Alien Diplomacy (12 page)

“Police funding has been cut recently,” Oliver said. “I did a full exposé on it a few weeks ago.”

“I don’t read your paper, sorry. Want to give me the CliffsNotes version?”

Oliver sighed. “Certainly. Due to the economic situation, funding has been slashed from a variety of programs, law enforcement being only one of them. Private security firms are attached to various Embassies and politicians, funded through something other than taxes.”

“You mean kickbacks or campaign funds.”

He shrugged. “Among other, legitimate means. There are several security firms who are trying to get contracts to protect our people in various unfriendly countries, versus having the U.S. military do it. D.C. is the test case.”

“I thought it worked the other way around.”

“Sometimes. Not this time. Titan Security has a lot of influence.”

“They’re the ones in charge?”

“Not in charge so much as assigned. Titan Security has the most contracts in place right now. There are others, of course, vying for the business; however, at this moment it’s Titan’s business to lose.”

“Is that good or bad?”

Oliver shrugged. “I personally feel that giving any private company that much power is a bad thing. But Titan’s leadership are very well entrenched within the political structure, and they have a strong lobbyist working for them. They’re here to stay unless they screw up very badly and publicly.”

“Lucky us. So, Titan has the bigwigs?”

Oliver nodded. “And some key properties, all the monuments, and so forth.”

“Then who’s protecting the regular people?”

“Supposedly there are enough police officers on the streets to do an adequate job.” Oliver didn’t sound like he agreed with this statement. After what had just happened to us with little to no police interest, I agreed with the sentiment. “However, that does mean there are fewer officers handling traffic duty right now.”

“At least we’re not on the bus. Speaking of which, let’s at least have some tunes while we sit.”

Kyle dutifully turned on the music, and “How You Like Me Now?” from The Heavy came on.

“I’d like it better if we were moving,” Len muttered.

Due to the vagaries and joys of the current traffic jam, our other limo was next to us. Len motioned for them to go ahead as we all funneled into the one lane. We weren’t the only limos in this jam—there were a lot of them, mostly black, but some white and even some other gray ones.

Things unsnarled, resnarled, and unsnarled again. I lost track of where our other limo was. There were several gray ones nearby. I counted. There were a lot of gray limos. In fact, we were now a little fleet of gray limos.

I looked closer. Centaurion Division’s limos didn’t look very different from any other limos out there, at least on the outside. Limo windows were tinted like every other limo, so it was close to impossible to see in. Drivers would be humans, and I certainly didn’t know every human driver we had. But I also found it hard to believe that anyone, even Jeff, had decided we needed a fleet of limos to get home.

Len cursed. “We need to turn, but no one’s letting us over.”

Sure enough, we were in the middle of the group, like our own little mobile pod of gray whales. Only we didn’t belong in the pod.

“Boys? I think evasive maneuvers are going to become a necessity.” No sooner had I said this than I saw the windows of the limos next to us roll down. “Kyle! Hit the laser shield button!”

I hoped he’d been told where it was, because the guns pointed at us started firing.

I
T HAD BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE
I’d actually been inside a laser shield, and now here I’d gotten to do it twice in one day. Not that I was complaining.

Actually, what I was doing was shielding Jamie. But, fortunately, Kyle had found the button in time, and we were treated to the interesting sight of watching bullets ricochet. The sound was different—a sort of deep pinging combined with a weird boing at the end. I decided I liked it a lot better than the sound bullets made when they hit people I cared about.

“Kitty, sit down!” Len sounded pissed, not that I could blame him. “I’m going to ram through. Keep the baby in her seat.”

I sat and rebuckled. “I’m not so sure—” I wasn’t sure it was a good idea to do this, but Len floored it and proved that concern to be a moot point. We slammed into the car ahead of us, but the impact didn’t feel like too much. A-C technology had a lot of advantages, and every A-C vehicle had a lot of cool, high-tech after-market stuff in it. Which begged the question of how someone had managed to rig our former limo. However, I didn’t have time to ponder that one at this precise time—I was focused on not getting whiplash.

“You sure they’re all unfriendlies?” Pierre asked, with a lot more calm in his tone than I’d have expected.

“Don’t care,” Len snarled.

“I don’t think American Centaurion would be firing on their own people,” Oliver said. He sounded fairly calm, too.

Kyle was on his phone barking something to someone, and Len was snarling but driving really well, if I defined that to mean we
were going to totally win this demolition derby. Even Jamie seemed to be handling this like a trooper. Leaving me to act like a normal person. Always the way.

Of course, screaming wouldn’t help anyone and would probably scare Jamie. So I went for my other standby—running my mouth. “So, Mister Joel Oliver, with all your contacts, you didn’t spot yourself as the assassination target du jour?”

“I’m with you,” he pointed out as we rammed the car next to us.

My phone chose this moment to ring. I managed to grab my purse as we jerked and slammed against the other car next to us. The gunmen inside had recovered themselves and were now aiming lower. “Len, they’re trying to hit our tires,” I shared as I flipped my phone open.

“Great, that
is
your car on the news. Girlfriend, I can’t let you out of my sight.”

“James, a little help would be appreciated.”

“Serene’s team is altering footage, and we just dispatched agents to help.”

“Could they help with the bullets flying?”

“What?” He sounded shocked and horrified.

“I thought you said we were on the news.”

“Major traffic incident, that’s all they’re showing. No mention of gunfire.”

“Well, there’s a lot of it. We’re surrounded by gray limos, by the way, so be sure the agents don’t just randomly go help gray cars, because the chances are good they’ll be helping the bad guys or get shot. No worries about police interference, though, so there’s that going for us. I guess.” A few cops shooting back at the bad guys wouldn’t have gone unappreciated by me at this point.

Len broke us through and floored it. We weren’t by our street. I had no idea where we were by now, though I thought we were close to Georgetown. Len either knew or didn’t care. We careened down street after street, weaving in and out of traffic as “Destination Unknown” by Missing Persons fittingly came on the sound system. I cringed, waiting for us to run over some random tourist. “James, where is that help that’s supposedly coming?”

“They’re with our other car.” His voice sounded funny.

My stomach clenched. “They didn’t activate their laser shield in time?”

“No, they didn’t.”

We were too far away for me to have a hope of spotting them, but I turned around anyway. There were several gray limos following
us. They all had guns. “We’re doing okay, I think.” I considered our options. “We’d have a better chance of getting away if we were on foot, I think. Using hyperspeed.” A-Cs could drag anyone along with them if they were touching. I figured I could do it, too, since I had the powers if not the full control. Besides, slamming into a building had to be better than being shot, right?

“I can’t authorize that.”

“Um, why the hell not?”

“Serene says there’s an unreal number of cameras trained on you right now. If you bolt, someone will catch it, and she’s concerned Imageering will miss something.”

“Great. Just great. Where are Jeff and Christopher?”

“At the Embassy.”

“Where are you?”

“At the Pontifex’s Residence.” The Pontifex had digs in D.C., close by but not within or attached to the Embassy. Before we’d become the Head Diplomats, I’d never known it existed—Richard White had never used it. Since we’d changed jobs, Reader and Gower were there a lot. The implications of this were crystal clear—we were screwing up. A lot. However, right now what I cared about was getting some help.

“Okay, I’ll call you back.”

“What? Stay on the phone with me.”

“Um, no. Gotta make a call.” I hung up and dialed as Rihanna’s “SOS” came on. “Jeff, where are you?”

“Tracking you.”

“I thought you might be. James doesn’t want us to run, and I don’t want you or Christopher to get shot.”

“Wow, I don’t want my wife or child to get hurt. Guess what? I plan to win this argument. We’ll be there in a couple of seconds.”

I hung up. “Guys? Be prepared. Kyle? Unlock the doors, please. Now.”

“What?” He sounded freaked. I didn’t care.

“Unlock the damn doors!” He did. Jamie cooed and looked expectant. “I know, Jamie-Kat, Daddy and Uncle Christopher are here.” Blocks or not, Jamie always knew when Jeff was nearby. About a second later, the doors on either side opened and shut. If I hadn’t been prepared for it, I’d have missed it, enhanced vision or not.

No one else was prepared for it, of course. Pierre yelped, Oliver jumped, Kyle shouted, and Len spun the wheel to the right.

“We want them in,” I shared as Len got the car under control. I
realized he hadn’t actually lost his cool. We’d gotten onto a dead-end street and had to get out of it. “Hi, guys. Missed you.”

Jeff shook his head. “Only my girl. You okay, baby?”

“Yeah, we are. Per James, the other car wasn’t as lucky.”

“Luck had nothing to do with it,” Christopher said. He was glaring, Patented Glare #3, but I had the feeling he was glaring at the situation in general, not at anyone specifically. He was a glaring impresario, after all, and had great range.

Jeff looked around. “Why is the reporter in the car with us?”

“Chuckie and I thought it was wise to protect him.”

Jeff grunted, then nodded to Pierre. “Glad you’re here. Sorry about the welcome.”

Pierre waved his hand nonchalantly. “Darling, really. Bullets and a rather slow car chase? That’s nothing. You’re speaking to a man who spends his time in the midst of crises of epic proportions. Now, if the cars were manned with half-crazed and completely stressed-out mothers of the brides? I might feel a quiver or two of fear. Otherwise, this makes a lovely change.”

Oliver shrugged. “I’ve covered wars. So far, he’s right, this isn’t too bad.”

“I mention that it was really bad for the car of ours that didn’t get its laser shield up in time, and we’ll let it go at that. Good speed on that one, Kyle, by the way.”

He turned around. There was a funny expression on his face. “Kitty, I didn’t hit the shield button. It activated before I could reach it.”

We all stared at each other. A suspicion niggled. Operation Confusion would have been a lot more confusing, and we’d have lost at least every guy on Alpha and Airborne, if not for the fact that Jamie had talents even Jeff hadn’t been able to figure out yet. Hybrid girls were nothing if not exceptionally gifted. And, as had been pointed out to me frequently, while Jamie’s blocks kept her from feeling everyone’s emotions, her hearing was topnotch. After all, I knew why the bus had acted strangely earlier.

I looked right into her eyes. Jamie looked back and grabbed my nose. I laughed and kissed her head. “You’re such a good baby.”

T
O EVERYONE’S CREDIT,
while they looked shocked, no one asked me if I was crazy. I didn’t figure this kind of luck would hold, but I enjoyed the moment.

Then again, they might not have said it aloud, but their expressions showed a variety of “you so crazy” looks. I could understand why the others were surprised, but, really, Operation Confusion had only been three months ago. You’d think Jeff and Christopher both would have remembered that Jamie had had a tiny hand in helping to save the day.