Alien Research

CHAPTER 65

“YOU WANT ANYONE besides the two of us?” I asked as I ensured I had everything I could possibly need in my purse, which included a variety of Poofs On Board. Harlie gave me a little purr. Great, the Poofs were all for the raid.

Squinted. Bruno was in stealth mode but I could just make him out next to my right foot. He looked up at me and winked. Excellent, Bruno was in as well.

“I’d love to grab your mother and Adriana. But your mother might need a warrant and you need Adriana for the funeral raid, so we can’t risk her getting hurt.”

“What about the princesses?”

“I prefer to fight with people for whom battle isn’t the highest honor, just something that has to get done. They’re learning, but they’re too green to trust with this.”

“Works for me. So, where’s Ronaldo at?”

She sighed. “That’s the one problem. I saw where he was, but it was in a dream so it’s fragmented. However, I know you’ve found a way to leave and return without using the Embassy’s gate.”

“How?”

“Walter and William noted that you disappeared, reappeared, disappeared, and reappeared again. Because it was quick and they could determine that you were here, they decided it was equipment failure due to the hack. Of course, the Science Center advised me that you were there, and then not there, and then there again, and so on. So I assume you’ve found that hidden gate you’ve had everyone looking for for the past year and a half and were testing it out.”

“Wow. You’re good. Yeah, I have.” Gave it a shot. “I’ve also met—” Dang, couldn’t say the name. But I could try something else. “The A-C Elf.” Ha! Take that, Algar. Chose not to wonder whether he’d allowed me to say this or not.

Gladys seemed impressed. “Good for you. I was told by . . . someone in my dream . . . that this gate works differently from the others.”

“It does. I think it works based on thoughts. I’m pretty sure it’s a Z’porrah power cube.” So Algar had given Gladys the suggestion to come see me. It wasn’t a surprise that he visited her in her dreams, after all. Passive noninvolvement my ass.

Of course, there was always the chance that Gladys had been turned again and was working for the bad guys. Bruno nudged up against me, I looked down, and he turned visible, looked straight at Gladys, looked back at me, cooed, and went invisible again.

“What was that all about?” Gladys asked.

“You just got the Peregrine Stamp of Approval.”

“Good to know. Let’s get going before Jeffrey notices that you’re revved up and excited and comes to find out why.”

Headed us to the isolation room and crawled up onto the big bed.

“Seriously?” Gladys asked as she clambered up with me.

“Don’t complain to me, I think the Colemans are responsible for this location.”

“Figures.”

“Okay, hold my hand and think of the place where you saw Ronaldo. Then touch the square. Supposedly we can’t land in something solid or on top of someone or some such. I haven’t tested enough to know for sure.”

“You only live once, kiddo.”

“Kiddo? Really?”

She laughed. “It’s better than what I used to call you.” With that she took firm hold of my hand, and put her other onto the Cube Gate.

We were instantly in a dark room. Looked around. I didn’t see anyone. “Where are we?” I whispered.

“No idea,” she whispered back. “But this is what I saw in my dream, the dark room before the room where he is.”

There was some light near the floor, but father away. Light coming in from under a door. We crept toward it. Looked back and around. “I don’t see the return square.”

Gladys put her hand over my mouth and I shut up. Heard what she had—voices.

So, Ronaldo wasn’t alone. Well, there were two of us. The voices weren’t raised so it was hard to make them out. But I had a feeling there were more than two people in the next room. No worries, Gladys and I were both capable of kicking major butt.

We reached the door and listened harder. No keyhole and the door was shut, both of which were really inconsiderate of the cosmos.

My eyes were adjusting to the dark and I could make out some of the things around us. Most of said things were boxes. The room appeared to have no windows and just the one door we were standing by. Could make out a stamp on the side of a box on the floor that the light was hitting—GB: NAS.

Contemplated what these letters could stand for as the voices died down and Gladys slowly turned the door handle. Maybe whoever was in the room hadn’t noticed the handle turning. Or else they’d noticed, were really good, and were lying in wait for us. Gave it fifty-fifty odds either way.

Door opened a crack to discover that, for once, the odds were on our side. Well, sort of. The door didn’t open up to another room—it opened up to a hallway.

From what little we could see, it was a long hallway, with what looked like many doors, and a T-intersection at the far end from us.

As we looked, people came walking by, speaking to each other. These people were in Navy and Marine uniforms. They went past without looking at our door, which was a relief.

My brain decided to mention that it had a really good idea what NAS stood for—Naval Air Station. And that meant, by both process of elimination and the total way our luck worked, that GB most likely stood for Guantanamo Bay.

Nudged Gladys. “We’re in Guantanamo,” I whispered in her ear. “I don’t think that’s good.”

“If we’re here, it’s because my half brother is here.”

“Good point. Just saying, I think we could be really screwed if we’re caught.”

“Better caught by the Navy than caught by our enemies.”

Found the light switch, closed the door, and turned the light on. Sure enough, we were in a storage room that confirmed we were in Guantanamo—lots of boxes stacked all over the place, clipboards hanging on the walls near different stacks, a couple of plain tables holding stuff. Of course the sign that said “Supply Room #30, Naval Air Station: Guantanamo Bay” was also a clue.

There was an emergency exit map on one wall. Wished Chuckie was here—he’d have memorized it in two seconds. For me, it just looked like a lot of red lines on a rat maze. All I got was that we were “here” and our ability to get out “there” was going to be dependent upon making a lot of twists and turns. Awesome.

Gladys turned off the lights. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I wanted to be sure we weren’t sitting on top of bombs or Ronaldo.” Felt around in my purse for my Glock, patted the Poofs, found the Glock, flipped off the safety, put it on top of the Poofs. Figured it wasn’t wise to have it in my hand, but I wanted it close by and ready.

She made a quiet sound of disgust and slowly opened the door another crack. We waited. Didn’t hear anyone. “Let’s go,” Gladys said as she grabbed a nearby clipboard and opened the door. “Walk with purpose, don’t look furtive, and if we run into anyone, let me do the talking.”

“Check. Will do my best not to blow our total lack of cover.”

We stepped out as Gladys shot me a look that said she was regretting who she’d chosen for this commando raid and shut the door behind us. We were at the end of this hallway right by steps that led up to another level. There weren’t any here going down, so either we were on the lowest level, or the down staircase was elsewhere.

Gladys headed for the other end of the hall. Decided not to ask why. When you have no freaking idea where to go, one way’s as good as another.

Every door in this hallway indicated it was storage, which seemed odd. Then again, I wasn’t clear on how the military stored things. Maybe they were really anal about not mixing up the paper products with the bullets. Gladys used hyperspeed and checked every door, though. “All clear, just supplies.”

Reached the T-intersection without running into anyone. “Which way now?” I asked softly.

“No idea.” She stared right and left. “I think . . . this all looks vaguely familiar, more to the right than to the left. So, we’ll try the right and if that leads nowhere, we’ll come back.”

“Why aren’t we using hyperspeed?”

“Why use up the energy for nothing when we might need it later?”

Refrained from mentioning that all the Field agents I’d ever worked with used up the energy in part to avoid surveillance cameras and in other part to hurry the hell up. “Okay. I guess.” I saw no cameras about, but I still had to figure that time was going to be of the essence.

Gladys sighed. “We’re apparently in Cuba. In case we literally have to swim for U.S. soil, I’d rather have all my hyperspeed available, wouldn’t you?”

“Good point. Hate where your head’s at, but still, good point. We’re in a Naval base, though, so that means there should be a gate here somewhere.”

“Right, and if and when we find it, we can rejoice. We have little access to this facility—NASA Base is close enough and the American government likes to feel as if it’s got the upper hand in some areas. This is one of those areas. Now, can we go?”

“I’m not stopping us.” Looked around. Didn’t see the sparkling square. Figured that meant it was still in Supply Room #30. Hoped I’d remember how to get back there in case we didn’t find the gates on the base.

Which hopes were quickly dashed as we found the stairs going down. Naturally Gladys wanted to go lower—maybe it was some weird A-C thing, where they had burrowing creatures in their ancient DNA. But they sure had no issues being underground.

So down we went, into a much darker hallway system with a lot of twists and turns. I was officially lost within five minutes. However, I had a really good guess as to where we were heading, because we weren’t walking by storage rooms any more—we were walking by a lot of metal doors that had tiny windows with bars in them.

As we approached yet another intersection I was about to ask if Gladys had a clue as to where we were going when I heard voices.

We flattened against the near wall.

“Do you want out or not?” The voice was familiar—Ronaldo Al Dejahl was indeed in the house.