Alien Diplomacy

the envelope contained the name of the assassination target.”
    “I doubt it.”
    Everyone looked at me. “Want to explain that?” Christopher asked.
    “Look, we were all in the freaking Potomac. Jeff pulled the two bodies out, but he didn’t pull their damn car out of the river. And even if he had, you and Kyle searched all those limos.”
    “True. We didn’t find anything like what was just described. Not,” Christopher added with a sigh, “that we couldn’t have missed them. I wasn’t looking for paperwork or men’s toiletry kits. I was looking for guns and ammo.”
    I didn’t share with him that he hadn’t found all the guns, either. Why make it worse? “Fine. So, seriously, nothing Nurse Carter had waiting for me in that hospital vault was wet or looked as if it hadso much as been in the same vicinity as a bottle of Dasani. So the Dingo got this from somewhere or someone after he left Tim’s control but before he got to Nurse Carter.”
    Chuckie looked like he’d fought the migraine off for a minute. “So he was given those things by the same people who took his partner away.”
    “I think that’s a legitimate logic leap, yeah. But instead of doing with them whatever he was supposed to, he instead had Nurse Carter lock them up.” I looked at her, and my brain kicked, hard. “Wait a damn minute. You know him and he knows you. And that means he knew who he was handing this stuff to.”
    “ If he handed it to her,” Chuckie said, in that silky yet deadly way he’d clearly learned from working at the C.I.A.
    She looked like she was going to argue, but perhaps all of us glaring at her convinced her it would be futile. Instead her shoulders slumped, and she nodded. “He recognized me. He told me these things had to go to you, to list you as his niece, that it mattered greatly, and that it would matter greatly to me.”
    “And yet you didn’t look inside any of it?”
    “I wanted to, believe me. But I couldn’t, there were too many witnesses. The Dingo was very…cautious when he spoke to me. I know he realized who I was. I believe it’s why he trusted me.”
    “No reason why we should, however,” Chuckie said. “Since you conveniently forgot to tell us about this.”
    “I thought it was self-evident.”
    “No, that’s the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Usually when we’re trying to stop a major disaster, we like to share all our information with each other.”
    Nurse Carter’s eyes flashed. “Look, I don’t know you people! Half of you aren’t people, either, not as I’d think of them, are you? You supposedly arrested me, but I haven’t had my rights read, haven’t had a phone call, haven’t had my crimes explained.”
    “I don’t have to do any of that,” Chuckie said, voice still dangerous. “You’re under arrest because you’re a potential terrorist and you threatened an ambassador’s life. You don’t get any of the niceties local law enforcement’s forced to use. You get to prove you’re not a threat or you get a cell in an underground vault. Period.”
    “As if you’re not going to put me into that cell anyway? For all I knew when you took me, you were going to kill me. You could still be part of the conspiracy I’m here trying to stop, or worse, really related to the Dingo and be the ones planning to finish whatever job he was assigned to. So I don’t know why you think I’m a badperson for not stating the obvious once I’d told you about my experiences with the Dingo.”
    “Because we explained that you tell us the truth or you go to the cell,” Tim said. “We’re trying to stop an assassination, and we don’t know the target. You’re not helping us at all. I say lock her up.”
    “I’m willing to agree,” Christopher said. Everyone nodded.
    I looked at Jeff. His eyes were narrowed. “What are you getting?”
    “Aside from the fact that Nurse Carter here is desperately trying to hide her emotions from me? Terror. Pure, unadulterated terror. She’s more afraid of everyone in this room than she ever was when discussing the Dingo.”
    “Does that make her our enemy?” Chuckie asked.
    Len cleared his throat. “Ah, sir?”
    “Yes?” every man other than Kyle said this in unison. I managed not to laugh, but it took effort. I noted that, terrified or not, Nurse Carter found this funny, too.
    “We fingerprinted her, remember? You had her prints run.”
    Chuckie nodded. “Results aren’t back yet.”
    Kyle held up