by Gini Koch
Huh. Interesting. “So that’s considered a social status point?”
“Oh, yeah, why do you think my mother was trying to marry me off to Jeff?”
“Because he’s the head of Field.”
“That helped, but no, more because he’s Alfred’s only son.”
“Any idea what the Valentinos are doing here instead of being back in Florida?”
“Sylvia wanted to come out to see your baby, and she feels she didn’t get to spend any real time with you, Jeff, or Jamie, and she wants to. She insisted. Clarence didn’t want to come. They’ve been fighting the whole time they’ve been here. It’s hard to sleep they’re that loud.”
“Doreen, you’re the best. Hang tough, okay?”
“I will. And thanks for calling, Kitty. I feel a little better.”
“You weren’t letting Clarence’s opinion bother you, were you?”
She sighed. “No, but he reminded me so much of my parents. We’ve barely spoken since your wedding. It’s been nice, honestly. They just refuse to accept Irving, even though he’s the father of their grandchild.”
“Yeah. Prejudice and bigotry’s hard to fight.” We hung up, and I turned back to Jeff. “Seriously, which of your brothers-in-law work with or near the Diplomatic Corps?”
He shrugged. “All of them, in a way.”
“Want to explain that?”
“They’re like Paul is to Richard, the adjuncts for each of our main Diplomats.”
“Who are all lobbyists,” Chuckie added. “What’s their loyalty to your family over their own interests, man by man?”
Jeff shook his head. “Baby, I know where you two are going with this, and Christopher and I can’t stand them, but I’ve never picked up traitor from any of them.”
“Yeah? Let’s go visit Clarence and see what you pick up, okay?”
CHAPTER 34
I GRABBED MY PURSE and left the hospital room. Had a vague idea of where the elevators were from here. Sadly, Jeff was right—I had no idea where I was in most of the Science Center.
He caught up to me and grabbed my hand. “How is this getting Tim, or the other agents, back safely?”
“Not sure, just know it is. I don’t think we want to descend on the Embassy unless we know for sure that Tim’s there.”
He headed us to the elevator banks. Everyone was coming along, including Emily and Melanie. “Why didn’t Tim go to the Martinis’ with Alicia and the other agents?” Kevin asked as the elevator doors closed.
“No idea.” Well, that was a lie. I had an idea. Just wasn’t sure if it was right yet.
Jeff gave me the hairy eyeball, so I knew he’d picked up that I was hiding something. But he didn’t push it. “What are we doing, besides descending on my oldest sister and her husband like a lynch mob?”
“I’d love to lynch someone,” Chuckie muttered.
“Amy’s not the damn mole, okay?”
“We’ll see.” He stretched. “Of course, at the moment, we’re spoiled for choice.”
Kevin looked at me. “How many are working on the same plan?”
I managed a laugh. “God alone knows.”
“Yeah.” Kevin shook his head. “Reminds me of Florida. Too much.” It did me, too, but I chose to keep that to myself for this moment.
Reached the transient floor, got out, headed toward Tim’s room. Heard the fighting before we got halfway there. Wow, Doreen hadn’t been kidding. Sylvia and Clarence were in full-on domestic dispute.
“You know, my first superbeing was making a scene like this one. Guess we should be relieved we took the ozone shield down on Alpha Four.”
Jeff’s eyes were narrowed. “I hope he doesn’t talk to her like this in front of their kids.” He was growling, already at “rabid dog.”
I hoped my grandparents were in the library. I’d never heard my Papa Abe raise his voice to Nana Sadie. My father never raised his to my mother or me. Jeff bellowed, but never at me. He bellowed orders, warnings, and my name, but out of protection, not anger. Even when we were fighting, he didn’t scream at me.
I let go of Jeff’s hand and grabbed Chuckie. “Did you find out if anyone’s been pushing that drug?” I kept my voice low. Kevin moved up next to us.
“Not that we can tell.” He kept his voice low, too.
“We’re still searching, all covert ops, all Centaurion Bases,” Kevin added. “But it’s hard to do fast without alerting the people you want to catch that you’re after them.”
Chuckie cocked his head at me. “You thinking Clarence is trying to enhance himself?”
“No idea. But I should think Alfred would have done something about this if it was ongoing.”
“Never assume that. Families are different.”
“And what a man says in front of his wife’s father and when he’s alone with his wife can be very different.” Kevin wasn’t smiling. I got the impression hearing the Valentinos fight was upsetting him as much as Jeff. “What’s behind closed doors is very different from what the public sees, many, many times.”
“True.” Left my Feds and went back to Jeff. He was in front of the door, and I could tell he was furious.
“Why are you always taking their side?” I could just recognize this voice as Clarence’s. I’d only talked to him a couple of times, but it was a safe bet since it was coming from the room they were in.
“Because they’re my family! You know, Jeff has never said a bad word about you to me, and neither has Christopher. Why do you think you can just sit here and insult them to me?” Sylvia’s voice, for sure.
“Oh, God! Yes, yes, Mister Wonderful and his sidekick, Mister the Other Wonderful. You know, Jeff’s been carrying Christopher for years. Takes his eyes off him for one minute, and Christopher shows how weak he is.”
I started to get pissed off. More than I already was.
“He made a mistake! You couldn’t handle the pressure either one of them have for a week, let alone for the past dozen years!” Sylvia sounded furious and ready to cry. What she didn’t sound was surprised. This was an old, old argument.
“So it’s the pressure thing again. Jeff’s under pressure. Christopher’s under pressure. You never care that I’m under pressure!”
“What pressure? You work for a diplomat! You take notes at meetings and run a calendar. How is that comparable to protecting our entire race and this planet on an hourly basis?”
I noted that Jeff seemed shocked by Sylvia’s comments. I sidled closer to him. “I’ll explain later, but trust me when I tell you that your sisters think you walk on water, Christopher, too, even though they’ve really hidden that from the two of you.”
He nodded. “Can I kill Clarence, do you think?”
“I think it would upset Sylvia. Let me handle this, okay?”
Jeff looked at me as if I were crazy. “No.”
“You have no idea what kind of pressures I have! You just sit around all day, making demands and worshiping your father, brother, and cousin!”
“I take care of our children. And I work, and you know it!”
“What does Sylvia do?” I kept my voice low, not that there was any need.
“Handles minor science stuff out of D.C. She’s got five kids, it’s not as though she has a lot of time to do much else, even though most of them are older. None of them are out of the house yet.”
“Are any of the kids here?”
“No, they’d be in a different section if there were more of them, toward where your parents stay, the larger rooms.” I could tell Jeff was controlling himself from breaking down the door. I was very impressed.
I looked down. Jamie was fast asleep. I had to figure ACE was blocking this from her, because there was no way she could miss hearing this, and her baby animal senses couldn’t miss picking up the levels of stress that were raging through this area.
“Wonderful. And we’re here, away from where we both work, why? Oh, wait, I forgot. So you could fawn over that human bitch your idiot brother married and thei
r spawn. And, God forbid, we miss visiting your pathetic cousin. How many times are you going to go down there to see what you can do? All he wants is another shot of Surcenthumain.”
“Which should concern you! Someone addicted my cousin, and all you can do is belittle him for it.”
“He addicted himself, and willingly.”
I put my hand on Jeff’s arm. “Stay. I mean it. Chuckie, I just found our dealer.”
“Yep. What do you recommend?”
I considered. Jamie was still asleep. What a good baby. I considered my options and decided it was too early for Jamie to get in on the action with me. Maybe when she was more than a week old.
I unhooked the carrier and handed Jamie to Emily, who gave me a look that said she was fully aware of what I was about to do and that she approved. Melanie stepped in front of them and gave me the “go girl” look.
“What I always recommend. Don’t piss off the comics geek-girl.” I went to the door and kicked it in. Hey, I was impressed with Jeff’s restraint. Didn’t mean I had any to spare. Wood splintered and flew everywhere. Very cool. Happily, it missed the room’s occupants. Well, happily that it missed Sylvia. I was okay with it impaling Clarence, but no such luck. I walked in. They were both staring at me openmouthed.
“Clarence, never a pleasure. Hey, Sylvia. I’d like you to, you know, leave the room for a minute.”
“Kitty, we were just . . . arguing.” It was clear Sylvia knew how lame that sounded.
“Yeah. See, I know why the cops avoid domestic disputes. Married couples shrieking and yelling at each other bothers everyone else a lot. Cops show up, married couple now have a mutual target.” I looked at her. “But I’m not a cop.”
I moved, and I knew it was fast, and kicked Clarence right in the gut with one of my best side-blade kicks ever. He flew back and doubled over. “My spawn and I would like to introduce you to Kevin Lewis of the Presidential Terrorism Control Unit and Charles Reynolds, head of the C.I.A.’s Extraterrestrial Division. Chuckie and Kevin have interesting views on how to extract information. But you can be happy with this knowledge—they’re both a lot nicer than I am.”
Clarence might have been a lot older than me, but he was still an A-C. He got up and lunged. Never got near me. Because Jeff grabbed him and threw him into the hall. Chuckie caught him and used his alien-nerve pinch, or whatever it was that pretty much ensured he, as a human, could take out an A-C if he needed to. Kevin cuffed Clarence in less than a second. My men were impressive, I had to admit it.
“Keep him awake, Chuckie, I have some questions. Sylvia, has Clarence been this much of a jerk all your married life?” She looked shaken, and she didn’t answer. “Babe, we have that whole fate of the world and all the people we like in it thing going on again. Really, stop acting like you’re an idiot and get with the program. Answers, now. How long has your husband been like this?”
“For years. But if you mean to this level, only since we met you.” Her voice was low and her eyes were cast down.
“Yeah, I figured. I do bring out the best in people. Talk to your little brother for a minute, I think he’s going to pop a vessel and could use some big sister soothing. And vice versa, Jeff.”
I went out and grabbed Clarence by the throat. I lifted him off the ground. “Wow, James, this is just like when I had that weird dream during Operation Fugly.”
“It’s freaky from this vantage point, girlfriend, I can tell you that. What’s the plan with our favorite drug dealer here?” Reader sounded almost as angry as I felt.
“What are you talking about?” Clarence gasped out.
“AMY!” I bellowed. Not up to Jeff’s standards, but no one in two solar systems was.
I heard a door open. “Kitty? Is everything okay?” She sounded as though she’d been hiding in her room. The door on the other side opened, and Doreen and Irving peeped out. Yeah, domestic disputes did that.
“No. French class is a long way away for me, but not for you. Check my translation. Surhumain means superhuman, right?”
“Right.”
I started to squeeze Clarence’s neck. “Alpha and Airborne don’t have a special name for that crap you gave Christopher. We just call it the Club Fifty-One drug. But you called it Surcenthumain. Super Centaurion human, if I want to be literal. A French name for the most dangerous drug available to an A-C. Lord knows what it does to a human.” Though I had a good guess. I was holding a guy double my size off the floor, after all. “So, who’s making it, and how much is out there already?”
He glared at me. “You have no idea of what you’re dealing with.”
“No? I think I do. You’re dealing with Ronaldo Al Dejahl. In fact, all the Diplomatic Corps is. They don’t mind that he’s the son of Ronald Yates—they’re all for it. Because they’re on some purity of the race kick . . . still. Not that this plan works well for you all. But, boy, are some of you really hooked into it.”
“You’re single-handedly destroying our race.”
“Blah, blah, blah. I’m the single-handedly-ruin-it-all girl, go me. You’re using Christopher as a guinea pig. It’s been tested on Jeff and Serene, but not by A-Cs. In order to counter something, you have to know what it can do, and you have to have enough of it around to test. Then there’s the whole pure versus synthetic issue. We need to find out if Christopher’s been injecting pure or not.”
“I have no idea.” Clarence, like most A-Cs, couldn’t lie. He was looking anywhere but at me.
“Right. So, Al Dejahl’s offered, what? Money, power? So you can sell him this drug or, lord knows, just give it to him, and he can create a race of super-Centaurions? So they can take over the world?”
Clarence glared at me. Not up to Christopher’s standards. No one was. Jeff had bellowing, Christopher had glaring—they were both the unquestioned champions of their events.
“You people are aware that Ronaldo’s the product of a human mother?” Clarence’s mouth twitched, but he got it under control. I stared at him. “Jeff? I need to talk to Richard, immediately.”
A cell was offered. I dropped Clarence and took it. Chuckie had the nerve-pinch thing going. Kevin punched Clarence in the gut, I figured just because he wanted to. I loved my guys.
“Missus Martini. Jeffrey sounded very tense.”
“Yes, well, we’ve discovered the usual ugliness. Mister White, how old was the man you met with, the one who said his name was Gaultier?”
“He was an older man. However, Mister Reynolds felt I wasn’t meeting with the, as you put it, Head Fugly, but one of his associates.”
I watched Clarence carefully. “So he was a young man, around, oh, twenty-five?” Clarence twitched and looked away.
“Beg pardon? I said he was older. About my age.”
“And he gave you a feeling of familiarity?” Clarence’s whole body was tensed, I could see it and Chuckie nodded to me.
“Missus Martini, perhaps I’m not coming through?”
“Perfectly, Mister White. Perfectly. I’ll fill you in later. I have some traitors to deal with first, however.”
“I see our luck holds firm.”
“You know it.” I handed the phone back to Jeff. “Ronaldo’s not a hybrid, is he?”
“He’s not?” Jeff sounded confused.
Chuckie gave me a long look. “He’s Serene’s older brother, isn’t he?”
CHAPTER 35
“GOT IT IN ONE! Not that I doubted you for a second,
Chuckie.” Clarence’s reaction had been pretty much textbook A-C trying to lie, and it said very clearly that we had a bigger problem than we’d thought. Par for our course.
“Yeah.” Chuckie looked toward Amy. “Still say you’re too trusting.”
“Possibly. But I doubt it. Take my relative by marriage down to a nasty cell and do the C.I.A. thing, will you? Be sure to stay available by phone.”
“Happily. I’d like some company.”
“I want to keep you or Kevin with us, and you interrogate better, so . . .�
�
“Tito, go with him.” Jeff looked to Reader. “James—”
“Staying here.” He pulled out his phone. “I need two teams, transient floor, ASAP.” Waited a couple of seconds, four guys in the Armani fatigues appeared. “Help Reynolds and Tito. Do what they say.”
They nodded, and the pack of them went off, down to the fifteenth floor, I was fairly sure.
Sylvia was sobbing quietly. “He’s not a bad man.” Jeff had his arm around her. It was the closest I’d ever seen them.
“Most traitors aren’t. They just convince themselves that doing the wrong thing makes sense.”
Doreen came out of their room. “What have my parents done?”
“You know what I love most about you, Doreen? Your ability to know exactly who’s behind this crap every time.”
She sighed. “I grew up with them.” She shuddered. “I hope our baby’s nothing like either one of them.”
“Your baby will be like you and Irving.” I sincerely hoped. I had another thought. “Did Tim call you?”
“Yeah, hours ago, though. He wanted to know what the security was on the Embassy. Said he wanted to verify it was working. I told him. Was that wrong?” She looked worried.
“No, it’s great.” I hugged her. “Look, do me a favor. I have to talk to Jeff. Can you two get Sylvia calmed down and, I don’t know, take her somewhere else?”
“We were going to go down to the library. That’s where your grandparents said they were going. And it sounded like they were kind of having a party.”
“Great! They’ll love having the three of you. Sylvia, be sure to spend some time with my Nona Maria. She’ll be happy to tell you about my Aunt Carla’s ex-husbands, all of whom will make Clarence sound good.” I actually felt for any man stupid enough to marry my Aunt Carla, but my Nona had a different take on it.
Jeff hugged Sylvia tightly, then Doreen and Irving took her and went off. I looked around. “Amy, have to ask you something.”
She was staring at me. “I think I should be asking you. How did you hold that man off the ground? Like it was nothing?”
