In the Grey

by Christian, Claudia Hall

  He shook his head. Alex got up from her seat and went inside. He turned off the propane heater and followed her in. She gave him a towel. When they were done drying off, he turned on the gas fireplace behind the couch.

  “It’s a dark and stormy night,” he said.

  She smiled.

  “What just happened there?” Raz asked.

  “I don’t know,” Alex said. “I just suddenly felt really cold, like bone cold, like I’d never get warm again.”

  “You used to say that in the hospital,” Raz said. “The first time, after the assault. You’d never get warm again.”

  “Maybe that’s what I remember,” Alex said. “The dream has this kind of memory to it. Anyway, after the battlefield, I went to this sunflower field and the guys were there.”

  Alex felt her face almost crack with a big smile.

  “Mike gave me shit for being late,” Alex smiled at the memory. “Jesse was there . . .”

  “Yes, I know,” Raz said. “Jesse told Max about his part of the dream.”

  “He did?” Alex asked. “What did he say?”

  “He said you were covered in sweat, dirt, and blood. You looked exhausted,” Raz said. “You came down a path to where he was hanging out with the guys. O’Brien asked you to talk, and you left with him. In the end, Jesse walked with you through the sunflowers. The sunflowers were saying ‘lean on me’ or something like that. Is that what you remember?”

  “Mostly,” Alex said.

  “He said it was a visitation, not a dream,” Raz said.

  Alex raised her eyebrows in a quick shrug. She picked up her wine glass and stared at the deep red liquid.

  “What did Charlie say?” Raz asked.

  “We argued over me leaning on people,” Alex said. Her eyes never lifted from their focus on the wine in her glass. “I told him that the people I leaned on died. He told me that he wanted to support me; he and the guys – they wanted me to lean on them, but . . . ?”

  “But?” Raz asked.

  “People die when I lean on them,” Alex said. She glanced at him and looked out to the city.

  “You’re not God, Alex,” Raz said.

  “That’s what Charlie said. But . . .”

  “But?”

  “I feel so . . . ,” Alex pointed to her heart.

  “Sad?”

  “Gaping hole, right there,” Alex pointed to her chest, “where they should be, where they used to be.”

  “What else did Charlie say?”

  “I wrote this down in my journal so I would remember. He said, ‘You think you’re leaning on people. Really, we’re holding you up to the light. We need you. And you need the light. What Eniac doesn’t know is that you find the light by leaning on others.’”

  “I see,” Raz said. “So, it makes sense that you’d isolate yourself from everyone then.”

  “When I lean on people, they die,” Alex said.

  “You’ve leaned on me,” Raz said. “I’m still here.”

  Alex gave him a sad shake of her head. She drank down her wine and got up to go. He stood in front of her.

  “I understand,” he said. “I do.”

  She looked away from him.

  “They’re coming for me,” Alex said. “This time. I can feel it.”

  “That’s what you meant by there’s a kind of momentum to this situation,” Raz said.

  Alex nodded.

  “You’re sure?” Raz asked.

  Alex nodded.

  “That’s what ‘the joke’s on you’ means?” Raz asked.

  Alex nodded.

  “Well . . . ,” Raz sighed. “Want to go dancing?”

  Alex looked up at him.

  “You, me, and Paris are right here, right now,” Raz said. “If this is our last time, then I think we owe it to Paris to live it up. No meetings.”

  “I doubt we can get away with that,” Alex said.

  “Low meetings,” Raz said. “What are your favorite things to do here?”

  “Fishing the Seine,” Alex smiled.

  “At Dominic’s spot, yes,” Raz nodded. “Dancing, that’s in there.”

  “Crepes,” Alex said. “A tour through the Louvre.”

  Raz groaned, and she smiled.

  “I like the way it . . .” Alex started.

  “Smells, yes, I know,” Raz said.

  “The Tuileries, of course,” Alex said.

  “Sit on Charlie’s bench,” Raz said. “Good idea. Dawn at Lac des Minimes.”

  “On the island?” Alex asked.

  “With Brie and Champagne,” Raz said, and she smiled.

  Raz clutched her to him, and she held on tight.

  “Promise me you’ll do everything in your power to stay,” he whispered.

  “I will,” Alex said. “When does the team get here?”

  “How did you know?” Raz asked.

  He chuckled and let her go.

  “Oh, you, Max, Jesse, Matthew, Joseph; you’re upset,” Alex smiled. “It’s just what Joseph would do.”

  “They’re pretty pissed at you,” Raz said. “You can expect at least one angry conversation. We thought, each of us, that it was just us. I thought it was just me, but when we started talking about it and realized it was everyone . . .”

  “Not Max,” Alex said.

  “Yeah, like that counts,” Raz said.

  For a moment, his eyes echoed only desperate sorrow.

  “I’ve never gotten over how you just handed yourself over to Eleazar.”

  “It was the right thing to do,” Alex said.

  “Yes, I know you think that,” Raz said. “It wasn’t the right thing to do. It was stupid and reckless and . . . Can you possibly not know how valuable you are? To me? To everyone? To the world? People tell you that all the time. The freakin’ president of the United States said that just a few days ago.”

  “I’m just me,” Alex said. “No better, no worse than anyone else. Just me.”

  He hugged her.

  “Before this is over, I bet you’ll know what you are,” he said.

  “Sounds like something John’s fairy would say,” Alex said.

  He chuckled and released her.

  “How mad are they?” Alex asked.

  “Furious,” Raz said.

  “Good to know,” Alex said.

  “White Boy’s staying with Trece,” Raz said.

  “I’m glad,” Alex said.

  “You remember that Troy went to Washington,” Raz said. “With the boys. They’re going to see his mom and visit his sister.”

  “I didn’t actually think he’d do it,” Alex said.

  “He’s going to speak to Helen tomorrow,” Raz said. “The rest of the team will be here tomorrow noon.”

  Alex nodded.

  “Dusty stayed on base to serve as backup,” Raz said.

  Alex couldn’t think of anything to say, so she nodded.

  “Tonight is ours,” Raz said. “Crepes and cuddle? Dance until dawn?”

  “Crepes and cuddle,” they said together. “Dance if we feel like it.”

  He gave her a nod and held out his hand. They left to get crepes.

  F

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Tuesday, early morning

  November 16 – 4:36 a.m. CET

  Paris, France

  Alex looked down the street to see if anyone was out. Seeing no one, she stepped in front of the unlabeled door that led to the tunnels. In the reconfiguration of this building, Max had created a secure entrance to the limestone tunnels. Alex went through the procedures to get into the tunnels and looked up at the security camera. She waited a moment for the facial recognition software to unlock the door.

  She glanced down the street one last time and stepped into the hallway. She let the door close and then waited at the next door. Since Max had taken over the management of the limestone vaults, they had become favored as off-site storage for the international intelligence community. There was new security every time she came to the vau
lts.

  She pressed open the door and walked right into a short, slight woman coming down the hall. The woman landed on her rear on the floor.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Alex said.

  Alex leaned down to help her up when the woman held up a Ruger 380 handgun. A small security weapon, the hard trigger pull of this particular Ruger made it almost impossible to hit anything accurately. The weapon’s recoil was so violent that it was apt to bounce out of small hands. Plus, the woman hadn’t switched off the safety. Although it was unlikely the woman would shoot her, Alex raised her hands.

  “I knew you couldn’t resist coming here on your own,” the woman said.

  Something about the woman seemed familiar. Alex searched her face. The woman seemed to almost blossom under her scrutiny.

  “You don’t recognize me,” the woman said.

  Alex shook her head.

  “I used Paul’s life insurance money well, didn’t I?” the woman’s tone was cruel.

  “Cooper?”

  Alex was so surprised that she dropped her hands. The woman cleared her throat and pointed the weapon. Alex put her hands up.

  “Nice to see you again,” Cooper said.

  “Wow, you look . . . ,” Alex looked over the woman’s wide eyes, pert nose, and inflated chest, pert rear, and tried to come up with something to say, “ . . . different.”

  Cooper gave her a hard smile.

  “What are you doing here?” Alex asked.

  “I came for you,” Cooper said.

  “Ok,” Alex said. “But you know you could have just called me.”

  Cooper laughed, and Alex remembered something she’d forgotten. Paul had said one of the reasons Cooper was such a psycho was that she was a part of military experiments as a child. Cooper’s father had been a test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base. She must have been one of the mind control girls. Alex flipped through the list of girls they hadn’t been able to find until she came up with Mary Sue Cooper from Bakersfield, California.

  “Mary Sue Cooper?” Alex asked.

  “That’s me,” Cooper said.

  “What can I do for you, Mary Sue?” Alex asked.

  “Take me to the vault,” Cooper demanded.

  “What vault?” Alex asked. “Have you fired that gun before?”

  “You’re stalling,” Cooper’s voice ratcheted up and octave. “Take me to the vault!”

  Alex snapped her fingers once and then again. Cooper blinked. Like shutters in the mind, Cooper’s personality shifted.

  “I killed Paul! I killed him!” a rage-filled voice came from the woman’s mouth. “There was no fucking way I was going to let him divorce me. Not me! That cow parades around town with his bastard children, but I know the truth.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “I killed them all,” Cooper said.

  Alex moved like a coiled spring. She knocked the handgun out of Cooper’s hand and backhanded the woman. Like a cartoon villain, Cooper gave a maniacal laugh. Grabbing Cooper by the shoulders, Alex pounded the woman into the wall and held her off the floor.

  Alex put her face right in front of Cooper’s. The woman tried to look away, but Alex forced her to look in her face.

  “You’re hurting me,” the rage-filled voice whined.

  “What did you mean when you said you killed them all?” Alex bounced her against the wall. Alex raised her voice to a drill sergeant’s command, “Tell me, this instant.”

  Cooper blinked. Shutters shifted and a new person appeared.

  “They came,” a small child’s voice came out of Cooper’s mouth. Her eyelids widened to show a ring of white around her irises.

  “Who came?” Alex asked.

  “Them,” the girl whispered. “They wanted to know how to get in the lockers. They already knew about Le Fée Verte and . . . the door and . . . they . . . um . . .”

  Cooper blinked and the personality shifted.

  “Listen,” Cooper’s voice shifted to a heavy New Jersey–accent. “You and I both know that Cooper did not like Paul. She only married him to get away from the pedophile step-dad. Once she’d accomplished that, she had no use for him.”

  “Then why did she kill him?” Alex asked.

  “Cooper didn’t think it through,” the Jersey voice said. “Honestly, it wasn’t one of her smarter moves, since Paul had arranged to support her for life. With his death, she’s had to get a job.”

  “What did she do?” Alex asked.

  “Oh come on, Alexandra,” the Jersey voice said. “You’ve got to know.”

  Alex shook her head.

  “She let him in. She’ll tell you she didn’t know that he was going to kill everyone, but he had an AK-47! She knew. There’s no way to say this politely, but Cooper is not very bright.”

  “Lucky she has you,” Alex said.

  “That’s what I tell her,” the Jersey voice said. “I got the gun.”

  “The Ruger?” Alex asked.

  “I might have forgotten to tell her about the safety,” the Jersey voice said.

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  “Was she supposed to shoot me today?” Alex asked.

  “If she had to,” the Jersey voice said. “I argued against it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t like the people who asked,” the Jersey-accented voice said. “They weren’t very polite.”

  “What did they want her to do?”

  “Get into the vault,” the Jersey voice said.

  “Why?”

  “They left something there,” the Jersey voice said.

  “Gold?”

  “No,” the Jersey voice said. “Something that can implicate them in something bigger.”

  “They’re looking for an object?”

  “That’s what I said,” the Jersey voice said. “It’s something Cooper got when the pilot-father died; something Paul had. I never saw it.”

  “Any ideas on what it might be?” Alex asked.

  “Book, maybe,” the Jersey voice said. “Paper. Report.”

  Cooper’s shoulders raised in a shrug.

  “They’re sure it was in the vault?”

  “It wasn’t in Paul’s belongings at home,” the Jersey voice said. “They went through those first. Cooper doesn’t have it. They couldn’t find it in the vault.”

  “After we were shot?” Alex asked.

  Cooper’s head nodded.

  “Why do they think it’s there?” Alex asked.

  “Paul told Cooper not to worry about it,” the Jersey voice said. “He left it in a secure location.”

  “Huh,” Alex said. “Thanks.”

  “You should know that Cooper feels really bad that everyone is dead,” the Jersey voice said. “She really didn’t know he was going to kill you. She knew that you would never give her this thing. Paul was divorcing her. He told her that he would cut her off without a penny if she didn’t leave him and the chick alone. She couldn’t get this thing for them; they had to get it themselves.”

  “Does Cooper know what it is?” Alex asked.

  Cooper’s head shook back and forth.

  “She was terrified afterwards,” the Jersey voice said. “She hid in the tunnel below for two days until everyone was gone. She got the plastic surgery and everything because she was afraid they’d find her.”

  “And do what?”

  “Kill her,” the Jersey voice said. “If they were willing to kill beautiful Paul and his wonderful team, they would easily kill a girl like Cooper.”

  “How did they get to her this time?” Alex asked.

  “No idea.” Cooper’s head shook back and forth. “She’s been in hiding.”

  “I haven’t seen her in years,” Alex said. “Joseph said his wife Nancy saw her right after moving to Denver.”

  “She wanted to tell Joseph,” the Jersey voice said. “But she botched it.”

  “Like she does.”

  “One more thing before I go,” the Jersey voice
said. “The men who made Cooper come here? They had Texas accents.”

  Cooper’s head nodded. Her eyes blinked, and her personality shifted. Alex waited for the personality to say something.

  “Alex?” Cooper’s voice was her own. “Where are we?”

  Alex set her down. She picked up the Ruger from where it had landed and stuffed it in her pocket.

  “We’re in a hallway to the vaults,” Alex said.

  “In Paris?” Cooper asked. “God, I haven’t been to Paris in ages. Are you sure?”

  Alex nodded.

  “Huh,” Cooper smiled. “It’s really nice to see you. I haven’t seen you since . . . since . . .”

  She collapsed in a faint. Alex checked for her pulse before dialing 112 for emergency services. She called Raz and told him where she was. When he arrived, she called Dominic Doucet, her uncle and the director of the French Intelligence service, Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur.

  Because Dominic’s assistant Yvonne, or as Alex called her, “Y”, lived in the building and was excited to see Alex, she arrived just moments before the ambulance. Alex told the paramedics that Cooper was talking in a variety of voices before having a seizure, and that Cooper needed a secure psychiatric hospital.

  They chatted while the paramedics loaded Cooper into the ambulance. Y thought her relationship with Xavier, the Belgium computer expert, was getting serious. Xavier wanted them to live together; Y wasn’t sure, plus she didn’t want to give up her cool apartment. Alex weighed in on these important details as they watched the ambulance pull away.

  The ambulance was halfway down the block when Alex saw a shiny metal object roll out into the street. She screamed for the ambulance to stop. Unable to get their attention, Alex took off down the middle of the street. Confused, Raz and Y ran right behind her.

  The object exploded the moment the ambulance passed over it. Raz grabbed Alex with one arm and Y with his other. He swung them off the street before pulling them into him. He turned his broad back to the explosion. The ambulance flew backwards in the street and landed on the gas tank. It exploded in a bright fireball sending shards of metal and glass in every direction.

  The force of the second explosion knocked them apart. They flew through the air and landed in heap behind a row of parked cars. Fragments of glass, metal, and body parts struck the cars around them. The street filled with a cacophony of screaming car alarms, people, and emergency sirens.