Alien vs. Alien

enemies, whoever they are, know us well?”
    I pondered. “I think they know
us
well. They clearly didn’t know Senator Armstrong as well as they thought they did.”
    “They didn’t know Mister Joel Oliver as well as they thought, either,” Len said.
    “No,” Oliver corrected. “They didn’t know my editor.”
    “But our reactions are right out of our playbook. That’s what you mean, right Mister White?”
    “Yes, Missus Martini. I’d assume it’s going to be catsuit time again shortly?”
    “You never can tell, but I’d put money on that being a big yes. You know, since acethe Embassy was scanned several times last night, I have to assume that one of us brought whatever bug in. Either that or one of our personnel are working for the bad guys.”
    “Mister Reynolds has us scan everyone,” Kyle said. “Regularly.”
    “Even me?”
    “Especially you,” Len said. “After all the bugs you carried in during Operation Assassination, he made it a daily task.” The boys were the only ones who used whatever Operation name I’d assigned. I loved them.
    Christopher snorted. “He was late on that one, because that sure as hell wasn’t the first time Kitty had a bug planted in her purse.”
    He and I looked at each other. “Oh.
Snap
. Sandra was doing double duty, at least. Maybe she was supposed to self-destruct, maybe just run away. But, hell, I carried the bug in, didn’t I?”
    Len and Kyle exchanged a look. “Yeah, we didn’t scan anyone yesterday,” Kyle admitted. “At least, not after the incident.”
    “I don’t think Mister Reynolds did, either,” Len added.
    “He didn’t, because he didn’t say, ‘hey, Kitty, there’s a bug in your purse.’ So we still need to know what happened to it.”
    “I may know.” Armstrong’s eyes were narrowed. “Titan Security was working on micronized weapons and surveillance. They had some strong prototypes, including what they called the Tarantula.”
    “Let me guess, it’s a metal thing that looks like a big ol’ spider?”
    “Yes. It can adapt to look like other things, as well. It ‘sleeps’ as a sphere.”
    “So, they took their cues from
Minority Report
and
Transformers
.”
    Armstrong shrugged. “What the mind can imagine, the mind can create.”
    “Excellent. Can’t wait to see what the League of Really Crazed Super-Geniuses comes up with next.”
    “I’m going home,” Christopher said. “I want to see if we can find the Tarantula.”
    Armstrong shook his head. “It’s a gatherer, not a transmitter. It gets what it’s sent to find and returns to its nest, so to speak.”
    “Let’s be really sure.” Christopher said. “I’ll be right back.”
    “You could have Walter search, you know.”
    “I want him focused on security, not on searching.”
    “Oh. Wow. So that was the Club Fifty-One play.”
    Everyone looked at me. “Want to explain that?” Christopher asked.
    “Sure. They were testing to see what our reactions would be, when most personnel are off site at an event, when a huge bunch of suicide bombers appeared out of nowhere.”
    “On the plus side, no one came out of the Embassy,” Len said. “I kept watch, and the only people on the street were Mister Buchanan, the three K-9 cops and dogs, an">“On d the three of you.”
    “So we showed them we were hanging out with Romania in the off hours. But we showed them that we have people on surveillance of some kind, too. Meaning they did, as Christopher pointed out earlier, what Senator Armstrong said they were doing—they flushed us out of hiding.” Jamie was in the room, so I resisted the impulse to curse.
    “I’m still going to the Embassy,” Christopher said. “I want to brief Walter and anyone else over there on what’s going on.”
    “Fine. Call me before you come back.”
    “Why?”
    “I may not want you returning alone.”
    I wasn’t sure if Christopher was on my wavelength or not, but he didn’t argue. He gave Amy another quick peck and zipped off.
    “So, was the Tarantula sent to get new dirty pictures?” I wasn’t thrown by spiders or bugs, only snakes, so the idea that some big metal thing made to look like the Godzilla of Spiders had been in my purse didn’t freak me out all that much. It pissed me off to no end, though.
    “Maybe.” White looked thoughtful. “Maybe it was sent to get information on the interior of the Embassy and pictures of you two being intimate was a bonus, so to speak.”
    I wondered if it had seen the