"Cry me a river. I know you can come up with this faster than you want anyone to believe, Eddy."

Eddy grumbled about demanding females who only dropped by when they wanted something while I went back to trying to make sense of what the hell was going on. "So, why create unrest between Bahrain and Israel? Clarence could have ensured you had no idea he was using your Embassy as his base of operations, and yet he did things specifically to let you know he was there."

"Tensions are always high between Israel and the rest of the Middle East," Franklin said.

"I can't buy that this incident would cause a war."

"They've been started for less," Oliver said. "Though I do agree the break-in seems like a slim reason to break even an uneasy peace. However, the kidnap and/or murder of the Bahraini Ambassadress? That would start a war almost instantly."

CHAPTER 72.

I CONSIDERED OLIVER'S STATEMENT. It made sense, but lacked something. "But why choose Bahrain? Over any other country? What is it about that country that would make it a target at all?"

Naomi cocked her head. "Their secret."

"Daddy's secrets!" Bellie shared.

"Yes, Bellie. Hush."

"Naomi is right," Oliver said to the Middle Eastern Contingent. "The four of you share a secret you don't want exposed. If a spy was hiding out in the Embassy, he would have found evidence of what you're covering up, wouldn't he?"

"But Clarence wasn't really trying to kill them. They were being used as a lure for all of us, so he could grab Naomi and Abigail."

"Your enemies know you." Buchanan's eyes were narrowed. "It's a safe bet that you wouldn't leave the four of them at the Mall."

White nodded. "Missus Martini is our Head of Recruitment for a reason, after all."

Henry spun in his chair, got up, raced to a different terminal, and typed like a madman. "Kitty, you're not going to like this. I just checked the news feeds. More than one news outlet is reporting that the Bahraini Ambassadress has disappeared, along with her bodyguard. Foul play is presumed, and since the Israeli Embassy is missing two of their staff, too, it's presumed said staffers are the culprits."

"How fast are the tanks being assembled?" Franklin asked. He didn't sound like he was trying to be funny.

"Talk has moved from nasty threats into real ones," Henry reported. "And because this happened on U.S. soil, at the International One World Festival no less, the U.S. is also being held responsible and blamed."

I looked at Oliver. "MJO, what's the likelihood this means war?"

"High. Escalation will be easy to influence, and it will come out quickly that Oren and Jakob here are Mossad. That's all it will take."

"I hate these people. Though I'm hella impressed with how damned well they know exactly what I'll do."

"What you'll all do," Big George said. "I have all the C.I.A.'s confidential files on all of American Centaurion and Centaurion Division." He shook his head. "The expectation is that if World War Three truly happens, Centaurion Division will be forced to take an active role."

"I'll call my husband," Mona said. "This must be stopped."

"Wait," Franklin said. "If you do that, you let him know where you are."

"Why would that be a bad thing?" she asked. Several of us, myself included, nodded in agreement.

"What will the immediate reaction be, if you call and say you're at Andrews Air Force Base?" Franklin asked in return. So he had been given that sage advice and just hadn't used it earlier. Good to know.

Mona took a deep breath. "I'll have to explain why I'm here."

"And?" Franklin prodded.

"I would say I was attacked, Mossad came to help us, and they took us to Andrews for protection."

"Does that sound believable?" Buchanan asked. "I mean, we know it's essentially the truth, but will your husband, or anyone else, believe it? It sounds fishy to me, and I'm intimately involved in the situation."

"And, attacked by whom?" Franklin asked. "If my wife disappeared, then called to tell me she'd indeed been attacked and almost kidnapped but not by the people I thought, I'd damn well want to know who she'd actually been attacked by and who was trying to kidnap her. So I could send my tanks and missiles toward them."

"I'd want to know why you were taken to the Air Force Base, not your own Embassy," White added.

"Oh. Well, then I would explain more fully." She looked around. "And that would mean an explanation no one will believe."

"Some will believe it. Oh. Crap."

Franklin nodded. "Some will believe it. And they'll really believe it when an alien armada arrives."

"But Clarence is the one who did the attacking," Abigail said.

"Right. And he's an A-C. If we say Clarence is a terrorist, the instant assumption will be that you're all terrorists. It's not necessarily the logical view, and as individuals not everyone would believe it. But people as a whole will assume the A-Cs are here as enemies, not protectors. And all those fears will be instantly confirmed when we're attacked from space."

I could see it-world war, us fighting each other instead of the space invaders. Us fighting each other and the space invaders. Earth being taken, easily, because we had high-level influencers along with people in strategic positions within the world governments who wanted it that way and were doing their parts to ensure this happened. And despite everything we'd tried to do to avoid it, we'd still ended up playing right into their hands.

"Can one person really be this important?" Jeremy asked.

"I would be a symbol," Mona said. "It wouldn't be about me but about what I stand for."

"Assassinate Archduke Ferdinand, have yourself a world war. Yeah, one person can be this important. Chuckie, for example. Without him, we apparently have no allies."

"Like England during World War Two, at least for a while," Franklin agreed.

"England had Churchill leading them, at least." I always thought of Councilor Leonidas as Alpha Four's version of Churchill. Chuckie had agreed with that assessment. I realized I was thinking of him in the past tense. That had to stop. If we gave up now, the bad guys won for sure. "Never give up."

"Some countries will surrender to the invaders instantly," Oliver said. "There's too much historical precedent to assume otherwise."

"Never give up." That was Churchill's famous line, after all. So, if we were England, what did that make Alpha Four and the rest of that system? "The U.S. didn't get involved in World War Two until they were attacked. We had servicemen and -women going to help the cause, but Pearl Harbor was the official entry point. Something big and unavoidable."

"Where are you going with this?" Tito asked.

"Not sure yet." I was almost there, though. A strong suspicion niggled. "Eddy, I need Chuckie's files on us, and I need them yesterday."

"Working on it," he snapped. "And the ten other things you want immediately, too. I'm only human."

"True enough. Mister White, why were the Peregrines sent to us?"

"Ostensibly because the flock was ready and they're a traditional gift."

"Uh-huh. A traditional gift that came with gift cards strongly suggesting Chuckie, Abigail, and Naomi needed to take up residence in the Embassy. A traditional gift that warned us to keep an eye on Chuckie. If we know what's coming, they know what's coming. We're England, they're the U.S. They have more troops, but they're waiting for proof that they need to get involved."

"An entire space armada isn't proof?" Franklin asked.

"Colonel, how fast does the U.S. commit troops when our allies get pissed off at each other and take their familial disputes out of the private arena and into the public one?"

"We're slow to commit," he admitted.

"Right. Because we don't want to back the wrong side, make the problem bigger than it is, be accused of trying to take over. We want to see if our allies can figure out what to do on their own. If they can't, and it looks bad, and they beg us, then we come in."

"That's standard for most of the superpowers," Oliver said.

"Most countries, really," Franklin added.

"Right. Well, as far as superpowers go, the Alpha Centauri system has way more of them than we do."

"But what are they waiting for?" Tito asked. "Reynolds and Jeff are gone, we have superbeing clusters all of a sudden, international unrest of the highest order, and a huge war looming."

"I don't know what they're waiting for us to do. But until we do it, they're staying out of our affairs."

"Speaking of surrender," Armstrong said quietly, "you do realize that the moment the head of the C.I.A. and Department of Defense realize Mister Reynolds is missing and presumed dead, they'll move Esteban into his position. And if your suspicions are correct-and I'm sure they are-he'll suggest the U.S. broker a surrender to the invaders."

"Wow, Senator, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm glad you're with us on this one. Right you are, and the Bad Guy Scheme du Jour falls nicely into place." We needed help. I needed help. "I need to call James. Or my mom. Or James and my mom."

"Wait," Stryker said. "I think you need to see this."

CHAPTER 73.

STRYKER WAS BUSY AT HIS KEYBOARD. I trotted over. "It's a computer screen with what looks like code on it. Why am I looking at it?"

"Okay, I meant I need to tell you what it says. I'm decoding in my head, because I want to make sure I'm on the right track. Chuck's not above installing a kill switch."

"You mean, you guess the decode wrong and it all disappears?"

"Right. So . . . who's Captain America?"

I took a moment and refrained from a variety of snappy comebacks. "I assume you mean, do I think Captain America is a code name for someone, right?"

"Yes."

Considered the options. "Got to be James."

"He's not a Captain any more," Naomi said.

"No, but Captain America is like the perfect man, and he's also the leader of the Avengers."

"Whoever it is, he's supposed to take control of these files if he's not incapacitated," Stryker shared.

"See? I'm right, it's James. He lives for the light reading."

Stryker nodded. "Makes sense. But let me run the others by you. If you can figure them out without too much trouble, I can feel confident I have it all right."

"I'm flattered."

"You're the protocol, Kitty. The first thing I decoded said 'Run this through a CAT scan.' It's not flattery so much as doing what Chuck said to do."

"You say tomato, I say whatever."

He sighed. "So, Wolverine, that's you, right?

"Right.

"Professor X?"

"Mister White." I'd called White that during Operation Confusion.

"Cyclops?"

I was tempted to say Jeff, but thought about it. "Betting that's Christopher." Based on the glaring, which I was sure Chuckie had noted as I had, and Christopher's ability these days to see far, far away in his mind's eye.

"Incredible Hulk?"

Nice to be right. "Jeff."

"Wonder Twins?"

"Naomi and Abigail." They weren't actually twins, but I called them that all the time and I knew Chuckie did, too.

"Thor?"

"Paul Gower, our Pontifex." He wasn't a blond god from Asgaard, but he was carrying a godlike consciousness inside him.

"Beast?"

"Tito."

"Huh?" Tito asked. "Why would I be called a beast?"

"You're the doctor, you take out A-Cs with your fists alone, blah, blah, blah. It's not an insult. Beast is a cool, kick-butt, genius doctor in the X-Men, Tito."