Alien vs. Alien (31 page)

The key was probably ACE and what he’d been trying to get me to figure out. “Paul, is ACE uncomfortable?”

“No. He feels . . . distracted.”

“Wonderful.” Had a feeling ACE was being distracted by the real problem, not the fake ones. Got a fast reply from Christopher. “Well, this is interesting, in that ‘oh crap, this sucks’ sort of way. Christopher can’t read the picture of Clarence I took.”

“How can that be?” Tim asked. “Isn’t it almost impossible to hide anything from him? Pictorially, I mean.”

“No. Not with a major Surcenthumain boost. Christopher can hide his emotions from Jeff now, so can Serene. And the bad guys knew Christopher would be a threat, so they figured out how to block him.”

“Kitty, we’re wasting time,” Reader said. “Richard, I want you sequestered somewhere.”

“Why?” Jennifer asked.

Everyone stared at her. Other than me and White. We shared the We Got One! look. It was nice to find someone who was on our wavelength.

“Because they’re always after him,” Jerry replied.

“No,” White corrected. “They’re always after the Pontifex.” He looked pointedly at Gower. “Paul, I was tossed aside by Clarence.”

“And it was only because Jennifer and Bruno got you away from him that Clarence didn’t grab you, Paul. How’d you know what to do?” I asked her.

She shrugged. “The parrot was screaming for help, so I figured you guys needed me. I took in the scene, and it was clear the target was the Pontifex. The current one,” she added.

“We need to get Paul to safety.”

“I’m fine, Kitty. I have ACE.”

Part of what was going on dawned on me. “No, Paul. If they can kidnap you, then
they
have ACE.”

CHAPTER 54

T
HERE WAS MORE TO IT,
but getting Gower to safety was probably Job One. “We need to get Paul to the Dome.”

“I need to be here,” Gower argued.

“No, you don’t,” an authoritative female voice said. It was an authoritative female voice I knew really well.

My mother strode onto the scene. She was dressed for action—black pants and shirt, bulletproof vest with Federal Agent on it, and black cap with P.T.C.U. embroidered. She was also armed to go bear hunting.

Kevin was with her, decked out in the same garb. Between the two of them, I was fairly sure they could take on a small nation. Buchanan seemed to naturally fall into line next to Kevin, so both of them were behind but flanking Mom. With him along, I knew they could take on that small nation and win.

I trotted over and gave her a hug, weapons or no weapons. “Mom, I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Malcolm called me, kitten.” I got her breath-stopping bear hug. “Your father and I missed you and Jamie.”

“We missed you guys, too. A lot.”

“We’ll do a family reunion soon, but not now,” she said as she released me. “Anyway, Malcolm said we had multiple situations that were going to require authority to resolve.” She looked around and took in the scesaid ne. “Mona, how did you get involved in this?”

I wasn’t even surprised that my mother knew the Bahraini Ambassadress. She probably knew every person involved in D.C. politics including the janitors who cleaned the office buildings and the guys who drove the street sweepers.

She also knew Oren and Jakob, because I saw them pass a tiny sign to her, and she passed one back. I’d been looking for it, because I figured the Mossad had their own version of the Secret Handshake. What was really interesting was that Khalid passed a sign to Mom, too—a different one—and she passed a different counter right back.

“It’s a long story,” Mona replied. “But I’m more interested in the one your daughter is trying to tell.”

Great. Time to table my interest in my mother’s various kick-butt connections—I needed to pull it all together for everyone. If only I actually knew what “it” was. Oh, well, this meant that it was really time to do what I was good at—wing it while honing my Recap Girl skills.

“Okay, there’s lots of crap going on, but most of it, if not all of it, is being done to distract us from what the bad guys are really doing.”

“Which is?” Mom asked.

“I’m not totally sure. Yet. But I know Chuckie’s a target, and so is Paul.” So was ACE, but I didn’t want to say that aloud right now.

“Kitty, we need everyone focused on this event,” Reader said.

“No, we don’t. Well, we did . . .” I looked at Mona and her retinue. “You know, Clarence is enhanced.”

Buchanan was murmuring to my mother, so I assumed he was catching her up on everything that had happened so far. Fine, I was starting to rock and possibly roll as well.

“We know,” Tim said. “But that just makes it more imperative that we catch him.”

“So, we have a superenhanced A-C, one with no talents originally, I might add, who’s good enough now to block Christopher. For all I know, he blocked Jeremy, too.”

Jeremy shook his head. “Not really. I read him. He was emotionally clearest to me when he was running away from us, by the way. But I have to be honest—if he’s good enough, he might have been able to fool me. You know, focus on one emotion to hide another one.”

“Mister White, make a note—I want Jeremy and Jennifer assigned to us somehow. Moving on, my point is that Clarence is now definitely an evil supervillain, and he’s more on the Juggernaut side of the house than, say, the Lex Luthor side—the big muscle carrying out plans versus the guy creating said plans. He’s strong enough to toss Jeremy like he was a rag doll—when he wanted to. But when we arrived, what Clarence was actually doing was playing around.”

“I wouldn’t call getting hit constantly playing,” Jakob said.

“Trust me. I don’t care how well trained you guys are, and I know you’re the best of the best, so to speak. But Clarence is enhanced.” I turned back to my guys. “Remember Moira, James? She almost killed you with one punch. I can’t believe that Clarence isn’t able to do that these days, especially since he was movi뀀d back tng so fast they couldn’t see him, meaning he’s taken a lot of that drug so he’s closer to Jeff and Christopher’s levels.”

Reader’s eyes narrowed. “Go on.”

“He was moving at the fast hyperspeed, but we were all able to catch him and stop him. Richard, Jeremy and Malcolm all had him, but he still got away. And yet he struggled like two big A-Cs and one big human on him were difficult to manage—right up until what he wanted happened.”

“Which was?” Tim asked.

“You guys showed up from wherever you’d been. He wants Paul, because Paul’s the Pontifex and because of ACE, I’m sure. How did you guys know to show up?”

I got “really?” looks from all of them. The flyboys laughed. Reader sighed. “You broadcast a ‘help me’ emotional signal. The empaths with us mentioned that this was even better than the one you did when Mephistopheles was going to town in the Science Center, much more refined, clear, and accurate.”

“Funny you mention that, because you know LaRue and Ronnie Junior still want to follow in Daddy Mephs’ footsteps.”

“Playbook,” Buchanan said. “You’ve done it before and they know about it, so they knew you’d do it again.”

“I agree,” Armstrong said. Tito nodded.

“I as well, Missus Martini.”

“Okay, great. So they’ve been anticipating our moves because they know us. Clarence was a traitor from at least the time I showed up, probably longer, and he’s part of the extended Martini family and used to work for the Diplomatic Corps, so he knows all they did, too.”

“Your moves,” Tito said. “They’re anticipating you more than anyone else.”

“Maybe so, but I’ll bet cash money they’re busy anticipating as many of the rest of you as they can.”

“So, maybe they anticipated you’d call for help in some way and we’d come running, but why pull us all away here?” Tim asked. “I mean, if Paul was the only goal, why not do something to make you want to get him to you alone?”

I could feel it. Tim’s question was dead on for what was happening. But I didn’t have answer yet. “What were you all doing, before my emotional cry for help rang out, I mean.”

This question made them all uncomfortable, and some of them looked downright worried, my mother included. I took the logic leap. “You were trying to figure out where Jeff and Chuckie disappeared to, weren’t you?”

Reader nodded. “Trying to determine how long they’d been gone, who’d seen them last, where we could look to determine if they were okay or not.”

“They’ve been gone longer than you realize, they saw Clarence last, is my big guess, and I doubt they’re okay, in that se
nse.” They all looked uncomfortable, still, and none of the flyboys were making eye contact with me. Whatever news they had clearly wasn’t good. “What?”

Silence.

“I want to know. I’m a big girl, and I’ve been aware that they were 뀀1" facin danger and missing longer than any of you. Tell me whatever it is you don’t want to tell me.”

“Do it,” Mom said quietly. The news moved from not good to potentially catastrophic. I steeled myself.

Reader came closer to me and took my hand. “Kitty . . . once we realized we couldn’t find them, I called Christopher. He filled me in on what he was doing and said he’d been spending his spare time at the Dome searching for both of them.”

“And?”

He swallowed. “He can’t find any trace of either Jeff or Reynolds. And by any trace, I mean he’s looked to the extent of his range.”

Unlike Serene, Christopher’s range wasn’t fifty miles. His range wasn’t even Planet Earth. Christopher’s range went to the outer reaches of the Alpha Centauri system.

Meaning Jeff and Chuckie were really gone. Or they were dead.

CHAPTER 55

“O
KAY.
Back to the current situation.”

I could tell I shocked everyone. “You’re handling this . . . very well,” Reader said.

“Look, I want to freak out, but I’m trying to think ahead here. Malcolm’s right, and those of us on my team all discussed this earlier—they know us, so they’re anticipating what we’ll do. My natural reaction is to move Heaven and Earth to find Jeff and Chuckie. But if I do that, I think we all lose. And by lose, I mean likely die.”

“She’s right,” Mom said. “Well done, kitten. So, what’s your next move?”

“Well, what were you guys doing to find Jeff and Chuckie, since Christopher was out?”

“We were with Naomi and Abigail,” Paul said. “Now that most of the major political players are gone from the Festival we can have them use their talents to search.”

Reader stared at me. I stared at him. “Oh,
snap
.” We said it in unison. I’d worry about the unison thing later.

“Where are they now, right now?” I asked as Reader dropped my hand and got onto his phone. So did the others.

“No answer from Abby,” Jerry said, looking worried. The other flyboys were texting. “Trying Naomi now.” He shook his head. “No answer.”

“I’ve checked with the main field team contacts I had assigned under me for this,” Hughes said. “None of them have eyes on either of the girls.” The rest of the flyboys confirmed that their field contacts were also without Gower girls visual, audio or physical.

Reader cursed. “We have a problem. Superbeing formation in rural France. Because of this event we’re short-staffed, Dulce had to send support to Euro Base, and Gladys can’t spare the focus to find the girls.”

“What? Why the hell not?”

“They’re not Field agents,” Reader said. “And they’re not supposed to act in Field capacities. Reynolds has never pushed for it, either.”

Meaning Chuckie hadn’t wanted anyone to know where he did a lot of tests with the girls. Not a surprise, really, though it was proving to be a really bad idea overall. I chose to refrain from mentioning that the Gower girls had acted like Field agents a lot, including today. It wouldn’t change things.

Time to go for the crazy. I opened my purse. Harlie and Poofikins were still there and still looked alert and ready to go. “Harlie, did you send the other Poofies to help Naomi and Abigail?”

Both Poofs purred at me.

“Can you take Kitty to them to help keep them safe?”

More purrs ensued. Good enough for me.

I looked down. “Bruno, my bird, I need whatever part of the flock that’s free and able to get to Naomi and Abigail.” Bruno gave me a look that said it was about time I was focusing on the big picture.

“Richard, hand Bellie off to someone she won’t try to kill. James, do you trust me?”

“Yes.”

“Then trust me right now and don’t ask questions, don’t argue, just do what I tell you. We need to get all of the people here out of range and to safety. Paul
has
to go to the Dome, and once in he’s not coming out. ACE is guarding it, and only it, from what I’ve gathered. Get Paul safely into the Dome, get everyone else to Andrews and get Andrews onto some form of high alert, and tell Gladys that we need all we can get on Diversion Superbeing, because I think those are actually supersoldiers out for a playdate. Oh, and tell her to watch Paraguay, all of it, but the Chaco in particular, for the same activity.”

“What are you going to be doing?” Reader asked.

“Getting to the Gower girls. Jeremy, Jennifer, you’re with me and Richard. Malcolm, I need you to make sure they do what I just said. Mom, see you shortly.”

I grabbed White’s hand as Harlie and Poofikins jumped out of my purse and onto Bruno’s back. I decided to accept that politics and danger both made strange bedfellows for all of us, Peregrines and Poofs included, and just go with it.

Bruno took flight, and we followed.

Bruno was flying at hyperspeed. I could tell based on how fast the four of us on the ground were moving. He led us on an erratic path, not straight the way you always hear the crow flies.

Of course, Bruno wasn’t a crow. He also wasn’t stupid. He was spotting the best path for us to take to avoid running into people, booths, and buildings and leading us
on it accordingly.

We ran past the Washington Monument, around the World War II Monument, and alongside the Reflecting Pool. Either we were headed for the Lincoln Memorial or we were headed for the Potomac.

cting“Please, not the Potomac again.”

White chuckled as we ran on. It was less crowded by the Lincoln Memorial, but that merely meant everyone who wasn’t attending the International One World Festival was here instead. Or maybe it just seemed that there were hundreds of people around.

The Lincoln Memorial wasn’t secluded. In addition to all the tourists, a road ran around three-fourths of it, and there were other roads leading to it, some that ran through the Mall and some coming from other directions. However, it also had clumps of big, dense foliage around it.

Sure enough, Bruno headed for the biggest, densest clump of trees and bushes, which was around the side and toward the back. He dove into the trees, and we lost sight of him. No problem, we ran into this little forest, too.

After the way the rest of this weekend had been, I wasn’t really sure what we were going to find. My only hope was that we wouldn’t find nothing.

So that worked out for me.