Page 88 of Claimed by an Alien Warrior

Chapter Eighteen

“I’m working on containing—”

“Damnit, Charlie, I might as well have a red-assed baboon running that operation at this point,” the director shouted. Stantz gritted his teeth and moved the phone away from his ear. “Your fucking dog is all over the web, and it’s only been a few hours! Explain to me how the fuck you’re going to contain that? You shit the bed, Charlie.”

“Because of this, sir, we’ve discovered entirely new applications for—”

“I got Homeland Security and the Pentagon ringing my damned phone right off the hook, Charlie. You think they’re going to just shrug and leave us to it if I tell them we might be able to make them magical force fields in twenty years if they’d just please leave us alone?”

Pressing his lips together, Stantz squeezed his phone. The edges bit painfully into his fingers.

“One more chance, Charlie. You know I don’t like to retire assets, but when an asset becomes a liability… Fix this.”

The call ended with a double beep that felt far too final.

Stantz growled and threw the phone against the wall; the plaster, to his annoyance, took all the damage. He made himself pick the phone up and return it to the case on his belt before he stormed out of the hotel room.

The command trailer was at the rear of the parking lot, which was slick from the snowfall that had begun shortly after the incident in town. Stantz walked to the trailer, welcoming the cold blast of wind through his button-down shirt; it was a good distraction from his sour gut and boiling blood.

He found Fairborough inside the trailer. The man was sickly pale and had dark circles under his eyes. He looked like he hadn’t shaved in days. Stantz frowned; Fairborough oversaw a team within Stantz’s unit. It would befit him to present a more respectable countenance as an example to his men.

“Nothing,” Fairborough said, dragging a handkerchief over his glistening forehead. “Alpha Team found a trail over the hills, but it went dead at a residential road.”

“I need your people to get this video corrected, Fairborough. We need a clean version. Something to make the real thing look like it was tampered with.”

“We can do it, but it’s going to take a few days.”

“We don’t have that kind of time.”

“Sir, it’s very detailed work, and—”

“I need it done, Fairborough, and I need it donenow. The director’s breathing down the back of my neck, ready to throw everything I’ve worked for away because of this. Because he’s too stupid to see the endgame. We need that video discredited, and we need those two found.”

“They have to be somewhere in town. They have no vehicle, and her money, identification, and clothing were left behind. They couldn’t have made it far.”

Stantz shook his head and faced one of the monitor-lined walls. An overwhelming amount of information flitted across the screens — camera feeds, transcriptions of text and phone conversations, personal files, satellite feeds. None of it adequate enough to hunt down a green, seven-foot-tall alien and a waitress from California by way of Iowa.

“He can. Have the choppers expand their search eastward.”

“We already have roadblocks in place that way, and with this weather—”

Stantz silenced Fairborough with a hard look. Fairborough held his; gaze for several seconds before looking down.

“It isimperativethat we locate my specimen,” Stantz said in a low voice. “We must be willing to risk everything for it. That specimen is the key to the future of our species. I don’t care if the weather is dangerous, I don’t care if everyone is tired. Give the message to the pilots and keep those ground crews moving.”

Fairborough nodded and pulled up his headset. Stantz listened as his orders were relayed over the comm system. When it was done, Fairborough gave him a final, troubled look and walked away.

Stantz turned back to the screens. He moved his gaze over them slowly, searching for the next clue that would lead him toward his Fox.

Chapter Nineteen

Zoey stopped beside the outermost gas pump, threw the SUV into park, and had Ren kill the engine. When she climbed out, she made sure to leave the door wide open for him. Her breath fogged around her as she stood aside. Country music twanged on the overhead speakers, and the lights were almost unbearably bright after the impenetrable darkness that had assailed them through the mountains. She loosely balled her fists and rubbed her tired eyes.

The SUV swayed as Ren — still invisible after remaining cloaked for the entire ride — climbed out.

Zoey looked around the parking lot nervously. Fortunately, there weren’t many people present — it was after eight o’clock in the middle of December, and the light snowfall was enough to keep most sensible people indoors.

She wished, not for the first time, that they’d stayed in the cabin, where they’d been warm, happy, and comfortable. Instead they were on the run, strapped for money and lacking so much as an extra set of clothes. Just to make the situation evenbetter, the contrast between the heated cab of the SUV and the icy winter air outside had her instantly shivering.

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