"Yeah. Clarence has confirmed none of us are there, and I supposedly had the Gower girls sent there. So," I said to the flock, "you all need to go help George and Gracie protect Walter and the rest of the Security guys who are there. And maybe call in more. Bottom line-don't let them take the Embassy."

There were warbles, coos, and caws. Several bird chests were puffed out, and not just by the males.

"That's right! We're not gonna let them take our nest!"

More caws and a variety of hoots.

"Can I get a bird amen?"

All the flock hooted and flapped their wings.

"Can I get a real bird amen?"

They hooted, flapped up into the air, and cawed all the way back down.

"That's what Kitty's talkin' about! Now, go get 'em. And be careful out there!"

The Peregrines all flew around our heads and then disappeared. Other than Bruno, who nudged up against me and cooed in a questioning way. He sounded a little worried. "Oh, I know, Bruno. You're my main bird man. I want you with me, so you did the right thing, as always. And you led an awesome and successful defensive maneuver."

He didn't seem convinced I was pleased. I gave him a scritchy-scratch between his wings. He liked it, but it wasn't enough, I could tell.

"Gimme feather, down low." I put down my hand, Bruno hit it with a wing. "Other side." Did it with the other hand and other wing. "Victory salute, real slow." Put both hands up, he flapped both wings against my palms. "That's how we do it down in bird town!" Bruno looked pleased again, so all was back to right in the Peregrine World.

I finished this to see White both looking pleased and like he was really trying not to laugh his head off. "Well done, Missus Martini."

"Yeah, yeah. Just don't tell Jeff about this."

"I sincerely hope we can find him so that I can keep this secret from him."

"Me too." I heaved a sigh. "Andrews?"

"With all haste, yes. However, I believe the streets, rather than the Metro track or the Potomac, will be our best choice."

"It's like you read my mind."

White chuckled. "I'm good that way."

CHAPTER 59.

WHITE TOOK MY HAND, AND WE HEADED OFF. Hyperspeeding through the streets was always interesting. The cars and people seemed to stand as still as the buildings, even though I knew they were moving.

Field agents had to be able to run twenty-five miles without issue. The better ones did fifty. Jeff and Christopher, of course, were at the fifty-or-more level. So was White, and he always had been, since I'd first joined up with the Gang from Alpha Four. That none of our enemies still seemed to consider him a legitimate threat meant he remained our secret weapon. God knew we needed one.

I'd been a sprinter in high school and college, so the distance was something I'd worked up to before Jamie had been born. Okay, I'd worked up to ten miles at a time. But that's good for a sprinter.

After Jamie, you'd have thought reverse-inheriting A-C powers would have meant I could do the fifty miles, easy. You'd have been wrong. No, I still struggled with distance. Fortunately, I was able to lean on White's abilities and let him do the heavy-mileage-lifting. I assisted by not running out of breath and not barfing when we stopped. I was cool that way.

We stopped at the main gate of the air force base. I had no idea why. When I was doing fieldwork with Jeff, we never let something like human security people and cameras that weren't good enough to catch anyone using hyperspeed stop us. But here we were, being all polite and official. I wondered about White sometimes, and now was one of those times.

Bruno was with us. I had no idea if he'd flown, run, or done some Peregrine Time Warp thing, but he looked remarkably unruffled.

"Ambassador Martini from American Centaurion to see the Base Commander," White said to the guards, who were looking completely freaked out by our arrival. Happily, they didn't seem to notice Bruno, so that was one for the win column.

"Where did you come from?" one asked while the other managed to use the phone in their gatehouse to share our request with the Powers That Be On Base.

"The Mall." Hey, it was true. "Great party going on down there. You guys should really be there. Our driver dropped us off," I added, for the sake of not being detained in the wrong way and by the wrong people.

"Oh." The airman didn't look convinced, but his gatehouse buddy shared we were cleared. "Walk on up. It's a ways. You should have had your driver take you."

"He was late for an important meeting. Just like we are." I hoped the hint would work.

The guys on gate duty had apparently recovered from our surprise arrival. They looked at each other, and the one inside used the phone again. "Transport's being sent for you."

"Thanks, you guys rock." I leaned up and whispered to White. "Why did you stop us here? Aside from it being fun to freak out the guys on guard duty?"

"I have no actual idea where on the base our team is," he whispered back. "We could have run through the entire place and every room, but this way seemed more expedient."

I couldn't argue with the logic, so I stayed quiet. Which wasn't so hard, since our ride arrived fairly soon. A Jeep pulled up with two airmen in it. White and I were escorted into the back seat, Bruno settled himself on my lap, and we took off at a rapid rate of speed. This was great in that we were in a hurry but bad in that the Jeep was an open-top and the resulting breeze was having a field day with my hair.

We pulled up somewhere-I couldn't tell where because my hair had spent this drive flinging itself everywhere, but mostly in my face. I dug my hairbrush out, brushed my hair as quickly as I could, and pulled it back into a ponytail. All the better to see that our driver and his companion had their guns pointed at us.

"Interesting. Mister White, what have I missed?"

"You arrived under suspicious circumstances," the driver said before White could reply. "Among other reasons. After you." He indicated with his gun that we should get out and head inside the building, which had "Headquarters" emblazoned on its exterior.

I put my hands up, but the other airman shook his head. "You're not prisoners. Our orders are to watch you with guns drawn, but you can keep your hands down."

"You know, this isn't the most diplomatic way for us to meet your main dude." Who, memory reminded me, Chuckie had said didn't like him or us, which viewpoint Cliff had confirmed as being true.

They both shrugged. "Orders are orders."

White climbed out, Bruno hopped out, and White helped me out. So far, no bullets had been fired, so I decided to buy the "we're just being cautious" line. For now.

We went in, the two guys from the Jeep behind us. A few feet inside the doorway another airman met us. This one was clearly an officer, and he was standing in that relaxed form of attention soldiers do to impress upon you that they're both soldiers and, though relaxed, ready to gun you down if at all necessary. He had a gun, but it was in its holster.

"Thank you," he said to the guys from the Jeep. "I'll take it from here." They left, and he nodded to us. "Ambassador Katt-Martini and Former Pontifex White?"

"Yes. Who are you?"

He smiled at me. "Captain Morgan. Here to escort you in to see the Base Commander."

"No gun?"

Morgan shrugged. "Things are a little . . . tense. If you would, follow me." He turned and walked on, before we could ask questions, I could make rum jokes, or lift my leg up to the side.

Morgan led us down a hallway. We made some turns and ended up at an office with "Base Commander" on the door. I didn't have to ask who was behind the door. He escorted us inside.

The office was fairly large and rather well appointed. Big desk, flags in stands, couch, chairs. All just a little sterile, but otherwise nice. I looked at the nameplate on the desk-it wasn't the name I was expecting. Instead of Marvin Hamlin, who I'd been told only yesterday was the man in charge, the plate on the desk declared the man behind it to be Colonel Arthur Franklin. The name rang a bell, but I couldn't place it.

The man behind the desk stood up and nodded to Morgan. "Thank you, Gil. Please stay here, at ease." He walked around the desk. "Missus Martini, no matter what you do, you do it with speed and style. I understand you've been having quite an eventful weekend. Hopefully it won't be as exciting as your high school reunion ended up, but I can't make any promises."

Recognition dawned. "You're the Air Force colonel who showed up at the end of Operation Drug Addict!"

He grinned. "Nice to be remembered. Your uncle asked me to ensure you were looking well."

"When did you talk to my Uncle Mort?"

"Yesterday." The smile left Franklin's face. "I understand that you were the one who sent the reporter, Joel Oliver, to us?"

I decided Oliver could insist that the military add the "Mister"-I wasn't going to, at least not right now. Franklin didn't look like he wanted to indulge civilian whims at this precise moment. "Yes. I'm sorry, but we're in the middle of . . . something. And we needed him to get some attention focused away from us." This sounded even lamer said aloud than it had in my head.

Franklin didn't seem to notice. Or care. He nodded. "Oliver said that you had news of an impending alien invasion."

"Right." I wondered how best to apologize for wasting military focus on our diversionary tactics. Hoped the fact that something bad was going on and that we'd averted another Middle Eastern incident by rescuing Mona and her men would help.

But I never got the chance to launch into what was likely to be my most amazingly confusing explanation yet, because Franklin and Morgan exchanged a very worried look. Then Franklin looked back to me. "Just one question."

"Okay."

"How do you know about it?"

CHAPTER 60.

I RESISTED THE VERY STRONG URGE to share that I'd made it up based on "intel" from someone from Club 51. The expressions of the two military men in front of me indicated they weren't laughing now and wouldn't be laughing if I said "just kidding!" either.

My father's advice of answering an uncomfortable question with another question was, once again, my go-to reaction. "Not that I'm unhappy to see you here, Colonel Franklin, but why are you here? I was under the impression that the man in charge of Andrews was a Colonel Hamlin. As late as yesterday I was under that impression. So, what's going on?"

Franklin sighed. "We have no idea what's happened to Colonel Hamlin." Apparently not everyone's father had shared wisdom of the ages with them. Which was good for me.

"I know I speak for the Ambassador when I say we'd like more information," White said.

Franklin nodded. "My move to this position has been in the works for the past few months because the Top Brass feel that someone who is more . . . positively disposed toward Centaurion Division would be a better choice than someone who is somewhat . . ."

"Xenophobic," Morgan finished. "I've gotten intel from my former counterpart. Colonel Hamlin is not a fan of Centaurion Division."

"That former counterpart would be Cliff Goodman?"

"One and the same," Morgan said. "Cliff stressed that Colonel Hamlin is a good man, but he's also not pro-alien. Because of the variety of circumstances that have happened over the past few months, moving Colonel Franklin to Andrews was the best choice, even though that leaves us with a new commander in New Mexico." I managed not to ask if the circumstances had been the fact that we'd moved in as the American Centaurion Diplomatic Corps. Mostly because I was fairly sure the answer was a big yes.

"Not that you're biased, Gil," Franklin said with a grin.

"Wait. You ran Area Fifty-One?"

"Yes. And I loved it. This wasn't a post I requested, but it was impressed upon me that it was necessary. However, the transition has not been smooth."

"Hamlin didn't want to leave?"

"Our information was that he was happy to go to another post," Morgan said. "He was moving to the Department of Defense in an important role."

"Was?"

Franklin shook his head. "We have no idea where Colonel Hamlin is. Formal transition was to have been in a week. I was contacted yesterday, when no one could find Colonel Hamlin."

"A high-ranking Air Force officer goes AWOL and no one questions?"

"Oh, we questioned," Franklin said with a grimace. "However, the last time anyone saw him was Friday at thirteen-hundred-hours-he went off-base for lunch. No one's seen him since, and no one seems to have any idea what happened to him."

"Other than the suspicion that he ran away," Morgan said.

"Ran away? What from?"

Both officers stared at me. "The impending alien invasion," Franklin said finally. "You know, the one you know about but haven't yet told me how you know about it."

"Ah." I cleared my throat. "Any chance you know what's happened to my husband and Charles Reynolds?"

I got another long look from both of them. "What are you talking about?" Franklin asked carefully. Then he jumped. "Where the hell did that come from?"

Looked where Franklin was pointing and Morgan was staring. Bruno looked back at me. I did some fast thinking. "You let Malcolm see you." Bruno bobbed his head. "Because I can trust him completely, right?" Another head bob. "Ergo, if you've gone visible to the colonel and captain here, it's because you feel we can trust them, too, right?" Another head bob accompanied by a feather fluff.

"You're talking to the peacock?" Morgan asked carefully.

"Bruno's actually a Peregrine from Alpha Four. Royal birds, totally kick-butt fighters, too. And they can go invisible, so to speak. Bruno says that any good friend of my Uncle Mort's is a good friend of mine, sort of thing."

"Oh, good," Franklin said weakly. "There's nothing in my briefing papers about-what did you call them?"

"Peregrines, and no, they don't look like falcons, I know. And there wouldn't be because they just arrived last night, and Chuckie hasn't had time to do an update because he's been kidnapped by our enemies along with my husband." I looked at Bruno. "Mind reading or empathy?"

Bruno did some feather fluffing and head bobbing.

"A limited form of empathy combined with keen animal senses. Okay, works for me." Who was I, the wife of Mr. Empath Extraordinaire, to argue?

"I really want a full explanation," Franklin said. "Now."

"Mister White?"

"I believe Bruno's given you the go-ahead for full disclosure, Missus Martini."