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Chapter 155 – Stealing a MarchAlex checked her tPhone again. Willow had directions to Hermione’s flat and GPS info, too, and even a little map showing which apartment it was in the building. So things looked pretty simple. She just had to get in and out of a highly-monitored hotel without being noticed, in order to do it.
She changed into Terawatt and went silvery. Then she took the hotel ducts to the roof. Then she puddled out of the big HVAC unit and stretched out flat on its top. She figured the radar-or-whatever-it-was sensor on the roof couldn’t be too sensitive, because there were plenty of pigeons and stuff flying overhead.
When none of the soldiers were looking her way, she made her shape as much like a thin pole as she could, and she jetted straight up. It only took a few seconds to get a thousand feet up, and she kept moving. When she got to about thirty thousand feet, she checked her GPS and made a beeline for Hermione’s place.
When she got to the right area, she dived down to about two thousand feet and fished her tiny collapsible telescope out of her belt. Then she started looking for anyone or anything suspicious, like utility trucks conveniently parked next to Hermione’s building. When she didn’t see anyone, she flew lower and checked out the buildings around Hermione’s apartment building. Or ‘block of flats’ as they apparently said over here.
Uh-oh. There were two guys in a room opposite Hermione’s windows. They looked like they had a rifle or something. Hermione had her curtains drawn, so the guy with the rifle couldn’t shoot at her, but as soon as Hermione opened the curtains in the morning, this would be bad.
Alex flew to the roof of the badguys’ room, slipped under the door to the roof, puddled down to the badguys’ floor, and slipped over to the room she was pretty sure the guys were in. She puddled under the door and got a good look.
It wasn’t a rifle. It was some sort of rifle mike with a laser pointing at Hermione’s window and a gadget that looked like it caught the laser reflections off the window. Crud, she knew this bit.
She puddled back out, flew around to the other side of Hermione’s building, and puddled in where she wouldn’t be seen. Then she flew down Hermione’s hall and puddled under her door to go normal just inside the front door. She flew over to Hermione’s kitchen, where Hermione was stirring something yummy on her stove.
As soon as Hermione caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye, she reacted. She grabbed a big carving knife out of her knife block and whirled to defend herself. Then she froze in embarrassment when she saw who she had been about to attack.
Alex felt bad that Hermione had led the kind of life where she needed to have reflexes like that, and she felt worse that she’d startled Hermione so bad, so she didn’t complain or anything. She just held one finger up to her lips in a ‘shush’ gesture. She used her TK to pull a pen and notepad from beside the phone. She quickly wrote ‘laser eavesdroppers outside your window’.
Hermione smiled grimly. She put the knife back and scowled. “I am utterly unsurprised. He’s an unprincipled bastard, and he hates to lose. And I already caught the bug he had someone plant under the dining room table.”
Alex made sure she was in her Terawatt voice as she checked. “Aren’t you worried?”
Hermione explained, “I’ve got a noise cancellation device on my window. It’s mainly there to cut out traffic noises, but it damps noises from the inside as well. Anything that would make the window vibrate, it picks it up and transmits a pulse to cancel the sound waves.”
“Neat! Is it from Q?”
Hermione’s eyebrows rose. “I should have known you’d have that kind of knowledge. What did you think of L?”
Alex admitted, “Very suave. Very sexy, in that older man of the world way. Probably a former Double Oh, and probably pretty darn ruthless, too.”
Hermione nodded. “And most of the time, it’s all covered up under that ‘meek British scholar’ image. He is quite the scholar, so don’t try getting one past him by speaking in a foreign language. I think he knows more languages than I do.”
Alex looked at the pots and asked, “Is there anything I can do to help?”
Hermione gaped for a second and finally managed, “Sorry, I just … I don’t think of you as cooking in a kitchen. I know you have a secret identity, but still …”
Alex shrugged. “I cook and clean and do laundry, and normal stuff. Granted, now I do the cleaning using TK. I can pick up junk and put stuff away and dust shelves and vacuum floors in the time it takes skilled people to do just the dusting.”
Hermione thought it over. “Maybe you could stir the sauce while I put the salad and bread on the table?”
“Sure.” Only she stayed where she was, and she stirred the sauce with her TK. And she poured it into the bowl with her TK. And she poured the spaghetti into the colander in the sink with her TK.
Hermione tossed the spaghetti with a little olive oil after she put it in its own bowl. Alex pulled the stuff out of the oven and floated the casserole dishes over to the table. One was lasagna, and the other was a vegetable casserole. It all looked and smelled great.
The front door unlocked, and Ron strode in. “Hey, I found these two strays outside, and they looked like they needed a good meal, so I brought ’em up …” He stopped teasing as soon as he saw who else was in the dining area.
A voice Alex recognized from another universe complained, “Oh, Ron, why don’t you shut it? If I …” Ginny walked in and saw who Ron was staring at. “Bloody hell. Is that …”
Harry walked in behind her and grinned. “Terawatt! Long time no see.”
“Did you know?” Ginny rounded on Harry. “I could’ve put on something nice!”
Harry smiled a little. “You look great. And I didn’t really know, but Hermione had to hint a bit to make sure we really did come over tonight.”
Alex smiled. “Ginny, it’s nice to see this version of you.”
Ginny stared at Alex, then at Harry, then at Hermione. “You put Terawatt up to some kind of joke?”
Hermione told her, “Let’s sit down, and then she can tell you how she knows me, and why that means she knows a lot about you.”
Harry said, “And the stuff she knows about the four of us is scary.”
Alex said, “You see, last year a woman came from another universe to ask for my help …”
* * *
“… and so when I came back here, I went looking for this world’s Hermione. And then Ron and Harry.”
Ginny took another swallow of wine. “You stayed at Hermione’s and Ron’s magical house. And I’m a pro athlete in a magical sport. And Harry and Ron are magical agents. It sounds mad. Except a superheroine who can hurl lightning bolts is telling me the story. And it sounds so much like what really happened to us. I thought my first year was as horrible as it could get, but that absolutely tops it.”
Alex took another bite of the lasagna, which was pretty good. She’d talked for a long time, because she wanted Ginny to get that Terawatt really knew a different Ginny. But she’d managed to eat a couple of plates full of food, too. The lasagna was mostly gone. The veggie casserole was mostly gone. The salad and bread were mostly gone. The spaghetti was totally gone, but a lot of that was Ron. He loved Hermione’s ‘spag bol’, which his mum never fixed.
Alex used her TK to clear the table and put stuff to soak in the sink, while Hermione wrapped up leftovers and put them in the fridge. Ron watched and said, “That’s bloody marvelous. I don’t suppose you could come eat dinner with us every night, and then clean up after …”
“Ron! Honestly!” Hermione fussed.
Ron instantly countered, “At least I wasn’t using the NID’s database to try and ID my superhero bestie.”
Hermione blushed a bright red. “I wasn’t … Not really … I just …”
Ginny laughed. “Oh, I bet this must be good, or she wouldn’t be blushing like a Wellesley.”
Hermione was so red that her blush was creeping down her neck and into her blouse. “I … just thought someone needed to be looking out for her, in case she really was one of their top twenty possibles.”
Harry said, “Well, we knew she wasn’t that actress wannabe, Marylebone Whoever.”
“Marilaine Dennis,” Ginny corrected. She saw everyone looking at her, and she confessed, “All right, so I watch some entertainment ‘news’ sometimes. The woman’s a nightmare. If she’s ever had a thought other than ‘I’m pretty’ and ‘I should be famous and popular’ I’d be astonished. Someone’s going to grab her for a reality show, just because she’s a trainwreck waiting to happen.”
Hermione added, “And anyway, all the NID top twenty were at home or work today, not over here.”
Ron rolled his eyes. “And if she flies a couple thousand miles an hour, she could be at home some of the day, and in Washington D.C. some of the day, and over here for dinner. I don’t see how that rules anyone out.”
Hermione rolled her eyes. “Ron, she doesn’t fly that fast. She needed an SR-71 to get around when we fought the silicates. Remember?”
Harry just looked over at Terawatt expectantly.
Alex looked back at him and said, “Classified.”
Ginny smirked. “Which means mind your own business. Don’t you know never to ask a lady her age or her airspeed?”
Alex had to laugh at that. She also laughed when Ron took off from there with the ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’ jokes. And after that, they all got extremely silly.
* * *
It was after eleven before Harry and Ginny left. They both had to get up early in the morning. Harry hugged Alex goodbye. “Thanks for everything. Saving Ron, and me, and getting the Double Ohs off my neck …”
Ron chipped in, “Oh, yes, and thanks for saving the planet umpteen times, too.”
Ginny glared at him. “Hush you.” She gave Alex a hug and said, “And thanks to you, mum and dad aren’t as worried about me dating Harry, or maybe marrying him someday when he gets around to it, now that they aren’t expecting him to get killed in a matter of months on Double Oh duty.”
Ron pointed out, “At least I could sneak off and marry Hermione without telling anyone till after. You’re the precious, perfect daughter —”
“Stuff it, Ron,” Ginny glared.
“— and mum is going to insist on the biggest wedding possible.”
Ginny complained, “And I am so looking forward to fighting with mum and gran about every little detail, because if I don’t, I’ll end up wearing a thousand yards of taffeta and getting married at gran’s church in front of a thousand guests and four television cameras. Ugh.”
After Harry and Ginny hurried off hand-in-hand, Alex said, “I really should be going, too. I still have to do some late-night work, and it’s going to be a long day tomorrow.”
Hermione smiled. “It was fun. Maybe we can do this again.”
Ron added, “And we could do it at the family digs, so you could have a little privacy, and maybe let your hair down a bit more. Granddad would flip if he got the chance to meet you.”
Hermione gave Ron a one-armed hug and said, “Your granddad’s really been a lot easier on you since he found out about Terawatt, right?”
Ron shrugged. “Really, he’s been a lot easier on all of us ever since Harry told him the truth about the headmaster. Granddad knew old Appledore for half a century and considered him one of his closest friends. And then he found out Apples was using his grandkids to control Harry, and we were just collateral damage. He lost one grandson, had two others horribly scarred, had another estranged from the family for most of my years at that place, and the rest of us nearly got killed. I have no idea how many times I nearly got killed while I was still a schoolboy.”
Hermione looked distinctly uncomfortable as she murmured, “Twenty-five. Almost four times a year on average. When I finally told your mum, she was so mad I think she would have dug up the old schemer just to throttle his corpse for a while.”
Ron grinned. “Granddad would’ve been happy to help. We could’ve made it into a family excursion!”
When Alex left Hermione’s apartment building, she flew up to about a thousand feet and made a phonecall. “Tera here. Has my package arrived?”
Willow answered, “Rarity incoming. ETA twenty-two minutes.”
Rarity. Alex should have guessed. Pinkie Pie was just not letting the theme drop.
So Alex got vectored to RAF Northolt, which was really, really close to Heathrow so Alex had some idea where it was. She floated above the control tower until she saw a Blackbird tearing in for a landing. It looked to her inexpert eyes like the Northolt runways were only just big enough to handle a Blackbird.
The SR-71 stopped before it got to the end of the runway, but then it had to be towed to a hangar. She watched as two people clambered out of the jet. Both in heavy flight suits. Both with special helmets and oxygen masks. Both with the special boots needed for people crazy enough to fly a jet up to seventeen or eighteen miles in the air, so high that you might as well be in space. Both had a small bag in one hand. Still, you could tell that one of them was male and one was female.
Alex flew down and ducked into the small area for women. There were far more men on the base, so they needed a lot more space for guys. She went normal as Jo Lupo took off her oxygen mask and helmet.
“Hi, Jo! I … what the hey?”
Jo turned and smirked at her. “Hi, Tera. Surprise.”
Wow, it was quite the surprise. Somebody like Captain Fisher had spray-painted Jo’s face and neck so she looked like she had Alex’s skin-tones. She naturally had a jawline and mouth that were a lot like Alex’s, but someone had expertly sprayed contouring colors on Jo’s face so her jaw and mouth and cheekbones and eyes looked a lot more like Alex’s than usual. Jo took off her gloves and flight suit and boots, leaving her in a skintight compression suit to protect her at super-low atmospheric pressure. Alex could see that Jo’s hair was pulled up in a little bun, and her hands were also sprayed so they looked like Alex’s skin-tones.
Alex checked, “That’s not that latex stuff they sprayed on Az, is it?”
Jo smiled. “No, it’s some kind of semi-permanent makeup crap. It’ll hold up till I get back to base, and then I’ll need hours of clean-up to get it all off. I guess that’s why the general codenamed me Rarity for this one.”
Alex managed not to wince as she explained, “No, it’s way worse than that. You know Willow and I nicknamed him Pinkie Pie?”
Jo nodded. “I had to look it up on the web.” Her mouth dropped open. “Oh, no.”
Alex nodded reluctantly. “Yep. I’m Rainbow Dash, the flyer with the powers. Riley’s Applejack, the tough one. Willow’s Twilight Sparkle, who’s the super-brainy one. Hanna’s Spike, who’s a dragon. And he tagged Hermione Granger as Fluttershy.”
Jo just shook her head. “At least it’s not the Herculoids. Or Rainbow Brite. I’d barf if he went with Rainbow Brite.”
Alex just promised, “I’ll never ever tell him you said that.”
Jo made a face like she’d bitten into a lemon. “Thanks, because we both know he’d take it as a mandate that it had to be done.” She looked around and asked, “How do I get to the site, and how do you get me inside?”
Alex asked, “How much stuff do you have?”
Jo shrugged. “Besides the flight gear, which I can find someone to store for me, just what the colonel said I could bring.” She held up the tiny, purse-sized bag. “Two pair undies, one bra, one sleepshirt, a toothbrush, a pair of contacts, and my combat knife. I’ll be wearing your spare fatsuit and uniform and your shoes tomorrow. Finn said he’d supply me with a decent automatic and ammo when I get to the hotel. Why do you need to know?”
Alex said, “I think I can lift you in that suit if that’s all you’re carrying.”
Jo frowned. “I thought you could only lift you plus about eighty pounds.” She thought out loud. “No, that Japanese researcher you saved had to weigh more than that. And you’ve hauled Shar around … So you’ve gotten stronger.”
Alex nodded. “I’ve been working out, and I’ve been working on my TK at the same time.”
“Smart! Okay, let’s see what you got, Ms. Marvel.”
Alex grinned and floated a foot into the air. Then she grabbed Jo with her TK and heaved.
Jo drifted up into the air. And it didn’t feel like someone had hit Alex on the top of the head with a rock, either.
“Damn! How much stronger do you think you can get?”
Alex shrugged without lowering either of them. “No idea. One time my mom made a curry with leftovers and whatever she could find, and it accidentally gave me superstrength on and off for part of a day. I could lift a couple of tons. I’m hoping that’s my upper limit and that I can get there if I keep working at it for years.”
Jo asked, “And you’ve got a way in and out of the impregnable security set-up?”
Alex smiled. “Yeah, only you have to come with me in my silvery morph.”
Jo just smiled. “I don’t really remember what it’s like, but Hanna said it was extremely cool.”
Alex frowned. “Hanna thinks everything dangerous is extremely cool. She had fun fighting that North Korean catgirl who clawed her to shreds and just about killed her.”
Jo just grinned in anticipation.
So Alex let Jo find a female airman who could secure Jo’s flight gear until the next evening, then Alex went silvery and pulled Jo in with her, and they took off into the night sky.
Since it was really dark, Alex flew down toward the hotel roof at about a forty-five degree angle. She figured that was steep enough that none of the guards would see her, but shallow enough not to get picked up by the radar-whatever sensor in the middle of the roof. Then she flew into the HVAC intake, puddled through the ducts, and flew out of the main vent for her room.
Alex let Jo out of her morph and went normal. Jo took a deep breath while Alex dived under the bed and changed out of her Terawatt uniform.
Jo muttered, “Shit, that was the weirdest thing ever …”
Hanna looked over from where she was sitting on her bed in a sleepshirt. “Hi, Jo. You look … different. You look almost like Alex’s twin.”
Alex used her TK to pull her hair up like Jo’s, and she teased, “What do you mean ‘almost’?”
Hanna grinned, and then said, “With the wig and the glasses and the padding and the uniform, it should work. You will need to wear the uniform pants tomorrow, because your calves are different. And you can conceal the small differences in your lower faces if you chew gum all day tomorrow.”
Boy, Hanna knew a totally freaksome amount of stuff about cover identities and disguises and things like this.
Jo said, “The plan is Alex pretends she’s getting emergency computer issues starting well before lunch. Then she keeps dashing out of the meeting, and then coming back to show the general or the colonel details on her tablet. Then she dashes out and I take her place, and after about half an hour more, Terawatt makes her appearance around two, stays for the break, and then gets called away. ‘Annie Farrell’ keeps doing the same stuff for the rest of the afternoon, and we switch back. Then I lie around watching British TV and eating Alex’s chocolates out of that huge gift basket no one ever gets for me, and Alex has to go to breakout meetings.”
Hanna said, “That could even work. You do look quite a lot like Alex, except your hair color and eye color and skin tones. Normally, your nose is not the same, but you are wearing something now.”
Jo nodded. “Yeah. Captain Fisher made a cast off a 3-D model of Alex’s nose that Acid Burn provided, and so I’ve got a thing glued on my nose for twenty-four hours so I have Alex’s nose now. And he painted this crud on my cheeks so I have Annie Farrell’s skin problem. With the wig and glasses, it should work unless someone who has studied Annie Farrell makes an effort to talk to me.”
Alex said, “That would be Major Kuhlman or Lord Rupert Giles. I’m pretty sure Lieutenant Martin hasn’t really paid any attention to me, because he’s had a hard time not staring constantly at Action Girl and our Orphans.”
Jo’s eyebrow went up. “Lord Rupert Giles? Really? Annie Farrell’s movin’ on up … to the East side …”
“… to a de-luxe apartment in the sky,” Alex finished with a grin. “Yeah, he’s really L of the Double Oh series.” She pulled her tPhone over and showed Jo a picture of Lord Giles that Willow had sent her.
“Holy fuck,” Jo cursed. “As in soon-to-be-M guy? That’s not good.”
Alex said, “I bet he used to be a Double Oh, too. And I’m pretty sure he infiltrated the British diplomatic team so he could size up who is Hermione’s bestie, because he’s trying to figure out if one of us Yanks is really Terawatt, or Terawatt’s secret contact. Oh, and when he was younger, he was Mister Party Animal, and his nickname was ‘Ripper’.”
Jo scowled. “No one nice gets a nickname like that.”
Hanna added, “Alex had dinner with Hermione and her friends.”
Alex corrected that. “Well, Terawatt had a nice dinner with Hermione and Ron and Harry and Ginny. Annie Farrell sat all alone in her room with the phone switched off and ate too much junk food, while her team went off and had exciting times.”
Hanna said, “Oh, and you might want to leave the TV on tonight so you do not have to listen to Willow and the general.”
Jo actually winced. “Uhh, yeah, I could do without hearing that.”
Hanna smiled. “Janet said my first time might be a little painful, and sex could be pretty unsatisfying without an attentive partner, but General Jack must be extremely attentive.”
Alex asked, “Can we not talk about people having sex?”
Jo groused, “Yeah, as long as I’m not getting any, I really don’t want to hear about how someone else is getting her brains screwed out and enjoying it way too loud.”
Hanna just said, “I would like to get married some day and have lots of sex and have babies, but Janet said my DNA is probably not compatible with …” For the first time Alex could remember, Hanna looked really uncomfortable. “… with humans.”
“Oh, Hanna!” Alex flew over and gave Hanna a big hug, because that was so not fair, and Hanna deserved some nice stuff in her life after having such a horrible first sixteen years.
Jo changed out of her compression suit into her sleepshirt, and Alex saw that Jo had the spray-paint makeup sprayed all over her arms and legs, too, and on her neck, and as far down as her armpits on her front and back. And the stuff was sprayed on Jo’s feet and legs, too. It seemed like Jo was just going to put up with all of it until she got back to the base.
Jo looked at herself in the mirror and complained, “I feel like the chick in ‘Goldfinger’ when she’s covered in gold. Captain Fisher said it’ll take hours to clean all this off.”
Hanna said, “Before you go to sleep, Colonel Riley gave me some gear for you.” She lifted a small paper bag and handed it over.
Jo looked through it. She pulled out a .45 automatic, plus ammo, plus a derringer in an ankle holster, plus a butterfly knife, plus a garrotte and a heavy wiresaw. Jo’s eyes gleamed, and she muttered, “Finn, I am definitely buying you a Christmas present this year.”
Alex showered and then went to bed, but Jo wasn’t sleepy yet. Since Jo didn’t have to get up early in the morning, she just sat on Hanna’s bed and watched TV with Hanna. Alex figured Jo would go to sleep at whatever was rational for someone on New Mexico time who didn’t have to get up before noon London time.
* * *
When Alex woke up in the morning, Jo was sound asleep on the far side of Hanna’s bed, and Hanna was drying off after showering. So Alex had a hearty snack out of the gift basket until Hanna came out of the bathroom and started getting dressed in her Action Girl uniform.
It took about ten or fifteen minutes in front of the bathroom mirror to apply the ‘fake acne’ plastic on her cheeks and then slather on the special ‘foundation’ makeup. She was so glad she didn’t have to wear that stuff every day. It also made her feel really bad about a couple of her schoolmates who had horrible acne problems and wore a ton of makeup to try to hide it. Or at least to try to hide some of it. Like Tori Jensen, who got teased a ton about her awful acne back in middle school, and now Alex was really sorry she hadn’t stood up for Tori sooner.
On went the wig-cap and the ugly wig. On went the ugly glasses. And Annie Farrell was ready to go. Alex pulled on the fatsuit and wore the lieutenant’s uniform with the pants. She grabbed her valise and walked next door to check on ‘her general’.
Jack let her in, and she closed the door behind her. Jack called out, “Will! We have company. Are you decent?”
“Nope!” Willow replied cheerfully from the bedroom. She even popped her ‘p’ like someone Alex knew.
Jack looked at Alex and said, “You’re a bad influence on her.”
What? Boy, he had a lot of nerve … Oh. He was teasing. She went with her Annie Farrell voice. “If you say so, sir.”
Willow came out all bundled up in a long bathrobe, with a towel over her hair and fuzzy slippers. She smiled. “Hi, lieutenant. You won’t need to bring me breakfast this morning, because I’m heading out to help the local economy.” She turned to Jack. “Oh, one thing …” She waited as he turned to face her, and then she kissed him like she hadn’t seen him for a month.
Willow smiled wickedly and sashayed back into the bedroom. Jack blinked a couple times before he came back to his senses, and then he whispered, “Did she do the lipstick thing again?”
“Yes, sir.” Because Willow had planted coral lipstick all over Jack’s mouth.
“That woman …” But he was really smiling a ton.
Jack cleaned up his face and they walked down to breakfast. “Any news?”
Alex said, “My package arrived, and it’s already gift-wrapped.”
Jack handed her a couple of packs of spearmint gum and said, “When you get nervous, you chew gum to control your OCD.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. I believe I’m prepared for today’s meetings.”
She popped a piece of gum into her mouth and started chewing. As she chomped the gum into juiciness, she thought about how, with her jaw in constant motion, it really would be a lot harder for someone to notice the exact shape of her jawline and mouth enough to tell that there were two different Annie Farrells today. Maybe this really would work better than she’d thought when Hanna had talked about it.
Jack stepped over to talk to one of the Scandinavian officers in the hall by the ballroom, and he gestured for her to go on to the meals room. She got to the door of the room, and Major Kuhlman pulled her aside.
The major looked miserable, and not nearly as put-together as she usually did. She hissed, “Farrell! I need to talk to you pronto!”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Kuhlman pulled Alex away from the door and further down the hall. She whimpered, “I went with the general last night, and he warned me about Rupert —”
Oh, crud. If the major was calling Lord Giles by his first name this morning, Alex could guess what happened last night.
“— and he was so suave, and nobody ever pays attention to me like that, and … and I went with him to his room. All night. But when I got back to my room a few minutes ago, I realized I must’ve talked about stuff. Nothing classified, I’m pretty sure, but stuff about us. Like how you’re a computer and science genius who knew all about that nickel whatever compound. And O’Neill’s pretty snotty for a general. And General Baylor being a pain in the ass to keep on his diet. And Martin being a complete geek some of the time. Stuff like that.”
Alex said, “It’ll be okay. We’ll figure out how to make it okay. Look, did he feed you breakfast?”
The look in Kuhlman’s eyes said that L fed her something this morning, and maybe breakfast was a small part of it.
Alex whispered, “Go back to your room and get your hair done and check your uniform and do whatever else you need to do. I’ll help you with General Baylor. Okay? We adjutants have to stick together.”
Major Kuhlman just about wept. “But … I’m a traitor! I spilled intel to … well, not the enemy, but I spilled!”
That L sure was a major jerkhead to do this to someone vulnerable like the major. Alex wondered if this was the kind of stuff Double Ohs really were supposed to do. She wondered if Ginny knew about that, because Alex would not want to be married to a Double Oh who went out on assignments and boinked anything that moved.
Alex watched until the major hurried back to her room, and then she rushed into the meals room. She went right over to General Baylor, who was eating grapefruit and a bowl of oatmeal. She stood at attention and said, “Excuse me, sir. Major Kuhlman had a small problem, and she requested that I assist you until she can get down here. It should only be ten or twenty minutes.”
General Baylor scowled a great big mean scowl. Alex was thinking he was being a big jerk, but then he said, “Is she … all right? I warned her about that man.”
Alex carefully cleared her throat. “I believe she is just … embarrassed. And concerned about what you’ll think of her. And worried that she might have talked out of turn about the SRI. Me, General O’Neill, Colonel Finn … Not anything classified, but still things she wouldn’t have said without some persuasion. I think that you may have to talk her out of resigning her commission.”
“Well, that’s damn well not going to happen,” General Baylor insisted. Then he had another thought, and he winced. “Christ, my wife is going to kill me. She really likes the major.”
Alex just said, “Sir, what can I do to assist you until the major returns?”
He sighed. “I’d really love a cup of coffee, but it’s off my diet. I don’t want to get you in trouble with the major, so let’s just say I’m good.”
Alex offered, “I could get you some brown sugar and some raisins for your oatmeal, sir. Maybe honey, which might be on your diet even if white sugar isn’t.”
He smiled. “Just the raisins, lieutenant. And maybe you could persuade General O’Neill to sit next to me and eat some bacon, just so I could enjoy the aroma.”
“Yes, sir.”
She’d thought General Baylor would be a real jerkhead about stuff, but apparently he liked Major Kuhlman. So she just did what he said, and got him raisins and also a little honey, and got Jack to sit next to him with bacon, and ate a big plate of food in the hallway while waiting for the major to get back down. And then she started chewing a new piece of gum.
The major came back about ten minutes before the meetings were supposed to start, and she looked better. More put-together and official, even if her eyes looked puffy like she’d been crying while she was up in her room.
Alex hurried over to her and asked, “Are you holding up a little better? I’m pretty sure the general’s going to be really nice about this. I can tell he really likes you. And his wife does, too.”
She whispered, “I really hope so … And why are you chewing so much gum?”
Alex lied, “I’m pretty obsessive-compulsive. And when bad stuff’s happening to my computers, I get kind of wound up. I chew gum so I can keep all my tics under control.”
“What’s happening?”
Alex fibbed, “I’ve got a massive multi-source attack on my firewalls, and I think it could be P$ychon4ut. And what could be worse than that? And I’m way over here, so I’m having to try to shore them up remotely, which is like trying to use sandbags to protect your lands while standing up to your neck in the flood.”
“We’ve got resources, so if you need anything, just ask.”
Alex told her, “Thanks. But if I can get hold of Ms. Rosenberg, I can get all the support I need. It’s just that she’s out shopping right now.”
“Well, good luck, Farrell.” Major Kuhlman straightened her shoulders and marched into the meals room.
Alex really hoped that the general was going to be kind to the major, because it was totally not fair that someone like her got that one special evening that she’d dreamed of for years, and it turned out to be this nightmare.
Jerkiness was probably a job requirement for guys like K and L and M.
So Alex did just what they’d talked about. She sat at the very back of the American group and worked away on her tablet, then got up and left the room for twenty minutes, then came back after a bit and showed Jack some nonsense on the tablet, then left again, then came back twenty minutes later and sat in the back again. She kept that up all morning, and into the lunch hour, and then back in the ballroom until twenty to two.
She hurried back up to her room and took off her shoes and pants and uniform jacket. Jo was already in the spare padded fatsuit and a spare shirt and a spare tie, plus Jo had contacts in, so she apparently had eyes like Alex.
Alex took off the glasses and wig, and peeled the icky bumpy stuff off her cheeks. She went silvery to take off her shirt and tie and padding without unbuttoning or untying the stuff. She scrubbed off her Annie Farrell makeup, dried her face, and dived into her gym bag to become Terawatt.
She called out from the bathroom sink, “Stay away from Kuhlman. She may want to be friendly after I helped her out this morning.”
“Gotcha.”
She added, “Oh! And go with the flow if it’s Hermione Granger. She’s already figured out the Annie Farrell thing, even if she doesn’t know my real identity.”
“No problemo,” Jo said, in one of the worst Arnold imitations ever.
Jo was in the pants and uniform jacket and shoes, and she was already checking the wig and glasses in the mirror. Wow, she really looked like Annie Farrell. And that really was an awful hairstyle.
Alex just said, “Gum’s in the outside pocket of the valise, and if you tote any weapons around in it, take ’em out when you’re done.”
“Roger that. Have fun.”
Interlude XXXHarry Potter didn’t like working this way. Ginny was not a distraction or camouflage. But with L snooping all over the place along with the usual problems, he was reluctantly taking her along, as if this were merely a lunch date at a very expensive restaurant.
Ginny was perfectly happy with it. Granted, she had never had as much trouble with Drake as Harry had endured.
On the other hand, it was Drake’s father’s fault that Ginny had nearly died or gone insane when she was a little firstie. And Ginny’s family still didn’t get along with Drake’s family. From what Ginny’s granddad had said, that little feud had been going on since the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, when Drake’s French ancestors had been playing for the other side.
And people said Harry held a grudge for a long time. Even if he still didn’t like or trust Drake.
He stepped into the entryway, and stopped to kiss Ginny. He could tell that she knew this was a bit of tradecraft instead of a public display of affection. He whispered in her ear, “Sorry.” But that was definitely a tail a block up the street.
He took Ginny’s arm and walked her to the maitre d’. “Potter. Reservation for two. The indigo room.”
The maitre d’ escorted them upstairs to the privacy of one of the restaurant’s special areas. There was some gratuitous French, which wasn’t quite good enough to conceal from Harry that the speaker was English. Probably the East End if Harry had to guess. He didn’t have the ear for fake accents that Ron had.
The important part was that this room had a false wall. The wall and the connection had been set up by Riddle’s people, and as such wasn’t supposed to be known to Appledore’s side. That was one very good reason why Drake had agreed to come here when Harry sent him a meeting request.
Harry waited patiently. First there were the appetizers that had to be served. Then the main course. Then dessert afterward. Then finally, privacy for a while.
He pointed at Ginny’s purse, and she pulled out his toy from Q. It was a plastic box the size of a thick sandwich, and it was the best electronic bug detector he could get. Harry knew perfectly well that access to Q was simply a tool that M was using to persuade Harry to join the Double Oh ranks. Harry also knew his life was quite dangerous enough as it was.
Once the detector indicated the room was clean, he tapped a coded signal on the false wall. In a few seconds, it slid aside to reveal Drake and a young woman. They were in one of the private rooms of a club on the back side of the block.
Drake glanced at the bug detector, gave Harry a raised eyebrow, and drawled, “Well, if it isn’t Double Oh Potter.”
The young woman slapped Drake on the arm and said, “You promised you’d behave.”
Drake glanced at the woman and said, “Yes, dear.” Then he turned back. “Have I introduced my fiancée yet?”
Ginny grinned. “Congratulations, Stori.”
It took Harry a second or two to make the connection. Right. “Yes. Congratulations.”
Stori showed Ginny a diamond engagement ring roughly the size of a goiter. Either Drake’s family wasn’t anywhere near as hard hit by the Umbrella mess as Harry thought, or this was one of the heirloom pieces. He guessed it was option number two, and he said, “I take it your mum is pleased with the arrangement.”
Drake gave a small, smug smirk. “Not only is Stori terrific, but her family wasn’t involved in the Deathstrike war. Mum’s very pleased about that.”
Ginny asked maliciously, “And how is Parkinson these days?”
Stori beamed. “Mad as a wet hen, and not speaking to me or my sister or even my cousins. In her own mind, she’s had Drake all gift-wrapped since they were firsties.”
Drake groaned, “Longer than that. She told Millie that she was going to marry me, back when we were all about seven. I suppose I’m lucky father didn’t arrange a marriage years before I became a prefect.”
Harry didn’t really remember Stori. He just recalled that she was two years behind him in school. From what little he remembered of her, she had dramatically improved since she was twelve or thirteen. But didn’t everyone? Just look at Hermione now and Hermione at age twelve. Or Ginny. He remembered Ginny when she was ten and he first met the Wellesleys. She had been a mop. A stick that had at one end a mass of stringy red hair no longer held in place, thanks to the machinations of the twins.
Drake resorted to his traditional drawl that usually meant he was uncomfortable with the conversation and wanted to put on his metaphorical armor. “So you asked to meet me so you could inspect my fiancée’s engagement ring with your loupe?”
Harry decided this was as good a time as any to get to the important issues. “I wanted to warn you that Terawatt’s in England, and if Riddle’s people or Ashford’s people have anything going on, you might want to steer clear for the next several days. And I couldn’t warn you the usual way, because L has the SIS on my tail in case I might lead them to Terawatt’s secret identity.”
“Because of Granger. Naturally,” Drake complained. “One of these days, she’s going to be running the entire SIS, or possibly the entire country, and the rest of us will be standing out in the street looking bewildered and asking each other ‘how did that happen?’ I hear she’s already the star of Parker’s data analysis section, and she’s one of only three Brits in the entire E.U. Terawatt liaison office.”
Harry said, “I can neither confirm nor deny …” But he knew Ginny was nodding her head yes.
Stori laughed delightedly. “Drake, you didn’t tell me this was going to be so much fun! You make it all sound so tedious and nerve-wracking and horrid.”
Harry said, “That’s because it really is.”
Drake said to her, “You know the scars I have? Potter picked up about twice that many before he graduated. It sounds like a thrilling adventure. It wasn’t.”
Harry nodded unhappily. He wasn’t going to say so, but it had often been more like the Geneva Convention definition of torture. He said, “That was really all I needed to tell you.”
Drake replied, “Thank you. I don’t know what else is going on, frankly. I make a point of not asking, so no one can single me out when you and your playmates take another operation down. But people talk, even when they ought to know better. There’s some sort of long-term project going on in the Midlands that’s utterly hush-hush but it’s run into some sort of massive snag of late, and Ashford’s surviving peons have apparently fled the country to join up with some of these so-called Orphans in central France, although Flint was complaining about them ‘associating with drug lords’ for what that’s worth. So there may be something brewing there.”
Stori firmly said, “I’m glad the Ashfords are … cleaned up. For a brother and sister, they were creepily into each other. I really don’t care that they were both adopted, it was disturbing.”
Ginny patted her on the hand sympathetically. “Now then, tell me all about what Pug-nose Parkinson has been doing. I haven’t heard a thing since someone pushed her into the pool at Nott’s house party …”