Alien in the House

haven’t withheld anything, but there’s a good chance I’ve forgotten something. Hang on, lemme ponder.”
    “Take your time,” Jeff said. “The longer we wait, the more chance I have of being told I’m not representative material.”
    “Jeff, we’ve been through this,” Gower said patiently. “You don’t have a choice.”
    The rest of them started in with the “no option” reminders, while I begged my memory to do us all a solid and toss up whatever it was we needed. Chuckie was right—there was something I was pretty sure I’d forgotten. Remembered I’d forgotten to tell Reader something, which meant I’d certainly forgotten to tell Chuckie, because when I’d caught him up I hadn’t added the statement explaining that I’d forgotten to share.
    Sat in a chair while the men verbally wrangled and closed my eyes. Had to think back to when I’d remembered I’d forgotten something. Where had we been? It had been today that I’d remembered my forgetfulness, meaning it was something I’d learned yesterday sometime.
    “. . . don’t know where Oliver’s gotten to.” Jeff’s voice pulled me back. “We left him at Rayburn House before we went to lunch. Don’t know why we bothered to pick him up and get a civics lesson if he’s not coming with us to the swearing-in to actually provide a useful service.”
    “That’s it!” Jumped up. “I remembered what I’d forgotten when we were driving to Rayburn House. I was going to call James but we were stuck in that bureaucratic nightmare it took Cliff to get us out of, and then Representative Juvonic dropped dead in front of us from that supposed heart attack I still don’t believe was real, and I completely forgot.”
    The men all looked at me. “Do you remember now?” Chuckie asked finally, with hope in his tone.
    “Yes, and you’re not going to like it. Eugene said that Pia Ryan—the widow of the late Jack Ryan, and another fine member of the C.I.A.—is the person who passed the information to him. Eugene said that Pia told him the envelope, which was addressed to Eugene, was sent to her and that she didn’t know who had sent it or what it contained. She said she’d figured someone had sent it to her because they knew she knew Eugene.”
    “And he was actually gullible enough to believe that?” Tim asked.
    “Yeah, he said she seemed to be telling the truth, and that she gave it to him at a party, in front of the rest of the Cabal of Evil. It was an envelope with a packet inside, all sealed. That’s what Christopher and his team are over at Gaultier searching for. Well, part of what they’re searching for.”
    “Unless they need us, I don’t want to know,” Chuckie said. “But I need to see that information immediately, if they’ve found it or even part of it.”
    “Why?” Reader asked. “I mean, why so urgently?”
    Chuckie looked grim. “I think I recognize a pattern. An old pattern.”
    “A pattern?” I asked. “As in, you’ve seen something like this before?”
    “Seen? No. I’m too young. Everyone in this room is too young. However, I’ve read about it. The Church Committee.”
    “You’re sensing a pattering about religious institutions?”
    Chuckie sighed. “No. It’s the nickname for the Senate committee that investigated the C.I.A. after Watergate. It identified an encyclopedia’s worth of C.I.A. violations, including the murder of a host of people. And that’s when the ‘Heart Attack Gun’ was discovered.”
    “The C.I.A. has a gun that gives people heart attacks?” Jeff asked.
    “Yeah.” Chuckie didn’t look happy about it.
    “You have the best job in the world.”
    “Your mother recruited me for it. In part so the C.I.A. wouldn’t decide to shoot me with the Heart Attack Gun because I was too close to figuring out everything they were doing when we were in school. And I’m mentioning that again, now, to all of you, because I know Angela also recruited me to stay on the legal side of the C.I.A.’s laws.”
    “And to stop the bad ones, we know, Secret Agent Man. No one’s going to tell you that you can’t marry their sister or cousin, I promise. Because if they do, I have a couple of girls who really aren’t too clear on much about Earth other than that they get to follow my commands.”
    Chuckie managed a grin. “Yeah, thanks. The thing is, if this is a C.I.A. plot, there’s no rhyme or reason to it. Most of what the Church Committee found related to the overthrow of other