He stepped out of his office and spoke to his assistant. "Ellen, please send out a Code Seven alert. I want a plane waiting, and eight armed agents. “

"Yes, sir, Mr. Margolin," she said, and began simultaneously punching keys on her computer and tapping a code into the phone. Her ambidexterity made her a highly valued assistant.

Margolin's cell phone rang, and he flipped it open. "Dale? “

There was a moment of silence on the other end, then a familiar voice. "Not Dale. This is Colonel Grant Bertram. Do I have Matthew Margolin? “

Margolin ducked back into his office and closed the door. "Yeah, this is Matt. Hey, Grant. What's up? “

"Are you still in charge of that Special Unit?" Bertram asked.

"Why? “

"Because if you are, then I'm about to make your day. “

Margolin's interest was piqued. "Yes, the Unit is still mine. What do you have for me? “

"Very early in the A.M. we got a tip that some fugitives would be at a certain location here in New York City. When we arrived, the local cops were already there, and the scene was a disaster. We're talking gas, guns, and the whole shebang. “

Bertram paused for a moment, as if to accentuate what he was going to say next. "There were three people captured. The rest seemed to vanish or something. All they found were piles of ash where the suspects used to be. “

Margolin nodded. "Who were the captures? “

"I believe they're some kids you're very interested in.

Some kids from Roswell. Isabel Evans, Michael Guerin, and Tess Harding." Bertram's words hung in the air.

Margolin tried to contain the excitement in his voice, but knew he hadn't quite succeeded. "You have them in custody? “

"Yeah, here on-site. They've been separated, and one of them's been juiced. He gave us quite a bit of trouble during capture. He displayed some… unusual abilities. You got a clue what I mean? “

"I might," Margolin said, keeping his tone as noncommittal as possible. "Were there any others with the three you caught? “

"If there were, the cops didn't get them," Bertram said. "The troops seemed pretty freaked out, on the whole. A few said they saw people turning to ash, but there was a lot of smoke and gas in the air, so who knows what they really saw. And there was some kind of explosion in the basement of the building. Apparently the RD. was on-scene because there had been gunshots reported. It looked like some sort of gang war was going on. “

Bartolli appeared at the door. He looked as slick as a shark in his dark suit, and even though he carried only a briefcase, Margolin knew that the man was armed for serious hunting.

"Grant, I need you to hold for a second while I check on something. “

"Okay," Bertram said.

Margolin put the cell phone on hold, then placed it on a white noise box to prevent any stray sounds from getting through. "An old buddy of mine from back in the day… he's a colonel in the army now… -just called from New York City. It seems he's captured Tess Harding, Michael Guerin, and Isabel Evans. “

Bartolli raised an eyebrow. "Think they split up? “

"Sounds like that could be the case." Margolin held up the three printouts that Harrison had sent him of the intercepted e-mails. "These are from Liz Parker, Maria DeLuca, and Kyle Valenti. “

"Maybe the aliens split off from the humans?" Bartolli offered.

"We don't know what Parker is, since she's exhibited unusual abilities as well." Margolin's mind flashed back to a very frightened woman they had interrogated in Roswell; after Max and Liz had rescued her from a mugger, she'd been reluctant to give details about her saviors. Bartolli had "persuaded" her to help them.

"So, where's Max Evans? “

"A very good question," Margolin said. "Is he with his brunette girlfriend, or was he with his old blond girlfriend? Bertram says no others were recovered, but it sounds like there might have been room for escape. “

"Three in the hand in New York, a few more about to be captured in Wyoming. I'd say we've got a pretty good grouping of them," Bartolli said, grinning.

Margolin nodded. He picked up the phone and toggled it on. "You there, Grant? “

"Yes, sir. You could get better elevator music to play on your 'hold' line than that Barry Manilow stuff, though. “

"I'll work on that. Meanwhile, we're on our way there right now, by plane. Give us an hour. And give me the location of the building you're in. “

Margolin scribbled the address down, and then spoke again. "Grant, you need to play dose attention to this. Under no circumstances are you, or any other persons, to have contact with these three. Got it? No one. “

"Got it. “

"I assume you have them in airtight rooms? “

"Of course. “

Margolin smiled. "Good. We'll have a little cocktail prepared for them when we get there. Thanks for the call, Grant. Excellent work. It won't go unnoticed if I have anything to say about it. “

Margolin rang off, and turned to Bartolli. "Let's go get ourselves some aliens. “

Maria shifted slightly to get more comfortable, trying not to wake Michael. They were lying in the back of the Microbus on their sleeping bags. Liz had told them that she was going off with Isabel, not so subtly offering them some much-needed time alone.

For about two minutes, she and Michael had made out, and then Michael had fallen asleep. Maria was more frustrated than offended; she knew how much energy Michael had expended that day, even if she hadn't been conscious to see it. But she'd still wanted him to be with her.

Feeling him breathing next to her, looking at his peaceful face, she could almost get lost in the moment. Almost forget that they were dressed in one of their five changes of clothes, traveling with four of their friends in a van, on the run from government goons and skin-shedding aliens.

Almost, but not quite.

Four years ago, she never would have imagined her life would be what it was today. Not even in a creative writing assignment in Mrs. Wong's class. Four years ago, her best friends were Liz Parker and Alex Whitman, and she sometimes hung out with the granola- rock crowd.

Working at the Crashdown Cafe as a waitress was her job, but she'd always had bigger dreams. Music and the stage called to her, and she knew that one day kids would be singing along to her songs like they did to the music of Melissa Etheridge or E J. Harvey or Dido. She wasn't sure exactly how she was going to get out of Roswell, but she knew she would. She once shared that dream with Billy Darden, the boy she'd met at band camp at the age of thirteen, the first boy she had ever kissed.

And then, on that fateful day in September, 1999, Liz had been shot at the Crashdown, the victim of a random altercation. In the days and weeks that followed, Maria was inexorably drawn into a secret world that had existed around her for years without her knowledge. Her mother made cheap alien tchotchkes for her shop, never realizing that three of Maria's new friends actually were half alien.

Looking back at the last four years, Maria sometimes had a difficult time seeing the good that had come from her association with the aliens. Her grades had suffered, her mother's Jetta had certainly suffered, and her other friendships had all but evaporated. And then Alex had been killed, as part of Tess's alien plot.

The only positive result was her relationship with Michael, and even that was tumultuous at best. His moods were so mercurial that she was never sure if her comments or attention would set him off. Manic- depressive, thy name is Michael, she often thought. Not that she was the poster child for emotional stability, but she realized that their relationship mirrored that of her mother and father, when they had been together. But just because she was aware of the emotional roller coaster that life with Michael represented, that knowledge didn't seem to help her stay away from him. It was a kind of codependency, and she was caught in its loop.