by Gini Koch
Then it was time to put Charlie and Jamie to bed and we figured we’d need to get Lizzie settled in, too, even though she wasn’t going to be expected to go to bed at seven in the evening. Sure, Pierre had set up her room already, but that wasn’t the same as seeing how a family group operated and figuring out how you were going to fit within it during your enforced vacation. Pierre approved of this plan, so that decided that.
Lizzie, presumably to show willing, carried Charlie while Jeff had Jamie. Jamie was chattering away at Lizzie, telling her all about the animals we had living with us and generously offering to let Lizzie sleep in her room with her should Lizzie be missing her daddy and mommy. To Lizzie’s great credit, she didn’t share her family situation with little children, but merely smiled and said that she was good in whatever room we offered to her.
As the five of us and four Secret Service agents got out of the elevator to the melodious sounds of Adam Ant’s “Here Comes the Grump,” my phone rang. Pulled it out and took a look. Not a number I recognized. This tended to mean I was getting what, by now, I considered a standard Crazed Lunatic Opening Gambit. But I answered because it could have been AeroForceOne telling me I’d won an all-expenses paid trip to see Aerosmith live and hang backstage with the band. A girl could dream, after all.
Besides, our phones were tapped by the Secret Service—at least our main phones that they knew about were tapped—and that meant that they’d be able to trace the call if need be. “Hello?”
“Ambassador Martini?” Male, didn’t recognize the voice, though it was vaguely familiar. The chances of the caller being about to tell me I was going to hang out with Steven Tyler and Joe Perry in person dropped.
“That’s me! Who is this?”
“One of your biggest admirers.” This was hugely doubtful.
“Does said supposed admirer have a name or am I just supposed to guess?” Jeff’s eyebrow rose at this, and I could tell he was now paying full attention.
So were Evalyne and Phoebe, the head and second-in-command of my personal Secret Service detail. Joseph, meanwhile, was fiddling with something on his phone, meaning he’d started a trace, just in case. Rob, the second-in-command of Jeff’s detail, was texting, presumably alerting the rest of the troops that I had a Creepy Caller.
My Mystery Caller chuckled. “Of course. It’s Ansom Somerall. I’m surprised you didn’t recognize my voice.” Somerall was the Chairman of the Board of Gaultier Enterprises, and one of what I referred to as the Land Sharks—a cabal of businesspeople who were definitely smarmy and almost certainly evil.
“Ansom Somerall, what a surprise.” Jeff’s eyes narrowed and this news created more Secret Service activity. “It’s been so long since you ambushed me at breakfast, I’d managed to forget the dulcet tones of your voice.” Happily, I hadn’t had to interact with any of the Land Sharks in any real way since Operation Infiltration. Apparently those golden days were over now.
He chuckled again. “I’m flattered you find my voice attractive.” Right, Somerall fancied himself a ladies’ man.
Managed not to throw up a little in my mouth, but only just. “Oh yeah. So, what are you calling about?” I had a guess, and it started and ended with the Planetary Council coming by for a visit.
“Actually, I’m calling for a friend. I believe you’re housing a person you undoubtedly don’t realize is a juvenile delinquent and a danger to your personnel and home.”
Well, that was unexpected. Though all things considered, it shouldn’t have been.
Looked over at Lizzie. She hadn’t reacted to Somerall’s name, meaning that whoever’s kids she had problems with, they weren’t his. “I’m not sure who or what you’re talking about.”
She caught my looking at her, however, and her expression turned from mildly interested in what was going on around her to worried and confused. Put my arm around her shoulders and felt her visibly relax.
“I’m talking about a wanted criminal, Ambassador. As in someone with an outstanding warrant for her arrest.”
“Oh goodness gracious me.” Jeff managed not to laugh. We were outside our apartment, but due to said animals Jamie had been chattering about, Jeff wasn’t opening the door until I was off the phone. You tended to lose focus when a tide of fur and feathers descended upon you.
“You don’t sound worried.”
“Oh, I am worried. I’m worried about you thinking you know who is or isn’t in my Embassy.”
“Ambassador, I don’t think you know the true story behind the juvenile recently put into your care. She murdered her parents before she went on the run.”
Interesting. And doubtful, since I was fairly sure whoever had murdered them had been Siler. “Gosh. She sounds terribly dangerous.” Joseph gave me the “keep ’em talking” sign as the music changed to “Teenage Rampage” by Sweet. Never a problem—keeping the bad guys monologuing was my go-to move. “If I knew who you were talking about, I might be panicked and all that.”
“Elizabeth Jackson. She’s about fifteen.”
“Oh. What a relief. We have no one by that name here. If we run across her, I’ll be sure to let the proper authorities know.” Noted that Somerall was using Lizzie’s real name. This probably boded.
“Ambassador, we know she’s there.”
“See, Ansom, here’s my problem with all of this ‘knowing’ you claim you have. I have no idea how you think you know anything about who is or isn’t in my Embassy. And, being the infinitely suspicious person that I am, I’m thinking you either have illegal surveillance in my Embassy—which, by the way, would be both an act of war against American Centaurion and an act of treason against the United States—or you’re just guessing.”
Jeff handed Jamie to Phoebe while he pulled his phone out and made a quiet call. I assumed it was to Dulce to get some Field teams over here searching for new and improved bugs.
“We have no illegal surveillance in your embassy.”
“Ah, but what if you think you have legal surveillance?”
Jeff made another call, this time to Chuckie. As he did, the elevator opened and our hallway was flooded with Secret Service personnel. I saw a floater gate flicker into existence and a ton of A-Cs pour out of it and zip off, presumably to start doing yet another bug search.
“Ambassador, why aren’t you concerned about what I’m telling you?” Somerall asked, nicely avoiding replying to my legal surveillance question.
“I’m far more concerned with why you think you know who is or isn’t in my home.” Chuckie, Buchanan, Len, Kyle, and Raj all arrived via the stairs, meaning Raj had used hyperspeed and they’d done a daisy chain. Always nice to be popular. “I have no idea why you’re guessing, or why a fifteen-year-old would be a danger, but since we have no one by the name or age you gave me here, let’s hope for your sake that you’re just trying to scare me with a teenaged boogeyman. Now, let’s get back to the relevant conundrum—what legal surveillance are you tapping into?”
He heaved a dramatic sigh. “Ambassador, I’ve called as a friend. If you need help, you have my number now. Please be cautious—we wouldn’t want anything to happen to anyone in the American Centaurion embassy.” Then he hung up.
I looked at Evalyne. “We need extra guards on Amy, right now.”
CHAPTER 20
“AMY?” Evalyne sounded confused. “Why?”
“Because Amy is still fighting with the Gaultier board, and I think Somerall called to ‘tell’ me about Lizzie because he’s going to have someone attack Amy and try to put the blame on Lizzie.”
“It’s very possible,” Chuckie said. “Especially because all the earlier attacks were perpetrated by a woman.”
“A much older woman,” Jeff said.
“Honestly, Huntress is wearing a mask. She could be any age.”
“I’m not here to kill anyone!” Lizzie sounded freaked out and scared, and I couldn�
�t blame her.
I still had my arm around her and I hugged her again. “We know. But this is how our enemies work. And, under the circumstances, once we know what kind of surveillance that’s in our home that we don’t want, you’re going to give me more of that story your father didn’t want me to hear.”
“Okay,” she said quietly. “You can check my stuff that Pierre had picked up. There’s nothing bad in it.”
“I’m sure there isn’t,” Jeff said. “Because it was already searched before it was brought into our apartment.”
“Speaking of which, I haven’t heard the melodious sounds of animal howling, so I assume our apartment hasn’t been searched yet.”
Manfred, one of the A-C troubadours who was a part of my extended security detail whenever we left the Embassy, zipped over. “You’re right, Ambassador. The Embassy has been searched, and Dulce has done scans, but due to the animals, we’ve saved your apartment for last. So far, we haven’t found anything untoward.”
“Then, barring us finding all the bugs in the main apartment suite, how did Somerall know she’s here,” Phoebe asked, nodding her head toward Lizzie.
“Saw us on the roof maybe?”
Evalyne shook her head. “I know why they want you to meet up there—unless someone’s watching with a high-powered scope or in aircraft overhead, your roof is a good hiding place.”
Buchanan grunted. “Sheridan Circle.”
“You think there’s someone in the trees?” I asked him.
“There was when the assassins weren’t on your side, Missus Chief. More than once.”
“Operation Assassination was exciting, wasn’t it? But could someone really see on top of our roof from the treetops?”
Buchanan looked at Manfred, who nodded. “We’ll go check it out right now, Mister Buchanan.”
“Taking me with you,” he said. “Everyone else needs to stay put. And have Walter put the shields on, Missus Chief.”
“Already done,” Rob said. “So we’ll advise him that you’re going out.”
Buchanan nodded then he and Manfred disappeared, literally, thanks to hyperspeed. Hyperspeed was hard on humans, but Tito had created a Super Dramamine that controlled the effects. Every human on staff in the Embassy took it daily, as did most of our human agents worldwide. So Buchanan wouldn’t be barfing his guts out in two seconds when they reached Sheridan Circle across the street from the Zoo. Unless he wanted to, of course.
Thinking about this reminded me of Cliff tossing his cookies earlier. “I wonder if he was coming to see if Lizzie was here.”
“Who?” Jeff asked, while Rob talked quietly to Walter. Rob could have used the internal communications system but the Secret Service really seemed to enjoy their phones, earpieces, and lapel and wrist mics, and who was I to steal all their fun?
“Cliff,” Chuckie said, without snarling, which was impressive. “Maybe. We certainly can’t rule it out, especially considering she’d only been here a short while when he arrived.”
“Yeah, and we need to make sure that Siler knows that Somerall and whoever his ‘friends’ are know Lizzie’s real name.”
“They do?” She sounded freaked out, not that I could blame her.
“Yes, Somerall told me our murderous juvenile delinquent was named Elizabeth Jackson.”
“Can I send my dad a text?” she asked.
“Only if we see it,” Chuckie said. “I’d really suggest you wait. This information is unlikely to be an issue for your father, and you’re safe for the time being. We have other things we need to focus on.”
“Okay.” Lizzie didn’t sound like she thought it was really okay. I hugged her again.
“So, now what?” Jeff asked Chuckie.
“Now we wait for what Buchanan finds.”
“I say we go in and get our apartment searched while we wait.” Everyone looked at me and I shrugged. “Either we find bugs or we find none. But I have two Junior Ambassadors who need to get to bed.”
“I agree with Kitty,” Jeff said, possibly because Charlie was yawning.
“Let us go in first, please, Mister Vice President,” Joseph said, as “Keep It Together” from Puddle of Mudd hit our airwaves.
“You know, I thought we’d broken all of you from the formality.”
“Not when danger’s around,” Evalyne said with a quick smile. Phoebe was still holding Jamie and Lizzie had Charlie. And Jeff and I had hyperspeed, meaning that if someone was lurking somehow in our apartment, then we could avoid them or just take them out like we did in the good old days of not all that long ago.
While the animals were used to A-Cs and other Embassy personnel coming in regularly to walk them and ensure that they had what they needed food- and water-wise, they had to know a bunch of us were right outside in the hallway, and that meant they were probably worked up and ready for action of some kind, even if that action was just bowling over everyone who came through the door with love and demands for attention.
Jeff took my hand, so I knew he’d read what I thought we should do. “Nope.” Then he kicked up the hyperspeed and got us into our apartment in less than a second. We did a fast room check. Lots of fur and feathers—though not all the fur that we’d be getting shortly—no untoward humanoids. While I greeted our First Line of Animal Defense, Jeff went to the front door and opened it. “Come on in and check whatever.”
We had four dogs—Dudley the Great Dane, Duke the Labrador, Duchess the Pit Bull, and Dottie the Dalmatian—and they all wanted pets and praise for having guarded things so very well.
And, as Lizzie walked in, all four dog heads turned toward her. She was still holding Charlie and I worried for a moment that the dogs wouldn’t like this.
Duchess bounded over and Lizzie froze. Duchess sniffed her all over, then jumped up and licked Lizzie right on the face. Charlie laughed and Duchess licked him, too. Then the other three dogs raced over to do their own versions of sniff and lick.
Jeff retrieved Charlie from Lizzie. “Feel free to go wash up,” he said. “All the dog licking can take some getting used to.”
“It just means they like her,” I pointed out.
“Good,” she said with feeling. “I wouldn’t want the four of them mad at me.”
“Oh, you haven’t seen anything yet. Trust me.”
“You have more pets?” Lizzie asked as she headed for a room one down from Jamie’s, which was where I presumed Pierre had assigned her. “Jamie wasn’t just talking about her stuffed animals?”
“You have no idea,” Jeff said as the others came in and the A-Cs started their standard hyperspeed searches.
Lizzie stopped in her doorway and backed slowly toward the living room. “I don’t think they want me in here.”
Went to her room to see which animals were in there. Because we had lots of animals in the apartment with us. And when I say “lots,” I mean “more than you could easily count.” And all the animals I’d been expecting to be brought up from the Zoo not sixty seconds ago were in here, too, somehow. Though I had a good guess for the “how”—hyperspeed or temporal warps—as well as the “some”—Poofs or Peregrines.
Other than some people’s assigned Peregrines, the Alpha Four Royal Protector Birds that looked like peacocks and peahens on steroids but could, like Siler, go chameleon, all the other Peregrines roomed with us.
We’d worried, way back when, that the Peregrines weren’t going to go forth and multiply. As Jeff put it now, how silly we were to think their moratorium on reproduction would last. While we didn’t have as many Peregrines as we had Poofs, there were plenty of them now. Thankfully, they used the toilet, literally, as opposed to messing up the Embassy or the Zoo.
We also had my parents’ cats in addition to their dogs and all the Poofs that were ours and any that were unattached. And we now also had ocellars and chochos, Beta Eight animals that had come hom
e with us. And those were the animals that were normally delivered to our rooms at bedtime and by A-Cs assigned to the task.
Ocellars looked like a caracal-fox combo, and chochos were essentially pigdogs. The ocellar Ginger and chocho Wilbur had attached to me during Operation Civil War and they, along with a set of their fellow breeds, had come home with us. They did make the animal exhibit portion of the Zoo more interesting, so there was that. And they, like the other animals, were good protection. However, none of the animals slept in the Zoo. When not “on exhibit” they were with us. Literally.
And they were all in Lizzie’s room.
CHAPTER 21
FORTUNATELY, the rooms in the Embassy were large, but even so, there was a lot of concentrated Animal Kingdom in here.
“Huh. Who brought you all in from the Zoo?” Got a shot of the Sea of Animal Innocence look from all of them. “So, was it Poofs or Peregrines who brought the chochos and ocellars over? And stop trying to lie to Kitty, it’s not appreciated in the least.”
Now I got some chagrined animal looks and the acknowledgment that, yes, since we had someone new living with us, they all wanted to pass judgment.
And I knew this, just as I’d known what the K-9 dogs were thinking, because, among the many weird and wonderful things that had happened to me over the past few years, I’d become Dr. Doolittle and could talk to the animals. All the animals. And all the animals had wanted to be here, just in case.
“And, your thoughts?” No one other than Lizzie was looking at me like I was crazy because they were all used to it, even the A-C Field agents I could see using the slow version of hyperspeed—that always sounded like an oxymoron but wasn’t—in order to get around the animals safely and still do their search and seizure stuff.