Turnabout

hed her inside, and forced her to sit in a chair. Suddenly, the hood was removed, and brightness flooded her vision, forcing her to close her eyes against the painful glare. She heard her husband's voice before she could make out his shape. «Nancy. Are you okay? Have they hurt you?» Squinting toward the sound of his voice, she saw Jeff. He was shackled to some kind of T-shaped post against the wall of a spare, cream-colored room that was almost entirely devoid of furniture or decorations. Jeff's clothes were disheveled, huge sweat stains darkening them under his arms and across his chest. She couldn't see any blood, though she thought his eyes looked oddly unfocused. «I'm fine, baby," she said. «But I really could use a trip to the bathroom. What have they done to you?» «Nothing that won't heal," said a familiar voice. The man sat down in a chair nearby, between her and Jeff. He was the one who had been interrogating her already, on and off for the last… how many hours have we been here? The man was short, with a receding hairline and wavy hair; absurdly, he reminded Nancy of that comedian that Liz had liked so much. Rob Schneider, she thought his name was. He turned to look over at Jeff. «Now we've given you something that you wanted you got to see each other. So it's time for you to give something to us. Quid pro quo.» «Get stuffed," Jeff snarled. Nancy silently prayed that his defiant attitude wouldn't cause him any more pain. «We don't know anything. And we don't owe you anything.» The interrogator calmly lit a cigarette, then moved his chair closer to Nancy's. «Hmmmm, we don't believe you, Mr. Parker. We think you know more than you might think, and certainly more than you want to admit. How about we ask the questions, and if you do know the answer, you tell us?» He blew smoke into Nancy's face, making her cough. «First question.» Interrogator puffed on the cigarette and nodded to one of the other silent agents who had joined him in the room. The other man grabbed Nancy's arm, pulling it forward. Interrogator put the cherry end of his cigarette next to it. Nancy tried to pull her arm away from the heat, but the man only moved the cigarette closer. «What powers does your daughter have, and how did she get them?» Jeff glared, but didn't say anything. A moment later, Nancy felt searing heat connect with her forearm, and she screamed. «Stop! Stop!» Jeff yelled. «Liz says she can see the future sometimes, and 'zap' people. We don't know what that means. And we don't know how she got the powers.» Interrogator smiled at Nancy. «See, that wasn't so hard, was it?» Nancy tried to spit at him, but the spittle just dribbled down onto her shirt. Interrogator stood and walked over to Jeff. He put his hand up to Jeff's neck, his thumb on one side, his forefinger on the other. «Your turn, Nancy. Every second you don't answer my question will be a second that your husband's brain doesn't get any blood.» «Nancy, don't," Jeff started to say, but the sound was cut off as Interrogator squeezed. Calmly, their torturer looked toward Nancy. «How many of the aliens are there? Max, Isabel, Michael, Tess… who else? Are there more than them?» Nancy's mind whirled. It was one thing to be brave when facing the agents in a room by herself, but she couldn't watch them torture Jeff. Her husband looked at her, his eyes pleading. She didn't know if he was pleading for her to not tell, or for her to stop the torture. Seconds ticked by. Jeff's face was reddish and getting more so, and he began to twitch against his bonds. His eyes fluttered, and began to roll back in his head. «Do I need to repeat the question?» Interrogator asked. «We won't kill Jeff. We can revive him. But he may have some brain damage, especially if you force us to do this repeatedly.» Jeff's convulsions stopped, and his body bucked, in full rigor. Then he was unconscious. Interrogator didn't move his grasping hand. «Stop it! I'll tell you!» Nancy screamed, weeping, hating herself for weakness but seeing no other way to save the man she loved. «There are lots of them. The four kids have duplicates, but there are other aliens here on Earth who are looking for them too.» Finally, Interrogator let go of Jeff's neck and stepped away. Jeff's head slumped forward, his body slack against his bonds, unmoving. Interrogator turned and slammed his hand into Jeff's chest. With a gasp, Jeff sucked in air, and his regular but labored breathing resumed a few anxious moments later. The evil Rob Schneider look-alike moved his chair in front of Nancy, then sat down so that he faced her from only a few inches away. Her tears began flowing in an unstoppable torrent as sobs wracked her body. «Now, Nancy, I'm sure that we can avoid any further unpleasantness," Interrogator said, smiling as solicitously as though he were attending a meeting of the Roswell School Board. «Would that be all right with you1.» Through her tears, Nancy regarded the man with a volcanic hatred. Despair threatened to engulf her. Still, a small part of her clung stubbornly to hope. No matter what they do to Jeff or me, none of us actually know where Liz, Max, or the others are right now. And not even this evil bastard can force us to reveal things we don't know. This was her only comfort as Interrogator began forcing her to betray the secrets of her daughter's diary. 6. Boston Jesse Ramirez looked down the street as he got in the taxi, and was grateful he didn't see anyone suspicious following him. He knew he wasn't being paranoid; the strange phone call he had gotten last night immediately after Isabel called him proved he wasn't out from under the surveillance of the Special Unit. He settled into the backseat, grateful to be out of the chill autumn air. He called forward to the driver. «Mass General.» «Da hospital?» the man said in a heavily accented voice. Jesse assumed the man was from Brooklyn. Momentarily, it amused him that whereas New York cabbies all seemed to be from other states or countries, at least one New Yorker had come to Boston to drive a cab. «Yeah, thanks," Jesse responded. «You okay? Do I got to step on the gas a little extra?» the big man asked. Jesse was about to say that he was fine, but as he glanced over his shoulder, he suddenly realized he wasn't. Two cars back in the adjacent lane, he could see a dark sedan with two men in it. Both wore dark suits. One was speaking into a cell phone and looking directly at him. «Yeah, get me there as quickly as possible," Jesse said, trying to come up with a convincing lie. «My wife's gone into labor.» The cabbie grunted and flipped his blinker on, speeding up to switch into the next lane with barely inches between his back bumper and the front bumper of the car behind them. The car honked, and as Jesse looked back, the driver flipped him the bird. Jesse couldn't see the dark sedan, but he knew that only three cars separated them. «Hang on," the cabbie said as he gunned the engine, running a yellow light and turning left across oncoming traffic. Jesse's stomach tightened even further, but they somehow zoomed through the intersection unscathed. «You know, I got five rugrats myself," the cabbie said as he moved down the busy street, swerving in and out of traffic with almost dizzying frequency. «Three back in Brooklyn wit' my first wife, and two here in Boston wit' Sheila. She ain't my wife on accounta me not technically bein' divorced. But I take care of 'em all, which ain't easy on a hack's paycheck. Lucky for me I got VA. bennies from da Gulf War.» Noticing the cabbie glancing at him in the rearview mirror, Jesse nodded agreeably. «We don't have any children yet. Any, ah, other ones, I mean.» The cabbie turned his head and grinned, putting one thumb up. «Da first! Dat one's always best.» «So I've heard," Jesse said, turning to peer out the rear window again. He hadn't seen the sedan since the yellow light; the cab had now turned corners at least five times and weaved in and out of enough traffic that it felt like a roller coaster. I got away from them, Jesse thought, daring to let himself hope. The cabbie continued to talk, and Jesse let the man's words wash over him. Regular, boring, everyday conversation was like a salve to his soul right now. When he fell in love with Isabel, he had never even entertained the thought that he would be on the run from the government because she was half-alien. Not to mention the fact that he had killed one of their agents after the man had threatened her. «We're here, Mac," the cabbie said, punching the meter's buttons. Jesse was shaken from his thoughts and noticed that they were indeed at the hospital. The emergency room entrance, to be exact. Jesse thanked the driver and gave him a hefty tip, then exited the vehicle. He noticed a sign that revealed he was near the corner of Fruit Street and Grove, then turned to scan across the street in search of the restaurant where he was to meet the woman who called herself Denise Prinze. Maybe the emergency room wasn't the best point of reference, Jesse thought, getting his bearings. Cambridge is down that way. He stepped off the curb, intending to follow Grove along the long block toward Cambridge Street when his blood went cold. Coming down the street was the dark sedan. Jesse sprinted back toward the hospital's parking garage, and was grateful that a nurse pushing a woman in a wheelchair momentarily blocked the sedan's approach. Inside the garage, Jesse ran along the wall, crouching low next to the cars as best he could. Luckily, no one was parking or walking to their cars, so no one confronted him. The sedan pulled into the lot, and Jesse ducked down. The passenger, a man in a dark suit, got out and pulled a gun from a holster under his suitcoat. The sedan drove forward, toward the ramp for the next level. The man with the gun peered around the garage, then squatted to look under the cars. Jesse quickly scooted his feet even with the tires of the car he was hiding behind, thankful it was a large SUV Jesse saw a small chunk of concrete nearby, which had apparently broken off from one of the parking barriers. Stretching, he reached for it, mindful that if he fell, the man in the suit would hear him. Finally, he grasped the rocklike object. Peeking up over the edge, he saw the man inching his way along one wall, clearly still looking for hiding places beneath the cars. Come on, pitcher, Jesse thought. All those years oj baseball practice better pay off. He cocked his arm and threw the concrete toward the other section of the garage, past the up-sloping ramp. A few seconds later, it crashed to the ground, skittering across the concrete, and bouncing up to hit a car. The agent's attention was immediately diverted, and he ran away from Jesse, apparently planning on looping around to the far end of the garage from the opposite end. As soon as the man was out of sight, Jesse stood and ran as quickly as he could. He exited onto Grove Street and quickly crossed to Cambridge, checking over his shoulder the entire time. No one appeared to be pursuing him. A short distance down Cambridge Street, he finally saw Antonio's Cucina Italiana. Hurrying, he ducked inside the door, and was greeted by the rail-thin maitre d', whose mustache looked slight enough to thread a needle. «Welcome, signore.» Jesse took a moment to catch his breath. «Hi. I'm waiting for someone," he finally said, moving discreetly away from the windows so as to be as invisible as possible from the outside. «Are you Jesse Ramirez?» the man asked with a sprightly smile. Jesse was a bit taken aback. But since the head waiter didn't look like any federal agent he'd ever seen, he nodded. «Ah Your partner is already here. Sophia will show you to your table," the maitre d' said. A slender, twenty-something waitress behind him gestured for Jesse to follow her. The waitress led him to a table in the back, where the lighting was softer and dimmer. Sitting there was a pudgy woman, her long reddish hair pulled into a french twist, her sober expression and clothing projecting a very businesslike demeanor. She put down her glass and smiled at him. «Jesse?» «Yes, hello.» He sat, taking the menu from the waitress. As soon as the girl had moved away, he faced the woman and said, «So you must be Denise Prinze. What's this about?» «My real name is Shelby Tremaine. I'm a friend of Phillip Evans's," she said. He scrutinized her, one eyebrow cocked. «I heard him talk about you a lot. Why the fake name?» he asked, though he already suspected he knew the answer. «Sorry about that," she said. «I wasn't sure whether your phone was bugged, or if you were under surveillance, so I played it safe.» She took a sip of water from her glass. «After what happened in Roswell this morning, I really believe we're all going to have to play it as safe as possible.» Jess felt several mental alarms suddenly going off all at once. «What's happened in Roswell?» Shelby began to tell him, and Jesse listened, his sense of horror steadily escalating as her tale unfolded. Roswell, New Mexico Brody Davis was pacing in the museum's main exhibit hall. Deputy Valenti's call had really bothered him, and he had come down to the exhibit area to think. The whole morning had been rather freaky, like something out of one of the conspiracy books that lined the shelves of the UFO Center's library. He thought he had an inkling of what was going on, but he couldn't quite connect to it, either rationally or emotionally. The answer is somewhere in my head. Why can't I find it? For some reason, he even felt certain that the morning's events were related to the «missing time» he experienced whenever the aliens abducted him. But he didn't think that another abduction was imminent; those episodes were usually preceded by some kind of premonitory feeling. My spider sense isn't tingling, he thought with a small grin as he remembered Spider-Man's built-in «trouble radar.» The oddest part of his gut reaction was that he felt he had a personal stake in whatever was going on between the blackgarbed paramilitary men, the Parkers, and Deputy Valenti. He wondered what the Parkers had done. Does it have anything to do with the abrupt disappearance of Liz and Max and their jriends? Has somebody abducted them, too? Did they and the Parkers see something that the stormtroopers want kept quiet? It had always seemed to Brody that Max was more connected to the heart and spirit of the UFO Center than he let on. Sure, Max had been an employee before Brody had bought the museum from its original proprietor, Milton Ross. But despite his laconic manner with the Center's visitors and his intense dislike of the vest he was supposed to wear while on duty Max had always seemed to believe that other intelligent life really did exist out there in the cosmos. Of everyone he knew, Brody felt that Max might be the closest to understanding what being an abductee was like, without having been one himself. A vibration in his pants pocket brought Brody out of his reverie. He withdrew his cell phone, pulled up the antenna to its full length, and checked the Caller ID. It was an unlisted name, but he recognized the 617 prefix as from Boston. He pressed the talk button. «Hello.» «Brody Davis, please," the male voice on the other end of the connection said. The voice sounded familiar. «Speaking. Who is this?» «Jesse Ramirez. Isabel Evans's husband.» Now Brody knew why the other man's voice sounded so familiar. He'd only talked with the young lawyer a few times, but had found him to be a pleasant enough guy. «Hello, Mr. Ramirez. What can I do for you?» He hesitated to ask about Isabel. She had disappeared after the West Roswell High graduation ceremony, along with Max, Liz, Maria, and a few of their classmates. If he wants to tell me what happened to her if he knows what happened to her he will. «I know we don't know each other that well, but a situation has come up that I believe you can help me with. And we really need your help.» «What is it that you want, Mr. Ramirez?» Brody was intrigued. «Please, it's Jesse. Something bad happened in Roswell this morning. Something no one is supposed to know about. And I'm certain it's going to be covered up, just like the crash in 1947.» Brody sat on the stairs that led down from the entrance. «Does this have anything to do with the Parkers or Deputy Valenti?» There was a pause at the other end of the line. «You know about that?» «I saw it," Brody said. «I was in the UFO Center early today, and my security cameras caught a squad of Men in Black taking Jeff and Nancy Parker away. I tried to call Valenti about it, but I couldn't get through.» «Do you know if he was taken too?» Jesse asked, urgency audible in his voice. «No. He left town. I don't know where he