by Gini Koch
This base wasn’t the biggest or even most active of the worldwide bases; superbeings weren’t as common in that part of the world as they were in America, go U.S.A. for the ick-factor win. And while there were plenty of smaller bases all over the world, Euro Base, which was located in Paris, and Moscow Base handled or took the lead on the majority of the international incidents.
So the agents from New Delhi Base tended toward two types—the laidback and low-key and the extremely driven to prove they could run with the big dogs. I still hadn’t figured out which one Raj was.
“Hi, Raj, what’s up?”
Raj shot me a smile that gave Reader’s cover boy smile a run for its money. “Excuse me, Ambassador,” he said quietly. “But there’s a gentleman at the door requesting you.”
Normal sentences, made to sound incredibly thrilling. Yep, Raj was a troubadour. It wasn’t the most popular of talents within the Field and Imageering sides of Centaurion Division, but it was a godsend in terms of the political side. We needed more troubadours, but right now, Raj was splitting his time between us and New Delhi Base, with us getting about ninety percent of him.
“New boyfriend?” Jeff asked, only half-joking.
Shot him the “really?” look while Reader rolled his eyes and Tim snorted. “I doubt it.”
“Why does someone want to see Kitty and not me?” Jeff was pushing the worry.
“Are you picking up anything negative?” Everyone we were with was aware of Jeff’s empathic talents, so asking wasn’t revealing anything classified.
“No, not really.” He looked slightly uncomfortable and I gave myself a duh. He’d told me he’d put his emotional blocks up and with all the people in the Embassy right now, he had to have them set to high. So he could get the strong, rage-level emotions, but he wasn’t going to be picking up nuanced emotions at this time.
“It’s someone who said he isn’t invited to the party and doesn’t wish to crash it, Ambassador. He says he has an important, private message for Ambassador Katt-Martini.”
“Maybe it’s more dirty pictures.”
Armstrong choked on his fruit juice cocktail while the other men laughed. “Please God, not that again,” Armstrong said when he could breathe.
Frankly, I doubted dirty pictures were waiting for me. Figured it was probably Buchanan—if he’d remembered that he’d seen me holding the package I’d told him I’d disposed of, he might want to talk to me alone.
“You’re sure it’s okay, Raj?” Jeff, who wasn’t laughing, asked.
“I’ll stay with her, Ambassador.”
Jeff kissed my cheek. “Don’t be too long with your boyfriend Buchanan. I get jealous.” Nice to see Jeff had made the same assumption as me.
“Really? You? Who’d believe that?” I kissed his cheek as well, then let Raj lead me off to the front door. “What does Malcolm need?”
Our foyer was remarkably empty, considering how many people we had in the Embassy right now. I heard Pierre call everyone to dinner, meaning that the elevators and stairways were going to be busy while everyone headed for the second floor and the walkway to the Zoo.
“I have no idea, it’s not Mister Buchanan at the door.”
Stopped walking. “Raj, just who is at the door? In fact, why did you get the door instead of Pierre?”
“I took over for you and Ambassador Martini at the initial greeting stop so you two could spend time with Representative Reyes. I took over the door for Pierre so he could keep the party moving along.” He cocked his head at me. “Am I frightening you for some reason?”
“Depends on who’s at the door.”
Raj sighed. “Someone who said it was vitally important that he speak with you immediately. Just as I told the ambassador.”
Looked around. “Where are Len and Kyle?”
“Outside, with your visitor.”
Wasn’t sure that this was an improvement on things. Wasn’t sure if I was overreacting to the entire situation, either. Only one way to find out.
I opened the door.
Len and Kyle were nowhere to be seen. Neither was anyone else.
CHAPTER 15
“RAJ, what in the hell is going on?”
“They were right here!” He sounded shocked, but troubadour talent meant he was one of the best actors out there. Raj could have been faking it, or he could be as shocked as he sounded. I didn’t know him well enough to be sure.
“Come inside, close the door, and be quiet.” Buchanan’s voice was behind us, meaning he’d been inside the Embassy. Knowing Buchanan, he’d been inside from the moment he brought me back this afternoon and none of us had noticed him. My Dr. Strange theory seemed amazingly sound.
Since it was Buchanan talking, I did what he said. Turned around to see that he was not only inside but in an Armani tux. Buchanan wasn’t quite good-looking enough to pass for an A-C, but he came close.
He also looked to be quite alone. “Where are the boys?”
Buchanan rolled his eyes. “I moved them and your visitor inside before we had a horrific incident on our hands.” He gave Raj a derisive look. “You know, what the Junior Ambassador here should have done.”
“Ambassador Martini doesn’t want just anyone allowed inside,” Raj said, voice clipped. “I saw no reason to go against his wishes.”
Buchanan shook his head, spun on his heel, and started for the stairway to the basement. Raj and I followed him.
Went down the stairs to find the boys with guns trained on a third man. He was older, with short gray hair, gray eyes, and a stocky but muscular build. He stood ramrod straight, as if he were standing at attention, but he was in a regular suit, not a uniform. I didn’t recognize him at all. “Who’s Public Enemy Number One here?”
The man looked straight at me. “I’m Colonel Marvin Hamlin.”
“You’re the infamous Hammy?” He didn’t look like a man who would appreciate a nickname of any kind. He looked like a man who wanted to be called “sir,” not Hammy.
“To my friends.” He cleared his throat. “I know we aren’t friends, but . . . I need your help.”
Colonel Hamlin had been in charge of Andrews Air Force Base right up until a couple days before Operation Destruction. He’d left Andrews for lunch and never been seen since. He was Cliff’s former boss, and he was also, per Cliff and everyone else, very anti-alien. This was one of the reasons Colonel Arthur Franklin had been moved over to take charge of Andrews. Hamlin’s disappearance had sped up the process, but that was probably good, because Franklin was a friend and had worked with us to save the day.
Pulled out my phone. “Let me get Cliff, Chuckie, and Jeff down here.”
“No!” Hamlin jumped toward me, earning a nice body slam from Kyle that sent him into the wall.
“Why don’t you want them called?”
Hamlin regained his balance. “Because I don’t know who I can trust. I’ve been on the run for months.”
“From who?” Buchanan asked. “And why?”
Hamlin shook his head. “I’m not sure who. People have been trying to kill me is why. But I believe I know why they’re trying to eliminate me.”
“And that reason is?” Really wanted to get one of the guys down here. But under the circumstances, with four of my guys here already, I could probably wait for the full explanation. I dropped my phone back into my purse.
Hamlin noted this and relaxed a bit. “I believe I’ve found the trail that will lead to the highest-level government conspiracy.”
“There are a lot of those.” So far in my experience, there was a high-level government conspiracy being hatched every week.
Hamlin nodded. “Yes, there are. But I believe they all stem from a single source.”
“You mean one group’s pulling all the strings?”
“I believe it’s a single individual, with the right connections. And the brainpower to think well ahead of the rest of us.”
“If that’s true, then how is it you’re still alive?” Len asked.
“Wait a minute. You disappeared from Andrews the Friday before Operation Destruction started. That was less than a year ago.”
“Excuse me?” Hamlin looked confused.
“She means the alien invasion that was stopped by the very aliens you don’t like,” Buchanan said.
“Ah. I don’t know who was pretending to be me, but I actually disappeared last year, in November. Right after I’d discovered some discrepancies with a variety of Titan Security contracts.”
“That was just before Jamie was born.” None of the men in the room with me had been on our team at that time. Meant I was either on my own or needed to bring someone down from the party.
Hamlin nodded. “Your child was indicated as being an important factor.”
Decided to forge on, based on the fact that, blocks or not, Jeff might be able to pick up the fact that my anger had spiked. People trying to steal, hurt, use, and terrify my daughter did that to me for some reason.
“What else?”
“I almost don’t know where to start.” Our expressions must have told Hamlin to pick a spot and start running his yap. “There are a variety of underhanded actions going on, or there were. Supersoldier projects in Paraguay and France. A super-drug to be tested on schoolchildren, also in France. Bioweapons. Assassinations. A variety of world domination schemes. Coordinated anti-alien activities designed to wipe the Alpha Centaurions off the face of the Earth. Just as many plans to force them to act as U.S. or world military.”
“We know about, as in have stopped, most of those, though probably not all. What about an alien invasion from a planetary system other than Alpha Centauri?”
Hamlin nodded. “And more besides. Some of the schemes were clearly set up to fail. Some seemed to exist as either a smokescreen or as a backup plan. I’d only begun to scratch the surface when I realized I had to run for my life.”
“How did you know to disappear?”
“There was an assassination squad waiting for me at my home. I know how to spot them. It didn’t take much for me to realize I’d been set up for assassination because I’d discovered the start of the real trail toward the Mastermind.”
Wondered if said squad was made up of Peter the Dingo Dog and Surly Vic. They were right in the fact that I wouldn’t care about Hamlin. At least, five minutes ago I wouldn’t have cared. Now, I wasn’t so sure.
“And no one noticed you were missing?” Raj asked.
Hamlin shrugged. “I have no idea how they could have had someone impersonate me for so long. For a short time, yes. But not for months.”
Len looked at me. “They could have if they put an android in his place.”
“I agree, but why have that android leave right before Operation Destruction?”
“To discredit me,” Hamlin said before anyone else could answer. “To make me the fall guy.”
“He has a point,” Buchanan said.
“I knew I’d truly found the start of the trail to the Mastermind the moment no one started looking for me once I’d disappeared. So, why not have whoever, or whatever, was impersonating me disappear at a crucial time? It would be the last nail in my coffin.”
Buchanan nodded slowly. “Colonel Hamlin has been discredited. And at least half the powers that be feel he was the other ‘captain’ involved in the invasion.”
True enough. We’d spent time wondering if Hamlin, who was described by one and all as anti-alien but a good man nevertheless, was also the “good man” the late Antony Marling’s beloved parrot, Bellie, had been talking about. Bellie now lived with Mister Joel Oliver, our personal paparazzo. Oliver wasn’t invited to tonight’s event because he tended to make politicians very nervous. But I wondered if I needed to give him a call.
“Based on the word of a parrot. The accurate word, but still.”
“A parrot?” Hamlin asked weakly.
“It’s a long story. But Malcolm’s right—you certainly stood out as the likely ‘captain’ in place to cover the Parisian part of the supersoldier offensive or lack thereof for Operation Destruction.”
“Well, I wasn’t the ‘captain,’ but I agree that my ‘disappearing’ when you thought I did would make anyone believe I was involved.”
“What happened to his android, then?” Kyle asked. “Mister Reynolds got a full listing from King Alexander of all the androids involved in the battle—Colonel Hamlin wasn’t one of them.”
Unpleasant thought occurred. “How do we know Hammy here isn’t an android?”
“Short of killing him?” Buchanan asked. “Not too sure. Emotional readings won’t matter. Perhaps one of the imageers could read a picture of him.”
“No imageers. No empaths.” Hamlin sounded emphatic. “I don’t trust them.”
“We don’t trust you, so that makes us even. Right now, we can’t be sure you’re really a human being.”
“By that token, how can I know you’re human beings?” Hamlin asked. He looked at Raj. “Some of you aren’t.”
“That’s it, I’m done acting like an ambassador. You get the real me, lucky you. Stop insulting the people with me or I’m going to kick you so hard in the balls we’ll know for sure if you’re an android or a real person.”
Hamlin tried the stare-down. Always hilarious, since the only people who could win this against me were Mom and Chuckie. “Agreed. And . . . I apologize.”
“Smart man. Accepted. For now. Look, we didn’t invite you in here to insult any of us or just to hang out and shoot the breeze. You don’t like us, you don’t trust us, and you’re on the run. So why are you here?”
“I came to talk to you, Missus Martini.”
Chose to ignore him not using my official title. I’d kind of told him not to, after all. “Why so?”
Hamlin looked straight at me. “Because you were identified as Enemy Number One by whoever’s behind everything. And that means you’re the only person I can trust.”
CHAPTER 16
LET THAT SIT on the air for a bit. Due to Operation Confusion, we all knew I was considered Enemy First Class by the League of Evil Super-Geniuses and Crazed Megalomaniacs. But if Hamlin knew this, too, that might mean he was telling the truth.
“Okay, Hammy. May I call you Hammy?”
“If I say no will that stop you?”
“Wow, no, it won’t.”
He shrugged. “Then by all means. What should I call you?”
“Kitty will do. So, let’s belay the human or android worry. We have a variety of excellent doctors on staff who can probably determine your status in a fast and safe way. Let’s go back to your disappearance. You were sniffing around. Why?”
“There were discrepancies with some of the Titan Security contracts, as I said. I pulled their records, and then started looking into any business even tenuously connected to Titan.”
“And you found what?”
“Strong ties to a variety of companies. Gaultier Enterprises and their subsidiaries, the philanthropist Ronaldo Al Dejahl and his many businesses and subsidiaries, a host of other, less influential businesses. They have ties to a variety of organizations, including Club Fifty-One, which, due to your, ah, fine work, we know to be a widespread anti-alien organization. But there were plenty of others, including organizations thought to be benign.”
“The Al Dejahl terrorist organization?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
“Fabulous. So, Titan pretty much has or had less than Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon with, what, everything and everyone?”
“Pretty much, yes. Obviously, some of those connections were legitimate and not underhanded. But not all. At first I thought everything stemmed from Titan. But further digging showed that Titan was taking direction from someone else.”
“Name who you think was in charge.”
“I have no idea.” Hamlin sighed. “Antony Marling and Madeline Cartwright were both influential. I believe Madel
ine was the brains of their operation, however. John Cooper was definitely involved with the Al Dejahl Corporation, as was Esteban Cantu. Herbert Gaultier was in bed with all these people and many more, including the late Leventhal Reid whom I know you knew.”
Repressed the shudder thinking of Reid always gave me. “Go on.”
“And before you tell me, I know four of those people are now dead and Cantu is in a very severe form of custody, I also know you haven’t learned anything useful from him.”
“How do you know that?”
“I haven’t survived on the run and in hiding because I’m without survival skills, young lady. I also happen to possess computer skills.”
“You mean hacking skills.”
“I mean skills that were important in my career.”
“Colonel Hamlin was in intelligence before he took a desk job,” Buchanan said.
“Ah, so you have spy skills. Okay, works for me. So, what else did you learn, Mister Former Spy?”
“I learned that most of these activities were being protected and hidden by very high level clearances.”
“Legitimate or forged clearances?”
Hamlin shook his head. “I have no idea. I wasn’t able to dig far enough before I was discovered. I can say that I expected a full military investigation over my disappearance, but I haven’t been pursued or investigated by the military.”
“Not even after Operation Destruction?”
“No. There is no military investigation going on that is even remotely interested in me.”
“That’s bizarre.” Thought about his wording. “But someone’s after you and investigating you, right?”
“Correct.”
“My mother would be for sure, as would Chuckie. As in, the P.T.C.U. and the C.I.A.”
“It’s not them. I mean, I know they’re investigating me, but they’re not the ones sending hit men and similar after me.”
Figured I might as well ask right now. “The Dingo, by any chance?”