Roswell's Secret

by Vannetta Chapman

  “Exact time?” Dean had both hands on Lucy’s head, was again probing the bump where Jerry had clocked her.

  Paul pushed his watch light. “It’s twelve thirty-eight. Sounded like a rocket propelled grenade. Saw a few of those in Nam. You think that’s what it was, Dean?”

  “Yeah.” Dean drummed his fingers on the truck’s wheel. “Short-range, portable. Best guess—”

  “Stinger.” Paul grimaced.

  Dean was impressed at the man’s knowledge, but not surprised. Little could shock him anymore. Ex-military men often remained current on technology, maneuvers, what was in and around their town. At the exact moment the bio-agent had been released from the UAV, someone had taken out the plane with a stinger missile. Shoulder-launched, it would have been a difficult shot. Dean only knew of one person in Roswell with that sort of military experience—Jerry Caswell.

  “Might have been a Stinger. Question is—”

  “How did Jerry get his hands on one?” Paul ran his hand over his bald head.

  “We don’t know Jerry did that,” Dean pointed out. “The man was here. He attacked Lucy, then there’s an explosion.”

  Dean remained silent. He didn’t doubt Paul could help them, and they sorely needed help. But he still didn’t know if he could completely trust the man sitting on the other side of Lucy.

  His policy had always been to trust no one.

  Dean squirmed in his seat.

  “I think he lost a screw when Angie died,” Paul continued. “I know he loved her, but this—”

  Lucy reached to rub the knot on the back of her head. “There’s no accounting for what a desperate man can do, and Jerry’s desperate right now.”

  “Last I checked a FIM-92 Stinger with an infrared scope ran over thirty-five grand. Not to mention they’re illegal.” Dean checked the rearview mirror again. “You can’t walk into your local pawn shop and pick one up.”

  “The better question is what did he hit with it?” Paul looked from Lucy to Dean.

  “At this point, I think you’re better off not knowing.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  When neither Lucy or Dean answered, Paul once more wiped his face with his handkerchief, then stuck the cloth back in his pocket.

  Dean glanced again in the mirror as lights splayed across the cab. The line of UFO watchers had begun winding their way down from the top of Felix Canyon, blaring their horns, talking excitedly to one another.

  Lucy noticed that, in every car, at least one person chattered into their cell phone.

  In the far distance, she could hear emergency sirens, but, of course, when they arrived there would be nothing to investigate—what little bits of the UAV remained would have been blasted to the canyon bottom.

  Lucy leaned toward Dean and whispered one final attempt. “We can’t let them go back into Roswell. They’ve been exposed.”

  “Sweetheart, there isn’t a thing in the world we can do to stop them.”

  The long line of cars made its way past them, unaware of what they had witnessed—or what they were carrying back. They had more than a story to tell of unexplainable lights in the night, midnight explosions, and unfathomable mysteries.

  Dean wondered if it would be their last drive beneath the new moon, or for that matter, their last Wednesday evening on Earth.

  “EXPLAIN WHAT HAPPENED to my plane.”

  His eyes held an impenetrable coldness. It caused a shiver to rise beneath the pit of the woman’s stomach and wind slowly through her, depriving her lungs and mind of the oxygen she needed in order to breathe. The oxygen deprivation did nothing to loosen the words which refused to come. Something had come undone inside her when she’d murdered Brent Johnson. She wasn’t ready to succumb to it yet, but she would soon. She understood she would soon.

  She’d crossed a line and knew there would be no turning back. Her soul was lost. Which was why she could look this man she feared straight in the eyes—in spite of the uncurling she could feel in her chest.

  She clenched her teeth against the shivering.

  Forced a deep breath into her lungs.

  And responded with equal coldness. “All planes had released their payloads. They were leaving, so recordings show only a blurred and partial version of the event. Computer analysis filled in the blank spots. They indicated, with a ninety-five percent certainty, someone disabled the UAV with an FIM-92 Stinger.”

  He said nothing, but he waited.

  She said nothing, not caring if he decided to kill her now or postpone it until this accursed business had wound its way to the end.

  “I’m curious, given your considerable military experience as well as your personal knowledge of the residents of Roswell, what you make of this.” He didn’t move, revealed no emotion at all.

  Yet, she had the distinct feeling her next words would decide someone’s fate. His anger always lay just below the surface, ready to strike like a viper.

  “A military-sanctioned attack would have struck all three. More to the point, they would have struck before the UAVs dropped their payload.”

  “Go on.”

  “Therefore it wasn’t sanctioned. It was the work of a wild card.”

  “Jerry Caswell.”

  “He has the military background to operate the machinery, has proven himself adept at adjusting to whatever we throw at him, and he has motive.”

  Silence again filled the office as he considered her explanation. Instead of looking through her, as her husband so often did—as most people did—his eyes seemed to bore into her very soul. The fact she had nothing left to hide kept her from flinching.

  “Have we identified the agents in Roswell yet?”

  “Possibly one, a black woman named Jazmine. Do you want her terminated?”

  “Not yet. We know Martin has more than one agent there. She will lead us to others. Watch her until we can take care of them all, but be sure it happens before the next phase.”

  She gave a single nod and turned to go. When she reached the door to the outer room, she waited. He didn’t have to call out to stop her. She knew he hadn’t finished yet by the way his unspoken words hung in the air.

  “The sickness will start now. The first deaths within twelve hours. I want hourly reports.”

  She forced her hand to reach for the doorknob, opened the door, and stepped out into the hell she had helped create.

  LUCY WOKE TO SUNSHINE streaming through the window in Dean’s room. She hadn’t even suggested staying in her own room. They needed to be close to one another, to be ready for whatever came next.

  Dean had slung a protective arm over her. As if, even in his dreams, he could shield her from dangers both seen and unseen.

  He would try.

  She knew he would try.

  The lines around his eyes smoothed when he slept, and he looked his age—only thirty-five. Studying him in the morning light, she could better see the man minus the job. Unable to resist, she raised her fingertips to his face, ran her hand down his jaw line.

  She knew the exact moment when the details of their mission seeped into his consciousness. He aged five years, then tried to hide his worry. Opening his eyes, he claimed her hand with his own, pulled it to his lips.

  “Morning, beautiful.”

  Running her fingers through his hair, then down his arm, she stopped to check the skin around his stitches. “We need to take these out this morning.”

  He kissed her softly.

  “Dreiser, did you hear me?”

  “Yeah, Doc. I heard you.”

  When he kissed her again her tears began.

  She wouldn’t have been aware of them, if Dean hadn’t been holding her, rocking her. Promising everything would be all right, and that he understood. “I know, Luce. I know.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to ruin our last morning together.”

  “This isn’t our last morning.”

  She didn’t argue with him, but she knew differently. She couldn’t deny
the sight when it overwhelmed all of her senses. She couldn’t explain it, either. So she did what her abuela had counseled her to do so long ago—she accepted it. She even prayed that God would somehow use it, use her—another thing she hadn’t done in a very long time.

  This would be their last time together in this place. Possibly ever.

  She wasn’t sure about that, couldn’t see past the grief that threatened to overwhelm her. For in the hours ahead, she could see only darkness and death. With Dean’s arms around her, Lucy allowed the tears to fall and then dry as she remembered every word of her promise to Marcos, “What you have suffered won’t be in vain. I’ll dedicate myself to saving as many as I can from the pain you’ve endured, even if it means I give my life.”

  It was a lofty promise for a college junior to make, but it wasn’t a vow she had made lightly.

  As she and Dean rose and prepared for the aftermath of the attack at Felix Canyon—and it could have been nothing else—Lucy swore to herself the time of tears was past. The time for retribution had begun.

  Ω

  Dean studied the glucose machine and grimaced.

  “Do not tell me you’re going to be a baby about this.” Lucy continued removing the stitches from his right arm, pausing long enough to give him an exasperated look.

  “But we checked last night.”

  “And we’re checking again today. Now, put your finger on the machine.”

  “Anyone ever suggest you need work on your bedside manner, Doc?”

  “You’re the first. All my other patients loved me.”

  “All your other patients were rats.”

  “I see the similarity.” Her grin grew wicked as she snipped out the last stitch, then slapped disinfectant on his arm.

  “That hurts.”

  “Exactly. Pricking your finger is pancakes after this, so go on and get it over with. I don’t have all morning, and you have things to do. Don’t you?” She tapped her foot impatiently, eyebrows raised.

  “I like you better when you’re a waitress,” Dean muttered, but he stuck his finger in the machine.

  He’d always hated needles, even small ones. Several agents over the years had fallen prey to drug problems. The thought made his stomach clench. Needles gave him a stomach ache. A gun he could handle—nice big bullets. Keep the needles away from him.

  The machine popped him, and he scowled at his doctor. “You have a Band-Aid for this?”

  “Hold this gauze on it ten seconds. You’ll be fine. Now, open wide.”

  “Don’t put that thing in my mouth again.”

  “Now.” Her temper flared, and he opened his mouth.

  She swabbed between his top gum and teeth. Shaking his head, he went straight to the bathroom and spit, then brushed his teeth again. When she’d done it last night, he’d felt like he had little cotton strings in his mouth for an hour.

  He paused in gargling for good measure and called out. “Explain to me why you’re doing this again. You told me we were clean last night. Are you worried the virus might not show up immediately?”

  When she didn’t answer, he capped the mouthwash, hung up the towel, and walked back out to the room. The night before, arriving shocked and exhausted from Felix Canyon, they’d moved the table from her room to his. He’d pushed the desk from his room under the window, and hers now intersected it forming an L. No surprise that most of her suitcase had been filled with scientific equipment—an electron microscope, DNA scanner, even a few test tubes and flasks.

  The space more and more resembled a small laboratory.

  Lucy bent over the tables, samples lined up, computer set at the end. If she’d heard his question, she showed no intention of answering it.

  She wore a pair of blue jeans and a clean t-shirt, socks, but no shoes. She looked like a college student, not the military’s preeminent doctor in molecular biology. Walking behind her, he put his hands on her shoulders. When she stopped fussing with the equipment, he gently turned her around.

  “I need to know what you’re thinking. Could we be infected?”

  She glanced up at him, met his gaze—her eyes pools of promise he could lose himself in. “No, not really. I know we don’t have the virus, or we would be dead. Dead or at least symptomatic.”

  She spoke calmly, clinically. The crying woman he’d held an hour ago was gone now. Dr. Lucinda Brown stood before him once more.

  “We tested clean last night?” Dean knew the answer, but wanted to hear it again.

  “Correct. Even if they’ve entered another phase of their production and slowed the growth of the virus down, we would at least register a low-grade fever, increased respirations, dilated pupils, a change in our mucus lining, something.”

  “So why are you testing us again?”

  “I’m worried we might be carriers. If what they released over Felix was an agent designed to make everyone there a carrier—”

  “Those people would become the hosts.”

  “We would too, if we were exposed. I’m not sure the truck’s airtight seal protected us, or if the concentration would have been diminished sufficiently so as to be harmless by the time it reached us.”

  “How long will it take you to run these tests?”

  Lucy motioned toward the samples and laptop. “Last night, I checked against ricin, because of the paralysis, and the top five biologicals.”

  “Which are?”

  “Smallpox, Plague, Ebola, Viral Hemorrhagic Fever, and Tularemia.”

  Dean looked into the eyes of this lovely woman and shuddered at the thought of her working with such tools of death. The fact that he willingly strapped on a gun each day and walked outside, risked taking a bullet, seemed like child’s play.

  “How will your tests be different today?”

  “I’ll broaden the scanner’s parameters. I want to check for the viruses that to our knowledge have not reached weaponized grade form yet.”

  “But perhaps they have.”

  “Perhaps.” Lucy reached into her pack, pulled out a portable glucose monitor, smaller than a contact lens case. “Carry this with you. If you encounter anyone with symptoms, or any deceased, I need a sample.”

  Dean slipped the case into the front right pocket of his jeans.

  “There are twenty strips with sterilized containers. Once you take the sample, put the strip into the container and seal it. As long as it remains unopened, the sample’s integrity will remain intact.”

  Dean nodded, and winced when she handed him a small baggie with five swabs and five vials.

  “I realize this will be a harder sample to get, but it could be critical. Swab between the top cheek and gum, then stick the sample into the vial—cotton swab down—and break the handle off. When it breaks off, the vial seals.”

  Dean put the baggie in his shirt pocket.

  “And here are a few sets of gloves.”

  “Why don’t you send me in an ambulance?”

  “Remember how I showed you to take them off? Always strip them off by grasping the part near your wrist, then pulling the glove into itself.”

  Dean took the gloves, put them in his jeans’ pocket, and looked around for his ball cap. Lucy continued to demonstrate the proper way to remove contaminated gloves—a process she had shown him at least three times the night before. He spotted his cap, plucked it off the bed and set it on his head.

  When he glanced back at Lucy, she was still demonstrating. He grabbed her hands, stilling them, and pulled her into his arms. “I’ll go see Colton. My shift starts at eleven. If I don’t stop by here before heading to E.T.’s you know the old folks are doing fine.”

  Lucy’s head tilted, terrier-style. “Why Colton?”

  “Something’s been bothering me. Do you remember seeing an African-American woman, mid- to late-twenties, well-toned, hanging out with Bubba? She seems way too classy for him.” Dean snuggled her neck, breathed in the scent of her.

  “Jazmine.”

  “Is that what you’re wearing? It�
��s nice.”

  “No. Her name is Jazmine.”

  Dean stopped mid-kiss and pulled back so he could look his woman in the eye. “You know her?”

  “I met her the night I went with Bubba and Billy to the overlook. Now that you mention it, I thought she seemed out of place too. Do you think Martin sent her?”

  “Maybe. It’s time to find her and confirm. Bubba would be the best way to do that, but he works out at his daddy’s farm. I’ll never be able to find him before my shift starts. I thought Colton might be a good place to get some answers—since those two share a brain.”

  With one hand he caressed her neck, then raised her chin, memorized her face. The words passed unspoken between them and said what needed to be shared. He kissed her once more, and then he was gone.

  Ω

  At nine-thirty Dean pulled into the parking lot of Great Southwest Aviation. It had been a simple matter to find out where Colton worked. The hardest part had been waiting for Eaton to leave. Once he’d seen him walk into E.T.’s for breakfast, Dean had slipped into the sheriff’s office. Fortunately, Alice was the dispatcher on duty, since fortyish women tended to be his best bet.

  He’d told her Colton had left his license at the bar. If she knew where Colton worked, he’d be happy to take it to him. A little smile, a touch on her arm, and he didn’t even hesitate when she suggested he join them at George’s bar on Friday. Of course, he also pictured Lucy slapping him on the back of the head. It made him smile even bigger, which Alice might have misinterpreted.

  Fifteen minutes later, he pulled into Great Southwest Aviation. Colton had been on his radar since day one. The fact he worked for Roswell’s sole full-service aviation facility didn’t surprise him a bit.

  “CAN I HELP YOU, SIR?”

  Dean thought it must be his lucky day. He didn’t have a deadly virus—so far—and both of his contacts had been female. Blond, and no older than twenty, the girl behind the counter gave him a once over. Her dazzling smile revealed perfect, pearly whites.

  “I hope so.” Dean offered his own lazy grin. “I’m looking for Colton Reid.”

  The perfect smile faltered, but she recovered.