The Fey (10 page)

Alex nodded. “Matthew and Troy. That’s what
I just checked. It’s not them. I won’t know if they are safe until
I get home.”

Erin hugged Alex.

“
If anyone can fix this,
you can. I believe in you, Alex.”

“
Thanks,” she said. “Come
on.”

Max waited for them outside the bathroom. He
took one look at Alex and they ran through the gym to his Jeep
Cherokee. On the short ride, the tension in the car was
palpable.

“
I’m sorry, but I need to
do this alone.” Alex jumped out of the car. She ran to the side
door and down the stairs to the basement.

“
Alexandra Hargreaves
Drayson,” she said into the voice imprint.

A scanning pad opened in the wall and she
scanned her left hand. A key pad opened and she entered a series of
numbers.

“
Code,” a mechanical voice
said.

Alex whistled the first verse of “When you
wish upon a star” and the door to her secure office clicked open.
Flicking on the lights, she opened another key pad to the armoire
and punched in another series of numbers, then scanned her right
thumb. The armoire clicked open. With a flip, she turned on her
computers and signaled command.

“
Fey,” Alex said, then
waited.

“
There you are,” her
Sergeant said.

“
I turned the phone off
until I got to the office,” she said. “Sorry I hung up on
you.”

“
Sergeant Mac Clenaghan
and Sergeant Olivas are in the air to the dead zone.”

“
God damn it,” Alex said.
“Who authorized that? They’re supposed to be working on a map and
under my command.”

Her Sergeant shook his head.

“
Find out.”

“
Sir, we
don’t…”

“
This is Eleazar. He said
he would come for my friends first. Who’s flying them?”

“
Sergeant…

“
Jakkman” they said
together.

Alex let out a string of curses.

“
Sir,” her Sergeant
started.

“
I don’t want to
know.”

“
Sergeant Ramirez and
Blanco are with them.”

“
Of course they are.” She
blew out a breath. “Can you set up a direct link?”

“
Yes Major,” he said. “Let
me work on that. You have a message from Agent
Rasmussen.”

Alex nodded.

“
Sir, we have five hours
and forty-two minutes. Can you find them?”

“
I know where they are,”
she said. “Map 75-1090, quadrant fourteen, fifteen or part of
thirteen.”

“
That’s one of the maps
we’re supposed to work on.”

“
Those quadrants are GPS
black out zones. There’s an old Russian military compound smack dab
in the middle of those quadrants. They’ve tried sending drones, but
they crash on the site. That’s why Matthew and Troy were supposed
to look into sending a team there.”

“
Well, they’re on their
way.”

“
Don’t remind me. Can you
collect the Dragon Lady imaging?”

“
I have it already,” he
said. “There isn’t much but I’ll send it to your
computer.”

“
Thanks. Let me know when
I’m connected to Matthew.”

“
Yes, sir.”

Alex dropped her head in her hands.

“
He thinks that killing
them will destroy you,” Ben said walking into her
office.

She turned to look at him.

“
He is correct in that
assumption,” she said. “Do you live here now?”

Ben laughed. “I’m your father’s best friend.
I took his key.”

“
It’s pretty good service
for Homeland Security,” she said.

“
We arrived last night. I
expected that he would do something to get your attention. I want
to pay attention to what he wants you to ignore.”

“
Like what?”

Ben shrugged.

“
Raz?”

“
Making breakfast for your
sister and brother. John’s upstairs showering.”

“
He said…”

“
I know. We don’t believe
he’s in the country. You were right. It will take him months to
make his move here. I think we still have time. It’s a little
different in Afghanistan.”

“
How…”

“
Who knows? He may have
had this plan lined up all along. Our intel, which you know is
crap, says that he’s holed up in Jerusalem.”

“
New baby,” Alex
said.

“
New bouncing terrorist
baby boy,” Ben said attempting a joke. “I’m going to smoke. You may
as well come up.”

“
I’m going to check the
maps.”

“
Who would have thought
that you would be a cartographer?” Laughing, he walked up the
stairs.

Alex set to work. As the clock counted down
to 12:30 p.m. Mountain Time, Alex memorized the contours of the
map, reviewed the surveillance data, then read through the reports.
Closing her eyes, she remembered the area where almost twelve years
ago, she and her team dropped Matthew for a two year assignment
with an Afghani warlord.

Charlie agreed to drop Matthew because the
village was only slightly out of their way. Or so he thought. They
were ten hours into an uphill hike when they realized they were
lost. Their ancient Russian map was wrong. They were too far away
for a pick up and turning around would put them behind their
extraction timetable.

When the team settled for the night, Alex,
Jesse and Matthew hiked to a nearby ridge. Lying on her back
between Jesse and Matthew, Alex watched the stars and her watch.
When the sun rose that morning, she checked her measurements and
went to work on the map. By the time the team was ready to travel,
she completed the changes. As a joke, Alex stamped the map with a
tiny fairy rubber stamp that Erin had given her that
Thanksgiving.

The Fey was born.

Everyone knew that story. Alex blinked at
the surveillance data. What they didn’t know is that the Russian
map was intentionally wrong to cover a sprawling compound cut into
the mountain of Afghanistan. The deserted compound, hidden from the
world by the mountains, was not only a GPS dead zone but a complete
electromagnetic nightmare. Compasses went haywire. Radio
transmissions failed. Instrumentation went out. The team crept
through the compound on full alert then swore they would never go
back. Clearly Eleazar had better intelligence than the Special
Forces grapevine.

“
Sir?”

“
I’m here,” Alex
said.

“
I have the link to
Sergeant Mac Clenaghan and a radio link to the cockpit,” her
Sergeant said. “The Jakker says... well, you should talk to him.
I’ve tracked the order. It looks as if it was generated from our
office. I’ve checked with everyone and…”

“
No one sent the
order.”

“
Right,” he said. “Colonel
Gordon is furious. He wants them back in Kabul. Be glad you aren’t
on site today.”

Alex smiled.

“
The lost soldiers’ CO
requested a communication regarding the whereabouts and…” Her
Sergeant wrinkled his nose. “He wants to talk to the
Fey.”

“
Fine.”

“
Who would you like
first?”

“
I’d like to speak with
Matthew.”

“
Here you go.”

“
Hey Alex, whatcha doing?”
Matthew asked. He was laughing at something Trece said behind him.
“What’s the story with rounding up all your friends then going
incommunicado?”

“
What do you
mean?”

“
I’ve been trying to call
you since we got orders. I think I left about forty messages, well
four, on your cell phone.”

Alex held her cell phone up to the
webcam.

“
What?”

“
I never got them Mattie,”
Alex said. “I didn’t send these orders. It’s Eleazar.”

“
What? Zack too? He had
orders. We thought it was weird but we couldn’t get a hold of you.
What about the soldiers?”

“
Eleazar snatched three
soldiers. We don’t think they’re hostages. We actually think
they’re lost in that Russian compound.”

“
The one we found when you
were dropped me off?” Matthew asked.

Alex nodded.

“
Don’t fuck with me,
Alex.”

“
I’m not. Ben’s upstairs.
Eleazar told me that he would come for my friends first and that I
would watch them die.”

“
Trece said it was the
eighth. I didn’t put it together. Fuck. What do you want us to
do?”

“
Colonel Gordon has
requested that you return to Kabul.”

“
And leave the soldiers
there? No way.”

“
Matthew, he will kill
you.”

“
Fuck him. God damn
it.”

Matthew turned from the laptop computers.
Alex heard him tell the others the news. She heard moaning. Matthew
turned back to the computer.

“
You have a mutiny. We’re
not going back to Kabul.”

“
Matthew! God damn
it.”

“
Before you go all ‘you do
this because I’m female,’ we’re doing this because that mother
fucker killed our friends and got away with it. We’re not going to
let him take three more soldiers.”

“
I would like a vote. I’m
not going to send anyone to their death without letting them
choose.”

“
Fine,” Matthew said.
Turning the laptop, he said, “She wants to hear from each of
you.”

“
Hey Alex,” Troy said.
“This kind of crazy shit is my specialty.”

“
I’ve been lost in
Afghanistan,” Trece said.

“
And I was with him,” the
White Boy added. “We were saved by one of your maps.”

“
It sucked. We want to get
the soldiers. We also know that you’re smarter than some terrorist
prick. Do your intelligence thing and figure it out.”

“
I wasn’t smart enough a
year and five months ago.”

“
You’re smarter now,”
Trece said. “Get to work and save our asses. That’s what you
intelligence pricks do. We’ll take care of the boys on the
ground.”

Matthew’s smug face came back on the
screen.

“
Get to work Alex,”
Matthew said. “Do your job.”

“
You need to tell Zack,”
Alex said.

“
I will. This is a direct
connection?”

Alex nodded.

“
You’ll be in touch then.”
Matthew clicked off.

Fuck. Alex rubbed her forehead.

“
Sir?”

“
Sergeant, I need about
fifteen minutes. Then I’d like to speak with the CO.”

“
They aren’t returning to
Kabul.”

“
No,” Alex
said.

The Sergeant nodded. “I’d do the same thing.
Your friends are very brave.”

“
Or stupid.”

F

CHAPTER EIGHT

“
Brave. That’s why they’re
your friends.”

Her whirling mind came to a halt at his
comment.

“
What?”

“
You are incredibly brave,
sir. Most people would hide in a hole after what you’ve been
through. It’s an honor to know you.”

“
Thanks, I think. Fifteen
minutes.”

“
Yes, sir.”

Alex jogged up the stairs to find Ben and
Raz working on laptop computers at the dining room table. Her
family had already left for work. Pouring herself a cup of coffee,
she took a seat. The men listened to the entire situation, from the
Russian compound to Eleazar’s threats, without interruption. When
she was done, Ben spoke. Raz followed with his thoughts and she
listened. Raz and Ben agreed to work their contacts to find answers
to her questions. Alex jogged down the stairs with a better,
broader perspective.

Still Alex felt as though she was missing
something. Something big.

The conversation with the Commanding Officer
went as expected. The soldiers dropped off the map after following
what they thought was a high level Al Qaeda target. The CO was in
contact with the soldiers until 1230 hours then communication
ended. He didn’t report the outage right away because he was sure
they would turn up. After an hour, his intelligence officer
insisted on calling Military Intelligence.

Of course, he was delighted to get a chance
to work with the infamous Fey. If he had known he would get to work
with the Fey, he would have called immediately. Alex tried for
professional but she laughed when she clicked off the
connection.

Looking at her watch, her heart clenched
with anxiety. Two hours to go. Christ.

She had no idea what to do next. She had no
idea where to even start. Without direction, she could not even
start creating a strategy. Maybe if she let her mind wander, some
brilliance might rise to the surface.

Closing her office door, she sat down in the
overstuffed green chair. Her finger caressed the green fabric of
the chair. John bought this green chair for their bedroom in their
apartment in Santa Monica. Alex smiled at the happy memories.

It was a two bedroom apartment with a small
yard and gleaming hardwood floors. Max, John and Alex moved in at
Thanksgiving, the weekend Matthew and Erin met.