by Gini Koch
I was glad of the space when I realized we didn’t just have Christopher and Amy with Jamie, but a whole lot of others as well. “What’s going on?” I asked Christopher. “You two couldn’t handle one three-month-old baby for a couple of hours and had to call in all of Alpha and Airborne to assist?”
Christopher was Jeff’s cousin, though he was smaller and shorter, with straight, lighter brown hair, green eyes, and more wiry than buff and brawny, albeit with the family rock-hard abs.
He also had glaring down to an art form and was hitting us with Patented Glare #2. This one was rarely used and indicated severe stress. “You’re late,” he snapped. “Jamie’s been crying for fifteen minutes straight. Nothing we did worked. I was about to call your mother.”
“I still pump enough milk to qualify as a dairy cow. You’re suddenly incapable of giving her a bottle?” I asked as I reached for my squalling offspring.
“She wouldn’t take it,” Amy said. “I think she knew you were late.”
Jamie quieted the moment she was in my arms. “Awww, Mommy’s little Jamie-Kat likes her routine, doesn’t she?” I cooed. I took another look around while I kissed her head. I’d seen right the first time—all of Alpha and Airborne teams were lounging around my living room, as were White and his replacement, our new Pontifex, Paul Gower, who doubled as another of Jeff’s cousins and Reader’s mate. “Seriously, a crying baby isn’t exactly ‘call the cavalry’ worthy. What’s going on?”
Jeff sighed. “Assassination threats, however, are something we all pay attention to, baby.”
“Oh.” The realization that they’d been having the big powwow while I was being tortured during and after the Washington Wife class sauntered up and waved at me. “I’ll, um, just take care of the baby then, while you all figure out how to save the world.” I rushed into our bedroom as fast as I could. Crying in front of everyone didn’t seem like my best plan.
As I stepped into the room, I heard purring, and Jamie heaved a big sigh. There were a number of luxurious cat trees that I called Poof Condos in our bedroom, filled to capacity with Poofs.
Due to our marriage, we’d gotten a starter set of six Poofs. They were androgynous and could mate with each other, supposedly only when a Royal Wedding was imminent. Right after Jamie was born, and also right after a set of power-mad lunatics had tried to kill us all, we’d had a major Poof explosion. No one knew why, beyond Christopher and Amy hooking up, but we had a lot of Poofs. No one minded. Poofs for all was my viewpoint, and more Poofs for me was my other viewpoint.
We had all the spare, unnamed Poofs living with us—I called it the Privilege of Royalty whenever Jeff couldn’t hear me, and my right as the co-head diplomat when he could. Jamie had her own Poof. She wasn’t exactly speaking at three months of age, so I had no idea how she might have named it to claim it as hers, but this one Poof in particular liked to be near her, so we let it. It did the Poof “there one moment and here the next” thing and snuggled up against her tummy, purring. She wrapped her little hand in its fur and gurgled happily.
Jeff came in behind me, and the purring increased. “Why wasn’t Jamie’s Poof with her?” I asked as I headed into the nursery. It seemed a safer question than “what were you all talking about before I got here and ruined the summit meeting.”
“No idea. Baby, you’re upset for nothing.”
Right. Empath. Two years in, you’d think I’d remember that he always knew what I was feeling. “I know. I’m not the head of Airborne anymore.”
Jeff took Jamie while I settled myself into the lounger in her room and got ready to feed her. He shook his head as he checked her diaper. “No, you’re not. I’m not the head of the Field anymore, either, and Christopher’s no longer the head of Imageering.” He shot me a look I knew was suggesting I think instead of sulk.
I gave it a shot. It was me, and I thought best aloud. Fortunately, Jeff was used to it. “Everyone’s here.” He nodded, leadingly. “Waiting for you and Chuckie to get back.” Jeff’s eyelids lowered to slits. This wasn’t his sexy, jungle-cat look; this was his “you’re really trying to be stupid” look. I pondered a little more. “And waiting for me to get back?” I asked hopefully.
He finished up with Jamie’s diaper and helped get her eating. She’d been a chowhound from birth, and that hadn’t waned; she was happily snorking down breast milk in a matter of moments. “Yes. We have no idea who the target is, but you and I will be at the President’s Ball. Therefore, you and I are integral to whatever plans are put into place.”
“So what was decided without me?”
Jeff heaved a sigh. “Not much. James wanted to wait for you to get back.”
On cue he popped his head in. Reader was still the best looking human I’d ever seen in the flesh, and if he wasn’t gay and married to Gower, my life might be very different. Seeing as he was, however, the cover-boy smile being flashed at me merely reminded me that someone thought my input was necessary.
“Girlfriend, while you feed the baby, want you thinking about a couple of key points I’m sure Jeff and Reynolds didn’t tell you.”
I tried not to visibly perk up but failed if the grins I got from both Reader and Jeff were any indication. “Sure, James. Lay ’em on me.”
He nodded. “First, Reynolds’ ‘source’ happens to be our favorite investigative reporter of all time.”
“Really? Chuckie takes information from Mister Joel Oliver?”
Reader shrugged. “Per Reynolds, the guy’s almost never wrong. The second point, however, is that we have no idea if it’s a lone assassin, a group, or anything else you can come up with. I’d like you to come up with everything you can, though, because we have less than two days to avert God literally knows what.”
CHAPTER 6
READER POPPED BACK OUT, and we switched Jamie to the other torpedo. “What do we actually know?”
Jeff sighed. “Sadly, baby, that’s it.”
“So you saved it all for me?” Things suddenly seemed more like they used to be.
He grinned. “Yeah. See? I said you were getting yourself upset for nothing.”
“Humph. So, what are the chances that this is aimed at Centaurion Division as opposed to the President or another high-ranking human official?”
“No guess. Reynolds and I have already communicated with Alpha Four, just to be safe.”
That we were able to casually talk to people in the Alpha Centaurion solar system had much to do with ACE, the superconsciousness I’d managed to filter into Gower during Operation Drug Addict. The rest had to do with the fact they were a lot farther along the advancement scale in that solar system and occasionally shared with us.
“What did Alexander and/or Victoria have to say?” I’d put Alexander on the throne of Alpha Four, and Victoria was, therefore, the Queen Mother. They were Jeff’s cousins, though they were closer in the bloodline to Christopher. I liked them a lot, especially since they hadn’t resented me or Tito for killing their other family members. Hey, some royal successions are bloodier than others. “Could this be our fave escaped megalomaniacs coming back to try to snatch our baby again?”
“As far as Alexander knows, all’s quiet. All of the A-C system monitors for them regularly, and we do as well; happily, there’s been no sign of either Ronaldo Al Dejahl or LaRue Demorte Gaultier, let alone my loser of a brother-in-law.” Amy’s stepmother had been the brains behind Operation Confusion and had hijacked an interstellar ship with the illegitimate son of the devil himself or, as we knew him, the Ronald Yates/Mephistopheles superbeing, in tow. As far as we knew, they’d also taken A-C Traitor at Large Clarence Valentino with them. Good riddance to all.
“Okay. So, more importantly, what did Councilor Leonidas have to say?”
“Per what he told Reynolds, if there’s a threat, it’s not coming from any agent outside Earth.”
“Does Chuckie believe him?”
“Yes, as far as he’s told me.” I let go of the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding, and J
eff grimaced. “It’s so nice to know you still think he walks on water.” Jeff’s sarcasm knob went to eleven, though I put this response only around five. Personal growth, it was a good thing.
“Oldest friend. Brilliant. Massively successful in three separate careers. Risks his life to protect us. I’m not seeing the downside to valuing his opinion. You were doing so well with the jealousy. Let’s go back to that.”
Jeff sighed. “I don’t think it’s jealousy if it’s based on fact, but I’ll give you that this situation is more important.”
I decided to merely enjoy the personal growth as opposed to comment on it. Jeff was massively jealous and possessive, but since he made up for that in any number of amazing ways, at least half of them sexual, I lived with it. Besides, it was still flattering that he was worried that someone other than himself was going to sweep me off my feet.
“So it’s someone new. Or someone old. Or someone borrowed, and we probably can’t rule out someone blue.”
“Nice to see you’re focusing on Christopher and Amy’s wedding as opposed to our current situation.” Jeff’s sarcasm knob was heading toward eleven after all.
“Just adding some undoubtedly much needed levity to lessen the strain of a tense situation.” Jamie was done, and Jeff took her from me, put her gently on his shoulder, and patted her back. “You’re such a good daddy.”
He smiled, and for the first time since we’d gotten back, he looked relaxed. “Glad you think so.” Jamie burped rather hugely, then cooed. “And glad to see our Jamie-Kat thinks so, too.”
We finished up, and I put Jamie into a cute Minnie Mouse sleeper, one of the many gifts from her A-C induction ceremony. Then we joined the others in what Jeff called the Great Room and what I called the Humongous Living Room.
I did a fast head count. I hadn’t been wrong before—everyone in any position of power within Centaurion Division was here. It was a good thing the rooms in our penthouse were huge, because otherwise we’d have had to use video conferencing to talk to each other.
Alpha Team currently consisted of Reader, Tim, Serene—who was now the Head of Imageering—Gower, and, technically, me. I hadn’t gotten a lot of time with the team over the past three months, but I held onto my Head of Recruitment title with both hands and at least one foot. White, as my now-partner and the former Pontifex, was still considered a part of Alpha, too, albeit a very nonpublicized part.
The rest of Airborne, also known as my five flyboys, were here as well, as was Tito Hernandez, though he’d been sidelined into Embassy life, too, as our official Doctor in Residence. He seemed to mind it the least, possibly because he was doing what he loved every day.
Lorraine and Claudia were both my best A-C girlfriends and had also assumed the positions Reader and Tim had vacated when they’d been promoted, so they were now Captains. They were also both extremely pregnant—we expected their babies to arrive, at most, days apart. It was fitting. They were besties, they’d married Joe Billings and Randy Muir, respectively, who were two of said flyboys and also best friends. That they were going to have their babies at the same time seemed right.
In addition to Alpha and Airborne teams, we also had several others represented. Brian Dwyer, my old high school boyfriend and now Serene’s husband, was in attendance. Chuckie, Len, and Kyle had joined the crowd. And Kevin Lewis, my mom’s right-hand man and another human giving the A-Cs a run in the looks department, was with us as well.
“Wow, the heck with the President’s Ball. If someone wants to take us down, all they’d have to do is blow up the Embassy right now, and Centaurion Division would lose everyone who controls its protection.” I got a lot of dirty looks. “I guess you’re all hungry. We need to call Subway or something for a Party Platter.”
I was saved from snide comments by a knock; Tito went to get the door. In came Doreen and Irving Weisman. Doreen was the daughter of the former head diplomatic couple and Irving was her human husband. She was handling her parents’ “disappearance” remarkably well, probably because she’d come to loathe her parents by the time Operation Confusion went down. I couldn’t blame her—I’d loathed them from my first minutes of meeting them, her late mother, Barbara, in particular.
“Geez, where’s Walter? I think we have everyone else conceivable in here.”
Brian shook his head. “Actually not. Michael, Naomi, and Abigail are on their way.” These were Gower’s younger siblings. Michael, like Brian, was an astronaut. Naomi and Abigail, like Jamie, were not only hybrids with an A-C and a human parent, but they also had stronger, mutated talents, which was something female hybrids had over the male ones. It made a lot of sense to have the girls here, and when we needed extra muscle we could trust, if he was on the planet, Michael was our go-to guy.
We’d originally thought Serene was a hybrid, but during Operation Confusion we had discovered she was another one of Ronald Yates’ illegitimate children. She’d handled this news pretty well, mostly because it meant that White was her older brother and Christopher, therefore, her nephew, meaning she actually had family that cared about her.
That Ronaldo Al Dejahl was also her older brother was something we all did our best not to talk about too much. The rest of us were too busy trying not to worry about how many other illegitimate offspring, either hybrid or mutant-level talented, Yates had left around. Sadly, we had to figure there were a lot; when he’d been alive, he’d made Hugh Hefner look like a fuddy-duddy.
“And your mom and dad are with the President,” Jerry Tucker, my favorite flyboy, shared cheerfully, thankfully pulling my mind back from thinking about Yates and his heinous ways. “But we can get them on speakerphone if we need to.”
“Walter’s staying in the Security Center,” Christopher added. As our Acting Head of Security, this made sense. The kid was also still awed to be working with us and determined to be the best security chief anyone could find in any part of the galaxy. I really liked Walter.
“But I’m on the com, Chiefs.”
“Nice to hear your voice, Walt. So, gang, what do we have?”
An alarm went off. “Sorry,” Walter said politely. “But you don’t have time for the briefing, Co-Chief Martini.”
CHAPTER 7
“EXCUSE ME?” I KNEW HE MEANT ME. No one ever referred to Jeff as co-anything. The benefits of being in charge for his entire adult life.
“I’m in charge of your calendar right now, Chief, remember?” I did. This was because I’d conveniently “forgotten” the Washington Wife class, so Jeff had added this onto Walter’s list of fun things to do. “You and Jamie have a Mommy and Me class to attend.”
Of all the classes I went to, Mommy and Me was the only fun one. “I love going, but aren’t we in a crisis situation?”
Chuckie nodded. “We are. But we also don’t want anyone aware that we know we’re in a crisis situation.”
“So everyone’s here having a powwow, and yet I’m going to do baby calisthenics?” I felt another pout coming on.
“Yes,” Jeff said firmly. “Having the jocks along will be enough of a change to alert someone that things are off, but I don’t want you going anywhere alone.”
“You could come with me. They encourage fathers to attend.”
“We need him,” Reader said. “We need you, too, but Reynolds is right. We have no idea who the target is, but if we all go into lockdown, we’ll alert the assassin that we’re aware of the plot.”
“And then they’d pick a new target event, and we’d have no head’s up for that and would have lost our window of opportunity. I get it.” I heaved a sigh. “Well, someone let us know if you figure out what’s going on while we’re off being our version of normal.”
I trotted back into the bedroom to find Jamie’s diaper bag all packed and sitting on the bed, along with a baby snowsuit with fluffy faux-fur-lined hood for her and a long, black coat with a less fluffy faux-fur-lined hood for me. Per Jeff, this was done by the Operations Team. Per me, it was the A-C Elves. I’d certainly never s
een any of the Elves in person, at least to my knowledge, and they worked like magic. Christopher liked to try to explain this more comprehensively, but his explanation made my head hurt so I ignored it.
I changed out of my “appropriate” clothes—the Armani fatigues as I called them, white Oxford shirt and black slim skirt to everyone else—since I didn’t have to pretend to be anything but a mom for Mommy and Me. I put on a clean pair of jeans and one of my long-sleeved Aerosmith T-shirts, the ones with the snazzy rhinestones creating the band’s logo. I always felt better with Steven, Joe, and the rest of my boys on my chest.
Under the circumstances, I got my Glock out of the drawer Jeff thought he had it hidden in, made sure it was loaded, and shoved it and a couple of extra clips into the bottom of my purse, focusing on flowers the entire time. Jeff didn’t come in and rip the Glock out of my possession, so I figured the flowers had worked their empathic avoidance magic.
Reader joined me and bundled Jamie into her snowsuit while I got my coat on. It was March but winter was giving spring a good fight to the death. Spring seemed to be winning in terms of flora and fauna, but winter was keeping the cold around until the bitter end. I let the homesickness for Arizona and New Mexico wash over me and then shoved it aside. Danger was back on the case, and that meant me longing for the desert wasn’t going to do us any good.
“I mean it, girlfriend,” he said as he snuggled his goddaughter and got a happy coo in return. “I want you thinking. Reynolds, Kevin, and your mother have run down intel on every terrorist organization known, the ones only the C.I.A. and P.T.C.U. know about and our personal favorites included, and nothing’s coming up. If the threat is real, and we all think it is, then we have to get some kind of handle on things before Saturday night.”