by Gini Koch
Surly Vic chuckled. “Everyone has their fears. What happens if I go through, but hold your hand and you follow after?”
“I honestly have no freaking idea. For all I know, nothing happens, we lose our hands, or we’re conjoined forever. It’s sort of a mystery to me how these things really work. Though Jeff carries me through all the time. But the gates have to be calibrated for that.”
“What is life without risk?” With that, he grabbed my hand and stepped through the gate, pulling me after him.
It was nauseating, but a little less so, mostly because I was too busy wondering if we were about to channel The Fly or worse. I stumbled out, though, and it was good Surly Vic still had hold of my hand or I’d have fallen.
Administration was one of the more bustling areas of Home Base, in part because it housed a typical military headquarters setup. As with Dulce’s Bat Cave level, there were lots of terminals and screens of all sizes, many desks with papers, many busy and intent Air Force personnel, but fewer busy and intent A-Cs than I’d seen here in the past. Under the circumstances, didn’t figure this was a good sign.
“See?” Surly Vic said quietly as he let go of me. “We still have our hands.”
Nodded but didn’t speak, in part because I wanted to be sure my stomach was settling and in other part because Serene was talking to some airmen.
“Oh, I’m sure I have an appointment. It’s on all our calendars.” She sounded like the sweetest ditz in the world.
Serene was a Dazzler, and as Surly Vic had made clear earlier, she, like every other Dazzler, was a hottie. The human airmen she was talking to weren’t immune, especially because I could tell she was sending out flirt signals.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but . . .” one of the airmen said regretfully. “But the colonel is in closed doors all day.”
“Maybe we could help you,” the other airman suggested eagerly.
White cleared his throat and stepped up. “We were told it was urgent. We left a very important meeting for this. I’d like to see, for myself, why your colonel has asked for half of Alpha Team to come to a meeting he now won’t let us join.”
The airmen still looked unsure. Time for me to take a crack at it. “As far as I recall, Commander Dwyer outranks every single person on this base, potentially even the colonel. I have no problem calling in the rest of Alpha Team and having Commanders Reader and Crawford ask you in far less pleasant ways why the hell we’re still standing here. Nor do I have a problem reminding you of my diplomatic status. My husband is both a Representative in Congress and also running for vice president. How much of an incident do you two want to create? Or, let me put this another way—take us to your leader or I get really prickly about American Centaurion being insulted and call many people to complain, all of them far above your pay grades.”
That seemed to do it. Clearly these two were more stick than carrot focused. Pity for them. The airmen nodded. “Follow us, please,” the first one said.
The building was huge, and one side of it was given over to a giant gate, similar to the two at the Dome, that was used to send and receive heavy equipment or transfer large numbers of personnel. There was also a huge sliding door by which vehicles entered or left the building, and the related transfer staging area. The gate wasn’t active, the doors were closed, and there weren’t any vehicles or personnel in the staging area.
We weren’t headed there, but rather to the back, toward the private conference rooms and offices of high-ranking personnel.
Home Base’s set up wasn’t as fancy as Andrews, but the commanding officer still had a bathroom and conference room attached to his office, and his secretary’s office was basically the antechamber to all of this.
However, there was a Do Not Disturb sign on the outer door, the one leading into the secretary’s office. All the blinds were down and closed as well.
One of the airmen knocked politely. There was no answer. Exchanged a glance with the Dingo and Surly Vic. They both looked suspicious. Good, so was I.
“We’ll take it from here,” I said quietly.
“But—” the one who’d been doing most of the talking started.
“That’s an order,” Serene said, in a voice that had absolutely no ditz attached to it. “We will let ourselves in. Dismissed.”
The airmen nodded, and scuttled off.
“What do we expect to find?” White asked.
“Oh, could be anything, but my money’s on Chernobog holding someone hostage. Maybe many someones.”
“You think the team that hasn’t checked in is here?” White certainly sounded like he thought so.
“I think there’s a real possibility of it, yeah. One way or the other, there’s something going on that Chernobog doesn’t want anyone to know about.”
“The name she’s using here is Zoya Darnell,” Serene said.
“She went with a Russian first name? She’s not worried about being found out, is she?”
“I would imagine that if you’re the best at what you do and no one can find you, there must be a certain thrill to hiding in plain sight,” White suggested.
“She’s been found,” the Dingo said darkly.
“We hope. How are we doing this?”
“I’ll go in first,” Serene said. “Be ready in case someone shoots at us.” And with that cheery warning, she opened the door.
CHAPTER 69
I WAS READY TO DODGE, run, or attack, but nothing happened. Serene stepped into the room, held the door for us, and the rest of us came inside.
That the room was empty was immediately clear—no one was at the secretary’s desk and there was no one else in this room. The blinds to the colonel’s office were drawn and closed, however.
“It’s too early here for a lunch break,” White said softly.
“I wonder where Zoya is,” Serene said, at a normal tone, in her Innocent Voice. She pointed to the computer on the desk and White and I came over to look. It was off. It was also a laptop. I unplugged it and handed it to the Dingo.
Our assassins were busy. They had their cloaked cases off and were getting guns and other weapons out and about their persons. More than they’d had on them already. All done silently. The Dingo took the laptop and put it inside his case, also without making noise.
Serene went to the door to the colonel’s office, opened it, and stuck her head in. I waited for it to be blown off and readied myself to leap for her.
But nothing happened. “Huh, the colonel’s not here, either,” she said into the room. “I guess they left for an early lunch or something. We’ll have to come back.” She shut the door in a normal way but ensured it made noise. Then she went to the outer door, waited a few seconds, opened it, waited another few seconds, and closed it.
While she did this, I tiptoed to the door that led into the colonel’s office, leaned carefully against it, being sure to make no sound myself or against the wood, and listened as hard as I could. Didn’t hear anything. At all. But what Jeff called my feminine intuition, my Mom called my gut, and I called a funny feeling told me there was at least one person in there, being incredibly still.
Backed away and went to the Dingo. The others joined us in a little huddle.
“I didn’t hear anything,” I said in a low voice. “But it feels like someone’s in there now.”
The Dingo nodded. “Good instinct. Continue to speak softly, but assume that, despite Serene’s good efforts, they know someone is in here. We will go in first.”
“I think I should,” Serene said. “It could surprise them.”
He shook his head. “If they truly believed we had left, they would have come into this room. They have not, meaning whoever is in there, be it Chernobog or some other enemy, they know we are still here. No, Victor and I go first. We will try to disarm and not kill, but if it’s between us and them . . .” He shrugged.
“Yeah. Just . . . I think some of our people may be in there as prisoners or hostages.”
“We’re professionals,
” Surly Vic said. “We aren’t paid to kill random strangers.” he gave me a small smile. “At least, not on this job.”
“Ah, Operation Assassination. Good times . . . good times . . .”
“I agree, they were,” the Dingo said with a chuckle. He patted my shoulder. “It will be fine. Be prepared to hold off the military, however, because we may not be able to be silent.”
“You realize that the three of us could do this fast enough that no human could see us,” White said. “And, as such, I believe that if you gentlemen will cover me, I’ll be the one to go in first. I should be able to disarm anyone before you have to fire.”
The Dingo looked skeptical.
“Mister White is good. I think he’s the best agent we have.”
“I’m flattered,” White said.
“It’s risky,” Surly Vic countered.
“Less for me than for the two of you,” White replied calmly. “Frankly, less for Serene and Missus Martini as well. However, I would prefer our young ladies hang back, hold the extra weapons, and cover the rear, while simultaneously being ready to save us menfolk if necessary.”
“As you wish,” the Dingo said. He went to one side of the door, and Surly Vic went to the other. They both had impressive-looking handguns with silencers on them out and ready.
White motioned for me and Serene to get out of the potential line of fire, and once we did, he nodded to the assassins, and took off.
He had the door opened and was in the room in the blink of an eye. The assassins followed him in, but they didn’t have much to do.
Proving where Christopher got his butt kicking abilities from, White had the three people who were in the room knocked down and their weapons taken away in about two seconds flat.
Serene and I trotted in as the assassins pulled zip ties out of their suit jackets and had the three people bound, hand and foot, in less than a minute. They also had duct tape, and put it over the prisoners’ mouths.
Which was awkward, because when I actually looked at the prisoners, I recognized them. “Um, guys?”
“What?” Serene asked. Then she took a good look, too. “Oh. Oh! Gosh, we are so sorry!”
She and I raced over to untie Len, Kyle, and Adriana, all of whom were looking betrayed and more than a little pissed.
“Wait,” the Dingo said. “Be sure they are really who you think they are.”
“We don’t have an OVS on us. Other than asking them questions, how would we know?” Pondered this and pulled off Kyle’s gag. “How did we meet?”
“You were hanging off a ledge at the Hooters Hotel and Casino in Vegas and Len crawled out a window to save you. Why the hell are you guys in here like you’re all S.H.I.E.L.D. agents or something?”
“It’s Kyle. The others who we think they are?”
“Yeah. Geez, Kitty, we’re on the job.”
“Apologies,” White said. “I didn’t stop to look at faces.”
“If you’d checked in we’d have known it was you. Besides, Mister White disarmed you for your own protection.” This didn’t earn me any looks of love.
Once we’d unbound and de-gagged our “captured” members of Team Oliver, I checked the bathroom—no one was in it.
“What are you doing?” Adriana asked.
“Checking for enemies.”
Len sighed. “Kitty, I think you guys have the wrong idea about what’s going on.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time. What is going on?”
White opened the conference room door, to show the rest of Team Oliver, a man I didn’t know who looked to be in his fifties wearing an Air Force uniform, and an older woman who looked like she was Everyone’s Grandma all sitting around the conference table.
Mr. Joel Oliver looked amused, Jeremy, Jennifer, and Walter looked slightly guilty, and the Air Force guy whose stripes and such indicated he was a colonel, and so likely to be Butler, looked shocked. Everybody’s Grandma, however, looked both concerned and as if she was calculating a wide variety of odds.
“Wow, would have been nice of you guys to let us know you were powwowing with Chernobog the Ultimate all this time. Some people have been worried about you. Not me, mind you, but others.”
“Ah, Ambassador,” Oliver said cheerfully. “Allow me to introduce you to Colonel John Butler, who shared that he hasn’t yet had the honor of meeting you. And to Zoya Darnell, at least as she’s called at this moment.” He looked at the assassins. “Oh, gentlemen, please put your guns away. I’m sure you don’t need to protect anyone in your assignment from those of us here.”
I nodded to the Dingo and Surly Vic, who did indeed put their guns away. Right now, no one other than Oliver seemed to realize who they were, score one for Serene’s Armani Fatigues idea. Went with the undoubtedly safe assumption that Oliver knew exactly who they were, based on him being pretty much as hard to fool as Olga. Or Chuckie. Who I figured I was going to need to call, and soon. But not just yet, apparently.
Instead, I took the weapons case off and handed it to the Dingo. Serene did the same with the one she was holding for Surly Vic. “Doesn’t look like we’ll need these right now, but hold onto them, just in case.”
The Dingo nodded, took the case, and stepped back, so that he was leaning against the wall near the door. Surly Vic did the same. They both looked like they were Secret Service, but that was kind of what half the human Field agents resembled anyway, so hoped they’d stay incognito.
“So, MJO, want to explain why you guys are holed up here and, more importantly, why none of you checked in?”
Butler answered before Oliver could. “We’re in the middle of delicate negotiations, Ambassador. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
CHAPTER 70
OPENED MY MOUTH TO REPLY, but Serene beat me to it.
“No.” One syllable, but she packed a lot of authority into it. “The woman you’ve had as your secretary for the past year is considered one of American Centaurion’s most wanted war criminals. Either we’re now a part of this meeting, or the Ambassador will call in the C.I.A. while I call in the rest of Alpha Team.”
“I will not work with them,” Chernobog said imperiously. Caught Adriana’s eye—she rolled hers, shrugged, and made the “duck” with her hand, fingers flapping against thumb, or what I thought of as the Universal Blah, Blah, Blah Sign. So, Chernobog had been stalling things out, and Butler had been allowing it. Good to know.
“Oh, you will.” I sat down and Serene and White followed my lead. “And let me explain just why you will. There’s a contract out on your life. We can stop the assassins. But we won’t—in fact, we’ll tell them exactly where you are—unless you cooperate with us. I’m sure everyone else has been really nice. But this has taken too long, and Team Hardball just showed up.”
“You have no authority here,” Butler said, albeit rather more nicely than I’d been expecting. He looked like he’d be about Christopher’s height standing, but was much stockier. Normal features, black hair, blue eyes. Average nice-looking man.
Had to figure he was worried about being brought up on charges of treason for having been fooled by her for a year, with good reason. If I was Chernobog—and she was in the Megalomaniac League and, therefore, experience said I could think just like her—I’d make damn sure I had all the incriminating evidence there was on Butler, real and faked, in a safe yet easily accessible place so that I always had a bargaining chip.
Also, it wasn’t likely that Butler had a ton of experience with negotiating spies in from the cold. Chuckie should have been here at least half a day ago, but I knew without asking that Chernobog had said she wouldn’t talk if the C.I.A. or other government agencies showed up. So, needed to make sure that both Butler and Chernobog realized I was now in charge.
“Sure we do. Lots and lots of authority. I also have a direct line to your bosses’ boss, Colonel.” Well, I had a direct line to Mom, and that was, essentially, a direct line to the President. “He’s kind of pissed about everything that’s happen
ed these past couple of days. I’m sure he’ll be happy to have someone to blame. Tag, you’re it.”
Butler blanched. “I’m not your fall guy.”
“So,” White said pleasantly, “someone might perhaps want to catch us up, and quickly, before the Ambassador uses her itchy phone trigger finger.”
“You complete me, Mister White.”
“Madame Darnell—” Oliver started.
“Call her Chernobog. That’s who she is. I don’t care what name she’s used for the past year. It’s no more real than any other she’s had over the decades. But Chernobog is who she is.”
Chernobog gave me a long, appraising look. “Why do you insist?”
“Two reasons. One, you don’t deserve to be called something pretty like Zoya or Madame Darnell. You’re a terrorist, a murderer, and someone who released a bioagent into Centaurion’s main research facility which has ended up crippling a good number of our people. That the three of us aren’t trying to strangle you right now is a testament to our restraint, not our lack of desire.”
“What’s two?”
“You’re the best of the best of the best when it comes to hacking. That deserves its own level of respect. Zoya Darnell isn’t the Ultimate. Chernobog is.”
She smiled slowly at me. “You, I am willing to talk to.”
“Fabulous. So, MJO, where are we at? I’m looking for bottom line information. Stop worrying about offending Madame Prickly here. I can guarantee that what I’ll have to offer her will be the best deal she could ever hope to be offered.”
“This capture belongs to the Air Force,” Butler said.
“Bull. It belongs to my team. If they’re here with you, hanging out, there’s only one reason—they’re the ones who brought to your attention the fact that your secretary is the biggest security risk in, possibly, the history of the United States. And you had her working under you for a year . . . and you didn’t figure it out.”
Butler flushed. “I can’t deny that,” he said stiffly.
“Good. I like to know if I’m dealing with an idiot blowhard or just a guy who’s been caught totally by surprise and is trying to do the best he can with absolutely no prep.”