Learning to Stand (3 page)

The Weasel didn’t expect a tall, thin,
bleach blonde haired woman with fake blue eyes. Alex snorted. He
didn’t expect a dark haired, dark eyed woman either.

“
Are you laughing at you own
jokes?” Raz asked.

“
I think I’m very funny,”
she replied.

Raz smiled.

Colonel Gordon, Alex’s Military Intelligence
boss, christened the Secret Service agent with the name ‘the
Weasel’ and the name stuck. He was ‘the Weasel’ to everyone
involved. At this point, his renaming was the only reason he was
still alive.

And in a few minutes, she would find out
what he knew about the murder of the Fey Special Forces Team.

It had been a full day: drive to Fort Carson
to pick up Sergeant Larry ‘G.I. Joe’ Flagg; a three hour briefing;
working through a molehill of Department of Corrections paperwork
to discover a mountain of Military Intelligence paperwork; twenty
phone calls looking for her men only to learn they were already en
route to the meeting site; another push-the-food-around-her-plate
meal; and finally a nap on the helicopter. Pulling on her T-shirt,
she stood and stretched.

She felt filthy.

At least she looked reasonably clean.
Rubbing her dry eyes, she walked forward to the cockpit. His head
covered in a silver-blue helmet, Zack ‘the Jakker’ Jakkman leaned
forward to click on the speaker.

“
Welcome back,” Zack
said.

The co-pilot nodded to Alex. He had been
assigned as the Jakker’s personal slave in retribution for being
nasty to Alex last fall. He detailed Zack’s car weekly, babysat his
kids, cleaned his house, washed his laundry, made breakfast, lunch
and dinner, and stayed up all night to ride co-pilot. For someone
so mistreated, the co-pilot seemed very happy to be with the Jakker
and the Fey. Alex curled her lip at co-pilot then turned to
Zack.

“
Thanks for the nap, Zack.
Can we see where we’re going?”

“
It’s right in front of us,”
Sergeant Larry Flagg said walking from the back. “You can see the
lights. Right there. We’re about ten minutes out.”

“
That’s very helpful, G.I.
Joe,” Zack said.

“
Will you fucking call me
Larry? God damn it,” the young man said.

Alex coughed into her hand to keep from
laughing

“
Is the Weasel
there?”

“
He was moved from Super Max
to Cañon City Maximum Security this morning,” Raz said. “He left
Cañon City about an hour ago. They landed with him about fifteen
minutes ago.”

Through a pair of binoculars, she looked
across the tops of dense pine trees to a clearing ahead. Five
diesel fueled flood light towers creating a fifty foot circle of
light in the center of a forest meadow. Deep black diesel smoke
wafted into the cold mountain air.

“
Are you wearing body
armor?” Alex asked Larry.

Larry nodded.

She turned and looked at Raz. “Body
armor?”

“
Always,” Raz
said.

Her face pinched at the uncomfortable
feeling growing in her gut. Rubbing her stomach, she closed her
eyes and opened them again.

Something was very wrong.

Or maybe she hadn’t eaten in a while.

Her insecurity and intuition fought a
staccato drum beat in her head.

“
Shouldn’t land,” her
intuition said.

“
Don’t blow it,” her mind
spit out in response.

“
Need to get out of
here.”

“
Chicken.”

Around and around the thoughts went until
they reached their conclusion:

“
If Charlie was here, he
would know what to do.“

Shaking her head, she walked back to the
passenger cabin. She strapped herself into a seat then closed her
eyes.

“
Sleeping?” Raz slipped his
arm over her shoulder.

“
Just thinking,” she said.
“This whole thing… It doesn’t feel right.”

He nodded.

As the helicopter began to descend into the
meadow, Larry dropped into the seat next to Alex.

“
Would you mind going
through it again?” Alex asked.

“
We are meeting with the
Weasel in an undisclosed, unmonitored location in order to get
information regarding the Fey Special Forces Team murder,” Raz
said. “As far as we know, there is an active threat to your life
and to his life.”

“
The brass said stay alive,
spare no expense,” Alex said. “That’s why we’re meeting here and
not at Super Max.”

“
Right. We’re meeting in the
most remote wilderness in the continental US.”

“
Weminuche
Wilderness.”

“
Exactly. This entire region
is set as a no-fly zone. Cheyenne Mountain is monitoring all
activity. The area is only accessible by military helicopter
or...”

“
By hiking in a hundred
miles,” Alex continued. “It’s too rugged for motorized vehicles or
even civilian helicopters. And I selected this location less than
eight hours ago.”

“
Yes.” Raz smiled at the
growing confidence in Alex’s voice. “The entire region was swept
two days ago. It’s been locked down since then. The last sweep
was...”

He looked at his watch.

“
An hour ago. The Weasel,
three prison guards, and a team from Homeland Security are waiting
to speak with the Fey. They are expecting to meet with a
thirty-year-old...”

“
Thirty-three,” she
said.

“
Yes, thirty-three-year-old
male Special Forces Intelligence Officer. You and I will be dressed
in Homeland Security gear. They won’t know it’s you until we
confirm safety. The guys were dropped about a mile from here. They
should be on scene within the next five minutes. Your Sergeant is
our communication point.”

Alex nodded her head.

“
You have your pocket
computer?”

Alex pulled the device from the back pocket
of her jeans.

“
Our ear buds?”

She nodded and gave him an ear bud
communicator. Slipping the communicators into their ears, they were
treated to the men’s assessment of women’s pubic hair. She took her
ear bud out.

“
And I’m going to pretend to
be the Fey,” Larry said. “I would make a great Fey. I mean it’s a
role, right? I have the walk down. I’m male. And...”

Seeing the looks on Alex and Raz’s faces,
Larry shut his mouth.

“
Never mind.”

“
Where is Ben?” Alex
asked.

“
In route,” Raz replied. “He
wanted to stay connected until the meeting starts. Just in case
there’s late intel.”

“
You mean in case someone
calls to say I’m dead?” Alex asked.

“
Something like that. Zack
will switch choppers as soon as we land. The co-pilot will take
this helicopter back to base with Larry. If something happens, Zack
will get you out of here. Stick with Zack.”

Alex nodded. Zack dropped the helicopter
onto an open space near the circle of lights. The bright lights
filled the meadow with dazzling light and deep shadow. The diesel
smoke blew in white clouds to obscure the helicopters. No one would
be able to see who got out of this chopper.

“
Promise me. You will leave
without me,” Raz said into her ear.

“
No,” she said.

Standing, she pulled on an oversized dark
blue jacket with HOMELAND SECURITY printed in white letters across
the back. Raz stuck a Homeland Security baseball cap on her fake
blonde hair. When she looked up, Raz was dressed in a matching
jacket and hat. She took a pair of brown rimmed glasses from his
hand.

The helicopter door opened to two Homeland
Security officers. Raz and Alex followed Larry out of the
helicopter. On the way to the clearing, the senior Homeland
Security officer updated Larry. Reaching the edge of the lit area,
Larry glanced back at Alex and Raz. His smile faded and his eyes
flicked back and forth with anxiety.

Something wasn’t right.

Alex smiled to comfort the young man.

Larry nodded his head and entered the circle
of light. Alex and Raz stood about a foot from the lit space almost
hidden by dark shadow and smoke.

Seated in the middle of the circle, the
Weasel’s orange jumpsuit the bright white light like a lighthouse.
His hands were cuffed behind him and his legs shackled. Three
Federal prison guards stood behind him. Two Homeland Security
agents stood next to him. The Weasel watched Larry move across the
lit area.

Zack hopped out of the Black Hawk. He
swaggered over to a group of Homeland Security agents. After making
a lewd joke, he moved off into the forest.

So far so good.

They stood in the shadows listening to Larry
bluff his way through the preliminaries of the interview. A half
hour in, one of the Weasel’s Department of Corrections guards came
out of the lit circle.

“
You with the Fey?” the man
asked.

His voice was loud enough for the other
Homeland Security Agents to look up. Surprised, Alex nodded.

“
You need to come with
me.”

F

CHAPTER THREE

Raz hesitated. Alex reassured him by putting
her hand on his elbow. He looked into her face then nodded. They
followed the man toward the forest.

“
That’s Perses.”

The apparition of Alex’s best-friend
Sergeant Jesse Abreu appeared beside her. Alex nodded her head
slightly. As usual, Jesse continued in Spanish:

“
The Weasel is completely
freaked out, Alex.”

Alex glanced in his direction.

“
Something weird is going
on, but I can’t tell what. Ever since those Homeland agents
arrived, he’s become more and more anxious. Perses has been with
him the whole time. I think he’s guarding the Weasel. Funny thing
for a no fingerprint, no name assassin to do.”

Alex raised her eyebrows. Used to speaking
out loud with Jesse, Alex could only communicate with facial
gestures. She signed ‘the guys’ in American Sign Language.

“
The guys are following you
in the forest,” Jesse said. “They’re tracking the GPS signal in
your hip. In this forest, they could be six feet away and you
wouldn’t see them. But I can.”

Alex smiled at his ‘so-there’ laugh. Jesse
had been her best-friend since the first week of basic training.
Their lives intertwined, they had been each other’s constant
companion through Bosnia, Special Forces training, and the Fey
Special Forces Team. In the doorway to the vault in Paris, he died
with his head on her lap. His reappearance in her life was a gift.
Especially now.

“
Larry’s a little prick,”
Jesse continued his update. “He’s bossing people around, making
them get him coffee. But I guess you can hear him on your ear
bud.”

Alex nodded.

“
Anyway, Zack’s ready to go.
I’m going back to the Weasel.”

Jessie disappeared.

“
Any idea of how far we are
going?” Raz asked.

Perses turned to look at him. He nodded his
head to Alex. He gave Raz an eerie smile then continued hiking.

“
There’s a bunker a quarter
mile from the location,” she said. “It’s not marked on any map, but
is the reason this is a no-fly zone. I think that’s where we’re
going.”

Raz knew better than to be surprised. Every
plan had three or four side journeys. When he started working with
Alex, he’d tell her she was wasting time on these side ventures.
She’d smile and nod. But time and time again, the simple complexity
of her plans saved them.

The farther away from the circle of light,
the noisier the men became. Through their ear buds, Alex’s second
in command, Captain Matthew Mac Clenaghan, asked if they should
take out the man they were following. She made no indication she
heard them.

They slowed at a slight hillside. A clear
dirt path continued in front of them. But Perses turned to the
right into the dense forest. He went about six feet then
stopped.

“
Take them inside,” Perses
said to Alex. His voice was straight out of British ruled Africa.
“I’ll get the prisoner. We’ll talk when I get back?”

Alex nodded her head.

Perses moved to touch Alex but Raz stood in
the way. The man gave an unearthly smile, turned in place and ran
off into the dark.

Alex raised her hand. Matthew, Troy and
Vince emerged from the forest. With a nod, she walked until she
reached a large granite formation. Rounding a forty foot high
boulder, Alex slipped through a gap between the boulder and the
dirt.

“
Head lamps,” she
ordered.

She pressed against the dirt walls of the
natural cave. Certain she’d lost her mind, the men gaped at her
actions.

“
These bunkers were built in
the late 1920s… early ‘30s… around the time the stock market
crashed.” She pushed on a wall. “This is it. Mattie? Troy? Can you
stand on the right here? Raz? Vince? Over here? It’s going to take
all of us to move this.”

“
What are we doing?” Troy
asked. His voice echoed his suspicion that she had lost her
mind.

“
Oh. Sorry. In the movies,
there’s some complicated mechanism at the entrance to these places.
They aren’t. There is a sliding metal door under this
dirt.”

“
So we dig?” Raz
asked.

“
No. No one was sure what or
who would use these bunkers. They determined that a single person
should be able to get into a bunker. When Army engineers designed
these bunkers, they made them accessible for teams of at least
twelve men. Damn the politicians, kind of thing. I’ve heard the
entrances are some combination of easy and hard.”