Martin was nearly Dean’s height at five foot ten, with no sign of a middle-age spread. His hair was grayer now than it had been six months ago, but at sixty-five he had the physical bearing of a man half his age. Standing next to his boss in the desert sun, Dean realized he was half his age. After ten years, they knew each other well. Dean recognized when a silence stretched long enough to indicate there might be more information than his commander could officially share.
The shadows around Martin’s eyes had deepened since they’d last met. Had there been more than the single body at White Sands?
Martin nodded once. “You made good time.”
“Yes, sir. Not much to slow you down between the Missile Range and here.”
“It’s a wasteland. That’s the truth.” Martin walked away from their vehicles.
Dean followed. They stood watching the occasional car pass. Even at the height of tourist season, Corona didn’t see much of summer crowds. Most drivers stuck to the interstates, and locals were otherwise occupied at two in the afternoon.
Dean had learned patience and normally took information as his boss saw fit to dole it out. But the girl’s image still haunted him. “Any idea who did this?”
“No.”
“Foreign or domestic?”
“God help us if they’re domestic. Honestly we don’t know. We can’t rule anyone out.”
Dean considered the top ten terrorist groups on the list. He knew the foreign groups were capable—they had openly declared war against them again and again. But could Americans do something like this to Americans? He didn’t think so.
“We’ve narrowed their operation down to forty possible locations,” Martin said. “All in the lower half of the state. I ranked Roswell in the top six.”
“Because—”
“Several reasons. It’s midsize, so activity is less likely to be noticed. Roswell’s notoriety could be an advantage. The occasional odd story will be dismissed as another nut’s attempt to be in the spotlight. Then there’s its proximity to the military base. The people we’re dealing with are arrogant.”
“Do you think that’s the reason they dumped the body I saw at White Sands?” Dean didn’t move as he waited for Martin’s answer. His shirt had begun to stick to his back, and the cap he wore did little to fend off the heat pouring down.
“I don’t think they dumped her there. I think they killed her there. Make no mistake, Dean. So far, they have orchestrated every step. They’re operating in our backyard and then sitting back and laughing as we try to figure out how they got in.”
“We will catch them, sir.”
“Yes, we’ll catch them. But we have to do it before what you saw this morning is released on the general population.”
A mini-SUV pulled into the station, a Navajo mother and three children spilled out as soon as the wheels stopped. Dean thought of how many families would be in danger should the terrorists succeed. His mind flashed back on the bodies he had zipped into bags in Virginia last year, but he pushed the memory away.
The middle child, probably two years old, squatted beside the SUV and played with a small dump truck, rolling it back and forth in the dirt. He either didn’t hear his mother calling or couldn’t be interrupted. His playing was serious work. The mother switched her baby to her other hip, circled impatiently back, reached down, and plucked his collar. As the mom urged him toward the station, the boy ran the truck back-and-forth across his pants leg.
Dean watched the scene play out, one hardly worth noticing, one of thousands that day in hundreds of desert towns. Families unaware of the danger lurking in their midst. He watched,
remembered Virginia, and swore it wouldn’t happen again. Not if he could stop it.
When the family had gone into the store, Martin clapped Dean on the shoulder, and they walked back toward their vehicles. The rookie agent slid behind the wheel of the red Jeep. Without a word to either of them, he started it, then pulled onto the four-lane highway back in the direction Dean had come.
“My gut tells me something will occur in Roswell,” Martin said. “That’s why I put you undercover at E.T.’s. How’s that going?”
“Great. I’m a natural bartender.” Dean stood straighter, tried not to look as exhausted as he felt.
“Pull your full shift at the bar tonight, then pick up Agent Brown in Albuquerque tomorrow. You’ve arranged her cover?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. I’ve sent the details of her arrival to your cell.”
“Not a problem, boss.” Dean unlocked the old truck and cranked the window down. It would be a long day and a longer night. He might steal three hours sleep after his shift at E.T.’s.
He gave his boss the easy smile everyone expected. The last time they spoke, Martin had teased him about his handle—Falcon. It was a sign of his age that he’d been around long enough to have one. Dean would bet his old friend Aiden Lewis had started the Falcon label. It would be just like Aiden to name him after a bird.
“I’ll try to insert another agent in Roswell,” Martin said. “For now, assume you and Brown are on your own. We don’t want to tip our hand. There’s too much riding on this.”
“I understand.”
“I think you do. I know I don’t have to say this, Dean. You’ve served on more than your share of missions. After what we went through together in Glacier and Virginia, I wish I could say you’ve seen the worst there is to see.”
Martin’s gaze met his. For a moment, the man’s tiredness was replaced by something Dean couldn’t have imagined the day before—vulnerability. It slipped away as quickly as it appeared, but Dean realized the only man he’d ever worked for at USCIS wouldn’t live forever. The thought unnerved him as much as the body he’d viewed a few hours ago.
“Be careful.”
“Always, sir.”
Ω
Dean had no trouble finding a parking space at Albuquerque International Sunport.
The place was characteristically empty at six in the morning. Why Agent Brown had opted to take the red eye was beyond him, but then he had a lot to learn about his new partner. They had a three-hour trip back to Roswell—plenty of time for him to brief her. He’d also be able to get a basic feel for how she operated. Although, if Lucinda Brown was similar to the other women Dean had known in ops, she’d be like one of the guys—which meant she’d spend the two-hundred-mile drive sleeping, not yapping. Good thing too. Dean’s head still pounded in spite of the four Tylenol tablets he’d popped before leaving Roswell.
Undercover bartender was his dream cover job only eight years ago in Chicago. Not anymore. Had he aged so much? The late hours drained his energy, and the smoke irritated his allergies. Add in a few nightmares complete with skinless victims crawling across the desert begging for help, and Dean did not feel his sunny best. Walking into the terminal, he knew he resembled a falcon less than he did a bad-tempered crow.
As he scanned baggage claim, Dean tried to push down his temper. Where was Lucinda Brown? The area remained empty except for a mother dragging two kids behind her and a very young, skinny woman talking on a cell phone. Maybe he had the wrong gate. Considering how little he’d slept, he could have the wrong airport. Stupid zombies and terrorists had chased him all night long.
Maybe her plane had been delayed. Dean pulled out his cell and searched for the email with her flight information. He was so busy paging through emails and ignoring the throbbing in his head, he barely realized the woman with kids had left. Some part of his brain did notice the skinny lady crossing the room.
“Agent Dreiser?”
Dean’s head snapped up.
“I’m Lucy Brown. Nice to meet you.” She held out a slim, brown hand, tilted her head like a terrier, and waited.
“Uh, yeah. I’m Dean Dreiser.” Dean shook her hand, hastily, and let go of it. Then he glanced around the baggage area as if he might find another Lucinda Brown. “You’re Agent Brown?”
“I am. I only have my backpack and
this one bag. So if you’re ready...”
She seemed to be waiting, although Dean couldn’t imagine for what. “Ready?” he asked.
“To go to Roswell.”
Dean shook his head as if it would clarify what she was talking about. “You are not my new partner.”
“Yes, I am. Is there a problem? Do you need to see my identification?”
Dean stood staring and tried to remember how old you had to be to go through field ops training. He was a field agent not a babysitter. She reminded him of his little sister—a hundred and twenty pounds of naivety that had probably never stood in the line of fire.
The pounding in Dean’s head increased and the weight of his responsibilities caused his stomach to clench. Your partner covered your backside. How old was she? He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t watch over her. He backed away, realizing she was looking at him warily, as if something was wrong with him.
Then he heard Kowlson’s voice. “She completed field ops a month ago.”
“You all right, Agent Dreiser?” She stepped closer, peered up at him.
Dean watched her lips move, but remembered himself asking, “Approximate age?”
“Early twenties.” The doc had said. But that was the age of the victim. The faces and numbers collided in Dean’s mind. He drew a deep breath. Had he read Agent Brown was twenty-eight? Brand spanking new to USCIS, and her file so glowing with recommendations, he’d overlooked the fact that she had no experience. And how did he know? That look on her face said it all—rookie. Might as well give her a t-shirt that proclaimed it. She should be moving cars, not going undercover in a hot spot.
She was all of five feet, five inches, with black hair cascading down her back. Large eyes gazed at him from an oval face. Without question she was Spanish, as her first name suggested, and something else as well. Cop eyes—that’s what stared at him now. He’d read it in her file. Her dad worked as a Boston cop, and her mom had once been a semi-famous dancer.
She was beautiful, but in Dean’s mind that counted as another point against her.
She was not experienced enough to be assigned to a covert operation of this magnitude.
“Well, crap,” Dean said. Thinking that summed things up, he turned and strode out of the airport, hoping she wouldn’t follow. Knowing she would.
At the Ford, he held the door open for her because it was second nature. She climbed in and tucked the backpack near her feet. It was a good thing she didn’t comment on the old truck, or he would have taken her back inside, orders or no orders.
Stowing her single bag in the truck’s bed, he slammed the tailgate hard enough to vent some of his frustration. Backing out of the parking space, he glanced her way. She sat there watching him with the same expectant, patient gaze she’d worn in the airport.
Tugging on his ball cap, he accelerated on to Interstate Forty East.
Ω
Lucy Brown studied Agent Dean Dreiser as he drove. There might have been a day when he wasn’t bad looking, but that day had come and gone. Her new partner needed a shave and a vacation. In fact, he looked like he needed a retirement pension.
She’d grown up around men like him all her life—washed-up cops. Dean Dreiser could be the poster child for burned-out, in-need-of-retirement cops.
At five-foot-eleven, he couldn’t have weighed more than one eighty. Scrawny. The man looked scrawny. He sported a three-day growth of beard. His hair curled past his collar, a good two inches past regulation length. Both mirrored the color of the desert sand outside their window. Crow’s feet lined deep blue eyes. Before he’d shoved the sunglasses on, she’d noted the eyes—blue as the sea back home in Boston, and bloodshot if she wasn’t mistaken. She didn’t have to be a detective to deduce that bartending might be too perfect a cover for the man.
His file listed his age as thirty-five, but watching him in the New Mexico morning light, Lucy would have guessed him to be closer to forty-five. She’d heard and read about his ops— more ops than an agent should have in ten years—highlighted by jobs in Barcelona, Mexico, Glacier, and Virginia. The man was notorious for working in the background, catching the perp, and slipping away like a shadow before the sun.
Lucy had a hard time reconciling the file with the person sitting beside her.
“You’re a man of few words,” she said, once he had maneuvered the pickup onto the interstate. “Two if we count well and crap.”
“Look Agent Brown, we might as well get this out of the way up front.”
“Please. Let’s do.”
“Obviously they’ve rushed your training.”
“Is that so?” Lucy leaned against the door so she could study him. Dean Dreiser wasn’t the first man to try to set her straight. She always enjoyed watching them squirm as they dispensed their friendly advice.
“Yes, and I would be irresponsible to let you go galloping into harm’s way at this early stage in your career.”
“Don’t hold back, Agent Dreiser. Please, go on and explain to me how you can tell in less than an hour that I have been under-trained.”
Dean glanced her way, apparently trying to judge if she was kidding. She watched him mentally calculate the odds she’d slug him. It was like staring at the gears of an old clock. He grimaced. Set the old truck on cruise. Draped his hand over the wheel, and adjusted the visor. She’d seen the same patronizing look before. No doubt, he was trying to think of how to break it to her easy. It wasn’t so much their chauvinistic attitudes as their protective tendencies that made her want to laugh. Or gag.
“Glad you’re willing to listen,” Dean said. “Some agents aren’t. What with your higher level of education—I read your file—I hope you’ll consider the logic in what I’m saying.”
Lucy took off her sunglasses and encouraged him with a smile, doling out her charm like a nice section of rope. Hopefully he’d take all that was necessary to hang himself.
“Field ops is dirty business,” he explained. “And don’t think I’m saying this because you’re a woman. We have women. Of course we do. Most of them are big. Someone small, like yourself, well, I don’t suppose that matters.”
“It doesn’t take a large person to aim a weapon.”
“True.”
“And I am an expert marksman.”
Dean hesitated, then continued. “I read your qualifications, but expert marksman on a range is one thing. Expert in the field can be another. Have you ever killed someone?”
“Well, no.”
“Ever shot anyone?”
“No.”
“Ever had a weapon aimed at you?”
“This is ridiculous.”
“Have you been undercover before?”
“I have not, but—” Lucy could sense Dean gaining confidence with each question. Suddenly she wasn’t so sure who was holding the rope anymore, or who was being tripped up by it. She couldn’t hold the false smile in place any longer. It melted at the exact moment Dean hit lecture mode.
“Every agent has to be trained some time. I realize that. But undercover with me is not the place or the time. I won’t be responsible for putting you in a dangerous situation. This thing we’re dealing with in Roswell is the worst I’ve seen in ten years. It’s a horrific thing to begin on, and I’ll have the assigning agent’s head on a platter when I find out who put you in the middle of this.”
“That agent would be Commander Martin. He called me personally and said I was being assigned to you.”
He stared at her for one heartbeat, then two. The truck drifted into the next lane. Dean jerked it back. Silence filled the truck for several seconds. “Where was I?”
“You were explaining how my training hasn’t been adequate.”
“Right. I know you graduated top in your class, but this is no ordinary mission. Rookies start out moving cars, practicing covert procedures, tailing an experienced field agent. They’re steps every agent needs to take in real field work—”
“Unless there’s a national emergency,” Lucy said
softly.
“That’s my point. We’re in the midst of a national emergency. We don’t know how many terrorists are involved.”
“Plus there’s the weapon to find,” Lucy reminded him.
“Correct.”
“Which I’m sure you know how to disarm.”
Dean shook his head. “Nope. I’m a field rat. I don’t know any of the molecular stuff. Once I find it, I’ll call in and talk to the lab coats.”
“And what if you can’t reach the lab coats, Agent Dreiser?” Lucy put on her sunglasses. “What will you do then? Risk your life or the lives of all those in a hundred—or perhaps a thousand—mile radius? Some biological weapons carry that far.”
Dean switched driving hands, wiping his left on his jeans. “We’re not talking about me right now. I’ll figure out what to do when the time comes.”
“But it is my job, isn’t it, Dreiser? My little old doctorate in molecular biology from MIT that American taxpayers paid for should be used for something, shouldn’t it? And what if you can’t reach me on a cell phone? Then what?”
“Now look Agent Brown—”
“Doctor Brown. You can call me Doctor Brown.”
“Fine, Doc Brown. This isn’t a classroom or laboratory. These terrorists would kill you, or that school bus full of kids we just passed, without a second thought. They might pause to torture you first. You’re not ready—”
“Just stop.” Lucy’s Spanish temper flared, even as she heard her mama’s voice warn her to keep a handle on it, even as she thought of her brother and how much stopping these terrorists meant to her and to him. “You don’t know if I’m ready. Maybe it does scare me, but I’m here to do a job. I’ll stay until it’s done. Let’s get this out of the way up front—I’m your partner whether you like it or not.”
“We’ll see about that.” Dean punched the accelerator. They sped past a group of teens on motorcycles.
“I guess we will.”
“We’re meeting with Commander Martin tomorrow night. We’ll let him decide.”
“We could assume he already has since he sent me here.”
Roswell's Secret Page 2
