Spy Night on Union Station (EarthCent Ambassador Book 4) by E. M. Foner

Author:E. M. Foner [Foner, E. M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Paradise Pond Press
Published: 2015-01-14T23:00:00+00:00

Twelve

“I’m sure you’re all happy to see the little red padlock in the upper right-hand corner of your holograms,” Home Boy said to begin the third meeting of EEK. “Thanks to a generous loan from our new director, code name ‘Mercenary’, this steering committee meeting will be encrypted. A special thanks to Toto, who recruited Mercenary, and who also hired Drazen Security Associates to sweep our respective offices of bugs before this meeting.”

“They only did my personal office,” Tinkerbelle complained. “When I asked about having the rest of the embassy swept, they said that would be extra.”

“Did they check the other rooms?” Toto asked.

“Of course, that’s their main sales tactic,” the python-faced ambassador replied. “The rest of the place is lousy with bugs, but a detector only tells you there’s active surveillance, it doesn’t neutralize devices. Besides, I watched the Drazen tech working and he used some sort of projector to zap my office bugs in place. We’d have to tear the place apart to get at them otherwise.”

“If the bugs start coming back, we’ll just have to find room in the budget to buy a bug-zapper,” Troll added. “Otherwise, we’re wasting creds paying for the secure channel.”

“Agreed,” Home Boy stated for the record. “Now, before we meet our management team, does anybody have any new business to suggest?”

“I do,” Toto replied immediately. “We wrapped up the last meeting so suddenly that I didn’t get a chance to tell you that our embassy is hosting a trade show for spies. The response has been overwhelming, probably because every alien intelligence service with a presence on Union Station was listening in when the show was planned. It’s scheduled for the first three days of the next cycle, and I thought that some of you might want to attend or send a representative.”

“Will there be any educational sessions?” Lion inquired.

“Only by way of the vendors,” Toto replied. “It turns out that the manufacture and sale of espionage equipment is a big business in the galaxy, but tradecraft, the knowledge required to use the toys in the field, is closely guarded. It’s one of the reasons our management team has decided to meet the Drazen intelligence head to establish inter-agency cooperation.”

“Isn’t that the sort of strategic decision that should have been reviewed by this committee first?” Mother asked.

“You tell them that,” Toto replied dryly. “And then you can come up with the money to run an intelligence service.”

“I, for one, am pleased that our new director is taking the initiative.” Home Boy hastily inserted himself into the discussion. “And while I won’t be attending the show myself, I agree that it’s a good idea for as many of you as possible to gain some first-hand knowledge of what we’re up against.”

“I have a question,” Pill Bottle said. “Now that we have a secure channel, why are we still using this zoo animals anonymity filter?”

“And as I reported previously, some of my alien counterparts have shown me recordings of our last meeting in which the animal scrambler was decoded and all of our faces were revealed,” Troll added.

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