Finding North (43 page)

“
Who knew?” Alex
smiled.

“
It’s actually a good
question,” Max said. “Why raise the ire of the CIA?”

“
They want something,”
Alex said. “Probably something from the team.”

Max nodded.

“
What’s the team doing?”
Alex asked.

“
They are working on the
intel on the drive Zutterberg gave you,” Max said. “His cane had
some interesting items in it.”

“
Like what?” Alex
asked.

“
Another USB drive,” Max
said. “A video-and-audio recording device that was running the
entire time he was in your office. You can see and hear most of the
entire thing go down. Did you throw a spoon handle at the
shooter?”

“
Poked his eye out,” Alex
said.

“
Now that
is
impressive,” Max
said. “But I have to tell you. The wet, naked Monk stole the
show.”

“
Yes he did,” Alex smiled.
“Where is he?”

“
Sleeping, I think,” Max
said. “He was beat. I guess they’d been out some place working.
They flew directly here. He said he usually sleeps for at least
twenty hours when he’s off.”

“
We should check on him
when we’re done,” Alex said.

“
Sure,” Max said. “Did I
tell you that our lawyers have presented the interim commander with
a suit saying you were denied your rights as a
prisoner?”

“
Right to medical
attention?”

“
Exactly,” Max said. “Our
minds are so alike. Imagine that.”

Alex laughed. He
smiled.

“
I don’t know, Max,” Alex
said. “I keep thinking that it can’t get worse, but it seems to get
harder and harder. Every safe place has been invaded.”

“
I know,” Max
said.

“
How is the Colonel?” Alex
asked.

“
He’s doing surprisingly
well,” Max said. “The shot was in the gut. The bullet lodged in his
hip. The driver seemed to be intentionally trying not to cause too
much harm.”

“
Gut injury?” Alex
grimaced.

“
Yeah,” Max said. “But he
was in surgery less than a half-hour after being shot. They were
able to get it cleaned up. He’s going to be out for a couple
months, at least. Barring infection, they expect him to recover
completely. Turns out he’s in top physical condition.”

“
White Boy,” Alex
said.

“
It will help him heal,”
Max said.

“
He wasn’t the target,”
Alex said.

“
No,” Max said. “You and
Hank were the targets.”

Alex shook her
head.

“
Did you hear Hank talk
about the people who could stop the mysterious ‘them?’” Alex
asked.

“
Yes,” Max said. “The team
has informed your friend JS. He’s on his way here to discuss
details.”

“
I suppose that means I
need to work,” Alex said.

“
You do,” Max said. “But
it’s okay if you want to rest. I gave the team tomorrow and
Saturday off. We’ll work on Sunday.”

“
Oh?” Alex
asked.

“
Erin goes to Guantanamo
on Tuesday,” Max said. “Helen is going to talk to her father on
Wednesday. And Samantha is going to talk to the Senator on
Thursday. They’ve asked for team support. They’ve been working here
with Eoin and Neev. They’ll travel with Neev, of
course.”

“
Too risky for Eoin to
travel,” Alex said. “He barely survived the trip last
fall.”

“
Exactly,” Max said. “I
thought you and Raz would like to go with them.”

“
We need to support them,”
Alex said. “They’re doing our intelligence work.”

“
Exactly,” Max said. “So
you have a few days off.”

“
Starting tomorrow,” Alex
said.

“
Right,” Max said. “Today,
you need to, at least, see a doctor, if not go to the hospital. JS
wants to talk, and you need to check in with the team.”

“
I need a shower,” Alex
said.

“
I wasn’t going to mention
that,” Max smiled. “How did your Glock break your
scapula?”

“
It wasn’t my Glock,” Alex
said. “I had Matthew’s .45. He couldn’t take it to Hawaii, so he
left it with me. I stuck it in my duffle bag and forgot about it. I
left my 9 MM in Paris because I didn’t want to lose it in China. We
stowed our bags on the private jet. They didn’t look at them. I
guess that’s the benefit of flying diplomat class. When I saw the
.45 in my duffle, I figured I’d hit the range with it — you know,
see how it compared with mine. I found the clip, and I tucked it in
my holster.”

“
How does it work in
comparison to our 9 MMs?” Max asked.

“
It has quite a kick,”
Alex said.

“
I’d guess so,” Max
smiled.

They retreated into the
silence of their connection. Max sighed.

“
I think you need to go to
the hospital,” Max said.

“
For my shoulder?” Alex
asked.

“
For John,” Max
said.

“
I was thinking of getting
the babies and hanging out here,” Alex said. “Let him
suffer.”

“
No, you weren’t,” Max
said.

“
I’m considering it,” Alex
said.

“
It would take at least an
hour for them to get home,” Max said. “There’s no way you’re going
to disrupt our kids so that you can get back at John. Sorry, I’m
not buying it.”

“
You wanna
drive?”

“
We’ll get Trece to do
it,” Max said. “He’s outside the door.”

Alex nodded and sat up.
Max got up, and she followed. At the door, she said,
“Thanks.”

Max smiled.

FFF
Sunday, early
morning

May 22 — 3:51 a.m.
MDT

Denver,
Colorado

Alex padded across the
floor of her secure office to turn on the gas fireplace. Ben’s
curious maps were sitting on her map table next to the stack of her
own set of puzzling maps. Maggie scratched at a spot on the rug
before lying down. Alex opened her safe to set the metallic point
Eloise Le Grande had called a “key” inside. Seeing all of the
mysterious objects she’d collected over the last few years, she
decided to keep out the key to see if any of this mess fit onto the
metallic point.

If, as Bestat said, she
had obtained one of the items that went on the key, it was probably
in this junk.

As she ferried the items
to her desk, she thought about the evening.

She’d seen John sitting
with Mrs. Gordon and her son from across the waiting room. Mrs.
Gordon put her hand on John’s knee, and he looked up at her. She
pointed to Alex, and . . .

She wasn’t sure what had
happened. Did he float across the room like she remembered? Or had
she run into his arms like in some dumb romance movie? She
remembered him looking up, and she remembered being in his arms.
He’d covered her face with kisses and held her tight enough to make
her shoulder hurt. If other people hadn’t been there, she’s pretty
sure they would have had awesome makeup sex right there.

Instead, he called one of
his orthopedic surgeon friends. One friend became three — or was it
four? —orthopedic surgeon friends. She was x-rayed and worried
over. The doctors — John and the orthopedists, that is — decided
she probably didn’t need surgery. The doctors encouraged her to
take time off, get some rest, take her calcium supplement, and see
one of them in a month or so.

Through the whole thing,
John had held her hand, kept his hand on her back, kissed her ear,
and was generally awesome. Mrs. Gordon had sent him home with a
promise to call if she needed him. They’d come home and had that
great makeup sex. When their babies came home from Colorado
Springs, they were back on track.

Alex smiled. It was a nice
night. When the babies went down, she’d attempted, with Max and
Margaret’s help, to translate old Chinese into something usable. JS
had arrived an hour into their work. She’d talked with her old
friend, while Max and Margaret struggled away. After an hour, she’d
left him to continue plugging away at old Chinese. Plus, Troy had
arrived with a bottle of whiskey and a deck of cards. They were
nice enough to ask if she wanted to play but were relieved when she
said no. The Monk had ventured out of his room to take her
place.

She’d fallen asleep in
John’s arms and woken up to pain and nagging doubt. Rather than
wake him, she’d gotten up and come down to her secure office. After
a week of travel, it was nice to be in her own office, in her own
basement.

She’d spent the last hour
comparing Ben’s maps to her maps. They were identical. Someone had
gone to great trouble to copy these maps. She’d compared them to
the map they’d taken from the bookstore. The copy of the map of
Ultima Thule seemed to be about the same age. It had the same mark,
which meant it was most likely copied by the same person. But the
map of Ultima Thule depicted a different land.

Unless the bookstore owner
counted the compass rose as a name, his buyer’s name was not on any
of these maps. It’s possible that the original map of Ultima Thule,
the one she’d obsessed on at the bookstore, held the book buyer’s
name. But then, anything was possible. She shook her
head.

She looked down the line
of objects on the edge of her desk. The shiny gold-colored card
holder with the sunflower etched on it was sitting next to her old
Fey Special Forces Team lighter, the micro-SD card, the map of
Serbia, and plastic pieces of someone’s black security token. She
made a post-it for the gold and the vault video before setting the
ugly diamond-encrusted bee on the end of her table.

She didn’t bother getting
the journals this time. After all, she hadn’t had a chance to
review Hank Zutterberg’s reports on the last eight months before
everyone was killed. She’d check the journals tomorrow.

She felt a wave of sorrow
for Hank and his family. His wife was devastated by his death.
She’d told Alex that Hank had longed to make things right with her.
She seemed relieved when Alex told her that they had talked. Alex
had promised to bring Hank home as soon as his body was
released.

“
You
know . . .” Jesse said in Spanish. Surprised, Alex
gasped and looked up. He grinned at her. “This sunflower looks an
awful lot like that compass rose.”

“
What do you mean?” Alex
asked.

She picked up the
gold-colored card case with the sunflower and took it to her map
table to compare it with the maps. Sure enough, the sunflower was
almost an exact replica. Alex went to her desk and looked at the
objects. She opened the map of Serbia. The map’s compass rose was a
sunflower.

“
That one, too,” Jesse
said.

Alex went to her desk. She
scanned the compass rose from the map of Serbia. She enlarged the
image of the Serbian compass rose and printed it out. For good
measure, she enlarged the compass rose with the eye in the center
to the same size and printed out a copy. She took the sheets to her
map table. With a pencil, she filled in the Serbian compass rose
until it was one solid color.

“
Holy crap,” Alex
said.

The Serbian compass rose
was almost an exact replica of the compass rose on the ancient map.
She absent-mindedly drew the eye in the center of the Serbian
compass rose. She was about to set the images aside when she saw
the card case. She picked up the gold-colored case and set it on
the image of the Serbian compass rose and the image of the ancient
compass rose.

“
Huh,” Alex
said.

The sunflower on the card
case matched the outlines of both the ancient compass rose and the
one from the Serbian map.

“
Exactly the same,” Jesse
said.

Alex nodded. She put the
card case under her adjustable round magnifier and turned on the
light. There was a vague, almost imperceptible outline of the eye
with the eyebrow in the center of the sunflower on the case.
Shaking her head, she went back to her desk to look over the other
objects.

“
Whatcha’ doing?” Hector
James asked.

Startled, Alex spun in
place. Maggie got up from her spot on the rug and went to the boy.
He hugged the dog.

“
Sorry,” Hector James
said. “We gave Neev and Jack our room. I’m sleeping down
here.”

Alex opened her arms. He
rushed to hug her. She saw tears in his much-more-guarded eyes.
Alex smoothed his hair, while he held on tight.

“
How ’bout some cocoa?”
Alex asked. She kissed his forehead and went to turn on her
espresso machine.

“
Is Jesse here?” Hector
James asked.

“
He is.” Alex’s brow
furrowed with concern for the boy. “What’s going on?”

Hector James went to the
map table and looked at the compass rose from the map of Serbia and
the compass rose with the eye on it.

“
Hey! These look like the
tattoo on your back,” Hector James said.