Finding North (57 page)

“
What did I miss?” Matthew
asked.

“
We were talking about
Zutterberg,” Alex said.

“
He’s from Bovina, Texas,”
Matthew said.

“
Yes, Troy told us,” Alex
said. “And Ruiz?”

“
He’s an illegal,” Matthew
said. “He was born in Juarez. Family crossed the border when he was
five or six.”

“
Where did they settle?”
Raz asked.

“
Out in the west Texas
town of El Paso,” Matthew sang the opening line to Marty Robbins’
song “El Paso.”

“
What are you talking
about?” Colin asked.

“
We’re finding a link
between all the people we thought were behind all of this and are
now dead,” Alex said.

“
Oh,” Colin said. “I
thought you were trying to figure out who’d been in Texas. I’ve
been in Texas.”

“
You have?” Alex
asked.

“
I was there with you for
that rally,” Colin said. “Remember?”

“
That doesn’t really
count,” Alex said. “We were there
for . . .”

Colin’s grin indicated
that he’d little brother-ed her.

“
I did six weeks at the
NSA’s cryptology school,” Colin said. “It’s on a satellite campus
at Lackland.”

“
I took that course,”
Matthew said. “When were you there?”

“
I didn’t know that,” Alex
said. “Mattie, do you know if Vince went?”

“
He was in my class,”
Matthew said. “Remember, I told you we’d taken a class together —
that’s how I knew him.”

“
Heath?” Alex
asked.

“
He took it,” Colin
said.

“
With you?” Alex
asked.

“
No,” Colin said. “He told
me he took the class.”

“
Why would he tell you
that?” Alex asked.

“
He wanted to know about
the Kryptos statue. You know, the one outside the CIA building?”
Colin asked.

“
I do know the Kryptos
statue,” Alex smiled.

“
He wanted to know if
you’d really deciphered it,” Colin said.

“
Me and Max,” Alex
said.

“
That’s what I told him,”
Colin said.

“
Huh,” Alex said. She
looked up at Jesse. “You wouldn’t happen to know if Jerome Brown or
Jesus Lee went to that school, would you?”

Colin and Matthew were so
surprised by the question that they gawked at Alex.

“
What’s happening?” Troy
asked. “What just happened?”

“
Six men were picked up
and held hostage,” Alex said.

“
Tortured,” Matthew
nodded.

“
They were Matthew Mac
Clenaghan, Colin Hargreaves, Heath Wheeler, Vince Hutchins, Jesus
Lee, and Jerome Brown,” Raz said.

“
Holy shit,” Troy said.
“And you think they all went to that class?”

“
It sounds like they did,”
Raz said. “You’re all about the same age and military track. I
wonder if you went around the same time.”

“
Who was your teacher?”
Alex asked.

“
Some Russian guy,” Colin
said. “I don’t know — I was drinking a lot then,
and . . .”

“
Oh, my God,” Matthew put
his hand on his heart and weaved. Troy grabbed his arm to keep him
from falling. Colin ran to Matthew. Troy and Colin helped Matthew
into a chair. Raz went to Matthew’s side to support him, and Alex
scooted to the edge of the bed. Colin grabbed Matthew’s arm to
check his pulse.

“
Oh, my God,” Matthew
repeated the phrase over and over again.

“
Racing,” Colin dropped
down in front of Matthew. “Matt. Hey!”

Matthew fell silent. His
eyes looked at Colin.

“
Big guy,” Matthew said.
Alex leaned forward to hear Matthew. “Blue eyes.”

“
I don’t know,” Colin
said. “I guess so. He spoke with a Russian accent. I mean, he was
good and all, but . . .”

“
You think it was the Boy
Scout,” Troy said.

“
It was the Boy Scout.”
Matthew looked at Colin and then looked for Alex. Their eyes
locked. “It was the Boy Scout. He was at . . .
and . . .”

Matthew’s hand
instinctively touched his chest and the scars he’d received from
being tortured with electricity. Colin’s face blanched.

“
And . . .”
Matthew said. “Face redone. Before . . . Before he
got us . . . New face . . . worked
out . . . but I saw his eyes,
and . . .”

Matthew began to visibly
shake. Alex jumped across the room to him. She knelt down and held
him while he shook.

“
It’s okay,” Alex said in
a low voice. “It’s okay. You’re okay. It’s okay. Come on,
Mattie.”

Raz got out his cell phone
and called MJ. Troy put his hand on Matthew’s shoulder.

“
You’re in officers’
quarters. Bagram AB.” Troy started repeating facts to try to help
ground Matthew. “Afghanistan. You’re my best friend. You’re Alex’s
second. You married Erin. You have a
baby . . .”

“
You’re okay,” Alex said
over and over again.

“
I told
you . . . I told you . . .” Matthew
whispered. His mind was still locked in the memory. “Moment I saw
him . . . I told
you . . .”

“
You told me,” Alex
said.

“
But I
didn’t . . .” Matthew shook his head. “Not
until . . . until . . .”

MJ ran into the room with
his medical bag. Margaret was right behind him.

“
How long has he been like
this?” Margaret asked.

“
Just happened,” Alex
said.

“
Shock,” Colin said. “He’s
in shock.”

“
PT . . .
T . . . T . . . Ssss,” MJ
said.

“
Post-traumatic shock,”
Margaret said. “Move back. We’ve got this.”

Troy, Raz, and Colin
stepped back from Matthew.

“
Sir?” Margaret
asked.

Alex let go of Matthew and
moved back. They watched while MJ talked with Matthew. He started
with an injection of a vitamin cocktail. Margaret worked to try to
calm Matthew with a deep-breathing technique Alex had taught them.
When that didn’t help, MJ injected Matthew with barbiturates. They
waited until Matthew was breathing deeply before MJ helped Matthew
out of the chair.

“
We’re going to take him
back to his room,” Margaret said.

Margaret took Matthew’s
other side, and they guided him out of the room. Alex, Raz, Colin,
and Troy stood in stunned silence.

“
What was that?” Troy
asked.

“
It took me a while to
find them,” Alex said. She turned to Colin and said, “You. I’m not
sure why. When we got there, I found Matthew. Jesse was with me.
The guys went to see who else was there, because we didn’t know who
— we only knew it was six US servicemen.”

Alex nodded.

“
The Boy Scout, Robert
Powell — or that’s what I thought his name was . . .
He came in to tell me that they’d found Colin,” Alex said. “Matthew
said, ‘Ambush.’ I don’t know how he could speak. His jaw was broken
and teeth were gone . . .
Tongue . . . This guy was coming around the corner,
behind the Boy Scout, and I . . .”

Alex shrugged.

“
You what?” Troy
asked.

“
The Fey killed everyone,”
Raz said. “They found the other four hostages after every single
captor was dead.”

“
I didn’t kill everyone,”
Alex looked at him.

“
Jesse killed three
individuals,” Raz said. “The man the Fey is referencing came around
the corner shooting. If she hadn’t shot him, she and Matthew would
be dead.”

Caught in the memory, Alex
stared straight ahead. Troy touched her arm, and she looked at
him.

“
At the time, we thought
we’d just surprised them,” Alex said. “Hostage retrieval is tricky
business. You never know what you’re going to get. It was just some
weird thing, an aberration. But we know
now . . .”

Alex nodded.

“
It was an ambush designed
to kill the Fey Special Forces Team,” Raz said. “Zutterberg’s intel
confirmed it as fact.”

“
You don’t remember any of
this?” Alex asked Colin.

“
Bits and pieces,” Colin
said. “I guess what was happening to me was so huge,
so . . . awful . . . that
I . . . uh . . . I wasn’t tracking
what happened around me.”

Alex nodded.

“
Most of the shooting
happened around Matthew,” Raz said. “That’s some of the reason he
was so disturbed afterwards.”

“
Buffy Joiner,” Jesse
said.

“
Buffy Joiner,” Alex
repeated. “She has to be . . .”

“
Buffy Joiner,” Raz said.
“That’s what I realized in the shower.”

“
What?” Colin
asked.

Alex looked at him for a
long moment before nodding.

“
Buffy Joiner is near or
at center of this wheel,” Alex said. “I’ll bet Zutterberg knew
Buffy.”

“
And Ruiz,” Raz
said.

“
She probably paid Eleazar
with Cee Cee’s money,” Alex said.

“
The only exception
is . . .” Raz looked at Troy.

“
My father?” Troy
asked.

Alex and Raz
nodded.

“
I’d bet Helen knows,”
Troy said.

“
I bet she does,” Alex
smiled. “Go. Ask her.”

Troy ran out of the room.
Alex hopped up and went the door.

“
Before you go back to
work on drones!” Alex yelled down the hallway. “That’s an
order!”

“
Duh.” Troy’s voice came
from somewhere down the hall.

She shook her head at Troy
and looked at Colin.

“
I’m sorry about all of
this,” Alex said.

“
Don’t be,” Colin said.
“It’s not your fault.”

Alex nodded.

“
Are you going to be all
right?” Colin asked.

“
I just need to rest,”
Alex said. “You?”

“
I’m sure I’ll be fine
until I get triggered like Matt did,” Colin said. “For now, I’m
fine. Take your pills.”

Alex smiled at him. Her
little brother hugged her and left the room.

“
What is it?” Raz
asked.

He put his hand on her
shoulder, and she hugged him. For a moment, she closed her eyes and
leaned into him.

“
What is it?” he asked in
a low, intimate tone.

“
Just a feeling,” Alex
said.

“
Of?”

“
We’ve just hit the very
tip of a very large iceberg,” Alex said.

F

Chapter
Forty

Saturday
morning

June 18 — 10:40 a.m.
AFT

(June 17 — 11:10 p.m.
MDT)

Between Kabul, Afghanistan
and Denver, Colorado

Alex woke up with one
thought on her mind.

She had to figure out
those maps.

The thought glowed like
neon in her mind. She closed her eyes and tried to
sleep.

Nope, she really had to
figure out those maps. Raz shifted when she sat up. When she got up
from her small couch on the private jet, he grabbed her
hand.

“
You okay?” he
asked.

“
Slept too much at
Bagram,” she nodded. “Restless.”

She reached under the
bench seat for her backpack.

“
Would you like me to get
up?” he asked.

“
No,” she said. “Sleep.
We’ll land in a couple hours to refuel. We’ll eat and work out
then.”

“
Glad you got this plane,”
Raz said. He pulled his blanket up and shifted to his right
shoulder.

She smiled. Sergeant Dusty
had worked almost all day trying to find a plane home for them.
Every flight got them home late Sunday night or Monday morning.
Since Sunday was Father’s Day, it was one day too late for every
man on the team. Finally, she’d called her father to get the name
of the charter service he’d used the previous fall to get in and
out of Kabul. With Rebecca’s credit card, they were in the air
first thing the next morning. Alex would argue over the bill later,
after the men on her team had a chance to celebrate Father’s Day
with their children.

She did her best to
silently move to the front of the plane. Joseph opened his eyes
when she walked by but went back to sleep. Closing the door to the
cabin where they were sleeping, she moved into the tiny,
well-stocked kitchen. She set her backpack down at the small table
and started the coffee pot. She used the restroom while the coffee
brewed. When she returned, she poured herself a cup of coffee,
added cream, and sat down at the table.

She opened her laptop and
took a sip of coffee. She looked up at the ceiling for a moment to
center herself and then opened the scanned images of all of the
maps. Sergeant Dusty had scanned the maps and also had them
digitally redrawn in layers. Alex had spent hours working with the
images to see if they fit together in any way.