Finding North (58 page)

They didn’t
fit.

She laid the map images on
top of each other and checked again. They did not go together. She
made the map of Ultima Thule small and tried to fit the island into
any of the ocean gaps of the maps. That didn’t work. She
scowled.

For lack of anything more
brilliant to do, she decided to print out the images on the
painfully slow, tiny inkjet she carried around with her. She set up
the printer next to the coffee pot and started printing. While she
waited, Alex drank coffee and stared at the ceiling.

Five and a half years ago,
her life as it had been ended in a blaze of machine-gun
fire.

All these years later, she
knew how they found them — the bookstore owner tipped off his
client, his client got the Senator to figure out where exactly the
vault was, and Cooper was brainwashed into letting the killer
in.

She even had some idea why
they were killed — her childhood interest in ciphers led the Black
Skeleton to believe that she understood Linear A; her appearance at
sunflower fields and her questions made it seem like she was onto
their plan to profit in the world’s down cycle; and the team seemed
involved because they had hidden the ugly honeybee
pendant.

Now, she thought she knew
who — Buffy Joiner, Cee Cee Joiner’s first wife — appeared to have
paid for the hit on the Fey Special Forces Team. At this moment,
everything pointed to Buffy as the ringleader. Finding Buffy and
the evidence to suggest she was behind the conspiracy was like
finding North on a map. Everything else fell into place. She would
meet with Dex Zeno in a week to discuss Buffy and the group she
led. For now, they would remain the Black Skeletons.

She also had an idea now
why she, Alexandra Hargreaves, and her brother, Maxwell, had been
targeted to stop the world from burning.

Alex dropped her head onto
her hands and rested it on the table. Hearing a noise, she looked
up. Zack was standing at the door to the kitchen.

“
Sorry,” Zack said. “Were
you sleeping?”

Alex shook her head. She
gestured to the chair next to her. Nodding, he poured himself a cup
of coffee and refilled hers.

“
I was hoping to catch you
alone,” Zack said.

Alex smiled.

“
I just wanted to thank
you for your help,” Zack said. “I . . . I know what
I am and . . . it takes a lot of guts to stand up to
me and . . .”

“
I broke your nose,” Alex
shrugged.

“
Seems like forever ago,”
he smiled.

“
Simpler time,” Alex
nodded. “I felt so . . .”

Alex sighed.

“
Young?” Zack
asked.

“
That, too,” Alex smiled.
“I was going to say ‘capable.’ How are the kids?”

“
Good,” Zack said. “Really
good. They made it through the hearing unscathed. I was worried,
but they . . .”

“
They’re troupers,” Alex
said.

“
They have good friends,”
Zack said. “Whole lives. They’re happy — happier than I ever
was.”

“
They’re loved,” Alex
nodded.

“‘
Loved,’” Zack said.
“That, too.”

He smiled at
Alex.

“
I have always loved you,”
Zack said.

“
Me too,” Alex
said.

He put his hand on her
shoulder. They drank coffee while the printer continued to
print.

“
When I was stuck in the
Mariscal Mine — you know, Big Bend National Park?” Alex looked at
Zack, and he nodded. “Bestat told me that I knew that I’d been
tragically betrayed. I asked her who, but she said she wouldn’t
tell me what I’d purposely forgotten.”

Zack nodded.

“
Do you know who that
might be?” Alex asked.

He gave her a long
look.

“
I’ve investigated
everyone I can think of,” Alex said. “Tragically betrayed. I’ve
even looked into the General, Ben, Dominic . . .
you . . . I can’t find it. I can’t remember. It’s
driving me crazy.”

Zack nodded.

“
Do you know?” Alex
asked.

Zack turned to face her.
His blue eyes flicked across her face before he gave a slight
nod.

“
Who ‘tragically betrayed’
me?” Alex asked.

Zack pointed at Alex. She
turned to look to see if someone was standing behind
her.

“
What?” Alex
asked.

“
You knew there was a
group who used the world’s ‘natural rhythms’ — your phrase, by the
way — to bring about the destruction of entire civilizations,” Zack
said.

“
When?” Alex
asked.

“
You talked to me about
it . . . gosh, maybe a month before the assault,”
Zack said.

“
I did?” Alex shook her
head.

“
You don’t remember,” Zack
said. “I know you don’t remember because I’ve reminded you of it a
couple times.”

“
When?”

“
That year you were
struggling with Eleazar,” Zack said. “You told me you didn’t know
what I was talking about. You were pretty sure Eleazar wanted you
dead — not the whole world in flames.”

Zack shrugged.

“
Sorry,” Alex
said.

“
Don’t be,” Zack said. He
gave her a soft smile, and repeated his favorite Patrick Hargreaves
quote. “We can only know and understand things when we’re capable
of knowing and understanding.”

Scowling, Alex focused on
her coffee and wondered why Patrick’s quote was so similar to
Dahlia’s “You can’t be responsible for what you don’t know.” She
sighed and looked up at him.

“
What did you tell me?”
Alex asked.

“
When?”

“
When I asked you about
the ‘destruction of civilizations’ thing?” Alex asked.

“
Nothing,” Zack said. “I
didn’t know anything then.”

“
Do you now?” Alex
asked.

“
Only what you tell me,”
Zack said. “Bestat won’t talk about it. She says it’s improper for
she and I to talk about such matters.”

Alex nodded as if she
understood, but she didn’t have a clue as to why it would be
improper for Zack to talk to Bestat about anything.

“
Yeah, I don’t get it
either,” Zack laughed. Alex smiled. “So you ‘tragically betrayed’
yourself by not taking yourself seriously enough. I get that the
entire thing is . . . farfetched. But when you look
at the evidence, it’s . . .
overwhelming.”

“
I killed everyone,” Alex
said.

“
No,” Zack said. “You
didn’t.”

“
But if I had taken myself
more seriously . . .”

“
The team still would have
died,” Zack said. “They were way ahead of you then. You couldn’t
have known it was coming, and you couldn’t have stopped it if you
had known. Some things are just out of your control.”

“
I
wish . . .”

“
I know,” Zack
said.

“
Do you think we can stop
them?” Alex asked.

“
If anyone can, it’s you,
Max, the team . . .” Zack said. “Together. We’ll
stop them together. That’s something I know is true.”

Alex nodded. Zack got up
and set his cup in the sink.

“
Anyway, I just wanted to
let you know how grateful I am for you,” Zack said. “You are the
best friend I’ve ever had. Thanks for never giving up on me, even
when I’m a jerk.”

Alex smiled. The printer
beeped, indicating it was done printing. Zack picked up the images
and brought them to the table.

“
Maps?” he asked. “You’re
up in the wee hours looking at maps?”

He gave her a look that
let her know he thought she was crazy. She smiled.

“
They’re
old
maps that belonged
to my grandfather at some point,” Alex said. “Mom’s dad. Ben had
the exact same maps. They’re copies — very, very old copies. I
don’t really know anything about them, except they were made at the
same time as . . .”

Alex went through the nine
sheets of paper and pulled out the map of Ultima Thule.

“
I have a feeling they’re
related — connected even — but I can’t figure it out,” Alex said.
“You wanna take a look?”

Zack leaned over the
table. She set the sheets of paper in the middle of the table. He
pushed the maps back and forth for a few minutes. After a while, he
stood up and shrugged.

“
I . . .”
he started to walk away.

He stopped and took two
big steps to the table. He leaned over the maps again. He went
through the maps to find the duplicates and set aside Ben’s maps.
One at a time, he picked up a map, held the map near his eyes, and
then set it down. He picked up the map of Ultima Thule and
scowled.

“
I’ve seen this,” Zack
said.

“
What?”

“
In a U-2.” Zack turned
away from the small table. He leaned his rear against the table.
“I’m just not sure where.”

He picked up the map of
Ultima Thule again and shook his head.

“
I
can’t . . .” Zack’s head shook back and forth for a
moment. Then his head stopped moving. “Oh.”

He turned back to the
table. He picked up one of the maps from the set, rotated it so
that most of the ocean space was on the right side, and set it
down. He picked up another map, rotated it so that the ocean space
was on the left side, and set the map next to the first one. He
nodded to himself and picked up the third map. He rotated the ocean
space on this map to be on the top right corner. He set it below
the other two maps. He finished the four-square with the fourth
map, rotated so that the ocean space was on the top left corner. He
looked at the maps for a moment and then switched the bottom left
image and the top right.

The way he’d set the maps,
the islands and continents created a border on the outside, with a
large inner section of water, possibly an ocean or a very large
lake.

“
That’s it,” Zack
said.

“
That’s what?”

“
The maps are pieces of a
larger map,” Zack said. “These are islands.”

“
And in the center?” Alex
asked.

Zack picked up the map of
Ultima Thule and set it in the middle of the ring of land. The map
of Ultima Thule fit perfectly into the space.

“
Wow,” Alex
said.

“
I’ve seen this,” Zack
said. “I can’t tell you where specifically, but I have seen
something on this planet that looks just like this. It’s a volcanic
crater. You know, this is the volcano.”

He gestured to the
islands.

“
This is the center of
it,” he said. “Or was the center of it.”

“
In Afghanistan?” Alex
asked.

“
No, this is ocean.” Zack
took off the map of Ultima Thule. “And
this . . .”

Zack held the map of
Ultima Thule out to her.

“
The crater is
underwater,” Zack said. “I saw this one from high altitude,
probably in a U-2.”

“
Can a dragon fly that
high?” Alex asked.

“
I haven’t,” Zack
shrugged. “But maybe. I don’t know. I think things were different
before there were planes. They had the skies to
themselves.”

“
But you
think . . .?”

“
I’ve definitely seen this
place,” Zack said. “No bullshit or bravado. I’ve
seen
it . . . more than once.”

“
Wow,” Alex
said.

She moved the pieces of
paper around the table in a variety of configurations until she
returned them to the configuration Zack had worked out. She placed
Ultima Thule over the space in the middle.

“
Wow,” Alex repeated. “And
it’s a volcanic crater?”

“
That’s what it looked
like to me,” Zack said. “What is this?”

“
Bestat says it’s an
archive,” Alex said. “It’s supposed to tell us everything we need
to know in order to defeat these people. She said it’s been lost
for centuries.”

Zack leaned over the table
to look at it again.

“
We’re going to find it,”
Zack turned to Alex and nodded. “You and me, we’re going to find
it.”

“
And then what?” Alex
asked.

“
You’re going to stop
them,” Zack said. “Make them pay for all the people they’ve killed
and all the lives they’ve destroyed.”

“
You seem so confident,”
Alex said.

“
I know you,” Zack said.
“You’re going to do this, and I’m going to help. It’s what we were
born for.”

“
I appreciate your
confidence,” Alex said. “It doesn’t feel that easy to
me.”

Zack stood up, put his
fists on his hips, and repeated what he used to say when they were
children.

“
We are super
heroes!”

Alex laughed.