night. Valenti was extremely grateful that River Dog had aided them without adding further complications to their already precarious situation. The old shaman of the Mesaliko Indian Reservation was an integral part of the alien history of Roswell, though not an active enough part, apparently, to merit investigation by the Special Unit. Those government spooks have no idea just how much the old man knows, Valenti thought. In the 1950s, River Dog had befriended Nasedo, helping heal him after a tribal sweat ritual had gone awry, unbalancing his alien physiology. Though River Dog later lost track of the shapeshifter, he'd never judged him as an evil spirit, as had the tribal elders. Thus, even after the alien killed their mutual acquaintance, author James Atherton, River Dog had trusted Nasedo, and vice versa. The old Native American was one of the few who knew the truth about Nasedo and who hadn't been eliminated by Nasedo during subsequent years. Although Valenti hadn't learned about it until later, River Dog had also helped Max, Michael, and Isabel learn the truth about their alien origins, and had aided Michael in getting through a hallucinatory sickness by restoring the balance of energy within his half-alien body. When he was sheriff of Roswell, one of Valenti's best deputies was Owen Blackwood, who had grown up on the reservation. River Dog had apparently not entrusted Blackwood with any of the secrets of the cave in which Nasedo had lived for a time, nor with the meanings of the alien hieroglyphs engraved on its walls. Instead, River Dog had shared this knowledge with Eddie, a teenager on the reservation. It was Eddie who had met Valenti and Amy earlier when they arrived. This morning's tumultuous events remained green enough in Valenti's memory that he still found himself trembling from time to time, his body tensing with recollections of fear and adrenaline. He had gotten a call from Suzanne Duff, the FBI agent with whom he had worked the Laurie Dupree abduction case the previous year. She had given him a cryptic warning, telling him that he was no longer safe in Roswell. Then, in rapid succession, Valenti had gotten a page from UFO Center proprietor Brody Davis on his special «panic pager," followed by a phone call from Sheriff Hanson, asking him to get into the office early. Hanson wouldn't explain the urgency, but Duff had told Valenti to get himself and anyone else he felt might be at risk from the government's alien-hunters away from Roswell immediately. Immediately after arranging a clandestine meeting in Tucson with Duff, Valenti had called Amy, who had been on her way home from his place to change clothes before opening her shop for the day. She had explained that she was being followed by a black sedan, and the resulting chase had ended in a lumberyard. Valenti had hurried over there and driven off with her before her pursuers had had a chance to follow. Amy had cut her head badly when her car crashed in the lumberyard, but Valenti knew he couldn't risk taking her to the hospital. The safest place he could think of at the moment was the Mesaliko reservation; it seemed unlikely that the Special Unit operatives would think of looking for them there. While an elderly native American woman one of River Dog's friends sewed up the gash on Amy's scalp, Valenti tried to raise Phillip Evans, then Jeff Parker, on his cell phone. Disconcertingly, though not at all surprisingly, there was no answer at either home, nor at either of their business numbers. Valenti then dialed Brody Davis at the UFO Center, and was gratified when he finally got an answer. «Brody? This is Jim Valenti. Are you all right?» The Englishman sounded rattled. «Yes. For now.» «What's going on there? You paged me.» «Yeah, like an hour ago. You told me that pager number was for special emergencies, and I think what I saw certainly qualified as one of those.» Valenti turned and saw that River Dog was regarding him with a calculating stare. «What did you see, Brody?» «A bunch of commando guys broke into the Crashdown Cafe and took Mr. and Mrs. Parker away. I locked the Center down and called you immediately. What took you so long?» «I've been a little tied up, Brody," Valenti said guardedly. «Apparently the Parkers aren't the only ones they're after. I'm on my way out of town now, to try to get some help.» «What's going onT Brody asked, his voice almost a wail. «Men in Black coming to Roswell isn't exactly a new concept to those of us who are UFOlogists, but what do they want with the Parkers? Or youT «I'm sorry, Brody. I can't tell you right now. It's too dangerous.» Valenti knew that Brody was already involved in alienhuman encounters to a far greater extent than he realized; his body was occasionally «abducted," mind-controlled by an entity named Larek, a native of Antar who sometimes communicated with Max and the others from the alien homeworld. As far as Brody knew, he was a multiple abductee but had never been told that his «missing time» hadn't been spent aboard a visiting alien spaceship; the only actual physical interaction he'd ever had with an alien was when he'd employed Max to work for him in the UFO Center. Valenti heard silence on the other end of the line, until Brody spoke again in anxious tones. «Exactly how dangerous is this? They had guns, Mr. Valenti.» Valenti winced. «Where's your daughter, Brody?» «Sydney's staying with family out of town.» «Good. Keep it that way," Valenti said. «You should be safe. I don't think anyone has connected you to the rest of us yet.» «What is this 'us' thing, Deputy? And what exactly is it that I have to worry about?» Brody's voice sounded strained and defensive. 1 can't say I blame him, Valenti thought. «Brody, please trust me when I say that you are better off not knowing right now.» He paused for a moment, considering what to say next. Better to give him an inch than risk him leaping the mile. «All I can tell you is that your work at the UFO Center is a lot closer to the plain truth than you probably ever realized. But the more you know, the more at risk you'll be. You and your daughter and your family.» More silence followed from the other end of the line. Finally, Brody said, «So, what should I do?» Valenti wasn't sure, but he didn't want Brody to know that. He recalled the situation over a year ago when Brody's memory had gone haywire because of Larek's «abductions," and Larek/Brody had taken Max and the others hostage in the Center, which had been a secure bomb shelter back in the 1950s and might be used that way again now. «I know you can lock down the Center," Valenti said. «Do you have supplies there? Can you survive holed up in there for a few days?» «Yes. I've got several months' provisions here if I need them. But I " «You won't need months," Valenti said, interrupting. «Days, at most. Close up shop, lock yourself away, and get done with some of those projects you've been meaning to finish. Try to have as little contact with the outside as possible. But contact me if anything else comes up, all right?» «You'll answer my page this time?» Valenti massaged his temples and sighed. «If I'm able to, I will. But a lot of really big things might be coming down over the next few days. I don't know what the outcome is going to be.» Silence reigned yet again on the other end of the phone, and then Brody said, «I wish you the best of luck, Deputy Valenti.» Not sure if I'll even be a deputy once this is all over, Valenti thought, suppressing a chuckle. «Thanks, Brody. You too. Ill be in touch.» He clicked the phone off. Valenti stood beside River Dog's station wagon as the freshly stitched-up Amy made herself comfortable in the passenger side, preparing to take a much-needed nap. River Dog came up from behind him. «This is someone else who is involved?» he asked, gesturing toward the phone in Valenti's hand. «Sort of," Valenti said, tucking the phone into his belt, between his pistol and handcuffs. «He's become a part of all this. I don't think he's in any immediate danger, though. He probably would be if he knew the real truth about everything.» «I do not know the truth about everything myself," River Dog said. «But what I know here, and what I feel here» he gestured toward his head, then his heart «tell me I must be involved as well. Those whose souls come from beyond must be protected.» Valenti smiled. «That's a pretty enlightened way of looking at things.» «My people have long talked of those who come here from beyond," the shaman said. «As with the men of the earth, so too are the men of the sky. Some have the heart of a butterfly, some have the sting of the scorpion. Max and Michael and their friends have the power to sting, but they choose to use their hearts instead.» Hours later, as Valenti drove with Amy through the Arizona desert along Interstate 10, he replayed the words of River Dog in his mind. River Dog had loaned them the old station wagon, promising that despite its weatherbeaten looks, its engine was more than strong enough to get them to the Dupree mansion in Tucson. Valenti knew that if anyone was looking for them on the road, they'd be less likely to do so in a car as nondescript as this one. Valenti had also traded in his ever-present cowboy hat for a beatup baseball cap, and Amy had pulled her hair back in a scarf it helped hide the stitches and bandage on her forehead as well. Passing through the town of Bowie, Valenti knew he had less than a hundred miles to go before he got to Laurie Dupree's house. He hoped he wasn't walking into a trap laid by Duff, but he felt certain he wasn't. If she were working with the bad guys, she wouldn't have bothered to warn him. He wondered if Duff was now placing her law enforcement career in the same kind of jeopardy into which he had put his own when he'd begun helping Max and the others. He didn't know what he and Amy and Duff and Laurie would be able to accomplish once they got together, but he was comforted that at least he had allies. Not only did he have allies, but so did the kids. He wondered what was happening with the kids since they had e-mailed him yesterday, and hoped that the reason the Special Unit was putting the squeeze on their parents now was because the teens had managed once again to elude their government pursuers. I'll die before I give those bastards any information that might lead them to Kyle, he thought, his jaw set in a hard angle of determination. And I'm willing to bet that Amy and the Evanses and the Parkers feel exactly the same way. Elk, New Mexico At the Special Unit's safe house, Special Agent Patrick Harrison was getting annoyed. When he had gotten the clearance to move in with a special ops takedown in Roswell in the predawn hours, he'd expected it to go smoothly. And to some extent, it had. But to a much larger extent, it hadn't. One of the sweeper teams had picked up Jeff and Nancy Parker without much trouble, but things had gone south when he and his own team had broken into the Evans household. Phillip Evans had been talking to someone on a cell phone prior to his capture, but he had destroyed the phone before they could take him. They had also found a security camera hidden in the living room, which had been outfitted with a broadcast antenna. When they disconnected the cam they had shut down its carrier signal, but they had been unable to determine where the signal had been sent. Shortly afterward, Harrison got word that Special Agent Paige's team had been unsuccessful in capturing Amy DeLuca and Jim Valenti; they had been unable to find them in the several hours that had elapsed since their escape. Harrison expected that Valenti might have left the area, and that caused him concern. Valenti was a law enforcement officer, and therefore had access to resources that most civilians didn't. Harrison ordered the ineffectual Sheriff Hanson to cut off all access codes for Valenti to state or federal databases, and had him put all of his deputies on alert for any sign of either Valenti or DeLuca. «Matters related to national security» was the justification Harrison had given the tongue-tied young sheriff; Hanson had apparently lacked the stones to put up much of a protest. The only other potential persons of interest they hadn't detained were Brody Davis and Charles Whitman. The Davis character ran the UFO Center, and although he'd apparently had extensive contact with the alien teenagers over the past couple of years, his dossier showed that he was essentially clueless as to who and what the teens really were; there was no reason to assume he knew anything about their current whereabouts. Whitman hadn't had more than passing interaction with the parents of his late son's friends for quite some time now. There was no reason for coming after either of them, at least for now. The news from the California compound hadn't been much better than that from Roswell. Three of the alien subjects apparently had been captured in New York, but during their transfer to the Los Angeles facility, two of them had escaped. Commander Matthew Margolin «Viceroy» had passed along the alarming news that with the simultaneous sightings of the aliens in Wyoming and New York, the Special Unit might now be dealing with duplicates of the metahuman teens. Or perhaps even shapechangers. The latter concept chilled Harrison to the bone. Many years ago he had been drafted into the Special Unit by an agent named John Stevens, and he had come willingly. While other government agencies dealt with terrorist threats, military coups, homeland security, or other issues related to national defense, only the Special Unit was in the business of protecting America and its people from the very real threat posed by extraterrestrial beings who had already penetrated the nation's borders. The fact that the Roswell teens had remained undiscovered for so long in a town already seen as a hotbed of alien rumor-mongering was terrifying in and of itself. They are already living among us, and we've been powerless to ferret them out for more than half a century now, Harrison thought. With the alien incursion already a fait accompli, who could say what else they might do? Although Stevens had disbanded the Unit a few years ago, Harrison and the others had been relieved and gratified when Margolin reactivated it. Most of the Unit members considered it their highest patriotic duty to help defend the country against aliens. Especially those that look enough like real humans to hide themselves among us, he thought. Until they decide to turn you inside out or lay their alien eggs in you. Harrison heard the floor creak almost imperceptibly behind him, and turned toward the sound. Agent Cutler was standing there, a frustrated look on his face. He was one of the best interrogators the Unit had, and he'd been interviewing the teens' parents for the past several hours. «Anything yet?» Harrison asked. Cutler shook his head. «Nope. They've all pretty much clammed up. And they want to see each other, to make sure the other parents haven't been harmed.» Harrison snorted derisively. «Have they?» «We knocked the guys around a bit, but nothing major," Cutler said. «Mostly internal bruising. Phillip Evans is really hollering about his civil rights.» Cutler pulled a cigarette from a pack in his pocket and lit it. «We've been giving the women lots of water and juice. They're pretty uncomfortable now since they can't go to the bathroom.» «And they still haven't told you anything useful at all?» Harrison asked. «Nothing yet. They seem pretty set on not telling us anything.» Cutler took a drag on the cigarette and exhaled the noxious gray smoke. «So, I'm going to proceed to the next step in the interrogation process. You wanna be there?» Harrison nodded. «What's the next step?» Cutler smiled a barracuda smile of yellowed teeth. «We give them what they want. We let them see each other.» Nancy Parker was shaking so badly from fear that she could barely walk as they maneuvered her down the hallway. It didn't help that the dark cloth hood they'd put over her face barely let any light in; she could see the shapes of the agents, and the hallway walls of what appeared to be a private home, but she could make out nothing more specific than that. «Where are you taking me?» she asked, trying to keep her voice as even as possible. Her leg throbbed where she had cut it that morning while trying to escape the agents who had invaded the Crashdown, and her bladder was so full, she thought she might burst at any moment. Though they had been interrogating her for hours, they hadn't yet allowed her to use a bathroom. None of her captors answered her, and she dimly saw a door being opened in front of her. The room beyond was bright, and very hot. Someone pus