Alien vs. Alien

Maybe it is.” I looked at White. “Should I catch them up on everything before the senator gets here?” This was a trick question. We were here to catch them up. But it seemed stupid to ask if we should mention our invisible birds or not, which was what I wanted his advice about.
    White was nothing if not intelligent. He looked at the birds, which were nestled happily at our feet, then back at me. “Within reason, yes. Or we tell them nothing. But we did request this meeting.”
    I got his point. Keep the Peregrines our secret weapons right now. If a couple dozen big birds could really be considered either secret or weapon. Then again, Olga and Oliver seemed blissfully unaware of the birds in their midst. I sniffed surreptitiously. Like the Poofs, the Peregrines didn’t give off much of an odor. I appreciated this trait in Alpha Four’s animals.
    “In for a penny, might as well toss over the whole checkbook?”
    “So to speak. I believe if we want Madame Ambassadress and Mister Joel Oliver’s assistance, we need to give them all the details.”
    Oliver nodded. “I’ll keep everything in the strictest confidence. You have my word on that.”
    When we’d first met him, I’d have laughed my head off at the idea that a tabloid journalist was trustworthy. But Oliver had been a lot more trustworthy, helpful, and supportive than people who were supposedly our friends and on our side.
    “Should Adriana hear this?” I asked Olga.
    “I will give her the pertinent details.” She smiled. “Securely.”
    “Never had a doubt about that.” I brought Oliver and Olga up to speed quickly on the senator’s visit in Florida, the “fun” we’d had at NASA Base and its ultimate HSAC Fail for me, the fact that I was actually now firmly out of the classified loop, and that Armstrong had new pics featuring him as my latest costar.
    In addition to not mentioning our Special Delivery from the night before, I also fudged about how NASA Base had gotten damaged—per Chuckie and Reader, I was still supposed to be a secret weapon, and I wasn’t sure how much either Olga or Oliver knew or merely suspected.
    Finished up and took a deep breath. “Of course, yesterday, Malcolm Buchanan and Olga suggested that all of this was just for distraction purposes.”
    “It could be,” Oliver agreed. “But it sounds like an effective distraction doing double duty.” Olga nodded her agreement.
    “So, distraction technique or not, Richard and the boys have chosen to remain clueless so we can actually can actustill function as a team. And we have the latest set of dirty pictures coming for our viewing pleasure. If Senator Armstrong ever gets here.”
    Oliver closed his eyes, clearly in thought. “I’d assume the senator is having to extract himself from the One World festivities, which is why I beat him here.”
    “I don’t get why he’d leave something like that just to bring the latest blackmail pictures by.”
    Olga snorted, and Oliver opened his eyes. “I’d assume because he’s terrified his political career is about to be destroyed.”
    “He could never recover,” Olga agreed. “It would not do you any good, either. Or anyone associated with you.”
    “Fabulous, not that this comes as a surprise.” I didn’t want to contemplate the reaction from the A-C community if anyone actually believed I’d been sleeping with both Chuckie and the senator. But a question shoved in and I gladly took my mind off the Scenario From Hell. “Is Armstrong eyeing a run for the Presidency?”
    “Yes,” Oliver said. “He has been for a while now.”
    “Okay, fine, I get why someone would want to blackmail a Presidential hopeful with potential to at least get his party’s nomination.” I might dislike Armstrong, but I was aware and astute enough to know he was a political animal and friends with many of the “right people.” “But I don’t understand why they’d choose me as his suspected affair. Especially since they already tried with me and Chuckie and got no reaction.”
    White cocked his head. “Did they, in fact, get no reaction?”
    “Well, Jeff hasn’t killed Chuckie, and the pictures haven’t hit the streets yet. Armstrong came to warn me, at least that’s what he said, and right now, I sort of believe him.”
    “So perhaps they didn’t get the reaction they
wanted
,” Oliver said.
    Olga beamed at him. Oh, good. Another one racing to the head of the class. I’d have resented it, but at least I kept the