This was news. Hopefully good news, too, but wasn't sure if I should count on it. However, it reminded me of my conversation with White from what seemed like days but was really only a couple of hours ago. "Hey, who's Guy and Lillian's Dealer of Death counterpart for alcohol?"

"Why?"

"We've never met him or her."

"Well, based on what I think you mean, if you're looking for the full group that you'd call the Dealers of Death, you need to include the people who cover the fast food, hazardous waste, oil drilling, and firearms lobbies, not just tobacco, alcohol, and weapons manufacturing. To have the full set and be able to call Death Dealer Bingo."

"Touchy much? And you forgot Big Pharma, but we already know they hate us."

"Bingo."

"Hilarious. Okay, who are they, all of them? Because none of them have ever approached us. Guy and Lillian did, but not these others. And it would seem like they'd all hang together."

"I'll be offended later, because it's not like it's the first time any of you have insulted my husband and friends and what they do for a living."

"Dude, seriously, if you can look me in the eyes and, without breaking eye contact or laughing, and also with all sincerity, tell me that smoking doesn't cause every damn disease we think it does, I'll apologize."

He snorted. "Right. Anyway, I assume you have some reason, other than idle curiosity at an inopportune time, for why you want to know?"

"Yeah, I do. First off, it seems weird-Lillian approaching us right away, with all of our potentially destructive alien technology, makes sense. But Guy doing it doesn't. At first I thought we'd never met whoever handles alcohol because we don't drink. But we don't really smoke, either, and Guy doesn't seem to care at all. So if we're somehow so influential that the head mouthpiece for Big Tobacco wants to be our friend, why doesn't the head of Big Booze feel the same way? Or the rest of the ones you named?"

"Okay, what's second off?"

"Why aren't you guys friends with these other Dealers of Death? You're pals with Lillian, and other influential people. Why are these who it would seem you'd have a lot of affinity with not in your circle? Lillian and Guy are tight, that much is obvious. But I've never heard Lillian mention the firearms person, and Guy hasn't mentioned the alcohol lobbyist, not even in passing."

"What else?"

"Gideon Cleary's family is part of Big Booze. But we weren't enemies of his before this campaign started, at least not that we knew of. And, regardless of their relationship or lack thereof with Lillian and Guy, where are the firearms people? We use guns, all the time. We must buy them from someone. And yet whoever runs that lobby has never dropped by to shoot the breeze, let alone try to influence us. Why hasn't the Big Pharma lobbyist come by to see if he or she can work the magic and make us part of their team? I can understand the fast food, oil drilling, and hazardous waste people giving us a pass . . . right up until I think about your husband, and then I'm right back to the question of either why Guy wants our favor or these others don't."

"Anything else?"

"Probably. My husband was essentially appointed by the freaking President. That alone would make him seem special, even if they didn't know he was an alien. But they do, and everyone else does, too. And even after we were exposed and Jeff was made a Representative, none of these people have approached us. And before you ask, Jeff tells me about all the lobbyists who talk to him, because it's assumed they're going to try whatever with him, then head for me as the presumed weak link, to see if they can get in that way."

"I have a simple answer for why we don't hang with Simon Hopkins, who's the head of the Alcohol lobby. It's probably the same reason he doesn't try to make inroads with all of you, either. He's a huge homophobe."

"Last time I checked, GLBT folks drank just like straight folks."

"They do, and Simon would never admit this out loud. But, you know, when you're gay, you're able to spot when someone hates you merely for being gay. Simon was friendly with your former Diplomatic Corps, because none of them were gay and your religious leader at the time was straight. The moment those people left and Paul took over as Pontifex, Simon was done with all of you."

"Wow, well, I wasn't asking about this to send invitations to dinner."

"Yeah, I know. Lillian had the choice to remain friendly with him, by the way-Guy and I would never ask her to compromise her work for us. She chose us and she and Abner never do anything with Simon or his wife."

I was having to radically alter my opinion of Lillian Culver, and I wasn't enjoying having to do so. However, I'd clearly sold her very short, because I'd have never expected her to choose loyalty and what was morally right over getting ahead in any way.

Vance smirked. "Yeah, she had to change how she thought about you, too. Don't worry, it's all part of the wonder that is D.C. You'll get used to it."

"In about a million years. What about the others?"

"You know, I'm kind of with you, it doesn't make any sense for why they haven't approached you. But, as for who they are, Niles Berkowitz is the head lobbyist for Big Oil, Talia Lee is who covers Firearms, oh and she's tight with Janelle Gardiner from Gaultier Enterprises."

"That so figures, and might explain why she hasn't approached us. Who else?"

"Myron Van Dyke is your Big Pharma guy, and he's tight with Quinton Cross."

"Gaultier's all set up, aren't they?"

"Yeah, they are. I'm sure that's why Amy hasn't won her fight. Thomas Kendrick from Titan is Lillian's client, of course, but he's so new, he hasn't made a lot of relationship connections like the others have. His connections are still more military in nature. Lux Carr is Hazardous Waste and Kingsley Teague is Fast Food."

"Lux? Kingsley?"

He shrugged. "I don't question other people's names. Lux seems to like her name, and Kingsley makes a lot of jokes about his that tell me he not only likes it, but he thinks he should be called King Kingsley."

"Fantastic."

"It gets better, and I know you'll appreciate this one, they're both tight with Amos Tobin."

"Well, he ran a variety of fast food franchises before he took over YatesCorp, didn't he? And God alone knows what all YatesCorp is into, but I know it's more than we even know about. So I guess those love connections make sense. That's Dealer of Death Bingo for me, then, right?"

"Right, based on what you were talking about, at any rate."

"Poor Ansom Somerall doesn't have a buddy? That seems wrong."

"He does, it's Berkowitz, sorry, forgot to mention it."

"So figures."

"All of them know each other, of course, and I wouldn't say any of them are enemies, though not all of them are friends with all the others. Speaking of Ansom, by the way, I think you also should consider-"

William's voice came over the intercom. "Excuse me, Ambassador." It was still weird hearing him instead of Gladys, especially because William was unfailingly polite and Gladys had never felt the need to bother. Shoved the pang down. Gladys would be the first one to tell me to pull up my Big Girl Panties and handle the business of protecting her people.

"What's up, William?"

"You're needed in conference. Immediately."

CHAPTER 31.

RESISTED THE URGE TO CURSE or sigh. "Super, we'll be right up. Or over, depending on where we're meeting."

"Fifteenth floor conference room, Ambassador. Only you were requested."

"Gotcha. Over it is." The com went off and I looked at Vance. "Well, I guess you and I have sort of formed a plan for one of the many problems. You want to go find Pierre and Raj and get that rolling?"

"I'm going with you to this meeting. They can tell me to leave, but I'm not going to wander off just because I'm considered useless."

"You're not useless, so, yeah, come along. Besides, for all we know, Pierre and Raj are there, too."

"By the way, why have you been playing that one song over and over?"

"I have been?" Listened. Sure enough, Foster the People was still on, but instead of the album playing, only "Pumped Up Kicks" was on our personal airwaves. Figured this was some kind of a clue from Algar. Filed it away to pay attention to later.

"Yeah. Nonstop."

"Whatever. It's a good song." Grabbed my iPod out of the dock and dropped it back into my purse. Looked at the animals. "We'll continue our discussion later. For now, um, those of you who need to stay here, stay here. Everyone else, go back to your assigned person or people or come along with Kitty."

Bruno, Harlie, Poofikins, and Prince and his K-9 crew all came with us. Happily, Bellie stayed in the Lair. Wondered about my new definition of "happy." Didn't care for it all that much.

"So, you lived in those rooms?" Vance asked as we left the Lair. Noted he had an unattached Poof on his shoulder. Well, it probably had been unattached at one time. Now? Now I'd ask what Vance had named it later. But at least that meant that Vance and Guy were truly our allies. So, another one for the win column, go us. Poof Power, and all that.

"Yeah. I liked it, too."

"Right by jail cells?" We were passing the containment area. "You enjoyed living next to your people's version of County Lockup?"

"They aren't used a lot. Besides, the other housing here is kind of . . ."

"Awesome. Like a luxury hotel. I can see why that would get dull." Vance's sarcasm knob was back at eleven.

"The automatic alarms every morning suck. You literally have to have every person's feet on the floor and not be sitting down on the bed for them to turn off." And the soundproofing was far better in the Lair, possibly because we were several floors away from the others sleeping. Not that this was any of Vance's business, Poof on his shoulder or not. "Besides, how do you know about the rooms on the transient floors?"

"We're all staying here at least overnight, per everyone, just to be safe. The Alphabet Agency Bigwigs you hang with and are related to are worried about all of your allies' safety, and I can't blame them."

Vance and I and our animal honor guard finally reached the giant conference room and joined what appeared to be pretty much everyone. We were missing the Mossad and Israeli and Bahraini embassy personnel we didn't know well, and, thankfully, the kids and those on Daycare Duty, but otherwise pretty much everyone else was in attendance, including the Mossad, Israeli, and Bahraini folks we did know well. Heck, even Mrs. Maurer was in attendance.

"Good of you to join us, Missus Chief," Buchanan said quietly. He and Siler were both leaning against the wall just inside the door. Siler was again cuffed to Buchanan for whatever reason.

"I like to make an entrance."

They both chuckled as Vance went one way and I went the other, toward Jeff and Christopher. The room was normally set up in a round, but today we had the Corporate America Classroom setup, with U-shaped lines of long tables and chairs curved toward the far end of the room. Alpha and Airborne were in the front, with Jeff and Christopher in back for whatever reason.

"You really need to go everywhere with an entourage, don't you?" Christopher asked as I settled into the available chair between him and Jeff, animals settling in behind me.

"Blah, blah, blah. As if Toby's not in your pocket right now?" Did a fast headcount. In addition to everyone I'd expected, Gadoire was in the room. Vance sat between him and Culver.

"Whatever," Christopher muttered.

"What were you up to?" Jeff asked, somewhat suspiciously.

"Vance and I were having wild sex with all the animals. It's our new thing."

Jeff laughed. "Fine, fine, I'll stop. I wasn't actually trying to be jealous."

Patted his hand. "No, you're just good enough at it to do it on autopilot. So, what's our newest damage?" Had to figure something more was going on than just a meeting, or else they wouldn't have had William call me in.

"More bombings. Still no one taking anything more than minor damage. Still unlikely that's going to last."

There was a giant TV monitor in the room that we were set up to be looking at-similar to the ones in Field and Imageering Main in the Bat Cave-and we were being treated to a variety of screen-within-screen shots. Figured we were here instead of Main because of how many people we had with us. A whole heck of a lot about covered it.

Serene and Horn were on one screen, Cliff was on another, and other images were on the other screens, mostly of bombings and protests. The screens were set up for video conferencing, so everyone on the other sides could see all of us in the room. This looked and felt like a War Room meeting.

Said meeting was in full swing and no one seemed likely to interrupt in order catch me up. No worries, I had a decent grasp of what was going on. And most of what was going on right now was recap.

Got bored fast, since I'd personally lived most of what was being recapped, so took in the room some more. Was pretty sure that no one on the other side of the screens could see where Buchanan and Siler were standing. Wondered why Buchanan had them in this position, but filed it away to ask about later. Went back to the screens.

Cliff was clearly in his office. I'd seen it. It was typical D.C. High-Up Worker Bee Dull and Semi-Stately. However, I'd also been to Horn's office, and he wasn't in it. I hadn't seen whatever F.B.I. bomb defusing area he and Serene were at-in fact, I had no idea if they were in the D.C. area, back here at Dulce with everyone else, or in another clandestine location-so I concentrated on their screen. Which was why I caught sight of a younger Dazzler who looked familiar.

Nudged Jeff. "Who's that with Serene and Vander?" I whispered.

"Our niece," he replied in kind.

"You have a tonnage of nieces and nephews, Jeff."

"But only one old enough to be working outside of school. That's Stephanie, Sylvia's oldest. You know her." Sylvia was the eldest of Jeff's five older sisters, and she'd married and started her family first as well. Stephanie was the oldest Martini grandchild, therefore.

"Yeah, just haven't seen her since . . ." Since shortly after I'd had to kill her father, Clarence Valentino, during Operation Sherlock. He'd been a major traitor and had been trying to kill me and a lot of other people, but he was still her father, and while Sylvia had understood, we'd given their children the old Killed in Action story.

Stephanie was, like all female A-Cs, gorgeous. But she'd changed a lot in the past couple of years, leaving the awkward teenaged stage for the more mature, almost-a-real-young-adult stage. She'd be about 19 now.

Thought about the high-security cells again. Clarence had been released from them by Alfred, Jeff's father, because Sylvia had been so upset by his incarceration. He'd then been taken out of the solar system, along with Ronaldo Al Dejahl, by LaRue DeMorte Gaultier, via a ship stolen from Alpha Four. Our lives were always filled with fun complexities like that.

So Stephanie had to know her father was a traitor. Maybe her younger siblings didn't know or weren't clear, but she'd been old enough to understand everything that had been going on, and all Dazzlers were not just great looking, but also brilliant. How hard would it have been for her to put two and two together? And if how she'd been when we first met was still how she was, she wasn't afraid to speak her mind.

But I hadn't heard anything from anyone about Stephanie's reactions to what had happened to her father, or what he'd done to her people, other than the usual platitudes everyone, human or alien, says during and about bad situations.

Jeff and I had talked about how to deal with his sisters and their families, in part because most of their husbands had worked for the former Diplomatic Corps and weren't exactly confirmed to be on the side of right. Jeff had felt that my not trying to make amends with anyone and just letting him, Alfred, Lucinda, and White handle it was the right way to go. And because of his empathic talent, I'd acquiesced.

So, other than Marianne's family, who we saw fairly frequently, we only saw the rest of his sisters and their families on holidays or when jobs crossed, which was rarely, and I'd been busy enough that I hadn't thought about it a lot. Marianne was the youngest of Jeff's sisters, so I had the most in common with her, and her youngest daughter, Kimmie, had been our flower girl, so we were more closely bonded.

I was an only child, and these days I worked with most of my closest friends-I didn't miss or even think about sibling interaction when Chuckie, Amy, and Caroline were right there, let alone Reader, Lorraine, and Claudia. And Jeff and Christopher were always together, which, though they were cousins, tended to cover my sibling thoughts about either one of them.

All of the Martini grandchildren were talented-about fifty-fifty empaths to imageers-and all of them were closer to Jeff and Christopher's levels than normal A-C standards. Kimmie was empathic. But I had no idea what talent Stephanie had. Wondered if, in addition to anything else, she was, like Camilla was and Doreen was learning to be, a Liar.

Camilla was undercover in Gaultier Enterprises somewhere, and Chuckie wouldn't let me contact her. So asking for her expert opinion was, sadly, out. Doreen was across the room and it would take too long to explain to her why I was suspicious. It wouldn't take all that long, really-Doreen was high up there in smarts on the Dazzler Scale-but any time could be too much time.

Wondered why I was stressing about Stephanie right now, other than the fact that I'd seen her somewhere I wasn't expecting. Maybe because of the song, "Pumped Up Kicks". It had a cheerful, earwormy tune, but it was about a kid getting ready to go off and kill people. And Algar was a lyrics-focused clue giver.

The conversations washed over and around me-I concentrated on the screen with Serene, Horn, and Stephanie in it.

Horn and Serene were sitting-it looked like they were either waiting for their cue to talk or had already; they seemed alert and interested but not like they were going to be adding in at the moment. Stephanie was behind them, and she appeared to be taking notes.

"What's Stephanie doing with Vander and Serene?" I asked Christopher, who was on my other side, in a whisper, since Jeff seemed to actually be paying attention.

"She's working for Vander as one of his assistants," he whispered back. "Favor to us kind of thing. And it's good experience for her."