CHAPTER 55
KING RAHEEM AND I had a long conversation. I did indeed need to take notes. Fortunately, he had the means to contact people and Camilla was allowed to bring my rolling bag and purse to me. Then she was required to skedaddle.
She was required to come back several times, take things away, and give us things in return. During these exchanges the king barely looked at her. Clearly Camilla had been right—being a servant meant you were totally anonymous.
Some of the king’s retainers had been called, and my gigantic entourage was moved into a wing of the palace. This was one of the big things Raheem was helping us with—we would appear to be in Bahrain even when we weren’t, because not everyone in the entourage was expected to go to every event.
And he was indeed setting up events. Due to the nature of what was happening, it was a fairly easy thing to request that all the top people in the region meet up. Dubai was chosen as the city, and the Burj Khalifa was chosen as the meeting place.
Thanks to Gower’s influence with the religious leaders, they were now coming to Bahrain and would also be in the palace, though the religious leaders were put into a different wing than my team, and Raheem had many palace guards assigned to keep them in check. Also, the various Muslim leaders had managed to get their squabbling flocks to play nicely with each other, which I was willing to count as a miracle. Doubted we’d luck into a similar miracle back home, but a girl could dream.
Israel was also included in this regional meeting, which made it even more fraught with tension and excitement than normal. Raheem, however, had insisted, in part because there would be so much focus on the Israeli leaders and their people that it would give me more cover. Everyone had agreed that no hostilities would be allowed, and the U.S. in the form of my husband had shared that, should anyone be harmed or even jostled, the U.S. would interpret that to mean that the jostlers wanted to have the U.S. send shock troops over via gates. Raheem felt that this threat would support the clerics’ edicts. Really hoped he was right.
About two hours into this there was a knock. “Come,” Raheem called.
Vance opened the door. “Your Majesty, I apologize greatly for this interruption. However, I need to confer with the First Lady for a few minutes on a private matter of extreme importance. May I remove her from your presence for a short while?”
Raheem nodded. “Yes, you may.” Raheem helped me up and handed me off to Vance. Contemplated taking my purse with me then figured that would be rude.
“What’s up?” I asked as we were leaving the room.
Vance looked worried. “Madame First Lady, we have a situation.”
“What situation is that?” Tried not to worry. Failed.
Vance closed the door behind us. “The situation that you’re really not good at this,” he said in a very low voice. “Don’t speak.” He walked us quickly through the large room we’d arrived in and out into a wide hallway. Then he trotted us down that hallway quite some ways away. “We’re going to be speaking at a whisper in case there are bugs, which you should assume there are.”
“God, did Chuckie give you some kind of Paranoia Lecture?” Though I spoke softly as requested.
“No, I just understand how things work. At any rate, we’re in a part of the palace that Buchanan feels is not wired too well for sound, ergo, we’re going to stand here and speak very quietly to each other about ‘matters of state’ that require your immediate attention. To clarify, I’m going to impart classified information so that you’re not flying blind. Blinder than you normally fly, I mean.”
“Wow, you’re really reminding me of what I think of as The Old Vance.”
“And you’re reminding me of The Old Kitty. Stop acting like a ditz. We don’t have time for it.”
“Sorry, you just threw me with the situation thing.”
“Moving on because, much as I love bantering about things like this with you, I want you to know who’s where before we watch the show, because I expect all hell to break loose as soon as the Themnir are actually seen by everyone.”
“Makes sense, all of it, and works for me.”
“I feel so proud. All your things are in the nicest suite in our part of the palace. Francine is rooming with you, is in those rooms now though no one on the king’s staff knows this, and she won’t be seen again until you two do the switch.”
“What switch?” I asked as innocently as I could.
Which clearly wasn’t successfully innocent, because Vance shot me a really snide look. “There isn’t one person with us, other than the Chief Usher, who believes for one moment that what you plan to do is sit around shaking hands while speaking passionately on behalf of immigrants of all kinds. No one doubts that you’re capable of it, other than, again, the Chief Usher, but we all know you.”
“Who leaked the classified intel?”
Vance rolled his eyes at me. “Mona and Siler confirmed what the rest of us suspected when we were all alone in the gigantic suite you’ll be sleeping in and after Malcolm, Len, and Kyle searched that room for bugs and removed or neutralized them all.”
“Um. Wow. Okay. Nice to know the team knows me.”
“Once again, everyone but the Chief Usher, and she’s being indoctrinated in a very severe way by Malcolm, Siler, and Mona.”
“Mona? Really?”
“She’s representing as the person the Chief Usher has the most in common with out of our entire contingent. They’re bonding, which is good, because Antoinette is completely out of her element. I have no idea why your mother approved her coming along.”
Thought about it. “To get her indoctrinated fast, would be my guess.”
“I can buy that. Okay, back to housing. Colette is in the gigantic suite with you as well, and so are Camilla, Mahin, Abigail, Lorraine, and Claudia.”
“That seems like a lot of people in one room.”
He heaved the sigh of the long-suffering. “It’s a five-bedroom suite. And I wasn’t using hyperbole when I called it gigantic. You have your own bedroom with its own bathroom, Francine and Colette are sharing, so are Mahin and Abigail, same again with Claudia and Lorraine. Camilla has her own room. Again, all with their own bathrooms. The room is essentially circular and the gigantic sitting room is in the middle. This ensures that you’re surrounded by women and therefore nothing untoward can happen. This was arranged so that everyone, our host included, will not have any reason to complain about our impropriety.”
“Gotcha. Is everyone else in nice rooms, too?”
“Yes, actually. The king is definitely giving us the honored guest treatment. All rooms have had bugs removed or neutralized. If the king complains, I’m sure you can handle it.”
“I doubt he will. He’s on our side at this time.”
“Let’s hope that continues. Paul Gower is on-site. He’s staying with the other religious leaders, a wing away from us. He’s staying there in part to run herd on the rest of them and in other part so that no one can have hysterics about two men sleeping together in the same bed with intent to love each other.” Vance’s sarcasm meter was definitely at eleven.
“Wise. We’ll worry about being offended by the people not helping us. Right now, King Raheem is our golden teddy bear and I want him to stay that way. Have we determined which team Abigail’s going to be on yet?”
The four Gower siblings were hybrids. Hybrid females were rare and always talented above the norm. Hybrid males had the same likelihood for being talented as the full-blooded A-Cs. Michael, for example, hadn’t had any talents other than being charming and smart and athletic enough to become an astronaut. He was the rarity of his siblings, though.
In addition to being the Supreme Pontifex, Gower was a powerful dream and memory reader. Naomi had had this talent, too, but she had been able to not only read dreams and memories, she’d been able to alter them as well.
Abigail, the youngest Gower, was a reverse empath—she felt thoughts as emotions. So if someone near her was thinking angry thoughts, Abigail felt angry, and so on. She was also able to manipulate the gasses that were natural to Earth that the Field agents used to alter human memories, but she didn’t need an implant to do so.
Naomi and Abigail had worked as a team frequently and had learned how to create shields together—shields that could hold off bullets or bombs. They were the reason that any part of D.C. was still standing after Operation Destruction. But doing this had burned out both girls’ powers, which was why Naomi had taken so much Surcenthumain during our raid on the Gaultier Underground Cloning Facility in order to get her powers back and protect everyone.
That plan had backfired, as so many of our plans liked to. But after our trip to Beta Eight, Abigail had come home with all of her powers back and all of her sister’s powers as well. And probably more besides. Meaning she was now one of the most powerful A-Cs on the planet. And someone who could tell what everyone was thinking via her own emotions as well as alter their dreams and memories and create shields was someone you wanted on your team.
These days, Abigail and Mahin had become besties—Abigail had found a replacement sister, and only child Mahin had found a person who felt like a real sister to her. Mahin was also an earth bender, for lack of a better term. If it had dirt in it or on it, or just was dirt, she could move it. The girls worked together a lot now and were a formidable team. Meaning that whichever team Abigail was going to be on was likely the team Mahin was going to be on.
“Sorry, Abigail and, therefore, Mahin are with Team Subterfuge. Under the circumstances, we figured it’s more important for them to be protecting Francine, Abigail in particular. It also gives Francine someone who speaks Farsi, as well as various dialects of Arabic, which I’m sure we’ll hear while we’re doing the dog and pony show.”
“Who’s going to be translating for me?”
“Colonel Butler, as I know you know. Stop being a sore loser—you currently have the best gig in this palace. I know what you’ve been scarfing down all afternoon because I verified that there was nothing deadly to you in the food.”
“I don’t have food allergies.”
“I know. I’m just nosy. By the way, nicely done with the king. I honestly had no idea how that was going to go.”
“Did Mona give you any idea of what she was planning?”
“No, but it worked, so hurray. Back to logistics. Mona is, of course, staying with Francine. That means that so are Khalid, Oren, Jakob, and Leah.”
“Can’t argue with that. I want to argue with it, but I can’t. What about my Secret Service detail? Are they clued in?”
He snorted softly. “Beyond clued in. The moment we’d cleared the rooms of bugs, Evalyne asked Malcolm to tell her what you were really planning to do.”
“They have to stay with Francine.”
“They do, and they’re clear on it. The six who came with us are your normal detail, the six most loyal to you, and are also fully aware that, when it comes right down to it, they can’t actually protect you. However, they’re also clear about what’s coming and what’s at stake, and because Evalyne is willing to break the rules, the rest of them are as well. Right now, we sent them to be with Paul, because you don’t need them here and he truly might.”
“I don’t want any of them hurt, but yeah, Paul might actually make them feel useful and them being willing to go along with the plan is a huge win. I hate having to lie to them.”
“They know. They’re all willing to take a bullet for you, same with Jeff’s detail. And not because of your positions and their jobs, but because of who the two of you are. Pretty much you’ve weeded out most of the bad agents already and the rest working the White House detail are droolingly loyal.”
“That makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.” It did. It was nice to have confirmation that we hadn’t made these poor people hate us for constantly making their jobs close to impossible to perform as they were used to. If Surcenthumain wasn’t such a risky drug, I’d have suggested giving it to our details, just so they could feel more involved with the team.
“Good. We’ve done the same thing for your Centaurion protection detail—they’re with the Supreme Pontifex.”
“I’m glad they’re with Paul, but they could be really helpful with what my team will be doing.” In addition to Manfred, I’d asked for the two teams of Field agents we’d rescued from Stephanie’s Haunted Asylum Lair to be assigned to me, in part because I hadn’t been able to keep any Field teams around long on my security detail, since they were as annoyed with how hard I was to protect as the Secret Service, but a lot less willing to put up with it. These two teams seemed willing to go for my kind of gusto, however, and I had hopes that they’d continue to work out.
“They could be, and Daniel, Joshua, Lucas, and Marcus have all fought to go with you as well. But Malcom and Siler both feel that the people on Team Subterfuge will easily face as much risk as those on your team. And Team Subterfuge will have the most humans as well as the most who have literally no combat experience. In other words, we’re keeping the A-Cs because we all want to survive this.”
“So touchy. Fine, fine. Who do I get?”
“In addition to Butler, you’re ‘stuck’ with Alpha Team, Buchanan, Wruck, and Siler.”
“What about Len and Kyle?”
“You mean the two bodyguards assigned to Queen Katherine since she arrived in Washington, D.C.? Those bodyguards? Those bodyguards who need to be very clearly seen with Queen Katherine at all times? Them?”
Heaved a sigh. “Gotcha. The boys will be bummed, though.” Had a thought. “Um, where’s Adriana?”
“Good question and I’m glad you asked. She’s doing what she does best.”
“She does a lot of things really, really well. Is she in the country?”
“Yes, but no longer in the palace, and she’s taking direction from Camilla and Malcolm, who are coordinating Team Commando. As in, you will get to find out when it matters.”
“Touchy much? Okay, how is Camilla going to do anything, since she’s identified as my lady-in-waiting?”
“Two good questions in a row, I’m impressed.”
“You could be fired if you’re not careful.”
“I know where the bodies are buried, I’ll risk it. At any rate, part of my reason for going to the kitchens was to ensure that I found out, too late gosh darn it, that there was food ingested by the princesses that will not agree with them. Rahmi is going to ‘take ill’ and stay in the royal suite Renata and the princesses have been assigned to. Then she’ll shift into Camilla and be there with Francine. Rhee is also going to feel poorly and stay in the room with her sister. She’ll be going with you.”
“What about Renata?”
“She’ll be with Francine.”
“Not arguing. One Amazon is a lot better than none. What about Richard?”
“He’s more problematic. Because he was the A-C’s former religious leader, it makes sense for him to stick around and help Paul. However, Richard is insisting on going with you. We haven’t found a workaround that we like.”
“Who’s ‘we’? I’ll wager Richard already suggested this—his presence decreases Paul’s authority. So, as a good retired Pope With Benefits, he needs to hang out in the palace, or wherever we’re going to say Team Commando is, so that Paul’s authority isn’t questioned during this delicate time.”
“Wow. I see why you two partner together so well. That is almost word for word what he said. Malcolm wasn’t thrilled with it.”
“Malcolm would prefer to do all this by himself or with just Siler and Wruck along. Tough cookies, we’re going with Richard’s excuse and he’s with me. So, Team Commando is a team of thirteen, I think that’s probably enough.”
“Per Malcolm, it’s more than double the number he’d like to be rolling with.”
“As I said. Per me, I want everyone already listed in my Baker’s Dozen plus players to be named later.”
“I know, and so does he.”
“Starting with my Reptilian Soul Sister.”
Received an eye roll. “Yes. Jareen voiced her opinion, as did Wahoa and Felicia. However, we had them come along to show that aliens are nice, and if they’re off kicking butt with you, then they cannot do that. I realize everyone would like to leave the cute and cuddly work to Bettini, King Benny, and Mossy, but, trust me, those three are needed as well. With Team Subterfuge. Period.”
“You truly live to take the fun out of everything, don’t you?”
“That’s me.” Vance heaved another sigh. “I heard from Stryker.”
“What’s the good word?”
“He has news for you on the search you had him and the rest of them doing. News he won’t share with anyone but you, because all of the hackers are lunatics of the highest order.”
“No, they’d think this entire place was bugged, too.”
“Hilarious. It is bugged, so perhaps they’re not lunatics but truly paranoid for all the right reasons. Stryker’s also aware of what you’re planning, because he knows you. Not specifically, mind you, but his guess was good. He wants you to talk to him before you roll anything.”
“Why?”
Vance shot me the “really?” look. “Because he’s thought things through.”
“What things? As in, what are you trying to tell me not at all clearly?”
“Oh, nothing much. Other than, you know, one of the people you’re likely going after with intent to exterminate is Chernobog’s son.”