He chuckled. “I know. He won’t allow anything to hurt Jamie. Or any of the other children, either.”
“I know, but as the memory of the two of you trapped in an airless chamber in a baggage car of the Paris Metro is still vivid, we need to remember that ACE and Jamie both are vulnerable to any variety of attacks.”
“Attacks on your mothering skills aren’t going to help the situation, though.”
“True enough, but I’d rather have those attacks come at me than have my children in danger. And while Lizzie is more than capable of kicking butt, she’s still a kid, too.”
“Can’t argue any of that. I’m going to call into the Situation Room. I’m awake and it sounds like my input could be useful.”
“It always is. Call the Large Situation Room, by the way—we’ve got all hands on deck.”
Gower chuckled. “Will do.”
“Are we telling them all about the real plan?”
“No. If Jeff knows you’re planning to take on Cliff he won’t stay in the States, and Chuck will try to get there first and handle it himself, which we know we don’t want. I think we keep the real plan to ourselves and those who must know until we’re in the Middle East.”
“Works for me. I’ll have to tell Mona what’s going on in order to get her help, and Olga will probably already know most of it.”
“That’s fine, but for the Large Situation Room, we’re doing this as a joint political and religious action.”
“Works for me. Tell them I’m on my way, please and thank you.”
“Will do, and I’ll see you soon, Kitty.”
Hung up and considered my next moves. Figured it would be a lot better if I already had things set up, so I called Mona first. She was awake and, since I could tell her what was really going on—excepting the assistance from one of the Powers That Be—she was quickly amenable. And she was clear that the real mission was on a need-to-know basis and most, Jeff included, wouldn’t actually know about it until we’d either succeeded or needed help.
“Anything we can do to end that madman once and for all is something I wholeheartedly support,” she said after I’d given her all the pertinent details. “Give me a few hours, but I can guarantee that your first stop will be Bahrain. I’ll be going with you, and that will give you an entrée into any of the other countries you need.”
“You’re the best. I’ll add you and Khalid to my gigantic entourage roster. What about Oren, Jakob, and Leah?”
“I believe that Mossad will be present.”
Considered this. “Wow, you have fake Bahraini passports for them, don’t you?”
“I like to keep my friends close, and safe, since they keep me safe. Besides, as the religious summit has said and you have confirmed, we’re about to enter into a new world order where Mossad will be a friendly comfort opposed to the strange new beings coming here to hide or hinder.”
“Well put. Keep me posted, I doubt anyone’s getting much sleep tonight.”
We hung up, and now it was time to contact Olga. Olga normally preferred personal visits. Considered options and called her granddaughter, Adriana. “Grandmother says that she will be pleased for us to join you in the Large Situation Room, if you would be so kind as to send escorts.”
“Wow. I swear that Olga is the most amazing person I know.”
“She said you’d say that and wanted me to remind you that she pays attention to everything. And to tell you that she and I will, of course, not tell your husband or anyone else why you want to go to the Middle East first. We are fully invested in getting rid of the Mastermind and all of his cronies sooner as opposed to later.”
“Again, wow. Um, do you two know that we have more aliens on the way?”
Received a few moments of silence. “No, but it makes sense. I will let Grandmother know.”
“Do, because some of them are coming to hide, some to help, and some to destroy. So, you know, business as usual for all of us. I’ll revel in knowing something Olga didn’t for as long as it takes for you guys to get here. I’ll send Len and Kyle and a couple of Field teams to get you two. You want an obvious car or stealth?”
“Stealth for tonight, I believe. Obvious will be for later.”
“Gotcha, and see you soon.”
Sent Chuckie and Jeff a text, telling them that I needed Olga and Adriana picked up pronto. Got a confirmation text from Chuckie that this would be done immediately and the strong suggestion to get my butt into the LSR before the Romanians arrived.
Decided there was no more stalling I could get away with. Used hyperspeed to get to the room in less than three seconds. Opened the door at human normal speeds, just in case we had someone who wasn’t aware that I was enhanced in there. By now I couldn’t remember who knew what and had stopped trying to remember.
My timing was great, as I opened the door just in time to hear people yelling at each other.
CHAPTER 45
THANKFULLY, a quick scan of the room showed that no one in here was doing the shouting. The TV screens were live and showing a variety of religious and other protests going on. The shouting was coming from a Club Fifty-One True Believers and Church of Hate and Intolerance rally on one screen, and several different screaming protests in what were clearly Middle Eastern countries. Frankly, there were protests going on all over the world, it looked like.
“You’re just in time,” Jeff said as I took my seat next to him. “Paul’s on speakerphone, by the way. He’s the one who told us to turn on the TVs.”
“I hate this show. Let’s find a Love Boat marathon.”
“I wish. The hackers are also listening in. I have them on mute, however. They’ll text Chuck if they have something key.” Jeff heaved a sigh. “Raj, turn it down, please, I think we all get the gist.”
While Raj complied, took a look around the room. Everyone from earlier in the day was here, along with extras like the Chief Usher, Antoinette Reilly, which made sense since she would be intimately involved in planning my FLOTUS World Tour. I wasn’t stressing her out every minute of every day anymore, but I was pretty sure I was still causing her pain on an hourly basis. There were a ton of other important folks here as well. Nice to be popular.
The Secret Service, K-9 squad, dogs, and sorta prisoners weren’t in the room. Had no idea where they were, but in this room wasn’t it. Maybe Jeff had sent them to hang out with Hacker International over at the Zoo, which was what we called the second building of our Embassy Complex.
Wherever they were, it was good they weren’t in the LSR, because I wouldn’t have had a hope of getting in if they’d been here. Basically, the room—the extra-large room we were using because we had so many people—was packed. Wondered if I should sit on Jeff’s lap to make a seat available, then decided that was a question I should never voice aloud unless I wanted to give Antoinette a heart attack and hear everyone else tell me I wasn’t acting appropriately for my station, which was never in both cases.