Finding North
Claudia Hall Christian
Cook Street Publishing
Denver, CO
By Claudia Hall Christian
(StoriesByClaudia.com)
ALEX THE FEY SERIES
(AlextheFey.com)
The Fey
Learning to Stand
Who I Am
Lean on Me
In the Grey
Finding North
THE DENVER CEREAL
(DenverCereal.com)
The Denver Cereal
Celia’s Puppies
Cascade
Cimarron
Black Forest
Fairplay
Gold Hill
Silt
THE QUEEN OF COOL
(theQueenofCool.com)
The Queen of Cool
SETH AND AVA MYSTERIES
(SethandAvaMysteries.com)
The Tax Assassin
The Carving Knife
Copyright © Claudia Hall Christian
Licensed under the Creative Commons License:
Attribution – NonCommercial – Share Alike 3.0
Smashwords Edition
ISBN-13 : 978-1-938057-20-5 (digital)
Library of Congress : 2014902941
PUBLISHER’S NOTE:
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
First edition © February, 2014
Cook Street Publishing
PO Box 18217
Denver, CO 80218
CookStreetPublishing.com
For my North Star.
Table of Contents
Title
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Epilogue
“All men should learn before they die,
What they are running from,
and to,
and why.”
James Thurber
“The Shore and the Sea,” Further Fables for Our Time
Prologue
Saturday, early morning
December 25 — 3:05 a.m. MDT
Cherry Hills, Colorado
“You sure we have to do this?” she whispered.
Her voice conveyed more begging than she wanted to admit. If he’d heard it, he made no indication. He gave a curt nod. They had to do this. He reached up and turned the bulb in the fixture by the door to the house. They waited a moment for their eyes to adjust to the absolute dark.
She looked down at the key in her black-gloved hand and back at her identical twin brother. They were wearing black, with black balaclavas over their faces. For all of his confidence, his eyes echoed the pain that lingered in her heart. He gave her another confident nod. She slipped the stolen key into the lock.
A “snuffing” sound came from the other side of the door. The dog could smell them through the door.
She waited a moment before turning the key. The lock clicked open. Her brother stepped forward and knelt down. She opened the door, and an exuberant white German Shepherd zipped from the house. Her brother grabbed the dog around her neck before it made a sound. Together, they pushed and prodded the dog into the house without being noticed by the security detail.
They slipped in behind the dog and closed the door. The lock automatically re-engaged with a solid “click.” She punched in the alarm code before it beeped. She glanced at her brother.
In the dark entryway, she could see only the whites of his eyes. By the crinkles around his eyes, he’d given her a sad smile. She gave him a matching smile. Turning on their headlamps, their attention turned to their surroundings.
There was no sound in the home.
On their left, the living room was set up for the Christmas holiday. The glint of shiny red and gold wrapped packages flashed in the beams from their headlamps. Her brother pointed up the short flight of stairs through the living area. She shook her head.
It was better to take the direct route. He nodded.
They slipped silently past the open door of the sleeping Secret Service agent’s room. The German Shepherd followed them down the hallway. Her mate, a second white Shepherd, slept outside the room in which their intel said their target could be found. As they approached, the dog got up to greet them.
They stopped short. The male dog looked at her and then at her brother. He stuck his nose out to smell them. One minute edged into two minutes as the dog seemed to be making up his mind. Impatient, the female dog knocked into the male with her shoulder and cleared their path. The dogs shuffled farther down the hallway.
Her brother placed his ear against the door. He shook his head.
They were asleep.
She sprayed lubricant into the lock and around the hinges before moving aside for him to pick the lock. He held up his right hand with three fingers on it. Three, two, one — she pressed open the door.
They were greeted with the warm silence brought by sleep and the dead of night.
She squinted at her brother in a silent, “Do we have to?”
He gave her a firm nod. She leaned forward, and they pressed their foreheads together. She had always been the reluctant one. He had always been the confident one. They were born two sides to one coin.
But when push came to shove, she was the one who made everything happen.
She slipped into the room, and he followed her. As they had as children, they lined up along the bottom board of the bed. They pressed their shoulders back to stand at attention.
For a moment, they watched the man and woman sleep. Her brother’s fingers reached for hers. The tips of her fingers grabbed onto the tips of his. Hidden by the bed’s bottom board, the tips of their fingers held onto each other for dear life. Her brother gave her a nod.
“Sir,” she said.
“What the hell?” The man sat up in bed.
The man couldn’t see them in the dark room.
“What is it?” his wife said.
“I just heard something,” the man said. “Did you hear something?”
“I heard you,” his wife said. Her voice was mild, with a hint of laughter.
The man nodded.
“Sir,” she said again.
The man reached for his bedside table.
“This is a friendly chat, sir,” her brother said. “If you pick up that handgun, things might not stay that way.”
“Max?” The wife sat up in bed. “What the hell are you doing?”
T
he wife turned on her bedside lamp. In the light, their fingertips let go of each other. She and her brother continued to stand at attention. Their father kept his hand on his handgun. Their mother scowled.
“What is this?” their mother asked.
“You asked us to report to you ‘the very moment’ we discovered why someone has been trying to kill us,” she said. “We made that discovery.”
Too surprised to respond, her father turned away from his handgun to look at her.
“It is this,” she said.
She took a short article out of her pocket and held it to the bottom board of the bed. Her brother pinned the article to the board with a stiletto knife.
Her father leaned forward and pulled the article from the knife.
“That’s the Stars and Stripes article about the two of you deciphering the code on the CIA’s ridiculous Kryptos statue,” the wife said. “You were twelve.”
“The last two lines, sir,” Max said.
“‘What’s your daughter’s next trick?’ this reporter asked,” the man read. “‘She’s going to solve the riddle of Linear A.’”
“What are they talking about?” the wife asked.
“They’re trying to kill you because they think you’ve deciphered Linear A?” the man asked.
“That is correct, sir,” she said.
“As you know, they have killed every other person who has gotten close to solving the riddle,” her brother said. “A fact you’ve repeated often enough.”
“Even knowing that, you chose to tell the world that a child, your child, had solved the puzzle,” she said.
“But then, we know that we are not your children,” her brother said.
“Great way to get rid of the bastards,” she said. “And the entire Fey Special Forces Team.”
The man was so surprised that he gawked at her.
“We’d like you to decline our invitation for today,” her brother said. “You are ill today.”
“And no longer welcome in our home,” she said.
“Or lives,” her brother said.
“We’re taking a break,” she said.
“We don’t want to see you for a while,” her brother said.
“We do not understand your callous disregard for our safety,” she said.
“And it is a risk we are not willing to take with our children,” her brother said.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” his wife said. “This is Christmas. You are not going to pull some bullshit and disrupt my holiday. I have new grandchildren. I deserve to enjoy them on the holidays. It is my right!”
Her brother gave a tight military turn, which she imitated. They walked out of the room. She was closing the door when she heard her father let out something between a hiccup and a sob.
“It was a joke,” he said. “It was a joke.”
“Surely they’re not serious,” his wife said.
She closed the bedroom door, and the lock automatically engaged with a “click.” They silently ran from the house. They were in the car driving home when she made a sound similar to her father’s. Her brother pulled the SUV over to the curb.
They fell into each other’s arms and wept.
F
Chapter One
Four and a half months later
Sunday morning
May 15 — 4:55 a.m. MDT
Denver Recreation Center, Denver, Colorado
Lieutenant Colonel Alexandra “The Fey” Hargreaves pulled her swimming cap onto her head and walked out of the locker room to the swimming pool. Two weeks after the last surgery on her right shoulder blade, she was informed that she was not fit for duty. Her right arm was too unstable, and the lack of mobility in her right shoulder and chest impaired her ability to fight. While she would have relished more time at home, she had found Josef Yakovlev’s copy of The Gadfly and its mysterious notes in Linear A, last Christmas. Her life, and the lives of those she loved, rested in her capacity to translate Linear A.
She had to get fit for duty.
She’d been able to build strength in her arm and chest through weight lifting. But increasing her flexibility and mobility was harder. The chest wound and subsequent surgeries had destroyed her fine motor skills. When her colleague, US Navy Captain Vince Hutchins, had suggested swimming, she’d used her connections to get into the rec center before it opened. Her superior officer, Colonel Howard Gordon, had insisted on guards, and she had asked Vince to help her train. Of course, the military guards had gossiped, and, less than a month after she’d started in the pool, other well-vetted, high-profile people in the intelligence and government communities began showing up to work out.
Alex had really liked having the facility to herself.
As she neared the pool, she braced herself for a wave of irritation. A month or so ago, a man had started swimming in what she’d come to think of as “her” pool. He used a snorkel and a large facemask, so she’d never seen his face. His white hair and military-trim body told her that he was someone to be reckoned with. Through some basic spy work, she managed to get his DNA. She’d asked her partner, Homeland Security Agent Arthur “Raz” Rasmussen, to check him out. When Raz said he was clean, she tried to think of ways to get the man out of the pool.
Nothing had worked.
“He’s a good focus for your frustration,” Vince had said. “You hate being injured, so you now hate swimming. Rather than hate swimming, you hate him.”
She had sneered at him. Vince laughed. Having been her roommate at Walter Reed, he was not intimidated by her anger or attitude. Instead, he’d told her to do another lap with the Styrofoam pull-buoy wedged between her thighs. He’d been here for every early-morning swim workout, except today’s.
Vince and his wife, Emily, were having family portraits taken this morning. Their eldest daughter Amelia had made the Colorado Girls’ Soccer team again, and their family had been selected to be the subject of an article about the team. Vince couldn’t be in both places at the same time.
Today, she was on her own.
Today, she could hate this other swimmer as much as she wanted.
Vince had left her with a complete workout: one thousand meters using the kickboard to work her hips and legs, and one thousand meters using a pull-buoy to work her arms and back. Repeat three times. No swimming.
She wasn’t strong enough to put the kicking and arm strokes together for swimming. Not yet. He’d given her a stern look, and she had nodded to acknowledge his wisdom. She had just barely passed her shooting tests. She didn’t want to injure herself and have to start over.
So, she’d left her warm bed, her gorgeous husband, and five-month-old babies to be here in this pool. She may as well get it over with. She set her kickboard and pull-buoy down on the end and slipped into the water. Like every morning this week, the water seemed to match the near-freezing temperatures and snow outside. She started across the water.
The water workouts had greatly improved the mobility in her hips. She moved with relative ease until the water didn’t seem so very cold. A thousand yards down, she took the foam pull-buoy and put it between her legs. Straightening her goggles, she stretched out her arms in a slow, painful crawl. One length of the pool became two laps, and the pain in her right shoulder began to ease.
She was off work to celebrate her babies’ five-month birthday. Her twins were a precious gift, given by her old friend, Nazo, with her last breath. If she had to say so, they were perfect in every way. She couldn’t imagine her life without them. She just had to finish this workout, shower, and head home for breakfast. If she was lucky, she’d catch her husband, Dr. John Kelly Drayson, when he returned from his run. She smiled. They had become more inventive in the ways they stole time to be together. She grinned and wondered what John would come up with today.
She touched the end of the lane and turned around. In her excitement to get home, she grazed her head against the cement end when she turned. Her right hand scraped against the lip of the pool. A lifetime of martial-a
rts training kicked in, and she pressed out a sharp breath against the pain. She pushed off against the edge of the pool.
She turned her head to take a breath, but she was still underwater. Her throat spasmed against the flood of water. Unable to breathe, she tried to reach the surface.
It was too far to go.
Her throat closed, and, with all hope of oxygen gone, the fight left her.
She saw her cricket sitting on the bottom of the pool. He waved his red umbrella at her. Her body dropped like a stone to meet him in the underwater silence of the deep end of the pool.
She heard the tinny ping of someone jumping into the water. She heard another tinny ping when a second person hit the water.
But her eyes were locked on her cricket.
“Why?” she asked him.
“Is there ever a ‘why’?” he replied.
Images from the first time she’d met him flashed through her mind. She had been sitting in a pool of blood in the Fey Special Forces Team storage vault under the streets of Paris when he’d come to take her. Outside of brief flashes, she hadn’t seen him again until last Thanksgiving, when she was stabbed by her martial-arts mentor — and friend — Steve Pershing.
A flash of movement caught her eye. The spirits of her beloved departed friends lined the walls of the pool. She saw Sergeant Larry Flagg, Dahlia Jasper, her friend Yvonne, Captain Heath Wheeler, and the Fey Special Forces Team — Charlie, Tommy, Scott, Dean, Jax, Paul, Nathan, Dwight, Mike, and her best friend, Jesse Abreu. Even Cooper had made it this morning. Alex smiled.
At least she wouldn’t be alone.
In the last three months, since discovering Josef Yakovlev’s copy of The Gadfly, she’d been ridiculously alone. She and her identical twin brother, Max, had worked day and night to try to decode the riddle of Linear A. They worked separately so that no one would realize what they were doing. She’d given the project every moment she could spare. Between feeding the twins in the wee hours of the morning and late nights with Linear A, she’d barely seen her friends. Her housemates rotated around her in their busy lives. As a way of shielding them from risk, she’d also spent very little time with her team.
Finding North Page 1