by Gini Koch
Made sure I had plenty of clips for my Glock in my purse, verified that anything and everything else I could need was in there, gave my hair a fast brush and pulled it into a ponytail, and I was ready.
Through all this, Jamie had been happily cuddling her Poof and prattling about her day and all the fun things she’d done with her grandparents. “We watched you and Daddy on TV!” she said in summation, as I slung my purse back on and checked—Harlie and Poofikins were in it, snoozing. Poofs on board was never an issue. “You looked really pretty, Mommy.”
“Thanks, Jamie-Kat.” Kissed her head.
“You look pretty now, too,” she said judiciously.
“I appreciate that. Daddy looked handsome as always, didn’t he?”
“Yes! Gran’ma Luci said Daddy looked proud and happy.”
“I hope so. I’m very proud of Daddy.”
“Me, too. Papa Sol said that Daddy is going to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. What does that mean?”
“It means that, if Daddy and Senator Armstrong win the jobs they’re trying out for, that Senator Armstrong will become the President and Daddy will have a very important job, helping him.”
“Oh.” She was quiet as I picked her up. “Mommy?”
“Yes, sweetie?”
“You need to take Mous-Mous with you.”
“But Mous-Mous is your Poof. Harlie and Poofikins are in Mommy’s purse.”
Jamie shook her head. “You need to take Mous-Mous with you.” She kissed the Poof, which purred and rubbed against her. Then Mous-Mous purred at me and jumped into my purse.
“Are you sure, Jamie-Kat?”
She nodded. “Lola will cuddle with me.” As she said the Peregrine’s name, Lola dechameleoned. She was right next to me and looked up as I looked down. Lola winked.
“Lola, where’s Bruno?”
Lola cooed, flapped her wings, bobbed her head, and cooed again. Bruno was on the job with Jeff and the rest of Team Announcement, along with half of the other Embassy Peregrines. Lola recommended extra Poofs if I was going into danger, since the remaining Peregrines were on guard in the Embassy.
“Gotcha. Okay, I’ll take good care of Mous-Mous, Jamie, I promise.”
“I know you will, Mommy. And Mous-Mous will take care of you, too.”
“Good to know. Any Poofies who want an adventure get into Kitty’s purse. Any Poofies who want snuggle time with Jamie stay here.” Several Poofs joined the ones already in my purse.
The rest of the unattached Poofs, all of whom lived with us because I was the Ambassador and I could make that rule stick, stayed on their luxury Poof Condos, snuggled around our cats. All but two. Those two jumped down and into Jamie’s arms, purring like mad. Had a feeling they’d have names by the time I got back. Oh well, Poofs for everyone and more Poofs for me and my little girl was my motto.
Left the bedroom, gave Jamie back to Dad, gave everyone more hugs, with extra hugs and kisses for Jamie, then got out of the apartment before I didn’t want to do anything but stay and be a mom doing mom things with my little girl.
My timing was good. The burner phone rang as I reached the elevators.
“Uncle Peter?”
“Yes, Miss Katt. We are nearby.”
“Where?”
“Conveniently close.”
Thought about it. “You’re on the Embassy’s roof, aren’t you?”
“Yes, we are.” And they could be up there because Walter was off with the rest of Team Oliver. Had no idea if we even had someone running Security now, but based on the fact that Lola had told me to take Poofs with me because the Peregrines were staying put, my bet was that we didn’t. William was probably monitoring from Dulce, but that wasn’t the same thing as having someone here. “Are you able to join us?”
“Yes, but I’m bringing two people with me. Both unarmed and friendly to the cause.”
“As you wish.”
We hung up and I sent a text to White and Serene, then headed for the stairs to wait for them to join me. They were both A-Cs so they showed up within a couple of seconds. “What’s the word on the pictures?”
“Olga spotted some similarities throughout the crowd, so we’re running full facial recognition on everyone the three of us captured,” Serene replied. “And I gave Vance his phone back, so we should be good. The meeting’s still going on in the kitchen.”
“Great, then let’s head upstairs.”
We trotted up and onto the roof. Sure enough, as we stepped through the roof access door, no one was there. “Why would they be hiding?” I asked White.
“To ensure you did not bring people we wouldn’t want to see,” the Dingo said, as he closed the door behind us and Surly Vic stepped out from behind the roof entrance room. They were both dressed in black T-shirts, black painter’s pants, lightweight boots, black baseball caps, and leather gloves, and were carrying backpacks, also black. They were also carrying guns. Not pointed at any of us, however, so we had that going for us.
Managed not to scream and only jumped a little, go me. “You know Richard White from the last time you visited, and this is Serene Dwyer. Serene, these are my uncles Peter and Victor Kasperoff.”
The Dingo nodded to White and Serene, but Surly Vic gave her a wide smile. “Pleased to meet you.” He rarely smiled, so, clearly, Serene was his type.
“She’s married,” I pointed out.
He laughed. “All the beautiful women are, aren’t they?”
Serene blushed and I didn’t think it was faked. “Pleased to meet you both.”
“Your embassy is safe again, I see,” the Dingo said.
“Yes, thanks to you. Oh, you know, I have a question about all that’s gone on, unrelated to what we’re here to talk about. What was the bio-weapon you destroyed for me when it was delivered to our embassy a year and a half ago?”
He gave me a small smile. “Exactly what you think it was.”
“It was a ricin bomb, wasn’t it?”
CHAPTER 67
THE DINGO NODDED. “A particularly nasty one, yes.”
“That’s why you knew what to look for this time, it’s a signature poison for our enemies.”
“Yes,” Surly Vic said. “Ricin is easy to make but hard to survive.”
“Fabulous. Thank you again, even more, for all you’ve done for us.”
“We are happy to help you,” the Dingo said. “You help us as well.”
“Yes, speaking of that . . . I’m sure it’s against protocol, but can you tell me who hired you to kill Chernobog?”
They both looked pleased. “You figured it out?” the Dingo asked.
“Yeah. I know where she is, too. But, I need to talk to her, and get things back from her that she took. And, if possible . . . get her to help me. And she can’t do that if she’s dead.”
“We cannot disclose our client, in part because we don’t know who it is, specifically, ordering the job. However I can tell you that the contract came to us through the U.S. government. Your government is one of our best clients these days, since Raul was eliminated.”
“Aha, well, that confirms our expectations—that the Mastermind is up there politically in some way. Was the hiring organization the C.I.A.?”
“No. And that’s all I can tell you.” The Dingo looked at me seriously. “We do have to complete the assignment.”
“Yeah, I know. But does it have to be this week?”
“Yes, it was requested to happen before the National Convention next week.”
“That’s a big coinkydink and I’ve been trained not to believe in them. Therefore, logic says it’s totally related to what’s going on. My bet is that the Mastermind is who hired you, him more than the government, I mean, and he wants to get rid of Chernobog before she can have a change of heart in any way, or leverage what she has to the highest bidder.”
“That could be, in which case the assignment would work against what we want, personally. However, unless you can prove this contract is not actually condoned b
y your government . . .” The Dingo spread his hands out. “We have a job to do.”
“I know. But I’m wondering—could the three of us come with you? Or, rather, do you want to come with us? We’re heading over there, and we can get there faster than you can. I want to talk to Chernobog, and she might be a lot more chatty if the two of you are with me than not.”
“We were not planning on an up close and personal elimination,” Surly Vic said.
“Yeah, but I know you’re more than capable of it. I have no idea how formidable Chernobog is physically, especially at her age, but nothing makes you play nicely with others like the two best assassins in the world asking you to.”
“She’ll want to bargain, and we have no leeway,” the Dingo pointed out.
“Well, as to that, I have an idea. Can you return your fee and refuse the job? If she’s willing to cooperate, I mean. If she’s not, by all means, kill her.”
“You would allow that?” the Dingo asked.
“She’s the reason we lost all our data, and she made it easy for our enemies to kidnap and murder our people. People we loved. A lot. Yeah, I’d allow it.”
“I want to ask her some questions before we kill her,” Serene said quickly. “Not that I’m condoning killing her.”
“We enjoy being paid,” Surly Vic said.
“My idea includes you getting paid. Just potentially not for killing Chernobog.”
“The fee is quite high,” the Dingo said.
“And I’ll bet Chernobog has access to all that and more.”
“It’s against the rules to allow your target to bribe you,” Surly Vic shared.
“But it’s not unheard of, I’m sure. Besides, as your protégé Siler likes to say, the enemy of our enemy is our friend. And I think we can show Chernobog that we’re her friends. And if that’s the case, then I can say with some confidence that we can set it up so everyone’s happy, alive, and paid what they expected to be if not more.”
The Dingo said something to Surly Vic in Russian, who replied in kind. At least I assumed it was Russian. Sounded like Yuri only no curse words, so Russian or a similar language. They stepped a few feet away and carried on their conversation.
“Care to share your plan?” White asked quietly. “Both of you?”
“Once we know if they’re buying in or not on mine. But I’d like to know what Serene wants to ask Chernobog.”
“I want to know what she did to Imageering. I don’t believe what the others do, that it’s something they were able to put into the digital airwaves. That explanation made sense at the time, but if that’s what it was, we should have been able to counter it by now, and we haven’t.”
“That could just mean we haven’t found the right digital bits or whatever, you know. Hacker International’s been mostly focused on data reclamation and the Hunt for Red Chernobog.”
“Yes, but they have been working on it about a quarter of the time and can’t find anything. Plus, if the virus was in the digital airwaves somehow, we should still be able to read film, and most of Imageering can’t even do that anymore. It’s impossible for something digital to move to film, and even more impossible for it to move to old prints. Most imageers can’t read photos from when they were children anymore. We’re getting weaker in the talent, not stronger, and I think, especially because we’re dealing with people who use bio-weapons, that they poisoned us somehow.”
White and I let that one sit on the air while the assassins argued quietly. “How would they do it?” I asked finally. “If that’s what happened?”
“My guess is that they isolated a gas or poison that would affect imageering talent and only imageering talent. I have no idea how, though. But the empaths aren’t affected—they can still feel as long as there are no blockers or enhancers around. Same with troubadours. No dream readers have identified restrictions or loss of powers. It’s just the imageers.”
“Why target them?” White asked.
“I can think of why. Realistically, it’s your most potent talent. A good con artist could imitate an empath’s abilities, maybe not to Jeff’s level, but good enough for the average mark. It’s the same with a good actor imitating the troubadour talent. You don’t have a lot of dream and memory readers anyway. But imageering talent is like magic—touch a picture, know all about the person shown, manipulate the images as you see fit. You’ve used the talent for good, but it’s terrifying if you think about it clinically.”
“But they didn’t do whatever they did because they were afraid of the talent,” White said.
“Actually, I’d say that fear is exactly why they did whatever. We took pictures today—a little over a year ago, Serene would have been able to tell us which of those people in the mob were our enemies and which weren’t. Today? We’re reliant on facial recognition software, not imageers. And, specifically, a little over a year ago, if Serene or Christopher had touched the right picture, they’d have known who the Mastermind was, and where he was.”
“Christopher used a camera to reassure Amy she was fully human,” White said slowly. “Meaning he could tell if, say, Cameron Maurer was a human or an android.”
“Past tense. Because he can’t any more. Other than using Tito’s OVS or ripping Maurer’s head off.”
“That means the Mastermind isn’t just politically connected, but is someone who is either a public figure or close enough to us that one of our imageers touching a picture would be a likely risk,” White pointed out. “I’d assume Christopher is who they’re trying to avoid.”
“Probably. As for how they did it, speaking of Christopher, they had him as a drugged out, unwilling guinea pig for far too long. Plus, LaRue went to Alpha Four before she took off for space parts unknown. And I’ll wager the Z’porrah were more than happy to help with whatever experiments would mean they could screw us over. Bottom line, I think Serene’s on the right track. So we need to know what they released, and if it’s still out there somewhere.”
“It’s worldwide,” Serene said. “But it would only have to have been released in the Science Center. Every imageer will come to Dulce at least once a year for mandatory routine checkups.”
“Yeah, this I actually know. It’s required for all talented A-Cs, whether they’re in active roles or not, right?”
Serene nodded. “And we had all personnel come in after we were infiltrated, too, as a security measure, to ensure all were okay worldwide.” She looked ill. “That’s our standard practice. Richard’s right—the Mastermind knows us well.”
“We will go along with your plan for now,” the Dingo said as he and Surly Vic rejoined us. “Though we would like to know how you plan to get close to Chernobog without us all being detected.”
“Oh, that’s easy,” Serene said brightly. “You two just need to change clothes.”
CHAPTER 68
“I CAN’T BELIEVE WE’RE DOING THIS,” the Dingo muttered to me.
“Oh, come on. I know for a fact you two have done undercover work before. Besides, you look good.”
They did. Serene’s plan was brilliant in its simplicity. Dress the assassins in the Armani Fatigues, so they looked like any other human Field agents. And the Head of Imageering showing up with a couple of Field agents for protection wouldn’t cause anyone at Home Base to even blink.
The Elves had come through with our clothing requests, and it had been easy enough to sneak two extremely sneaky people into the Embassy, especially since we were on the roof anyway. We hadn’t even used hyperspeed.
Getting past everyone in the kitchen hadn’t been hard, either. Serene stopped in to say we were leaving while White and I got the Dingo and Surly Vic downstairs into the basement.
What to do with all the equipment our assassins had was the bigger issue. They refused to travel without it, and I didn’t want to leave it at the Embassy anyway. White solved this by requesting two of our nifty cloaked missile launcher cases, minus missiles. The assassins put their guns and other equipment, backpacks included, into
the cases, and hit the cloaking button.
“Amazing,” Surly Vic said, as he turned his case back to visible and then cloaked it again. The Dingo nodded with enthusiasm as he tested his case as well. Had a feeling they were going to ask for these cases as parting gifts. Had a worse feeling that I was going to let them have them.
Focused on flowers, lest Jeff be choosing this moment to monitor me. I’d found out it didn’t do much more than tell him I wanted privacy, but so far, that had meant he’d ignored me, so hope again sprang eternal.
White spun the wheel and calibrated the gate. “You’re sure we want to use the internal gates at the base, not the exterior one?”
“Yes. We won’t have a lot of time and we don’t want to get held up.”
“I agree with Kitty,” Serene said. “When Tim, James, and I go over, we usually use the internal gates.” Most gates were in bathrooms. Every airport in the world, even the tiniest, had a bathroom with a gate in it. Home Base, however, also had a regular bank of gates in their Administration building, so that important people didn’t have to go in and out of the most active human-alien base in the world via the toilet.
“We have to go one at a time,” White warned me. “And normal procedure would be for one of the Field agents to go first and one last.”
“Uncles Peter and Victor, who wants to go first?”
“I will,” the Dingo said. “Victor will bring up the rear.”
“Peter, Serene, myself, Missus Martini, and Victor, then,” White said. “Agreed.”
“Yes,” Serene said. “Let’s do this.” I saw her shift her expression, just slightly. She looked like Innocence on the Hoof again. She was good. Complimented myself on my hiring skills.
We went through, one at a time. I had the “pleasure” of watching three people do the icky, slow fade in front of me. At the last second, changed my mind. “You go before me. It won’t throw anyone.”