Alien Diplomacy

said, as we all started walking again. “However, we have another person dead, before the main event.”
    “And there would have been more dead, too, if Mister Joel Oliver hadn’t been around and we hadn’t worked really well as a team yesterday.”
    The conversation died down as we strolled along. I wondered if anyone else from the Washington Wife class was going to call me or leap out from the bushes to share some more weirdness. While I waited for the next round of strange and unusual, I pondered everything, but doing it silently meant I was getting nothing other than the strong feeling that Ryan had been murdered.
    I hadn’t liked him at all, and he hadn’t liked me, either. But he’d still called to warn me, and I knew he’d been warning me about real danger, even if the others he’d contacted didn’t. And now he was dead, and it didn’t seem like any of his so-called friends really cared.
    Why I cared I couldn’t say. But I did. We’d lost six agents and now Jack Ryan, and I had no idea if the events were connected, but my gut said they were. My mother believed in listening to the gut.
    Sadly, my gut had no concrete information to share, like who was behind this, who the real assassination target was, or what we could do to stop it. My gut was totally letting the rest of me down, but there was nothing I could do about it.
    My brain suggested I run my mouth, as opposed to continuing on in silence, which clearly wasn’t working for me. But I didn’t really want to chat about the nothing we’d gleaned so far from this excursion, mostly because we were going to have to rehash it the moment we got back to the Embassy.
    Of course, we could always talk about something else. I went for continuing our prior conversation. “Did Jeff and Christopher go to school at the Embassy, Richard?”
    He took this out-of-the-blue question in stride. “In a sense. They were the only children here when Theresa was our Head Diplomat.She handled their schooling.” This I knew to be true in more ways than one. “Once she…passed away, the boys were schooled at East Base.”
    We reached Sheridan Circle and crossed into the park to give the dogs one last chance. “You know, I hadn’t thought about day care or anything for Jamie.” Yet another one in the Good Mother Fail column. “I didn’t think she’d need it this young.”
    White coughed delicately. “Your penchant for running off into danger isn’t exactly a secret.”
    “Hey, I didn’t go into the Paraguayan Embassy. Either time.”
    “Yet.”
    “Fine, fine. But it’s not like I’d have raced in there, even if something exciting had happened when were nearby, not with Jamie along.”
    “No one believes that, Missus Martini, Pierre least of all. Yesterday was all it took for Pierre to declare that the day care center needed to be put into operation immediately.”
    “Can’t argue with the logic.” Dog duties done, we crossed the street. Because of how the circle crosswalks worked, we ended up in front of Ireland’s Embassy, with another street to cross to get home. I looked down Massachusetts Avenue and heaved a sigh. “Especially since we have unfriendly company. Again.”



CHAPTER 59
    L EN SPOTTED WHAT I HAD —three taxis heading for us. Three very familiar taxis.
    He stopped walking at the corner by an open area between buildings, presumably so we’d have an exit strategy. We were close enough to home to make it if we ran, but under the circumstances, crossing the street didn’t seem wise. White and I moved closer to him, and Kyle did the same, still flanking us.
    I contemplated my options and put Jamie back into the stroller. Once she was in, I lowered the sun shield completely, so no one could see her. “Poofies, be on small and quiet guard duty. Protect Jamie.” Poof purrs and tiny growls assured me that the Poofs were on top of things. I also kept my finger over the laser shield button.
    “Let’s buddy up to the stroller, just in case,” I suggested, as I pulled Len a little closer. White did the same with Kyle. Good, ready for anything they’d want to throw at us—literally, I hoped.
    The three taxis drove around the circle and pulled up to the curb next to us. “You folks need a ride?” the driver of the first taxi asked. He was disguised as he’d been the day before—poorly. I still couldn’t tell what country he might originally be from, including if it was this one.
    The boys had made the dogs sit, but all four of