Lean on Me (34 page)

“
I heard your scowl,” he
said and went upstairs.

Alex turned to her computers. She peered at
the scrolling stream of conversation between the spies next door.
She shook her head. Digging under her desk, she pulled out her
backpack and the Magic 8 Ball. She shook the ball and turned it
over.

Nothing.

The black pigment had grown and now covered
more area on the plastic window. She tried one more time and then
tossed the ball into her backpack. She would have to trust herself
and step into the fog. With a sigh, she closed up her office and
went to wake Max.

FFF

Two and a half hours later

Tuesday morning

November 3 – 6:00 a.m. MST

Buckley Air Force Base, Aurora, CO

“
Attention!” Sergeant Dusty
called when Alex entered the room.

Alex came to the front of the room where
Joseph and Matthew waited for her.

“
At ease,” Alex
said.

She nodded to Sergeant Dusty and Royce. They
began passing out manila envelopes with the team members; names on
them.

“
Please take the packet
with your name on it,” Alex said. “Don’t open them just
yet.”

Trece held his envelope in his hand as if to
weigh it.

“
Reassignment,” Trece said
in his exaggerated weeping voice. The team groaned at him. Margaret
threw a wad of paper in his direction. It landed near MJ. He picked
up the wad of paper and beaned Trece with it. Trece was about to
throw it back when Alex cleared her throat.

“
Does everyone have one?”
Alex asked.

She looked around the room and then at
Sergeant Dusty. He nodded.

“
You are being returned to
your primary base assignments,” Matthew said. “White Boy, you’re
assigned to guard Leena. Trece, you’re assigned to the Lieutenant
Colonel.”

Stunned silence fell over the room. Alex
looked from one face marked with outrage to another brow marked
with betrayal.

“
We are not releasing you
from your contracts,” Alex said. “We are asking you to represent
the Fey team to the men and women on your bases.”

“
Oh thank God,” Trece said.
The team laughed with relief.

“
Friendships are the most
unpredictable human force in the world,” Alex said. “We usually
depend on our systems and usually our systems are reliable. They
are not now. We need to lean on our friends now.”

“
What friends?” Trece said.
“You?”

Still a little giddy, the team laughed. Alex
smiled.

“
Anyone can track the teams
you were on and the people you served with, but no one can track
who you know,” Matthew said. “We are asking you to mine this
resource.”

“
We need to find the ships,
planes, and people who took these teams to their locations,” Alex
said. “We were informed that our usual direct method of contact,
the Map Phone, has been corrupted. We’ve set up secure connections
and secure servers to handle the phone calls as well as all of our
computer connections.”

“
You should not notice the
technology shift,” Raz said. “From this point forward, we are
disconnected from the global intelligence network.
Dusty?”

“
In your packets, you will
find your new logins and passwords,” Sergeant Dusty said. “Some of
us are not great at fulfilling our requirement to change passwords
every month. After your initial login, a new password will be
automatically generated for you. You’ll receive a text to your
disposable phone with the password. It should look like four random
words with a couple numbers. You will receive one text with a new
password every day. If you lose your password for the day, you will
not be able to login until the next day.”

“
You will receive a new
disposable phone with a new phone number once a week,” Joseph said.
“You will find your new phone in your packet. Like your other
phones, these phones have been modified to limit
detection.”

“
No GPS,” Raz
said.

“
Right, no GPS,” Joseph
said.

“
Inside your packets, you
will find your travel plans as well as one hundred business cards
with the new Fey Team phone number on it,” Sergeant Dusty said.
“This number is a message-only phone. When someone calls, they will
get another phone number to call. These numbers will change with
every phone call.”

“
You will be asked how we
are able to do this,” Joseph said. “Sir?”

“
It’s not what you know,
it’s who you know,” Alex said.

“
That is a direct quote,”
Matthew said. “And this project is about who you know. Prior to
shipping out, we’d like you to begin making phone calls to every
military person you consider a friend or have worked with on a
team. Do not hesitate to give the number to command. However, you
must inform them that all other lines of communication have been
corrupted. They will remain corrupted until further
notice.”

“
We’re hoping to pass this
number from person to person until we find someone who knows
something,” Alex said. “This seems like the shortest route to find
out where our hostages are located.”

“
Someone had to fly these
teams to their secret missions,” Joseph said. “Someone had to ferry
them near their location. Someone had to drop them off. Someone had
to plan for their food, clothing, and artillery. In this military,
a soldier cannot take a dump without it being noted. We don’t have
those notations.”

“
We want to find the
note-takers,” Alex said. “You’ll find your security clearance has
been bumped up for this assignment. With the badges in your
packets, you have the right to ask anyone anything at any
time.”

“
Homeland Security agents
are interviewing the families of the missing US soldiers. France is
handling the interviews for the missing foreign soldiers,” Raz
said. “These are quiet interviews. I have personally vetted the
agents – ours and the French.”

“
Agent Rasmussen and
Captain Olivas will remain in Denver,” Joseph said. “The rest of
the team is on the move. You can plan to be in and out of Denver
this week and possibly next, depending on what we are able to
gather. We will keep in touch via our disposable
phones.”

“
Captain Olivas is working
off-base on a special assignment,” Alex said.

“
Hector Jasper stashed his
laptop with his mother,” Joseph said. “She gave it to us as a
gesture of good faith. Captain Olivas is working to gain access to
the encrypted information on the laptop’s hard drive. He will be
working closely with Max and Margaret to decipher the obtained
information. He will also be available to you if you need him. His
number and Agent Rasmussen’s are programmed into your
phones.”

“
Agent Rasmussen will be
coordinating this effort and collecting any information you
obtain,” Alex said. “He will be your point of contact for command.
Let him know what you learn as soon as you learn it. He will
coordinate your response. He will be in contact with you every
day.”

“
I want to know what you
hear,” Raz said. “I want to know what you smell, taste, think and
touch. Any detail can help the Fey figure this thing out. The Fey
needs you and your friends to be her eyes and ears on the ground.
You may repeat that statement.”

“
Any questions?” Alex
asked. When no one responded, she said, “You may open your packets
now. Captain Hutchins? Captain Ramirez? You are with me. We’re
going to Norfolk to speak to a Commander. I’m going to receive my
first treatment while we’re there. We should return to base this
evening. We expect you to do the same. We will convene when
everyone returns.”

Alex waited for the team to open their
packets and review their assignments. When there weren’t questions,
she raised her hand for Vince and Trece. They followed her out of
the meeting room.

“
You think this is going to
work?” Trece asked in a loud stage whisper.

“
It’s better than nothing,”
Alex said.

FFFFFF

An hour later

Tuesday morning

November 3 – 7:11 a.m. MST

Denver, CO

“
There’s someone in the
yard,” Cian said. With his mouth full, he sounded more like a
pirate than Irish. Hector James giggled. The boy’s face was covered
in chocolate.

“
And?” Wet with sweat from
his run, John raised his eyebrows at Cian.

“
Well, Johnny, we’re just
poor immigrants,” Eoin said.

John looked at his brother’s best friend and
back at Cian.

“
And?”

“
We waited for you and
Troy’s return from your fitness program,” Eoin said.

“
Didn’t want to get into
any nasty trouble,” Cian said.

“
We’re watching the wee
ones,” Eoin said.

John looked at Hermes and he giggled. His
goatee of chocolate syrup rivaled his brother’s. He had a glob of
whipped cream on his nose.

“
Let me get this straight,”
John said. “Cian sees someone standing in our backyard.”

“
I did,” Cian
said.

“
And your natural response
is to call your mate from the Nort’?”

“
Don’t be so separatist,
Johnny,” Eoin said. “It’s only a small island. We’re
Irish
.”

John groaned at the ever present “United
Ireland” conversation.

“
Who else am I going to
call, really?” Cian asked.

“
The Police?” John
asked.

“
Don’t be crazy,” Eoin
said.

“
Crazy? Yes, well,” John
said. “You rushed over to peer at the person in our backyard.
That’s sane?”

“
Not just peer!” Hector
James giggled. “He made our pips like an ice cream
sundae.”

“
There’s always a party
when I’m around.” Eoin’s big smile, bright-red hair, and mismatched
clothing made him look like a clown.

“
Is he dangerous?” Troy
came out of the downstairs bathroom drying his hands. He threw a
clean towel to John. John began drying off.

“
How should we know?” Cian
said. “We’re deportable.”

“
What’s he doing in the
backyard?” Eoin asked. “That’s my question. Why didn’t he ring the
bell?”

“
Maybe it’s early and he
didn’t want to wake everyone?” John asked. “He didn’t realize we
had an early Irish Volunteer warning system.”

Troy’s eyes followed the path that John’s
had just moments before. He glanced at Cian’s defiant look and
Eoin’s irate glare. His eyes fell on his sons.

“
Chocolate syrup?” Troy
asked.

“
Chocolate syrup happens to
be on their approved list,” Cian said. “We checked.”

“
Whip cream too,” Eoin
said. “Well, cream. But how different can it be when it comes in
that little can?”

Giggling, Hector James squirted more whipped
cream onto his oatmeal.

“
Saved us the trouble of
whipping it ourselves,” Cian said.

“
We had cherries!” Hermes
bounced in his chair.

“
Only one,” Cian
said.

“
We’re not gluttonous
proddies,” Hector James repeated what he’d clearly heard from Eoin.
Hector James giggled.

“
Gluttonous
proddies
?” John raised
his eyebrows at Eoin.

“
We are not.” Defensive,
Eoin crossed his arms across his chest.

Troy opened his mouth to say, “If your
mother was here, she’d freak out.” Their mother wasn’t there and
for the first time in their lives, his sons had formed friendships
with these two crazy Irishmen. He closed his mouth. The boys beamed
chocolate smiles at him.

“
Shall we take a peek at
the scary man in the backyard?” Troy asked John.

“
Let’s,” John
said.

They went to the antique French doors that
led from the dining room to the backyard.

“
Ready?” John asked Troy
with as much theatrics as he could muster.

“
Ready,” Troy
said.

They pulled the sheer curtain back from the
door and looked at the backyard. A man wearing denim jeans and a
light-weight jacket stood just to the side of Alex and Max’s
beehives. He appeared to be watching the bees.

“
That’s no scary man,” John
said. “That’s…”

Before he could get the words out, they
heard feet pounding down the steps to the first floor. They saw a
flash of a dark-haired young man wearing a tank top and boxer
shorts. Fionn ran through the kitchen and out the back door.

“
DA!” Fionn yelled as he
ran down the flagstone garden path. Hearing Fionn, the man turned,
smiled, and held his arms open. Fionn ran into his father’s
arms.

“
That’s Tom Drayson,” John
beamed at Troy.

With a nod to the men and children, John
went out the French door to greet his father.

F

CHAPTER TWENTY

Tuesday night

November 3 – 9:11 p.m. PST (12:11 a.m.
EST)

USS
Ronald Reagan
, San Diego,
CA

“
What are you doing now?”
Leena asked.