The Fey (41 page)

“
Thank you
Sergeant.”

“
And sir?”

“
Yes,
Sergeant?”

“
Captain Mac Clenaghan and
Captain Olivas went home. I will stay until Ben arrives then I’m
going home for a few hours. Sir, no offense meant, but Major
Drayson would insist that you to go home.”

Raz’s face flushed with emotion. Raz nodded
then returned to look at the computer.

There was no way for the Sergeant to know or
understand what he had said. Raz never had a home before he met
Alex. He lived in a tiny apartment in Queens with his mother until
her death. He stayed in the apartment through the Police Academy.
When it was time to get married, he bought a house. Even though he
signed the documents and made the mortgage payments, he was always
a guest in his wife’s home.

Alex made a home for him. Alex was home.

He had to fix this. He had to sort it
out.

He had no idea where to even start. Alex
left a plan but it didn’t make any sense now that she sacrificed
herself to Eleazar.

That’s what got him the most. Eleazar was
supposed to come for him next. He should be beaten, tortured and
locked in some cold dark cellar. He was ready. It was his turn. But
Alex stepped forward instead.

Raz rubbed his hand over his head ruffling
his short hair.

“
Sir, Senator Hargreaves?”
Alex’s Sergeant escorted Patrick into the office.

Raz stood, “General. I’m very sorry, sir. I
don’t have any news for you.”

“
I didn’t come here for
news, Josh,” Patrick said. “Do you mind if I call you Josh when we
are alone?”

“
No sir,” Raz said. For
some reason, he felt comforted hearing this great man say his name.
“Why are you here?”

“
I came to help,” Patrick
said.

“
Sir?”

“
My guess is that you know
where she is but you don’t really know what to do next. Go to get
her by force? They will kill her. Leave her and risk her being
tortured. Yet you still have no idea what they want. Is that
accurate?”

“
Yes sir,” Raz said.
“But…”

“
She left a plan but it
doesn’t make any sense?”

“
Yes sir. But…”

“
I’m a little softer and a
lot older than I was when I was a Sergeant in the field, but I’m
still that guy, Josh. I even still have the security clearance. Let
me help. Do you know what to do?”

“
No sir.”

“
Then let’s start at the
beginning. Where are Alex’s journals?”

“
Alex doesn’t keep a
journal. Not since her team was killed.”

“
Alex always keeps a
journal. Why don’t you see if you can find it? I bet it was either
on her computer or… is there a super secure place where Alex kept
things?”

“
Yes sir but I don’t have
her passwords.”

“
Lucky she has a twin.
He’s outside. Shall I get him?”

“
Sir?”

“
Max flew to Denver when
he knew Alex was in trouble. He’s talking to her
Sergeant.”

“
Max is a
civilian.”

“
Only sort of. He’s a twin
first. He’ll know the passwords. Can you get me the tapes of these
phone calls? And do you have her database?”

“
Database,
sir?”

“
It should look like a
spreadsheet or maybe an address book. She might have kept it on the
computer, but I doubt it. She liked to work with a yellow pencil.
She would have worked with the transcripts of the calls, cross
checking every word, in an effort to determine what he was after. I
can recreate her work from the tapes but Alex has a real talent for
understanding what motivates people, especially terrorists. That’s
one of the reasons she was so good at extraction.”

Raz raised his eyebrows and rubbed his hand
over his head.

“
You have no idea what I’m
talking about,” Patrick said shaking his head.

“
No sir,” Raz
said.

“
You’re her partner.
Right? You never saw her database? Alexandra…” Patrick shook his
head and let out a breath. “She’s not really over the loss of her
team. Is she?”

“
No sir,” Raz
said.

“
We have work to do then,”
Patrick said.

“
Sir, she had an address
book at home. She said it held all the phone numbers of everyone
she’d extracted.”

Patrick nodded. “In Navajo code?”

“
I believe so,” Raz
said.

“
Good. We’ll be able to
keep those details private while working with her database. Unless
you speak Navajo?”

“
No sir,” Raz
said.

“
Where is this address
book?”

“
She asked Maria to keep
it for her when the house came down.”

“
Great. I’ll take care of
the address book,” Patrick said.

Raz stood next to the computer not moving.
He wasn’t sure what to do.

“
Josh?” Patrick
asked.

Patrick put his hand on Raz’s arm. Breathing
out, Raz broke down. With his hands against his face, Raz let a few
tears fall while blowing his overwhelm out in breath. Standing
beside him, Patrick waited for the storm to pass. With a slight
smile, Patrick gave Raz a handkerchief then patted his back.

“
Don’t worry, Josh. I’ve
done this before.”

FFFFFF

October 13 – 3 A.M.
Olde Town Arvada, Colorado

“
Alex?” Troy whispered
through a basement vent. Cutting the razor wire off the outside, he
lay down across the wet sidewalk to pressed his face into the hole.
“Alex?”

He would do what the spies said–don’t go get
her. That’s fine. But leave her there? By herself?

She’d never slept alone. Not even one night.
She went from sharing a room with Max to military life to being
married. Even when she traveled with Raz, Alex always had someone
close in the dark.

Troy teased her about her lack of
independence. He told her that she was a child. She would laugh.
She would tell him that he was terrified of commitment. And really
wasn’t that childish? They would laugh. He could only imagine what
how awful she must feel to be alone now.

After staring at his bedroom ceiling for
hours, he decided that the least he could do was go by the
building. She was only fifteen miles East of his house. Practically
on the way to… some grocery store somewhere. Once there, he
followed Jesse Abreu to the basement vents. A little razor wire was
nothing for the needle nose pliers in his Leatherman Mini-tool.

“
Alex?”

“
They are monitoring
me–don’t talk ok?” Alex asked.

From this position, he could only see the
flash of light from her blonde hair. He closed his eyes when she
grunted in pain. Reaching his hand through the vent, he clipped the
inside wire. He slipped a Snickers bar through the basement vent.
She chuckled, taking the candy from him, then stretched her fingers
into the space. For a few minutes, he lay on the wet concrete
feeling the soft tips of her fingers rub against his
fingertips.

“
Go,” she said.

He slipped a leather glove through the space
to help protect her hand from the razor wire. Together, they put
the wire back. He sat back on his heels, then, almost by instinct,
he pulled his Mini-tool from his pocket and slipped it under the
razor wire. He heard her chuckle again. Her hand waved ‘good-bye’
to him and he backed away from the vent.

Looking up and down the deserted wet streets
of Olde Town Arvada, he turned to walk back to his car. He was two
feet from the building when he was jumped. Laughing, Troy fought
with two scrawny Arabs. When the last man dropped unconscious to
the ground, Troy pulled out his cell phone and dialed 911. He
waited for the police to arrive then told them that he was jumped.
Of course, his newly minted Military Intelligence Department of
Defense identification kept the Arvada police from asking too many
questions. Anyway, Homeland Security wanted the men on charges of
terrorism. Troy was doing his civic duty, that’s all.

Troy whistled as he walked to his car. At
least those two weren’t going to hurt Alex anytime soon. Honking
his horn as he drove past the building, he thought he saw Jesse
wave good-bye.

Maybe now he could get some sleep.

F

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

October 13 – 8 A.M.
Olde Town Arvada, Colorado

“
You need to move,
Alex.”

Alex opened her eyes. She wasn’t sure who
had told her to move around but just straightening her leg brought
waves of pain. With force, she pushed herself to standing. She had
to be ready for them when they came. She glanced at the basement
vents. The light turned from halogen orange to yellow.

Was that daylight? Had she been here one day
or two?

Not three days.

Surely, not three days. The silent
pitch-black night continued in this room.

Feeling for the wall, she began stepping
around the edge of the room. When her body loosened, she walked
faster then ran with her hand along the wall. As her body warmed
the tightness and pain began to ease. Slipping off her jacket, she
went through a Sun Salutation yoga routine to stretch her whole
body. She dropped to the ground to stretch.

She thought she knew pain. The sharp pain in
her forearm was familiar, almost comforting. But the swollen,
bruised sensation between her skin and her muscles was a whole
other beast. She felt as if the space between her muscles and skin
was filled with aching, swollen lumps.

She walked the room ten more times. Ten was
probably enough. She promised herself that she would repeat the
routine tonight.

Dropping back to her sitting position, she
ate another bite of the cherished Snickers bar. She never noticed
all the textures and flavors in this candy. Captain Gordon loved
these bars and sent them with people on missions. Troy used them
when he trained for marathons. Snickers bar. She pushed the rest of
the bar into its wrapper.

Only Troy would bring her a candy bar. He
didn’t think of bringing water or a weapon. Troy knew that she
didn’t really need those things. He brought her something she
needed, something for her heart.

Her hand wrapped around the Mini-tool in her
jacket pocket. Less than three inches when it was folded closed,
the Mini-tool opened to seven inches of stainless steel with a
needle nosed pliers in the center. Alex folded the steel arms open
in her hand and ran her finger across the well used bottle opener.
Touching the blade of the knife, she noticed the blade was very
sharp. Troy had this tool when she met him in basic training. She
had never seen him without his Mini-tool. Just holding it made her
feel less alone. She folded the arms back in and tucked it into the
pocket of her jeans.

She was loved.

She fell asleep with a smile on her
face.

FFFFFF

October 13 – 10 A.M.
Buckley Air Force Base, Colorado

Patrick rubbed his eyes then looked from
face to face in the small conference room. Matthew, Troy and Raz
sat along one side of a table while Ben and the British
Intelligence Agent–what was his name?–sat on the other side. He
hadn’t led a meeting like this in over twenty years. He almost
forgot how much he enjoyed leading competent, talented people. And
Alex certainly surrounded herself with smart, talented people. He
looked up as her Sergeant gave him a piece of paper. He nodded then
set the sheet down.

“
Let’s begin,” Patrick
said then waited for the men’s attention.

“
Sorry, I’m late,” Colonel
Gordon came into the room. “Patrick, how are you?”

The Colonel held his hand out which Patrick
shook.

“
Thank you for being
here,” Colonel Gordon said. He sat next to the British Intelligence
officer. “We are lucky to have someone of your experience to help
us out. You won’t mind working on a few other cases while you’re
here, would you?”

Patrick laughed.

Matthew and Troy looked at each other then
at Patrick. They attended this meeting out of respect for Alex.
They knew her father had been a General and was a hell of a poker
player, but they knew next to nothing about his service record.

“
First, what is your
name?” Patrick asked the British Intelligence Officer.

“
Sean Hudson, her
Majesty’s Secret Service, MI-5, sir. It’s an honor to meet you,
General Hargreaves.”

“
Sean? Every British
person I meet is either a Sean, John, Tom…”

“
Alex said the same thing
when I met her,” Sean said.

Patrick nodded. Alex knew it was a fake name
too.

“
Thank you for coming,”
Patrick said. “Anyone know where Trece and the White Boy
are?”

“
Sir,” Matthew said. “They
are attending to a security issue in Los Angeles. They left right
after the ceremony and we…”

“
They don’t know this is
going on,” Patrick said. “That was wise. Troy?”

“
Sir?”

“
I apologize for keeping
you inactive for so long. I’m wondering if there is anything you’d
like to tell us.”

Troy flushed bright red. Matthew shot him a
look.

“
Matthew, you are an
excellent leader. You’ll make a great General, if you’re
interested. However, when you keep people like Troy inactive for
too long, they end up acting on their own.”