Camp Alien (4 page)

T
HERE WERE A LOT
of gasps from the room. Heard Drax draw in his breath. But now it was time to put my sales experience to work. Once the offer was made, the big question asked, or the definitive statement given, the next person who spoke lost. So now it was time for Drax to speak, because I wasn't going to utter another sound.

While we waited I pantomimed that I wanted paper and a writing implement of some kind. Three tries later, Len Parker, who was my driver and part of my Security Squad, figured out what I wanted and trotted a pad of paper and a pen over to me.

Scribbled my request, ripped the paper off, and handed it to him. He nodded, grabbed the nearest A-C, they linked hands and the A-C made them disappear. Well, not really. A-Cs had hyperspeed, and that meant they could move faster than humans could see.

Scribbled another note and waved it at Buchanan. He came over again, took the note from me, then took the pen from me, wrote a big “DUH” on the paper, and handed both back to me. So they were indeed tracing this call. A girl just liked to be sure and all that.

Len and his A-C helpmate were back well before Drax had made a sound, with Rudolph “John” Wruck in tow. We'd originally thought Wruck was one of the many Ronald Yates offspring out there, either a pure-blooded A-C or an A-C and human hybrid.

However, Wruck wasn't a Yates offspring. Nor was he fully A-C or human. As I'd just discovered during Operation Epidemic, Wruck was actually an Ancient.

Originally we'd thought that the Ancients had died out. How wrong we were. They, like our mortal enemies, the Z'porrah, were still around and kicking. Most of the kicking seemed to happen in the Alpha Centauri and Earth systems, too. And while the Z'porrah had turncoat Ancients on their side, Wruck wasn't one of those, either.

He'd been on the ill-fated mission that had included LaRue Demorte Gaultier. As we'd finally learned when I'd changed universes during Operation Bizarro World, LaRue was a turncoat Ancient. She'd murdered the other Ancients on her team then formed an alliance with Yates, becoming the True Power Behind The Throne for every Mastermind.

At least, she thought she'd murdered all of her team.

Wruck had played dead then hidden himself away, to heal up and figure out how to take LaRue down. Technically, LaRue had been killed at the end of Operation Destruction, but our Evil Genius League was quite good, and they'd created cloning, for themselves, of course. So there was at least one LaRue clone out there now.

However, I wanted Wruck so that he could help me confirm what planet Drax might be from.

Scribbled quickly while I waited for Drax to speak and pointed at the paper. Wruck looked at what I'd written, nodded, then pulled Buchanan aside. They had a quiet conversation while the rest of us listened to “The Sound of Silence.” Only Simon and Garfunkel weren't actually singing. No matter how much I whined, I hadn't been able to convince Antoinette or Jeff to let me have music piped into every room in the White House.

Wruck came back to me, took the pen, and wrote several words. He circled one of them. Took a look and gave him a thumbs-up.

Had to hand it to Drax—he was good at this silence game. Either that or he'd hung up and I'd missed it. Or Camilla had used this time to make whatever move I sincerely hoped she was in a position to make. Hadn't made a reference to her or the princesses under the wild hope that the three of them weren't actually captured but were instead using radio silence so as not to give themselves away.

Drax cleared his throat. “Ah, are you still there?”

“Yep.”

More silence. Had a feeling it was making him
uncomfortable. Certainly hoped so. Buchanan gave me the thumbs-up sign. I waved the “DUH” paper at him and he nodded. Good. We had Drax's location pinpointed. Go team.

“Why are you not speaking?” Drax definitely sounded out of his element. Good.

“I'm waiting for you.”

“For me to what?”

“To share what planet you're from.”

“I'm from Earth.”

“Dude, that's so clearly a lie that there's no child on this planet who'd fall for it. If you weren't an alien, you'd have protested that already, not sat there hoping I was just joking. I wasn't. You're an alien, and you're not from this solar system. Nor are you from the Alpha Centauri system. So, give me your name, rank, planetary system number, planet designation, and how many light-years from home you happen to be.”

“Or what?”

“Or I hang up, we find you, and kill you and anyone else with you. Including if someone with you happens to be Stephanie. Who isn't doing you or herself any favors with this little stunt. Her uncle just became the President. This is the time for her to come in from the cold, share how she was being used by manipulative older men, and throw herself onto the country's mercy while asking her uncle very nicely for a presidential pardon. Now is not the time to, once again, show how she's hooked up with an enemy of the state who we are, make no mistake, going to find and very likely destroy.”

“Unless?” Drax asked hopefully.

“Unless you give me a good reason not to. Which you, so far, have not.”

“What if I can provide the person you want most in the world?”

“Just who would you think that would be?”

“Clifford Goodman.”

Contemplated my reply. But Drax confirmed that his salesmanship was as bad as I felt it was. “You
do
want him, don't you?” he asked. Managed not to try to high-five anyone, but only just. In part because I wasn't sure who would high-five me back, and I also didn't want to give Antoinette a heart attack.

“Oh yes, we're very interested in him. I'm just curious as to how you're going to hand him over to us.”

Truly didn't think that Drax was working with Cliff, in part because Drax's Sales Pitch of Doom had been the reason Cliff's train attack hadn't really worked fully as expected during Operation Epidemic. And Stephanie had cut ties with Cliff on national and international television at the end of Operation Epidemic. So it was truly doubtful that Cliff was hanging out at Chez Drax to lick his wounds and plan revenge.

“I have my ways.”

Couldn't help it, I snorted. Loudly. “Oh, dude, please. Your ‘ways' are Stephanie, and her knowledge is now obsolete. There's no way that Cliff and his cronies are anywhere she thinks they are. She already told him she was giving him up. They've cleared out and are in a brand-new hiding place.”

“Drax Industrial has more resources than you've seen.” He sounded huffy. It was cute.

“I'm sure.” Ensured I sounded bored. “Look, dude, let's try this another way.”

“What way are you suggesting?”

“You show us that this was all just a big misunderstanding. You return all of our people that you're holding, ensuring that not even one of them has been harmed or has even a single hair out of place, return our planes and such in the same perfect working condition, and then we nicely let you do a normal person sales pitch.”

I got a lot of WTF looks from lots of people. But Kevin Lewis, who was Mom's right hand in the P.T.C.U. and had been the Embassy Defense Attaché just until this past week, wasn't one of them. He nodded emphatically, then leaned over to Mom and whispered in her ear, presumably telling her he knew where I was going with this offer.

Kevin was a former pro football player, black, gorgeous, with the greatest smile and teeth, and literally bags of charisma. He'd been part of our team since the start of Operation Drug Addict, and he was able to get onto my wavelength pretty easily.

Jeff had been jealous of Kevin and how hot and smart I thought he was. For about five minutes, until he'd learned that Kevin was married. His wife, Denise, who was blonde
and fair-skinned, but otherwise matched him in looks, smile, and charisma, now ran the Embassy School and Daycare Center.

While most of the kids who were under Denise's care were all younger than Jamie, the Lewis kids were several years older. Raymond and Rachel were beautiful blends of their parents, and they'd both inherited the smiles and the bags of charisma, too. Tried not to feel disappointed that I wouldn't be able to just go up to the daycare area and see all the kids whenever I wanted. However, I had another megalomaniac to deal with, so shoved the maternal part of me to the side for the moment.

“How do I know you won't just try to incarcerate me?” Drax finally asked.

Damn, Drax actually could think. Bummer. Looked to Kevin again. He nodded. “Because I give you my word that we won't. Both you and Stephanie can come here without worry. The first time.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I'm used to people being sneaky bastards, Gustav, and that if you and Stephanie think that you're going to fool us and come in here and create mayhem, you're both sadly mistaken. We won't arrest either one of you or fill you full of lead, but if either one of you so much as twitches in a manner deemed threatening, all bets are off, and your heads will be, too.”

Waited again.

“Ah,” Drax said finally, “I don't really understand you.”

“So few ever do, Gustav. So few ever do.” Though, frankly, a human would have caught most of this. Not only was Drax an alien, I truly didn't think he'd been on Earth all that long. “So, this generous offer of you returning our people and planes without issue or harm then you getting a chance to share the wonder that is Drax Industrial with us isn't going to stay on the table for long. You literally have until I hang up.”

“What happens if I say no?”

Looked to Buchanan and held up the DUH paper with a questioning look. He nodded emphatically. Good. We had Drax for certain.

“You and Stephanie die.”

W
HILE WE WAITED
for Drax's reaction to this, Culver waved at me. She had a pad and pen, too, and she had one word written on the paper she was holding up. Nodded—she was right, I'd forgotten a key point.

“Ah . . .” Drax said finally. “That seems rather . . . extreme.”

“Does it? This from the guy who irradiated commandos and had them attack the President of the United States in order to make an introduction. Just out of curiosity, dude, what's your version of sedate?”

“Madam First Lady, clearly we got off on the wrong foot.”

“Yeah, we did. Speaking of which, was Stephanie trying to put crossbow arrows into a variety of our friends—such as Don McMillan, Gideon Cleary, and Lillian Culver—on your order, using her own wacked-out initiative, or by suggestion of Thomas Kendrick from Titan Security?”

The room went very still, though there were a lot of heads swiveling back and forth between Culver and me. She rolled her eyes and winked at me. Yeah, no matter how much I might want to pretend this woman was still the Joker, if she was, she'd joined up with the rest of the Suicide Squad and was working with Batman to destroy a much bigger threat.

Of course, by mentioning Titan I was giving Drax an out. What he'd do with it was going to be the most interesting part of this entire conversation.

While we waited Drax out, Buchanan stepped out of the room. Wondered what was going on. Didn't have long to
wait. He came back, looking seriously pissed. Wrote on my pad of paper and it wasn't good news. Drax had some kind of GPS scrambling going on. Our agents had indeed gone to where we'd identified Drax as being only to find an empty warehouse. It had been searched by P.T.C.U. and Field agents and they'd all found exactly nothing.

Wrote back. Buchanan scribbled that, yes, he'd had them search for invisible things, too, using the goggles we'd gotten off of the No Longer Invisible Commandos. Nada.

Didn't let this throw off my groove. This just meant that Drax actually did have some tech we might want to use.

Wruck, who was still standing behind me, leaned over and read what Buchanan had written. He nodded to me, then pulled Buchanan out of the room.

Drax cleared his throat. “I see that your people hit a warehouse.”

Didn't let this throw off my groove either. “We did. What of it?”

“I wasn't there. But that means you're tracing this call.”

“Does it?”

“Ah . . . yes?”

“Because, so far as I know, you just confirmed that you felt that ‘my' people hit a warehouse you're monitoring.”

“Yes?”

“Which is, let's face it, rather suspicious, isn't it, Gustav?”

“I don't understand you.”

“I've mentioned that I'm used to that already. I'll talk slower. You were monitoring a warehouse, which is suspicious, since that begs the question of why you were so monitoring. So, I'm going to ask that beggar. Why?”

He cleared his throat. “Ah . . .”

“Could it be because you expected ‘my' people to go there to find your own sweet self?”

“Could be,” he said slowly. “I have enemies.”

“Yeah, color me just shocked that a man of your total finesse isn't popular with everyone.” Decided not to mention that us not finding Drax at the first location was just going to make those searching for him even more eager to find him quickly as well as ensuring that they'd be far more pissed off. Why spoil Buchanan's fun? “So, what's your offer?”

“Offer? Ah, do you mean my offer to exchange prisoners?”

“No, that's still not going to fly.”

“But you haven't found me.”

“We're willing to be Avis.”

“Excuse me?”

“We're always willing to try harder. Seriously, Gustav, you're not a human. Stop pretending that you are, it's getting tiresome.” Time to utilize the intel I'd gotten from Wruck. “So, my guess, and this is just a guess, mind you, is that you're a Vata from Vatusus. A planet near the galactic core,” I added for the rest of the room.

Heard what sounded like a crashing sound. “Hang on!” Drax shouted, from what sounded far away. Waited a few seconds while I enjoyed the shocked looks on almost everyone's faces, then he was back. “Sorry about that.”

“Shock and surprise will make you drop your phone, won't it?”

“Ah . . . what planet were you talking about?”

“Your home one. The one where the natives are able to mentally connect with technological things. As in, you think you're using your mad skills to track us. Only, I have to give you a major duh on this one, dude. We're in the White House. What a total shocker. And, regardless of your capabilities or not, you're not learning anything at all about us that you didn't already know. You're not the smartest Vata on the hill, are you?”

Wruck and Buchanan were back. They both looked rather pleased. Hoped this meant that our resident Ancient was able to reverse engineer a Vata's mental signature.

“I'm a technological genius!” Drax said finally, sounding insulted and freaked out. I had that effect on people.

Buchanan wrote on my notepad.

“Sure you are. Look, Gustav, I'm going to give you one last chance. What, exactly, would you and Stephanie like to do in order to get out of the situation you've dug yourselves into? Your next words will, literally, decide your fate.”

Something about my tone, the situation, or the realization that I somehow knew about a planet almost no one on Earth had ever heard of before must have gotten through to him. He heaved a sigh. “I don't have your people.”

Buchanan looked ready to go into action. Put my hand up. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that, yes, I had them. Only they're gone. As is my helicarrier.”

“The invisible helicarrier, right?”

“Yes, that's the one.”

Looked up at Buchanan who shook his head. Looked to Chuckie, who shook his head as well. So, Camilla hadn't checked in and, if she'd engineered the Great Helicarrier Escape, she should have advised us by now.

“So, who took all your prisoners and your fancy-shmancy S.H.I.E.L.D. tech?”

He sighed again. “The person you named a little earlier—Thomas Kendrick.”