Saturday evening
November 6 – 9:54 p.m. MDT
Between Denver and Honolulu
Alex looked up when Raz sat down next to her. He gave her a soft smile.
“You know, it’s kind of nice,” Raz said.
“Kick off the dust of having a team and just go do spy work?” Alex smiled.
“You’re right,” Raz said. “It’s not that nice.”
Alex laughed.
“Where are we picking up Max?” Raz asked.
“Japan,” Alex said. “He had last-minute diplomatic stuff to do for this trip. He’s trying to make sure we don’t get stuck there.”
Raz nodded. He put his arm around her, and she leaned into him.
“I always get so cold on these flights,” Alex said.
“I know,” Raz said.
“Damned Hercules,” Alex said.
“Super Hercules,” Raz corrected.
Alex smiled.
“Did you call Sue Ann Joiner?”
“I thought I’d call in the morning,” Alex said.
She smiled when she thought of Cee Cee Joiner’s third wife. They’d met after Sue Ann’s children had been killed by their father. They had forged a solid bond of respect and friendship.
“I’d suggest you call now,” Raz said.
“Oh yeah?”
“State Department is paying a visit to Buffy Joiner in the morning,” Raz scowled at the mention of Cee Cee Joiner’s first wife.
“Guess I missed that memo,” Alex said.
Raz chuckled.
“Oh sure,” Alex said. “Leave the phone off for a few hours and suddenly life passes me by.”
Raz laughed and she smiled.
“Do you think Buffy Joiner knows more than she says?” Raz asked.
“I was just going to ask you the same thing,” Alex smiled.
“You first,” Raz said.
“Okay,” Alex leaned back and stared off into space. Used to her silences, Raz waited. “I’m wondering what Trece, me, you, Steve, and Cee Cee Joiner have in common. Trece’s tidily tucked away; Steve’s off the map; you and I are going to China after Cee Cee Joiner; that creature Buffy is getting a visit from the State Department; and then there are all of those mind control subjects.”
“What do you, me, Steve, Trece, Cee Cee, Buffy, and the mind control subjects know?” Raz asked.
“Better question,” Alex said. “What problem is solved by tucking Trece away in Pelican Bay? It was easy enough to make it happen. Get his psychotic cousin out of Pelican Bay and hand him over to the cartels.”
“Swap the files,” Raz said. “Easy to do.”
“If you can do it,” Alex nodded.
“We’d talked about it before,” Raz said. “It’s on our threat list.”
“I know,” Alex nodded.
“Did you know when his cousin escaped?” Raz asked.
“No. I wasn’t informed.”
“I thought you were to be alerted on his state of affairs.”
“I did too,” Alex said. “Sergeant Dusty checked everything – spam filters, email, phones – everything. We did not receive notification.”
“Did they send it?”
“They did,” Alex said.
“You’re sure?”
“FBI sent a field officer to Pelican Bay to check,” Alex said. “They definitely sent it. In fact, they were surprised I didn’t get back with them. They sent daily updates until they learned he had crossed the border.”
“Caught in transit?” Raz asked.
“I guess,” Alex shrugged. “It happened while we were in China last time.”
“That can’t be a coincidence,” Raz said.
“Exactly, and get this,” Alex nodded. “When they didn’t hear from me, they sent a letter by carrier. It disappeared in transit.”
“Disappeared?” Raz asked. “Do you think someone at the base intercepted the letter? Dusty?”
“I don’t believe it’s Dusty,” Alex said. “But I don’t know and chasing after the who’s and what’s keeps me from looking at the big picture.”
“Which is what?” Raz asked.
“Exactly,” Alex said. “Your turn. What do you think?”
“Do you know about Ben’s project?” Raz asked.
“He’s tracking the events of my life to see what was going on in the world,” Alex said. “Dad said he added his life. They’re working on adding everyone from the Fey Team and Dad’s team.”
“But your father and the team haven’t been called away,” Raz said.
“Right,” Alex said. “Did he find anything?”
“Only that things like Cee Cee Joiner’s disappearances and your assaults both happened at fairly regular intervals,” Raz said.
“Huh,” Alex shrugged. “Maybe that’s when Joiner went out into the field?”
“Probably,” Raz said.
“But what if it’s something else?” Alex asked. “Did he come up with any ideas?”
Raz shook his head.
“Why me?” Alex’s voice came out in a whisper.
Raz pulled her closer to him.
“The dark still comes,” she said in the same low voice.
“I know,” he said.
“What did I do to ever deserve . . . ?”
“Nothing.” He kissed the top of her head.
“The more we know, the more personal it feels, you know?” Alex nodded.
“It does,” he said. “And what if it is personal? What if all of this is about you, Alex? What if that’s true?”
It took Alex so long to respond that he leaned forward to look at her. She was lost in thought. Seeing his concern, she smiled and shrugged.
“What if it is all about me?” Alex asked. “What if ‘what’ and ‘why’ are the wrong questions?”
“They are ones we can’t answer,” Raz nodded.
“What’s left?” Alex asked.
“How is this about you, Alexandra Lea Hargreaves?”
“How indeed.”
“You’re a twin.”
“I’m a single zygote male-female twin,” Alex said.
“Yes,” Raz said. “You’re a woman.”
“I’m Army.”
“You’re the Fey,” Raz said.
“Doesn’t it start earlier than that?” Alex looked at him.
He nodded.
“You’re Patrick Hargreaves’s daughter,” Raz said. “You’re Ben and Rebecca’s daughter.”
“It’s because I can figure it out, isn’t it?” Alex nodded.
“I think so,” Raz said.
“Then maybe I should set about figuring it out,” Alex said.
“I thought that’s what you were doing,” Raz said. “What we were doing.”
“I like being in the field,” Alex said. “Going from place to place. I never respected the brass that stayed at a safe distance while the action was unfolding. It always seems kind of cowardly to me. But maybe I should sit out . . .”
Alex’s head exploded with pain. She grabbed her head and leaned forward. He rubbed her back. Her ears filled with the sound of dripping blood.
She jumped from her seat and ran to the toilet. She fell to her knees and threw up. She tried to catch her breath but she had to throw up again.
“I’m going to kill you and everything you love,” a man’s voice said.
The voice was so real that Alex looked around the airplane stall to see if someone was there. Even though she knew Raz was standing right behind her, her ears heard blood dripping in rhythm to this man’s voice. Her vision clouded and the airplane slipped away.
“Hargreaves!” The man’s voice yelled.
Her eyes focused on an expanding pool of blood, her blood. Her mind told her that the blood would be hell to clean up. The blood would probably stain the limestone. She couldn’t stop the pool of blood from expanding. She couldn’t stop bleeding. She gasped.
“Jesse,” Alex said before she passed out.
FF
Alex found herself marching through thick fog. She couldn’t see the ground or the sky. She had the sense that she was marching in the middle of a pack of men. The fog was so thick that she couldn’t see the person beside her.
She kept marching until a man’s voice called them to halt. She instinctively stood at attention. She felt an angry man – hot and belligerent – move through the formation.
“Hargreaves!”
Although she couldn’t see him, she felt the man stop right in front of her.
“Where is it?” the man yelled. Heat and rage emanated from his body. Like a ball moving toward her face, she felt him lean in. “Don’t lie to me! Where is it?”
She tried not to flinch when spittle from the man’s angry words sprayed her face.
“Where. Is. It.”
“Alexandra!” Jesse’s voice came from the fog.
Without thinking, Alex stepped forward. No one was standing in front of her. She ran in the direction of Jesse’s voice.
“Jesse!”
“Aquí!” Jesse yelled.
She saw tall evergreens overhead and felt the gentle push of dirt and pine needles underneath her boots. The fog settled around her. When a breeze whispered through the pines, she knew where she was.
She was standing in the Uwharrie National Forest where she had aced her Special Forces war games test. She and Jesse had been placed on separate teams. When push came to shove, Alex’s CO allowed her to save Jesse and his team as long as she guaranteed her team would win. Her team won by six hours. Running fast, she swatted at the tree branches to keep them out of her face.
“Jesse?” she yelled. She stopped running to listen.
“Aquí!” His voice echoed.
She changed directions and ran toward his voice. The scenery around her changed. Jesse appeared in the near distance. He waved her forward. She sped in his direction, and then he was right there. She had to skid to a stop.
“Jesse!” Alex smiled.
He gave her a solid hug.
“Where are we?” Alex asked.
The fog cleared, and they were standing in a small, tiled room. The walls and floor were covered in a pattern of one baby-blue tile to every two white tiles. A small metal table and a chair sat just to the side of the drain in the center of the room. A variety of sharp utensils and cutting tools were lined up on the metal table. Hooks lined the ceiling along the back wall. A wheeled cart with an automobile battery and leads sat along the wall.
“S.E.R.E.” The word came out of Alex’s mouth in a grunt. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
“You remember this room?” Jesse asked in Spanish.
“I should,” Alex said in Spanish. “I spent the better part of three days hanging right over there.”
She rubbed the scars on her wrists.
“Why are we here?” Alex asked.
“No idea,” Jesse said. “What else do you remember about this room?”
“I remember Mattie falling out of the chair right there,” Alex said. “He fell over and lay by the drain for . . . hours, I think.”
“They just left him there?”
“Yep,” Alex said. “We sang children’s songs. He told me that a couple weeks ago, Erin was singing ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider’ while she gave Grace a bath. He had to leave the house.”
Jesse nodded.
“I remember you right here,” Alex said. “In this chair. What do you remember?”
“I don’t think I’ll ever forget that,” Jesse turned in place in the room. “I remember a man.”
“All the fake torturers were men,” Alex said.
“Sure,” Jesse said. “This was a man’s voice.”
Jesse pointed to the speakers. Alex looked up.
“Do you remember the man’s voice?” Jesse gave her a hard look.
“Hargreaves! Where is it? Don’t lie to me! Where is it?” Alex repeated what she’d heard in English. “I know you have it. I know you do. Stop lying to me!”
“Right!” Jesse’s eyebrows went up in surprise. He added in Spanish, “I hadn’t remembered, but that’s exactly it.”
Alex looked up at the speakers.
“‘Where is it?’ is not so different from ‘Where is the security token?’” Jesse said.
Alex turned in place to see if there was anything else this room could tell her.
“Did something happen in this room that . . . caused all of this?” Jesse asked.
“That’s the billion-dollar question,” Alex said. “Or . . .”
“What?”
“What do the mind control subjects and this room have in common?” Alex said.
“Every protocol they use here was developed through experiments on them,” Jesse said.
“‘Advanced Interrogation Techniques’ as well,” Alex nodded. “They developed that protocol from mind control tests.”
“What does that mean to us?”
“No idea,” Alex said.
“What if the key is within the program itself?” Jesse asked.
“It’s not mind control subjects, but me?”
“Or what you have in common with them,” Jesse said.
“Exactly,” Alex said. “The link is S.E.R.E.”
The room began to fade.
“Jesse?” Alex asked.
He appeared by her side in the fog.
“I’m so glad you’re my friend,” she said. “Thank you.”
He opened his mouth to say something. Before the words came out, he disappeared.
FF
“Jesse?”
Alex opened her eyes and she was lying on the floor of the Super Hercules. She had an IV in her arm. Raz was sitting with her head in his lap.
“She’s conscious, sir,” a young man’s voice said.
Alex’s eyes flicked in the direction of the voice. A young medic, probably a Marine, was working on her. Raz leaned over to look in her face.
“Lost you for a while,” Raz said. “What happened?”
“Hallucination,” Alex said. “Dream. PTSD trance. Memory.”
She nodded in the direction of the medic taking her vitals. He took her through the usual questions – who she was, who was President, and what date it was. When she answered adequately, he told Raz to encourage her to rest and to call for him if she needed help. With a salute, the young man was gone.
“Aw, and he was so cute,” Alex said.
Raz smiled.
“I’m really all right,” Alex moved to get up. Her head felt like it was going to break open. She lay back.
“Head hurts?” Raz asked.
Alex nodded.
“Where did you go?” Raz asked.
“S.E.R.E.,” Alex said.
“S.E.R.E.?” Raz squinted with worry.
“What do the mind control subjects and I have in common?” Alex asked.
“S.E.R.E.,” Raz said. “I never thought of it.”
“That would be me, Mattie, Troy . . .”
“I bet Trece was experimented on when he was in prison,” Raz said.
“The first time?” Alex nodded.
“They were doing mind control tests on prisoners then,” Raz nodded. “Vince?”
“Everyone, probably,” Alex said. “We’d have to ask Leena. I don’t know what Mineman training includes.”
“White Boy,” Raz said.
“I have no idea what training they’ve had,” Alex said. “All Air Force pilots have to go through. So, everyone’s been through, except you.”
Raz blinked. She waited for him to respond. He shook his head.
“That would be true for every elite team, though,” Alex said.
“Maybe there’s something special about when you went through,” Raz said.
“Like what?” Alex shrugged.
“You were saying this thing, uh, ‘Where is it?’ You used to say that in your sleep. Eleazar said something like that when you first spoke with him. ‘Where is it?’ No, that’s not it.”
“I want my property,” Alex said.
“Right,” Raz nodded. “Almost the same thing.”
Alex nodded.
“I thought you made it through S.E.R.E. unscathed,” Raz said. “Freaked everyone out.”
“I thought so too,” Alex said. “I was there for a few days. They used drugs and shocks and . . . It wasn’t . . . fun.”
“I’ll bet,” Raz said.
“I was in the hospital for a week afterwards,” Alex said. “My dad, Patrick, was in my room when I woke up. I always wondered how he knew when I would wake up.”
“You mean something could have happened at the hospital?”
“Sure,” Alex said. “Or at S.E.R.E.”
“I wish we had your record,” Raz said.
“Record of what?”
“Your S.E.R.E file. It’s missing,” Raz said. “I’ve been looking for it for years.”
“That’s nice of you,” Alex said. “Why?”
“After Paris, I wanted to make sure it didn’t fall into the wrong hands,” Raz said. “I’ve looked everywhere I can think of and . . . Wait a minute, you don’t seem concerned that your file is missing.”
“Know anyone with admin rights to the CIA computer and the Intelligence Center?” Alex asked.
Raz smiled and shook his head. She smiled.
“I should have known,” Raz said. “When did you take it?”
“Maybe ten minutes after it was digitized,” Alex said.
“And the original?” Raz asked.
“Shredded and burned in the fireplace in Santa Monica,” Alex said. “Did you know that videotape lights up in pretty colors when it burns?”
“Why?” Raz asked.
“I don’t know,” Alex said. “That’s a good question. Mostly, I was embarrassed. I had the original because they wanted me to annotate my experience. How did I manage to not flinch here? Why didn’t I break there? Stuff like that. I told them I would do it, but I destroyed the file instead.”
“Do you think there’s a copy?” Raz asked.
“I think if there was a copy, you would have found it,” Alex said. “And . . . my time in the room would have been different.”
“How so?” Raz asked.
“I can tolerate days of silence, but I can’t stand loud sound,” Alex said. “That’s in the file. If they’d read the file, they would have blasted loathsome pop music.”
“Do you trust me?”
“Of course.”
“I’d like to take a look at the file,” Raz said. “Maybe there’s something in the file that connects the dots.”
“I’ll get you a copy,” Alex said. “It’s just . . . embarrassing.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re all – ‘she’s amazing’ – and whatever.”
“I already know you’re amazing and whatever,” Raz smiled. “Would you like to try to get up?”
“I should call Sue Ann,” Alex said.
Raz helped her sit up. She rubbed her head.
“There was a guy,” Alex said.
“A guy?” Raz asked.
“At S.E.R.E. He kept asking me that question, you know, ‘Where is it?’”
“You don’t remember what ‘it’ is?” Raz asked.
“No idea.”
“And the guy?”
“There’s something familiar about him,” Alex said. “Connected to all of this and . . . before, maybe basic training. I don’t know.”
She rubbed her forehead.
“I wonder what ‘it’ is,” Raz said.
“I thought the whole thing was part of the program,” Alex said. “You know they would try to get me to give up information on where ‘it’ is, and I wouldn’t do it. I wonder if everyone is asked the same question.”
“You don’t know?” Raz asked.
“Jesse and Mattie were with me, so their job was to not tell the interrogator where ‘it’ was, either,” Alex said. “I’ve never talked about it to anyone other than Jesse and Mattie, not even Troy. What if the others weren’t asked that question?”
“I’ll follow up.” Raz helped her to her feet. They walked back to their seats.
“How long was I out?” Alex asked.
“Half hour or so. Why?”
“I can’t call Sue Ann,” Alex said.
“Why?”
“It’s the middle of the night there. I might be interrupting something good.”
Raz laughed.
“How are Pete and Bill?” Raz asked. Sergeant Peter Bailey and his Belgium Malinois, Master Sergeant Bill Bailey, had interned with the Fey Team the previous year.
“Good,” Alex said. “They’re training dogs to locate the nanodrones at puppy school on Lackland Air Force Base. So far, two military dogs, both Belgian Malinois like Bill, can identify them.”
“That seems very good,” Raz said.
Alex nodded.
“How are Pete and Sue Ann doing?” Raz asked.
“Good,” Alex smiled. “They seem happy, but who knows? Krystal told me there’s trouble in paradise.”
Raz smiled.
“Should we sleep for a while?” Alex asked.
“Probably,” Raz said.
He put his arm around her, and she leaned against his shoulder. In a few minutes, she was out. He always marveled at how she could make herself sleep. He smiled. She’d taught him to do the same thing. He closed his eyes and joined her.
F