A Rumor of Real Irish Tea (Annals of Altair Book 2)

by Kate Stradling

  “I wish,” said Emily sourly.

  “He doesn’t listen to you, I take it,” Ben surmised. “He didn’t listen to any of his other handlers either, so I thought it was a long-shot. You two have kind of a different rapport than he did with the others, though.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know. When I saw how you interacted earlier, I got the feeling that he sort of respects you.”

  She scoffed, unable to entertain such a ridiculous notion. “He routinely tells me what an idiot I am, and I routinely let him. That’s the only rapport we have.”

  “Well, that’s different,” Ben said with a careless shrug.

  “He didn’t tell his other handlers they were idiots?”

  “They didn’t let him. Constant power-struggles, as you might imagine. You’re really sure you can’t dissuade him?” He fixed a wistful gaze on her, childlike in its utter hope. Emily almost wished that she could satisfy his request.

  “There’s no way. Look, after everything that’s happened, I probably deserve to get stuck here. But Oliver… he’s being punished for something that wasn’t his fault. I can’t blame him for wanting to clear everything up and get back home. Prom-A is the only home he’s ever known, so it’s not fair to displace him like this.”

  Ben nodded as he considered this. “Unfortunately,” he said, choosing his words with great care, “the only way to ‘clear everything up’ is to bring our four truants back. Between you and me, I think there’s little chance that Oliver will return to Prom-A even then, though.”

  “Why?” asked Emily.

  “Because his adventures tracking the Wests may have exposed him to—” He paused and looked surreptitiously around the hallway. Then, angling his body so that his face turned away from the nearest security camera, he finished in a very low voice, “—to some sensitive and dangerous information.”

  Altair. That had to be what he meant. “He doesn’t know anything about any of that,” Emily said.

  A lopsided smile appeared on his face. “About any of what?”

  “I don’t know anything about it either,” said Emily stubbornly. After Crystal’s dire warning, there was no way she would utter that word aloud again, and to Genevieve Jones’s personal assistant of all people. “Look, if that’s all you wanted to talk to me about—”

  “There was one more thing,” he said, and he pulled a handheld device from within his suit coat pocket. Emily watched curiously as he tapped a couple of icons on the small screen.

  “Well? What is it?” she asked.

  “Sorry. I just remembered that their meeting was about to start, and that I was supposed to record it separately for Principal Jones. Care to watch with me?” He held up the screen. It displayed the security feed for a conference room where the distinguished visitors had assembled around an oblong table.

  “That was your ‘one more thing’?” she asked in disbelief.

  “No. My ‘one more thing’ was that Oliver’s immediate future may be decided in this meeting, and that you might want to keep an overnight bag packed and ready. I seem to recall that you were unhappy about not having even a toothbrush with you the last time, so I thought I’d give you fair warning.”

  He started to amble up the hallway toward the elevators, but Emily lunged to catch his elbow. “They’re sending us out again?” she asked in sudden panic.

  Ben remained nonchalant. “They may have no other choice. They need a null-projector. Quincy’s abilities are too localized, and Cedric is too young to be approved for any time away from Prometheus. Trust me—they’ve considered any number of alternatives. I’m all for long-distance snipers with tranquilizer darts, but then there’s the problem of isolating the kids away from the public in order to do the deed. Civilians tend to panic when they see a six- and nine-year-old shot in broad daylight, even if it is only with a tranquilizer.”

  “I should think so,” said Emily. “So their only option is to have Oliver track down the Wests again?”

  “It’s not a matter of tracking. They’re in Phoenix. We just can’t get anywhere near them.”

  Disbelief snaked through her. “In Phoenix? What on earth are they doing in Phoenix?”

  “They went to the zoo on Monday,” he said. “We had a couple men following them, but they ended up gawking at the giraffes until the place closed. The last thing they remembered was Honey shooing a group of people away while Happy showed them all a beatific smile. Those were their exact words.” He finished with a sage tilt of his head.

  Having experienced Honey’s trancelike abilities, Emily could only think that the men got off easy. “If you know they’re there, surely you can get to them at night, when they’re asleep,” she argued.

  “Yeah, if we find where they’re staying for the night and feel up to braving the murder of crows that guard them. That bird of Hawk’s collects friends to help him with the lookout. After the disaster in Vegas, we really don’t want to trigger the bird-alarm unless we know for certain we can get to the kids before they run away. It’s all very frustrating, I know, but because they’re children, we have to be able to secure them in as unsuspicious a manner as possible. If they were adults, it would be a piece of cake. We’d just send in a team and arrest them.”

  “But,” said Emily, “the general public has seen the news reports. They know that Maddie and Alex North are missing, so there shouldn’t be too much damage control in recovering them that way.”

  He shook his head, though. “The general public knows that two children are missing. They’re not looking for four, and when you go in and ambush four, the original story starts to unravel. If that happens, people start to question what’s going on, and then there are inquiries made into things that don’t need to be inquired upon, and everything takes forever to clear. Do you have any idea how many conspiracy theories there are in this country?”

  “A lot,” she conceded.

  “A lot,” Ben confirmed. “The last thing this government wants is for its people to lose trust in it, and the best way to prevent that is through information control. Tell them what they need to know in the most effective means to bring about your desired ends.”

  Emily rolled her eyes. “How very trustworthy.”

  “Are you questioning your government?” Ben asked in a controlled voice.

  Even though a hint of humor glimmered in his eyes, her answer was immediate. “No. Not at all.”

  He smiled, but it seemed extremely practiced. “Good. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really do have to keep an eye on this.” He raised the screen, where the surveillance footage still played.

  “And I… have to get back to observing,” said Emily, feeling more than awkward that she had waylaid him for so long.

  “It was nice talking to you,” said Ben with a polite tip of his head, and he strolled away.

  “Yeah,” Emily mumbled. He turned to take the stairs rather than the elevator this time. She wasn’t sure what to make of him. He had been kind enough to give her fair warning, but why? Was it out of the goodness of his heart? Had he been commanded by someone higher up the ladder? From what he had said, Oliver’s involvement wasn’t even officially decided yet.

  “I don’t want to go back out on the road,” she said to the empty hallway. She knew which pair of pants she would not be taking with her, though.

  VII

  An Afternoon at the Movies

  July 30, 2:15pm mst, Phoenix, AZ

  “Do you think we’re being followed?” Hummer asked.

  “Of course we’re being followed,” said Hawk. “We’re always being followed by this time of day.”

  On impulse, Honey called out to the crowd around them, “How many of you work for the GCA, raise your hands!”

  Three hands shot up.

  “Slightly more than usual,” she said to herself. Then, “Everyone else, go away. You three, follow us. Hummer, get the duct tape.”

  “Maybe we should think about moving to a new city,” Hummer said a
s he pulled the roll from his backpack.

  “But we’ve already invested so much in this one,” Honey pragmatically replied. “Happy, can you try thinking about how much you hate the GCA? I’d like to see how well these guys cooperate when they’re immersed in self-loathing.”

  “And we begin Honey’s unethical sociology experiments again,” Hummer whispered under his breath to Hawk

  “Where are we going to take them?” Hawk asked Honey. “You can’t interrogate these filthy, disgusting scumbags here on the street, especially if you’re planning on using the duct tape. Happy—” He shifted abruptly to his youngest brother in wonder. “You really hate the GCA, don’t you?”

  Happy’s face was set in a critical stare upon the three agents, but he took the time to nod a short yes.

  “We need to get off the streets,” Hummer said with a nervous glance around the shopping center. The other pedestrians were turning malevolent glares upon the GCA agents, and a general air of restlessness pervaded the area. The sooner they moved out of the public eye, the sooner he could exact his revenge.

  Or Happy’s revenge. He wasn’t exactly sure which one it was.

  “There’s a movie theater over there,” said Honey. “You three, get out your money. You’re buying us tickets to the matinee showing of Princess Pretty Goes to Sparkleville. And you’re springing for popcorn.”

  “Can’t someone else choose the movie?” Hummer complained to no one in particular. “I don’t see why we have to be tortured too.”

  There weren’t many choices, though. The afternoon shows were either geared toward indoctrinating three-year-olds (as was the case with Princess Pretty Goes to Sparkleville), or else they were aimed for older audiences. Children in the Wests’ age group were in school until five o’clock, so there was no point in showing films crafted for their demographic.

  The movie had already started by the time they made it through ticketing and concessions. Thanks to Happy’s intense focus, the GCA agents were wallowing in a puddle of self-contempt. They filed into a sparsely populated theater, where only a handful of toddlers and their parents or nannies watched the computer-animated princess lecture her animal friends about how to recycle their sparkles properly. No one paid the newcomers any heed as Honey directed her captives to the back row, two seats apart. She collected their wallets and cell phones. Hummer followed behind with his duct tape and secured their hands to the armrests.

  “We should take their shoes, too,” Honey said thoughtfully.

  “Why?” asked Hawk.

  “Because it’s inconvenient for them,” she said. “And because I saw a thrift store a street over that could probably use the donations.”

  It was a good enough answer for him. He followed behind Hummer and removed the shoes of each agent. None of them seemed to notice or care, too intent upon hating himself.

  Honey began her interrogation of the first. “Were you all working together?”

  “Together?” he repeated stupidly.

  “Did you know that these two men were also following us?” she asked. “Were the three of you working together?”

  “I didn’t know,” said the man. “They didn’t tell me much of anything.”

  “Yeah, they really don’t. That’s because they’re evil.”

  He nodded, feeling the brunt of her words and Happy’s hostility combined.

  She continued. “Do you have a partner?”

  “No. I’m just a peon. I don’t know why they sent me when I’m so far down the chain of command. The GCA really is evil, awful, terrible—”

  “Who do you report to?” Honey asked. “And where?”

  “Agent Knox at the Central Phoenix office. A call came in this morning and he ordered me into a car. They dropped me off and told me to follow you. That’s all. I’m just a technician. I hate my life so much.”

  “That story’s getting very familiar,” said Hawk to Hummer quietly.

  “They’re probably trying to establish two layers of surveillance,” Hummer replied. “They’ve got these low-level guys they send up close because they know we’ll find them. The higher-level guys probably track or follow at a distance. Where’s Revere?”

  “I left him outside,” Hawk said. “No one likes a bird in a movie theater.”

  “You should see if he can scare up some friends and fan out across the area to look for government sedans. The last thing we want is for someone to follow us home because we thought we’d already gotten rid of all our shadows.”

  Hawk chewed thoughtfully on his lower lip. “I’ll tell him, but wide-range surveillance is difficult with birds. They don’t always know what they’re looking for.”

  “What’re you saying?” asked Hummer.

  “We should probably take a roundabout route to our place tonight,” Hawk answered. “More roundabout than usual, I mean, just to be sure we’re not followed.”

  “And the sooner the better,” Honey said. “These idiots can’t be anything more than decoys.” She had continued her interrogations but saw no reason to delve any further. “Hey, you,” she suddenly said to the third man, “poke yourself in the eye.”

  The man instinctively tried to obey, but his hands were, of course, duct-taped firmly to the armrest of his chair. Desperate to comply, he lowered his head to meet a raised finger. “Ow!” he cried.

  “I love doing that,” said Honey as she rifled through the three wallets. “They’re not even carrying much cash anymore,” she said with a scowl, and she turned again to her captives. “You three all need to poke yourselves in the eye as punishment.”

  “Come on.” Hawk pulled her by the sleeve to the door. Hummer and Happy filed behind. They paused just outside the theater so that Honey could dump the pilfered wallets into the trashcan there.

  “Do you think they’ve got tracking devices on that cash?” Hummer asked. “I mean, we’re kind of getting a modus operandi here.”

  Honey sighed. “Who wants malted milk balls?” Without waiting for a response, she headed away toward the concession stand. Happy trotted eagerly behind her.

  Hummer took the opportunity to pull Hawk off to one side. “It may be time to consider some drastic measures,” he said in a low voice. “We’re not getting anywhere in our search for Altair, and the GCA is slowly, systematically pinning down our movements. It’s only a matter of time before they come rushing in to get us. I’m kind of surprised they haven’t done it already.”

  “Happy,” said Hawk shortly. Upon seeing Hummer’s perplexed expression, he elaborated. “They can’t rush in yet because they have nothing to neutralize Happy right now. They don’t need all of their agents descending into utter panic when they get close to him—and if we were surrounded by GCA agents, you can bet Happy would be panicking.”

  “Do we even know how far his projections can extend?” Hummer asked.

  “No. It seems to depend on how strong he’s feeling any given emotion at any one moment. He does a good job controlling it, though, considering how young he still is. So what drastic measures did you have in mind?”

  “I don’t know. We could ambush a GCA office. What?” he asked when Hawk looked at him like he had gone absolutely insane. “If they’re not expecting it, it could work. We’d do a quick job—find out if they have any information on Altair or Mom and Dad, and then get back out. Between Honey and Happy, we could have the whole office at our mercy. After we get what we need, we create a diversion and steal a vehicle to escape.”

  “How long have you been plotting this?” Hawk asked suspiciously.

  Hummer shifted from one foot to the other. “A couple weeks, maybe. Hey, I need something to do on those days when we hole up for hours on end. I already memorized all the local GCA addresses, and I was even able to get some of the building schematics off the internet when we were at the library last week. I’ve already figured out two or three different routes in and out. I really don’t think it would be too difficult.”

  “Aside from the whole danger-of-getting-ca
ught part,” said Hawk. “But why not risk having us all thrown back into the government’s clutches on the off-chance that we might get a good lead?”

  “How are we getting a good lead?” asked Honey, who rejoined the conversation in time to hear that last phrase. She and Happy both looked between their older brothers expectantly.

  Hawk answered before he considered the wisdom of doing so. “Hummer wants to ambush one of the GCA’s branch offices.”

  “I’m game,” said Honey, much to his dismay. “I said we should do that weeks ago.”

  “And I said weeks ago that we weren’t going to take those kinds of risks,” Hawk replied.

  She waved a flippant hand. “Desperate times call for desperate measures. We’ve been free almost a whole month, and we’re no better off now than we were when we started. It’s time to start considering risks.”

  “Whatever we decide, everyone has to agree,” said Hawk, and he looked around at their faces one by one. Each in turn nodded. “And it has to be planned out. We don’t run headlong into a situation we can’t get ourselves out of. Understood?”

  “I hate the GCA,” said Happy suddenly. “I want to ambush them.”

  “So do I,” said his three siblings in unison.

  “Not fair, Happy,” said Hawk a moment later when he recovered his wits. Even without his youngest brother’s strong feelings on the matter, though, he suspected they would have come to this decision eventually.

  Eventually was just supposed to be a whole lot farther off than today.

  VIII

  Spaghetti and Stars

  July 30, 6:13pm mdt, Prometheus-F

  It took every last ounce of Emily’s patience to deal with Oliver that afternoon. He fixated on meeting with Genevieve Jones, and when she warned him that it probably wouldn’t happen, he only became more determined. At dinnertime, he demanded that they ferret out Birchard wherever he was hiding so that he could tell Oliver where Genevieve was staying for the night.