“Son, I’ve outrun explosions and so has Missus Martini. We’re staying. Just in case.”
“Call us worrywarts. There’s always a possibility that I’m being overly paranoid, but be cautious.”
Christopher nodded, then went to town. My stuff was flying through the air because he was pulling it out and tossing it so fast. He got to the bottom of the case in seconds. “Huh.”
“What?”
“How are you with rubber snakes?”
“If they’re lifelike they still scare the crap out of me. Why?”
Christopher turned around. He had a very lifelike rubber cobra in one hand and a round black ball that said “Bomb!” on it. “Someone knows us far too well.”
“It’s Cliff, as if there was any doubt. Was there a note in there of any kind?”
Christopher handed the fake bomb and rubber snake to White, then he searched every inch of the suitcase, including ripping out the lining. “Nothing.”
“Then it’s in the snake or it’s in the bomb.”
They both looked at me. “Why are you sure there is a note?” Christopher asked. “These two things seem clear enough.”
“Yeah, the old, I know what you’re terrified of and I also know how we almost got you way back when ploys. But I think there’s a note because Cliff is a freaking lunatic and if we’ve found this, then we know we’re not exploding or being snake bit, but we don’t know anything else. Like, he doesn’t know for sure that we know he’s here.”
“He might,” White said slowly. “If John is, in fact, a very canny triple agent. Or if King Raheem has been lying to you.”
“Raheem might have been. Without an empath to be sure, all we have is my gut. Which says he was not.”
“Daniel and Marcus both were reading him and he gave off no signs of betrayal. And also gave off the right mixture of emotions to indicate that he wasn’t wearing a blocker or an overlay.”
“Then he’s what we think he is unless he’s an android.”
“Let’s hope not.”
“Let’s be sure.” Opened my rolling purse. “I think I have an OVS in here.” Sure enough, one of the handheld models was sitting right there.
Trotted into the other room. “Pardon this, but under the circumstances . . .” Wanded Raheem. Wanded the rest of the people in the room for good measure. Per the OVS, they were all organic enough that they couldn’t be an android or a fembot. This was because Butler was gone, along with all of Alpha Team, Mossad, Buchanan, Siler, the Amazons, Jareen, Felicia, and Wahoa. Presumably to go save the day and get the religious leaders out of the deadly room they’d been locked into. Good thing I was rolling with a million people.
“Camilla, come with me. The rest of you, please continue to stay put.”
Camilla returned to the bedroom with me. We showed her the snake and the bomb. “You seriously think something’s inside those?” she asked.
“I think the possibility is there. I want to ask you your thoughts on King Raheem.”
“You want to know if I think he’s in on whatever’s going on?”
“Yeah.”
“He shook a Jewish-American woman’s hand in front of every minister this country has. I think he’s potentially as crazy as you, but if he’s setting you up, he really likes to live on the edge. I’d assume someone’s already put a contract out on him as we speak.”
“That fits with everything that’s already gone on. So, what do you know of Ali Baba Gadhavi? And not the guy from the stories, though he does have forty thieves and all that.”
“The gangster?” Camilla gave me the hairy eyeball look. “He has more like four thousand thieves. But what the hell . . . oh. Really? Dammit, that’s going to make things harder.”
“I haven’t made the leap,” Christopher said.
Camilla sighed. “Ali Baba Gadhavi is a notorious Indian gangster, and he’s been hiding out in Bahrain for decades. He’s who’s funding Cliff?”
“Yeah, per Raheem. And, to add to the intrigue, this can’t come back on Raheem.”
“The king has other worries. Let me again mention that he broke Islamic law by shaking hands with you and we’ll take it from there.”
“He’s seen the saucers, so to speak.”
“Yes. Let’s hope he and the rest of us live to see the rest of them. Cliff’s well-funded if he’s now considered part of G-Company.” We all stared at her blankly. “What the media calls his crime syndicate. Gadhavi is running his own version of the mafia.”
“Do we have a hope of getting Cliff, then?” Didn’t want to have come here with all these people and plans only to have no hope of achieving either one of our missions.
“Yes, because while Gadhavi might be funding Goodman, there’s no way they’re hanging out together. It just means that Cliff will have a lot of toys I’m sure we won’t like. Speaking of which, there’s a third possibility for what’s going on with Francine and John that you may not have considered.”
“You mean aside from John using Francine as his cover to get back inside with Cliff, or Francine being kidnapped—either as ‘me’ or as herself—and John going along to protect her and, again, re-infiltrate Cliff’s Crazy Eights?”
“And other than John being as captured as Francine, yes.”
“We hadn’t considered that one. Thanks for the extra worry.”
“I have a theory other than that one, was what I meant.” Camilla was giving me a look that indicated she thought I needed a nap. “There’s a good chance that Adriana contacted them.”
“Why would she have contacted either one?” White asked.
“Well, not John, but Francine is a very high possibility. Malcolm and I sent Adriana off to scout hours ago. Because of what was going on, the moment we were in these rooms, I told her to contact Francine if she found anything, as Francine would be the only one likely to be alone and not compromised with visitors who weren’t part of our team.”
“Well, that’s good in one sense. But why not leave us a note?”
“Saying what? We’re off on a secret mission, will call soon?” Camilla’s sarcasm meter, like Mom’s, went well past eleven. “Either they thought they’d be quick or they plan to contact us at another time.”
“So if that option is the case, why are all the guards dead?” White asked.
“What?” Christopher barked. “Who’s dead?” Right, he’d come into the room via a gate and had immediately done the luggage search.
White filled him in at hyperspeed while I put my fingers in my ears and hummed Lit’s “Hard to Find” to keep from hearing White and thereby getting sick. White nodded to me when he was done. “So, what I’ve been thinking about while trying to avoid barfing or passing out from Richard’s smooth vocal stylings is this—what if Francine and John left before Cliff’s goons ever got here? Francine has hyperspeed—none of the guards would see her if she didn’t want them to.”
“John could have merely shifted to look like another guard and told the others he was escorting her elsewhere, too,” White said.