Loose ends r-1

by Greg Cox

  With open reluctance, Max returned with Michael to where Liz and the others were standing, in the shadow of the colossal stalagmite. "Make it fast," he said impatiently. "I don't want that trigger-happy scumbag to get away." He looked back at the exit, then glanced at his watch. "For all we know, he's already heading for Mexico."Hey, how about if I keep an eye on him," Alex volunteered, "while the rest of you plot strategy or whatever." He shrugged his lanky shoulders, as if it were no big deal. "I wasn't there that day at the Crashdown so he doesn't know me from Adam."Max frowned, clearly wanting to go after the shooter himself, but not seeing any obvious flaws in Alex's proposal. "You sure you can identify him?" he asked skeptically.

  "Big guy, red jacket, orange cap, bad attitude?" Alex re- cited, quoting the description Liz had given them. "N(problem."Sounds like a plan, then," Michael agreed. Liz knew what he had to be thinking: If nodiing else, Alex seemed to| be in lot calmer state of mind than Max, and thus less likely to cause a scene that might attract undue attention. "Go for it."Be careful, Alex," Isabel said as Alex took off back toward the gift shop. He grinned back at her, visibly de lighted by her concern. Liz hoped that Alex wouldn't take any unnecessary chances just to impress Isabel.

  The remaining teens huddled beneath the giant calcite peak. "Okay," Michael said, looking around warily to make sure no strangers were listening. "How do we want to handle this?"Are you kidding?" Maria asked incredulously. She had draped her own arm protectively over Liz, who was still trembling like a rabbit caught in a trap. "We've got to tell the police right away!" She scratched her head with her free hand, puzzled by a new thought. "Er, do park rangers count as police?"Not so fast," Michael said. "The last thing we want to do is call the authorities' attention back to that incident at the Crashdown. Officially, remember, there was no shooting. Max healed Liz before the cops showed up."But I was shot, Liz recalled. Her hands strayed once more to the spot where the bullet had entered her body There wasn't even a scar there now, she knew, thanks to Max's miraculous powers, but that didn't mean she couldn't still recall the sudden burning pain in her belly, and the horrible way she felt her life slipping away through the hole in her stomach. Darkness closing in on me. Blood soaking through my uniform…

  "Michael is right," Isabel declared. She lingered at the back of the grotto, a strained expression on her immaculate face. "It's too dangerous. We can't take the chance."Maria stared at Michael and Isabel in disbelief. "But we have to do something!" she objected, sounding totally appalled at the notion of doing nothing. "We can't just let this guy walk out of here scot-free. He shot Liz, for pete's sake!"Liz appreciated Maria's loyalty, but realized that Michael and Isabel had a point. They had all spent two stressful years covering up what had really happened at the Crash-down the day she was shot; did they really want to drag all that up into the light again? There was only so far Sheriff Valenti could protect them from outside scrutiny. "I don't know," she said hesitantly. "Maybe it's too complicated."Right!" Michael asserted. "What do we care about some lowlife, trigger-happy hood? We've got enough problems with alien invaders, rogue FBI agents, shapechangers, etcetera. I say we forget about him."Easier said than done, Liz thought. She'd always known, intellectually, that the shooter was still out there somewhere, but now, having discovered firsdiand that he could reappear in her life at any time, she wasn't sure she would ever feel safe again.

  Max seemed to feel the same way. "You're all forgetting one thing," he reminded the others. Liz could hear the brooding intensity in his voice, sense the pent- up fury contained in his coiled muscles and posture. "This guy saw Liz, too. If he recognized her, he knows she can identify him. That puts Liz in danger."I hadn't thought of that, Liz thought, feeling the panic flare up again. She shuddered violently, and received a comforting hug from Maria, who also offered her a sniff from one of her ubiquitous vials of soothing scents. "I'm not sure I can face him again," Liz confessed, dreading the very idea of running into the volatile gunman one more time. "I'm afraid to budge from this spot." Apprehension tied a knot in her stomach, and her legs felt like soggy french fries. "What if next time he recognizes me for sure?"Well, we can take care of that easily enough," Isabel declared. At least a foot taller than Liz, she reached out and ran her open palm over Liz's long brown hair. Molecules rearranged at the alien teenager's delicate prodding and Liz's cocoa-colored tresses turned a bright shade of scarlet. "There," Isabel stated, "instant redhead." With another pass of her hand, she shifted the hue of Liz's wool sweater from dark green to lemon-yellow, then stepped back to inspect her work. "Not bad," she pronounced. "I doubt that anyone will recognize you now, let alone some jerk who only saw you once before, two years ago."Maria whistled appreciatively. "Boy, you must save a fortune on cosmetics and clothes," she remarked enviously to Isabel.

  "I could change her eye color and hairstyle, too," Isabel said with a shrug. She produced a compact from her purse and offered the tiny mirror to Liz. "But that might be overkill."Probably, Liz thought, marveling at the startling transformation revealed in the mirror. So that's what I look like as a redhead. She had to admit that Isabel had done a good job of changing her appearance, which made Liz feel some- what safer and more secure. A good disguise works wonders, I guess.

  "Thank you, Isabel," Max said to his sister. "That was a smart idea." He eyed Liz curiously, no doubt trying to get used to her striking new look. "It's still just a temporary solution, though. As long as this guy is loose, he's a potential threat to Liz." Liz recognized the look of determination in his eyes; he had made his decision. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm going to track this guy down and make sure he never hurts anybody again-even if I have to do it alone."

  3.

  I think I'm starting to get the hang of this sneaky stuff, Alex Whitman thought. Who would have guessed? Except in his wilder daydreams, Alex had never imagined himself the James Bond type. Yet here he was, trailing a dangerous, possibly lethal, suspect through the exotic setting of a gigantic cavern, eight hundred feet below the ground. It's amazing, he thought, what hanging around with aliens can do to perk up an otherwise dull lifestyle.

  Locating Liz's mysterious assailant had been no problem; Alex had found the scruffy, heavyset stranger milling about outside the gift shop, looking impatient and irritable. The tricky part was going to be keeping an eye on the nameless shooter without blowing his cover. Alex hung out by the entrance to the underground cafeteria, pretending to be fascinated by a rock formation in the shape of an ice cream cone. Too bad there's no newsstand down here, he lamented; in the movies, private eyes and secret agents always hid behind their newspapers when shadowing suspicious characters.

  Watching the alleged gunman out of the corner of his eye, Alex couldn't blame Liz for being spooked by this joker. Even if he hadn't already shot one of Alex's best friends, the big, imposing bruiser just looked like trouble. A trucker, maybe, or a convict, or both. The kind of brutal, bullying thug that ate mild-mannered high school kids for breakfast. Did he have to be quite so big and mean-looking? Alex asked silently, registering a complaint with whatever higher power was plotting his fate. After all, unlike Max or Michael, he wasn't equipped with his own personal force field and death ray. What do I do if he catches me following him? Run like heck, I guess.

  Alex suddenly remembered the disposable Kodak camera he'd purchased at the Visitors Center uptop. He had intended to use the small plastic camera to snap some candid shots of his friends as they explored the caverns, but now a more devious application occurred to him.

  Fishing the camera from the pocket of his jacket, he took a few random shots of the spacious cavern, just to establish his cover, then waited until Mr. Bad Attitude's sullen pacing brought him in front of a suitably photogenic stalagmite. Alex's index finger hovered over the shutter-release button of the compact camera, stalling until the elusive gunman was framed in the center of the viewfinder, then clicked the button.

  The resulting flash was brighter than he would have preferred. Gulping, Alex felt h
is blood rushing toward his feet as the flashbulb's momentary discharge caused Bad Attitude to glance in Alex's direction. He hurriedly shot several more photos, in every direction except the mystery man's, before furtively risking a glimpse back at his unwilling (and highly intimidating) photographic subject. To his relief, the surly gunman was no longer paying any attention to Alex, having shrugged off the presence of the lanky teenage shutterbug. Thank goodness! Alex thought, feeling his racing pulse slow to something closer to a normal human rate. Now the only question was, having already pressed his luck this far, did he really have the nerve to keep on trailing the dangerous suspect? His resolve was tested only ten minutes later when the looming target of his surveillance checked his watch and grunted in approval. Carelessly tossing an empty candy wrapper onto the concrete floor of the rest area, Bad Attitude stomped toward the passage to the Big Room. What was he waitingfor? Alex wondered, giving the guy a few seconds' head start before sticking his camera back in his pocket and taking off in pursuit.

  Once he realized the shooter was definitely heading for the Big Room, Alex grew worried that Bad Attitude was going to run right into Liz and the others. He considered running ahead to warn them, but quickly decided that would be jumping the gun, no pun intended. The Big Room was big, after all; chances were, the burly gunman would completely miss Liz and Co. in the vast, crowded recesses of the enormous cavern.

  Certainly, Bad Attitude wasn't interested in sight-seeing. He hiked right across the paved, level surface of the Big Room, ignoring such popular attractions as the Painted Grotto and the Rock of Ages. Instead he marched straight to the far end of the gargantuan cavern, where he paused in front of a gaping chasm that a nearby sign identified as THE BOTTOMLESS PIT.

  Alex gulped, finding it all too easy to visualize the bad- tempered hoodlum throwing him bodily into the Pit, where he would probably fall for several long minutes before ending up impaled on some razor-sharp stalagmite. Knock it off, he told his overeager imagination. No more of that now. Taking a deep breath to steady his nerves, he ambled casually over to the end of the cave, faking an interest in one odd-shaped calcite deposit after another. Boy, could I use that newspaper! he thought yearningly.

  Meanwhile, Bad Attitude waited with growing impatience by the Pit, tapping his foot restlessly while searching the faces of the tourists parading past the chasm. He was looking for someone, Alex deduced, but was it Liz? At one point, the man's bellicose gaze passed directly over Alex without any flicker of recognition or interest, and Alex had to resist an urge to sigh loudly in relief. Despite the chill atmosphere, he was sweating heavily beneath his sweater, the perspiration causing the fabric of his T-shirt to cling to his back. "Keep cool," he whispered to himself, avoiding eye contact with the menacing lone gunman. "We can do this, for Liz's sake."The hefty suspect, who had been known to fire off guns in public places, had grumpily checked his watch at least three times before another man finally approached him. "About time," Bad Attitude snarled, his raspy voice not sounding any friendlier or less intimidating than the rest of him. "You're late."The newcomer murmured something in reply, but Alex couldn't quite make it out. He took a second to scope out the Johnny-come-lately, risking a quick stare at the stranger, before concentrating, or so it seemed, on a rounded rock formation that bore a surprising resemblance to a Teletubby. Don't mind me, he thought, wishing he possessed some small fraction of Isabel's telepathic gifts. I'm just checking out Tinky-Winky here. Nothing for you to worry about…

  Bad Attitudes tardy visitor could not have been more different than the disreputable-looking gunman. Clean-cut and neady groomed, the second man wore an unscuffed leather flight jacket, aviator-style sunglasses, and newly-pressed blue slacks. Alex had relatives in the military, so he recognized the type right away. Some sort of cop or soldier, he guessed, a theory confirmed only seconds later when he heard Bad Attitude address the other man as "Lieutenant."Probably from Fort Bliss or White Sands, he surmised; both military bases were only a few hours' drive from Carlsbad-and strictly off-limits to civilians. What sort of business could this lieutenant possibly have with a gun-wielding thug like Bad Attitude? He considered trying to snap a photo of the nameless officer, but was afraid that would give him away for sure. The region around the Pit was murkily lit, the better.to show off the colored spotlights illuminating the chasm; there was no way either the gunman or the lieutenant could miss the flash when it went off, and Bad Attitude had already let Alex take one "accidental" snapshot of him. Trying for a second surveillance photo would definitely be pushing his luck, maybe all the way into the waiting Pit.

  "Over here," the shooter said gruffly, nodding toward a vacant corner of the cave, where they could better converse in privacy As the two men relocated, Alex stealthily circled around the nearest gnarled stone column, keeping the immense pillar between him and the unlikely pair. He still couldn't hear everything being said-the caverns irregular contours made for strange acoustics-but he could make out snatches of the conversation.

  "Look, Morton, I got (inaudible) as soon as I could," the Lieutenant complained. From his tone, Alex could tell this was no friendly rendezvous. "You don't understand the pressure I'm under… (something, something) watching me all the time."The shooter, whose name was apparently Morton, was less than sympathetic. "Yeah, yeah. Have you (mutter, mumble) the merchandise?"The lieutenant lowered his voice, making it harder for Alex to eavesdrop. "(Something) hidden…(mumble) not here… (whisper) too public… (mutter) the money?"You'll get the money when (something)," Morton said firmly, if not entirely audibly. Alex wished he could somehow turn up the volume on the two co- conspirators. Whatever they were up to, it was obviously something fishy. "Tonight. Midnight. (Mumble, mumble) Slaughter Canyon."Alex recognized the name as the site of one of the less touristy caverns Max had mentioned earlier, a short drive away. Slaughter Canyon sounded like something out of a Scooby-Doo cartoon, but it was a real enough place to serve, so it seemed, as the locale for some sort of illicit transaction between Morton and the lieutenant. Is this about drugs? he wondered. Military secrets? Illegal aliens, of the non-extraterrestrial variety? This close to the Mexican border, it was easy to imagine all kinds of nefarious smuggling operations. We never did find out, he recalled, what that gunfight in the Crashdown was all about.

  Having dispensed with the meat of their discussion, the two men wandered back toward the Pit, forcing Alex to shift position in order to keep out of their line of sight. "You stay here for a while," he ordered the lieutenant, making it pretty clear who was calling the shots in this partnership. "Don't leave too quickly." He spit rudely onto the floor of the cavern. "Let me get out of here first."Sure," the lieutenant said nervously. "Of course." Alex guessed that the unnamed military man was acutely afraid of being caught at whatever shady business he was up to; why else would he be wearing shades eight hundred feet below ground? Thoughts of international espionage raced through Alex's hyperactive mind. What in the world have we gotten into this time, he wondered, his heart pounding, and when did my life turn into a never-ending episode of The X-Files? Assuming that Morton would be heading for the elevator next, Alex decided he needed to report back to Max and the others before Morton left the caverns entirely. Making a break for it, he darted out from behind the tapered column and made tracks for the secluded grotto where he had left his friends, zigzagging through and around clusters of strolling tourists. Damn it, he thought impatiently, in a hurry to get where he was going, did the Big Room have to be so darn big? By the time he reached the grotto, maybe ten minutes later, he was out of breath and panting. At first he didn't recognize the redhead in the yellow sweater, tucked between Max and Maria, then he did a double take when he realized it was Liz. Whoa, he thought. That's just too weird.

  Bent over gasping, his hands resting on his knees, he hastily told the others what he had seen and overheard. "Morton's probably on his way to the elevator now," he concluded, "although I got a pretty good start on him."Good work, Alex," Max said succinctly. His st
ony expression belied the volcanic intensity of his eyes. Max was your classic still-waters-run-deep kind of guy, Alex knew, but it was obvious that those waters were pretty stirred up at the moment. Max's fist collided with his open palm and he stared past Alex with a keen, determined gaze. "Now it's my turn," he said. 4.