Authors: Claudia Hall Christian
Tags: #military, #action thriller, #mind control, #strong female character, #alex the fey
In the Grey
IN THE GREY
CLAUDIA HALL
CHRISTIAN
Cook Street Publishing
Denver, CO
ALEX THE FEY THRILLERS
The Fey
Learning to
Stand
Who I Am
Lean on Me
In the Grey
THE DENVER CEREAL
The Denver
Cereal
Celia’s Puppies
Cascade
Cimarron
Black Forest
Fairplay
Gold
Hill
THE QUEEN of COOL
The Queen of
Cool
SETH AND AVA MYSTERIES
The Tax
Assassin
Copyright © Claudia Hall
Christian
Licensed under the Creative
Commons License:
Attribution – NonCommercial
– Share Alike 3.0
You are free:
to Share – to copy,
distribute, display, and perform the workto Remix – to make
derivative works
Smashwords Edition
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ISBN-13 :
978-1-938057-05-2
Library of Congress
:
2013900614 (print)
PUBLISHER’S
NOTE:
This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places and incidents either are either the
product of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously.
First edition © March,
2013
Cook Street
Publishing
PO Box 18217
Denver, CO 80218
303-242-5391
For all those living in the grey.
OF CONTENTS
“
The color of truth is
grey.”
André Gide, in
Autumn Leaves
October 15 – 2:15 a.m.
China Standard Time
Dzungarian Alatau Mountain
Range
Xinjiang Province,
China
With her knees tight
against the flanks of the horse, she pointed to her right and
pulled her micro-compound bow from the sling on her back. The horse
flew up the dirt track. She laid the bow across her lap and leaned
back to see if her younger brother had made the turn. Close behind,
his hair flashed white when the quarter moon appeared from behind
the scattered clouds.
She hadn’t expected to
make it this far. She thought they would be stopped at the border,
but in the frigid dark, the border guard had given their passports
no more than a cursory glance before returning to his kerosene
heater. His partner had pawed through their backpacks before waving
their rental car through.
They had driven a few
winding miles into the border mountains until they reached the
turnout where they’d met another American couple. His hair was not
as blonde; she was not quite as thin; otherwise they’d looked
enough like them to swap passports. They’d traded their rental car
and tourist backpacks for the couple’s jeep, black clothing, and
the micro-compound bows. They’d left the paved road in
four-wheel-drive. Her brother had driven the jeep until the track
ended at an old farm where they had picked up a stocky pair of
nearly wild Dzungarian horses.
Sure footed and steady,
her horse hurtled up a barely visible track under Mount Kertau and
the Tian Shan mountain system. She clung to the back of beast. Up
ahead, she saw the flickering apparition of Sergeant Jesse Abreu,
her best friend who had died with his head in her lap, waving her
forward.
On the first of October,
she’d arrived at her office at Buckley Air Force Base to find a
handwritten note sitting in the middle of her desk.
“
If you would like to
retrieve the package hidden by the Fey Special Forces Team, you
will be standing at 45°44'39.93"
N
and
82°29'36.21"
E
at 3 a.m., October 15. Bring only
one other.”
The note had been
analyzed, fought over, worried about, and researched. When no human
DNA or fingerprints were found on the note, forensic specialists
had tested the composition of the paper and ink. The paper could be
found in any office around the world and the ink came from a black
Bic Stic pen. Forensic handwriting specialists found that an
individual with extensive calligraphy experience had written the
note. Security experts had shared their sage advice and dire
warnings.
The bottom line was that
she wanted the package. She was going to be standing in the meadow
next to the abandoned Buddhist monastery on the border of
Kazakhstan and Xingjian province, China, on October 15.
She’d gathered her team
and flown to the other side of the world. She’d tapped her little
brother to come with her. He was an expert in martial arts, and a
decent shot, but more than anything, he knew her well. He would
watch her back and keep her ego in check. She’d left the rest of
her team at a resort on the Caspian Sea. She and her brother had
set out across Kazakhstan in a small rental car. As if she could
see the satellite monitoring her progress, she looked up into the
night sky. At this altitude, the sky was ablaze with pinpoints of
light.
Her horse turned into a
protected valley and continued to climb. In the distance, she saw
the crumbling ruins of a Buddhist temple. The temple had once
served as a destination for wealthy travelers of the Northern-most
portion of the Silk Road. Protected by the high cliffs and deep
valleys of the Dzungarian Alatau mountain range, the temple had
withstood conquering invaders, cultural change, and religious
intolerance, only to fall to ruins during the famine brought by
Mao’s Great Leap Forward. The last surviving monk had walked the
Silk Road to deposit the temple’s most precious artifacts into one
of the sacred Buddhist caves of Mogao.
Her martial arts teacher,
and the head of a US Army covert black ops group, Steve Pershing,
had told her that the monk was buried in the cave along with his
treasures. She had no idea if that was true.