Alien vs. Alien

quietly while Franklin continued his search.
    “I don’t know.”
    Bruno warbled, and I heard mewling from my purse. Looked inside to see Harlie, Poofikins, and Fluffy, who was Chuckie’s Poof. Bruno warbled again. The Poofs grumbled. Oh, goody, another argument.
    I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and focused on my inner Talk To The Animals Powers. I was able to understand the Peregrines without trying. But I’d had the Poofs longer, so that should count for something. Opened my eyes. “Poofies, may Kitty have a word?”
    The Poofs poured out of my purse, settled at my feet, looked up, and gave me their totally focused, adorable attention. There was a blanket of cuteness in front of me, making me think that Harlie had called in reinforcements, and that they all hadn’t been in my purse a few moments ago.
    I knelt down. “Thanks. Harlie, does Fluffy know where Jeff and Chuckie are?”
    The Poofs mewled and grumbled. Fluffy jumped up and down.
    “I see. Can Fluffy
find
Jeff and Chuckie? It’ll require regular animal searching, I think. But I also think I know where to start.”
    More Poof mewling. Bruno cawed derisively. Several Poofs growled.
    “No fighting. Bruno makes a good point. We’re well beyond DEFCON Worse. We’re at DEFCON Oh My God, and even I don’t know what DEFCON we’re going to hit soon. We need Jeff and Chuckie, very much. We’d need them even if we didn’t love them.”
    More Poof mewling and growling. “Yes, noted. But Jeff and Chuckie are more important. Kitty will work on that if you’ll find them.”
    Poof purrs. Great. “Okay. Head to the tunnels under the Embassy. Start there and search. They could be farther away, but I think they’re being held closer.”
    The Poofs cocked their heads at me.
    “Feminine intuition.”
    The Poof heads straightened up. I received more purrs.
    “Super. Search high and low, and report back as soon as you know anything that might interest Kitty, even if it’s not about Jeff and Chuckie. You all be careful, too. Kitty doesn’t want to lose any Poofies.”
    This earned me tremendously loud Poof purrs. All of them snuggled up to me, which was a lot of concentrated cuteness at one go. But I was fine with it and felt a little better afterward.
    The Poofs disappeared, and I heard a throat clear behind me. “Ah,” Tito said, “what are you working on for the Poofs?”
    “They want me to figure out what’s going on with the supersoldiers.”
    “Really.” Tito’s tone was very neutral. “Why is that?”
    “Because the Poofs think we’re going to need to use them.” I stood up, ignoring the looks of horror, amusement, and concern on most of the faces looking at me. “Anything yet, Colonel?”
    “Here it is,” Franklin said. He was deep into the Encyclopedia Centaurion, so wasn’t paying that much attention to my Dr. Doolittle impersonation. “It’s sort of hidden, but it appears that I’ve found the hierarchy of command for dealing with Centaurion. In all cases, first point of contact is Charles Reynolds. If he’s incapacitated or unavailable, next options are to contact. . . .” His voice trailed off.
    We all looked at him. “Who?”
    Franklin shook his head. “This can’t be right.” He thumbed through a few more pages in the Book of Bigness. He shook his head again. And looked worried.
    “Colonel, may I ask what you’re concerned about?” White asked.
    Franklin grimaced. “I expected to see official names or titles—P.T.C.U., head of the C.I.A., the President, even.” Franklin seemed to be talking to himself more than any of us. “Possibly Reynolds’ second in commaÀnd or other underlings.”
    Chuckie had a second in command? I knew he had underlings—Len and Kyle were two of them—and he did make calls and have operatives do things like hunt down the Pontifex when he was in danger. But they never interacted with us directly. Ever. And I’d never heard him call one person specifically.
    “But the names are not those names?” White asked, managing to sound both polite and unstressed, which was better than I was going to manage.
    Franklin was still talking to himself. “Hell, maybe Mort’s name, mine, even. This makes absolutely no sense.”
    There was a pointed silence. “Erm, Colonel? What name do you see?”
    He looked straight at me. “Stryker Dane.”
    I couldn’t help it. I started to laugh.

    Yi

CHAPTER 66

    “W HO?” THIS WAS CHORUSED by everyone in the room other than Colonel Franklin. Even