Alien Research

CHAPTER 8

CONTEMPLATED ALL I COULD SAY. Most of my responses revolved around the idea that I was absolutely not dressed right to meet the new head of anything, let alone the head of a new division of the F.B.I. created just for us, so to speak.

However, duty called and by now everyone in the room knew I was standing in the hallway. Decided that going for what usually worked every time would probably work now. Stood up straight, stuck the twins out, and walked in.

There were several people I knew in attendance—Christopher and Amy, Paul Gower and Richard White, representing the current and former Pontifex positions, Senators Vincent Armstrong and Donald McMillan, Representative Nathalie Gagnon-Brewer, McMillan’s Girl Friday and my sorority bestie, Caroline Chase, our Embassy Troubadour-at-Large, Rajnish Singh, and, of course, Chuckie, aka the head of the C.I.A.’s E-T Division. Clearly, I was privy to quite the Power Lunch.

We had one person missing who I would have thought would be in attendance—Denise’s husband, Kevin Lewis. He was my mom’s right-hand man in the P.T.C.U. and was the Embassy’s Defense Attaché. Under the circumstances, he should have been here. Tabled asking where he was for later.

Chuckie and Gower were both doing their best not to show how amused they were by my entrance. Amy and Caroline weren’t hiding their amusement at all. Christopher was, of course, glaring—Patented Glare #1. However, the person in the room I didn’t know seemed appreciative.

He gave me a beaming smile as he stood and put his hand out. “Ambassador Martini, it’s so good to get to meet you in person. I’m Evander Horn.”

I put him at about White’s age, so late fifties. He was a big guy—not quite as big as Jeff and Gower, but bulkier than Chuckie, and, like all three of them, over six feet. He had close-cropped black hair, medium brown skin, and sparkling dark brown eyes. He was nice looking—not A-C level, but a human who was definitely easy on the eyes.

Horn was also in the typical Washington Uniform, which meant either a navy or a gray pinstripe suit, coordinated shirt and tie, and fancy wingtips. He was in the gray, with a lighter gray shirt, red tie, and light brown wingtips. It looked good on him.

McMillan and Armstrong were both in the navy version of this look. All the other men, Chuckie included, were in the male version of the Armani Fatigues—black suit, white shirt, black tie, black shoes. Even before Chuckie had married in he’d adapted and worn the Fatigues. Wondered how long it would be before, or if, Horn would adapt his clothing choices.

Gave him my hand and we shook paws. “Nice to meet you, too, Mister Horn.”

“Please, call me Vander.”

“And please call me Kitty. Congratulations on your new position.”

He smiled again. “Thank you. I hope.” The others chuckled.

“Gosh, just what have I missed?” Figured I’d missed a lot, but who knew? And since no one had asked me about my morning, I knew they’d missed a lot, too. But now was, perhaps, not the time to bring up my Fun With Loons Extravaganza.

Horn sighed as he sat and Jeff helped me into a seat and sat down himself. “Not much. We were just starting to get down to brass tacks. After the incident in December, the President demanded some changes.”

“You mean after over two dozen Representatives were killed off, the President wondered why the F.B.I. hadn’t taken a more personal interest?”

Nathalie was doing better six months after Operation Sherlock, at least outwardly, mostly because she’d been asked to take Edmund’s seat in the House and hadn’t had much of a choice but to do the whole stiff upper lip thing. Amy patted Nathalie’s arm and Caroline squeezed her hand.

“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean,” Horn said. “The President wasn’t happy that the C.I.A. has been the point agency for alien activities for so long. Homeland Security at least had Cliff Goodman in place, but we at the F.B.I. had really nothing focused on American Centaurion.”

“That anyone knows of, you mean.”

Horn raised his eyebrow. “Would you mind explaining that?”

I shrugged. “Just because the Bureau didn’t have any official division or whatever watching us, you can’t make me believe that no one over there knew aliens existed on Earth, nor can you make me believe that there weren’t plenty of people who wanted their piece of the alien pie. Maybe nothing was official, but I don’t buy for a New York Minute that a host of someones over at the Bureau weren’t chomping at the bit to get their claws into us.”

“Someone didn’t have enough coffee at breakfast,” Christopher muttered.

Horn chuckled. “They told me you were blunt and bright. I see they weren’t wrong.”

“Who’s ‘they’?” I liked to know who was talking about me. It helped determine if what “they” had said was likely to be flattering or not.

“Cliff Goodman for one. The President, for another. Several of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”

“Bet the Secretary of Transportation wasn’t one of them.”

“No, Langston Whitmore isn’t a fan of yours. But others are, including Colonel Franklin at Andrews Air Force Base. And, of course, the head of the P.T.C.U.”

“Well, my mom is sort of required to say I’m awesome, isn’t she?”

Horn laughed. “No, your mother doesn’t lie on a regular basis. I believe she feels it’s a waste of her time.”

Managed not to mention that my mother, and father, and Chuckie, for that matter, had all felt it was a great use of their time to lie to me for years. Until I’d met the gang from Alpha Four, I’d firmly believed my mother was a consultant, my father was a history professor at Arizona State University, and my best guy friend was a self-made multimillionaire twice over and only an international playboy.

That Mom was the head of the Presidential Terrorism Control Unit, Dad did a lot of cryptology work for NASA mostly dealing with alien transmissions, and Chuckie was Mr. C.I.A. had been things I’d only discovered during Operations Fugly and Drug Addict. One day, it might not bother me that they’d fooled me so easily for twenty-seven years. One day.

“Good to know. Speaking of Mom, and Cliff, why aren’t they here?” This kind of meeting seemed like one Cliff should be attending. Wondered if him coming to help us had delayed him. Then wondered if he’d been attacked by one or both of the mobs. But had a more pressing and less alarming question. “And where’s Kevin?”

“Kevin’s with Walter,” Jeff said quickly, giving me a look that said he didn’t want me talking about the Security training session.

“Cliff’s on his way,” Chuckie added. “He said he had a couple important Homeland Security errands to run first.”

Wondered why Cliff hadn’t told Chuckie what was really going on. Then realized it was the same reason I wasn’t telling Chuckie or Jeff or the others what had gone on—we had a new guy in the room and I didn’t know which side he was really on. Cliff knew we were okay, and he was on his way over. Tell everyone what had happened once it was clearly “in the past.” He was a smart guy, after all.

“And your mother is handling other things,” McMillan said. “She feels there are enough of us here to deal with the issue and keep her informed.”

Would have liked to have confirmation for how in-the-know and trustworthy Horn was before I’d met him. Either Cliff didn’t know or he didn’t trust Horn. Made do with the next best thing to asking aloud. Looked at Chuckie and tilted my head a little to the right. He looked at Horn, then nodded. Okay, so Chuckie felt Horn was okay. Looked around the room, then back at Chuckie. Who smiled and nodded. Fine, Horn could be told whatever.

“I still hate it when you two communicate in that way,” Jeff muttered.

Patted his hand, but chose to show off my diplomatic skills and not mention that his jealousy could take the day off, in part because he’d only sounded about a three out of ten on the scale. “Okay. So, what’s the issue we’re all here to powwow about?”

Horn sighed. “We’ve identified a link between several multinational corporations to terrorist organizations.”

“You mean aside from Titan Security, Gaultier Enterprises, and YatesCorp, most likely linked to the Al Dejahl terrorist organization and all of its offshoots? Because those links are seriously old news and if that’s all the F.B.I. has, I think you might want to consider putting in for a transfer to another agency.”

“Yes,” Horn said. “But we also know that they have protection at—”

“The highest political levels. Yeah, old news. If they didn’t my mother would have stopped Herbert Gaultier a hell of a long time before he, ah, disappeared.” And never let me and Amy be friends, of course, so at least some good had come out of the powerful people protecting the Evil Genius Society and its entire membership.

“Yes,” Horn said again. “However, the issue is that it’s been identified that those who used to be in charge of these corporations have all died or disappeared under mysterious circumstances.”

Did my best to look calm and cool. One thing about my recurring nightmare—I wasn’t thrown or flustered by this statement in the least. “Yes, they have. What of it? Is the F.B.I. upset that the old villains aren’t around any more to make a good golf foursome or something?”

Horn chuckled as he shook his head. “No. Titan was brought down, for the most part, but not completely, and it’s starting to rebuild. Gaultier and YatesCorp, however, have sailed along with business as usual, with nary a hiccup, even though they lost their CEOs and then some. Meaning we have new people in old positions or people who’ve been around for a long time ensuring ties to terrorist organizations still remain strong. And we need them stopped.”

“Is the F.B.I. aware that there’s more going on with all these corporations than mere terrorist links? Because there are worse things out there than fanatics with guns, and these three corporations like to really be diverse in the kind of evil services they provide.”

“Yes, we’re very aware.”

“So why are you coming to us?”

Horn looked me straight in the eyes. “Because I know you’re the ones who took down all those people missing and/or presumed dead.”

Maybe I’d been having that damn nightmare for a reason. I shrugged. “Proof would be a requirement, I’d think.” Was proud of myself—my voice didn’t falter in the least and I sounded close to bored.

Horn smiled. “Yes, it would be, if I wanted to bring anyone in for prosecution. But that’s not my goal. The C.I.A. isn’t the only agency willing to make deals in order to get things done.”

“What deals are you talking about?”

Horn’s turn to shrug. “We need to identify which politicians and people in power are behind these anti-alien and anti-U.S. programs. And stop them. Permanently. Preferably before the next big plan is put into action.”

Asked what I felt was the obvious question. “What’s the next big plan?”

“No one knows,” Armstrong said. “Things have been quiet since you identified Lydia Montgomery as being the person responsible for killing off over two dozen fellow politicians.”

Kept my opinion on this to myself. We’d discovered there was a Mastermind behind most of the Bad Guy du Jour plans, and he or she was working like the Sith, meaning an Apprentice was a necessity. Esteban Cantu had been one of the Apprentices, but he’d been arrested during Operation Destruction and murdered by the bad guys during Operation Sherlock. Meaning that it was Open Enrollment time for Apprentice Wannabes.

That had been what drove most of Operation Sherlock—Apprentice Tryouts. Due to evidence, some of which we were all pretty sure was planted, Lydia was incriminated for not just the murders we knew she’d committed but more besides. This had given law enforcement and Capitol Hill a nice feeling of closure. The idea that Lydia had acted alone and there was no one on the grassy knoll helping her out was a stupid assumption on their parts, of course.

However, I could confirm that while there were a lot of questions left unanswered at the end of Operation Sherlock, things had gone very, very quiet in the six months since.

Thought back to the bit of conversation I’d heard on the way in. “If things have been quiet, why are you here?” I asked Horn.

“I agree with Charles—just because things are quiet it doesn’t mean nothing’s going on. But I’d like your opinion, Kitty, about why things are quiet.”

Looked around. “Why mine as opposed to everyone else who’s here? Or is it just that you already know everyone else’s opinions?”

“You’ve been identified by all agencies as being instrumental.”

That wasn’t news I liked hearing. It was accurate, sure, but that everyone in the Alphabet Agencies had me marked as their go-to girl, either pro or con, was unsettling at best. That the heads of the three corporations we were discussing had tried to have what now seemed like an end-run meeting with me only made this worse.

Looked to Chuckie again. He nodded.

“Fine. Has anyone forwarded our Mastermind theory?”

“Yes, Charles and I went over it in some detail the other day.”

Made sense—Horn was now Chuckie’s counterpart in the F.B.I. But Chuckie had called him “sir.” Meaning that Chuckie likely both respected Horn and also thought of him as higher up the food chain. Interesting.

I’d have loved to have more time to process all this interesting, and having had a chance to sit down and regroup from all the morning’s fun activities first would have been nice, too. Chose to hold off on asking where, if this was a lunch meeting, all the food was. Sure I’d just eaten a little while ago, but all the stress and such had worked up my appetite again.

“Super. Well, my opinion is that the Mastermind figured out we were onto him, and has chosen to lie low until we get distracted with something else.”

Horn beamed. “That’s my opinion, too.”

“Why does our being in agreement make you so darned happy, Vander?”

“Because you’re likely to agree with what I want to do.”

Looked around the room. Had the distinct feeling that everyone else knew what Horn wanted to do and that none of them agreed with it.

“Okay, I’ll bite. What’s your plan?”

“I want to do a full-scale congressional investigation into Gaultier Enterprises.”