Lean on Me (20 page)

“
Excuse me,” Alex said to
Sergeant Beetle.

“
Yep, that’s a drone,”
Jesse said. “Or something like it. Very, very small. Nano-sized.
Made out of plastic or something like plastic. Not
metal.”

He pointed his finger to what looked like
dust moving on its own volition.

“
Wasn’t that asshole Hector
working on this type of aeronautics?” Jesse asked. “Ask Zack. He
was rambling about nano-drones at that party for Troy’s
father.”

Alex raised her eyebrows. She watched the
drone move for a moment before deciding what to do.

“
I think it’s armed,” Jesse
said. “I can’t tell for sure. It’s tiny.”

“
Sergeant Beetle,” Alex
said. “Can you tell Master Sergeant Bailey to stand down? We’ve got
this.”

“
Yes sir,” Sergeant Beetle
said.

“
On my orders?” Alex
asked.

“
Yes sir,” Sergeant Beetle
said.

“
Raz? We have a
bee.”

“
A bee?” Raz
asked.

Alex nodded. Unsure of what she meant, he
went to the jumble that had fallen from the cabinets for his usual
bee removal supplies. He picked up a plastic cup and a piece of
paper. He followed Alex to the corner where the dog had snapped and
lunged.

“
Sergeant Beetle?” Alex
asked.

Sergeant Beetle ordered Master Sergeant
Bailey to stand down. Alex pointed to a speck of dust. Raz caught
the speck in the cup and covered the cup with the paper. The spec
struck the paper a few times.

“
That’s no bee,” Raz said.
“It’s hitting at my hand!”

Joseph put a table onto its legs and Raz set
the cup paper side down, on the table. The cup jumped a few times.
Alex leaned down to watch the spec of a drone.

“
What the hell is that?”
Joseph asked.

“
You mean it was
something?” Sergeant Beetle asked.

“
We think it’s a
nano-drone,” Alex said.

“
Something like that,”
Colin crouched down so his eyes were at the level of the
drone.

“
Survived the EMP burst?”
Vince asked.

“
We’ve read about them,”
Raz said.

“
We’ve seen a few,” Alex
said. “Never seen them in this size.”

“
Dragonfly, Maple Seed,
Hummingbird…,” Raz furrowed his eyebrows. “Nothing like
this.”

“
Master Sergeant Bailey
deserves a medal,” Alex said. “Can you do me a favor,
Sergeant?”

“
Yes sir,” Sergeant Beetle
seemed to grow an inch taller.

“
We have this room to take
care of, and brass is going to be a pain in the ass in
about…?”

Alex looked up to catch Matthew’s eyes. He
held up five fingers.

“
Five minutes. We have to
get out of here,” Alex said. “Do you see the guy standing over
there looking through the mess for matches?”

“
He introduced himself as
Ben, sir,” Sergeant Beetle said.

“
Can you and the Master
Sergeant tell him your story?” Alex said. “You can trust him. He’s
going to want to hear the whole story – every detail, every exact
location, everything. He won’t take notes, but you can be sure he’s
got it all.”

“
Yes sir,” Sergeant Beetle
said. “You don’t need our help with the room?”

“
We may,” Matthew said.
“But you won’t be far.”

“
Yes sir.”

“
Oh and Sergeant?” Alex
held out another box of the North Carolina cigarettes. Spying a
black Sharpie pen in the mess, she picked it up and wrote “Hector
Aeronautics” on the side. Sergeant Beetle took the cigarettes. He
and Master Sergeant Bailey trotted over to Ben. Ben looked up when
he saw the box of cigarettes. Taking the cigarettes from the
Sergeant, Ben read what she’d written and glanced at her. When his
attention turned back to Sergeant Beetle, all thoughts of
cigarettes evaporated. The Sergeant had his full
attention.

Alex went to the front of the room.

“
Listen up!” Alex yelled.
Trece whistled, and the rest of the team yelled to get the
programmers’ attention. When they were quiet and looking at Alex,
she continued, “Thank you. I know that you are confused. We would
like to tell you what we know before we are interrupted.

“
We are an elite US
military multi-unit team. We came today because we were informed
that the JFCOM servers had been wiped and were now missing data and
programs. Knowing the players, we were concerned about the outcome
of this loss.”

Alex pointed to Joseph and Matthew. They
came to the front of the room.

“
We found an extensive
virus-like program that was designed to take down the entire US
Intelligence network, as well as the worldwide Intelligence
network. If allowed to process, this program would have corrupted
not only the data but also the computer system hardware. Further,
this program had sleeper components that would have knocked out any
archive or archiving program,” Matthew said. “The virus was nested
within the operating systems of four desktop computers. We believed
that by isolating the program and destroying the computers, we
would have been able to keep the program from
launching.”

“
The destruction of the
computers, however, launched the program,” Joseph said. “We closed
every network gateway to every organization in the world. Further,
we launched an EMP grenade in the hopes of destroying the virus.
The computers, your stations, laptops and desktop computers have
been destroyed by the blast. A joint team of experts from Russia
and the US will arrive within twenty minutes to review your servers
as well as the program. The rest will be here by the end of the
day. We expect your full cooperation.”

“
You will be interviewed
individually by our team and MPs,” Alex said. “It’s of the utmost
importance that you know two things.”

“
First: you have done
nothing wrong,” Joseph said. “The genesis of this disaster happened
almost twenty years ago. Even if you worked on parts of the
program, you are not responsible for the whole.”

“
And second: if you aren’t
completely forthright, we will eventually know,” Matthew said. “You
will be brought up on charges of treason.”

“
This situation is a
big-assed deal,” Alex said. “Bigger than anything you’ve read about
in a novel, seen in a movie, or even dreamed about. Bigger than
Robert Ludlum or Rod Serling ever came up with. If you get in the
way…”

“
You will be run over,”
Joseph said.

“
We’re not telling you so
we can kill you,” Matthew said “We’re telling you because we will
need your help to determine what happened and what to do
next.”

“
We are also aware that at
least twelve elite military teams have been misplaced during this
exercise,” Alex said. “We will find them and bring them home. But
we may not be able to do it without your help.”

“
You can be part of the
solution here,” Joseph said. “This is a chance to make a name for
yourself and really
do
something to help your country.”

“
Or, you can try to stand
in our way,” Alex made a show of shrugging. “You can guess how
that’s going to end.”

“
Who
are
you guys?” a young man from the
middle of the room yelled.

“
We’re the Fey Team,” Trece
said.

There was a crackle from where Vince was
setting up Alex’s laptop. Alex looked over and Vince nodded. Alex’s
laptop was theoretically shielded from an EMP blast but they had
never tested it.

“
Sir?” Sergeant Dusty’s
face appeared on the inter-agency link.

“
Yes Sergeant,” Alex
said.

“
Brass on their way,”
Sergeant Dusty’s voice was heard, but the picture on the screen
went out and his words were garbled. Vince jiggled a few wires to
get the screen back on and hit the computer on the side. Sergeant
Dusty’s face appeared again.

“
We missed that Sergeant,”
Matthew said.

“
Jakker’s waiting for his
Fey at the pick up,” Sergeant Dusty said. “X and his team are in
the air. Out.”

They heard footsteps in the hallway. Ben
looked up at Alex and gave her a nod. Raz took her arm. They ran
through the room to a door near the front. Raz pressed the door
open and peered into the hallway. The five MPs who had confronted
them when Alex and Zack had come to free Ben were waiting for
them.

“
We’ve been briefed,” the
lead MP said. “This way.”

They followed him through the maze of
buildings to an exterior door. The MP team leader used his card key
to open the door. Hovering overhead, Zack had already lowered two
wires and two Special Forces Sergeants to help them into the
helicopter. They were halfway across the parking lot when one of
the MPs yelled. Alex turned back and he ran out to her.

“
Find my brother,” he said.
He pushed a photograph of a young man holding a baby into her hand.
“It’s my fault he went. I was so gung ho. I never
thought…”

“
We’ll find him,” Alex
said.

“
Yes sir,” he
saluted.

She returned his salute and ran to the wire.
The Green Berets clipped into the lines. Alex and Raz grabbed onto
the men and they went up to the helicopter. Two Marines waited to
help them into the helicopter. Raz sat down next to Alex. The
Marines gave Alex and Raz water bottles and helped them secure
themselves in their seats. Alex had just put her headphones on when
Zack asked:

“
Where to my
Fey?”

“
Where’s the meet?” Alex
asked.

“
Thurmont, sir,” Cliff
said.

“
Do I have something else
to wear, or am I going to meet the big boys in my hooker gear?”
Alex asked.

“
Hooker,” Zack said. “The
Joint Chiefs will love the wig.”

The young woman Marine sitting next to her
held up her backpack. Alex smiled her thanks to the Marine and
began changing out of her outfit.

“
Some things are best left
to the imagination,” Raz stood to help Alex change.

“
Let’s go see what they
have to say at Camp David,” Alex said.

“
As you wish, my Fey,” Zack
said.

FFF

Monday evening

October 26 – 6:42 p.m. EDT

Sheridan Circle Mansion, Washington DC

“
You look amazing,” Matthew
said.

Alex turned back and forth to show off her
strapless black ball gown that fell just below her knee. The silk
and lace dress had a red band and matching bow at her waist.
Five-inch black Christian Louboutin stilettos waited for her
feet.

“
Did you see this?” Alex
lifted the edge of her dress.

The tulle of her black dress was slightly
red to match the underside of her shoes.

“
Very pretty,” her little
sister Erin said. “Don’t move.”

Standing behind her, Erin hooked an antique
diamond necklace.

“
Don’t lose this,” Erin
said. She finished the clasp. “Mom doesn’t know
you
are borrowing it. She’ll
kill
me
if she
finds out.”

“
How would she find out?”
Alex asked.

Erin wiped a mascara smudge from under her
left eye.

“
You’re sure she won’t be
there?” Erin asked.

“
It’s a pretty exclusive
event,” Alex gave Erin a soft smile. “She doesn’t fit the
requirements.”

“
Trece’s going with you?”
Matthew asked.

“
I don’t think he can come
in, but he can get us as far as the event and back,” Alex
nodded.

“
You’ll be careful?”
Matthew gave Alex her handbag and a hug.

“
We’ve been every year,”
Alex said. “We’ll be fine.”

“
Wow,” They heard Leena say
from the second floor. “You make me wish I liked men.”

Alex looked up to see Raz coming down the
stairs wearing a black tux. His wide shoulders and narrow hips were
accented by the drape of the fabric. He wore a red bow tie and
cummerbund to match the red in her dress. She smiled at him.

“
You’re like a movie!”
Troy’s son Hermes said as they came out of the living
area.

“
Aren’t they pretty?” Troy
asked.

“
Very pretty!” Hector James
said.

“
Good Lord,” Margaret said.
“What did you do with my Trece?”

They looked up to see a blushing Trece
trotting down the stairs wearing a tux.

“
Team?” Joseph
called.

The team broke out into applause. Joseph
gave Alex her 9mm Glock and gave handguns to Trece and Raz. While
they checked their weapons, Joseph gave them the latest update on
what Alex was calling The Eniac Fiasco.

“
The computer teams are in
place,” Joseph said. “They plan to work through the night. As you
know, the CIA came up with a team of their own experts. They are
not happy with your decision to keep them on the
sidelines.”

“
There isn’t anything they
can do about it,” Alex said. “They should have caught it; they
didn’t.”