Alien Affairs
Chapter 23

In her rented car, on the edge of a dirt road several miles outside of Roswell, New Mexico, Carrie waited for her phone to come to life. When the display finally glowed with its colorful icons, she tapped the number of Georgia Turnbull’s private phone.

“Carrie, where the hell are you?” Turnbull dispensed with a greeting.

“That doesn’t matter. Write this down.” When her boss found a piece of paper Carrie recited the digits that she now saw on the display of the alien ereader.

“Okay, what’s this?”

“Those are the coordinates of the locations of the canisters.”

“How the hell did you replace this?”

“To quote someone whom I respect, ‘You’re not fucking with kids’.”

“What did you have to do with Deshler to get this?”

“Give me a break. He caved to my natural charm.”

“Fine, I’d rather not know. When are you coming back here?”

“I’ll be back tonight,” she said, then she thought briefly of Bill, but dismissed it. “I’ll be in the office in the morning.”

“Good. I’ll get these numbers to the Pentagon right now. Have a safe trip.”

Carrie stripped behind the car and left her clothes at the side of the road. She was shivering by the time she redressed in clothes that didn’t smell like Deshler. Her hands had a good dose of alien stink, which she tried to kill with hand sanitizer. When she started driving she still smelled a trace of alien and presumed it was on her hair. “People on the plane are just going to have to cope,” she thought.

It occurred to Carrie that she had had no sleep but the level of adrenalin in her blood kept her eyes wide open on the tedious drive back to Albuquerque. Dawn had broken when she saw the terra cotta tinted overpasses decorated with negative relief images of cacti and Kokopelli, and negotiated morning rush hour traffic to the airport. Even in the relative comfort of the first class cabin she still could not sleep, and arrived at Reagan Airport feeling like hell. The glow of success buoyed her all the way to Georgetown, and it was not until she climbed into bed that the concern over just how much good recovering the aerosols was really going to do hit her hard.

They had a banner in the bullpen that said, ‘Congratulations Frau Deshler.’ It made Carrie laugh.

“So where are the three coordinates?” she asked first thing.

Eddy answered, “Mali, the Nazca Plain and Giza.”

“Our special places—Deshler was such a romantic, and Onath lied,” Carrie said. “Actually, I might have guessed those if I had just studied the list of landing sites.”

“I suppose our team will be disbanded,” Jan said.

Carrie pulled the new ereader from her purse. “I doubt that. We’ve got a whole lot of new reading material.”

“Wow,” Eddy said leaving his desk and reaching for the device. “I think it’s time you taught the rest of us the lingo.”

“Think what might be in there,” Jan said.

“There might be a cure for the sterility bug,” Paul said.

“This is Deshler’s personal copy,” Carrie said. “More likely it’s just porn.”

“Speaking of Deshler,” Jan said, “do you believe he’s really gone?”

“Well, they’re not in orbit according to the satellite tracker,” Paul said.

“I’m sure we can get a report from NASA,” Carrie said and that was when the director entered. They put the question to her.

“They’re past the orbit of the moon and accelerating. It looks like we’re in the clear—at least for seventy years or so.”

Carrie had considered the possibility of Deshler reporting failure, or only partial success. “I think Deshler will keep our secret. Why would he confess to sabotaging the mission?”

Turnbull said, “You’re the expert on alien psychology. Anyway, if they come back it won’t be in my lifetime. I came down to report that we have a problem. You did such a good job replaceing the locations of the aerosols, you get to go get them.”

“Me?”

“That’s right. For reasons I can ascribe only to madness, the president wants the military off the case. I figure you and Ms. Glassman collect one, Messrs. Whitehead and Baker get another.”

“What about the third?”

“I’m already on it. When you have the things, deliver them to Vandenberg. I’ve funded SpaceX to build a delivery vehicle capable of achieving escape velocity. We’ll blast them to the sun. That ought to make short work of your paramour’s viruses. Any questions?”

“Yeah, why not use field agents?”

“Is this the Alien Affairs department or not?”

Carrie shrugged. “You’re the boss.”

“Paul and I get Egypt,” Eddy said.

Turnbull glared at him. “Ha! I’ve already got that one. You get Mali.”

“That means Jan and I get South America. Wasn’t I just there?”

“Yes, and you did so well.”

“Private jets again?”

“For you, anything.”