alien. Not to mention the fact that he had killed one of their agents after the man had threatened her. «We're here, Mac," the cabbie said, punching the meter's buttons. Jesse was shaken from his thoughts and noticed that they were indeed at the hospital. The emergency room entrance, to be exact. Jesse thanked the driver and gave him a hefty tip, then exited the vehicle. He noticed a sign that revealed he was near the corner of Fruit Street and Grove, then turned to scan across the street in search of the restaurant where he was to meet the woman who called herself Denise Prinze. Maybe the emergency room wasn't the best point of reference, Jesse thought, getting his bearings. Cambridge is down that way. He stepped off the curb, intending to follow Grove along the long block toward Cambridge Street when his blood went cold. Coming down the street was the dark sedan. Jesse sprinted back toward the hospital's parking garage, and was grateful that a nurse pushing a woman in a wheelchair momentarily blocked the sedan's approach. Inside the garage, Jesse ran along the wall, crouching low next to the cars as best he could. Luckily, no one was parking or walking to their cars, so no one confronted him. The sedan pulled into the lot, and Jesse ducked down. The passenger, a man in a dark suit, got out and pulled a gun from a holster under his suitcoat. The sedan drove forward, toward the ramp for the next level. The man with the gun peered around the garage, then squatted to look under the cars. Jesse quickly scooted his feet even with the tires of the car he was hiding behind, thankful it was a large SUV Jesse saw a small chunk of concrete nearby, which had apparently broken off from one of the parking barriers. Stretching, he reached for it, mindful that if he fell, the man in the suit would hear him. Finally, he grasped the rocklike object. Peeking up over the edge, he saw the man inching his way along one wall, clearly still looking for hiding places beneath the cars. Come on, pitcher, Jesse thought. All those years oj baseball practice better pay off. He cocked his arm and threw the concrete toward the other section of the garage, past the up-sloping ramp. A few seconds later, it crashed to the ground, skittering across the concrete, and bouncing up to hit a car. The agent's attention was immediately diverted, and he ran away from Jesse, apparently planning on looping around to the far end of the garage from the opposite end. As soon as the man was out of sight, Jesse stood and ran as quickly as he could. He exited onto Grove Street and quickly crossed to Cambridge, checking over his shoulder the entire time. No one appeared to be pursuing him. A short distance down Cambridge Street, he finally saw Antonio's Cucina Italiana. Hurrying, he ducked inside the door, and was greeted by the rail-thin maitre d', whose mustache looked slight enough to thread a needle. «Welcome, signore.» Jesse took a moment to catch his breath. «Hi. I'm waiting for someone," he finally said, moving discreetly away from the windows so as to be as invisible as possible from the outside. «Are you Jesse Ramirez?» the man asked with a sprightly smile. Jesse was a bit taken aback. But since the head waiter didn't look like any federal agent he'd ever seen, he nodded. «Ah Your partner is already here. Sophia will show you to your table," the maitre d' said. A slender, twenty-something waitress behind him gestured for Jesse to follow her. The waitress led him to a table in the back, where the lighting was softer and dimmer. Sitting there was a pudgy woman, her long reddish hair pulled into a french twist, her sober expression and clothing projecting a very businesslike demeanor. She put down her glass and smiled at him. «Jesse?» «Yes, hello.» He sat, taking the menu from the waitress. As soon as the girl had moved away, he faced the woman and said, «So you must be Denise Prinze. What's this about?» «My real name is Shelby Tremaine. I'm a friend of Phillip Evans's," she said. He scrutinized her, one eyebrow cocked. «I heard him talk about you a lot. Why the fake name?» he asked, though he already suspected he knew the answer. «Sorry about that," she said. «I wasn't sure whether your phone was bugged, or if you were under surveillance, so I played it safe.» She took a sip of water from her glass. «After what happened in Roswell this morning, I really believe we're all going to have to play it as safe as possible.» Jess felt several mental alarms suddenly going off all at once. «What's happened in Roswell?» Shelby began to tell him, and Jesse listened, his sense of horror steadily escalating as her tale unfolded. Roswell, New Mexico Brody Davis was pacing in the museum's main exhibit hall. Deputy Valenti's call had really bothered him, and he had come down to the exhibit area to think. The whole morning had been rather freaky, like something out of one of the conspiracy books that lined the shelves of the UFO Center's library. He thought he had an inkling of what was going on, but he couldn't quite connect to it, either rationally or emotionally. The answer is somewhere in my head. Why can't I find it? For some reason, he even felt certain that the morning's events were related to the «missing time» he experienced whenever the aliens abducted him. But he didn't think that another abduction was imminent; those episodes were usually preceded by some kind of premonitory feeling. My spider sense isn't tingling, he thought with a small grin as he remembered Spider-Man's built-in «trouble radar.» The oddest part of his gut reaction was that he felt he had a personal stake in whatever was going on between the blackgarbed paramilitary men, the Parkers, and Deputy Valenti. He wondered what the Parkers had done. Does it have anything to do with the abrupt disappearance of Liz and Max and their jriends? Has somebody abducted them, too? Did they and the Parkers see something that the stormtroopers want kept quiet? It had always seemed to Brody that Max was more connected to the heart and spirit of the UFO Center than he let on. Sure, Max had been an employee before Brody had bought the museum from its original proprietor, Milton Ross. But despite his laconic manner with the Center's visitors and his intense dislike of the vest he was supposed to wear while on duty Max had always seemed to believe that other intelligent life really did exist out there in the cosmos. Of everyone he knew, Brody felt that Max might be the closest to understanding what being an abductee was like, without having been one himself. A vibration in his pants pocket brought Brody out of his reverie. He withdrew his cell phone, pulled up the antenna to its full length, and checked the Caller ID. It was an unlisted name, but he recognized the 617 prefix as from Boston. He pressed the talk button. «Hello.» «Brody Davis, please," the male voice on the other end of the connection said. The voice sounded familiar. «Speaking. Who is this?» «Jesse Ramirez. Isabel Evans's husband.» Now Brody knew why the other man's voice sounded so familiar. He'd only talked with the young lawyer a few times, but had found him to be a pleasant enough guy. «Hello, Mr. Ramirez. What can I do for you?» He hesitated to ask about Isabel. She had disappeared after the West Roswell High graduation ceremony, along with Max, Liz, Maria, and a few of their classmates. If he wants to tell me what happened to her if he knows what happened to her he will. «I know we don't know each other that well, but a situation has come up that I believe you can help me with. And we really need your help.» «What is it that you want, Mr. Ramirez?» Brody was intrigued. «Please, it's Jesse. Something bad happened in Roswell this morning. Something no one is supposed to know about. And I'm certain it's going to be covered up, just like the crash in 1947.» Brody sat on the stairs that led down from the entrance. «Does this have anything to do with the Parkers or Deputy Valenti?» There was a pause at the other end of the line. «You know about that?» «I saw it," Brody said. «I was in the UFO Center early today, and my security cameras caught a squad of Men in Black taking Jeff and Nancy Parker away. I tried to call Valenti about it, but I couldn't get through.» «Do you know if he was taken too?» Jesse asked, urgency audible in his voice. «No. He left town. I don't know where he went. But from what I gathered, the government spooks tried to get him as well. And I think they may have taken others.» Another pause. «They did," Jesse said finally. «They got Phillip and Diane Evans as well. That's part of why I'm calling you.» Brody nodded, even though Jesse couldn't see him. «Okay. So how can I help?» «What if you had the chance to prove that everything you have been presenting at the museum is actually true? The 1947 crash, the cover-up, aliens among us, the whole bit.» Brody stood up, adrenaline surging through his body. «I'd take it. And run with it.» «There are two things we need to do to make this happen," Jesse said, now sounding like a confident defense lawyer addressing a jury. «First, we have to find a way to free the Evanses and the Parkers. And Amy DeLuca, if they have her. And to accomplish all that, we need you to retrieve a video for us.» «A video? Where?» «As far as we know, Phillip had a signal feed from a camera he'd left set up when they took him and Diane captive. The tape is still in Roswell. It will show who took them.» «I may have footage of the Parkers being taken," Brody said. «But the troopers were wearing masks, so it may not do any good.» Something nagged at the back of his mind, and finally he caught it. «You said 'we.' Who's with you? Isabel?» «No, it's a lawyer friend of Phillip's," Jesse said, and Brody heard a tone of sadness in his voice. «Isabel and the others are… involved in this mess, and the government is looking for them. That's why they took their parents.» Brody sat down again, his mouth hanging open. «Oh. My. God. Max and the others… they found proof? Proof of the crash? Proof that aliens are on Earth?» «You might say that," Jesse said. «So we need to blow the lid off this thing, if their lives or the lives of their parents are ever going to get back to normal.» «So what's the second thing you'll need?» Brody asked. «You've got friends in the news and entertainment business, right?» Jesse's voice sounded like he was hesitating. «And as crass as it sounds, you've got enough disposable cash to plan and execute some fairly big publicity quickly?» «Yes to both, but my media contacts are mostly in La-La Land, California. And Valenti told me to stay here for my own safety. I'm at the Center, and I've it locked down.» «If you get us the right people and help bankroll this, we can handle the California end of things," Jesse said. «You probably won't even need to leave the UFO Center. Except for retrieving that video from the Evanses' safe spot, that is. Do you have a way to reach Valenti?» «Yes, I have his pager number," Brody said. «Good," Jesse said. «Because we need to get in touch with him to coordinate our plans. So, here's what I want you to do…» Tucson, Arizona «This goes beyond anything I'd even have conceived of," Suzanne Duff said. «I had no idea the Special Unit would go to these lengths.» Valenti waved his cowboy hat like a fan, trying to cool himself down. The dry Arizona desert air was almost unbearably hot, and he was feeling it. «Come on, Agent Duff, you know as well as I do that a lot of special ops government groups do all sorts of illegal things, from assassinations to running drugs. And you knew about the Roswell cover-up, too. They erased people from existence back then; what makes you believe they wouldn't do the same to a few civilians who got in their way in Roswell today?» Duff finished her drink and didn't answer. Seated nearby, Laurie Dupree used a pitcher to refill her glass with raspberry iced tea. The four of them were sitting out on a veranda overlooking the autumn desert scenery, but none of them could spare time to enjoy the sights. «So, what do we know for sure, then?» Laurie asked. «And what can I do to help?» «Providing us with a safe house has been a blessing, Laurie," Valenti said. «I have some ideas about how to " «Hold it!» Duff interrupted him, and stood quickly. «Safe house. That may be where they're keeping them. I think I» she stopped, waved her hands for a second, then pointed to Valenti «I think I may have something. Laurie, I need to plug my laptop into your DSL line.» «Sure, I'll take you in," Laurie said.