The Fey (35 page)

“
I was simply keeping him
from harm’s way.”

“
We need to compete
again,” Matthew said.

Alex nodded. She raised a hand to say
‘hello’ to Troy and walked back to the small conference room next
to Max’s office.

“
Hi.” She closed the door.
“I understand you wanted to see me.”

John turned from the plate glass window he
had been looking out. In a step, he lifted her off the ground. She
giggled.

“
I love you so much I can
barely hold all the feelings in my body.”

She kissed his lips.

“
I do not want to be away
from you today, not any day, but especially not today. I can’t
lose…”

Alex kissed him quiet.

“
Today marks the worst
day, the very worst day of my life.” His lip moved against her
lips.

“
Me too.” She rested her
head on his shoulder.

“
What is your plan?” John
asked.

“
We are going to the Irish
Snug for some lunch and whiskey. We reserved a snug and are going
to play poker. If he’s back in time, Zack’s going to meet us
there.”

“
I’ll be back in a couple
hours and we’ll do something fun.” His hands pulled at her behind.
“You have no idea how fun I can be.”

She giggled feeling his desire press against
her and kissed him.

“
I’m wondering what kind
of fun you had in mind, Mr. Kelly.”

“
Drayson,” he
laughed.

She laughed and kissed him. He moved to kiss
her deeper when there was a tap at the door.

“
John?” Max stuck his head
in the room, “our escort is here.”

John stepped back from Alex. While holding
her eyes, he kissed her hand, then followed Max into the entry way
of Max’s law office. Max hugged Alex then followed the soldiers out
the door. Standing at the door for a moment, Alex watched John, Max
and two soldiers walk to the elevators. With a sigh, she closed the
door and raised her eyebrows.

“
Gentlemen,” she said.
“Let the drinking begin.”

Troy held up a deck of cards. Matthew
jingled his keys.

“
We can go to my house,”
Matthew said.

“
Yeah, Erin would flip the
fuck out,” Alex said. “She can’t stand cigar smoke.”

Alex pulled her handgun out to check to see
if it was loaded. She was digging around in the pockets of her
jacket when her cell phone went off.

“
It’s probably my buddy
Eleazar,” Alex said. She began rifling through her
purse.

“
You’re not going to
answer it?” Troy asked. “It could be something
important.”

“
You can,” Alex said. She
threw the phone at him. “Tell him I said, ‘Hi’. I have to fix my
eyes. I’ll be right back.”

“
Captain Troy Olivas,”
Troy said answering Alex’s cell phone. “What?”

Alex was humming in the small half bathroom
off Max’s office. As a partner in the law firm, Max had a plush set
up. She changed from her dress into comfortable jeans and a long
sleeved T-shirt. She was leaning against the sink putting her
contacts in when Matthew came to stand at the open bathroom
door.

“
Your Sergeant’s on the
phone,” Matthew said.

Alex moved to press past him and he grabbed
her arm. Standing face to face, he said, “It’s bad.”

Alex nodded. Walking out of Max’s office,
she stopped. Troy was bent over with his hands on his knees. He
looked up when he heard her come out of Max’s office. Their eyes
held for a moment. He shook his head and gave her the phone.

“
Fey,” Alex
said.

“
Sir.”

“
Yes, Sergeant,” she
said.

“
There’s been a plane
crash. Captain Jakkman is a confirmed hit.”

“
What?”

“
Captain Zack Jakkman is
dead.”

F

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“
Where?”

“
Afghanistan. His U-2
crashed in the mountains.”

“
When?”

“
Nine minutes ago,” her
Sergeant said. “Sir, it’s a total loss. The Air Force says that it
will be days before they can even get to the wreck. They had feed
from him just prior to an explosion on board.”

“
And what exactly did
Captain Jakkman say? Word for word, Sergeant.”

“’
Oh crap, that sucks’
then the plane exploded and plowed into the mountain. The Air Force
confirms that Captain Jakkman is dead by terrorist
sabotage.”

“
Zack,” Alex said as an
out breath. She closed her eyes.

“
There’s more, sir. I
received a priority email regarding the event. I tried to trace the
email but I am unable to.”

“
How is it
signed?”

“
With a Vivaldi
scripted‘F.’”

“
What color?”

“
Sir?”

“
What is the color of
F?”

“
Black,” her Sergeant
said.

“
Fuck. Can you move it to
my secure area?” Realizing that she no longer had a secure office
to view the document in, she added, ”Scratch that. We have to come
there.”

“
Sir, I do not advise that
you return to base,” her Sergeant said.

“
Why?”

“
I cannot
explain.”

“
All right. Can I call you
back?”

“
Yes sir. Sir?”

“
Yes?”

“
I’m sorry about Captain
Jakkman.”

“
Yes, Sergeant. Me
too.”

Alex’s head bowed to her cell phone. Her
fingers flew across the keys. She texted this message: ‘z-m?’ then
stood staring at the phone. Within seconds, she received a four
letter text message: ‘hvhm’.

Alex dropped to her knees and wept with
relief. Matthew moved forward to comfort Alex but she blew out a
breath and wiped her face. This was not the time for emotions.
Eleazar’s plan was in motion. Killing Zack was his first move.

“
As far as you are
concerned, Zack Jakkman is dead.” Alex pointed to Troy then
Matthew. “Got that?”

Troy and Matthew nodded their heads. They
had heard stories about the Fey but never seen their sweet laughing
friend, now boss, Alex turn into the Fey. Like a flick of the
switch, she was the completely cold intelligence officer.

“
We have work to do,” Alex
said. “We need to break into my Dad’s office. Can you guys pick
locks?”

Troy and Matthew, both a little intimidated
by her, shook their heads.

“
Eoin can,” Alex said.
“They are supposed to meet us here. Come on.”

She walked out of the suite and down the
hall. Troy and Matthew followed behind her. Alex stood with her
head down thinking as they waited at the elevator.

“
Shit,” Alex
said.

“
What?” Matthew
asked.

“
We don’t have a car,”
Alex said. “Eleazar has made every single thing so fucking hard.
God damn it.”

“
I have Erin’s bug,”
Matthew held up the key to Erin’s lime green 1964 VW
convertible.

Alex looked at the men and shook her head.
“Weapons?”

“
There’s a baseball bat in
the trunk,” Matthew said.

“
Come on Fey,” Troy said.
“We’ll do it low tech style.”

She shook her head. When the elevator bell
rang, Cian and Eoin stepped off the elevator to meet up for an
afternoon at the Irish Snug. Cian took one look at Alex then
stepped back on the elevator. They took the elevator to the ground
and poured into Erin’s tiny car.

Pressed against the back window, Alex tried
to remember what security was installed at the hundred and fifty
year old building which housed her father’s office. She shook her
head. Guess I’ll find out. She made a quick call for her Sergeant
to run interference with the security company. Stepping out of the
car, she saw the latest security addition–a US Army soldier?
Standing next to the door of the office, carrying an M-16 machine
gun, was Sergeant Lawrence Flagg.

“
What the fuck are you
doing here?” Alex asked. She pointed Eoin to the door of the
office.

“
I was assigned here,
sir,” the young man said. “I wanted to help and there was a concern
about… What are you doing?”

Eoin had dropped to his knees to begin
working on the door. Cian reviewed the security. Cian pointed to a
video camera and Troy knocked it down with the bat.

“
Sir, I’m sorry, but I
cannot let you do that,” Sergeant Flagg said. He nudged Eoin with
the machine gun.

Alex nodded her head toward the young
Sergeant and Troy raised the bat to him.

“
Ok, I changed my mind.
It’s your father’s office after all.”

“
Thank you Sergeant,” Alex
said. “Who assigned you here?”

“
I was assigned at the
last minute by Colonel Gordon, sir. I just got here. I was on site
at Fort Logan when I was reassigned.”

Alex smiled. “You don’t happen to have a
vehicle do you?”

“
Done.” Eoin opened the
door.

“
Yes sir, an armored
Expedition.”

“
Weapons?”

“
Just this
M-16.”

“
What are we doing?” Troy
asked.

“
I need a secure
computer,” Alex said. “I set Maria up with a secure node about a
year ago. I had a feeling I might need it some day.”

The men followed her through the office to a
small office near the back. Flicking the light on, she moved around
the desk and turned the computer on. Alex opened a closet door.

“
Cian, would you mind
sweeping the office for listening devices?” She gave him the
device.

“
How does it
work?”

“
Just turn it on,” Alex
said. “It makes a loud noise when you find a device.
Thanks.”

“
What do we do when we
find them?”

“
Use Troy’s
bat.”

Cian and Eoin began in Maria’s office then
worked their way through the suite. The device screamed every two
or three minutes as they found a listening device. Each siren was
followed by the sound of the baseball bat smashing the devices to
pieces.

“
Jesse? Do you know her
logins?” Alex asked. She tapped away at Maria’s
keyboard.

“
Of course,” Jesse said.
He stood near the corner of the room.

“
Who’s Jesse?” Sergeant
Flagg asked.

“
He’s right there,” Troy
said pointing to the corner. “Hey Jesse.”

“
How is that fair?”
Matthew asked. “You can see Jesse?? Fuck. I loved Jesse and I can’t
see him. Jesse hated you.”

“
I made some mistakes when
we were in training,” Troy said. “But Jesse knows that I’m very
sorry.”

Alex looked up from the computer. “You can’t
hear him. Can you?”

“
No,” Troy said. “What did
he say?”

“
You’re still a
motherfucker,” Alex said. “Can you hear him Mattie?”

Matthew wagged his head side to side.

“
Ok, I am in. Troy, can
you call my Sergeant and give him this series of numbers–01 486 99,
no sorry, 909 43, um, 64.”

“
Shouldn’t you write that
down?” Sergeant Flagg asked.

“
0148690943 64,” Troy
said. “What is your name again, G.I. Joe?”

“
Larry, just call me
Larry.”

“
Use this phone.” Alex
threw her cell phone to Troy.

Alex looked up at Troy and he nodded.
Clicking through to the Internet, Alex logged onto the Homeland
Security site. Clicking and typing as fast as she could, her
fingers flying over the keys, she pulled up the email signed with a
black scripted“F”.

In the last month, she beat every bush,
looked under every rock, trying to answer the question–was Joseph
still a target? The answer was an overwhelming, “No.” But Alex
thought the data was too uniform. Everyone seemed to say the same
words. Raz thought she was understandably paranoid.

“
Don’t make mountains out
of molehills, honey. We’ve got enough on our plate,” Raz
said.

Before going to bed last night, she sent one
last email. This email was his response. Alex fell back in the
chair and swore. Joseph would be killed at the ceremony today.

“
Mattie? I need you to do
something for me.”

Matthew nodded. Cian and Eoin returned to
the office from their destructive mission.

“
Would you mind calling,
Raz? I need you to repeat to him what I say word for
word.”

“
Sure Alex. Word for
word.”

“
Tell Raz, ‘Chocolate
crepes are better outside of Notre Dame but only after two in the
morning.’ Ask him to repeat it. Then tell him: ‘Majorca is
wonderful in the spring.’ He should reply by saying, ‘The summer is
more romantic.’ If he does not say those exact words hang up the
phone. If he says those exact words ask him why.”

Matthew nodded. Spies. Codes. He would make
a joke or roll his eyes but the whole thing was so damned cool.
Under lowered eyebrows, he glanced over to see what Cian and Eoin
thought. They watched the interactions with rapt attention.