Alien vs. Alien (23 page)

CHAPTER 39

I
WANTED TO GET MAD.
But I knew I was going to need the rage somewhere down the line, and my bet was always for sooner as opposed to later.

“So, it’s the old ‘steal my baby’ ploy.” I looked at Armstrong. “What’s your part in that?”

“I want nothing to do with it.” He looked around and heaved a sigh. “You can all stop giving me your versions of the Evil Eye. Yes, there are people who want to get and control your children, particularly the hybrids. But I want, and therefore have, nothing to do with them.”

“Any more.”

“Ever. Look, I’m willing to do many things. But harming innocent children isn’t one of them. I know you don’t like me. I can understand why, in part because I realize none of you, except possibly your current and former Pontifexes, actually understand politics and diplomacy and how it all really works.”

Amy’s eyes narrowed. “I understand how it all works. I also understand that my father was a genius. And a lunatic. Are you insinuating you don’t know anything about his various experiments?”

“Or Marling’s? Or, frankly, any supersoldier program currently in existence?”

Armstrong looked trapped. Something my father had said to me chose to surface at this moment—a trapped animal will do or say anything to escape. You couldn’t trust what someone who was trapped or defensive said most times.

I took a look at Olga. She was cuddling Jamie. And pointedly not looking at Armstrong.

I took a deep breath and let it out. “Let’s all stop for a minute. Senator, despite how we all appear right now, we know we need to work with you. And we know you need to work with us. Let’s declare a truce.”

He looked at me suspiciously. “How do you mean?”

“I mean we tell you things, you tell us things, and neither side uses them against the other.”

“Kitty, you’re crazy,” Christopher said. “You know we can’t trust him.”

I hit my speed dial. He answered on the first ring. That was happening a lot today. Had some guesses as to why, but none of them were concrete enough to share. Yet. “You’re on the high priority line. This had better actually be high priority, Kitty.”

“Hey, sorry I’m using the Bat Phone, but I needed to be sure you’d answer.”

“When, in our entire lives, have I not answered a call from you?” Chuckie asked.

“Never, but you’re in the middle of something with the One World stuff and I wanted to be sure I got you.”

“You have me. What’s going on? And where did White and Amy go? And,” he sounded angry, “what the hell are they doing here?”

It didn’t take genius to guess the Gower girls had just arrived. “They’re our new Cultural Attachés. And Christopher and Amy are with me, because we’re at DEFCON Bad and heading to DEFCON Worse at warp speed.”

“What’s going on?”

“Not sure I can explain it quickly.”

“Try.” He didn’t sound like he was asking.

I gave it my best shot. While I did so, Christopher had the gang writing like fiends to get as much of what they could remember down as quickly as possible.

“Now that you know the latest bad news, let’s get back to why I called. Do you trust Senator Armstrong? If yes, how much? If no, why not?”

Chuckie was quiet for a few moments. “I don’t really trust anybody, Kitty, you know that.”

“You trust me.”

“You’re different.”

“You trust other people. I’d name them, but I’m not alone.”

“I don’t trust most people fully, let’s agree on that.”

“Fine. Back to the senator.”

“I haven’t found anything that proves he was involved in any of the various actions against us.”

“Have you not found this because he’s not involved or because he’s just really good at hiding his tracks?”

“I’m honestly not sure. I realize you want a better answer than that. I can’t give it to you.”

“Fine. Esteban Cantu. Same questions.”

“I guarant>“I guee that if Cantu could slit all our throats and not have it reflect badly on him, we’d all be dead. I can’t say the same of Armstrong.”

“When Operation Confusion started, Armstrong was one of the four having us do an unnecessary conference call.” I watched Armstrong out of the corner of my eye, hoping he wouldn’t really notice that I was doing so.

“Yes. Per what we found out then and you said Madeline Cartwright confirmed before she died, Cooper was in charge of that.”

“Yeah, but she also said Cantu and Armstrong were involved.” I watched Armstrong. He looked stressed and annoyed, but not overly worried. Had no idea what that meant. Found myself wishing Jeff and Chuckie were both here. “I wish you and Jeff were here, right now.”

“We can’t leave.”

“I guessed. The President’s about to kick the thing off, right?”

“Right. And we have no idea if there’s going to be trouble or not.”

“Trouble is a given.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You have Alpha and Airborne involved. Before anything’s happened. Meaning that everyone expects something
to
happen.” Just like for the President’s Ball. “So, someone got the head’s up that something was going down at this thing, and you’re all there trying to stop it.”

“Right. And I can’t really do my job while I’m on the phone with you.”

“Oh, I have faith in you. I know you’re not only the Conspiracy King, you’re also the Emperor of the Multitaskers.”

“Thanks. So, why are you asking me if we can trust Armstrong?”

“Because . . .” My voice trailed off because my brain was nudging me. “Who did you get the trouble tip from for this? Can you tell me?”

He sighed. “Not really. I’m sure you can figure it out, though, if you think about it.”

“I can?”

“Yes.”

I looked at Oliver. He shook his head. So he wasn’t the one who’d tipped them about issues with the One World Festival. “I know it wasn’t Mister Joel Oliver.”

“Correct. Think, Kitty. Think about the name of the event.”

“It’s the International One World Festival.” I looked at Olga.

She tossed me a bone. “Not everyone gets along with their neighbors as well as we do.”

“Everyone’s on high alert because of the break-in at the Bahraini Embassy and the resulting I Know You Are But What Am I between them and the Israeli Embassy, right?”

“Took you long enough. Yes.
We have no idea if something’s going to happen, but if we have some Middle Eastern countries who aren’t happy campers, and we do, then this is a great opportunity to have a worldwide stage to present their displeasure.”

“Gotcha. I’ll lcha. Iet you get back to it.”

“Great. Be careful, Kitty.”

“You too, Secret Agent Man.”

“And, Kitty?”

“Yeah?”

“Make sure Jamie’s safe. Don’t bring her into anything even remotely dangerous, and don’t leave her with anyone we can’t trust a hundred percent, and by we I mean me.”

“Gotcha, Surrogate Daddy Chuckie.”

He laughed. “Thank God your husband’s not around to hear that.”

CHAPTER 40

W
E HUNG UP,
and I calculated the odds that Armstrong was infiltrating us versus really in need of our help. They were fifty-fifty. Looked for some kind of sign from the cosmos about what to do. Because I needed to run the yap and ask some serious questions that would potentially give away a lot of information I didn’t want a real enemy to know.

Bruno woke up and looked at me. I looked back at him. He looked around the room, stared at Armstrong, looked right at me again, then pointedly tucked his head back under his wing.

I decided my request of the cosmos had been answered. Prayed White was right about my new “talent.” Looked at Armstrong. “What’s your assessment of the actual threat level at the event the dirty pictures pulled you away from?”

“I’m not sure. I think there’s reason to be alert and prepared.”

“Yeah. Only, see, when Operation Assassination was going down, we were supposed to be alerted. So that the people who did the protection could fail that much more dramatically.”

“Where are you going with this, Kitty?” Christopher asked quietly. “I’m not following you.” But I could tell he was feeling the same unease I was, because he was neither snarking, snarling, nor glaring.

“Let’s get back to MJO’s question from earlier. I think it’s probably the key point in all of this.”

“You mean when I asked if either the senator or your husband reacted in the way expected?”

“Yes. Senator, why did you come to see me instead of, say, calling the
Washington Post
? Oh, and please give us the truthful answer, not the political spin. I think we need to have everyone’s cards truly on the table for this one.”

Armstrong seemed to be considering the question and his answer. “I didn’t . . .” He shook his head. “As I said earlier, it was all too easy to believe you and Reynolds were having an affair. But I gain nothing from exposing that.”

“So you were coming to blackmail me.”

“Hardly. I involved Guy and Vance so you’d realize I wasn’t trying to extort anything from you.”

“Seriously? Why in the world would you think bringing them along would help?”

Armstrong stared at me. “You’re friends with them.”

“
Excuse
me?”

Armstrong shrugged. “They talk about you all the time. I mean, Guy’s clearly smitten with you. Vance says he misses you in the Washington Wife class.”

“And from that you deduced friendship?”

“They actually like you, so yes.”

I decided to table my shock and horror, as well as ensure the Inner Hyena remained silent, so I moved back to the real matter at hand. “Okay, so you believed the pictures.”

“Absolutely. They looked very real and it wasn’t a relationship I would question.”

“No one who knows you and Chuck would question it,” Amy said, looking up from her scribbling.

I nodded. “Honestly, I agree.” I looked at Christopher. “So, why didn’t Jeff freak the hell out?”

“Because Reynolds was the one who brought the pictures to him,” Christopher replied. “And
he
was freaked out.”

“And Jeff can read Chuckie’s emotions without difficulty.” Lord knew, Jeff confirmed this all the time. I looked at Oliver. “During Operation Assassination the bad guys intended for you to alert us. How did you find out about these pictures?”

“I didn’t use great deductive reasoning or any contacts. I insinuated I’d heard a tip so that Mister Reynolds wouldn’t waste time or effort accusing me of setting it all up. But the pictures were sent directly to my editor. Because I’ve created a fruitful relationship with you, he showed them to me first. That’s why they weren’t published.”

“That sounds like the sender expected you to alert Chuckie, though.”

Oliver looked thoughtful. “Maybe. Or they don’t understand how special some of your people are, your husband in particular.”

“Or they don’t realize that you have a positive working relationship,” Armstrong said. “Frankly, until this meeting, I would never have actually believed you wanted him around. And no amount of money would have made me believe you would have stopped the rag you work for from printing those pictures,” he said to Oliver, who shrugged and looked, all things considered, rather pleased and a little smug. I let him have his moment.

“Best investigative reporter in the country, perhaps the world. So, MJO, how badly did your editor want to print those pictures?”

“Badly. But he’s smart enough to understand that we’re getting access no one else is and how quickly said access would disappear if we printed something like this about you.”

“Timeline is that the senator got the pictures the day I left. Then, MJO, your editor got them, what, two weeks later?”

“Roughly, yes.”

“So whoever sent the pictures to the senat to the or thought he’d do something with them,” White said.

“And, clearly, what
they expected wasn’t that the senator would come down to Florida and try to show the pictures to me.”

“I’d bet they expected the senator to go straight to Ambassador Martini,” Oliver said.

“Why expect him to bring them to Jeff
or
Kitty?” Christopher asked. “The senator works more closely with Reynolds than he does with us. And we’d run anything to do with him through Reynolds first anyway.”

It was there again. I could feel the answer throwing itself against the walls of my mind, trying to break in.

“I’m still amazed, and incredibly relieved, that Jeff acted like an actual adult,” Amy said, not even bothering to look up from her writing. “His jealousy thing is so over-the-top sometimes, I’m amazed he didn’t kill Chuck and then ask questions later, regardless of who brought the pictures to him.”

And there it was.