Alien Diplomacy (34 page)

“Boys, don’t start.”

Jeff shook his head. “I hate saying it, but Reynolds is right. And, frankly, I should have run that decision by James and Tim—and you,” he added to Chuckie. “So, this one’s my screw-up. Walter, turn all the video feeds for all the public areas back on, please.”

While Walter quickly complied, I stared at the pictures our doorway cameras had caught. “Those guys aren’t Peter the Dingo Dog or Surly Vic. But they look familiar.” I considered. “Can someone get everyone else back inside, and get Len, Kyle, and Mister Joel Oliver in here, please?”

“I’ll get them,” Jeff said. “You two check out and dismantle those bugs,” he added to Chuckie and Christopher.

The three of them trotted off. “I’m sorry about the bugs, Chief,” Walter said quietly.

“Walt, they didn’t get to do whatever else they’d planned only because you refused to leave this Embassy unattended. I’m not joking, you’re the only one of us who’s actually doing a good job.”

He perked up a little. “Thanks, Chief. You’re not doing as badly as you think you are, you know.”

“Ha. I’m betting I’m doing worse than I think I am. But you know, we do persevere, right?”

“That’s the spirit,” Oliver said as he and the boys joined us. “I’ll be happy to give you some pointers about how to survive in this town.”

“Later. I’ll take your course. It can’t be worse than The Washington Wife class.”

“How is Darcy?”

I looked at him. He looked sincerely interested. “You’re kidding me. You know her?”

“Quite well.” Oliver shot me a small smile. “I imagine you’re driving her crazy. Carry on; it’s good for her. Now, what did you need from me and the young gentlemen?”

Kyle pointed at the screen. “Those guys look familiar. But I don’t know why.”

“I do,” Len said. “They were driving the cabs that were after us yesterday.”

“Y
EAH, THAT’S WHAT I THOUGHT.
But they’re not wearing their fake beards.”

“Too obvious for the situation,” Oliver said.

“True, they were pretty lame.”

“But I agree,” Oliver went on. “That one was the one who spoke to you.” He pointed at one of the men on the video.

“He was the one in charge,” Walter confirmed.

“Do the videos capture sound, too?”

Walter shook his head. “There’s too much interference under most circumstances. We need different cameras installed if we want to capture sound, too. At least sound we can distinguish as more than a cacophony.”

“Great. Well, at least we have something, and faces are probably more important than voices right now. Let’s blow these up and get Mom’s and Chuckie’s people on the whole recognition database thingies.” I looked at the images as Walter did the picture captures and size increases. “These guys don’t look anything like the Dingo Dog or Surly Vic.”

“We know they’re not the same people,” Kyle said patiently.

“No, I mean they don’t look like they come from the same part of the world. Can someone get Nurse Carter in here?”

I heard a sigh behind me and turned just in time to see Jeff zip off. He was back momentarily, Nurse Carter in tow. She gagged a little from the hyperspeed and was then positioned in front of the monitors. We were back to
Night at the Opera
status. I took heart—the last time we’d had a ton of our own people shoved into a smaller room, we’d figured out what was going on.

I gave her the fast high-level “we’ve been infiltrated and are being bugged downstairs” recap. “So, we’re hoping you can identify our intruders.”

Nurse Carter stared at the pictures. “I don’t know them,” she said finally.

So much for that idea—even the Marx Brothers were letting the team down. I tried another guess. “Do you think they could be your countrymen?”

She nodded slowly. “It’s possible.”

“How probable?” Chuckie asked as he and Christopher shoved into the room.

“I’m really not sure.” Nurse Carter shook her head. “I’m sorry.” She turned around. “So, what are you going to do with me?”

“Keep you here, with us, under guard,” Chuckie answered without missing a beat. Jeff and Christopher both nodded.

Either Nurse Carter was already aware that if the three of them were in agreement, arguing was fruitless or she didn’t mind sticking around. “Good. I would prefer to be here, I think.”

“Why so?”

She smiled at me. “After what’s been going on, I believe you’re working for the same goals I am. And under the circumstances, I don’t want to be left alone to be murdered by whoever’s trying to kill people.”

I saw Chuckie nudge Jeff, who grunted. “Like with Caroline, telling the truth as she knows it, and not picking up anything negative toward any of us.” He looked at Walter. “Have all bases scan us again.”

“And our neighbors, if they can.”

Everyone looked at me. “Why?” Christopher asked finally.

I rolled my eyes. “Really? I’m the only one here who’s ever heard of high-powered surveillance equipment? Really, Chuckie?”

He sighed. “Good point.”

“I’ve heard of it,” Christopher snapped. “I just don’t get what you’re going for, having us use it to spy on our neighbors.”

“Dude, seriously, has Tito given you any tests to ensure your brain wasn’t affected negatively by the Surcenthumain? Every Embassy around us was infiltrated in some way today. I’m betting none of them had their version of Walter hanging around, because no human can run fast enough to escape if the place goes boom. So, they could have put in any amount of surveillance, trained on
us
, and our neighbors would be none the wiser. I want Chuckie to look for what’s looking at us. I’m not trying to see what the Irish and Romanians wear under their kilts.”

“They don’t wear kilts,” Christopher snapped.

“I know. Figure of speech, okay?”

“Sorry, just having trouble keeping up with the Kittyisms.”

I decided to end our spat. We were only having it because everyone was freaked out and upset. “Look, let’s just get the good cameras in here and going so we can all relax. About that, if nothing else.”

Chuckie sighed. “I have to agree. Martini, are you actually equipped for this?”

Jeff nodded. “I’m sure we are. Dulce or NASA Base should have something on hand that will work. However, we’ve just moved into Alpha Team territory.” He rubbed his forehead. “Let’s go downstairs and see what James wants to do.”

“Wait.” Everyone looked at me. “Walter, what do our video feeds show? They were running, right, when the fire alarms went off?”

“Yes, Chief.” He fiddled with some knobs and the picture changed. I saw everyone other than me, Jeff, and Walter go out the front door. Then the film went dark. “What the—” Walter fiddled with some more knobs and flipped some switches. Still all we saw was blackness.

“Was our equipment tampered with?” Jeff asked, voice taut.

“Possible,” Walter said, still intent and fiddling. “Switching to see the feeds on the other external locations.” They were black, too. One moment boring nothing going on, the next, they went dark.

A thought occurred. “Walt, fast forward the feeds.” He did as requested. Suddenly there were pictures again. “How many cameras did we have on before Jeff had you turn them all back on?”

“Just three, Chief. The one for the front door, the one for the side, where we take out the trash and get deliveries, and the one for the underground garage.”

I sighed. “There are three of them. It wouldn’t take a lot to toss something over the cameras covering the side and the garage, right?”

“How would they knock out the camera at the front door?” Chuckie asked.

I pondered. “They didn’t come in from the front, that’s where all of you were. They came in from the side or underground. One of them turned off the front camera feed, just in case. They probably put dark cloth over the other cameras—they were in here, casing the place, after all. I’m sure they looked for and found all the various cameras’ plugs.”

“They went into every room, Chief,” Walter confirmed. “They said they had to be sure each room didn’t contain a leak. And you can leave the cameras running while blacking out the pictures, so the offline alert wouldn’t be triggered.”

“Yeah, they might be lame with their taxi driving, but they knew what they were doing inside. So they flipped the fire alarm switch in some way and trotted in here without a problem because they already knew their way around. After all, Walter wasn’t watching the cameras, was he? He was trying to figure out where the supposed fire was. He wasn’t looking for someone to try to come in when, during a fire alarm, everyone wants to go out.”

“That’s true, Chief.” Walter sounded dejected. “I never checked the video feeds.”

“Not your fault. You acted just as they expected, meaning normally. Besides, Jeff had you turn most of the cameras off, so I’ll wager you’re not a big fan of watching them, because you know it makes us feel uncomfortable.”

Walter blushed, so I knew I’d hit that one on the head. “We haven’t had a need before, Chief.”

“There’s a need now,” Chuckie said. “But Kitty’s theory makes sense. The garage has more security, so assume they came in and left through the side. It would be fairly easy to block that camera, which we need to remedy, by the way.”

“Will do,” Walter said quickly. “I’ll get expanded lenses onto all the cameras tomorrow, Mister Reynolds.”

Chuckie nodded. “Good, but for all we know, they blocked it earlier in the day, and we just didn’t notice, though they could have just as easily worn dark clothing and ski masks to cover the cameras right before they triggered the alarm. They got what they were looking for, turned the front camera back on, left through the side entrance and removed whatever they’d put on the camera there, went to the garage entrance, removed whatever was covering that camera, and walked on down the street.”

Jeff sighed. “Let’s go share the latest news with Alpha Team.”

“Why?” Christopher asked morosely.

Jeff chuckled mirthlessly. “I don’t want to be greedy. Let’s share the misery with our friends and family.”

W
E LEFT WALTER AND TROOPED
to the elevator. Why make the humans sick for no reason? We’d undoubtedly have a reason shortly.

There were a number of agents zipping through our facility. “We figured if they could plant bugs in the ballroom, there was a chance for elsewhere,” Tim said as we joined him, Reader, Gower, and Serene, all of whom looked tense and alert but fully in charge. At least someone was.

“There was a chance for more than bugs,” I said. “We’re really batting a thousand right now on getting fooled, scammed, and ripped off.”

We shared the wonderful news that we’d lost the picture and had been far too easily broken into while all of us were essentially on the premises while I wondered if the Suicide Hotline made house calls.

The four of them took this in better stride than some of us had. “Mistakes happen,” Reader said as we finished our tale of woeful inadequacy.

“Find anything else?” Jeff asked.

Reader shook his head. “Not so far, but they’re not done.”

William joined us. “Commanders, Chiefs, no other bugs found on premises. We also checked for things of a more dangerous nature. Nothing.”

Everyone looked relieved, but the ol’ feminine intuition felt twitchy. “Why go through all of this merely to take the picture Nurse Carter had? Even if Christopher had read it, it’s not as though he’d have gotten ‘current hideout’ out of it.”

“Serene might have,” Reader said quietly.

“True, but that presumes they know us really well. I get how they knew we had the picture. Chuckie interrogated Caroline, and she was talking about it while we were sitting in the room with all the bugs. But to remove us all from the building to steal one little snapshot seems like overkill.”

“It was incriminating evidence,” Chuckie said. “Proof Titan has assassins on the payroll and around some of our most influential politicians.”

Nurse Carter and I looked at each other. “Where did you put the things the Dingo left for you to claim?” she asked me.

“No freaking idea, but I’ll bet that stuff’s gone, too.”

Reader swore under his breath while Gower zipped off. He was back quickly, empty-handed. “We had the things Jeff brought back from the hospital in the conference room. All gone.”