Alien Tango

Jeff this mad in a long time.”
    I remembered the last time I’d seen him that mad—it was when Christopher and I had sort of made out while Martini was unconscious. I didn’t want to be the reason for that kind of anger ever again.
    “Sucks to be us, I guess.” I didn’t know what else to say.
    “Maybe it’ll calm down once we’re in Florida.” Christopher didn’t sound as though he believed it, but then, neither did I.
    I was going to ask why going to Florida was such a big deal—I mean, both sets of my grandparents had lived there for a while and seemed unscathed by the experience—but we reached our intended gate.
    Martini and Gower went to talk to someone who looked official, and I looked at the flight information board. The plane going to Florida had been delayed. For two hours. I sidled up to hear what the others were talking about.
    “. . . been holding this plane for you for over two hours,” the official airport employee said, sounding more than annoyed. “The other passengers are still on board.”
    Gower nodded, and Martini didn’t argue. But before I’d joined up with the boys from A-C, I’d been a marketing manager, and I’d done a lot of traveling. And this was making what Martini called my feminine intuition nervous.
    “Excuse me, are you saying that you’ve held a full commercial flight for five passengers?”
    The woman looked at me. “Yes,” she snapped. “And I’ve had to field an unbelievable number of complaints about it, too.”
    “Sorry. And, sorry to ask, but are we in first class?”
    “No.”
    “So, um, why did you hold this particular plane? Is it the last one going to Florida today?” I knew it wasn’t—it was just after noon. There would be at least a dozen choices between now and midnight, probably more.
    “No, we have three more going before nine this evening. One’s already left, but I wasn’t able to move any of this plane’s passengers to it.” She seemed frustrated and frazzled.
    “Wow, that sucks. They didn’t let you move them? After everyone was screaming at you? No one bothered to think how that was affecting you?”
    She gave me a grateful smile. “No. They never do.” “That sucks more. So, the other plane wasn’t full, and they made you keep everyone on this one? For us? I mean, clearly, we’re not important enough for that.” I nudged Martini with my foot, hoping he’d try to help me here.
    He picked it up and gave her what I thought of as his killer grin. She visibly melted. Yeah, I did that too, every time. “You know, I’m so sorry,” he said smoothly. “We’ll just get on and get out of your hair.”
    “Um, no,” I said quickly. They both looked at me. “I’m kind of wondering who’s made these decisions that are making,” quick look at her name tag, “Alicia’s life so miserable. I want to be able to complain to someone—this was wrong, and wrong for them to make her handle it alone.” I gave her a commiserating smile. “I know what it’s like to get bossed around,” I waggled my eyebrows toward Martini and Gower.
    She smiled. “Yeah, I’m sure.” She hit some buttons on her computer screen. “My bosses weren’t happy about it either,” she said. “The person who approved this was a Mr. Leventhal.”
    I looked over to Gower. “Know him?”
    He looked confused. “No. Not at all.”
    I nodded. “Alicia, I think we have a situation.” I showed her my badge. “Presidential Terrorism Control Unit. We’re working undercover, and I think that cover’s been blown.”
    She looked frightened. “What do you want me to do?”
    “Nothing yet. But I don’t want the plane going anywhere, okay?” She nodded and I pulled Martini and Gower away. “Something’s wrong. Very wrong.”
    Gower started to argue, but Martini stopped him. “She’s human, you’re not.”
    I dug my phone out of my purse. “Do nothing, I need to call someone.”

CHAPTER 11
    I DIALED AND, HAPPILY, got her on the second ring. “Hi, Mom, I need your help.”
    “Kitty, what’s wrong? You sound stressed.”
    “Mom, are you still in town by any chance?”
    “No, kitten, you know Dad and I are in D.C. already. We had an early flight.”
    I figured they’d been on something other than a commercial jet, but we didn’t have the time for me to ask. “I need someone to get over to Saguaro International, fast, someone from your team. Got anyone in the vicinity?”
    “Sure, Kevin Lewis, he’s my main field operative, and he lives