Touched by an Alien (42 page)

“We need a sedative over here!” my other captor barked.

From my vantage point I saw Tim and Christopher both get the gurney treatment. Christopher in particular was arguing with this, but he was outnumbered. I couldn’t believe this was normal.

“What in the Sam Hill is going on here?” The voice was loud, furious, and filled with authority. It was also a voice I’d heard all my life.

My mother strode into the room, flanked by White and Gower. “I asked a question, and I expect an answer.” She was practically snarling, and she looked as though she was ready to take out every person within range—and she looked as though she could do it. She was wearing black pants, a shirt, and a shoulder holster, complete with gun. She was also wearing a black cap that had the letters P.T.C.U. on it.

“Who the hell are you, lady?” the man holding me asked.

Mom stalked up to him. “I happen to be the head of the Presidential Terrorism Control Unit, and unless you put this young lady down, you will be the head of janitorial services in Nome, Alaska, by tomorrow morning.” She stuck her badge right up in his face. Her gun was somehow at his head, too. I was overwhelmingly impressed. I wondered if she’d teach me how to do this.

I was dropped to the ground, and I managed to land somewhat on my feet.

“You don’t have authority here,” the other man who’d grabbed me started to protest.

Mom smiled, and it was the most intimidating thing I’d ever seen. I studied it—a smile like this would come in handy. “You don’t think I have the authority? No problem. Call the White House and ask about my authority. You’ll need to speak directly to the President, of course. Let’s see . . . think he’ll take your call or mine?”

“We’re C.I.A. We have authority here.”

“Actually, this is NASA’s jurisdiction,” my father’s voice came from behind us. “We have a joint agreement with the Centaurion Division, and you’re in violation of every code we have. Additionally,” he added pleasantly, “since your department answers to the P.T.C.U., not the other way around, you have no authority whatsoever in this situation.” Dad moved up next to Mom and looked around. “And my, my, my . . . we certainly have a situation here. Oh, let the men who aren’t hurt up, and, please, someone make sure our friends at the C.I.A. aren’t taking Commander Martini off somewhere we wouldn’t like him to be.”

I’d seen where they’d shoved his gurney, and I took off running. To find Claudia, Lorraine, and two good-looking guys in uniform blocking the gurney from being taken out of the building.

I skidded to a stop. “P.T.C.U. has authority here. Get your goddamned hands off of him, or I’ll break your necks.”

The three people trying to kidnap Martini glared at me, but they backed away. I didn’t have to turn around to know there were guns pointed at them.

“We’re somewhat pacifistic,” White said from behind me. “But we’re getting quite angry, and it’s amazing how anger clouds judgment.”

Lorraine and Claudia moved to Martini now. “We need to get him to medical, stat,” Lorraine said. She looked at their pilots. “Can you come with us for protection?”

“Absolutely,” the one I assumed was her guy said with a smile. “You’re our top priority, according to our orders.” He looked over at the C.I.A. team. “And our orders overrule yours, cowboys.”

I wasn’t sure if I should go with them or not. Martini grabbed my hand. “Stay here and sort it out. That’s what the leader does.”

I bit my lip. “Jeff, are you going to be okay?”

He managed a weak smile. “Sure. I told you, happens all the time.”

I didn’t even have to look at the girls to know he was lying. “Okay, I’ll be down to see you as soon as I can.”

He closed his eyes. “See you in about twelve hours, baby.”

Claudia nodded. “We have to go, Kitty. Now.”

“Okay, call on the walkie if anyone else tries to kidnap any of you.”

They nodded and raced off. I could see the elevator banks off in the distance, but they didn’t look like the ones at the Science Center. I turned around. Yep, there were a lot of guns being pointed. I decided getting behind them would be a really intelligent idea.

“We’re at Home Base?” I asked White as I slid around him.

“Yes, we needed to call in too much military.”

“Where did they take James and Christopher?”

“We have James back in our control; he’s headed to the hospital wing. Christopher insists that he and Tim are fine, so they’re still here.”

Someone tapped my shoulder. “Need you back here,” Christopher said as he pulled me away.

We got away from the crush of bodies. “Are they going back to the Science Center?”

“Yes, it’s safer there, by a long shot. I sent Tim along to look after James, just in case.” He looked at me intently. “How did you know? That the car was rigged, I mean?”

“Yates is a terrorist, and car bombs are to terrorists like groupies are to rock and roll—you rarely get one without the other.”

“How’d he put it on?” Christopher looked worried. I didn’t blame him.

“Someone planted it.”

Christopher looked around and moved us into a more quiet area. “Okay, wasn’t me, Jeff, or James. I know it wouldn’t be Lorraine or Claudia. I have a really hard time believing it was you.”

“The military personnel were never out of their planes. And Mephistopheles was only close enough to the car he smooshed. I think we’d have noticed if he’d been close to the other car.”

“So it was Tim.” Christopher looked upset and sick.

“Maybe.” I thought about it. “He left the car last, and slowly. If he’d reacted before I did, or immediately, I’d have an easier time believing it. And he’s the one who pulled me through the gate. Again, hard to believe he’d do that if he’d planted the bomb.”

“Who, then?”

“Someone at the Science Center, maybe. If the bomb was distance activated, it might not have shown up on the sensors until we were coming back. After all, if the fuglies killed us, no need to blow us up.” I thought about it some more. “Are all the A-Cs trustworthy?”

“Of course.” He sounded offended.

“That’s always a foolish assumption,” Mom said from behind me. “Someone let the C.I.A. in, too. I was with Richard and Paul the whole time—believe me, they didn’t call for this kind of support.”

Christopher nodded. “We deal with the C.I.A. all the time, but Jeff and I do that, no one else, and we’re the only ones authorized to call them in.”

“Under normal circumstances, you mean. You know, when a traitor isn’t mucking up the status quo. We’re back to my question: Who doesn’t want Mephistopheles destroyed?”

“Who would have a motive?” Christopher was upset, not that I could blame him. “We’re here to stop the parasites, not help them.”

“Where’s Dad?”

“Kitty, your father is not the traitor.”

“I know that. I need to ask Dad something.”

Mom looked around. “Sol! Over here.”

Dad trotted over. “What’s going on? Have you figured out who the mole is?” The way he asked, it was clear my parents had discussed this and were both confident the operation had been infiltrated.

“No, Dad, I need to ask you something.”

“Sure, kitten. Shoot.”

“Christopher, I need to ask you things too.” I could see it, forming in my mind. It wasn’t pretty, but then again, in one sense it was.

“Waiting with bated breath.” He could still snark under pressure. Nice to know.

“Dad, would you say it was common or unusual for a cryptologist not to triple-check their work before declaring it complete?”

He thought about it. “Rare, at least here. You have to prove you’re right to too many different organizations not to do a variety of tests.”

“But the A-Cs only have one organization to report to.” I looked at Christopher. He was pale. “Was Beverly on the original translation project?” He nodded. “Is she considered your generation or your father’s?”

“My father’s.” He swallowed. “And, before you ask, yes—she’s one of the few who knows the truth about Yates.”

“She’s going to kill Jeff and probably James, maybe the others. We have to go,
now
. Mom, Dad, get rid of the C.I.A. and then figure out how to follow us.”

Christopher grabbed my hand and we ran at hyperspeed to a gate. But the operators were fiddling with it. “What’s wrong?” Christopher barked.

“We’re blocked from the Science Center. Some kind of interference. It’s affected all the gates.”

“Did the teams with Martini and Reader make it back to the Science Center?” I asked.

“Yes, they did.”

Christopher cursed. “We’re too far for me to run us there.”

I thought about it. “I know you can’t actually fly a plane, but do you know how?”

“Yes, we all learned, just in case. I could tell someone how to fly, but I can’t do it myself.”

“Oh, good.”

He stared at me. “You’re not suggesting what I think you are, are you?”

“We don’t, they die.”

“You ever flown something before?”

I answered honestly. “I hold the highest score at A.S.U. for
Star Wars: Starfighter.
”

“I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I’m going to regret this.”

WE ARGUED ABOUT ASKING
for a human pilot as we ran to the jets. Since we were at Area 51, we actually had a lot of choices in terms of aircraft. Of course, since my pointing out that we couldn’t trust anyone right now won the trained-human-pilot argument rather effectively, we needed an aircraft that Christopher technically knew how to fly, was fueled up, and could hold both of us.

We made do with one that he was familiar with, was fueled up, and could hold me on Christopher’s lap. I tried not to consider Martini’s reaction to this—I had to figure saving his life would outweigh unintentional snuggling with his cousin.

Christopher pulled some rank, and we climbed in. I could see why pilots weren’t tall—there wasn’t a lot of room in there.

“Do we have to have your purse in here with us?”

“It’s more reliable than anything else.” A thought occurred, and I dug out the walkie. “Lorraine, Claudia? You there?”

Silence. Nothing from Reader, either. I dropped the walkie back into my purse.

“Okay, let’s do this,” Christopher said briskly.

We put on a set of headphones each, he pointed out the buttons to hit to close the lid, start the engine, and so on. I did my best to focus on the instructions and not the thought that we could go splat at any second, as soon as I started trying to fly. The sound through the headphones was pretty good, but not as good as the intercom system in the cars had been.

“Okay, you’re going to pull back on the stick. Remember, it works sort of opposite from what you’d expect.”

“I’ve seen the movies.”

“Well, don’t I feel all confident now?”

“It’s all down to the reflexes and your ability to teach.”

“I wish we’d said good-bye to our parents.”

“We’ll be fine, Mr. Optimism.”

“I want to be on record that this brings my tally for saving Jeff’s butt even with his saving mine.”

“I’ll be sure to note it in my report.”

Christopher wrapped an arm around my waist. I decided not to notice. “You ready?” He was trying to sound calm and confident. Key word was “trying.”

Sort of. “Yes.”

“Then let’s go.”

It was different. I’d seen scenes in the movies where someone who doesn’t know how to fly, or hasn’t flown in years, takes a jet and manages to get off the ground. I discovered these movies were documentaries.

We lifted up and then bobbed. “Back! Pull it back!”

“It’s hard.”

“The ground is harder!”

“Fine!” I pulled in the directions he shouted and grabbed or pushed the things he pointed frantically to, the ones he wasn’t doing himself. Abbott and Costello had nothing on the two of us. As the jet started to bounce and spin around while somehow moving upward, I saw servicemen running away from us. I found that a rude comment on my skills.

We managed to get up above the other planes, then above the buildings. Once we were higher, it got easier, and Christopher’s directions got calmer. “You ready?” he asked once we were up and facing the right direction. It had taken only a few turns to get there, and I was feeling pretty good.

“Sure.”

“Okay, let’s go.”

I pushed the stick how he told me, and suddenly we were flying, really flying. I was shoved back against him in a way I knew Martini wouldn’t appreciate. However, there was no way Christopher was enjoying it—his face was being squished.

This made it hard for him to give directions or me to hear them. On the other hand, time was of the essence. He’d made it clear that the nose of the jet shouldn’t dip below some red line on the instrument panel, and I was doing very well. At least, I’d managed to avoid the buildings, other jets, and birds in the air.
Starfighter
was good training for this part.