Free The Fey by Claudia Hall Christian Page B

Ah
fuck. Alex raised her finger to Erin. She dialed her Sergeant.
    “ Who is lost? Who is
it?”
    “ You have to go through
voice security.”
    “ Fuck security. Sergeant
who is it?”
    “ Sergeant First Class Fred
Rhine, Sergeant First Class Stuart Quinn, Sergeant First Class
Kenneth Boransky.”
    “ Thank God.”
    Alex snapped her phone closed. Pressing her
phone against her forehead, she squeezed her eyes against the panic
and despair.
    “ Alex, what happened?”
Erin asked.
    “ Some soldiers are missing
in Afghanistan,” she said.
    “ So what?”
    “ I have six hours to find
them,” Alex said.
    “ Or what?”
    “ Or they die.”
    “ Matt’s in Afghanistan,”
Erin said.
    Alex nodded. “Matthew and Troy. That’s what
I just checked. It’s not them. I won’t know if they are safe until
I get home.”
    Erin hugged Alex.
    “ If anyone can fix this,
you can. I believe in you, Alex.”
    “ Thanks,” she said. “Come
on.”
    Max waited for them outside the bathroom. He
took one look at Alex and they ran through the gym to his Jeep
Cherokee. On the short ride, the tension in the car was
palpable.
    “ I’m sorry, but I need to
do this alone.” Alex jumped out of the car. She ran to the side
door and down the stairs to the basement.
    “ Alexandra Hargreaves
Drayson,” she said into the voice imprint.
    A scanning pad opened in the wall and she
scanned her left hand. A key pad opened and she entered a series of
numbers.
    “ Code,” a mechanical voice
said.
    Alex whistled the first verse of “When you
wish upon a star” and the door to her secure office clicked open.
Flicking on the lights, she opened another key pad to the armoire
and punched in another series of numbers, then scanned her right
thumb. The armoire clicked open. With a flip, she turned on her
computers and signaled command.
    “ Fey,” Alex said, then
waited.
    “ There you are,” her
Sergeant said.
    “ I turned the phone off
until I got to the office,” she said. “Sorry I hung up on
you.”
    “ Sergeant Mac Clenaghan
and Sergeant Olivas are in the air to the dead zone.”
    “ God damn it,” Alex said.
“Who authorized that? They’re supposed to be working on a map and
under my command.”
    Her Sergeant shook his head.
    “ Find out.”
    “ Sir, we
don’t…”
    “ This is Eleazar. He said
he would come for my friends first. Who’s flying them?”
    “ Sergeant…
    “ Jakkman” they said
together.
    Alex let out a string of curses.
    “ Sir,” her Sergeant
started.
    “ I don’t want to
know.”
    “ Sergeant Ramirez and
Blanco are with them.”
    “ Of course they are.” She
blew out a breath. “Can you set up a direct link?”
    “ Yes Major,” he said. “Let
me work on that. You have a message from Agent
Rasmussen.”
    Alex nodded.
    “ Sir, we have five hours
and forty-two minutes. Can you find them?”
    “ I know where they are,”
she said. “Map 75-1090, quadrant fourteen, fifteen or part of
thirteen.”
    “ That’s one of the maps
we’re supposed to work on.”
    “ Those quadrants are GPS
black out zones. There’s an old Russian military compound smack dab
in the middle of those quadrants. They’ve tried sending drones, but
they crash on the site. That’s why Matthew and Troy were supposed
to look into sending a team there.”
    “ Well, they’re on their
way.”
    “ Don’t remind me. Can you
collect the Dragon Lady imaging?”
    “ I have it already,” he
said. “There isn’t much but I’ll send it to your
computer.”
    “ Thanks. Let me know when
I’m connected to Matthew.”
    “ Yes, sir.”
    Alex dropped her head in her hands.
    “ He thinks that killing
them will destroy you,” Ben said walking into her
office.
    She turned to look at him.
    “ He is correct in that
assumption,” she said. “Do you live here now?”
    Ben laughed. “I’m your father’s best friend.
I took his key.”
    “ It’s pretty good service
for Homeland Security,” she said.
    “ We arrived last night.