Page 18 of Claimed by an Alien Warrior

“My name is Zoey.”

She glanced in the mirror and caught a fleeting glimpse of his face; his mouth was quirked up at one corner.

“I know that, human,” he said as he lay back on the seat.

Zoey rolled her eyes. She had a feeling this was going to be one interesting road trip.

Chapter Five

Before the SUV came to a complete stop, Charles Stantz threw open the passenger door. He stormed across the pavement after the driver slammed on the brakes, resisting the urge to adjust his tie; he refused, even with the current situation, to display so much as the smallest sign of weakness in front of his men.

An unexpected event had occurred, anunfortunateevent, but it was being handled. There was no reason for the sour churning in his gut.

He climbed the metal-grating steps and entered the command trailer, closing the door quietly behind him. Before he rounded the corner, he fished a roll of antacids from his inside jacket pocket, peeled back the foil, and dumped four into his mouth. The packaging declaredFruit Flavored!, but they tasted like shit.

Once the antacids were chewed to a paste, Stantz swallowed and walked around the corner.

Banks of monitors of varying sizes lined both walls, and a dozen technicians with headsets were at the controls. Currently, there were at least fifty camera feeds pulled up, including two for each patrolling chopper, more than ten from agents currently in the desert, numerous surveillance cameras from buildings in the search area, and first-person views from the agents operating the roadblock at the California-Nevada border.

The techs spoke in low, droning voices as they received and relayed information.

“Tell me we’ve got something,” Stantz called as he moved down the narrow walkway to the center of the trailer.

“A few impact spots in the dirt, and his shackles, cut into pieces,” Fairborough said, walking over to stand beside Stantz. His sleeves were rolled up and his headset was pulled back off one ear. “Trail’s cold after he crossed the mountains.”

Stantz growled. “How does a seven-foot-tallgreenalien vanish in a place with nowhere to hide?”

Fairborough didn’t answer; the man was smart enough to know it had been a rhetorical question.

One of the screens caught Stantz’s attention. He pointed at it. “What’s Branson got there?”

The camera feed showed a curvy woman standing near the front of her car. She looked pissed, with her fists balled and her eyebrows angled down over the bridge of her nose.

Stantz grabbed a free headset and pulled it on. “Patch me through to field comms.”

The closest tech nodded, and after a few quick clicks, audio crackled on in Stantz’s headset.

“…pretty damn well, all things considered,” the woman on the camera said.

The technician pulled up her info; Zoey Weston, age twenty-seven, most recently employed as a waitress in Santa Barbara, California. No criminal record.

“Agent Branson,” Stantz said, “does that civilian have information on the Fox?”

The codename — Fox — was at once fitting and frustrating; Specimen Ten was cunning and dangerous, as four dead operatives now evidenced, but the naming scheme seemed ridiculously cliché and unimaginative. If the Organization wanted to move into the future, it would need to shed the trappings of the past.

Branson’s camera angle tilted slightly.

“Negative. She’s clear. Just got a nasty attitude.”

“Then move her along. Our only concern is tracking down the Fox, understood?”

“Copy.”

Stantz tugged the headset down around his neck and returned his attention to Fairborough. “I want all lines of communication monitored.”

“Yes, sir. I’ve already got people back at base combing social media and cell phone traffic. Anyone so much as mentions something weird, we’ll know about it.”

Stantz’s phone vibrated. He tugged it off his belt and glanced at the screen. “Shit,” he muttered.

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