In the Grey (27 page)

“
Is it just me, or is it
freezing in here?” Alex asked.

“
Freezing,” Colin
said.

“
Kid?” Alex asked. “How
‘bout some heat?”

“
Sorry,” Cliff said. “I
forgot.”

Cliff turned on the heat
and the music. The playlist began with “Marching on” by One
Republic. Alex grabbed blankets from behind her seat and passed
them around.

“
We have another hour to
the
Vinson
,”
Cliff said.

“
Thank you,” Alex said. To
her team in the compartment, “What did you get?”

“
Video,” Matthew said.
“Lots of video. I’m uploading it to the server. Troy hacked the
mainframe.”

“
Raz got me started,” Troy
said. “I did the location work.”

He held up a USB flash
drive.

“
I got most of it,” Troy
said.

“
Most of what?” Alex
asked.

“
Plans for nuclear
rockets,” Raz said.

“
Wow,” Alex
said.

“
Royce took some
interesting photos both from the chopper and on the ground,”
Matthew said. “We’ll have to go through them when we get
back.”

“
Interesting how?” Alex
asked.

“
It looks like the Korean
People’s Army have been there,” Royce said. “I saw the tire tracks
in the mud from the chopper. I took an ATV to the site to be sure.
Their heavy artillery was here at this mine a few days ago with
maybe fifty men.”

“
Huh,” Alex
said.

“
I also found this,” Royce
held up a filthy baseball cap with the name of Zutterberg’s
military contracting company. “I had to dig it out from a tire
track. You think it was planted or do you think they did
this?”

Royce gestured to
Steve.

“
No idea,” Alex said.
“Anything else?”

“
I had an interesting
conversation with Ji’s medic,” Colin said. “Seems like they weren’t
all that surprised by this action. I’m not sure, but I got the
impression the timeline was pushed by China.”

“
By Ji?” Alex
asked.

“
No,” Colin said. “Someone
other than their team.”

“
So China pushed the North
Koreans into acting exactly at the time the secretary of state was
taken,” Alex said.

“
Just an impression,”
Colin said.

“
Good work,” Alex said.
“Thank you. Rest now. We’ll have meetings in Washington on our way
home, and a two-headed debrief. We have too much cleanup to do to
take leave. But we’ll have the weekend.”

“
Paris?” Raz
asked.

“
Next week,” Alex said to
him. “We’ve been invited to a few meetings.”

Raz groaned.

“
We’ll take leave this
weekend,” Alex said to the team. “Agent Rasmussen and I are due at
meetings early next week in Paris. You’re welcome to join us, but
it won’t change your assignment. We’re still in the middle of this
thing.”

“
Yes, sir,” the men
said.

She turned to Raz and
Max.

“
Anything I need to know
before I report?” Alex asked.

Max shook his head. Raz
set his laptop on her lap. He pointed to the Chinese Intelligence
file on Steve Pershing’s capture. She skimmed through the
report.

“
Can you get me a secure
line to the Admiral?” Alex asked Cliff.

“
Yes, sir,” Cliff
said.

“
Thank you,” Alex
said.

She spent the next half
hour updating the Admiral on the status of both operations. He was
nice, as usual, and complimentary, as usual, but she sensed an
unease behind his questions.

“
Any ideas
about . . . ,” he said.

“
I wish I knew, sir,” Alex
cut him off. “Something is in play. I think we’ve mitigated the
worst of the losses. The rest, I’m sorry to say, has to play
out.”

“
My office,” he said.
“First thing. When you’re stateside.”

“
Yes, sir,” Alex said and
ended the call.

When she looked up, the
passenger compartment was lit with the blue light that came from
love, satellite Internet, and video conferencing. Matthew was
having a serious talk with Erin. Troy goofed with his boys. Royce
was helping his son with his homework. Colin was discussing why it
was better to be a knight than a prince with his son, Paddie. Raz
was IMing with Samantha. Max was talking to Wyatt.

She felt an unfamiliar
pang of loneliness. Her father had always said that leadership was
lonely. She’d just have to get used to it.

Shaking her head at
herself, she was about to dive into the SSG video report on the
rescue of the secretary of state when Max put his hand in hers. She
turned to look at him. He leaned his head forward. She pressed her
forehead against his. With her head against his, she knew exactly
who she was.

“
John said hi,” Max said.
“He was on his way to the hospital. Awful pile up on
I-25.”

Alex nodded. He threaded
under her elbow and leaned his head on her shoulder. Max fell
asleep. Raz put his arm around her. She looked at him.

He opened his mouth to say
something, paused for a moment, and then simply smiled.

“
How was today?” Raz
asked.

“
I’m beginning to wonder
if I’m too old for this crap,” Alex said.

Raz laughed. Alex watched
him laugh for a moment, before smiling. He kissed her
cheek.

“
We have a long night
ahead of us,” Raz said. “Will you sleep?”

“
I will if you will,” Alex
said.

He pulled a blanket up to
her neck and tucked it around her. She smiled.

“
I can’t thank
you . . . ,” she started.

“
It’s just a blanket,” he
said.

“
Another blessing,” she
said.

He smiled. She leaned her
head against him and he rested against her. They fell into a sound
sleep. Cliff woke them before they landed on the USS
Vinson
. They got off the
helicopter to allow a US Navy medical team to assess Steve’s
condition. Wearing her dark, blood soaked clothes, Alex went to a
debriefing while the rest of the team showered and changed. When
asked if the team would like a more comfortable ride to Japan, Alex
refused.

The Navy medics agreed
with Colin that Steve should not be moved. He would remain on the
Pave Hawk, and so would they. The Fey Team would see Steve Pershing
to the United States Naval Hospital at Yokosuka, Japan. They piled
back into the helicopter and took off over the Sea of
Japan.

F

Wednesday
afternoon

November 10 – 2:27 p.m.
PST

(November 11 – 6:27 a.m.
China Standard Time)

Pelican Bay Prison,
Crescent City, California

Trece woke up with a
start. He sat up on the bottom cement bunk along the back wall of
his eight-by-ten-foot cell. His head brushed the top of the empty
bunk above him. The fluorescent light had flickered and hummed, so
he’d turned it off. The cell door had honeycomb shaped perforations
and was covered with unbreakable transparent plastic on the
outside. Very little fresh air came into the cell. In the dim
light, the stagnant air gave the cell a grave-like
stillness.

He was glad White Boy
wasn’t here with him. Chris Blanco couldn’t handle tight spaces. He
would definitely panic at spending twenty-two and a half hours in
the quiet dark of this tiny cell.

Trece was beginning to
think he might panic too. He looked at the upper bunk. The prison
had never been so full that the SHU had the two prisoners a cell.
Just the possibility of sharing this tiny space made him get up. He
took a drink of water from the sink above his toilet near the front
of the cell. The water was tepid and tasted like rust. He splashed
his face.

He’d already spent his
hour and a half alone in the concrete yard.

He’d already eaten his
breakfast and his bag lunch.

Dinner wasn’t for another
few hours.

His brain felt foggy, like
he was drugged or hung over. Mostly he was bored. He dropped to the
cement floor and did a round of push-ups. He didn’t want to hear
too much crap when he got back. He could just see skin-and-bones MJ
smirking at what a lightweight he’d become. The thought of MJ made
him smile and do another set of push-ups.

Then he heard
it.

A military helicopter flew
overhead. He felt a wave of comfort that helicopters still existed.
Because if helicopters still existed, then the Jakker still
existed. If the Jakker still existed, Alex was out there fighting
for every hostage to come home. He let himself fall face-first onto
the ground.

“
Why is this cast so
damned itchy?” he said out loud. Realizing the prisoners around him
might hear him, he added a silent, “My arm’s not even
broken.”

He rolled onto his back to
see if he could find something useful to reach into the
cast.

Nothing.

He stared at the ceiling
in his gloomy cell, and time slipped away. He was about to get up
when he heard a sound.

It wasn’t quite a tap, but
it wasn’t a thump either. He pressed his ear against the side of
the metal toilet bowl, and listened.

Trece’s face cracked in a
huge smile. He might not have recognized it if his oldest child,
the son of his heart, hadn’t been recruited into the V 13 when
he’d turned thirteen. Trece and White Boy had reached his house to
find Luz standing over the boy with her butcher knife. The boy had
kicked and screamed when they dragged him to Evergreen Cemetery to
introduce him to his fellow V-13 members buried in potter’s
field.

Trece had talked and his
son had tapped. Trece had grown up with that tapping. When he was
his son’s age, he understood it better than English. He knew it
well enough to translate his son’s new rendition of the code. Trece
had wanted to cut the boys fingers off. If White Boy hadn’t been
there, he might have done so.

Just when he’d lost all
hope, a backhoe arrived a few plots away. They watched in silence
as the backhoe dug a long, deep trench. A flunky from the county
coroner’s office placed cardboard box after cardboard box of
people’s remains. Three rows of forty boxes, marked only by a white
stake that said “2003.”

After placing the last
box, the flunky looked up and said, “Gangs.”

The man shook his head and
walked off.

They had watched as the
backhoe driver backfilled the trench in minutes and graded the dirt
over the cardboard boxes. What had been the remnants of human lives
was now an even strip of dirt in the middle of the vast lawn. When
the backhoe drove off, his son gave him a long look. They walked
back to the SUV and went for burgers. He son tried out for football
the next day.

Trece stared at the
ceiling for a while before remembering why he was lying next to the
toilet. He listened closely to the tapping. By the time the tapping
stopped, Trece knew what was going on in the SHU.

He wanted to cheer out
loud. He wanted to do that crazy dance that Dusty did when he was
happy. He wanted to kiss Luz.

He swallowed hard. No one
was there.

He had no idea who was in
on this scheme. The guard who brought his dinner could easily be
the one ferrying the bioweapons out of the SHU.

No. Trece was
alone.

His eyes welled with
tears. His breath caught. His heart filled with desperate
loneliness.

Then, out of nowhere, he
saw Alex’s face, and he knew.

He wouldn’t be alone
forever.

He was just alone for
now.

Alex would never give up
on him. She would never stop trying to get him out of this place.
At least he was safe.

He saw a spark float
around the room and wondered if Jesse was there. He held his fist
out in the way he used to fist bump Jesse. Just the thought that
Jesse was with him made him smile.

He climbed back onto the
bottom bunk and went to sleep.

FFFFFF
Wednesday afternoon

November 10 – 4:38 p.m.
MST (3:38 p.m. PST)

Denver,
Colorado

“
Well, I don’t like it,”
Eoin said in a low voice to Cian.

“
And why is that?” Cian
asked.

They stood an inch apart
in the living room area of Max’s side of the rooming house. Cian’s
right shoulder was in front of Eoin’s left shoulder. With their
mouths next to each other’s ears, they spoke in low
tones.

“
I just told you,” Eoin
said.

“
I know
but . . . ,” Cian gave Eoin an exasperated
look.

“
Where’s Jack?” Eoin
asked. “Tell me that. Where’s my brother? They made a pact never to
sleep even one night apart. ‘Like Paul McCartney and Linda.’
Remember how they used to say that all the time?”