About Face

by Christian, Claudia Hall

  “Not specifically,” Raz said. “Ben never liked to duplicate work, so we each had separate puzzles. Alex was working on the Fey SF Team, and I was working for Ben. I knew that she was trying to figure something out, but she was always trying to figure something out — for Ben, for the team, she and Max always had something going on. The only thing that makes this different from any other puzzle on any other day is that the Fey Special Forces Team was killed.”

  “And people keep asking for this key,” Royce said.

  “Exactly,” Alex said.

  “Did you know what these things were when you hid them in your journals?” Royce asked.

  Alex thought for a moment.

  “Good question,” she nodded. “I’m not sure. And I don’t remember enough to know that, either. For example, one of the items is an actual brass key.”

  Matthew held up the key.

  “That goes to a lockbox that’s in the safe in the vault,” Alex said. “Inside the box was a journal that said ‘Start Here’ in my handwriting. So I had to know about the key and the lockbox and even the safe. But I had no knowledge of them prior to finding them again.”

  “Is this the key?” Margaret asked.

  “Maybe,” Alex shrugged. “Sure.”

  “You don’t know,” Margaret said.

  “I don’t know what they’re looking for,” Alex said. “If I had a better idea of what the key went to, I might be able to say that this is or isn’t the key.”

  Margaret nodded.

  “I guess, well . . .” Trece started.

  Alex looked at him.

  “I guess I wonder what you do with stuff now,” Trece said. “You know — best predictor of future behavior is past behavior and all.”

  “Like I always put my lawn tools away,” The White Boy said. “But I never put the vacuum away. Drives Yvonne crazy.”

  “That’s a good question,” Raz said.

  “What I do with the vacuum?” Alex asked.

  “No, do you have a stash of stuff glued into things now?” Raz asked.

  Alex fell silent as she thought.

  “Wow, that’s a good point,” Alex said. “I don’t glue things into journals now. Or I haven’t. I want to say that I’m home more now, which is mostly true. But I was home every fifth week. So the question would be why did I carry this crap around with me?”

  “To protect John and Max,” Samantha said.

  “Probably,” Alex said with a shrug. “Maybe.”

  “But maybe you were looking for where it fit,” Leena said. “I do that. Like I’ve found some of Vince’s crap at my house. I’ll stick it in my car to give back to him.”

  “To me, I’ve always thought that you knew something was coming,” Zack said. “You left this stuff as clues for Max and John to figure out what happened.”

  “Have you asked them?” Trece asked.

  “We’ve gone through everything with both of them,” Raz said.

  “They have no idea,” Alex said.

  “And no one seems to know why these people want a key,” Raz said.

  Samantha gasped and said, “Oh.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  The room became instantly silent, and everyone turned to look at Samantha.

  “What?” Alex asked.

  “It just occurred to me that there may be more than one ugly bee,” Samantha said. “It was really common for royalty to make cheaper reproductions of their favorite pieces. Put away the original and wear the fake. What if they have their own bee?”

  “That makes as much sense as anything else,” Alex said.

  “How will we know that this is the original and that whatever is in it isn’t meant to lead us astray?” Joseph asked.

  “We won’t,” Alex said. “So we should keep that possibility in mind.”

  “Any other questions?” Matthew asked. When no one said anything, he said, “Okay, you guys know all about these maps.”

  He took out the maps they’d found earlier this year.

  “And The Gadfly,” Matthew said.

  “That’s the best book, man,” Colin said, sarcastically.

  “A real page-turner,” Margaret said, with a laugh.

  Everyone laughed.

  “This is the ‘start here’ journal.” Matthew held up the journal.

  “Which is completely unreadable,” Margaret said. “Should say ‘Don’t start here.’”

  “I didn’t bring them, but you know about all the team journals,” Matthew said.

  Everyone nodded.

  “That’s all of the big stuff,” Matthew said. “Here’s the first of the smaller things. This is the set of stuff that Alex hid in the journals. From the small journal.”

  He held up a Ziploc bag with a microSD card and a brass key. He gave the key to Cliff, who was sitting next to him.

  “Can we open the bags?” Cliff asked.

  “Sure,” Alex said. “Just try not to lose them. One of these items, or all of them, is responsible for a lot of people’s deaths.”

  Cliff took out the microSD card and stuck it into his computer.

  “Thirty-three photos,” Alex said.

  “That’s a good-looking group of guys,” Cliff said. “And Alex, of course.”

  He chuckled, and Alex threw a towel at him.

  “We’ve run every imaginable algorithm on those photos,” Alex said.

  “There’s no secret coding on the images, either,” Raz said. “They are just photos.”

  “Nothing on the locations or GPS number or anything else we could think of,” Margaret said.

  “For all intents and purposes, they are just pictures,” Alex said.

  She looked around, and everyone seemed deep in thought. She nodded to Matthew.

  “This is from the binding of the large journal,” Matthew said. “Just the black pieces. The computer chip was hidden inside Alex’s Fey Special Forces lighter.”

  “The lighter does something?” Troy asked. “Sorry — I don’t remember what it does.”

  “It moves the die inside the Magic 8 Ball,” Alex said. “It was a joke for Helene.”

  Matthew dug around in the box for a minute before pulling up the lighter and the Magic 8 Ball. He set the ball down and clicked the lighter.

  “The lighter moves the die,” Matthew said.

  “Do those black pieces fit the little circuit board?” Vince asked.

  “No,” Alex said.

  “Do we know where they came from?” Margaret asked. She held up one of the pieces. “All of the details have been removed.”

  “The team came to visit the twins about six weeks before everyone was killed,” Joseph said. “We ‘lost’ one of those keys to our then new minivan. Alex thinks she took it from me.”

  “The circuit board is likely to be the one in the lighter,” Troy said. Everyone looked at him. “I looked at the whole circuit from the Magic 8 Ball to the lighter. The circuit inside the Magic 8 die fits that of a similar Ford van, one that can be manipulated by the key but not your van.”

  “The twins were about a week old,” Joseph said. “I could have as easily given it to Alex as she could have taken it. Our team was like that.”

  “What’s mine is yours,” Alex said with a nod. “It was a Charlie-thing.”

  Joseph cleared his throat and looked down. Alex sighed.

  “You guys remember this thing that’s supposed to be a key to the library?” Alex asked.

  Everyone nodded. Matthew took out the metal point with the cuff links attached. Raz gave him the pocket watch.

  “I was told that there are two more items needed to make this key work,” Alex said. “I was supposed to find one in the Mogao Caves.”

  “Did you?” MJ asked.

  Alex shook her head.

  “We’re still missing these extras,” Matthew said.

  “It’s possible we’ll find them in the bee,” Alex said.

  Alex nodded to Matthew, and he pulled the gold plated card case out of the box.
>
  “MJ’s uncle . . . You guys know him,” Alex said.

  “Jeb,” MJ said. Everyone nodded.

  “Jeb said that I had left this with him when I was visiting,” Alex said. “He put it away for me, along with a book of Mike’s, uh, MJ’s father.”

  Matthew held up the book.

  “The book is in code,” Alex said. “You probably remember this, but that’s how I found out that the team had been moving packages around.”

  “Packages like the bee,” Joseph said. “Before you ask, we never knew what we were shipping.”

  “Yeah, can you go through that again?” Colin asked. “It’s always been a little fuzzy for me.”

  “I translated the note from Mike,” Alex said. “He said that if the Fey SF team was killed, it was probably because of their side job.”

  She gestured to Joseph.

  “Alex came to me and asked what was going on,” Joseph said. “About three years into working together, we were asked to move packages from place to place. As long as it wasn’t drugs or anything illegal, Charlie didn’t see the harm in it. Money was always tight, and we made money doing this. Then we got this box that Dwight refused to pass off.”

  “Why?” Royce asked.

  “He never said,” Alex said. “His grandmother has no idea, nor does his girlfriend. But he was just like that.”

  “Like what?” Royce asked.

  “Deeply intuitive,” Joseph said. “He had a sense of things. If something was off, then it was off. We’d learned to trust his gut. But, of course, once we didn’t ship this thing, everything came to a halt. Dwight hid the box at the Mogao caves, or, I should say that he and Nathan hid it.”

  “Nathan and Dwight were the only African-Americans on the team,” Alex said. “They didn’t particularly like each other. They weren’t friends like Jesse and me, Joseph and Charlie. That said, they trusted each other, understood each other, in a way that made them like brothers. If Dwight had a problem, he would have gone to Nathan, and they would have worked it out.”

  “We knew there was a risk, because we effectively stole whatever was in the box,” Joseph said. “But Dwight had never been wrong. Never.”

  “I received a note saying that I could get the package back,” Alex said. “Steve has admitted to leaving the note for me. As you know, Colin and I met Ji and his team on the mountainside in Xingjian province, China.”

  “Which isn’t very far from the Wakhan Corridor,” Zack said.

  “In fact, the same people who live in the Xingjian province live in the Wakhan Corridor,” Alex said. “They are effectively one tribe, but country borders and Muslim sects have separated them.”

  “Good to know,” Joseph said. “After we rescued Ji, he told Alex that his mother had given him the box.”

  “His mom worked at the Mogao caves,” Alex said. “Her life’s work was opening new, undiscovered caves.”

  “How did she get the box?” MJ asked.

  “I don’t know,” Alex said. “I assumed that one of the guys gave it to her. But I don’t actually know. Anyone?”

  Alex looked around the room to see Trece and White Boy squirming.

  “Andy? Chris?” Alex asked.

  Just as Trece looked stubborn, White Boy burst out talking.

  “Dwight gave it us to give to Fong,” White Boy said.

  “What are you doing?” Trece asked.

  “A bunch of people have died over this thing, Andy!” The White Boy said to Trece. “The time to keep stupid secrets is over because the next person might be our Alex or you or me, even. Think how stupid you’d feel if I got killed over this crap.”

  Trece flushed and looked away. Maggie licked Trece’s face. The White Boy nodded to Alex.

  “Can we look at it?” Samantha asked. “I’ve never actually seen it.”

  Alex gave her the box. Samantha unpacked the bee from its original boxes. The gold honeybee was about the size of small potato. Its body had been darkened by a patina technique. The delicate wings were made of bright gold, while the bee’s bands were made of small rose-cut diamonds. Alex picked it up and turned it over. A gold pin spanned the bee from head to tail. The art-deco bee brooch was heavy and old. Samantha looked at the honeybee with disgust.

  “It’s very . . .” Samantha said. “There’s a key to this?”

  “The little guy said it was through the eye,” Alex said. “Raz brought the tools to look at it.”

  Holding the bee with the tips of her fingers, Samantha passed the honeybee to Raz. He took out a jeweler’s loop and looked at the bee.

  “Huh,” he said after a moment. “Can you pass me those tweezers?”

  Samantha gave him the needle-nosed tweezers that were sitting on the table. Still looking through the loop, he poked at the diamonds in the bee’s right eye. Shaking his head, he started on the left eye.

  “It’s a little . . .” Raz said. “Would you look at that . . .

  He looked up at Alex.

  “There’s a small latch,” Raz said. “I’m going to . . .”

  He pressed the latch, and the eye popped up. Surprised, he dropped the bee. It hit the table and started toward the floor. Samantha caught it. She gave it back to him with a nod.

  “We’ve been talking about the key as a gold key . . .” Raz said, under his breath. “Is it possible that the key is a stone? Something red?”

  “Holy crap,” Troy said. “Can I have that circuit board? The little one?”

  Troy waved his hand at Matthew. Colin passed him the small circuit board that had been hidden in Alex’s Fey Special Forces lighter.

  “Sami, can I have a pair of tweezers?” Troy asked. He held his hand out for a moment. “Sami!”

  “Oh, sorry,” Samantha said. She picked up the tweezers and passed them to Troy. “I was lost in this bee. Can you imagine how much this thing is worth?”

  “A lot,” Alex said. She walked over to see what Troy was doing.

  “We had it appraised as priceless,” Matthew said. “There are stones that simply aren’t available anymore. The gold is from Romania. This delicate workmanship. This bee is priceless.”

  “And very ugly,” Leena said.

  They laughed.

  “Got it,” Troy said.

  He hopped up and rushed across the room.

  “Remember I told you that the circuit board didn’t work because it looked like you’d gotten glue on it?” Troy asked.

  “Glob of red nail polish,” Alex said.

  He held up a fourth-of-an-inch-long red stone skeleton key.

  “I’d bet you a hundred dollars that this is a ruby,” Troy said. “Hard yet not too brittle to carve.”

  He turned the tweezers over.

  “Look, there’s a bee carved into the other side,” Troy said. He held out the tweezers to Alex. “Go ahead.”

  “I can’t do it,” Alex said.

  Samantha took the tiny red key. With Raz’s help, she slipped the red key into the tiny lock Raz had found.

  “Let’s do it together,” Raz said. “One . . . two . . . three . . .”

  He turned the lock, and the top of the bee jumped up. A slight space appeared between the bottom of the bee and the top.

  “It’s a latch of some kind,” Raz said.

  He held out his hand for the tweezers, and Troy gave them back. He used the tweezers to pull out a folded piece of paper or vellum from inside the bee. He held it up, showing that the now familiar compass rose symbol was drawn on the visible side of the paper. He opened the piece of paper.

  “It’s . . . a sunflower,” Raz said. “In fact . . . Alex, take your sweater and shirt off.”

  “Really, Raz, in public?” Alex asked in a provocative tone. She winked at Samantha.

  “Alexandra, I am not shitting you,” Raz said. “Take off your sweater and shirt.”

  Shrugging, Alex pulled off her sweater and long-sleeved T-shirt, revealing her usual white tank top.

  “Tank top!” Raz said.

  “How am I
supposed to know . . .” Alex grumbled.

  “I think he wants to see your tattoo,” Samantha said in a low tone.

  Shaking her head and rolling her eyes, Alex pulled off her tank top and bunched it in front to cover her naked breasts.

  “Turn around,” Raz said.

  Alex turned her back on the team.

  “Oh, my God,” Raz said. He held up the paper. “It’s exactly the same.”

  He went face to face to show them the drawing from inside the bee.

  “Wait,” Sergeant Dusty said. “Can I see that again?”

  Raz held the paper in front of Dusty. He took the paper. He contorted his head and then finally turned the paper until the sunflower on the paper matched the sunflower on Alex’s back.

  “Oh, my God,” Sergeant Dusty said.

  “What?” Alex looked over her head to see her assistant.

  “I . . . uh . . .” Sergeant Dusty said. He flushed bright red when he realized everyone was staring at him.

  “What is it?” Troy got up to stand right next to Sergeant Dusty. “Show me.”

  Sergeant Dusty held the sheet up to Alex’s back.

  “Oh, wow,” Troy said.

  “What?” Alex said.

  “It’s a map,” Troy said. “Your back, Alex — this paper is the key to your back.”

  “Ha!” Zack said. When the team looked at him, he was peering into his laptop. “I know where we need to go.”

  “What?” Alex asked. She pulled on her tank top and turned around.

  “Your back. That piece of paper. Those maps,” Zack said. “They fit only one area in the world.”

  Zack gave a cocky grin.

  “Hot damn, I knew I’d seen it before,” Zack said.

  “He’s finally lost it,” Colin said and threw a decorative pillow at Zack.

  “What are you talking about?” Alex asked.

  “Your back is a map to the Tamu Massif,” Zack said. “On the Shatsky Rise, by the way.”

  “What?” Alex asked.

  The rest of the team started talking at once. Margaret and Vince frantically typed into their phones. Cliff was manically laughing at Zack.

  “What’s the Tamu Massif, my brilliant master Zackery?” Zack said in an imitation of Alex’s voice.

  “You really should have let him drown,” Samantha said in a loud whisper to Alex.