Learning to Stand (12 page)

Under the darkening sky, with the asphalt at
her back, Alex gave up. Even if she survived this attack, there
would always be another person looking to kill her.

The Boy Scout lifted his knee. With all his
might, he stomped Alex’s abdomen His huge foot ground shrapnel
against the delicate flesh of her left hip. Laughing at her gasp,
he raised his foot one more time. He stomped her abdomen.

The tiny light of Simon went out.

And something deep within Alex ignited. A
power coursed through her veins. She was a fighter again.

The Boy Scout fell on her to rape her in the
middle of the parking lot. His pants unzipped and genitals exposed,
she jerked her right leg up. Rotating her leg slightly, she ground
the ragged teeth of his zipper into his genitals. He roared in
pain. She threw him off her and jumped to standing.

He moved to his hands and knees.

She stood over him in a fighter’s
stance.

He exploded off the ground. Alex caught him
under his chin with violent kick. He flew arching head first into
the air. He landed on the back of his shoulders. She followed him
in her fighter’s stance.

He flipped to standing and rushed her. She
jumped in a perfect butterfly kick. One foot smashed his face
followed by her second foot. The second finished the job.

The Boy Scout dropped unconscious to the
ground.

She heard cars screech into the parking lot
and men screaming for her to stand still. Raising her hands over
her head, she weaved slightly then dropped to her knees. On her
knees, she crawled to Matthew. A bystander held her clothing over
the wound on Matthew’s chest. Shivering from the cold, she lifted
Matthew’s head to her lap.

“
Jesse saved my life, Alex,”
Matthew whispered. “I see Jesse. I can hear him too. He was the
commentator for the fight. Like Vegas. You did really good, Alex.
Alex?”

Matthew’s head dropped to the side. He was
silent. She felt hands on her but was too dazed to comprehend what
was going on.

“
Ma’am?” A paramedic’s face
appeared in front of her. “Ma’am? You’re bleeding. Can you show us
where you’re injured?”

Alex looked up into the young man’s face.
Raising her eyebrows, she said, “Bleeding?”

Alex passed out.

FFFFFF

Wednesday mid-day

March 26 – 1:06 P.M. MDT
Buckley Air Force Base, Aurora Colorado

“
My name is Major Joseph
Walter.”

Joseph looked over the men. Each face
displayed a mask of arrogance and mistrust. They were here but not
anything like a team. Troy Olivas sat near the front while Trece
and White Boy filled the back of the room. Raz leaned against the
side wall. Vince Hutchins stretched out in a chair at the other
side. And Larry Flagg’s miserable countenance sat in the middle of
the room.

“
I have been invited here to
determine whether or not you are capable of coming together as a
team,” Joseph said. “I will tell you. This is your only
opportunity. After we speak, I will ask you to sign a document to
commit to becoming a team.”

“
I’ll sign now.” Raz moved
forward with a pen in his hand.

“
You’ll sign it when I make
it available to you,” Joseph said. “I’m looking into the bullshit
contract mandating Lieutenant Colonel Hargreaves’s volunteer
service to Homeland Security. Yes, that’s correct. Major Hargreaves
is now Lieutenant Colonel Hargreaves. And one thing is certain. You
and Lieutenant Colonel Hargreaves are not partners
anymore.”

Joseph watched Raz viscerally react to the
idea that he and Alex weren’t partners anymore. Recovering, Raz
went back to leaning against the wall.

“
I need to assess whether
you can work on this team. When I make my assessment, I may make my
offer. Nothing is certain. Is that clear?”

The men shifted in their seats.

“
Listen, I’ve fielded
numerous requests for...” Troy started.

“
I have each of your
resumes. I know your backgrounds and your accomplishments. I have a
good idea of the disrespect you have shown your commanding officer.
I’m also confident you do not have a clue what you’ve really done
or who you have done it to. Captain Blanco? Will you get the
lights?”

White Boy shut off the lights. The screen in
front of them was dark. Walking over to the desk, Joseph tapped his
computer.

“
I put this together for a
Senate Hearing a couple years ago. This is Lieutenant Colonel
Alexandra Hargreaves life’s work.”

The screen began to flash smiling mug shots
of soldiers, diplomats, politicians, missionaries, and journalists.
Less than a second a time, the photos showed men and women rescued
by the Fey Special Forces Team.

“
This presentation continues
for a little more than an hour. Almost four thousand human lives.
You might think you know what those words mean. But you cannot
comprehend the sheer number of people until you see their faces.
Now I could show you the holes, alleys, caves and warehouses we
found each of these people in. But I’ll spare you the
horror.”

A hand went up in the middle.

“
Yes, Sergeant
Flagg.”

“
These people were rescued
by the Fey Special Forces Team, not just Major Hargreaves,” he
said.

“
Lieutenant Colonel
Hargreaves.”

“
Lieutenant Colonel
Hargreaves,” Larry repeated.

“
You’re wrong. Sure, the Fey
Special Forces Team did the work. We dug the holes, climbed the
mountains and protected her. She saved each of these
lives.

“
And when she was
done?”

Joseph hit a key. Photos of the limestone
vault flashed on the screen. The men jerked their bodies away from
horror.

“
This spot? This spot right
here?”

Joseph pointed to the door of the vault.

“
After killing the shooter,
she went from person to person. Sitting with her best-friend’s head
on her lap, she prepared to die. There’s evidence she had a
conversation with someone. We don’t know who. We only know that she
tricked him into leaving her alone long enough to save the team
journal. All of this, she did with a hole the size of a basketball
where her left hip used to be.”

“
We found her,” Raz said.
Drawn by instinct, he touched the screen. “I carried her from... I…
I never went inside.”

“
Take a good look. I repeat.
After killing the shooter, she checked each friend for life only to
have her best-friend die with his head on her lap. Then, bleeding
to death, she tricked a murderer and saved the team
journal.

“
Now, ask yourself. With all
your impressive accomplishments, could you have done
that?”

Joseph clicked through the images again.

“
Somehow, she managed to
survive. We don’t know how. We don’t know why. But she did. Then
after crawling her way out of Walter Reed and more surgeries than I
can count, the fuckers came for her again.”

The screen flashed pictures of the room
where she was held captive for three days last fall.

“
Now you might think, ‘Three
days. I could do three days.’ She was beaten with a rubber pipe,
caught sepsis from a cut on her arm, and still managed to kill
three of her captors. Each of you played a part in her rescue. Who
planned it? Who made it possible for you to fulfill your job? And
whose life was almost lost?

“
Of course, when it comes to
orders, you disobey them. Isn’t that correct? I think that’s what
gets me the most. This amazing person, your superior officer, asked
so little from you, and you chose to not fulfill those
orders.

“
I want to know right now,
in front of this entire group. Captain Ramirez – you had sex with
the nurse rather than obey your commanding officer?”

“
Yes sir,” Trece
said.

“
Do we need to look into
mandatory sex addiction treatment as clearly sex is a higher
priority than fulfilling your responsibilities as an officer in the
United States Army?”

“
No sir. I’m certain Major
Hargreaves...”

“
Lieutenant Colonel
Hargreaves is, right at this moment, fighting for her life AGAIN.
Why? Because the men whose job it is to protect her were not with
her. And tell us Captain Ramirez why you were not guarding your
PRIMARY objective?”

“
She left base after I
disobeyed her direct order,” Trece said. “Sir.”

“
It wasn’t just you,” Joseph
said. “Tell us Captain Olivas, Captain Hutchins and Agent
Rasmussen. What kept you from fulfilling your direct
orders?”

Troy crossed his arms and looked off to the
side. Raz turned his back to the screen. Vince slunk deeper in his
seat.

“
No response. Because there
is no excuse,” Joseph said. “None. But at least you didn’t get a
DUI.”

“
Sir…” Larry
started.

“
Don’t sir me, you little
shit,” Joseph said. “If you were under my command, you’d be in the
custody of the Military Police.

“
Let me make myself clear.
Lieutenant Colonel Alexandra Hargreaves beat all odds to become the
ONLY woman ever accepted to Special Forces training. With her
instructors working to make sure she would never complete the
training, she still graduated at the very top of her class. And at
the top of every class before and after her. She has two black
belts – one in kickboxing and another in jujitsu. She has won every
martial arts competition and beaten every single simulation she has
competed in. Further, she has a Ph.D. in Psychology AND rescued
almost four thousand individuals including two men sitting in this
room.

“
This is the person you
chose to disobey.”

Joseph stopped to catch his breath and slow
his angry flood of words.

“
Gentlemen, Alexandra ‘The
Fey’ Hargreaves is better than you. Whether you like it or not, she
is smarter, tougher, and simply a better human being than you will
EVER be. Your disrespect is no different than this.”

The screen flashed images of the Limestone
vault after the Fey Special Forces Team assault.

“
If you think I’m
exaggerating, Lieutenant Colonel Hargreaves stated to her
commanding officer that she could no longer tolerate the constant
assault from people she thought were her friends. She has resigned
her commission. Her resignation has been accepted effective
immediately.”

Joseph let his statement reverberate through
the men. When they each looked up at him again, he finished his
speech.

“
Congratulations. You have
managed to do what murderers, conservative command, a rapist, teams
of terrorists, hell, even her own mother could not do. You got the
Fey out of the military.

“
Now, I want to know what
you are going to do about it.”

F

CHAPTER TEN

Wednesday afternoon

March 26 – 1:17 P.M. MDT

University of Colorado Denver
Anschutz Medical Center, Aurora, CO.

John sat in his Diabetes class thinking
about Alex. For some reason, she popped into his mind. Truth be
told, he thought of her a lot. Sometimes he remembered what she
looked like when he woke up or the flush he felt in her
presence.

Today, his mind drifted to Alex lying on the
beach. They spent a lot of time at the beach when he was at UCLA.
She wore these tiny bikinis to torture him. He pretended to study.
Mostly he watched her sleep in the sun until he couldn’t stand his
own arousal. She would giggle as he carried her off. Hotel rooms,
bathroom stalls, the backseat of the car… They would hit it hot and
fast. She was always ready to go. Back at the apartment, they would
continue slow and easy, usually for the rest of the afternoon. John
grinned at the scenes of passion floated through his mind.

His vibrating cell phone brought him back to
the small, warm classroom and his boring class. Glancing at his
phone, he saw a text from Max. John shifted his face to convince
the other doctors of the importance of his message. He flipped his
phone to read a text from his best-friend.

“
@ in Denver Health. Get
there.”

They always used an ‘at’ sign for Alex.
Somehow it seemed appropriate. John continued his mock serious face
and texted back.

“
@ having lunch w MM. In bs
class. Where r u?”

John looked up at the lecturing doctor. No
one seemed to notice his text activity. Being raised PIRA gave John
one advantage. He knew how to fake any attitude. His phone vibrated
again. John’s eyes glanced down.

“
Denver Health Emergency. @
dying.”

John’s breath left him in a gust of wind.
Stuffing his phone into his pocket, he jumped from his seat and ran
from the room. He took the stairs three at a time and raced across
the campus to his rental car. Cursing the traffic on Colfax, he
weaved between the cars. He dug through his briefcase at each
stoplight. He found his Denver Health physician ID and parking pass
right before pulling into an on-call doctor spot. He ran into the
hospital.

He slowed to an abrupt stop. Blowing out a
breath, he patted down his curly hair. He checked for his badge,
moved his stethoscope so it hung out of his pocket then walked into
Emergency as if he owned the place.

“
Doctor?” A nurse touched
his arm. “May I help you?”

“
Major Drayson? She’s a
patient of mine.”