Alien Tango

monsters, small band of good guys manages to save the day, blah, blah, blah. Want me to talk to them?” I asked brightly.
    “No, and I’m sure Jeff doesn’t, either.” Christopher looked at the messenger. “What does Commander Martini want to do?”
    Before anyone could reply, the superbeings on screen all blew up. The images shifted to either the native dances ending, fireworks displays, or the palsied squirrels going dormant, depending.
    Martini walked in. “Now that our friends from Argentina used some stinger missiles and stopped the immediate problem, I want to go to C.I.A. headquarters and deal with the ongoing one.”

CHAPTER 4
    “GREAT!” I’d been dying to go to C.I.A. head quarters for quite a while now. Based on the A-Cs’ levels of hierarchy, the only people allowed to interact with the top C.I.A. bigwigs were Martini and Christopher. The Pontifex, Gower, and Reader weren’t even allowed over there. I hadn’t been, either, and this looked like my big chance.
    “Not just no, but hell no,” Martini said calmly. I started to pout, and he shook his head. “You don’t need to see what we’re going to do over there, and we don’t need them getting any better idea of what you can and can’t do than they already have.”
    Reader joined us. “Jeff, I just got off with your favorite guy. He insists this wasn’t an official C.I.A. plan and wants you and Christopher over there immediately.”
    Martini growled. “They don’t give us orders.”
    Christopher’s expression said this wasn’t actually true. I thought back to Operation Fugly—the traitorous side had certainly had the C.I.A. on speed dial, and despite what my parents had said about government control of Centaurion Division, I wasn’t fully convinced they were right. In the few months I’d been here, it seemed as though every government agency in the U.S. and at least half of them worldwide felt they had a stake in Centaurion.
    But no amount of whining and complaining changed Martini’s mind. I still wasn’t getting to hang with the C.I.A. He and Christopher cleaned up, gave some orders, then they and Reader headed for the main launch area. I tagged along, of course, on the off chance I could still weasel an opportunity out of Martini.
    “You’re not going,” he said as we walked along, his arm around my shoulders and mine around his waist. He sounded relaxed but felt tense.
    “Who’re you going to see?”
    “No one you need to worry about.”
    “What’s his name?”
    “None of your business.”
    “I’m the head of Airborne. I think it is my business.”
    “Nope.” He kissed the top of my head. “See, I’m still in charge, baby. You haven’t been on board long enough to know how to deal with these people, the new head guy in particular.”
    “So, he’s new to the job? Maybe we’d have that in common, a bonding sort of thing.”
    Christopher snorted. “No one’s as new as you, Kitty.” “He’s had the position for about a year and a half,” Martini said. “But he’s been dealing with us for several years. Got promoted due to his ability to ‘understand’ us.” Martini wasn’t snarling, but it was close.
    “Why don’t you like him?”
    “Because I don’t trust him. I don’t trust anyone in the C.I.A.” Martini shrugged. “Your mother excluded.”
    At the same time I’d discovered real live aliens were living on Earth, I’d also discovered that my mother had been living a secret life. She wasn’t a consultant, she was a former Mossad agent who was now the head of antiterrorism for an elite agency that reported directly to the President of the United States.
    “My mother’s not in the C.I.A. She’s the head of the P.T.C.U.”
    “It’s really part of the C.I.A., girlfriend,” Reader explained. “It’s above them, and considered a separate unit, does report directly to the President. But the paychecks come out of Langley.”
    “I hate bureaucracy.”
    “But we’re all so good at it.” Reader grinned. “Stop sulking. There’ll be plenty of time to harangue Jeff about this later.”
    We reached the gates, and someone calibrated. I ignored it while Martini kissed me good-bye. As always, even though it wasn’t long, it was great. “Behave,” he said with a smile. He looked over to the gate agent. “No one, not even Commander Katt, is to go where we’re going.”
    “Yes, sir.” This particular A-C was one of the Security types. They were all bigger than Martini and had that