Alien Diplomacy

anyone…untoward…taking advantage of them while they’re ill or injured.”
    Interesting. So Nurse Carter was used to shadowy people trying to snag other people’s property. “These other men, they didn’t have any paperwork that would have given them clearance, did they?”
    “You mean like a warrant? No. I would have contacted you if that had been the case.”
    “How did you get anything of my uncle’s in the first place?”
    “Oh, every patient’s belongings are bagged and tagged when they arrive. He requested his things be sent to the vault, after asking that we be sure to notify his next of kin of his predicament.”
    So Peter had been aware of the kind of security the medical center had. “Do all the area hospitals work the same way?”
    “Of course.” The doors opened, and we trailed Nurse Carter as she wound her way through the rat maze of corridors. They weren’t too brightly lit—not dim but not really typical medical bright white light, either. Presumably because there weren’t patients down here. We ended up at a room with a Security kiosk in front of it.
    The guard reminded me of our A-C Security teams. Not that he was gorgeous, far from it. But he was big and had that totally bored yet totally alert at the same time thing going on.
    He and Nurse Carter exchanged some sign and countersign stuff that seemed amazingly complex for a hospital, then he allowed her inside. I started to follow, and he put his hand up. “Only the nurse.”
    She looked at me. “Miss Katt can come in. The gentlemen need to wait outside.”
    “I’d like to go with my wife,” Jeff said. He sounded worried. And annoyed that she was still calling me Miss. I was accepting that, for whatever reason, a wedding ring, driver’s license with my married name on it, and my husband and/or baby with me weren’t convincing some people that I was marriageable material.
    “She’ll be fine,” Nurse Carter said reassuringly. “If she gets emotional, I’ll get her right back out to you.”
    I knew Jeff wasn’t worried about my sobbing over my “uncle’s” things. I figured he didn’t like the idea of us separating this way. I couldn’t blame him. Then again, if this was how they did things atthe D.C. hospitals, making a fuss would draw a lot of unwanted attention.
    “I’ll be fine.” I squeezed Jeff’s hand and followed Nurse Carter into the vault.
    The door closed behind us, sounding very loud and very emphatic. The lighting was fairly dim, like the rest of the floor. Apparently they liked to keep it creepy in their basement. How Stephen King of them.
    With that cheery thought in my mind, I followed Nurse Carter to the back of the vault, where there was a bank of what looked like safety deposit boxes. She inserted a key into one, opened it, pulled out a bunch of stuff in a long tray, and put it down on the table nearby.
    “Now,” she said, as she turned around, took a nasty looking handgun out of the tray, and pointed it at me, “why don’t you tell me what the hell is going on?”



CHAPTER 33
    T HIS WAS SO TYPICAL FOR MY LUCK that I didn’t even comment on it. “I have no freaking idea. Who the hell are you? And why the elaborate ruse to get me down here?”
    Her eyes narrowed. “It’s not a ruse. Why did the Dingo put you as his next of kin?”
    “The Dingo?” I’d heard some amazing nicknames by now, but this one was in the running for World’s Worst for sure.
    She shrugged. “It’s his name in the business.”
    “What business, the assassin business? You guys have a union or something?”
    “Yes, the assassin business, and I’m not in it.”
    “Right. That’s why you have the big gun pointed at me.”
    “I don’t like taking chances.”
    “So, you moonlight in nursing and kill people at the same time? That’s convenient.”
    “I haven’t killed anybody. Today,” she added, apparently for truthfulness.
    “Great. I haven’t either. I’m willing to start with you, though, if you don’t get that gun out of my face.” This was bluster on my part. Hyperspeed did nothing for you if the bullet caught you, and she was close enough that I wasn’t sure I could get out of the way in time.
    “Why did the Dingo put you as next of kin?”
    “Again, I have no freaking idea. I don’t make up these plans. I just get caught up in them and have to figure them out before everyone I care about gets killed. Why do you know him as the Dingo and who the hell are you?”
    She studied me.