“How so?” White asked.
“If they have a hostage, then I’m with Kitty—where’s the ransom note? They came equipped with these things—I mean, no sane adult is wandering around with a realistic looking rubber cobra just in case they want to leave it somewhere. I’m sure they had a ransom note with them, too. They sneak in, no one’s here, so they leave these as a calling card, something to scare the hell out of Kitty when she was most likely alone. But I doubt they’d have left them if they’d actually taken her because they’d want us to know she’d been taken. I mean, maybe, but the snake and fake bomb are here for Kitty, not someone else. And, therefore, I think there’s no note because Kitty, or Francine, take your pick, wasn’t here.”
“Sounds right to me. Says they’re watching us and can sneak in and all that jazz. But there could still be a note. One for if I’m here, one for if I’m not. Have you searched the novelty items there for anything?”
“Not yet. I want to be sure there isn’t something bad inside of either one.”
“Wise,” Camilla said. “We’re talking about a crazy genius, after all.”
“Take them to Dulce,” White suggested, as he handed Cliff’s “presents” back to Christopher. “Using a gate, please, son. We and Jeffrey both need you at full optimum.”
“You want me back here once we know what’s going on with these things?” he asked while Colette called for yet another floater gate.
“Stay near a gate, but beyond that, no. I don’t want you here, doing nothing, when Jeff might need you.”
“I’d like to go with you on whatever insanity you’re going to be doing,” Christopher said, without glaring. “I know you’ll need me.”
Felt his forehead. “Huh. No fever.”
“What? I’m fine. Look, seriously, I think I’m going to be a lot more necessary to the team that’s going to try to take down Cliff—and I know that’s what you’re planning, so don’t try to say otherwise—than I am to the galactic party that’s currently being thrown.”
“Good point,” I said as the gate shimmered into existence. “Look, go to Dulce. Have this safely examined and be sure they get every possible bit of information out of it. Even something small and seemingly insignificant could give us a lot to work with. Then call me or your dad. We’ll determine at that time what to do. Okay?”
“Yeah, makes sense. Just . . . seriously, Kitty. I have a really bad feeling about this. I don’t think Chuck and Jeff realize what you’re really here for, but they both know you’re up to something. If the Themnir hadn’t arrived, I’m sure they’d be onto you, too. But it’s more than that. This,” he held up the snake and bomb, “stuff is crazier than normal. He’s taunting us. That means he’s ready for us. He wants you to find him. Never forget that. It’s what he wants.”
“Why?” White asked him.
Christopher sighed. “Because this isn’t about us and never has been, Dad, that’s why. We’re just the means to the end. All of it, everything that’s been done by Cliff—either what he could when he was an assistant or Apprentice and everything since he took over as Mastermind—is focused on one goal.”
“Beating Chuckie and making him suffer.”
Christopher nodded. “And now? Now Cliff wants to kill Kitty—as slowly and painfully as possible—and make Chuck watch. That’s how he wins. Even if he dies right after, that’s how he wins.”
CHAPTER 63
CHRISTOPHER WENT TO DULCE and the rest of us looked at each other. “He’s not wrong,” Camilla said finally. “Maybe Francine being gone is a good thing. It means you’ll have to do the meetings and we’ll roll Team Commando without you.”
“When pigs fly. And by that I mean our pigs, not aliens that look like pigs with wings. Our pigs. Just in case and all that.”
“I agree,” White said. “While I believe Christopher’s concerns are correct, that’s always been the end game. And we need Missus Martini’s skills.”
There was a knock at the door, then Mona ran in. “James just told us to get to where the religious leaders are as fast as possible.”
Decided all my stuff could stay strewn about the room. Flipped my purse over my head so that it was securely on my person. Lowered the handle on the rolling bag and picked that up in my other hand. It was heavy but not unmanageable.
White took it from me. “I’ll ensure that it’s with us and never out of my control.” He took my hand, Camilla grabbed Mona, and Colette led the way out of the room. The others were already linked up, other than Raheem.
Grabbed his hand. “Get us to where we need to go. You steer, Richard and I will provide the speed.” We took off.
Hyperspeed being what it was, it didn’t take us more than a couple of seconds of racing past the dead bodies in the hall, then through the beautiful, huge palace, to get where we were going. I’d never find my room again without a map and a guide, and we needed to tell someone to take care of the corpses, but we reached the area to discover that where we were going was bedlam.
There were people outside of this room—mostly ours but some that appeared to be palace guards. There were many more people inside this room, and most of them were shouting and yelling at each other.
Turned out the religious folks had not been sent to another theater. Instead they were in yet another very large room with chairs all around the walls, though there were also chairs set up in the typical rows you saw at any conference around the world. The room was easily as big as the LSR, maybe bigger.
There was a ginormous screen at the end of the room. It was, I realized, actually eight big screens put together, similar to how Imageering did it, where the screens formed one larger screen but could show different feeds as needed.
Realized Imageering probably had done it—noted several A-Cs who weren’t dealing with screaming religious folks. They were dealing with the equipment, protecting it from flying objects, of which there were more than a few, as well as keeping the screens upright and functioning. To my knowledge my team hadn’t requested this, but the Supreme Pontifex got whatever his little heart desired, so I figured Gower had asked for the setup.
All the chairs in the middle were facing the display. Most of the people weren’t looking at the screens, which currently only showed a single feed in Extra Giant Size. Jeff and the Themnir weren’t back to shore yet—not a surprise considering where the Themnir had landed—so we had a close-up of Jeff’s face. Nicest thing I’d seen in what felt like ages.
Couldn’t hear what Oliver or anyone else onscreen was saying, however, because of all the freaking out going on in here. Raheem waded in and attempted to get things under control, with limited success.