Lance
He had thought himself far past the stage where he could be surprised by anything. But the woman sitting across from him at the Red Planet Diner was the most amazing thing he’d seen in a long time.
She sat there, sipping her iced tea with airy unconcern, as if both their worlds hadn’t just been rocked to their foundations. He didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t even sure how he should look at her. Her lovely mouth was the slightest bit swollen; he must have kissed her harder than he’d realized.
Somehow, though, he found it easier than he thought to fall back into their old familiar patterns. “I can’t believe you brought me to this place.”
“What?” she replied, widening her eyes in mock innocence. “Kiki loves it.”
“She would.”
The diner was the height of kitsch — UFO tchotchkes and souvenirs everywhere, topped off by a huge bug-eyed green alien that loomed over one of the booths, although thankfully not the one they sat in. Lance had always avoided the place like the plague, and winced every time he drove by. He knew the aliens all too well, and they weren’t cute or funny in the slightest. The people sitting in the restaurant and drinking their milkshakes or eating their cheeseburgers would probably have a heart attack if they knew what really lurked only a few miles away in Secret Canyon.
Kara smothered a grin and said, “Their burgers really are pretty decent. And I figured you probably didn’t want to wade through the crowds in Uptown.”
“You’d be right about that.”
A waitress drifted by, inquired as to their orders languidly, as if she had much more important things on her mind, then jotted down their requests and disappeared into the back.
Lance lifted an eyebrow. “We may be waiting a while for these burgers.”
“You have someplace else you want to be?”
For a few seconds, he just watched her, noted the graceful line of her throat and the way her deep gold hair fell against it, the way her breasts moved under the tank top with every breath. A tightening in his loins told him he could think of someplace else, very much — back at her house, in her bed this time, or at his place, or….
A glint in the blue eyes told him she had more than an inkling of what was going through his mind. “Later. I need to refuel, even if you don’t.”
“You’re probably right.” He drank some of his water, then asked, “You still have Grayson’s jumpsuit?”
“Wow, topic change.” Kara’s expression sobered, and she nodded. “Shoved into a dark corner of the garage. I tried to follow up on it with the manufacturer and was totally shut down.”
“You what?” Alarms started going off in his head, but he managed to keep his tone even as he said, “Tell me about it.”
And then he sat there, trying to keep the irritation at bay as she related her failed attempt at getting more information from the Patriot Uniform Company.
Obviously, she sensed his annoyance, because she laid her hands flat on the Formica tabletop and said, “I really don’t think it’s a big deal, Lance. If I’d tripped any alarms, they would have been on me by now.”
“Maybe they are. Or do you think it’s just coincidence that those two MIBs are suddenly hanging around?”
That got her, he could tell. She seemed to sag a little, but then she rallied and replied, “I don’t think so. I think they’re here because of Mr. Sun Devil’s video. Or at least, that’s what sent them to Sedona in the first place. I don’t know why they keep hanging around.”
He didn’t, either. Things had been pretty placid the last few days…at least on the surface. No strafing UFOs or other close encounters.
Kara’s lips curved into a wicked little smile. “However, I’m starting to get the distinct impression that one of them wants to ask me out.”
That wasn’t even funny. He glared at her, and of course she burst out laughing. After a second or two, she subsided, saying, “I’m kidding, Lance. Only he does seem a little too friendly for the proverbial Man in Black, so I’m not quite sure what his game is.”
“Roswell burger,” said a voice above him, and Lance couldn’t help starting a little. Damn, he must really be losing it.
“Mine,” he replied automatically, and the waitress set his plate in front of him, then delivered Kara’s mushroom swiss burger with an abstracted air, as if bringing them their food had just taken her away from something vitally important. Who knows, he thought, taking in the girl’s blue-streaked hair and severe eyeliner, maybe she’s just visiting here, too….
Despite his earlier disparagement of the place, the food did smell good, and his stomach told him it needed some kind of sustenance even if his brain thought it had more important things to do. So he let the matter of the MIB-on-the-make go for now and concentrated on taking a few bites, getting some protein into his system.
After a minute or two, he said, “I wish you’d called me before you did that, though.”
“Mmm,” she said through her own mouthful of meat and cheese and mushrooms. Once she’d finished chewing, she added, “And what, confess I’d let some strange man who’d collapsed on my living room floor take up residence in Kiki’s room?”
Ah. So that told him they hadn’t tumbled into bed together right away. Not that he’d expected anything less of Kara, but you never knew. She’d been single for a long time, and Grayson had the kind of movie star looks that might have made her forget a few of her scruples.
“Okay, maybe not. But still….”
She swirled a French fry in some ketchup with a meditative air. “Lance, the phone I used is completely untraceable. You and Jeff have seen to that. So even if that call sent up red flags somewhere, how would they ever have been able to track it down?”
“I don’t know. But — ”
“But nothing. I think it’s going to be okay.” A hesitation, and she set down the fry without eating it. “That is, I don’t know how all of this is going to shake out, but I’m pretty sure the uniform angle is a dead end. You won’t be able to buy another one like it.”
“I’m not going to buy one,” he told her, and picked up his burger once more. “I’m going to have one made.”
Kara
Lucinda Torres lived over in Cottonwood, and she ran a business doing custom embroidery for various uniform suppliers and sporting teams. She was also an accomplished seamstress.
I watched as Lance handed over the tattered jumpsuit and explained that he needed a duplicate made. How he’d known about Lucinda, I had no idea, but it really didn’t surprise me all that much. Lance always had been a font of unexpected knowledge…a good deal of it supplied by Jeff Makowski, no doubt.
“Okay,” Lucinda said, turning the jumpsuit over in her hands and then actually pulling it inside out so she could inspect the seams. “I don’t carry this fabric in stock, so I’ll have to order it.”
“How long?”
She shrugged, shoulders plump and bra strap slipping out just a little from underneath the sleeveless polyester shirt she wore. “Two, three days to get the material, then another two days to take a pattern off this one and make a new one.”
Lance didn’t look too thrilled by the delay, but inwardly I was relieved. Four days at least until we could follow up on this insane scheme to send Grayson back into the Secret Canyon base. Maybe by then I could come up with a really good reason for them to abandon the plan and try something else.
Right.
I wanted to see Grayson again, needed to talk to him, but the opportunity hadn’t really presented itself. Lance had stayed over last night but again melted away before dawn, presumably so I wouldn’t be caught in the compromising position of having his Jeep sitting in my driveway all that time. Neither one of us had said anything about the shift in our relationship, although something in Michael’s voice when I called that morning to check on Grayson told me that the shaman already guessed something had changed about me.
He’d also told me that Grayson wasn’t available, was down by the creek, and I didn’t know whether to believe Michael or not. Okay, maybe the hybrid soldier was out communing with nature, but more likely, he just didn’t want to talk to me. I couldn’t even blame him. I’d all but abandoned him, hadn’t I?
Now I know why the whole love triangle thing is such a nightmare, I thought as I watched Lance lay down a respectable stack of twenty-dollar bills and Lucinda pick up the money and secret it somewhere in a drawer in her sewing table. Because you don’t stop caring for the one just because you’ve decided to be with the other.
However you looked at it, the situation was a mess. True, maybe I hadn’t cheated on Grayson, because I’d broken things off before I’d gone to Lance, but it still felt like cheating. Sort of. Or had I been cheating on Lance when I went with Grayson, since I’d known in my heart that Lance was the one I really loved?
I didn’t know what to think anymore. I just wished I could think of a way to let Grayson understand that I had never meant to hurt him.
The blazing heat of the August afternoon hit me the second I stepped outside Lucinda’s small shop in a shabby little strip mall. For some reason, I felt dizzy for a second or two. Then the spell passed, and I shook my head slightly as I climbed into Lance’s Jeep.
Just a temperature change, and too much on my mind. The heat had never really bothered me before, but I’d had a rough couple of days.
“You okay?” Lance asked, shooting me a sideways look before he pulled out onto the highway.
“Oh, sure,” I replied with a lift of my shoulders. “My only problem is that someone hasn’t been letting me get enough sleep.”
At that response, he gave me one of his rare grins, a flash of white teeth brilliant in the bright sunshine. “First time I’ve heard you complain.”
“Who says I’m complaining?”
Another smile, accompanied by a shake of the head. Then he was aiming the Jeep northeast, back into Sedona, which, though hot, somehow didn’t feel as oppressive as Cottonwood. It had always seemed too bare and flat to me, accustomed as I was to the red rock formations and juniper-studded hillsides of my hometown.
He dropped me off at the house, saying he needed to go meet with Brian Henderson, a pilot with one of the helicopter companies that ferried tourists around the area. I almost asked if I could go along, but then realized it was probably better if Lance handled those negotiations on his own. Besides, this would give me a chance to drop in at Michael’s place unannounced. I had a suspicion that was the only way I’d get a chance to see Grayson, since I’d gotten the distinct impression everyone in the group was trying to keep the two of us apart.
So I went back inside and brushed my hair and repaired my lipstick, which had gotten more than a little smeared from my goodbye kiss with Lance. Then I took a few deep breaths, picked up my purse, and headed out.
Surprisingly, Michael’s battered old El Camino wasn’t in the driveway. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him actually drive it, but I supposed this answered the question as to whether it ran or not. Unless, of course, he’d finally gotten around to having the thing towed away.
I parked more or less in front of the house, in a spot that wasn’t too close to the driveway. This part of town didn’t have sidewalks or streetlights, but Michael had stepping stones set in amongst the rocks that made up most of his front yard, so it wasn’t too hard to get around.
Down here, the heat didn’t seem quite as intense. Maybe it was the creek’s influence, or just the tall cottonwoods and pines and sycamores that seemed to crowd everyone’s lots. The breeze soughed through them, echoing the faint chatter of the creek.
For some reason, I knew not to knock at the front door, but instead opened the gate into the side yard and moved on past the back of the house and the little trail that wandered through the trees until it dead-ended at the creek. I’d been this way often — barbecues in Michael’s backyard seemed to end up more often than not with evening walks along the water’s edge — so my footsteps didn’t falter until I got to the creek’s bank and saw the man sitting there, staring out at the water.
He didn’t turn. “Hi, Kara.”
How he’d known it was me, I couldn’t guess. My perfume, maybe, carried on the wind, or maybe the light fall of my footsteps, probably very different from Michael’s. Or maybe he had super-attuned senses, half-alien warrior that he was. I wasn’t brave enough to ask.
Instead, I stopped a few paces away from him and said, “I think you’ve found the one cool spot in Sedona.”
A lift of the shoulders. I saw that he held a smooth black stone in one hand, as if he’d been contemplating chucking it across the quick-moving waters. Oak Creek never ran dry, even at this time of year, although its level was far lower than it would be in the spring, or after the first snowfall up on the San Francisco Peaks in Flagstaff.
He set the rock down and spoke, still without looking at me. “What do you want, Kara?”
“To talk.”
“I don’t know what we have to talk about.”
There was no bitterness in his tone, and yet something in his voice sent a chill down my spine. Well, what had I been expecting? I’d left him when he needed me the most. Never mind that I had my own crap to deal with. It hadn’t been fair, even if I’d known we had no possible future together.
My legs seemed reluctant to move, but I forced myself to take a few steps toward him, to stop and sit down on the creek’s bank next to him. At least it was dry enough. The air smelled of damp leaves and warm stone.
“Where’s Michael?” I asked. That seemed safe enough.
“Said he had to run over to Prescott for something.”
That was news. I wondered what could be in Prescott that would make Michael leave Grayson here all alone. No point in asking, though. They all kept their own secrets, apparently.
“Oh.”
At last, Grayson did shift his position enough so he was looking basically in my direction. Nothing about him seemed materially different, and yet there was a shadow to his eyes that hadn’t been there a few days ago. God knows what he’d been brooding over, sitting there alone.
“I don’t blame you,” he said.
I said nothing, but only waited. Maybe I’d come here for some sort of absolution, but now I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hear it.
“But I also don’t want you to talk me out of…whatever they end up planning.” His face tilted upward, and the fresh green of the cottonwood leaves reflected in his eyes.
“Grayson, I — ”
“Don’t.” To my surprise, he reached out and laid a hand on mine where it rested on the sandy shore. “This couldn’t have worked for us. I know that now. At least I know you won’t be alone when I’m gone.”
My throat tightened. Had he already consigned himself to oblivion when he didn’t even know what the plan was, whether he would even be required to put himself in harm’s way? “Grayson, you don’t know it’s going to shake out like that.”
“Maybe not, but I can guess.” He let go of my hand and stood, fine chin lifted into the breeze.
I got to my feet as well. This conversation was difficult enough without him looming over me like that. In a small voice, I said, “I never meant to hurt you.”
“I know.” He turned toward me. To my surprise, he smiled. “Actually, you’ve made it easier for me.”
“I — what?”
“You have.” With one hand, he made a sweeping gesture that seemed to take in the lacy, ruffling foliage of the cottonwoods, the solemn stillness of the pines, the bright, sun-laced chatter of the creek. “I know now what I’m fighting for. The aliens made me, put some of themselves in me, but I know I’m human, too. You showed me how beautiful this world can be. Maybe I can’t have a place in it, but at least I can make damn sure it’s safe for the rest of you.”
The tears came then, and I couldn’t stop them. It was too much. In that moment, I knew there was nothing I could say to stop him, nothing to change the quiet determination in his voice. Head bowed, I felt him move closer and take me in his arms. There was nothing sexual in his embrace, and I felt no answering heat at his touch. But something seemed to pass between us then, some understanding. I wouldn’t try to argue with him anymore. If he wanted to do this thing, that was his decision. All I could do was let him know that someone in this world cared very much what happened to him.
Time passed. From somewhere far off, I heard the crunch of car tires on the patched asphalt of the road, and realized Michael must have come home. Grayson released me, but gently, as if trying to show that he was only doing so because he’d sensed in me the need to move away.
I reached up to wipe my cheeks and realized they were already dry. “It’s going to be a few days at least,” I told him. “Lance is having someone duplicate your jumpsuit, but that isn’t something that can happen overnight.”
He nodded, accepting the information without comment.
Slow, quiet footsteps came from the direction of the house. Michael Lightfoot stopped a few yards away and regarded us with no surprise. Then again, he would have seen my Prius parked in front of the house. It wasn’t as if I’d tried to hide it.
His dark features showed no anger, no irritation that I’d intruded on Grayson’s solitude. Maybe he understood better than I did my reasons for coming here.
“Kara,” Michael said.
“Hi, Michael.” So banal, but it was about all I could manage right then. “I was just filling Grayson in on some of our progress.”
“Ah,” was all he said, although I guessed he knew my conversation with Grayson had involved much more than that.
“Anyway,” I continued, a false brightness in my voice that I was sure fooled no one, “we’ll keep in touch. Lance said something about all of us getting together again tomorrow night.”
“Yes.”
There seemed to be nothing else to say, so I summoned a brittle smile, said my goodbyes to both men, and followed the path back up into Michael’s backyard and then on to the street. As I got into the car and leaned over to fasten my seatbelt, a sudden wave of nausea assailed me, and I had to shut my eyes and gulp down a few deep breaths before it passed.
What the hell?
But then it was gone as suddenly as it had come. I shook my head. That conversation must have gotten to you more than you thought. I couldn’t seem to erase the image of Grayson’s sad eyes from my mind, the quiet resignation in his voice. It seemed he was already making his goodbyes.
Not if I have anything to say about it, I thought grimly, and pointed my car toward home.
Lance
Just like all the other helicopter tour outfits in Sedona, Arizona Helicopter Adventures had its home base at the Sedona airport, high atop a mesa. Conveniently, there was a pretty decent restaurant with an even more decent bar located a stone’s throw from the tour company’s office.
Lance waited there, nursing an extremely dry martini and trying to think of the best way to explain to Brian Henderson that he needed him to steer his helicopter closer to Secret Canyon than most pilots dared. It wasn’t that they were scared of aliens…at least that they’d admit openly. No, most of them only said the air currents in that area were tricky, and besides, boxing yourself in a canyon wasn’t the best way to show off panoramic vistas of Sedona to tourists who were paying four hundred bucks an hour for the privilege. Henderson knew better, though. He wasn’t exactly active in the UFO group, but he also didn’t try to deny that there was a lot more going on in Sedona’s airspace than a bunch of general-aviation flights and air tours.
About twenty minutes after he said he’d be there, Henderson sauntered into the restaurant. He exchanged a few words of greeting with the hostess — he was well-known in the place, after all — before walking up to the bar and taking a seat next to Lance.
“Hey, Lance.”
“Brian.”
Henderson waved the bartender over. “Luis. Soda water and some lime, okay?”
The bartender nodded and went off to fill the order.
“Got another flight?” Lance inquired. Henderson had never met a martini he didn’t like, but he also never drank on the job.
“Yep,” the pilot replied, taking the glass of soda water from Luis. “Sunset flight. So I’ve got to cool my heels for a while.”
Well, that explained why Henderson had been willing to meet him at four-thirty in the afternoon. Most people would be almost done with their day by then, but he had to go out when the tour company told him to.
Stirring the straw in his drink, Henderson asked, “So, are you going to tell me something that’s going to make me wish this was a little stronger?”
“Maybe,” Lance said. “You seen much out around Secret Canyon lately?”
“Define ‘much.’”
Lance didn’t bother to say anything, but just lifted his shoulders.
Henderson let out what might have been a sigh and swigged at his soda water. “You know I stick around Boynton mainly.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Up until about five months ago, there were black helicopters out that way. And they weren’t ours or from any of the other tours, if you know what I mean.”
The timing matched. It was in early March when Persephone blew out the base. Lance supposed the airspace around Secret Canyon had been pretty quiet since then. He nodded.
“The past few weeks, though….” Henderson trailed off and looked regretfully into his half-empty glass of soda water as if he really wished it was a martini, or possibly a gin and tonic. “Not that I’ve really seen anything, but….”
“But what?”
“It’s probably my eyes playing tricks on me. Just don’t tell anyone else I said that. I need this gig. But I’ve seen…something…like heat shimmers out of the corner of my eye. When I turn to really look, though, nothing’s there.”
Some kind of cloaking technology, Lance guessed, although he didn’t bother to voice that particular speculation aloud. Henderson was willing to go along with the whole UFO thing up to a point, but the minute Lance mentioned a cloaking device, he knew the other man would start making Star Trek cracks, and the whole conversation would only go downhill from there.
For a minute, Lance didn’t say anything, but only drank his own martini, devoutly glad that Luis didn’t mix them weak. The past few weeks. So whatever the aliens were up to out in Secret Canyon, it hadn’t been going on for very long. That might be a bit of good news. Maybe the UFO hunters’ own particular monkey wrench — in the shape of Grayson, the perfect infiltration agent — could actually do some good. Still, shimmers where alien craft might or might not be didn’t help all that much. He needed to know if they were still using the old entrances to the base, or whether they’d done a bit of remodeling when they came back to take up residence.
“So…if there really isn’t anything there, then it couldn’t hurt for you to get in a little closer.”
Henderson’s eyes narrowed. The guy was no fool. Unlike some of the kids they had piloting those aerial tourist traps, he knew what he was doing. He’d flown med-evac in the first Gulf War, wasn’t someone to get easily rattled. “And how am I supposed to explain that to the tourists? From the air, Secret isn’t nearly as interesting as Boynton.”
“I’m pretty sure most of them won’t even notice the difference.”
“You’re probably right. Okay, I’ll do a short buzz-by and see if I can scope out anything. But I’m guessing it’s going to be a big fat zero.”
“Probably…but you never know.”
“You never do.”
And Lance slapped a twenty down on the bar for Luis to cover both his and Henderson’s drinks, then got up and left. He knew he didn’t need to extract any more promises from Henderson. The man would do as he’d offered. And then?
Well, Lance could only hope he’d actually get something out of it besides some wasted fuel and a couple of disgruntled tourists.
Kara
I didn’t go straight home, but spent a few hours at Persephone’s house before finally pointing the Prius homeward. It had been good to sit down and talk — not about anything important, only topics like Ginger’s wedding and how L.A. already seemed so ungodly crowded, even though Persephone had moved away a scant four months ago. Just the sort of cheerful, inconsequential chatter any two friends would have, with nary an alien nor a government conspiracy in sight. When I left, my spirits were considerably improved.
As I drove home, a series of emergency vehicles passed me on 89A, sirens blaring, lights flashing against the sunset sky. More than once, I had to pull over, letting first an ambulance, then a pair of fire trucks, and finally a couple of police cars go screaming by. Pile-up out on the western edge of town? House fire? It had to be something major to get that sort of response.
Still, it wasn’t something I needed to be worried about. I pulled into the garage and got out of the car, patted Gort as he came bounding up to me the second I walked into the kitchen, and turned off the alarm. “Soon, Gort,” I promised.
No messages on the answering machine, which was a relief after everything that had been going on. But I hadn’t been in the house for more than five minutes before I heard the doorbell ring.
“What now?” I muttered to Gort, who cocked his head and wagged his tail doubtfully. “You think it’s Martin Jones, the semi-hot man in black?”
The dog whined, and I couldn’t help smiling slightly.
But it was not Martin Jones who waited outside, but Lance, looking positively grim.
“You hear the sirens?” he asked, moving past me into the entryway.
“Um, yes. Saw them, actually, as I was coming home from Persephone’s.”
He stopped in the middle of the living room and ran a distracted hand through his short-cropped hair. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen him this agitated. “My fault,” he said.
I blinked at him. “Your fault? Was there a car accident or something? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I can’t say the same for Brian Henderson or the three tourists he had on board his helicopter when it went down.”
The words didn’t seem to make sense at first. I stared at him, at the obvious consternation on his features, and a second or two later it clicked into place. “He — he crashed? Oh, my God, Lance….”
“I’m sure that’s what they’ll call it. Mechanical failure or something plausible. Only I know that wasn’t it at all. He got too close.”
“Too close?”
“To Secret Canyon. To whatever it is that they’re doing out there. They wanted to make sure we got the message — and they didn’t care if it cost four innocent lives.”
My heart began to pound at the thought of Brian Henderson’s helicopter dropping from the sky, only to smash on the red rocks below. There was no way he could have possibly defended himself against such an attack. I swallowed, then asked, “A warning?”
“More like a ‘fuck you.’”
Lance’s eyes were narrowed, his jaw clenched. If any of the aliens had been around, he looked as if he could have reached out and wrung what passed for their necks. But of course they were all safely miles away, and I guessed they would have done something similarly lethal to Lance if he’d tried anything.
I wished I could have thought of something simultaneously bracing and soothing to tell him, but words seemed to have failed me. Somehow, though, I made myself say, “It’s not your fault, Lance.”
“It isn’t? I’m the one who sent him out there.”
“You couldn’t have possibly known — ”
“That’s not the point. I sent him into harm’s way, and now four people are dead because of me.”
Without replying, I went to him, put my arms around him, and pulled him close. At first, he seemed to resist, but then I felt him tighten the embrace, crush me to him, as if he needed to feel my warmth, the life in my body, to know that I was here with him, was safe. We stood that way for several minutes, until I murmured,
“Those people aren’t dead because of you. They’re dead because of the aliens. It’s horrible. It’s a tragedy. But you can’t blame yourself. If the aliens are on hyper-alert for some reason, they would have gone after anybody. It could have been someone else flying too close to Secret Canyon.”
“But it wasn’t.”
I knew he’d never allow himself to cry, was channeling his hurt and sorrow into anger, into blame. That was all right; I could understand that.
“It’s horrible,” I said. “But this just means they’re up to something, something big. We’ve got to stop them.”
Lance grasped me by the upper arms and held me away from him, just far enough so he could study my face. Whatever he saw there seemed to steady him, because he nodded.
“I know.” His voice was hard now, cold and edged with steel. “I’m going to make sure Brian’s death means something.” He shifted, those flinty gray eyes fixed on a point beyond me, gazing westward, toward the aliens’ base. “They’re going to be very sorry they ever tangled with us.”