“We’ve pulled straws to see who gets to kill Marcos,” Raz said. “Colin won. But we think he rigged the straws.”
Erin chuckled.
“All right,” Alex said. “Here we go.”
There was a knock at the door, and Erin jumped to her feet. Royce and Vince dragged Marcos into the room. Royce and Vince were dressed in black jumpsuits with balaclavas and their colored scarves wrapped over their heads. They wore black gloves over their hands and black shoes. The skin around their eyes was tinted dark green, giving their brown eyes, the only exposed part of them, an unearthly look. There was a hood over Marcos’s head. His legs were shackled together, as were his hands. He wore a loose cotton shalwar kameez.
Royce and Vince dropped him into the chair across from Erin. His back was to the mirror. Alex checked the surveillance camera to make sure they had a good view of his face. They locked his leg shackles to eyelets in the floor and his wrists onto the metal table in front of him. Royce pulled off the hood. Erin gasped.
Marcos’s hair was long. His long beard fell to his chest. He looked every bit the radical extremist. Erin smiled to cover her surprise.
He spit at her. Erin hopped back, and the spittle landed on the table.
“You asked me to come all this way,” Erin said in an even tone. Then she said what they had practiced. “I came all this way because of our history. That’s all. If you are nasty, I will leave. If I leave before you answer questions, you’ll void your sentence reduction.”
He gave her a fierce scowl, but his head moved up and down in a nod. He leaned back in his chair. Erin sat down. Vince and Royce went around the table to stand behind her. Marcos’s lawyer came into the room and sat down next to Marcos.
“What did you want to tell me?” Erin asked.
He looked at her for a long moment. His eyes reviewed her hair, her face, and her body.
“You look different,” he said.
“New cheeks, new jaw, new teeth, and new nose — courtesy of your fists,” Erin said.
He snorted and lifted an edge of his mouth in a proud sneer.
“Safe and protected,” Neev said into Erin’s ear.
“Okay, well.” Erin got up to leave.
“My lawyer told me I had to do this,” Marcos said. “But I wanted to. You have no idea how much I wanted to be here. Your sister’s back there, isn’t she?”
Marcos nodded toward the glass. Ignoring his question, Erin sat down.
“‘Reduces my sentence,’ he said,” Marcos said. “Looking at you . . .”
He gave her a vicious sneer.
“I used you, fucked you, beat you because you’re a filthy whore,” Marcos said. “The target was always the Fey.”
“Thank you for letting me know,” Erin said.
She got up and started toward the door.
“That’s it,” Alex said. “She’s coming out.”
Alex pushed Colin toward the door. Through their surveillance camera, Alex watched Colin meet Erin on the other side of the door. His six-foot-five-inch bulk wrapped her tiny frame in a bear hug. He carried Erin away from the door, and down the hallway. Marcos’s attorney rushed out of the room and met a wall made of Trece and White Boy.
Inside the room, Marcos started screaming at the top of his lungs.
“I need to talk to her,” the lawyer said.
Trece and White Boy didn’t respond.
“What the hell is wrong with him?” Neev asked.
“Something’s going on!” Alex said. “Fey Team — be alert!”
“He has a bomb!” Jesse screamed as he flew through the one-way mirror.
“Bomb! Get down!” Alex screamed and dropped below the window. She pushed Neev hard enough that she bounced off the wall and fell to the ground. Raz dove for Samantha and Helen. “Get down!”
“The joke’s on you!” Marcos screamed.
Marcos exploded.
Shards of glass, blood, and fragments of his body rained down on Alex, Raz, Samantha, Helen, and Neev. Smoke filled what was left of the rooms and the hallway. Alex jumped over the broken half wall into the interview room.
Vince and Royce had been standing against the other side of the room. When Alex shouted her warning, Vince had flipped the metal table on its side and pulled it to the wall. Together, they’d ducked behind the table. Their bodies had blown into the corner near the door. Marcos’s torso, fused to the back of his metal chair, lay against an exposed side of the table. Plasterboard and pieces of cinder block were blown into the corner with them. Alex grabbed Marcos’s torso and threw it off Vince and Royce. Raz appeared and began tossing plasterboard. Together, they lifted the table from Vince and Royce’s bodies.
“Talk to me! Talk to me!” Alex yelled, but her ears only heard the high-pitched ringing from the explosion. “Talk to me!”
She felt a hand on her shoulder. MJ was kneeling next to her. He pointed to the ground. She looked down and saw a pair of feet. He nodded. She picked up the feet and pulled one of them out from under the other. The scarf was Vince’s color. Alex ripped off the scarf and balaclava.
She glanced back at the corner. MJ was working on Royce. Raz helped her move Vince to a clear area of the floor. Blood and dust ran together onto the ground. His left calf was broken in a compound fracture. Some part of the metal chair had impaled his shoulder. He was bleeding, unconscious, but alive. Feeling movement, she looked up to see Navy medics.
She jumped up and went to where MJ was working on Royce. MJ was stitching up a wound on the back of Royce’s head. Royce must have tried to keep from hitting the wall, because both of his arms were broken. His legs looked fine, but at least one ankle was broken.
Marcos’s torso and the table seemed to have protected Vince and Royce from the lethal blast. Raz grabbed Alex’s shoulder and pointed to the door. Joseph was standing in the doorway, gesturing for her to come to him. She walked to the door.
Hearing her warning, Marcos’s lawyer had attempted to return to the room. He’d opened the door a foot when the explosion went off. His hand, attached to his arm, still gripped the door handle, while his body lay at Joseph’s feet. The open door exposed the hallway to the force of the blast. The hallway was blackened from the flame and smelled like burned bodies.
Both Trece and White Boy were cut up and bruised. They’d miraculously missed most of the blast by choosing to jump from the open door and move down the hallway. Colin had carried Erin down the hallway. They were dazed and dirty but otherwise uninjured.
The medics were taking Neev out of the observation room on a stretcher. She was holding gauze against a gash on her shoulder. Inside the room, Samantha and Helen were dirty and cut up but otherwise alive.
Joseph pointed toward a female Navy medic. Alex shook her head. The medic pointed to Alex’s arms. Her hands and arms, where Alex had pushed up her long-sleeved shirt, were covered with tiny cuts from the glass. She assumed her face bore the same damage. She let the medic escort her to a quiet corner of the hallway, where her cuts were cleaned and stitched. When the medic finished with Alex, the medic ran to help move Royce to the hospital ward. Vince was just behind him.
Still unable to hear, Alex stood in the hallway and watched them go. Erin touched her arm. Alex hugged her sister and tried not to grunt with pain at her return hug. Colin gave Alex a hug and turned to hug Samantha.
Erin said something, and Alex pointed to her ears.
“Why?” Erin said, exaggerating the word so Alex could read her lips.
Alex pointed to herself and then shrugged.
Someone touched her arm. Alex turned to look. Margaret Peaches was standing near her. Alex pointed to her ears, and Margaret signed that Royce, Vince, Trece, and White Boy were in the base hospital. Neev and Helen were being stitched up. The Jakker said to be ready to travel in an hour.
Erin touched Alex’s arm again.
“How?” Erin said in the same exaggerated way.
Alex shook her head. She had no idea how Marcos had pulled it off.
“No,” Erin shook her head. “How did you know?”
Erin pointed to Samantha and back at herself. Alex smiled and nodded but pretended not to understand the question.
Margaret touched her arm. Alex turned back to look at her. Margaret waved for Alex to come with her and bring Erin and Samantha. Alex gestured to her sisters. Margaret escorted them down the hallway to the executive suite that was their base.
Alex indicated for her sisters to use the bathroom. They made gestures for Alex to go, but she insisted. Not wanting to cross her, they went into the bathroom.
The moment the door closed, Alex was suddenly too tired to hold up her body. She collapsed to the floor. Margaret dropped down beside her. Seeing Margaret’s concerned face, Alex tried to smile.
It was the last thing she remembered.
F
Chapter Thirty-two
One week later
Tuesday morning
May 31 — 10:07 a.m. MDT (12:07 p.m. Cuba DT)
Denver, Colorado
Alex woke with a gasp. She sat up and unhooked the IV from the cannula in her arm.
She was sitting in her own bed, in her own bedroom. Maggie was lying on the bed next to her. Instinctively, she looked toward the French door to the porch. There was light outside. It was daytime.
She looked at the clock. It said 10:07 a.m. May 31.
Holy Crap! She’d lost an entire week!
What about Helen talking to her father? She’d promised Sami she would be there when Sami talked to the Senator! Alex felt a wave of guilt.
Then she remembered.
She was supposed to be in Alexandria on May 31st to hear Bestat’s story. She’d hoped to find out what the hell was going on!
Alex threw off the covers and tried to get up. The room spun.
She lay back down on the bed. The last thing she remembered was retreating from the blood and dust of the explosion to the executive suite. They’d had an hour before they would travel back to the states. Erin and Samantha had gone into the bathroom.
Alex looked up to see Jesse. She tried to use her right arm to point to her ears, but the arm was taped to her side. She pointed at her ears with her left hand.
“Your ears are better,” Jesse said. “I don’t think you hear me that way, anyway.”
“What happened?” Alex asked.
“The explosion bounced your brain around,” her mother’s voice came from somewhere.
Alex looked around and found Rebecca standing in the bathroom door. Alex noticed that a romantic suspense novel was face down on the bed near the green stuffed armchair. A soft cotton blanket was draped on the bed. Rebecca appeared next to her.
“How do you feel?” Rebecca asked.
“Disoriented.” Alex flipped her legs around to get out of bed and felt instantly dizzy. “Woozy.”
Rather than lying back down, Alex forced herself to sit up.
“Here,” Rebecca said. She held out a few white pills and water.
“What are those?” Alex gave the pills a suspicious sniff.
“Ibuprofen,” Rebecca said.
Alex took the pills and the water. She emptied the glass.
“Where are Máire and Joey?” Alex asked.
“Downstairs.” Rebecca gave her a beaming smile. “They have so many people who love them. When you were injured, your father and I rushed over to take care of them and found . . . Well, they didn’t need us at all.”
“We’re very lucky,” Alex said.
“I’m a little jealous,” Rebecca said.
“How are Vince and Royce?” Alex asked to change the subject.
“Alive,” Rebecca said. “They have quite a ways to go until they are better, but they’re alive and that’s a miracle. Trece and White Boy, too.”
“Are they home?” Alex asked.
“No, they’re here,” Rebecca said. “Neev is here, too.”
“Here?” Alex asked.
“In the basement,” Rebecca said. “Colin can keep an eye on them that way. John, too. They’ve hired nurses to help. It’s like a hospital ward down there.”
“Wow,” Alex said. “Full house.”
“You’re supposed to stay in this bed,” Rebecca said.
“I’m itchy,” Alex said.
Alex scratched her right arm and opened one of the remaining small cuts on her forearm. Rebecca blotted at the cut until it stopped bleeding.
“How did I get here?” Alex asked.
“You mean, you don’t remember what happened after saving everyone’s life?” Rebecca asked.
Alex nodded and then groaned at the motion. She had to bite her lip to keep from throwing up.
“Why do I feel like I had surgery?” Alex asked.
“Your scapula,” Rebecca said. “You have a few screws to hold it together. They took advantage of you being unconscious. They thought you wouldn’t complain too much.”
“Figures.” Alex nodded.
Rebecca smiled and sat down on the bed.
“I’m not supposed to tell you anything,” Rebecca said. “But I wanted . . .”
Rebecca’s eyes filled with tears. She leaned forward and kissed Alex’s cheek. Her thumb automatically rubbed off the lipstick print.
“What?” Alex asked.
“Philippe,” Rebecca said. “Thank you.”
“He was murdered?” Alex asked.
“Poisoned,” Rebecca nodded. “The hanging was just . . .”
Rebecca’s voice broke, and tears dropped down her face.
“I made Benji tell me,” Rebecca said. “You’d have been proud of me. I forced him to tell me why Philippe was killed. Benjamin said you think he and I were supposed to get together to take him out of the intelligence game. He said that he thought I was . . . Well, he said ‘tricked’ — I think he meant mind-controlled like those poor girls you worked with last year — into going to Chicago.”
Alex felt a wave of compassion for her mother.
“That’s a lot to hear,” Alex said.
“I made him tell me,” Rebecca said. “Do you think the same thing?”
“I don’t know,” Alex said. “I was supposed to meet with someone this week who promised to tell me.”
“Bestat?” Rebecca looked at the door. “She’s playing with the twins downstairs. Did you know Zack is having custody issues with that awful Tina?”
“I remember something,” Alex said. “Seems like she finally did a paternity test on the kids? Is that right?”
“Right,” Rebecca said. “Sami found this really tough lawyer to help. The lawyer said that because there is no other father coming forward, and the current father wants to parent, there’s no reason to disrupt the children’s lives. That’s what she said. She’s filed with the court, and . . .”
Rebecca nodded.
“Just another thing you’ve done,” Rebecca smiled.
“Me?” Alex scowled. “I told him to talk to Sami.”
“I know,” Rebecca said. “But if he hadn’t, there wouldn’t be this resolution.”
“It’s resolved?”
“Oh, I didn’t say that?” Rebecca looked puzzled. “I guess I didn’t. The lawyer filed. Zack had to go to a hearing — Bestat, too. The kids testified that they are really happy with Zack as their dad. They didn’t think of him as their part-time dad. Britney said, ‘Every dad works. I bet if you added up every dad’s time, it wouldn’t be any more than my Dad’s. Plus, my dad flies airplanes to keep us safe.’ The judge stopped the hearing after that. Turns out, Zack’s never lied to the kids. They know that he’s probably not their biological father. Did you do that, too?”
“I thought it was a good idea,” Alex said. “They’re smart kids. They know what their mother was.”
“Well, the judge threw out Tina’s motion,” Rebecca nodded. “‘If a father comes forward, we’ll address this again,’ he said, but really Tina has no idea who their fathers might be. Oh, you should have heard the judge’s remarks about Tina’s whole ‘A milita
ry father is no kind of father at all.’”
“Didn’t like that?”
“Not one bit,” Rebecca said. “So, everything stays the same.”
Rebecca smiled. Alex shook her head to try to clear it and then grabbed her head with her left hand.
“That looked painful,” Rebecca said.
“Yeah,” Alex said. “Listen . . . I don’t mean to offend you or anything . . .”
“But?”
“Why are you being so nice to me?” Alex asked. “Usually you just tell me what to do and go about your life.”
Rebecca laughed.
“Am I dreaming?” Alex asked.
She glanced up at Jesse. He was laughing, too. She scowled and lay back down. Her mother touched her arm.
“When you couldn’t go, your father and I went with Sami to talk to the Senator,” Rebecca said. “I was behind that glass, and . . . I realized the enormity of all you had done. It was like a cloud lifted, and I . . . saw how much you do, for everyone. I don’t know . . . maybe my heart grew.”
“Five times that day?” Alex asked.
“I am a mean one . . .” Rebecca smiled.
“Did you say that Sami talked to the Senator?” Alex asked.
“And Helen talked to her father,” Rebecca nodded. “Helen’s mom came with us that time.”
“They did?” Alex asked. “How . . .?”
“After what happened in Cuba, they were adamant that they were going to get what they could from those awful men,” Rebecca said. “And they did. They did a good job. They got the information you wanted, and they didn’t put up with anything. We were there for both interviews, and the girls were fabulous.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, wow,” Rebecca said.
“Can I use the bathroom?” Alex asked.
“Oh, sure,” Rebecca held her arm out. Alex shuffled to the bathroom. She shooed her mother out and promptly threw up. She collapsed to the floor and threw up again.
When she woke, she was lying in bed again. Maggie was lying on the bed next to her. She sat up and looked at the French door. It was dark out.
She heard a noise near her and looked. John was sitting with his back against the headboard on his side of the bed.
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