Alien Collective (48 page)

“E
ASY?”
Jeff’s voice was still low, but he managed to get a lot of outraged surprise in there anyway. “You call all of what we’ve been through for the past, what, a little over a day easy?”

“Yeah, in a way.” Tried to figure out what felt so wrong to me. “It’s like they’re . . . testing. Nothing’s been coordinated, in that sense. Sure, they’ve hit us with one thing after another, but, last time, they’d guessed almost every move we’d make.”

“Last time they had Ronaldo mind-reading Gladys.”

“Yeah. But there’s more than that. I mean, they’ve announced that Maurer’s out of the race because of illness. If he blows up on us right now, or deactivates in some way, well, then we can call the President, tell him, and he’ll have his people make up a very believable lie. Heck, we could do it ourselves.” That was me, focused on the positive idea that if Maurer blew up we’d all be around to make casual calls to the President and such.

“We could also share that Maurer is an android with the entire world,” Jeff said dryly.

“Only if he’s not blown up. But say he survives essentially intact. Our sharing this news would panic the world, and they know we won’t do that unless we have to. And you know that if we show off one android, we have to be able to say ‘and these people made the android’ and we can’t do that right now, because we don’t know who’s carrying on Antony Marling’s heinous work. And the next question is ‘how many androids are there’ and we have no idea. So they give us this Get Out Of Jail Free Card to share, and if we take it, awesome for both sides.”

“That just seems like convenience for them they’ll generously share with us because, in the grand scheme, it doesn’t matter. So far, you’re not showing me that anything happening against us was actually easy. All I see is a lot of bad coming at us, from all sides.”

“But they seem so . . . scattered.”

“So? Sounds like the usual three or four plans acting against us at one time.”

“Yeah, but in the past, all actions against us were related. And I know they’re all related now. Somehow.” Considered past Operations. “You know, Operation Sherlock was all about Apprentice Tryouts. What if this is similar, but with different goals? Or a different form of competition?”

“I honestly have no guess, baby. Do you really think the Mastermind showed up personally at the Cleary campaign headquarters?” He ran his hand through his hair. “Because that means that Stephanie knows the Mastermind.”

“Well, her father knew the Mastermind, I guarantee it, so why not her? But no, I doubt the Mastermind was dropping by, though his Apprentice might have. Or, rather, one of the several people who think they’re the Apprentice. Despite my numbering system from earlier, Leventhal Reid pretty much confirmed that more than one person thought they were the New Apprentice. But Reid is the real Apprentice . . .”

“What? I can tell you just made some connection. Do you think Reid was who Jenkins heard?”

“Maybe, but that’s not what I’m thinking about. I’m thinking about what Reid said last year . . . and Stephanie. What if this isn’t about us so much as it’s about us cleaning house for the Mastermind?”

“What? How the hell do you get that from anything?”

Chuckie came over. “I heard you, and no, you weren’t talking that loudly, I’m just trained to listen very carefully. Kitty, go on with that idea.”

“Okay. Survival of the fittest.”

“What?” Jeff said. “Are you testing to see if one of us is an android?”

“No,” Chuckie said. “She means that the Mastermind is culling his herd.”

“Exactly. See who survives against us, they’re worthy to keep around. Whoever isn’t skilled or sneaky enough we kill or remove as a threat. If they destroy us, great, they move up in the hierarchy. But if they don’t, then us getting rid of them means we’ve culled a weak one and the side benefit is those who are left hate us that much more.”

“I can see that,” Chuckie said. “And that’s a long-game strategy, and that’s his style.”

“Where does Stephanie fit in?” Jeff asked.

“She’s someone primed to hate us who we’re all going to be loath to kill. She knows it, the Mastermind knows it.” And guaranteed she’d be Reid’s type. Heck, she was a Dazzler. She’d be anyone and everyone’s type, maybe even the Mastermind’s. “So Stephanie is valuable not only for what she can do but also as much as what she can get away with doing without recrimination.”

“You threatened to kill her,” Chuckie pointed out.

“But we all know she’ll have to be ready to kill one of you, or Jamie, Mom, Dad, someone I love, or be about to, you know, drop poison into the city’s water supply, before I actually do it.”

“I don’t think I can,” Jeff said quietly.

“If it were her or Jamie you could,” Chuckie said calmly. “But I know what you mean. Reid or LaRue I’d like to kill on sight. But Stephanie is different. And believe me, they all know it.”

“Sentimentality is the ultimate weakness.” Chernobog came over to us. “Serene is quite talented. We believe we have removed all the destruct sequences within the android. But you might want to be ready to run if we’re wrong when we turn him back on.”

While one Field agent recalibrated the floater gate, two more zipped off with a pan filled with circuits and the like. Hoped they were taking them to the middle of nowhere, but they were probably taking them back to Serene’s Bomb Shop so she could play with them at her leisure.

“Thanks.” Chose not to mention that I’d been ready to run this entire time. If I was coming across as calm, cool, and collected to Chernobog, so much the better. “May I ask you something? Well, probably more than one something.”

She shrugged. “Why not?”

“Do you know or have a guess as to who the Mastermind is, or who his Apprentice is or are, in case you know of more than one?”

“Someone in your government. Because I was hired via a government contract.”

Let that sit on the air for a moment. “Which division?” Chuckie asked finally.

She shrugged. “Didn’t say and I didn’t care. There are many slush funds used by the Alphabet Agencies to get dirty work done. This request bounced through many different channels, but, ultimately, the buyer was from the U.S. government.”

“That’s why you were in Guantanamo, isn’t it? Whoever it is suggested you stay there.”

She shook her head. “No, I was already there. Whoever it was
knew
I was there. It was part of why I agreed to take the job—they had a line on where I was. But they met my price, so . . .” She shrugged again.

Ran through my list of potential suspects, which were people we’d met once we’d come to D.C. Anyone dead and not regenerated via clone or android was, of course, no longer suspect.

Cliff had been a target during Operation Sherlock, and Horn had been one now. Considering how close both had come to being blown to bits, that removed them from my list. Langston Whitmore remained at the top of this list, as did Gideon Cleary. Same with those running Gaultier Enterprises, Titan Security, and YatesCorp. And yet, none of them were our intimates, so how would they know our strategies and game plans?

Mom and Dad were out. Chuckie was the Mastermind’s ultimate target. Senator Armstrong had so much more to gain from being our friend that he seemed unlikely. The President already had power and the Vice President just wanted to play golf, so again, not really high on the list of possibilities.

Lillian Culver and Guy Gadoire both seemed more and more unlikely every day. The other lobbyists we worked with weren’t nearly as intimate with us. Vance could be the Mastermind. He was smart enough and hid it extremely well. But why the hate for Chuckie if that was the case?

Senator McMillan? Maybe. We all loved and respected him. He was a possibility, but one I couldn’t bring myself to believe. Maybe that meant the Mastermind
was
McMillan. Or Colonel Franklin, someone else we trusted and I couldn’t believe would be a bad guy or against us. Same with Captain Morgan. Hell, maybe it was my Uncle Mort.

This speculation was getting me nowhere. Gave up and went back to the relevant conundrum. “Did you know Butler was an android?”

“No. Absolutely not. I would never have stayed. Honestly, I thought he was a nice man. Good to work for, always polite, never demanded more from anyone than he demanded from himself.”

“So, you liked him?” Jeff asked.

“Yes, I did.”

“Did he change how he behaved at all in the time you were working for him?” Chuckie asked.

“No. He was always the same. I assume this means he was always an android, as long as I knew him?”

“Probably.” My turn to ask a question. “Did he have a meeting with the Cleary-Maurer ticket on his calendar for today? And don’t say you don’t know or don’t remember. You were working as his secretary, and you were actually doing the job.”

“It was interesting and put me where I wanted to be. But you’re right, I have his schedule memorized. And no, there was no meeting with anyone on today’s books, because he was supposed to be at Luke Air Force Base still. He came back because I sent him a text, telling him I felt I was in danger.”

“So, why were Cleary and Maurer there, then, let alone Stephanie?” Jeff asked. “They had to have come for a reason.”

Had to give it to stress, things were falling into place in my mind. “Cleary’s an Apprentice. Or maybe an Apprentice to an Apprentice. Just because he was respectful toward someone else doesn’t mean he doesn’t think he’s the Mastermind’s right hand man. And even if he’s Apprentice the Lower, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to get rid of his competition.”

“Makes sense,” Chuckie said. “But why visit Home Base for no reason?”

“They had a reason, it’s just not the one we’d originally thought. They weren’t there to kill Butler, they were there to get rid of a loose end. And Stephanie was there to make sure it happened.”

Chernobog stared at me. “You think they came to kill me?”

“Abso-damn-lutely. They rolled really well with the punches, but they wouldn’t have known we were there. Because we evacuated the building, no one knew what had happened to you or Butler, and I guarantee only a handful of people knew we’d come over at all. But Butler wasn’t where Cleary and his team thought he’d be, which was in another state, and he was only at Home Base because Team Oliver was following you and you caught on.”

“And you’re a huge loose end,” Chuckie said. “Especially because we have the one thing you care about under custody they can’t affect.”

“Not without giving themselves away, at any rate,” Jeff added.

“How would they have done that?” Chernobog asked. “There would have been witnesses.”

“Cameron the Android would have held you and one of them would have injected you with the heart attack poison or whatever. Then they’re there to be all upset over your death. You’re an old lady, who would question it, especially because a presidential candidate was a witness. Done, confirmed, and moving on up in the ranks.”

Jeff nodded. “I can see it. Kill her, we never get our data back, we can’t offer to release Kozlow as incentive, it’s all just gone.”

“And you can’t tell us they’re in the government. Which is more of a confirmation, but still, it’s a confirmation we didn’t have until three minutes ago and would never have if you were dead.”

“But they hired the Dingo to kill me.”

“They did that in part to get him the hell out of D.C. for a while and possibly as cover for Cleary and his team if your death looked suspicious to someone. And if Cleary, Maurer, and Stephanie failed, well, there’s a better team coming along in the next day or so. But the Dingo would have had to take a flight to get to you and Cleary used a gate.” Or the Z’porrah cube, but I managed not to share that with the best hacker in the world.

She gave me another long look. “So, the rumors about you are indeed true.”

“And they are?”

“That you’re the Dingo’s quite beloved niece. ‘Maybe I’m Russian back there somewhere’ my ass. That’s why you feel you can stop him from killing me, if I do what you want. Because you’ll ask him for that favor.”

Quite beloved? Wow. I was really and truly moving up in the world of Assassins International. Felt all flattered. At least someone cared. Oh, sure, they were cold-blooded hired killers, but not when it came to me, apparently. Put this one in the win column. It would undoubtedly come back to bite me in the butt, but I could enjoy it for right now.

“Essentially, yeah. It’ll have to be worth his while, in a big way, but I’m pretty damn sure that the world’s best hacker, by far and bar none, can probably make a big way happen without too much trouble.”

“So the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” There was a lot of that line going around this Operation. And for once it was working in our favor. Another one for the win column. Truly a red-letter hour, as long as Maurer didn’t explode. Chernobog looked around the computer lab. “This is not such a bad place to spend time.”

Jeff groaned. “I knew it. You’re planning to move in and stay, aren’t you?”

“What, you’d leave an old woman on the streets? I thought you were a nice boy.”

Couldn’t help it, I laughed. “I hate to admit this, but I like her, I really do.”