THE LESS SAID about our time with the press the better. Thankfully, when you’re the President of the United States, you don’t actually have to answer any questions you don’t want to—well, as long as you have someone running interference.
Since we had Serene and her team on-site, they did most of the reporter wrangling, which meant that we had troubadours influencing everyone, so things went far better than we probably had a right to have hoped for.
The questions were just what you’d expect—were we being invaded, were we being attacked by terrorists, what were the terrorists aiming for, why were the President and First Lady in Arizona—but troubadours were made for this kind of thing. My press secretary was at Dulce and Jeff’s was in D.C., but Serene and her team were great, and we were actually able to get out by merely having Jeff say that there had been an anti-alien attack, confirmed to have been perpetrated by Club 51 True Believers, confirmed that we were on-site because we were taking the threat very seriously, and that was all we could share at the moment. It didn’t satisfy the press, but it was good enough for government work.
The Hollywood contingent were harder to shake off. How they’d gotten here so fast was a question I’d answered for myself when I saw several helicopters parked in the near distance, including one that had this production company’s name emblazoned on its side.
However, the phrase “call my agent” still worked, and once I’d shouted it at them enough, they backed off, and then we took off, though sadly not at hyperspeed.
We’d chosen to have everyone else, Turleens especially, go into Caliente Base to wait for us. So it was just me, Jeff, Serene, a whole herd of Field agents, and all the Secret Service agents one could ever want. Meaning that the moment we were done answering the press evasively and putting the Hollywood types onto the scent of an agent I didn’t possess, the Secret Service did one of the things that they did best and hustled us away from the madding crowd while keeping said crowd away from us.
The Secret Service was better at this than the Field agents, in part because they had no compunctions about pushing someone out of the way, and in other part because they couldn’t use hyperspeed, no matter how much they might have wanted to. In most cases, this wasn’t great. However, when you needed to be seen leaving in a protected manner, it was spot on.
We headed back to the “attack site” and went into Caliente Base. In addition to all those who’d been on the ground with us already, Viola, Carmine, and Romeo were back on-site, to go over their Base for damage and so forth. Our K-9 squad was back, too, because there was no way they were missing this. Plus, Prince, Riley, and Duke had missed me.
Tobin had apparently been working alone, because Christopher and his team hadn’t found anyone else with him in his private office at the YatesCorp location, and if he had accomplices he was the only bad guy I’d met who wasn’t willing to throw them under the bus to save himself.
He’d been brought here as requested, meaning it was time for us to do the old Good Cop, Bad Cop, Oh My God Cop routine. In the olden days, Jeff and I would have been involved with this. However, it wasn’t a great PR move to have the President involved in interrogations and, sadly, the same went for the First Lady. This gig took all the fun out of things.
On the other hand, PR said it was A-okay for the Top Man and His Woman to watch from a vantage point that the prisoner couldn’t see. Caliente Base hadn’t had a police-style interrogation setup before today, but it was amazing how fast A-Cs could put that kind of thing together, especially with input and assistance from the K-9 unit.
One big fishbowl conference room—one of the few with two entrances—was divided into sections. A third was given to the interrogation side, two-thirds to the watch and listen in secret side. Considering how many people and dogs we had on the watch and listen side, this was a wise choice.
The interrogation side was blacked out or, as I thought of it, the fishbowl had been made hella dirty. One-way glass divided the sections. Had to figure this was one of the nicest interrogation setups around. The chairs were certainly the cushiest, and I had that confirmed by Melville.
Chuckie, Reader, and Tim were doing the interrogation. We’d also scored the Matrix-style earpieces, courtesy of the Secret Service. So, Chuckie, Reader, and Tim could hear what Jeff, I, White—who’d come over as requested—Lorraine, Claudia, the flyboys, Buchanan, Siler, the K-9 team, the Secret Service, and Muddy were saying to them or each other. Jeff in particular, since he would be reading Tobin’s emotions.
We’d included Muddy because he was both interested and might have a viewpoint that would be helpful. We’d also promised the guys on the interrogation side that we’d talk softly because the earpieces were small, shoved into their ear canals, and extremely good, meaning a whisper would sound like a normal voice and a shout would cause them all to scream in pain.
The usual interrogation pleasantries began. Tobin didn’t seem worried, or afraid, or even angry, which I found both interesting and worrisome. Jeff confirmed that Tobin was, overall, calm, with a bit of amusement and even a little glee here and there. Tobin had been searched for trackers and emotional blockers and overlays and been declared clean, but that didn’t mean that he really was.
“I’m getting the right range of emotions,” Jeff said while Chuckie and Reader paced around the room and Tim sat opposite Tobin. “So if he’s got an emotional overlay on, it’s the next generation, because he feels right. Unworried and unafraid, but otherwise, he’s got the normal gamut of emotions going on.”
Tim had the Good Cop role and—after Jeff had confirmed Tobin’s emotional state, and Chuckie had then outlined the crimes that Tobin had committed, and their accompanying penalties—he started in.
“Look, Mister Tobin, we just want to know why you were trying to track and trace the First Lady.”
Tobin shrugged. “I wasn’t. That equipment was planted by your agents.”
“Lying,” Jeff said instantly. “Unconcerned about it, unconcerned if it will be traced back to him, too.”
“Now, why would anyone, let alone any of us, do that?” Tim asked.
“I have no idea,” Tobin said. “But I assume it’s to hide that you’re bringing in dangerous aliens to do some sort of worldwide coup.”
Looked at Jeff. “I seriously want to know where he’s getting this idea. It can’t be from Muddy and his people. They don’t look threatening.”
“Could he have seen the others who are coming?” Muddy asked.
“It’s possible,” Jeff said. “But highly unlikely.”
“Unless he has an alien helping him.” Everyone in my room looked at me.
Jeff nodded. “Tobin firmly believes what he just said. That wasn’t a fishing question—he feels that he knows.”
“Oh, wow. Um, Chuckie? Go for the ‘who’s giving you this intel’ line of questioning, because I’m betting that some or all of our A-C traitors may be working with Tobin.”