Alien Diplomacy (36 page)

“Or maybe it was both,” Tim said, closing his phone. “But I just checked on the teams James and I sent out to reclaim our agents’ bodies. They found six A-C bodies.”

“Oh, let me play! Let me play! No humans, right?”

Tim nodded. “Forensics is looking to see if they can tell if the blast was internal and where it was centered. Not sure they’ll get much, it was pretty big.”

“Okay, no worries, ’cause I think we’re right unless they find something that completely contradicts this theory. Let’s get back to the bigger worries. Jeff, I know you monitor emotions, but what if someone has an empathic shield up? Could you tell?”

He shrugged. “No idea, baby. At all.”

“So are you sure you’re reading people correctly?” Chuckie asked, pointedly looking at Nurse Carter.

“Yes, because I’m getting plenty of emotions from her.” Jeff looked thoughtful. “Usually humans and A-Cs feel more than one emotion at any time. Terror usually wins out and holds the emotional stage alone, but otherwise, and sometimes even when terrified, we all have more going on than just one emotion.”

“So maybe you can sort of monitor for someone exhibiting only a single emotion.”

Jeff nodded. “The way you try to think about something benign when you don’t want me to know you’re upset, lusting after someone other than me, or angry with me.”

Damn. The whole focusing on flowers thing didn’t work? This fooling the superempath stuff was clearly not my forté.

Jeff grinned at me. “It’s okay, baby. I usually ignore you when you want me to. I figure it’s only polite.”

“Humph. But anyway, clearly it would take someone with a lot of training, like Camilla had, someone having the Surcenthumain assist, or some kind of device that would block an empath without raising their internal flags.”

Chuckie nodded slowly. “Your former Diplomatic Corps had, what, over twenty years to have people working on this? It would be doable in that time if you had empaths to use as test subjects.”

“Which they did.” I shuddered. The memory of what had been done to our agents and hybrids before we’d caught on always lurked on the edge of my mind, waiting to jump out and scare the crap out of me while also making me sick to my stomach and enraged.

William cleared his throat. “Ah, Commanders, Chiefs? Do you need me for anything else?”

“Sorry,” Jeff said quietly. “Why don’t you get the rest of the teams back to Dulce?”

William gave him a quick smile. “Happy to.”

“Stop in and see Walter before you go,” I suggested. “He’s doing a great job, but I don’t think he believes us when we tell him so.”

William chuckled. “I’m sure he doesn’t, but thanks, Chief, I will.”

We waited until William was out of earshot. “Okay, I feel stupid and thoughtless for bringing that up in front of him.”

Jeff shook his head. “He understands. We lose people all the time, including people we love. It’s part of our jobs and always has been. William understands more than most. He’s our best imageer right now, after Christopher and Serene.”

“Then ensure he’s guarded,” Chuckie said. “Because we don’t know much, but we do know that there’s already been too much killing, and there’s bound to be more before this is through. And as of now, every Centaurion agent needs to be considered a target.”

“Y
OU’RE A TARGET, TOO,” I MENTIONED.
“In fact, I think you need to be under whatever guard everyone else is, Chuckie. My parents, too.”

“We already have Centaurion and ETD guards with your parents, in addition to P.T.C.U. ones. I’ll be fine. Use the personnel for other people.”

“Ha. Last big operation we had you were only fine by seconds. For all we know, you’re only here tonight because you and Mom were up all night doing interrogations and so were safe. But I’ll give you an option. You stay here in one of the empty guest rooms, I’ll let the personnel go elsewhere.” Jeff opened his mouth. “Do
not
start.”

Jeff sighed. “I’m not. I agree with you. I think Reynolds should stay here until this is over.”

Everyone, not just Chuckie and I, heck, even Nurse Carter, stared at him. “You okay?” Christopher managed to ask.

Jeff rolled his eyes. “Kitty’s right. Someone’s trying to kill God alone knows who. Reynolds likes to act like he’s invulnerable, but he’s not. And I don’t want to have to deal with the hysterics my wife will go through if you’re hurt or killed,” he added to Chuckie.

“Thanks, I think.” Chuckie sounded dazed. “Really? You want me here? Without extra threats or a pack of Dobermans outside my door?”

I put my hand on Jeff’s forehead. “No fever.”

Jeff gave all of us a dirty look, me in particular. “You ask me to behave in a mature fashion, but the moment I do…”

“Just happily shocked, that’s all,” I said quickly. “Let me applaud
the grown-up moment. Chuckie, take some agents with you when you go to get your stuff. And before you start arguing, Mister Joel Oliver is staying here too. Look at it as you riding herd on him, okay?”

Chuckie sighed. “Fine. Let’s get that over with before the next confusing yet deadly thing happens.”

“And,” Oliver said, “remember that you, we hope, still have things to get.”

“Good point.” Chuckie grinned. “They’re mostly new things I had to get in the last three months, so I’ll stop arguing.”

“Great, hurry it up, though,” Reader said. “We still need to work on determining what’s going on. Before whatever it is happens and all we can do is clean up or bury the dead.”

Cheerful pronouncements of doom over, we fretted some more about things we couldn’t control, got more useless information that merely confirmed things were dire, and speculated on whether Chuckie’s place would be toasted before or after he got there.

In the midst of the useless fretting, my phone rang. I stepped away from the group while I dug it out and looked at who was calling. “Bernie! Hi, what’s up?”

“Hey, Kitty! I heard there was some kind of gas leak scare around where I think you live. You guys okay?”

“Yeah, we’re fine. It was a false alarm.”

“Oh, thank goodness. Hey, I was wondering if you wanted to do a play date sometime. I know you have the big shebang tomorrow night, but maybe in the day beforehand?”

I really wanted to say yes. Bernie was normal, and her son was normal, and wouldn’t it be nice for me and Jamie to just go hang out and pretend to be normal? But duty was calling, loudly, and this was, I reminded myself, why I’d lost touch with most of my friends over the past two years.

“I can’t.” I didn’t have to fake the regret in my voice. “There’s too much we have to do before we go to the ball. But hopefully sometime next week. Maybe after Mommy and Me.” If, you know, we survived tomorrow night.

“Okay, well, have fun. I spent dinner last night and tonight whining to Raul about how you get to go and we don’t.” She laughed. “He said he has another friend going, and he’s going to see if he has a spare invitation. I doubt it’ll happen, but I have a nice dress on hand, just in case.”

“It’d be great to see you there!” It would. Not that I necessarily wanted yet another person in whatever danger was going on, though
the idea that Bernie was the Dingo’s target seemed as unlikely as me winning the Miss Universe pageant. But I figured their chances of actually getting to go were slim to none, so I could be excited safely. “I really hope Raul swings it.”

“Me too, like you wouldn’t believe. Well, I’ll let you go. See you tomorrow, maybe, and next week for sure!”

“Plan on it!” I hung up and heaved a sigh as I dropped my phone back into my purse. Being married to Jeff and saving the world on a regular basis had seemed worth the sacrifices three months ago. Now, being married to Jeff still rocked, but the sacrifices didn’t seem as worthwhile by a long shot.

My phone rang again. I pulled it out. Not a number I knew. Hoped another “relative” hadn’t “died” and answered. “Hello?”

“Is this Kitty Martini?” The voice was familiar, but I wasn’t sure why.

“Yes. Who’s this?”

“It’s Leslie Manning. I wanted to…apologize for how everyone was yesterday morning.”

It had been so long ago in terms of experience, I’d almost forgotten about Kitty and Eugene’s High School Reunion moment. “Yeah, thanks. We’re used to it.”

“Look…I want…” Her voice trailed off.

I waited. Nothing. “Yes? Leslie, is there something you needed?”

“Yes.” I realized she was crying. “I need help.”

“Why the hell are you calling
me
?”

“Because you’re not my friend.”

“Excuse me?”

She sniffled. “It’s complicated, okay? Like everything else in this town. You’re still fighting it, trying not to fit in. And I think I need someone who cares more about being a real person than being a Washington player. You stick up for Eugene when, if you cut him dead, I promise you, Abner would pull you into the group because he thinks you’re cute. He thinks he could make you his little pet. I know you’d kick him in the balls before he ever got a chance to try it.”

“Got that right. Leslie, really, what’s this about?”

I heard a voice in the background. “I can’t tell you right now.” Her voice dropped to just above a whisper. “Tomorrow, okay? At the ball. I’ll find you and find a way, okay? Please?”

“Um, sure. That sounds good. Try to find me before I overturn the punch bowl or something, though.”

She laughed. “I will. Kitty…thank you. See you tomorrow.”
She hung up before I could say there was no reason for thanks—I hadn’t done or promised to do anything other than speak to her tomorrow night.

My phone rang again. Again a number I didn’t know. As I answered, it occurred to me that I had no idea how Leslie had scored my phone number. “Hello, is this Ambassador Martini?”

“Yes.” This voice I recognized. It was good ol’ Jack Ryan. “What’s up, Jack?”

“Don’t go to the ball tomorrow night.”

“Right. Hilarious. I may die laughing.”

“No,” he said urgently. “You might die.”

I
CONSIDERED HOW TO REPLY
to this statement of potential fact. Saying “Right you are, and you, too!” indicated more knowledge of current clandestine events than I wanted Ryan to know.

However, playing stupid was always sure to work in some ways, so I went for it. “Oh, come on. What, Abner decided I have to die because I won’t play your little high school games?”

“No. Look, I’m not supposed to be saying this to anyone. I already warned the others. I know we’re not friends, and I’m not interested in being your friend, either. But I know you, and I know that something bad’s going to happen at the ball tomorrow. So, I’m telling you, as a fellow classmate, not to go.”

“Why do you care?”

“I don’t want someone I know to die horrifically, okay? Is there a problem?”

“No, not with that mindset.” Ryan’s wife was in the C.I.A. If she’d leaked something to him she could lose her job. “Jack, how did you hear this information?”

“I eavesdropped on a conversation of Pia’s.”

“Why are you eavesdropping on your wife?”

“I thought she was cheating on me.”

I could understand why she’d want to, but I managed to keep that statement to myself. “That was sort of low.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it was. She’s not cheating, so there’s that.”

“So glad to hear it.”

“But she was saying that they expected some kind of action tomorrow at Planet Hollywood.”

“Um, that’s a defunct restaurant chain, isn’t it?”

He sighed, rather condescendingly. “That’s the code name for the President’s Ball.”

“How do you know?” He was silent. “Jack, how do you
know
?”

He sighed. “I looked through her Blackberry and found the reference.”

“Again because you thought she was cheating?”

“Yes.”

“She works for the freaking C.I.A. Why is her being secretive some kind of shocker alert to you?”

“Look, I don’t ask about your relationship with your husband! Besides, that’s not why I called. Don’t go tomorrow night, okay? I’m trying to protect you. You’d think you’d be a little grateful.”

He had a point. “Thanks, Jack. I appreciate the head’s up. You called everyone in class?”