Alien Diplomacy

were flashing. The boys weren’t liking this accusation at all.
    Chuckie examined them. “No,” he said finally. I relaxed, Jeff grumbled, the boys looked relieved and still hurt. “But right now, we can’t be sure.”
    I thought about yesterday’s fun-filled timeline. “If I was bugged, it wasn’t by the boys. They haven’t been around long enough. Same with MJO, they weren’t around him long enough to bug anything. And he and Pierre found all of his bugs last night.”
    “Plenty of time if you’re good enough,” Chuckie said.
    I shook my head. “They aren’t that good yet.”
    “Thanks a lot,” Kyle muttered.
    “What’s going on?” Len asked.
    “We’ll fill you in on the way to the limo,” Jeff said firmly.
    Before we could leave, the melodious tones of the front doorbell rang out. “Are we expecting company?”
    “Not that I know of,” Jeff said.
    “I haven’t had time to finalize calendars, but no, Walter didn’t inform me of such,” Pierre said, as he dashed off, presumably to get the door.
    “All of you,” Jeff said to the agents, “get the place cleaned up and make sure it looks human, top speed. Get the bugs over to Dulce, pronto. I want all the intelligence on them as fast as possible. Our fast, not human fast.”
    I blinked and the bugs all disappeared and things were put into place. The agents were nowhere to be seen. “Hyperspeed rocks.”
    Pierre stuck his head in. “There’s quite a large a group of gentlemen and ladies to see you, Ambassadors. And you, too, Mister Reynolds. They wouldn’t take no or come back once you’ve scheduled an appointment for an answer, either.”
    We all looked at each other. “What’s going on?” Jeff asked.
    “No idea,” Chuckie said. “But I think we’d better go find out.”



CHAPTER 30
    “I ’VE PUT THEM INTO THE SMALL PARLOR on the first floor,” Pierre said. “It’s the most businesslike room closest to the front door. I did my best to ensure they saw as little of the Embassy as possible.”
    “Thanks, Pierre, good job.” Jeff jerked his head at me and Chuckie. “Let’s go and see who’s dropped in for a visit. Jocks and reporters stay here.” They all looked disappointed, but didn’t argue.
    “How the hell does anyone know I’m here?” Chuckie asked quietly as we walked down the hall.
    “You’re here a lot.”
    “Tell me about it,” Jeff muttered as we reached the stairs and headed down.
    We entered the room to find it packed with people. I knew some of them—Esteban Cantu, Madeline Cartwright, and Vincent Armstrong. Cantu was a rather handsome Latin man who was the head of the C.I.A.’s Antiterrorism unit. A unit that didn’t report in to the P.T.C.U. in any way. Armstrong was the senior senator from Florida and looked the part. And Cartwright was their Pentagon liaison.
    There had been a fourth to their little cabal, John Cooper, from the C.I.A. He’d been one of the ones in charge of Operation Confusion. Happily, he was long dead now—Chuckie had taken him out after he’d tried to kill us all several different times.
    I suspected the three of them still wanted to get rid of Chuckie and us so they could take over Centaurion Division, but so far we had no real proof. They were also on several committees that dealt with South America, national security, and anti-American activities,meaning they interacted with Centaurion Division and the C.I.A.’s ET division frequently. However, normally we dealt with them at Langley.
    “Reynolds,” Cantu said with a hearty smile. “I figured we’d find you here.”
    “Cantu. What can I do for you?” Chuckie asked, voice clipped. They pointedly didn’t shake hands.
    “Oh, I think it might be what we can do for you,” Armstrong said. “Madeline, why don’t you make the introductions?” There were six more people, three men, three women, all dressed according to the latest fashions from Intimidation Weekly. They all had the “look,” too. We were in a room full of political animals.
    Cartwright was an older woman, with short hair and cat’s-eye glasses, and she always dressed severely. It was like she was trying to channel Lotte Lenya in From Russia With Love , only the American version. Of the original four and now three of them, though, I liked Cartwright the best, which was a classic example of damning with faint praise.
    She managed a fleeting smile. “Ambassadors. How things have changed in the last few months, haven’t they? Especially for