Learning to Stand (36 page)

“
What happened?” the round
police detective asked.

“
Everyone was murdered,”
Alex said. “Except the Boy Scout and, well… me.”

“
And a Captain Walter?” the
thin police detective asked.

“
The Boy Scout took his
place while Captain Walter was on family leave,” Alex said. “He was
in Denver when everyone was killed.”

“
Will there be anything
else?” Samantha broke in. “As you can see, the Lieutenant Colonel
is exhausted and would like to go home.”

Alex watched the thin police detective open
his mouth and spew a bunch of meaningless words. Samantha responded
in kind. Blah, blah, blah.

As they argued back and forth, Alex noticed
the round police detective assessing her. Her eyes shifted to stare
at the man. He nodded his head at her then pretended to listen to
Samantha and the other police detective argue. As soon as she
looked away, he would look at her.

“
Come on, Alex,” Samantha
stood. “You can go home now.”

Alex and James Kelly stood when Samantha
rose to standing.

“
Your client will be
available if we need her,” the thin police detective
said.

“
My client is on active
military duty,” Samantha sniffed at the detective. “She has
answered your questions in detail. She will be available when she
has time.”

“
She’s in the custody of Her
Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service, sir,” James said. “We have a
wee bit of priority in this matter.”

The thin detective curled his lip at James,
his accent and his ‘wee bit of priority.’ They were almost out of
the room when the round detective put his hand on Alex’s arm. She
turned to look at him.

“
I know who you are,” he
said.

She reviewed his face.

“
My sister’s husband...” He
started.

“
I will speak with you but
not here,” Alex said. “We need a ride home.”

“
I can take you home, Alex,”
Samantha said.

“
Raz should be coming out of
anesthesia. I know he’d really like to see a friendly
face.”

Samantha nodded.

“
James? Would you mind
working out the details of my captivity with the
police?”

“
Your captivity?” James
laughed.

“
What’s it
called?”

“
Custody.”

“
Same thing,” Alex
said.

“
I’ll do it,” James
said.

“
I need a moment with my
client,” Samantha said.

Sam’s eyes shot daggers at James. He put his
hands up as if she held a loaded gun. She raised an eyebrow to
Trece and White Boy. Trece bowed to her.

“
We can go to my office or
you can come into my cell,” Alex said.

“
Cell’s closer,” Samantha
said.

They entered the cell. Trece and White Boy
turned their backs to them in a silent wall of flesh. Samantha
plopped down next to Alex on her cot. When Samantha leaned in, she
broke into tears. Alex put her arm around her while Samantha cried
into her shoulder. Trece turned to see what was going on. Using her
fingers, Alex ordered him to turn back around.

“
I knew this one was bad,
but last time... Oh my God, Alex. How did you deal with being
beaten up, almost raped, under Cheyenne Mountain?” Samantha
whispered.

Alex shrugged.

“
Oh Alex, I’m so sorry,”
Samantha said. “I’ve been angry with you for needing me here when
the campaign is going on. I’ve been working like twenty-four hours
a day. The Senator has been enraged. But this is...”

“
I appreciate your help,
Sami,” Alex said. “I could never have handled all of this without
you.”

Samantha wiped the tears and mascara from
under her beautiful blue eyes.

“
He’s so awful, Alex. How
did he get his Beret?” Samantha asked.

“
I’ve never been able to
answer that question. Ever. I don’t know anyone who trained with
him. We had his records, but... According to the journals, the ones
I found in the vault last year, I was working on his background
when everyone was killed.”

Samantha grabbed Alex in a hug then shook
her a little bit.

“
I wish you wouldn’t say
‘everyone was killed.’ You’re still here. Joseph is still
here.”

Alex shifted back from her sister. There was
no way for her beautiful sister to ever understand that everyone
included her. A part of Alex, the Fey part, was killed October
eighth under the streets of Paris.

Everyone died.

Alex gave Sami her ‘you’re so bossy’ smile.
Samantha laughed.

“
You better get going,” Alex
said. “I know Raz is going to want to see you. Last I heard his
prognosis is very good. You can walk with him this
afternoon.”

Samantha smiled at the thought.

“
You’ll be all right with
the detective?” Samantha asked.

“
He wants to talk to me,”
Alex said. “It’s either let him drive me home or deal with him
later.”

Samantha nodded.

“
Just be careful,” Samantha
said.

“
Always.”

Alex gave her older sister her most
confident smile. Samantha hugged her again then stood to leave.

“
See you tonight?” Alex
asked.

“
Dinner at eight,” Samantha
said. “I’ll see if we can’t bring Raz home. He’s not going be happy
away from the action.”

“
Of course,” Alex said. “I
think there’s a plan in the works.”

“
Great!” Samantha smiled.
Her cell phone rang and Sam’s demeanor changed. Her smile dropped.
She held her head with her left hand as if her head was going to
explode. “Yes? That’s correct. I’ve been in a meeting,
sir.”

Alex could hear a man’s voice screaming over
the telephone.

“
Yes sir. I will be in the
car in three minutes. We can speak then.”

Before Alex could say anything, Samantha
walked out of her cell. With Trece and White Boy at Alex’s side,
they followed Samantha out of the building. Samantha never noticed
that James held the door for her. James pointed toward an idling
undercover Denver Police car.

“
I’d like to sit in front,”
Alex said.

“
Okey dokey, Lieutenant
Colonel,” Trece said. “We lackeys will sit in the back.”

“
Who are you calling a
lackey?” James asked. “I’m no manservant.”

“
I’m not … what he said,
either,” White Boy said.

“
I’m...”

“
I need to speak with the
detective,” Alex turned in her seat to scold her children. “I need
some silence?”

“
Yes sir.”

“
James.”

“
Whatever you say, my Fey,”
James said.

Shaking her head at the men in the back, she
turned back to the detective.

“
What did you want to speak
to me about?” she asked.

“
I know who you are,” he
said.

F

CHAPTER thirty

“
And what should that mean
to me?”

“
My sister was sitting on a
bench, you know, at the cemetery on the year
anniversary...”

The detective stopped at the gates. Everyone
passed forward their identification for the guard to check. After a
few minutes, the guard returned with their identifications. Leaning
into the car, the guard gave Alex an envelope.

“
Maps from your Sergeant,”
the guard said before he waved them through security.

The detective turned onto Tower Road. He was
silent until they reached I-70. Turning onto the highway, he
said:

“
My sister was sitting on
this bench when a woman sat down next to her. The woman had brown
hair and was very thin. My sister said the woman was disguised by
dark glasses and oversized military clothing. The woman
said...”

“
There’s nothing worse than
fighting your way to a hostage only to find him dead,” Alex said.
“Her husband.”

“
Yeah,” The detective said.
“She said you gave her his wedding ring and watch. She was crying
so hard she didn’t say ‘Thank you’ or ask you if you buried him or
where you buried him or even who you were.”

“
Army brass never wanted us
to give the families the effects of the dead hostages. Give away
sensitive information or whatever,” Alex said. “We always did... I
always did. I guess I’d want to have my husband’s ring and watch.
Something to hold that belonged to him.”

“
The watch was a family
heirloom. Their son’s fifteen now. He wears it every day.
But...”

“
But?” Alex leaned her head
against the head rest of the seat. This sad conversation brought
her exhaustion to the forefront of her mind.

“
Well, she’s wondered how he
died, if he suffered, and if you buried him and mostly, she’d like
you to know how grateful she is. She lights a candle for the
‘mystery woman’ every Christmas.”

“
Let’s see. I’m not quite
sure how he died because he was dead when we got there. I assume it
was malnutrition because they were literally starving to death.
There were not obvious signs of physical trauma, but there often
aren’t. Is that helpful?”

“
Yeah,” the detective said.
“I… yeah. He was never very strong. That’s why he wasn’t a police
officer or anything. He was an engineer. Oil and gas.”

“
I remember,” Alex
said.

“
Did you bury him?” the
detective asked.

“
Yes, there were two on that
mission,” Alex said. “We buried them both. We marked them with GPS.
With the 9/11 changes, the information would have become
classified.”

The detective nodded.

“
How was he
buried?”

“
Our intel said he was
protestant. We buried him the best we knew how.” Alex sighed. “We
weren’t experts at burials or ceremonies. Mostly captors keep their
hostages alive or barely alive. There’s no reward in a dead
hostage. Your brother-in-law’s death was a big deal to us. We
wanted to bring the bodies home but we couldn’t. We had hiked three
days into the middle of the jungle. We weren’t sure we’d get the
surviving hostages out, let alone ourselves. We ended up sending
the hostages back with our medic. It was another week before we got
out.”

“
Will you show me where he’s
buried?” the detective asked as he turned off I-70 onto Colorado
Boulevard.

“
I’ll make a deal with you,”
Alex said. “Make these bullshit accusations go away and I’ll show
you where your brother-in-law’s buried.”

“
That’s
blackmail.”

“
That’s negotiation. You’re
asking me to divulge classified information about a classified
situation,” Alex said. “You have enough experience as a police
detective to know my situation is bullshit. I never provoked Robert
Powell to do anything, except the job he was paid to do. He is a
predator plain and simple. You must know that.”

The detective was silent the rest of the way
back to her South City Park home. He pulled up to the house then
went around letting the men out of the back. Alex was half way to
the house before she turned and went back to the car.

“
If I was a different
person, I would sue you and your department for harassment.
Blackmail my ass.”

With the detective sputtering at her back,
Alex walked toward the entrance to her side of the rooming house.
She was almost to the door when John came running out. He lifted
her into his arms to carry her.

“
Gentlemen, I’m taking my
wife,” John said to Trece and White Boy. “There’s nothing you
can...”

At that moment, John saw James. John’s mouth
dropped open and his eyes filled with tears. As if to protect her,
he shifted Alex closer to him.

“
Johnny!” James
said.

“
Jimmy? How…?”

“
He’s James Bond,” Trece
said. “Can you believe it? You remember James Bond from
Prague?”

John looked down at Alex. She nodded her
head.

“
You’ve met the wife,” John
said. “Listen can we catch up...”

“
Go ahead,” James said.
“She’s exhausted. We can catch up later.”

John nodded.

“
Cian and Eoin are in the
kitchen. Why don’t you go in and say hello?” John asked before he
entered the house.

“
Cian and Eoin?” John heard
James yelped with surprise.

John carried Alex through their private
sitting room then up the stairwell to their room. When he set her
on the bed, she was asleep. She woke up when he began taking her
clothing off.

“
I need a bath,” she
said.

“
No baths for a month,
love,” he said.

“
Shower with me.” Alex
caught his hand. “Please.”

“
You don’t have to ask me
twice,” he said.

“
What about your
brother?”

“
My brother...” He pulled
her long sleeved T-shirt and tank top off over her head. “No
bra?”

“
Colin made a sling for my
arm with it,” Alex said. “What about James?”

“
We had this very
conversation last year,” John said. “This brother, like the other
one, will understand my priorities. Did he ask you to marry
him?”