Dom gave Ben a sour look and Ben shook his head at the lie.
“Who’s running Intelligence in France?” Alex asked.
“Your friend Y,” Dominic said.
“That’s a big step up for Yvonne,” Alex said.
“She is my assistant,” Dominic turned to his elder brother, Ben. “God, you reek of nicotine.”
“Yes, mother,” Ben said. “Alex, I think what we all want to know is…”
“Are they really going to shove a garden hose into your hip and…” Mammy’s face was a mask of horror.
“Yes, yes,” Alex said. “That’s the treatment.”
Every face in the room soured.
“Sounds positively dreadful,” Sean Hudson from MI5 smirked at Alex from a corner of the room. Alex waved her hellos. As he always did when she was around, he blushed bright red.
“I’m not going to ask how you know this,” Alex said. “But we haven’t made any decisions.”
“I saved a chocolate for you, honey.” Mammy brought the tray of doughnuts to her. She slapped Raz’s hand away as it neared the chocolate doughnut. Smiling at Mammy, Alex took the doughnut and split it with Raz. He kissed her cheek. “Now none of that. I’ll get my feelings hurt.”
With a flip of her apron, she took the empty tray into the kitchen.
“Who’s leading this meeting?” Alex’s voice rose with anxiety.
“No, Pumpkin,” Patrick said. “We’re not going to make you lead us. We’re waiting for the Mister. You know he does strategy and leadership. I get shit done.”
Max came into the room. She pressed her forehead into his in a moment of greeting. He broke a piece of her doughnut and went to the couch. Still talking to Zack, the Captain, one of the men who’d met them at the dock at Harkins Island, touched her back and found a seat at the table. Zack tried to take her last piece of chocolate doughnut but Alex held it away from him. Laughing, he went to sit at the table. Mammy came in with a couple of thermoses of coffee. The man they called “the Mister” came in behind her. Mammy waved off everyone’s thanks and took a seat by the fireplace.
“We’ll do strategy together?” the Mister asked.
“How did you manage to get away?” Alex asked.
“I’m not here,” he said. “In fact, we need to get this briefing over. I’m due for a meeting in Washington.”
“Everyone who’s here is here,” Mammy said. “There are more coming, of course.”
The Mister nodded to her and then turned to Alex.
“Our plan is to work as two separate yet integrated teams,” he said. “We’ll stay in close contact via secure connection.”
“Is that why you bought this home?” Raz asked.
“We piggy-backed on your secure connection,” the Captain said. “We should be undetectable.”
“I’ll check,” Raz said. “With Xavier’s help, we’re setting up a sequence of secure servers today. You can patch into them.”
“Alex’s assistant, Dusty, dropped off the equipment around noon,” X said. “We’ll finish the installation this afternoon. Should be operational tonight or early tomorrow morning.”
“This home was a stroke of genius. It’s easy for some of the publicly known members of our team to get in and out of Denver,” the Mister said. “We have ample military bases as well as a state-of-the-art airport.”
“You need to stop this fussing and get this meeting started,” Mammy said.
“Yes, ma’am,” the Mister smiled at her. “Patrick, why don’t you start?”
“Last Sunday, I received a call from Alex telling me about her conversation on Harkers Island,” Patrick said. “She, Max, and I have some previous experience with the man who calls himself Eniac. She felt confident that the man who set up this debacle and cleared the Intelligence servers at JFCOM would leave behind a virus to destroy everything if anyone really tried to look at what he’d done.”
“I started a chain of requests,” Patrick continued. “Within three hours, we had X and Y on board and Anonymous willing to join in. By morning, and with Alex’s help, we had a plan of attack. X?”
“Even with the highest security clearance,” X said, “we weren’t able to access the servers remotely. This appears to have been sold as a ‘safeguard’ by Eniac. Of course, it does stop people like Anonymous from hacking into the servers. It also stops all external audit, thus leaving the servers as free playing ground for a madman.”
“A madman?” Sean Hudson asked. “Are we certain?”
“You have to hear what he found,” Alex said.
“Please go on, X,” the Mister said.
“I’ll start with the most urgent human issue and move to the most urgent intelligence issue.” Expecting resistance, X looked around the room. Seeing only interested eyes, he continued, “Our most crucial human issue is the loss of these men. And make no mistake; they are lost. No one seems to know where they are. The paper trail of their mission and mission approval is gone. The documents on who flew them and where are gone. All of the usual, expected ‘machine-of-war’ paperwork – equipment, food, shelter, clothing, or whatever – is gone.”
“And gone means?” Dominic asked.
“No electronic record. No paper record.” X said. “When I say, no electronic record, I mean in any country, anywhere.”
“I was unable to find a trace of the UK team in the Falkland’s,” James Kelly said. “That’s where they filed their last report.”
“It’s possible the paperwork never existed,” Ben said. “It’s been a long, long time, but in the old days teams assigned to intelligence had no paper trail. It’s hard to believe it could happen in today’s military, but it is possible.”
“However improbable,” Raz said. “It is possible.”
“Please continue X,” the Mister said.
“Our biggest human concern is finding the men and women,” X said. “Invisible to us, they are under Eniac’s sole control.”
“The Fey team was able to pick up five teams last week,” Alex said. “They have debriefed individually and as a team. We will begin work with their information this week. When the soldiers are released from medical, they are confined to base until this matter is resolved.”
“Why confined to base?” the Mister asked.
“They requested it,” Alex said.
“The men feel certain they were not supposed to survive their missions,” Raz said.
“And we were lucky to get them,” Alex said.
“This may be the time to mention that Special Ops, as a service and in particular the personnel, believe they have been betrayed by the intelligence corps,” the Admiral said.
“We need to keep that in mind as we move forward,” the Mister said.
“Our team is aware of this situation,” Alex said. “For now, we feel strongly that we must isolate this matter from the intelligence community in order to resolve it.”
“The mistrust is always a challenge for the intelligence corps,” Ben said.
“The intelligence corps has lost credibility with the men and women who act on their information,” Alex said.
“This is a major concern but, sadly, not our highest intelligence challenge,” X said.
“What is that?” the Mister asked.
“Our highest intelligence challenge comes out of the servers at JFCOM,” X said. “Eniac planned and executed a significant attack on the international intelligence system. If we hadn’t been there, and the Fey team hadn’t been on the scene, the cascade would have shut down the United States and the world. A kind of global intelligence Armageddon that would eventually affect the world financial markets, all shipping, air traffic, and potentially the Internet.”
No one seemed to breathe. They stared at X. He shifted uncomfortably under their stark scrutiny.
“But… but... why would anyone do that?” Mammy asked.
“As hard as it is to believe,” the Mister said. “There are a number of… forces, I guess, in the world who wish to take everything down.”
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br /> “Ayn Randian utopia,” Patrick said. “They don’t care what happens because they are pretty sure the destruction will impact the poor and working people, not them.”
“We must consider…” Used to her usual authority, Alex spoke before realizing who she was speaking to. She’d grown up around these people. To them, she was Patrick’s kid, one of his wild twins. “Sorry sir, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
Her eyes fell on Max and he gave her a crooked smile. She felt the tingle of Jesse’s hand on her back.
“We have to consider what?” Patrick asked. “Please finish, Alexandra.”
“Yes sir,” Alex cleared her throat. “We have to consider that we’re wrong here. The goal is not to take the entire system down, to return the world to pre-industrial-era days. If that’s the case, then what is the goal?”
“But what could that be?” X asked.
“Prove you’re right?” the Mister asked. “Take over? Control the world?”
“I don’t think Alex knows,” Steve said. “But I agree with her. We must be willing to ask to keep the question open.”
“He’s right,” Mammy said.
“This is what we know so far.” Steve held up a finger. “We know about the planned destruction of the intelligence network.”
He held up another finger. “We have the destruction of trust between intelligence corps and soldiers. Anything else?”
“Someone is trying to take the world order down,” Sean Hudson said.
“That’s not a fact,” Steve said. “I believe that’s what Alex is saying. We may have more facts to add to this scenario. So far, we’re working to thwart the computer crisis and setting up a system to get around the trust crisis.”
“But we’re chasing shadows,” Dominic said. “Reacting to one crisis after another, not acting. Yes, I see what you mean.”
“So we must ask the question…” Steve said.
“What have we missed?” Alex asked. “Ben taught me that when everyone is looking in one direction, the place to find the truth is to look at what everyone isn’t looking at.”
“Where has he been successful?” Ben asked. “That was my question. This lunatic has had decades to prepare. While we run around cleaning up his mess and chortling over our successes, he may be succeeding somewhere else.”
“Right,” Alex said.
“Do we know anyone who writes those doomsday comic books anymore?” the Mister asked.
Ben nodded.
“Let’s get them in the loop,” the Mister said. “They have a finger on a certain pulse that most of us miss.”
“We must act on what we know.” Patrick’s fist hit the table. “We cannot sit around with our thumbs up our asses until someone figures out what, if anything, these cretins might be up to.”
Alex blinked with surprise at her father’s outburst. Max gave a soft chuckle.
“My team is looking for the soldiers,” Alex said. “Our main focus is to bring as many of them home as possible.”
“We cannot allow another Vietnam scenario,” Patrick said.
“We will bring these men and women home, Patrick,” the Admiral said.
“To that end,” Alex said. “I need a trusted team from every country willing to interview the families. As my husband often reminds me, families know quite a bit about secret missions.”
“Done,” Dominic said.
“We will assist you as much as we can in finding the soldiers,” the Mister said. “Our main focus will be on uncovering the end game.”
“I am able to dedicate some of our resources to assist you,” Alex said.
“Seems like you’re plenty busy,” the Admiral said.
“I just wonder…” X said.
Every eye in the room turned to him.
“It’s probably nothing,” he said.
“Tell us your ‘probably nothing’ and we will decide,” the Mister said. “No one’s shy here. They will tell you if you’re speaking nonsense.”
“I wonder what, if anything, this has to do with the murder of the Fey Special Forces Team,” X said.
As if his words were bullets, Alex’s body jerked. She turned to look at him.
“What do you mean?” Max asked.
“I didn’t think of it until the Mister said something about comic books,” X said. “But if you take a step way back, you see the assault on the Fey Special Forces Team…”
“And these ongoing attacks on Alexandra,” Patrick nodded.
“Right,” X said. “All by either the same group or…”
“Someone using the ‘kill Alex’ group to continue this plan,” Mammy said. “You know what that means?”
Every eye in the room turned to look at Alex. She swallowed hard.
“What does it mean?” Max’s voice was defensive.
“Someone believes that Alex can figure this whole thing out,” X said.
“So they eliminated the threat before it was a reality?” the Admiral asked.
“Maybe I already figured it out,” Alex said. “I was working on something the six months or so before the assault. I don’t remember what it was. Anyone know?”
Alex’s eyes flitted from face to puzzled face until they rested on Ben’s face. He smiled at her.
“I need to get going,” the Mister said. “Is there anything else?”
He looked around the room.
“You know what to do,” he said. “Let’s not waste time. In the worst-case scenario, someone wants to take civilization back to the seventeen hundreds. Our best-case scenario is that we don’t know. Get moving.”
He nodded and left the room. Mammy followed him out of the room.
“You know how to get me,” Alex said. “I’m back on duty tomorrow morning.”
She glanced at Raz. In this room of odd company, Raz seemed perfectly at home. He smiled at her and she nodded. She raised a hand in a wave and left the living room. She found Mammy and the Mister in the kitchen. Wrapped in an embrace, the two lovers and friends seemed to echo the very nature of love. Alex smiled and let herself out the backdoor. She made a quick journey around the gates and up her back steps.
She had just poured herself another cup of coffee when Maggie came blasting through the house to find her. Breathing hard, the dog circled Alex and went to get a drink from her bowl.
“How was the run?” Alex asked as John and Troy entered the room.
“Great,” John said. “How was your lunch date?”
Troy grabbed a container of chocolate milk and went to find his kids.
“The lunch date in your mind?” Alex asked.
“So you haven’t eaten?” John asked.
Alex shook her head.
“Great,” he said. “I’ll shower, and we can get something.”
He gave her a sweaty kiss and went up the stairs. She heard Troy’s kids squeal from the basement playroom. She was about to take another sip of coffee when John appeared again.
“Care to join me?” he asked.
She responded with her crooked smile and followed him up the stairs.
F
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Monday afternoon
November 2 – 4:47 p.m. MST
Fairmount Cemetery, Denver, CO
Wearing their full dress uniforms, Trece, White Boy, Alex, Matthew, Joseph and Raz carried Dahlia Jasper’s coffin to the front of the chapel. The remaining members of the Fey team stood with Cian and Eoin, waiting for the coffin. Like a solemn statue, Troy held Hermes and Hector James’s hands.
Because Troy and the boys were Dahlia’s only living relatives, they had decided to bury her in the historic Fairmount Cemetery. Dahlia and the boys had been so excited about getting married. Hermes and Hector James wanted her last celebration to be the wedding she’d hoped for. Alex and the team filled the chapel with delicate white roses, her favorite flower, and a brush of vibrant blue delphinium. Eoin made a gorgeous tiered white cake with matching blue flowers. There was plenty of bubbling apple cider to go around
.
Troy wore his dress uniform and the boys were dressed in the tuxes they’d bought for the wedding. The funeral parlor had dressed Dahlia in her dream wedding dress complete with a veil to cover the damage to her forehead from the shot gun blast.
While Alex had been to plenty of funerals, she’d never been to one quite like this. The chapel was gorgeous and the music light. Out of respect for Troy, the families of the Fey Team filled the chapel seats. The familiar faces of Fey wives and their children intermixed with the new Fey Team families. When they were done here, Alex and the team would escort Dahlia away from the boys’ eyes and to the crematorium. She would be buried next to a white rose bush in the Highline Gardens area of the cemetery.
They were halfway down the aisle with Dahlia’s casket when the door opened with a bang. Alex felt, more than saw, Troy’s mother, Elizabeth, run down a side aisle to the side of the church.
“Grammie!” Hermes yelled.
Hermes held his arms out and Elizabeth picked him up. With her other arm, she hugged Hector James and then Troy. When Dahlia reached the front of the chapel, Elizabeth was standing as if she’d been there the entire time. They set the coffin down on a stand and stepped away at attention. Troy came forward.
“We don’t have a big ceremony planned,” Troy said. “We’d like to celebrate Dahlia’s beauty and her life. If you’d like to say something, please feel free. The boys will get us started and I’ll say a few things when we’re done.”
Troy gestured to his eldest son and Hector James stepped forward.
“What I remember the most about my mommy was how she loved to sing,” Hector James said. “She would get up before anyone else to get ready. She would sing in the shower. She couldn’t sing very good. But good enough for me.”
Hermes squirmed in Elizabeth’s arms and she set him down. He ran to his brother’s side.
“I remember how pretty my mommy was,” Hermes said. “She was prettier than any model. Even on the bad days, she could find something pretty – like a flower in the grass or a pretty snow flake – for my brother and me.”
When Hermes began to cry, Troy picked him and Hector James up. The boys tucked their heads into Troy’s neck.
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