Alien Diplomacy

the Dingo, his cousin, or anyone else.” He looked down. “I should have read it when you wanted me to, Kitty.”
    I managed to refrain from saying something really obvious like “you didn’t pick it up before racing out?” because that was clearly a given. Besides, Christopher’s expression and body language said he was already beating himself up far more than I could ever manage.
    Jeff nudged me. I got the clue. “It’s okay, Christopher. We’re used to working with less. I should have let Chuckie hold onto it until you were ready.”
    “Enough of the pity party,” Chuckie said firmly. “Mistakes happen. So the fire alarm was tripped to get us out and let them grab the picture, presumably before White or another imageer could read it. Though I still have no idea how they know what we’re doing or saying.”
    “Guess we’re lucky they let us finish eating.”
    Jeff grunted. “A full stomach’s nice. Catching these assassins would be better.”
    “Why are we assuming it’s the Dingo Dog and/or Surly Vic?” I looked at Walter. “How many people supposedly from the gas company were here earlier?”
    “Three, Chief.”
    “Huh.”
    “Kitty, why are you saying supposedly?” Christopher asked. “They had all the proper identification.”
    “You know, I really need to get all of you to a few movies or at least watching TV shows that were made in this century. One of the easiest disguises out there is to pretend to be a workman with one of the utility companies. No one wants to question too much if they’re worried their building’s going to blow sky high.”
    Chuckie nodded. “They were alone in the building?”
    “No, sir, Mister Reynolds,” Walter said. “I stayed with them the entire time. They tried to separate, to check things more quickly, but I wouldn’t allow it.”
    “Good man. There were three of them, though, Walt. Was there ever a time when one of them was out of your sight, even if it was for a really short time?”
    Walter’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know if we’d call it out of my sight, but when we were all in the ballroom, they were each in different parts of the room. I did keep my eyes on them, though.”
    “But three is hard to watch, and while you’re looking at one, you can’t look at the others.” I looked up at Chuckie. “So they planted bugs, at least. And this was after we’d scanned everything and found all those bugs in my purse and on Mister Joel Oliver. I’ll bet we haven’t scanned for bugs since.”
    Walter looked chagrined. “No, Chief, I haven’t.” Christopher hypersped off.
    “No worries, Walt. Of all of us, you’re the only one who’s actually not screwing up.”
    Christopher returned. “Found them, at least I think I have. I left them in place.”
    “Good,” Chuckie said. “We’ll check them in a moment. Walter, can you describe the men who were here?”
    “I can do better than that, Mister Reynolds.” Walter turned back to his main console, fiddled with some knobs, flicked some switches, typed something into his computer keyboard, and suddenly we had video.
    “You video tape us?” Maybe it was some weird A-C thing, but I didn’t like it. The former Diplomatic Corps had liked doing that a little too much.
    “No, Chief. But we have video at every entrance to the building. It’s standard practice for all Embassies, not just ours.”
    “Just the entrances?” Chuckie asked, sounding mildly worried. “Nothing more?”
    “Why wouldn’t that be plenty?”
    Chuckie gave me the “duh” look. “Because most Embassies have video feeds on all their general areas. And this one should, too.”
    Walter looked uncomfortable. “Ah, well…”
    Jeff sighed. “My order, Reynolds. After what was found in that secret lab, I didn’t want any of us being spied on.”
    Chuckie gave Jeff a look I could only think of as disgusted and long-suffering. “You live to make everyone’s jobs harder, don’t you? Mine in particular.”
    “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Jeff wasn’t snapping or snarling, but his eyes were narrowed.
    “So, as opposed to ensuring the safety of this Embassy and everyone in it, you chose to remove one of the standard security elements every building in this city has installed, simply because video feeds were used against us a few months ago, and you didn’t bother to put any other kind of backup in place?” Chuckie sounded both angry and resigned. I had a feeling the migraine was trying to show up