In the Grey (21 page)

Alex watched a kind of
longing settle on his face.

“
You and I,” Cee Cee said.
“We’ve been doing this for such a long time that
I . . . You’re my worst enemy. That’s the closest
thing to a best friend that I’ve ever had.”

Alex felt the weight of
Raz’s stare on the side of her face. His voice in her head repeated
what he’d said in the car: “Cee Cee Joiner is a psychopath.
Psychopath’s manipulate people. It’s what they do. You will be the
last person he will ever be able to manipulate. Don’t let
him.”

She examined her own
feelings and was surprised to find that she felt sorry for
him.

“
Tell me a story then,”
Alex said. “How’d you get to be like this?”

“
I’ve always been like
this,” Cee Cee shrugged. “I guess I get it from my
daddy.”

“
Cecil Joiner?” Alex
asked.

Cee Cee laughed. Raz took
a step forward.

“
Cecil’s not my father,”
Cee Cee said.

“
What?” Raz uttered the
words without realizing he had said anything. Alex glanced at him.
His eyes were intent on Cee Cee’s face.

“
Cecil had a brother,” Cee
Cee said. “Not a nice brother, a brother like me. He appeared one
cold, rainy night and did what evil brother’s always
do.”

“
What’s that?” Alex
asked.

“
Rape and torture the wife
for a while, of course,” Cee Cee said. “Make the parents watch and
wait for the brother to come home.”

Alex nodded. She’d always
known that there was something fishy about the car accident that
killed Cee Cee’s grandparents.

“
Cecil shot him, and he
still escaped,” Cee Cee said. “Nine months later there was me. He
came back later for a little more fun, but wound up killing her
parents instead. Cecil finished the job that time.”

Cee Cee nodded.

“
To Cecil’s credit, he
raised me like his own,” Cee Cee said.

“
But your
DNA . . . ,” Raz started.

Cee Cee raised his
eyebrows in a kind of “work it out” challenge.

“
Cecil had a twin,” Alex
said.

“
Yes, he did,” Cee Cee
said. “My daddy, Cyril Joiner, was a doodlebug.”

“
A what?” Raz
asked.

“
He could find oil with a
divining rod,” Alex said.

“
Cyril Joiner found the
oil that started Pecos Oil,” Raz said.

“
He did that too,” Cee Cee
said. “Cecil thought I had the gift. I did too.
But . . . I guess you of all people know my only
true gift is drinking and abusing women.”

“
You’re quite fertile,”
Alex said.

Cee Cee smiled.

“
I remember my
first . . . um . . . Tristan,” Cee
Cee said. “He was a beautiful baby. Everyone who saw him commented
on it. Such a sweet boy. Buffy didn’t know what to do with such a
nice kid. Did I kill him?”

“
Almost,” Alex said.
“Tristan’s in junior college in California. He’s quite a bit like
Cecil.”

“
Figures,” Cee Cee
said.

Cee Cee seemed so present
and real that Alex decided to ask him what she wanted to
know.

“
What do you know about
the death of my team?” Alex asked.

Cee Cee’s eyes focused on
her face.

“
In Paris,” Alex
said.

He looked away from
her.

“
Answer the question.”
Raz’s voice echoed off the concrete space.

Surprised, Cee Cee’s body
jumped. He turned his attention to Raz. When he looked at Alex
again, he looked as if he’d just realized the game was
over.

“
Nothing,” Cee Cee said.
“That’s the truth.”

“
How can that possibly be
true?” Alex asked. “You were in the center of everything! You knew
all the players!”

Angry, she held her breath
to keep from screaming at him.

“
You’re right,” Cee Cee
said. “I should know something. I don’t. I didn’t even know it had
happened until I read it in the newspaper.”

Cee Cee shrugged. Alex
felt a wave of despair. She hadn’t realized how much she’d counted
on Cee Cee’s help until he couldn’t provide it. She lowered her
head and pinched the bridge of her nose with her hand.

“
My mom, Ethyl, you know?
She used to get me to do things by lining everything up,” Cee Cee
said. “Like a rat in a maze. I did what was next because it was
right in front of me.”

Alex’s eyes shifted to
look at him.

“
That’s how I’ve always
lived,” Cee Cee said. “I never made any effort to meet women. I
just took the one right in front of me. I’ve never bought drugs.
Hell, I’ve never been in a liquor store in my life. Ever. I just
drank what was there – no more, no less; ate what was there – no
more, no less; screwed what was right in front of me – no more, no
less. That’s what I’ve always done.”

Alex looked at Raz. Cee
Cee’s words matched every interaction she’d had with him. As much
as she didn’t want to believe it, Cee Cee was telling her the
truth. As if he’d heard her thought, Raz nodded.

“
I wish I could tell you
more,” Cee Cee said. “I was always just . . . What’s
that white guy you hang around with always say?
Uh . . . I was Ringo Starr – just along for the
ride. Pretty sad to say, but it’s true.”

The lights flickered. They
had only ten minutes left. Alex felt a wave of desperate
frustration.

“
What can you tell us
about Robert Powell?” Raz asked.

Alex glanced at
him.

“
I don’t know who that
is,” Cee Cee said.

Alex and Raz stared at him
in disbelief.

“
You have to know who that
is,” Alex said. “You met him when we came to rescue you the last
time. You drank tequila with him
and . . .”

Cee Cee
shrugged.

“
How did you get to China,
Mr. Joiner?” Raz asked.

“
I don’t know,” Cee Cee
said. “One minute I’m in rural Thailand, and the next minute I’m
here. No . . . Wait . . .”

Cee Cee looked away from
them for a moment.

“
There was a ticket to
Chongqing,” Cee Cee said. “Just sitting on my bureau. I don’t
remember buying it but I usually don’t.”

“
You usually don’t
what?”

“
When I’m drunk, I buy
plane tickets, bus tickets, sometimes even cars,” Cee Cee said. “I
find them the next day, sometimes just in time, and sometimes I
miss the flight. That happens all the time. I came here. A driver
waited for me at the airport, like usual. He took me to my
hotel.”

“
And the girl?” Raz
asked.

“
She was in my room,” Cee
Cee said. “I tried to say this at my trial. Why was she in my room
if she didn’t want sex? I sure did.”

“
Why did you beat her?”
Raz asked.

“
I don’t know why I do
that,” Cee Cee said. “Just happens.”

“
You don’t remember doing
it?” Alex asked.

“
Most of the time,” Cee
Cee said. “Sometimes, I think I didn’t do it. You know, like
someone else was there.”

His eyes slipped over
Alex.

“
I wonder, sometimes, if I
have a twin, like dear old dad,” Cee Cee said. “Like
you.”

“
Someone inside of you?”
Alex asked.

“
Inside, outside,” Cee Cee
shrugged. “Just how it feels.”

There was a knock on the
door.

“
You know they can’t
harvest my organs,” Cee Cee said. “Liver’s broke. Kidneys, too.
Even my pancreas, whatever that is, is messed up. No, they’re going
to shoot me, burn me, and that will be all.”

“
Is there anything you
want to tell your wives? Your kids?” Alex asked.

“
Make up something they’d
want to hear,” Cee Cee said. “I have no idea what that might be.
Bet you do.”

Alex gave a sad
nod.

“
I’m sorry I caused you so
much trouble,” Cee Cee said.

“
Me too,” Alex’s eyes
glanced over him. She felt as if another fragile thread of her old
life was slipping through her fingers. She turned to go.

“
Tell Buffy that I’m sorry
I let him down,” Cee Cee said.

The door opened and two
guards came into the room.

“
Him?” Alex
asked.

“
I never could get things
right,” Cee Cee shook his head.

“
What things?” Alex
asked.

He gave her a boyish grin
and raised his eyebrows in a kind of “good-bye.” Raz put his arm
over her shoulder, and they left the room. A guard escorted them
into a warm room next to the room they’d been in. They sat down in
front of a mirrored window with a view into the execution chamber.
Cee Cee turned his head toward them.

The guards asked him a
question that Alex couldn’t hear. They forced him down to his
knees. A third guard walked into the room. He checked to make
certain Cee Cee was secure. The guards put in ear plugs. The
executioner put his handgun to the back of Cee Cee’s
head.

“
Joke’s on you,” Cee Cee
mouthed in Alex’s direction.

His mouth had just
finished forming the “ew” sound when the bullet from the guard’s
handgun blew his brain, blood, and teeth through his lips. The
force of the bullet pushed his body forward until the chain on his
handcuffs caught against the loop in the floor. He hung, suspended
in the air, until the guards unlocked his handcuffs.

Alex was shaken by the
finality of Cee Cee’s death. This man had caused her so much grief
and despair. He was the focus of more than one CIA task force. Now
her enemy was gone, taking with him another tiny ribbon of fragile
hope that she would ever understand what happened to her friends,
her team, and her life. She stared at the lifeless body of Cee Cee
Joiner. When Ji opened the door, she jumped with
surprise.

“
Time to go,” Ji said from
the doorway.

Alex shuffled out of the
room. They walked down the hallway and into the open space of the
foyer into Yuzhou Prison.

“
Can you give us a
minute?” Raz asked Ji.

“
Of course,” Ji said.
“We’ll wait for you here.”

Turning his back to Ji,
Raz too Alex’s elbow and led her to a quiet corner. He stood an
inch in front of Alex.

“
Did you see him?” Alex
whispered. “What he said?”

“
Joke’s on you,” Raz
replied in a low tone.

“
What the hell does that
mean?” Alex asked. She shivered.

“
What is it?” Raz
asked.

“
Just a cold chill up my
back,” Alex said.

“
You’re upset by Cee Cee’s
death?” Raz asked.

“
Any death is upsetting,
sure,” Alex said.

“
But?”

“
I have this feeling
that . . . he told us more than he’d meant to,” Alex
said. “More than he was supposed to.”

“
You think it was an act?”
Raz asked.

“
Do you?” Alex
asked.

Raz shook his
head.

“
I don’t either,” Alex
said. “But it’s a mind worm. If he wasn’t supposed to tell us all
of that, was he supposed to be killed? If his life was like he said
it was, did someone set him up for this fall? Do the girl’s parents
know something? If they can’t harvest his organs, was he ‘put down’
because he was sick?”

“
Or is all of this the
psychotic process of a madman?” Raz asked.

“
Or psychopathic process –
leave me with a mind worm so he can control me in death,” Alex
said.

“
We’ll have find out from
Chris and Andy if what he said matches their experiences with him,”
Raz said.

Alex nodded.

“
I’m so sorry to
interrupt,” Ji said. “We have news that the Korean People’s Army is
preparing to take the site tonight around midnight.”

“
Whether or not we have
Steve?” Alex asked.

“
Correct,” Ji said. “If we
don’t leave now, we will miss our opportunity to retrieve Mr.
Pershing.”

“
Same time as the awards
ceremony,” Raz said under his breath.

Alex looked up at Raz. He
gave her a quick, tight hug and stepped back. They followed Ji out
to another limousine. Max was waiting in the back.

“
Did you get everything we
need?” Alex asked Max when she got in.

“
With Ji’s help,” Max
said. “You ready?”

“
I am,” Alex
said.

They drove to the airport
in silence.

F

Monday evening

November 8 – 7:11 p.m.
MST
(November 9 – 10:11 a.m. China Standard Time)

Denver,
Colorado

Samantha was standing in
the middle of the rooming house kitchen wondering what to do next.
She’d come over to see what Cian and Wyatt had going on. Finding no
one, she’d opened a bottle of red wine, poured herself a glass, and
checked the house schedule. John was on-call at the University
Hospital in Aurora. Cian had taken Troy’s boys to Eoin’s house.
Wyatt was working on his research project.