CHAPTER NINE
“What about the map?”
“Myth and legend. He clearly knows that my team went through the Russian compound. But in Afghanistan? Twenty miles away is new country.”
“He doesn’t know about the extraction.”
“The story is that we were dropping off a Green Beret, not that we were extracting a doctor.” She smiled. “Eleazar will never expect that I have friends in this region.”
She went to the map and marked the location of the soldiers, the armed men, and the tunnels. Tapping her yellow pencil on the table, she chewed the inside of her mouth. Her mind laid out a strategy. Blowing out a breath, she hoped she was right.
“Can you see what the Special Forces team is doing?” Alex asked.
Raz reoriented the satellite picture. They watched the team packing their gear and moving out of their location.
“Sergeant,” Alex clicked the video feed. “Can you set a secure link to the CO in Afghanistan? Let me know when it’s set.”
Turning to Raz, she said, “Can you relay all this information to Zack?”
While Raz updated Zack and Matthew, Alex sat down at her map table and began making calculations. Reaching into another cubbyhole, she pulled out a stack of rolled-up maps. Under the rolled maps, toward the back of the cubby, she found what she was looking for—a filthy, tattered map. Unfolding the map on the table, she compared the original Russian map to the more recent one.
“Can I have my chair?”
“What’s that?” Raz asked. “Oh, you’re shitting me. This is the original map.”
Alex nodded. “The only copy.”
“Sergeant?” Alex asked, clicking the feed.
“Fey? I have the CO, but he’s a little prickly.”
“That’s fine. Can you send two drones to these exact coordinates?” She sent him the coordinates by instant message. “I want the controls. Also, can you put this set of coordinates through to Zack’s engineer? I don’t want to risk the radio. Make sure he confirms the altitude.”
“Got it.”
She waited for a minute while the Sergeant made the call. She heard voices behind the Sergeant.
“You have an audience?”
“You have an audience. All right, Army command says that the drones will hover at that location in fifteen minutes. They asked me to remind you that the drones become disabled less than two feet from that location.”
“Yes, thank you for the reminder.”
“I have confirmation from the engineer as well.”
“Great. I need to make a secure call, and then I’ll talk to the CO.”
“Who are you calling?”
Alex looked at the video controller.
“I need it for the log,” he continued.
“Dead soldiers or log,” Alex said.
“You’ll initial this, or it’s my ass.”
Alex nodded. The phone rang twice, indicating that it was secure. Alex reached up to a small shelf near the top of the armoire and pulled down an address book. Time to call some friends.
“Can I have that?” Raz asked, looking over Alex’s shoulder.
“When I die,” she said.
He laughed.
Alex flipped open the address book that contained coded telephone numbers, birthdays, addresses, and personal information from every person she had extracted. This tiny book held confidential personal information on some of the world’s most powerful people.
She began dialing, laughing, and chatting with people whose lives she had saved. Even the prickly CO was laughing when they disconnected. By the time the drones arrived, a plan was underway. When she looked up, Raz was shaking his head from the overstuffed green chair.
“Friends?”
“The most unpredictable force in intelligence,” Alex said. “And something I’m good at.”
Alex slipped the address book back onto the shelf of the armoire.
“In case you are wondering, this book is resting on a light-sensitive scanning device. The book will be set on fire if someone other than me takes it down.”
“I don’t remember setting that up,” Raz said.
“You’re not my only friend,” Alex replied.
Raz laughed. Ben came jogging down the stairs with a bottle of cold water, which he gave to Alex. She smiled her thanks and took a drink.
“Shall we watch?” Ben asked.
Alex stood to allow Raz to take her chair.
“Lost soldiers first,” Alex said.
Raz clicked the satellite photo back to the three lost soldiers. While they watched, a large herd of goats moved through the valley, followed by a small boy. He moved in such a way that, by the time he reached the soldiers, the goats had spread out, covering the flat valley. Standing a few feet from the soldiers, the boy spoke. Startled, the soldiers pulled their weapons on the boy. It was a moment before they understood what the boy was saying. When the soldiers moved, three men raced out of the caves. Tripping on the goats, the men screamed and fell to the ground. They fired their machine guns in the direction of the soldiers.
“Troy?”
“Got it,” Troy said.
From almost two miles above the valley, Troy fired the Barrett .416. The terrorists fell to the dirt. Following the boy, the soldiers ran out of the valley.
Alex fired a missile from a drone into the area where the armed men waited to down the helicopter and kill the soldiers.
“Zack? Move before they fire. Raz? Can we see the other location?”
He switched the screen to the area where the armed men were waiting. As planned, the drone missile dropped close enough to Eleazar’s men to cause them to scramble. Two men raised Grail missiles to their shoulders, and Alex fired the second drone’s missile. The drone missile hit the men. The Grail missiles exploded in their hands.
“Captain? You can go in now,” Alex said to the Commanding Officer.
The Special Forces team engaged Eleazar’s armed men in a quick firefight. Eleazar’s men surrendered to Special Forces.
“We’ve got the soldiers, uh, Quinn, Rhine, and Boransky.” Matthew’s face flashed onto the computer screen, causing Alex to jump. “Surprised you?”
Alex laughed.
“Should we get the others?”
“Army command has sent a unit and a couple of choppers. Take the men back to Kabul. Get them checked through medical. No fucking around this time. Get back to Kabul. That’s an order.”
Matthew laughed. “The boys want to say, ‘Hi’ to the Fey.”
He pressed the laptop to show the soldiers they had just picked up.
“That’s the Fey?”
Alex waved.
“That hot chick is the Fey?”
Trece sneered at the man and blocked the computer with his bulk.
“We have some important drinking to do before we’re stateside,” he said. “Anyone have anything interesting to say?”
“Is she available? Have you . . .”
“That’s a ‘No,’” Trece said. “See ya.”
The screen went dark, and Alex leaned back in her chair.
“Thirty minutes,” Ben said. “It’s just twelve now.”
“Let’s send him a message,” Alex said.
Ben smiled. “I’ve got just the thing. Close up and we’ll buy lunch.”
Alex nodded.
A half hour later, a large bouquet of flowers was delivered to a small residence in Jerusalem. The card read simply: “Congratulations on the new baby. With Love, the Fey.” No tricks, no games, just congratulations. Eleazar screamed and ripped the flowers from their stems.
In Denver, the day dissolved into lunch and paperwork. With kisses all around, Ben and Raz left in their government vehicle, and Alex retired to the hundred-year-old claw-foot tub in the upstairs bathroom. Turning the water on, she put a little bubble bath, lavender oil, and Epsom salts in the tub. She wandered, lost in thought, into her walk-in closet to undress. Naked, she jumped when she saw John leaning against the doorway.
&n
bsp; “I wondered when you’d notice me,” he said.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I thought we could celebrate,” he said. He stepped forward to hold her. “I assume you’ve saved the universe again.”
“The universe?”
His hands stroked her naked body. “You always inspire and impress me.”
Her face broke into a wide smile. She helped him take his clothing off. They walked into the bathroom, where they stepped into the fragrant water. Tucked into his shoulder, she relaxed against him in the claw-foot tub.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” John said.
“Yes.”
“We’re booked to Mexico in a couple of hours. Colonel Gordon said, ‘Get the hell out of town’ or something like that.”
Alex laughed. He kissed her head, and then pushed her back to his shoulder.
“Max, too?”
“He’s meeting us there. I have you to myself for a day and a half,” John said.
“Nice. What’s the occasion?”
John shifted so he could look in her eyes.
“We are celebrating that you’re alive.”
“Hmm,” she said.
“Hmm?”
“I’m just wondering if I can wait that long.”
He stepped out of the tub. Laughing, she joined him in bed to begin the celebration.
FFF
They spent four days in the sun around March 8—four days of great food followed by great sex and great conversation. For the first time in almost two years, Alex was laughing, available, and present.
She hadn’t realized how much she missed her gorgeous husband. Like a famine victim, she gorged on the very sight of him. She watched him move his hands when he talked, his intense cobalt-blue eyes flashing as the generous curve of his mouth formed around words.
In the candlelight, their final night in Cabo San Lucas, John unwound his experience of the assault. He described waking to Max singing “When you wish upon a star” at the top of his lungs. John’s eyes clouded, his brow furrowed, and his breath stopped.
She was dead. He just knew it.
He sang with Max because he didn’t know what else to do. When the phone rang a few minutes later, they let the answering machine pick it up. They couldn’t bear to hear the words: “Alex is dead.” John will never forget Ben’s words on the answering machine: “She’s alive. Get to Washington.”
Blowing out a breath, his blue eyes held her eyes. He pulled out the dog tag bearing her name from under his shirt. Running his fingers over the indentations, he told her that the medics had thrown the tag at him when they unloaded her from Germany. Did she mind that he wore it? She put her hand over the tag and pressed it to his heart, the heart that she owned. This simple gesture launched him from his seat. He carried her to the bed where they consumed each other in unabated heat and passion.
They celebrated the eighth day of every month that spring and summer. They were riding their bikes through downtown Denver to a Colorado Rockies game on April 8 at twelve-thirty. The baseball game started at one o’clock, and Max’s law firm had season tickets. John, Alex, and Max ate hot dogs and drank beer in the sunshine of their baseball team’s opening week. With sunburned noses, they moved down Blake Street to a bar, where they joined Erin and Matthew for dinner, drinks, and dancing.
John and Max were fly fishing in the middle of the Arkansas River on June 8. At twelve-thirty, a large brown trout rose from the bottom of the river to snatch at the fly Alex had cast from the banks. Screaming and laughing at her success, the men took a quick picture of Alex and the fish before returning the fish to the river. They ate dinner in Buena Vista, then soaked in the Cottonwood Hot Springs. On the drive back to Denver, Max slept in the back seat of John’s Audi while Alex and John whispered back and forth. John pulled into a turnoff near Kenosha Pass. They cuddled on the hood of his Audi A8 and watched the moon rise to brighten the high-plains valley below.
The entire day of July 8 was spent in the honeybee hives. Max and Alex went frame by frame through their five hives, checking the health of their queen bees and the growing supply of honey. The hot, detailed work absorbed their entire attention. Twelve-thirty came and went almost without notice. Hanging their bee suits in the shed around four in the afternoon, the twins discovered a mini-party forming in the house. Samantha, their oldest sister, was visiting from Washington, DC. John lit the barbeque just as Colin and Julie arrived. They laughed their way through barbequed salmon and bottles of red wine.
They were uneventful days that started when Alex opened her eyes to John’s face and ended when she closed her eyes, nestled under John’s arm. Simple, boring, mundane days. But for Alex, who had been in the military since she was seventeen years old, every day sparkled with the brilliance of the Hope diamond. Plain living—dinner at home, trimming the roses, checking the bees, bubble baths—was new, special, and perfect. Day after day, Alex woke up at home, ate at home, worked at home, played at home, laughed at home. Home. The very thought of home made her smile.
Near the end of July, Alex stood at Alexander’s grave. For the first time in almost two years, she no longer yearned to lie under that stone.
FFF
Rebecca arrived in Denver near the middle of July with a clear agenda: get Erin’s life back on track. Refusing to utter Marcos’ name, Rebecca moved through Erin’s broken life like a gale-force wind, picking up the clutter and leaving only bright, sparkling possibility in its wake. Erin re-enrolled in school. The cosmetic dentist finished Erin’s teeth. After a long visit with the family lawyer, Erin celebrated with a new Rebecca-financed hairstyle and wardrobe. Erin was poised to flourish.
Matthew surprised Erin with a two-week vacation to the Outer Banks, and the family began work on the loft. Patrick, Max, and Colin spent three entire days clearing everything out of the loft. The Denver Post ran a picture of a filthy Patrick, standing next to a dumpster filled with broken glass and furniture, with the heading: “There are some things a father must do himself.” A team of plaster experts repaired the holes, chips, and splatter in almost every wall. When the painter finished painting the walls in bright, happy colors, the floor specialists repaired, sanded, and varnished the hardwood floors.
John and Max spent an entire weekend moving furniture from this spot to that spot, as Rebecca tried to make the loft just right. Alex sat on the floor and assembled lamps, small tables, and whatever was in the trunk of her mother’s Mercedes. Colin and Julie made the bed, set out linens, and unpacked glassware while Patrick “helped” Max connect the Internet and cable. Samantha arrived with a variety of rugs and escaped for a “meeting,” leaving their placement to Rebecca and her boys.
At twelve-thirty on August 8, Alex was arranging a dozen orange roses when Matthew called from the airport. The entire family waited. Erin gave a small scream and burst into tears when she saw the loft. She floated like a worker bee touching one thing and the other. She hugged each person and returned to the warm embrace of Matthew’s arms. Alex couldn’t remember a time when Erin seemed happier. She watched her sister look up into Matthew’s face and smiled at the love that passed between them.
Erin was moving forward in her life, too.
F
The Fey Page 10