The Fey (12 page)

“
Can you see into the
compound?”

“
No, the mountains get in
the way.” Raz reoriented the satellite to the area of the compound
with little success.

“
Hey Alex,” Zack said. “We
need a decision.”

Alex raised her eyebrows to Ben and Raz.
“What does he not expect us to do?”

“
Reinforcements?”

“
He’ll have planned for
that,” Ben said.

“
Leave them
there?”

“
Expected.”

“
Alex,” Zack’s voice sang
over the radio feed.

“
Hang on Zack,” Alex
said.

“
Drones?”

“
They crash at the sight.
These guys,” she pointed to the sleeping lost soldiers, “are dead
either way. Those guys,” Alex pointed to Eleazar’s twelve armed
men, “will kill our lost soldiers if the guys in the tunnel
don’t.”

“
So we give up on the
strangers?” Ben asked.

Alex laughed.

“
That’s my girl,” Ben
said. “I’m going to smoke.”

“
What was that?” Raz
asked.

“
There’s no record of the
Fey every being in this region of Afghanistan.”

F

CHAPTER NINE

“
What about the
map?”

“
Myth and legend. He
clearly knows that my team went through the Russian compound. But
in Afghanistan? Twenty miles away is new country.”

“
He doesn’t know about the
extraction.”

“
The story is that we were
dropping off a Green Beret, not that we were extracting a doctor.”
She smiled. “Eleazar will never expect that I have friends in this
region.”

She went to the map and marked the location
of the soldiers, the armed men and the tunnels. Tapping her yellow
pencil on the table, she chewed the inside of her mouth. Her mind
laid out a strategy. Blowing out a breath, she hoped she was
right.

“
Can you see what the
Special Forces team is doing?” Alex asked.

Raz reoriented the satellite picture. They
watched the team packing their gear and moving out of their
location.

“
Sergeant,” Alex clicked
the video feed. “Can you set a secure link to the CO in
Afghanistan? Let me know when it’s set.”

Turning to Raz, she said, “Can you relay all
this information to Zack?”

While Raz updated Zack and Matthew, Alex sat
down at her map table and began making calculations. Reaching into
another cubbyhole, she pulled out a stack of rolled up maps. Under
the rolled maps, toward the back of the cubby, she found what she
was looking for–a filthy tattered map. Unfolding the map on the
table, she compared the original map, the Russian map, to the more
recent map.

“
Can I have my
chair?”

“
What’s that?” Raz asked.
“Oh you’re shitting me. This is the original map.”

Alex nodded. “The only copy.”

“
Sergeant?” Alex asked
clicking the feed.

“
Fey? I have the CO but
he’s a little prickly.”

“
That’s fine. Can you send
two drones to these exact coordinates?” she sent him the
coordinates by instant message. “I want the controls. Also, can you
put this set of coordinates through to Zack’s engineer? I don’t
want to risk the radio. Make sure he confirms the
altitude.”

“
Got it.”

She waited for a minute while the Sergeant
made the call. She heard voices behind the Sergeant.

“
You have an
audience?”

“
You have an audience. All
right, Army command says that the drones will hover at that
location in fifteen minutes. They asked me to remind you that the
drones become disabled less than two feet from that
location.”

“
Yes, thank you for the
reminder.”

“
I have confirmation from
the engineer as well.”

“
Great. I need a secure
line, then I’ll talk to the CO.”

“
Who are you
calling?”

Alex looked at the video controller.

“
I need it for the log,”
he continued.

“
Dead soldiers or log,”
Alex said.

“
You’ll initial this or
it’s my ass.”

Alex nodded. The phone rang twice indicating
that it was secure. Alex reached up to a small shelf near the top
of the armoire and pulled down an address book. Time to call some
friends.

“
Can I have that?” Raz
asked looking over her shoulder.

“
When I die,” she
said.

He laughed.

Alex flipped open the address book that
contained coded telephone numbers, birthdays, addresses and
personal information from every person she had extracted. This tiny
book held confidential personal information on some of the world’s
most powerful people.

She began dialing, laughing and chatting
with people whose lives she saved. Even the prickly CO was laughing
when they disconnected. By the time the drones arrived, a plan was
underway. When she looked up, Raz was shaking his head from the
overstuffed green chair.

“
Friends?”

“
The most unpredictable
force in intelligence,” Alex said. “And something I’m good
at.”

Alex slipped the address book back onto the
shelf of the armoire.

“
In case you are
wondering, this book is resting on a light-sensitive scanning
device. The book will be set on fire if someone other than me takes
it down.”

“
I don’t remember setting
that up,” Raz said.

“
You’re not my only
friend,” Alex replied.

Raz laughed. Ben came jogging down the
stairs with a bottle of cold water which he gave to Alex. She
smiled her thanks and took a drink.

“
Shall we watch?” Ben
asked.

Alex stood to allow Raz to take her
position.

“
Lost soldiers first,”
Alex said.

Raz clicked the satellite photo back to the
three lost soldiers. While they watched, a large herd of goats
moved through the valley followed by a small boy. He moved in such
a way that by the time he reached the soldiers, the goats had
spread out covering the flat valley. Standing a few feet from the
soldiers, the boy spoke. The soldiers startled, pulled their
weapons, then seemed to understand what the boy was saying. When
the soldiers moved, three men raced out of the caves. Tripping on
the goats, the men screamed and fell to the ground. They fired
their machine guns in the direction of the soldiers.

“
Troy?”

“
Got it,” Troy
said.

From almost two miles above the valley, Troy
fired the Barrett .416. The terrorists fell to the dirt. Following
the boy, the soldiers ran out of the valley.

Alex fired a missile from a drone into the
area where the twelve armed men waited to down the helicopter and
kill the soldiers.

“
Zack? Move before they
fire. Raz? Can we see the other location?”

He switched the screen to the area where the
armed men waited. As planned, the drone missile dropped close
enough to Eleazar’s men to cause them to scramble. Two men raised
Grail missiles to their shoulders and Alex fired the second drone’s
missile. The drone missile hit the men. The Grail missiles exploded
in their hands.

“
Captain? You can go in
now,” Alex said to the Commanding Officer.

The Special Forces team engaged Eleazar’s
armed men in a quick firefight. Eleazar’s men surrendered and were
rounded up by Special Forces.

“
We’ve got the soldiers,
uh, Quinn, Rhine and Boransky.” Matthew’s face flashed onto the
computer screen causing Alex to jump. “Surprised you?”

Alex laughed.

“
Should we get the
others?”

“
Army command has sent a
unit and a couple choppers. Take the men back to Kabul. Get them
checked through medical. No fucking around this time. Get back to
Kabul. That’s an order.”

Matthew laughed. “The boys want to say, ‘Hi’
to the Fey.”

He pressed the laptop to show the soldiers
they had just picked up.

“
That’s the
Fey?”

Alex waved.

“
That hot chick is the
Fey?”

Trece made a face and stood to block the
computer.

“
We have some important
drinking to do, then we’ll be back stateside,” he said. “Anyone
have anything interesting to say?”

“
Is she available? Have
you…”

“
That’s a ‘No’,” Trece
said. “See ya.”

The screen went dark and Alex leaned back in
her chair.

“
Thirty minutes,” Ben
said. “It’s just twelve now.”

“
Let’s send him a
message,” Alex said.

Ben smiled. “I’ve got just the thing. Close
up and we’ll buy lunch.”

Alex nodded.

A half hour later, a large bouquet of
flowers was delivered to a small residence in Jerusalem. The card
read simply: “Congratulations on the new baby. With Love, the Fey.”
No tricks, no games, just congratulations. Eleazar screamed and
ripped the flowers from their stems.

In Denver, the day dissolved into lunch and
paperwork. With kisses all around, Ben and Raz left in their
government vehicle and Alex retired to the hundred-year-old claw
foot tub in the upstairs bathroom. Turning the water on, she put a
little bubble bath, lavender oil and Epsom salts in the tub. She
wandered, lost in thought, into her walk-in closet to undress.
Naked, she startled to see John leaning against the doorway.

“
I wondered when you’d
notice me,” he said.

“
What are you doing here?”
she asked.

“
I thought we could
celebrate,” he said. He stepped forward to hold her. “I assume
you’ve saved the universe again.”

“
The universe?”

His hands stroked her naked body. “You
always inspire and impress me.”

Her face broke into a wide smile. She helped
him take his clothing off. They walked into the bathroom where they
stepped into the fragrant water. Tucked into his shoulder, she
relaxed against him in the claw foot tub.

“
Oh, I forgot to tell
you,” John said.

“
Yes.”

“
We’re booked to Mexico in
a couple hours. Colonel Gordon said ‘get the hell out of town’ or
something like that.”

Alex laughed. He kissed her head then pushed
her back to his shoulder.

“
Max, too?”

“
He’s meeting us there. I
have you to myself for a day and a half,” John said.

“
Nice. What’s the
occasion?”

John shifted so he could look in her
eyes.

“
We are celebrating that
you’re alive.”

“
Hmm,” she
said.

“
Hmm?”

“
I’m just wondering if I
can wait that long.”

He stepped out of the tub. Laughing, she
joined him in bed to begin the celebration.

FFF

They spent four days in the sun around March
eighth. Four days of great food followed by great sex and great
conversation. For the first time in almost two years, Alex was
laughing, available and present.

She hadn’t realized how much she missed her
gorgeous husband. Like a famine victim, she gorged on the very
sight of him. She watched him move his hands when he talked, his
intense cobalt blue eyes flashing as the generous curve of his
mouth formed around words.

In the candlelight, their final night in
Cabo San Lucas, John unwound his experience of the assault. He
described waking to Max singing “When you wish upon a star” at the
top of his lungs. John’s eyes clouded, his brow furrowed and his
breath stopped.

She was dead. He just knew it.

He sang with Max because he didn’t know what
else to do. When the phone rang a few minutes later, they let the
answering machine pick it up. They couldn’t bear to hear the words:
“Alex is dead.” John will never forget Ben’s words on the answering
machine: “She’s alive. Get to Washington.”

Blowing out a breath, his blue eyes held her
eyes. He pulled out the dog tag bearing her name from under his
shirt. Running his fingers over the indentations, he told her that
the medics threw the tag at him when they unloaded her from
Germany. Did she mind that he wore it? She put her hand over the
tag and pressed it to his heart, the heart that she owned. This
simple gesture launched him from his seat. He carried her to the
bed where they consumed each other in unabated heat and
passion.

They celebrated the eighth day of every
month that spring and summer. They were riding their bikes through
downtown Denver to a Colorado Rockies game on April eighth at
twelve-thirty. The baseball game started at one o’clock and Max’s
law firm had season tickets. John, Alex and Max ate hot dogs and
drank beer in the sunshine of their baseball team’s opening week.
With sunburned noses, they moved down Blake Street to a bar where
they joined Erin and Matthew for dinner, drinks and dancing.

John and Max were flyfishing in the middle
of the Arkansas River on June eighth. At twelve-thirty, a large
brown trout rose from the bottom of the river to snatch at the fly
Alex had cast from the banks. Screaming and laughing at her
success, the men took a quick picture of Alex and the fish before
returning the fish to the river. They ate dinner in Buena Vista
then soaked in the Cottonwood Hot Springs. On the drive back to
Denver, Max slept in the back seat of John’s Audi while Alex and
John whispered back and forth. John pulled into a turn off near
Kenosha Pass. They cuddled on the hood of his Audi A8 and watched
the moon rise to brighten the high plains valley below.