Alien Proliferation

is another, I’m sure.”
    “They have everyone Alfred would care about.” Walker sounded sick.
    “Not quite, but damned close. Okay, listen. The person behind this knew not only Amy well, but me well. Well enough to know what my mother and oldest male friend did for a living. Well enough to know where and whom I was working with. And well enough to predict most of what was going on. But not well enough to know who my college or work friends might be.”
    “Tim’s the mole?” Mom was starting to sound like Chuckie. Tried not to worry about him, and Jeff, and the others. Failed utterly.
    “Mom, for the last and final time, there is no mole! The mole idea is the elaborate ruse, just like I said to Chuckie, Jeff, and James, geez, only earlier today.” Felt like it had been days ago. “The mole idea focused everyone away from what’s really going on.”
    “Which is?” Lorraine asked.
    “Chuckie’s always said that there are only two reasons why anyone pulls the elaborate ruse—to gain money or power. This is a money grab, the first one we’ve ever gone through together, which is why it didn’t dawn on anyone. There is no mole—there are people set up to look like moles. And this elaborate plan has been in effect since, at the latest, we went through Operation Drug Addict. The person who created the original Club Fifty-One drug, which has become Surcenthumain, realized way back then that this was a freaking gold mine, as long as it didn’t kill the users. Trust me, when we have time to research it, we’ll discover that Herbert Gaultier is the one who created the right drug cocktail or that the flunky who worked for him who created it is dead.”
    “But the operation in Florida was almost a year and a half ago. Why is this happening now?” Claudia asked.
    “Perfecting drugs takes time,” Mom said. “Think about how long it takes the FDA to approve anything.”
    “But imagine if you can speed it up by testing it on A-Cs who are close enough to humans to breed just fine with them, but different enough that they have regenerative properties. Jeff was the target for Operation Drug Addict—both Leventhal Reid’s target and our current Head Fugly’s target. If they’d succeeded in killing Jeff and/or the rest of Alpha Team, no worries, there were all those thousands of Club Fifty-One loons to test the drug on—who cares if some of them die? Just don’t want the soldiers from the country that wins the bidding war to die.”
    “So Jeff and Serene were the test subjects?” Lorraine pursed her lips. “That’s not enough.”
    “They used Christopher and observed him somehow. His talents are so strong it’s frightening. But healthwise he seems fine. Meaning that you can give this stuff to people a lot, and it’ll just make them more super. Meaning that you can sell it to every country out there, and have repeat buyers, and so forth.”
    Hughes looked at me. “You’re a test subject, too. So’s Jamie.”
    I nodded. “Gaultier would have known I was married to an A-C—Amy would have told him Jeff’s name, somewhere in there, I’m sure.”
    “He sent a gift, remember?” Mom’s voice was like ice. “A silver frame.”
    “Oh, wow. So that’s how they were spying on Christopher.”
    “If there was a camera in the frame, wouldn’t it have been spying on you?” Mom sounded like she was worried the drugs had affected my brain.
    “Yes, except that we gave it to Christopher because we liked the ones we got from Sheila and Roger better, and we only have so much space in the Lair. It’s the frame on Christopher’s nightstand.” I chose to save the anger and hatred—I was sure I’d need it later, in a big way.
    “So, who or what is the target?” Jerry asked. “I can buy all the rest of it, but not why the Diplomatic Corps is involved or why Tim and the others were kidnapped.”
    “And how does Ronaldo Al Dejahl fit into this?” Mom asked.
    “He’s the other elaborate ruse.”

 
    CHAPTER 49
     
    E VERYONE STARED AT ME. “Come again?” Jerry said.
    “There is no Ronaldo Al Dejahl. There is some guy playing him. Perhaps the same actor who played the older businessman who gave Amy the old covert ops number and was ‘murdered’ in front of her.”
    Naomi shook her head. “Clarence firmly believes this man exists.”
    “How do you know?”
    She shrugged. “I’m looking into his mind right now. He believes.”
    “Bet the Diplomatic Corps believes, too. You know,