Lean on Me (57 page)

Alex nodded.

“
No one tells me anything,”
Cian said.

“
He’s not Irish,” John
said.

“
Heathen,” Cian said.
“They’ll be by this afternoon to take a look at the house and bring
Paddie home.”

“
Sir, your team is ready
and waiting for you,” Joseph nodded toward the shared living area.
“Your dad and the Admiral are here along with Max. Zack and Cliff
are on their way to Buckley. We’ll pick up Colin at the
hospital.”

Alex nodded. Joseph and Troy went into the
living area. Raz and Wyatt followed them. But Alex only saw
John.

“
Merry Christmas.” She put
her hand on his chest.

“
Try to be home for New
Year’s,” John said. “I love starting the year with you.”

Remembering last year’s cabin, Alex smiled.
She held him tight and he kissed her cheek. With a nod to Cian, she
walked into the living area.

F

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Two hours later

Saturday morning

December 26 – 11:47 a.m. MST

Denver, CO

Hearing someone at her office door, Alex
looked up from her map table. Max worked at her computers and Raz
worked on his laptop in an armchair near the gas fireplace.

“
Matthew?” Raz
asked.

“
We’re almost ready,”
Matthew said. “You?”

“
We’re ready,” Max looked
up from her computers.

“
Raz?” Matthew
asked.

“
Almost there,” he said.
“What about the rest?”

“
Eighty percent. I think
they’re waiting on Alex,” Matthew said. “By the time you’re there,
everything will be ready. And location?

“
One thing at a time,” Alex
said.

“
We’re close,” Max
said.

“
About as close as we’re
going to get right now,” Raz said.

“
You’ll come up?” Matthew
asked.

“
We’ll be there,” Alex
said. Matthew turned to leave. “Hey, did Troy…?”

“
He did,” Matthew gave her
a cocky smile. “You’ll never believe it.”

“
One thing at a time,” Alex
said.

“
Five minutes,” Raz got up
and closed the door.

Alex and Max gave him identical questioning
looks.

“
I wanted some good
coffee,” Raz said.

Alex smiled. He filled a carafe from the
water filter for the espresso maker and Alex’s phone rang.

“
This is my call,” Alex
said. The men nodded. “Fey?”

“
Alex, it’s Efren,” the
young man from the UN said. “The cartels deny any knowledge. In
fact, they were pretty fast to say they had nothing to do with it.
Do you have some pull with them?”

“
They don’t want to go to
war against the US?”

Max got up to use the restroom and Alex
picked up her Magic 8 Ball.

“
That maybe true,” Efren
said. “But they’re scared shitless of you.”

“
Probably,” Alex
said.

“
Care to share why that
is?”

“
I think you’d have to ask
them.”

She shook the Magic 8 Ball.

“
They aren’t talking,”
Efren said.

“
The box?”

“
The box was mailed from
Juarez to make it look like them,” Efren said. “They say it was
sent by the military.”

“
The Mexican Military?”
Alex asked. “The Admiral spoke to the head of the Mexican Military.
They deny any knowledge. My understanding is that they are
scrambling like we are.”

Closing her eyes, she asked the ball about
the success of this mission.

“
The Military is saying our
tribe has them,” Efren said. “But I spoke with my brother. We don’t
have them.”

“
He called me after you
talked to him. They don’t have them and don’t know where they are,”
Alex said. “And
no one
wants another war with your people.”

“
Especially since we’re Fey
trained,” he laughed.

“
There is that,” Alex
said.

“
Twenty-four dead American
soldiers,” Efren said. “There would be war.”

“
Don’t even think it,” Alex
said. “Our President and yours are in communication. We will find
these men and take care of it.”

She turned the Magic 8 Ball over. The black
pigment still covered the transparent window. The die remained
hidden. As if to scratch the black pigment off the other side of
the plastic, she glared at the ball.

“
I hope so,” Efren said.
“For the first time since the terrible confusion after Papa died,
I’m afraid for my people.”

“
We’re all working to
protect them, Efren,” Alex said. “Myself, my team, our President,
yours… Will you do something for me?”

“
Of course.”

“
Will you call your
mother?” Alex asked. “Ask her if she or her sisters know where the
men are.”

“
My mother?”

“
Your mother and her
sisters know everything that happens in that valley,” Alex said.
“If the men are within a hundred miles, they will know about it or
know someone who does.”

“
I’ll call,” he said.
“Thanks, Fey.”

“
For?”

“
For giving me hope,” he
said. “I’ll call as soon as I know anything.”

Alex hung up her call and Max returned.

“
Ready?” Raz held out
macchiatos to her and Max.

She nodded. Pausing for a moment, she waited
until the men were at the top of the stairs. She held her Magic 8
Ball to her chest for a moment. With it still next to her heart,
she stalked across the basement to the laundry room. She tucked the
Magic 8 Ball into the laundry trash can and covered it with a few
paper towels. Nodding to herself, she closed up her office and
jogged up the stairs to meet the team. Raz waited for her at the
top of the stairs.

“
Oh, you have coffee,”
Leena held a full pot. “I just brewed this.”

“
We’ll be out soon enough,”
Raz said.

“
Thank you,” Alex said.
“Where’s the dog?”

“
He and Pete went for a
walk,” Matthew said. “They’ll be back.”

“
Is everything ready?” Alex
asked.

Alex stood in front of a home theater
screen. Troy had the intelligence video connection projected on the
screen. Troy got up so that Raz could sit down at the computer.

“
Where’s my Sergeant?” Alex
asked.

“
Sergeant Dusty went to
base,” Matthew said. “He’s going to control the feed from
there.”

“
Royce?”

“
He went with Sergeant
Dusty,” Joseph said. “He’s managing communication lines between the
US and Mexico.”

“
Good thinking,” Alex
said.

She nodded to Patrick and the Admiral.
Joseph held her camouflage jacket with FEY stenciled on the pocket.
He gave her a helmet and her scarf. She wrapped the scarf around
her face.

“
Are we ready?” Raz
asked.

“
I’m ready,” Alex
said.

“
Stand right here,” Matthew
moved Alex in front of a webcam. “Sergeant Dusty?”

“
Got it,” Sergeant Dusty’s
voice came over the feed. “We are a go.”

One after the other, male and female voices
relayed the same words: “We are a go.”

“
Who won the lotto?” Alex
asked.

“
The USNS
Nimitz
, sir,” Sergeant
Dusty said. “They are very excited.”

“
Sir, we have company,”
Royce said.

“
Welcome,” Alex said.
“X?”

“
System is ready, stable,”
Xavier’s computer voice said.

“
Is Eniac on?” Alex
asked.

“
Yes,” X said. “He’s
watching.”

“
We are a go,” Alex
said.

Alex looked at Matthew.

“
Let’s do this thing!”
Matthew said.

Alex pointed to Raz.

“
This is the Vice-Admiral
in charge of the Fifth Fleet of the United States Navy.”

The Vice-Admiral stood on the observation
deck over the aircraft carrier. His fleet commanders stood behind
him. The sun glinted off their sunglasses, the band in their hats,
and the medals on their full dress uniforms.

“
We were informed that our
intelligence corps was incompetent,” the Vice-Admiral said. “Our
elite teams were instructed not to trust their intelligence
officers and that US intelligence corps has been costing
lives.”

Clearly enjoying himself, the Vice-Admiral
smiled at the webcam.

“
So we rounded them up to
push them overboard,” the Vice-Admiral said. The webcam panned to
the deck below. Hundreds of men and women from the intelligence
corps had been herded together in the middle of the deck. They were
surrounded by machine gun toting seamen.

“
Throw them overboard!” the
men yelled in unison.

“
Then we stopped to think
about it,” the Vice-Admiral said. “Every single sailor knows of a
team of men whose lives were saved by intelligence. So we decided
to ask the intelligence corps. And you know what? They have a very
specific message they asked us to pass along to you. Shall we see
what they have to say?”

The webcam panned to the intelligence
officers. The men and women had the middle finger of their right
hand extended to flip off the camera. The seamen joined in. The
camera panned to the fleet commanders who were also giving the
finger to the webcam. Five F/A-18E Super Hornet jets buzzed the
aircraft carrier.

“
So you see, it’s
unanimous,” the Vice-Admiral extended his middle finger to the
webcam.

The screen went dark.

Alex’s view shifted to a
map of the world with an intricate neon-blue line web connecting
the major cities and US military bases. The USS
Nimitz
went dark. In a cascading
motion from the major cities, the blue lines went dark until the
entire world was dark. A one-minute countdown timer
appeared.

“
Ok, here we go,” Alex
said.

“
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3,
2, 1,” X’s computer voice said. “And we’re live.”

The major world cities and US military bases
lit up with neon-green lights. Slowly, the lights spread connecting
city to city.

“
Fey?” the Vice-Admiral’s
voice came over the webcam. Raz shifted the screen to view the
USS
Nimitz
. “Are
you there?”

“
You are live,” Alex
said.

“
We’re live!” the
Vice-Admiral yelled to the crew. The crew cheered. “He’s
gone?”

“
For now, sir,” Alex said.
“We cannot expect to keep him out forever. But at least we know
he’s there. For now, the new international intelligence network
should be safe, stable, and secure.”

“
The network is still
coming up,” X’s computer voice said. “We’ll test the system for the
next month.”

“
Whatever you need,” the
Vice-Admiral said. “You let us know. We’re going to celebrate here.
Hope you do too.”

“
Thank you, sir,” Alex
saluted and he returned her salute.

The screen went dark. Alex took off her
scarf.

“
Whatever you need,” the
Admiral said. “I love the sound of that. What’s next?”

“
We’re waiting for a call
regarding location, sir,” Alex said. “We have it narrowed down to
the Chiapas Depression on the border of Guatemala.”

“
Guatemala or Mexico?” the
Admiral asked.

“
We’ll find out when I get
my call,” Alex said.

“
Oil?” Patrick asked.
“Again?”

“
It appears that way, sir,”
Alex said. “We’ll know more when I get the call. Unless, you’d like
to…”

“
On it,” Patrick
said.

Alex smiled. Patrick had led a team of men
through the Guatemalan mountains. As was his way, he’d made friends
everywhere he went. When it was Alex’s turn to adventure through
the region to rescue five journalists, the tribe leader, Efren’s
father, considered himself a friend of Patrick’s. She’d been able
to leverage that relationship to free the hostages, her team, and
eventually bring peace to the valley.

“
What’s next?” Alex
asked.

Patrick began making phone calls in Spanish
near a corner of the room.

“
Troy,” Matthew
smirked.

“
Troy?” Alex
asked.

Troy moved over to the computer hooked up to
the overhead. Raz got up so he could sit down.

“
As you know, the laptop
made no sense at all,” Troy said. “There’s no evidence for the case
against my father, no evidence against anything. Just
gibberish.”

“
Right,” Alex
said.

“
So is Larry’s micro SD
drive,” Troy beamed at her.

“
Why is that a good thing?”
Alex asked.

“
Add them together and you
get…” Troy hit a key.

The screen in front of her lit up with
files.

“
Emails indicating that my
father was well aware of the plan to kill Dahlia,” Troy cleared his
throat. “Paid for it.”