“They’ll find us soon enough,” Alex said.
Alex started singing. Her internal playlist started with the last album she’d seen — The Eagles, Hotel California.
“Welcome to the Hotel Calfornia,” she belted out in her off-tune voice. “Such a lovely face.”
Zack didn’t respond. He hated her singing voice. It was too loud, too off-tune. She used her frozen fingers to touch his neck. He was alive.
“Jesse!” Alex yelled at the top of her lungs. “Please!”
He did not appear.
“I don’t know where you are!” Alex yelled. “Please, Jesse!”
She was alone with Zack and the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean
For time uncounted, Alex and Zack bobbed on the open ocean. Her eyes sagged and they’d already gone under twice.
“I’m not going to make it, Jesse,” Alex said. “I’ll see you soon, okay? Please, please, please be there when I come, okay?”
Alex sang the song Zack wanted at his funeral — the ancient Gaelic prayer “Deep Peace.” She opened her mouth to start the song, only to swallow a mouthful of water.
She thought she heard the low hum of a boat. She tried to get enough energy to rise up again, but she dropped into the ocean. Exhausted, she floated more than pushed her way to the surface. The boat engine sound disappeared.
“Oh, Zack,” Alex whispered with her eyes closed. “I don’t think we’re going to make it this time.”
She held him close to her and whispered the prayer.
“Deep peace of the running wave to you; deep peace of the flowing air to you,” Alex whispered. She swallowed back her sorrow and ended up swallowing another mouthful of sea water. “Deep peace of the quiet earth to you; deep peace of the gentle night to you.”
“She’s there!” a woman’s voice echoed came across the water.
“No, I missed one,” Alex said. “I’m sorry, Zack, I’m messing up your prayer. I missed . . . Um . . . I missed . . . shining stars.”
Alex patted Zack’s chest.
“If it’s okay with you, I’ll just say it now,” Alex said. Her voice came out in a slurred mumble. “I don’t think I can start from the beginning again. So, my dearest, Zack, here’s the last of it: Deep peace of the shining stars to you, Zack.”
“She has Jakkman!” a man’s voice yelled. “They’re together!”
“Moon and stars pour their healing light on you, Zack. Except there’s no moon tonight and the stars are hidden behind those clouds. They are there, somewhere. So’s the moon and the stars and our children and our beloved partners and . . . They’re just not where we can see them. I hope it’s the thought that counts.”
“I hope the team got picked up,” Alex said. “I signaled them when I realized you weren’t in the room with us. Then Leena said they were there. Or at least I think she did. Good job, Zack. You saved us again. At least some of them.”
Alex went under the water again.
“I’m not going to add the God stuff to your prayer, because you and I both know that was just slapped on . . .”
The white side of a well-lit luxury cabin cruiser appeared in front of Alex. She was so surprised that she let go of Zack. Somehow, Zack rose out of the water on his own. A woman’s face appeared.
“Alex!” she yelled. She turned around to say to someone behind her something like, “She’s here!”
The woman leaned over the side of the ship. Her long blond hair hung down over the boat. She held out her manicured fingers to Alex.
“Give me your arms,” the woman said.
Alex was sure she’d seen this woman somewhere before, but she had no idea where. Alex reached her arms up, but her legs stopped working. Alex went under. There was a splash and then another. A man wearing a wetsuit appeared at her side.
“You’re safe now,” he said in a clipped Scottish accent.
“I don’t know you,” Alex mumbled.
“That may be true, but I’ve been looking for you all night,” he said with a laugh. He put his arms around her and helped her to the boat. “You can call me ‘Scotty.’ Most people do. I’ll be at your service and your side until long after you’re in your own bed again.”
She felt them pull her into the boat. She felt herself carried down a flight of stairs until she was lying on a bench inside the boat.
“Zack,” Alex whispered.
“He seems to be in some kind of protective trance,” Scotty said. “I’ve never seen it before tonight, but I’ve been told that the trance is something taught to U-2 pilots. He probably did it automatically when he realized he was in trouble.”
“Team,” Alex whispered. “Please, find the team. I can wait.”
The young man laughed. Alex sat up and leaned against the wall.
“As you arranged, they were picked up by your Coast Guard,” Scotty said. “They’re said to be waiting for you.”
The young man pulled off his wetsuit hood to show his ruddy face and a shock of bright red hair. He unzipped his wetsuit and stepped out of it. He stood with his back to her in a pair of tight white briefs.
“Are you from Orkney?” Alex asked.
The young man burst out laughing. His eyebrows shot up, and he grabbed a towel. He threw one at her and got one for himself. She used the towel only to realize that she was wearing only her body armor and underwear. She covered her lap with the towel. He dropped a heavy blanket over her shoulders.
“Shetland, born and bred,” the young man said. “How could you possibly know that?”
“Accent,” Alex said.
When he turned around, she noticed a detailed tattoo on his back that continued as a thin line down both of his arms, went around his thumb, and then back up the inside of his arm.
“Right,” the young man said, as he pulled on a shirt. “Now, the medic wants to give you the once-over. You are safe and in good hands, Fey. I’m still right here. You need anything, just wiggle a finger.”
He pulled up a pair of jeans. Stepping aside, a young man about MJ’s age stepped into the room.
“Here’s the medic now,” Scotty said.
Everything went black.
F
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Four hours later
Thursday morning
November 3 — 8:07 a.m. PDT
San Diego, California
Asleep and awake at the same time, Alex felt the bed rock one way and then the other. Back and forth. Every cell in her body continued to rock to the ocean waves. Her body shivered from fear and cold. Like the motion of the waves, her head repeated a single wave of thoughts — “You forgot a line of ‘Deep Peace.’ You’ve failed Zack. Now, he’ll never rest in peace.” She’d wake up just enough to remember that she’d said every line only to fall to sleep and hear the same thing — “Zack cannot rest in peace because you forgot a line of ‘Deep Peace.’ You’ve failed him.”
“Stop!” Alex said as she sat up in a dark room.
She felt the rocking waves of the ocean. Exhaustion tugged at her. She lay back down.
She heard a sound and sat up again.
“Hello?” Alex asked.
“It’s me, love,” John said.
He was sitting in a reclining chair just behind and to the left of her. She could tell by the color of the recliner that they were in some hospital recovery room. She grabbed her IV lines and started to tug on them.
“Are you okay?” Alex asked. “You made a noise.”
“Are you?” John asked. He moved to sit on her bed. “You keep waking and saying, ‘Stop!’”
He took the IV lines from her and put them back where they belonged.
“Sorry.”
“What’s that about?”
“I keep thinking I forgot a line of ‘Deep Peace,’” Alex shrugged.
“You usually forget ‘Deep peace of the shining stars to you,’” John said.
“I did this time, too. But . . .” Alex leaned forward to kiss his lips. “I remembered you telling me that I a
lways forget it and said it last.”
“You made sure to leave off the verses about Christ?” John asked.
“Catholics co-opted every Goddamned thing from those they enslaved,” Alex said in a repeat of one of John’s brother, Cian’s favorite rant. John grinned in response.
“How are you?” John asked.
He leaned forward to be an inch in front of her. His eyes searched her face.
“I feel okay. Cold, tired,” Alex said. “I have the feeling that my ‘okayness’ is due to the pharmacy pumping through my veins.”
She gestured to the IVs, and John nodded.
“Zack?” Alex asked.
“He’s alive, thanks to you,” John said. “He’s in critical condition, but they expect him to make a full recovery.”
“And the team?” Alex asked.
“Your team was picked up by the Coast Guard, as you had arranged,” John said. “Leena’s new love — do we know her name?”
“Harlowe,” Alex searched her mind for the woman’s first name and then shrugged. “I don’t know her first name. Captain.”
“Captain?”
“Pretty sure,” Alex grinned.
“Yes, well, Captain Harlowe took the team into her custody. They were arrested but have been let go. No one expects charges to be filed.”
“Who found Zack and me?” Alex asked.
“That is a good story,” John said. “But one that will have to wait until you’ve rested some.”
Alex lay back on the bed and closed her eyes. John didn’t move from the bed. Alex groaned internally. He needed to talk. She opened her eyes and sat up again.
“I have something to say,” John said.
“Okay.”
“You almost died last night,” John said.
Alex winced. She opened her mouth to continue. He raised a hand for her silence and she closed her mouth.
“Before you start your whole ‘I’d understand if you don’t want to be with me’ campaign, I’d like to say something,” John said.
“Oh?”
John waited for a moment.
“You’re not going to say anything?” John asked.
Alex shook her head rather than getting into the loop of “I want to hear what you have to say/You don’t want to hear what I have to say” that was currently on rotation in their household. Alex was sure it was something he’d picked up from the jerk of a doctor John was training under. John was sure it was a manifestation of her recent “retirement.” Either way, Alex kept her mouth shut to try something different.
He opened his mouth and then shut it.
“Oh. I see what you mean. Look at that,” John said. He looked away. “I was just about to start what you call the ‘You’re not listening’s.’ I have picked this up from my training. But not from our teacher, from the other doctors.”
“Ha!” Alex pointed at him, and he laughed.
He kissed her, and she rested her head against him
“What’s going on?” Alex asked.
He was silent for a while.
“So, I almost died,” Alex started.
“Again,” John said.
“Again,” Alex said.
“I guess I want to say that we need to decide what the hell we are doing,” John said. “When you came home from being spanked by that horrible misogynist at the Pentagon . . .”
“Ingram,” Alex said. “Admiral Ingram.”
“Yes, I know his name. I was avoiding saying it,” John said.
Alex opened her mouth to quote a movie, and he pointed to her.
“Don’t,” John said. “There’s no reason to believe that he is an evil wizard.”
But he smiled. She grinned at him. He cleared his throat and raised his eyebrows. She nodded for him to go ahead.
“Since you returned from your confrontation with Admiral Ingram, I have not pressed you about what you’re doing next,” John said. “You said you wanted time to think, and certainly you have plenty leave and about ten years of overtime. This whole ‘I’m dead’ thing is a little macabre, but . . .”
John shrugged.
“We never got around to discussing what’s next for me,” Alex said.
“For us,” they said in unison.
“And I almost died,” Alex said with a soft smile.
“Precisely, but not the point,” John said. “I’m not saying that I’m numb to the fact that I almost lost you last night. I am not. I just . . .”
He shook his head and gritted his teeth to keep from saying more. She touched his cheek and he looked at her again.
“We can do anything,” John said. Alex nodded in agreement. “What would you like to do with the rest of your life?”
“The rest of my life?” Alex asked.
“Last night, you almost drowned in the ocean,” John said. “For an Army Lieutenant Colonel who lives in landlocked Denver, Colorado, the very idea is absurd to say the least.”
Alex closed her eyes and nodded.
“No, listen to me,” John said. Alex furrowed her brows at the return of the “Are you listening?” drama. He acknowledge with a nod but continued talking. “If you had died, you would have died in this limbo — not in the military and certainly not out of it. No military benefits. No death benefits for our children. No burial at Arlington National Cemetery. And all because someone implied that a team sent by Admiral Ingram was lost, likely because of his poor leadership.”
“They asked for me,” Alex said.
“Yes, I remember,” John said. “Have you ever wondered why they asked for you? ”
“Sure.”
“And?”
“That’s totally off the point,” Alex said. “I want to hear what you have to say.”
John burst out laughing. He threw his arms around her and hugged her tight.
“My brilliant Alex,” John said. “I am so glad you survived your time in the drink. Let’s not do that again. Okay?”
“Deal,” Alex said.
She kissed his lips and held him.
“Please,” Alex said softly in his ear. “Tell me.”
John shifted away from her. His eyes instinctively went to the ground.
“Last night, Trece came to the house,” John said. “He told me what happened, how you’d tricked him out of the helicopter and how Zack was missing as well. He made a joke that maybe you and Zack had eloped, but then told me that a team of people was looking for you and Zack.”
“A team of people?”
“Military contractors,” John said.
“What? Contractors? Why?” Alex shook her head. “No. Tell me later. Right now, I’d love to know about what you’re upset about.”
John nodded and continued.
“When he left, I sat in the living room by myself,” John said. “Quince was with Joey and Máire. Helene was pretending to help her mother with dinner. I had to nowhere to go. No one who needed me. You were, for all intents and purposes, lost to me. And I . . .”
He sighed. Sergeant Quince Davies was on assignment as their children’s nanny.
“I wondered what we were doing,” John said. “It was just a few months ago that you were hot on the trail of this Black Skeleton. We were doing this thing together, with your team and a whole host of intelligence officers, of course. You lived away from me, in North Dakota, for God’s sake, to stay on the trail. We made the arrangements to buy that building and the refurbish has started! Right this minute, there are workmen in the building, our building. And now, you’re sort of not in the military, sort of helping hostages, sort of working on this Black Skeleton thing, and mostly moping around.”
“It’s sort of like being dead,” Alex said.
“Yes, it is,” John said. “For me, too.”
Alex nodded.
“We’re . . .,” John used his hands to gesture from himself to her and back. “We’re not working our plan. We’re knocked off course, and last night . . .”
“I could have died,” Alex said.
“
For nothing,” John said. “Not one damned thing. No one knows if men are actually lost or if it was something invented to reject you in front of everyone again. To humiliate you again. We don’t have any certainty why you were shunned on the ship. Do we?”
Alex shook her head.
“Or why they came after you with armed military fighter jets with orders to shoot you out of the sky!” John said. “Outrageous. Simply outrageous. Indefensible.”
Alex bit her lip and nodded.
“What are we doing?” John asked. “Because right now, it feels like we’re chasing our tails — or, worse, we’re waiting on queue for the firing squad.”
“I wouldn’t mind chasing your tail,” Alex said with a grin.
He gave her an irritated look.
“Okay, okay,” Alex said. “Let’s do this. I will think about what you said, and you will think about it. Before this day is out . . . What day is it?”
“Thursday, November 3,” John said.
“Wow, it’s only been a day since Mom told me I was autistic,” Alex said.
“Your mother what?” John asked.
She shook her head.
“Never mind,” Alex said. “Before this day is done, we will sit down . . .”
“Put pen to paper,” John said.
“Put pen to paper,” Alex said. “And figure out what we want to do. The problem is . . .”
“What?” John asked.
“I’m not sure I’ll know,” Alex said.
“Pros and cons?” John asked.
“We’ll make a pros and cons list, for sure,” Alex said. “Or at least start one.”
“Start a pros and cons list,” John nodded. “Like . . .”
“Medical school,” they said in unison.
“We did for medical school,” Alex said with a smile. “We can do this. We’ve done it before.”
John leaned in and kissed her.
“When do I get out of here?” Alex asked.
“How do you feel?” John asked.
“Like crap in a crockpot,” Alex said.
“Lovely,” John said. “I’m going to ask you something, and I’d love the truth. Promise?”
“Okay,” Alex said slowly.
“How is your hip?” John asked.
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