by Gini Koch
Well, duh. Chuckie was beyond into UFO stuff. Because of him, I knew all the names and most of the rumors, many of which I’d been confirming as fact for the past five months. I shoved the guilt about not telling him anything away—we didn’t have time for it.
“Okay, search the rest of their stuff for a card that looks like this.” I showed them the Club 51 card. It was paper, punched out from a bigger sheet, not a really official-looking card at all. The name was printed on by hand, under the line where Maureen had signed.
They dug through—every one of them had one. “So, um, what?” Christopher asked. “I mean, if it’s a local club, what’s the big deal?”
“It’s a club, but it’s not just local.” I was pulling this one up from way back—Chuckie hadn’t liked these people, and he hadn’t discussed them too much. “I need to ask someone about this.” I pulled my phone out.
“Oh, great, she’s calling Mr. My Best Friend again,” Martini muttered. “Haven’t you talked to him enough recently?”
“Best guy friend since ninth grade. Best friends talk to each other, sometimes a lot. Really, learn to accept it.”
Martini’s growl showed acceptance wasn’t coming any time soon. I considered calling, but Martini was undoubtedly getting overtaxed, and me talking to Chuckie always upset him. Texting meant that when he asked me what was going on and I lied, he’d have a harder time proving it.
He replied immediately and took my evasiveness in better stride for this conversation than he had when we were speaking, so I congratulated myself on my wise decision-making. I tried to shove the standard pangs of guilt and remorse aside again—this wasn’t really the way you were supposed to treat your best friends, but I’d become a pro at it by now, and a part of me hated myself for it.
Martini felt the guilt. “National security, baby,” he said softly. “Your parents have managed all these years, remember.”
“True enough.” I cleared my throat and stomped down on the guilt. Back to the business of saving the world. Again. “Per Chuckie, this is a group who firmly believe that aliens walk among us.”
“And?” Christopher sounded annoyed, which was natural for him, at least in my experience.
“And they don’t like it. They’re anti-alien, not pro. Most of the conspiracy theorists want there to be aliens here, want to know them, want to discover that new worlds do exist. Or they want to prove the government’s lying. But they’re positively spun toward aliens.” I couldn’t blame them. I was quite positive toward mine.
“Okay, so Club 51 people don’t like the idea of aliens?” Kevin didn’t sound convinced.
“Right, to an extreme level. Think of them as the skinheads of the UFO community.”
This was met by blank stares from Martini, Gower, and Christopher. Tim and Reader, however, were nodding. Kevin still didn’t look convinced. “So, skinheads beat people up. They don’t do suicide missions.”
“These people are lunatics.”
“Aliens exist,” Martini said. “In case you’d forgotten.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, I know. But the general public does not. You’re considered a crackpot, at best, if you believe aliens are really here.” God knew, Chuckie had been saddled with the nickname of Conspiracy Chuck mainly because of his UFO fascination. “So, it stands to reason someone involved in a huge anti-alien underground organization would be more whacko than your average UFO whacko.”
“True.” Thank God, Reader was backing me. “Unless you know for sure that the Roswell rumors are real, it’s sort of crazy to believe in them. We could call them more passionate, if we didn’t want to use crazy, since they’re right.”
“Do these people believe or just want to believe? Jeff, can you tell?”
He closed his eyes. “Not . . . really. The four we have pulled aside are hating on us all right now.”
“Hate, not fear?”
He nodded. “Hate. There are some others who are hating on us, too.”
“Let’s pull those out of the lineup and search them. Oh, I want everyone on the plane, whether we thought they were suspicious or not, searched for a Club 51 card.”
“Okay, I’ll get that started.” Kevin moved off.
I grabbed Martini before he could follow. “You point them out to Kevin and then come right back. I want you staying with me. You too,” I said to the rest of them. “I want to do my own tests.”
“Just what are those going to be?” Martini asked.
“Trust me.”
“Oh, God. I hate it when you say that.”
CHAPTER 14
WE WENT OVER TO WHERE our confirmed suspects were. I got rid of the human police officers, and Gower brought some more A-Cs over. Our four little friends were surrounded, and they didn’t look happy.
I wanted someone cracking, and while I thought Shannon would be the easiest, where was the fun in that? Besides, I really didn’t like Maureen.
I had Reader and Tim slam Thompson into a chair, with the other three behind him. “I don’t know what this is all about,” he protested.
“Oh, I think you do.” I made sure my voice was low, like I talked to Martini when we were leading up to ripping each other’s clothes off. I sashayed over and ran my hands over his shoulders. “I think you know exactly . . . what . . . we are.”
His eyes widened. “Keep away from me.” His voice was shaking. Yep, either they thought we were all aliens or he really thought I was a troll. I had Martini, the gorgeous sex-god, to tell me otherwise, so I went with alien.
“You can tell us who your mastermind is, willingly. Or . . . well, we have ways of making you talk.” I saw Reader working to keep himself from cracking up. Hey, I hadn’t used an accent.
“I don’t know anything.” His eyes were shifting all over. He couldn’t lie any better than the A-Cs could.
I could see Maureen, and she looked angry. Good. I swung one leg over and sat in his lap, facing him. This meant I could see the others easily. I was almost flattered that Shannon looked jealous. Lee looked freaked. “Oh, I really think I can make you talk. You’ll like it, too.” I ran my hands over his head and through his hair. It was gross, but, you know, anything for the cause. I was just glad I couldn’t see Martini or Christopher, who were thankfully standing behind me now.
“I . . . I . . . ” Thompson was starting to sweat. And, other things.
“You know you want to walk on the wild side,” I said in my best Mae West impersonation. I grabbed his hair at the scalp and yanked his head back, as though I were a vampire and going to bite him. I hoped Maureen would crack soon—I had no more intention of putting my mouth on this guy than I had of cleaning the men’s room with my tongue.
However, I pretended. As I moved my mouth nearer to the guy’s throat, I looked up at our other three suspects. I made eye contact with Shannon. “You’re next.” He looked as if he didn’t know whether to cry or celebrate. I looked at Lee. “Then you, stud.” He gulped, but I noted he was looking less freaked and a little more willing.
Then I made eye contact with Maureen and gave her a smirk. “You’ll just get to watch.”
That did it. “Get away from him, you alien bitch!” She lunged toward me.
Gower reached out, grabbed her by the back of her neck, and lifted her off the ground. “No human touches our leader.” Ooooh, he was getting into it. Good.
I kept the smirk on my face. “I’ll let him go, and the others. If you tell us what we want to know.”
“Just read our minds,” she snarled. “I know you can.”
We couldn’t, but why let them know that? “This way is . . . more fun.” A little part of me felt bad about doing this—I’d lived through someone threatening Martini’s life in front of me already, and it seemed wrong to do it to someone else. Then again, these someone else’s wanted to kill Martini and the rest of us, along with a planeload of innocent people. I decided my moral quandary was over. Nice while it lasted.
I thrust my stomach at Thompson. This looked to her
like I was doing a bump and grind on him, while allowing me to actually not have to rub my body against his. She clawed and struggled, but she was so short that she couldn’t land anything, not even a kick, on Gower.
“You can tell me . . . or I can ruin him for any other woman. Once you go alien, you never go back.” This was true, at least in my experience.
“It’s okay,” Thompson called out. “I can fight it.”
Maureen went nuts. “You bastard, you want to sleep with her! I’ll kill you both!”
I smirked at her again. “You want to tell me what’s going on? Or you want to watch me do all three of them in front of you? So you can know they’ll never look at you again?”
Maureen looked as though she was ready to talk. “No, don’t tell her!” Shannon shouted. “We’ll be strong, Maureen, I swear. Let her do her worst to us, we won’t crack.”
Reader and Tim had to move behind the suspects because they were laughing so hard they were leaning on each other and trying to do it without making a sound. Gower was grinning at me, but he was managing to keep the laughter at bay.
“What’s it going to be, Maureen? The information the easy way, or,” I pulled Thompson’s head back even farther and ran the fingers of my other hand down his throat and chest, “the fun way?”
“I’ll talk, just get off him,” she snarled.
“Talk, and maybe I’ll get off him.” I couldn’t wait to get off this guy. My legs were getting tired since I was using my thighs to keep my body off of his. He was enjoying his alien lap dance far more than you’d have expected from someone who wanted to wipe ETs off the planet.
“I’ll be good,” he whispered to me. “I’ve seen the error of my ways.”
I stood up, still straddling him. It felt great to stand. “Tell me what I want to know.”
He was staring at my chest. “We answer to a man called Howard.”
“That’s it? That’s the information you think’s going to keep me from doing what I want with you?”
His eyes were still glued to my female assets. “Maybe you could, you know, question me in private?”
That did it. Martini moved at hyperspeed and knocked the guy out of his chair. Thompson flew five feet and landed, but Martini grabbed him by the neck and started to squeeze. “Maybe you could, you know, tell us what we want to know before I break your neck.”
I looked at Maureen. “You want to give us something better than Howard?” She looked sullen again. “Babe, let’s be real. All three of your boys here want to do me. My men get a little jealous, but they answer to me. And ruining your little boys here for any other woman sounds like a lot of fun. Now, you can protect some other man who we both know would want to do me if he were here, or you can help yourself by being the one to cooperate. Your choice.”
I avoided looking at Martini. Because in my view, he’d again done something manly, protective, and possessive, and he was the only person I wanted to interrogate with my clothes off. Right now. I wondered if there was a private room somewhere in the airport we could find.
“Don’t kill me,” Thompson gasped out. “We’ll talk.”
“She can talk, and then I can kill you,” Martini growled. Oh, man, he needed to stop. I was ready to have my way with him here in front of everyone. We probably should have ignored Gladys back at the Lair. It wasn’t as if we’d have missed any of this.
I sighed and dragged myself away from my fantasies of joining the Mile High Club with Martini and forced my mind back to the matter at hand. “So, Maureen? What’s it going to be?”
“Howard Taft is our Supreme Leader.”
“You’re joking, right?”
Maureen shook her head. “No, he’s really named after the late President.”
I almost asked who would name their kid after Taft but then realized the answer was a crackpot and needed no further clarification. “Put her on her feet,” I said to Gower. “But don’t let go.”
Once she was standing, Maureen shared some more. “We have a large organization. They won’t let you get away with this.”
“Maureen, you’re all part of Club 51, which means you have a large organization of loons. While loons can be dangerous, I think your current predicament proves your organization’s planning skills leave something to be desired. Now, give me the full details or watch me do your men here with a lot of skill and nastiness.”
Shannon moaned quietly. Martini, still holding Thompson off the ground by his neck, moved and grabbed Shannon’s neck with his free hand. Now both of them were off the ground. I wondered if Martini was doing this just to turn me into a puddle. It was working, intentional or not.
“Oh,” I added. “Let’s also remember that you’re going to need a fabulous lawyer to have a hope of staying out of jail for a goodly portion of your remaining life span. You’re part of a terrorist conspiracy, and believe me, we’ve got the proof.” As I said this, Kevin brought in both stewardesses who’d been identified by the bomb dogs and a couple of businessmen. “The only chance you’ve got is cooperation.”
Maureen heaved a sigh. “Fine.”
Before she could say anything else, the brunette stewardess spoke. “What’s this all about?”
“Oh, please. Club 51. Now, shut up or spill. Period. These are the only options. I’m getting seriously bored.” And beyond horny. Martini was pretty much doing barbell lifts with Thompson and Shannon. I knew he was doing it to get me, but I was well past caring. The part of me that was concerned about him losing emotional control was being overruled by the part of me that just wanted to rip his clothes off.
Our four new arrivals all contrived to look innocent, but I’d spent a lot of time in the last few months with people who really couldn’t lie, and my internal lie detector was working on all cylinders. We had eight, two of whom were crew, and that should mean Kevin and the Bomb Squad could make a complete bomb out of what these folks had brought aboard.
Maureen spoke quickly now. I assumed she didn’t want anyone else to get the lighter sentence. “There are a lot of Club 51 chapters. Howard Taft is the head of all of Club 51. He’s based out of Florida.” Oh? Interesting. “He knows all about you aliens, and he has powerful friends in the government.”
“One named Leventhal?”
Maureen, Thompson, Shannon, and Lee looked blank. So did the two businessmen and the blonde stewardess. The brunette one, however, wiped her face of emotion. I pointed to her. “Take her away into solitary. That’s our group leader.”
Maureen turned as much as Gower would let her. The brunette was protesting and struggling as one of our A-Cs removed her. “Yeah, that’s Casey Jones. She’s our chapter head.” Who had named these people? Of course, I was Kitty Katt, so, really, I was in no position to judge.
“Casey’s going to have more information than you, Maureen. Now, how much more can you give us?”
Maureen looked resigned. “I’ll give you everything I know.” I got the feeling she wasn’t lying.
CHAPTER 15
I LEFT THE REST OF the interrogation to Kevin. I’d had enough. The bags were pulled off the plane, and our eight conspirators’ luggage was pulled aside and searched thoroughly.
Reader was running checks on this Howard Taft and his connections within Washington, including Leventhal Reid. Gower, after he and Christopher both lost an argument with the Pontifex about using gates, was making arrangements to get one of the A-C private jets out to us. There was no way any of us were going commercial. Christopher was managing the other A-Cs in attendance. And I was guarding Martini. It was the tough job, but I felt ready for it.
Martini still wanted to take a gate, and being overruled about it made him very unhappy. Added to this, he was on the phone with his mother. I wasn’t trying to listen, which meant I was listening as hard as I could while pretending to be fascinated by the bomb dogs who were giving everyone on the plane another once-over, just in case.
“Yeah, delayed because some anti-alien group tried to kill us. Yes. No. Yes, you h
eard right, she’s the one who figured out what was going on. Yes, she’s smart, that’s part of why I’m with her. Amazingly, no, she doesn’t think I’m an idiot. No, this doesn’t make her stupid or easy to please. Of course we’re still going to Florida, if there’s any reason to. No, I didn’t kill a policeman. Of course I would have. Why? Did you even hear the full story or are you just getting this from the rumor mill?”
Long pause while Martini rolled his eyes, looked up as if asking God to take him now, and ground his teeth. “Of course it didn’t happen like that. But why am I not surprised you believe someone other than me. Fine, I’ll tell you about it when we get there, whenever that ends up being. Good, so glad the emergency’s not going anywhere, I’d hate to miss it. Yes, that was sarcasm. No, I don’t think it’s her influence. I was sarcastic before, you just didn’t notice.”
Another long pause, during which he had his eyes closed and looked as if he were having a migraine. “Yes, you’re right, I did like living with Aunt Terry better. She died twenty years ago, glad you’re not still carrying the resentment. No, honestly, I don’t want to come for a big family dinner. Ever. Right. Yes, fine, so we’ll see you sometime after we handle the situation. No, not tonight. At this rate, it’ll be tomorrow at the soonest. Great. Please remember I hate meat loaf. Oh, of course, naturally, I see you maybe three times a year, God forbid you’d cook something I like. Yes, I know, your meat loaf is famous on two worlds. I’m sure I’ll like it this time.”
Longer pause. “Yes, fine, I know. Yes, of course, Christopher, too. I wouldn’t let him miss this for the world. Paul and James are with us as well, and Tim, human agent you don’t know. Yes, of course, I’ll bring them all along—no one should miss the meat loaf. Love you, too.” He hung up and gently banged his head against the wall.
I stroked his back. “Jeff, you okay?”
“Please promise me you’ll still want to be around me after you meet them.” He sounded stressed and depressed again.
“You know I will.”
He shook his head. “No. I don’t. I can’t imagine that you would.” He rubbed his forehead. “Maybe I can die heroically handling this situation.”