Finding North (11 page)

She opened her laptop.
Using the building’s Wi-Fi, she pinged Xavier, their computer
expert. Less than two minutes later, X sent Alex a coded IM about
Jesus statues made out of lard to confirm that everything she did
on the Internet would be recorded. Alex was concerned about who was
watching over the shoulder of the CIA and Homeland Security. She
didn’t want to take the chance that persons of the Linear A variety
were listening.

She looked up when Colin
returned from escorting Orchid downstairs. He gave Alex an
almost-imperceptible nod. She smiled. Colin had made an arrangement
with the doorman not to record their movements.

In order to give their
team video of them using the apartment, Alex went into the kitchen
to help Raz put lunch together. Together, they went to the dining
room and then into the bedroom. Alex and Raz undressed and lay down
on the bed. They each used the restroom and took showers. They went
back into the kitchen and began preparing a meal.

Colin went into his
bedroom and rifled through his closet. He unpacked his suitcase and
changed into his bodyguard outfit. He then took off his clothing,
went into the bathroom, and lay down on the bed. They moved around
the apartment for a little more than an hour.

“
Sir?” Sergeant Dusty’s
voice came from Alex’s laptop.

“
Yes, Sergeant?” Alex
asked.

“
You are clear,” Sergeant
Dusty said. “We have enough tape to cover your absences. However,
we can only cover you for two, maybe three hours, tops. There’s
simply too much active surveillance in the building.”

“
Thank you, Sergeant,”
Alex said.

“
Turning control over to
you,” Sergeant Dusty said. “Do you remember
how . . .?”

“
I’ve got it,” Colin said.
“Thanks, Dusty.”

“
Sir,” Sergeant Dusty
said. “Enjoy your trip.”

“
Thank you, Sergeant,”
Alex nodded to Colin, and he turned the surveillance back
on.

“
We’re going out,” Alex
said to Colin.

“
Shall I get the car,
sir?” Colin asked.

“
No, thank you,” Raz
said.

“
We’re looking forward to
the walk,” Alex said.

“
Yes, sir,” Colin
said.

Raz held open the door to
the apartment for Alex. Colin followed them out the door. They took
the elevator to the main level, where they checked out of the
building. They walked along the river for a couple miles, paying
close attention to the agents following them. They turned around
and started back toward the apartment building. Two blocks from the
building, they took a sharp turn into the city. They lost their
tail inside the Tribeca Performing Arts Center. When they were sure
they weren’t being followed, they cut down a short, tree-lined
alley filled with parked cars to a small, three-story apartment
building. Raz took a key from his pocket and unlocked the front
door. They went up a shabby stairwell to a door on the third floor.
Raz unlocked the door.

“
I love this apartment,”
Alex said.

The apartment was
comfortably furnished with hardwood floors and soft furniture.
There were two small bedrooms, a bathroom, and a living area. The
apartment was old but clean and well kept.

“
Wow,” Colin said. “How
did you find this?”

“
My wife Vicki grew up
here,” Raz said. “We bought it from her parents when we got
married. They were retiring to Florida, and it worked for us. It
was close enough to the World Trade Center that she could walk. I
was in the precinct.”

Raz shrugged.

“
Why did you keep it?”
Colin asked.

“
It was Alex’s idea,” Raz
said. “She thought it would be nice to have a place in the city. I
owned it outright — or Vicki had. Her parents would sell it only to
her, so she was the sole person on the title. She still is. Anyway,
I have a service come in once a month to clean. They were here last
week. It’s not as fancy as the Warehouse — no food or expensive
clothing — but it is private.”

“
I’m with Alex,” Colin
said. “It’s perfect.”

Raz nodded. They set to
work looking for surveillance devices. Finding nothing, they sat
down on the couch.

“
Let’s find Dex,” Alex
asked.

Raz went to the small desk
in the corner of the room and turned on the ancient desktop
computer. He went to use the restroom while the computer came up.
Alex pinged X, and he replied that their connection was
secure.

“
Here we go,” Raz said. He
sent a satellite trace on his old partner.

Alex picked up the
landline and called the precinct.

“
He’s at his desk,” Alex
said. “Are you ready?”

Raz nodded.

“
Let’s stalk us some
police detective,” Colin said.

Laughing, they left the
apartment. They’d walked three blocks before they picked up the
agents tailing them. They made their way to the
1
^st
Precinct and New York City’s finest. Once there, they took a
table at the bar across the street and settled in to
wait.

F

Chapter
Eight

Monday
afternoon

May 16 — 1:41 p.m. MDT
(3:41 p.m. EDT)

In the mountains outside
of Colorado Springs, Colorado

Troy waited until the
horse and rider had moved out of the way before pulling into a
parking space. Getting out of the car, he tried to get his
bearings. He was standing on the edge of an open field. There was a
horse ring on his far left and a large horse stable on his right.
The facility was a hive of activity as they got ready for the
after-school crowd.

“
Troy!”

Hearing his name, Troy
looked around for the caller. His sister, Helen, had spotted him
from near the barn. She raised her right arm and gave him an
enthusiastic wave. He returned her wave. He grabbed his backpack
from the SUV and started in her direction.

Last November, he’d
visited Helen in the therapeutic treatment center. After a lifetime
of horrific abuse — and a full mental breakdown when their father
was arrested — she could barely hold a conversation without crying.
A month later, she’d said she wanted to come to Colorado to spend
the holidays.

She never returned to the
treatment center. Alex’s mother, Rebecca, had helped her sign up
for training in therapeutic horsemanship at the Air Force Academy
Equestrian Training Center, seventy miles south of Denver outside
of Colorado Springs. The first week, she was a mass of insecurity.
When wounded veterans arrived for the trainees to practice their
new skills, Helen began to thrive.

Helen was born to help
people. Three months later, she was their most popular
paraprofessional. She had a way of getting through to people. If
everything continued to go well, she would begin training as a
therapeutic riding instructor in the fall.

“
Did you bring the boys?”
Helen asked.

She gave him a radiant
smile. Over the last months, the sunshine and horses had made her
body muscular and strong. Her long hair hung in a salt-and-pepper
braid down her back. She looked around for Troy’s boys.

“
This is not that kind of
visit,” Troy said.

“
Oh, well,” Helen smiled.
“I can always hope.”

Troy hugged
her.

“
Do you want to go inside
or talk out here?” Helen asked.

“
Where would you be most
comfortable?” Troy asked.

“
Let’s take the horses
out,” Helen said. “Gennifer doesn’t get enough attention these
days. She’s quite fond of you for saving her from the glue
factory.”

Troy chuckled, and she
smiled.

“
I have the horses ready
for us,” Helen said. “Come on.”

He followed Helen to the
stables, where Helen’s horse Gennifer and a dark-brown horse named
Saber waited for them. Helen waited to make sure he was comfortable
on his horse before mounting Gennifer. The horses took a slow walk
out of the facility. Once past the boundaries of the treatment
center, Helen took off on Gennifer. Troy tried to keep up. They
rode fast on the clear, open trail for more than an hour until they
reached a small, tree-lined, open meadow. The jagged peaks of the
Rocky Mountains rose at the end of the meadow.

Helen guided Gennifer
toward a large, flat granite rock in a sunny area of the meadow.
Saber followed Gennifer. Troy dismounted, and the horses wandered
into the meadow to graze.

“
You must come here
often,” Troy said.

“
I like it here,” Helen
said. “I can think here. I’m looking forward to exploring a little
more when it warms up.”

“
National forest?” Troy
asked.

“
BLM,” Helen
said.

“
Native land?” Troy
asked.

“
I think so,” Helen said.
“There’s a series of caves in the mountain. I haven’t seen them. I
just heard they are amazing.”

“
Friends?” Troy looked
surprised.

“
Boyfriend
,” Helen
blushed.

Troy beamed.

“
You’ve met him,” Helen
said. “And don’t worry — Alex checked him out.”

“
Stefan from Ghana,” Troy
said. “The physics professor.”

Their unlikely friendship
had begun one day when a troubled Air Force cadet told Helen that
he was going to be kicked out of the Air Force Academy because he
was failing Stefan’s “General Physics I.” Not willing to accept
that physics could be hard, Helen began tutoring the boy. The next
test, the cadet received the highest score in the class. When he
immediately credited his “miraculous tutor,” Stefan had insisted on
meeting Helen himself.

The casual meeting led to
an invitation for Helen to speak to Stefan’s class. Troy went with
her. To calm her down, Troy started telling physics jokes, and
their talk turned into a kind of “What do you know about physics?”
comedy routine. The class adored them. At the end of the night,
Stefan had invited them to dinner to thank them. Troy strategically
bowed out. Stefan and Helen had seen each other at least once a
week ever since.

“
We’re taking it really
slow,” Helen smiled. “We haven’t . . .”

“
Whoa! Stop! No!” Troy
held up his hand so she’d stop talking. “I don’t want to know. Too
much information!”

Helen laughed. She took a
seat on the granite rock and opened her water bottle. He sat down
next to her and took out a baggie of caramel-infused,
chocolate-chocolate chip cookies. He set the cookies between
them.

“
Hector James?” Helen
asked.

“
His specialty,” Troy
said.

“
He really is a great
kid,” Helen said. “Hermes, too.”

“
They are amazing,” Troy
said. “I brought tea.”

“
Tea time.” Helen turned
to look at him. “It must be bad.”

“
Sort of,” Troy
nodded.

“
Lay it on me, brother,”
Helen said. “I’ll pour.”

She took the two-cup
stainless-steel thermos from him.

“
What do you know about
Linear A?” Troy asked.

Surprised, Helen’s eyes
jerked up to look at him. He nodded.

“
Let’s
see . . .” Helen poured him a cup of tea and gave it
to him. “It’s an ancient language made up of mostly symbols. It
seems to be unrelated to any other language, including Linear B.
For a long time, people thought Linear B had evolved from Linear A,
but we now know they are completely different systems. Scholars
believe Linear B was used to catalog things — livestock, wealth,
things like that. Linear A was used primarily for religious texts,
although that could be because it was the written language of
royalty. But no one knows. Uh . . .”

Helen shrugged.

“
A lot of mathematicians
think they can decipher Linear A,” Helen said. “I never touched it
because of the curse.”

“
The curse?” Troy
asked.

“
Anyone who had ever
gotten close to deciphering Linear A died in some weird way,” Helen
nodded. “Deadly cancer that comes out of nowhere. Michael Ventis,
the guy who deciphered Linear B, died in an accident with a
parked truck
. He was
supposed to have finished deciphering Linear A less than an hour
before. No one found his work. I knew a guy who was working on
Linear A when he was impaled on the four-foot steel fence around
his front yard. Lost his footing and fell, you know, on the sharp,
pointy ends of the fence. It happened just before dark. The fence
was surrounded by evergreen shrubs, so no one noticed him until
morning. He died right there in his front yard while his wife and
children were inside the house.”

“
Wow,” Troy
said.

“
You remember him, don’t
you?” Helen asked. “He was one of Dad’s graduate students. A real
rising star.”