by Gini Koch
“Good choice.” I honestly felt that it was, even though Missy and I hadn’t gotten along all that well the few times I’d interacted with her. That was due to the fact that the “me” she’d met the first time had been Other Me during Operation Bizarro World. Apparently Other Me had impressed, and I’d messed up and ruined that initial good will. Oh well. We’d fix it. Somewhere along the line. “Tito’s coming to the White House, right?” I wanted Dr. Tito Hernandez close by, period, and not just because he was an amazing doctor—he was also a highly trained mixed martial arts fighter and incredibly smart.
He was sitting next to his future mother-in-law, Queen Renata from Beta Twelve, aka the Planet of Getting Less Pissed Off Daily Amazons. They were both being troopers and not demanding that we get to their main concern, which was that the two princesses, Rahmi and Rhee, had gone off on a secret mission during Operation Epidemic and were still missing and unaccounted for. Tito and Rahmi were engaged, and with Renata on Earth, they might be able to speed up the longest engagement in recent memory. If, you know, we could find Rahmi and Rhee, among others.
Tito smiled. “Yes, Kitty. We’ve already discussed it, and Magdalena is going to remain in the Embassy—she’s more than qualified to run their medical. Jeff’s already appointed me. I don’t have all my staff on board yet, but two of them will make you very happy.”
But before Tito could tell us who was going to make my day, my phone rang. Checked—an unknown number. Showed it to Jeff before I answered, because anonymous callers to my cell phone tended to indicate one thing and one thing only—enemy action was about to be perpetrated against us.
CHAPTER 4
“HELLO?” Chose to go with the simple answer, in case this was, as I so often hoped, AeroForceOne telling me that, against all the odds, I’d won a private meet and greet with Steven Tyler and Joe Perry.
“Madam First Lady, how good it is to hear your voice.”
As per usual, though, this wasn’t AeroForceOne, nor was it a voice I recognized. Ansom Somerall, one of the heads of Gaultier Enterprises, meaning one of our most likely sworn enemies, had been my Mystery Caller at the start of Operation Epidemic. But I’d saved his number to my phone, and this definitely wasn’t his voice. It sounded faintly European.
In addition to the politicians, U.S. agency and Centaurion Division personnel in the room, we also had two lobbyists with us—Lillian Culver and Guy Gadoire. Lillian was the head lobbyist for the weapons industry and Guy was the same for tobacco. Guy spoke in a French accent we all thought was faked. But since Guy and his husband, Vance Beaumont, were both here in the room, this wasn’t Guy on the line.
“And to whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?”
“We’ve never met. Yet. However, I believe I have something that you are very interested in.”
Decided that pretending to be the FLOTUS was a waste of effort. It was clearly time to toss on my Megalomaniac Girl cape and make the leaps so near and dear to every cackling madman’s or crazed evil genius’ heart.
During Operation Epidemic we’d lost the five flyboys—Jerry Tucker, Matt Hughes, Chip Walker, Joe Billings, and Randy Muir. Not to death, but to capture. By an invisible helicarrier created by one Gustav Drax. Rahmi and Rhee, under the lead of our deep cover agent, Camilla, had gone after them. Plus several security teams—P.T.C.U., Secret Service, and Centaurion Division Field—had all disappeared as well. I took the leap.
“Gustav Drax, what a thrill it is to hear your voice.”
The entire room stiffened and started paying full attention—Tim, since it was his team that was captured, Lorraine and Claudia, the Captains on Alpha Team who were married to Joe and Randy respectively, and Tito and Queen Renata, in particular.
Buchanan shoved off the wall he was leaning against and trotted over. As he’d done in the past, he shoved a small blinking device into my phone’s audio jack. Then he nodded to the other security folks in the room, all of whom pulled out their phones and started listening. So much for privacy. And apparently this was a new and improved model—the last time I’d had the special blinky receiver in my phone it had only worked as a tracer. Nice to see us always using the newest tech.
Of course, Chuckie was one of those listening, and he had his phone between his ear and Jeff’s. Noted that this was happening around the room. No privacy at all. So much for that plan of mine to run off with Drax.
Sincerely hoped this new tech was also getting a GPS fix on where Drax was, but figured we’d find out he was in a lead-walled room or something, because I knew exactly how our luck rolled.
Drax chuckled. “I was told you weren’t that . . . intuitive.”
“Yeah, well your intel is coming from what’s essentially a petulant child. Stephanie and I have never had a close relationship because, and I’m just spitballing here, she thinks I’m as much of a bitch as I think she is.”
Received a lot of WTF looks from the room, a look of utter horror from Antoinette, and a look of “that’s my girl” from Mom. Chose to focus on Mom thinking I was handling things fine.
“Ah . . . yes. I had heard you were blunt.”
“That I am. Why are you calling me?”
“Well . . .” He paused, presumably for breath or to cackle evilly. Decided I didn’t feel like drawing this out.
“Let me tell you why you’re calling.” Got even more WTF looks from everyone other than Mom who, like the rest of the Security Team, was listening to this on her own phone. “Your sales pitch was an unmitigated failure. Not only did you fail to impress the potential customers, but you lost your invisible commando force to capture. They’re singing like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, by the way, and who can blame them?”
“As to that—”
“Then you kidnapped five Navy pilots and their very expensive planes. Which is, last time I checked, an act of war against the United States. Since those were my flyboys you inconvenienced, it’s also an act of war with American Centaurion.”
“That wasn’t my—”
“Intent? I’m sure it wasn’t, dude. You can’t be as stupid as your sales pitch makes you seem. You also captured a variety of security personnel from the Rocky Mount train station, which included American government antiterrorism teams, Secret Service teams, and Centaurion Division teams, compounding your acts of war against the United States and American Centaurion. And now you’re hoping that the new regime is going to want to laugh this all under the rug.”
“Ah . . .”
“Yes?”
“Oh, you’re letting me speak. I wasn’t sure. I wouldn’t say that the term ‘act of war’ applies here. No one has been harmed.”
“Oh, I think I can look over at a war hero sitting in the room with me and get confirmation that the capture during peacetime of our five pilots is enough for the President to push the button down in your general direction.” Looked at McMillan, who nodded emphatically.
Drax cleared his throat. “Be that as it may, I was calling to suggest an exchange.”
“Excuse me while I laugh long and loudly. We’re going to find you, dude. Whether we bomb the hell out of you when we find you is the Question of the Hour. You may think you have bargaining chips, but we aren’t giving you your commandos back, ever. We’re not giving you anything, unless we decide—horrific first impressions aside—that you’re not an enemy or an idiot. So don’t try asking for one million dollars, either.”
“Ah, no, that wasn’t my intent.”
Raj and I exchanged a look. He was listening in with Evalyne, the head of my Secret Service detail. Evalyne, like most of the humans in the room—including those I’d have insisted didn’t possess a sense of humor they were aware of—all controlled snickers of some kind. The A-Cs, for the most part, however, looked blank, as did the Planetary Council.
Raj nodded at me then jerked his head toward the Planetary Council while he raised an eyebrow. Mouthed “
I love you” to him, then returned to my call.
“See, Gustav, may I call you Gustav?”
“Ah—”
“Super. Gustav, here’s the thing. I realize that your accent tells me you’re not from America. It sounds like it could be Eastern Bloc, German, Polish, or originating from any number of countries, which totally fits with the whole Mysterious Arms Dealer idiom you’re going with. However, even if you’re from the most backward country in the world, you’d have gotten the joke I passed just a moment ago.”
“You were joking?”
“No. I was referring to a very successful movie from years ago. Lines from that movie have been used and reused so many times that I’d bet that even in the rain forest, if I said that line, the people who live there would laugh or put their pinky up to their mouth.”
“What does a finger have to do with this?” Drax sounded totally confused. His tone matched the expressions of half of the room—the alien half, other than Raj and the few other troubadours in the room.
“It’s proof, as if I needed it, that you’re not actually from a foreign country. And I don’t think you’re from anywhere else on Earth, either, in part because that movie was a worldwide hit and in other part because you’ve literally come out of nowhere, and it’s hard to believe that a major player in the arms dealing business hasn’t hit someone’s radar by now.”
“You think I’m an American?”
“Hardly. There’s not an American alive who’d have missed that line. No, the only people I know who routinely don’t pay attention to our popular culture are, with very few exceptions, aliens. Just like you are.”
CHAPTER 5
THERE 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, p
lease. 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.
