Alien in Chief

by Gini Koch

  The rest of us did our best to discuss potential strategies in a way I hoped the kids weren’t picking up.

  We finished breakfast rather quickly, all things considered, and then it was time to get moving.

  Went in and grabbed our rolling bags while Jeff and Chuckie discussed how they wanted us divided up to drive to the rail station. “Any Poofs who aren’t staying home to guard and who want an adventure, now’s the time to get into Kitty’s purse. Everyone else be good and guard the manse and everyone we care about in it. Bruno, my bird, time to chameleon it up, grab whoever you want along, and hit the road.”

  Bruno was the Head Peregrine and the one most attached to me. All the other Peregrines answered to him and his mate, Lola. Lola always remained on child care duty, since that was part of what these birds had been bred for on Alpha Four—protecting the Royal Children. And having seen the Peregrines in action more than once, they were impressive and good at their jobs.

  They also, like Siler, were able to blend in with their surroundings, so that no one saw them. Bruno also had Keen Animal Senses and was pretty good at letting me know when someone was a threat. Sure, he hadn’t done so with Cliff, but Cliff had been in the Circle of Trust before Bruno had arrived. Animals being animals, the Peregrines had watched and waited. And now they knew they weren’t allowed to rend Cliff unless it was absolutely necessary, since we were trying to remain stealth and not let him know we knew he was the Mastermind or, more importantly, have him die and his Doomsday Plans go into effect.

  Made sure my purse had anything and everything I could think of that I might need in it, including the Poofs who planned on taking a trip. The goggles were still in it, and I shoved them down a bit, lest Jeff notice them and ask me why I had them.

  Plenty of Poofs On Board, or at least in my purse, and Bruno trotting along at my side, I left our bedroom, dragging the suitcases behind me. This didn’t last long, since the Secret Service had arrived and they took the cases from me immediately.

  It was time to head out. We kissed the kids goodbye and hugged Lizzie. “You have our numbers, just like my dad does,” I reminded her, since we’d programmed her phone and ours with all our relevant digits during breakfast. “So don’t hesitate to call or text if you think something’s up or if anything happens.”

  “I will, I promise.”

  “And remember that there are Secret Service agents here, protecting all of you,” Jeff said. “So don’t hesitate to go to them for help.”

  “Got it.” Lizzie shot Dad a worried look.

  He smiled reassuringly. “We’ll be fine. This is the most secure building on the eastern seaboard.”

  With that we headed downstairs to our underground garage. A-C facilities were odd in that the elevators never seemed to go all the way down. Presumably because, with hyperspeed, there was no elevator faster than an A-C. Or some other reason. Aliens Were Weird was a statement I still repeated daily, though usually in my mind or under my breath.

  We had a lot of people going, and half of our team were staging from the Embassy, so we also had quite the number of cars waiting for us. Conveniently, the underground garage was big enough to accommodate our vehicular needs.

  We had several gray limos but we weren’t taking them this time. In the past year we’d been sent back to the future, in that sense. Centaurion Division used a variety of upgraded and extended Lincoln Navigators, and we’d been assigned our own fleet for use during times when we needed to ensure the Vice President and his entourage arrived in a style that said Heavy Duty Security On Board.

  In addition to our gaggle of Secret Service folks and our standard A-C protection details, Buchanan was waiting for us downstairs, along with Len and Kyle and Burton Falk, a human agent who reported directly to Buchanan. Normally Len was my driver and Kyle rode shotgun as bodyguard, but today Buchanan wanted Falk driving us and he was taking the shotgun seat.

  The boys might have been hurt or pissed, or both, but if they were they kept it to themselves. Or else I missed it, because I was busy greeting everyone else who was already in the garage.

  I’d expected to see Caroline and Mr. Joel Oliver, who were chatting with White, Mahin, and Abigail. But happily Alpha Team was here as well. Because, as it turned out, Buchanan wanted to ensure that Gower was under control sooner as opposed to later.

  Reader gave me a hug. “You look great, girlfriend. Runway ready.” Reader had taken over as the Head of Field when Jeff and I had been shoved into the political lifestyle. Before then he’d been a Captain in Centaurion Division. And before that he’d been the world’s top international male model. And there wasn’t a day that he didn’t look as if he could step right back into that life without missing a beat.

  “Thanks, James. You’re still a great liar. And I don’t expect my look to last.”

  “Oh, don’t sell yourself short,” Tim Crawford, who was the Head of Airborne, said. “Sometimes you make it whole days at a time without dropping something on your blouse.”

  “I’ll hurt you later. Where are the flyboys? And Serene?”

  “The flyboys are ready to go in the air once we take off,” Tim replied. “We want aerial cover, just in case.”

  “Serene’s off wrangling Stryker,” Reader said. “He responds best to her after Reynolds, and Reynolds was with you and Jeff.”

  This was true. And I was sure that Stryker was putting up quite a fuss, though hopefully Chernobog was helping Serene get him moving.

  Lorraine and Claudia, who were still my closest A-C girlfriends and were now filling the Captain roles Reader and Tim had vacated, both zipped into the garage from the Embassy. “Kids are all taken care of,” Lorraine said as she gave me a hug.

  “Daycare’s in your apartment right now,” Claudia added. “Your dad insisted.”

  “He just wants easy access to snacks.”

  “He said you’d say that,” Lorraine said with a laugh.

  “And he said to tell you he wants the couches more,” Claudia added. “He said he’s planning a Disney film fest, regardless of what Denise wants.”

  “Oh, I’m sure she’ll roll with it.”

  “I’m sure we could just send everyone down via gates and have absolutely no security issues,” Gower said, as he came over and gave me a hug. Gower was big, black, bald, and beautiful, so getting hugs from him was never a bad thing. I rarely suggested it out loud anymore, but if Reader and Gower had been willing to add me into the marriage, Jeff might have had some real romantic worries.

  “While I like where your head’s at, you can’t stump for reelection if you’re taking a gate,” I reminded him. “Not you, of course, Mister Supreme Pontifex for Life or until you pass it off to your groomed right-hand man.” This is what had happened when White had retired and handed the religious reins to Gower, after all. “But as far as I can tell, politicians start campaigning for reelection the day after they’re sworn into office.”

  He grunted. “Not every situation demands double duty.”

  Before I could argue or support this mindset, Serene and Stryker came down. Somehow she’d gotten him dressed in a suit just like those the other men wore. I managed not to gape, because this was the first time I’d ever seen Stryker in a suit, let alone in the Armani Fatigues. The Elves were amazing, considering Stryker didn’t care overmuch about his appearance and had never met an exercise he was willing to perform.

  But, you know, I was a politician’s wife now. “Hey, Stryker, you look great.” Lying came with the territory. And he did look better dressed like this than in the Hacker International Standard Uniform, which was khaki shorts, some sort of comfy yet ugly foot covering, and whatever science fiction or fantasy TV show or movie T-shirts were on the day’s rota.

  He shrugged. “Maybe. I feel like an idiot.” He had a duffel over his shoulder.

  “What’s in the bag?”

  He looked at my matchin
g duffel. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

  “That one never worked on me and still doesn’t.”

  “Can’t blame a guy for trying, and I wasn’t trying at all in case Jeff and Chuck are listening. But anyway, Kitty, I think you need to get the gang rounded up.”

  “Why?”

  “Because,” Serene said, voice tight, “Stryker and I need to tell everyone what we just saw on the news.”

  CHAPTER 31

  CONVENIENTLY, A-Cs had better hearing than humans, and all the humans were trained to listen well, so Serene and Stryker had everyone’s immediate attention.

  “What’s going on?” Reader asked, Commander Voice on Full.

  “Every major network is carrying the story about the breakout,” Serene replied. “There’s nothing our people can do about it—it’s too prevalent.”

  In the good old days, before Operation Infiltration, the imageers would have made this all go away, because that was their talent—the reading and manipulation of images, any images.

  But our people had been infected with something that harmed Imageering abilities, which had ground Imageering down to a halt. Christopher and Serene, who were the first and second most powerful imageers, still had most of their abilities. But even so, nothing to what they’d had before.

  Imageering was building back, and with Serene as the Head it had become a far more political section, albeit still media-centric. She dealt with all the news media and then some—which was how she’d have stopped the story if it had been possible—so it was a good thing that she was a Secret Troubadour. Literally only her A-C C.I.A. personnel and I knew about her troubadour talents. Though I had a strong suspicion that Team Assassination had their suspicions.

  “That’s a PR problem for the Pentagon,” Reader said. “Not us.”

  “It’s a problem for us when those escaped prisoners have said that they’ll negotiate their return to custody,” Stryker said with a grimace. “But only if Farley Pecker and Harvey Gutermuth do the negotiations. With the President.”

  We all stared at each other. “So,” I said finally, “the leader of the Church of Hate and Intolerance and the head of Club Fifty-One have finally recovered from their media humiliation and are back, bigger and better than ever. Lucky us.”

  “Aside from the fact that there’s no way any of those people actually want to return to custody, what possible reassurances could those two dunderheads provide?” Mom sounded annoyed, as she always did when things like this caught her unaware.

  “No idea,” Serene said. “But I’m not going down to Florida now. I’m going to stay here and work with Kevin and Doreen to ensure that we have a prepared response for any and all of the calls that are going to be coming in just a few minutes.”

  We all looked at Raj. Whose turn it was to grimace. “I need to stay, too, don’t I?”

  “You’re our Public Relations Minister,” Jeff said, sounding unhappy. Couldn’t blame him—Raj was good at fixing the things we messed up. And by we I meant me.

  “I should as well,” Oliver said, looking at his phone. “Because my editor just told me that he expects me to find out just what the American Centaurion response to all of this is going to be.”

  Raj’s phone beeped. “Right on cue. That’s Bruce Jenkins.” Another reporter we’d become friends with mostly by saving his life. We were good that way. “He’d like to come over, same reasons as Mister Joel Oliver. And we’re going to need all the positive press we can get, I’m sure.”

  “Why?”

  Everyone looked at me. “Because it’s bad?” Kyle suggested.

  “Yes, it is. But why are we the focus? Why does anyone in their right mind think that we’re responsible for these wacked-out killers? I’m not asking in terms of reality—I know they all hate us and most of them want us all dead. I’m asking in terms of media spin.”

  “Because they say they’re going to start killing people in the name of getting the aliens off this planet if their demands aren’t met,” Stryker said.

  “Ah. Nice of you to mention that at the start.”

  He shrugged. “I thought it was self-evident, considering who’s involved.”

  Chuckie’s eyes were narrowed. “The timing is interesting, don’t you think?”

  “You mean that this is going on right when the Planetary Council is about to visit, thereby making the anti-alien contingent freak out even more than normal?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “We have a mole.”

  I snorted. “No mole. We have names. If it’s somehow not Cliff Goodman, then it’s Langston Whitmore, the Secretary of Transportation. The President has to advise the Joint Chiefs and the Cabinet of what’s going on and what he’s doing. And despite our strongly urging him to dump Whitmore, that asshat is still sitting pretty.”

  “How would Cliff know?”

  “Ah, he was there when the information came in,” Jeff said. “Sorry, Chuck. I forgot to tell you.”

  “You mean you didn’t want me to freak out and make my migraine worse.” Chuckie sighed. “Doesn’t matter, because Kitty’s right. It could easily be Whitmore. He hates everything associated with American Centaurion. Cliff wouldn’t even need to activate him—Whitmore’s capable of this leak all on his own.”

  “I’d always thought Vince was smarter than this,” Mom said. “It’s rarely a good thing to keep someone else’s people in place once you take over. But he insists on keeping Whitmore and a few others around.”

  “He does a good job with the role. It’s why Vince kept him, and the others, on,” Jeff said with a sigh to match Chuckie’s. “But you’re right—if it’s not Cliff, then I’m sure Whitmore is the leak, so to speak.”

  “Do you think they’ve made this announcement right now to keep Raj and Mister Joel Oliver and the others here?” Vance asked.

  His turn to get everyone staring at him.

  “Why would they want to keep me, or Serene, or anyone else Embassy-bound?” Raj asked.

  “Why do they do anything they do?” Vance countered. “I’d guess because you guys can affect things in a positive way. Or they think you can.”

  “So . . . does that mean we think that we should all go as planned?” Serene asked. She didn’t sound like she felt this was the right course of action.

  Thought about it. “No. They’ve set it up so that you guys really do have to stay here. So, let them win this portion of the round. We’re already on high alert.”

  “I don’t like it,” Chuckie muttered. Probably presciently. “But I agree with Kitty—we need you handling the PR stuff here, not on the train.”

  Remembered that Bizarro World Jamie had warned me to be careful on the train. Maybe she’d meant from a PR standpoint, rather than an action standpoint. And maybe pigs were flying in some other alternate universe, too.

  “Speaking of which,” Reader said, “we need to get moving or we’ll delay everything and that won’t spin well, either.”

  We divided up. The SUVs seated eight, including the driver, so in addition to Falk, Buchanan, Jeff, and me with Bruno on my lap, Mom, Chuckie, Stryker, and Vance were all in one car.

  Len and Kyle were taking Adriana, Tito, Rahmi, Rhee, White, and Christopher. Reader and Tim had Gower, Abigail, Mahin, Claudia, Lorraine, and Caroline.

  Those A-C reflexes meant that even though the Field teams were in their own SUVs, they had to have human drivers. The three were, like Falk, all part of Buchanan’s all-human team, though only Falk was coming along with us down to Florida.

  The rest were going to get all the SUVs back then take an A-C jet and fly down to meet us in Orlando. And, in fact, Buchanan had several other humans in their own SUV, who were each going to drive one of the Cars O’ Doom back. Whether they were all joining us in Florida or not I didn’t know and chose not to care—that was Buc
hanan’s bailiwick, thankfully, not mine.

  The Secret Service wanted Gower, Jeff, and me in a car with them, but settled for having only Secret Service in the Secret Service cars after much protesting, whining, Jeff putting his Vice Presidential foot down, and then Mom saying make it so. Unsurprisingly, it was Mom’s vote that got the Secret Service to comply.

  Not that we didn’t think our Secret Service agents were great, but Reader was the best at anything he did, and driving was certainly one of those things. Len had passed the C.I.A.’s driving tests with the highest scores in years and he’d spent all his time with us having to increase his skill set up to Reader’s level, which he’d definitely managed or Culver, Kyle, Len, and I wouldn’t be alive today. And if Buchanan felt Falk was a better driver than either Reader or Len, and he did, then Falk was a damned amazing driver.

  So, bundled into our mighty, reinforced with extra steel, bulletproof glass, and all the A-C bells and whistles like laser shields and cloaking Cars O’ Doom, we trundled off.

  Unsurprisingly, we had protestors on the street. They were such a natural part of our lives now that I barely registered them. The anti-alien contingent was smaller than it had been, but still vocal, and not just in the U.S. but around the world. However, they’d learned to stop throwing things at us, because every driver had the laser shields activated before we were out of the garage and the shields tended to toss whatever was thrown right back onto the throwers.

  “There were no protestors out yesterday. I just realized that.”

  “So, were they not there because Goodman was coming by, or for another reason?” Buchanan asked.

  “No idea. But . . . they weren’t around when Lillian came to get me last week, either.” And again, it hadn’t registered until right now.

  “That would seem to indicate more that whoever Huntress is, she’s got pull with Club Fifty-One and Pecker’s people,” Chuckie said.

  “Just assume they’re all working together in some way and you’ll be safer,” Mom said. Couldn’t argue with that mindset.