Turnabout

1. Newton, Massachusetts.

Uovernment agents are about to break down our door. I think they've already captured the Parkers. I don't know about the others.» Phillip Evans's voice sounded panicked and calm at the same time. «Contact Jesse Ramirez, and then go ahead with the plans I put in place.» For a fleeting moment, Shelby Tremaine didn't know what to say. She had pulled her car into a parking lot the moment she saw the Roswell area code on the special cell phone she carried with her most of the time. And then she had answered the call she never truly expected to get.

With a quick shake of her head, she asked, «Are you sure about this, Phillip?» «Yes. An unmarked black car and van just pulled up the street, right after we got a call from the Parkers.» His voice sounded more strained now.

«How do you know they're coming for " «I know," Phillip said, interrupting her. «I'm setting up the cam feed to record everything that happens in our living room. Whatever they do to us here will be recorded.

You know where the signal goes.» «I've got it in my files," Shelby said.

«Good. Get the video as soon as you can. That way, you'll know whether we're still alive. And find out " Phillip stopped speaking then, and Shelby heard a loud, splintering crash, as if something wooden had been blown up.

The door? Shelby thought just before the cell phone's connection went dead. She felt a chill coursing down her spine, and noticed goose bumps popping up on her arms.

What the hell is happening in Roswell? Shelby had known Phillip Evans since the third grade, back when both of their families were living in Flagstaff, Arizona. She was a chubby child, and was often teased mercilessly by the other kids. Phillip had come to her rescue one day when three of her classmates were holding her down behind the playground fort, trying to make her eat some bugs. She still remembered seeing him standing there, the sun behind him like a halo. After chasing them off, he had helped her up, then walked her back inside the classroom.

As they grew older, Phillip was always on the edge of being popular in school. He wasn't a jock, but he was big enough to discourage the jocks from messing with him.

He was smart enough to hang with the nerds, but not so geeky that he was considered one of the «brainiacs.» His good looks won him lots of attention from the girls, but he generally only went out with the ones who displayed more substance than style. As far as Shelby could tell, she had changed a good deal less than Phillip had since grade school; even as a high school senior, she remained chubby and victimized.

But Shelby remained devoted to Phillip through the years, and he remained as her protector. For a short time, she'd had a romantic crush on him, and they'd even dated briefly in high school, but they soon discovered that the dynamics of their friendship were immutable; they were fated to be best friends forever, and lovers never.

In college, Phillip had chosen his major early on, his fascination with the law leading him into the prelaw program at the University of New Mexico. Shelby puttered around at U.N.M. for two years, mainly taking general-ed and elective courses before deciding that she, too, wanted to take on the legal system from within. Phillip was able to help her with her studies, and she benefited from his classroom experience and natural legal talent. In the early 1970s, most women working in the field of law were legal assistants; in those early days it seemed to Shelby that very few of them aspired to become lawyers themselves. But by then, she had stopped playing the victim, and was strongly taking charge of her own life.

Though they now lived far apart, Shelby and Phillip had stayed in touch with each other over the years since graduating from law school, passing their respective bar exams, and becoming practicing attorneys. Their respective spouses understood their friendship at least until Shelby's marriage had fallen apart, prompting her to spend more time with some of her oldest and dearest friends.

Shelby very much liked Diane Evans, and she absolutely adored Max and Isabel, who had come into Phillip's and Diane's lives so unexpectedly in 1989. Phillip had confided that he and Diane had been unable to conceive children on their own; the two apparent orphans were a godsend.

Shelby had joked more than a few times that Max and Isabel might be Kryptonian children, rocketed to Earth like Superman. After all, the Evanses had found them wandering in the desert, with no knowledge of their past.

In the months that followed, after no one had laid claim to the pair, Phillip and Diane had adopted Max and Isabel.

Thirteen years later, in the spring of 2002, Shelby learned that her comic-book-oriented jests held more truth than she ever could have imagined at the time. She now specialized in family law and adoption, and Phillip had called to ask for a special professional favor. He told her that Max had fathered a child, and that he needed her help to get the child to safety and placed into a good home.

No matter how much she trusted her oldest friend, Shelby wasn't about to just take the child without further explanation. And so Phillip told her everything: about Max and Isabel's true origins; about the baby's interstellar parentage; about the government agents who were hunting for further evidence that aliens did indeed live among the humans of Roswell.

Shelby might not have believed Phillip if he hadn't shown her the videotape. He and Diane had used a nannycam to spy on Isabel, and had caught footage of her using her extraordinary telekinetic powers to levitate objects in her bedroom. The government agents had apparently confiscated the original tape, but the Evanses had duplicated it earlier, leaving the copy with Shelby, along with little Zan.

Phillip informed Shelby that they didn't want to know with whom she had placed Zan; he had even lied to Max, telling him that a male law school buddy in New York would take care of the matter. «If we ever want to know the truth about where the baby is placed, we'll ask you," Phillip told Shelby. «But this child deserves a future free from fear.» A few weeks later, Shelby had gotten a second visit from Phillip, and this one was filled with more portent than the previous one. He presented her with all the data he had gathered on the secret government intelligence group called the Special Unit, as well as every bit of information about his children and the others in Roswell who were involved in evading the government's alien-hunting conspiracy.

Shelby was astonished to learn that the Special Unit had actually invaded the West Roswell High graduation ceremony in an attempt to capture Max, Isabel, Michael, and their friends. Now, the kids were on the run, and Phillip was certain that all of the parents were under heavy surveillance.

«Exposure is the one thing that these Special Unit guys think is on their side," Phillip had told her. «They believe that our kids are more afraid of exposure than anything else. But that's not the case. Max told me before he left that if I ever feared anything was about to happen to us or the other parents, I should use this information against the Special Unit.» «How do you think this is going to help?» Shelby had asked.

«I think that now, the government is more concerned about exposure than our kids are. Think about it, Shelby.

What's the best way to get out of blackmail? All you have to do is come clean. Removing the lies and exposing the truth will blow the lid off all the government's machinations and cover-ups since 1947.» Shelby had shaken her head, trying to wrap her thoughts around what Phillip was saying. «You really think they'll give up on hunting the kids down just because you threaten to go public? And what happens if you don't go public?» He reached forward and took her hands, looking at her directly. She remembered that look from the third grade; he was at his most serious, his most sincere. «Shelby, if it comes down to this, the repercussions from revealing the truth are going to be far less harmful than just sitting on the truth. I have no doubt that if they can, they'll kill our children, or make them wish they were dead. And they will probably 'disappear' anyone who they think knows the real truth. So, the only way out of this is for everyone to learn the truth.» Shelby had stared at him for a long moment then, her mind whirling. «Do you really think that the American public that the world is ready to learn that aliens have been living among us for more than fifty years?» His smile was gentle. «I think the public won't be nearly as shocked as you might think, Shelby. This is a generation that's grown up with El and Star Trek and Men in Black and all the science-fiction films and TV shows and books.

This is a generation that uses cell phones the size of business cards, and computers they can slip into their pocket.

They'll adapt.» Before she could stop herself, Shelby snorted. «And what if the populace decides that the aliens among us are really here to steal our water, eat our mice, or blow up the White House?» Phillip grinned ever so slightly. «I don't think it will get to that point. I think the Special Unit won't let things go that far.» «What, you think they're going to back off just because I threaten to blow the whistle? What's to stop them from paying me a visit in the dead of night with a very silent gun?» «What do you want me to do, Shelby?» Phillip pulled back from her, settling into one of her office chairs. «This is my family we're talking about. This is not an abstract 'someone.' This is Max and Isabel you used to read to them when they were younger. And it may be Diane and me they come after.» He paused, his brow furrowing. «You won't have to carry this burden all alone. Call Jesse Ramirez, and follow the other instructions I'm leaving with you.» His next sentence had chilled her to the bone. «They won't be able to stop all of us, Shelby.» Now, twenty minutes after she got the fateful telephone call, Shelby pulled her Toyota into her driveway and let herself into her modest house. Her hands trembling by the time she'd reached the kitchen, she poured some sherry into a glass. The cell phone hadn't rung again since Phillip's previous call, the one that confirmed that his worst fears had finally been realized. She was certain that he had destroyed his phone before they took him. But how long will it take for them to reconstruct it and find a way to determine who he called last? How long until they figure out where those nanny-cam pictures went? She didn't know at this point whether Phillip and Diane or the other alien-affiliated parents in Roswell were dead or alive. But she did know that now she was involved. Phillip had saved her, not only on that long-ago day on the playground, but also many times since. Now she was determined to do whatever she could to return the favor, both for Phillips sake and for that of his family.

Shelby went to the kitchen and opened a cupboard that held a pull-out spice rack. She tugged it forward off its tracks and gingerly placed it on the countertop. Reaching in, she depressed a small button in the back of the cabinet, and the back paneling popped free. Inside the recessed space were all the files and information Phillip had given her.

On the first page was the Boston number of Jesse Ramirez. Since Shelby lived in Newton, she could meet with Jesse in less than an hour if everything went smoothly.

Ij they haven't gotten to him already, she thought with a shiver.

She picked up her cell phone and dialed Jesse's number. One ring. Two rings.

«Hello?» The voice was male, but she didn't recognize it; she had never actually spoken with Ramirez before.

«Jesse Ramirez, please," she said as calmly as she could.

«This is he.» «Mister Ramirez, my name is… Denise Prinze, and I'm a lawyer.» She wasn't sure if Jesse's phone was bugged, so she played it safe by using the fake name Phillip had given her. «I need to consult with you immediately about a client I have.» «Immediately?» She bit her lip and continued, scanning the notes Phillip had made about Jesse. «It's about a Mr. Antar.» There was a brief silence before he spoke again. «Where do you want to meet?» «Antonio's Cucina Italiana on Cambridge Street.» «Across from Mass General Hospital?» «That's the one," Shelby said. «In an hour?» «See you then," he said. And then the line clicked and was silent.

Shelby hoped that it was Jesse to whom she had been talking, and that she hadn't just delivered herself or both of them into enemy hands.

When did I become so paranoid? she thought as she began to fill a bag with some clothes and a few other necessities.

She already knew the answer to her question.

It had happened the day she had learned the truth about Roswell.

Boston Jesse Ramirez hung up the phone, his eyes wide. After the earlier incident with Isabel calling and him finding out his phones were bugged, he had almost been afraid to come home. Now, he found that he was even more afraid of going out.

Whoever the woman who had called him was, she knew the name of Isabel's homeworld. Is she working with the Special Unit? Or is she the one Phillip said might call me one day? He knew that if the latter scenario were true, then something had gone very wrong indeed.

Against his better judgment, Jesse dialed the Evanses' phone number in Roswell.

It had barely rung once before it was picked up.

«Hello.» The voice was crisp and authoritative. And clearly not Phillips. Jesse checked the phone display to make sure he had dialed the number correctly He waited another beat, but the man didn't speak any further. Jesse punched the «End» button as hard as he could.

Whatever is going down in Roswell, I'm sure as hell not safe here at home, Jesse thought. He grabbed a duffel bag and put several things into it, including the gun he had carried ever since he'd left Roswell. It was the same gun he had used to kill the Special Unit agent who'd tried to make him turn on Isabel.

Making sure that the front door was locked, Jesse toggled on the television, and then slipped out the back door and into the small yard behind his apartment building.