Alien in the House (18 page)

They all nodded to me and let me through. The police van taking Eugene away was easily spotted—it was surrounded by squad cars and a lot of men in SWAT gear. I chose not to question.

“I'd like to speak to the prisoner before he's taken away,” I said to the nearest official looking guy. His name appeared to be Dier. Especially after looking at a bunch of A-Cs, he was pretty ordinary looking, other than the uniform.

“Authority?”

I checked. Yep, they were in our circular driveway. “You're on my country's land.”

He cracked a smile. “Go right ahead, Ambassadress.”

“She's an ambassador. Get it right or get out of the way.” Tim shook his head as he came to get me. “Amateurs.”

“What are you doing down here?”

“Airborne's escorting the prisoner. Just in case.”

“All of Airborne?”

We walked around to the back of the van, and sure enough, the five flyboys were all in attendance. Tim was in the standard Armani suit all agents, human or A-C, wore, and the flyboys were still in their Navy dress whites. Eugene was going to have the best-looking and best-dressed honor guard going.

“Hey, Kitty,” Jerry Tucker, my favorite flyboy, said. “Been missing our girl. Going to kick this guy in the nuts before he's taken away?”

“Contemplating my options. Can Prince and I go inside?”

Tim nodded to one of the SWAT guys, who opened the doors. I was almost shocked to see Eugene inside and alive.

“Kitty, I'm sorry.”

“Sure you are. Guys, a little help?” Joe Billings and Randy Muir, aka Lorraine and Claudia's husbands, each took a side and lifted me into the van, while Prince gave a great example of an effortless, majestic leap. Matt Hughes and Chip Walker climbed in with us. “Um, I kind of want to talk to Eugene alone.”

“No,” Hughes said calmly.

“Sorry, Kitty,” Tim concurred. “My orders. If you're in here, you have guards. Period.”

“Oh, fine, fine. Can the doors be closed?”

“Absolutely not,” Tim said flatly.

“Chip and Matt will with be with me, and I'm not going to do anything to Eugene anyway.” I glanced at our prisoner. “And you have him well-shackled, so unless he's taken a course in how to become an escape artist, I think we're all good. Besides, I have Prince.”

Tim sighed. “It's you, Kitty. The bizarre finds you naturally. That's an expensive dog you're trying to carry around in your purse, but he's not enough. The doors stay open, Matt and Chip go inside, and we'll all wait for the explosions.”

“Thanks for that and you're hilarious.” Tim and the others backed away from the doors. But all of them were watching, the SWAT guys with guns at the ready. Didn't know whether to feel safe or totally in the line of fire. Settled for both. “Guys, can you stay back here while Eugene and I have a quiet talk?”

“Sure,” Walker said. “But we'll be watching.”

“Never had a doubt.” Went to Eugene, who managed to combine a glower along with pathetic hopefulness. It was an interesting combo. “You said you'd been told what to do,” I said softly. “What did you mean by that?”

Eugene nodded. “Come closer,” he said quietly. “And I'll tell you what I mean.”

Prince growled, low in his throat. “Ah, no. I think I'll stay right here and you can tell me what you mean.”

“Fine. You're right, I was jealous of Ed. But I wouldn't have killed him, except it was the only way.”

“You didn't kill Edmund Brewer, you killed Santiago Reyes. And only way for what?”

“The only way to save the world. You'll see, Kitty. I'm a hero.”

H
AVING HELPED TO SAVE
the world more than a couple times myself, this didn't exactly impress me overmuch. I was also well aware that saving the world and being considered a hero did not necessarily go hand-in-hand.

“You need to come across with more factoids and less bluster. Because I don't buy how killing your sorta romantic rival would save the world.”

“He's not who you think he is, Kitty.” Eugene dropped his voice. “He's a robot.”

My responses to this statement were limited, mostly because there was a fifty percent likelihood this was correct. After all, I'd seen more than my share of really excellent androids over the past year. Or more, depending on who might be still passing as human or A-C instead of identifying as an evil sleeper android.

Went with the safest reply. “Right.”

“He is,” Eugene said desperately. “Look, Kitty, I didn't know what was in that packet. I was told that it was something deadly to a robotic but that wouldn't hurt a human. Or an alien,” he added quickly.

“So, who gave you the packet and your marching orders?”

“I don't know.”

“So, it was voices in your head?”

This earned me a dirty look. “No. I was contacted by mail. The situation was explained, and I was asked to help.”

“Who approached you?” Chose not to ask why Eugene thought anyone would approach him for hero work. Most people tended to think of themselves as willing to answer when the call came, after all.

“The C.I.A. The information came to me from Pia Ryan.”

“The late Jack Ryan's wife?” Or, as I thought of him, one of the first casualties of Operation Assassination. Eugene nodded. “So, Pia's who gave you all the stuff?”

“No, she gave me an envelope that had been delivered to her. But it was addressed to me. Pia said she figured someone had sent it to her because they knew she knew me.”

“And you believed her?”

“She seemed to be telling the truth. She gave it to me at a party, in front of everyone else.”

“You mean a party with all the people you used to despise?”

He glared at me. “Yes. Sorry, but I like having some friends.”

“You used me and lied to me. That ends friendships in my world.”

“Does it? You have a lot of liars around you, Kitty. Maybe more than you realize.”

“I'm sure. So, Pia gave you the packet and instructions?”

“No, she gave me an envelope that had another envelope inside it. This was also addressed to me and it was sealed. Inside was a full disclosure briefing about how we have a lot of robots masquerading as important politicians. They're going to activate and take over, soon, unless they're stopped.”

Interesting. This was, point of fact, basically true. But we'd found a lot of them during Operation Destruction. However, we all knew we hadn't found every one.

Of course, the idea that some mysterious do-gooder had chosen Eugene to be his or her Instrument of Righteous Annihilation seemed more than a little farfetched. But it was a great way to get someone just gullible enough convinced to do your dirty work. And for sure we had people willing to do things like this prancing all over.

However, it was my turn to talk. Went, again, for noncommittal. “You're high.”

“No, Kitty, I'm not. I saw the numbers, the information. I'm an actuary, this is what I
do
. There was a lot of information, and I read through all of it. Ran all the numbers. It all added up. Our people are in danger, mine
and
yours. I had to do something.”

“Going to the authorities wasn't an option?”

“There's no one I can trust there. The robots have a lot of control.”

It was actually bugging me that he was calling them robots instead of androids. Chose to not correct him and get over it. Presumably whoever was in charge had their reasons for telling Eugene he was dealing with a robot versus an android.

“I'm sure they do. So, you decided to cowboy it all on your own and kill someone accused of being a robot without, say, verifying first?”

“You can't tell they're a robot until they're dead.”

“Really.” Did my best to get a lot of sarcasm into those two syllables.

“It's true. All the data was in the briefing I got.”

“Okay, so where's the information?”

“I can't tell you.”

“Look, Eugene, let's pretend that I believe you and don't still want to just kick your shin so hard that it'll never stop hurting. If you really got instructions and information like this, they are the
only
thing that could have a prayer of clearing you of murder in the first. And I'm probably the only one willing to go find this evidence, since I don't see Lydia hanging around telling you she'll wait for your cheating ass even if you get life in prison.”

“Why should I trust you? You said you aren't my friend anymore.”

“Because to the entire rest of the world, you appear to be a crazy, cheating, and above all,
stupid
murderer, who just killed a public official in a gruesome manner only because you missed your actual intended target, who you wanted to kill so you could have his wife and yours, too. To me, however, you appear to be someone who might be telling the truth. On a Truthfulness Scale of one to ten, I have you at a two right now, but I'm prepared to go into the negative numbers unless you come across with something concrete.”

The reality of this seemed to strike him for the first time. “But . . . I didn't know what I put in the water was deadly to anyone but a robot. Killing anyone human was an accident.”

“And just who, exactly, do you think is going to believe that, versus calling this extremely premeditated murder? Anyone? Bueller? Right, I only hear the sound of crickets chirping, Eugene.”

“What's going to happen to me?” He wasn't really asking me, since he was looking off into space in the terrified manner of someone who just realized they aren't asleep after all and they really are standing naked in front of a huge auditorium filled with everyone they've ever known in their entire life.

“Gas chamber? Firing squad? Lethal injection? I'm not clear on what they do to you around here for this kind of horrific act of violence. But I know what
we'll
do to you, and I doubt that we've relinquished all authority to the D.C. police and local legal system. Tell me where the hefty briefing papers and so-called anonymous instructions are. I'll get them, and if you're telling the truth, I'll make sure the proper authorities know about it.”

He nodded. “I kept them hidden. So Lydia wouldn't find them. Just in case.”

“Hidden where?”

“Somewhere safe.”

“Super. Where, exactly, is this safe place? Your office?” He shook his head. “Security deposit box?” Another head shake. “Bus locker?”

“No. Why would I go to the bus station, ever?”

“Pardon me for sullying your pristine reputation. So, where the hell did you hide these instructions from a mysterious person that you both believed and obeyed?” I'd worry about why he was so stupid later. Like once I'd found this information later. If it was real, we had the means to be able to have a hope of tracking where, and possibly who, it came from.

“I kept it at work.”

“Your office?”

“No, I've been free—” Eugene was interrupted by two things. The first was the shriek of a Peregrine that appeared between us and shoved me just a little to the right.

The second was the arrival of a bullet through his brain.

A
S BLOOD SPLATTERED,
Prince slammed into me and George the Peregrine. I went down, to be quickly covered by Hughes throwing himself on me and, by association, the animals.

Men were shouting, and I heard more shots being fired along with the van doors being slammed shut, even though the shots didn't appear to be coming toward the van. Anymore.

“You okay, Kitty?” Hughes asked.

“Yeah. Can we get up yet?”

“No,” Walker replied. “You stay down. Matt, stay on top of her.” He sounded tense. Couldn't blame him.

“That bullet was meant for me, wasn't it?”

“Yeah,” Walker said. “I think it was. Good thing the Peregrine showed up when it did.”

Gave George a nice scritchy-scratch between his wings and petted Prince while we all lay on the floor of the van. A lot of things were running through my mind, not the least of which being that I had a really good guess as to who'd just shot Eugene: Raul the Assassin with a Grudge.

This line of reasoning raised many more questions than it answered, of course. Like where were the Dingo and Surly Vic, what was really going on, and what was the rest of the sentence Eugene was going to speak? I was most interested in the last one, since it was the only way to find whatever he'd been sent.

The shooting stopped. Someone banged on the van three times. Hughes got off me. “The shooter might have been aiming for both of you,” he said as he helped me up.

“Yeah.” Walker was examining the part of the van behind what was left of Eugene's head. I pointedly looked at the big hole in the metal, versus the big hole in Eugene. Realized that I'd sort of asked for Eugene to be executed in the public square and this had been pretty close to matching my request. “I think it was an armor-piercing bullet, meaning it would have gone through Kitty and into Montgomery here, too.”

“Intentional double-duty or just didn't care about who else got killed?”

“Depends on who hired him,” Hughes said. “I mean, we all agree this was the work of a professional, right?”

“Seems like it to me.” Hoped this was noncommittal enough that neither one would ask the obvious question.

“Which assassin that's tried to kill you before do you think did this, Kitty?” Walker asked.

So much for noncommittal. “Tell you guys later when we do the team debrief I just know we're going to have.” Looked down at my dress. Sure enough, there was blood and dirt all over it. “My dress is ruined.”

That said, I burst into tears.

The van doors opened and someone had their arms around me in record time. “I'll take it from here,” Jeff said as he picked me up. “One of you take the dog and get him inside the Embassy safely. The bird can take care of itself I'm sure.”

I buried my face in Jeff's neck as he zipped us out of the van and into the Embassy. At least I assumed that's what he was doing. I was too busy crying like a baby. Though Jamie rarely cried like this, truth be told.

Heard a door close and lock. Jeff sat down with me in his lap. “We're back in the bathroom, baby.” He cleared his throat. “And the bird's still with us.”

“Good.” Maybe I could wash my face and attempt to not look like a bright red Christmas ornament. “George is just making sure we're really okay. How'd you know to come get me?”

“One of the other Peregrines showed up and started pecking at me while a couple Poofs did their jump up and down and mew in an authoritative manner thing.”

“You can understand them now?”

“No. I just figure that when the animals are acting up like that, it has something to do with you being in trouble. So far, the theory's never been wrong.” He hugged me. “Thank God you're okay.”

“I don't know why I'm crying.”

“I do. It's been a hell of a day. Who was the killer aiming for, you or Eugene?”

“Matt, Chip, and I think it was me or both of us, based on the bullet being used. I think the shooter was Raul, by the way.”

“Makes sense. Nice to see your supposed ‘uncle' was on the job.” Jeff's sarcasm knob was definitely turned to eleven.

“Who knows what's really going on? Not me.” Pulled my face out of his neck and pulled myself together as much as I could as I sat up. Harlie and Poofikins appeared in my lap and started purring. Having the Poofs there helped a lot. Having Jeff hugging me helped more. “I'm a mess, aren't I?”

“You're always the most beautiful girl in the galaxy to me, baby.” Then Jeff kissed me deeply. His kiss always drove everything else from my mind, and I enjoyed it for the kiss itself and the momentary removal of worry about anything else other than getting naked as fast as possible.

Jeff ended our kiss slowly. “We still have lots to do tonight, baby. With this attack, Richard's worried even more about our people at the hospital, and I am, too.”

“You two need to get over there. I got some information from Eugene, but he was killed before he could give me all of it.”

“Nice to see our luck remains consistent.” Jeff hugged me again. “I don't want to leave you alone here.”

Shook my head. “I'm inside the Embassy now. No sniper's going to shoot in here, and I'll stay away from windows.” Put the Poofs gently onto the couch, gave George another scritchy-scratch, got up, and washed my face with cold water. It helped a little. Focused on the nice fluffy towels we had as I used one to dry my face. We really didn't have time for me to go Basket Case on everyone.

Took a deep breath, let it out slowly. Felt a little more in control, but I still looked like I'd been crying. Fine. I'd looked worse.

There was a knock on the bathroom door. Jeff looked at me, I nodded, and he opened the door. White came in. “I approve of this as our new office. That way, no one can claim needing to use the facilities to get out of a boring briefing session.”

I burst into laughter. “Thanks, Richard. What's up, you heading over to the hospital?”

“Yes, because there's now another body going over. The SWAT team has declared the area devoid of snipers, so I'm going over with Airborne and the entire K-9 division, which should provide me with more than enough protection. Jeffrey, you need to stay with my partner and take care of her until I'm back.”

Jeff grinned. “Yes, sir, Uncle Richard.”

White came over and hugged me. “Anything I should know before we go? Other than the fact that, apparently, Raul is a sneakier person than the Dingo expects.”

“Or he has help the Dingo doesn't.” Heaved a sigh. “Eugene got orders telling him Brewer was a robot. Robot, not android, by the way. If we can find those papers, then we can maybe figure out who put Eugene into
La Femme Nikita
Mode. He said they weren't at his home to protect Lydia. I asked about other places. He said he kept them at work, but not his real office. He was mid-word when he was . . .”

“Regardless of what he thought he was doing, he murdered someone, and tried to murder someone else, without doing due diligence,” White said gently. “That he's dead instead of you is a blessing. What word was he saying?”

“He said he was free and then bam, George knocked me back and Eugene was dead.”

“Was he working for free?” Jeff asked. “As in, volunteering somewhere?”

“No, he didn't make it sound like that. We'll figure it out, I'm sure. I'm still shaken up, so my Megalomaniac Girl skills aren't kicking in.”

“I'm happier than I can say that your Doctor Doolittle skills were in top form,” Jeff said, as he gave George a pat.

“Well, as you said, we'll figure it out,” White said with calm confidence. He hugged me again. “I'm going to ensure that all our personnel are brought safely home, and as soon as possible. I believe we want everyone safely tucked away.”

“Speaking of which, where's Christopher, does anyone know?”

White and Jeff both shook their heads. “I haven't picked him up at all,” Jeff said. “So I think he's still in the tunnels. I sent him the news that Buchanan appeared to have made the decision to go underground, but I haven't heard back, so I don't know if he got it or not.”

“If he's not back by the time I return from the hospital, we'll worry,” White said. “Otherwise, he's a big boy and, frankly, quite competent enough to dispatch anyone or anything he might need to.”

“He likes getting to cut loose,” Jeff added. “We get to do it so infrequently now.”

Chose not to voice any worries. Because I could tell both men were saying these things so they could hide the fact that
they
were worried. “You're right. Christopher will be fine.” Chose also to not mention that the last time someone had disappeared, Jeff and Chuckie were gone for far too long a time.

White kissed my cheek, gave Jeff a hug, and zipped off.

“Ready to leave the bathroom, baby?”

“In a second. George, Harlie, can you two please ensure we have at least a couple Peregrines and some Poofs going with Richard in Stealth Mode?”

Harlie mewed and George squawked and did the head bob thing.

“Oh, good initiative!”

Jeff sighed. “Translation?”

“Samson, who is Richard's Peregrine, is with him, as are his Poof and several others. Poofs are already at the hospital because they're with their people, so we're good. Everyone's on high alert, so to speak.”

“Good.” Harlie and George both turned and looked at Jeff. “Err, good jobs, everyone.” Harlie purred, George squawked in a friendly manner. “You're, ah, welcome.”

“See? You can get what they mean. So, let's head upstairs and see what Hacker International thinks of the bug in my purse.”