose from his chair, leaving the tenth check on Gergiev's desk. He put the envelope back in the inner pocket of his coat and said, "Let's go get something to eat."

# Chapter 48 – Just Thinking

Roger sat out in the middle of the theater, listening to The Whosey work on his transcription of the score. It wasn't as much fun as listening to him play his own music, say the beautifully simple acoustic number "Sheraton Gibson", or the powerhouse sex rocker "Slit Skirts", but it was interesting, to say the least. He leaned his head against the back of the chair, and let his mind wander between the music taking form on the stage, the knowledge that Stirg now was producing a competitive version of the ballet in Saint Petersburg, and a little matter that had gnawed at him for many months: where were the Hermitage artifacts? These, remember, were the nine shipping containers worth of Grade C antiques and objects d'art that the Junes and their team had stolen from the warehouses of the Hermitage Museum, and brought to Charleston, and which, in turn, Stirg had stolen from them. Where were they? What was Stirg doing with them?

Roger had had a lot of other things to worry about recently, all associated with his wife's production of the ballet, but every once in a while, like today, he pondered on those two questions: where were they and what was Stirg doing with them? He didn't like to lose a fight, and right now, he was on the canvas, with Stirg standing over him, glaring at him the way Muhammad Ali stood over Sonny Liston that day in 1965, in Lewiston, Maine. Roger loved that dramatic photo, but he hated the vision of him and Stirg replacing Liston and Ali in it. Really hated it. And that was the vision in his head right now. Him on the canvas.

To get away from it he opened his eyes and watched Townshend work the music. Townshend was trying hard to get a handle on a weird syncopation in the score, and incorporate it into the rhythm he had going on the synthesizer that sounded to Roger like it was being played by trumpets. How can rhythm be carried by trumpets? That is Stravinsky. Pater sat at the computer, monitoring the inputs from the synthe, and making sure the stuff that Townshend wanted to capture on the hard drive got captured. That left Peter, Selgey, and Bart sort of at odds for the day. They were at The Hall every day, even those, like today, when Townshend was doing transcription work rather than playing for their choreography. They tried to be productive, and most of the time they were, but there were times when they were at a loss. Gale was irritated that she and Helstof weren't going out for lunch, and had told Peter to fuck off when he asked if there was anything he could do to help them with the costuming. She badly wanted to try the Beaujolais Nouveau before it was gone from the local wine lists. They saw Roger sitting out in the theater with his eyes closed, and went to check if he was thinking, or just asleep.

"Roger, we're bored today. What are you thinking about?" said Selgey.

Roger opened his eyes and smiled at the three dancers. Peter had been part of the heist team that had stolen the stuff from the Hermitage. Selgey and Bart had not, but they knew about the theft. They knew they were associating not only with aristocratic thieves, but with people who carried guns, and got into conflicts with ex-Nazi hunters. It wasn't as exciting as dancing on world stages with the best companies in the world, but it was better than most people's retirement. He said, "I'm thinking about the Hermitage stuff. I'd like to know where Stirg stashed it. I gotta hand it to him; that was clever, the way he found it and stole it from us. Very clever. He whipped us on that one, whipped us good. So I'm thinking about it. When The Whosey plays his own music, I just listen. When he plays Stravinsky, I listen, but I also think about stuff."

Peter said, "He told us the stuff belongs back in Russia; that it's heritage stuff that belongs to the people. Maybe he had it all shipped back."

"Maybe, but I don't think so. I think it's here somewhere. He may think it belongs back in Russia, but mainly he was pissed that Americans stole it and brought it here. Now that we don't have it, my bet is he's satisfied. I just have a feeling it's still here."

"So, what are you going to do?" said Bart.

"Nothing. We got our hands full with this thing," and he waved at the stage. "I'm just thinking."

# Chapter 49 – The Dancers

While Roger sat in the theater thinking about how to get even with Stirg, Gwen and the woman sat in the back office, thinking about how to get dancers for the production. Really good dancers. Gwen said, "It's time now, hon. We gotta find the dancers. That's the last big challenge." She knew the woman had been working on this; but she also knew the woman had not solved this problem. It was time for her to step in and lead.

The woman rubbed her eyes, looked guiltily at Gwen, and said, "The good news is that our show coincides with the end of the main dance performance season. All the troupes and companies around the world basically are on the same late fall through spring schedule. There is some overlap of that season and our show, but most companies will be done with their productions. The bad news, part one, is that most of the dancers will be worn out from the combination of performance and traveling. They'll be ready for time off at home. The bad news, part two, is that Stirg now is competing for the same level of performer. He wants his production to happen first, to be the world premiere, but he's going to have a tough time putting that together in less than five months. I'm not sure where that leaves us."

"Ok," said Gwen, "that's the picture. Let's get the geeks in here, and figure this out once and for all." She went out on the stage, looked around, and saw four people sitting in the middle of the theater with their eyes closed. Townshend was fiddling about, fiddling about, with the knobs and switches of the synthe. She yelled, "Hey, what the hell are you doing out there. Get up here." All four sets of eyes blinked open simultaneously and registered a low level of fear at hearing Gwen's command. Only Roger smiled, but he hopped up just as fast as the other three. As they mounted the stage steps, Gwen said, "What in god's name are you doing? We have work to do." She looked at Peter because he was the weakest of the group, and she knew she could squeeze him the easiest. "What were you doing?"

"We were thinking."

Gwen knew Roger often closed his eyes when he was thinking, and that was legitimate for him. She always thought this was an odd idiosyncrasy, but over the years she had gotten used to it, especially since she had found, also over the years, Roger to be a very good thinker. But she wasn't sure this acceptance should be accorded to the three ballet geeks. Artists aren't known to be very good thinkers. "All four of you were thinking? At the same time?" They nodded. "About what?

Peter said, "The stuff."

"What stuff?"

"The Hermitage stuff. Where it is. What Stirg is doing with it."

Gwen looked at Selgey and Bart, said, "You two were thinking about where the Hermitage stuff is?"

Bart said, "Umm....not exactly."

"What were you thinking about?"

"Umm....nothing, really. We were trying. Well, I was."

Gwen looked at Selgey, who said, "Same with me. I was trying. To think. Umm...."

Now she looked at Roger, said, "What are you doing? Why are you wasting their time? Our time?"

He knew better than to try to defend himself in the face of his wife's interrogation. He said, "How can we help you? Now." And smiled at her.

She, in turn, knew better than to stay angry at him for something like this. She said, "Come into the office." And smiled at him.

She crowded the six of them into the woman's office and closed the door. Then she opened the door, went back to the stage, and returned with Pater. He was a dance geek, and needed to be part of this. By jamming seven people into a small office and closing the door, Gwen created a pressure cooker. Now she applied the heat. "No one's leaving until we have a strategy and tactics for finding our dancers. It's time to make this happen. How are we going to do this?"

Everyone was silent, looking at each other, the ceiling, the floor, their nails. Gwen pulled her chair over and set its back again the door. Heavy symbolism. Gwen looked at Roger, who was complacent, which told her he had an answer. She waited for the others to come to the same conclusion. Finally, Pater said, "Buy them. Do _The Godfather_ thing." Roger smiled at him and nodded.

Gwen looked at the woman, said, "How much is that going to take?"

She said, "We decided we need forty corps dancers. We didn't talk about principles. I think forty is too many; we can do thirty." She looked at Selgey, who nodded assent. "How many principles do we need? You have a lot of the choreography done. You should know who you need."

Selgey looked at Bart, who said, "Six. We need six principles. The best. Really the best." Selgey nodded at this.

The woman said, "Ok. Now we have the numbers." Looking at Selgey and Bart again, she asked, "If we approached you the way we're going to approach these people, meaning you already have a position, and now someone strange is trying to hire you to do this production....how much would it take to make you say, yes? For the principle roles?" She looked at the Ps, said, "Same question: how much for a corps role?" The two pairs huddled, face to face, mouth to ear, whispers emanating from their clustering.

The pairs sat back in their chairs at the same time. Pater said, "You go first."

Selgey said, "No, you go first."

Peter shook his head. Bart shook his head. The four of them folded their arms.

Gwen thought, Jesus, said to Selgey, "How much?"

"Ok. It's more than the performances themselves. It's also the rehearsal time. We're doing four performances over two weekends. We think we need two weeks of rehearsals for them to learn the choreography. So, that's four weeks of their time. Plus expenses. Salary should be $2,000 per day, $14,000 per week, times (4) is $64,000 for the month. Per diem should be $3,000 per week, times (4) is $12,000. Travel should be $3,000. All that times six dancers is $474,000."

Gwen was impressed. "You figured that out in your head?"

"Bart did." And she smiled at her lover.

Gwen now looked at the Ps. Peter said, "Salary should be $700 per day, $5,000 per week, times (4) is $20,000. Same per diem and travel as the principles. Times thirty dancers is $1,050,000."

Again Gwen was impressed. "You figured that out in your head?"

"Pater did." And he smiled at his lover.

The woman said, "That totals $1,479,000. That's a lot for a single production of four performances. A lot for the cost of the dancers."

The group sat around, mulling over that number. Gwen again looked at Roger, communicating telegraphically. Something was donging in the heads of Selgey and Bart, Peter and Pater. The woman realized what it was and spoke up. "We're going to pay the entire dance corps $1,479,000, and we're paying The Whosey $5,000,000." Everyone looked at Roger, who had cut the deal with Townshend.

Roger was about to say that Townshend was a musical genius, and well worth the fee, but he realized the four ballet geeks would think just as highly of the dancers, at least the principles, so, instead, he said, "He's here for six months, day in, day out. The music's important. That's what Stravinsky gave us. That's what he's giving us."

The geeks shook their heads, indicating it still didn't add up: one guy, five mill; thirty-six dancers, one and a half mill. They folded their arms, signaling defiance. The woman spoke up, "So, let's just double the dancer's fees. What the heck."

The geeks unfolded their arms, looked at each other. Smiled. Now you're talking. The woman said, "Five mill for The Whosey, three mill for the dancers. What else?"

With this settled, the group thought more about money. Pater looked around, said, "You been paid? Anything?" Peter shook his head no, and Selgey and Bart did the same. Roger and Gwen, as de facto management, remained impassive.

Then Gwen said to the woman, "Pay everyone. Figure out how much. Yourself too. Not us or Helstof," who nodded.

"Now," said Gwen, "how do we get the dancers, even if we offer them this amount? How?" She looked around, ending with her husband. He blinked at her, which made her happy, knowing he had an idea. She blinked back. Go ahead.

"Make them come to us," he said. "Let's do the same thing we did with Townshend. Put ads in every major newspaper in the world, on our website, and on a bunch of websites that cater to cultural types. 'DANCERS WANTED. THE BEST. WORLD PREMIERE PERFORMANCE OF STRAVINSKY'S LOST BALLET'. That's all we need, really. We hire a great ad designer, make it sparkle. We already have good PR going. We just stoke the fire a little. The word will get around to the dancers, they'll ask questions and look into it. We'll tell them about finding the lost score, about Townshend competing with McCartney and _Oceans Kingdom_ , and about who is doing the choreography." He smiled at Selgey and Bart. "With those people involved, they'll be interested. Then we tell them about the fees we're paying." He paused. "Look. We have something no one else has. We have the lost ballet."

Roger's enthusiasm for his idea had started to kindle like feelings in the others, but with his last statement, the air went out of the balloon. He sensed this, thought about it, then said, "Oh, yeah. We had something no else had. Now...."

Gwen stepped in, said, "Ok. Everyone buy Roger's idea about the ads? We let the dancers come to us?" They nodded. The woman felt relief; they had a strategy, and she only could hope it would work. Gwen opened the door of the office, letting the pressure of the meeting escape. But as everyone left, they sensed the pressure still was there. They knew they were in a fierce competition. Competition with Stirg....the Nazi hunter.

# Chapter 50 – Stirg Hassles the Mariinsky

Ironic is not how Stirg would have viewed it if he had known he was staying in the same hotel the Junes had stayed in a year earlier, while their team was pulling the Hermitage heist. He would have thought something like, "WHAT? The fucks stayed here while they were stealing Russia's heritage? God damn it, get me out of here! Nev, we're out of here. Not staying in the same place as those rats. Why did you book us into this place? This rat hole. Out. Out! Pack up. I may buy the place and demo it." No, a simple sense of irony would not be enough to keep Stirg in that place. For Christ sake, maybe he was sleeping in the same room, the same bed, that the fucks had slept in. It was good for him and for Nev that they didn't know Gwen had booked a suite at the Corinthia Hotel, Nevsky Prospect, 57, Saint Petersburg because the hotel advertised towel warmers in all the suites. Gwen had loved that towel warmer.

Nevertheless, that was where Stirg had set up his command center, and that was where Gergiev came every morning at 9am, to provide a status report. He started this routine three days after Stirg had shown up in his office, and had left the check for a cool million on his desk. After he and Stirg and Nev had eaten lunch at a nearby restaurant, and after Stirg and Nev had left, Gergiev had walked at a very rapid pace across the park to the bank that had issued the cashier's check. He asked for the manager, to whom he handed the check and said, "Umm, is this real?"

The manager recognized it immediately, because it wasn't every day that someone walked into his bank at 2pm, and walked out of his bank at 3pm, carrying ten cashier's checks, each worth a million dollars. The manager remembered that quite vividly. Now, only one day later, one of the checks had turned up. "Yes, Mr. Gergiev, sir. The check is good, and we would be very happy to manage this money for you. We have a series of very attractive investments at present, very attractive, indeed." Gergiev retrieved the check from the manager's sticky fingers, and held it in his sticky fingers. A wave of elation washed over him, though he managed to keep it hidden. He thought a moment, then said, "Perhaps it would be wise to deposit this into an account. Am I correct in thinking that whoever holds the check in his hand has legal right to the money it represents?"

"Yes, sir, that is correct. It would indeed be wise not to walk around the city with that in your pocket. Saint Petersburg is a wonderful city, and we love it, but not every single person walking around it is a wonderful person. There are at least a few non-wonderful people who would love to come into possession of that object."

Gergiev stopped thinking about his one million dollars, and thought about Stirg walking the wonderful streets of the wonderful city of Saint Petersburg with nine more of the checks in his pocket. He hoped Mr. Stirg's associate, Mr. Nev, was skilled at his body guarding function. Gergiev noticed that he had started thinking about the money, the check, as his money. It wasn't really, was it? It was the first payment to be put towards the production. But, hadn't Mr. Stirg said, "Including, of course, something for your time and effort. Get me?" Hadn't he said that? Gergiev was positive he had. He remembered the words, exactly: "Including, of course, something for your time and effort. Get me?" Gergiev got a grip on reality and told the bank manager he would put the check into a safe deposit box for the time being, not into an account or into investments. He realized the money would have to go, sooner or later, into the Mariinsky Ballet financial system. He just didn't want to rush that, right now. Not right now.

After leaving the bank he walked across the street and sat down on a park bench to think things over. Staring at a large bronze statue of Lenin shooting a Romanov borzoi in the back of the head (and basking in the knowledge of what lay, so crisply, so lovingly, so meaningfully, in his box at the bank) was when a memory flashed into his consciousness. A memory of a staff member mentioning to him a month earlier the rumor that some Americans in a town called Charleston claimed to be in possession of a piece of lost Stravinsky music, and were going to product a ballet based on it. He never had heard of Charleston, or even South Carolina, so Gergiev had tossed this into the arts and culture rumor bag, and forgotten about it. He now made the connection (which electrified him), pulled his cell phone, and dialed the number of his staffer. "Hey. You remember telling me about some people in some American backwater who said they had a lost Stravinsky ballet? Get on the web. See if it's true. Now. I'm heading back to the office."

When he entered her office, she pointed to the computer screen. Showing on it was the June's webpage, announcing the discovery of the score and the upcoming world premiere production of the ballet. She flipped through a few pages displaying Catherine Deneuve at the City Hall PR event, and the fake provenance of the score. Gergiev sat down, stricken. The woman said, "What's up, boss?" She never had seen him close to tears.

He said, "See what you can find out about this. Is it real? Are these people serious? Call up our friends in New York and see if they know about this. Find out where Charleston is, and who's behind this production. Alleged production. Come to me as soon as you find out anything." Gergiev went to his office, called up the June website, and went to the provenance page. He read the description twice, and came away believing it. Shit. What was Stirg up to? How did he get the score? Who had legal rights to produce the ballet? Establishing that could take years in the courts. Whose courts: US or Russia? Stirg was wealthy and could afford a long legal battle, but is that what the two sides wanted? Stirg and the Americans. Was this going down the tubes, right now, with that check sitting, resting, waiting for action, in his bank deposit box? Shit.

An hour later his staffer came to his office and confirmed the worst. The New York ballet people said, yes, the Charleston thing was legit. They wondered that the Mariinsky hadn't heard about it, considering who the composer was, and it being his lost ballet. Gergiev didn't have time to take offense at the New Yorker's sardonicism. He left the office, walked down the street to a bar and ordered a shot of Greek raki. Vodka wasn't strong enough to alleviate his feeling of impending loss.

He got over it later in the day, and the next morning he went to the Corinthia. Sitting with Stirg and Nev, he loaded the June webpage on his smart phone and showed them the provenance page. He said, "Their production is under way. They have a convincing provenance. They have the upper hand in this. How did you get the score?"

Stirg sat back and closed his eyes. When he opened them, he poured another cup of coffee from the sterling silver pot on the service tray, and sipped, looking at Gergiev. When he set the cup down, he looked at Nev, and nodded towards the closet where the personal safe was. Nev opened the safe and removed the envelope. Gergiev saw the butt of a gun in the safe, and then recognized the envelope. That dear, dear envelope. Stirg didn't play games with the checks this time. He took one out, closed the envelope, and handed it back to Nev, who returned it to the safe. Stirg set the check on the table next to the coffee pot, rotated it so it faced Gergiev, and pushed it to him. He said, "Fuck the Americans. This music is Russian property. Our property. We go forward. Leave them, and their production, to me. Just do your job. I have plans for them."

# Chapter 51 – What's in a Name?

The next morning Roger and the woman sat in her office writing the text of the ad they hoped would bring them a flood, or at least a trickle, of world-class dancing talent. From the theater space they heard The Whosey warming up the synthe with a version of one of his greatest songs, Brilliant Blues. Roger was tempted to go on stage and listen, but he knew it was important to implement the strategy the team had formed the previous day. He and the woman had to get the ad text done, and take it to a designer to add the graphics for websites and print media. It was a choreography day, and soon Townshend would play his transcriptions for Selgey and Bart.

Today would be a watershed day for Selgey and Bart; they were starting the choreography for Act IV, based on the Picasso painting. The dance movements for Acts I through III were complete, or at least well-developed, and stored on video in the computer. They were developed, that is, as well as could be, considering that Selgey and Bart didn't have a corps of thirty dancers hanging around The Hall to experiment with. They had done the movements for the six principle dancers themselves, supplemented by Peter and Pater. This choreography was complete, and they were happy with it. The corps movements were complete in principle, but would have to be fleshed out when the dancers showed up for rehearsals, and that was going to be a challenge. The four dancers finished their coffee, sitting in the upholstered chairs on stage, listening to the beauty of Brilliant Blues. When Townshend finished the song they went over to the synthe, surrounded him, and started a conversation about Picasso's cubist painting of a factory in Spain. Why did Stravinsky like the painting? What was the story that Stravinsky saw inherent in it? How could they manifest that story in music and dance? The five of them were in their element and working at peak creativity.

Roger and the woman weren't exactly at their peak of creativity. Both of them were doodling on yellow legal pads. Roger's mind was on the lyrics of the song he'd just heard: "I spend my mornings at the sunshine café." He wished he was at a café, sitting with Gwen, talking about what burgundy they would drink with lunch. The woman interrupted these profound thoughts by saying something startling: "We don't have a title for the ballet, you know. How can we write text for an ad when we don't know what it's called?"

"Huh?"

"The title, Roger. The title of the ballet. They have them you know. _Swan Lake. Don Quixote. Giselle_. What's ours called? Igor didn't do one. There's nothing on the cover of the score except his signature and date. No title. We need one, don't we?"

Roger looked perplexed, then said, " _The Lost Ballet_. That's the title. _The Lost Ballet_."

"No. That's not a title. That's just what we've been calling it. We know the score was lost to the world for ninety-eight years. 1914 till today. We found it. Now it's not lost; it's found. Now it's _The Found Ballet_. Or, _The Lost and Found Ballet_ , which sounds stupid. So, what's its title? We need one for the ad. We need one for the poster that will be in the glass case outside the door of The Hall. That's how they do things."

Roger looked more perplexed. The Sunshine Café was calling. Go home afterwards, make love to Gwen. Then lunch. Then a nap. Then make love to Gwen again. That was the life of a gentleman aristocrat. That's what he should be doing, not writing ads for ballets that didn't even have a title. Who would write a ballet, and not title it, anyway. Stupid. Now he had to figure this out. The thing always was in his mind as _The Lost Ballet_ , which had a poetic ring to it. He looked at the woman, who was waiting for him to figure it out. That was his job. She was the bean counter, the admin person. She didn't do ballet titles. She stared at Roger without a feeling of confidence, given the look of perplexity on his face. She could tell his mind was at The Sunshine Café, not here in the office with her.

Roger pretended to attend to the problem by doodling on his pad, but gave up the pretense, him and the woman being good friends, and went out to find Gwen. When the going got tough, the weak minded went to her. She sat at the set of tables that Gale and Helstof worked at, looking at photos of costumes that supposedly represented naked people. You know, the ones made out of tight, flesh colored fabric, with minimal seams. There were a dozen photos of people in these things, men and women, and they all looked ridiculous. Gwen never had understood how professional designers and costumers could foist this crap on audiences. It was almost as bad as lip-syncing a song. Roger and Gwen once were watching a concert video on TV, and a famous rocker was lip-syncing a song Gwen loved, and she had gone to the cabinet and taken out her gun, and Roger was sure she was not kidding about shooting the TV, and he had to take physical action to stop her. There are only a few things in life that make Gwen hotheaded, and lip-syncing is one of them. Flesh colored costumes are not as bad, but they're up there in her 'I hate that' category.

Roger walked up to the tables and said (lying), "We have the new ads almost done, but we need one thing. We need a title for the ballet."

Gale, the mouth, said, "What do you mean? It's _The Lost Ballet_. What's wrong with that?"

Helstof looked surprised when Roger shook his head. Gwen said, "He's right. That's what we've been calling it, but that's not its title. Stravinsky didn't give it a title. There isn't one on the cover of the score. _The Lost Ballet_ is how we think of it, because we found it. But it wasn't lost for him. We called it something for Catherine when the _Le Monde_ people called her about it. What was it?"

The woman came out of the office and sat down at the tables, looking to see if Gwen had solved the problem. She said, "Look, we can't just make up a title, it's not right. Only the author can do that, and Igor didn't do it. And we're not musicologists, who categorize and critique and write about music. Let's leave the problem to them to figure out, later. What we need is a PR thing. Something for the ads, the marketing. Something that's going to tell people what the ballet is about, who wrote it, who's playing and dancing it, and why they should buy tickets to it." She looked around the table, where no one said anything, so she went on. "Maybe we do have it. Why not just call it _Stravinsky's Lost Ballet_. That's like the guy who called his show P _.T. Barnum's The Greatest Show on Earth_. It worked for him, bigtime. And that's what Gwen told Catherine to tell _Le Monde_ a couple months ago, right? Stravinsky is a cool word, strange and poetic, and the lost ballet is intriguing. Cultural people will understand what's going on here."

The other three looked at each other and shrugged, yes. Sounds good. The woman had come through.

# Chapter 52 – The Bidding Begins

The meeting of the Mariinsky dancers followed by a half day the meeting of the Russian lawyers and politicos. The meeting of the dancers was held in the costume shop in the basement of the Mariinsky Theater. The meeting of the politicos was held in the grandiose conference room of the Saint Petersburg Ministry of Cultural Affairs. The three lawyers, the three Ministry ministers, Gergiev, Stirg, and Nev sat around a huge, ornate table made from maple, elm, and hornbeam trees that had been harvested around 1705. The table had resided in the same room since 1715.

Gergiev badly had wanted to exclude the lawyers and ministers from the production, but he knew if he tried that he might end up managing one of Saint Petersburg's new McDonalds rather than his beloved Mariinsky. Being all about the dance, he hated bureaucrats with a passion. He wasn't bad at dealing with bureaucracy, however, and after two hours the lawyers and ministers gave him their blessing to proceed. Of course, the three cashier's checks on the maple, elm, and hornbeam table had something to do with their acquiescence. Yes, Stirg had had to dip into the envelope for one more. When the bureaucrats left the meeting, the lawyers took one check, the ministers took another, and they left the third on the table, with stern looks directed at Gergiev. Stirg recognized the cost of doing business when he saw it. The lawyers would deal with the fallout from cancelling part of the season's schedule, and the ministers would keep their noses out of the production.

As soon as the meeting was over, Gergiev sent out text messages to the entire Mariinsky staff, ordering them to the theater at 6pm that evening. The message said those who didn't attend should hop the next train to Moscow and apply for jobs with the Bolshoi. Everyone attended: the principle dancers, the corps dancers, the musicians, the lighting crew, the costumers, the admin people, everyone. That evening he told them of the new program that would start tomorrow morning at 7am. Half of their existing schedule was canceled; the other half would go forward as planned. The newly created void in the schedule was to be filled with a major new production: the world premiere of a lost ballet by Stravinsky.

When Gergiev said half the schedule was being cancelled, the staff couldn't believe their ears. What? Crazy. Can't happen. How. All those performances. All those commitments. All those tickets already sold. Crazy.

When he said the new program was a world premiere; a lost ballet by Stravinsky; in four months; the staff really lost it. What? Crazy. How? A lost ballet? By Igor? Who would do the choreography?

Yes, that was the central question for Gergiev. Who would do the choreography? The music was not a problem, because, of course, the production would be traditional, not modernistic, like the Charleston production. The Mariinsky orchestra would play it. And the dancers would dance it, principles and corps (which of the principle dancers would get the choice roles was another story, another battle to be fought, but not really a problem for Gergiev). But the choreography was key. It had to be the best. Wonderful. A work of genius. It would be the factor that would tip the competitive scale in favor of Russia, and against the upstart, thieving, scurrilous, American hacks. Who would do the choreography?

After Gergiev laid out the basics of the new production, which weren't very many and which had few details, the dancers retreated downstairs to the costume shop. By no means is the dance corps of a major company one big happy family, motivated by the ideals and nobility of their art form. They are like any other big family or company group, a milieu of emotions, ambitions, agendas, infatuations, and competitions. But they all sensed something very special in Gergiev's announcement of the new production. It was, after all, the world premiere of a lost work by an acknowledged giant. And what made the situation all the more intriguing and confusing was Gergiev's statement about the concurrent production in America; in some place called Charleston, which is not New York or San Francisco or Washington, DC. It is....someplace else. So with this information the dancers felt a shared interest, and sat crammed into the costume shop, principle dancers and corps dancers alike.

Questions flew around the room like flies in a greenhouse, ricocheting off the glass walls. Where did the score come from? Who found it, when, and why do the ballet now, right in the middle of preparing for a schedule set long ago? What's behind this production, and how can this be the premiere if the Americans also are doing a version? Will we get a bonus? Somebody will be paying a lot of money to make it happen. Will we get some of that?

It was only a few minutes before memories were jogged about a news story a couple of months earlier that a few of the dancers had seen in the Internet version of _Le Monde_. They now remembered the story about a production in the States, but because it wasn't being done by one of the major American companies, they had relegated it to provincial status and ignored it. Out came the smart phones, up came the Junes website, and there was the story of the discovery of the lost Stravinsky score and the announcement of the production. The website listed the dates of the performances, and they were one week later than the dates Gergiev had said would be the dates for their performances. The website says the Charleston performance is the world premiere. What is going on? Uncertainty now mingled with excitement.

One of the prima ballerinas stood up and clapped her hands. She said, "Look, we just got our orders. We're doing this new show. But so are the Americans, and at the same time. Something weird is going on, and I have the feeling we can't ignore them just because the show is not in New York. They have the music, and the website says it's a modernist production with Pete Townshend of The Who doing the music on synthesizer. I love that man's songs. He's an old geezer with a big nose, but he sings like an angel. Gergiev is going to tell us more about our show tomorrow. But, we need to learn all we can about the American's show. I have a feeling about this. The intuitions of the other dancers kicked it, and they nodded assent. Was this a bona fide international competition, or was it going to be something else?

# Chapter 53 – Going After the Dancers

Nev sat on the twelve foot long sofa in the living room of the suite at the Corinthia, and stared at the closet that hid the personal safe that contained the remaining seven million dollars that his boss seemed hell bent on throwing to the wolves in the form of this stupid ballet thing. The only part of the ballet thing that didn't appear stupid to Nev was the fact of all those ballerina's legs. He still hadn't actually met any ballerinas, but he figured he would, and he remembered what their legs looked like in the website photos and videos. Any money that went towards perpetuation of those legs he approved of; the rest was going down the toilet. He interrupted his fantasy about what he would do with the seven million to ask his boss a question. "When are you going to tell the museum people you have all their stuff? All the stuff the fucks stole. We're here, and the museum is just down the street."

Stirg looked up from the book he was reading about Pepita (1818-1910), the master choreographer of Russian ballet. He had sent Nev to the Saint Petersburg library to find the book, which they had, in Russian. Stirg wasn't so good at reading Russian anymore (he wasn't that good at reading, period), so Nev had had to find the same book in English at, of all places, the American Embassy. The embassy librarian (intelligence officer) had lent it to Nev after getting a call from the Israeli Embassy, who had placed the request after getting a call from a Mossad officer in Tel Aviv, who had gotten a call from Stirg. All that so Stirg could learn what that big word choreography means.

Stirg thought for a minute about Nev's question, and said, "Don't we have enough to occupy our attention here, with this ballet stuff, without worrying about the Hermitage stuff? Do you know all there is to know about ballet? About choreography (at this point he could at least pronounce the word)? About ballerinas and why they do what they do?" He paused. "The stuff in Charleston ain't going nowhere. Maybe I should go over to the Hermitage and talk to them about it, but after we get Gergiev on track."

Nev nodded, as he was wont to do when his boss offered an opinion, but the thought occurred to him that maybe, just maybe, Stirg wasn't in as big a rush to return the goods to the homeland, to reconstitute it's lost heritage, as he led some folks (the fucks) to believe. Nev filed this thought away for future use.

If Nev had been perusing important websites visited frequently by those interested in all things ballet, instead of wondering about the Hermitage goods and the cashier's checks ensconced in the safe, he would have seen the huge advertisements announcing the call for world class ballet dancers to audition for roles in the premiere of the upcoming production, Stravinsky's Lost Ballet, in Charleston, South Carolina, United States of America. Many of the Mariinsky dancers saw them, as did dancers around the world. Minutes after the coordinated advertising campaign lit up the Internet, the text messages started to fly. "Did u c the Stravinsky announcement?" "Where is Charleston?" "Where is South Carolina?" "R u going to apply?" "Did u c the $ they are offering?" Etc. The lines of the ballet world hummed.

The ads showed photos of old Igor, looking stern and artistic in his _pince nez_. The graphic designs were glossy and eye-catching. Some ads incorporated photos of pages from the score, labeling it the lost score, while others showed photos of Nureyev, Fonteyn, and Kirkland in dramatic poses, mostly midair. The ads emphasized the phrases world premiere, newly discovered Stravinsky score, choreography by Landkirk\Thorley, music direction by Pete Townshend. Several of the ads showed photos of Paul McCartney, quoted as saying he would attend opening night. The Whosey had told Gwen and the woman, go ahead with that, he would square it with Paul. The woman had come up with the idea of putting a photo of Bill Gates at the bottom of the ads, but instead of saying next to the photo, Funding Provided by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, it said Funding Provided by the Gromstov Foundation for International Artistic Achievement. She said it was imperative to give the impression that the Charleston production had money up the yang, and what better way than imply that Bill Gates was underwriting it. Roger said, "People actually misrepresent that sort of thing?" and the woman rolled her eyes at his naiveté.

Similar ads appeared the next day in newspapers around the world, all full page, full color, including the major rags in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. When Gergiev saw them he practically froze. Then he wanted to tear them up, but decided instead to take them to Stirg, which he did. When Stirg saw them, he maintained control of his emotions, limiting his response to a relatively calm and benign, "Those fucks. Those dirty fucks." He looked at Gergiev and said, "What do those mean? Why did they put the ads in the newspapers here? What are they doing?"

Gergiev looked from Stirg to Nev, said, "You tell me. You're the ones who know them; have relationships with them. I don't know them from Adam and Eve. Well, I know Landkirk\Thorley. Great dancers. But as far as I know, they've never done choreography. You tell me who this production group is. I've never heard of them. All I know is they're advertising for world class dancers, and they're doing it here. Which means, I guess, that they are looking for responses from Russian dancers. MY Russian dancers. And Bolshoi dancers from Moscow. Who are these people?"

"They're fucks," said Stirg. That's who they are. They're fucks."

# Chapter 54 – Money Talks in the World of Art

Judging from the immediate response to the advertising blitz, two things are apparent about ballet dancers: they like money as much as the rest of us, and they don't read very well. All of the ads clearly stated that prospective applicants should send their resume by email to: thewoman@stravinskyslostballet.org. She got a few resumes, but she got a flood of emails asking what the pay is. She answered these patiently and honestly, stating the salaries, per diem, and travel for principles and corps. She wondered if the $2000 per day for principles and $700 per day for corps was going to be enough.

Posing as a dancer, Gergiev sent an email asking about the compensation, and when he got the reply saying $2000 for principle dancers and $700 for corps dancers, he cursed just like Stirg had, but for a different reason. That was because he paid his principles $700 per day and his corps $300 per day. And he knew the rule that money talks in the world of art. He started worrying that some of his dancers might defect, even though the Charleston job would be temporary, and his job is permanent. Well, sort of permanent. Ballet dancers come, and ballet dancers go. Every year there is a new crop coming out of the training programs, and if one of them is better than an older dancer, the axe falls.

The Mariinsky dancers knew about this rule also, so the Charleston production pay looked very appealing to a few of them, regardless of the temporary status of the job. Another factor that appealed to some of them was the difference in style between the two competing shows. The ads clearly indicated that the Charleston production was to be modernist, with a world famous rock musician playing the entire score on synthesizer. They knew the Saint Petersburg production would be traditionalist, with the music played by an orchestra, and costumes done in the tutu style. The whole modernist approach was intriguing to some of those brought up in the strict Russian tradition.

Five days after the ads hit, the woman came out of her office with a stack of papers, which she dumped on one of the tables where Gale and Helstof were working. Where Helstof was working, and Gale was talking. She gathered the team around the table and pointed towards the papers, saying, "The response is pretty good. I've gotten sixteen resumes and about forty-five emails asking questions, mostly about the pay, but some about the music, and some about the choreography, and some asking who, exactly, we are. I've answered the others, but the ones wanting to know about us, I haven't. Who are we, anyway?"

The Ps looked at each other, and the costumers looked at each other, and Selgey, Bart and Townshend looked at each other, which left Roger and Gwen looking at each other. The second conundrum the group had faced in a week, the first being the name of the ballet. Pater said, "We are...."

Then Gale said, "We are...."

And Bart said, "We are...."

Gwen waited. She didn't want to blurt out the name she had given the group when Catherine did her advocacy thing at the City's PR event. If the others didn't remember it from back then, maybe it wasn't such a great name. When no one offered a name, she said, "When _Le Monde_ called Catherine two months ago, they wanted the name of the production and the name of our group. I told them The Charleston Ballet Guild. If you guys have a better name, I'm open to it.

Peter said, "Oh, yeah, I remember that. Funny how we've gone two months without really needing a name. Until now. I like The Charleston Ballet Guild." He looked around, and the others nodded.

"Now that we know who we are, who's going to start reading the resumes? Who's going to choose the dancers?" said the woman. All heads swiveled to Selgey and Bart. There wasn't anyone else, so they nodded assent. More work. The woman handed them the stack of resumes.

Selgey glanced through them, and shook her head. "Nothing here. Not what we want."

Gwen looked at her, then got up and walked over to the synthe. She said to The Whosey, "May I?" Surprised, he nodded, and after flipping a few switches that set the synthe to sound like an electric piano, she played Gershwin's "Summertime". None of the group, except Roger, knew she played keyboards, but she didn't have the Steinway in her living room just for looks.

Halfway through, Roger said, to no one in particular, "Do you know Gershwin composed that song here, in Charleston?"

Townshend shook his head, no, then said, "Didn't know that. But I do know who's done the best rendition of it. The Zombies, with Rod Argent singing and playing electric piano. Dynamite."

Gwen finished the beautiful song and stood up, looking back across the stage to the group. She waited, waited, then slowly walked back to them. Standing, she said, "Who stole the artifacts from the Hermitage?"

The Ps said, "We did."

"And then who stole the artifacts from us?"

"Stirg."

"And then who stole the Stravinsky score from us?"

"Stirg."

"So, it's two to one in thefts. What do y'all think about evening the score?"

Gale had known Gwen for quite a few years, and the Russians had known her for a year, and Selgey and Bart had known her for six months. But all of them were surprised by what she said. Not Roger. He knew her well, and loved her well, and thought she was the hottest woman on the face of the earth, because she did stuff like this. He had an idea of what was coming, and sat back, smiling. God, he loved his Gwenny.

She said, "Well. Do you want to get even with Stirg?"

Once again the Ps looked at each other, and the costumers looked at each other, and Selgey, Bart and Townshend looked at each other. All of them were calculating the odds that this would end in gunfire, death, and destruction. At the same time, they all computed the feeling of satisfaction that would accrue from getting even with Stirg for stealing the score from them, which they had stolen from the Russian people. Their project would be a lot easier if they weren't competing against the Russian production. Well, maybe a little easier.

Gale said, "What do you have in mind?"

"Look. We don't know for sure what Stirg is doing, but I would bet the ranch he is going to hire the Mariinsky company to do his production. That's where he is now, Saint Petersburg, and he's not there for his health." The others waited for the punch line. "So, why don't we steal the dancers? Stealing the dancers from the Mariinsky is stealing them from him."

There was silence for a moment, and then Bart said, "What do you mean? How do you steal people? You mean we hire them away from the Mariinsky. Will that work?"

Helstof spoke up for the first time. "We have lots of money, but so does Stirg. He has as much as us. If we offer to pay the dancers more than they're earning now, he'll raise the ante. And they have permanent jobs there. Ours is temporary. Why would they want to give that up?"

When Gwen glanced at The Whosey, Roger understood where his wife was going with this. He said, "Let's see if I can guess. Helstof is right about the money angle. We have no advantage there over Stirg. Whatever we offer the dancers, he can offer the same. So it has to be something we have that they don't, and that they can't just go out and buy. What is that?" And now he looked at The Whosey. What did he represent? Townshend was in his sixties, but he was an artist, and had been his whole life. And art is all about the new. New things, new ideas, new ways of looking at life. Artists, on the whole, stay young their whole lives. That's not always good for them and the people around them, but for better or worse, it's the way of art. Townshend was a young minded man. Roger went on, "We have something they can't buy and can't produce. We have the future. The future of ballet. We're doing a new style production, and the Mariinsky is old style. Traditional." He paused, then said, "Selgey, how old are the Mariinsky dancers?"

"All the corps dancers are in their twenties. The principles will range from mid-twenties to early thirties. There are a few older principles out there, around the world, like the amazing Anna Ananiashvili, who still is dancing in her mid-forties, but that is rare."

"So they're young, and they're dancing traditional. What we can offer them is to dance for the future, rather than the past. We're doing the music like no one has done it before. We have this man," looking at Townshend, "who is taking Stravinsky's music from 1914 and playing it electronically, through his own interpretation, the way jazz musicians take a structured melody and improvise on it. The Mariinsky managers are not going to do that over there. Am I on the right track with this, Gwen?"

"Yes, that's my thinking. We appeal to that mentality in the Mariinsky dancers. Art for the future. And there's more. We modernize the music, appeal to young dancers, and market to a younger audience. Don't we owe that to our culture? To lead young people to great art?" She looked at the woman. "Can we do that? Can we market to youth, at least part of the production, while keeping the performance standard at the highest level?"

The woman said, "Ballet audiences generally are older. Conservative. All around the world. What you're proposing will be difficult, but not impossible. A lot depends on the style of the music, and the marketing."

Selgey got out of her chair and walked around the stage for a minute. She came back to the group and said, "So we're offering the Mariinsky dancers good pay, and the opportunity to perform in a production with a modern slant on a newly discovered piece of Stravinsky music, that is targeted, at least in part, to a younger audience. An audience of their peers, rather than a traditional audience of older people. Is that enough? What else? Why would they leave the security of the Mariinsky, for that?"

Bart said, looking at Gwen, "It's risky, Gwen. You want to go to all that trouble, just to stick it to Stirg? It may not work. The dancers may not leave and come to us. It's risky."

Gwen said, "So what else is new?"

# Chapter 55 – Naked Costumes

The next morning Gwen divided the team into two parts. She sent Selgey, Bart, the woman, and the Ps into the back office and told them to put together a compensation package to offer the Mariinsky dancers. And they were to figure out how and when to approach the dancers with the package. She told them not to come out of the office until they were done, not even to pee. She sat down at the tables on the stage with Gale, Helstof, Townshend, and Roger to solve one of her pet peeves, how to simulate nakedness on stage without using those pathetic flesh-colored body suits.

Roger said, "You know, just because Matisse painted his picture of the nymphs naked in the woods, dancing around, and Stravinsky said in his notes on the score that the ballet dancers should be naked, doesn't mean we have to follow those leads, literally. We're the producers, and we have room to change things as we need to."

"Yeah," said Gwen, "but if we figure out a way to do naked ballet without vulgarity, we will have contributed to the art form. We have to try."

Gale, having been educated on the subject by Pater a week previously, with his arabesque demonstration, was into it. She said, "It's the guys, right? It's them that are the problem. Not the women. It's them we gotta figure out."

Helstof said, smiling, "Ain't that always the way?"

The Whosey said, "Let's get real. There's no way to do this and meet both criteria: nakedness and the absence of vulgarity. Not in the cards. So we gotta amend one or both criteria. I don't think we can do that with the vulgarity criterion. So it's gotta be the other, we can't do totally naked. So what's the next best thing?" He looked at Gale and Helstof, them having a different perspective on the subject than him and Roger.

Helstof said, "Fig leaf."

Gale said, "That's too much. Not naked enough." Nothing was naked enough for Gale.

"A fig leaf is too much? How can you get less than that and not get totally naked?"

While Gale was pondering, Roger said, "I agree. Now, how do you design a fig leaf costume that is both aesthetically pleasing and fully functional?"

Gale came close to asking another dumb question, but caught herself.

Townshend, harking back to the days he played soccer in East London, said, "You gotta start with a jockstrap, then make it better."

"What's a jockstrap?" asked Helstof, whose English didn't extend to esoteric subjects like that.

"It's like an old style thong for sports guys."

"Oh. Jockstrap? I like the word thong better."

Gale said, "We can do this. Start with a thong, and add the artistry. But less is more, right?"

Roger said, "Don't forget, it's gotta work. Gotta function."

She said, "We need a model."

Roger looked at Townshend, who looked back. Both shook their heads. Roger said, "Bart. Use Bart. He's the bod boy."

Gale, having figured that was the way the decision would go, was pleased, as was Helstof. They weren't fools. Well, Helstof wasn't. They shooed the two guys away from the tables and got down to drawing fig leaves, and discussing how to do the fittings on Bart. Gale said, "You think Selgey's gonna be there when we do the fittings?"

Helstof said, "I think we gotta try a lot of different designs. See which one looks best on him."

Gale concurred.

# Chapter 56 – Gergiev Wonders

Gergiev sat on the stage of the Mariinsky Theater, listening and looking around him. Through the wall at the rear of the stage he could hear the orchestra, tuning up in the rehearsal hall connected to the theater. The conductor and concertmaster had initiated three a week sessions, learning the new music themselves, forming a style, and transmitting it to the ensemble. The music would not be a problem. Overhead, three lighting guys crawled around the gantries like spiders, adjusting canisters at the direction of the stage designer. The lighting and the sets would not be a problem. The Mariinsky had done thousands of great shows, and this would be another one.

Gergiev's problems were the dancers and the choreography. He had great principles and a great corps, but what if some of them left? And who was going to do the choreography? That was the central question. Who could he get to do this work justice? He sipped his cup of green tea and wondered why he was so worried. The American fucks (Stirg's vulgar appellative had rubbed off on him) had Landkirk\Thorley doing their choreography. They were great dancers, but that does not translate to great choreography. They may come up with something good, but nothing that would threaten his production. He could use his staff choreographers, who were world class. Why was he thinking of going outside his organization for this? Who out there in the world was better than what he had now?

Whoever he decided on, the choreography would be fine. How could anyone go wrong with the stories Stravinsky had come up with in his notes on the score; the four acts based on paintings by Van Gogh, Cezanne, Matisse, and the great master, Picasso? What an idea! What a foundation for a ballet. Tremendous. Even he could choreograph those stories. But he knew he had to make his choice soon, so the person could learn the music, create the dances, and teach them to the dancers. Which brought him back to the dancers. Where did their loyalties lie? With him? With their country (almost all were native Russians, that being the way of the Mariinsky for two hundred years)? With Stravinsky? Or with something, or things, elsewhere? He couldn't pin down the answers to these questions, and thus his mental state of concern.

On the other hand he luxuriated in what he didn't have to worry about, and that was money. Not that the Mariinsky wasn't well funded by the government, but never before had he been handed a blank check, the way Stirg had done. That was eminently comforting. He had set his staff to working up a budget for the production, telling them the sky was the limit. He also told them to find ways to spend the first million dollars, so he had good reason to ask for the second. And the third. How much could he afford to pay the dancers? How much was it good to pay the dancers. He didn't want to spoil them, right? Pouring another cup of tea, his thoughts turned to another interesting question: how much was he going to pay himself? How much was it good to pay himself? The tea tasted sweet, and he'd not added any sugar to it.

His thoughts of what is would be like to purr in a Jaguar XK along the shoreline drive of the Neva River were interrupted by the faint sound of giggles coming from the basement below the stage. Which brought him back to the problem of the dancers. The damnably fickle minded, artistically inspired, temperamental dancers. He didn't trust them, even though the stringent Mariinsky selection process included assessments of their sense of patriotism and loyalty to the state. Dancer's political flaccidity of mind was notorious and omnipresent. All that went to wayward when art beckoned. Knowing he would return later to his playful vision of himself behind the wheel of the Jag, he got up and went down one of the dark stairways to the basement, where the giggles got louder. He stopped outside the doorway to one of the large women's dressing rooms, and listened.

It was Irina Pavlova talking, one of the six female principles of the Mariinsky, and the oldest at age thirty-one. She was the grandmother of the troupe. "When I was fifteen my class went to London, and we saw the Royal do Swan Lake, with Selgey Kirkland and Bartholomew Thorley having the leads." Gergiev's ears pricked up. Why was Pavlova talking about them, now? Why? "They were amazing. I remember seeing him throw her up with just one arm, and catch her with the other. Just one arm. She practically hit her head on one of the light canisters up on the gantry, he threw her so high. She looked weightless at the zenith, and when he caught her, I saw her smile at him, kind of dreamily. I'll never forget that. I wonder what their choreography will be like. I'd love to see that performance."

Gergiev grimaced, and entered the room clapping his hands, rousting the dancers out of their gossip session and into a practice session. He didn't have the choreography yet, but he was keeping them sharp. He would have a talk with Pavlova later; remind her she was a role model for the others.

Upstairs, Stirg and Nev entered the theater through the employee entrance, the security guard knowing them, wondering exactly who these VIPs were, who now came in every day, and seemed to have access to everyone and everywhere. He wished he had access to the ballerina's dressing rooms. Stirg said, "Where is he?" When the guard pointed downwards, Nev rejoiced. He had decided he would rather spend an hour in the ballerina's dressing rooms than an eternity in Allah's heaven, populated with all those virgins. The first time Gergiev had taken him and Stirg into the basement, they had blanched at seeing thirty, hard in all the right spots, soft in all the right spots, female dancers in various stages of undress. This reaction didn't occur to Gergiev, given his history and the traditional attitude of nonchalance that was standard in stage dressing rooms around the world. Nev had looked around, hoping he would see a defibrillator hanging on a wall, in case his boss had an infarction.

Now they were old hands around the babes, Nev chatting it up with a few of them while Stirg gave Gergiev shit for not yet having a choreographer, not yet have the costumes designed, not yet having sold all the tickets. The women tolerated Stirg because they knew he was their meal ticket; or at least responsible for the bonus Gergiev had promised them for the production.

Stirg still felt a little awkward, not really knowing if he should call them girls, women, babes, or what. You would have thought he would have figured this out by now, having made so many mistakes with his granddaughter, Anna. But then, propriety was not high on the list of personal traits he had cultivated during his Nazi hunting years. He said, "My dears, are all of you happy? Do you love the Stravinsky music? Are you going to dance your best in this show, for your country?"

Some of them rolled their eyes at the "my dears" thing, but some of them found Stirg to be on the grandfatherly side, not knowing about his still living and breathing propensity for coveting young women in the carnal way. Pavlova, not having gotten where she is today based on shyness or a lack of confidence, said, "Mr. Stirg, what about the American production. How can both be the world premiere? Are we going to be the first? Why are they both happening at the same time?"

Gergiev cringed. Damned big mouth. Great dancer, but really big mouth. Damned artists. Nev, on the other hand, liked her, in all the ways possible. He wondered what his boss would say.

Stirg became less grandfatherly and more like a Nazi hunter. He looked right at Pavlova and said, "There is going to be only one world premiere, and it's going to be here. Where it should be. The American fucks are trying to steal our heritage, our culture, and I'm not going to let that happen. You're not going to let that happen. Are you? Any of you?"

Each woman in the room asked themselves the same question: Am I?

# Chapter 57 – The American Production Advances

Back at The Hall, Gwen stood on the stage next to one of the white boards, drawing horizontal bar graphs that showed the production schedule. She and the woman had figured it out that morning, to some consternation. Now she was trying to transfer that consternation to the rest of the team, so they would get off their asses and produce. Roger and The Whosey were particularly distracted, sitting next to each other and wondering when, where, and how Gale and Helstof were going to do their costume fitting of the fig leaf on big Bart, the guy who could throw women up in the air with one arm, them achieving a suborbital state of weightlessness at the zenith of the trajectory. Big Bart, thong and fig leaf. Roger and The Whosey really wanted to know.

Gwen threw an eraser at Roger but hit The Whosey instead, which was ok. She could see something juvenile was up with the two of them. She slapped her hand against the board, and said, "Look here, everyone, at the schedule which says opening night is forty-five days away. You realize that? Six weeks, and it's showtime. Where do we stand? I want a report from everyone."

The Whosey started, saying, "The transcription is done. I finished two days ago, and have draft parts for all the instruments, for the entire score, in the computer. You can listen to the whole thing anytime now, though some of it is rough. I'll work on refining the orchestrations over the next couple of weeks. It's a beautiful piece of music, and I'm having fun working through it and putting my own stamp on it. There are some very jazzy parts, as I'm sure you've heard. When it's all done, when I get to do it live during the performances, it's going to be great. It's going to blow poor Paul's composition away. I almost feel sorry for him."

Gwen walked over to him and gave him a kiss on the mouth, which made him blush, him a guy who's made it with, umm, more than just a few girls, in his time. She looked at Selgey and Bart.

"The dance is almost done, too. We've been keeping up with his transcription, just lagging behind by a week or so. We are well into Picasso and the story of the workers in the factory. Our stuff is a little rough, and we will refine it over the next week or so, just like him. I love the choreography, if I do say so myself. I would love to dance it, and I think the dancers will, too. What do you say?" looking at her husband.

Bart said, "I'd be happy to dance to this music and this choreography any day. Townshend's stuff is great, unbelievably dynamic. He's gotten the story lines, and he's gotten Stravinsky, and he made it his own. We'll be ready, Gwen, we'll be ready."

She looked at the woman, who said all the incidental stuff, the tickets, and insurance, and publicity, and ancillary special events, the Mayor, and all that stuff was right on schedule. The nuts and bolts of the production were in good shape. So Gwen asked Helstof, "Are the costumes done?"

"They're done, mostly. We kept everything simple, because we're not experts at this. But we like them, and Selgey and Bart like them, and they will be fine. We're ready to fabricate them as soon as we have the bodies around here to size them to."

"Sounds good, except the 'mostly done' part. What part isn't done?"

"Well, the naked costume part. The part you want because you hate the flesh colored body suit thing. We haven't finished that, yet."

Gwen looked at Gale. "Well?"

"Well, we have some fig leaf designs done."

"Well?"

"Well, we have to try them out."

"Well?"

"We need Bart."

"So?"

"So, we haven't asked him yet. Understand?"

Selgey looked at Gale.

Gwen thought, Jesus, Gale the mouthy fashionista can be such a wimp. She looked at Selgey, said, "They need Bart to try on the fig leaves, the different ones, see if they work or not."

Selgey looked at Bart, said, "This oughta be interesting."

"Whatever," he said, and stood up. "Where are they?"

Helstof went over to the table and opened a small box from which she took five small pieces of silk fabric. She brought them back to the circle of chairs and handed them to Bart. They were thongs with, well, fig leaves. Different colors, different shapes, all sewn onto the thong pouch. Quite attractive in their own right, in the hand, so to speak, not really in situ, as yet.

He looked at them, looked at Gale, looked at Helstof, looked at his wife, looked at the four guys sitting in the chairs. He was happy Henric was out on his boat, and not sitting there looking at him. Finally he looked at Gwen, who motioned him on, a slight grin on her face.

With that he started to take off his shirt, but Selgey stood up, went to him, and took the bundle of costumes in her hands. One after another, she held them up for inspection. She looked at Gale, Helstof, and Gwen, saying, "Not gonna work."

Gwen said, "How do you know without even trying?"

"Simple. Not big enough."

Gale jumped up, went to her, took one of the items and held it up. "Not BIG enough? This? You could take it to the local farmers market on Saturday morning, and use it to carry home all the groceries."

Helstof said, "I told you so. What have you been looking at the last four months, during all those rehearsals?"

Bart stood calmly and at ease during this discussion. The topic had come up before, as it often did in his line of work, even if usually it was done a bit surreptitiously. Gwen stood up, seeing it was time to move on. She said, "Ok, just fix them, then we'll try this again."

Gale looked at Helstof, said, "Do we have enough material?"

# Chapter 58 – Strategy for Stealing the Dancers

The team members stood up in the circle of chairs, thinking the meeting was over, when Gwen said, "Not so fast. Sit down. We have another issue to resolve, a more important issue. I told you all not to come out of the office until you figured out how to steal the Mariinsky dancers. Since you're out of the office, I assume you've completed the task." She looked at the woman.

The woman truly had enjoyed the previous meeting task, right up to the moment when Selgey stopped Bart from trying on the costumes, when her enjoyment turned to disappointment. Now her disappointment turned to apprehension. Oh, yeah, steal the Russian dancers. Right. The last thing she'd stolen was a stem with four grapes on it from the produce section of Whole Foods, and that was six years ago. She thought Gwen was using the word steal figuratively, but sometimes, at night, she wasn't sure. Gwen was not like other women.

She rallied and said, "It all comes down to money, really. To job security. We can appeal to their sense of art, community, the future of ballet, which is what we talked about before. Targeting younger people for our audience rather than the usual older and more conservative aficionados. But we decided that, alone, was not going to work. Being a dancer is to live in an insecure world. Most dancers that make it to the professional level have short careers. Ten years. Then someone younger comes along and takes that slot. Someone willing to abuse themselves more, physically and mentally. So, when a dancer gets a slot at a place like the Mariinsky, they try to stay there for as long as they can. They want the work and they need the paycheck." She looked at the Ps, Selgey, and Bart for confirmation, which she got.

"So, we have to do something with money. If you really want to try to stick it to Stirg with this, and get some of the Mariinskyites to do our production, rather than their production, it means big money. And that may not be enough, because their side has big money, too."

Pater said, "We have one thing in our favor. We talked about job security for them if they defect, and what that means. It means guaranteeing them an income for some period of time, say three or four years, after our production. Either we just pay them a pension, and let them leave after our show, or we start a new company, for real, and they are the entire corps. For that option, we're talking millions, per year, for so many years. Are we ready to commit to that? Is Helstof and Henric ready to commit to that?"

Peter took over the explanation. "The advantage we have is that if Stirg tried to offer them the same thing, but more, he would face the Russian political machine that runs the whole cultural system over there. Those people would not just let the dancers sit there at the Mariinsky, earning big salaries, even if Stirg is paying them. That would mess up the whole machine they have in place. We don't face that here. We can pay them off with a pension, or start the new company. If we pay them off, they can go look for dancing jobs with other companies, and live off the pension; have their cake and eat it too. That wouldn't happen over there, and that's our advantage. And appealing to their sense of performing for a younger generation."

The woman felt relief at this explanation, which had been hanging over her head. These were the best options they could come up with: pension off the dancers for three or four years, or start a new company. She smiled at the four dancers.

Gwen looked around at the others, and waited for comments. After a minute of silence, it was obvious no one objected, or had a better idea. She nodded, and then stared at the floor for another minute. When she looked up, she said, "Well, there is one other way. We could kidnap them."

# Chapter 59 – The Double Agent

A year earlier, when the Junes had been approached by a Russian gangster with a proposal to steal Grade C artifacts from the warehouses of the Hermitage Museum, and despite their adventurous natures, they had been dubious, to say the least. It had taken a master salesman to convince them it could be done, and would provide them with both psychological and financial benefits. In other words, would nourish both their spirits and their pocketbooks. They had decided to plunge into the caper, and they had pulled it off. Even with that accomplishment on their resume, Roger was shocked at his wife's idea. Kidnap the entire Mariinsky ballet corps, and bring it to Charleston to perform. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Most husbands, at this point, would ask their wives, umm, how, exactly, are you going to do that? Roger knew better. He knew his wife had a plan. And, he knew Gale, the mouth, would do the asking for him.

Gale said, "Kidnap the Russian dancers? Kidnap them, as in throw a coat over their heads and push them into the back seat of a car and drive off with squealing tires? How are we going to do that?"

Gwen waited to see if anyone else wanted to add their indignation or dubiety to Gale's indignation and dubiety. They knew better, and kept neutral looks on their faces. She said, "We're not going to kidnap them; someone else will do that for us. We just have to be ready to receive them here, and get them into dance mode. Our dance mode, with our music and choreography. That will be challenge enough. The kidnapping will be done by others."

Roger cast his mind back over the last week or so, examining the behavior of his wife. Had she acted differently than normal? No. Had she taken an inordinate number of long walks on the beach, deep in thought? No. Had she spent hours alone in the study, talking to unknown people on the telephone, or exchanging dozens of encrypted emails with strange correspondents? No. So where and when had she cooked up this wild idea? While drinking her orange juice and coffee every morning in the kitchen, with him sitting across the breakfast table?

Gale ratcheted back her naturally aggressive tone, and asked, "Care to share?"

"Who is the most famous male ballet dancer in the world?" Gwen said. Then looking at Bart, "Not necessarily the best, but the most famous?"

Bart said, "Baryshnikov, of course."

Gwen nodded, and said, "Well, he is going to kidnap the dancers for us."

Pater and Peter were so startled that instinctively and simultaneously they arose from their chairs. "What?"

Selgey and Bart looked at each other. Helstof looked at Gale, who kept staring at Gwen. Roger looked at the floor, and smiled. God, he loved his wife.

Gwen sat down, which prompted the Ps to sit down. In a calm and confident voice she described her plan. "Do you know how old Baryshnikov is? Sixty-four. Who else do we know that is about that age, who has been involved in our project?"

Roger said, "Catherine."

"Yes. Catherine Deneuve, the most famous actress in the world." Now she looked at The Whosey, who had remained quiet, listening. "You aren't the only one who had a fling with Catherine, years ago." She smiled at him, then looked at the rest of the group. "She and Baryshnikov also had a special friendship. For over a year. And neither of them has forgotten that, take my word for it." She let it settle in.

Roger waited a moment, said, "What's the plan, Gwenny?"

She got a look on her face the others had come to know; a look that portended wild things to come. She said, "Catherine already has contacted Baryshnikov. They had a face to face meeting, in Paris." She let that sink in. "He is going to go to the Mariinsky, tell them he knows about our production here, he knows about Stirg's production in Saint Petersburg, and wants to offer his services to them as choreographer. He's going to join their team. There is no way in the world they will turn him down, and it will be a huge coup for them. He hasn't been back to Russia in twenty years." She paused. "Then, when the time is right, he will get the dancers on a plane to Paris, for a short visit. He and Catherine have a plan I think will work. He will tell the Mariinsky management, and Stirg, that the Paris trip is part of his research for the choreography, that the whole troupe has to go. "He told Catherine he's sure he can convince them it's necessary. Only, the dancers won't go to Paris, they will end up in Charleston, where they will perform for us. Stirg will be high and dry in Saint Petersburg."

Roger, looking around at the circle of chairs, saw several open mouths, including that of The Whosey. He wasn't sure if this was from hearing Gwen's audacious plan, or from hearing that he wasn't the only one who had slept with Catherine Deneuve back in the good old days. In any case, the others all were quiet, even Gale, absorbing the implications of what they just had heard. Roger, more used to this sort of thing coming from Gwen, was past it quickly, and into the details of the caper. He said, "Baryshnikov, the double agent."

# Chapter 60 – Stirg's Choreographer

The phone rang in Gergiev's office. He picked it up, and on the other end was one of the three politicos from the Saint Petersburg Ministry of Cultural Affairs that had been in the meeting along with the three lawyers. It was the guy who had picked up one of the cashier's checks for a million dollars, made out to cash. Gergiev had hoped he never would see or hear from any of those six again.

"We've had an interesting phone call at the Ministry this morning," the voice said. "It was from someone you know. Someone you knew in the past. Twenty years ago." Gergiev waited to hear if this was good news or bad news. "The call was from Mikhail. Mikhail B."

Ah shit! Baryshnikov, that little defecting fuck. He had been allowed back into Russia once or twice since defecting in 1974, the last time in the early 90s. Gergiev had seen him then, and had run into him one or two other times when the Mariinsky was on tour out of the country. Other than that, Baryshnikov had gone about his traitorous businesses in New York and around the world: the White Oak joke, the other acting crap, the modern dance bullshit. And now, he was calling home.

"What's the little shit want?"

The politico thought he would have some fun with Gergiev, and said, "Well, actually, he wants your job. Wants to come home and manage the Mariinsky. Says he's homesick and wants to make amends for going away so long ago." He waited for Gergiev say something intelligible, but all he heard was a gurgling noise. "We've been talking it over here at the office and, quite frankly, there's some support for it. Getting him back in the fold would do a few people around here some good." More gurgling. Not wanting to be responsible for Gergiev jumping out a window and landing in the middle of Theater Square, he said, "Listen, are you there? Bit of a joke, that last part. Easy does it. But he did call, and he does want to come back to work. Says he knows of the American Stravinsky production, and knows about our production. Says the discovery of the ballet score is incredible, and thinks the production should be here, not there. He's offered to do the choreography. For you. Working for you. You'd still be the boss."

Gergiev managed to grunt on his way back to being able to converse normally again. "What did he say?"

"Just that. Truthfully, just wants to offer his services as choreographer. And, joking aside, there is a lot of support here at the Ministry for that. I've been instructed, from the top, to ask you to give the proposition your most serious consideration. Understand?"

Gergiev understood. "Where is the little fuck, and when's he coming?"

"He's in Paris. Arriving here tonight about 10pm."

"Tonight? And what if I refuse his proposition?"

"My friend, for every plane that flies into Saint Petersburg, there is one that flies out. The Aeroflot plane that's bringing him from Paris continues on from here to Vladivostok. If you refuse the proposition, you will be on it. Baggage class."

He could have guessed.

# Chapter 61 – The Fitting

Motivated as they were by the prospect of the fitting, it didn't take Helstof and Gale long to modify the costumes. They took what now was a slightly larger box of thongs to Selgey to check, not wanting to have to redo them again. They wanted to get on with the fitting itself. Selgey took the six different pieces out of the box, held them up one by one, smiled at the designs, and said, "These oughta work. Nice job."

Gale practically ran to Gwen in the office, saying, "We're ready. We're ready."

She said, "Jesus, Gale. It's not like he's Adonis. What do you think you're going to see?"

"He may not be Adonis in the flesh, but this is the closest I'm likely to get to the next best thing. Where is he?"

"Selgey," Gwen yelled out into the theater. "Your boy is wanted for his fitting."

She waved ok, and took hold of Bart's arm. The Whosey stopped blasting a refrain from the second act, all trumpets and flutes. Helstof and the Ps got up from the theater seats from which they had been watching Selgey and Bart practice an interlude movement, up and down an aisle. The circle of chairs formed in the center of the stage, the box of costumes sitting on the floor. Gwen looked at what may have been a small puddle of saliva on the floor in front of Gale, but she couldn't be sure. Jesus.

Selgey said, "Ok, big boy. Let's see some modeling. You're on."

Pater jumped up, said, "God, wait a minute. If this happens without the woman here, none of us ever will see a paycheck." He ran to the back office and got her.

She sat down, and carefully put on her glasses. Now Roger thought he saw a drip drop from Gale's mouth to the floor. He couldn't be sure. Jesus.

Bart didn't mess around. His sweats were off in a blink, and his jockstrap followed. As he bent down to pick up the first costume from the small box on the floor, he actually did look like the sculpture of Adonis in the southeast hallway of the Louvre, the Roman piece restored in 1799 by Francois Duquesnoy, and formerly in the collection of Cardinal Mazarin. He stood staring at the item, this one designed to look like the wings of an eagle. Dubiously he looked at the sharply projecting wing points, but when they proved to be soft and pliable, he put it on. Helstof said, "Gale wanted to make this one look like the talons of an eagle, gripping talons, if you know what I mean, but I vetoed that, and we ended up with wings."

What surprised everyone was the remainder of the costume, the part that ascended above the wings, wrapped around his waist, and then descended, er, to connect again to the, er, rear of the wings. This was almost invisible. The woman said, "How did you do that. It's almost invisible. What's it made of?"

Helstof said, "It's Kevlar, the fabric material they make bulletproof vests out of. Gale wanted to use fishing line, but I thought, Jesus, no. Kevlar can be manufactured in very thin strings, but it's super strong, and soft and pliable at the same time."

In an undertone, Gale said to Gwen, "In his case, it better be strong. Real strong."

Bart said, "Feels good. I can hardly feel it at all. How's it look?"

"Nice. Really nice. Good job, girls," said Selgey.

"Heavy," said the woman. "Looks very heavy. But nice."

The Whosey said, "You're going to wear that, on stage, in public? Just that? Are you crazy?"

Gale jumped up, defensively. "What's wrong with it? It's beautiful. And it meets the criteria we set. Aesthetic, not vulgar, and he looks naked. Almost. And not fake naked, like those flesh colored body suits." Still defensive, she went to Bart, taking hold of the wings, she moved them around, vigorously, saying, "And functional. See. That was a criterion. Aesthetic, naked looking, and functional." Defiantly, she looked around the circle for confirmation.

Bart said, "Ah, Gale, would you mind, ah...."

Looking first at his face, then down, she said, "Oh, shit. Sorry."

Roger thought the only sorrow she felt was having to let go.

She sat down, and Bart proceeded to try on the other five pieces. There was one designed like a miniature golden fleece, a small American flag, an actual ruby red fig leaf, a twirling comet, and lastly, a reproduction of the Mona Lisa's smile. Gwen smiled at all of them, but said, "Gale, lose the flag one. What were you thinking?" She looked around the circle. "Well, what do you think? Do they work?"

The woman clapped loudly. "Bravo. Bravo. Fantastico." She liked them.

Roger did too, saying, "Good job. Just right. He looks almost naked."

The Ps, together, asked, "Are there any for us? Can we try some on, even though we aren't actually dancing? We can use them for practice."

Townshend sat looking at Bart wearing the Mona Lisa's smile costume. Finally he said, "You're going to wear that, on stage, in public? Just that? Are you crazy?" Apparently he had turned a bit conservative in his old age.

Selgey said, "Dear, you sure it's functional? FULLY functional? Protective? Comfortable? Secure? I don't want anything to happen to...."

# Chapter 62 – Russian Ballet

Baryshnikov stood on the stage of the Mariinsky Theater for the first time in thirty years. The few times he had been back in Russia since his defection were for international charity events, the only condition under which The Ministry of Cultural Affairs would permit his presence in the country. Looking up into the lights he could think of nothing and no one other than Markova. He had paired with her when he was sixteen and she was fifty-two, the last year she danced. He remembered the way she felt in his arms, like electricity. He had wanted her so badly, and in so many ways. For just a minute she was with him again, on the Mariinsky stage.

He luxuriated in the memories and the feelings of the place. Home. Two hundred year old wood under his feet, polished by the feet of thousands of dancers during thousands of performances. The great Mariinsky stage. Behind him he sensed the mass of the musicians gathered in the adjacent rehearsal hall, waiting to come in for the meeting. Then he sensed the dancers, also waiting in the rooms below the stage. Gergiev had called for the first meeting of the entire production staff to introduce the choreographer, and now it was time. Despite a sense of personal animosity, out of professional respect, Gergiev had given The B a few minutes alone on the stage. But now he entered from stage left, motioning to the head flunkies to bring in the musicians, dancers, lighting crew, costumers, and minor flunkies.

Sixty-seven musicians, forty-eight dancers, twelve lighters, seven costumers, and about a hundred flunkies poured onto the stage from the rear, down the steps at either side, and out into the theater. When they were seated and quiet, Baryshnikov spoke. "It's good to be home." Gergiev bit his lip. "And I am not the only one who feels that way. So does Stravinsky, the great maestro. He is back with us now, and will see the light of day again in a few weeks, when we dance the lost ballet." Hearing Baryshnikov invoke himself in the same breath as Stravinsky caused Gergiev to, momentarily, swallow his tongue. His autonomic reflex reaction produced a sharp cough that blew it back into its proper position. "This will be one of the greatest productions in the history of Russian dance, and you will make it. We will make it, for our cultural heritage." The tongue started slipping again, falling backwards into Gergiev's larynx. "Stravinsky's stories are wonderful, about the four painting and the people that inhabit those paintings. Van Gogh, Cezanne, Matisse, and Picasso, in four acts. And his music that expresses the stories is wonderful, too, a combination of classical and revolutionary. Now, it is my job, my privilege, to make the choreography that will meld the stories and the music into movement for bodies on the stage. This stage, the greatest stage for dance in the world." Gergiev noticed The B was standing on one of the many small trap doors set in the stage, and used occasionally for special effects, such as disappearing actors. He wished he was just below that trap door, willing and able to release the latch.

Baryshnikov changed his tone from inspirational to pragmatic. "I have some of the basic choreographic concepts worked out now for the four acts, and beginning today we will explore them together. But there is something missing, something I cannot create solely out of thin air, or just from the storyline and music. For me to make the choreography, and for you to make your movements, we must go to the source. We must go to Stravinsky's source, to the place of his inspiration, and that is France. That is where the four painters worked, and where they produced the paintings from which Stravinsky created his music. We, too, must go there, and experience the culture we will display here, on this stage." He didn't bother looking over at Gergiev because he didn't want to see the steam coming out of his ears, or see his head blow off his shoulders and land on one of the lighting gantries sixty feet above the stage. He knew he held most of the cards, and would get his way. "So, one week from today, we go to Paris. All the dancers. For two days. We will see places, and art works, and people associated with the four painters who so impressed Stravinsky that he wrote a great score for what will become the world's greatest ballet."

# Chapter 63 – How to Make it Happen

It had been several weeks since Henric the moneyman had been to The Hall. It wasn't that he wasn't interested in the dance project; it's just that it has to compete against his now almost fanatical interest in sailing. A month ago the Vendee Around the World Sailboat Race had ended in Charleston, and he had gotten himself invited to the culmination party at the Charleston Yacht Club, where he met the winner and the five others who completed the event. When he first had bought himself a boat and learned to sail, his ambition was to take his wife and his Charleston friends on a trip over to St. Barths. He still wanted to do that, but now, after meeting the around the worlders, he, of course, wanted to sail around the world. Not alone, as those brave souls had done, but with a fully qualified crew. So he had two major things going on in his life, and recently, the sailing thing was on top.

Helstof had dragged him down to The Hall early, and now he sat with the others. Helstof had kept him up to date on the progress of the project, including a very funny description of Bart's now infamous naked costume fitting. The first thing Henric did upon arriving at The Hall was to demand to see the briefs. That was how he referred to them, as briefs. In his view they hardly could be described as costumes. When Gale handed him the box, and he pulled out the twirling comet one, he turned to Bart and said, "You're going to wear that, on stage, in public? Just that? Are you crazy?"

Bart said, "I'm not going to wear that, because I'm not one of the dancers. I'm one of the choreographers. But, yes, the dancers are going to wear these, and it's going to be wild. And if I was one of the dancers, I would wear it. It feels good. Feels nice. Very free." Helstof took the box away from Henric before he could see the others, fearing he might wonder if his money was being well spent. Especially right now, since the purpose of tearing him away from his stupid boat and getting him down to The Hall was to ask him to do something unusual.

Gwen stood up and walked around the circle, delicately composing the request to him. She said, "During the Hermitage heist you did some amazing things. You got the trucks into the compound, and out. You arranged for the goods to be put into containers, and for the containers to end up in Charleston. You smuggled the Ps out of the country, and got Roger safely out of the compound and onto the plane with me."

Listening to this, the Ps had to fight their inclination to add to Gwen's recitation the fact that Henric had smuggled them out of Russia by encasing them in one of the giant shipping containers, along with a bunch of chairs and clocks and rugs from the Hermitage warehouses. They spent eight long days in the container before arriving in their new home of Charleston, South Carolina. Gwen sensed their emotion and shot them a warning look....shut up.

She said, "Now we need you to do something amazing for this project." He waited calmly for the request. He liked Gwenny June. "We're going to stick it to Stirg. His production is in full swing in Saint Petersburg. He stole the Hermitage goods from us, and he stole the Stravinsky score from us. Now we're going to steal something from him." Henric leaned forward in his chair, intent on Gwen's next sentence. "We're going to steal his dancers from him. The Mariinsky dancers, all of them. Bring them here and have them dance for us. For the American production of the ballet. And we need your help."

During his heyday as one of Russia's most powerful businessmen, Henric had been involved in lots of shady deals. Helping the Junes steal the Hermitage stuff was just one in a fat portfolio of highly lucrative ventures he had participated in over a long and illustrious career. But never had he kidnapped anyone. Thinking back on it, that was a glaring hole in his otherwise sterling resume. It looked now like he could remedy that flaw, and in spades. He wasn't going to kidnap just one person, the way a lot of Russian gangsters did; Gwen and his wife, who sat next to him, were asking him to kidnap an entire Russian dance troupe. This was worth being dragged off the sailboat for.

He gestured to Gwen with his hands: keep talking. "Catherine got Mikhail Baryshnikov to join Stirg's team in Saint Petersburg, as choreographer. The Mariinsky couldn't refuse his offer. But, he's working for us. The plan is for him to insist that the dancers go to Paris for a couple of days as part of their training for his choreography. They do some stuff there, then go back to Saint Petersburg. But that's not what's going to happen. Not if you can do an amazing thing." Helstof put her hand on his arm, and squeezed, her signal that this was something he had to do. Gwen said, "The dancers will think they're getting on a plane for the two hour flight to Paris. But it won't go there; it will come here."

Henric blinked his eyes and looked at his wife. Jesus. A mass kidnapping of Russian ballet dancers. Holy shit. He said, "What's going to happen when the plane lands here? From what I understand, there are more than just a few national security forces that frown on large airplanes entering their airspace without predetermined and approved flight plans. I have an idea of the reaction of the United States Air Force to noticing a plane bound from Russia to Paris suddenly deviating from its course and making a beeline for the east coast. And who, besides the dancers, are going to be on the plane? Any Ministry of Cultural Affairs security officers? They have them, you know."

The rest of the team listened intently, because all of Henric's questions had occurred to them, of course. Gwen said, "We didn't say it was going to be easy, but we think you can do it. Look, the flight plan of the plane will be Saint Petersburg to Charleston. The pilots will know that, and the Saint Petersburg airport will know that. The flight plan will be filed with the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority, all legit. But the dancers and the others from the Mariinsky WON'T know that. They will think they're going to Paris. That's part of your job, making all those plane arrangements, including renting the plane and setting it up as a legitimate charter flight."

The woman, the bean counter, said, "And paying for it."

Henric looked at her, then at Gwen, then at his wife, then at the other team members. He processed the scam. After a few moments he said, "Ok, so let's say I can set all that up, without someone from the Mariinsky or the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, or someone from some Russian security agency smelling a rat. Let's say we get all these people on the plane and on their way here. What happens when the plan lands? What are we going to do with fifty kidnapped people in leotards and tutus? You going to keep them at your house?" looking at Gwen and Roger.

Gwen said, "We haven't quite figured that out yet, but we have some ideas, and Baryshnikov is working on them. We send stuff to Catherine in Paris, and she has a way to send it to him. She keeps him in line."

"Ideas, such as....?"

"Three ideas, or a combination of them. First, almost all the dancers are under thirty. They're young. And the Mariinsky organization and audience is older, traditionalist, and conservative. We can appeal to their sense of modernity, art, community, and the future of ballet, which is what we talked about before. We tell them we are targeting younger people for our audience rather than the usual older and more conservative aficionados. Second idea is we offer them some job security, and pension them off for three years. They can do what they want, find jobs anywhere they can, and still have a good salary. That's more than some of them would get at the Mariinsky." Gwen stood looking at Henric.

"And the third idea?"

"The third idea came from Helstof. She's been involved in every aspect of it." She looked at Helstof, who nodded and smiled. "Her idea is to start a company. For real. Full blast, full production ballet company, using as many of the Mariinsky dancers as want to sign on. Commit to five years. Maybe here in Charleston, maybe somewhere else. But the Russian dancers would form the core of the new troupe."

Henric looked at his wife, who said, "We spend part of our time sailing, and part doing this. That's the idea. We can stay here and do it, or move wherever you want. Sailing and ballet, for five years. Adventure and art. What do you think?"

"Who's going to take care of the dog while we're sailing around the world?"

The Ps raised their hands at the same time, with Pater saying, "As long as we're in your troupe. We'll mind the dog and the dancers while you're off dodging giant waves in the South Pacific."

He looked at Selgey, Bart, The Whosey, and the woman, all of whom remained noncommittal. He shrugged, looked back at his wife, and said, "Can we afford it?"

"As long as you don't blow it all playing cards in Monaco, or on that Brazilian woman."

"Deal."

"Ok, then," said Gwen. "We tell Catherine to tell Baryshnikov he has his choice of all three ways to convince the dancers not to call the cops, the FBI, the Russian Embassy, and the Dept of Homeland Security, the minute they land in Charleston. And we hope he is a very persuasive guy. Otherwise, we're screwed." She paused. "Anyone wants to back out, it's the right time. No hard feelings." She looked around.

Under their breaths, every one of them said, "Jesus, Mary and Joseph."

# Chapter 64 – Opening Night Looms Closer

Baryshnikov spent the week leading up to the Paris trip doing three things: enjoying his return to Saint Petersburg and the Russian ballet stage, learning the beauty of the Stravinsky music and playing with some choreography for it, and pissing Gergiev off as many times a day as possible. He knew that opening night for both productions was one month after the Paris trip. Well, what everyone else at the Mariinsky was thinking of as the Paris trip. Baryshnikov, of course, was thinking of it as his entry into the dark world of international kidnapping. No one other than Catherine Deneuve could have gotten him involved in this craziness. But for her....

Two days after Baryshnikov told the dancers they were going to Paris, Gergiev came to him and said, "You know how much this is going to cost the company? Flying forty-five people to Paris and back? A lot, that's how much." Gergiev had neglected to tell Baryshnikov that the company had a sugar daddy in the form of Stirg and his deep pockets. He was trying anything he could to get back at The B for pissing him off all the time. It was a guilt trip thing.

Baryshnikov had been waiting for this, and said, "Listen, I understand about the money. It's not fair of me to spring this on you, but it has to be done. We have to go to Paris. And to make it more fair, I will fund the trip. The plane part of the trip, if Mariinsky picks up the hotel and everything else. I know someone who will do a charter for us. How's that?"

Gergiev thought it was good, because that would be one less hit on Stirg's cashier's checks, which at some point Gergiev had to get around to hitting for himself. His retirement fund, so to speak. The B sent word to Catherine that Gergiev had taken the bait. The Saint Petersburg to Paris charter was on.

While The B was doing this, Henric abandoned his boat for a few days (actually, Helstof forbade him from going on it) and worked on the plane logistics. This reminded him of a year earlier when he had set up the logistics for smuggling the hoard of artifacts stolen from the Hermitage out of the country in shipping containers, which coincidentally also contained half the heist team. That was a challenge then, and this would be a challenge now. Quickly he realized Gwen's idea of having the flight plan be Saint Petersburg to Charleston just wouldn't work. The Russian aviation authority would want to know details about such a charter flight, like who was on it and what its purpose was. He had some thinking to do, so he called his big dog and hit the beach. The local kids screamed with delight when they saw the horse lopping down the sandy runway. Two hours later Henric had it figured out, and returned to the house. He had decided not to figure out how much it was going to cost him, which had become his method for this whole ballet thing. He didn't want to know, and just didn't ask. When the credit card statements arrived in the mail, they went into the desk drawer unopened. The desk still had the hole in its side because Henric and Helstof had decided not to have it repaired; they wanted the hole as a memento of the discovery of the lost ballet.

When he returned to the house he sat down with his wife and went over the new plan with her. Then they called Roger and Gwen and asked them to come over to the house. Sitting on the fourth floor ocean side porch, the borzoi at his feet, Henric explained the revised plan to the Junes. "We're going to get to see Catherine again. Soon. She's coming to Charleston in a few days."

Gwen perked up, very excited. She and Catherine were close buds. "Are you flying her over in the Gulfstream? And why? Why's she coming?"

Helstof said, "Gulfstream's too small. She's not coming alone. She's bringing twenty-five of her closest friends. So we need a bigger plane."

Henric said, "I've chartered a special 737 with long-range modifications so it can go intercontinental. Only holds about fifty people, so it's very comfortable, better than first class. It's bringing them from Paris to Charleston. We need you to act as host to them for a couple days. Show them the town."

"Why? How do they fit in to the problem of getting the dancers here?"

"Same plane is going to fly them from Charleston to Saint Petersburg for another couple of days on the town there. As far as the authorities know, this is just a bunch of wealthy jet setters. Such people do exist, I understand."

Roger saw Henric's plan. No details, but he understood the basics, and smiled. A person with unlimited money could do weird and wonderful things.

Helstof provided the details, which blew Gwen's mind. "We also have charted another plane, an identical 737, but a regular, short haul one. Nothing fancy. Both planes will be at the Saint Petersburg airport at exactly the same time. The flight plan for one will be to Charleston. The flight plan for the other will be to Paris, both departing same day, same time." Helstof knew this information would be enough for Gwen, so she stopped talking.

Gwen looked out at the gray water for a minute, leaned over and patted the dog on its long narrow head, and then looked at her husband. She shook her head and smiled. Unbelievable. "You're gonna pull a switch. At the airport. Jesus. The aviation authorities are going to think Catherine's group of jet setters is going back where they came: Charleston. And they are going to think the Mariinsky group is going to Paris for two days. But Catherine's group is going to get on the short-haul 737 Paris plane, and the dancers are going to get on the special 737 Charleston plane. Holy shit."

"With one exception. Catherine will get back on the Charleston plane with the dancers and Baryshnikov. Then they have about seven hours to convince the dancers not to call the cops, the FBI, the Russian Embassy, and the Dept of Homeland Security when they arrive, claiming they were kidnapped. If they don't convince them, Gwenny dear, as you said before, we're screwed."

Again Gwen looked out at the ocean, thinking. She looked back at them and said, "With two exceptions."

# Chapter 65 – More Russians in Charleston

An hour and forty-five minutes after departing the Saint Petersburg airport, the standard, short-haul 737 touched down at Charles de Gaulle. A few of the jet setters grumbled about having to sit in a regular airplane, even though there were only twenty-five of them in a plane that normally carries one hundred seventy-five. How first class treatment does tend to twist ones taste and expectations.

Seven hours after departing the Saint Petersburg airport the luxury long-haul 737 touched down at the Charleston airport. The entire team, minus one, was waiting: Roger, the Ps, the Gromstovs, the husband and wife choreographers, The Whosey, the woman, and Gale the mouth. They figured if things were going to go sour, they might as well face the music right then and there. Planning to flee wasn't in their DNA. Of course, the same could be said for kidnapping, and look what had happened. They'd snatched forty-five people, from a different country. Not even Americans, mind you. So there they were, waiting at the gate for their fate, wondering who would show up first: The cops, the FBI, a private security team sent by the Russian Embassy in Washington, DC, or agents from the Dept of Homeland Security. As they sat waiting, Gale said, "You know, it's probably not going to be people from Homeland Security. It's going to be a squad from the Department of State. They're the ones who handle international incidents like this. Anything with political sensitivity to it, that's Department of State. They have plenty of security people, you know. Who do you think did all that washboarding stuff? The newspapers said it was CIA, because we expect that shit from them. But really, it was State. That's how they hide stuff in Washington." Gale went back to reading the People Magazine she picked up from the news kiosk.

Something about Gale's diatribe didn't seem right to Roger. Washboarding? Washboarding? Terrorists, alleged terrorists, get washed? The rest of the team went back to wondering what was going to happen to them if a serious load of magic hadn't been conjured up during the flight over. The Ps tried to remember what washboarding was, and when they figured out Gale meant waterboarding, they took hold of each other's hands. Thank you, Gale, for the reassurance. Roger kept looking out the double doors to the airport road pickup dropoff zone, watching as the bus he had hired to transport the dancers to their hotel kept driving around the loop, not being allowed to park next to the terminal. He figured if the FBI showed up after being called by the Russian dancers, they just could commandeer the bus and use it to take the team to the hoosegow.

As the plane touched down, the entire team got up and stood looking out the huge plate glass windows at the runway. Every minute they rotated 180 degrees and looked at the terminal doors, expecting to see a SWAT team. Then back towards the plane, which was approaching the area out on the tarmac designated for US Customs. SWAT team or dancers; SWAT team or dancers. What would they see?

The plane stopped on the tarmac away from the terminal, and still no black clad figures in helmets. They watched a crew wheel a metal staircase up to the plane's door, and another crew drive a baggage unloading machine up to the side of the plane. International arrivals at Charleston are unusual, and Customs requires those planes to disembark passengers out on the tarmac rather than into a standard covered walkway attached to a terminal gate. They watched as the door of the plane opened and the staircase was hooked at the top. Then there was a flight attendant, looking up at the sky, wondering what the weather would be for her layover. Roger looked over his shoulder, and still no SWAT team.

The first person to appear at the top of the staircase was Catherine Deneuve, the world's most beautiful woman. She always appeared first, no matter the place or the occasion. The second person to appear was Mikhail Baryshnikov, formerly the world's greatest male ballet dancer, now third rate actor, and as of two hours ago, resident choreographer for the new ballet company that Henric and Helstof would underwrite and manage for the next three years. Third was Irina Pavlova, who had been instrumental in persuading the other dancers to accept Catherine's and The B's proposal, and not call the cops, the FBI, the Russian Embassy in Washington, and the Department of State, as soon as their cell phones functioned upon touchdown in Charleston. After that came the other male and female dancers, all forty-five of them, wondering where the hell Charleston, South Carolina was, and if they could get a cab to Manhattan. Last out of the plane was Gwenny June. She looked up at the terminal windows, saw Roger standing there looking at her, and waved.

The flight attendants were doing a final cleanup, and the pilots had emerged from the cockpit, when they heard a noise at the rear of the plane. There they found a food cart wedged between two opposing lavatories, from one of which came the noise. Inside one of the lavatories was Gergiev, where he had been placed, personally, by Barshynikov and two of the larger and more muscular of the dancers, after being warned not to make any claims about being kidnapped. They told him ballet dancers were a worldwide fraternity of comrades, and if he made any trouble, no matter where he went, he never would escape the threat of retribution from some of its more violent, even homicidal, members.

Roger and the others relaxed as they watched the group walk across the tarmac and into the Customs area. Roger went out to the pickup dropoff zone and signaled to the bus driver that his group had arrived. His team walked down a flight of stairs to the baggage area, the Ps holding hands, knowing they wouldn't spend the next twenty years in the American version of a gulag. The Whosey, now knowing he wouldn't be going to jail, went back to meditating on how to get rid of Baryshnikov, his rival for the affections of the woman they both had connected with some thirty-five years earlier, when all three of them were wild, famous, and living on the edge. The prospect of jail had not been entirely unappealing to The Whosey, who figured the solitude would provide ample opportunity for writing new songs, if only they would give him a good guitar. After all, hadn't jail been beneficial to Bertrand Russell, the philosopher, when he had been incarcerated during World War I for being a pacifist? He wrote one of his most famous books during that year.

The door to the Customs inspection area opened, and Catherine emerged, escorted by the Chief Customs Officer, who, having recognized the world's most beautiful woman immediately, told his staff not to bother checking any of the passports or luggage, just move them through and into the terminal. For this he got his backup wish, a European double style kiss from Catherine. His primary wish, of course, was an American style smackaroo on the lips, but that was not to be.

Catherine grabbed The B by the hand and waltzed over to Roger, who she hugged with the greatest affection. After looking deeply into Catherine's beautiful eyes, and his wife's beautiful face, he asked, "Everything's ok, isn't it?"

Catherine said, "Everything's ok, for you, dear. Henric is going to pay a price, but he can afford it. Right, Gwenny?"

# Chapter 66 – Political Repercussions

The entire team was at The Hall the next morning, including two new Russians, one friend and one foe. Baryshnikov sat on the edge of the stage and looked around the theater, taking in the ambiance of his future place of work. It hardly compared to the Mariinsky Theater, on the stage of which he had stood just two days earlier. And it hardly compared to many other theaters around the world in which he had performed, in Vienna and Stockholm and Osaka and Prague. But its simplicity appealed to him at this stage of his life.

The other Russian, the foe, sat in the third row of seats, facing the team members on the stage. Not knowing anything about Gwen June, Gergiev thought he would try a little intimidation. He said, "This is a political matter. I don't care about the cops or the security agents or the whole kidnapping thing. You have interfered with and stolen Russian state property, and the Russian government is not going to take that lightly."

Roger leaned over to his wife and whispered, "Won't be the first time, will it, love?"

Gergiev went on, "The phones in Washington are buzzing right now, and that is going to flow downhill to this little town, into this backwater shithole, and right into this grade school of a little theater. You won't have long to wait."

The woman got out of her chair, picked up the 1797 Paul Storr sterling silver coffee pot, and poured Gwen another cup. Then she made the rounds of the others, managing, somehow, to exclude Gergiev, who held a Duncan Donuts paper coffee cup in his hands. Gwen added cream, sipped, and looked at the manager (at this point, probably the former manager) of the Mariinsky Ballet. She said, "Let me tell you an interesting story about Charleston. For a small town we have our share of billionaires. One of them is a lawyer who is very famous in some legal circles. Twenty years ago his firm not only got involved in asbestos tort cases, he won a bunch of the biggest ones. That made him a millionaire many times over. Then he got involved in tobacco tort cases, and, guess what? It was his firm from little ole Charleston that cracked that industry wide open, ten years ago. There are reports that his firm took home two billion in fees, but that remains unconfirmed. What is certain is that he and his partners reside in the upper echelons of wealthy Americans.

"But, he wasn't satisfied with those victories, and he hasn't rested on those laurels. You know what he does now?" Only Roger and Gale knew this story, so the others were as interested as Gergiev. "He represents many of the 9\11 families and interests. He thinks the Government of Saudi Arabia should be held responsible for the attack, and he has sued the Saudis on behalf of the victims, in international courts of law."

Gwen sipped a little more coffee, staring at Gergiev sitting in the third row. "He is spending millions of his own money to carry out this venture. Over the years he's hired private investigators with a variety of forensic skills, and sent them to the Middle East to gather information and data. He's in this for the long haul.

"You know what happened a few years ago? The phone in his office rang one morning and his secretary answered it. She put it on hold, went into his office, and said, 'The Secretary of State is on line three for you.' It was Colin Powell, and he was calling to read this lawyer the riot act, tell him he was meddling in affairs of state, who does he think he is, screwing up Middle East policy objectives, and generally being a royal pain in the Secretary's ass. Told him to cease and desist, butt out, leave this to the professional diplomats. Yelled at the lawyer for like, ten minutes. Finally, probably from the effects of lack of oxygen to his brain, Powell shut up. You know what happened next?" Gwen waited a moment, built a little suspense. "You know what happened? The lawyer says, 'Mr. Secretary, I and my associates think we are within our legal rights to pursue this issue in the fashion we are doing. We think this is the only effective way to go about securing justice for our clients. And, what is more important, we believe this is the right thing to do. We intend to continue doing what we are doing, and how we are doing it. Mr. Secretary, with all respect due to this situation, please, fuck off.'

"I feel the same way, Mr. Gergiev. If you're right, and wheels are turning right now in Washington, and phone calls to here are in the making, well, I'm not going to have to do a lot of rehearsing of my response. I'm going to take a page out of that lawyer's book, and I think you can guess what page that will be."

# Chapter 67 – Stirg Finds Out

Stirg didn't know who Baryshnikov was, and Baryshnikov didn't care who Stirg was. A day before the flight to Paris they fought a battle in the Mariinsky offices that was heard by the orchestra in the rehearsal hall and the dancers in the dressing rooms. It was the former Nazi hunter vs. the former ballet dancer, and the tutu guy won. It was no contest. Gergiev was caught in the middle, meaning he had absolutely no say in the matter. Here he was, the manager of the most famous ballet company in the world, and he had no say on its current operation, the Stravinsky production.

It was interesting how easily Baryshnikov told Stirg to get lost. Stirg wanted to come on the Paris trip, and The B told him he wasn't coming. Told him it was dancers only, it was to learn the stories on which he was going to base his choreography, and Stirg had nothing to do with that. When The B arrived in Saint Petersburg, the politico from the Ministry of Cultural Affairs and Gergiev explained to him who Stirg was. The money guy. The guy underwriting the production with a seemingly unlimited number of cashier's checks made out to cash for one million dollars each. Baryshnikov said, isn't that wonderful, how very nice; now where are the dancers and the stage, I've got work to do.

He simply isn't like other people, and that characteristic is what led him to the heights of artistry he has attained.

When he was introduced to Stirg and Nev, he ignored them. Shook hands, smiled a half smile, turned away and went down a flight of stairs into the basement of the massive complex looking for Pavlova. He wanted to see her legs. He'd always liked ballerina legs. This pissed Stirg off, but The B didn't care. He knew he wouldn't be able to sustain this distain for Gergiev and the money man for very long, but he knew he wouldn't have to. He'd be out of there and onto other ventures in a week. His thinking was, his motivating factor was, I'm working for Catherine Deneuve, the most beautiful woman on the planet. That's my job, and it's one I covet. These two guys are inconsequential.

When he announced the trip to Paris, both Gergiev and Stirg automatically thought they would be going along. The B thought differently, and told them so. This is for dancers only, he said, not business people. The word business dripped off his tongue like a gob of virus induced phlegm. Both of them went ballistic, threats of all kinds, yelling and screaming, etc. Stirg told Nev to break one of Baryshnikov's legs; that would teach the runty little dancer. The politico had to come down to the theater from his offices and mediate between two sweating, screaming guys on one side, and one short but supremely handsome guy on the other, who he found in the dressing rooms below the stage, surrounded by half naked women who possessed supremely beautiful bodies. The dancers let the politico in, but when Stirg tried to enter he was met with a barrage of flower vases filled with water. Ballerinas always have lots of flowers around their dressing rooms; they get them in the mood for the shower of bouquets they get at the end of a performance. And that's what they live for.

The end result was a compromise acceptable to The B, because it meant he won the battle. Gergiev would go on the trip to Paris; Stirg would not. Which is why Stirg and Nev were sitting in their suite at the Corinthia Hotel when the phone rang. It was the politico, who said, "Mr. Stirg, we have a problem."

Stirg thought, I've been banned from the ballerina's dressing rooms. How much worst can things get? He said, "Yeah, what?"

"There's a problem with the trip to Paris. A problem with the dancers there."

Stirg said, "What, some of them get caught eating French food that had butter in it? 100 calories over their daily limit? Did a couple of them put a half pound on those skinny little bodies of theirs?" These, of course, were the same bodies he and Nev had been lusting after since arriving at the Mariinsky.

The politico thought that was a pretty good joke for off the cuff. He wished he could tell a joke now, but he had to say, "Well, actually, it's something serious. They've been kidnapped. They're not in Paris."

Stirg was incredulous, a condition Nev was able to ascertain from the way Stirg looked at the telephone, like someone just had told him a new cell of former Nazis had been discovered in the area of Argentina where Stirg had operated so many years before. "What do you mean? How can someone kidnap forty-five people? Who wants a group of ballet geeks?"

"They're not in Paris."

"You said that. Where are they?"

"They're in Charleston. Some place in the United States. I've never heard of it. Must be one of those other parts of New York City, like Brooklyn, where all the godfathers are."

Stirg couldn't believe his ears. He looked at Nev, said, "The dancers, they're in Charleston, not Paris. Guy says they were kidnapped."

Now it was Nev's turn to jostle with incredulity. Kidnapped? How?

Stirg got a grip and said, "How? How did they go to Charleston? Where is Gergiev? He was with them."

Here's where the tone of the politico changed from fear at having to tell Stirg, to one of professional admiration. He said, "They swapped planes on us, here in Saint Petersburg. Very slick, very slick. They had two identical charter planes here at the same time, with different flight plans. One to Paris, one back to Charleston, where it came from two days ago. The passengers swapped, and no one noticed. The people who came on the plane from Charleston got on the plane to Paris, and the ballet troupe got on the plane to Charleston. Adios, dancers."

Stirg had put the phone on speaker so Nev could hear. "Explain about the kidnapping? They got on the plane, right?"

"Yeah, they got on the plane, but they thought it was going to Paris. So did Gergiev. They didn't know it was going to the States. Very slick. I gotta remember this one."

"So, contact the cops over there, the Embassy, our spies. Someone. Tell 'em they all were kidnapped."

"Gergiev called from over there. Said the dancers decided on the flight over they didn't mind being kidnapped. They want to stay over there, and dance in some ballet, in this Charleston place."

"That's crazy. People don't get kidnapped, then say it's all right. Especially not forty-five of them."

"Gergiev said they locked him in a lavatory for the entire seven hour flight, so he didn't hear what went on. Doesn't know how they did it, but says the dancers are sure; want to stay over there. They're all defecting. All of 'em." The politico paused, then said, "There were the dancers, Baryshnikov, and Gergiev on the plane. Plus two others. Two woman."

"Who? What women?"

The guy looked at a paper on his desk. "A woman named June. Gwenny June. And some actress. A Frenchie."

Stirg looked over at Nev, and with a coldness Nev hadn't seen for many years, said, "Ok, Gwenny June. Ok."

# Chapter 68 – A Song for Catherine

During the bus ride from the airport to the hotel the previous day, Gwen had assigned Gale to oversee the dancers. She was perfect for the job: gregarious and assertive. Gale let them sleep in the next morning, but had everyone at The Hall at 4pm. It was a meet and greet, and a sendoff for Catherine. The dancers sat in the theater seats while the Ps and the woman served them coffee, juices, and warm toasted bagels with cream cheese spreads. Most of them scrapped off the cream cheese. Gwen had told the team they should sit in the seats with the dancers, not in the chairs on the stage. She knew they had to bond with the dancers immediately, and get on with the show. After the self-introductions and mingling, Gwen stood at the front of the stage and offered a minimalist spiel. "We're all here together to perform a ballet that was lost to culture for a hundred years. People are going to see it for the first time, and it's going to be beautiful." She held her arms outwards toward the seats in a commanding dihedral V. "We start with music of a master from the past, Stravinsky. He created that music inspired by four great modern painters: Van Gogh, Cezanne, Matisse, and Picasso. We have taken the music and Stravinsky's ideas for movement, and created choreography for four dances." She motioned Selgey and Bart to the stage, where she double kissed them. "The choreography expresses four stories in movement, and is quite fantastic. So far, only four people have danced it. But as of tomorrow morning, it will exist in you," she said, now waving out at the seats. "You will give it the life it deserves. You will dance Stravinsky's vision.

"If you had done this ballet in Saint Petersburg, you would have performed to an orchestra, just as Mariinsky dancers have done for two hundred years. But here you will dance to something else. To Stravinsky's music, yes, but not just to that master. You will dance to Stravinsky's music as played by another master." She waved The Whosey out of his seat and to the stage, where she gave him the double kiss, and where Selgey and Bart put their arms around him.

"Tomorrow morning you will start learning the choreography. We have three weeks before opening night. But we will have some music and dance right now, so we can learn about beauty together, as a team." Gwen smiled broadly at Catherine and The B, which they recognized as the signal for them to come to the stage. Now there were six people with their arms around each other. "We met on the plane yesterday, and we talked. You listened to Catherine Deneuve, and Mikhail Baryshnikov, and to me. We told you about our production, and why we are doing it; about our thinking on the Stravinsky score and ballet; about Charleston, and the future of ballet here. You talked among yourselves, and made your decisions. So now we will make this ballet together. Catherine did much of the talking on the plane, and we owe it to her, in part, for the formation of this troupe. Now, we will give something back to her, in thanks."

Gwen took Catherine's hand and led her to a seat in the front row. Selgey, Bart, The B, and The Whosey huddled together in the center of the stage, murmuring. Then with a squeeze of each other's shoulders, they separated. Townshend sat down at the synthe and flicked on the power switch. The three retired dancers, now choreographers, shed their sweaters and shoes, and linked hands. Selgey nodded at Gwen, who said, "While we slept last night, they were here, working on a thank you to Catherine. Mr. Townshend wrote a song for her. Mr. Baryshnikov choreographed a dance to the music for her, and here it is, for her, and for all of us." She nodded at Pater, who pushed a button on a remote he held that started audio and video recording equipment. There was quiet in the hall.

Townshend's hands connected to the keyboard while his eyes connected to the dancers. A massive wave of brass atonality rumbled out of the theater's speakers and cascaded across the aisles of chairs. One diminutive ballerina, all of eighty-five pounds, practically was blown off her seat. The trumpets and trombones and English horns filled the air like cannons across a battlefield. It was the introduction to the second act of the lost ballet, and it sets the stage for the dance based on Cezanne's painting of hundreds of workers breaking stone in the quarry. Townshend played a minute or two of the Stravinsky music to wet the taste of the Mariinsky dancers for the work sessions tomorrow, when the rehearsals would begin in earnest, and he would play the entire score for them.

The blaring brass thinned out and dribbled away. Kirkland, Thorley, and Baryshnikov set themselves for the song and dance they had created together the night before. Townshend nodded, turned the dials, and began singing in that beautiful upper register tone he used for his inimitable song, Red, Blue and Gray. His left hand played what sounded like a ukulele, his right hand sounding like an electric piano. His voice, an angelic voice, instantly captured everyone in the room. He sang about a woman on the movie screen, standing on a dirt road lined with cypress trees, wearing a yellow dress trimmed in burgundy and cream lace. She removed a wide brimmed hat so she could stare up at a family of crows conducting business in the top of one of the trees. The woman was Catherine Deneuve, walking down the lane of a French vineyard, the camera following her languorous gait.

Selgey broke hands with the two male dancers and played the part of the beautiful woman in the beautiful dress in the beautiful setting. She flowed away from the men, down the lane, watching the birds, feeling the sun on her face. Baryshnikov followed first, listening to Townshend's singing, watching the ballerina ahead of him, thinking back thirty-five years to when he was bedding Deneuve. He pantomimed himself watching her on a movie screen, wanting the film to be his real life, in love with the woman in the yellow dress. He followed as Selgey skirted the perimeter of the stage, working her way from right to left, her now looking at Townshend's hands on the keyboard, now looking out at the seat holding Catherine, now looking behind her at him. As she turned the corner of the stage and moved to the rear, Bart left his mark and turned the other way, moving in a sweeping gesture from left to right, knowing he would meet her head on, her and Baryshnikov moving counter-clockwise, him moving clockwise. He, too, pantomimed watching a movie on the screen, entranced by the figure of a beauty in a wide brimmed hat.

Townshend's ukulele sound traded preeminence with the piano, first one sounding counterpoint to his singing, then the other. The three instruments flowed into and out of each other, telling the story of the woman wanting a lover with whom to walk through the vineyard. She had two men after her, and she liked both, but wanted to love only one. Which one? With her hat removed she asked the crows: which one? Which one would be her special friend, a man who could take her in the morning, and let her go in the afternoon?

Bart and The B wanted the woman to come out of the movie screen and into their lives, and for a few minutes they danced this fantasy.

After circling the stage three times in a graceful tripartite group, with Townshend singing about catching, having, and letting go, Bart and The B enclosed her in their four arms and four legs. She disappeared. Then, as he sang the last stanza of lyrics, she pushed them away and emerged from the cocoon. They fell away from her, the viewers knowing she was returning to the film screen, and the two men to their normal lives. Their dream of loving the woman in the yellow dress was over, as was hers of finding a man who could have, and not have.

The ukulele and piano sounds drifted away, and The Whosey stood up. The dancers came back together, the two Bs making a seat with their arms for Selgey, into which she climbed. The four performers came to the edge of the stage, with Catherine's two former lovers throwing her a kiss, which she returned.

# Chapter 69 – Stirg in Flames

The Russian Ministry of Cultural Affairs has a small fleet of aircraft at its disposal, and Gergiev now sat in one of them, a Tupolev 204 medium range, narrow body jet, on its way from Charleston to Saint Petersburg. Sometimes riding in a state owned plane was a good thing, and sometimes it wasn't. Gergiev was sure this wasn't a good thing. He would plead innocence, of course; would plead victimization, of course; and that would be an accurate portrayal of reality. He had, after all, been kidnapped, hadn't he? And he wasn't defecting, was he? Not like the dancers. He was returning to the fold. Still, he knew another reality would intrude very soon. Someone had to take the fall for this, and he was pretty sure it was going to be him.

There was something else, too. Another concern, another reality he was going to face, had to do with the check. The cashier's check made out to cash, one of three such checks Stirg had set on the table during the meeting with the three politicos and three lawyers, a month earlier. One check had gone to the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, one had gone to the Mariinsky lawyers, and one had gone to him. Gergiev was quite sure someone was going to ask him what he had done with that third check.

Stirg and Nev sat in the hotel suite, waiting for the Tupolev to touchdown, waiting for the car to bring Gergiev to the Ministry office, waiting to hear what the Ministry was going to do to find forty-five world class dancers to replace the forty-five dancers the fucks had stolen from him. From him. Nev was thinking of the time when he was in Mossad, and some Chechen guys had kidnapped a dozen Russian ballet dancers during a tour of Israel, and made political demands of the Russians. Mossad wasn't going to negotiate with the Chechens, and sent in the first anti-terrorist team. Nev had been on the backup team, and had had to sit around outside the area for four hours, waiting to see how the rescue attempt went. If it went bad, his team would be sent in. It went well, and he didn't have to make an assault, but the waiting part of it was tough. Waiting now, with Stirg pacing the floor, back and forth, back and forth, Nev thought this was worse.

To break the tension Nev got on the phone and called room service. He wasn't particularly hungry, but ordered food for three. Some people eat more when under stress, and some eat less. He was picking at a potato casserole when the bell rang, and Gergiev, the politico, and a security guy in a suit came into the suite. Stirg ignored the politico and the security guy, walked up to Gergiev and said, "What happened? How did you let them do that? The dancers were your job, and now they aren't dancing, here. They're dancing there, in the fucks dance. What happened?"

Gergiev figured it was going to be like this, either from the politicos, or the lawyers, or the security nuts, or Stirg the moneyman, and he was prepared for the barrage of abuse. Him, the victim. Him, the kidnappee. Ok, let it rain. And rain it did. After Stirg braced him, the politico braced him, and then the security guy. When that was over he looked at Nev, said, "Don't you have anything to say? Don't you want to get into the act? Here I am, let it rip."

Nev went to the table, opened a bottle of beer that was in a bucket of ice, and handed it to him. The other three guys, who had been standing, surrounding Gergiev during their successive tirades, sat down. Nev opened three more bottles of beer and passed them around. He said, "What are we going to do now? We gotta move on." Looking at Gergiev he said, "Is there any way to get them back?"

Gergiev shook his head, no.

Stirg said, "How did they do it? What did they offer them? What did the June woman do?"

Gergiev shook his head again, and said, "What's it matter? They're not coming back. We gotta figure a way to get other dancers. Unless you want to cancel the production." He looked sad, which the others attributed to the prospect of cancelling the production, but which in reality stemmed from Gergiev thinking about the fate of the seven other cashier's checks, all made out to cash, several of which he had been sure would come his way. And now they were floating away on a cold Siberian breeze.

The security guy said, "You can talk about the show now, but later we're going to talk about how the dancers went away, and who made that happen."

Gergiev nodded. The politico said, "There are two weeks till our opening night, and three weeks till their opening night. Where can you get more dancers?"

"There are only two possibilities: borrow them from the Bolshoi, and the school. And the Bolshoi is in South America."

Stirg asked, "What's the school?"

"It's our school, the Mariinsky Academy. Where we train the dancers. The best of them, a few of them, move up to the show, the big time."

"Are they good?"

"They're all good. They wouldn't make it to the Academy if they weren't good."

"Are they great?"

Gergiev looked at Stirg, wondering how he was supposed to answer such a stupid question. "They're good. Good is pretty good. They're better than most."

"Are they great?"

Gergiev saw the last of the cashier's checks floating away, disappearing from view, and his face got sadder. Stirg didn't know a lot about producing a ballet, but he saw the reality of the situation, and sensed his dream of a world class premiere slipping away. His face got sadder, too.

# Chapter 70 – The Deal With the Dancers

Late in the evening after The Whosey and The B presented their song and dance to Catherine, after she was driven to the airport and boarded the Gulfstream, Helstof sat with Henric on the sofa in the living room of their home. She needed to tell him about his new life. "We have to be at The Hall tomorrow at 8am. Everyone is going to be there, including the new dancers."

He said, "I was going out on the boat, test out a new spinnaker."

"I know dear, and I hate to take you away from that, but this involves the deal Gwen made with the dancers. We're part of that deal, and it starts tomorrow." Henric stroked the long muzzle of the borzoi, his faithful friend. Sometimes when he patted the dog he thought he detected a slight indentation in the skull, but couldn't be sure. Helstof pointed across the room to the Hermitage desk, and said, "Your friend there started all this, remember? And it isn't over yet. We've committed to the team, and we have to follow through." He nodded at his wife. "We're going to be involved for quite some time to come, dear. After the production of the lost ballet is over, we're still going to be involved." He smiled at his wife, and nodded again. She would get around to telling him soon, he knew that. He always was patient with her. The borzoi nuzzled his hand, wanting a little more attention on the indentation spot. "We're going to have two great occupations soon. Being around the world sailors, and being ballet impresarios. It's going to be a wonderful life."

He said, "How long? How long are we going to be impresarios?"

"Three years."

"What do impresarios do?"

"Well, they do what Gwen is doing with this production. They're the boss."

"Do impresarios pay the bills? All the bills?"

"Some do, and some get other people to pay the bills. Investors."

"But they can pay the bills if they want to?

"Yes."

"What are the bills going to be for?"

"Let's see. The theater. The insurance. The electricity, the coffee, the computers, stuff like that."

"People?"

"Have to hire a choreographer or two. Musicians. Admin staff."

"Anyone else?"

"Well, dancers. Gotta have dancers."

"How many we gotta have?"

"Forty-five. That's how many we kidnapped from Saint Petersburg. We promised them."

"We promised them?"

"Well, Gwen did. And Catherine. That's the deal they made with them on the plane. Otherwise, when they landed in Charleston, they would have called the cops, the FBI, the Russian Embassy in Washington, and the Department of State. Would have called up Hilary Clinton. Told her."

He definitely could feel a small indentation in the dog's head. He didn't worry though, figuring any slight brain damage from the collision with the side of the desk couldn't result in the dog being any dumber than it was when it was born. "We're paying for all these people for three years. Plus all the overhead of a major ballet company, plus all the travel around the world?"

"Yes, dear. Plus, all the sailing stuff. All the sailing around the world stuff when we're not doing the ballet stuff. Maybe a new boat, I don't know."

"So why do I have to be at The Hall tomorrow morning?"

"Write checks, dear. Remember, we kidnapped all those people. They brought clothes for two days, thought they were going on a lark to Paris. Now they're here, in Charleston. We gotta give them a paycheck so they can buy toothbrushes, things like that. Food. Dancing shoes."

"Ok. It was nice to see Catherine, wasn't it?"

"Yes, dear, it was very nice to see Catherine."

"Can't the woman write the checks tomorrow?"

"If you want her to."

"So maybe I can go sailing in the afternoon, if I come down to The Hall in the morning?"

Yes, dear, you can go sailing in the afternoon."

# Chapter 71 – Well and Poorly

The next two weeks went well for the Junes and poorly for Stirg. Gale rousted the dancers out of bed at 7am, and had them, full of breakfast, at The Hall by 8am. At 8:30am, the woman walked around the theater seats dispensing checks for $10,000. This assuaged any negative thoughts any of the dancers were having about their decision to defect and start their dancing lives anew. After this important function, and standing on the stage next to The B, Gwen confirmed to the dancers that he would sign a contract with Gromstov Enterprises and Productions to serve as resident choreographer for three seasons. This put smiles on most of the faces looking up at him on the stage. He waved goodbye to them, saying he had to get back to other responsibilities he had been shirking since Catherine Deneuve had lured him into this wild caper. He promised to be back for opening night.

In contrast to this positive scene, Gergiev was fumbling to put together his production one week earlier than the Junes, using the junior Mariinsky dancers. The politico was sorry to lose Baryshnikov as choreographer, because that would have been a PR bonanza, and thus a coupe for him, but Gergiev was glad the little runt was gone. Stirg didn't know what to do with himself, and that was driving Nev nuts. He longed for the days back in Charleston, hanging out with Otis on the dock.

The Charleston Mariinsky dancers had money in their pockets, they had Baryshnikov to choreograph their dancing for the next three seasons, the world premiere of a lost ballet to perform, and a contract to sign with Gromstov Enterprises and Productions that would ensure them a very good salary for three years. They also had Gale on their asses, morning, noon, and night. Christ, she was worse than Gergiev; she was the manager from hell. Townshend's playing of his song for Catherine the night before had indeed wetted the appetites of the dancers for more music. They wanted to hear the Stravinsky score, and they did, that afternoon. Gwen wanted to establish momentum among the troupe this first day, so she had lunch brought in. When they were done, and coffee was served, she took The Whosey by the arm and led him to the synthe. This would be only the third time he had played the entire score completely, and Gwen knew he had to capture the attention and loyalty of the dancers, here and now. She ended her pep talk to him with the American style kiss he had been waiting for, and man, did it work. For the next 100 minutes he played like the days of old, a rousing, crafted, emotional performance of a work of genius, by and through a genius. The pianos, the tympani, the cellos, and the trumpets played around _glissandos, pizzicatos_ , recapitulations, themes, and motifs. As he played, Townshend thought (if it can be called that) of the paintings of the four artists: the wheat field with crows, the workers in the stone quarry, the nymphs in the wooded glade, and the factory spewing out gray smoke. It was Van Gogh, Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso, Stravinsky, and The Whosey, all sucked into the electronic world of the synthesizer, and then gloriously emitted outwards into the air of the theater, where it washed over, around, and through the dancers.

At the fiftieth minute Selgey couldn't stand it any longer and leaped out of her chair, charged down the center aisle, and vaulted onto the stage. There she improvised a _rigaudon_ that Bart never had seen before, intuitively fitting it into the Stravinsky music. When she was done playing with this she found the Ps in the seats and motioned them onto the stage. She whispered in their ears, and then fled back out into the seats to find her mate. Peter moved to stage left and Pater moved to stage right. Gwen wondered what was going on. Peter waited until he found his place in the score and correlated the music with the story. He raised his arms outwards to the audience and began to narrate the story in Russian. Townshend just had started playing Act III, so Peter intoned a few sentences about Matisse and his nymphs. He motioned to Pater across the stage, who then took up the narration, just a few sentences at a time. Standing in place at the sides of the stage, they improvised movements with the music.

During Act III, Selgey whispered in Bart's ear, giving him instructions, just as she had to the Ps. At the end of the act, Townshend paused. He had played continuously for sixty-five minutes, and his hands were cramping. He stood up and stretched, walking around the synthesizer, looking out into the theater, reading the vibes from the audience. The woman brought him a bottle of water, massaged his shoulders for a minute, and told him he was dynamite. The forty-five dancers were mesmerized. They recognized Stravinsky in the music, but it was like nothing they ever had experienced before. A few whispered to each other, but most simply sat, gapping at the stage and the man at the synthe. Townshend of The Who. The Whosey. Who is this guy?

When he again sat down, the dancers hushed. Selgey dug her knuckles into Bart's ribs, as hard as she could, and told him to do his thing. Townshend crashed into Act IV, Picasso's factory, and the dancers held their breath. Bart waited five minutes, stood up from his seat, looked at Selgey, and launched himself down the side aisle. He was onto the stage in seconds, eschewing stairs, circling first Peter and then Pater in graceful circles, biding his time, waiting for the crescendo he knew was coming. He timed his action, moving to center stage, looking out at the seats, waiting, waiting, and then, as Stravinsky and Townshend approached the apex of the trumpeting crescendo, turned and ran toward the musician. A single, piercing, synthesized trumpet blast simulated the factory whistle at the end of the long day of work; and as the blast echoed out of the theater speakers, Bart leaped completely over Townshend sitting on the bench at the synthesizer array that was larger than a grand piano. Up, over his head, over the array, and down the other side, landing with a muffled thump behind, and speeding out of sight into the curtains at the rear of the stage. Gone. Up, over, and gone.

Townshend, immersed in his playing, saw a blur but didn't understand what it was. Later, when the Ps showed the video, and he saw Bart fly over his head, he said, "What the bloody 'ell. Why did we have to go to the trouble of kidnapping all the Russkies, when we had him sitting around here?" He wasn't the only one who wondered that? Half the dancers in the audience said, damn, including a couple of the male principles.

Gergiev wasn't having any such fun. He worked with the Mariinsky house choreographer, who was very good. And he worked with the Academy dancers who were very good. And he talked with the politico at the end of the day, and told them the production was coming along nicely. And he talked with Stirg at the end of the day after lying to the politico, and told him things were good. Everything was good; everything was fine. Gergiev's problem was just that. Things were good and fine, but they weren't great. They weren't great by a long shot.

# Chapter 72 – Agents at The Hall

The phone rang in the office of Hilary Clinton's Chief of Staff. The voice identified itself as the Chief of Staff of the Russian Ambassador, and inquired if Madam Secretary had a minute to speak to the Ambassador. Of course she did. The Ambassador explained to her about the little problem he was having with some Russian citizens in Charleston, South Carolina. He said he had dispatched some staff members and investigators from the Embassy to Charleston, but he wanted to alert the Secretary to this serious matter. The Secretary thanked him for the professional courtesy, and asked what the problem was. The Ambassador didn't use the word kidnapping; but he did say that forty-six Russian citizens had been lured onto a plane in Saint Petersburg and flown directly to Charleston, South Carolina, against their will. He said he would appreciate any attention to the matter and assistance the Secretary could provide.

"Mr. Ambassador, I will give the matter my closest attention, of course. You say forty-six Russian people were lured onto a plane in one of your major airports. That is, umm, interesting, to say the least." She didn't ask how that could have happened; she was, after all, a diplomat; but certainly she wanted to ask. She said, "Do you know where in Charleston your people are? What they are doing? Do you know who it was that....assisted them onto the plane, and took them to Charleston? That would help me with my investigation."

"These people all are dancers with our ballet company in Saint Petersburg. Great dancers, great artists, great citizens of Russia. We don't know how they were assisted onto the plane, but we do have the name of an American who may have been involved."

She thought, forty-five ballet dancers going to Charleston, South Carolina. What the hell would they go there for?

"Yes, Mr. Ambassador?"

"June. Gwenny June."

She wrote the name down on a notepad. A notepad with the United States Department of State logo at the top. Gwenny June.

"Mr. Ambassador, I'll look into this immediately." Which she did, by telling her Chief of Staff to find out what the hell was going on in Charleston with a bunch of Russian ballet dancers, and who the hell this person named Gwenny June is.

Thirty minutes after Hillary issued the order, an FBI agent from the Charleston office drove past the front of the June's house in the historic district. Forty-five minutes after the order, the June's phone had a tap on it, as did Gwen's and Roger's cellphones. An hour after the order, an FBI agent stood across the street from The Hall, sipping on a double cappuccino from Starbucks. An hour and a half after the order, three agents entered the theater on John Street and stood in the back, looking at a lot of people on the stage, several of whom appeared to be naked, but upon closer inspection, were found to be wearing tiny little pieces of cloth covering their privates; one a miniature golden fleece, one a ruby red fig leaf, two a twirling comet, and one a reproduction of the Mona Lisa's smile. The agents looked at each other.

One agent stayed at the rear of the theater, while one walked down the left aisle and the other down the right aisle. This was a standard FBI tactic when dealing with an unknown and potentially dangerous situation. The Ps, on stage, doing their gopher thing, in their element, loving their lives in Charleston, noticed the two guys coming down the aisles, and went out to meet them, dressed in leotards, naked from the waist up, smelling strongly of scents halfway between perfume and cologne. The FBI guys each put a hand under their coats to the rear of their hips. This stopped the Ps in their tracks, because this movement is exactly what Gwen does just before she pulls out her gun; something the Ps had witnessed several times in the year they had known her. They froze.

The agent at stage left said to Peter, "Is there a Gwenny June here?"

Peter looked directly at Gwen, sitting on the bench with The Whosey, talking about the tempo of a section in Act II. Looking back at the agent, who now was looking at Gwen, he said, "Um, I don't think so."

The agent looked Peter up and down, from bare feet to leotard to bare chest, climbed the stairs, and walked through the crowd of dancers, who now were wondering who the suit was. He motioned the other agent to come up on the stage from the other side. Having walked through a group of beautiful women dressed in tight clothes, and standing now looking down at an incredibly beautiful woman sitting on a bench next to an older guy with a big nose, the two agents both hoped they got to work this case for some time to come. Not as exciting as chasing bank robbers, but the scenery was lots nicer.

"You Gwenny June?" asked one of the agents.

The Whosey knew cops when he saw them, him having had more than a few run-ins with them during his wilder days with The Who. He figured this might be entertaining, them not knowing who they were dealing with in Gwen.

"Who's asking?" she said.

"FBI, Ma'am."

"Really? I thought it would be State. I thought they did political stuff involving foreign countries."

"State, who, Ma'am?"

Townshend looked at Gwen and said, "Our boys in England are not this polite. This is really nice. I think America's getting a bum rap over in Europe, thinking you all are just a bunch of crazy aggressive warmongering bastards. They should hear this guy talk."

Gwen said, "They're not all this polite. Like, up in New York City, they wouldn't be talking this way. This is a southern boy; you hear the accent? Mississippi." She looked up at the Mississippi boy and gave him a smile that melted two of the bullets in his gun. "Department of State. I thought it would be them that came down here, checking on our project. I've been waiting for ya'll."

"Ma'am, Ms. June, actually it is the Department of State that's investigating the kidnapping. We're sort of working with them. For them."

"What kidnapping?"

"Umm, kidnapping of the dancers, Ma'am. Are these, by any chance, them, Ma'am, Ms June?"

"Yes, Agent, these are them. Bound, abused, and soon to be executed, if Putin doesn't agree to send us three cases of good quality Russian vodka. We can't get the really good stuff over here."

The agents weren't exactly paying close attention to what Gwen was saying, as they were paying attention to the beauty of her face. Townshend was smirking at them, having forgotten he had acted similarly the first ten times he had been around her.

The boy from Mississippi recovered enough to say, "Would you mind very much making a call up to Washington, DC, Ma'am? I have a number here, someone who would like to speak with you."

Gwen got up and walked towards the office, the two boys in tow. Sitting down in the woman's chair, she dialed the number. "Chief of Staff's office, may I help you?"

"June here."

There was a slight wait, then the Secretary's Chief of Staff picked up the line. "Ms. June? Ms. Gwenny June, of Charleston?"

"Yes."

"Would you wait a moment for the Secretary of State, please?"

Gwen smiled at the boys, motioning to them to sit down. While she waited, she asked, "What kind of guns you boys carry?"

The agents looked at each other, then the one who hadn't spoken yet said, "Sig Sauers, Ma'am, standard issue."

Gwen shook her head, conveying a combination of disbelief and disapproval. Then a voice came on the line. "Ms. June, this is Secretary of State Clinton. How are you today?"

"Fine, Madam Secretary, how are you?"

"I'm so so today, Ms. June. Would you confirm you are Gwenny June, please?"

"Well, I'm Gwen June. Some of the locals here call me Gwenny. My husband calls me Gwenny once in a while when we're in bed. You know. He has a tendency to get informal then."

"May I call you Gwen?"

"Sure, if I can call you Hillary."

There was a pause, then, "Ms. June, the Russian ambassador contacted me today and said some Russian citizens had been lured onto a plane in Saint Petersburg and flown to Charleston. Against their will. Although he didn't actually say it, he implied they were kidnapped. This is a very serious affair. It is an incident. A diplomatic incident. Can you tell me anything about it?"

Gwen put her feet up on the desk, took the phone away from her ear, and asked one of the FBI agents if he would get her a cup of coffee. Extra cream, please, if you would be so kind. "Well, we have some Russians here, yes. Business associates. Cultural partners. Employees. Not sure if the idea of them being lured onto the plane is exactly accurate, though I find the word interesting. Has a poetic quality to it."

"These people are employees of yours?"

"Well, not mine, exactly. They're employees of business partners of mine, Gromstov Enterprises and Productions."

Clinton was scribbling this down even though the conversation was being recorded. "Are these people all right? Are you holding them against their will?"

"No, Madam Secretary. And yes, they are all right. They're right here with me, now. Would you like to speak to some of them?"

"Are there FBI agents there?"

"Yes, two hunks, one from Mississippi, the other from Iowa."

"Would you put the one from Mississippi on the line for a moment, please?"

"She wants to talk with you," she said, handing the agent the phone.

He said, "Yes Ma'am. Yes Ma'am. Yes Ma'am."

He handed the phone back to Gwen and left the office.

"Ms. June, this is serious. The Russians are not happy about whatever it is you have done. Not to put too fine a point on it, and I know Charleston's reputation for courtesy and politeness, so I don't mean to offend you, but they are PISSED."

"I'm sorry to hear about that, Madam Secretary, I surely am."

"They want the entire group on the first plane back to Saint Petersburg. Today. Is that possible?"

"Madam Secretary, it's possible, but not likely. They are working hard, and seem to be quite happy. I don't think they are going to want to get on a plane and go back there. Like I said, you can talk with them if you want."

"Gwenny, I have a meeting with a North Korean political defector in half an hour who has information about their nuclear arsenal. And later tonight I am attending a dinner at the White House that honors all the Nobel Prize winners. And tomorrow I have a business breakfast with a representative of Hamas." She paused for effect. "Can you help me out with this, Gwenny? Can you get those people back on a plane tonight, to Russia? I'll send a Department of State 747 down there to pick them up. Is that possible, Gwenny? Can we close out this little incident, move on to bigger and better things?"

"Hillary, do you ever get together with your predecessors, shoot the shit with Madeline or Colin, maybe Condoleezza?"

The Secretary was taken aback, but answered, yes.

"I assume you are aware of one of our sons here in Charleston, pretty famous in some legal circles. The guy who cracked the tobacco industry, who now represents some of the 9\11 families, and is going after the Saudi government. You're aware of him, I would guess?"

"I am aware of him."

"By any chance, did Powell tell you the story of when he called up this guy and tried to get him to cease and desist? Stop investigating the Saudis."

Again the Secretary was taken aback, but again answered, "Yes, he did. He told me that story."

"Oh, good, your memory of that story will save time. Hillary, please, fuck off."

# Chapter 73 – The Saint Petersburg Show

Stirg and Nev wouldn't know great ballet if it occurred on their kitchen table at home. As far as they knew, if the dancer was wearing a tutu, was muscular between the knees and the waist and skinny everywhere else, and bore an above average quotient of narcissism, then that dancer met the criteria for great ballet. But Gergiev knew great ballet, and he didn't see any during opening night of the Saint Petersburg production of the lost ballet. He saw crap, along with every other knowledgeable person in the audience, which included the arts press from most major European newspapers and all the major dance magazines and websites. The Stravinsky score was played beautifully by the Mariinsky orchestra, and the choreography by the resident Mariinsky choreographer was fine, but the dancing was crap. All things are relative, so to be fair it must be pointed out that the dancing only was crappy relative to the usual high standard of the Mariinsky first team. Compared to most companies, it was very good. Still, in Stirg's production, it was crap, and ballet is about the dancing, right?

The Mariinsky Theater was filled with Ministry dignitaries, politicos, wealthy dilettantes, and a lot of Saint Petersburg's beautiful people. And they all enjoyed their evening. They came to be seen, and they were seen. There also were a small number of ballet geeks who came to every performance, and had done so for years. They traveled around Europe attending ballets, and sat in coffee shops afterwards, critiquing the performance. These folks melded together with the professional critics after the show, made their way to bars and soirees and restaurants, and critiqued the hell out of this one. Wasn't the Stravinsky music fabulous? Oh, it was. Wasn't the set design and lighting beautiful? Oh, they were. Weren't the costumes lovely, and didn't they convey the feeling of the paintings by the four famous artists? Inimitably. But my god, wasn't the dancing complete crap?

Gergiev sucked it up after the performance and gave the junior dancers a pep talk. He said they had been placed in a difficult position, everyone in the audience had enjoyed the show, and they had done a good job. He struggled to find a way to tell them, warn them, about the reviews that would begin appearing the next day, and continue for several months. Finally he gave up trying to soft peddle it, and just said, don't worry about bad reviews, don't worry about criticism on the Internet, don't take it personally. Some people are going to ask about the Mariinsky dancing; what happened; where were the senior members of the troupe? That's all on me, he said, don't you worry about it.

It hadn't been fair at all to the junior dancers, but the innocent get thrown in front of the bus, when the bus is filled with politicians. He would try to make it up to them, somehow. That is, if he still worked at the Mariinsky tomorrow morning. He knew he may find himself under the bus, with them.

Stirg and Nev went to the after performance party at the Ministry, thinking everything had gone well. The audience, most of them, had applauded, hadn't they? They didn't understand that opening night was not like the other nights, when the audience would consist of regular people. They didn't know there would be a lot less applause from them. So tonight, they were happy. The lost ballet had indeed been performed first in Russia, and not in Charleston. Stravinsky had been brought home, where he belonged. The honor and the integrity of Russian culture had been preserved from the American luddites.

Nev would have gotten a hint the next morning that all was not well if he had been able to read the headlines of the newspapers stacked on the concierge's desk. He couldn't read Russian, but Stirg could, at least a little. When Stirg read the headline, he felt ill. He had gone to bed content, and now he was sick. One headline read, "Mariinsky Babies Up Past Their Bedtime Last Night." Another read, "Does Stravinsky Deserve This?" A commentator on a morning news show advised fans to save their money for the orchestral CD of the score, because they could see dancing of this quality at their children's school. The Russians are hard on their artists.

As the reviews piled up in the magazines and on the websites, things got worse. The politicos at the Ministry of Cultural Affairs felt the heat. If the Mariinsky dancers had been kidnapped, why hadn't their anti-terrorism teams gone over there and kidnapped them back from the fucking Americans? Why had the production gone forward with the second stringers in there? Why not just cancel the production? Why hadn't the Bolshoi dancers been called back from South American to fill the qualitative void? The armchair quarterbacks came out of the woodwork, second guessing everyone and everything. People much higher up in the Ministry than Gergiev wondered if they would survive, or not. They heard the sound of the bus coming.

Stirg hung around for another day, trying to figure things out. This cultural stuff wasn't his arena, he was lost in its web, and no one gave a damn that he had brought ten cashier's checks made out to cash for a million dollars each, and would go home to Charleston with only four of them in his pocket. He didn't talk much during the flight back. After the meal, which he hardly touched, Nev watched him doodle on a pad of paper. When he went to the lavatory, Nev looked at what he had written. At the top was SABOTAGE THE FUCKS. Then, under that, was: infrastructure, destroy building or power. Under that was: audience, scare them off. And under that was: kidnap, dancers, that June bitch, the musician.

Stirg came down the aisle, and Nev set the pad back on the seat. He took one more look at it to confirm what he had seen. Underlined three times in heavy black ink was: the musician.

# Chapter 74 – Thoughts of Sabotage

Two days after Stirg arrived back in Charleston, three days after the Saint Petersburg opening night, and four days before the Charleston opening night, Gwen called a full team meeting at The Hall. She had debated reading to the team, including the Mariinsky dancers, some of the reviews of the Russian production, and decided against it. She didn't want to embarrass the junior Russian dancers, and she figured her Russian dancers would read them on their own, anyway. What she did do was to talk about the world premiere.

"Three days ago the Mariinsky Ballet Company did the first production of Stravinsky's 1914 score. So they get credit for the world premiere. Too bad, as that was one of our goals, but that's way it goes sometimes in a competition like this. I'm sure some of you have seen reviews of the production, and you can form your own judgments about those. What I want us to do is focus on Saturday night. Our premiere, our production, our team. It's going to be very beautiful, and it's going to mark new territory for ballet. We have great music, we have great dancers," and she waved her arms out to the theater seats, "we have great choreography, and we have someone who is going to play the music like no one has done before. Our performance will make its mark in ballet history. Thank you, all of you, and let's work hard until opening day."

With the pep talk over, that is what they did. Back to work.

Gwen found Roger looking at the final designs for the costumes. He still couldn't believe the guys were going on stage with the Mona Lisa's smile covering their peckers, but evidently they were. Gwen took him by the hand and asked if they could talk. She led him up the aisle and out of the building, commencing a stroll around the block. "The Russian show wasn't a total success. Most of the reviews said the music was great and the dancing was bad. I wonder how Stirg took it? He wanted it to be great, a Russian triumph, and it wasn't."

Roger said, "Stirg doesn't know much about ballet, so maybe it was ok for him. He wouldn't know good dancing from bad; good choreography, from bad. Maybe he was satisfied with the whole thing."

"He might not be able to tell good dancing from bad, but other people told him, I'm sure. And he knows it was us that caused the bad dancing. That's what we wanted to do to him, and we succeeded. He stole the score from us; we stole the dancers from him. Now, if I was him, I'd want some revenge."

"You're a bad girl, Gwenny. A bad girl."

Coming from Roger, that was a compliment. "I would suggest we watch things closely for the next few days, see if he's going to try something. Something that would mess up our production, the way we messed up his. Any ideas what that might be?"

Roger shifted into analysis mode. "I'd knock out the power the day of the performance. Can't dance in the dark."

"Can we bring in emergency generators? Put them out in the alley?"

"Yeah. Costly, but easy." He offered another scenario. "He could blow up the building. That would mess us up."

"That would be a little drastic, even for an ex-Nazi hunter."

"He could kidnap the dancers. Have Nev stash 'em in a warehouse somewhere for the weekend."

"That really would be kidnapping, and everyone would know who did it. Ours was just sort of kidnapping, right? And we had them all on a plane, collected in one small place. He would have to grab them from the stage, and that would be like rounding up steers for market. Not easy."

They came around the corner and were back at the doors to The Hall, where they sat down on the steps. Gwen said, "What else?"

"If I was Stirg, I'd phone in a bomb threat just before curtain time. That would screw us."

Gwen thought about this, and said, "So we contact the Mayor and have him order the cops and the fire department to stand by. Worst case scenario, they search the theater, find nothing, and the show goes on. Delayed, but not cancelled."

Roger nodded, staring off into space. Gwen knew that look. She said, "You wouldn't do any of that, would you? Cut the power, blow up the building, steal the dancers, call in a bomb threat. Would you, dear?"

He shook his head, no. She waited a minute, then asked him. What would you do?

He looked her in the eyes, seriously, and said, "I'd steal The Whosey."

# Chapter 75 – Protection

The next day, the practiced and slightly suspicious eyes of the Ps detected guns under Gwen's and Roger's shirts. Oh, shit. They were having SO MUCH FUN, and now something bad was going to happen. Three days till opening night, and now this. They were so close. Peter wanted to tell the rest of the team that the Junes were packing again, which meant trouble, but Pater convinced him not to. He said, don't worry the others. And besides, who do we want protecting us. Them. The Junes. Trust them. Peter said, ok.

Roger went to center stage and sat down on the synthe bench next to The Whosey. The Whosey liked it much better when Gwen sat next to him on the bench, played around with the keys a little, her shoulders touching his, but he liked Roger just fine. Roger said, "Pete, remember when you first showed up, six months ago, you stayed at our house for a few days, till we found you the flat?" Townshend noticed Roger's usage of the English word, and wondered what that meant. "We want you to come back there, till the show is over, hang out with us." Now Townshend really wondered what was up. But he had come to trust the Junes, so his inquiry was modest.

"Sure, Rog. What's up?"

Roger didn't believe in hiding stuff, so he said, "Well, we think Stirg may be a little perturbed about us stealing the dancers from the Mariinsky, leaving him screwed. You've been around him a few times, so you know he's not a person to take lightly. We want to make sure he doesn't get in your face or anything. You're the VIP around here, you know."

Townshend processed this statement. He was getting a compliment, and at the same time being told a former Nazi hunter with a spider web of malice in his brain might be coming to brace his ass. He decided it might be a very good idea to stay with the Junes. "Sure Rog. Thanks."

With that task done, and after sending a look across the stage to Gwen that told her The Whosey was her responsibility for a while, he left The Hall and walked down King Street to the offices of a private investigative firm he knew of. He was shown into a conference room where he was joined by one of the managers. He said, "I came to you because I've heard of your commitment to confidentiality. Is that well-placed?"

The manager said, "We take the confidentiality of our clients very seriously, and our reputation is very well-placed."

"I need a little surveillance work done. Watching of a house here in Charleston, 24\7, reporting of the movements of an individual. Can you do that?"

"Yes, sir, we can do that, and I can provide you with a schedule of our fees for that type of work."

"That won't be necessary. I just want to know that your staff is skilled at this."

"They are, sir, I can assure you."

Roger asked for scratch paper, and on it wrote Stirg's address. He said, "Two guys live there. One is the owner, and one is his personal assistant. I want you to watch the house, and when the assistant leaves, you follow him and tell me."

The investigator was staring at the piece of paper with the address on it, because it was strangely familiar. He couldn't place it, but there was something about it. He said, "Can you give me the name of the personal assistant, and a description or photo of him?"

"I don't have a photo, but he's about six two, 200 pounds, athletic, dark hair. You'll know him when you see him at the house. I only know his first name." Roger wrote it on the paper under the address: Nev.

The investigator stared at the name, and suddenly knew about the address. It was the address of Mr. Nev, who twice had hired his firm to intrude into the lives of some Charleston residents. "When do you want the surveillance to begin, Mr....?"

"June. Roger June. Immediately, please."

The investigator thought, what do we have going on here?

# Chapter 76 – The Attempt

The private investigative firm had made good money performing tasks for Nev, thanks to the computer expertise of the sixteen-year-old hackett and the questionable ethics of her father (asking her to do that stuff). Unfortunately for the firm, they didn't make a lot of money from the Junes; one day's worth of fees, and that was it. At 1am the night after Roger hired the firm, Roger's cell phone rang on his bedside table. It was an agent of the firm, reporting that Mr. Nev just had left the mansion, situated halfway out a long dock stretching into Charleston harbor, and he was tailing him. Roger told him to call again in five minutes and report if Mr. Nev was heading towards the June's house. He got the call, and the answer was yes. Roger thanked the agent and told him to break off the tail.

Nev was not happy with the assignment that caused him to leave his house at 1am, but it was what he was paid to do. Most of the time since moving to Charleston with Stirg, almost all of the time, he had been able to get in quality time out on the dock with Otis. That was the life. Now he had to do some real commando bodyguard work, and it felt onerous. On top of that, the previous few times he had tangled with the Junes, he had come out on the short side of things. There was the time when Stirg went nuts out in the harbor. And there was the time recently when Roger had taken away his gun, right there on the stage of The Hall, which had been embarrassing, to say the least. Nev hoped this assignment would end better.

It didn't. The very day Roger told The Whosey he was to stay at the June's house until the show was over, Nev had staked out The Hall late in the day. His plan was to follow The Whosey back to his hotel and kidnap him that evening. Stash him until opening night, which would be a disaster for the Junes. Instead, he ended up tailing the Junes home, with The Whosey in tow. Damn! He knew Stirg would order him to invade the June's home and snatch the musician from there. In the old days, a mission like that would lie right within Nev's comfort zone. Would excite him, in fact. But now, with all the time spent with Otis, all that corrupting influence, the prospect of a home invasion was less than palatable. Nev's palate had become tuned to grilling fresh seafood out on the barbie, sipping minerally wines from Sancerre, and watching old Cary Grant movies on DVD. Now this.

The Junes lived less than a mile from Stirg's place, and he walked back. When he reached the house he walked past it, turned around and walked past it again, then did it a third time. He didn't have a very positive feeling about this, not like he had when Mossad went after the Chechens in Tel Aviv. Everyone involved in that mission was fully confident of a good outcome. Nev didn't feel that now, which proved to be an accurate intuition. He went around to the rear of the house, the garden area, looked up the eight steps to the porch, and saw Roger sitting there in an antique rocking chair, with his cat on his lap and his Beretta in his hand. The cat stared down at Nev, unafraid. So did Roger.

"Evening, Nev." Nev didn't reply, being consumed with hatred for his boss for sending him on this stupid vendetta. Or, maybe more accurately, consumed with self-loathing for having said yes to his boss, will do, home invasion of the June's place, no problem. "You know where Gwen is right now, Nev?" Nev looked behind him, figuring she was sitting in a lawn chair hidden at the rear of the garden, and now was pointing her Glock in his direction. "She's upstairs, in bed, with our dog on the floor next to her. You know who's not next to her? Me. I'm here with you, middle of the night, instead of sleeping next to the woman I love. The woman you were going to fuck around with. So that makes me a little discontent tonight, Nev." Nev wouldn't have known that, looking up at Roger, rocking slowing, the cat purring. "If you're packing, Nev, please take it out and set it on the ground." Nev complied. "You're going to be our guest for a couple days, till after opening night. Don't worry, you'll be comfortable. Well, as comfortable as we can make it, handcuffed to the refrigerator. C'mon up."

Half an hour later Roger slid into bed next to his wife. She opened her eyes and said, "How'd it go?"

"Fine. He was right on schedule."

"Where is he?"

"In the kitchen, handcuffed to the refrigerator."

"You left an Israeli commando in our kitchen?"

"Former commando, now a stalwart convert to the sect of Otisism."

"If you say so, dear." Gwen took her Glock out of the bedside drawer, slipped it under her pillow, and went back to sleep.

# Chapter 77 – Chained Up

The Whosey beat the Junes downstairs the next morning, whereupon he was surprised to find Nev, the dog, and the cat sitting in the kitchen, all waiting to be fed. In fact, all three were sitting on the floor, Nev in his boxers only, handcuffed to the two stout handles of the massive stainless steel refrigerator that was big enough to hold the entire carcass of a butchered steer, should the Junes so desire. The Whosey carefully circumvented Nev's outstretched legs, and loaded up the $5000 Italian espresso machine with a fresh load of coffee. He wasn't sure about protocol for guests in the June house, especially ones handcuffed to the refrigerator. He debated offering Nev a cup, and decided if the Junes felt malice towards Nev they would have shot him and buried him out in the garden. As they hadn't done that, probably they wouldn't mind him giving the guy a cuppa. From the way he looked, bloodshot eyes and all, he certainly could use it.

While the espresso machine hissed, he fed the dog and cat. He drew the line, though, at offering Nev some oatmeal, which is what he fixed for himself. He'd leave that important decision up to Gwen, who ruled these parts. When she entered the kitchen a few minutes later, in her Tshirt (only), both The Whosey and Nev thought the Glock in her hand seemed incongruous with her appearance. She said, "Morning, Pete. Morning, Nev." She gave Pete a kiss, but not Nev, which added to his sense of inadequacy. Pete handed her a cappuccino, which she sipped as she looked at Nev. She noted the empty cup on the floor next to him. "Nice of you to offer him a coffee, Pete. He came to snatch you, you know." Pete looked at her, not understanding. "He dropped by last night, late. His boss ordered him to kidnap you, which would have screwed up the production. Right, Nev?" Nev nodded, complacent. "We figured Stirg would try something like that, so Roger was ready." And she nodded at Nev. "Now we have to figure out what to do with him for a few days."

The Whosey looked at Nev differently now. He'd never been the target of a kidnapping before, by a former Nazi hunter and Israeli commando. Former commando. He'd had some women mad at him in the past, really pissed off, but nothing like this. He looked at Gwen for guidance.

"Did you feed the dog?" He nodded. "Cat?" He nodded again. "Him?" The Whosey shook his head, no. "What do you want for breakfast, Nev?"

During his tenure as commando, in this situation, he would have spit in the direction of the person who offered him anything. But now, he said, "Just some oatmeal, like him. That would be nice. A little milk on it, please."

Roger came into the kitchen a few minutes later to find Nev eating the oatmeal with his free hand. "Good, isn't it? Very healthy. I have oatmeal five mornings a week, with fruit, and then eggs and potatoes on weekends. Don't want to overdo the health thing." He looked at his wife and said, "Where do you want to keep him?"

"Depends. Do we keep him just through opening night, or through the whole two week stint of the production?"

Roger thought for a moment, while Nev sent out vibes trying to influence his thoughts. He really didn't want to be chained to this refrigerator for two weeks. Any commando worth his salt could do it for two days, but two weeks, that was asking a lot. Roger said, "I think just through opening night. If we get through that, Stirg is going to realize he lost, and give up the idea of sabotaging the production. How's that sound, Nev?"

Nev said, "More than fair, more than fair."

Gwen said, "Where? Can't keep him here, can we? Middle of the kitchen?"

"Well, if we had a basement, I'd say put him there. But houses in Charleston don't have basements. And I don't want him upstairs in any of the guestrooms, do you? He doesn't really qualify as a guest, no offense, Nev."

Gwen doesn't look puzzled very often, but she struck The Whosey as being puzzled now. Where to keep the failed kidnapper? Where to keep him chained up for three days? She said, "Well, maybe here is the best place. We're not planning on having any house guests over before opening night. And the dog and cat don't seem afraid of him.

Roger said, "Ok, Nev. You got food right there. Stay out of the caviar on the bottom shelf. After opening night, you're out of here. Deal?"

"Deal. Except one thing. Bathroom?"

Roger looked at Gwen. Gwen looked at Roger. Being inexperienced jailers, they had overlooked that essential. The Whosey was amused. How were the great Junes going to handle this one? Roger opened a knife drawer and took out the handcuff key. Gwen picked the Glock up from the counter and casually pointed it in Nev's direction, while Roger unlocked the cuffs. He led Nev into the downstairs powder room and locked him to a stout pipe running along the baseboard. As he left he said, "Don't miss." Back in the kitchen he said to The Whosey, "Take him in two days of bread and water."

# Chapter 78 - The Charleston Show

The six performances had been sold out two months ago, even though the dancer's identity was announced only three weeks ago. Between The Mayor's publicity machine and the woman's PR skills, the word had gotten out, literally around the world. Having Catherine Deneuve, the supreme cultural icon of France, and Mikhail Baryshnikov acting as sponsors, and having The Whosey's name on the card, and listing choreography by Landkirk\Thorley, pretty much assured a lot of attention and interest. The woman played up the competition with Paul McCartney's _Oceans Kingdom_ to the max, and The Whosey told the team McCartney would be in attendance opening night. Somehow, to Gwen surprise, her conversation with the Secretary of State also had become public knowledge, and the press had had fun with that. Someone telling Hillary to fuck off wasn't necessarily new, but it was news. The woman had heard rumors that Hillary was going to attend the performance also, but the team didn't put much stock in that.

The opening night show when off without a hitch, and ended with a series of standing ovations. Catherine, McCartney, Baryshnikov, the Mayor, one Senator, and the president of the National Endowment for the Arts sat together in the front row on one side of the center aisle, while international ballet VIPS, managing directors, executive directors, boards of trustees, and other notables were on the other. The section reserved for the press was full, and included reporters from twenty international newspapers, as well as representatives from dance magazines, cultural websites, and video stations located in Europe, Asia, and South America. Hillary Clinton did show up, without a ticket, halfway through Act II, which shows she's not one to hold a grudge. She appeared in the balcony, surrounded by three security dudes, none of whom had tickets, but who blustered their way inside using big gold badges and bulges under their black suit coats. Stirg and Nev were not in attendance, preferring to wait for the DVD. The Saint Petersburg Ministry of Cultural Affairs had sent an agent (who did purchase a ticket) equipped with a hidden video camera, who recorded the performance and transmitted it home by high security satellite uplink.

The music of Stravinsky astonished everyone. It was beautiful in its composition, and magnificent in its one-man performance by The Whosey. People closed their eyes and imagined a space age orchestra of a hundred. The program described the association between the paintings of Van Gogh, Cezanne, Matisse, and Picasso, and the composition by Stravinsky. They heard the stories of the paintings in the music, and saw the stories in the movements of the dancers. There were the gypsy children in the corn field, symbolized by the flock of crows. There were the workers in the stone quarry of southern France, pounding the rock into building blocks. The minimalist set design and costumes conveyed the atmosphere of a forest glade, ethereally populated by naked nymphs. And there were the bedraggled workers, leaving the Spanish factory at the end of a long, spiritually bludgeoning day. The synthesized music was astounding in its capacity to generate emotions in the audience, The Whosey playing with consummate mastery, his genius evident in act after act, stanza after stanza.

Selgey, Bart, and the Ps stood in one wing, watching the great Mariinsky dancers flow through the choreography effortlessly, like birds on the wing. They had been worried that three weeks was not enough time to learn the choreography and perfect the dancing, but the Mariinskyites were pros, and they found the Stravinsky music and the playing of The Whosey inspirational, far beyond anything they had experienced with a conventional orchestra. The principle dancers utterly commanded the stage and the audience, with the corps providing a fluidly rich texture and substance to the choreography and the space of the stage. Music and dancers, paintings and stories, audience and performers; the synergy was perfect and wonderful.

The remaining members of the team, Gwen, Roger, Henric, Helstof, Gale, and the woman, stood in the other wing. They did not have the experience of ballet that the others did, but they were mesmerized by the music and the dance. Gale let out an orgasmic squeal when, in the third act, the four principle male dancers appeared in her fig leaf costumes, and the woman had to clap a hand over her mouth. The audience, after comprehending what they were seeing, roared with approval, which is not normal at ballet performances.

The after-performance party was held there in The Hall. McCrady's served fifty cases of champagne and a hundred trays of canapés. It seemed that half the audience stayed for the party, which was fine with the team, even Henric, who was paying to see all these strangers get drunk. Since he was paying for everything and everyone, he felt it was ok to bring his dog to the party, who had a great time running up and down the aisles, even though there were no children present. The McCrady's waiters carrying trays quickly learned to watch out for this horse in the china shop. The team, plus McCartney, Catherine, and The B, sat in chairs on the stage, relaxing, chatting with the dancers and guests, luxuriating in success. The Ps held hands, the Junes held hands, and Catherine sat between The Whosey and The B, holding hands with both of them. Gale spent time backstage in the dressing room, making friends with one of the principle dancers who had worn her costume with the Mona Lisa smile on it. Again the woman wondered if she was getting too old for this. Helstof and Henric had to go out to the seats and corral their dog, who had tried to jump up on the Secretary of State, precipitating one of the security dudes to draw his weapon.

The party went on until 2am, when Gwen, knowing they had to do this again the next night, put an end to it. Peter and Pater, not a bit tired, were the last out. They bowed from the stage to the empty theater, turned off the lights, and locked the doors.

# Chapter 79 – The Feud Continues

The team sat on the fourth story porch of the Gromstov house, looking out at ships leaving Charleston harbor. They all were there, including the big, dumb borzoi dog (now weighing in at 140 pounds) that had started this caper by sliding across the polished hardwood floors and crashing head first into the antique desk they had stolen from a Hermitage Museum warehouse a year earlier. Henric and Helstof hosted the gathering, the Ps sitting together on a wicker settee, Gale blabbing to Catherine about her new Armani pants suit, The Whosey writing the lyrics to another song for Catherine in his head, Baryshnikov wondered about the music to which he would choreographic his first new ballet, the woman wondering if retiring for good would be boring after what she'd gone through over the last six months, and Bart and Selgey were wondering if they should come out of retirement and mix it up with the young-uns from the Mariinsky who now formed the dance troupe of the new company. That left Roger and Gwen, who waited for the right moment to tell the others about the news. As usual, the Junes were on to the next caper. Their perception of themselves was that they were well to do Charleston aristocrats, who liked to drink good wine and eat great food in interesting restaurants, and liked to live in a house populated with nice antiques. The rest of the team saw them as people around whom strange and sometimes wild things occur.

Roger looked at his wife, saying, tell them. So she did. "Hey, y'all, we have some news." Several members of the group reacted with feelings of ambivalence. News from the Junes could be interesting and fun, or it could mean they would have to starting carrying guns again. Everyone looked at her. "Roger found the artifacts. The Hermitage stuff. He knows where Stirg has it stashed." The ambivalent feelings increased, and spread to one or two other members of the team. Gwen handed it back to Roger.

"When Nev paid us the visit the other night, trying to snatch The Whosey, we talked with him about several things. Given the circumstances, he was pretty accommodating."

Henric said, "Accommodating?"

"Gwen asked him a basic question. 'What do you want out of life, now that you're getting older'? He said what he didn't want any more was to do the commando thing. Said he did that for twenty years, and it was exciting, and he knew he was doing things for his country, good things. But, it was very demanding, and now he wanted something different." They waited to hear what Nev wanted now. Now was what affected their lives. "He said he has a friend, Otis, and they've been spending time over at Stirg's place, hanging out. Nev said he likes that, not really doing much of anything. Said he paid his dues to Israel, and has taken care of Stirg for a lot of years, and now he wants to kick back.

"Gwen asked him where the artifacts are, and he told us. Just like that. We didn't have to waterboard him or anything. She put him in the mood, asking him about his life, and she did that Deneuvian influence thing on him, and he told us."

The Ps looked at each other, and Helstof and Henric stared out at the ocean. The rest, Selgey, Bart, The Whosey, Baryshnikov, and the woman kept looking at Roger. They weren't sure what to expect next. Finally Pater said, "We've just done a ballet. A wonderful production. Everything was perfect, and we're famous in the ballet world right now." He paused, not all that comfortable with challenging Gwen and Roger. But he said, "Do we really need to go after the artifacts? Now? Can't we wait for a while?"

Gwen said, "We're a team. We do want everyone wants, not what Roger and I want. We were sitting around talking the other night and Roger went over our history with Stirg, and looking at that, we thought it might be interesting to, ah, engage him again. That's all, just a thought." She sat back and sipped her glass of Bandol rose.

Gale, the mouth, said, "Let's hear it, Roger. The history with Stirg."

Roger's accounting went thusly. "A year ago we started by stealing the Hermitage stuff. Stirg found out about it, about us bringing it here, and he was pissed, saying it was Russia's heritage. A few months later he sent Anna into our home in the middle of the night. Thanks to our dog," and he leaned over to pat the borzoi, "that failed. We didn't like that, and went on the offensive by invading his house and teaching him a lesson in manners. Then he went a little nuts, and tried to ram us out in the harbor with his power cruiser. We got lucky, and it was him that landed on his ass on the deck, and his boat on a sandbar. Stirg is tough, smart, and determined, we learned that, and he found out where we had the Hermitage stuff stashed, and he swiped the whole lot one night, every painting, every silver bowl, every carpet, every table."

Helstof said, "Thank goodness he didn't get the desk."

"No, he didn't get the items we sent to your house. But he got most of it. Then, thanks to your pooch here, we found the Stravinsky score, and decided to do the production. That was another thing Stirg decided he didn't like, same reason, thinking we were stealing Russia's cultural heritage. So he sent Nev into The Hall and tried to brace us. Thanks to Peter and Pater, that failed." The Ps knew it really was Roger that got the drop on Nev, but they didn't mind taking a little credit, due or not. So they smiled at each other. Roger went on. "A few weeks after that, Stirg managed to steal a copy of the score, and take it back to Saint Petersburg, which is when the dueling ballets thing started. Finally, when we were up against it with finding great dancers, Gwen came up with the idea of stealing dancers from the Mariinsky. That did two things: it brought a world class troupe here, and it stuck it to Stirg pretty good. And that's where we stand now."

Helstof stood up, put her back against the porch railing, and looked from one member of the team to the next, right down the line. She had Gwen's back on this, and moved the conversation to a decision point. "Each side has some wins and loses. We're a formidable team, and so is Stirg. I'm not really sure which side is up in the competition, but that's not the point. We have an opportunity here. Roger has found the Hermitage stuff, and Gwen wants to steal it back from him. The ballet production was an opportunity to shine, and we did. We shone brightly. Now we can do something else. This will be a private adventure, not public, like the ballet. But we'll know about if we pull it off. It's another challenge for the team, and we know it's good to not let grass grow under our feet." Again she looked at each team member, straight in the eyes. "We're going to decide right now. No waiting, no thinking it over, no 'I'll tell you tomorrow'. Each of us....we're in, or we're out." She looked at her husband and said, "I'm in, dear. I'm in, with Roger and Gwen. How about you?" Henric raised his wineglass to his wife. She looked at the Ps, who had been in on the original heist of the artifacts.

Pater said, "I'd rather be dancing than stealing stuff, but I'm with them. I'm in." Peter squeezed Pater's hand, and nodded.

The B stood up, smiling. "It's been a great adventure, working with you. I've enjoyed every minute of it. And now, I have the chance to choreograph ballets for the next three years, for the great dancers of the Mariinsky. And that is what I want to do. So, I will have to decline the offer."

The Whosey said, "I'm with The B. I'm an artist. I have more songs to write. It's been a blast, but I'm out too." He smiled at Gwen, knowing he just had given up the chance to hang some more with her.

The other four, almost at the same time, said, "I'm in." That was the woman, Selgey, Bart, and, of course, with the biggest mouth, Gale. Helstof motioned to everyone to stand, and when they did, she said, "To all of us, making art, or sticking it to Stirg."

Gwen felt very relaxed sitting on the porch with her friends, now that the ballet production was over, and the course of their immediate future had been charted. She leaned over and patted the dog on the head. Some local kids down on the beach looked up and waved. Everyone waved back except The Whosey, who just about had the last stanza of lyrics done. The dog recognized the kids down below and barked, which made the kids laugh, and yell up, "Can she come down to the beach?"

Gwen smiled, and then leaned over to her husband, saying, "Dear, I found a gun on the ground under the hydrangea at the back steps. Do you know anything about that?"

Roger looked at the glass in his hand, dripping with condensation created by the chilled white Bordeaux wine in it, and remembered. Damn. Forgot about it. He said, "Oh, yeah, that must be Nev's. He had it when he came the other night."

"So, it's been out there since just before opening night? Under the hydrangea?" Roger nodded while taking a sip of his wine, thinking that would mitigate his admission that he'd forgotten about the gun; left it lying around in their back yard. Gwen was feeling wonderful, so she said, "Don't worry, dear. I added it to our collection."

###

Richard Dorrance lives in America's most beautiful town,

Charleston, South Carolina. You can look at other books at his website: richarddorrance.com

