by Gini Koch
White held me back. “Look around.”
I did. “Um, what am I looking for?”
“A way in.”
I looked, didn’t see anything. “Seriously, you should be Field.” I scanned the brochure. “I think we’re supposed to go into the underground garage, over there.” I nodded my head toward it. We started the saunter. “Wow, and we could have bought a combo ticket, too. Bet they didn’t mention it when you got our tickets.”
“My mind was elsewhere, dear, please forgive me for missing out on the deal.”
“Rick, really, I may have to hurt you.”
We got into the parking garage and followed the signs. Crypt was closed, as promised. But the door was unlocked. We opened it carefully. White held my arm. “Stay here and on guard, just in case.” He went inside. I did as requested. It was creepy in the parking garage, which was pretty empty. I wasn’t sure how long to give him before I charged in like cavalry.
Didn’t matter, he was back in less than a minute. “It’s closed and there’s no one in there. I looked in the tombs and such, carefully. Nothing and no one.”
I looked around. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“Back into the cathedral?”
“Maybe. I don’t want us running around in circles. We have all the clues, I’m sure of it. We just need to figure out what’s actually going on.”
“Do we have the clues? All I see is confusion, started by Tim leaving without telling anyone what he was doing, where he was going, or why he was doing it. And I fail to understand why he didn’t take the opportunity to get himself and four of our agents to safety, either—since Miss Young and her family are confirmed as safe, he certainly had the opportunity. While all our human operatives are, as you put it, mavericks, they aren’t stupid. And, don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re the most impetuous and foolhardy of all our human operatives. All our operatives, really.”
“Yeah, true.” I pondered. “So, maybe our real question is this—has Tim ever been working on the same plan as we have been, or did he see something else the rest of us have missed?”
CHAPTER 54
“I FEEL CONFIDENT I’ve missed most of the clues,”
White said with a sigh.
“But have you, really? I didn’t ask before, but where were you when you came to Paris? I mean when Chuckie’s C.I.A. guys found and saved you?”
“At the airport. It was suggested by my contact as a safe place it would be easy for both of us to get to.”
I stared at him. “You were at the Paris airport when Alicia was.” He nodded. “Did you see her?”
“No. I saw the man I described to you; he said the Gower girls were very talented and that he was concerned about their safety. He insinuated someone of great authority wanted to get them hidden away—away from C.I.A. and Centaurion control, essentially—in order to protect them. Then he spun on his heel and walked rapidly away, right before a swarm of C.I.A. operatives arrived, who said Mister Reynolds was concerned about his lost little lamb.” He shook his head. “They actually said I was their lost little lamb.”
“Chuckie has a interesting sense of humor. So, okay . . . Alicia isn’t me, but she’s not a total wimp, either. What are the odds she spotted and recognized you, saw what went on, and followed your contact? I say they’re decent. So, she saw him, and she saw . . . what? Where he went or who he talked to after you were taken back. And she told Tim about it.”
“If it was dire, why didn’t Tim break protocol when Miss Young and her parents were in Paris and just bring them to safety?”
I thought about it. “Maybe he wasn’t sure where safety was.”
“Explanation, please?”
“Why was Tim only trying to contact me?”
“Not an explanation.”
“Tim spoke to Alicia, probably several times between Christmas and when he left the Science Center, so he knew something was up before he ever took off. Which means he was always working on a different plan. He was never sneaking out to break the rules; he was sneaking out to save the day. But why didn’t he tell anyone straight out? Or leave me clearer clues?”
I closed my eyes and tried to think like Chuckie. What was at stake? No, who was the person with the most to win or lose? Gaultier had a lot to gain financially, if he could sell this superdrug. But my mother had said he was clean. Why wouldn’t she know he was in illicit pharmaceuticals? Why didn’t Chuckie mention it? And why did Tim think he had a better chance of saving the day alone? I opened my eyes and looked at White. “Name your enemies.”
“Beg pardon?”
“Enemies. You have them. Who are Centaurion Division’s enemies? All of you have told me more than once that not every agency out there likes you. Who doesn’t like you? Or, let me ask it this way—why, during Operation Fugly, did Beverly call in the C.I.A.? They weren’t there to help—if my mother hadn’t been there, they’d have carted all of Alpha Team off.”
White stared at me. “You, your mother, and both Abigail and Naomi have said this, many times—the only friend we have at the C.I.A. is Mister Reynolds. Of American organizations who know of us, our relationship with them is the most strained.”
“When you described the person you thought was Gaultier, Chuckie described the real Gaultier. Who is Chuckie’s height, and has blue eyes, like Chuckie, and who could put on a blond wig and pass as Chuckie, at least from a distance.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“Alicia saw you and was alerted that something was off. She followed the person you were talking to, and I’ll bet she saw him meet up with someone who looked just like Chuckie, especially from a distance. Maybe she took a picture; most phones have cameras in them these days. So, Tim sees Chuckie in Paris, where he shouldn’t be, talking to a guy we all think was trying to kidnap you.”
“But Mister Reynolds was in the room with you when I was in Paris.”
“Yes, he was. Because Amy was able to warn us in time.” Which begged its own set of questions I wasn’t ready to deal with. “I’m betting you were supposed to ‘witness’ his murder in Paris—remember, we’re dealing with people who are good enough actors to convince Amy she saw a man killed in front of her. Chuckie was supposed to be dead—he was alone for Christmas and I’ll bet more than his parents and the Gowers knew that. But what I know is that he hasn’t told anyone he works with that he has gates in his office, home in Australia, and apartment in D.C. Without those gates, he’d be dead.”
“Why?”
“No freaking idea yet, just know it’s so.” I pondered. “That’s why they called the meeting.”
“Beg pardon?”
“Chuckie and I had a meeting while the superbeing cluster was going on in Paris. One or all of the people involved wanted said meeting to ensure Chuckie would be exactly where they wanted him—with me, having a pointless video conference, instead of potentially in Paris where action was going on.” I thought about the questions. “And they confirmed exactly what we’d do if we were threatened and that Christopher, who they’ve been drugging, would take over if Jeff and I were out of it.”
I dug in my purse and pulled Harlie out. “Harlie, can you take us to where Jeff and Chuckie are?” Harlie mewled and didn’t move. “Oh, right. Jeff told Harlie to guard me and Jamie. I guess Jamie’s safe, so Harlie’s with me.” No worries, I could stay calm during this scary crisis. I dug through again and tried with each Poof. They all mewled and didn’t move.
“Perhaps they were told to guard you as well.”
“Maybe.” Pulled out Poofikins. “But no one’s told my Poofikins anything, have they? Poofikins, we need to find Jeff and Chuckie. Can you help us?”
Poofikins mewled and stayed in my hand. There was much Poof mewling now. I looked back into my purse. The Poofs looked fine, but I noticed something else in there. Sure, my purse had been jostled a lot, particularly on the train, but my iPod was out of place, even for that.
I pulled it out and turned it on. “That’s weird.”
“What?”
“I know the last thing I listened to was the Counting Crows. But my iPod’s tuned to the Nine Lives Mix.”
“So?”
“I don’t have a Nine Lives mix.” I took a look. “Oh, man, I am such an idiot. Tim expected me to go for my iPod a lot sooner, I’m sure. He must have made this mix. Jeff said the Poofs were freaking—bet he told Poofikins to make sure I saw my iPod.” The first song was ‘Nine Lives.’ The other songs from the CDs he’d identified as clues were there. But there were other songs, too. “Damn. He expected me to listen to this and catch on. And we don’t have the time.”
“Titles might spark something.”
I put one earpiece in my ear and one into White’s. “Let’s have a listen.” I scrolled through “Help!,” “Time to Get Ill,” “She’s Crafty,” “Friend or Foe,” “Material Girl,” “Levon,” “Tiny Dancer,” “Traffic and Weather,” “I-95,” “Cinderella Undercover,” “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” “Runaway,” “Dr. Wu,” several others. We listened to snippets of the songs. Some of this made sense, some still didn’t.
I looked at White. “I don’t get it. He took the time to put other bands in here—Oingo Boingo, the Stones, Steely Dan, geez, even Dion. But he didn’t give me their cases or CDs as clues. Why not?”
White considered this while I scrolled through the songs again. “Perhaps he feared someone would break the code if they had all the music.”
“But he was pursued by A-Cs.”
“Was he?” White looked around. “We stand in the middle of a parking garage. My people don’t normally do their business in underground parking garages. However, I’ve seen many movies, and humans love to do covert business in underground parking lots. Why, I don’t know.”
“Because you can’t see well. So you could fool someone into thinking you were someone else, like the head of the ETD, if you were in the right place.” I stared at the music mix. At one title in particular. Hit play. “Oh, wow. You know . . . we have a mole.”
CHAPTER 55
“YOU’VE BEEN SAYING we didn’t have a mole. I agree that we do, just pointing out that you are contradicting yourself.”
“Yes, because I thought this was only a money play. But it’s both—one partner gets money, one partner gets power.”
White looked at the songs. “I don’t know most of these, other than by association with you. However, that title sounds promising.” He pointed to “Cinderella Undercover.”
“Yeah. We’re listening to it. Check the chorus.”
He was quiet. “Cinderella undercover, workin’ for the C.I.A. Truly, rock music at its finest. Who’s Cinderella? In this situation, I mean.”
“Cinderella is our mole. Gaultier’s partnered with the C.I.A., which makes sense in an odd way. They protect him—the P.T.C.U. has no idea of what he really does, ETD is kept in the dark about him, too—and he gives them what they want—the A-C War Division—and everybody makes money.”
“Mister Reynolds is the mole?”
“No. He’s a target. So the question is, is she an enemy or a double agent?”
“Who?”
“The person Tim realized was the mole. I’ll bet he saw her around Christopher’s isolation chamber. She could go in, but she shouldn’t have been there. Maybe she used the official name for the drug, maybe she talked to Clarence in too familiar a manner, maybe he saw her fiddle with Christopher’s grid down there. And because no one but me likes Chuckie, he wanted only me to know—if Chuckie’s not involved, I can protect him. If he is involved, then I can set Jeff on him. Also, if we had one mole, how many others might we have? Clarence is a traitor, who else, right? Tim bet on the side of major infiltration and got out to be able to do something to save the day.”
“Not following you. At all.”
“Why was Camilla my doctor? I don’t know her, and Tito, who’s essentially an intern, ran everything. Why did Chuckie even mention her as a possible mole? He didn’t want her to know I’d turned superpowered, but he also said she could be the mole—why? If he knew for sure, he’d have arrested her. So she triggered some memory in him. I’ll bet he’s seen her at C.I.A. headquarters and didn’t remember consciously. And Tim wasn’t in the room then, so he had no way of knowing if Chuckie was the one who put her in place or not.”
“Camilla is our mole?” White asked hopefully.
“Yes.”
He sighed. “Not happy, just relieved to know. She was originally stationed out of East Base and was moved to Dulce right after Operation Drug Addict, as you so charmingly call it, because she was part of the team working to determine how the drug could be removed from DNA. It can’t be, so far as we can tell,” he added softly.
I turned off the iPod and pulled out my phone. “No service. Bet you don’t have any, either.” No phone service meant no way to call Mom or Serene and see what Jamie might know, let alone to verify how Paul and ACE were doing. This was typical for our luck, of course, so I chose not to be surprised.
White looked as he handed me back the earpiece he’d been using. “True enough. So, are they in here somewhere or is it just that there’s so much steel and concrete here?”
“No idea.” Think, think. “Why did Chuckie send Fluffy to me? Same question with Michael and Christopher. They’re in grave danger, why not see if the Poofs can do some damage?”
“Because your danger is greater.”
I stared at the music mix. “Our danger. If we’re back to our usual, you’re the target. You’re always the target. The Diplomatic Corps is helping Gaultier, or, rather, the C.I.A. operative who they think is Ronaldo Al Dejahl. He’s supposed to take over as Pontifex after they get rid of you. And me, Mom, and Chuckie. Because we’re the three humans who can stop that.”
“We seem remarkably unmolested.”
“Yeah.” I laughed. “Because of you.”
“Pardon?”
“Dude, I’m not kidding. You’re better than Jeff. Who stopped us from running into a trap?”
“Gladys.”
“Well, yeah, but you, too. You were smart enough to ask for a gate somewhere far enough away to keep us safe, you were willing to do the disguise, you kept me from running across the square and alerting whoever’s watching that another Centaurion agent was blundering around. And no one knows how you’ll act in a danger situation because this is the first one in what I’d guess was a long time that you haven’t had Jeff, Christopher, and Paul running interference for you.”
“Possibly.” He didn’t sound convinced.
“Who, besides me, knows you plan for Paul to be your successor, not Christopher?” Dropped my iPod back into my purse while trying not to stress.
“No one. Christopher does not have the right make up to be Pontifex. I know he dreads it, as well. Paul has the right mind-set, and I thought so even before you put ACE into him.”
“Right. But everyone else thinks it’s going to be Christopher—you succeeded your father, after all. So, when the A-Cs split again over who should be Pontifex, those who were loyal to you would support Christopher. Whom the Diplomatic Corps and C.I.A. had drugged out of his mind and therefore believed they could control.”
“How will Gaultier make money this way?”
“Seriously, we are going to team up from now on. How? By being the exclusive provider to the U.S. government, via the C.I.A., of the superdrug. Take over this world, and all of the Alpha Centaurion worlds, become wealthy beyond imagining.”
“You really think that’s the ultimate goal?”
“Christopher can see Jareen, on one of the farthest inhabited planets from us in that system. The gate is open between Earth and Alpha Four. Yeah, I’m freaking certain. I’m Megalomaniac Girl, remember?”
“So, where are they and how do we foil this plan and save everyone, including those innocents in the cathedral?”
“Damn, I knew you were going to ask the hard question next.”
“Do you have the hard answer?”
&n
bsp; “No, I have another question, one I asked before but which we haven’t answered. Is Camilla merely a mole, or is she a double agent?”
“Why do you even assume double agent?”
“Because Amy was triggered to warn us. Chuckie would be dead for sure if she hadn’t told me what she’d discovered. Mom might be, too.”
“I thought our original assumption was they wanted us herded into one place. Meaning Amy was triggered by those who mean us harm.”
“Yeah . . . but why give her information that would pull the two humans you want dead into safety?”
“It wouldn’t have mattered if you’d died during delivery. Did Camilla have something to do with that?”
“No. But, I wonder . . . .”
“Wonder what?”
“Tito said babies come when they want to. I wonder if Jamie came early on purpose?”
“To what end?” White wasn’t arguing with me.
“Saving her parents, saving the world, that sort of thing.” I looked back at the Poofs. “Where is everybody? Protecting me and Richard’s useless if everyone else dies.”
Harlie mewled but didn’t seem upset.
“I don’t care what Jeff or Chuckie told all of you. They lied. They’re in danger. So are Christopher and James and Michael. Where are they?”
More mewling.
I looked at White. “Your turn.”
He shook his head. “I’d like to save everyone more than merely find them.” Six Poofs jumped onto the ground and scampered across the garage. White grabbed my hand, and we ran after them.
“Dude, seriously, you might be able to single-handedly do all the field work yourself. I know it’s been a long run as Pontifex—retire to the active lifestyle.”
He laughed. “If we survive and save everyone, feel free to forward the suggestion again, Missus Martini. If I can stop the subterfuge now.”
“Well, stay looking Timothy Dalton-ish. And call me Kathy if anyone’s around. Otherwise, I’m with you, Mister White. Besides, this is sort of like being in our own version of The Avengers.”