Alien Diplomacy

by Gini Koch

  “Maybe not,” Oliver said. “She’s new. However, they’re a hugely influential group. If she wants to rise up in the Washington hierarchy, they’re a good set to join. One of them is related to the head of Titan Security, too.”

  “Really? Which one?” I figured it couldn’t be Madeline Cartwright—not only did she seem just too boring for this level of intrigue, she was a Pentagon employee, and I knew their background checks rivaled Chuckie’s.

  Oliver shook his head. “I don’t know, can’t find the information. The records have been cleaned, so to speak.”

  “How do you clean off records of your relatives?”

  “Change their names, steal and delete all the birth records, replace them with new ones.” Chuckie shrugged. “We do it all the time with witness protection. I didn’t know Titan had this direct a Washington connection, though.”

  “They’ve taken great pains to hide it,” Oliver said. “I only know from piecing together little bits of information here and there, found over time and while I was doing my exposé on the situation with the police department. So far, it hasn’t been enough to even write an article about, let alone take to someone like you.”

  “Take it to me now,” Chuckie said. “I don’t like discovering a conspiracy theory I know nothing about.”

  “Losing a perfect track record?”

  He shot me a glare. “No. But part of my job is to determine which of the theories and rumors are true. Like the supersoldier project that came out of nowhere. I don’t like being blindsided. Titan’s got a lot of clout—I need to know who or what they’re connected to, and discovering who they have hidden in our government would be an intelligent place to start.”

  “As far as I can tell, this was put in place decades ago,” Oliver said.

  “That’s some serious long-term planning.”

  “Our enemies tend to fall on that side of the house,” Chuckie reminded me. “And I consider Titan to be among our enemies.” He shook his head. “They’ve been investigated. Senator McMillan has certainly had a number of background checks run on Titan’s board of directors and chief officers. They focused on Titan because they won the local protection contract, but they’ve done the same with all the other security companies bidding on government contracts.”

  “Go Arizona.” McMillan was our senior senator, and my sorority roommate, Caroline, worked for him now. “We rock the suspicious.”

  “And yet they’ve found nothing actionable against Titan,” Chuckie pointed out.

  “Are we safe in assuming they want to kill all of us and make Centaurion the War Division, or do we think they just want all the money and power in the world?”

  “Yes.” Chuckie shook his head. “And yes, I know that was an either-or question. Always assume they’re out to get you. It may sound paranoid, but it keeps you alive.”

  Jeff ran his hand through his hair. “What a great mindset to live with.”

  Chuckie shrugged. “Look back at the last few years and call me overcautious.”

  “What bothers me most is what’s bothered me since Operation Confusion—that there are conspiracies and plans going on that you and my mom know nothing about. And we don’t know if Titan’s part of an older plot we didn’t know anything about before but at least have an inkling of now, or if it’s part of a brand-new plan to kill the people we care about and take over. Or something else entirely.”

  Jeff, Chuckie, and I shared the “we’re doomed” look.

  “Ah, well,” Oliver said in a tone of voice clearly intended to cheer us up. “I’m sure it’ll all come out eventually. The truth always does.”

  “Does it?” Jeff didn’t sound happy. “Because if that’s the case, that means we’re going to be exposed somewhere along the line.”

  The boys returned before any of the rest of us could make a sarcastic comment about Oliver’s optimism or reassure Jeff that we’d remain hiding in plain sight without issue. Of course, it might just have been me who had to hold back the fact that the truth very often never came out because it was too busy being beaten to a pulp and rearranged into something “more palatable.” Yeah, I’d picked up a few things in the short time we’d been here. Which was why I was less worried about us being discovered than Jeff was.

  “Pierre had them all leaving, but we made sure they didn’t dawdle,” Len shared.

  “Good, then let’s get out of here. Our appointment with the ‘king’ is overdue.”

  “What?” Kyle asked. “We’re seeing a king?”

  “Not so much, no.”

  The six of us trotted off, me, Oliver, and Chuckie bringing the boys up to speed. We got into one of the limos that didn’t have a car seat in it. Jeff and I sat in the back, Chuckie and Oliver faced us, Len had the wheel, Kyle had shotgun. Not the team I was used to, but we were a team nonetheless.

  “How do you keep all these people straight?” Kyle asked as we finished our Weirdness Wrap-Up.

  “Unwillingly.”

  “And is there really a king?”

  “Yes,” Jeff said. “Only he’s on Alpha Four.”

  “So,” Len said, getting us back on topic, “whoever bugged Mister Joel Oliver, they had plenty of time and opportunity, right? Because he doesn’t live in a secured building, at least, not like you do.”

  “Right.”

  “But who bugged Kitty?” Kyle asked. “Because from what you all said, there were a lot of different bugs in her purse.”

  “But nothing in the baby’s things,” I added.

  “The baby would be presumed to be with her mother,” Oliver suggested.

  “Not all the time.”

  “So they aren’t after Jamie,” Chuckie said.

  “Good,” Jeff growled. “Not that it stopped them from trying to kill her.”

  “Is it the same people, though? I mean, we never have just one plan going on.”

  Chuckie sighed. “Good point. Let’s assume we have multiple actions against us active. It’ll make us more alert.”

  “Maybe whoever bugged Kitty didn’t have access to Jamie’s diaper bag,” Kyle suggested.

  Jeff’s phone rang before we could comment. “Hi, Gladys. Really. Really? Huh.” He looked at me and Oliver. “Good initiative, those teams. Good. Really. Thanks, Gladys. Yeah, we’ll sleep better. If, you know, we ever get to sleep again.”

  He hung up and looked at Chuckie. “They searched your home and office, the Embassy, the Pontifex’s residence, Kitty’s parents’ home as well as their new place, and Mister Joel Oliver’s trashed apartment. Gladys had each Centaurion Base run through a full scan set, too. The only bugs found were the ones in the Embassy—those that were on his clothes and equipment and in Kitty’s purse. Between the two, there were over a dozen different pieces of tracking equipment. They’re running comparisons now, but it’s a good guess they won’t all be from the same group, organization, or country.”

  We all let that sit on the air for a while. I could see Chuckie’s conspiracy wheels turning. I could also tell they weren’t settling on anything key.

  “So, I guess the big questions are, why are Mister Joel Oliver and I so very popular, and how did we get so many bugs on us both, in, I’d have to guess, such a short period of time?”

  “Succinctly put.” Chuckie looked as if he might have gotten something. “Martini, you said there were around a dozen pieces of tracking software between Kitty and Mister Joel Oliver?”

  “Yes.” Jeff’s phone beeped. “Test results are back. We’ve identified matches between what was in Kitty’s purse and what was on our reporter here. Seven matching sets, so we can safely assume there are seven different groups who were bugging them. Huh.”

  “What?”

  “There’s one that was only in your purse, baby. Doesn’t match at all with the others.”

  “So there’s one person out there only following me, instead of me and MJO? I feel so special.”

  “Seven sets…” Chuckie’s voice trailed off. I knew his expression; the wheels
were turning. “That fits.”

  I thought about the past hour and made the leap. “You think the people who visited us unexpectedly were the ones who bugged me?”

  “Yeah, because there were seven of them in addition to Cantu, Armstrong, and Cartwright. And there was no real reason for them to make the first lobbying and bribery steps today.”

  “Unless they know someone’s gonna die at the President’s Ball.”

  “I’m more concerned about Kitty being spied on in her Washington Wife class,” Jeff said, looking and sounding worried.

  “Eugene wouldn’t bug me.” I considered whether it was a good time to suggest I not attend the class anymore. Thought about it and figured I’d be told I had to go to perform counterespionage and decided not to get into that resulting discussion.

  Jeff nodded. “I don’t get anything threatening or dangerous from him.”

  “He wouldn’t have to bug you to get information about where you were going,” Chuckie said. “You’d tell him, as long as he asked in a way that made sense.”

  “Or he’s not involved.”

  “Possible.” Chuckie didn’t sound convinced either way. “However, the other six that dropped by all have significant others in class with you, don’t they?”

  “Oh, snap. Yeah, and that explains why they called me and Eugene over yesterday morning—to plant their bugs. My purse was shoved under the middle of the table, and I wasn’t paying any attention to it because I was so focused on the return-to-high school situation. So they all could and probably did drop something in.” I thought about it. “I’ll bet the seventh bug was planted by Jack Ryan. His wife works for the C.I.A.”

  “Not in my division, and her division’s not read in on American Centaurion. Which means her spying on you makes sense.”

  “So they showed up today because we’d found their bugs?” Jeff asked.

  Chuckie nodded. “Sounds right to me.”

  Jeff made a call. “Yeah, me again. Please have the agents sweep the lower floors of the Embassy for bugs. Yes, again. Trust me, they’re going to find some.” He waited a few moments. “Right. How many? Really? Great. No, not at this moment. Thank you.” He hung up, looking angry.

  “Well?” Chuckie asked.

  “More bugs planted. Ten of them, in fact.”

  “So, we’ll neutralize those and prepare ourselves for more impromptu visits. That covers the really obvious. But I haven’t been around Cantu, Armstrong, or Cartwright for them to bug me. So who does the nonmatching bug that’s only on me belong to?”

  Chuckie said. “No idea. I have another question, though. What is it everyone who bugged both of you wants to know, and do they know it already or not?”

  CHAPTER 32

  “THAT’S TWO QUESTIONS, REALLY,” I pointed out.

  “Oh, pardon me, Miss No Exaggeration Allowed,” Chuckie replied with a grin.

  “Missus,” Jeff snapped.

  “Boys, don’t start. And we can’t really answer your questions yet, Chuckie, though my guess is no, or we wouldn’t have been visited by The Gang of Ten.” But it did remind me of a small, but I felt important, point. “Why did Peter call me Miss Katt?”

  “Isn’t his name Pierre?” Kyle asked.

  “Yes, but I’m talking about a different Peter. This one is one of the ones who tried to kill us all day yesterday.”

  “No idea,” Chuckie said. “Hopefully Serene’s team will find something on that memory card.”

  “Think our visitors and Peter are connected?”

  “Maybe,” Chuckie allowed. “But if so, the bigger questions would be which one of them is behind the assassination attempt, and who do they want to kill?”

  “I hate it when you ask the hard questions. Over and over again.”

  “Give me a hard answer and make all our lives easier.”

  “When the light dawns for me, you’ll be the first to know.”

  Traffic was a lot calmer than the day before, and we made it to the Georgetown University Medical Center in decent time. I checked my watch. Jeff had given it to me for my birthday—it was top of the line, extremely waterproof, and all the other bad things proof, so it was still working. Nurse Carter had called me about an hour and thirty minutes ago. I hoped we hadn’t taken too long to get here.

  We parked and had the “do we leave the limo unattended or not” argument. Chuckie and Jeff wanted Len and Kyle to stay with the limo. I didn’t want to separate our group. Jeff compromised, called Reader, and a set of A-C agents came to do parking garage duty.

  The six of us trooped in and found Nurse Carter without too much trouble. She was middle-aged, seemed in pretty good physical shape, and, as her voice had indicated, looked Hispanic, though I couldn’t say if she was Mexican, Cuban, or something else. She was also quite brisk.

  After I showed my ID and explained that Katt was my maiden name, thankfully shown on my driver’s license, which read Katt Martini, she managed a fleeting smile. Apparently it was the smile for middle-aged women in Washington. “Well, Miss Katt, thank you for coming down so quickly.” She looked at the men with me. “Oh, were those other men really your employees? If so, I’m sorry, we can’t break protocol.”

  “Employees?”

  “The men who came by about an hour ago. They said you’d asked them to claim your uncle’s things, but we have strict rules here. They weren’t on the list, I’d already contacted you, and you are the one who has to claim the deceased’s belongings.”

  I’d moved from Peter’s random friends and family list up to niece status in less than two hours. I wondered if I stalled a bit if I’d end up his wife or daughter. “I didn’t send anyone.” I looked up at Chuckie, who shook his head. “No one should have come here other than me.”

  “Then, I wonder who they were?” she said absently, as she went into a locked room at the nurse’s station. She came out with a clipboard. “Come with me, please.”

  “What did the men who tried to get my uncle’s things look like?” I asked her as we walked briskly along to the elevators.

  “Like businessmen, like your friends,” she indicated Chuckie and the boys, not Jeff or Oliver. She looked at me sharply. “Why would someone try to claim your uncle’s things illegally?”

  Since he wasn’t actually my uncle, technically I was claiming illegally. But apparently Peter had wanted me to so claim, so it was, therefore, legal. My small moral quandary over, I checked her expression. She looked suspicious. This probably wasn’t good. “Huh. I have no idea. Maybe they were my uncle’s rivals.”

  “Oh. Business or politics?”

  We were in D.C., it wasn’t an insightful question so much as covering the likely bases. “Both, I think.” The elevator arrived, and we got in and headed for the basement level.

  “Well, we certainly don’t want to cause an international incident here.” Nurse Carter gave a nervous titter. “Trust me, we ensured your uncle’s things were protected. His personal items are in the vault.”

  “The medical center has a vault?”

  “Absolutely. We get many dignitaries here. We don’t want anyone…untoward…taking advantage of them while they’re ill or injured.”

  Interesting. So Nurse Carter was used to shadowy people trying to snag other people’s property. “These other men, they didn’t have any paperwork that would have given them clearance, did they?”

  “You mean like a warrant? No. I would have contacted you if that had been the case.”

  “How did you get anything of my uncle’s in the first place?”

  “Oh, every patient’s belongings are bagged and tagged when they arrive. He requested his things be sent to the vault, after asking that we be sure to notify his next of kin of his predicament.”

  So Peter had been aware of the kind of security the medical center had. “Do all the area hospitals work the same way?”

  “Of course.” The doors opened, and we trailed Nurse Carter as she wound her way through the rat maze of corridors. They weren’t too br
ightly lit—not dim but not really typical medical bright white light, either. Presumably because there weren’t patients down here. We ended up at a room with a Security kiosk in front of it.

  The guard reminded me of our A-C Security teams. Not that he was gorgeous, far from it. But he was big and had that totally bored yet totally alert at the same time thing going on.

  He and Nurse Carter exchanged some sign and countersign stuff that seemed amazingly complex for a hospital, then he allowed her inside. I started to follow, and he put his hand up. “Only the nurse.”

  She looked at me. “Miss Katt can come in. The gentlemen need to wait outside.”

  “I’d like to go with my wife,” Jeff said. He sounded worried. And annoyed that she was still calling me Miss. I was accepting that, for whatever reason, a wedding ring, driver’s license with my married name on it, and my husband and/or baby with me weren’t convincing some people that I was marriageable material.

  “She’ll be fine,” Nurse Carter said reassuringly. “If she gets emotional, I’ll get her right back out to you.”

  I knew Jeff wasn’t worried about my sobbing over my “uncle’s” things. I figured he didn’t like the idea of us separating this way. I couldn’t blame him. Then again, if this was how they did things at the D.C. hospitals, making a fuss would draw a lot of unwanted attention.

  “I’ll be fine.” I squeezed Jeff’s hand and followed Nurse Carter into the vault.

  The door closed behind us, sounding very loud and very emphatic. The lighting was fairly dim, like the rest of the floor. Apparently they liked to keep it creepy in their basement. How Stephen King of them.

  With that cheery thought in my mind, I followed Nurse Carter to the back of the vault, where there was a bank of what looked like safety deposit boxes. She inserted a key into one, opened it, pulled out a bunch of stuff in a long tray, and put it down on the table nearby.

  “Now,” she said, as she turned around, took a nasty looking handgun out of the tray, and pointed it at me, “why don’t you tell me what the hell is going on?”

  CHAPTER 33