Alien Diplomacy

pissed. Ergo, it didn’t affect me all that much. I’d grown up with this look, usually when I came home late from a date.
    “Just what are you trying to share, young lady?” Young lady, not Ambassador. Yeah, he was trying the Parental Gambit.
    I could play the game, but time was short, we were on the same side, and I still didn’t know what was going on. “Peter and Victor are actually some of those professional assassins we were just talking about.”
    His eyes narrowed. “You have proof?”
    “Right now, only my word. The real evidence was destroyed earlier today.” And, I realized, that was exactly why the garage had been blown up. If the bombs and resulting building collapse killed all of us at the same time, it merely meant it was doing double duty. I had a feeling the Dingo was still alive and that he was here, right now.
    I ran his clue over in my mind. Despite all evidence to the contrary, I knew he’d been telling me what I wanted to know. But the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog still made no sense in terms of anything going on, unless Prince was the target, which seemed more than farfetched.
    McMillan shook his head. “You can’t afford to get into a pissing match with Titan. And by you, I mean American Centaurion. The big security companies are your enemies in more ways than one.”
    “Yeah, I know what you’re trying to find down in the Chaco. We want to stop that program, too.”
    He looked grim. “My entire congressional team wants the project found and stopped. We’re so close, but every time, we’re just a little too late. And now I know why.”
    “What do you know about Marling? I mean that the papers don’t print.”
    McMillan shook his head. “Before this conversation, I’d have said we both agreed on the philosophy of increasing help to local, state, and national protection agencies and differed on the paths to take. Now? If your intelligence is correct, it shades everything I know. But why would anyone hire assassins to be a part of theprotection team? Doing that kind of clandestine work seems more suited to spooks than to killers.”
    “Aren’t plenty of spooks killers, too?”
    “Yes, but not normally as a professional choice. You have to make hard decisions when you’re in the thick of things, but that doesn’t mean you murder for a living. I know you know that. Because I know you had the misfortune to meet Leventhal Reid before he…died.”
    I looked him right in the eye. “The story is that he was after a group of college coeds while he was high on meth and was subdued by county sheriffs. Unfortunately, to save the girls, the sheriffs had to kill him.”
    “It’s a good story, and you tell it very well.” He leaned closer and dropped his voice. “I’m close friends with your uncle; we served together for a time. Who do you think he turns to when he needs political approval to pull a particularly brave young lady’s fat out of the fire?”
    “I can guess.”
    “Reid was the worst kind of politician, and man, there is. You did the world a favor. But you didn’t do it because you were paid to, did you?”
    “No.” And actually, Jeff had killed him. To save me. But that distinction wasn’t important right now.
    Some people passed by and waved at McMillan in that way you do when you know you have to be polite but you really don’t want to stop to chat, let alone hang, with the wavee. He gave them a curt nod in return, and we went back to looking like party guests.
    “Who was that?” I asked as much out of interest as to sort of change the subject.
    “The head of the ATF. We’re not on good terms right now. Of course, I don’t get along all that well with most of the Alphabet Agencies, at least, not with the people in charge of them, your mother excluded. All of whom are in the room with us now. Should be a fun party.”
    And there it was. Total clarity.



CHAPTER 82
    B UT I HAD TO BE SURE BEFORE I leaped into action. “Senator, a related hypothetical. What if you wanted to kill some specific people, but you absolutely didn’t want anyone to know that they were the ones you wanted killed?”
    “A diversionary killing, you mean?”
    “Maybe. More that you don’t want the cops able to determine who the real intended targets were, so that the cops don’t figure out that you gave the order to terminate.” The few cops left, that is, who would be so overworked they’d take the first easy answer they could find, because doing otherwise