In the Grey (33 page)

“
Crepes,” Alex said. “A
tour through the Louvre.”

Raz groaned, and she
smiled.

“
I like the way
it . . .” Alex started.

“
Smells, yes, I know,” Raz
said.

“
The Tuileries, of
course,” Alex said.

“
Sit on Charlie’s bench,”
Raz said. “Good idea. Dawn at Lac des Minimes.”

“
On the island?” Alex
asked.

“
With Brie and Champagne,”
Raz said, and she smiled.

Raz clutched her to him,
and she held on tight.

“
Promise me you’ll do
everything in your power to stay,” he whispered.

“
I will,” Alex said. “When
does the team get here?”

“
How did you know?” Raz
asked.

He chuckled and let her
go.

“
Oh, you, Max, Jesse,
Matthew, Joseph; you’re upset,” Alex smiled. “It’s just what Joseph
would do.”

“
They’re pretty pissed at
you,” Raz said. “You can expect at least one angry conversation. We
thought, each of us, that it was just us. I thought it was just me,
but when we started talking about it and realized it was
everyone . . .”

“
Not Max,” Alex
said.

“
Yeah, like that counts,”
Raz said.

For a moment, his eyes
echoed only desperate sorrow.

“
I’ve never gotten over
how you just handed yourself over to Eleazar.”

“
It was the right thing to
do,” Alex said.

“
Yes, I know you think
that,” Raz said. “It wasn’t the right thing to do. It was stupid
and reckless and . . . Can you possibly not know how
valuable you are? To me? To everyone? To the world? People tell you
that all the time. The freakin’ president of the United States said
that just a few days ago.”

“
I’m just me,” Alex said.
“No better, no worse than anyone else. Just me.”

He hugged her.

“
Before this is over, I
bet you’ll know what you are,” he said.

“
Sounds like something
John’s fairy would say,” Alex said.

He chuckled and released
her.

“
How mad are they?” Alex
asked.

“
Furious,” Raz
said.

“
Good to know,” Alex
said.

“
White Boy’s staying with
Trece,” Raz said.

“
I’m glad,” Alex
said.

“
You remember that Troy
went to Washington,” Raz said. “With the boys. They’re going to see
his mom and visit his sister.”

“
I didn’t actually think
he’d do it,” Alex said.

“
He’s going to speak to
Helen tomorrow,” Raz said. “The rest of the team will be here
tomorrow noon.”

Alex nodded.

“
Dusty stayed on base to
serve as backup,” Raz said.

Alex couldn’t think of
anything to say, so she nodded.

“
Tonight is ours,” Raz
said. “Crepes and cuddle? Dance until dawn?”

“
Crepes and cuddle,” they
said together. “Dance if we feel like it.”

He gave her a nod and held
out his hand. They left to get crepes.

F

Tuesday, early
morning

November 16 – 4:36 a.m.
CET

Paris, France

Alex looked down the
street to see if anyone was out. Seeing no one, she stepped in
front of the unlabeled door that led to the tunnels. In the
reconfiguration of this building, Max had created a secure entrance
to the limestone tunnels. Alex went through the procedures to get
into the tunnels and looked up at the security camera. She waited a
moment for the facial recognition software to unlock the
door.

She glanced down the
street one last time and stepped into the hallway. She let the door
close and then waited at the next door. Since Max had taken over
the management of the limestone vaults, they had become favored as
off-site storage for the international intelligence community.
There was new security every time she came to the
vaults.

She pressed open the door
and walked right into a short, slight woman coming down the hall.
The woman landed on her rear on the floor.

“
Oh, I’m sorry,” Alex
said.

Alex leaned down to help
her up when the woman held up a Ruger 380 handgun. A small security
weapon, the hard trigger pull of this particular Ruger made it
almost impossible to hit anything accurately. The weapon’s recoil
was so violent that it was apt to bounce out of small hands. Plus,
the woman hadn’t switched off the safety. Although it was unlikely
the woman would shoot her, Alex raised her hands.

“
I knew you couldn’t
resist coming here on your own,” the woman said.

Something about the woman
seemed familiar. Alex searched her face. The woman seemed to almost
blossom under her scrutiny.

“
You don’t recognize me,”
the woman said.

Alex shook her
head.

“
I used Paul’s life
insurance money well, didn’t I?” the woman’s tone was
cruel.

“
Cooper?”

Alex was so surprised that
she dropped her hands. The woman cleared her throat and pointed the
weapon. Alex put her hands up.

“
Nice to see you again,”
Cooper said.

“
Wow, you
look . . . ,” Alex looked over the woman’s wide
eyes, pert nose, and inflated chest, pert rear, and tried to come
up with something to say,
“ . . . different.”

Cooper gave her a hard
smile.

“
What are you doing here?”
Alex asked.

“
I came for you,” Cooper
said.

“
Ok,” Alex said. “But you
know you could have just called me.”

Cooper laughed, and Alex
remembered something she’d forgotten. Paul had said one of the
reasons Cooper was such a psycho was that she was a part of
military experiments as a child. Cooper’s father had been a test
pilot at Edwards Air Force Base. She must have been one of the mind
control girls. Alex flipped through the list of girls they hadn’t
been able to find until she came up with Mary Sue Cooper from
Bakersfield, California.

“
Mary Sue Cooper?” Alex
asked.

“
That’s me,” Cooper
said.

“
What can I do for you,
Mary Sue?” Alex asked.

“
Take me to the vault,”
Cooper demanded.

“
What vault?” Alex asked.
“Have you fired that gun before?”

“
You’re stalling,”
Cooper’s voice ratcheted up and octave. “Take me to the
vault!”

Alex snapped her fingers
once and then again. Cooper blinked. Like shutters in the mind,
Cooper’s personality shifted.

“
I killed Paul! I killed
him!” a rage-filled voice came from the woman’s mouth. “There was
no fucking way I was going to let him divorce me. Not me! That cow
parades around town with his bastard children, but I know the
truth.”

“
And what’s
that?”

“
I killed them all,”
Cooper said.

Alex moved like a coiled
spring. She knocked the handgun out of Cooper’s hand and backhanded
the woman. Like a cartoon villain, Cooper gave a maniacal laugh.
Grabbing Cooper by the shoulders, Alex pounded the woman into the
wall and held her off the floor.

Alex put her face right in
front of Cooper’s. The woman tried to look away, but Alex forced
her to look in her face.

“
You’re hurting me,” the
rage-filled voice whined.

“
What did you mean when
you said you killed them all?” Alex bounced her against the wall.
Alex raised her voice to a drill sergeant’s command, “Tell me, this
instant.”

Cooper blinked. Shutters
shifted and a new person appeared.

“
They came,” a small
child’s voice came out of Cooper’s mouth. Her eyelids widened to
show a ring of white around her irises.

“
Who came?” Alex
asked.

“
Them,” the girl
whispered. “They wanted to know how to get in the lockers. They
already knew about Le Fée Verte and . . . the door
and . . . they . . .
um . . .”

Cooper blinked and the
personality shifted.

“
Listen,” Cooper’s voice
shifted to a heavy New Jersey–accent. “You and I both know that
Cooper did not like Paul. She only married him to get away from the
pedophile step-dad. Once she’d accomplished that, she had no use
for him.”

“
Then why did she kill
him?” Alex asked.

“
Cooper didn’t think it
through,” the Jersey voice said. “Honestly, it wasn’t one of her
smarter moves, since Paul had arranged to support her for life.
With his death, she’s had to get a job.”

“
What did she do?” Alex
asked.

“
Oh come on, Alexandra,”
the Jersey voice said. “You’ve got to know.”

Alex shook her
head.

“
She let him in. She’ll
tell you she didn’t know that he was going to kill everyone, but he
had an AK-47! She knew. There’s no way to say this politely, but
Cooper is not very bright.”

“
Lucky she has you,” Alex
said.

“
That’s what I tell her,”
the Jersey voice said. “I got the gun.”

“
The Ruger?” Alex
asked.

“
I might have forgotten to
tell her about the safety,” the Jersey voice said.

“
Thanks.”

“
Don’t mention
it.”

“
Was she supposed to shoot
me today?” Alex asked.

“
If she had to,” the
Jersey voice said. “I argued against it.”

“
Why?”

“
Because I don’t like the
people who asked,” the Jersey-accented voice said. “They weren’t
very polite.”

“
What did they want her to
do?”

“
Get into the vault,” the
Jersey voice said.

“
Why?”

“
They left something
there,” the Jersey voice said.

“
Gold?”

“
No,” the Jersey voice
said. “Something that can implicate them in something
bigger.”

“
They’re looking for an
object?”

“
That’s what I said,” the
Jersey voice said. “It’s something Cooper got when the pilot-father
died; something Paul had. I never saw it.”

“
Any ideas on what it
might be?” Alex asked.

“
Book, maybe,” the Jersey
voice said. “Paper. Report.”

Cooper’s shoulders raised
in a shrug.

“
They’re sure it was in
the vault?”

“
It wasn’t in Paul’s
belongings at home,” the Jersey voice said. “They went through
those first. Cooper doesn’t have it. They couldn’t find it in the
vault.”

“
After we were shot?” Alex
asked.

Cooper’s head
nodded.

“
Why do they think it’s
there?” Alex asked.

“
Paul told Cooper not to
worry about it,” the Jersey voice said. “He left it in a secure
location.”

“
Huh,” Alex said.
“Thanks.”

“
You should know that
Cooper feels really bad that everyone is dead,” the Jersey voice
said. “She really didn’t know he was going to kill you. She knew
that you would never give her this thing. Paul was divorcing her.
He told her that he would cut her off without a penny if she didn’t
leave him and the chick alone. She couldn’t get this thing for
them; they had to get it themselves.”

“
Does Cooper know what it
is?” Alex asked.

Cooper’s head shook back
and forth.

“
She was terrified
afterwards,” the Jersey voice said. “She hid in the tunnel below
for two days until everyone was gone. She got the plastic surgery
and everything because she was afraid they’d find her.”

“
And do what?”

“
Kill her,” the Jersey
voice said. “If they were willing to kill beautiful Paul and his
wonderful team, they would easily kill a girl like
Cooper.”

“
How did they get to her
this time?” Alex asked.

“
No idea.” Cooper’s head
shook back and forth. “She’s been in hiding.”

“
I haven’t seen her in
years,” Alex said. “Joseph said his wife Nancy saw her right after
moving to Denver.”

“
She wanted to tell
Joseph,” the Jersey voice said. “But she botched it.”

“
Like she
does.”

“
One more thing before I
go,” the Jersey voice said. “The men who made Cooper come here?
They had Texas accents.”

Cooper’s head nodded. Her
eyes blinked, and her personality shifted. Alex waited for the
personality to say something.

“
Alex?” Cooper’s voice was
her own. “Where are we?”

Alex set her down. She
picked up the Ruger from where it had landed and stuffed it in her
pocket.