Looked up at Buchanan who shook his head. Looked to Chuckie, who shook his head as well. So, Camilla hadn't checked in and, if she'd engineered the Great Helicarrier Escape, she should have advised us by now.

"So, who took all your prisoners and your fancy-shmancy S.H.I.E.L.D. tech?"

He sighed again. "The person you named a little earlier-Thomas Kendrick."

CHAPTER 7.

I COULD TELL THAT everyone in the room wanted to be freaking out. But since I was on a call they were all listening to, the humans managed to act like the A-Cs and keep quiet. Didn't expect this to last.

Decided to do everyone a favor. "Gustav, hang on, I'm going to put you on speakerphone. You're now live to the room." Well, to the part of the room that might not have been listening in already. Antoinette would now get to hear everything, lucky her. "So, let me ask you this-are you sure?"

"Yes, sadly, I am. Thomas was here, I went to check on something he'd ordered. When I came back, he was gone, as were all the prisoners and the helicarrier."

"Where's Stephanie?" Wondered if she was trading up or not.

"With me."

Interesting. "Did she see anything?"

"Ah, no. She wasn't . . . here when it happened."

"You mean this happened when Stephanie and I were on TV last week, don't you?" In other words, at the end of Operation Epidemic, when we were revealing Cliff to be the Mastermind to the world news organizations.

"Yes," he admitted.

"Dude, why did you wait so long to contact us?"

"Ah . . . you were busy?" He sounded like he knew this was as lame said aloud as he feared.

"And just how did you think you were going to bluff us into giving you the Invisible Commandos back when you don't, in fact, have anyone we actually want?"

He sighed. "I was hoping to have them back by the time you agreed to do whatever deal you were going to agree to do."

Buchanan was talking quietly to Jeff and Chuckie, since they no longer had to listen to my conversation via Chuckie's phone. Wasn't so fully focused on my Standard Opening Gambit Call that I couldn't pick up words here and there. Buchanan felt that, with what Wruck had given him, they actually had Drax and Stephanie surrounded and he wanted the go order.

"Yeah, that's not exactly working out for you. Guys, before you do whatever it is you want to do, I think we need to ask Lillian if this is in character for Kendrick."

"It's not," she said firmly. "He's not your friend, but he's not an idiot, either. No one could come to the U.S. government right now offering invisible tech and not immediately be assumed to be responsible for the terrorist attack on Rail Force One."

"And no one's come forward," Fritz Hochberg said. He was the current Secretary of Defense, though he, like so many others, felt that he'd failed at his job completely over the past couple of weeks. "We have had absolutely no chatter about anyone having Drax Industrial tech, an invisible helicarrier in particular."

"Nor have we received any offers of hostage exchange," Horn added. "None of the Agencies have heard any word about our captured people."

"Oh, so it's the old enemy of my enemy is my enemy thing again."

"Isn't that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, Madam First Lady?" Drax asked, sounding confused again.

"Depends on what you're used to, Gustav. Look, I'm being hella nice here. What, exactly, now that most of your cards are on the table, do you actually want?"

"I wanted to become the main armaments dealer to the United States and her allies," he said, sounding frustrated. "I have tech that you all can use."

"You mean you brought tech from another world that works here and are trying to pass it off. Gotcha."

"No, this is my tech."

"Dude, I don't even have to see your face to be able to tell that you're lying. Again, this is me exercising more patience than any other person in the room. One last chance-what is it that you want, what you really, really want?" Now I wanted to hear the Spice Girls. Well, that wasn't going to be happening during White House briefings, so I'd have to belay any musical enjoyment for a while.

Drax was silent again while I heard Jeff agree that, should Drax not give me the answer I was looking for, whatever it was, Buchanan could give the go order.

"To work with you to get my tech and your people back."

"Gosh, was that so hard? I guess male Vata are as big on protecting their dignity as male humans and A-Cs."

"I'm not . . . oh, fine, yes. I'm from another planet. Does that change anything?"

"It makes me a lot more interested in meeting you." And clearly it changed things for Jeff, Chuckie, and Buchanan, since Jeff nodded and Buchanan trotted out of the room, Wruck going with him.

"That's a good thing?"

"Oh, yes. Gustav?"

"Yes?"

"What you do next will determine the next many things that will happen to you. I'd strongly recommend that you think long and hard about your reactions."

"My reactions to-" He stopped speaking. There was a lot of noise in the background. Was pretty sure I heard a woman making a fuss in the background.

Looked over to Jeff. "I wasn't done."

He shrugged. "I'd like to have that meeting, baby. Face-to-face."

The sounds of struggle and capture were still going on. "I want to actually verify where Thomas Kendrick is, and if he's still a human or not."

Chuckie nodded. "Ahead of you." He grinned. "My first act as the Director."

Tito and some of our scientists at the Dulce Science Center had created the Organic Validation Sensor, or OVS, which looked like the wands security folks used at airports to do the closer body checks, only with a lot more blinking lights. We had a lot of these now, and most Field teams carried small ones with them because androids had been an unwilling part of our lives for far too long now.

"If you do it without a warrant, that will cause some issues," Culver shared.

Chuckie shook his head. "It's non-invasive, and, frankly, he won't know it's happening."

"Using the old 'manipulate the gasses' ploy?" I asked Jeff quietly.

"Yep. Sometimes it's effective. And yes, I realize it leaves us open. Right now, I'll worry about impeachment later."

"Stop acting like that's a good option," Chuckie said.

Jeff shrugged. "That will depend on who I choose as Vice President, won't it?"

"Kitty," Wruck said via Drax's phone, "we have Drax and Stephanie in custody. Would you like them brought to the White House or somewhere more secure?"

"Oh, I'd say we're pretty secure here, so let's bring them in. I'm assuming everyone's checked them for bombs and such?"

"Yes, they've been thoroughly searched."

"Excellent. Why did you go on the raid?"

He chuckled. "Because I know how to deal with Vata. And Benjamin knows how to deal with Stephanie."

"Oh, it's a party. Great, hopefully he's coming back with you."

"Yes, we'll be to you shortly." He hung up.

Chuckie's phone beeped and he grunted. "Interesting. Lillian, I believe we're going to need your help."

"Thomas objected to being violated?" she asked, sarcasm knob heading toward eleven.

"No, actually, as we said, he had no idea he was scanned. He's eighty-nine percent organic, meaning he's a human. However, that means we need to have him come here willingly. I'd like to ask you to ask him to join us."

"Now?" She had her phone out.

"Yes, since Drax is on the way here."

"Which I'm sure you don't want me to mention."

"Exactly. If he's willing to come, though, please tell him that we have a security team standing by to escort him. For his safety, of course."

"Of course." She stood up and stepped away. Chose not to get up and try to hear what she was saying. Culver had more than proved she was on our side. Kendrick, on the other hand, had not.

However, I still had my Megalomaniac Girl cape on. "What do you think the odds are that the person who stole Drax's helicarrier wasn't actually Kendrick but an android version of him working for the New Crazy Eights?"

"You're sticking with that moniker?" Chuckie asked.

"Yeah, there are-with the five remaining Original Crazy Eights, the LaRue and Reid clones, and Cliff-eight of them. At least, I hope it's only eight."

"Better than the Unmagnificent Seven Plus Their Leader, so I'll live with it. And yes, to answer your question, I think there's a strong likelihood."

"I think it's a fifty-fifty shot," Culver said, coming back into the room. "I know for a fact that Thomas is interested in integrating Drax Industrial's tech into Titan Security."

"Integrating normally means a corporate merger, buyout, or contracts," Reader said. "Not blatant theft."

Culver nodded. "Thomas is bold, but if what Drax described really happened, I'd have a hard time understanding his motivation. If it was to rescue captured people and return them to the U.S. and American Centaurion governments-and thereby become a hero and garner favorite vendor status-he should have done the rescue and return days ago."

"Stealing a helicarrier, five Navy supersonic jets, five Navy pilots, and a host of U.S. and Centaurion security personnel at the same time doesn't say subtle, either. That's a baroque supervillain move. I realize the dude was in the military, but heads of major corporations rarely decide to go all Rambo and handle these kinds of things alone."

Chuckie nodded. "Hence why we want him to come visit the White House. Lillian?"

"He's amenable. And sounded rather thrilled. He asked me if I'd negotiated a new contract for Titan with all of you. I gave him a vague reply, but that seemed a good mindset for him to have."

"That doesn't sound like someone who's just taken off with my team," Tim said. "That sounds like a normal person reaction."

"We'll find out soon enough," Jeff said. "They should all be back here soon."

"Why isn't the security team back already?" I asked. They'd clearly been taking gates-which we'd already had installed all over the White House-and should have been back almost immediately after the raid.

"They're triple-checking the prisoners," Chuckie replied. "And going over Drax's compound and such before bringing terrorists back to hang out with the remaining living members of America's leadership."

"Wow, dude, no need to get touchy. I was just asking."

"While we wait," McMillan said, presumably to prevent Chuckie and me from snapping at each other, "let's get back to important things, Mister President. You need to pick your Vice President, and you need to pick him or her now."

CHAPTER 8.

JEFF NODDED. "You're right, Don." He looked down the table. "Gideon?"

This earned a lot of shocked looks from pretty much everyone at the long table other than the Planetary Council. Cleary was the current governor of Florida and had started out as our enemy because he'd been working for the Mastermind. Only he hadn't known that Cliff Goodman actually was the Mastermind, and, politics being what it was, Cleary had become our ally over the course of the last few Operations. Had to hand it to Cliff-he'd really brought people together, one way or the other.

Cleary looked the most shocked, but then he shook his head. "I can't accept, Jeff. For a variety of reasons."

"Not the same party being only one of them," McMillan said.

Cleary nodded. "Even if we wanted to try to be the first bipartisan administration in recent history, there are more reasons that I can't accept." He looked at me. "You know why."

I did. "You're tainted."

Cleary nodded. "Exactly. No one-not you, not the people around this table, not the American people, and not the international community-will ever be able to be sure that I'm not still working for the Mastermind. If anything were to happen to you, Jeff, even if it was just a hangnail, suspicion would instantly fall on me."

"Not necessarily," Jeff said.

Reader shook his head. "Gideon's right, Jeff."

"He's proven himself," Jeff protested.