Alien in the House (34 page)

W
E DECIDED TO TAKE
the time Brewer had bought us to do what Christopher wanted. We all raced off for the Zoo. I stayed with the humans while Jeff went on ahead with the A-Cs, so he and Gower could speak at hyperspeed to catch Christopher, White, and Raj up on what we'd learned.

“What's in the briefcase?” Chuckie asked as we humans or mostly-humans headed for the walkway.

“All the papers and such Jeff and I found in the various offices we searched earlier today, Santiago's included. Probably nothing but trash, but we figured it was better to take what we could find and throw it away here than to miss something important.”

“I'm finding it hard to believe that all of this is going on because of a few bills going through the House,” Reader said.

“It would depend on what's in the bills,” Chuckie said. “But while there are a lot of bills relating to the A-Cs circulating, none of them are up for a vote yet, at least as far as I know.”

“Some of the reps killed were from the Foreign Affairs and Homeland Security committees. Per Irene at Rayburn House, Foreign Affairs has lost four members.”

“Could be related to what those committees are working on,” Chuckie said. “But the research shows that we have reps dead from a wide variety of committees. Transportation lost several, too. Over twenty dead means a lot of committees are down members.”

“I'm having a harder time figuring out how that Vance guy is the only one who's put this thing together,” Tim said.

“Yeah, I know, but he's claiming that he's been hiding his smarts because they're not as appreciated as political sway.”

“That's true enough,” Chuckie said. “But Tim brings up the relevant point—why Vance, versus Oliver, who looks for things like this?”

“Maybe he's not handling his sudden fame well,” Reader said thoughtfully.

“What do you mean?” Chuckie asked.

Reader shrugged. “When we were all outed, Jeff brought Oliver along with him and Alexander to the big summit meeting where Alexander laid down the law, remember?” Chuckie nodded. “Well, that sent a statement. Oliver's still with the
World Weekly News
, which went from being ‘the world's biggest rag' to ‘the only paper telling the truth' overnight. He's become something of a celebrity.”

“Vance said as much in the limo earlier today,” I added.

“And Oliver was embarrassed by Vance's fawning,” Reader said.

“True. So, okay, MJO has probably been focused on handling his new popularity and fielding questions about us, versus looking for new conspiracies. But then, why was he snooping around the Embassy last night?”

“That was still all about us,” Tim said. “I think James is right. So the two people most likely to pay attention to these deaths have been incredibly distracted.”

“The first death was right after we were outed,” Reader confirmed, looking at the file. “Huh. That's interesting.”

“The first one was the guy Santiago replaced, wasn't it?” I asked as we waited for the elevator and my mind spun the facts around.

“Yeah. I know that expression, girlfriend. What are you thinking?”

“I'm thinking that Megalomaniac Lad is right again. I think we do have distraction going on, and I'm willing to say that the Mastermind, or at least this Operation's Mastermind, waited until he or she had the perfect storm of distractions going on to launch. If over twenty Reps had died like this two years ago, both Chuckie and MJO would have been on top of it.”

“If your timeline's right, then the Mastermind also waited until the President suspended this year's elections,” Tim said. “Whether that's because they expected some of those now dead to lose their elections, another reason, or just convenient coincidence we don't know.”

“And who knows if we'll find out,” Reader added.

“I can buy all that,” Chuckie said slowly. “But we still don't have a lot to go on.”

“Well, I also think we have a couple of key points, one of which is that whoever's in charge likely knows you and Oliver, or at least your underground reputations, so to speak, because, elections suspended or no, I think they chose this plot's start time specifically to stay off your radars. And the other is this—why did whoever try to kill Jeff before he was sworn in?” The elevator arrived.

“Convenience, accessibility, guard was down,” Chuckie ticked off. He motioned for me to go in the elevator.

“Stupid placement and timing, random location, and guard wasn't down since we'd had three people die around us in less than twenty-four hours,” I shared as I stayed put. Wanted us to think this through ourselves, because I felt we were getting somewhere. The others would add in soon enough.

Chuckie sighed as the elevator doors closed. “In your own time, Kitty.”

“As it should be.”

“I'll play,” Tim said. “What if the entire point of all of this is to ensure that the person representing our district in New Mexico isn't pro-alien? The former rep is killed and a really anti-alien guy runs for the position. Santiago was a teacher and wasn't expected to even come close, let alone win in a landslide. So, maybe our Mastermind isn't happy that he's elected. Maybe Eugene lied and was always after Santiago.”

“I'd say there's a high probability that at least part of the point is to ensure an anti-alien rep is in place. But I think we have more going on—you wouldn't want to kill as many people as have died, because fewer would make it all seem less suspect. And, if everyone thought the former rep died of natural causes, Eugene killing Santiago doesn't scream ‘conspiracy.'”

“But the poison was put into Brewer's glass,” Reader reminded us. “And the only reason Santiago drank it was that he'd almost choked to death, which is not something anyone could have predicted.”

A thought occurred. “Hang on.” Conveniently my phone was still in my hand. Dialed. This wasn't a discussion I wanted to have over the intercom system.

“Yes, Kitty darling? How may I be of service?”

“Pierre, who was in charge of the drinks portion of our Dinner Party of Death? Specifically, who was in charge of making sure the water glasses were kept filled?”

“Hmmm . . . let me verify. Ah, here it is. Annette Dier. She was part of Chef's Beverage Team. Why?”

That sounded familiar. “Spell that last name please, Pierre.” He did. Memory shared that this matched the name of the SWAT guy I'd spoken to when I was going to interview Eugene. “Did Chef vet his choices for safety within our Embassy?”

“Oh, yes, absolutely. Everyone had to go through a screening.”

“Was she in charge, or just the water girl?”

“Just one of the beverage staff, but she was assigned to your portion of the room for water refills during dinner.”

“I'd like to see her screening results, Pierre. In the most extreme, ‘we will accuse you of trying to murder our people and destroy our party' way if Chef is unwilling to provide confidential information. In fact, if Chef doesn't come across with this info immediately, please call Chuckie and have him take Chef into custody. In the meantime, we need this Annette Dier's info pronto. Send it to the Computer Lab.”

“On it in less than a second.” We hung up.

“What was that all about?” Reader asked.

“You know, what are the odds that we would have two people randomly at our Embassy, doing very different jobs that let them in or around it without their being invited guests, both named Dier? With the oddest spelling of that name I've ever seen?”

“Low with an odd name,” Chuckie said. “Who were they?”

“One was a guy in a SWAT uniform. Until right now I'd have said he was with the SWAT team, but I don't remember seeing him once Eugene was shot. The other was the girl who was in charge of filling up the water in our section of the dining room.” My brain suggested I play the same name game I had during Operation Assassination. “You know what Dier is spelled backward? Or rather, spelled what I'm going to bet is the right way?”

“Reid,” Chuckie growled. He pulled out his phone and dialed. “I want all the information in our file on Leventhal Reid, most specifically on known associates and next of kin. Yes. Yes, faster than that. Because I'm going to be there in less than a minute and I want that information waiting for me the minute I walk into the room, Stryker.” He hung up. “I hate where this is going.”

“Not as much as I do. How did this slip past us? I know we ran extensive security and background on everyone.”

“I'm betting we find that the water girl was a late addition,” Reader said. “I'm more concerned with the guy who was with the SWAT team.”

“I'll ask Officer Melville about him. I'm betting he just showed up and blended in.”

“For all we know, he's the guy who shot Eugene,” Tim said. “Sure the Dingo thought it was Raul, but it's not like they were standing next to the shooter.”

“No, the Dingo and Surly Vic were definitely on different roofs from whoever shot Eugene. And, you know, Dier the Fake SWAT guy could also be doubling as Raul the Pissed Off Assassin.”

“This is all bad and indicates a larger conspiracy, or maybe even a different conspiracy, but I still don't see how you could know that anyone other than Brewer would be drinking that water,” Chuckie said. “And much of the theory we're all talking about hinges on that fact.”

“Maybe whoever put Eugene in motion and ensured Annette Dier was on water duty knew Brewer well enough to know that the man doesn't care for water all that much and would rather drink just about anything else, preferably wine. Somewhere along the way, someone was going to ask for a water refill, she wasn't going to be around to do it, and Brewer was going to offer his glass.”

“It's a stretch to assume that drinker would be Santiago,” Tim said.

“Not really. Santiago comes from a desert region. We all drink water like crazy in Arizona and New Mexico because it's so dry. And Santiago was a teetotaler, meaning he was going to drink his water down because that's what he drinks all the time. With the guarantee that Brewer wasn't going to drink his.”

“It's still a stretch to think that Santiago would be the one killed,” Chuckie said.

“Him, Brewer, me . . . I think if any one of us had died the Mastermind would have counted it as a big mark in the win column. Anyone else dies, well, still probably a win.”

“Does the man really not drink water?” Reader asked.

“Not really. He drinks wine. Or tea. He likes tea . . .”

“What?” Chuckie asked.

“The only reason Jeff's alive is that we called the Brewers for help at Rayburn House, and Edmund called Cliff, which was the only reason we got into Jeff's office. Juvonic was killed while we were waiting for the Brewers. Then we went to The Teetotaler, which was a place the Brewers have just discovered, and the owner was so thrilled to have us he gave us all gifts. Those gifts were in Jeff's coat pocket. But if you knew us, you'd assume they'd be in my purse.”

“Why weren't they?” Reader asked.

“I have too much stuff in my purse, because Jeff and I searched every empty office at Rayburn House and took anything that wasn't nailed down. But no one would know we'd done that, because we used hyperspeed and I know we weren't spotted by anyone. So there was no way in the world to know what we'd be doing or where we'd be going. Unless, frankly, you were following the Brewers.”

“You think they're involved?”

“No. I think we need to put guards on Edmund Brewer. I think he's going to be the next one targeted.”

W
E GOT INTO THE ELEVATOR NOW.
While we went up to the fifth floor I sent Officer Melville a text asking about any officer named Dier. Requested he keep the search confidential, just in case Dier was a legit dude and it was simply a common name around these parts. Also asked for a list of any officers named Reid, just in case.

Exited the elevator to find all of Hacker International present and accounted for, along with Amy, Jeff, and the others who'd been with us at the Embassy.

“Took you long enough,” Christopher said.

“We were figuring out what's going on.”

For this statement I received Patented Glare #4. “I told you we'd found out what's going on over at Gaultier already.”

“Right. Where are the Barones?”

“Sent them on an errand,” Jeff said. “And I've explained to everyone here that, even if they're engaged to one of them, this is confidential in the extreme.”

“I won't tell Jennifer anything,” Ravi said. “But she's completely trustworthy.”

“Other than in her taste in men,” Amy said under her breath.

Stryker handed Chuckie a thick folder. “Here you go, my lord and master. Be happy American Centaurion bought us better equipment than we had at Andrews, because you'd still be waiting for the printouts otherwise.”

“Whine later,” Chuckie said. “Expect to work right now. Henry, you seem happy.”

He did. It was probably safe to consider that Dr. Wu looked close to giddy. Point of fact, I'd never seen him looking this cheerful, and that included the few times he thought he'd found a girl willing to go to bed with him. He'd been wrong those times, so I was cautiously optimistic about his joy being something ultimately useful.

“Proximity equals access, Chuck,” Henry said. “And a twenty-petabyte external hard drive, courtesy of the Dulce Science Center, means we now possess every bit of information Gaultier Enterprises has.”

“Nice work. What's a petabyte?”

Henry shot me a withering look. “It's a term for data storage capacity.”

“Dude, I guessed that, based on the fact that I know what a terabyte, a gigabyte, a megabyte, and a kilobyte are. I know what an octet is, too—it's the smallest, the thing that makes up a byte. So we can stop with the idea that Kitty Cannot Grasp Our Genius Speak. However, I thought terabytes were the biggest things going.”

“They are for regular use,” Omega Red said. “But a petabyte is made up of a thousand terabytes.”

“It's the next inevitable phase,” Big George added.

“Works for me. So, Doctor Condescending Wu, what did you find? We know you found Eugene's laptop.”

Henry took a deep breath and Christopher put his hand up. “The highlights. We're on a schedule now.”

Henry shot Christopher his own glare, though he had a long way to go to even hope to touch the hem of Christopher's Glaring Garment. “Fine. I was able to use the laptop to access the entire system. We're running the data right now to identify anything related to deep space suspended animation.”

“What are everyone's initial thoughts—are we going to be able to help Malcolm?” Prayed the answer would be yes.

“Yes,” Stryker said. “I believe we have enough in here to be able to figure out what he was hit with and, therefore, what to do to bring him out. We're sending relevant information to Dulce and Doctor Hernandez.”

Allowed myself to feel cautiously optimistic again. Everything going on was making it easy to focus on something other than worrying about Buchanan, but now that we were talking about him, all the worry showed up to kick cautious optimism to the curb while sharing that there was no proof Stryker was right or that we'd find a cure. Or that Buchanan would ever wake up again.

Jeff came over and put his arm around me. Clearly I was broadcasting the worry. Did my best to pull myself together—I wasn't going to help Buchanan with worry.

“What else did you find?” Reader asked.

“There are three hidden floors in the building,” Amy said. “I've been there before and didn't know about them, but Henry found them on the schematics.”

“Did you explore them?” Chuckie asked.

She shook her head. “We couldn't get in, at least not on this trip.”

“We have the building blueprints,” Henry said. “All of them.”

“All of them?” Jeff asked.

“There are five different sets,” Henry replied. “They're doing a lot of shady stuff over there. Anyway, I think we'll be able to identify what's going on with Gaultier.”

“I'm also sure that Henry found the information on the emotional blockers and overlays,” Ravi said. “However, the encryption on those files is some of the toughest we've ever seen. It's going to take a while to break.”

“Be sure to include my dad in whatever you're doing with that.”

Stryker opened his mouth. “Do it,” Chuckie snapped.

“I was
going
to say that we already hooked him in. Geez, Chuck, you're as quick on the trigger as Kitty.”

“We have a lot of dead people, Eddy, and not a lot of answers about what's going on. And who the hell are you calling quick on the trigger anyway?”

“Not you, Missus Martini,” White said with a smile. “However, what our young men here haven't mentioned is, under the circumstances, disappointing. Other than within the late Mister Montgomery's personal temporary office space, we've found no indication of anything to do with any representative, other than the usual military contracts and the like.”

“So Gaultier is likely a dead end there. Which sucks.”

“Gaultier is a dead end, but Eugene wasn't.” Christopher handed me a bunch of papers. “We took everything of his from the facility, other than his laptop. No one seemed to care, other than the accounting manager who was in charge of his work, and he was more upset about having hired a lunatic murderer to help cover the load while he has three of his staff out on maternity leave than anything else.”

“Pregnancy leaves confirmed and legitimate,” Amy added. “And Eugene wasn't working on anything that seems too interesting, but we're going to run all his information through everything, because if there's one thing I've learned it's that my father and his ilk are willing to be really intricately crazy.”

“So true, Ames, so true. So, is it safe to assume that no one at Gaultier either knew about Eugene's belief about hidden robots or was giving him the orders?”

“Unless they read through his stuff, and it didn't seem like anyone cared. For whatever reason, no one at Gaultier knew Eugene had killed anyone or was dead until we told them.” Christopher shook his head. “I'm happy the story's been suppressed, but we weren't the ones who did it, I've already checked with Serene.”

“So the police didn't release any information,” Chuckie said thoughtfully. “That was probably because Kitty brought in the K-9 squad. Have you heard back from them yet?”

“Nope. What does Eugene's mystery package say?”

Reader sighed and took it from my hands. “Give me a minute.”

“Your unwillingness to read anything other than comics is still with you, I see, Kitty,” Stryker said. “I don't know how you got through college.”

Chuckie and I exchanged a glance. He raised his eyebrow. I shrugged. While I appreciated his willingness to defend my intelligence honor with Hacker International, there was no point at this time. I'd make Stryker pay for that comment later.

“Dude, ability and desire are not the same things. So, James, what do we have? I ask because Christopher, who's read the file and could have shared already, seems reluctant to hog the information spotlight.”

“I just thought you'd like to read the file,” Christopher snapped, gracing me with Patented Glare #1. “The rest of us already have.”

“I haven't,” Chuckie said.

“Me, either,” Tim added. “Some of us don't get to read at hyperspeed no matter how many times we ask.”

“It's pretty much what Kitty said Eugene told her,” Reader said. “Lots of buttering up of the operative, though. ‘Your intelligence and dedication to country' and all that jazz. I can understand how someone could believe the robot theory, though. There's full schematics in here.”

“Are we lucky enough that they match what we know of the androids?” I asked, fully expecting that we wouldn't be lucky.

“No,” Ravi said. I was currently batting a thousand on my expectations, go me. “We've already run this information against what we have on the androids, and the supersoldiers. If these things are real, and with the way things go, I'd never suggest we assume they aren't, they're a different breed.”

“Better, worse, or just different?”

“Can't tell without a full structural analysis, which we haven't had time to do yet,” Omega Red said. “Not sure that they're real, though, Kitty.”

“But you'll keep at it, right, Yuri?”

“Right, because I know that tone of voice of yours, and I don't like being kicked.”

“Yuri, you are so much smarter than Eddy.”

“I've been telling you that for years.”

“Better looking, too.” Take that, Stryker.

“
Anyway
,” Reader said, “I can see how someone with no real background in espionage, science, or the military could believe this. What's still hard to swallow is the way he got this information.”

“I think it's time to visit Pia Ryan. Chuckie, your thoughts?”

“I want to investigate her and her department again, first. I investigated them when you were in Florida. But we were treading on Internal Affairs' territory, so I had to be careful.”

“Don't you still?” Jeff asked.

Chuckie looked around the room. “Not nearly as much, no.”

“Hacker International now work for us, Jeff. Therefore, they're hacking into the C.I.A. illegally, but it's not authorized by the military or by Chuckie. It's going to be authorized by me.”

“Why you?” Stryker asked.

“Because I'm the ambassador now, no co-anything. So, make it so or make your reservations at the nearest Best Western.”

“She's even meaner than she used to be,” Henry muttered under his breath.

“And my hearing's better, too. But don't worry; you did well, so you get to stay. For the moment.”

“You know she's not going to kick us out,” Ravi said quietly. “We're too useful.”

“I'd kick you out in a heartbeat,” Jeff said. “And I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. The ambassador's the only reason you're all still here. So, do what she wants or I have another location in mind for you, and it's called the Oak Hill Cemetery.”

I looked up at Jeff. “Funny you should mention that place. That's the cemetery where I lost Clarence but found the Dingo.”

“Really?” Chuckie asked. “That's interesting.”

“Why?”

“Because there are a couple of infamous Confederate Civil War spies who are buried there.” He turned to Big George. “Pull a map of the cemetery up.”

“Does he actually know everything?” Jeff asked me quietly.

“Pretty much, yeah.”

Big George indicated the map was live. “Kitty, can you tell me where you were when Clarence disappeared?” Chuckie asked.

“I think so.” Ran everything back through my mind. “About here. Keeping in mind that this map is a drawing, and I was running after Clarence at hyperspeed.”

“That's near one of the spy's graves,” Big George said.

“That needs checking,” Chuckie said. “It could be a long shot, but if someone's got a sense of humor, I could believe they have a hideout around there.”

“Clarence doesn't have a sense of humor,” Jeff said.

“At all,” Christopher added.

“Does this solve our problem?” Amy asked. Everyone looked at her. She shrugged. “Look, I get it, Clarence is somehow alive and well and running around trying to blow us up. We think. But how does that relate to everything else? And if we rush off to the cemetery, does whatever we find there fix our problems?”

“We don't know,” I said before anyone else could. “Last night, we were thinking we had the usual three, maybe even five plans, going. Now, I don't know.”

“They sure don't feel cohesive,” Tim said. “At all.”

“Am I right in believing you've told everyone all the details, Ambassador?” Raj asked. Realized he'd been silent this entire time.

“Yes, everyone in the room with us is presumed to be totally trustworthy.”

“Good. Then I'd like to ask an important question.”

“Go ahead.”

“Where is Colonel Hamlin and what are we doing to find him?”