The Roswell Swatch

by Scott Powers

  One morning they got orders to report immediately to a certain hangar. The order itself didn’t strike any of them as unusual; guys were pulled from their units to work on other tasks around the base all the time. But when they got to the hangar, they were told to wait, and they waited all day and well into the night. At midnight, they were led to the next hangar, where they found the cargo. They loaded the trucks there. It took them a couple of hours.

  They drove to Columbus and unloaded into a warehouse. There were three men there to supervise, all dressed in black suits, watching them silently.

  “Those cats gave me the creeps,”Fynntold the reporter.“A few weeks later, Sergeant Blair said he saw them on his street in Fairborn. One of them, anyways.”

  “The tall guy,”Keller said.

  “The tall guy,”Blair confirmed.

  The next thing they knew, Rusty McKay drowned in a motel pool. Vanderhoff already was dead, only none of the other guys had heard about that yet. Nobody really knew him. He choked on a hotdog off base. But word got around about him after Rusty died. Now, yesterday, Sergeant Petrelli died in a trailer fire. Three, in less than two weeks.

  Nobody on base seemed to know anything about what was going on, or even show much interest, except to note there had been several tragedies lately, and the airmen didn’t know whom they’d contact anyway. None of their commanding officers seemed to have any role in setting up the mission, except to sign off on letting each guy go.

  “What about the lieutenant?”Rose asked them.

  “He’s a fucking career weasel,”Blair replied.“I went to him. I tried to call him first but he was out. SoI went to his office. He wouldn’t see me. I caught him in the parking lot, and all he did was remind me that I was on a top-secret mission and I'd better forget about it.”

  No one else seemed to even notice. They all died in different places: Rusty on base, Petrelli in Fairborn, and Vanderhoff in Dayton somewhere. Soit wasn’t as if there was some sort of big investigation. Accidents, is what everyone said.

  Now the others couldn’t sleep much. The black-suited reapers were after them.

  The old reporter measured the looks of curiosity on the faces of his son and the pretty, young blonde.

  "I didn't know what to make of it," he told them. "Hell, I was still just a kid myself."

  “What did you do?”Dan asked his father.

  “What could I do? I couldn’t write a word of that,”he said.“It was off the record. And there was no proof. I’ve thought about that almost every day since. You have no idea. I was powerless, and they knew it when they told me their story, and I knew it as soon as they did. Hell, I told them so.”

  “So why did they even talk to you?”

  “They said,‘So someone knows.’Maybe they thought one day I’d figure it out and write something. Maybe I did too. But crap, I knew I wouldn’t.”

  The old man was lost in thought. Neither his son nor Eve spoke for a minute or two. Finally, Rose looked up, first at his son, then at Eve, and spoke again.

  “Blair died next. Then Keller; then that one, Devereaux.”

  He pointed to Eve’s picture.“Next was Fynn, your grandpa. He survived a bad car crash. Your grandma died, right? Then he flat out disappeared. What ever happened to him?”

  “He quit living, for the rest of his life. He just died,”she said. She sighed.“That’s why I came to see you. I want to know why.”

  The old man breathed in more past from the scrapbook. Now it looked as if it were killing him. He looked as if he was ready to climb into the scrapbook and disappear himself. Finally, he looked up and his eyes were clear. They had the same penetrating quality as his son's.

  He looked deep into her eyes.“Maybe they told me this story so I could tell it to you.” He pushed the notebook across the table to her, still unopened.“Here, this is for you. You probably can’t read my writing, but I think I kept it for you.”

  She looked at it without touching it. She looked up again and the old man was staring at her.

  “All yours.”

  Eve reached out and touched it with the same reverence she felt toward the swatch sample in her pocket. She expected to feel something, but all she felt was old cardboard and paper. And it looked to her as if the old man was just relieved of a huge burden. He actually rolled his shoulders. Then he smiled. He heaved a sigh. She smiled back, reassuringly, even though she suddenly felt overwhelmed.

  He seemed to see more in her than a smile, and he spoke again, reassuringly.“I met him one more time.”

  The reporter said he had kept his promise and kept his distance from the airmen, even as they died. He dutifully wrote the reports for the newspaper, all short, and all unconnected in any way.

  But long before the sixth death, he fought his own demons. He went to that funeral, Devereaux. He stood in the back, not expecting to be anything other than an observer. He had to pay some respects.

  It rained at the funeral. There were maybe twenty people there, most of them in uniform.

  "I don’t recall seeing anyone who looked like Devereaux’s family. Fynnwas there with his wife and baby,”Dan said.“He saw me and they came over. We spoke in the shelter beneath the trees. It was still raining. He still acted like I could help even though both of us knew I couldn’t. All I could do was nod. I’m not sure I said anything back.”

  A coughing fit overcame him, and a nurse appeared out of nowhere and gave him some meds. After a moment, he looked up again.

  He turned to the young blonde woman sitting there with his middle-aged son.

  “Your grandfather was just a young man,”he told Eve.“At that funeral he sounded, um, broken. Confused. Lost. Six of his mates were dead. He mumbled some, but as I recollect, what he said, little made sense. He rambled from thought to thought.

  “Then your grandmother spoke. That’s when it occurred to me that they both figured he was going to be killed next. She was so strong, knowing what she knew. She was clear-headed. She thanked me for coming. She told me it meant a lot that I believed them.”

  Rose Senior paused and looked at Eve.

  “You know, I can still see her face. You look so much like her, I knew you were her granddaughter the first moment I laid eyes on you.”

  Eve reached out, grabbed his hand on the tabletop, and folded it between both of hers.

  He continued.

  “She held a baby girl in her arms,”he said.

  “My mother,”Eve offered.

  “Your grandmother,”Dan Rose Senior said, nodding to Eve,“was the one I won’t forget. And look at you. You have that same look in your eyes. You have her light.”

  Eve didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know her eyes had teared until Dan Junior offered a tissue.

  He asked his old man the next question. “What about the lieutenant? What happened to him?”

  “Dunno. Lieutenant Hal Gleibiczdidn’t die, I can tell you that. Not then, anyway. He was around. I tried a couple times to talk to him. I never reached him. Never saw him.”

  “No clue?”Dan Junior asked.

  The elderly reporter went silent.“He was from around here. Somewhere in southern Ohio, I think.”

  And that was it. Dan Rose Senior mumbled something about needing some rest. His son tried to pester him into saying more, but the old man waved an attendant over, and she lifted him to his feet and declared it was getting late.

  The Roses shared a handshake. Eve kissed the old man on the cheek and he nodded. Then he was gone.

  Dan Rose drove Eve back downtown asking her many questions, which she answered mostly with silence or measured responses. What did she know about her grandfather’s service? Where did he go after he was discharged? Was it a medical discharge? What led her to come to Dayton looking for his father? What did she know about any of the other men? Where was her grandmother buried?

  That last question startled Eve. She didn’t know. Her grandmother’s grave was likely around here somewhere. Should she visit? She drifted off into
her own thoughts. That entire branch of her family was a complete mystery. Old Joe had severed all ties after his wife died. SoEve’s mother never met nor knew anything about her mother’s family. There was nothing to pass down to Eve and Al, no names, no backgrounds, and no contacts. For all Eve knew, Fay’s family might be local or a thousand miles from here. They might know nothing about Meg and Eve and Al, and they might not give a damn. Or they might.

  Dan gave up interrogating her and drove her back in peace. He had his own thoughts to sift through.

  But as she opened his car door to leave and walk to the Camaro in the paper's visitor lot, he reached out and touched her arm. She recoiled, as she always did.

  "The notebook," he said. "I'd like to borrow it. Copy it. Study it. I'll get it back to you. May I have it?"

  Eve nodded and handed it over.

  “I get it back,”she said.

  “I promise. Is it okay if I have someone call you later?”

  She nodded without thinking, turned, and walked into the parking lot. She had so much to deal with.

  They still had to find and rescue Max.

  There still was whatever Ted had in mind.

  And she had a new line on a family life she’d never imagined, and she wanted to reel it in.

  She was certain now it would all come together.

  Her feelings about Grandpa Joe shifted too. For him, she suddenly found herself wanting to seek validation. Yet how could Eve even imagine defending the name of a grandfather she feared and loathed her whole life, a father her mother despised? Eve was self-aware enough to recognize the irony.

  She started Max’s Camaro and goosed the engine in neutral. It roared and she felt the power surge through her.

  CHAPTER 11

  OTHERSIDE

  Max awoke with a woman checking his blood pressure while he lay in a warm, cushy, four-poster bed. A nurse, maybe?

  She scurried off before he could wake up enough to take her measure. How long had he been out? Where was he? This was no hospital room.

  The walls were hunter green. The crown molding was made of aged, dark wood. A thick-pile rug covered most of the floor. The rest was marble. This could be a worn but comfy bed and breakfast somewhere. He knew it wasn't.

  Max’s brain cleared enough to move from“where?”to“why?”He’d been taken hostage by the IBTT after a clumsy interrogation. How come?

  When Max tried to get up, he discovered his ankles were shackled. The shackles weren't metal, but soft, thick leather. They had no seams, tacks, or stitches. They were strong too. He swung his feet off the bed to the floor, a long way down.

  The room had two windows, hidden behind heavy drapes. He pulled one drapery aside only to find a wooden shutter blocking any view. It was light tight.

  There were two doors including the one the nurse left through. As he approached it, someone on the other side turned the knob.

  As Max stepped back from the door, he tripped because of the leather bindings shackling his ankles and fell onto the rug.

  He struggled to get up as the door opened. He sprung forward just as a woman carrying a cardboard tray stepped in. She toppled over him and fell, tossing the tray.

  Oatmeal, mixed fruit, orange juice, and paper plates splattered the rug and bed. Max rolled toward the door, but the woman was quick.

  She grabbed him by the ankle bindings.“Damn you!" she said, dragging him back. "Oh, you are gonnaclean up this mess you made.”

  Max tried to break away but this woman was strong and fast. She kept pulling him down.

  She stepped back.

  “Let’s get this straight. I don’t know why you’re here. Not my business,”she said.“I’m Ida."

  Ida was black, about forty years old, with long, straightened hair.

  "It’s my job to take care of you. I don’t get paid enough to take any shit from you. They only give me non-violent types. If you’re a violent type, then you’ll get Rob. Believe me, you don’t want Rob. Be good. 'CauseI don’t need the rough stuff. And Rob kindalikes it.”

  She went through the other door and returned, tossing him a bath towel.“Now clean up your mess. I’ll see if I can get you a Pop-Tart or something.”

  Ida left. Max hauled himself onto a clean corner of the bed, raised his feet, and tested his bindings. He tried to bite through them, but it was like chewing fiberglass.

  Max was still contemplating the bindings when Ida returned with a plate of Pop-Tarts.

  “I’m a damn prisoner, you know,”he said.“A hostage!”

  “Yeah? They said you’d say that. Prisoner, sure. I hear as you’re here in some sort of Homeland Security case. Me, I don’t care.”

  “Then help me escape,”Max said.

  She put the paper plate on a nightstand. “Try not to make a mess with your Pop-Tarts. And clean that up."

  Before Max could plead again for her help, the woman named Ida left again. He hobbled over to the door and found it locked.

  Max considered escape possibilities and resources. The few furnishing were bolted down. The lighting was recessed behind sealed plexiglass. He saw no outlets. He tapped the wall—plywood, not plaster.

  He checked the bathroom: a small shower, toilet, sink, soap, and towels. No mirrors. No towel rods. No exposed plumbing.

  He figured he was being watched, but spotted no cameras. He couldn’t see out the windows so he pressed an ear to listen. Nothing.

  It occurred to Max that he didn’t know what time it was. Or what day. Or whether it was day or night. Or how long he’d been out.

  More importantly, he had no idea whether Eve got away, or whether Ted could or would help her. He changed his mind. Of course, Ted would help her. The question was whether he'd been captured again too. For all Max knew, Ted, Eve, and the other woman could be in the next couple of rooms. But if they were, then what did they want with him? That thought comforted him. He decided as long ashe was their prisoner, with no particular purpose, they didn’t have Eve’s swatch. And that meant they didn’t have Eve.

  He ate the Pop-Tarts. He cleaned the mess. He waited for whatever was next.

  He dozed. Ida returned. He had no idea how much later. She left a paper tray with a turkey sandwich, salad, and milk. He ignored her.

  When he awoke again, he ate. He figured to wait them out. It wasn’t much longer. Thugs woke him from his next nap.

  Two men who looked like bar bouncers—big and bald, with barearms and shoulders covered by tattoos—asked Max to accompany them.

  They left by the hall door, moving into an unadorned, dimly lit corridor. They entered the next room furnished with a wooden table with two chairs.

  Two more chairs stood in the corners, and the thugs sat there. Max sat at the table. A powerful man in his mid-forties entered the room. It took Max a minute to place him.

  Then it hit him: Red Wings jacket, Detroit. He was the guy who had taken the bag of alien flesh, and the better part of Max’s life. This time he wore a lab coat. He placed a soft satchel on the table and sat down.

  “Well, hello again,”Max said.“I forgot to tell you last time we met that I’ve made it my life’s mission to shove your head up your ass.”

  “How sweet. You have more troubles than some silly old grudge right now. Call me Sal,”the man said.“We need to talk. You know, you’ve already talked a lot, but you probably don’t remember. You were pretty stoned. But you talked and talked. Damn. At one point, I wanted to get you to shut up. But every now and then, you said something useful."

  "Bullshit. I don't know anything useful."

  “You’ve already told us more than we ever expected. But we’ve got a few little things we need to clear up before we let you go. And for that I need you fully alert.”

  Max figured he had talked, but he couldn’t remember doing so. He had no idea what he might have told his captors. But it was true; he didn't know enough about the network to give much away. And he figured it didn’t matter much, since he really didn’tknow much that the IBTT woul
dn’t already know.

  Sal pulled a gallon-sized Ziploc bag from his satchel and put it on the table. Inside was a sandwich-sized bag. Inside it was a couple of teaspoons of grey, sticky-looking, chunky substance.

  “This is the baggie you gave me.”

  “That’s not what I gave you.”

  “That’s what you gave me. Your fingerprints are all over the bag. We had it tested. It’s black tar heroin. Pretty potentstuff, too. Black tar usually isn’t so pure.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “No, it’s true. Black tar usually isn’t so pure. You should know that. I know you rock stars love your drugs, right? No one would be surprised by that. Hell, if you got busted just for this, I bet it would increase your record sales. What I don’t understand is why you’d give it to me and try to pass it off as some sort of alien flesh. Nobody’s that stupid.”

  Max was shaking his head, grinning.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,”he said, stretching the“I”and raising the“talking,”and rolling his head from side to side as if he were amused.“That’s not what was in that baggie when I gave it to you. What I had was lighter colored, and a little beige. Anyway, your fingerprints are on the bag too.”

  “Only yours,”Sal said. He raised his hands and turned his palms toward Max. His fingertips were calloused over, like feet.“Oddly, I don’t have any fingerprints. I seemed to have lost them in a security precaution. But that’s not why I brought you here. I brought you here to talk about your girlfriend’s drug dealing.”

  “What drug dealing?”

  “Dianne Murphy's. You know, the one you were partying with that night, that week we met. Right? The one who you said disappeared. The one who turned up murdered a couple days later. The one who probably gave you this baggie.”

  “Now you’re crazy talking. You sure you didn’t take any of that yourself? You look a little stoned.”

  “She was quite a gal. Little rich girl with an adventure complex. I bet she was bored with her life in law." Sal opened the satchel again and removed a file. He slid it across the table to Max.