Alien in the House

out.”
    “Well, we know the Mastermind has a ton of pull. So, can we prove that Raul killed all the reps?”
    “Doubtful,” Oliver said. “In part because I doubt that he killed all of them.”
    The entire room stared at Oliver. Tim even stopped texting for a few seconds again. “Excuse me?” Jeff asked finally.
    Oliver shrugged. “Raul the Assassin probably did not kill all of the people whose deaths we’re investigating. I’m sure he killed his fair share, mind you. He killed Eugene Montgomery, of course, but I believe we already knew that.”
    “Right, he was disguised as SWAT. But what about Edmund Brewer? We think it was Clarence, but he could have had help.”
    As I thought about it, the man who’d pointedly held the elevator for Brewer could have been Raul. I’d only seen him once, when he was in SWAT gear, and I’d been very distracted at that time. And I hadn’t really paid any attention to the people at the Cairo.
    “That death may be attributable, but we have no confirmation yet. Madame Olga has a theory. However, until Representative Reyes was killed, and then Eugene Montgomery was killed immediately thereafter, she’d no more put things together than anyone else.”
    “I had,” Vance mentioned.
    “Yes, I shared that with her. She said that you might be allowed inside the Romanian Embassy as a welcomed guest in the future.”
    “I feel so honored.”
    “You should.” Chose not to mention that the invitation probably didn’t include Gadoire. “So, what did Olga deign to share?”
    “Well, I must say that until the young gentlemen came back with their sad news, I believe Olga was as in the dark as the rest of us,” Oliver said. “But Representative Brewer’s death triggered her feeling that Eugene Montgomery is the key.”
    “And she thinks that we’re not paying attention to the important things,” Kyle added. “And she realizes we have over twenty Congressmen dead but she means besides them.”
    Mouths opened, mine included. “Olga knows Eugene wasn’t a politician,” Len said quickly. Mouths closed. “And she’s not discounting those deaths, just thinks they’re not telling us what we need to know. She also likes your Sith Lord idea.”
    “But she’s not wild about the L name theory,” Kyle said.
    “I believe her exact words were ‘even if those appointments were all with the same person, you have no proof that person is the one you seek,’” Oliver shared. “We’re taking that to mean Olga feels we could better use our time elsewhere.”
    “By figuring out who the Sith Lord is,” Kyle said.
    “It’s not Eugene,” Len added. “But, as Mister Joel Oliver said, he’s the key.”
    “Why?” Mom asked.
    “Because he doesn’t fit the pattern,” Amy answered. The hackers all nodded, but didn’t speak. Got the impression they were at least as afraid of Amy as they were of me, possibly more.
    “What do you mean?” Chuckie asked her.
    “Every other death looks like it’s natural or an accident, right?” The room gave its general consensus. “But Eugene killed Santiago very publicly.”
    “And in such a way he was caught immediately,” Michael added. Abigail nodded, nudged Naomi, who was alternating between looking lovingly at Chuckie and glancing at her cell phone. Naomi nodded, too. Clearly we had at least three-quarters of Team Gower in agreement with Amy, if I pretended Naomi was paying attention.
    “He was trying to kill Edmund Brewer,” I said. As the words left my mouth I could practically see Olga give me her Encouraging the Slow of Wit look. “Hang on. What’re our thoughts about the whole robot theory thing? As in, do we think others got the same packet and sales pitch, or was that for Eugene, only?”
    “Show of hands for who’d believe that if they’d been approached,” Amy said. Every hand in the room went up. “Okay, right, but we know more than the average person.”
    “A good number of the representatives are in the know, too,” Mom said.
    “Half the country would believe,” Stryker said. “Especially if you showed them the packet we saw.”
    “So, anyone approached was likely to believe it, but good try, Ames. But, the next question is, would you, the bad guys at Gaultier who are working on the next level of robotic manipulations, share this randomly with a bunch of politicians? And if you did, why? It would potentially expose that you had androids out there already that were really good at passing for