The three space travelers just stared back at him. "OK," Hunter finally said.
"Where is she?" the agent asked.
Hunter looked at Tomm and Zarex, who both shrugged.
"Where is who?"
"Don't get cute!" the second agent erupted. "You three are going to jail for a very long time, anyway. It might go a little easier on you if you tell us where the body is."
The three space travelers were completely bewildered.
"You think we killed someone?" Zarex asked incredulously.
"My God… tell us who," Tomm pleaded with them.
The agent angrily pulled a photograph from his shirt pocket and threw it on the table in front of them.
"Her…"
The spacemen looked at the photo, looked at each other, then started to laugh. This infuriated the FBI agents. One nearly came across the table at them. Tomm reared back, ready to hit him. Zarex began to growl.
Finally, Hunter calmed everybody down.
"May I get something in my pocket?" he asked the agents.
In a flash, both agents pulled out enormous hand guns and pointed them directly at Hunter's temple. "Get whatever you have to get, punk," one agent told him.
Hunter reached into his knee pocket and pulled out three small boxes. He laid them on the table in front of him. He pointed to the yellowish box and looked at Tomm and Zarex. Both men nodded solemnly.
Hunter pushed the small button on top of the box, and a stream of greenish mist came pouring out. It collected next to Hunter's chair, swirling and sparkling; then there was a bright flash. When the glare dissipated, in its place was standing Agent Lisa Lee.
The FBI agents' mouths dropped to the floor. Lisa was frozen in the exact same position as when they had put her into the Twenty 'n Six back in Betaville: Back on her feet, her left hand was reaching out in front of her, just as she was offering her car keys to Hunter, her other hand was up to her mouth, as if she was suppressing a scream.
She came to life a second later. Her eyes darted about the room. Finally, she took her hand from her mouth and pointed at the door.
That's when the scream came.
Not a second later, the door exploded in a storm of smoke and splinters. A small army of black-uniformed men rushed into the room. They were carrying enormous rifles with gun sights that emitted high-intensity light. This served to blind everyone. Three of the armed men surrounded the FBI agents and with firm hands, kept them sitting in place. Another held Lisa back. Three others ran around to where Hunter, Tomm, and Zarex were sitting, picked them up out of their seats, and pushed them through the shattered door. All this happened in about five seconds, barely enough time for Hunter to grab the three small boxes.
"You know where to send the bill," one of the armed men said to the FBI agents on departing.
The spacemen were hustled down a long set of stairways. At every landing, there was another man in a black uniform, holding a rifle. They reached the basement of the building and were thrown into the back of a black, windowless panel van. The doors were locked behind them, then the van screeched away, going up the delivery ramp and careening out onto the empty street.
Hanging on as tightly as they could, Hunter, Pater Tomm, and Zarex just looked at each other tight-lipped. They were not sure whether to laugh or cry. This certainly was a strange turn of events, but they were getting used to such things by now.
Finally, Zarex broke the spell.
He said to Hunter, "Excuse me brother, you don't have a cigarette on you, do you?"
The van traveled for nearly an hour, never slowing down and frequently tossing them about the blacked-out interior. The noise of tires screeching and a very loud engine made conversation nearly impossible.
Finally, the vehicle squealed to a stop, and they were pulled from the back. They were at the entrance to a tunnel that led directly into a huge mountain. There was a guardhouse surrounded by several layers of electrified fencing. Six soldiers in black uniforms stepped from the guardhouse and escorted them through the entrance. It was about three in the morning by this time, a dark and windy night. The sign next to the guardhouse read Weather Mountain Research Facility.
Once through the main gate, they were put into a smaller van and driven into the tunnel. After several minutes of plunging deeper into the mountain, the van stopped in a small parking area near a set of elevators. The spacemen were taken out, put on one of the elevators, and then began a very long journey not up, but down, deep into the belly of the mountain.
When the elevator finally stopped, they stepped out into a large chamber. It had a very low ceiling but was expansive, with strings of blue lights running everywhere. One wall was dominated by a visual screen. At the moment, it was filled with nothing more than rows of ever-changing numbers.
There was a narrow oval table in the center of the room. Seven men were sitting along one side of it. They were all rather elderly for this planet. Each man wore longish gray hair, and several had long, gray beards as well. Their faces were wrinkled unlike any Hunter had seen since coming to this world. The seven men were all dressed casually, mostly in denim, and each was wearing a large red ID badge attached to a chain around his neck.
There were only three letters visible on these badges: CIA.
These men weren't brimming with antagonism as the FBI agents had been.
They politely asked the spacemen to sit down, and coffee was passed their way. Tomm slurped down two cups before anyone else could be served. Zarex silently accepted a cigarette; he was soon lit up and puffing away. Hunter was half hoping someone would turn up with a bottle of Seagram's.
There were no formal introductions. They were a top-secret government intelligence group, the man sitting in the center chair told them, and he was their spokesman. He looked slightly younger than the others, was clean-shaven, his skin red and robust, a wry look around his eyes. His name was Gordon.
"Unlike our dull-witted cousins over at FBI," he began, "we know who you boys are. We know you're not from this planet. We know you landed here about a week ago. We know you split up shortly after arrival. We know you all spent time in various parts of the country."
The three spacemen were surprised by this news but didn't say a word. This was their third trip to an interrogation room in less than a week. They knew by now that it was best to keep their mouths shut.
"And how do we know all this about you?" the CIA man asked.
He pulled a sheaf of papers from a folder. They were newspaper clips. He held one up. It was from the Newark Ledger. Its headline read, "Mystery Man Arrested for Diner Assault— Defendant Said to Possess 'Strange Powers.' " He flipped to another. It was from the Washington Post. It read, " 'Priest' Said to Be Performing Miracles Outside National Cathedral."
Then he held up the entire front page of a third newspaper, the Chicago Tribune. In huge black letters, the headline read, "UFO Spotted Over Mayfield." A story below was headlined, "Chicago, Erie, New York Also Report Saucers."
Gordon leaned back in his seat. "Now, gentlemen, if your mission here was to quietly infiltrate us, I have to tell you, you failed miserably. I mean, you did all right getting out of Beta-ville. But after that, well…"
He returned the newsclips to his case. The three spacemen sank lower into their seats.
"It's OK, though," Gordon continued. "It actually worked out better this way. Once we got a whiff of what happened in Be-taville, we knew we had to find you. We thought it would take weeks, months, years. But you broke so many laws and made so much of a racket, we were able to apprehend you all rather quickly."
Hunter was just staring at his thumbs now. By splitting up, he, Tomm, and Zarex had thought it would be easier moving around the tiny planet, as they wouldn't attract as much attention.