Finding North (13 page)

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Monday night

May 16 — 8:31 p.m. EDT
(6:31 p.m. MDT)

Tribeca, New York City,
New York

“
Here he comes,” Colin
said into their earbud communicator.

Back at Raz’s old
apartment, Colin was monitoring them via an ATM’s security camera.
Alex smiled at Raz and took his hand.

“
Now,” Colin
said.

“
Come on,” Alex
said.

She giggled flirtatiously
and pulled Raz behind her. They whipped around the corner. Raz used
his long arms to turn her into his chest. They held each other
close in a lovers’ embrace.

“
Wait for it,” Colin
said.

Raz dropped his face into
her neck.

“
Show time,” Colin
said.

“
Not here!” Alex
giggled.

Raz tried to kiss her
lips, but she pulled away. She took off again. He caught her hand,
and they moved down the sidewalk. Moving from behind Alex, Raz ran
into his old partner’s right shoulder.

“
Hey!” the police
detective said.

“
Sorry, Dex,” Raz said
when his head was next to the detective’s ear.

The police detective
stopped in his tracks. Raz and Alex kept moving and
laughing.

“
He’s watching,” Colin
said.

“
Just up here,” Alex
laughed. Raz followed close behind her like a horny
teenager.

Dex turned to watch them
go. His eyebrows furrowed for a moment as if he were trying to work
something out. A dawning realization moved across his face. He spun
in place to follow Raz and Alex, but they were gone. He put his
hand into his suit pocket and pulled out a pack of unfiltered Camel
cigarettes. The detective gawked at the pack.

“
Got him,” Colin
said.

Dex looked back to where
Alex and Raz had gone and then looked at the pack of cigarettes. He
stuffed the pack deep into his pants pocket. He trotted toward his
home. Once there, he used a key to get in the door in the alley
beside his home.

“
He’s in,” Colin
said.

“
Meet you at the
Warehouse,” Alex said.

“
Roger that,” Colin
said.

She stopped running, and
Raz caught up with her. Raz put his arm around her. Certain they
were being monitored, they walked in a fast clip toward the river.
They crossed West Street at Laight and went into the Hudson River
Greenway. At the river, they slowed to a lovers’ pace. They’d
planned to walk for a while to pick up their tail and then head
back to the apartment. If Dex checked up on them via satellite,
traffic, or closed-circuit television, they would look like lovers
out for a leisurely stroll.

Alex coughed. The running
and laughing had brought up the lingering effects of nearly
drowning. They slowed to look at the river.

“
How was your visit with
your father?” Raz asked.

“
Oh,” Alex sighed. “I
don’t know.”

“
Sad,” Raz
said.

Raz put his hand on her
chin and looked into her eyes. She looked up at him. Their eyes
held, and she gave him a little nod. He pulled her close in a tight
embrace before they started walking again.

“
Seems like this is the
puzzle that will break me,” Alex said.

“
Break?” Raz chuckled.
“You?”

Alex smiled. Keeping their
pretense of being lovers, she moved in closer, and he put his arm
around her.

“
I realized for the first
time that my parents are getting older,” Alex said.

“
Aren’t we all?” Raz
asked.

“
Yeah, it sounds dumb,”
Alex said. “My dad always seemed . . . like Zeus,
bigger than life. And Mom . . . She’s starting to
look like a grandmother.”

“
A super-hot, heiress
grandmother,” Raz laughed.

Alex smiled.

“
Did you
see . . .” Raz stopped to look at her.

Alex stepped into his
arms. He kissed her neck, and she kissed his face. They held each
other for a moment.

“
Her sweater cost more
than my first car,” Raz said.

“
And her shoes?” Alex
smiled.

He gave her a peck on the
lips, and she laughed. He held her tight.

“
Sami’s taught me never to
speak of shoes in anything but reverential tones,” Raz
said.

Alex gave an exaggerated
laugh. They separated and continued walking.

“
You saw them?” Alex said
as she turned to look at him.

“
Ten feet back,” Raz
said.

“
You were right,” Alex
said.

“
That Dex would get the
uni’s to follow us?” Raz asked.

“
I guess I was hoping he’d
want to speak privately,” Alex said.

“
Define ‘privately.’” Raz
stopped walking and turned to her.

She threw her arms around
his shoulders. He spun her around.

“
We’d better not miss the
wedding,” Alex said.

Raz laughed. He set her
down, and they kept walking.

“
I’m
worried . . .” Alex said in low tones.

“
About?” he
asked.

“
I’ll never solve this,”
Alex said. “Everyone I love will die all
because . . . I . . .
can’t.”

Raz turned her to him. She
stopped walking to look at him.

“
They’re coming,” she said
of the two uniformed police officers moving in their
direction.

“
We’ll do this like we do
everything,” Raz said. “Together.”

“
Together,” Alex
said.

The New York City Police
were on them. With their weapons drawn, they ordered Raz and Alex
onto the ground. They dropped to their knees and put their hands
over their heads. Two police cruisers came from opposite directions
down the river walkway toward them. A uniformed officer reached
into Raz’s blazer and took his handgun from his side holster.
Another officer knelt down behind them.

“
Sorry, Fey,” the young
man said in low tones, as he handcuffed her hands behind her.
“Orders.”

He moved over to handcuff
Raz.

“
They think you’re
impersonating an officer we lost,” the young man said. “I told
them . . .”

Out of the corner of her
eye, Alex looked at the young man, who was handcuffing Raz. Two
years ago, the Fey Team had found him hanging out in the belly of a
Somalian pirate ship.

“
How is Che’lisa?” Raz
asked.

“
Well, sir,” the
ex-Navy-SEAL-turned-police-officer said. “She’s mean as a
bear.”

“
Pregnant?” Alex
asked.

The young man
laughed.

“
Imagine that,” Raz said.
“I’m sorry. I don’t remember your name.”

“
They call me ‘Frogman,’”
the young man grinned.

“
Petty Officer Shepard,”
Alex said.

“
Shep, sir,” the young man
said. He put a hand on each of their shoulders. Into the radio on
his shoulder, he said, “They are secure.”

A patrol car drove up onto
the sidewalk. They were pulled to their feet. Raz was pushed into
the back of a patrol car first and Alex after him. Shep shut her
door.

“
Dex,” Raz nodded to his
old partner, who was sitting in the back seat.

“
Who are you?” Dex
asked.

“
Who do you think I am?”
Raz asked.

“
We ran you through facial
recognition, but it says you’re classified,” Dex said.

“
And?” Raz
asked.

“
I don’t give a shit if
you’re FBI, NSA, or whatever the fuck else,” Dex yelled.

Alex removed the handcuffs
from her hands. She moved her left foot over to Raz’s foot. He
shifted to look at Dex to give her access to his hands.

“
Who the fuck do you think
you are?” Dex asked. “Josh was my friend, my
best
friend, and
you . . .”

Alex loosened Raz’s hands
so he could easily free them when he was ready.

“
Alex,” Colin’s voice came
in her ear.

“
Go ahead,” Alex
said.

Shep went around the car
and got into the driver’s seat.

“
Who is she talking to?”
the detective asked.

“
To your right,” Colin
said.

Alex looked out the window
of the squad car to see the front end of a SUV fly over the barrier
to West Street and continue in their direction.

“
I see it,” Alex replied.
She leaned forward and said, “Petty Officer, I need my window
down.”

Shep turned to look at
her.

“
NOW!” Alex
yelled.

Chapter
Ten

“
Shit!” Raz
said.

“
You’re on Dex,” Alex
ordered Raz.

“
Done,” Raz
said.

“
Petty Officer!
Window!”

Her window started a slow
journey down. Alex pulled her Glock 9mm from her sacrum holster.
She fired through the window’s small open space. Unaware of the
SUV, the uniformed police officers reacted by pulling their weapons
on the cruiser. Her first shot made a dent in the SUV’s
windshield.

“
Bulletproof,” Alex said.
“Shit.”

She fired in a tight
cluster to break the bulletproof glass over the driver’s
face.

“
I can’t stop it,” Alex
yelled. “Colin?”

“
Nothing will get there in
time,” Colin said.

The police officers around
them began to fire on the SUV. One of Alex’s bullets got through
the bulletproof glass. Shards of glass hit the driver in the face.
The SUV began to skid.

“
Petty Officer!” Alex
yelled. “Go! Go! Go!”

Uniformed police officers
stood around the cruiser. The young police officer hesitated. He
would have to drive over his fellow officers to move the vehicle
forward. That second of hesitation was long enough for the SUV to
clip the back of the police cruiser.

Raz grabbed Alex and Dex
and pulled them to the floor of the cruiser’s back seat with him.
The vehicle spun in tight circles until it hit the steel tension
fence between the walkway and the river. For a split second, the
police cruiser hung on the fence.

“
We’re going in!” Shep
yelled.

With the SUV as cover, a
man crouched next to the vehicle and fired a large
weapon.

“
That’s a grenade
launcher,” Jesse said as his apparition appeared before
her.

The grenade landed in the
open trunk of the car with enough force to destroy the cruiser’s
delicate balance. The vehicle slipped toward the river.

“
The gas tank is going to
blow,” Jesse said.

Alex flipped around so
that her back was on the seat. Behind Dex and Raz’s backs, she
kicked out Dex’s window. She reached through the window and grabbed
the handle. The back door flipped open. The river was coming toward
them.

“
Jump!” Raz yelled to
Dex.

Hidden by the falling
cruiser, they jumped from the back seat of the vehicle and hit the
water hard. They were dazed by the frigid water. Shep jumped into
the river a moment later. Above them, the people in the SUV were
keeping the NYPD occupied in a firefight.

“
What was that?” Raz
yelled.

“
Grenade!” Alex
yelled.

“
Get under!” Shep
yelled.

Alex dove into the deep
water. She fought the current to get as deep as possible. Raz
grabbed Dex and followed her. The police cruiser exploded a foot
above their heads. As pieces of the police cruiser pulsed through
the water, they were pushed out into the Hudson’s
current.

Underwater without air
again, Alex looked for her cricket. She saw Jesse instead. He gave
her a smug look.

“
What?” Alex
asked.

“
You’ll see,” Jesse
said.

She started to move toward
the surface.

“
Wait,” Jesse
commanded.

He moved to where Raz and
Dex were treading water. He lit an energy ball so Alex could see
them and the ex-Navy SEAL. Alex motioned for them to stay
underwater.

“
Okay,” Jesse said. “Now.
Kick, kick, kick!”

Alex’s legs sliced through
the water. She’d just reached the surface when she felt a hand grab
her hand. Jesse gave her a nod, and she allowed herself to be
pulled into a black inflatable raft.

“
Jesus Christ,” Alex heard
a familiar voice scream. “Talk about pollution! Look at the fish in
this river!”

“
Trece,” Alex said. Her
voice couldn’t be heard over the gunfire on the bank of the
river.

“
Our new
boss
figured that while
you’re busy, we should attend this God-awful training, on the water
no less,” Trece said. She smiled to herself. She had no trouble
hearing Trece. “Then, wham! There’s some action. I saw the
crash . . .”