Roswell Fanatics

She was surprised, when she awoke, to see the two beds beside her still empty. ‘Apparently they were even more pissed off than I thought..’ She wondered if they’d gotten the chaperones to give them another room…or were merely crashing with some of the other girls. What DIDN’T surprise Isabel, was the knock on the door from Mrs Sandstrom.

They’d all been briefed in a big assembly last Friday in the gym at West Roswell High, that the chaperones would be doing a head count every morning…just to make sure everyone was accounted for. So when the knock came, it took her only a quick look through the keyhole to know she could open the door.

“Isabel Evans, right? OK…all the girls are now accounted for then.”

“Uh…I’m not sure where my two..uh..roomates are.”

“I know…our first two people to get themselves in trouble with the locals, apparently. Vice Principal Gonzales is on his way down to the US Consulate right now to get those two. I’m not sure how much trouble they are in…but they are accounted for anyway.”

Isabel grabbed clothes from her bag and went in to the bathroom, thinking as she got ready to shower. ‘See, I was right. Those two probably went out drinking or something…maybe did some drugs. Now the US Consulate has to bail them out. Those are the girls that Max and Michael thought they could trust with the secret. If they had, Maria and Liz probably would have had too much tequila and been blabbing the secret to the world last night. We can’t trust them….we can’t trust anybody.’

She showered quickly…then checked to make sure they hadn’t gotten back before using her powers to dry her hair. Then used her powers to put on makeup…and color it to match her outfit. ‘I’d hate to be an Ice Princess without powers….it must take them hours to do their hair and makeup.’

When she was done she got on the phone….hoping that either Michael or Max answered…there was already a sick emptiness deep in her over no longer dreamwalking Alex, and she wasn’t sure she could take hearing his voice. Fortunately, Michael answered.

"Uh….whaa…..hello?”

“Wake up sleepy-head, and get that lazy brother of mine up too. You are supposed to meet me here to go out to breakfast in ten minutes.”

“uh..whaa…what time is it…damn it, Max was supposed to set the alarm.”

“I was not…you were going to set the alarm, I was keeping track of dead and wounded Irishmen…”

“Izzy…we are going to need a little more time….can we make that twenty-minutes,” asked Michael.

It was almost twenty-five minutes later when the two knocked on her door. When she opened it she could see that they were looking past her…trying to see if Maria and Liz were inside.

“Come on in and sit down…but I can tell you they aren’t here. How many times do we have to go over this…you can’t socialize with them…”

Max and Michael came in and sat down, Max looking up at his sister and shaking his head. “We aren’t talking about dating them or anything…just hanging with them a little bit this week. It’s only a few months to graduation, and then we’ll all go our separate ways. Even if Liz is going to UNM….what’s the enrollment there? Close to 27,000. It’s not like I’ll ever see her after we leave High School. Tell me, Izzy…, when we come back from out high school reunion twenty years from now, do you want to sya that you spent a week in Cabo…hanging with your brother?”

“Max…we’ve already had this discussion. Humans aren’t the most accepting people. They despise anyone who is even a little bit different, and we are a LOT different. Eventually they’ll find out, and that’ll be a disaster. That’s why we all took a Sacred Vow.”

As they went down to breakfast she could tell Max was sulking.

‘Well good…let him,’ she thought.

It wasn’t her fault that humans were so contemptuous of people who were different. Even the crack about Alex that she’d said yesterday hadn’t really been hers. Another member of the Ice Princess Posse had made it a few months ago, it had been all she could do to stop from hitting her, the bitch. Although in fairness, being a bitch was sort of the job description for an Ice Princess.

But if THAT girl couldn’t understand how great a guy Alex was…a fellow human who actually might have had some sort of a chance of making a life with Alex, there certainly wasn’t any possibility that humans could accept the rest of them. Hell, even Liz and Maria didn’t really see Alex the way he was, and they’d been good friends for ten years. Both of the girls liked him…were pals with him in a ‘he’s the brother I never had’ way…Like Izzy felt towards Michael almost, but neither of them could really see the real Alex,...the guy who was not just kind but….well,…hot.

No, humans were just too un-accepting.

“So how’d Alex sleep,” she asked almost without thinking, realizing that this was the first night for years that she hadn’t been there with him. Belatedly she realized that the statement had sounded too interested, and tried to soften it by adding, “I mean…does he snore and keep you awake or anything?”

“You really do need to apologize to him for yesterday,” Michael said, and Isabel knew that was true…she just wasn’t sure she could bring herself to do it.

“Yeah, you shouldn’t ride the guy like that,” said Max.

Isabel buried her face in the breakfast menu as she felt herself start to flush, Max's expression triggering thoughts of yesterday’s dreamwalk in the aircraft.
‘God, it’s only been one day without him…and already I can hardly bear it.’

Isabel thought forward to that twenty year reunion and shuddered. The future really held no allure for her….only a lifetime of loneliness….. her only protection from the world the persona of an untouchable Ice Princess.

“Yeah, but since you ask…Alex didn’t make it back to the room last night,” said Michael.

“He didn’t?”

“No, apparently Mr. Sandstrom’s got a dozen or so of the guys he’s got to track down…he’s on his way over to the jail to bail three of them out now. Most of the rest are still in the bars…or passed out down on the beach. He didn’t seem to be particularly worried about Alex though…said Alex didn’t seem the type to get in too much trouble. So…after breakfast, what’s first? The beaches? Or sightseeing?”

“Sightseeing,” said Michael.

“The beach,” said Isabel.

“Sightseeing,” said Max, breaking the tie, He actually HAD wanted to go to the beach first thing today….but not with these two.

Back in the consulate, Atwater had finished talking to the girls. The only reasonable thing, of course, was to get them out of the country…send them home before they got into additional trouble. He hadn’t told them that, of course. He didn’t need to talk to two irresponsible teenagers who had caused him such inconvenience by letting this happen to them. He’d talk to their Vice-Principal when he arrived. It wasn’t really the State Department’s job to nursemaid every partying teenager. He probably would send the girls to the airport in one of the Embassy cars though…have one of the soldier-guards wait until the airplane was safely in the air. Atwater himself would be using his creative writing skills..writing the report, figuring out how to claim the most credit for their rescue…how best to help his career.
Atwater was surprised when his cellphone rang…he didn’t give out the number to anyone…and certainly didn’t recognize the number calling him. The voice on the other end was in English…the Spanish accent barely detectable. The man said that Jorge Martinez had a package for him at the back gate. Jorge was the local who supplied him with marijuana and, on rare occasion, with cocaine. Usually he would get the latter on his forays to Ciuadad Acuna…they seemed to get it wholesale at the brothel there and their prices were much better. He quickly slipped out the back where Jorge handed him a small package.

“Jorge…what is this all about?”

“Play the disc, Senor…then wait for the phone call.”

Atwater actually had a fine collection of child pornography of his own and thought that’s all this was when the DVD started playing on his desk computer not realizing for several seconds on the small screen that he remembered those faces. The oldest girl was supposed to have been fourteen, the other eleven,…both virgins the proprietor had sworn. And the eleven year old might actually have been one..she certainly cried…and bled enough. The older one….no, at least she hadn’t been a virgin in the usual sense, he’d gotten a scorching case of clap from one of the two…but still, Atwater had showed her a few new things he remembered as he reviewed the DVD with the ‘highlights’ of that long night.
This would be blackmail, he knew, and that worried him somewhat…but not as much as it might have most men. For he truly believed that one could negotiate an agreement with anyone…that was after all what diplomats did, if you were willing to compromise enough. He obviously had something the maker of the DVD wanted…and he was good at …negotiations.

“I will have a car outside the consulate in twenty-minutes,” said Miguel, “..you will see that the two girls are placed in it. If you do not, the DVD will be sent to the US State Department.”

Miguel and Arthur both knew that was only an opening ploy, a basis for further negotiation. Miguel would have been amazed if it had been accepted. He waited calmly for the opposing move by Arthur.

“Too many people know that they came here…I would be just as ruined as if my country saw the DVD. Why don’t you send all the copies…and the master of the DVD to me as an act of good faith…then I’ll see what I can do to help you?”

It would take fifteen minutes, and both sides would make compromises, Arthur driven by the fact that Vice Principal Gonzales would soon be at the Consulate, Miguel by the certain knowledge that Roberto Velez and a small army of muscle would be arriving late that night, and that if he had nothing to show them, getting Arthur Atwater fired and imprisoned would be damn little comfort once the syndicate Jefe got done with him.

”So it’s agreed,” said Arthur, “I’ll get them to stay in the country…go back to the hotel, and you’ll send me the recordings….alll of them, once your men pick them up.”

“We have an agreement, Senor.”

Five minutes later, Maria and Liz were ushered in to the office of Arthur Atwater.

“Miss DeLuca, Miss Parker….I have been in touch with the local authorities. They believe your friend was kidnapped for ransom….around here they call it express kidnapping, since the ransom is only what can be taken from an ATM by the person kidnapped….about 10,000 pesos locally.”

“But Alex said we were being kidnapped as ransom for some drug lord,” said Maria.

“And what knowledge did this Alex have of local customs? Or even language…a couple of years of High School Spanish? Trust me, they will ask for a small ransom, then release him…unless we really publicize this. If we do that….well, the young man becomes a liability to them…he’ll just be made to disappear. I give you my word as a diplomat, the best thing you can do for your friend is to just go back to your hotel…act normal, like nothing ever happened. The police undercover agents are working on this, once your friend is safe they’ll be needing you to testify against the men who did this. But for right now, the less said the better, the better for your friend that is.”

Maria and Liz looked at each other uncertainly but finally came to the same idea. He was with the State Department, and he lived in Cabo. Surely he knew best.

“OK….so do we just go back to our hotel room now?” asked Liz.

“Very shortly, your Vice Principal is coming to take you back there. Just wait in the lobby outside.”
Atwater smiled as he worked on his report on the computer….

• Despite repeated warnings of the dangers of remaining in Cabos to both Miss Parker and to Miss DeLuca, as well as to the school’s senior chaperone, Vice Principal Ramon Gonzales, the two teenage girls refused to return to the safety of the United States and demanded to finish their Spring Break in Cabo. Apparently Mr. Gonzales also concurred with this course of action.
  Despite the foolhardiness of this course of action, no legal way existed to compel them to leave Mexico, so they were again warned to be careful, and to contact us immediately if they should change their mind and desire to leave the country….

“Principal Gonzales…I assure you, it was a simple misunderstanding…just cultural ignorance on the part of the two young ladies…nothing malicious at all.”

“Are you quite certain, Ambassador Atwater? Because when I got the call…I was sort of led to believe that they had gotten themselves in some serious trouble. If we need to, we can restrict them to the hotel…unless accompanied by one of the chaperones, or if it’s truly serious, we can call their folks and tell them we are sending them home…put them on a flight to El Paso, and have their parents meet them there.”

“Good Lord no, Mister Gonzales. It was all pretty much a misunderstanding, and my people have straightened it all out. We in the State Department don’t believe that the answer to our people being ignorant of foreign cultures is to lock them away…on the contrary, the way for them to LEARN is to go out and experience the culture. I believe it would be positively ENLIGHTENING if the young ladies were just allowed… no, make that, ENCOUAGED to explore local culture more fully. This trip is an outstanding opportunity for them to really get out and see Mexican culture, rather than just reading about it from books. Misunderstandings like this are much less likely to happen if we can get American kids away from their computers and video games and get them out where they can actually experience foreign cultures. And by the way, I’m not really the Ambassador, he’s down In Mexico City. I’m merely the senior foreign service officer at this Consulate.”

“Well, I’m really just the VICE Principal at West Roswell myself, Mr. Atwater. But I must say, I sure appreciate you being helpful…and understanding like this.”

“Think nothing of it….nothing at all. That’s my job…I’m here to help US citizens, and to attempt to foster better cultural understanding. That’s what they pay me for.”

As they left the Consulate, Vice Principal Gonzales stopped briefly and turned to Liz and Maria. “Say, you two are friends with Alex Whitman, aren’t you? He’s one of a half dozen boys still unaccounted for…probably passed out drinking around a beach fire or something. You haven’t seen him, have you?”

Maria looked at Liz guiltily. But Mr. Atwater had made it pretty clear that the safety of Alex depended upon there being no publicity to scare the kidnappers off and even 10,000 pesos was only about $900…scarcely enough to take any risk of scaring the kidnappers into hurting Alex.

“No Mr. Gonzales,” said Maria, “Alex left us just after dinner last night. We have no idea where he is..”


“Fish tacos? I don’t think so.”

“Aw, come on, Izzy. If you don’t like them, you can always put honey and Tabasco on them…and this place is the HOME of Tabasco sauce.”

In fact, Isabel wasn’t hungry at all. But she realized she did need cheering up. Last night was the first night in six years she hadn’t danced with him…been with him….talked with him….dreamed with him. Her life had always sucked…wanting something she knew she’d never have, but now she couldn’t even really DREAM about it either.

“OK, but if we are going there for lunch, I want to try both Habanero AND Cholula sauce….and Max, you’re buying. And after lunch I’m going to go back and get a little nap. I didn’t sleep much last night, I was up pretty late.”

Max looked at Michael. It was a standing joke between them that Isabel had been going to bed earlier and earlier since seventh grade. The thought of the Ice Princess out of bed after 10PM was almost unbelievable. But if she took a nap, that might leave them free to scout around for Liz and Maria on the beach.

“Sure, Izzy,” said Michael. “Heck, Max and I might catch a few Z’s ourselves.”

Ninety miles away Alex was tired too, he hadn’t had any sleep for thirty hours. He wasn’t going to get any sleep either, with the throbbing pain from his busted kneecap a constant reminder of that fact…and if he moved, the pain became truly eye-watering. He wasn’t going anywhere, handcuffed and chained to the heavy timber of the building. He was also thirsty and hungry….thirsty most of all. He wished he could have the pain stop, so he could get some rest on the hard packed dirt floor, but knew it wasn’t going to happen.

And as long as he was wishing, he thought he’d wish for that erotic dream again…the one he’d had on the airplane…but then he remembered yesterday…and Isabel Evans’ comment about him.

‘Just because you dream about her for six years, Alex,’ he thought to himself, ‘…doesn’t mean that she’s really the girl you were dreaming about.’
And strangely enough, that thought bothered him almost as much as the fact that he’d been kidnapped, imprisoned, and had a broken knee cap…

They’d told him that they would act normal….like regular tourists, but Liz and Maria had also been on their feet for almost thirty-one hours, and when they finally got back to room 242 they wanted little more than to clean up, after being out all night…held captive, stealing and crashing the little aircraft.

But immediately after their showers, the fatigue had hit them. Yeah, they were still worried about Alex…but there was nothing they could do but wait. They lay down on their beds and closed their eyes just to rest them…just for a moment, and were rapidly asleep.

Raul was watching the hotel, and recognized the two girls entering with the older man. Last night he had helped tie them up…had managed to enjoy himself fondling the blonde one…he was still angry that he didn’t get his overtime compensation…but tonight perhaps would be different. Miguel had made it clear, they couldn’t be picked up in the hotel…too many witnesses.

But he was to watch them…to follow them as soon as they left the hotel. The warrant was already made out…theft of an aircraft….and policemen who also worked for the syndicate were only a phone call away. Once the girls were picked up…handcuffed, he could pick them up at the back door of the jail. Until then, the job was to watch that hotel.

It would be a long lonely drive to the airstrip. He wondered if it would be better to have the blonde handcuffed in back or in front.

‘In back, I think..’ he decided. ‘..a wildcat like that…she might scratch my face…’

He smiled as he saw them go up the elevator. He would get his overtime pay after all, he decided...on the way back to the airstrip.

Lieutenant Anderson had slipped away from the Pentagon for an hour, and was in a coffeeshop in Old Town Alexandria.

Jenny Bradley had apparently worked a night shift, and she’d given him a call at his office. Since he was already in the eleventh hour of what was supposed to be an eight hour shift, he hadn’t felt real guilty about leaving for a while, although he had about two hours more work he’d have to do once he got back before he could go home …hit the rack for seven hours, and come back. It wasn’t just that the job was grueling, but that he was new at it. Eventually he actually would be able to pare it down to an eighty hour week, he’d been told.

But for right now, the sparkling eyes of the CIA agent cheered him…but only somewhat.

“A penny for your thoughts…” said Jenny.

“I’m sorry if I seem distracted…I guess I’m not real good company right now Miss Bradley.”

”That’s Jenny, Bob. Don’t worry…I know how it is, not just a new job but….figuring out the politics of DC. Fieldwork is so much easier…so much more ….straightforward.”

The way she said that made him wonder exactly what she did in the field when she’d been a field agent. He had a hunch she was someone who wouldn’t necessarily even be intimidated by a SEAL.

“There’s a lot about the politics that really bugs me, but I guess I’m just upset about those missing three kids right now…the fact that they wouldn’t let us do anything for them.”

She smiled at him. “Well, that would be missing kid….as in singular, the two girls got away.”

“Are you sure of that? It hasn’t come across on the wire yet?”

“Pretty sure. They stole a plane and flew off. An agent I know managed to buy himself a somewhat banged up Piper Cub for a thousand pesos.”

”Really? I don’t recall any of the kids being licensed pilots…”

“Judging by the landing, I’d rather hope not. Still, any landing you can walk away from…and they both did. You have to love kids like that…I mean, just up and DOING something, without all the over-intellectualizing that goes on around here…without spending days and weeks, studying every angle. Just going and doing the right thing…like real human beings.”

“So what’s the word on the boy?”

“Nobody knows. Apparently the girls told the senior foreign service guy in Cabo what was going on, but apparently State has chosen not to share.”

“Well, that’s some good news anyway. Any chance your agent might be able to help out the boy?”

“Nope. We are under the same orders you are. No trades, but no interference with the local authorities either, and odds are about 99% the local authorities are in bed with the Velez brothers.”

The hour went by far too quickly, but Bob was rewarded with a dinner date for a week later. So he was in a pretty good mood as he walked back through the “E” ring toward the JCS offices. But when he came to the “C” ring he saw the Directorate for Intelligence Joint Staff (J2) and stopped in to talk to the Senior NCO in charge of satellite reconnaissance.

“Say Gunny, I was talking to the boss about finding an airfield down on the Baja peninsula, likely within 200 kilometers of Cabo San Lucas. How much trouble would it be to look at the airfields down there?”

“Sir, that actually would be no problem at all. I’ve got two new analysts I’m training…I’ll just make that a training exercise for them. That’s almost the same latitude as Cuba, so the KH-13 that does the regular Cuban recon can catch Cabos two orbits later.”

The “Keyhole 13” was the latest version of the DOD reconnaissance satellite program. Basically a Hubble telescope pointed down instead of up, its mirror magnified targets below and projected the result onto an ultra high density CCD screen which digitized the resulting image and beamed it back to Earth.

Unlike the first few generations of Keyholes, no actual film was used and even the maneuvering fuel requirement was minimal, since the satellite was positioned by ion engines powered by its oversize photocell array. The KH-13 could take images in ultra violet, infra red, and visible light…making even clear nights as good as daytime, and the Baja desert had a LOT of clear nights.

“Is there anything special that would distinguish this airstrip? We can start looking at the old pictures now…even before the next pass.”

“Well Gunny…you might look for an airstrip with a Piper Cub on it on the old pictures, that…well, they lost their Piper Cub last night, it seems…”

Isabel got back to the hotel, curious to see if Liz and Maria had gotten back. She waved goodbye to Max and Michael, and watched as they went off down the street, planning on trying out the beach. The elevator door opened, and she entered it, the elevator door closing just as Liz and Maria stepped out of the stairwell.

They were still worried about Alex, but figured there was little they could do for him but wait. It had been almost fourteen hours since their last meal…and they were hungry. They looked briefly at the hotel restaurant but then saw a sign for a seafood restaurant only a block away. After a brief discussion, they left the hotel and trudged out onto the busy streets…with Raul following discreetly behind.

Raul was tempted to call for assistance, but the busy street wasn’t a much better place for abducting the two than their hotel had been. It was still early afternoon…he was pretty sure he’d have a better opportunity later on.

Upstairs, it was obvious to Isabel that Liz and Maria had been there, ..they’d taken showers and changed clothes. If they were alright, no doubt Alex was too. She closed her eyes and tried to rest, but the memories kept haunting her…memories of thousands of dances…memories of being so comfortable in his arms…the arms she knew would never hold her again…… ‘You have to be strong, Isabel,’ she told herself. ‘It isn’t fair to keep him obsessed with you…he can have a real life…as long as you don’t dreamwalk him…he’ll forget you. And someday he’ll find someone else, and be happy.’

The tears trickled gently down her cheeks laying there in the dark…wishing it could be different….but she’d made a Sacred Vow…and she meant to keep it.

The restaurant was crowded and it took them almost thirty minutes to finally get seated. And once they had, they found that they really did not have much of an appetitite. They sat alone at the small table, but it was obvious to both of them that their minds were not on eating, but rather on their missing friend.

Maria tried to cheer them both up by saying she was sure that he had managed to evade their captors…that he was still hiding somewhere, waiting to come out when the undercover agents Mr. Atwater had talked about arrived to rescue him. Liz remembered the scarcity of hiding places around the little airfield though, and she doubted that even Maria believed what she was saying. Right now Alex was either out on a ninety degree desert with no food or water…or already captured.

The seafood at the restaurant was actually excellent, but by the time their orders were served, neither girl had much of an appetite. They picked at the food slowly, just hoping and praying that Alex was safe.


Miguel called him twice while he watched them through the window of the crowded restaurant. He explained that there was nothing he could do to hurry them along, and trying to abduct them in the crowded tourist area, surrounded by hundreds of people who might come to their aid, just wouldn’t work. Miguel was obviously getting nervous…the aircraft with Roberto Velez would be arriving to take the three back to Bogota in only six or seven hours, but he agreed that they should wait for a better time. But if the better time did not come in the next several hours he would send police to arrest the two girls for the theft of the airplane…then deal with the complications later.

But it was less than two hours later that Raul saw his chance. In their random walking, looking at the shops, Liz and Maria came close to the edge of the tourist area. As they wandered toward a small park, Raul called for the two policemen who were standing by…the same two who had been on duty the previous night. Raul quickly explained to them the plan…the policia should show themselves…scare the girls…haze them…drive them deeper away from the tourist area, to where he would be waiting.

Liz heard the Jeep and saw the two policemen before they were quite in position. It wasn’t surprising, really, Liz had been looking up any time a Jeep went by for the last two years back in Roswell. But it certainly wasn’t Roswell ..or the right Jeep this time…and certainly not thr right two guys in it. But Liz and Maria had time if they’d taken it…to get back to the tourist area before they were seen…but they would have been seen, and they chose instead to go down the little alley…just until the Jeep went by.

But when the Jeep parked…blocking the entrance to the alley, now they had little choice…either wait in the alley, go past the two policemen, or go farther away from the tourist area, so they could get around the police before heading back to the hotel. There choice would no doubt have been different if they’d known about Raul.

“Maria…look…the two police from last night.”

“Quick, in here…hide behind the dumpster until they go by.”

“I’m going to peek out and see if it’s safe…..damn, they are parked right at the entrance to the alley.”

“I wish we could call Mr. Atwater…maybe these two know where they are holding Alex.”

“Well let’s just get back to the hotel…we can call him, tell him we saw them again…maybe his friends in the police can take care of them.”

They were halfway down the alley when they heard the Jeep engine start and saw the Jeep start to come towards them. They started to run, almost as fast on foot as the Jeep picking it’s way past the dumpsters and garbage cans. They were running so hard it was difficult to talk as they approached the end… looking over their shoulders at the Jeep that was slowly gaining on them.

“Left or right, Liz..?”

“Right…we’ll be closer to the hotel…”

As it turned out, it didn’t matter, as Raul stepped from the street into the mouth of the alleyway and blocked their path in that direction…trapping them for the oncoming policia.

“Omigawd, Liz…It’s that guy…the one that..grabbed me.”

Raul knew he had them trapped in the narrow alleyway, with the two Policia coming to assist him. He was already planning on enjoying his delayed compensation for the overtime he worked last night. That’s when the car door hit him.


The car was a gaudy yellow and green 1961 Ford Galaxie, and smoked rather badly. It had started out life as a police car in San Pedro California. Sold at auction in 1966, it had been bought by a teenager who planned on making it into a street rod, the big police interceptor engine more than making up for the rather spartan interior. But the young man had gone off to Vietnam, and never returned. His parents sold the car and it passed through a number of hands before ending up as one of the many taxicabs in Tijuana. It had a career of three years, carrying partying tourists around Tijuana.

Eventually, the mordida charged by the police to ‘protect’ the driver in Tijuana got excessive, and the owner moved the car to Cabos but even here the mordida was now too much…at least for a car that got only seven miles to the gallon.

But it was the perfect car for Cabos…too old, battered and inefficient to be worth anything, it could be parked out on the street without worry about theft, and when you got transferred back to the good old USA you could just walk away from it, because it only cost a hundred dollars and some tinkering to get it going to begin with.

Liz and Maria’s terror turned to amazement as they saw the car door open into Raul, knocking him to the dirty pavement of the alleyway.

“Get your butts in the car…NOW! “ the man said. In the military they call it a ‘command voice,’ and it brooks no nonsense or hesitation.

The driver was in civilian clothes, a Hawaiian shirt and shorts, but they had no trouble recognizing him. A junior Marine in civilian garb looks like nothing else in the world other than another junior Marine in civilian clothes. It wasn’t just the sidewall haircut, hell they even SIT at attention.

Liz and Maria didn’t hesitate, they piled in to the back seat and the car sped away in a clowd of blue smoke.

For the next 15 minutes the gaudy yellow and green car was doing twice the speed limit, weaving in and out of traffic, going the wrong way on one way streets, and occasionally driving on the sidewalk. In short, it was doing exactly the same as every other car in Cabos was doing in the afternoon rush hour, and quickly left the Jeep behind.

It took another five minutes for them to get back to their hotel, where Lance Corporal Arturo Johnson practically dragged the two girls back up to their room.


Isabel had been doing….nothing…since lunch. She had been sitting in her room…looking at a TV show she wasn’t interested in…broadcast in a language she barely understood. She was depressed….had no motivation whatever. ‘Does my life suck or what?’ she asked herself. She knew the answer…it sucked big time. But she didn’t even have the motivation to answer her own question. That’s when the door suddenly
burst open.

Isabel could tell Liz and Maria were upset as they came in the room, but she didn’t know who the guy was yelling at them…although he reminded her of an old Bart Simpson song…something about "I said, please sir just a little off the top..."
Dude shaved me bare, gave me a lollipop.."

“What in the HELL do you two think you are doing?” asked Arturo.

“We were running for our damn lives…what do you think we were doing?” asked Maria, "…I damned near peed my pants when I saw that guy again.”

“Not that…I mean, why didn’t you let the consulate get you on a plane and get you out of here. Do you two have a death wish or something?”

“Were you following us?” asked Liz.

“Following you? I switched shifts with a buddy of mine. I’ve been looking all over the place ever since I saw the message that you had idiotically refused Mr. Atwater’s request that we send you out of the country immediately. I couldn’t believe you would do something that stupid. You’re lucky I saw you dodge into that alley, just before the police cut me off and I had to go around to the other side….just before your friend there jumped out.”

“But…Atwater never told us to get on an airplane and go home. He told us to stay around…just try to act normal until the ransom was paid on Alex or the police found his kidnappers…then we could testify against them,” said Liz.

All at once, Isabel wasn’t the least bit depressed. She had just found her motivation…. Everything else in the universe faded from her mind as she listened to the conversation going on between the three.

“But…Atwater never told us to get on an airplane and go home. He told us to stay around…just try to act normal until the ransom was paid on Alex or the police found his kidnappers…then we could testify against them,” said Liz.

"Atwater never told you?? But he wrote it in his report...wrote that he'd advised both you and the Vice-Principal that you needed to get away from Mexico. He said he told you that drug kingpin would be trying to get you back. Hell, he's already posted your names and pictures on the internet, along with that Alex-kid. Velez's credibility is on the line..not just with us, we'd never trade for hostages anyway, but with his competitors. If they think he's weak, they'll be all over his organization...especially now that we've got his brother."

"Alex told us that," said Maria, "..but Atwater swore this was just a little local problem, an express kidnapping he called it...he said Alex's ransom would be less than a thousand dollars, and that the Mexico undercover police were closing in.."

Arturo rolled his eyes. "The Mexican police are never the answer...more frequently, there the problem...like those two chasing you out there."

"So Atwater just hung us out to dry?' asked an incredulaous Liz. "I thought he was supposed to be on our side?"

The light bulb suddenly came on over the head of Arturo Johnson as he remembered the sudden visit by Jorge Martinez before the chaperone had arrived to pick up the girls.

"Damn!"

"I know what I mean when I say 'damn,'" said Maria. "What do you mean when you say damn?"

"I mean damn, I've thought for awhle that Atwater does something illegal...illegal under US law, even if he does it in Mexico. I just can't prove it. Could be that someone in the syndicate can...and they are blackmailing him. I don't know any other reason that he should set you up to die like your friend will."

"Alex is going to die?"came the new voice from the corner of the room.

"Like you'd care," said Maria. "“..the computer geek and music freak? Ice Princesses don't care about the Alex Whitman’s of the world…” Maria regretted it even as she said it, but she was at her wits end. In the last twenty-four hours she'd gotten all of two hours sleep, been kidnapped once, escaped, in a plane crash, lied toand betrayed by someone whose job it was to look after her, chased and almost kidnapped a second time, and was now being told that one of her oldest and dearest friends was considered expendable by the US government. Isabel had been a cold-hearted bitch the entire time that Maria had known her, and it just came out. The only saving grace was that she knew Isabel was so superficial she wouldn't take it to heart.

"According to the dispatch I read, the JCS rep wanted permission for a rescue mission, the State Department was rather sarcastic about it, even in the message. Nobody in State is going to risk getting adverse publicity to save some eighteen year old kid, and they believe that the military rescuing him would look like US Imperialism."

"But you rescued us...just now," said Liz.

"Hey, I'm a Marine. I don't care about US Imperialism,...from the friggin halls of Montezuma to the lousy shores of Tripoli, give me the order..I'll do it."

"Well, can't you do something?" asked Maria.

"I wish I could, M'am. But there are only four of us Marines at the Consulate here, and we have specific orders NOT to do anything like that. In fact, I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell Atwater I was ever here. And if you know what's good for you, you won't leave this hotel...not without your chaperones at your side, until you can get on a plane to go back to the real world. And I'd keep the door locked tight even while you are in the room."

After Corporal Johnson left the room, Liz and Maria sat on the bed shaking their heads.

"This isn't happening," Maria said. "It can't be happening.."

Over in the corner an Ice Princess was sitting by herself, staring out the window...her heart quietly breaking.....

There’s an old saying that goes, ‘just because you are paranoid, it doesn’t mean they really aren’t out to get you.’

Maria thought of that as she saw Raul drive by the hotel for the third time in the same Lincoln Town Car that she, Liz, and Alex had occupied the trunk of less than 24 hours previously.

“There he goes again…he’s circling like a shark. It really creeps me out.”

“and we’re the lucky ones,” said Liz. “God knows what’s going on with Alex. I cannot believe the US government is just writing him off like that…throwing him away like he was…nothing.”

And as the Ice Princess sat by herself in the corner, looking out the window at the Lincoln Town Car and the man in it, she knew that Alex was far from nothing. Alex was….well, Alex was the cause of most of the pleasure she had in her miserable Ice Princess life…most of the pleasure she had experienced for the last six years.

‘You owe him, Isabel,’ she told herself. ‘You owe him far more than you can ever repay.’

As she saw the Lincoln Town Car drive into the alley across the street, the Ice Princess made her decision. She knew that she mustn’t break the sacred vow…but if they never really caught her using her powers, if she never told anyone, if no one ever found out, it wouldn’t really be breaking the vow to use her powers…just a little.

“I’ve got to go…I’ll see you two later maybe,” said Isabel.

“Isabel?? You can’t go out there. There are kidnappers out there.”

“Well they are trying to kidnap you two…not me. Keep the door locked, like the guy with the shaved head said. You’ll be alright.” With that, she left.

Raul had been circling for hours, waiting for the call. Finally it came as he was parked.

”Senor, “ said the concierge at the hotel, “ the other girl…she has left.”

The concierge didn’t know what officer Raul wanted the information for…but it didn’t matter. The concierge had an eleven year old daughter and Officer Raul had threatened that if the concierge did not call him when the other two girls were by themselves, the eleven year old would be brought in to the police station for…questioning. There was no doubt in the concierge’s mind what would happen to his daughter if that occurred.

The concierge said a silent prayer as he hung up, hoping that no evil would come to the girls from his phone call…but he was pretty sure it would, and that he would have something terrible to tell during his next Confession.

Raul smiled as he picked up the bottle of pulque and spilled some on the ground for Ometochtli before taking a deep drink. It would be easy now.

He would leave the Lincoln here…hidden in the alleyway, and call the two uniformed policia in the Jeep. Together they would quickly break down the door of hotel room 214 and remove the girls in handcuffs, showing their badges and the warrant to anyone who would confront them. They would speed off in the Jeep, then transfer the girls to the trunk of the Lincoln outside of town. In two hours, they would be back at the airfield.

Raul smiled as he took out his phone, drinking deeply from the bottle of pulque…finishing it, before he made the call. The plan was a good one….almost perfect…until the powerblast hit him as he was dialing.

Raul had been in an alley making a phone call the last he remembered. Suddenly he was on the floor of the desert on his back, with a demoness slapping him in the face. He scrambled back quickly against the door of his car, pulling out his pistol. The demoness was, in her own way, quite beautiful, with lovely breasts, and a slim waist. But there was a fire burning in her eyes…the promise of infinite pain if he offended her. She was the image of Itzpapalotl….the Obsidian Butterfly.

“¿Dónde es el estudiante secuestrado de los Estados Unidos??” she asked.

‘The American boy? Why would a goddess want the American boy?’

“Él está en el aeropuerto.” Raul replied. ‘Why would a goddess not know that?’

“¿Dónde está eso??”

‘Where is the airstrip? Surely a goddess would know that..’

“Tome el este del camino en la ensambladura de la carretera cuatro. Es seis kilómetros más lejos.”

And that might have been enough, except Isabel had already maxed out her understanding of Spanish with the questions she’d asked. She wasn’t sure about that last answer, and couldn’t afford to make a mistake.

“Say it in English.”

“Take the road East at the Junction of highway four. It is six kilometers further,” said Raul, but his suspicions now had been confirmed. This was not the goddess Itpapalotl….merely some Norte’ Americano whore in fancy makeup trying to scare him into giving up the boys location.

‘She will not get away with it,’ he decided.

He pointed his pistol at her and smiled as he slowly pulled the trigger. She smiled too, as nothing happened.

Isabel turned around to walk away…back to the car to go find Alex, when Raul screamed at her,

“Perra americana, usted morirá...,”

as he reached behind his back. Isabel turned in surprise as Raul pulled the throwing knife from the sheath between his shoulder blades and launched it at her face. The knife was only feet from her when her hand came up reflexively…and the golden glow shown in her hand.

The powerblast met the oncoming knife…forcing it back along the path it had come from. Raul felt the thud as it buried itself to the hilt in his sternum…but there was no real pain as the final darkness claimed him.

His last thought was one of wonder, rather than terror…. ‘¿La mariposa del obsidiano es un gringa?….. ¿Quién habría pensado?’



Liz and Maria were at the window…watching the Jeep with the two policemen drive by one more time. They both jumped when they heard the rap on the door. Maria quickly grabbed a chair and jammed it against the doorknob, holding it tightly in place while Liz looked through the peephole. All she could see was an eye looking back at her.

“Isabel,” said Max, “..quit sulking, it’s time to go to dinner.”

“Max?”

“Yeah…Hi Liz…uh, is Isabel in there?”

“Max…uh, is there anyone else out there in the corridor with you?”

”Yes, …Michael.”

“Anyone else?”

“No.”

“I’m going to open the door. I want you and Michael to come in fast…before anyone else can come down the corridor…..are you ready?”

Max and Michael looked at each other with puzzlement, then Max said, “We’re ready.” Three seconds later, there were four people in the hotel room, and the door was again locked and bolted, with the chair leaning against it.

“Gee’s,” said Michael. “I know that we get upset with Izzy sometimes, but don’t you think you two are carrying this thing a little bit far?”

Isabel held her hand out...converting the body to ash...then watched it blow away into the desert somberly.

Max and Michael would sometimes sneak out...to practice their powers in the old quarry at home. She'd caught them doing that...twice...given them hell for it each time. Maybe if she'd done that...maybe if she'd practiced with her powerblast...rather than just using her powers on an Ice Princess's hair and make-up....maybe then she could have been skillful enough to have just stopped the knife...or turned it away...rather than forcing it backwards toward the man.

It was difficult to mourn him though..., he'd kidnapped Alex, Liz, and Maria,...assaulted Maria and then tried to kidnap both girls again. And she hadn't been threatening him when he'd thrown the knife...she'd been walking away. And her heart hardened as she remembered that Alex was still going to die..if she didn't find him. The man had made his choice...he could hardly have claimed innocence.

But Alex was innocent...and worse...if she hadn't been such an ass last night, the six of them might have stayed together...and the kidnappings never happened at all.

No, Isabel decided, the man had made his choices...just like she'd made hers when she decided for a life of aloofness, rather than rejection. That man had paid the price for his choices and once she was sure Alex was safe, she'd pay the price for hers.

It was still not too late to avoid going to UNM where she might see Alex, where she might bump in to him in the quadrangle or share a class with him....where she might keep the obsession alive for both of them.

She'd been accepted at Swarthmore...it was a LOT more money, but they'd offered her some scholarships. With her half a continent away...no longer dreamwalking him, perhaps Alex could find the sort of human life he deserved.

But first she had to rescue him. She pulled out the map she'd found in the car...'Highway four to the junction...east six kilometers'. She started the car and headed off in the gathering darkness, oblivious to the ashes of Raul being scattered by the desert wind.



It took Liz and Maria almost fifteen minutes to finish the story...or at least get up to the part where Isabel had left.

"..and then she just left," said Maria, "...just walked off saying the guys were just after us...not her. We warned her they were out there...I have no idea where she might have gone."

"Yeah," said Liz, "...Maria made that one comment to her but it wasn't like there was a big blowup or anything. She just walked off. If we hurt her feelings, well we're sorry. It's just that we're so upset about the whole thing...and Alex still being missing."

"I'm pretty sure I know where she went," said Max. "She went to go rescue Alex."

"Rescue Alex??" said Liz and Maria simultaneously.

"How would she do that?" asked Liz.

"WHY would she do that," asked Maria, " she barely knows Alex."

"She's in love with Alex," said Max.

"No way," said Maria. "The Ice Princess....in love with Alex Whitman. I don't believe it."

"She's been in love with him since she was twelve," said Max. "She's gone to get him. I know my sister...that's what she's doing."

"But Max...Michael," said Liz..looking from one to the other in disbelief, "Alex is a close friend...I've never seen them together...I mean, what makes you think Isabel is in love with Alex?"

"We read her diary," said Michael. "We've been reading it for years. Trust us, Isabel is really head over heels in love with that boy."

"YOU READ HER DIARY???" shouted Maria indignantly. Isabel wasn't a good friend of hers particularly...OK, she sort of hated the frosty bitch, but there are some things that were too heinous ever to excuse...things where feminine solidarity was more important even than hatred for the Ice Princess Posse. Reading a girl's diary was one of those things. "...HOW WOULD YOU LIKE IT IF SHE LOOKED INTO YOUR DEEPEST DREAMS...SAW YOUR MOST INTIMATE FEELINGS?"

Michael looked at Maria a little strangely. Of course he didn't like that...but that hadn't kept Izzy from doing it."You've never had an older sibling, have you?" he asked Maria. "Or you either?" he asked Liz. "I guess it's just kind of what siblings do..."

Neither Maria nor Liz was really convinced that Isabel could possibly care for Alex, but they were concerned when Max and Michael said they were going after her, and asked for directions to the airfield.

"Max...Michael...these are big guys...with guns. That's a real bad idea," said Maria. "..And I can hardly believe that Isabel would last two minutes if she really went after him."

"We can handle it, Maria," assured Max.

"and don't underestimate Izzy," said Michael. "She can be a real beast...like Natasha Henstridge in Species, when she's in a bad mood. Hell, there's a couple days each month it's barely safe to even be around her..."

"MICHAEL," Maria screamed. "You sexist pig. You don't say stuff like that...not about Isabel...not about any girl.." It wasn't that she even LIKED Isabel but...damn...guys could be so incredibly....guy. Maybe Isabel really wasn't all that bad, if this is the kind of stuff she had to put up with in her life.

"Please Liz, we really do need to know where this place is. Isabel doesn't make friends often..."

"Yeah, try like never...," interrupted Michael.

"..but she tends to be kind of fiercely protective of the few she has," Max continued, "and I'm really afraid she might have bitten off more that she can chew here. Michael and I need to be there to help her."

Maria looked at Liz, not really believing it. "You ARE going to tell him, aren't you?"

"Marrri...aaa," said Liz. "...Max has been my lab partner since seventh grade. He's never told me he'd do anything and then not done it. If he says Isabel is going to rescue Alex, and he and Michael can help her...well, I've got to trust him. But If you really think you can pull it off, I'll have to go too. We flew over the area, we didn't drive there. I might know the roads by sight but I sure couldn't give directions on how to get there."

"Well how can we even get by those two cops in the Jeep outside?" asked Maria.

"Don't worry, Blondie," said Michael, "..Max and I will handle them.."

"Well Chica, " Maria said to Liz, " ..if you are going...I am too. But I still think you are all crazy..."

Miguel was angry…angry and….frightened, as he heard Raul’s phone go immediately to voice mail. Angry because this was the third time he’d called Raul in the lats 45 minutes, and he hadn’t picked up the phone. Frightened because…well, Senor Velez’s aircraft was not due at the airfield for three or four hours, but it would be just like that man to come early. They NEEDED those two girls back BEFORE Roberto Velez showed up.

‘Where IS that idiot? Probably picked up some drunk college student and is right now back in the police station…interrogating her.’ Miguel thought. He dialed again and felt relief as he heard the voice of one of the two uniformed policemen patrolling near the hotel.

“Where is that idiot Raul? He doesn’t answer his phone…”

The uniformed officer was uncomfortable, for Raul outranked him and he really didn’t want to tell the commander that the man had bought some pulque and was probably half-drunk by now.

“Perhaps his phone is broken, Jefe. The last we saw of him he was waiting in the alley for a phone call from the concierge…waiting in the alley across from the hotel.”

“Well we can afford to wait no longer. Go find the man and have him call me…or if you cannot find him, just grab the girls yourself and bring them here. If there is trouble with the third girl, bring her as well.”

“Yes, Jefe…”

In the hotel room Max was looking out the window with Michael, while Liz and Maria were huddled together on the other side of the room.

“We are going to need wheels, Maxwell. The mopeds we rented today aren’t going to cut it for a hundred mile drive. I don’t think the damn things could do over 25 miles per hour.”

“I’m working on it,” said Max. As he saw the Policia Jeep drive into the alley across the street, he smiled. “In fact…I think I’ve got it. Liz, Maria…lock the door when we leave. We should be back….shortly.”

After Max and Michael left, Liz and Maria bolted the door. “God Liz, I can’t believe this…I can’t believe any of it. Alex is kidnapped….I let you fly me in an airplane…we survived the landing…the damn US government won’t do a thing about any of this…and now this…this is the most incredible thing of all.”

“I know it seems like a long shot, Maria, but we can’t just leave Alex to die, and like I said, Max has never promised anything and then not delivered…not once in all the time I’ve known him. And no one else is going to do anything.”

“Well Liz, I could almost believe that Max and egg-boy there could actually come through and come up with a plan to get Alex….there really weren’t all that many guys at the airstrip, .....but you’ll never convince me that Isabel really loves Alex…that she’s had some sort of secret infatuation with him for six years.”

“I gotta admit, that’s a little unlikely. Still, it was about six years ago that he went all ga-ga over her. Maybe they both just wished upon the same star or something. I don’t think Max and Michael would lie about the diary…kind of makes you glad that you don’t have a brother, doesn’t it,” said Liz, thinking about a ‘journal’ of her own fantasies with Max sitting behind a brick in her bedroom wall…on top of her Kama Sutra.

Maria went to the window and looked out at the street. “Liz…here comes the Jeep with those two policemen. It’s coming right up to the front door.”

Five minutes later there was a knock on the door, and the two girls looked out in terror at the uniforms…until they heard the voices.

“Let us in…it’s just us,” said Michael.

Halfway down the alley was a dumpster behind Emilio’s Seafood House. Emilio’s served only the finest fresh fish, locally caught, and cleaned on site. The dumpster was only a third full of fish entrails, plus two unconscious Policia, although you wouldn’t know it since they were dressed only in their underwear. They’d wake up in two hours, but no one would hear their shouting for four hours after that. Then it would take another two hours to find someone with a welding torch to unweld the dumpster lid, so it could be opened and the men released. The temperature in Cabo tonight would be 66 degrees, but it would hit 90 degrees tomorrow, before they were finally released.

An hour later a frustrated Miguel got hold of a traffic cop in the area.

“I don’t know why they didn’t call, Jefe,..but I saw them in their Jeep…with two American girls, heading northward out of town.”

In fact, he hadn’t really looked hard at the two cops…he was ogling the girls, but it was their jeep and he saw their uniforms…who else could it be?

Miguel put the phone down with a smile. ‘At last, something is going RIGHT…’