In the Grey (43 page)

“
John’s working,” Alex
said. “He traded with someone to get tomorrow off. That means he’s
on call tonight. He always seems to be called in when he’s on call.
We’re talking about getting an apartment near the hospital so he
has a place to sleep between cases.”

“
Sounds hard,” Steve
said.

“
Oh,” Alex slammed the
door of the washer. She grabbed the liquid laundry detergent
bottle. “Honestly . . .”

She looked up at Steve
while she squeezed the detergent bottle. A stream of detergent went
into the detergent holder.

“
I miss the days when he
was hanging around waiting for me to get home,” Alex
said.

Steve laughed.

“
It’s pretty different
now,” Alex said.

“
Different
bad?”

“
No,” Alex said. “Just
different. I’m happy for him. He seems to be growing into himself.
That makes me happy to see. And he’s happy.”

Steve nodded.

“
Did you hear he’s
interviewing gestational surrogates for us?” Alex asked.

“
Ben told me,” Steve said.
“I asked him why you didn’t just take one of his kids.”

Alex laughed. She pulled
the sheets out of the lower dryer.

“
Yeah, what are you going
to do with all these babies around?” Alex asked. “You should see
Christmas! There are kids of every age, shape, and
size.”

“
I’ll tell
you . . . ,” Steve said. Alex looked at him.
“Just a few months ago, it sounded like sheer hell. How would I
meditate with all that racket? When would I work out? How could I
complete a full sentence? Today, it sounds like heaven.”

“
I know,” Alex
said.

She pulled the jeans out
of the top washer one at a time, shook them out, and stuffed them
into the lower dryer. She had her hand in the dryer when she felt
movement near her. She instinctively turned.

Steve’s knife sliced
through her body armor and into her right chest. The tip of the
knife hit her right shoulder blade. Instead of removing the knife,
he reached around her and grabbed her Glock.

Her left fist shot a
straight-cross boxing punch she knew he wouldn’t expect. She
smashed his nose. He fell forward, and she kneed him in the
abdomen. He took the blow, but didn’t let go of the gun. She
knocked him to the side with her knee. Falling, he pulled the
trigger of her gun. Her calf extended and her foot managed to knock
his arm away from his head. The bullet lodged in the
ceiling.

Her mentor, friend, and
Sensei fell to the ground. She crouched down to him.

“
I’m so sorry; I’m so
sorry; I’m so sorry; I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

Pushed by adrenaline, she
wrenched the gun from his hands and slid it across the
room.

“
This is why they took
you,” she said.

“
Days and days and days,”
Steve whispered. “All I could do is shift the focus. Right side not
left. Your father’s trick . . . Was that a boxing
punch?”

“
Raz,” she said. “Were you
surprised?”

Steve fell silent. She
rolled him over. He’d passed out like Cooper had. Whoever
programmed Cooper must have programmed Steve too.

The pain hit her like a
truck. She fell onto her rear.

Her movement had torn the
knife wound. She was losing a lot of blood. Falling back, she
remembered . . .

FF

She was standing in a
corner of the Fey Special Forces Team vault. Wearing old style
jungle fatigues, Paul had a handful of old books. He gestured to
her with the books.

“
I don’t know, Alex,” Paul
said. He put them into his wall cabinet. “I guess her father’s
books are worth a lot of money. They’re originals. You don’t mind,
do you?”

“
I don’t care,” Alex said.
“Did you ask Joseph?”

Paul shook his
head.

“
Why not?” Alex
asked.

“
He’d just tell me not to
keep any of Cooper’s crap around,” Paul said. “But Cooper gave
these books to me in the divorce settlement. What am I going to do
with them at home? I thought maybe I could sell them at one of
those old book stores here.”

“
Good call,” Jesse
said.

“
I know just the place,”
Alex said.

FF

She was sitting with her
back against the door of the Fey Special Forces Team vault. Jesse’s
body lay across her lap. The weight of his head pressed into the
basketball-sized wound in her hip.

She slumped forward. The
cricket was talking, but she couldn’t tell what he was saying. She
looked down at Jesse and smiled. If she had to die, it was nice to
die with her friends around.

A fist smashed into the
side of her face.

“
Where is it?” a man’s
voice asked in Arabic.

She didn’t have the energy
to defend herself. He hit her again. She looked up at
him.

“
The book,” the man said.
“Where the fuck is the book?”

“
Book?” she
squinted.

When he looked away, she
glanced at where she’d stashed the large team journal. Screaming,
the man swore and kicked at the crates around her.

He hit her again and
everything went black.

FFFFFF

Thursday, early
morning

November 25 – 3:09 a.m.
MST

Denver, CO

Max woke with a
gasp.

“
Alex!” He grabbed his
shoulder. “Oh my God, Alex.”

Flying out of bed, he ran
to the closet. He grabbed a pair of fleece sweatpants and ran
toward the door.

“
You fucking think you can
lock me in the bathroom,” Wyatt said.

Heavier and stronger than
Max, Wyatt bounced Max against the wall.

“
What are you doing?” Max
yelled. “Alex is in trouble.”

Wyatt punched Max in the
face. He picked him up and threw him into their bathroom. He locked
the door.

“
You’ll think twice before
you lock me in there again.”

Wyatt took a step and
passed out.

FFFFFF

Thursday, early
morning

November 25 – 3:11 a.m.
MST

Denver, CO

Raz sat up with a start.
Samantha rolled over to look at him. They were sleeping in her
flower-lined bedroom in her flat next to the rooming
house.

“
You okay?” she
asked.

“
I am,” he said. He
touched her shoulder. “We have a big day. Go back to
sleep.”

Not sure what woke him, he
got up to use the bathroom. The window looked down into the laundry
room of the rooming house. He noticed the light in the laundry room
before looking down to urinate. Leaning over to flush the toilet,
he noticed what looked like someone lying on the laundry room
floor. He squinted and shifted the sheer window
covering.

Sure enough. Someone
wearing red Converse All Stars and blue jeans was lying on the
laundry room floor. They knew so many people who wore those shoes,
he couldn’t be sure, but the feet were about Alex’s
size.

“
What’s going on?”
Samantha asked.

Raz turned around to see
Samantha standing behind him. She wore a light-pink silk teddy. Her
auburn hair fell in curls on her shoulders. He smiled.

“
Did you see something?”
Samantha leaned over the toilet to look. “Are those feet? Oh my
God, that has to be Alex!”

“
Would you mind horribly
if I went to look?” Raz asked.

“
No,” Samantha said. “We
should both go.”

They ran back into her
room and pulled on yesterday’s clothing. Raz checked that his
handgun was loaded before nodding to her. She grabbed her new
hockey stick from the rack by the door. They ran out the front
door. Careful of the ice and snow, they jogged to the small
sidewalk between the houses. They stopped at the rooming house’s
basement door.

Raz took out his key. The
key didn’t fit the lock. He looked at the key and at the
lock.

“
That’s weird,” Raz said.
“It’s not even the same brand. I went through this door
yesterday.”

He thought for a moment
and then looked at Samantha. She was staring into space.

“
Did they change the
locks?”

“
Locks?”

Samantha blinked. Her
eyelids were like shutters. She blinked and blinked again. Her eyes
went blank. Raz grabbed her shoulders and shook her.

“
Samantha!” he
yelled.

“
You only care about her,”
Samantha said.

She pushed him away from
her. Clutching the hockey stick tight, she bashed him in the head.
He fell to the frozen sidewalk.

“
I can’t believe I let you
do this to me again!” Samantha said.

She stormed down the small
sidewalk. She reached the front of her home before passing out. She
fell face first in the snow.

F

Thursday, early
morning

November 25 – 3:16 a.m.
MST

Denver, CO

Alex felt a small, cold
hand on her face.

“
Are you dead?” a boy
whispered.

“
Hector James?” Alex
opened her eyes and saw his face. She smiled.

“
Should I take it out?”
the child’s eyes were luminous in the bright laundry
room.

“
Leave it,” Alex said.
“You know what to do.”

He gave her a sincere nod.
He disappeared from her sight. She tried to get up. Groaning from
pain, she lay back into the puddle of her own blood. She heard the
door to her office close.

Hector James reappeared.
She felt the cold crystals of the coagulating agent fall, one
crystal at a time, onto her skin.

“
Is it working?” he
whispered.

“
I can’t tell,” Alex
coughed.

He emptied the packet
around the knife.

“
Did you have a
nightmare?” Alex’s voice came out in a thready whisper.

He nodded.

“
Where’s your father?”
Alex asked.

“
He stayed up late last
night talking to that lady,” Hector James looked toward the door
and then back at her. He leaned down to Alex’s ear, and said, “He
fell asleep in the recliner in the living room, which he never ever
does. He always comes to see Hermes and then to see me, and then
gets in the big bed for sleep. We were sleeping in his room tonight
too. I had a bad dream, and I came down and found him. He was
asleep. I shook him, but he didn’t wake up. I think Daddy’s
drugged.”

“
Probably . . .” Alex coughed.

“
Don’t do that,” Hector
James said. “Makes the knife move and more blood
and . . .”

He gave her a sincere
nod.

“
You got it though?” Alex
looked at the boy. He nodded.

“
What do we have here?”
Neev asked from the doorway.

John and Cian’s older
sister went to the corner and picked up Alex’s handgun. She frowned
when she saw Hector James.

“
Run along child,” Neev
said.

“
I will not,” Hector James
said.

“
Please go,” Alex
whispered.

“
No,” Hector James said.
“You’re hurt and you need my help.”

“
She’ll kill you,” Alex
wheezed. “Please. For me.”

Hector James nodded to
Alex and got up.

“
I don’t like you,” he
said to Neev, and stormed out of the room. Alex watched Jesse go
with Hector James to protect him.

Neev watched him go and
waited until the basement door slammed.

“
You have to admit that
you’re surprised,” Neev said.

Alex tried not to cough.
Neev left the laundry room.

“
Why isn’t your office
open?” Neev asked. “Your office is supposed to be open.”

Neev found a laundry bin.
Using more strength than Alex would have ever given her credit for,
the woman dragged Alex off the floor and shoved her into the bin.
Neev rolled the bin to the secure office.

“
Open this office,” the
woman said.

“
Why?” Alex
asked.

“
Do it this instant!” Neev
ordered. “I did not go through all of this trouble to fail
now!”

Neev lifted Alex out of
the bin and carried her to the security panel. Alex entered the
code to signal the sergeant on duty at Buckley Air Force Base that
she was in trouble. She covered her actions by falling forward to
the wall.

“
Can’t move
my . . . ,” Alex pointed to her right
hand.

Neev held Alex’s hand up
to the panel, which launched an automatic call to the on-call desk
at the FBI and her division at the Department of Homeland Security.
The office door opened.