“When you say thrown to the wolves . . .”
He took a deep breath. “I meant that one or more senators may exercise the privilege of subpoena to get you before a congressional committee. The president would, no doubt, delay this as long as possible, but it couldn’t be delayed forever since McVane knows where you are, and if McVane knows, then Senator Morse knows. So, even if the president tried to delay access, they could come at you by another route. The only thing they possibly don’t know about you is that you are having dinner with me right this minute, and I could be wrong about that.”
He toyed with his spoon. “Tell me again, how was it the predators found you?”
“Chiddy said smell. The Pistach have been in my apartment time after time. I suppose it does smell of them, though I can’t smell it.”
“What do you all do there? Have tea parties?”
“Popcorn, mostly. They really like popcorn. And ice cream, especially strawberry. They go crazy over our fruits and fruit-flavored things. And sodas, anything but root beer, or anything else with sarsaparilla in it, like cream soda.”
“They don’t like sarsaparilla?”
“It puts them to sleep. One night we had root beer floats, and they slept on my couch for nine hours in about thirty different shapes. Which isn’t the subject. Smelling me out is the subject, because that’s what the predators did!”
“They can track the whole world by smell?”
“We track the whole world by sight. Chiddy and Vess have machines that circle the world listening for certain sounds. And Chiddy told me the Fluiquosm track by taste. It’s just a matter of having machines that sort through the data to find specific things, and I’m sure any race that has space travel has sorting machines. As a matter of fact, Chiddy asked to leave his translator listening to my TV because his ship is operating at full capacity at the moment. Finding predators is probably what it’s doing.”
“And presumably they didn’t need to smell out Bert because the cabal knew where he was, right? Well, that relieves a minor worry. I thought there might have been a leak from the bureau. Your apartment was supposedly an FBI ‘safe house’ operation, done by Justice as a favor to State, who said they needed it for visiting dignitaries threatened by terrorists. The contractors are reliable people the FBI uses from time to time, and nobody involved except General Wallace had any idea who would occupy it. He’s the only one who talked to your boss, nobody else said anything except ‘Hi there.’ As for the First Lady and the Secretary of State, nobody has asked them where you are. I’m the only one who’s seen you with them since that dinner with the ET’s, and we hoped they’d think you left town after that.”
“You said you’d protect the kids . . .”
“It took hours to get the red tape cut. I haven’t been granted authority over field offices. When we try to do things quietly, it takes time to get cooperation, but your children should each have an agent arm in arm, right now.”
“We’re still trying to be quiet?” she asked, incredulously.
“Trying to avoid panic,” he said, frowning.
He chewed thoughtfully while she blotted chocolate from her lips, fighting down the temptation to scream. “Who told this cabal my name? Originally.”
“Your namesake congressman. He thinks he’s a liberal, he’s generally on our side, but he’s also ex-military, and he falls for the national security gambit every time someone plays it. Star Wars. Stealth anything. Talk about burning the flag and he gets all choked up. Funny, so many of these guys think the country stands for the flag instead of the other way round. So long as Old Glory’s whipping in the breeze, it’s okay to deal guns to kids and cheat on your taxes.”
“Congressman Alvarez was annoyed at me,” she admitted. “The cube opened up for General Wallace, but it didn’t show the congressman anything. He turned red and got all defensive. I could see him thinking that a congressman is more important than a retired general.”