Camp Alien (3 page)

“I
WHOLEHEARTEDLY APPROVE,”
Mom said without missing a beat.

“Me, too,” Serene Dwyer said. She was the Head of Imageering now, and, after Christopher, was the strongest imageer we had. She was also a closet troubadour, meaning she could affect anyone with her voice, facial expression, and body movements. She'd started the A-C version of the CIA, manned solely by our much-maligned and quite eager to represent troubadour population. Other than me, no one outside of their organization knew they existed.

Horn and McMillan both nodded. “You accepting, Chuck, or do we have to coerce it out of you?” Horn asked with a grin.

“Ah, I accept,” Chuckie said, sounding slightly dazed. “You're sure, Jeff?”

“No. I'm positive.” Jeff shrugged. “I want the best person for the job. And that's you. For a variety of jobs, really, but this is the one where we need you most—the CIA has been our main source of infiltration for years, and you're the only thing that's stood between them and us, and the American people, for far too long. Clean the house—it's yours now.”

“Logical choice,” McMillan said. “Though you'll be accused of cronyism.”

“Yeah?” Jeff looked around the table. “I expect it. In fact, I welcome it.”

“Why so?” Horn asked.

“Because I plan to tell the press—two of whom are in the room with us already—the same thing that I'm going to say now.” Jeff nodded toward Mister Joel Oliver, who'd
been the laughingstock of the reporting world until we'd been shoved out of the extraterrestrial closet during Operation Destruction, and Bruce Jenkins, who'd joined Team Alien during Operation Defection Election.

They were the only press allowed unlimited access to us, and that meant that they were now the envy of all their peers. Of course, most of the press corps didn't know about the action that naturally followed in our wake. If and when they did, Oliver and Jenkins would probably have a lot less peer envy to deal with.

“And that is, Mister President?” Oliver asked, microphone for his recording device aimed straight at Jeff.

“As events have shown, the government and all of its agencies has been infiltrated by people bent on destroying everything good about our country, starting with her people. I refuse to allow that on my watch. Therefore, I'm going to be putting people I know I can trust into positions of power. And anyone who doesn't like it can go find Cliff Goodman and bring him back to stand trial for treason and mass murder. Do that and I'll listen to your complaints. Otherwise, this is now my show, and I'm going to run it in a way that both protects and benefits all the people of the United States and the world at large both.”

“God he's Presidential,” Tim whispered to me. “You sure he's not a troubadour somewhere?”

“No, he's just being himself.”

Jeff, who was the strongest empath in the galaxy, picked up how proud of him I was. At least I figured him turning to me and giving me a very private smile to mean that he'd picked it up. He turned back to the room. “Doreen, let's deal with the Embassy before we deal with the rest of my nominations.”

She nodded. “Okay, I agree with our former Ambassador that Benjamin Vrabel should be moved into the role of Defense Attaché.” Heads nodded around the table.

Vrabel wasn't his real last name, but it was the one we were using for anything public-facing. His real last name was Siler. He was the son of one of the many female Brains Behind the Throne baddies we'd had to deal with, Madeleine Siler Cartwright, and the original Mastermind for our world, Ronald Yates, aka the in-control superbeing Mephistopheles. Yates was actually Richard White's father, and
therefore Jeff and Christopher's grandfather, and had been a skirt chaser of the highest order, meaning there were a lot of Yates progeny out there.

I'd met the Yates-Mephistopheles superbeing during Operation Fugly, aka my introduction to what was really going on in the world, and I'd killed Mephistopheles, right after the Yates portion had died, but right before Mephs could join with me. I'd met Siler during Operation Defection Election, however, and, due to what his fab parental units had done to him, he aged very slowly. He had other interesting talents, too, and we'd determined he had probably been the first A-C and human hybrid on Earth.

Siler had been saved by his uncle, Cartwright's brother, Hubert Siler, and had been trained in the fine art of assassination. So putting him into the Defense Attaché position hadn't been a hard sell to anyone, including Siler himself. He'd lost a lot during Operation Epidemic, just as the rest of us had, and having a safe place to raise his adopted daughter, Lizzie, was high on his list of New Job Must-Haves.

“I'm also going to listen to things I've heard Kitty say over the years,” Doreen shared next, “and ask that Richard White take an official role as our Public Relations Minister.”

This earned a lot of shocked looks around the table. The only reason Christopher wasn't arguing this was because he wasn't at this meeting—he'd just become a father and was at the Embassy with his wife and child. Not that Christopher thought his father was a loser, but he was hyperprotective of White, even though White routinely proved he was able to kick butt and take names better than anyone else.

However, White looked surprised by Doreen's announcement. “Ah, I'm retired.”

Doreen shook her head. “As our Supreme Pontifex? Yes, you are. As an active participant in the protection of our people and adopted country? You're as involved as Kitty is. And she's right—you're the best diplomat we have. And I know that, far too often, what we need is going to be better achieved if an older, white man asks for it.”

This was a point no one could argue. “Richard, I'll still grab you to kick butt as necessary.”

“Which will be never.” Malcolm Buchanan was part of
the P.T.C.U. and had been assigned by my mother to protect me and my daughter, Jamie, since we'd first come to D.C. He now protected my almost seven-month-old son, Charlie, too, and, somewhat grudgingly, Jeff and the rest of our extended group of friends and family.

Buchanan was built like Jeff—big, broad, and good looking, only he had straight brown hair and blue eyes—and even though he was a human he had what I felt were Dr. Strange powers. If he didn't want you to see him, you didn't see him, and so forth. Frankly, I'd forgotten he was in the room until he'd spoken.

Of course, Jeff's first appointment had been to put Buchanan in charge of all White House security, and the first thing Buchanan had done was insist that Walter Ward, the A-C who was the Head of Security at the Embassy, be moved into the White House to set up an extremely secure net around the entire complex. Meaning both that the White House complex would become even more secure than it had ever been before, and I'd be watched like a hawk 24/7. Always the way.

“Whatevs. Anyway, Richard, I really agree with Doreen—it's time to stop pretending you're retired in any way and just accept that all the haters are going to do what they can to keep us apart.”

White laughed. “Well, when the First Lady puts it that way, who am I to argue? Paul, your thoughts?”

This was directed to Paul Gower, Reader's husband and the current Supreme Pontifex. Gower had been White's adjunct when I'd first joined up, but it had been clear from Day One that White had been grooming Gower to take over the head religious role. Gower was big, black, bald, and beautiful, and he also missed being in on the action because, like me and Jeff, he was sidelined a lot because of his role within the A-C's internal government.

“I think it's a good choice, Richard,” he said seriously. “If Raj has no objections.”

Rajnish Singh was an A-C troubadour originally from New Delhi Base. He was Serene's second in command in the secret A-C CIA. And he was the current Public Relations Minister.

“He won't mind,” Jeff said before Raj could reply. “He's moving into the White House.”

“Thanks, Jeff,” Raj said. “In what position? Press Secretary?”

“That had been my first thought,” Jeff said. “However, I've gone over the various roles that we have empty, and, barring any meaningful objections from anyone in the room, I'd like to have you take on Chief of Staff instead.”

This earned gasps from the humans in the room. Chief of Staff ran the entire business side of the White House. This would make Raj literally the most important man here, after Jeff. But no one offered any objections.

“Then who will fill the Press Secretary position?” Raj asked.

“You pick,” Jeff said. “That's part of your job now.”

Raj nodded and, troubadour or not, trying to hide it or not, I could tell that he was incredibly flattered.

Jeff turned back to Doreen. “Who else?”

She sighed. “He's going to object to it, but I really want Christopher to stay on as the Embassy Chargé d'Affaires and as the Primary, as well. As in, he'll be the main point of contact for the Embassy with any of the Planetary Council, as well as helping me with all the day-to-day running of our diplomatic mission.”

Jeff sighed. “He won't like it.”

“You two have been joined at the hip for long enough,” Gower said. “He can get over to you in less than a minute, Jeff.”

“Wow, I'm totally reminded of when we first moved here and you said almost the exact same thing about my not wanting to be too far from James.”

Jeff laughed. “Fine, fine, I'll be a big boy. And you're right—he's the best qualified for those positions, and we need continuity of some kind at the Embassy.”

“I'd like Abigail Gower to stay on as one of our Cultural Attachés, and Mahin Sherazi to take the other Cultural Attaché role,” Doreen went on.

Jeff nodded. “I agree.”

“Who's going to take Walter's place as Head of Security?” I asked.

“I've consulted with Embassy staff, and Denise Lewis feels, based on the security discussions she's been leading with Base Security worldwide, that moving Melissa Gunnels from Sydney Base to the Embassy is the right choice.
I've interviewed her, and I agree. So, barring any objections, Missy's going to take that role.”

“Good choice.” I honestly felt that it was, even though Missy and I hadn't gotten along all that well the few times I'd interacted with her. That was due to the fact that the “me” she'd met the first time had been Other Me during Operation Bizarro World. Apparently Other Me had impressed, and I'd messed up and ruined that initial good will. Oh well. We'd fix it. Somewhere along the line. “Tito's coming to the White House, right?” I wanted Dr. Tito Hernandez close by, period, and not just because he was an amazing doctor—he was also a highly trained mixed martial arts fighter and incredibly smart.

He was sitting next to his future mother-in-law, Queen Renata from Beta Twelve, aka the Planet of Getting Less Pissed Off Daily Amazons. They were both being troopers and not demanding that we get to their main concern, which was that the two princesses, Rahmi and Rhee, had gone off on a secret mission during Operation Epidemic and were still missing and unaccounted for. Tito and Rahmi were engaged, and with Renata on Earth, they might be able to speed up the longest engagement in recent memory. If, you know, we could find Rahmi and Rhee, among others.

Tito smiled. “Yes, Kitty. We've already discussed it, and Magdalena is going to remain in the Embassy—she's more than qualified to run their medical. Jeff's already appointed me. I don't have all my staff on board yet, but two of them will make you very happy.”

But before Tito could tell us who was going to make my day, my phone rang. Checked—an unknown number. Showed it to Jeff before I answered, because anonymous callers to my cell phone tended to indicate one thing and one thing only—enemy action was about to be perpetrated against us.

“H
ELLO?”
Chose to go with the simple answer, in case this was, as I so often hoped, AeroForceOne telling me that, against all the odds, I'd won a private meet and greet with Steven Tyler and Joe Perry.

“Madam First Lady, how good it is to hear your voice.”

As per usual, though, this wasn't AeroForceOne, nor was it a voice I recognized. Ansom Somerall, one of the heads of Gaultier Enterprises, meaning one of our most likely sworn enemies, had been my Mystery Caller at the start of Operation Epidemic. But I'd saved his number to my phone, and this definitely wasn't his voice. It sounded faintly European.

In addition to the politicians, U.S. agency and Centaurion Division personnel in the room, we also had two lobbyists with us—Lillian Culver and Guy Gadoire. Lillian was the head lobbyist for the weapons industry and Guy was the same for tobacco. Guy spoke in a French accent we all thought was faked. But since Guy and his husband, Vance Beaumont, were both here in the room, this wasn't Guy on the line.

“And to whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?”

“We've never met. Yet. However, I believe I have something that you are very interested in.”

Decided that pretending to be the FLOTUS was a waste of effort. It was clearly time to toss on my Megalomaniac Girl cape and make the leaps so near and dear to every cackling madman's or crazed evil genius' heart.

During Operation Epidemic we'd lost the five
flyboys—Jerry Tucker, Matt Hughes, Chip Walker, Joe Billings, and Randy Muir. Not to death, but to capture. By an invisible helicarrier created by one Gustav Drax. Rahmi and Rhee, under the lead of our deep cover agent, Camilla, had gone after them. Plus several security teams—P.T.C.U., Secret Service, and Centaurion Division Field—had all disappeared as well. I took the leap.

“Gustav Drax, what a thrill it is to hear your voice.”

The entire room stiffened and started paying full attention—Tim, since it was his team that was captured, Lorraine and Claudia, the Captains on Alpha Team who were married to Joe and Randy respectively, and Tito and Queen Renata, in particular.

Buchanan shoved off the wall he was leaning against and trotted over. As he'd done in the past, he shoved a small blinking device into my phone's audio jack. Then he nodded to the other security folks in the room, all of whom pulled out their phones and started listening. So much for privacy. And apparently this was a new and improved model—the last time I'd had the special blinky receiver in my phone it had only worked as a tracer. Nice to see us always using the newest tech.

Of course, Chuckie was one of those listening, and he had his phone between his ear and Jeff's. Noted that this was happening around the room. No privacy at all. So much for that plan of mine to run off with Drax.

Sincerely hoped this new tech was also getting a GPS fix on where Drax was, but figured we'd find out he was in a lead-walled room or something, because I knew exactly how our luck rolled.

Drax chuckled. “I was told you weren't that . . . intuitive.”

“Yeah, well your intel is coming from what's essentially a petulant child. Stephanie and I have never had a close relationship because, and I'm just spitballing here, she thinks I'm as much of a bitch as I think she is.”

Received a lot of WTF looks from the room, a look of utter horror from Antoinette, and a look of “that's my girl” from Mom. Chose to focus on Mom thinking I was handling things fine.

“Ah . . . yes. I had heard you were blunt.”

“That I am. Why are you calling me?”

“Well . . .” He paused, presumably for breath or to cackle evilly. Decided I didn't feel like drawing this out.

“Let me tell you why you're calling.” Got even more WTF looks from everyone other than Mom who, like the rest of the Security Team, was listening to this on her own phone. “Your sales pitch was an unmitigated failure. Not only did you fail to impress the potential customers, but you lost your invisible commando force to capture. They're singing like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, by the way, and who can blame them?”

“As to that—”

“Then you kidnapped five Navy pilots and their very expensive planes. Which is, last time I checked, an act of war against the United States. Since those were my flyboys you inconvenienced, it's also an act of war with American Centaurion.”

“That wasn't my—”

“Intent? I'm sure it wasn't, dude. You can't be as stupid as your sales pitch makes you seem. You also captured a variety of security personnel from the Rocky Mount train station, which included American government antiterrorism teams, Secret Service teams, and Centaurion Division teams, compounding your acts of war against the United States and American Centaurion. And now you're hoping that the new regime is going to want to laugh this all under the rug.”

“Ah . . .”

“Yes?”

“Oh, you're letting me speak. I wasn't sure. I wouldn't say that the term ‘act of war' applies here. No one has been harmed.”

“Oh, I think I can look over at a war hero sitting in the room with me and get confirmation that the capture during peacetime of our five pilots is enough for the President to push the button down in your general direction.” Looked at McMillan, who nodded emphatically.

Drax cleared his throat. “Be that as it may, I was calling to suggest an exchange.”

“Excuse me while I laugh long and loudly. We're going to find you, dude. Whether we bomb the hell out of you when we find you is the Question of the Hour. You may
think you have bargaining chips, but we aren't giving you your commandos back, ever. We're not giving you anything, unless we decide—horrific first impressions aside—that you're not an enemy or an idiot. So don't try asking for one
million
dollars, either.”

“Ah, no, that wasn't my intent.”

Raj and I exchanged a look. He was listening in with Evalyne, the head of my Secret Service detail. Evalyne, like most of the humans in the room—including those I'd have insisted didn't possess a sense of humor they were aware of—all controlled snickers of some kind. The A-Cs, for the most part, however, looked blank, as did the Planetary Council.

Raj nodded at me then jerked his head toward the Planetary Council while he raised an eyebrow. Mouthed “I love you” to him, then returned to my call.

“See, Gustav, may I call you Gustav?”

“Ah—”

“Super. Gustav, here's the thing. I realize that your accent tells me you're not from America. It sounds like it could be Eastern Bloc, German, Polish, or originating from any number of countries, which totally fits with the whole Mysterious Arms Dealer idiom you're going with. However, even if you're from the most backward country in the world, you'd have gotten the joke I passed just a moment ago.”

“You were joking?”

“No. I was referring to a very successful movie from years ago. Lines from that movie have been used and reused so many times that I'd bet that even in the rain forest, if I said that line, the people who live there would laugh or put their pinky up to their mouth.”

“What does a finger have to do with this?” Drax sounded totally confused. His tone matched the expressions of half of the room—the alien half, other than Raj and the few other troubadours in the room.

“It's proof, as if I needed it, that you're not actually from a foreign country. And I don't think you're from anywhere else on Earth, either, in part because that movie was a worldwide hit and in other part because you've literally come out of nowhere, and it's hard to believe that a major player in the arms dealing business hasn't hit
someone's
radar by now.”

“You think I'm an American?”

“Hardly. There's not an American alive who'd have missed that line. No, the only people I know who routinely don't pay attention to our popular culture are, with very few exceptions, aliens. Just like you are.”