'Yeah, just a little red in the face,' McNeil said, cracking a weak smile. Duff knew that the self-deprecating sense of humor had gone far in getting him votes, further proof that theater was as important on the Beltway as were political platforms.
'It smells like syrup of some sort,' Duff said, keeping her voice low enough that the press couldn't hear her across the foyer. 'Probably watered down. “
'Hmmm, well, it's going to stain this marvelous suit,' McNeil's aide said.
'It's all right, Delroy. Quit fussing,' McNeil said. 'So, you think this is my stalker? “
Duff shook her head. 'We won't really know for a while yet. She could be the one, or she could be just a random member of the unhappy public. “
McNeil grunted and nodded. As the elevator door opened in front of him, he looked back toward Duff. 'Yes, well, I'll expect a report soon.' It wasn't a question.
It took almost an hour to process the woman to the point where Duff could take a break from the thick of things. She sat down with a thump into the chair behind her temporary desk and toggled the computer on.
A flashing icon told her she had new mail, and she clicked on it to initiate the program. Once there, she entered her federal I.D. number, her password, and a secondary password.
She scanned the subject headings, then clicked on one that said 'XMA94… Cheyenne, Wyoming.' XMA- 94 was the code for unusual altercations, often related to suspected homeland terrorist cells, white supremacist splinter factions, or other armed groups.
Duff read through the file quickly, noting the amount of information that wasn't included in it. Something's being covered up here, she thought. There were too many nonspecific terms, and the clearance codes for the initial strike orders were high-level ones. She had seen this kind of thing before.
Scrolling down, Duff stopped on multiple photos taken by security cameras at the scenes of the Cheyenne confrontation. They had yet to be enhanced, but it didn't matter. Duff recognized the kids in the photos.
Hell, they aren't exactly kids anymore. Kyle Valenti she recognized best. She had met the ex-sheriff's son in May of 2001, while working on her second case. The assignment had gotten her involved with finding a missing girl named Laurie Dupree. As the case unfolded, Dupree's abduction was linked to an archaeologist named Grant Sorenson, a group of teens in Roswell, New Mexico, and the town's half-crazed sheriff.
At least, Jim Valenti had seemed to be half crazed when she met him. He had been caught up in an expanding web of lies that ultimately cost him his job. Yet Duff could sense that deep down, Valenti had believed he was doing the right thing.
By the end of the case, Duff had seen things she wouldn't have thought possible. She had been forced to shoot Sorenson after he threatened her and Valenti with a gun. Afterward, he had kidnapped a Roswell teenager named Isabel Evans, taking her to Tucson, Arizona, where some kind of green jellyfish emerged from emerald crystals that were embedded in Sorenson's chest. Another Roswell teen, Michael Guerin, had somehow psychically sucked all the oxygen out of the room containing Sorenson's corpse and the jellyfish, killing the creature that had possessed him.
Later Valenti had counseled her to doctor her official report about the incident. And although Duff didn't feel good about it, she had done so. She wasn't sure what special psychic powers Isabel Evans or Michael Guerin had, nor did she know exactly what it was that had inhabited the body of Grant Sorenson. But she knew that her FBI superiors would not have looked kindly on her reports if she had put in all the incredible details.
Everyone knew about the other FBI agents who chased aliens and spooks; they had been relegated to the basement. Duff didn't want to end up in the basement. She told Valenti she wanted to make assistant director by the time she reached thirty-five, and though she suspected it might take a few more years than that, the AD job was still her goal.
Duff had been extensively interviewed after the incidents in Roswell and Arizona, not just by her superiors, and not only about the justifiable shooting of Sorenson. Some other governmental agency had also been involved in debriefing her, but their questions were more about her interaction with the sheriff and the Roswell teens than about the abduction and shooting. They'd been interested essentially in hearing about anything 'unusual' that may have occurred, apart from the case itself. For some reason, their probing made her dig her mental heels in deeper, increasing her determination not to tell them about the odd powers the Roswell kids had apparently manifested.
Now, shaking her head to end her woolgathering, Duff renewed her concentration on the screen in front of her. Among the images there, she recognized Kyle Valenti and Michael Guerin, though their looks had changed considerably since she had last seen them two years earlier. Another image was a poorly taken photograph, evidently shot through an oddly darkened window. She thought she could make out the features of Isabel Evans.
The report didn't name the teens, but did note that another male and two females were also 'persons of interest.' Duff suspected that the male was either Isabel's brother… Max… or Alex Whitman. The girls would likely be Liz Parker and Maria DeLuca.
The fact that the report didn't name the kids was one warning flag for Duff; another was the absence of the original strike orders. They had already been classified, and all internal memos were to be routed through one specific office. A specially prepared press statement was boiler-plate obfuscation, and other information was blacked out.
They're covering something up, Duff thought. Not that secrets were unusual in the domestic intelligence game, but this smelled bad. She suspected that the men who had interrogated her two years earlier were probably involved in this; the older one had been badly scarred, and the younger one struck her as extremely unpleasant, almost feral.
I wish these kids well, Duff thought. From what the report did say, their actions sounded more defensive than offensive. She seriously doubted that they posed a danger to anyone.
I hope they manage to get out of Dodge before the net closes around them.
Cheyenne, Wyoming Max watched as dusk started to fall. The group had been unable to reach a consensus about whether to risk going to the hospital to heal the people who'd been injured during their escape from the mall.
Max decided the matter would be better faced after a few of their own urgent needs had been taken care of first. Kyle agreed reluctantly, but ultimately went along with the group's decision to wait a few hours, especially since a recent news report had upgraded the status of the injured pair from 'critical' to 'guarded.' Although the report also said that one of the patients was comatose, and that both would remain overnight in the hospital's critical care unit, Max reasoned that they could wait a few hours without necessarily condemning anyone to death.
With the group mollified for the moment, Max concentrated on what they were going to do in the meantime. They all really needed to eat, and the alien trio was in particular need of rest, if only to recharge their powers. Max acknowledged that going back to the hotel they had been staying at prior to the raid on the mall was risky; they didn't know if it was being watched or not. So Max decided that, for now, they would stay here, in the shadows of the abandoned church. Nobody argued.
'Kyle and I will go get some food,' Max said. 'I saw a chain of fast-food restaurants about ten blocks away. “
'You need to be disguised,' Liz said with a frown. 'If any of us go out in public, we'll have to change our looks. At least a little. “
'Oh great, it's alien makeover time again,' Michael said with a groan. He was lying down in the back of the van, looking uncharacteristically carefree.
'It's necessary, Michael,' Maria said.
Isabel stepped forward, her hands up. 'Who's first? “
'I'll go first,' Max said. Turning to Michael, he added, 'We're going to need some money, though. “
