Learning to Stand

LEARNING to STAND

CLAUDIA HALL CHRISTIAN

Copyright © Claudia Hall Christian

Cook Street
Publishing
Denver, CO

Also by Claudia Hall Christian

ALEX THE FEY SERIES

The Fey

Learning to
Stand

Who I am

THE DENVER CEREAL

The Denver Cereal

Celia’s Puppies

Cascade

Copyright © Claudia Hall Christian

Licensed under the Creative Commons
License:

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3.0

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ISBN
(
13 digits
) : 978-0-9826417-4-3

Library of Congress : 2010900413

PUBLISHER’S NOTE:

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places and incidents either are the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously.

First edition © February, 2010

Cook Street Publishing
PO Box 18217

Denver, CO 80218

303-242-5391

For Jennifer
Riley,
whose red pencil
“WHAT?” forced me to be a better writer.
Thank you.

“
How do you pick up the threads of an old
life?

How do you go
on, when in your heart,
you begin to understand there is no going back?
There are some things time cannot mend.
Some hurts, that go too deep, have taken hold.”
--
Frodo Baggins in
Return of the King;
Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Phillipa Boyens inspired by J.R.
Tolkien.

CHAPTER ONE

January 31 – 3:15 A.M. CET

Paris, France

“
Shall I get a car, ma’am?”
the doorman asked in French. He held the door for her to walk
through. “Maybe an umbrella?”

“
Non,” she replied.
“Merci”

She stepped into the driving rain from the
warm CIA hotel lobby. Wanting the rain, needing the river, she was
drawn into the wild, dark morning.

She and Homeland Security Agent Arthur ‘Raz’
Rasmussen were in Paris to clear out the Fey Special Forces Team
vault. Two and a half years ago, the blood and lives of eleven
troops were spilled onto the floor, boxes and crates of that
storage vault.

Ten friends. Ten beloved teammates gave
their lives. She was the eleventh ‘troop.’ Turning onto the wide
boulevard, Rue des Saints Pères, she snorted at the word
‘troop.’

She would have died.

She should have died.

But her friend, mentor, and, as she found
out a few months ago, biological father, Ben received a tip that
her team had been assassinated. Ben and his assistant, Raz, found
her in the vault doorway with her best-friend Sergeant Jesse
Abreu’s head on her lap. Raz carried her from the vault moments
before she bled to death.

Two and a half years ago.

She turned left at the river. Moving along
the Seine, the frozen rain battered her head and streamed from her
oilskin coat. She tucked her ice-cold fingers into her sleeves.

She’d laughed when she opened the Fey
Special Forces Team underground storage vault three days ago.
Turning to Raz, she said, “I’ll clean up my own blood, thank you,
sir.”

Fool.

Raz had checked in with her every couple of
hours with a quick, “Ready to stop?” But she wouldn’t give up. They
had work to do and she was going to do it. Finally, after fourteen
horrific hours of scouring blood and flesh, Raz demanded they
stop.

By that time, her mind had fractured. She
begged him not to leave her dead friends alone in the dark. His
gentle words and kind presence led her through the limestone
tunnels and back to their hotel suite.

They began cataloguing the vault the next
day. Blood infiltrated every crack, corner, and possession in the
two hundred foot space. They saved what they could for the families
and threw the rest in large red incineration bags. Sixteen hours
later, they stumbled, broken-hearted, to the suite.

Yesterday, a US Army team arrived to haul
away the large items, the incineration bags, and anything already
catalogued. Raz directed the soldiers’ work while she pushed boxes
from the corners of the vault.

With the vault floor cleared, she collected
stashes of porn, random weapons and other personal items. The
soldiers were removing their last load when she found her
Commanding Officer Charlie O’Brien’s wedding ring lodged against a
wall. He must have put his hand up to the shooter because the ring
encircled his mummified finger. Numb from the macabre work, and
injections of a CIA ‘vitamin’ cocktail, she slipped Charlie’s
finger, and ring, into her pocket.

Five hours later, Raz found the finger among
the pile of her dirty clothing. Horrified, he ordered her into
their sitting room. When she didn’t respond, he burst into her
bedroom. He found her tucked between the desk and the corner of the
room.

She heard him calling her.

She knew he was worried.

But nothing could make her get up from the
tight, safe corner.

Looking up, she watched his face shift from
worry to sorrow. He fell to his knees in front of her. When he held
out his arms to her, she crawled from her corner. Wrapped in each
other’s arms, they wept for themselves and their friends.

She’d left Raz sound asleep in the
suite.

She stopped on the bridge, Pont du Carousel.
The hard rain made divots in the dark water below. She held out her
arms as a gust of wind lifted her jacket. For a moment, she was
flying backwards. When she hit the railing on the other side of the
bridge, she knew what called her into the early-morning storm.

She ran across the bridge and through the
deserted Place du Carousel. Buffeted by the wind, she jogged the
limestone gravel path through a labyrinth of evergreen hedges in
the Jardin des Tuileries.

She skid to a stop at the opening to an
evergreen hedge circle. Embarrassed by her haste, she bowed her
head to acknowledge the naked female form in the center of the
hedge circle. The bronze statue beaconed her into the circle.
Moving forward, she sat down on the bench facing the statue.

Charlie O’Brien loved this statue. To him,
she represented everything pure and simple. This bench had been
their ‘strategic command.’ Every time they were in Paris, she and
Charlie laughed, plotted and gossiped on this bench. According to
intel, she sat here talking to Charlie only moments before her
entire world turned upside down.

She stretched her fingers out to touch the
wet green wood where Charlie sat two and a half years ago. She
raked her mind for some glimmer of what they had talked about.

Nothing.

Looking across the circle, she noticed
raindrop tears flowing down the statue’s face. Her fingers found
her own tear drenched face. She bit her lip to keep from keening
with grief.

Only two grainy satellite images existed.
The first image showed Charlie pointing at her. Her face was set in
mock indignation. One minute later, Charlie was bent forward with
laughter. Her hand was forward as if she had pushed him. Her face
was bright with laughter.

Charlie died twenty minutes later.

The storm released its fury. Obscured by
sheeting rain, Charlie’s favorite statue was lost. Her heart broke
open with loss. Rocking back and forth on the bench, she
wailed.

Her tears slowed when the storm eased. The
statue’s outline reappeared. Charlie’s statue had returned to
her.

If only Charlie would return.

If only...

Her head jerked up. Footsteps crunched the
gravel path! Someone walked toward her! Her heart pounded with
hope.

Charlie?

Just in case, she slipped her hand around
the handgun in her sacrum holster. She stood to peer through the
rain. Across the hedge circle, she saw a well dressed man enter the
opposite side of the circle.

“
Alexandra,” the man said in
French. “Please sit with me.”

He held his wide black umbrella over them.
The rain formed a rhythm across his umbrella.

“
My brother telephoned. No
‘Hello.’ No ‘Good morning.’ Not even a ‘Did I wake you? How is your
wife? Your children?’ Not Benjamin. ‘Find my daughter,’ he
growled.” The man laughed. “He can be so very bossy.”

She glanced at him then returned her
attention to the statue.

“
I will tell him I searched
everywhere for you, but I knew you would be here.”

“
I’m sorry, Dom. I...” She
replied in French.

“
No need to explain,”
Dominic Doucet said. “You’ve spent the last three days in the vault
where your loved ones died, where you almost died. I wouldn’t ask
my worst enemy to do what you’ve done.”

Staring at the statue, she whispered, “Yet
who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in
him?”

“
Yes, Lady Macbeth. You
didn’t kill them.”

“
I can’t get her out of my
head.”

Cleansed by the downpour, the statue gave
her a kind smile.

“
You come here because it’s
the last place you felt normal.”

“
Sane,” she said.
“Whole.”

He nodded. They watched the light rain dance
on the statue.

“
How are you holding up?”
Dominic broke the rain’s percussive tempo.

She turned her head to look at him then
turned to back to the statue. He had never known her not to smile,
laugh or make a joke. Today, her face held only unspeakable
pain.

They listened to the rain for a while.

“
I don’t know how to do it,
Dom,” she said. Her words were so quiet that he had to read her
lips. “I don’t know how to move forward without them. Every time I
try, I fall flat on my face. I’m failing at everything.”

“
You have the curse of the
Doucets. You’re impatient. We are gifted in so many ways. We expect
everything to happen at our whim. Surviving, changing, moving on...
These things only happen one tiny step at a time.”

“
I… I don’t have any idea
what tiny step to take.”

Dominic laughed.

“
Only the brave survive, my
dear. And you’re very brave,” he said. “Come. Let’s get your
partner, your Rasmussen. I understand he’s frantic. We’ll eat
crepes, drink too much café and argue about nothing.”

She nodded.

“
You’re done with the vault.
I insist. If anyone asks, I will tell them the President’s wife is
taking her clothes off again and we don’t have the resources to
protect you.”

The director of the French Intelligence
service, Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur, stood from
the bench and held out his hand to her. She looked up into his
face. Nodding, she took his hand and stood.

”
Today our task will be to
convince one fish to take a chance on our flies.” Dominic said.
“That’s all. When Benjamin finds us, we’ll pretend we always
planned to fish today.”

They walked across the gravel. At the edge
of the labyrinth, she turned for one last look at Charlie’s statue.
Winking at her, the statue whispered: