Alien Proliferation

too.”
    “Maybe, but I can’t find it. Let’s go. We have to get to the others before we save the kids, I think. Besides, it doesn’t look like anything’s happening yet.” We went out the way we’d come in. The girl working the door looked shocked. “We wanted to go see the towers.”
    “The towers are closed right now.” She didn’t seem concerned that we were leaving.
    “Okay. How do we get into the crypt?”
    “It is closed today, too.”
    “Gee, honey, let’s get our money back.” I dragged White off. “Okay, so our people are in the crypt and they’re going to gas the kids in the cathedral. I feel so stressed.”
    White held me back. “Look around.”
    I did. “Um, what am I looking for?”
    “A way in.”
    I looked, didn’t see anything. “Seriously, you should be Field.” I scanned the brochure. “I think we’re supposed to go into the underground garage, over there.” I nodded my head toward it. We started the saunter. “Wow, and we could have bought a combo ticket, too. Bet they didn’t mention it when you got our tickets.”
    “My mind was elsewhere, dear, please forgive me for missing out on the deal.”
    “Rick, really, I may have to hurt you.”
    We got into the parking garage and followed the signs. Crypt was closed, as promised. But the door was unlocked. We opened it carefully. White held my arm. “Stay here and on guard, just in case.” He went inside. I did as requested. It was creepy in the parking garage, which was pretty empty. I wasn’t sure how long to give him before I charged in like cavalry.
    Didn’t matter, he was back in less than a minute. “It’s closed and there’s no one in there. I looked in the tombs and such, carefully. Nothing and no one.”
    I looked around. “It doesn’t make sense.”
    “Back into the cathedral?”
    “Maybe. I don’t want us running around in circles. We have all the clues, I’m sure of it. We just need to figure out what’s actually going on.”
    “Do we have the clues? All I see is confusion, started by Tim leaving without telling anyone what he was doing, where he was going, or why he was doing it. And I fail to understand why he didn’t take the opportunity to get himself and four of our agents to safety, either—since Miss Young and her family are confirmed as safe, he certainly had the opportunity. While all our human operatives are, as you put it, mavericks, they aren’t stupid. And, don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re the most impetuous and foolhardy of all our human operatives. All our operatives, really.”
    “Yeah, true.” I pondered. “So, maybe our real question is this—has Tim ever been working on the same plan as we have been, or did he see something else the rest of us have missed?”

 
    CHAPTER 54
     
    “I FEEL CONFIDENT I’ve missed most of the clues,”
    White said with a sigh.
    “But have you, really? I didn’t ask before, but where were you when you came to Paris? I mean when Chuckie’s C.I.A. guys found and saved you?”
    “At the airport. It was suggested by my contact as a safe place it would be easy for both of us to get to.”
    I stared at him. “You were at the Paris airport when Alicia was.” He nodded. “Did you see her?”
    “No. I saw the man I described to you; he said the Gower girls were very talented and that he was concerned about their safety. He insinuated someone of great authority wanted to get them hidden away—away from C.I.A. and Centaurion control, essentially—in order to protect them. Then he spun on his heel and walked rapidly away, right before a swarm of C.I.A. operatives arrived, who said Mister Reynolds was concerned about his lost little lamb.” He shook his head. “They actually said I was their lost little lamb.”
    “Chuckie has a interesting sense of humor. So, okay . . . Alicia isn’t me, but she’s not a total wimp, either. What are the odds she spotted and recognized you, saw what went on, and followed your contact? I say they’re decent. So, she saw him, and she saw . . . what? Where he went or who he talked to after you were taken back. And she told Tim about it.”
    “If it was dire, why didn’t Tim break protocol when Miss Young and her parents were in Paris and just bring them to safety?”
    I thought about it. “Maybe he wasn’t sure where safety was.”
    “Explanation, please?”
    “Why was Tim only trying to contact me?”
    “Not an explanation.”
    “Tim spoke to Alicia, probably several times