Finding North (59 page)

F

Epilogue

Six weeks later

Saturday, early
morning

July 23 — 2:11 a.m.
MDT

Pikes Peak National
Forest, outside of Deckers Colorado

Alex sat in a wooden
Adirondack chair under the summer night sky with a child on each
leg. Maggie lay in her dog bed next to Alex’s chair. When Alex had
heard the twins begin to wake, she’d decided to let John sleep.
She’d been traveling so much that he’d done the lion’s share of
these middle-of-the-night feedings lately. She looked down at the
twins, who were midway through their two a.m. bottle, and
grinned.

It was really nice to be
right here, right now.

She and the team had spent
the last week in New York. She and Max had been invited to speak at
the United Nations Security Council. Working together, the team had
put together all of the evidence they had gathered. Max had even
created a coherent way to present everything. When he’d finished,
the Council wanted to hear from Alex. They’d arrived home late last
night. John and Wyatt had whisked Max and Alex away to Patrick’s
mountain cabin outside of Deckers for a week of fishing and
hiking.

“
Your phone rang,” John
said as he came out with her telephone. “Lovely night.”

He was wearing a thin
T-shirt and cotton pajamas. Her smile indicated that she thought he
was the lovely part of the night.

“
How are they?” John
asked.

“
Good,” Alex said. “Almost
done.”

“
May I?” John
asked.

She nodded and he picked
up Máire. Cuddling the baby, he deftly dragged another Adirondack
chair to where Alex was sitting.

“
That’s impressive,” Alex
said.

“
Talents I’ve learned with
having twins,” he said and smiled. His eyes scanned her face. “It’s
nice to see you rested.”

Alex smiled. He leaned
down and kissed her before sitting down.

“
Are you sleeping?” John
asked.

“
Not a lot,” Alex
smiled.

“
Not at night,” John
said.

She shook her
head.

“
Too many things to think
about?” he asked.

“
Maybe,” Alex said. “I had
this horrible dream. I . . . I guess it’s when I had
the seizure, but I . . . I mean it’s crazy, but I
think the dream caused the seizure and . . .
I . . .”

Joey yawned and wiggled.
Alex looked down at her son. She held the bottle up to his mouth,
but he pushed it away. She shifted him to rest his head on her
shoulder. The baby fell asleep. When she looked up, John had done
the same with Máire. She smiled at him. He looked up, and their
eyes held.

“
You like to look out,
especially at night,” John said.

Alex nodded.

“
I . . .”
Her face flushed with emotion. Rather than speak, she nodded. He
cocked his head to the side.

“
What is it, love?” he
asked.

“
If I could, I would
transport us back to that hotel in Santa
Monica . . . You know the one we stayed in when we
were first married? I . . .”

Alex gave an angry nod.
John’s eyebrows furrowed with concern. She looked up at the stars
for a moment and then back at him.

“
I’d take your advice and
not become a Green Beret,” Alex said. “I’d tell the CIA to stuff
it. I’d . . .”

He gave her such a
compassionate smile that her eyes filled with tears. She looked
away to keep from sobbing.

“
I’ve missed you,” he
said. His voice was low, as if he were telling her a secret. She
turned to look at him. “And . . .
I . . .”

He raised his eyebrows in
a way that made his cobalt-blue eyes look enormous. He nodded as if
he’d made a decision.

“
I’ve wished the very same
thing,” John said.

“
You have?”

“
But in my wish, I’m not a
surgeon,” John said. “I’m a nurse who can travel with you, or a
doctor, but not one with a practice, or a medic on your team,
or . . . And every night I wake without you, I curse
myself for being so stupidly stubborn and vainglorious
and . . .”

Tears rolled down Alex’s
face. John’s long arm reached across the distance between their
chairs so that his hand cupped her face.

“
I can’t do it.” Alex’s
tear-drenched voice seemed to echo in the tall pines surrounding
the cabin.

“
Oh love,” John
said.

He got up from his seat
and knelt in front of her. If he’d not been holding Máire and she
Joey, he’d have hugged her. He touched her leg. She covered his
hand with hers.

“
You can’t do it alone,”
John whispered.

“
I can’t do it,” Alex
said. “Period. No matter what I try, I can’t break down old
Chinese. Max and Margaret have worked their butts off, but they
can’t do it, either. I can’t even think straight anymore. The UN
Security Council looked at us like we were completely nuts.
They
invited
us
to come to speak with them, to brief them about the Black Skeleton
— that’s what they said — and . . .”

Alex gave an angry shake
of her head.

“
We don’t have a place to
work. We can’t go back to Buckley and
Howard . . .”

Alex clamped her mouth
closed rather than speak of her injured friend and commanding
officer.

“
Please,” John said. “One
minute. Just wait one minute.”

He took Joey from her and
carried the twins inside. She wiped her face with the sleeve to her
long sleeved T-shirt and tried to take deep, calming breaths while
he put the twins down. He came out and knelt in front of her again.
He put his hands around her face. His thumbs wiped the rest of her
tears away. She couldn’t bear to look at him. He kissed her
cheek.

“
It all comes down to me,
John,” Alex said. “And I . . . can’t do it. They
win. That’s it. They win.”

“
You’re right,” John said.
“You can’t do it.”

Alex was so surprised by
his words that she just blinked at him.

“
Alone
.” His head went up and down in a slight nod. “You can’t do
it alone.”

She closed her eyes to
keep from looking at him.

“
Never thought of it, did
you?” John asked.

“
But I’ve been including
people,” Alex’s voice rose with frustration. “Since the cricket
told me and . . . I
have
been including everyone,
I . . .”

John gave her a sheepish
grin.

“
I haven’t been?” Alex was
so surprised that she put her hand on her chest.

“
You haven’t been,” John
said. “Not really. Not like you used to include Raz and
Jesse . . . and well,
me . . .”

“
I haven’t included you?”
Alex asked. “But you know that I’m struggling with that stupid
Linear A and . . .”

“
God, Alex, are you truly
this . . . oblivious?”

She scowled and looked
away from him.

“
Raz told me that you feel
like you ‘found North’ by finding out that stupid cow might be
behind this,” John said.

She turned back to look at
him.

“
I am your North,” John
said.

“
What?” Alex
asked.

“
Our life, our family, our
friends, we are the thing you have
always
navigated from,” John said.
“I am your North.”

Stunned by his words, she
pressed her hand toward him as if to push him away. Her palm landed
on her dog tag, the one he wore over his heart. Her entire body
shuddered with the impact. He covered her hand with his own. She
looked into his face.

“
What if this kills us?”
she said in a soft voice.

“
As opposed to disease or
old age?” John asked. “We’re heading in that direction anyway. At
least we used our lives and died for something
important.”

“
But . . .
you aren’t a soldier,” Alex said. “You are a civilian. You
are . . .”

“
I am your life,” John
said. “And you are mine.”

“
But . . .”

“
No buts,” John said.
“We’ve already set sail — together. We just didn’t realize it was
to save our world.”

He pulled back to look at
her.

“
But . . .”

“
No buts. If I have you,
here . . .” John squeezed her hand that remained on
his heart. “I have every single thing I’ve
ever
wanted.”

“
How can we do this
together?” Alex asked. “You don’t know Linear A or old Chinese or
some stupid nomadic tribe’s version of old Chinese
or . . .”

“
I know Steve Pershing,”
John said. “He called to ask me about a procedure they want to try
for Ji. While we were on the phone, I asked him about old Chinese.
You know what he told me?”

“
What?” Alex
asked.

“
Fong, his wife, is fluent
in spoken and written old Chinese,” John said. “She also reads
Xiongnu, the stupid nomadic tribe you mentioned. She just called to
tell you.”

John nodded toward her
cell phone.

“
How do you know?” Alex
asked.

“
I spoke with her,” John
said. “She’s on her way here. She’s bringing Ji and Steve. They are
in New York. They’ll be here by mid-day.”

Afraid she was dreaming,
she looked up again to see if the stars had moved. They had shifted
their position in the sky. She looked back at him.

“
Everything starts with
us, our love,” John said. “Think it through, Alex. Everything
you’ve accomplished, all of those great things, you’ve done after
we were married.”

“
I became a Green Beret,”
Alex said. Her words were defiant, but her tone indicated that she
knew he was right.

“
And I survived Belfast,”
John said. “I’m not saying we weren’t tough, bad asses when we met,
I’m saying . . .

“
Together we move
mountains,” Alex said.

“
Why would this mountain
be any different?” John asked. “Our love is the source of our
strength.”

“
But
how . . .?” Alex asked.

“
Let me show you,” John
grinned.

He lifted her from her
chair and carried her inside.

F

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