Alien Diplomacy

anyone in my agency caused your team to be cut.” He had his Conspiracy Hat on, I could tell. “When cutting units, I’d think one of the last any force would cut would be K-9, if only for the dogs’ drug-sniffing ability.”
    “Yeah, well, that wasn’t the opinion of the higher-ups,” Ishmael said angrily.
    “What were you working on around the time you all got the pink slips?” I asked.
    “The usual stuff, running down drug tips, handling some aspects of search and seizure. Nothing extraordinary. His case was the oddest,” Ishmael jerked his head at Chuckie.
    “Did you take anything from Chuckie’s place and enter it into evidence?”
    The entire squad shook their heads. The one I was thinking of as Curly cocked his head at me. “You think we found something somewhere that made us targets?”
    “Yeah, I really do.” I pondered some more. “Were you sent to any high-profile places? Like the White House?”
    “I know where you’re going with this,” Larry said. “We’d have to go through case files to determine if we stepped on toes we shouldn’t have, and we don’t have access to those anymore. But, just so you know, regular cops don’t go to the White House.”
    “You resisted the desire to break in and plant bugs to track the President? I’m impressed. You just limited yourselves to Embassy Row, so you violated the rights of, what, ten or twenty countries?” The words left my mouth, and Jeff and Chuckie both stared at me. I stared back. “Oh. Snap .”
    “What?” Ishmael asked.
    “You put surveillance into every Embassy around ours, right?”
    He sighed. “Yes. We wanted to know what you were up to.”
    “You mean you wanted to know if Mister Joel Oliver was under our protection or in our custody.”
    “Yeah, that was part of it.”
    “He’ll be gratified to discover that he has a fan club. And then you picked up that we had information on a notorious assassin, and what better way to prove your squad’s worth than to bring down the Dingo, right?”
    He grimaced. “Right. You’d have done the same in my place.”
    “Possibly. We can debate that at another time. But let me ask the big question. Did you happen to put illegal surveillance into the Paraguayan Embassy?”
    “It’s not illegal—” Ishmael started.
    “Can it,” Kevin snapped. “I could arrest you on a laundry list of violations, every one of which would hold up in a court of law. You’ve kidnapped an ambassador. The only reason we don’t have all of you in handcuffs is because you did help save said ambassador’s life. Keep on playing coy, and we’ll show you how we do things at the P.T.C.U. Trust me when I say you don’t want to know.”
    “Fine,” Ishmael said. “Yes, we went there. We hit every Embassy within a mile radius of yours.”
    “And I’ll wager you’ve also been investigating Titan Security, especially their head man, Antony Marling, right?”
    Ishmael grimaced. “Yes. There’s not too much to find. Titan’s really good about hiding histories on anyone who matters in the company, Marling especially.”
    “Were you working on that before you were cut?” Chuckie asked.
    Ishmael sighed. “Not officially.”
    “But you were unofficially, in your off hours?” I asked. They all nodded. I looked at Jeff. “We have room.”
    He sighed. “I’m getting officially tired of adopting strays.”
    “What are you talking about?” Larry asked indignantly. “Our dogs belong to us. Each one’s registered and probably has a bloodline better than any of yours.”
    “I’d take that bet, especially in regard to my husband, but I’m in a charitable mood, so I’ll just explain things clearly for all of you. We’re tabling determining why your squad got the ax, for now.”
    “Why?” Ishmael asked, eyes narrowed.
    “Because you’ve landed yourselves into one of the bigger conspiracies going, and you’re all targets for assassination. Your missing and presumed very dead teammates are proof of that. How the rest of you are still alive is beyond me, but unless you go into some form of protective custody, you’re not going to be alive much longer.”
    No one spoke for a moment, so we all heard the sound. It sounded like someone had dropped a heavy tin can. And then another. And another.
    “Incoming!” Jerry shouted. “Grenades!”



CHAPTER 71
    T HERE WERE MANY TIMES I’d been grateful that A-Cs had hyperspeed, but none so much as this one.
    “Into the limos! Shields on!” Jeff