23

THE HELICOPTER HAD landed, but Brock was still in his seat, feeling like an idiot. The pilot had already left the craft. Finally, five minutes after they were on the ground, the image in front of his eyes came to life. Fuller and Hernandez filled his world once again.

“Okay, Captain Brock,” said Fuller, still inside the limo. “I’ve decided to let you redeem yourself. First, you’re already in the inner circle, but you know how much I value secrecy. And I wanted the nature of the current situation to be on a need-to-know basis. Well, now that this simple operation has gone completely off the fucking tracks, I’ve decided you need to know.”

Finally, thought Brock. It was about time Fuller came to his senses.

Fuller spent the next twenty minutes bringing Brock fully up to speed, while Hernandez sat beside him in silence, nursing his drink. “So here’s the drill with Erin Palmer,” Fuller told Brock when his briefing was completed. “We’re going to make this girl radioactive. We’ll have the cops and everyone else in the Southwest turning over every last cacti to find her. We’ll put out a very public fifty-thousand-dollar reward for information as to her whereabouts. If this doesn’t force her to panic and make mistakes, nothing will.”

“Given her importance,” said Brock, finally understanding exactly how Erin Palmer fit into the scheme of things, “why only fifty thousand?”

“Any more and it would raise eyebrows. Fifty is the right amount. But here is the key. I want her captured, not killed. This hasn’t changed. So like before, make sure every man on your team has nonlethal weaponry. If one of your men shoots her by accident, I’ll shoot the bastard myself—on purpose. Have I made myself clear?”

“Perfectly.”

“Good. So we’ll make sure the cops have very clear instructions that their job is to help locate her. If they do, they act as spotters. You’re the hunter. Even if we told them not to kill her, if she starts resisting arrest, who knows what could happen. So they don’t move in under any circumstances. Robert here will use Homeland Security to make sure this gets the attention—and care—it deserves. Everyone will be told that you’re the point person from DHS, and not to take a piss without your say-so. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“And there is something else. Something that will require some skill on your end, but could be extremely important. It’ll make your job more challenging.” He went on to describe what he wanted. “You know how much is riding on this,” said Fuller. He leaned closer to the camera embedded in his laptop and spread his hands. “I’m a generous, forgiving man by nature,” he added with a humorless smile. “But don’t test me. This is your last chance. See that you don’t let me down again.”

24

KYLE HANSEN’S HEAD wouldn’t stop spinning. Everything was happening so fast. He hadn’t dated in years, ever since he had joined Drake’s efforts, knowing that certain sacrifices came with the privilege of working with an alien emissary, and also of staying off the grid. The most important of these involved giving up entanglements with other human beings—particularly those of the opposite sex. Unless, of course, he was able to develop a romantic connection with one of the women who were also part of the team, even though they wouldn’t be aware of Drake’s identity as an alien.

But talk about your small dating population. Hansen now knew how Adam and Eve’s kids must have felt. Lots of excitement to be a part of something new—in their case, the human race—but when the only people on the planet were in your immediate family, it couldn’t have been easy to find a date for the prom. So far only three women had been part of the team since he had begun to work with Drake, and he had had zero interest in any of them.

Erin would be the fourth. The odds of finding your perfect match in a population of four women were too long to bother calculating. Yet here she was. And here he was, having made love to her repeatedly, first ravenously and then tenderly. Both of them insatiable.

Yet his interest in her went far beyond the physical—which given her looks, was saying quite a lot. She was bright and had a sense of humor he hadn’t expected, given she spent most of her life inside a bleak prison, and given the trauma she had suffered at a young age. She truly was remarkable. But he still could be deluding himself. After all, they were in a tense situation, with adrenaline and emotions running high.

But if he was deluding himself, he decided, he never wanted the delusion to end.

They had slept soundly through the night, sometimes entwined in each other’s arms and sometimes on separate sides of the bed, neither clingy nor making it a point to show a need for space. Usually this was the point in a budding relationship when a couple—who really sensed an emotional and not just physical connection—would stay up for hours trading intimate stories about their lives, hopes, and aspirations. Getting to know each other on a deeper level. But this hadn’t happened. They had both been utterly spent after sex, physically and emotionally, and had quickly drifted into a deep sleep.

This was interrupted when Erin awoke at three thirty in the morning, shrieking as if someone were twisting a corkscrew into her eye. The screams had gone directly to the panic center of Hansen’s brain and he had jumped out of bed like he was shot from a cannon.

He had held her and tried to comfort her, telling her it was only a nightmare. He knew their long philosophical discussion on the ethics of curing psychopathy must have brought painful memories to the surface. He wasn’t surprised that the ultimate waking nightmare she had experienced as a child would escape from her subconscious once she was asleep, eager to haunt her yet again.

She had said he was right, and this had to be nothing more than a nightmare. But she also insisted that while she had had nightmares as a girl, she hadn’t had one in her adult life. And if it had been a dream, she couldn’t recall a single element of it.

“If I had any self-esteem issues,” he had joked, “the fact that I had sex with you and then you had the only nightmare of your adult life might be seen as a bad sign.”

She had laughed, kissed him gently on the lips, and told him the only nightmare she might have in connection with him was learning she had only imagined him, after which they slept through the night without any further incident.

They had awakened, made love yet again, this time more tenderly, and she was now getting ready for the day. He heard the shower running in the tiny bathroom next to the bed, and he had the small television turned on for background noise and to reestablish a connection to the real world. His shower would be next. He had thought to suggest they shower together, but he didn’t want to act like a horny eighteen-year-old, and they were running for their lives, so he decided to keep this thought to himself.

He was feeling too many conflicting emotions to keep track of. The fate of humanity depended on launching this virus, which might never happen if he and Erin, and separately Drake, couldn’t stay out of Fuller’s way. He was on the run facing a deadly and powerful adversary. And at the same time he felt euphoric at having found Erin. Physically his entire body was practically singing it was so satisfied. Given they had both been suffering through a long drought, the sex had been epic. In fact, the word epic didn’t even do justice to what it had been.

And interspersed with these other emotions was one of guilt. He hadn’t really been thinking ahead when he had given Erin an abbreviated version of what had happened, and of his knowledge of Steve Fuller. He hadn’t considered he might end up in an extended relationship with her—if they lived through the next twenty-four hours, that was. He could always go back and tell her the full story. She would understand that he had captured the essence of the situation even though he had skipped parts of the tale. Understand that they had not been long on time, and that he had doubted she trusted him completely—or at all, for that matter—so he had decided to cut corners; decided it was best to keep things simple and straightforward and not confuse the issue.