The Fey (36 page)

“
It’s like a movie,” Eoin
said. Cian nodded with wide eyes.

Matthew laughed and called Raz.

“
Oh Mattie, can you also
tell him that: Sergeant Jakkman is a confirmed casualty. Thanks,”
Alex said without looking up from the computer.

“
The Jakker is dead?”
Larry asked.

“
Yes,” Alex
replied.

Her complete focus on the computer in front
of her kept her from slipping into panic. She began opening files
on the Homeland Security server.

“
Isn’t that your friend
Zack?” Cian asked.

“
Yes, my friend Zack,”
Alex said. “Troy? Can you ask my Sergeant for F0810FL1230 and all
of its linked documents. It looks like there are four, maybe five
documents.”

“
He has already sent them
to the port. I just turned on the printer and they are printing,”
Troy said.

“
That’s perfect. No one
will know we looked at them. Thanks Troy. Mattie?”

“
Raz said… wait,” Matthew
looked at the piece of paper in his hand and read: “The best part
about summer in Majorca is getting to see you in a
bikini.”

“
Really? Were those his
exact words?” She smiled. Raz apologized for doubting
her.

“
Yes, I told him about
Zack,” Matthew said. “He did this weird thing. He kind of laughed
then said, um,” Matthew read again, ”I like to see the diamond in
your belly button flash against your black bikini.”

“
He said,
‘your’?”

“
Yes, he said ‘your’
twice,” Matthew replied.

Alex clicked through the computer to her
secure area at Homeland Security and opened a sub-folder in the
area where Raz left her documents for her. She clicked open a
document to find a note from Raz. In case he was wrong, and Joseph
was still at risk, he outlined four possible scenarios. She
smiled.

“
Troy would you
mind…”

Troy handed her a stack of warm papers from
the LaserJet next to the door.

“
Thanks. I need three
minutes of silence, then we’ll meet.”

F

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Digging around in Maria’s desk, she pulled a
yellow pencil from the drawer and began flipping through the stack
of papers. Making notes on the edges of the documents, she made a
face.

“
Sir, I’d be happy to
input the data into the intelligence server.” Larry
said.

Alex was humming Seether’s “Gasoline” when
Larry touched her arm. She looked up at him.

“
Sir, the intelligence
server?”

“
Intelligence server?
Yeah, people use the server.” Turning back to the pages, she added,
“I don’t. Silence?”

Matthew and Troy stood at the end of the
desk watching Alex work. She seemed to shuffle the pages back and
forth. Transfixed, they watched her rifle the pages, tap her pencil
on the table and hum. After a few minutes, she circled a word on
one page, then underlined a sentence or another.

They had each worked with a variety of
intelligence officers. But they had never seen anything like what
Alex was doing. After more than a decade of saying, ‘Yeah, I’m a
good friend of the Fey,’ they saw, for the first time, what made
the Fey so special.

“
Troy? Can you get my
Sergeant on the phone? I need to speak with him.
Thanks.”

She worked on the computer for a minute only
looking up when Troy gave her the telephone.

“
I’ve sent you some
documents. Yes, that’s correct. Yes, can you transfer me to his
line? Thanks,” Alex said. “Howard? Can you confirm… No paper.
Right.”

Alex closed her phone.

“
Mattie, I’m sorry, would
you mind calling Raz back? Tell him that… uh… “ Alex flipped
through the stack of papers then read her note. “All right, tell
him that you bought the tickets for Valencia and we are leaving in
a half hour. But, he has to wear his… crap, what’s a men’s swimming
suit?”

“
Speedo?” Matthew asked.
“Swim trunks?”

“
No something
larger…”

“
What does he usually
wear?” Troy asked.

“
We skinny dip,” Alex
replied. She looked up to their wide surprised eyes. She shook her
head. “Spy stuff. What do you wear Troy?”

“
TYR board shorts,” Troy
replied.

“
Ok, I bought the tickets
to Valencia and we are leaving in a half hour,” Matthew
started.

“
But he has to wear his
TYR board shorts. He should say,” Alex scratched her head. “’I
can’t wait to make sand castles.’ Go.”

“
Do you really skinny
dip?” Cian asked.

“
Not in Ireland,” Alex
said under her breath. She continued working with the
documents.

“
Alex, Raz said ‘Your sand
castles will not win the competition this year. My sand castles
will win this year.’”

“
That makes me so sad,”
Alex replied.

Alex let out a breath and looked from face
to face. How could this possibly work? For a moment, she yearned
for the familiar comfort of Charlie and her team. She bit her
tongue against the rising bile from her nervous stomach. There was
no time for panic.

“
Eleazar is making the
first moves in what looks to me like a major offensive.”

“
Against you?” Eoin
asked.

“
Against all of us. He has
killed Zack.” Alex shook her head. “He thinks he killed Zack. He
won’t know for at least three days. That’s the soonest the Air
Force can get there. Sadly, there will be a lot of
delays.”

“
Then your friend’s body
will have been eaten by wolves,” Cian said.

“
Something like that,”
Alex said.

“
This is like a movie!”
Eoin said. Alex rolled her eyes but smiled.

“
I’m sorry. We must act as
if Zack is dead. Any fuck up on our part and we lose. Zack is
dead.”

She closed her eyes.

“
Next on his list is
Joseph,” Alex said.

“
WHAT?” Matthew and Troy
asked together.

“
Please, hear me out.
After Joseph is Max and John,” Alex said.

“
Motherfucker,” Cian
said.

Alex held up her hand for silence.

“
We have no time for
emotion. There’s a hit planned on the President. Some brain trust
at the Secret Service decided that Joseph is going to kill the
President.”

“
Max and John?”

“
They will get in the
way.”

“
Alex, that’s a long way
around to kill Joseph, Max and John,” Troy said. He was unable to
keep the doubt from his voice.

“
Yes, it is,” Alex said.
She was tempted to have a major temper tantrum. Blowing her
frustration out in a breath, she said, “But the Secret Service will
do the shooting. Plus, they will kill the President today. No one
will give two shits about Joseph, John or Max after the President
is killed.

“
Keep your initiative
moving AND make it seem like the government is behind it. That’s
real psychological warfare,” Cian said. “I wish I had thought of
something like that.”

“
I’m glad you didn’t,”
Alex said. “Anyway, Raz said that he can cover Joseph, Max, and
John. We,” she pointed to Matthew and Troy, “need to save the
President.”

“
I want to save the
President,” Larry piped up.

“
I need you to do
something else,” Alex said. “These guys can’t drive.”

“
I can drive,” Cian said
at the same time Larry said: “Who are these guys?”

Alex looked from one to the next.

“
Sergeant Flagg, you are
delivering the news that Captain Jakkman’s plane has crashed in
Afghanistan. He is presumed to be dead.”

She flipped through the stack of pages and
gave Larry the official notification of Zack’s demise.

“
Where did you get this?”
Matthew asked.

“
My Sergeant was thinking
ahead.”

“
Sergeant Flagg, you’ll
drive us to Fort Logan then drop the three of us near the event.
Use your identification to get into the event and go to the front
with your paper. The President will announce Zack’s death at the
Ceremony. Cian and Eoin will sneak out of the vehicle and be on
hand to help–only help. We don’t want you to get deported. When
it’s over, blend in with the crowd then find my brother
Colin.”

Cian and Eoin nodded.

“
We need a faster ride,”
Matthew said.

“
No Zack. No chopper. And
my Sergeant is confirming some details for me. I don’t have time
to…”

“
Let me make some calls.
You authorize…”

“
Of course,” she said. “If
we can get a Black Hawk, we can parachute in before these guys get
there.”

“
I’ll see what I can do,
sir.” Matthew began making calls.

“
Let’s see if we can find
the weapons locker here,” Alex said. “My Dad showed me the locker
when I returned to Denver but I was pretty out of it.”

Alex’s eyes went wide when she remembered
that Colin was just here. Six weeks pregnant, Julie told him to get
rid of his guns. Colin immediately removed the weapons and placed
them in his father’s gun locker. Such a good boy. Chuckling, she
dialed his number.

“
I’m so fucking bored,”
Colin said. “Why is it that you always miss these crappy political
ceremonies?”

“
I’m not the Golden
Child?” Alex asked. “Plus, I’m either dead or never
born.”

“
Very funny. What do you
want?”

“
Where’s Dad’s gun
locker?”

“
Why?”

“
Col…”

“
If you believe for one
minute that you are doing something fun and I’m not involved…”
Colin spoke in a terse whisper into his cell phone.

“
You’re a
civilian.”

“
Fine, then I won’t tell
you.” He hung up his cell phone.

Alex tried to call him back but he refused
to answer. She let out a stream of curses. Then looked up when
Troy’s cell phone rang.

“
Your little brother says
that you are a big fat pig.”

“
That’s very mature of
him,” Alex said. “Gun locker?”

She looked over while Troy spoke with Colin.
She knew a lot of Majors who would be insulted at Troy’s laughing
conversation with Colin. She simply could not afford the time or
the energy for anything more than a dark look. Glowering at Troy,
he nodded to her.

“
It’s in the floor of your
father’s office behind the desk. The code is your
nickname.”

“
Fey?”

“
Pumpkin,” Troy
said.

“
Great.”

Alex stomped into the office and found the
space where her father left his weapons. Kneeling down behind his
desk, alone for the first time since all of this began, she closed
her eyes and felt a wave of exhaustion and hopelessness. She rested
her head against her knees and sank into complete defeat.

She never felt this way in the field. Never.
Everything that happened was another opportunity, another chance to
do something fun. Charlie would look at her and say, ‘What’s next
missy?’ But Charlie was dead. And there was no one to believe in
her now.

With a sigh, she pulled up the flooring and
pressed the code into the key pad. Turning the handle, she pulled
open the vault to find a piece of paper.

Pumpkin,

Some things you just know.

I love you,

Daddy

That’s what he said when they finally sat
down to talk about her parentage. Standing in the nursery, waiting
for ‘Rebecca’s bastards’, he planned his return into the field and
away from the mess of his life. But the moment the nurse placed
Alex in his arms, every thought of escape evaporated.

He had expected a boy.

Yet the nurse set a tiny baby girl in his
arms. Before he could ask about the obvious error, the nurse
whispered, “The whole nursery is in tizzy, sir. You have a boy and
a girl, General. Identical twins.”

At that moment, Alex opened her eyes to him.
Looking in her eyes, he just knew that she was his girl. By the
time the nurse returned with Max, his plan had changed, his whole
life rearranged around being their parent. He felt as if he was put
on the planet solely to be Alex and Max’s father.

Some things you just know.

“
What’s that?” Troy asked
peering over her shoulder.

“
A note from my Dad,” she
said.

“
What does it mean?” Troy
asked.

“
It means that he thought
we might be here today. It also means that I need to stop feeling
sorry for myself.”

Troy nodded his head. Looking in the vault,
he sucked in a breath, “May I? Your Dad let me take the Henry
target shooting a few times. It’s quite a weapon.”

“
Here’s the ammo,” Alex
said. She gave him the Henry rifle and a box of shells. “You also
need a handgun. Mattie? Do you still use a Smith and
Wesson?”

“
Forty-five,” Matthew said
coming behind the desk.

Alex smirked at him.

“
What?”