Alien Diplomacy

by Gini Koch

  She nodded slowly. “It’s possible.”

  “How probable?” Chuckie asked as he and Christopher shoved into the room.

  “I’m really not sure.” Nurse Carter shook her head. “I’m sorry.” She turned around. “So, what are you going to do with me?”

  “Keep you here, with us, under guard,” Chuckie answered without missing a beat. Jeff and Christopher both nodded.

  Either Nurse Carter was already aware that if the three of them were in agreement, arguing was fruitless or she didn’t mind sticking around. “Good. I would prefer to be here, I think.”

  “Why so?”

  She smiled at me. “After what’s been going on, I believe you’re working for the same goals I am. And under the circumstances, I don’t want to be left alone to be murdered by whoever’s trying to kill people.”

  I saw Chuckie nudge Jeff, who grunted. “Like with Caroline, telling the truth as she knows it, and not picking up anything negative toward any of us.” He looked at Walter. “Have all bases scan us again.”

  “And our neighbors, if they can.”

  Everyone looked at me. “Why?” Christopher asked finally.

  I rolled my eyes. “Really? I’m the only one here who’s ever heard of high-powered surveillance equipment? Really, Chuckie?”

  He sighed. “Good point.”

  “I’ve heard of it,” Christopher snapped. “I just don’t get what you’re going for, having us use it to spy on our neighbors.”

  “Dude, seriously, has Tito given you any tests to ensure your brain wasn’t affected negatively by the Surcenthumain? Every Embassy around us was infiltrated in some way today. I’m betting none of them had their version of Walter hanging around, because no human can run fast enough to escape if the place goes boom. So, they could have put in any amount of surveillance, trained on us, and our neighbors would be none the wiser. I want Chuckie to look for what’s looking at us. I’m not trying to see what the Irish and Romanians wear under their kilts.”

  “They don’t wear kilts,” Christopher snapped.

  “I know. Figure of speech, okay?”

  “Sorry, just having trouble keeping up with the Kittyisms.”

  I decided to end our spat. We were only having it because everyone was freaked out and upset. “Look, let’s just get the good cameras in here and going so we can all relax. About that, if nothing else.”

  Chuckie sighed. “I have to agree. Martini, are you actually equipped for this?”

  Jeff nodded. “I’m sure we are. Dulce or NASA Base should have something on hand that will work. However, we’ve just moved into Alpha Team territory.” He rubbed his forehead. “Let’s go downstairs and see what James wants to do.”

  “Wait.” Everyone looked at me. “Walter, what do our video feeds show? They were running, right, when the fire alarms went off?”

  “Yes, Chief.” He fiddled with some knobs and the picture changed. I saw everyone other than me, Jeff, and Walter go out the front door. Then the film went dark. “What the—” Walter fiddled with some more knobs and flipped some switches. Still all we saw was blackness.

  “Was our equipment tampered with?” Jeff asked, voice taut.

  “Possible,” Walter said, still intent and fiddling. “Switching to see the feeds on the other external locations.” They were black, too. One moment boring nothing going on, the next, they went dark.

  A thought occurred. “Walt, fast forward the feeds.” He did as requested. Suddenly there were pictures again. “How many cameras did we have on before Jeff had you turn them all back on?”

  “Just three, Chief. The one for the front door, the one for the side, where we take out the trash and get deliveries, and the one for the underground garage.”

  I sighed. “There are three of them. It wouldn’t take a lot to toss something over the cameras covering the side and the garage, right?”

  “How would they knock out the camera at the front door?” Chuckie asked.

  I pondered. “They didn’t come in from the front, that’s where all of you were. They came in from the side or underground. One of them turned off the front camera feed, just in case. They probably put dark cloth over the other cameras—they were in here, casing the place, after all. I’m sure they looked for and found all the various cameras’ plugs.”

  “They went into every room, Chief,” Walter confirmed. “They said they had to be sure each room didn’t contain a leak. And you can leave the cameras running while blacking out the pictures, so the offline alert wouldn’t be triggered.”

  “Yeah, they might be lame with their taxi driving, but they knew what they were doing inside. So they flipped the fire alarm switch in some way and trotted in here without a problem because they already knew their way around. After all, Walter wasn’t watching the cameras, was he? He was trying to figure out where the supposed fire was. He wasn’t looking for someone to try to come in when, during a fire alarm, everyone wants to go out.”

  “That’s true, Chief.” Walter sounded dejected. “I never checked the video feeds.”

  “Not your fault. You acted just as they expected, meaning normally. Besides, Jeff had you turn most of the cameras off, so I’ll wager you’re not a big fan of watching them, because you know it makes us feel uncomfortable.”

  Walter blushed, so I knew I’d hit that one on the head. “We haven’t had a need before, Chief.”

  “There’s a need now,” Chuckie said. “But Kitty’s theory makes sense. The garage has more security, so assume they came in and left through the side. It would be fairly easy to block that camera, which we need to remedy, by the way.”

  “Will do,” Walter said quickly. “I’ll get expanded lenses onto all the cameras tomorrow, Mister Reynolds.”

  Chuckie nodded. “Good, but for all we know, they blocked it earlier in the day, and we just didn’t notice, though they could have just as easily worn dark clothing and ski masks to cover the cameras right before they triggered the alarm. They got what they were looking for, turned the front camera back on, left through the side entrance and removed whatever they’d put on the camera there, went to the garage entrance, removed whatever was covering that camera, and walked on down the street.”

  Jeff sighed. “Let’s go share the latest news with Alpha Team.”

  “Why?” Christopher asked morosely.

  Jeff chuckled mirthlessly. “I don’t want to be greedy. Let’s share the misery with our friends and family.”

  CHAPTER 49

  WE LEFT WALTER AND TROOPED to the elevator. Why make the humans sick for no reason? We’d undoubtedly have a reason shortly.

  There were a number of agents zipping through our facility. “We figured if they could plant bugs in the ballroom, there was a chance for elsewhere,” Tim said as we joined him, Reader, Gower, and Serene, all of whom looked tense and alert but fully in charge. At least someone was.

  “There was a chance for more than bugs,” I said. “We’re really batting a thousand right now on getting fooled, scammed, and ripped off.”

  We shared the wonderful news that we’d lost the picture and had been far too easily broken into while all of us were essentially on the premises while I wondered if the Suicide Hotline made house calls.

  The four of them took this in better stride than some of us had. “Mistakes happen,” Reader said as we finished our tale of woeful inadequacy.

  “Find anything else?” Jeff asked.

  Reader shook his head. “Not so far, but they’re not done.”

  William joined us. “Commanders, Chiefs, no other bugs found on premises. We also checked for things of a more dangerous nature. Nothing.”

  Everyone looked relieved, but the ol’ feminine intuition felt twitchy. “Why go through all of this merely to take the picture Nurse Carter had? Even if Christopher had read it, it’s not as though he’d have gotten ‘current hideout’ out of it.”

  “Serene might have,” Reader said quietly.

  “True, but that presumes they know us rea
lly well. I get how they knew we had the picture. Chuckie interrogated Caroline, and she was talking about it while we were sitting in the room with all the bugs. But to remove us all from the building to steal one little snapshot seems like overkill.”

  “It was incriminating evidence,” Chuckie said. “Proof Titan has assassins on the payroll and around some of our most influential politicians.”

  Nurse Carter and I looked at each other. “Where did you put the things the Dingo left for you to claim?” she asked me.

  “No freaking idea, but I’ll bet that stuff’s gone, too.”

  Reader swore under his breath while Gower zipped off. He was back quickly, empty-handed. “We had the things Jeff brought back from the hospital in the conference room. All gone.”

  “So anything the Dingo wanted you to get is gone,” Chuckie said, migraine clearly arriving at any second. “Do you remember what it was?” he asked Nurse Carter.

  “A wallet, a man’s personal care kit, a small Bible, and a manila envelope. We’re not allowed to look into anything that’s going into lockup, and two hospital personnel as well as Security put the patient’s belongings away, so I didn’t get to look inside anything.”

  “I can’t believe the Dingo Dog carried a Bible with him. He kills people for a living.”

  “The personal care kit could have held explosives, a disassembled gun, poisons…anything.” By the way Chuckie rubbed his forehead, I knew the migraine had made its grand entrance. “For all we know, the envelope contained the name of the assassination target.”

  “I doubt it.”

  Everyone looked at me. “Want to explain that?” Christopher asked.

  “Look, we were all in the freaking Potomac. Jeff pulled the two bodies out, but he didn’t pull their damn car out of the river. And even if he had, you and Kyle searched all those limos.”

  “True. We didn’t find anything like what was just described. Not,” Christopher added with a sigh, “that we couldn’t have missed them. I wasn’t looking for paperwork or men’s toiletry kits. I was looking for guns and ammo.”

  I didn’t share with him that he hadn’t found all the guns, either. Why make it worse? “Fine. So, seriously, nothing Nurse Carter had waiting for me in that hospital vault was wet or looked as if it had so much as been in the same vicinity as a bottle of Dasani. So the Dingo got this from somewhere or someone after he left Tim’s control but before he got to Nurse Carter.”

  Chuckie looked like he’d fought the migraine off for a minute. “So he was given those things by the same people who took his partner away.”

  “I think that’s a legitimate logic leap, yeah. But instead of doing with them whatever he was supposed to, he instead had Nurse Carter lock them up.” I looked at her, and my brain kicked, hard. “Wait a damn minute. You know him and he knows you. And that means he knew who he was handing this stuff to.”

  “If he handed it to her,” Chuckie said, in that silky yet deadly way he’d clearly learned from working at the C.I.A.

  She looked like she was going to argue, but perhaps all of us glaring at her convinced her it would be futile. Instead her shoulders slumped, and she nodded. “He recognized me. He told me these things had to go to you, to list you as his niece, that it mattered greatly, and that it would matter greatly to me.”

  “And yet you didn’t look inside any of it?”

  “I wanted to, believe me. But I couldn’t, there were too many witnesses. The Dingo was very…cautious when he spoke to me. I know he realized who I was. I believe it’s why he trusted me.”

  “No reason why we should, however,” Chuckie said. “Since you conveniently forgot to tell us about this.”

  “I thought it was self-evident.”

  “No, that’s the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Usually when we’re trying to stop a major disaster, we like to share all our information with each other.”

  Nurse Carter’s eyes flashed. “Look, I don’t know you people! Half of you aren’t people, either, not as I’d think of them, are you? You supposedly arrested me, but I haven’t had my rights read, haven’t had a phone call, haven’t had my crimes explained.”

  “I don’t have to do any of that,” Chuckie said, voice still dangerous. “You’re under arrest because you’re a potential terrorist and you threatened an ambassador’s life. You don’t get any of the niceties local law enforcement’s forced to use. You get to prove you’re not a threat or you get a cell in an underground vault. Period.”

  “As if you’re not going to put me into that cell anyway? For all I knew when you took me, you were going to kill me. You could still be part of the conspiracy I’m here trying to stop, or worse, really related to the Dingo and be the ones planning to finish whatever job he was assigned to. So I don’t know why you think I’m a bad person for not stating the obvious once I’d told you about my experiences with the Dingo.”

  “Because we explained that you tell us the truth or you go to the cell,” Tim said. “We’re trying to stop an assassination, and we don’t know the target. You’re not helping us at all. I say lock her up.”

  “I’m willing to agree,” Christopher said. Everyone nodded.

  I looked at Jeff. His eyes were narrowed. “What are you getting?”

  “Aside from the fact that Nurse Carter here is desperately trying to hide her emotions from me? Terror. Pure, unadulterated terror. She’s more afraid of everyone in this room than she ever was when discussing the Dingo.”

  “Does that make her our enemy?” Chuckie asked.

  Len cleared his throat. “Ah, sir?”

  “Yes?” every man other than Kyle said this in unison. I managed not to laugh, but it took effort. I noted that, terrified or not, Nurse Carter found this funny, too.

  “We fingerprinted her, remember? You had her prints run.”

  Chuckie nodded. “Results aren’t back yet.”

  Kyle held up his PDA. “Back now, sir. This is Magdalena Rijos-Carter, R.N. She has dual citizenship in the U.S. and Paraguay. No outstanding warrants, no police record. On file because her husband was in the Air Force and to obtain citizenship.”

  Len looked at his phone, where he clearly had the same info Kyle did. “Her husband died during a training maneuver.” Len looked up. “In the New Mexican desert. Several years ago.”

  I decided to take the leap. “So, her husband died fighting a superbeing, right?”

  Len nodded. “From what this says, or rather, the way it doesn’t say anything, yes, I think so. He was given a hero’s funeral.”

  “And your brother was murdered in front of you.” I shook my head. “You knew about American Centaurion and didn’t come to us for help?”

  “I only knew my husband worked high security missions. He never said what he did. I wouldn’t have believed him if he told me. Not until…”

  “Until your brother found out about the supersoldier project in the Chaco?” She nodded. “Who did you lose to that project?”

  She looked down. “Our son. He was doing work with some of the indigent, and…” She looked up and there were tears in her eyes. “They took out the entire village. From what we were able to gather, some were infected with whatever it is that makes them turn into monsters. And they killed the others. I…don’t know if our son was one of the monsters or not. Or if he’s still possibly alive.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “About a year and a half ago.”

  Right when we’d handled the clustered formation in the Chaco, before Operation Drug Addict got underway.

  Jeff cleared his throat. “Your son isn’t alive. If he was turned into a superbeing, he was destroyed. I gave the order and watched it happen.”

  Nurse Carter looked at him. “Thank you,” she said finally.

  “Why are you thanking him?” Christopher asked quietly.

  “Because now I know. For certain, that there can be no hope, but also that there can be no more horror.”

  I looked back at Jeff. “What
do you think?”

  “What I thought before. Reynolds, she’s not our enemy. Not sure what to do with her, but the underground prison isn’t the right choice.”

  “She’s not our friend, either,” Chuckie pointed out.

  Nurse Carter shrugged. “As the saying goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. I want these people stopped. If I can help you keep the Dingo’s target from being killed, I will. Especially if it means you can stop my enemies from murdering someone else’s brilliant, loving brother, or taking anyone else’s beloved son and murdering him in the way I know he died.”

  I patted her shoulder. “We’re doing our best. Today, our best is none too good, but, you know, we sometimes manage to pull out a miracle.”

  “We need that miracle, girlfriend,” Reader said with a sigh. “Because we’ve lost whatever clues we had and are, pretty much, back to square one. And time’s running out.”

  CHAPTER 50

  “OKAY, SO, LET’S GET BACK to where we were before we finally got Nurse Carter’s full info. Let me ask, though, did you work with the taxi drivers, helping them get in here?”

  “Absolutely not,” she said firmly. “I wanted that information more than you do.”

  “Where did you get the gun you had in the security deposit box?”

  She shrugged. “It was the Dingo’s. He told me it was waterlogged when he slipped it to me, but I figured you wouldn’t know that, and I was hoping I wouldn’t have to pull the trigger.”

  “It worked. I had no clue it was his gun.” And said gun had been in front of my face only the day before, too. It figured. As Jeff liked to point out, I had fabulous attention to detail, just not usually the details most people cared about.

  “The relevant question is, does this mean the three enterprising taxi drivers are working with the Dingo and company?” Chuckie asked. “Or are they working their own angle?”

  Tim shook his head. “There’s always more than one thing going on.”

  “I think another question should be were the taxi drivers the only ones who broke in this evening,” Reader said.