Lean on Me

by Claudia Hall Christian

  “They’re going to drop half the team near an opening in the ridge,” Alex said. “They’ll fly around to the other side and drop the rest. If we see anything coming, we’ll see it there.”

  “Anything coming?” Raz asked.

  “They could be waiting for someone or something,” Joseph said.

  “We are all going,” Matthew instructed the team. “No one stays behind. You’ll jump with your partner. You may be asked to split up on the ground. We will have the flexibility to respond to whatever happens. We’re being monitored, so we’ll keep radio silence unless necessary. Defensive force only. Why?”

  “We’re the Fey team,” the team called.

  “Exactly,” Matthew said. “We should be able to communicate with each other via our old style walkie-talkies. Test yours before you’re in the air. Zack and Cliff will act as our connection to base via our feed.”

  “Get ready,” Joseph said. “Check your partner.”

  In quick, practiced motions, they strapped into parachutes. Each partner checked the other for body armor, loaded weapons, and parachutes.

  They wore thick black parkas with “FEY” stenciled on the back in white. Under “FEY” was the Vivaldi “F” that served as the “Fey” team mark and “جنية” (Jinniyah) Arabic for fairy. Their last names and service were printed in white on the left front with another “FEY” on the right front. The jackets were designed by Helene’s fashion designer mother, Claire Martins. They had gorgeous details and were tailored to fit each of them.

  Under their black helmets, they each wore individualized scarves of white and a color by which they could be identified in the field. Alex’s color matched the bright blue of the blue fairy tattoo under her left bicep. Their eyes were shielded by dark Ray-Ban sunglasses. Alex gave them each a Snickers bar as a gift from her boss, Captain Gordon, to ensure a successful mission. He’d sent a case with them for good luck.

  Zack slipped the helicopter behind the mountains.

  “Sir?” Alex’s assistant, Sergeant Dusty appeared on her laptop. “You’re expecting a priority phone call.”

  “I’m about to jump,” Alex said.

  “Remember we practiced with the wireless headset?” Sergeant Dusty asked. “The satellite phone and wireless headset are in the middle pocket of your backpack.”

  Alex dug around in her backpack until she found them. She stuck the phone in her back pocket and the wireless headset in her ear.

  “Got it,” Alex said.

  “Let’s test it,” Sergeant Dusty said.

  “Go!” Joseph yelled.

  Alex looked up to see MJ, followed by Margaret, jump from the helicopter. The wireless headset rang and she tried to switch it on but she hit her helmet.

  “Answer, sir,” Sergeant Dusty said. “Remember we set it up so you could say…”

  “Answer,” Alex said and the phone clicked through.

  “Good job,” Sergeant Dusty said into her ear.

  “Go!” Joseph yelled. Trece and White Boy jumped from the helicopter.

  “Got to go,” Alex said.

  “Yes, go save the President,” Sergeant Dusty laughed and clicked off.

  “Go!” Joseph yelled.

  Raz jumped from the helicopter and Alex followed. Raz had learned to jump from a helicopter in the last six months. She followed closely to make sure he didn’t get caught up in the helicopters draft. He jumped like a pro. They heard the Pave Hawk take off toward the other side of the ridge.

  Alex’s wireless headset rang.

  “Answer,” Alex said.

  “Alex!” Helene’s voice came through the phone’s wireless headset. “I’ve been trying you all day!”

  “Hey, I’m in the air,” Alex said. “Can I call you back?”

  “Where are you flying to?”

  “I’m parachuting into Pakistan,” Alex said.

  “Oh.” Helene’s voice lowered with embarrassment. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay, honey,” Alex said.

  “You told me to call if I didn’t hear from him.” Hurrying, Helene’s voice came in a flurry of Parisian French. “He hasn’t called. Alex, that’s just weird. He always calls me. He hasn’t missed a call in almost two years. He was going to go out for a week and… now nothing. You told me to tell you.”

  “Thanks. I’ll see if I can find him,” Alex smiled at Helene’s worry for Alex’s ex-intern, Helene’s boyfriend Sergeant Larry Flagg. “I’ll call tonight.”

  “Au revoir,” Helene clicked off the phone.

  Shaking her head at Helene, Alex pulled her chute and began a slow, controlled decent to the ridge in Pakistan. Her phone rang just as she landed. She grabbed her parachute and answered.

  “Hargreaves!” Colonel Gordon’s voice came over her wireless headset.

  “Sir?” Alex asked.

  “What the hell is going on?” His voice was artificially gruff. He had an audience too.

  “I just touched down in Pakistan,” Alex said.

  “You’ve invaded Pakistan?” he asked.

  “As you know, we have approval to cross any border in the course of our duty,” Alex said. “We are not required to give notification. We are only required to wear gear that identifies us as the Fey Team.”

  “And what exactly are you doing?”

  “We are following the course of our duty,” Alex said. “A US convoy is being detained in Paktika Province. Rather than wait a month or so to free the hostages, we were in the area and thought we’d intervene early.”

  “So noted,” he said. “And you’re looking for the missing US Army PFC?”

  Raz signaled Alex to let her know that the other teams had jumped on the other side of the canyon in Afghanistan.

  “Working on that, sir,” Alex said. “As you know, he was picked up here but is no longer in Paktika Province.”

  “So noted,” he said. “Get to work.”

  Raz nodded. The other half of the team had landed in Afghanistan.

  “Let’s go!” Alex yelled.

  MJ, Margaret, and White Boy took off toward the back of the southern ridge. She, Raz, and Trece took the trail toward the northern ridge. They jogged up the hill until they were close enough for the shooter to see them. They crouched and then belly crawled the rest of the way to a small stone wall surrounding the blind at the top of the mountain.

  They watched a thin, teenaged Pakistani boy fire. His belly pressed against the blind, he shot through a small opening in the rock wall. Alex pointed to Trece and he jumped over the stone barrier. Trece took one big step and snatched the rifle from the boy. He lifted the boy off the ground and was about to punch him out when Alex jumped over the barrier.

  “Mohamed Ali Sher!” Alex yelled in Arabic. “Does your mother know you’re here?”

  Shocked, Trece and his cargo flipped around to stare at her.

  “What would Jax say?” she growled at him.

  “Alexandra Jinniyah Khan!” the boy beamed at her. “What are you doing here?”

  “Jax brought you into this world and you repay him by being a terrorist!”

  Alex’s words came with fury. Having been on the receiving end of Alex’s fury, Trece set the boy down and patted his shoulder. Alex raised her pointer finger and slammed it into the boy’s chest.

  “A terrorist?” the boy said. “Not a terrorist! I’m assisting in an American training exercise. My friends and I. You know, Mohammed, Kamran, and Ali. We were paid one hundred US dollars each to help.”

  The boy pulled a filthy hundred dollar bill from his pocket.

  “That,” Alex pointed to the convoy below. “That is the President of the United States!”

  “Really?” the boy gave an exuberant smile. “Do I get to meet him? I saw on the Internet that some Afghan boys met the American President. Alexandra Jinniyah Khan, can I meet the American President?”

  Trece raised his eyebrows. He turned his back to Alex and the boy to keep from laughing. Raz radioed the other teams.

  “Jackson
would be very disappointed in you,” Alex said.

  “No, no, he wouldn’t,” the boy said. “Jax is my hero. I’m going to medical school like him so that I can help kids and their moms. My father has been working at the base and saving money for me to go to medical school. I study every day for my entrance exams. Now I have one hundred American dollars! Jax would be proud of me for helping the American’s during their training exercise.”

  Alex’s hands went to her hips. Breathing hard, she tried to match the fact that this boy was shooting at the convoy along with what he was actually saying.

  “Why did you shoot down the drone?” Alex asked.

  “We did not shoot down any drone,” Sher said. “That would be… bad… for me, for my mother and father who have sacrificed so much for me and…”

  “This is bad for you!” Alex said. “What are you doing here?”

  “This is dangerous country,” the boy said. “We’re helping the Americans so that they can learn to get through Paktika safely.”

  “Alex?” Trece held up the rifle the boy had been shooting with. It was an M-24, the standard US Army rifle. Raz held up a box of “green” bullets – copper-jacketed, lead-free ammunition made exclusively for the US Military. Jesse, Alex’s best friend, who had died with his head on her lap and was the best weapons officer she’d ever met, materialized in front of her.

  “Those are US Army-issued,” Jesse said. “He might have gotten the weapon from the Taliban but not the ammo. I know you’re pissed but Sher is telling the truth.”

  Alex blinked her understanding to Jesse.

  “Where did you get this?” Alex asked.

  “From the American,” the boy said.

  “What American?” Alex asked. “Which American?”

  “From Zutterberg,” Jesse said.

  “That one,” the boy leaned over the blind to point at Hank Zutterberg. A bullet whizzed by his face. Trece pulled the boy back to safety. “He shot at me. He shot at me. He almost killed me!”

  The boy sank down against the barrier.

  “We’ve been tricked!” he said.

  Sher popped to his feet. Using a mirror, he signaled his friends in the other blinds. The shooting from the other mountain blinds halted. The shooting from the canyon floor continued.

  The boy turned away from the canyon, hopped the stone wall, and ran down the mountain. They heard over the walkie-talkies that the other boys were following suit. Alex, Trece, and Raz ran alongside Sher.

  Using one of the passages on Alex’s newly drawn map, Sher jogged less than one hundred yards before meeting another familiar boy. Joseph, Leena and Troy caught up with the boy as soon as they were joined by the boy from the southern ridge and Margaret, MJ, and White Boy. They waited only a moment before the fourth boy, trailing Vince, Colin and Joseph, arrived.

  The boys shifted uncomfortably as the twelve soldiers surrounded them. In rapid Arabic, Sher told the boys that they had been mislead and betrayed.

  “Alex!” Zack’s voice came from the walkie-talkie. “Apaches, two minutes out. They’ve targeted the…”

  The Apache attack helicopters flew above them. Without hesitation, the pilots fired. The blinds blew with a spectacular display of fire. The team and boys ducked as dirt and rock rained down on them. Hidden from the Apaches in the passage, they heard the men at the bottom of the canyon cheer. The trucks in the convoy started and they could hear them move out.

  “Did anyone grab the rifles? Ammunition?” Alex asked.

  Raz, Leena, MJ and Colin held up the rifles and the ammunition.

  “Good,” Alex said. “Hold onto those.”

  Too stunned to respond, the boys stared at the blinds where they had spent the entire day. A look passed between the boys. Before anyone could say anything, the boys tried to escape. Alex shook her head. Trece, White Boy, Vince and Joseph stopped them.

  “Mohammed Ali Sher!” Joseph gave the boy in front of him a slight shake. “Does your mother know what you’ve been up to?”

  “Let’s go find out,” Alex said.

  F

  CHAPTER TWO

  Three days later

  Saturday early morning

  October 24 – 2:15 a.m. EDT

  Sheridan Circle Mansion, Washington DC

  “So what did you do?” John Kelly Drayson, Alex’s husband and vascular surgeon, asked. Alex stepped into the warm lavender scented bath where he was sitting. When she made a small grunt, he looked up at her with concern.

  “Is your hip off?” John asked. His London accent seemed to accentuate his worry.

  “Not that I know of,” Alex lied. She smiled to reassure him, but turned away so that he couldn’t see her grimace when she joined him in the bath.

  “Good,” John said. He gave her a glass of red wine and repeated, “What did you do?”

  “We covered our faces and marched them into the center of their village with their hands tied behind their backs,” Alex laughed. “We made the boys kneel and placed the rifles, ammunition and hundred dollar bills in front of them. The boys did their part by looking pathetic.”

  “And their mothers?” John smiled at her delight.

  “Sher’s mother threw herself over him to protect him,” Alex said. “I pulled my scarf down. When she saw me, she started interrogating him. The other mothers followed suit. We left the boys’ punishment to them. Never piss off a Pushtan mother.”

  Alex smiled at the memory.

  “Zack landed right after that,” Alex said. “We spent the next few days immunizing kids, checking the pregnant women, and introducing the team to the tribes in that region. I’d forgotten how much fun it is to hang out, drink tea, eat lentils, and laugh. They have so little, and laugh so much.”

  John held out his arms and Alex leaned back against his chest. He kissed her head. She closed her eyes for a moment to absorb the luxury of this amazing man.

  “You should have seen Margaret,” Alex said. “Having spent so much time in active service in Iraq, she’s struggled with our mission to build friendships with the ‘enemy.’ I think the few days in the village really opened her eyes to the fact that these people are just people. She helped MJ with the pregnant women and elderly. She kept saying they were like the Diné.”

  “The Navajo Nation,” John said.

  “You remembered!” Alex smiled at him and he kissed her. She settled back against him. “The Pushtan women took to her as one of their own. They were surprised over and over again that she wasn’t in the very least South Asian. It was fun to see.”

  She took a sip of her wine and set it down on the ledge behind the tub. Seeing his face, she kissed him.

  “How did you know I’d be here?” Alex asked. “We weren’t due in until tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Troy’s engagement day,” John said.

  “You mean that Dahlia’s divorce will be finally through tomorrow?” Alex asked.

  “I knew you’d do whatever you could to make sure that Troy was home tonight,” John shrugged. “Max changed our flights yesterday.”

  “I’m glad you’re here,” Alex kissed him again because she could.

  “Me too,” John said. “You know about Max?”

  “You know about Max?” Alex laughed.

  “I think it’s love,” John said. “He’s very happy and terrified. How do you feel about that?”

  “I’m happy for him,” Alex said. “He’s clear that I’m still his first person identical twin and he’s still my first person identical twin. It doesn’t change much. How do you feel? He’s your best-friend.”

  “I’m happy for him,” John said. “And I’m still his best-friend. That hasn’t changed while they’ve been dating.”

  “I doubt it will,” Alex said. “Max has a wonderful consistency in his relationships.”

  “If he loves you, he loves you,” John smiled. “Did you give Troy the ring?”

  “From the first time he was engaged to Dahlia?” Alex asked.

  John nodded.


  “On the plane home,” Alex said. “He cried. Vince told him to go with the original and not the one he bought.”

  “Yeah, Vince has been through this,” John said.

  “Less messy,” Alex said. “But yes. I would guess they are engaged by now. What is the final count on the Marine Marathon?”

  “Matthew, Troy, and Vince are running with me. Colin’s running way ahead as usual,” John chuckled. “Jimmy’s due in from wherever. He said he’d be here by now. So who knows?”

  “I haven’t heard anything,” Alex said. John’s elder brother, James Kelly, was an MI6 operative she’d rescued from a Czech mafia prison. The youngest of twelve Northern Irish children, John’s siblings had a tendency to pop up when you least expected them to. “Last I heard he was in the Falklands.”

  “He says he’s been training,” John shrugged. “I couldn’t talk Raz into running it. He’s worried his back can’t handle the miles. So he’s pacing us the last three miles. Max is pacing miles eighteen to twenty-three.”

  “When you’re supposed to hit ‘the wall’?”

  “Indeed,” John said. “When does Erin get here?”

  “Erin and her lovely baby, Grace, will be here on Saturday,” Alex smiled. “They are flying with Emily and Amelia on Emily’s father’s plane. I think a few other Fey wives are coming but I’m not sure.”

  “Grace’s really cute,” John looked at the big smile on Alex’s face. “You look happy.”

  “I’m really happy for Matthew and Erin. Everything is perfect,” Alex said. “Their house remodel turned out beautifully.”

  “And just in time,” John said.

  “I know!” Alex laughed. “Erin had Grace in a kiddy pool in the kitchen only two days after they moved in.“

  “I remember,” John said.

  “Mattie is so happy. It’s amazing what happiness does to a man.”

  John made a sound and she turned around to look at him. He nodded as if he knew exactly what happiness could do to a man.

  “I hope Troy can find that,” Alex said. “Dahlia is not my favorite person on the planet.”

  “Or hasn’t been,” John said. “After that party at Red Rocks, she went to therapy.”