Alien in Chief (24 page)

CHAPTER 46

R
EADER AND I
got off and “Keep This Train a Rollin'” from the Doobie Brothers started right up. Apparently Algar agreed with no more stops.

I shared the news with the others. “The Crazy Eights were here, only I only counted seven of them and James didn't find Huntress, Stephanie, or anyone else who wasn't an invisible commando. When I asked Annette Dier about Huntress she appeared to have no idea what or who I was talking about.”

“And when you mentioned Stephanie it sounded as if they haven't seen or heard from her for quite a while,” Adriana added. “She could have been lying, of course, she's done it before.”

“Effectively, yeah. Only I'm with you—it didn't feel fake.”

“Which doesn't mean that she was telling the truth,” Chuckie reminded us. “These are killers who infiltrated us in any number of ways.”

“Darryl did not,” Mahin said thoughtfully. “And, neither did Russell. We were recruited but never for infiltration.”

“Yeah, Dier came in as a reporter and such, but that was when Cliff was covering for her. And Kellogg wasn't an infiltration so much as a lurking shadow. And Wruck was the same as Lowe and Kozlow—recruited.”

“Travis infiltrated,” Christopher said.

“Yes, but again, he was put in by Cliff, and in a position we wouldn't question. So, realistically, none of these people have a lot of experience lying to us.”

“She kept her word about not shooting us from the air,” Rhee added.

“Yeah. So, let's take Dier telling the truth as a working hypothesis. What does that mean?”

“That you're going to make us call them the Unmagnificent Seven,” Chuckie said. “Why does this matter right now? Especially with prisoners we need to deal with and civilians we need to get up to the forward cars?”

“I can't tell you, I just know that it does.”

Jeff got more alert. “Feminine intuition?”

“I guess. More like curiosity not killing the cat. This attack wasn't coordinated.”

“What do you mean?” Christopher asked huffily. “This was incredibly coordinated.”

“No,” Rahmi said. “I know what Kitty means. There were two distinct groups. When we were fighting Dier, she seemed unclear as to why Rhee and I were striking out around us, versus only at herself.”

“The invisible guys were here to make it easy for the Crazy Whatever Numbers,” Jeff said.

“Rahmi's right, though, Jeff. None of the Crazy Possibly Eights knew what I was talking about, either. For a good portion of the fight on the roof I was the only non-commando who could see the invisible guys. And when I mentioned them to Nerida and Dier they had no idea what I was talking about.”

“Our enemies tend to hit us from more than one side,” Gower agreed. “And they don't always coordinate. I mean, look at that time in Florida.”

“Ah, Operation Drug Addict. Good times, good times. But yeah. Serene was out of her mind and being used, but her actions weren't coordinated with the other attacks.”

“You think whoever sent the commandos isn't who activated the Crazy Whatever Numbers,” Chuckie said. “Okay. I can see that. So, why was each group sent now?”

“We're in a long portion between stops,” Adriana said. “We have to cross the river before we get to Rocky Mount.”

“So it's a good place to hit us because we have nowhere to stop. And let's not forget the snakes in the trees.” Thought about it. “Lillian came to warn me about a new player and, due to everything that's happened, we've let that one sit on the back burner. But, Gustav Drax is an arms dealer. And, I swear to you that name has to be made up.”

“Harvey Gutermuth, Farley Pecker, Casey Jones, Howard Taft,” Chuckie said dryly. “I could go on. However, I see what you mean. What better way to show off your new individualized cloaking tech than to attack Rail Force One? While it's loaded with A-Cs, I might add.”

“That makes sense,” Jeff agreed. “So why did the Crazies attack us?”

“And who sealed the door?” Adriana added.

“No clue. Yet. James suggested ghosts.” This earned me a full set of “really?” looks. “Hey, I didn't say he was serious. At least not a hundred percent.”

Adriana cocked her head. “But that might be where to look. Not at the dead, but at old enemies you're not thinking of. People who have been incarcerated, off grid, or off your radars for a while.”

“The list is so long,” Jeff groaned.

“Yeah, but I think Adriana's on to something.”

“It's not anyone who was in the supermax,” Chuckie said. “It was only the seven who got out.”

“And then there's Stephanie,” Christopher said quietly.

“Who doesn't appear to be a Crazy Eight after all. But who I sincerely think is Huntress.”

“Meaning we think she's working for Drax,” Chuckie said. “Since the attack on Lillian Culver happened when she was trying to warn you about Drax. And there's nothing
like an assassin trying to kill all those politicians to make invisible security guards sound good.”

“Yeah.” I could see that Jeff, Christopher, White, and Gower were still hoping Stephanie could be salvaged. I wasn't as optimistic, but it was still worth hoping for. Heaved a sigh. “Okay, I know we need to get moving. We have a few prisoners and people who need protecting. Do we move them back with the others?”

“I think we open this door,” Jeff said. “Because right now all the cars from here back are cut off from the rest of the train, and if someone wanted to disconnect us, we couldn't stop them easily.”

“Oh, it's not that bad on the roof,” White said. “But I do agree that it's an issue. Not that I believe anyone will want to use these cars until they're refurbished.”

“True enough,” Adriana said. “However, Kitty's right. And Jeff is, too. And so is James. We need to move the prisoners to a more secure car but taking them on the roof is risky. We need to get the former and still potential hostages to a safer location than what we have now, and I can say without asking that only Caroline will be game for the roof.”

“The caboose isn't damaged at all,” Mahin said. “We could put everyone there.”

Chuckie shook his head. “That's the easiest car to get off of, and therefore onto. I'd like to put prisoners into a room like the War Room. Barring that, with the other prisoners so at least they're all in one place and we don't have to divide security forces.”

“They need to be strip searched, too.” Everyone stared at me. “Really? I'm not looking for cheap thrills. Somewhere these guys all have cloaking devices on them. We need to find those and get them to Dulce to be analyzed far faster than pronto.”

“I'm tempted to just get floater gates to get everyone out of here,” Jeff said.

“Let's get this situation locked down first,” Chuckie said.
“I don't want us sending the wrong people or things to the wrong places.”

“I agree,” Gower said. “There's far too much distraction going on right now. The last thing we want to do is send any of it to the Science Center. Or to NASA Base, for that matter.”

“We'll cross that floater bridge when we come to it . . .” Stopped talking because a reason for why the Crazy Eights had come waved at me.

“What?” Jeff asked.

“Crap. We need to remember that ninety percent of the time whatever our enemies are doing is to distract us from what they're
really
doing.” Confirmation in the form of B.o.B.'s “Bombs Away” came onto my airwaves.

“I don't follow you, baby.”

“Few ever do, Jeff. Rahmi, Rhee, MJO—handle the prisoners and hostages. Right now, everyone else, Jeff, Christopher, and Mahin especially, need to follow me. Fast.”

I grabbed White's hand and took off.

CHAPTER 47

W
E WERE OUT
the door and climbing up the ladder in no time. White went up first, hauled me up, and we took off again. “I've learned not to question. But what are we trying to prevent?” We leaped onto the next car and kept on going.

“None of us ever made it to the engine, remember? You and Falk were supposed to go, but you came back to help the rest of us.” Another leap, another roof. “Meaning that we have no idea who's actually running the train. Or that the person who called Armstrong was actually the conductor.” Onto the roof of the personnel car nearest Rail Force Two.

“That's not the only reason you're panicked. Nor why you're keeping us on the roofs.”

“It's faster.” We leaped onto Rail Force Two. Looked over my shoulder. The others were coming after us. Good.

“What do you expect? I realize you enjoy keeping the air of mystery that drives us all wild, but I'd appreciate some clue.”

“Know what the best way to kill us all is?” Onto the roof of the forward dining car, aka Prisoner Containment. We were still lucking out into no bridges or overhangs, and we were snake free, too, for the moment, though we were heading into more heavy foliage so I didn't expect that to last.

“There are so many ways, Missus Martini. Humor me. Which one are you referring to this time?”

“Blowing up the train tracks when we're over water. While everyone in the War Room car is locked in their impregnable car that's had enough damage to potentially leak. And drown them all.”

We jumped onto said Impregnable Fortress of Potential Drowning Doom in silence. “It's also an excellent terrorist attack,” White said, as we landed on Rail Force One. “Though I don't know if the river is deep enough.”

“I don't want to find out. And, if successful, we have all those commandos who will be found along with all of us. Giving your terrorist attack theory real legs with the media.”

“If we don't survive, that is. And, frankly, that's betting against people who have consistently managed to circumvent these kinds of plans.” We jumped onto the last car before the engine and White slowed us down.

“Yeah, but I'm betting the Crazy Eights don't care. And we're sticking with that number, because even if Stephanie and Huntress are two different people, and even if she or they aren't with the old prison gang any more, there's an eighth who sealed the door and who is either off setting explosives or controlling the engineer.”

“Possibly. Explosives were probably set prior. And they could have been set by the Invisible Commando Team, too, you know.”

“Mister White, I just love having you on Team Megalomaniac. I agree. But the bottom line is that we probably have the last Crazy Eight still around or watching. And I think someone's going to try to blow the tracks really soon, because based on my extremely limited awareness of this area, I think we're getting to that river.”

The leap from the last car onto the engine was harder just based on the slight differences between the engine's design and the passenger cars', the biggest one being that the engine was higher than the cars.

We decided to jump for the ladder, as opposed to the roof. White was fairly sure he could make the roof, but I wasn't sure at all that I could, especially since I'd need far more of a running start.

White, of course, made the leap without effort. I did my best, but I didn't make my most smooth jump ever and missed the ladder and railings. Okay, call it one of my worst jumps ever. The train had gone over something bumpy was going to be my excuse and I was going to stick with it forever, or for one second, depending.

Fortunately, White was prepared for me to not make it and he grabbed me before I went splat. Presumably my face would recover. Thankfully, the engine had more railings than the other cars, so I could grab on, too, though I wasn't in the greatest spot to get up.

Happily, Jeff made the leap and hauled me up. Christopher also made the jump and helped his dad up.

“You okay, baby?” Jeff asked worriedly.

“As long as my nose is in the same place and I've got all my teeth, yes.”

He managed a grin. “You're still the sexiest girl in the galaxy.”

“I'll take it. And I just want to defend Richard's jumping skills. Normally he'd have made it but he was trying to make it easy on me.”

By the time we were done with that, my music had changed to The Killers' “The River is Wild,” which boded.

Mahin and Adriana arrived now. They jumped and Christopher and White caught them and pulled them up.

“Where's Chuckie?”

“He went down with Alpha Team, to make sure things were secured and to tell them that you think someone's either got control of the engine or is going to blow the train tracks, or both,” Adriana said. Jeff, Christopher, and Mahin stared at her.

“Really?” Christopher asked me.

“Really, those are my guesses and why I was in such a hurry. That I'm still in.”

“How did he figure that out?” Jeff asked as we went back to moving along, him keeping a tight hold on my hand. White had Adriana and Christopher had Mahin in the same way.

It was somehow more disconcerting seeing clearly what was coming ahead of us than just being on the top of the other cars, don't ask me why, so it was harder to move safely. I was also once again happy I, and now all the others, had goggles, particularly as we were splatted with what seemed like a zillion flying bugs. We were getting very close to water, I was prepared to bet on it.

“He's the smartest guy on the Death Train and he knows how I think. I'm more concerned that you didn't pick it up.”

“I have my blocks on high, baby. The panic on the train is more than I think is safe for me.”

“Sorry, that should have occurred to me.”

He squeezed my hand. “It's okay. We've been a little distracted.”

“True enough.”

“We're coming up on the Roanoke River,” Adriana said. “The train will go over part of it, then through more forest, then another part of the river, and then we'll be in a less wooded area.”

“So we know where they're going to hit us.” One for the win column, such as it was.

“And soon,” she added.

Got to the front only to discover that, shockingly, there wasn't an actually easy way down from the top. Older trains would have had platforms and railings along the side, but this puppy was a sleek, self-contained unit that didn't adhere to old-fashioned ways. Meaning we were kind of screwed.

Or, rather, I was. We had a short, fast, discussion that was more like an argument and finally it was agreed that I'd be
lowered down, Jeff and White holding onto my ankles, and the others holding onto them, so that I could look in through the windshield and try to signal the engineer that there was trouble.

“Lonely Train” by Black Stone Cherry started as I was being lowered. So, as I took in the upside down view, I wasn't all that surprised at what I saw.

No one.