Finding North

by Christian, Claudia Hall

  “They tried from your office and the team room,” Max said.

  “What happened?” Alex asked.

  “The node shut down,” Max said. “X had it set up to release a virus back to the hacker. That’s what shut off the power to the building.”

  “Did they try to hack the other teams?” Alex asked.

  “They did,” Max said. “But they were connected to the Intelligence Center and the national center. The CIA should be touching down . . .”

  Max looked at his watch.

  “Oh, they’ve been there for an hour already,” Max said.

  “Doing what?” Alex asked.

  “Kicking ass and taking names,” Max said. “Turns out the CIA doesn’t like it when you kick their teams out of their offices for no reason. Especially when they pay good money for secure, guaranteed leases on an otherwise declining base. They like it even less when you try to hack into their computers.”

  “Who knew?” Alex smiled.

  “It’s actually a good question,” Max said. “Why raise the ire of the CIA?”

  “They want something,” Alex said. “Probably something from the team.”

  Max nodded.

  “What’s the team doing?” Alex asked.

  “They are working on the intel on the drive Zutterberg gave you,” Max said. “His cane had some interesting items in it.”

  “Like what?” Alex asked.

  “Another USB drive,” Max said. “A video-and-audio recording device that was running the entire time he was in your office. You can see and hear most of the entire thing go down. Did you throw a spoon handle at the shooter?”

  “Poked his eye out,” Alex said.

  “Now that is impressive,” Max said. “But I have to tell you. The wet, naked Monk stole the show.”

  “Yes he did,” Alex smiled. “Where is he?”

  “Sleeping, I think,” Max said. “He was beat. I guess they’d been out some place working. They flew directly here. He said he usually sleeps for at least twenty hours when he’s off.”

  “We should check on him when we’re done,” Alex said.

  “Sure,” Max said. “Did I tell you that our lawyers have presented the interim commander with a suit saying you were denied your rights as a prisoner?”

  “Right to medical attention?”

  “Exactly,” Max said. “Our minds are so alike. Imagine that.”

  Alex laughed. He smiled.

  “I don’t know, Max,” Alex said. “I keep thinking that it can’t get worse, but it seems to get harder and harder. Every safe place has been invaded.”

  “I know,” Max said.

  “How is the Colonel?” Alex asked.

  “He’s doing surprisingly well,” Max said. “The shot was in the gut. The bullet lodged in his hip. The driver seemed to be intentionally trying not to cause too much harm.”

  “Gut injury?” Alex grimaced.

  “Yeah,” Max said. “But he was in surgery less than a half-hour after being shot. They were able to get it cleaned up. He’s going to be out for a couple months, at least. Barring infection, they expect him to recover completely. Turns out he’s in top physical condition.”

  “White Boy,” Alex said.

  “It will help him heal,” Max said.

  “He wasn’t the target,” Alex said.

  “No,” Max said. “You and Hank were the targets.”

  Alex shook her head.

  “Did you hear Hank talk about the people who could stop the mysterious ‘them?’” Alex asked.

  “Yes,” Max said. “The team has informed your friend JS. He’s on his way here to discuss details.”

  “I suppose that means I need to work,” Alex said.

  “You do,” Max said. “But it’s okay if you want to rest. I gave the team tomorrow and Saturday off. We’ll work on Sunday.”

  “Oh?” Alex asked.

  “Erin goes to Guantanamo on Tuesday,” Max said. “Helen is going to talk to her father on Wednesday. And Samantha is going to talk to the Senator on Thursday. They’ve asked for team support. They’ve been working here with Eoin and Neev. They’ll travel with Neev, of course.”

  “Too risky for Eoin to travel,” Alex said. “He barely survived the trip last fall.”

  “Exactly,” Max said. “I thought you and Raz would like to go with them.”

  “We need to support them,” Alex said. “They’re doing our intelligence work.”

  “Exactly,” Max said. “So you have a few days off.”

  “Starting tomorrow,” Alex said.

  “Right,” Max said. “Today, you need to, at least, see a doctor, if not go to the hospital. JS wants to talk, and you need to check in with the team.”

  “I need a shower,” Alex said.

  “I wasn’t going to mention that,” Max smiled. “How did your Glock break your scapula?”

  “It wasn’t my Glock,” Alex said. “I had Matthew’s .45. He couldn’t take it to Hawaii, so he left it with me. I stuck it in my duffle bag and forgot about it. I left my 9 MM in Paris because I didn’t want to lose it in China. We stowed our bags on the private jet. They didn’t look at them. I guess that’s the benefit of flying diplomat class. When I saw the .45 in my duffle, I figured I’d hit the range with it — you know, see how it compared with mine. I found the clip, and I tucked it in my holster.”

  “How does it work in comparison to our 9 MMs?” Max asked.

  “It has quite a kick,” Alex said.

  “I’d guess so,” Max smiled.

  They retreated into the silence of their connection. Max sighed.

  “I think you need to go to the hospital,” Max said.

  “For my shoulder?” Alex asked.

  “For John,” Max said.

  “I was thinking of getting the babies and hanging out here,” Alex said. “Let him suffer.”

  “No, you weren’t,” Max said.

  “I’m considering it,” Alex said.

  “It would take at least an hour for them to get home,” Max said. “There’s no way you’re going to disrupt our kids so that you can get back at John. Sorry, I’m not buying it.”

  “You wanna drive?”

  “We’ll get Trece to do it,” Max said. “He’s outside the door.”

  Alex nodded and sat up. Max got up, and she followed. At the door, she said, “Thanks.”

  Max smiled.

  FFF

  Sunday, early morning

  May 22 — 3:51 a.m. MDT

  Denver, Colorado

  Alex padded across the floor of her secure office to turn on the gas fireplace. Ben’s curious maps were sitting on her map table next to the stack of her own set of puzzling maps. Maggie scratched at a spot on the rug before lying down. Alex opened her safe to set the metallic point Eloise Le Grande had called a “key” inside. Seeing all of the mysterious objects she’d collected over the last few years, she decided to keep out the key to see if any of this mess fit onto the metallic point.

  If, as Bestat said, she had obtained one of the items that went on the key, it was probably in this junk.

  As she ferried the items to her desk, she thought about the evening.

  She’d seen John sitting with Mrs. Gordon and her son from across the waiting room. Mrs. Gordon put her hand on John’s knee, and he looked up at her. She pointed to Alex, and . . .

  She wasn’t sure what had happened. Did he float across the room like she remembered? Or had she run into his arms like in some dumb romance movie? She remembered him looking up, and she remembered being in his arms. He’d covered her face with kisses and held her tight enough to make her shoulder hurt. If other people hadn’t been there, she’s pretty sure they would have had awesome makeup sex right there.

  Instead, he called one of his orthopedic surgeon friends. One friend became three — or was it four? —orthopedic surgeon friends. She was x-rayed and worried over. The doctors — John and the orthopedists, that is — decided she probably didn’t need surgery. The doctors enco
uraged her to take time off, get some rest, take her calcium supplement, and see one of them in a month or so.

  Through the whole thing, John had held her hand, kept his hand on her back, kissed her ear, and was generally awesome. Mrs. Gordon had sent him home with a promise to call if she needed him. They’d come home and had that great makeup sex. When their babies came home from Colorado Springs, they were back on track.

  Alex smiled. It was a nice night. When the babies went down, she’d attempted, with Max and Margaret’s help, to translate old Chinese into something usable. JS had arrived an hour into their work. She’d talked with her old friend, while Max and Margaret struggled away. After an hour, she’d left him to continue plugging away at old Chinese. Plus, Troy had arrived with a bottle of whiskey and a deck of cards. They were nice enough to ask if she wanted to play but were relieved when she said no. The Monk had ventured out of his room to take her place.

  She’d fallen asleep in John’s arms and woken up to pain and nagging doubt. Rather than wake him, she’d gotten up and come down to her secure office. After a week of travel, it was nice to be in her own office, in her own basement.

  She’d spent the last hour comparing Ben’s maps to her maps. They were identical. Someone had gone to great trouble to copy these maps. She’d compared them to the map they’d taken from the bookstore. The copy of the map of Ultima Thule seemed to be about the same age. It had the same mark, which meant it was most likely copied by the same person. But the map of Ultima Thule depicted a different land.

  Unless the bookstore owner counted the compass rose as a name, his buyer’s name was not on any of these maps. It’s possible that the original map of Ultima Thule, the one she’d obsessed on at the bookstore, held the book buyer’s name. But then, anything was possible. She shook her head.

  She looked down the line of objects on the edge of her desk. The shiny gold-colored card holder with the sunflower etched on it was sitting next to her old Fey Special Forces Team lighter, the micro-SD card, the map of Serbia, and plastic pieces of someone’s black security token. She made a post-it for the gold and the vault video before setting the ugly diamond-encrusted bee on the end of her table.

  She didn’t bother getting the journals this time. After all, she hadn’t had a chance to review Hank Zutterberg’s reports on the last eight months before everyone was killed. She’d check the journals tomorrow.

  She felt a wave of sorrow for Hank and his family. His wife was devastated by his death. She’d told Alex that Hank had longed to make things right with her. She seemed relieved when Alex told her that they had talked. Alex had promised to bring Hank home as soon as his body was released.

  “You know . . .” Jesse said in Spanish. Surprised, Alex gasped and looked up. He grinned at her. “This sunflower looks an awful lot like that compass rose.”

  “What do you mean?” Alex asked.

  She picked up the gold-colored card case with the sunflower and took it to her map table to compare it with the maps. Sure enough, the sunflower was almost an exact replica. Alex went to her desk and looked at the objects. She opened the map of Serbia. The map’s compass rose was a sunflower.

  “That one, too,” Jesse said.

  Alex went to her desk. She scanned the compass rose from the map of Serbia. She enlarged the image of the Serbian compass rose and printed it out. For good measure, she enlarged the compass rose with the eye in the center to the same size and printed out a copy. She took the sheets to her map table. With a pencil, she filled in the Serbian compass rose until it was one solid color.

  “Holy crap,” Alex said.

  The Serbian compass rose was almost an exact replica of the compass rose on the ancient map. She absent-mindedly drew the eye in the center of the Serbian compass rose. She was about to set the images aside when she saw the card case. She picked up the gold-colored case and set it on the image of the Serbian compass rose and the image of the ancient compass rose.

  “Huh,” Alex said.

  The sunflower on the card case matched the outlines of both the ancient compass rose and the one from the Serbian map.

  “Exactly the same,” Jesse said.

  Alex nodded. She put the card case under her adjustable round magnifier and turned on the light. There was a vague, almost imperceptible outline of the eye with the eyebrow in the center of the sunflower on the case. Shaking her head, she went back to her desk to look over the other objects.

  “Whatcha’ doing?” Hector James asked.

  Startled, Alex spun in place. Maggie got up from her spot on the rug and went to the boy. He hugged the dog.

  “Sorry,” Hector James said. “We gave Neev and Jack our room. I’m sleeping down here.”

  Alex opened her arms. He rushed to hug her. She saw tears in his much-more-guarded eyes. Alex smoothed his hair, while he held on tight.

  “How ’bout some cocoa?” Alex asked. She kissed his forehead and went to turn on her espresso machine.

  “Is Jesse here?” Hector James asked.

  “He is.” Alex’s brow furrowed with concern for the boy. “What’s going on?”

  Hector James went to the map table and looked at the compass rose from the map of Serbia and the compass rose with the eye on it.

  “Hey! These look like the tattoo on your back,” Hector James said.

  Chapter Thirty

  “They do?”

  “Sure,” Hector James said. “I wanted to get one, but Dad won’t let me. When I’m eighteen, I’m going to get a big sunflower, like yours.”

  While she’d like to think he wanted one because of her, Hector James was a deeply personal and practical boy. If he wanted the tattoo, it was for some special reason of his own.

  “Why?” Alex asked.

  “It looks like wings,” Hector James said.

  He folded the scan of the Serbian map’s compass rose. The pedals of the flower looked like feathers.

  “Plus, mom liked it,” Hector James said.

  “You saw this sunflower when you lived with your mom?” Alex asked.

  “This one. With the eye,” Hector James pointed to her scanned copy of the ancient compass rose. “Mom had a pin that she wore on her sweaters. She used to wear it all the time. I think Dad gave it to her, but I don’t know that. Isn’t that why you have the tattoo? Because of Dad?”

  Alex shook her head.

  “Why do you have the tattoo?” Hector James asked.

  “I don’t know,” Alex said. “Something I don’t remember.”

  Hector James nodded. Alex made hot chocolate, while Hector James looked around her office.

  “Look at that,” Hector James picked up the cardholder. “You figured it out.”

  Alex smiled.

  “Know why I’m up?” Hector James asked.

  “You met someone special, and you don’t know what to do about it?” Alex asked.

  Hector James’ mouth fell open with surprise.

  “How’d you know?” he asked.

  “I know what your dad looked like when he was confused about your mom,” Alex said. “We met when he was only a few years older than you are now.”

  She held out a mug of hot chocolate for him.

  “Hey, you made some for yourself,” Hector James said.

  She smiled. Because he was too big to sit in her lap now, Alex had replaced her two armchairs with a small loveseat. He sat down next to her. She brought her laptop over in case he wanted to see the slide shows.

  “The thing is . . .” Hector James took a drink of cocoa. “I was going to ask Jesse . . . Is he still here?”

  “He left,” Alex said. “But I can get him back.”

  “Well, let me ask you first,” Hector James said. “Don’t you think Mom will be mad if I grow up? I guess that sounds stupid, ’cuz I can’t really stop it, but . . .”

  “I know what you mean,” Alex said. “She died when you were ten, and you’re not ten anymore. Are you hurting her by moving on? Growing up?”

  Hector James nod
ded.

  “I know how that feels,” Alex said.

  “I don’t want to leave her,” Hector James said.

  “It feels like you’re betraying her,” Alex nodded.

  “Betraying her.” Hector James sniffed and looked away. “I don’t want to betray Mom.”

  Tears formed in his eyes, and he leaned against Alex.

  “I still miss her so much,” Hector James said. “I tell her my whole day start to finish, like I did when she was . . . here. Every night. Before bed. I tell her. I miss her as much as I did when . . .”

  Alex blew on her hot cocoa and waited for him to continue.

  “I don’t want to lose her,” Hector James said in a low voice. “But sometimes . . . I get so caught up in my life that I don’t remember how sad I am.”

  Hector James nodded.

  “I’m ’sposed to be sad for the rest of my life,” Hector James said. “But sometimes I’m not sad, and I feel guilty.”

  “Me, too,” Hermes said from the door. He ran into the room. The small boy squeezed onto the couch on the other side of Alex. She gave him her cocoa, which he drank down in a steady series of gulps. “Sometimes I don’t feel sad at all, but I still miss Mommy . . . I don’ want to hurt Mommy’s feelings. She’d be so sad if she thought I . . .”

  Hermes sniffed and started to cry. Hector James began to cry. Alex put her arms over the boys’ shoulders and let them cry in her lap.

  She’d never found an answer to their question for herself. She wasn’t sure what to do except listen and love them. She rubbed their backs and let them cry. When the boys stopped crying, Alex leaned over to look at them. Hermes had cried himself to sleep. Hector James was staring straight forward. He gave her a little smile when he saw that she was looking at him.

  “I wanted to ask Jesse if Mom would be mad,” Hector James said.

  “Jesse?” Alex asked the air. He appeared in front of them. He pointed to the boys, and Alex shrugged. “Hector James wants to know if Dahlia would be mad if he grew up.”

  “And didn’t miss her all the time,” Hector James said. “Wasn’t sad, like crying, all the time. Would that hurt her feelings?”

  “No,” Jesse said. “I think it would make her happy. It makes me happy to see my kids living their lives even if it means they are leaving me behind.”