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The good news was that Agent Robert Aldridge wasn't as big a jerk as Special Agent Smelly had been expecting. Not only did he look like a prototypical FBI agent, trim, well-dressed, with short, neatly trimmed black hair, he even fit the part of a bureau chief. He had a quiet, commanding air and a way of looking directly at people that seemed to penetrate layers deep.
“Call me Bob,” he had said when they met, but it came across as a no-nonsense gesture rather than an attempt at friendliness. He was clearly devoted to the FBI, and Special Agent Smelly allowed himself to hope that Aldridge might run a tight, efficient operation that would actually zero in on their little missing alien.
True, during the initial meeting Aldridge dropped big names from the Bureau and Washington, and yes, he was a pit bull about their present case. He had reason for his monomania, as he explained. According to him, most of the analysts at the Bureau were inclined to think that their missing woman was the real McCoy.
There was no other way to explain the few incontrovertible facts they had. And given those, the CIA was trying to nose into the deal and the DIA was alarmed over the possible interplanetary aspects of the affair (the only time that had ever happened).
Word had even reached the President, whose demonstrable innocence of complex human affairs did not require breaching in order for him to realize that this was possibly an earthshaking case, pun not intended, Sir (as if you'd get a pun, Sir). That was the good news.
The bad news, at which Aldridge could only clench his jaw, was that there were no good leads in the case. There were, in fact, no leads whatsoever. The girl had disappeared, vanished, gone up in smoke.
The attempts to trace the escapee had led to thousands of tips, none of which fit together convincingly. The maps in the situation room were dense with colored pins and lines which lead nowhere. Small blonde women and little blonde girls and the parents of little blonde girls had been annoyed by the hundreds. Some of them willingly allowed themselves to be fingerprinted, and some did not. Some threatened lawsuits.
The standard cover story about checking rumors of terrorists wasn't working. People were not willing to believe the girl next door, a petite blonde woman, was a possible terrorist.
Traffic over the bridges from El Paso into Mexico had been slowed even more than usual, thanks to extra scrutiny from the Border Patrol. Reporters were beginning to sniff out a major story. or a scandal. or at least something juicy. Aldridge insisted the whole thing be kept from the public. The first headline from a tabloid would screw things up royally.
All they needed was a media circus. The only cover story they could come up with was a "kidnapped girl" alert. That gained them some traction, but not a lot.
Special Agent Smelly wondered what Aldridge was going to do. They couldn't take out an ad: "Dear Visitor From Outer Space: Please Call the FBI." They couldn't search the moon (though a few senior boffins at NASA were considering the possibilities). They couldn't unleash a bloodhound to follow the trail of slime—wrong kind of alien. If only!
Aldridge began by reviewing the case to date, grimly encouraging his agents to redouble their efforts, and then waiting for a break.
