As she moved, she kicked off her high-heeled shoes and dropped a pair of sneakers in front of herself. She barely slowed as she slid her feet into them and kept talking without missing a beat. An aide who was running behind her picked up the heels and slid them into a bag as if he had done so a hundred times before. She didn't seem to notice him.
"When the CIA's gotta take out a target, they ask first for my permission. And when the president wants an opinion on what members of Congress are politically vulnerable in terms of undiscovered criminal conduct, mine is the number he dials. Because I keep a list. Right here in my pocket. And whenever I see it, it reminds me of you." She paused then, and Lennox could hear the outraged bellowing of the person she was talking to coming through the phone. The reason Lennox could hear it was that the man was yelling so loudly that the woman had pulled the phone slightly away from her ear so that she wouldn't go deaf. He was saying something about her not having any proof of her "outrageous calumnies."
When he paused for breath, she slipped in quickly with, "Never use your own credit card, Senator." That apparently silenced him, and she said confidently, "I look forward to your vote on the bill."
With that final riposte, she snapped shut her cell phone and then turned to Lennox. Clearly her mood wasn't about to improve as she focused on the matters that had prompted her coming to the base. "He 'demands' to see me? He demands? It should be me demanding him! The CIA is up my ass about that mystery raid in the Middle East. So you better come clean. Was your unit involved?"
"Um ... not sure, ma'am," Lennox said, being evasive.
She was not amused. "As director of intelligence, I'm a real big fan of intelligent answers."
"He can't tell you definitively," Agent Fowler chimed in, shaking her hand. "Y' know how teenage kids sometimes sneak out of the house at night."
"Colonel Lennox, Special Agent Fowler." What little patience she might have had was dwindling rapidly. "Are you in command or aren't you?"
"Yes, ma'am," Fowler said as he continued walking toward their mutual subject of interest. "But aliens ... they're tricky. They work with us, not for us. Sometimes they just do what they think is best."
"Stop with the 'ma'am,' " she said in frustration. "Enough with the 'ma'am.' Do I look like a ma'am?"
"Yes, ma'am," he said out of reflex, and then took the time to process what she'd asked. "No, ma'am, I mean ..."
There was a steady clanking as Wheeljack strode up to them. Lennox had never been more grateful for an interruption. Mirage and Ironhide were coming up behind him. "Oh, good, you're here," Wheeljack said. "I do hope you have answers for him. I've never seen him so upset."
"He's fine Jacky," Bulkhead said. "Being a leader takes a toll, ya know?"
"Not like this, Bulkhead," Arcee said.
Mirage nodded in confirmation. "He won't talk to me, to Ironhide, to anyone." Mirage waved in front of the parked truck. "Come on, Prime, smile a little bit. Underbite, anyone?"
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