Many of the characters within this story, and the universe they inhabit, are the intellectual property of Jason Katims Productions.
Roswell: Reimagined
Written by
Horatio Zedekiah Jaxx
Chapter 48: What Have We Here?
Lieutenant Garrett Seitz and Lieutenant Gary Holguin had been sitting in the back of their Ford E-350 van outside of Roswell High School for three hours. Neither of them knew why they were surveilling a group of high school teenagers. They both were way past a little annoyed with the entire operation. This was due to the fact that neither of them were given a reason for this surveil or apprised of any ongoing investigation involving these kids or their parents. This was their sixth week at watching the movements of thirteen senior class students who, each, attended one of the only three high schools in the city of Roswell, New Mexico. And, despite this, they still had no idea what they were looking for or when the operation would be completed.
Seitz and Holguin had never been a part of anything like this. Their work in the past always involved an investigation that was connected to a criminal act perpetrated against Air Force property or personnel. This information was always given to them at the beginning by their immediate superiors. With regards to this operation, they knew more than their superiors. And this was next to nothing at all. They were simply handed off to a Major Ryan Kawecki and instructed to do as they were told. The time and resources that the Air Force was putting into this surveillance had them both believing, at first, that something big and important was going on. But time and observation had worn this perception thin. The teenagers they were watching appeared to be as harmless as any they had ever seen. They saw no evidence that they were even experimenting with cigarettes and alcohol, let alone illicit drugs. And several of the thirteen teenagers appeared to have only a passing awareness of some of the others.
In the beginning the popular suspicion among the thirty-seven AFOSI (Air Force Office of Special Investigations) agents working this surveillance was that these teenagers were involved in some prank that was impacting a local Air Force installation, or possibly even hacking into the Air Force communication network. But even in this they always thought it strange that they were not advised of the specific offense in the beginning. By this time, the popular position among the agents was that no one cared anymore. Everyone saw these kids as inoffensive and all had grown tired of following them around and recording their every move.
It was a hot a day in mid-September and Seitz and Holguin were halfway through the last hour of their surveillance shift when the two teenagers they knew as, Max Evans and Liz Parker, appeared on their video monitor. They noted them with expressions of exasperation even as Seitz began focusing the camera lens for a closer picture. This dissatisfaction was directed at the situation and not the teenagers. They both knew that the two teenagers would likely remain where they were for an hour. This meant that they would have to continue recording even though the next shift team was on site. There orders were to never separate an event between two teams.
This was just one of the little things about this assignment that was wearing their patience thin. Both Seitz and Holguin believed this would be a minor annoyance if someone gave them a valid reason to endure it. But it was this absence of information or an explanation that was making these small inconveniences feel like large nuisances.
"Are we recording this?" Seitz inquired as he toggled the joystick and zoom control.
Seitz was sitting in front of a monitor in the back of the van. Holguin was sitting to his left in front of a control panel. The exterior of the van had no emblems or markings. On the top of the van was a raised equipment rack with a pair of ladders latched atop it. The head of a periscope camera, disguised to look like a vent, protrude up through the center of the roof just high enough to peer out beneath the equipment rack. The two teenagers, Max Evans and Liz Parker, were little more than fifty yards distant.
"Yeah, we're recording," Holguin quickly retorted as he sat back in his chair and watched the monitor in front of Seitz.
Max and Liz walked out onto the school's athletic field and had just taken a seat in the grass by the football field when Seitz and Holguin began recording. They sat themselves, crossed leg, in front of each other and talked for a brief time with intermittent smiles and giggles. A couple of minutes later, they opened the book they each had in their possession and began to read. Seitz and Holguin quickly bored of this.
"Here goes another hour of reality TV, the boring edition," Holguin quipped snidely.
The only response Seitz gave to this was a large yawn. He then fixed a blank stare onto the monitor and continued watching the video. Holguin followed his lead and focused his attention onto the monitor as well. The interior of the van was hot. The vents built into the vehicle gave them some relief, but not enough for them to notice it. Both men were attired in khaki pants and polo shirts. A pair of battery operated mini fans were constantly whirring as they pushed air onto them. Orders prevented them from running the van's engine to power the air conditioner. It was decided that this would be too conspicuous. For the agents involved in this operation, this was just one more reason to be peeved at the secrecy associated with this operation. Over the next fifteen minutes, they intermittently drank water to hydrate themselves as they sat in silence and sleepily gazed upon the monitor.
At the end of the fifteen minutes of silence, Agents Seitz and Holguin were startled wide-awake by three thumps on the side loading doors of the van. They both quickly spun around and fixed their attention on the door. Curtains covered the windows to prevent anyone from seeing in. Both men were reluctant to open the door or the curtains for this reason. A second later, Seitz advised Holguin that he would go out and instructed him to stay there. Seitz then stepped through the blackout curtains that separated the front cabin from the rear of the van. He quickly climbed into the passenger seat and looked through the window towards the rear of the van. He instantly took notice of a uniformed Deputy Sheriff standing in front of the side doors. And he noted him in turn. Seitz opened the passenger door and stepped out of the van with a smile on his face. After the closing the door behind him, he greeted the Deputy with an equivalent demeanor.
"Hello, Deputy, how can I help you?"
Deputy Sheriffs Zack Lerner and Ronald Heaps had been out on patrol for almost two hours when they first took notice of the white van situated on the street next to the football field outside of Roswell High School. They saw nothing unusual about the vehicle. But the fact that it was there did pique Deputy Sheriff Lerner's interest. He had a fairly thorough knowledge of the vehicles common to this neighborhood and their owners. And this one was uncommon and familiar at the same time. Deputy Sheriff Lerner recognized the van as one he had seen several times before over the past few weeks. But he had no idea who it belonged to or why it was there. This was due to the fact that it was situated in a new location each new day that he saw it. Deputy Sheriff Lerner had an innate talent for memorizing makes and models of vehicles. And he instinctively fixed vehicles that he regularly saw to their owners.
What made Deputy Sheriff Lerner doubly intrigued about this van was the fact that it was not the only vehicle to hold the distinction of being an infrequent visitor somewhere around Roswell High School. He had noted other vans parked outside of the school that kept reappearing once or twice a week. The return of this van made him think of the Toyota Cargo Van that he had seen in this area the day before, and the Chevrolet 2500 Passenger Van that he frequently saw here. The more he thought about it the more suspicious he became. He quickly recalled half a dozen vans or small cargo trucks that appeared to have parked somewhere outside of this school on more than one occasion. After a quick tally of this recollection, Deputy Sheriff Lerner ran a search on the license plates of the van in front of him. When the readout showed that the vehicle was US Air Force property, his partner instructed him to dismiss it as nothing important and to continue their patrol. This he did despite his suspicion that something unusual was going on here.
Two hours later, Deputy Sheriff Lerner steered his patrol car back to Roswell High School. He then parked his patrol car a short distance behind the white Ford E-350 van. His partner thought the decision to do this was a waste of their time. But Deputy Sheriff Lerner argued that they had no better use for their time at that moment. Both he and Deputy Sheriff Heaps then staked out the vehicle for nearly five minutes. At the end of this time they were both startled to attention when they noted that movement from within was rocking the vehicle. This was when Deputy Sheriff Lerner decided to go knock on the van door.
"License," Deputy Sheriff Lerner requested with a somber expression.
Lieutenant Seitz knew that he had done nothing to warrant this request. But he also knew that it was best not to be anything less than cooperative. He quickly produced his license and military identification card and extended them to Deputy Sheriff Lerner.
"Is there something wrong, Deputy?" Lieutenant Seitz questioned with a pleasant demeanor.
Without responding to his question, Deputy Sheriff Lerner took the identifications and promptly went back to his patrol car with them. Deputy Sheriff Heaps stood on the sidewalk and watched Lieutenant Seitz from nearly twenty-feet away. Two minutes later, Deputy Sheriff Lerner returned to Lieutenant Seitz with both ID's in his hand.
"What's your business here, Agent Seitz?" Deputy Sheriff Lerner questioned with emphasis on the word agent.
"No business," Lieutenant Seitz responded with a slight shake of his head. "I'm just admiring the community."
The pleasant expressions of the Lieutenant was having the opposite effect of what he intended. Deputy Sheriff Lerner's experience told him that the person in front of him was being deceptive. After taking five seconds to examine the Lieutenant, he extended his identification cards to him while asking a question.
"It looks like you've been admiring the community for some time now," Deputy Sheriff Lerner countered with a stern look.
"Really," Lieutenant Seitz spoke back with a feigned look of surprise. "I must have lost track of the time."
Deputy Sheriff Lerner took a couple of seconds to study the Lieutenant with a look of disdain on his face. At the end of this time, he made another inquiry.
"Weren't you here last week, admiring the community?"
"That's possible, Deputy," Lieutenant Seitz answered with a nod. "I don't keep track of the places I visit."
Deputy Sheriff Lerner had reached the end of his patience for the game that Lieutenant Seitz was playing. He turned towards the side loading doors of the van and pointed to them with a scowl.
"What's in the van?" Deputy Sheriff Lerner gruffly challenged.
Lieutenant Seitz quickly picked up that the pretense of civility period was over and promptly dismissed with it in the tone of his response.
"You'll need a search warrant to find that out."
The two men exchanged looks that bordered on animosity. Deputy Sheriff Lerner knew he had no chance of getting a search warrant. And he also knew that it would be hazardous to his career to issue a citation, detain or attempt to run him off without a strong provocation. After another ten seconds of glaring at one-another, Deputy Sheriff Lerner turned away, went back to his patrol car and got in behind the wheel. He promptly shut the door behind him. A second after this, Deputy Sheriff Heaps got into the car, on the passenger's side, and shut his door behind him.
"Who is he?" Deputy Sheriff Heaps questioned an instant behind closing the door.
"He's an OSI agent," Deputy Sheriff Lerner answered as he gave Lieutenant Seitz a last look.
Deputy Sheriff Heaps was surprised by this answer. He expected the occupant to be someone in the military because of the plates. But he did not expect him to be anyone who could possibly be there in an official capacity.
"What's he doing here?" Deputy Sheriff Heaps asked with a surprised inflection.
Deputy Sheriff Lerner put the patrol car into gear just as Deputy Sheriff Heaps finished his question. As he steered the patrol car back into the street, he gave him the only answer he thought appropriate.
"I don't know. But he's not admiring the community."
Lieutenant Seitz watched them drive out of view before returning to the interior of the van.
