Alien Diplomacy

the exasperation sound. “She’s making profiling statements. We have a good file on the Dingo, but not good enough. We have three people in this room who have all interacted with him and lived. One of those people has shown an amazing ability to think like the people we’re trying to stop. Now, can Kitty answer my damn question?”
    “Fine, fine,” Jeff muttered.
    I leaned down. “I’m fine now,” I whispered to him. “You can relax.” I heard his stomach grumble. “And hopefully food will be here soon.”
    As I said this, agents appeared with a full spread. A buffet table was set up and everyone filed through to get food. I looked at the food. I looked again. “Um, what’s all this?” There was nothing on the buffet I could recognize as edible.
    “National specialties,” Pierre said, as he fussed around the display and sent some of the agents off for things he felt were missing.
    “What nation?”
    “Your neighbors’.” Pierre shook his head. “We need to blend a tad more effectively, darling, and your kitchen staff is, what, actually several thousand miles away? Today that was a blessing, but otherwise we need a better system for entertaining. However, until such time as we can achieve it, I want us all getting used to eating the foods of those countries near and dear to us.”
    “By near and dear you mean on our block?”
    “That and the surrounding neighborhoods. The Gas Leak District, so to speak.”
    I felt I should recognize something on this table, but so far, every dish was a mystery. I wanted to ask what everything was, but I could tell Chuckie wasn’t happy with the delay, so I made sure to stand next to him in the food line and instead of asking him to tell me what I was eating, I took one for the team. “You want me to give you my joke theory now or wait?”
    “Now. We don’t have time to wait.”
    I heard Reader groan. His view was that the moment I gave my theories, we had no time to eat. But since the main action was set for tomorrow night, I figured we could risk it. “Works for me. Okay,Peter called me Miss Katt. I know he knew I was married. He was calling me Miss Katt for a reason, and I think it’s because he’s seen my picture at Caroline’s place and has thought of me, therefore, as Katherine Katt.”
    “Kitty,” Caroline, who was with us, clearly intending to stay as near to Chuckie as possible, said as she loaded some food onto her plate without grimace or hesitation. “I have the fancy-shmancy composite picture, the big one. It has everyone’s names, nicknames, and pledge names on it. He commented on you being called Kitty Katt. He thought it was funny.”
    “So he was in Caro’s apartment basically casing her life. Great. And cats have nine lives, and he’d been trying to kill me all day and I’d evaded it. I think he was getting a triple, at least, out of the joke.”
    Chuckie nodded slowly. “That kind of word play, especially the layers of it, indicates a high intelligence.”
    “Maybe more than one kind of intelligence.”
    Chuckie raised his eyebrow. “How do you mean?”
    “Maybe Peter the Dingo Dog knows that I’ve foiled some other assassination attempts.”
    “Extra layers to the nine lives joke. I can see it. We need to have Caroline’s apartment searched and watched.”
    “I agree. What the heck is that?”
    “Pasta of some kind,” Jeff said as he put an extra helping of the supposed pasta onto his plate. “We already assigned teams to Caroline’s place, Reynolds.”
    “It doesn’t look like pasta.”
    “It looks better than that tapeworm dish Alexander said was a delicacy from ‘home.’ Anyway, we sent teams to check it out,” Jeff said, piling what might have been squid, might have been octopus, or might have been really thick weeds onto his plate.
    “What are they searching for?” Mister Joel Oliver said as he cheerfully shoved in with us.
    “None of your business,” Jeff growled.
    Caroline looked at Oliver. “I know you. Mister Joel Oliver, right? The investigative reporter?”
    Oliver nodded. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of meeting you in person, Miss Chase.”
    “You haven’t. I’ve seen your picture and byline. The senator reads every article you write.”
    I looked up at Chuckie. “He knows, doesn’t he? And by knows, I mean knows everything.”
    Chuckie nodded. “He’s from Arizona. The higher-level politicianswith Centaurion bases in their states know some to all about what’s going