Alien in the House

Chapter 15



“RAJ, what in the hell is going on?”

“They were right here!” He sounded shocked, but troubadour talent meant he was one of the best actors out there. Raj could have been faking it, or he could be as shocked as he sounded. I didn’t know him well enough to be sure.

“Come inside, close the door, and be quiet.” Buchanan’s voice was behind us, meaning he’d been inside the Embassy. Knowing Buchanan, he’d been inside from the moment he brought me back this afternoon and none of us had noticed him. My Dr. Strange theory seemed amazingly sound.

Since it was Buchanan talking, I did what he said. Turned around to see that he was not only inside but in an Armani tux. Buchanan wasn’t quite good-looking enough to pass for an A-C, but he came close.

He also looked to be quite alone. “Where are the boys?”

Buchanan rolled his eyes. “I moved them and your visitor inside before we had a horrific incident on our hands.” He gave Raj a derisive look. “You know, what the Junior Ambassador here should have done.”

“Ambassador Martini doesn’t want just anyone allowed inside,” Raj said, voice clipped. “I saw no reason to go against his wishes.”

Buchanan shook his head, spun on his heel, and started for the stairway to the basement. Raj and I followed him.

Went down the stairs to find the boys with guns trained on a third man. He was older, with short gray hair, gray eyes, and a stocky but muscular build. He stood ramrod straight, as if he were standing at attention, but he was in a regular suit, not a uniform. I didn’t recognize him at all. “Who’s Public Enemy Number One here?”

The man looked straight at me. “I’m Colonel Marvin Hamlin.”

“You’re the infamous Hammy?” He didn’t look like a man who would appreciate a nickname of any kind. He looked like a man who wanted to be called “sir,” not Hammy.

“To my friends.” He cleared his throat. “I know we aren’t friends, but . . . I need your help.”

Colonel Hamlin had been in charge of Andrews Air Force Base right up until a couple days before Operation Destruction. He’d left Andrews for lunch and never been seen since. He was Cliff’s former boss, and he was also, per Cliff and everyone else, very anti-alien. This was one of the reasons Colonel Arthur Franklin had been moved over to take charge of Andrews. Hamlin’s disappearance had sped up the process, but that was probably good, because Franklin was a friend and had worked with us to save the day.

Pulled out my phone. “Let me get Cliff, Chuckie, and Jeff down here.”

“No!” Hamlin jumped toward me, earning a nice body slam from Kyle that sent him into the wall.

“Why don’t you want them called?”

Hamlin regained his balance. “Because I don’t know who I can trust. I’ve been on the run for months.”

“From who?” Buchanan asked. “And why?”

Hamlin shook his head. “I’m not sure who. People have been trying to kill me is why. But I believe I know why they’re trying to eliminate me.”

“And that reason is?” Really wanted to get one of the guys down here. But under the circumstances, with four of my guys here already, I could probably wait for the full explanation. I dropped my phone back into my purse.

Hamlin noted this and relaxed a bit. “I believe I’ve found the trail that will lead to the highest-level government conspiracy.”

“There are a lot of those.” So far in my experience, there was a high-level government conspiracy being hatched every week.

Hamlin nodded. “Yes, there are. But I believe they all stem from a single source.”

“You mean one group’s pulling all the strings?”

“I believe it’s a single individual, with the right connections. And the brainpower to think well ahead of the rest of us.”

“If that’s true, then how is it you’re still alive?” Len asked.

“Training, experience, and not a small amount of luck. I’ve been in hiding for well over a year.”

“Wait a minute. You disappeared from Andrews the Friday before Operation Destruction started. That was less than a year ago.”

“Excuse me?” Hamlin looked confused.

“She means the alien invasion that was stopped by the very aliens you don’t like,” Buchanan said.

“Ah. I don’t know who was pretending to be me, but I actually disappeared last year, in November. Right after I’d discovered some discrepancies with a variety of Titan Security contracts.”

“That was just before Jamie was born.” None of the men in the room with me had been on our team at that time. Meant I was either on my own or needed to bring someone down from the party.

Hamlin nodded. “Your child was indicated as being an important factor.”

Decided to forge on, based on the fact that, blocks or not, Jeff might be able to pick up the fact that my anger had spiked. People trying to steal, hurt, use, and terrify my daughter did that to me for some reason.

“What else?”

“I almost don’t know where to start.” Our expressions must have told Hamlin to pick a spot and start running his yap. “There are a variety of underhanded actions going on, or there were. Supersoldier projects in Paraguay and France. A super-drug to be tested on schoolchildren, also in France. Bioweapons. Assassinations. A variety of world domination schemes. Coordinated anti-alien activities designed to wipe the Alpha Centaurions off the face of the Earth. Just as many plans to force them to act as U.S. or world military.”

“We know about, as in have stopped, most of those, though probably not all. What about an alien invasion from a planetary system other than Alpha Centauri?”

Hamlin nodded. “And more besides. Some of the schemes were clearly set up to fail. Some seemed to exist as either a smokescreen or as a backup plan. I’d only begun to scratch the surface when I realized I had to run for my life.”

“How did you know to disappear?”

“There was an assassination squad waiting for me at my home. I know how to spot them. It didn’t take much for me to realize I’d been set up for assassination because I’d discovered the start of the real trail toward the Mastermind.”

Wondered if said squad was made up of Peter the Dingo Dog and Surly Vic. They were right in the fact that I wouldn’t care about Hamlin. At least, five minutes ago I wouldn’t have cared. Now, I wasn’t so sure.

“And no one noticed you were missing?” Raj asked.

Hamlin shrugged. “I have no idea how they could have had someone impersonate me for so long. For a short time, yes. But not for months.”

Len looked at me. “They could have if they put an android in his place.”

“I agree, but why have that android leave right before Operation Destruction?”

“To discredit me,” Hamlin said before anyone else could answer. “To make me the fall guy.”

“He has a point,” Buchanan said.

“I knew I’d truly found the start of the trail to the Mastermind the moment no one started looking for me once I’d disappeared. So, why not have whoever, or whatever, was impersonating me disappear at a crucial time? It would be the last nail in my coffin.”

Buchanan nodded slowly. “Colonel Hamlin has been discredited. And at least half the powers that be feel he was the other ‘captain’ involved in the invasion.”

True enough. We’d spent time wondering if Hamlin, who was described by one and all as anti-alien but a good man nevertheless, was also the “good man” the late Antony Marling’s beloved parrot, Bellie, had been talking about. Bellie now lived with Mister Joel Oliver, our personal paparazzo. Oliver wasn’t invited to tonight’s event because he tended to make politicians very nervous. But I wondered if I needed to give him a call.

“Based on the word of a parrot. The accurate word, but still.”

“A parrot?” Hamlin asked weakly.

“It’s a long story. But Malcolm’s right—you certainly stood out as the likely ‘captain’ in place to cover the Parisian part of the supersoldier offensive or lack thereof for Operation Destruction.”

“Well, I wasn’t the ‘captain,’ but I agree that my ‘disappearing’ when you thought I did would make anyone believe I was involved.”

“What happened to his android, then?” Kyle asked. “Mister Reynolds got a full listing from King Alexander of all the androids involved in the battle—Colonel Hamlin wasn’t one of them.”

Unpleasant thought occurred. “How do we know Hammy here isn’t an android?”

“Short of killing him?” Buchanan asked. “Not too sure. Emotional readings won’t matter. Perhaps one of the imageers could read a picture of him.”

“No imageers. No empaths.” Hamlin sounded emphatic. “I don’t trust them.”

“We don’t trust you, so that makes us even. Right now, we can’t be sure you’re really a human being.”

“By that token, how can I know you’re human beings?” Hamlin asked. He looked at Raj. “Some of you aren’t.”

“That’s it, I’m done acting like an ambassador. You get the real me, lucky you. Stop insulting the people with me or I’m going to kick you so hard in the balls we’ll know for sure if you’re an android or a real person.”

Hamlin tried the stare-down. Always hilarious, since the only people who could win this against me were Mom and Chuckie. “Agreed. And . . . I apologize.”

“Smart man. Accepted. For now. Look, we didn’t invite you in here to insult any of us or just to hang out and shoot the breeze. You don’t like us, you don’t trust us, and you’re on the run. So why are you here?”

“I came to talk to you, Missus Martini.”

Chose to ignore him not using my official title. I’d kind of told him not to, after all. “Why so?”

Hamlin looked straight at me. “Because you were identified as Enemy Number One by whoever’s behind everything. And that means you’re the only person I can trust.”