Alien in the House (19 page)

O
F COURSE,
it wasn't that easy. We had to work our way through our party guests who were finally being allowed to leave, albeit slowly.

Security had a system going—the elevators were off and all guests were being filtered down one set of stairs only, with A-Cs posted everywhere along the way. We found Abigail at the stairwell on the second floor, checking guests off a master list, and talking into a Bluetooth.

She halted the flow of people trying to leave to give me a big hug. “Hang in there, Kitty. Sis and Michael are downstairs, verifying that whoever I say has come past me is also going past them, no more, no less.”

“Where'd you score the headset?”

“Came down from upstairs,” she said with a grin. I knew she meant Hacker International. “Chuck's handling the third floor, by the way, same verification system.” She looked away from me. “Yes. Yes, the Ambassadors are coming upstairs. Good.” She looked back. “Chuck's holding the rest so that when this group passes, you two can go up without a problem.”

“No,” Jeff said. “Let our guests leave first.” This earned him big smiles from the people who were nearest on the stairs.

Abigail shared the news, and the guests began moving down again.

On the plus side, my looking like a wreck who'd been crying was actually taken as a show of how distraught we were over Reyes' death and the party being pretty much destroyed. Since we were actually distraught, this was a good thing. Most people were incredibly kind and supportive, and more of them took the time to pause and talk to us than I'd have figured.

We'd had a lot of guests, so this took some time. I used said time to calm down, so by the time the last couple had hugged me, shaken Jeff's hand, told us they'd loved the party and it wasn't our fault someone had gone insane during dinner, and then said in a while it would be a great story to tell albeit with a sad ending, I felt in control enough to be able to think and do my mind meld with the psychopaths.

Which was good, because among those guests who were refusing to leave were the Cabal of Evil.

Abigail had warned us that there were several guests who weren't going to budge until we were back on the third floor, so it wasn't a total shock to see the remains of the Cabal sitting around. Villanova and Whitmore were with them—I'd wondered if they'd hung around with the rest because of their former android significant others, but clearly they were happy to continue filling in the Cabal's ranks. Lucky us.

The McMillans and the Israeli ambassador and her husband had also remained, along with the folks I'd expected to see here—my parents, Andrei, the rest of our Embassy staff, Cliff, Reader, and Gower.

Andrei and the Israelis weren't going anywhere until we got up to the fifth floor. So that meant getting rid of the Cabal. Easier said than done. Especially when Reader and Andrei pulled Jeff into another discussion with Alpha Team, Cliff, Chuckie, and Senators McMillan and Armstrong. Even though I was technically part of Alpha Team, I was pointedly asked to deal with everyone else so the powwow wouldn't be interrupted. Always the way.

Of course, Lydia was a mess. Someone had advised her that Eugene had been shot and she was alternating between ranting about inefficient police and sobbing on Gadoire's ready shoulder. Apparently she was also Pepé Le Pew's type. I wasn't flattered.

Vance came over to me. “Told you something was going down,” he said in a low voice.

“Did you know what Eugene was up to?”

“No, but I don't think he and Santiago are the first to die mysteriously and I doubt they'll be the last.”

Again, it struck me that Vance, for all his odiousness, was a hell of a lot smarter and more intuitive than I, or anyone else, would give him credit for. “Duly noted.”

He sighed. “Look, Kitty, I know we got off to a terrible start way back when. I pretend to Guy that we always got along, but I'm not stupid—I know you hated me in the Washington Wife class, and I can't blame you. At all. But I really hope my standing by you when those pictures arrived shows that I consider and want you as a friend.”

“Thanks. I think.” The fact that I'd handled the pictures without Vance's assistance wasn't really the point. He and Gadoire really had come to support and help out, and, in a town like this, that probably meant more than him being a complete twit when we'd first met.

“I know there's more going on. Guy thinks I'm crazy, and I'm afraid to talk to too many people about what I'm putting together, for a lot of reasons. I've seen what you and your friends and family accomplish. I think I've seen a bigger picture than anyone's paying attention to. I want to help, and I want to stay alive. Near as I can tell, teaming up with you will be the best way to achieve both.”

“Oh, I don't think we do that much,” I lied.

Vance gave me a look I could only think of as snide. “Right. And your husband's not the hottest thing on two legs, either, right?” He shook his head. “I'm smarter than I act. You of all people should be able to relate to that.”

“Fine, fine. You win. While I try not to be offended about your most recent insinuation, would you mind hanging out here for a while, even if the others leave?”

“Sure. I think Guy's going to have to take Lydia home anyway, and I'd rather miss all her hysterics if I can.”

“I hear you on that.” Realized what I'd said. “I mean, I feel awful for her, but there's a lot going on.”

“I don't care for her much either,” Vance said with a grin. “She's nice enough, but there's something about her that rubs me the wrong way. Anyway, anything I can help you with while I wait?”

“Help me get the rest of your gang to leave.”

“They won't until they've talked to you and ensured you still think they're your best friends forever.” This was said with an incredible amount of sarcasm, at least nine on the scale of ten. With very little effort, it was clear Vance could turn his sarcasm up to eleven. Maybe, despite all the prior evidence, he
was
one of us.

Or he was playing me. Only one way to really find out. “Okay, I need to do something upstairs. Can you stall everyone or entertain them or whatever until I'm back?”

“Sure, what excuse do you want? Checking on the baby isn't going to fly because we all know your kids are off-site.”

Interesting. Wondered how much else everyone knew. Figured I was keeping Vance around partly to find out. “Just say that I had to calm some things down upstairs and check on the Romanian ambassador's wife, to make sure she's feeling well.”

“Sounds good.” Vance headed for the rest of the Cabal, and I slipped off to the stairs. No one tried to stop me. Wasn't sure if that was good or bad. Like so many other things, tabled for later.

“Where are you going, kitten?” Mom's voice was behind me on the stairs. She sounded tired, pissed, and resigned. Okay, so no one had tried to stop me in an obvious way.

Stopped and turned. She was on the landing. “Handling some stuff. You want to come?”

“Do I?” It wasn't asked sarcastically. Mom was giving me the chance to choose to give her plausible deniability or ask for backup.

“Nah. Just checking on Olga and Mona.”

Mom smiled. “That's my girl.”

She went back to the others; I used the slow hyperspeed and went up. Time to visit Hacker International and get at least one of the million answers we needed.

H
ACKER INTERNATIONAL CONSISTED
of the five best hackers worldwide. They all had other talents, too, and were pretty much Best in Show for anything scientific or similar they were interested in, including alien linguistics and reverse engineering.

Chuckie had found these guys and become friends with them when we were in high school, so I'd known them since then, too.

Stryker Dane, whose real name was Eddy Simms, was their sort of leader. He was kind of an underground celebrity and also ran a pretty popular website and an even more active blog. He was also a U.F.O. and extraterrestrial languages expert.

In addition to his other talents, Stryker wrote the
Taken Away
series, where he claimed to have been abducted by aliens and shared his exploits and experiences. His sales had skyrocketed since Operation Destruction.

For some this would mean they'd have bought a palatial estate, gotten a haircut, hired a personal trainer, visited Neiman Marcus, Macy's, or Express and invested in a decent wardrobe, and given overall personal hygiene serious consideration.

Stryker being Stryker, the only change had meant he had an even bigger set of what he, and admittedly I, would call collectibles and everyone else would call really expensive dolls or sculptures of Darth Maul. Otherwise, he was still overweight, undergroomed, and dressed in khaki shorts, flip-flops, and a vintage
Star Wars
T-shirt.

Big George Lecroix was tall, skinny, and black, and he wasn't an author, but otherwise, he was a whole lot like Stryker. He came from France and was Europe's best hacker. He was also fluent in twenty languages.

Ravi Gaekwad, also known as Ravi the Geek, particularly when we were mad at him, was India's best hacker, because the best only associated with each other in the world Hacker International lived in. In addition to having a normal-person build, Ravi was also into both the software and hardware sides of the house and was the best reverse engineer around, which had been amply proved during Operation Destruction.

Dr. Henry Wu was small, scrawny, and bald. He came from China, covered all the languages Big George didn't, and was also a software expert, even better than Ravi, which was saying a lot. Needless to say, in order to be in the club, he was his country's best hacker.

Last but in no way least was Yuri Stanislav. Yuri was blind and had earned the nickname of Omega Red, mostly because he was Russian and therefore the others didn't feel he could be called Daredevil. Omega Red was killer with audio cryptology as well as hacking and other pursuits, which included working out, making him the rarity of the group in more ways than one.

They were all dressed like Stryker—shorts, flip-flops, and T-shirts—even though we were in the dead of winter. Hacker International preferred to stay indoors, and since they lived on this floor as well as worked on it, and had the Elves taking care of their every need, they hadn't left the premises since pretty much they'd arrived. Hence why Jeff considered them squatters.

The other four were in
Star Wars
shirts, too. I'd made a half-joking comment that they clearly wore a specific science fiction shirt for each day of the week and, instead of proving me wrong and tossing on a polo shirt once in a while, they created a Shirt of the Day chart. Today was
Star Wars
. Tomorrow would be
Star Trek
. Had to hand it to them—they were organized and efficient within their ranks.

Of course, all the hackers had good money tucked away, some under their mattresses. Their skills were such that they were paid to do things, to stop doing things, and to stop other people from doing things. When we'd discovered them housed at Andrews Air Force Base they were working for the U.S. Government. Now they worked for American Centaurion.

Because Andrews had been attacked and their underground bunker had been destroyed, we'd moved Hacker International and their government equipment into the Embassy. Jeff had handled them being in our ballroom for exactly a week and a half and had then insisted they get moved. They had nowhere to go and were working on things we needed done, so Pierre had put them in the Zoo. It seemed to be working out.

Raj was already here, as was Camilla. She was busy having Stryker and Big George look something up. Big George was definitely turning on the charm for Camilla, at least as far as he was able to.

His French accent had helped Big George with the ladies in the past—insofar as any of Hacker International could be helped romantically—but Camilla seemed intent, not interested, and since A-Cs really had no issues with skin color at all, I knew it wasn't because he was black. This was a first for any Dazzler next to someone as smart as Big George was. Maybe Camilla had grooming standards, which would explain her disinterest in the brain trust nearby.

Raj came over to me. “Camilla asked me to ensure that we have the entire Embassy scanned for bombs, bugs, and other hostiles. She said that's what Mister Reynolds asked her to search for. She found nothing on the first or second floor, but she told me she's uneasy and doesn't believe our buildings are clean. While you were gone I did ask Mister Reynolds if he'd sent her over, and he confirmed it. He's as uneasy about it as she is.”

“Did you ask for Dulce to scan?”

“Yes, I've already taken care of that, and advised Walter. No one's found anything yet. It could be that Camilla and Mister Reynolds are both as jumpy as the rest of us right now, so are seeing things that aren't there.”

“Or they could be listening to their guts that say we always have someone trying to bug us.” I dug the disc out of my purse. “You know, like now.”

Raj nodded. “Not saying they're wrong. But your mother had everyone searched before they were allowed to leave, ostensibly for packets of arsenic, but we were looking for discs like that. None were found on anyone, and scans have shown nothing.”

I looked at the disc. “Maybe our scanners can't pick up whatever these are. Did Gladys or Walter say they picked up anything in my purse?”

“No.” Raj sounded impressed. “And that hadn't even occurred to me.” He pulled out his phone. “Hello, Gladys. Yes, once more, please. Just the room where I am. Yes, I'd like to hold.” He waited for a few moments. “Good, thank you.” Raj hung up. “You're right, our equipment can't find this. They show nothing at all here within the scans.”

“It so figures. Ravi, got a job for you.”

“Wow, Kitty, nice to see you to, how've you been?” Ravi, like everyone else in my circle apparently, had a sarcasm knob.

He also had Jennifer Barone. They'd met during Operation Destruction and had had a courtship almost as fast as mine and Jeff's. Ravi was brilliant, and brilliant nerdy geeks didn't delay when any woman showed clear romantic interest, let alone a Dazzler. And Jennifer, unlike Camilla, possessed the Dazzler weakness for brains and brainpower.

They'd been engaged for months. Jennifer had been ready to get married within a week of meeting Ravi but they were waiting because his parents would be scandalized if he married someone without a courtship and engagement of a decent length.

Apparently his parents weren't clear on the fact that when your son, who's never had a date in his life, scores an incredibly hot and brainy chick, the best thing to do is have them sprint down the aisle to wedded bliss.

“Oh, blah, blah, blah, Ravi.”

“She's been through a horrible night,” Raj said, troubadour tones of compassionate outrage on full. “More than one person has been murdered in front of her. And we need your help, Ravi.”

“Oh, sure, Raj. Kitty, you know I'm just teasing. You okay?” Ravi liked Raj, in part because they were both from India, and in part because if a troubadour wanted you to like him, you liked him. And clearly Raj wanted the people in this room to like him.

“I do and I am. Besides, you'll be apologizing in a second anyway.” I handed him the disc. “We found this on Jeff. It's blocking his ability to feel people. Has a range of pretty much however far it is from here to the basement of the Embassy. And our incredibly complex scanners can't pick it up.”

Ravi whistled. “That's strong, and if our scanners can't pick it up, cloaked impressively.” Chose not to comment on the “our”. As far as I was concerned, Hacker International were part of the “us” that made up American Centaurion now.

“Yeah. So call me exceedingly concerned.”

He examined the disc. “Doesn't look like much. Small, so it's using some kind of miniaturization along with or within its mechanization. Maybe nanotech.” He kept talking. My ears turned off.

Ravi's mouth stopped moving. “Super duper. Can you reverse engineer it?”

“Am I breathing?” Ravi jumped out of his chair at his impressive computer setup and trotted over to the impressive laboratory portion of the computer lab.

Because he was dating Jennifer, Ravi had gotten the full tour of the Dulce Science Center, a fact Jeff still regretted. Because Ravi had come back and then taken the rest of the hackers over for a visit. They'd come back to D.C. with a slew of Dazzlers panting after them and even more equipment.

So while the Zoo's computer lab wasn't up to Dulce or NASA Base's levels, it was the next best thing. It should have made me feel like I was back in the Science Center. But being in here just made me miss Dulce, the Lair, and what our lives had been like. So I didn't visit here much unless I felt like having fun riling up Hacker International. Hey, I liked to keep in practice.

Ravi had the disk under a magnifying lamp while he fiddled. He was talking to someone over at Dulce while he was so fiddling. “Are you live with me and receiving all data?” Apparently the answer was yes. “Good. Do you have enough to analyze to be able to track? Huh. Okay. Well, we'll just have to deal with it. Removing the outer shell now.”

Couldn't say what made me do it. Jeff would call it feminine intuition; my mother would call it my gut. I called it being Megalomaniac Girl. Regardless of why, I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that something bad was going to happen the second Ravi removed the shell.

Which is why I tackled him to the ground as the disc exploded.