by Gini Koch
“You’re packing heat! And you’re a federal officer! I don’t call those secrets, I call those lies.”
“I can give her the Reader’s Digest version if you want,” Reader called out. “I read your whole file.”
“Go for it,” Mom said. “I don’t find looking back all that interesting.”
Reader laughed. “Fine. Okay, at sixteen, your mother was on a school trip to Washington, D.C. During an excursion, she heard another girl being attacked, so your mom went and saved this girl from being raped.”
Mom shook her head. “No one else, men included, were doing anything. It was the middle of the day, and she was screaming for help. It wasn’t a hard choice.”
“This girl turned out to be the daughter of a senator,” Reader went on. “Needless to say, the whole family was grateful, the senator to the point that he took a fatherly interest in your mother’s career. He sent her to college, provided training, was her patron, really.”
“He was a great man,” Mom said fondly. “I still miss him.”
Recognition hit. “Are you talking about Grandpa Roger?”
Mom smiled. “One and the same. He was like a second father to me, and it meant so much to him that you considered him family.”
“So Aunt Emily is the daughter you saved?”
She nodded. “Why do you think she always wanted you to take self-defense classes?”
I had to let this sink in. I’d known Grandpa Roger, Aunt Emily, and the rest of their family weren’t really blood relations. But Emily was my mother’s best friend, even though they lived across the country from each other, and never once had anyone shared that Grandpa Roger had been in politics. They’d never really talked about how they met, either, and I’d never seen them all that often growing up, though they’d always sent great presents at my birthday. The why for all of this was a real revelation, though.
Reader went on. “In addition to other pursuits, your mother is possibly the only non-Israeli, non-Jew who’s been a member of the Mossad.”
“You’re in the Mossad?” I managed not to scream this question out. My mother was in the Israeli Intelligence Agency? How had that happened?
“Was. How do you think I met your father?”
“Dad was in the Mossad!?” This seemed completely impossible.
“Oh, no,” Mom laughed. “He was on a trip to Israel, though, when we met.”
This story I knew. They’d met at a café in Tel Aviv. Dad had been impressed that someone who wasn’t Jewish was living in Israel, Mom had thought Dad was really handsome, the rest was history. But I wanted the details now.
“So, how’d you meet him, really?”
“At the café, just as we’ve told you. Only, I was following him for his protection. He was there with a college group that was marked for attack by one of the many terrorist factions in the Middle East. Jewish-American graduate students, it was like waving a red flag in front of bulls.”
“And he didn’t know?”
“Well, he figured it out when the bullets started flying,” Mom said casually, as if this were a normal courtship tale. “He thought it was sexy,” she added with the smile she always had whenever she was thinking about Dad in a romantic way.
“Ugh. I think it’s unreal. So then what?”
“Then she supposedly retired and started work as a consultant,” Reader supplied. “Only, retired applied to being an active agent for the Mossad. In reality, she went to work for the American government in an antiterrorist organization.”
“You work for the C.I.A.?” I wondered whether there was anything I actually knew about my mother.
She laughed again. “No. It’s a smaller organization, reporting directly to the White House. We work independently of the other federal agencies. Besides,” she said, patting my knee, “I really am a consultant.”
“Yeah, in the past twenty-eight years, she’s mostly consulted with international and multinational corporations, teaching them how to protect against terrorist attacks, how to get their people out of hostage situations, things like that.”
“So you got pregnant and had to slow down?” I asked a bit more sarcastically than I’d intended.
Mom shook her head. “You make sacrifices for your child, and all she can do is be resentful.”
“So, how long have you known about the aliens?”
Mom looked completely shocked. “What aliens?”
Martini coughed, loudly. “Uh, maybe we should cover that back at headquarters.”
“She doesn’t know?” I was shouting, but I’d had about all I could take.
Christopher turned around. “What’s the matter, princess? Want to turn all the work over to Mommy?”
I lunged at him. I would have gotten him, too, even though he jerked away toward the windshield, if Martini hadn’t grabbed me by the waist. “Listen, you little weasel, let’s go, right here.” I clawed at him, I’d had enough.
“Katherine Katt!” Mom’s tone was one I’d heard all my life: I was in trouble.
“He started it!”
“And I’m finishing it.” Mom pushed on my shoulders, gently, and I let Martini pull me back next to him. She turned around. “Christopher, I rather like you, but if you insult my daughter again in my presence, I’ll break your neck. And trust me, I can do it.” She turned back. “That goes for the rest of you, too.”
There was dead silence in the limo. Gower and Martini were exchanging meaningful looks. I got the impression they were trying to make escape plans in case Mom or I totally lost it. Christopher was glowering and looked embarrassed. Reader was driving in the intent way people do when they do not want to engage the rest of the car’s occupants at all. And I was seething at Christopher and still trying to readjust my entire life’s history into what I’d learned in the last few minutes.
On cue, my cell phone rang. Everyone jumped, and I dug through my purse for it. It took a little longer to find than usual—the run in with Mephistopheles had jumbled stuff up more than normal. I got my phone opened on the sixth ring. “Hi, Dad!”
“Kitty, sorry I’m calling a little late, couldn’t get off the phone with your Aunt Karen. So, how goes it?”
Wow. Now there was a question I had no idea how to answer. “Um . . . pretty good.” Well, we were all alive, right? That was on the good end of the spectrum.
“You sound funny. Are you really okay?”
No, but I didn’t think telling him that was a good idea. “I’m pretty good. Kind of tired. Lots of running around.”
“Are you in Guantánamo?” he asked sharply.
I managed a strangled laugh. “No, Dad, I’m in a limo.”
“Oh, nice. Hero treatment? Good. So, everything else okay? Do I need to call Uncle Mort?”
“No, no Uncle Mort right now.” I looked at Mom, in case she disagreed. She nodded.
“You know, I can’t reach your mother,” he said. “Maybe she’s back on the plane.”
“Um, I don’t know why you can’t reach Mom,” I said, giving her the “what now” look.
She sighed and held out her hand. I put the phone in it. “Hi, honey,” she said. There was a pause while I figured Dad reassessed the situation. “Yes, I’m with Kitty.” Pause. “Noooo, we’re not in Vegas.” She gave me the “what the hell” look. I did the universal “fake it” response.
“No, in New York.” Pause. “Yes, Kitty’s new friends in . . .” Martini, Gower, and I all mouthed, “Homeland Security,” “. . . Homeland Security came and picked me up.”
Pause, eye roll. “Yes, they have fast jets.” Pause, closed eyes. “We’re fine. Really.” Sigh, eyes open. “Yes, it’s related to my job.” Annoyed face. “No, I did not ask them to pull Kitty in. You shouldn’t even have to ask that.” Really annoyed face. “No, you are not calling Mort. If I want backup, I will call for backup. I do not want backup, we do not need backup, and Kitty is an adult and is doing just fine, thank you.”
Longer pause while I guessed Dad was ranting. Mom had a ver
y resigned, heard it all before look on her face. “Honey? I love you, Kitty loves you, and we are in the middle of helping Homeland Security with a major situation, so, please, stop worrying.”
Stop worrying? She tells him that and he’s supposed to not worry? I started questioning Mom’s ability to handle a situation that didn’t involve guns.
Mom sighed again. “Honey, look, everything’s fine.” Narrowed eyes. “No, I don’t know there are several gray cars parked around the house.” I made violent movements, pointing at Martini, Gower, the limo, and the car behind us. Mom nodded. “They’re probably Homeland Security vehicles.”
Ah, her “duh” look. “Yes, guarding you.” Double duh. “Yes, to keep you safe.” Rolling eyes again. “No, frankly, I think spending our tax dollars on your protection is a good use of funds. I couldn’t care less about some stupid owls in Oregon, okay?” Ah, their old argument. Dad was far more ecologically minded than Mom. I knew where this conversation was headed.
I cleared my throat. Mom looked over. “I’ll take it from here,” I suggested as I put my hand out.
“Love you, honey, here’s Kitty back,” Mom said hurriedly. She flung my phone back to me.
“Dad, let’s keep it down to just a family level, okay?” I said, as I heard him start in on his usual eco-friendly rant.
“Fine,” he said, clearly still upset. “What is really going on?”
“Pretty much what I told you. When they discovered I was related to Mom, they pulled her in. Nice of the two of you to share what she really did for a living.”
Guilt trips always worked on my father. He went instantly into contrition mode. “Kitten, I’m sorry. We didn’t want you to worry. Your mother knows what she’s doing, and she hasn’t done fieldwork since before you were born.” This I felt was a whopping lie, but I also had a feeling Dad might not know it was a lie.
“Okay, whatever. Look, Dad, I’ll deal with it. We’re okay, but we really need to get back to work. Don’t let anyone in who isn’t really drop-dead handsome, okay?”
Long pause. “I don’t really know what you or your mother consider handsome,” Dad shared, sounding embarrassed and a little grossed out.
“Dad, if a woman or a man comes to the door who is less good-looking than Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie, do not open the door.”
“Angelina Jolie might be by?” Dad suddenly sounded perky. Great, this was information I hadn’t wanted.
“Not likely, but who knows? However, anyone not as good-looking as those two should not be allowed inside, got it?”
“Sure. You sure you’re with Homeland Security and not some Hollywood producer?”
I found myself wishing I’d gone with the Hollywood lie in the first place. Too late to use it now. “No, we’re not about to star in a major motion picture. Dad, just relax. I think you can stop calling every two hours, though.” Mom nodded emphatically. “Mom agrees,” I added.
“I’m sure she does,” he huffed. “Well, I want regular reports from you two, then.”
“Dad!”
“Well, when you can. I’m on the edge of my seat here, wondering if my girls are safe or not.”
He had a real point. “Okay, Dad, I promise one of us will call you the next break we get. We’re perfectly safe, though,” I lied.
“Okay, kitten. Well, love to you and your mother. Tell her I’m not upset any more.”
“Will do, Dad. Love you.” I hung up. “He’s not mad at you any more.”
Mom snorted. “So he claims.”
“I’d take it,” Martini suggested.
“Right now, I just want to take a nap,” I said.
“No sleep ’til Home Base,” Gower stated.
“I’d rather go for no sleep ’til Brooklyn.” Everyone gave me a blank stare.
Reader laughed. “Don’t think we have time to take in a Beastie Boys concert, girlfriend.” At least there was one person in the car who I could relate to. That I had the most in common with a former international male model was an irony I was too tired to marvel over.
“Pity. I could use the rest. Yes, okay,” I said to Gower’s angry look, “no sleeping until we’re back. So, where are we going now?”
“Safe transference point,” Martini answered.
I thought about it. “Heading to LaGuardia are we?”
He grinned. “I’d like a lot of kids,” he said to Mom. “But we’re still discussing it.”
She sighed. “Ask her how often she has to get new fish before you make a final decision.”
CHAPTER 12
THE TRIP TO LA GUARDIA WAS QUIET. And slow. We were stuck in rush hour traffic, which in New York is impressive.
Everyone was tired, so we didn’t talk much. I was okay with that. It gave me more time to plot how to run Christopher over with a truck.
A little whining from Martini got Gower to reverse the no napping mandate, and pretty soon everyone but Reader and me seemed out.
Martini shifted in his sleep, put his arm around me, and pulled me next to him. I wondered whether he was really asleep, but I figured he wouldn’t have let his head bob against the seat and the window if he was awake. I shoved my purse between his head and the window and he snuggled into it.
Christopher was slouched into the corner of the front seat, Gower was sleeping in the same way across from Martini, and Mom had curled into a ball, using her purse as a pillow. For some reason, all of them sleeping made me more alert.
I saw Reader look at me in the rearview mirror. “You can snooze too, if you want,” he offered. “I’m fine.”
I shook my head. “I’d like to, but someone else has to be conscious.” Even though I was bone tired, I was also totally wired and wide awake.
He grinned. “Yeah, we have to watch over our brothers from another planet.”
“True enough.” I considered everything that had happened today and was very proud that I was more interested in getting some answers than in freaking out. “So, they have all these things like gates and we sit in traffic?”
“That’s the way it goes, girlfriend.”
“Why?”
He was quiet for a moment. “Some because it helps keep a lower profile. Some because our enemies might not expect it. And some because they want to fit in.”
This seemed possible if they were hanging with a lot of other male models. Not so likely if they were wandering around with the rest of us. “Does it actually work? The fitting in, I mean.”
“Somewhat. Jeff’s the best at it, by a long shot.”
“You just trying to make me like him?”
Reader chuckled. “No. But of all of them, he’s the most adaptable. Always has been, at least since he was a teenager.”
I thought about Chuckie for some reason. He was adaptable, too. He’d had to be—the smartest guy in the room tends to draw a lot of unwanted attention from big, mean jerks. Chuckie had grown up into a really awesome adult, which made me wonder if Martini had been similar in childhood. Then again, call it loyalty, call it stubbornness, but it was going to be hard for anyone to prove to me that they were a match for Chuckie’s brainpower.
The urge to send a text to Chuckie telling him what was really going on was almost overpowering. I mean, even Professor X and Brainiac liked to hear they were right now and again. I glanced at Martini. He was still clearly asleep. And I was plotting to share his existence with someone not in the know, and he wasn’t reacting to it. “How can Martini be napping?”
“Um, he’s tired?”
“No, I mean, he’s an empath. He said he was really powerful.”
“He is. Jeff’s the most powerful empath on the planet.”
“Impressive. But he’s asleep.”
“I’m not following you, girlfriend.”
I tried to figure out how to explain what I meant without sharing that I wanted to let Chuckie in on the Big Secret. Well, per the confusing explanation of A-C hyperspeed ability, Reader was also a comics fan. “Daredevil has to sleep in that whole immersion chambe
r thing in order to drown out all the sound.”
“Oh! Gotcha. Well, it’s a little different for the empaths. They have blocks.”
I sighed. “Really, Martini told me that much already. I don’t understand what they are or how they work. And, is it like in the X-Men, where the mutant powers usually show up during puberty?”
“I don’t fully understand it all, either, since Paul’s not an empath, but I’ll give it a shot. A-C talents can show up any time before adulthood, which for them is similar to us—around twenty-one. The stronger the talent, the earlier it shows. The average is, like for the X-Men, somewhere around puberty.”
“So, what happens when the acne coincides with the ability to know how mad your mother really is with your crashing her car?”
“I’m not going to ask why you used that example, girlfriend. The A-Cs test all their kids when they’re young to spot talent inclination. It’s only an issue for some of their talents. I mean, scientific aptitude doesn’t mean you have to shut anything off.”
I thought about the fun Chuckie had had prior to college. “Other than maybe your brain.”
Reader chuckled. “Yeah. So, the empathic-likely get trained in how to block off emotions. It becomes not quite as automatic as breathing but about as automatic as blocking a punch if you’ve trained in a fighting form long enough.”
“Okay. Martini mentioned drugs.”
“Yeah. They shoot a variety of drugs into the empaths. None of them are harmful to their metabolisms—it’s not like they’re addicts. The drugs enhance the blocks and blocking ability and strengthen their empathic synapses.”
“How often do they wear off?”
“Depends on the empath and what he’s doing. The more activity, physical and emotional in particular, or the more onslaught of emotions hitting the empath, the sooner they burn out.”
“So, getting into a fight with your mother would burn you out?”
“Depends on the fight. But a fight like we just had with Mephistopheles, where people you care about are in danger and you’re also physically fighting? That can wear you down fast.”
“Is that why he’s sleeping?”
“Probably. And he’s learned to put what they call sleep blocks up automatically. From what Paul’s told me, Jeff can and does sleep like a rock, unless someone nearby is in real danger, because their emotions have to be off the charts and they have to be the negative ones—fear, hatred, and the like—or he’s trained to ignore them.”
