by Gini Koch
“I’m sorry. Prince knows your scent.”
Bent down and gave him more loving. “Yes, he does. Yes, he does! Who knows Kitty? Who does? Prince does! And Riley does! And Duke does!” Gave all three dogs more loving, which they received enthusiastically while pretending they’d gone deaf and couldn’t hear their handlers telling them to back off.
Doggy greetings finally over, and me ready for a shower and a change of clothes, I got fully into my office. Mrs. Maurer wasn’t alone with a quarter of D.C.’s K-9 team—Colette and Abner were in here with her—and everyone was having tea and cookies.
“Squeaky, why all the stealth? And where are all the interns?”
Mrs. Maurer shrugged. “The stealth you’ll find out about. It seemed prudent to tell all the children to go see to things in the lower levels.” The White House had a lot going on underground. Not as much as an A-C facility, but still more than the average place that wasn’t a Disney theme park. “And you do have a package. It was here when I came into your office.” She pointed to my desk, which had a very large cardboard box sitting on it.
“The stealth can’t be because of the dogs. They love you.” Prince had, in fact, saved her life during Operation Defection Election.
“Oh no, not at all.”
Clearly I wasn’t going to get anything specific out of Mrs. Maurer about why she’d been all Moneypenny with me. Meaning it was time find out what was really going on.
Chose to find out what was really going on with the box first. “Did anyone check this for bombs?”
“Yes,” Melville said. “The dogs all sniffed it. Nothing dangerous.” Prince had the best nose east of the Mississippi, so if he felt the box was safe, then the box was safe.
Opened it up to find a rather large turtle statue, about three feet tall, though it was lying down, made out of what appeared to be bronze. At least I thought it was a turtle. It looked kind of like one, though also a lot like Jiminy Cricket, but a frog-like Jiminy Cricket with a turtle shell. Decided to go with turtle and call it good.
Picked it up and only managed it because I was enhanced. “Wow, this is heavy as lead. Well, bronze, I guess.” Put it on the floor next to my desk. Did not plan to keep it there, but figured I should find out who the giver was—and send them pics of me looking thrilled with this gift—before I put it away in storage forever. That was me, FLOTUSing like a pro.
Prince padded over and took a deep sniff of my new statue. Snorted. Per Prince, this smelled like metal. Nothing to see here and nothing to worry about. He dutifully trotted back to Melville.
“What a . . . lovely gift,” Mrs. Maurer said, clearly trying for the positive spin.
“Yeah, and I wonder who sent it. Does some country count weird turtle frogs as their mascot?”
“Sports team, maybe,” Officer Larry suggested.
“Good point.” I was into sports. Perhaps some team wanted me to endorse them. Any team who were called The Weird Turtles or similar could probably use all the help they could get.
Looked inside for a note. There was none. Looked at the box. No return address. No mailing label, either. Was about to ask about this when Vance entered the room.
Vance did not get the same greeting as I had. Vance got eyed by the three dogs, sniffed suspiciously from a distance, then snorted at, so he was aware of their feelings on the subject of him. He was not the K-9 Favorite.
Vance, being Vance, did indeed find the will to go on. “Officers,” he said with a nod, “Nancy sent me a text sharing that you needed our First Lady and only our First Lady. I’ve kept those in the LSR unaware of who’s come to call, but why are you here? More to the point, why are you here undercover?”
By now, anyone who I considered to be in our Circle of Friends knew that Vance was my Chief of Staff. So, Melville wisely didn’t argue about Vance being with us. He just shrugged. “We have a . . . situation at the main precinct and I don’t want to cause the usual media circus.”
Decided this could take a while. Moved the box off my desk and put it in front of the statue because why get into the whole “who sent this?” thing now, then grabbed some tea and cookies for myself and indicated that Vance should do likewise. “Usually the crazed lunatics come right to me.”
“I agree. Not that we’re complaining about you using discretion.” Vance shot Melville a friendly look. “Which puts you in the vast minority. What circus that wants to center around the First Lady are we avoiding?”
“We’re not sure, and this one might have come straight to you,” Melville said. “But she made another stop first, which is why we have her.”
Wondered if the “she” in question might be Stephanie. She was an A-C, though, and it was unlikely that she’d give herself up to anyone, let alone human police officers. And only humans working with and trained by Centaurion would have a chance of catching her if she didn’t want to be caught.
“She went to Harvey Gutermuth, dear,” Mrs. Maurer said, presumably to hurry Melville up. Apparently he wasn’t allowed to be a part of the Anticipatory Statement League today. “That’s why I knew you’d want to be involved as soon as possible.”
“Good thinking. So, who out of our Rogues’ Gallery do you have? My bet would be Casey Jones if Gutermuth was her first stop.”
Melville nodded. “We think that’s who it is. She won’t give her name.”
“She’s been arrested a ton of times.”
“She has. However, she doesn’t . . . match up to our records.”
“How so?”
“Altered fingerprints for one. And she doesn’t look the same as the photos we have of her from the P.T.C.U.”
“As you said, she’s been arrested more than once,” Officer Larry added. “And while those pictures show a natural age progression, how she looks right now . . .” He made a face. “It’s not good if it’s really her.”
“How do you mean?”
“She was a decent looking woman before,” Officer Curly replied. “Now?” He shook his head. “Now, it looks like she’s been rode hard and put away wet for the past decade.”
“Kudos for your likely apt Old West saying. Being from Pueblo Caliente, I really appreciate, and understand, the description.” This earned me a big grin from Officer Curly.
“How did you get her into custody?” Vance asked, presumably before Officer Curly and I could start bantering.
“Gutermuth,” Melville replied. “He called us to share that he had a stalker with a gun following him around. He’s a public person who espouses some nasty views, so it’s not a shock that he could have someone following him, and after the last few months, our Chief takes any complaint like this more than seriously.”
“Did he send you guys to apprehend her?”
“No, K-Nine was not involved. Six cars were sent, she was surrounded and apprehended easily, without a fight. The moment she was captured she started asking for you, Kitty. By name and title.”
“We haven’t received any calls from the D.C.P.D.,” Mrs. Maurer said. “At least not officially, and all calls come through me.”
“I’m sure you haven’t.” Melville shrugged. “Half of the crazies we arrest ask to talk to the President or First Lady.”
“So your Chief sent you to bring me down to the station?”
“No,” Melville said, sounding just a little angry. “We’re not supposed to be here.”
CHAPTER 13
“EXCUSE ME?”
“This isn’t officially sanctioned,” Melville explained. “The Chief doesn’t want you bothered over some nut job. But we,” he indicated himself, Larry, and Curly, “think you need to talk to her. She’s saying that she has information you’ll want.”
“We want to sneak you in,” Officer Larry said. “So that no one knows you’re coming to the police station. And then sneak you back here.”
“I approve of the sneaking,”
Vance said.
“So, Potentially Casey is still in the station?” I asked.
Melville nodded. “She’s still being processed and if she’s who we think she is, we’ll have to turn her over to your mother’s agency anyway.”
“Good point. Okay, so I’m all for verifying if it’s her. Because if it is her, then she may indeed have a message for me. That said message might just be ‘we all still hate you’ is likely, but, hey, it could be worthwhile intel.”
“I’d like to know why Gutermuth threw her under the bus,” Vance said. “You verified that she was still working with both Club Fifty-One and the Mastermind. Why would they disown her now?”
“Yeah, because I can guarantee that Casey’s still a True Believer. Well, I guess that’s part of why I’m going to go to the police station. So, we need Len and Kyle, and I’d like Manfred, too.”
Len Parker and Kyle Constantine were, officially, my driver and bodyguard and had been since we’d arrived in D.C. They worked for the CIA and reported to Chuckie. Well, now everyone reported to Chuckie, but back in the day, they’d reported into his division and him directly. I’d met them in Vegas during Operation Invasion, they and the rest of the USC football team had helped me out, and they’d chosen the career of Kitty Wrangling over going pro. There were many days I questioned their career choices, but never a day I wasn’t happy they were with me.
Manfred was an A-C troubadour assigned as the head of my Centaurion protection detail, meaning that he, like Colette, undoubtedly answered up and into Serene’s A-C CIA. He was a great guy and rarely if ever complained about who he was stuck babysitting.
“What about the rest of us?” Vance asked.
“Nancy and Abner will stay here.” Neither one was good in a fight, neither one knew Casey or any of our other potential Crazed Lunatics who might be this prisoner, and I preferred to leave the easy hostages safely at home, call me overcautious. “Vance, you’ll need to go back to the meeting and run interference while representing our FLOTUS interests. Colette, you’ll be with me.” Keep the A-Cs close was my motto, and it was a good one because hyperspeed remained the best superpower going.
“Sounds right,” Vance said as he sent some texts, while Colette looked pleased, Mrs. Maurer looked disappointed, and Abner visibly relaxed.
“We also need to bring along my Secret Service detail, at least some of them. Though I know we need to ask them to allow us to be stealth rather than trumpeting that I’m coming or going.”
“I’m ready to faint to hear that you plan to bring us along on whatever the latest mad scheme of yours is.” Evalyne, the head of my Secret Service detail, definitely had a sarcasm knob and, like my mother’s, hers went well past eleven on the one-to-ten scale.
“I think we misheard.” Phoebe was the second in command of the detail, and she, too, was honing her sarcastic abilities. “There’s no way Kitty was saying she wanted to bring us versus ditch us.”
“Wow, I’m almost sorry I was behaving, since you both seem so disappointed.” Looked behind them. I had four male Secret Service agents, too, but they were nowhere in evidence. Well, realistically, I had a lot of agents assigned—no one worked 24/7 unless they were A-C Security. I always had a team of six if I left the White House Complex unless, as mentioned, I’d managed to ditch them. However, due to the fact that Jeff and I were pretty much winning the Worst People To Guard Ever Award on a regular basis, there were times when it was just easier to have them come along, and this certainly seemed like one of them.
“It’s just the shock of it all,” Evalyne said. “I’m waiting for the roof to collapse or something.”
“Hilarious. Anyway, where are the dudes? Not that I think we actually want them along.”
Len and Kyle trotted in, and Manfred zipped in right behind them. “You wanted us, Mister Beaumont?” Len asked, while Kyle gave a little wave in Colette’s direction. She beamed at him, but quickly went back to looking professional and nodded to Manfred, who I figured she’d advised to show up pronto. Len looked at Melville. “What’s wrong and what’s going on?”
“Never let it be said that my boys are slow or stupid.” The situation was explained for all our new arrivals. “So, I think we need to get over there as unobtrusively as possible. Which probably means via a gate.”
Gates were devices that resembled airport metal detectors but sent you wherever in the world you needed to go in a matter of seconds. They had been, were still, and probably always would be the bane of my existence, because I’d never gone through one yet that hadn’t made me totally nauseated, or worse. My suggesting the gates, especially when Jeff wasn’t going to be along to hold me through the horror, was me totally taking one for the team.
“What about Mister Buchanan?” Kyle asked.
“Or Mister Wruck and Mister Siler,” Len added. “You know they don’t like you leaving without them knowing.”
“Dudes, seriously. I have three K-Nine units, you two, Manfred and Colette, and Evalyne and Phoebe, and we’re going to a police station that will be loaded with cops. Frankly, I feel that I’m working on the Overkill Level for security right now. We will be in and out fast. Just check out the new crazy chick prisoner, see if we know her, determine who of our Rogues’ Gallery she happens to be, interrogate or additionally incarcerate her, and leave. This is our plan. It’s a simple plan and, hopefully, a fast plan. Why bother those dealing with other gigantic issues? We’ll be back before they notice we’re gone if we’re using gates.”
“We have a gate where we’re going,” Melville said. “Your people installed it when your husband became the Vice President. So you can get back as unobtrusively as we’ll be going over.”
“See? Easy peasey. So let’s get going.” Realized I’d let slip that something big was going on and hoped no one had picked that up.
“What gigantic issues?” Mrs. Maurer asked. Dang, someone had noticed that particular informational slip.
“Um, I’m not sure if I’m at liberty to say at this precise time.”
“You’re not,” Vance said flatly. “I was still in the LSR when your husband shared what’s coming. We’re supposed to keep it on the DL.” The rest of those in the room looked at him balefully. Vance was unfazed. “You feel free to take it up with the President, his Chief of Staff, and the Director of the CIA.”
“DL means down low,” Abner said quietly to Mrs. Maurer.
Who shot him a look that could freeze milk. “Thank you so much for sharing, young man. I’m sure that I’ve never heard that abbreviation ever before in all my days, which are double all your days.”
“Sorry, just wasn’t sure you knew,” he mumbled, blushing.
Mrs. Maurer sniffed. “I’d wager I know what more acronyms mean than you do, worldwide. However, we’ll let it slide and stay here in ignorance together.”
“I can tell you once they leave.” Vance jerked his head toward the K-9 crew.
“What?” Melville asked, sarcasm knob clearly heading toward eleven. “Are more aliens invading or something?”
CHAPTER 14
“LOOK AT THE TIME!” Grabbed Len and my purse, which I’d left in my office earlier in the day, and started to head toward the nearest gate, which happened to be in the bathroom connected to my offices. “We need to get moving.”
“Oh my God, more aliens are invading?” Melville didn’t sound freaked. Well, not too freaked. He sounded kind of excited. Hoped he was going to represent the reactions of the majority of the public, but sincerely doubted it. Our luck so rarely ran that way.
“Cool,” Officer Larry said as I stopped my escape attempt and let go of Len. Put my purse over my neck, though, because it was always a good idea to live by the Scout Motto and Be Prepared.
Officer Curly nodded. “Especially if they look like the A-Cs.”
“Ah, per what little I know, they do not. No idea if they’re better or worse, by
the way. Now that I’ve already breached Jeff’s latest security directive, can we go while you guys shut up and share this with no one?”
Vance sighed. “I think I have to take them into custody, Kitty. Based on what Chuck said.”
“It’s cool.” Len was looking at his phone. “I already advised Mister Reynolds of what’s going on. He feels that we can trust the K-Nine unit, these three officers in particular, to protect national and international security.”
“You can,” Melville said. “But it’s nice to know that the CIA actually trusts us.”
“No,” Kyle said strongly. “The CIA trusts no one. Mister Reynolds is trusting you, which is, frankly, a huge honor. And Kitty is, as well.”
The three officers looked at each other. “You can trust us,” Officer Curly said. “I don’t think we’ve ever done anything against you.”
“Yeah,” Officer Larry said. “We’re on your side and have been since well before you knew it.”
Melville nodded. “Kitty, you know we’ve got your back, just like you’ve got ours. Huge honor of trust or no.”
Prince, Duke, and Riley, meanwhile shared with me that they were, of course, going to keep this news to themselves and would, also of course, take down anyone who tried to share it without authorization.
“Super-duper. Believe me—Chuckie trusting you is indeed a big deal. Let’s not share this with the rest of your squad, though, please and thank you. You three I know I can trust. The rest of your gang I have the utmost faith in. But since no one’s supposed to know yet . . .”
“Agreed,” Melville said briskly. “So, are we advising the President of what you’re doing or not?”