Alien vs. Alien

left.”

    Yi

CHAPTER 65

    “I ’LL TAKE THEM, SIR,” Morgan said. “That way, they remain in our control.”
    Franklin didn’t look excited. “Are you sure, Captain?” Captain, not Gil. Meaning he was likely going to approve it officially somehow.
    “Captains in place!” Bellie squawked. “Captain is good man! Captain can do!”
    “Why is that bird talking about Cliff and Esteban?” Morgan asked.
    “Excuse me?”
    “We were told whose bird she used to be. And the names she just said—Goodman, Cantu. She’s calling them captains. Why?”
    The rest of us had heard it in syllables, but Morgan heard what, now that I thought of it, Bellie was probably saying. She called Clarence ‘Tino,’ after all. And, as I thought about it, she’d done Armstrong in two distinct squawks, not one, when greeting the senator.
    “Chuckie trusts Cliff.”
    “But not Cantu,” Buchanan said. “Rightly.”
    “And good man is too wide a term. Everyone keeps on saying Colonel Hamlin is a good man, for example.”
    “It’s Hammy time!”
    This time we all stared at Bellie. “I have to ask this. While I was in Florida, was Jeff listening to a lot of M.C. Hammer?”
    “No,” Tito said. “Not at all.”
    “Then Bellie’s certainly heard someone talk about a Hammy.”
    “That’s Colonel Hamlin’s nickname,” Franklin said. “At least among his peers and close friends.”
    Morgan nodded. “Cliff calls him that, too. When they’re both at ease, I mean.”
    “I really want to question the parrot some more, because I just live for bird chats these days, but we have to get the damn pictures to Christopher. Like now.”
    Morgan and Franklin debated, but it turned out there were several sets of the pictures, and Franklin had another on hand. There was, of course, the standard, required angst about security breaches, as well as chain-of-command crap. Resolved by my pointing out that we actually were the only people likely able to do anything with the invasion information and the only ones with a prayer of getting Alpha Four on board.
    Drama Llama Time over for the moment, I sent a text to Christopher to let him know what was going on and who was coming while White calibrated the gate.
    Morgan stepped through. It was no less nauseating to see someone do the slow fade than to experience it. Christopher shared that Morgan was safely in the Dome and that he was calling a high-level meeting. He actually had more of Centaurion Division’s top personnel in the Dome than not, so this made sense.
    As we left the bathroom, I asked Franklin the question I should have asked Chuckie during Operation Confusion. “Is there anyone at the C.I.A. we can trust to help us, and help Chuckie, or is it literally him and Centaurion against the world?” It was a shot in the dark that he might know, but I had nothing.
    Franklin looked pensive. “Well . . . his superiors like him.”
    “How superior?”
    “Very superior. He’s well thought of, for a variety of reasons, by those at the very top. Which probably means that anyone at a similar level is angling for his position.”
    This I already knew to be true. And Armstrong had confirmed that Chuckie was on the fast track to top levels; a track Cantu had been on before Chuckie had arrived at the C.I.A.’s doors.
    “We need C.I.A. help, because we have to figure out what Chuckie’s protocols are so that we can contact Alpha Four. I don’t know if it’s a good idea to call the head honcho, though.” And I figured I’d rather have Mom do that than me. She was so less likely to screw that conversation up. But Mom was busy protecting the President, and, under the circumstances, that seemed vitally important.
    Franklin headed for his office. I followed him. He went to his desk and rummaged around. “I was given a packet to review. Haven’t gotten all the way through it yet.” He pulled out a binder that would have given Paul Bunyan a hernia.
    “Dude, are you serious? They call that a packet in the Air Force?”
    He laughed. “Yes. Hang on, I think there’s something in here about C.I.A. contact.” He thumbed through the Encyclopedia Centaurion while I fretted.
    The rest of the gang joined us, Bellie and Bruno included. It was more comfortable in the other room, but no one wanted to lounge around. Everyone looked worried, which I assumed meant everyone felt scared or terrified but weren’t willing to let it show.
    “What are we doing to find Chuck and Jeff,” Naomi asked me