Alien in the House

Chapter 16



LET THAT SIT on the air for a bit. Due to Operation Confusion, we all knew I was considered Enemy First Class by the League of Evil Super-Geniuses and Crazed Megalomaniacs. But if Hamlin knew this, too, that might mean he was telling the truth.

“Okay, Hammy. May I call you Hammy?”

“If I say no will that stop you?”

“Wow, no, it won’t.”

He shrugged. “Then by all means. What should I call you?”

“Kitty will do. So, let’s belay the human or android worry. We have a variety of excellent doctors on staff who can probably determine your status in a fast and safe way. Let’s go back to your disappearance. You were sniffing around. Why?”

“There were discrepancies with some of the Titan Security contracts, as I said. I pulled their records, and then started looking into any business even tenuously connected to Titan.”

“And you found what?”

“Strong ties to a variety of companies. Gaultier Enterprises and their subsidiaries, the philanthropist Ronaldo Al Dejahl and his many businesses and subsidiaries, a host of other, less influential businesses. They have ties to a variety of organizations, including Club Fifty-One, which, due to your, ah, fine work, we know to be a widespread anti-alien organization. But there were plenty of others, including organizations thought to be benign.”

“The Al Dejahl terrorist organization?”

“Yes, absolutely.”

“Fabulous. So, Titan pretty much has or had less than Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon with, what, everything and everyone?”

“Pretty much, yes. Obviously, some of those connections were legitimate and not underhanded. But not all. At first I thought everything stemmed from Titan. But further digging showed that Titan was taking direction from someone else.”

“Name who you think was in charge.”

“I have no idea.” Hamlin sighed. “Antony Marling and Madeline Cartwright were both influential. I believe Madeline was the brains of their operation, however. John Cooper was definitely involved with the Al Dejahl Corporation, as was Esteban Cantu. Herbert Gaultier was in bed with all these people and many more, including the late Leventhal Reid whom I know you knew.”

Repressed the shudder thinking of Reid always gave me. “Go on.”

“And before you tell me, I know four of those people are now dead and Cantu is in a very severe form of custody, I also know you haven’t learned anything useful from him.”

“How do you know that?”

“I haven’t survived on the run and in hiding because I’m without survival skills, young lady. I also happen to possess computer skills.”

“You mean hacking skills.”

“I mean skills that were important in my career.”

“Colonel Hamlin was in intelligence before he took a desk job,” Buchanan said.

“Ah, so you have spy skills. Okay, works for me. So, what else did you learn, Mister Former Spy?”

“I learned that most of these activities were being protected and hidden by very high level clearances.”

“Legitimate or forged clearances?”

Hamlin shook his head. “I have no idea. I wasn’t able to dig far enough before I was discovered. I can say that I expected a full military investigation over my disappearance, but I haven’t been pursued or investigated by the military.”

“Not even after Operation Destruction?”

“No. There is no military investigation going on that is even remotely interested in me.”

“That’s bizarre.” Thought about his wording. “But someone’s after you and investigating you, right?”

“Correct.”

“My mother would be for sure, as would Chuckie. As in, the P.T.C.U. and the C.I.A.”

“It’s not them. I mean, I know they’re investigating me, but they’re not the ones sending hit men and similar after me.”

Figured I might as well ask right now. “The Dingo, by any chance?”

“He was after me for a while. But he stopped his pursuit earlier this year.” Interesting. Wondered if that pursuit was back on. Well, I had a way to find out. But I couldn’t call my “uncle” and check right now.

“Probably after you brokered that deal with him,” Buchanan said to me. He knew? How did he always know? I hadn’t told Mom about that. Wondered if Buchanan had. Decided to worry about this later.

“Deal?” Raj asked.

“Not important now,” I said quickly. “What we need is to determine if we believe Hammy here, and, if we do, what we’re going to do to help him.”

My phone chose this moment to ring. Dug it out of my handbag again. “Where are you?” Jeff asked, voice low. “We’re about to sit down to dinner and you and Raj are noticeably absent.”

“We’re not having sex, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Ha ha ha. This is me laughing about the silly reason you have for not being here yet.” Jeff didn’t sound like he was enjoying this “joke.”

“Gotcha. We’ll be right there. I’ll fill you in once we have a moment alone.” We hung up. “Malcolm, we need to get upstairs. Raj and I in particular, but since the boys are also supposed to be at the dinner, them too. Are you okay with Hammy here?”

Buchanan didn’t look happy. “I suppose.” Knew he wasn’t happy being limited to the basement of the Embassy when we were going over to the Zoo.

“I’m open to other suggestions.”

“I’ll come up with something, Missus Chief. You head off and be diplomatic. Don’t spill anything on your dress.”

“Just when I was starting to feel for you, Malcolm. Hammy, we’ll be back, um, somewhere in the nearish future. Please give Malcolm whatever other information you have so we can get rolling on your problem sooner as opposed to later. You should be safe in here.”

“I hope so. Ambassador,” he said as I turned to leave, “I know you want to share this with others. Please don’t. You have friends who could be the Mastermind.”

“You mean Chuckie.” Controlled the anger, but it was difficult.

“I do mean Mister Reynolds. I also mean Cliff. Sadly, I also mean your mother. While none of them are at the top of my suspects list, they’re all positioned well enough and, most importantly, brilliant enough to be doing this.”

“My mother isn’t trying to kill me at every freaking turn.”

“I’m sure she’s not. But you need to be thinking in this way. Whoever is behind all of this, and it’s a vast network of conspiracies and threats, is someone unsuspected, because none of the people I named have the slightest idea who was pulling their strings.”

“Okay. I don’t like it, but I understand what you’re saying.” Knew Jeff was waiting beyond impatiently, but had to ask one last question. “What about Leventhal Reid? Was he unaware?”

“I don’t know,” Hammy answered slowly. “He’s been dead long enough that I didn’t spend as much time on him as I did some of the others.”

“Huh. Well, if there was ever a man who wanted to perpetrate evil on the world for grins and giggles, it was him.”

“We’ll go over it, Missus Chief. Head off before your husband tries to kill all of us out of jealous frustration.”

“I don’t think it’s jealousy right now, Malcolm, so much as my current and total entertaining failure.”

“We’ll fix that,” Raj said confidently.

Buchanan, Len, and Kyle all exchanged a look that said they didn’t believe this was possible.

“I currently like Raj more than all of you. Put together.”

Buchanan grinned. “Then I’ll make a note to expect the Junior Ambassador to become the new focus of Mister Chief’s jealousy in about five minutes from now.”