Universal Alien Read Free

grunted. “You need to pretend to be having fun,” he said. Either his voice hadn’t carried or everyone else agreed with him, because no one shot the Evil Eye toward us.
    â€œI’m trying.”
    â€œIt’s not working.”
    Made up my mind. “Then, I’m out of here.”

CHAPTER 2
    â€œW HAT THE HELL?” Chuckie sounded ready to lose it, though he managed to keep his voice down.
    â€œYou can’t leave,” Raj said, as he tried to watch the so-called action on the field and look at me at the same time, with limited success.
    â€œNo freaking duh. I’m going to the concession stand. Now.”
    Raj, sensing that the emergency was about a negative three on a scale of one to ten, turned his full attention back to the match.
    â€œCouldn’t we just send someone?” Chuckie asked, sounding relieved. “You’re going to have to go with a contingent, and that’s going to be noticed.”
    â€œI need to piddle.” I didn’t, but I needed to splash cold water on my face and drink about a gallon of coffee to make it through this ordeal. Of course, I was in makeup, so cold water on my face was probably out. It was also February and we were outdoors in the freezing cold. I was at risk of dying from hypothermia as well as boredom. Hypothermia sounded better.
    Chuckie heaved a sigh. “The Secret Service has to escort you.”
    â€œFine. They probably want some coffee and to use the bathroom, too.”
    This earned me a dirty look I chose to ignore. I got up. The entire row behind me got up as well. There was some grumbling from the crowd behind us. I had no idea how, but we’d somehow packed this stadium with every cricket fan in, by my guess, the entire United States. Maybe we’d imported them from Europe or something. Regardless of the statistics Raj had thrown at me, I couldn’t believe that more than about fifty thousand Americans liked this sport.
    The row behind me was made up of my wide variety of bodyguards, of which my Secret Service detail was only a part. This detail included two women and four men—the wives of Vice Presidents rarely got as much security as I rated, but apparently, my reputation had preceded me.
    All of the Secret Service agents assigned to us had picked up cricket in less than a day and understood the sport. They didn’t love the sport, but they understood it. They, like everyone else, had given it the Old College Try in terms of teaching me. Unlike everyone else, they’d given up quicker. I respected their intelligence and ability to identify a lost cause quickly.
    Two of the other men behind me were Len Parker and Kyle Constantine. I’d met them right before Jeff and I got married, when they were still playing football for USC. They graduated into the C.I.A. and had been the bodyguards Chuckie had assigned to me early on in our stint in D.C. Len and Kyle both understood cricket, but as former football players, felt it wasn’t a real sport. This made me love them even more than I already did.
    The others were from Centaurion Division. Four A-C agents, one human. The human guy was Burton Falk, who I felt actually reported up to the person who was most likely coordinating the majority of my actual protection—Malcolm Buchanan.
    Buchanan had been assigned to me by the Head of the Presidential Terrorism Control Unit, also known as my mother. Mom had put her best operative onto me and my daughter, Jamie, at about the same time Chuckie had assigned Len and Kyle to me. There was never a day I didn’t appreciate Mom’s protective instincts, because Buchanan had saved our lives quite a number of times.
    He wasn’t here, that I could see. He had Dr. Strange powers, and if he didn’t want you to see him, you didn’t see him. He insisted it was just training. I didn’t believe him.
    However, while I didn’t see him in the stadium, I knew he was nearby, watching for