"Big guy, red jacket, orange cap, bad attitude?" Alex re- cited, quoting the description Liz had given them. "N(problem."Sounds like a plan, then," Michael agreed. Liz knew what he had to be thinking: If nodiing else, Alex seemed to| be in lot calmer state of mind than Max, and thus less likely to cause a scene that might attract undue attention. "Go for it."Be careful, Alex," Isabel said as Alex took off back toward the gift shop. He grinned back at her, visibly de lighted by her concern. Liz hoped that Alex wouldn't take any unnecessary chances just to impress Isabel.

The remaining teens huddled beneath the giant calcite peak. "Okay," Michael said, looking around warily to make sure no strangers were listening. "How do we want to handle this?"Are you kidding?" Maria asked incredulously. She had draped her own arm protectively over Liz, who was still trembling like a rabbit caught in a trap. "We've got to tell the police right away!" She scratched her head with her free hand, puzzled by a new thought. "Er, do park rangers count as police?"Not so fast," Michael said. "The last thing we want to do is call the authorities' attention back to that incident at the Crashdown. Officially, remember, there was no shooting. Max healed Liz before the cops showed up."But I was shot, Liz recalled. Her hands strayed once more to the spot where the bullet had entered her body There wasn't even a scar there now, she knew, thanks to Max's miraculous powers, but that didn't mean she couldn't still recall the sudden burning pain in her belly, and the horrible way she felt her life slipping away through the hole in her stomach. Darkness closing in on me. Blood soaking through my uniform…

"Michael is right," Isabel declared. She lingered at the back of the grotto, a strained expression on her immaculate face. "It's too dangerous. We can't take the chance."Maria stared at Michael and Isabel in disbelief. "But we have to do something!" she objected, sounding totally appalled at the notion of doing nothing. "We can't just let this guy walk out of here scot-free. He shot Liz, for pete's sake!"Liz appreciated Maria's loyalty, but realized that Michael and Isabel had a point. They had all spent two stressful years covering up what had really happened at the Crash-down the day she was shot; did they really want to drag all that up into the light again? There was only so far Sheriff Valenti could protect them from outside scrutiny. "I don't know," she said hesitantly. "Maybe it's too complicated."Right!" Michael asserted. "What do we care about some lowlife, trigger-happy hood? We've got enough problems with alien invaders, rogue FBI agents, shapechangers, etcetera. I say we forget about him."Easier said than done, Liz thought. She'd always known, intellectually, that the shooter was still out there somewhere, but now, having discovered firsdiand that he could reappear in her life at any time, she wasn't sure she would ever feel safe again.

Max seemed to feel the same way. "You're all forgetting one thing," he reminded the others. Liz could hear the brooding intensity in his voice, sense the pent- up fury contained in his coiled muscles and posture. "This guy saw Liz, too. If he recognized her, he knows she can identify him. That puts Liz in danger."I hadn't thought of that, Liz thought, feeling the panic flare up again. She shuddered violently, and received a comforting hug from Maria, who also offered her a sniff from one of her ubiquitous vials of soothing scents. "I'm not sure I can face him again," Liz confessed, dreading the very idea of running into the volatile gunman one more time. "I'm afraid to budge from this spot." Apprehension tied a knot in her stomach, and her legs felt like soggy french fries. "What if next time he recognizes me for sure?"Well, we can take care of that easily enough," Isabel declared. At least a foot taller than Liz, she reached out and ran her open palm over Liz's long brown hair. Molecules rearranged at the alien teenager's delicate prodding and Liz's cocoa-colored tresses turned a bright shade of scarlet. "There," Isabel stated, "instant redhead." With another pass of her hand, she shifted the hue of Liz's wool sweater from dark green to lemon-yellow, then stepped back to inspect her work. "Not bad," she pronounced. "I doubt that anyone will recognize you now, let alone some jerk who only saw you once before, two years ago."Maria whistled appreciatively. "Boy, you must save a fortune on cosmetics and clothes," she remarked enviously to Isabel.

"I could change her eye color and hairstyle, too," Isabel said with a shrug. She produced a compact from her purse and offered the tiny mirror to Liz. "But that might be overkill."Probably, Liz thought, marveling at the startling transformation revealed in the mirror. So that's what I look like as a redhead. She had to admit that Isabel had done a good job of changing her appearance, which made Liz feel some- what safer and more secure. A good disguise works wonders, I guess.

"Thank you, Isabel," Max said to his sister. "That was a smart idea." He eyed Liz curiously, no doubt trying to get used to her striking new look. "It's still just a temporary solution, though. As long as this guy is loose, he's a potential threat to Liz." Liz recognized the look of determination in his eyes; he had made his decision. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm going to track this guy down and make sure he never hurts anybody again-even if I have to do it alone."

I think I'm starting to get the hang of this sneaky stuff, Alex Whitman thought. Who would have guessed? Except in his wilder daydreams, Alex had never imagined himself the James Bond type. Yet here he was, trailing a dangerous, possibly lethal, suspect through the exotic setting of a gigantic cavern, eight hundred feet below the ground. It's amazing, he thought, what hanging around with aliens can do to perk up an otherwise dull lifestyle.

Locating Liz's mysterious assailant had been no problem; Alex had found the scruffy, heavyset stranger milling about outside the gift shop, looking impatient and irritable. The tricky part was going to be keeping an eye on the nameless shooter without blowing his cover. Alex hung out by the entrance to the underground cafeteria, pretending to be fascinated by a rock formation in the shape of an ice cream cone. Too bad there's no newsstand down here, he lamented; in the movies, private eyes and secret agents always hid behind their newspapers when shadowing suspicious characters.

Watching the alleged gunman out of the corner of his eye, Alex couldn't blame Liz for being spooked by this joker. Even if he hadn't already shot one of Alex's best friends, the big, imposing bruiser just looked like trouble. A trucker, maybe, or a convict, or both. The kind of brutal, bullying thug that ate mild-mannered high school kids for breakfast. Did he have to be quite so big and mean-looking? Alex asked silently, registering a complaint with whatever higher power was plotting his fate. After all, unlike Max or Michael, he wasn't equipped with his own personal force field and death ray. What do I do if he catches me following him? Run like heck, I guess.

Alex suddenly remembered the disposable Kodak camera he'd purchased at the Visitors Center uptop. He had intended to use the small plastic camera to snap some candid shots of his friends as they explored the caverns, but now a more devious application occurred to him.

Fishing the camera from the pocket of his jacket, he took a few random shots of the spacious cavern, just to establish his cover, then waited until Mr. Bad Attitude's sullen pacing brought him in front of a suitably photogenic stalagmite. Alex's index finger hovered over the shutter-release button of the compact camera, stalling until the elusive gunman was framed in the center of the viewfinder, then clicked the button.