Alien Tango

Kevin having such great teeth. “Suspected terrorists don’t get bail. Suspected terrorists who tried to kill the daughter of the head of the P.T.C.U. and destroy Centaurion Division don’t get anything but a nice trip to a very nasty place.”
    “No Geneva Convention?”
    “Who’s Geneva?” he asked with a wicked grin.
    “Fair enough.” It was amazing how my perspectives had changed in less than six months. Scary things and people constantly trying to kill me and the people I loved the most on a regular basis did that to a girl. “Where are the alligators?”
    “Your pets are being taken back to the swamp by Animal Control.” Kevin laughed. “You should have seen the looks on Turco and Taft’s faces when those came in. The first one was bad enough, but then when the giant one arrived . . . man, it was great.”
    “Sorry I missed it.” Very sorry. I was still a little out of breath.
    “So, can we use a gate to get out of here, or are we still trying to impress people who want us dead that we’re just regular folks?” Martini’s voice dripped sarcasm.
    “Gate,” Kevin replied. “I’m with you—the hell with playing nicely with others. I think this whole brouhaha about Centaurion’s long-term purpose was started to get your key personnel into precarious positions. I represent Angela here; she outranks the rest, and I’m saying we’re going into our own version of lockdown.”
    “I like how you think,” Martini said with a grin.
    “Start of a beautiful friendship and all that,” Kevin said with a laugh. “Now, let’s get going. I heard something about the best meat loaf in the known universe being served somewhere.”

CHAPTER 47
    OF COURSE, we couldn’t race off as fast as anyone wanted. We had to secure the jet, gather our belongings that were now scattered all over the Space Center, assign some teams to figure out how badly Kennedy’s Security had been infiltrated, assign a different team to get said Security back up and running, handle a couple of other issues, and make sure someone dealt with the body of the cleaning woman. One thing was missing, though, and it was troubling.
    “Why can’t anyone find Karl Smith’s body?” I asked Martini and Kevin as we finally headed to a gate.
    “Does it matter?” Kevin asked. “I mean, to what’s going on?”
    I thought about it. “I don’t know. It’s just . . . he was right. He knew Centaurion was in danger. He knew we were in danger. He told me not to trust anyone and not to let any of my team go anywhere alone.” He’d died trying to protect Centaurion Division personnel, and that made it important to know what had happened his body. Memory tickled. “I slipped and he caught on that I was human. He stressed to me that people weren’t good.” I looked up at Martini. “He must have tried to warn the A-Cs, and they wouldn’t believe him.”
    “Dad, did Karl Smith try to warn you about anything?” Martini called to Alfred, who was ahead of us, ushering personnel through the gates. There were two, and one was marked “Secured Parking.” The humans and most of the A-Cs were going through this one. All the people I knew were going through the other.
    Alfred gave it some thought. “No, not that I can recall.”
    “Do all the human personnel know they’re working with aliens?”
    “All the ones in our division, yes,” Alfred answered. “You’ve only seen a portion of Kennedy and only some of the personnel.”
    “How do you keep them from telling everyone?”
    He shrugged. “There are ways.”
    “Mind control ways?”
    “Sometimes. Usually not. We screen everyone carefully before they move over to any job involving Centaurion personnel.”
    I managed not to mention that they didn’t screen so carefully that Club 51 hadn’t infiltrated, more than one person had been murdered, and a stalker had gotten her own little gang going. Plenty of time for that tomorrow.
    “High security clearances, like for all forms of military intelligence,” Kevin added.
    Couldn’t help myself. “Then how did Turco and Taft get on board?”
    “Leventhal Reid,” Reader said, without missing a beat. “Trust me, all the strings are going to lead back to him.”
    I didn’t argue. Between the two of us, Reader and I had rarely proved to be wrong. And I’d seen Reid’s picture—he looked like someone I’d want to stay far away from.
    Alfred nodded. “Turco had all the right clearances. All the security measures for this area are