“Nathan?” Alex asked. “No, sir, I did not. By the look on your face, I’m confident that you have read our reports.”
Admiral Ingram’s eyes fixed on Alex. For the first time, it occurred to her that he was more than her new asshole superior officer. He was a grieving relative. She forced herself to put away her aching ego and outrage.
“Nathan was a wonderful man and a great friend,” Alex said. “He never had a negative word to say about anyone, even those who deserved it.”
“Such as?” Admiral Ingram asked.
“The mother of his son, comes to mind,” Alex said.
“How did he die?” Admiral Ingram asked.
“It was a professional hit,” Alex said.
“Paid for by?” Admiral Ingram asked.
“A broker,” Alex said. “We have a general idea of who might have paid him, but we have yet to find concrete proof. His daughter tried to kill me a year later.”
Alex looked at Raz, and he took over the conversation.
“The broker’s daughter was another story,” Raz said. “She told Alex that she had worked for her father, but that’s only partially true. She worked for her father as an accountant. For unknown reasons, she seemed to have no idea what he did for a living.”
“Her idea was that her father was in service to wealthy clients,” Alex said. “She was unaware that she was accounting for murder.”
“Exactly,” Raz said. “She learned her father’s line of work through her personal and intimate connection to Cee Cee Joiner…”
“The one who went by the moniker ‘The ‘Boy Scout,’” Admiral Ingram said.
“That’s correct,” Raz said. “Under his tutelage, she made an effort to replace her father.”
“It takes a lifetime to create the kind of network her father had at his fingertips,” Alex said. “Her father’s clients saw her as a spoiled child. She started taking contracts as a way of proving herself.”
“Was she successful?” Admiral Ingram asked.
“We were unable to confirm that she ever killed anyone,” Raz said.
“She’s dead,” Admiral Ingram said. “The Boy Scout is dead. Everyone involved in this is dead, except you.”
The Admiral spit out the last words as if they were a curse.
“Not for a lack of trying,” Raz said.
“How did my brother die?” Admiral Ingram asked.
Raz took a breath to say something, but Alex covered his hand with hers. Raz looked at her for a moment before nodding.
“I can only tell you what I remember,” Alex said.
“We’ve been able to confirm this with the videotapes collected from the vault,” Raz said.
“The videotapes that were subsequently, and, may I add, conveniently destroyed?” Admiral Ingram said with a sneer.
Alex and Raz became very still.
“Wait, you mean they weren’t destroyed?” Admiral Ingram asked.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Alex said. “I’m not sure why you think the videotape of the Fey Special Forces Team was destroyed.”
“We have copies of the files,” Raz said.
“They were on the CIA server the last time I looked,” Alex said with a shrug. “I mean it’s been a while since I checked, but both video tapes — from the hall and from inside the vault — were there.”
Admiral Ingram shook his head.
“We keep the original copies of the files on a server in Paris,” Alex said. “Why did you think the tapes had been destroyed?”
“I was told they’d been destroyed,” Admiral Ingram said.
“By whom?” Raz asked.
“No one on the Fey team, I presume,” Alex said.
“May I see the video?” Admiral Ingram asked in an annoyed voice.
Alex’s brow furrowed with concern. Raz glanced at her before starting to spin a story.
“Sir, we can set up…” Raz said.
Alex touched his arm.
“If you want to see them, you are well within your right to watch them,” Alex said. “But trust me, they are not an experience to be taken lightly. The video is violent and disturbing.”
“I watch military-incident live feed and video documentation of battles every day,” Admiral Ingram said.
“Those videos don’t include your brother,” Raz said in a soft voice.
“Never-the-less,” Admiral Ingram said. “If you have the tapes, I’d like to see them.”
Alex and Raz looked at each other.
“Now,” Admiral Ingram said.
“You’d have to say ‘please,’” Zack said.
Alex grinned at the Admiral. He raised his eyebrows before uttering the words they had hoped he wouldn’t say.
“That is an order,” Admiral Ingram said.
Alex closed her eyes in sorrow. When she opened them, she saw Raz looking at her. She nodded. He typed on the computer in the table.
“Sir, I…” Raz started.
“Just play the God-damned video,” Admiral Ingram said. “I’m not a child.”
Raz’s eyes flicked to Alex. She lifted her shoulders in a slight shrug.
“There is no sound,” Raz said. “You can guess what’s going on. The cameras are on a motion detector. There’s a little less than four minutes before the action. Would you like to see it? Or cut straight to the shooting?”
The Admiral looked up at Raz. He glanced at Alex.
“We were getting ready for a night in Paris,” Alex said. “It was my birthday weekend. We had an assignment in Afghanistan, so we stopped over for drinks, dancing, and dinner. We were due to fly out at three the next morning.”
The Admiral nodded and looked at Raz.
“Don’t look at her again,” Admiral Ingram said. “Play the tape. That is an order, Agent Rasmussen.”
Raz gave him a long, assessing look before hitting the start button for the video inside the vault. Alex sighed. Under the table, Raz reached for her hand. She held onto his hand with both of hers.
The screen was dark for a moment before the fluorescent overhead lights began to flicker. The camera had a clear view of most of the interior of the limestone vault. The corner under the camera wasn’t covered. The thick limestone door opened, and a younger Alex bowed. The team streamed past her and into their storage vault. From this direction, they watched Sergeant First Class Jesse Abreu proficiently check that his MP5 was loaded and that the safety was off. He grabbed an M870 shotgun from a rack on the wall and went through the same quick ritual. He took a spot at the door.
The Fey Special Forces Team was in all of their glory. Alex, Raz, and Admiral Ingram watched as they laughed and teased each other, all the while changing into street clothing for a night out. Four minutes. Four glorious minutes. Alex sighed.
“The light in the hallway is off,” Admiral Ingram said.
“It’s on a motion sensor,” Alex said. She looked at Admiral Ingram. “The lights shut off when there’s no movement in the hall.”
A flash of fire from an AK47 lit up the dark hallway, and Jesse fell. Alex forced herself to watch the Admiral. He flinched when the shooter appeared. His jaw slackened open and he frowned. When the shooter got to his brother, Admiral Ingram’s breath caught. His mouth opened and closed before his face became a stoic mask. His hand instinctively covered his mouth.
The Admiral sat huddled with his hand over his mouth for the rest of the video. When it was done, he flipped off his headphones and went to the toilet in the corner of the plane.
The Admiral vomited.
“What’s he doing?” Zack asked.
“Throwing up,” Alex said.
The toilet faucet ran for a moment, and the toilet flushed.
“Good thing he’s too tough for that kind of thing,” Zack said.
The toilet door opened, and the Admiral strode back to his seat. He put on his headphones.
“I’d like to see it again,” the Admiral said.
“Sir, you don’t . . .” Alex said with a slow shake of her head.
“I promised,” the Admiral said in a fierce whisper.
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean . . .” Alex said.
“Yes, in fact it does,” the Admiral said. “Do I need to order you to do it? Or will you simply play the Goddamned video?”
The video played past the awesome four minutes and into the violent rest. When it was finished, the Admiral looked up at Alex.
“How do you stop it?” the Admiral asked.
“Touch the screen, sir,” Raz said.
The Admiral started the video again. He pointed to the moment after Alex was shot.
“Why were you shot in the hip and not center of mass?” the Admiral asked.
“I was intended to survive the assault,” Alex said.
The Admiral grunted and continued the video. He stopped the video when Alex killed the shooter. He pointed to her sliding off the crate she’d fallen onto. He played the minute of her crawling from person to person in slow motion.
“They were all dead?” the Admiral asked.
“Yes, sir,” Alex said. “The only other person who managed to survive the first barrage was Dwight.”
“He was shot in the forehead,” Raz said.
He backed up to the moment when the shooter hit Dwight in the forehead.
“Your brother was killed with the first bullet,” Alex said. “He didn’t suffer.”
The Admiral kept his focus on the video. He stopped the video again when Alex left Nathan.
“What are you saying?” the Admiral asked. His voice was soft and reedy.
“Please don’t die,” Alex said at the same time Raz said, “Are you dead? Don’t die.”
Alex looked at Raz and he gave her a soft smile. They watched Alex drag herself from one team member to another. The air felt heavy on the C-130, and no one dared make a sound.
“What did you hear?” Admiral Ingram said.
“Jesse’s breathing,” Alex said. “I heard him gasping for breath.”
The Admiral’s eyebrows dropped so low on his head that his eyes were completely shaded. They watched as Alex screamed out loud before kissing Jesse’s forehead. Her head dropped forward. The video camera shut off.
Alex looked down at the table when the video was dark. The video returned to show a man talking to Alex.
“He’s taking the secondary tags,” Admiral Ingram said under his breath.
“Proof of death for payment,” Alex said.
“Pretty standard for this kind of contract,” Raz said.
“What is he saying to you?” Admiral Ingram asked.
“I have no idea,” Alex said.
“The Fey has undergone every form of memory retrieval available,” Raz said. “She had no memory of her conversation with this man.”
“The doctors believe it wasn’t encoded in my brain,” Alex said. “Too much trauma.”
“Who is he?” Admiral Ingram asked.
“He’s the broker we spoke of previously,” Alex said. “He specialized in complicated contracts — murder, rape, extortion, suicide bombings, terrorist events, things like that. He was connected to the first attack on the World Trade Center.”
“This man’s daughter tried to kill you,” the Admiral said.
“That’s correct,” Raz said.
“You seem to know him,” Admiral Ingram said. He pointed to her face.
“He also brokers kidnappings,” Alex said. “We found him to be a businessman. If we gave him enough money, he’d let us know where he was arranging a kidnapping.”
“Brokers?” Admiral Ingram asked.
“Brokered,” Alex said.
“He’s dead,” Raz said.
“According to his only daughter, he is no longer living,” Alex said.
“We have not found any evidence to the contrary,” Raz said.
Admiral Ingram watched as the broker wrapped a T-shirt around the shooter’s head.
Alex looked at the man. Even though Admiral Ingram’s face was completely still, his body gave off every sign of that he was emotionally flooded. If she’d known the man, she would have grabbed his hand to help him hold on. As it was, she couldn’t shake the nagging suspicion that his behavior was some kind of an act. She glanced at Raz, and he gave her a slight nod in agreement.
“We have not heard even a whisper about this man in all these years,” Raz said.
“The intelligence center…”
Admiral Ingram gasped. The video had continued to play long after the assault was over, and the broker was inside the vault. Admiral Ingram pointed to the screen.
“There you are.” Admiral Ingram looked up at Raz. “And that’s . . .?”
The Admiral pointed to Ben as he stepped through the doorway to the vault.
“He went by the name ‘Benjamin,’” Raz said. “He was my supervisor.”
“How?” The Admiral’s voice echoed surprise mixed with the threat of mistrust.
“We received a tip that the Fey Team had been terminated in Paris,” Raz said. His confident voice shifted to a mixture of sorrow and regret. “We looked everywhere we could think of. We called everyone we knew. Finally, we started looking at places that sold absinthe. We knew that Alex liked to have absinthe on her birthday. Le Fée Verte was on fire and a number of people had been killed. We just followed the open doors.”
Shaking his head, Raz shrugged.
“The broker is in the vault!” Admiral Ingram said.
“Yes, sir,” Raz said. “We didn’t see him, or we would have killed him ourselves.”
“How could you not know he was there?”
“You have to understand, sir,” Raz said. “Alex is Benjamin’s biological daughter. He had spent the last ten years with her. I was her partner. The three of us were very close. Ben and I . . . We were not thinking clearly.”
Raz clenched his teeth to keep from saying more. For a moment, he looked at Admiral Ingram. After a moment, he took a breath and continued.
“We did not see him. I will say no more on that topic,” Raz said. “We know from the surveillance tapes in the hallway that he takes the shooter and disappears into the public tunnels below. Ben and I looked for him off and on, for years, but never found him. The next time we heard of him was when his daughter attempted to murder Captain Troy Olivas and the Lieutenant Colonel, as we’ve said.”
“Why wasn’t the Fey killed?” Admiral Ingram asked. His voice rose with outrage and resentment. “Why was Nathan killed and she was not?”
“She was to be a ‘prize’ for the man we knew as Robert Powell,” Raz said. “The Boy Scout.”
“But she’s wounded!” Admiral Ingram said.
“She could have survived the first barrage,” Raz said. “But when the Lieutenant Colonel fired on the shooter, the shooter returned fire. The second attack was more deadly.”
“If she was to be The Boy Scout’s prize, where is he?” Admiral Ingram sneered. “Shouldn’t he be waiting in the wings to collect his prize?”
“Robert Powell was detained,” Alex said.
“By Trece and White Boy,” Admiral Ingram said. “That old bullshit story. Do you honestly expect me to . . .”
“We have the surveillance tape of their visit at that bar,” Raz said. “Would you like to view that as well? Certainly, you’ve read the sworn testimony of Captain Ramirez and Captain Blanco.”
Admiral Ingram fell silent. He bowed his head as if in prayer. Raz glanced at Alex. He nodded his head toward Admiral Ingram. Alex shrugged. They waited. After a few moments, the Admiral took a breath and looked at Alex.
“What can I do for you, sir?” Alex asked.
The Admiral squinted at her before looking away. After another moment or two, he looked back at her.
“Why were the Fey Special Forces Team murdered?” Admiral Ingram asked.
“As far as we can ascertain, Admiral, it centers around a book,” Raz said and cleared his throat. “One of the team members was married to a woman whose father was an Air Force test pilot. Her father got close to a group of individuals who were brought into the US though Operation Paperclip. This test pilot kept some notes in this book.”
The Admiral tipped his head sideways as if he was curious or possibly hard of hearing.
“Through what seems to be a fairly random string of events, a dangerous coalition believed that the Fey had this book,” Raz said. “This fact, combined with a fairly random set of events, spun into the need to destroy the entire team.”
“Random events?” the Admiral asked.
“The test pilot’s daughter was married to a member of the Fey Special Forces Team,” Raz said with a shrug.
Raz nodded sincerely to their sanitized version of what had happened. Admiral Ingram watched Raz for a moment.
“You know what that sounds like?” Admiral Ingram asked.
“No, sir,” Raz said.
“Complete and utter bullshit,” Admiral Ingram scoffed. “Black skeletons? Mysterious languages? I’ve heard talk of dragons and ghosts!”
Admiral Ingram shook his head.
“The entire Black Skeleton thing is complete bullshit created by a delusional mind,” Admiral Ingram said. “No one will say it to your face what everyone says know is true — the Fey never returned from Paris.”
“We’re still working,” Alex said. “This year alone we’ve saved . . .”
“You’ve done what any mediocre Spec Ops team can do,” Admiral Ingram said. His voice rose in fever. His eyes glistened with rage. “But you, rather than just doing your Goddamned job, you choose to sling this bullshit that there’s a . . . what did you call it? A dangerous coalition?”
Admiral Ingram gave a derisive snort.
“Bullshit,” Admiral Ingram said. He leaned back and crossed his arms. “We are a real country, with real enemies. If you’re going to work under me, you need to focus on reality, not some hocus pocus bullshit.”
“We don’t work for you,” Raz said before Alex could stop him. “We work for the President.”
Raz’s voice was calm, but Alex knew he was furious. Admiral Ingram gave him a mild look.
“No one works for the President, Agent Rasmussen,” Admiral Ingram said in an annoyed voice. “What you do has to come through my office. And that means me. You work for me, first.”
“Can we push him out of the chopper?” Zack’s voice asked in Alex’s ear.
Alex’s eyes flicked to Raz and then to the Admiral. Neither man gave any indication that they’d heard him.
“And what if it’s true?” Alex asked. “What if we’re correct? What if we have proof?”
Admiral Ingram looked at Alex as if she was insane. After a moment, a dawning understanding came into his eyes.
“So that’s what the French have been talking about,” Admiral Ingram hissed.
Alex didn’t respond.
“Zack?” Alex asked. “Can you take us back to Bolling? Admiral Ingram would like to return to his office.”
“Yes, sir,” Zack said quickly.
“How far out are we?” Alex asked.
“Fifteen minutes,” Zack said. “No more than seventeen.”
“Thank you,” Alex said.
She got up from her seat and went to the restroom. When she returned, she saw that Raz and Admiral Ingram had continued their staring contest.
“If you’d like to speak to us about the number of hostages we’ve rescued or kidnappings we’ve diverted or plots we’ve intervened in or . . .” Alex started.
“I have withdrawn your assignment,” Admiral Ingram said. His tone was mild but one of his eyebrows rose to betray his rage. “As of yesterday.”
Admiral Ingram gave Alex a cruel smile.
“Times have changed. The Fey is dead,” Admiral Ingram said. “US Spec Ops has plenty of SEALs ready and willing to do their job. And it is, in fact, their job. Whatever intel we don’t already have, we can easily get from the CIA.”
“You’d risk the lives of the hostages just to vent some grudge with me?” Alex asked.
“What am I risking?” Admiral Ingram asked. “As far as I’m concerned, I have an out-of-control leader of a rogue team. This is the US military, not some superhero cartoon, Ms. Hargreaves. We don’t have rogue teams or out-of-control leaders. Certainly, not on my watch.”
Alex and Raz instinctively leaned back in their chairs. Admiral Ingram’s face flushed, and his mouth screwed up with rage. He looked like a caricature of an evil villain from a comic book.
“Consider yourself on notice,” Admiral Ingram said. “You have until the end of the year to reassign your team and retire. Come the new year, if a Fey Team still exists, I will court martial the lot of you and save the citizens of our great nation the cost of your pensions.”
“As for the Archipelago of the Jakker,” Admiral Ingram said with a self-satisfied smile. “All of the equipment you think you earned or owned will be returned to the US military. So you’d better take a good look at it. It won’t be yours in a month’s time.”
Admiral Ingram’s face shifted as he packed his rage away behind a placid face. His mouth turned up, and his eyes went cruel.
“Now, I will take another one of those coffees, young lady.” Admiral Ingram gave her a particularly misogynistic smile. “To go.”
Alex was so surprised that she gawked at him.
“Now, little missy,” Admiral Ingram said. He gave her an exaggerated wink. “I’m a busy man.”
Raz started to get up, but Alex gestured for him to sit down. Without saying a word, she made Admiral Ingram’s cup of coffee. Zack was in pre-landing when she returned to the table.
“Now tell me, how many men does this sleep?” Admiral Ingram asked. “Will I have space for my administrative team or just a few men?”
“I’m not certain, sir,” Alex said.
“It is nice,” Admiral Ingram said. He sighed and looked around. “Thank you. I know we’re going to enjoy this vehicle. I’ve heard that you have a C-130 and a couple of Black Hawks. Are they as nice as this one?”
Alex waited for him to laugh or indicate that he was joking or wink or in some way humanize this entire ridiculous interaction. But Admiral Ingram kept upping the ante on his misogyny. He started whistling a toneless tune.
They sat at the table in silence until the Chinook was on the ground and the tail was starting its descent to the tarmac. Admiral Ingram picked up his coffee and started out of the helicopter. Alex and Raz stood to escort him out.
“By the way, regulations state that being male is a requirement of US Army Special Forces,” Admiral Ingram said. “Your Special Forces tab has been withdrawn as well as the step in pay.”
“You’re saying I’m no longer a Green Beret,” Alex said.
“I’m a Southern gentleman. I just can’t be so cruel to a lady,” Admiral Ingram said. “If you want to wear a nice little green beret as a fashion statement, who am I to argue? But if you’re caught with a piece of US military gear, you will be charged with conduct unbecoming of an officer. Then again, we’re already investigating how you managed all those rank increases.”
“You’re disbanding the Fey Team and removing me from Special Forces,” Alex said. “And looking into how to get away with demoting me.”
“I’m correcting more than one egregious error,” Admiral Ingram said.
“Your brother, Nathan, believed in our mission,” Alex couldn’t stop herself from saying. “He believed in me! He was my dear friend!”
“My so-called ‘brother’ was the negro son of an uneducated housekeeper,” Admiral Ingram said. His eyes flicked to Raz’s caramel-colored skin. “Nathan was never very bright. You didn’t honestly think he and I were close, did you?”
“We were,” Alex whispered. Her hands went to cover her heart where she was sure a sharp blade had sliced right through.
The Admiral gave a derisive snort.
“Tell me this: how can a blind man lead a black ops team?” Admiral Ingram asked. “Won’t they get lost in the dark? Oh, wait a minute — everything is dark to Steve Pershing.”
Shaking his head, the nasty man leaned back in an exaggerated gale of cruel laughter. He sniffed, wiped his eye, and pulled a cigar from his pocket. Alex and Raz gawked at him when he clipped the cigar and lit it.
“My biggest problem is where to put you,” Admiral Ingram said. He pointed at Alex with his cigar hand. “Frankly, I’m under a lot of pressure to let you retire. But I don’t respond well to that kind of pressure. I mean, what do they know, anyway?”
He gave Alex a nod and started down the ramp. Halfway down, he turned to look at them.
“Oh, and I need that book,” Admiral Ingram said. “The one you’ve translated. I’ve heard it’s a page-turner.”
He gave them a “Gotcha” look and a snide laugh. He continued down to the tarmac. Zack raised the tail of the Chinook.
“Did you get all of that on the tape?” Raz asked Zack.
“Done,” Zack said.
Alex stood still for a moment with her hands still on her heart. A part of her was afraid if she moved her hands, blood would pour from the wound. She looked up to see Raz’s grey eyes staring at her.
“Where to?” Zack asked.
Alex was so overwhelmed that she wasn’t sure how to respond.
“I need a quiet place to think,” Alex said.
Only then did she dare to let her hands fall. To her surprise, nothing happened. Her hands touched her heart again. Her chest wasn’t even wet. Somehow, her heart continued to beat.
“I need a safe place. Where no one will . . . watch us,” Alex said.
“Done,” Zack said.
“Can you fly off radar?” Alex said.
Zack laughed. The Chinook rose off the tarmac.
Alex felt like a bubble had formed in her brain. She had no idea how to respond to any of this. She gave Raz a desperate look, and he put his arms around her. He negotiated them to a row of seats and settled her on the end. He got up for a couple of water bottles and returned to sit next to her. He put his arm around her. She pressed her face against his shoulder.
“You can talk to me,” Raz said.
“I don’t have words,” Alex said. She leaned back to look into his face. “It’s like my brain froze. I can’t . . .”
He pressed her head against his shoulder. They had been in the air for a half-hour before Alex sat up.
“Where are we going?” Alex asked.
“Harkers Island,” Zack said. “I called ahead. They’re expecting us.”
Alex looked at Raz, and he nodded. His simple, kind nod broke the wall she’d built around her emotions. Tears began to stream down her face. He held her close, and she wept.
F