I heard a gun cock and felt something hard at the back of my head. "I don't think LaRue needs to cooperate with a traitor, Missus Martini."

"Speaking of traitors, Cantu, I was wondering when you'd show up." I slid my thumb on my phone from voice recorder to main menu. Hit the speed dial button and hoped he was in a position to answer. "So, were you the captain in Paraguay or Paris?"

"Paraguay, of course. South America is my turf, so to speak. Stand up slowly with your hands up."

Held my phone so that he couldn't see the face. "So, Esteban Cantu of the Central Intelligence Agency, how long have you been conspiring with extraterrestrials known as the Z'porrah and known traitors and terrorists Clarence Valentino, LaRue Demorte Gaultier, Ronaldo Al Dejahl, and possibly the remnants and new beginnings of Club Fifty-One to overthrow Earth and take over?"

Cantu laughed. "I'm here to broker our surrender to a more powerful force. For the good of the country and the world, of course."

"Of course. But you didn't answer my very specific question. I just want to be sure that I'm hating you for the right reasons."

"And not because you hope that you'll be able to catch me in a confession? I'm disappointed in you."

"As much as you're disappointed in Senator Armstrong?"

"Some people don't like to get their hands dirty."

"Unlike you."

"I do what needs to be done. Carefully."

My back was still to Cantu, so I couldn't tell how close the gun was to my head. Hyperspeed did nothing for you if the bullet hit, and at this range, he wasn't likely to miss.

Had a good view of LaRue, though. Between our little scuffle and what the Peregrines had done, she wasn't looking too good. "Kill her, Esteban," she said as she struggled to her feet. "And let's get this moving." She was in front of me but just too far away for me to grab.

"I agree. Good-bye, Missus Martini. Unlike all the rest of the people you've faced, I have no ego attached to gloating about having bested you. Power and survival are the best revenge."

I dropped to the ground as the gunshot rang out.

CHAPTER 98.

HIT THE GROUND, ROLLED, flipped to my feet, and landed in a fighting crouch. Did this all at hyperspeed, which was why I was still amazingly alive to channel Bruce Lee.

But Cantu wasn't paying attention to me anymore. He was looking at LaRue, and his expression was shocked.

I looked at LaRue, too. She had a bullet in her brain. I could tell because there was a hole in her forehead, her eyes were wide with surprise, and she was falling backward in what seemed like slow motion.

Apparently we were all surprised. I recovered from the shock the quickest. Well, LaRue wasn't going to recover from anything anymore. But I tackled Cantu as LaRue's body hit the ground.

Didn't go for anything fancy, just broke the wrist that was holding his gun. He screamed. I shoved his gun away out of his reach but where I could still see it. Then I backhanded him.

"Who else is involved in this?" He didn't answer. "Tell me or I'll break the other wrist. And that's just for starters."

"You . . . won't," he said between gritted teeth. "You don't . . . work like that."

A man's shoe stepped onto Cantu's broken wrist. The shoe had a foot in it, too, which was nice. I wasn't taking anything for granted right now.

"She doesn't," Chuckie said icily, gun trained on Cantu. "But as you well know, we do."

Cantu managed to bark a laugh. "There won't be any 'we' left, Reynolds, don't you get it? They're here, and they're going to destroy us. Surrender would at least mean we got to survive. But you and your self-righteous do-gooder ideals-you're the one who's going to doom Earth. Not me. Never me."

"Cantu, enough with your blah, blah, blah. Dude, seriously, what kept you?"

Chuckie helped me to my feet, and I took a look around. He wasn't alone. My mother was here, along with Kevin and Buchanan and several guys who looked as if they were familiar with Guantanamo and extracting information. Everyone other than Chuckie and Buchanan was wearing their P.T.C.U. caps and vests.

"We couldn't use a gate," Chuckie said. "Floaters aren't stable, and we're not sure how long the gate system is going to last so it's reserved for Field agents only right now."

"Dammit. We could use a few floaters to get the people out of here. There's a lot of dead and probably even more injured."

"Can't help them until we can be sure medical teams can get in without being destroyed themselves. Right now we have everything focused on the invaders."

The muscle guys picked up Cantu and handcuffed him, despite his broken wrist. I chose not to care. Cantu glared at me. "This isn't over."

"No, but it's over for you." The muscle moved him away from the rest of us. Not too far, but to where he couldn't hear us.

"Good work, kitten."

"Thanks, Mom." I hugged her and got her breath-stopping bear hug in return. "Air . . . Mom . . . need air . . ."

She laughed and let me go. "I was just worried about you. Nice work on the phone. It's not enough, but it's a good start."

"Yeah, great. But Cantu here makes a good point-we need to get the Z'porrah under control or gone before someone launches a nuke. Oh, but, Chuckie, you and Hacker International need to know that the Z'porrah are an ancient race, they've been here before, a lot, and the underground tunnels and such are their version of a computer network."

"Really? Interesting."

"Yeah, I thought you'd enjoy that. They also look like mini T-Rexes with wings. Don't even ask. And by mini, I mean shorter than me. But I think that they and the Ancients had rival breeding programs or species advancement programs in place. My bet is that the Z'porrah are why we had dinosaurs, and they're still bitter that the dinos died out."

"Maybe the Ancients got rid of them to make way for the mammals," Buchanan suggested.

"Could be. At any rate, that's what's in those spaceships. And the three who beamed down don't like me much. At all. They said I was rude, can you believe it?"

Mom, Chuckie, Kevin, and Buchanan all gave me looks that said they could easily believe it. Always the way.

Forged on. "Lola did an awesome fake out. Clarence thought he had Jamie when he had a really pissed off Peregrine instead."

Chuckie and Mom exchanged a worried glance. "The Dome was evacuated," Chuckie said slowly. "The Z'porrah have half their fleet firing directly on it."

"Crap." Well, that explained why we were having problems with the gates. "They're trying to blow the planet. If the tunnels really are a computer network kind of setup, then the Dome is where the heart of everything is."

"You're sure?" Chuckie asked.

"Pretty darned." ACE was guarding the Dome, not Washington D.C. I was positive.

"The U.S., Russia, and Israel already launched nuclear weapons at the Z'porrah ships," Kevin said. "The nukes were destroyed in the air."

"The Z'porrah fired on the Dome after those attacks," Buchanan said. "They may not consider that they're attacking us; in their minds they may think we started it."

"Possibly, but I'm not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt right now." I could still see the faces of the dead, wounded, and terrified. "What's it like elsewhere?"

"As far as we know, they're only attacking here and at the Dome," Kevin said. "No retaliation was sent toward Russia or Israel, despite their having launched nukes, and the Z'porrah aren't firing at the part of our country where the nukes launched from, either."

"Was there fallout?" If there was, we were really seeing the start of World War III.

"No," Mom said. "Something engulfed the fallout, all of it. And then the nuclear codes went dead. No one can fire anything world-destroying, nuclear or otherwise."

"Did Naomi and Abigail do that?"

Chuckie shook his head. "They're using the two Power Cubes we have to create shielding over this area. The Cubes are boosting their powers, and they already know how to create shields. It's why the buildings aren't completely destroyed. Yet."

So ACE was still protecting us. I was certain he was the one who'd engulfed the fallout and then killed our ability to fire more bombs. "Why are the girls protecting the buildings? I mean, I get it, priceless, rare things, can't be replaced and all that. But the people . . . they can't be replaced either."

"It's easier for them to cover the buildings because it gives them a shape to follow and also means they're not protecting superbeings. They're taking fewer direct hits this way, too. And they're covering every building attached to the Mall, which means all the contents of those buildings, which includes people."

"I didn't see anyone running inside anything."

"Reader gave the order for the Field teams to get all the civilians into the museums and memorials, other than Lincoln, so in addition to architecture, they've got countless people inside by now. It's tricky to let people in and out of the shields, though, so I don't know how much longer Mimi and Abby will be able to hold out."

"The girls are tougher than you think. Where did everyone in the Dome go?"

"Into the tunnels," Chuckie said. "The hackers were able to find the entrance for them. Easily."

ACE again, I was sure. "Have we talked to anyone in the tunnels?"

"No, Mimi and Abby can't spare the focus, White, Reader, and Crawford are busy, and Serene's presumably in those tunnels. It's a long way from New Mexico to D.C., and there are no gates in the tunnels."

"Only Power Cubes. If you can find them." I looked in my purse. No Poofs still. "You think the Poofs are with Jamie and the others in the tunnels?" I asked hopefully.

"Haven't seen a Poof," Mom said.

"I haven't seen Fluffy since you sent the Poofs off to try to find the cube that used to belong to White and your husband."

My husband. Last I'd seen him, he was fighting Al Dejahl. "I need to find Jeff."

"We need to stop this invasion," Mom corrected. "We were hoping you had some ideas."

"I don't know, how do you stop a flock of birds or a bunch of dinosaurs? Kill the leader?"

"Maybe, but we don't know who the leader is or are," Chuckie said. "The three who came to the planet might be, but they might just be diplomats."

"Duck hunting," Buchanan said.

"Not sure a decoy will work, Malcolm."

He shook his head. "Lure them out, one by one, and finish them off that way."

"It could work, but it's slow," Chuckie said.

"Take out the quarterback," Kevin said. "Or get the ball away from them."

"Football?" Mom said. "Right now? Really?"

"That could work, too," Buchanan said.

"Super Agent Man, any ideas?"

"Take the king."

"So, you're suggesting duck hunting, football, and chess?" Mom said. "No wonder you all work well with Kitty."

"Thanks so much, Mom."

She shook her head. "I say shoot to kill and let God sort 'em out."

"I like where your head's at. But, there's only one way to find out which one of these great plans is going to work. Find the tunnel entrance that's around here, and get anyone you can down into it." I gave Mom a quick kiss and took off for the front of the Memorial.

To find more chaos than I remembered. And I remembered quite a bit.

CHAPTER 99.

THERE WERE SUPERSOLDIERS EVERYWHERE, most of them leaping into the path of laser beams. Some of them looked like they could take flight, but they weren't doing so.

I assumed they weren't flying because we finally had jets in the air, firing on the Z'porrah ships. There were a good number of them, but I recognized the flying signatures of several of our aircraft-my flyboys were in the air.

There were fewer people out and about, as Chuckie had said. In fact, I was fairly sure the only mobile people I was seeing were actually androids, because every one of them was fighting in some way. Did my best not to look at the nonmobile people and also tried to ignore the screams. They were farther away, but still, not all the innocents were safe. But I had enough rage, and I couldn't let despair back until this was all over.

Now that I knew the Gower girls were creating shields, I could just make them out-a slight shimmering around every building.

Which was good, because several of the supersoldiers were down, and every one of them had let a superbeing loose.

The supersoldiers that weren't taking the Z'porrah laser hits were fighting the superbeings. It was sort of a fair fight, but as I watched, a superbeing sliced through a supersoldier. And released a new friend. At the rate this was going, we were going to have more superbeings than supersoldiers fast.

Speaking of which, the Z'porrah had brought a whole slew of parasites with them. Somehow, they were still held in their protective bubble, but shots were being fired at and around them. Our aircraft weren't firing at the parasites-the Z'porrah ships were. It dawned on me that ACE had to be who was keeping that protective covering around the parasites, and the Z'porrah were trying to release them.

ACE might be powerful, but he wasn't limitless. Like the Gower girls, ACE had to be close to tapped out.

The Z'porrah ships started to take an interest in our jets. Our jets were nimble, small, and well piloted, so they were hard to hit. But the flying saucers could shoot from what seemed like any part of their saucer rim, so they could make up for a lack of precision by just flinging a lot of shots all over the place.