Many of the characters within this story, and the universe they inhabit, are the intellectual property of Jason Katims Productions.
Roswell: Re-Imagined
Written by Horatio Jaxx
Chapter 48: What Have We Here?
Special Agent Garrett Seitz and Special Agent Gary Holguin of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations 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 being irritated with the operation. Their annoyance was due to the fact that neither of them were given a reason for the surveillance or apprised of any ongoing investigation involving these teenagers. They were into their fourth week at watching the movements of thirteen senior class students who were attending one of the three high schools in the city of Roswell, New Mexico. And 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 before. Their work in the past always involved an investigation that was connected to a criminal act perpetrated against Air Force property or personnel. That information was always given to them at the beginning of an operation by their immediate superiors. With regards to this operation, they soon learned that they knew more about this operation than their superiors, and they knew next to nothing about the reason for this surveillance. They were simply handed off to a Major Ryan Kawecki and instructed to do as they were told. In the beginning, the time and resources that the Air Force was putting into this surveillance had them believing that something big was happening in Roswell, New Mexico, but time and observation wore away that belief. 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 illicit drugs. And several of the thirteen teenagers appeared to have no awareness of the existence of the others.
When the surveillance started, the popular suspicion among the thirty-seven AFOSI argents working it 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 that they always thought it strange that they were not advised of the specific offense at the start. By now the popular disposition among the agents was indifference. They all saw these kids as inoffensive, and they all had grown tired of following them around just to record their every move.
It was a hot a day in late-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. Their 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. That meant that they would have to continue recording even though the next shift team was just now coming on site. Their orders were to never separate an event between two teams. That was just one of the little things about this assignment that was wearing their patience thin. Both Seitz and Holguin suspected that they would be more tolerant of this inconvenience if someone gave them a valid reason to endure it, but it was that absence of an explanation that was making these small events 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 and in front of the 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. The couple sat 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 that.
"Here goes another hour of reality TV, the boring edition," Holguin quipped.
The only response Seitz gave to that 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. That would make them too conspicuous. For the agents involved in this operation, the discomfort was the primary reason for being peeved with the operation. Over the next fifteen minutes, Seitz and Holguin intermittently drank water to hydrate themselves as they sat in silence and sleepily gazed upon the monitor.
After nearly 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 just that reason. A second later, Seitz advised Holguin that he would go out, and he 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 and saw a uniformed Deputy Sheriff standing in front of the side door. The Officer saw him in turn. Seitz opened the passenger door and stepped out of the van with a smile on his face. After closing the door behind him, he greeted the Deputy with an equivalent demeanor.
"Hello, Deputy, how can I help you?"
LINE BREAK
Deputy Sheriffs Zack Lerner and Ronald Heaps had been out on patrol for almost two hours when they first noticed the white van parked 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 thorough knowledge of the vehicles common to the 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 over the past few weeks, but he had no idea who it belonged to or why it was there. It was never in the same place from one day to the next, and it was never situated in front of a house or an apartment building.
Deputy 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 him doubly intrigued about this van was the fact that it was not the only vehicle of that type he infrequently saw parked somewhere around Roswell High School. He had noted other vans parked outside of the school that kept reappearing two and three times a week. The return of this van made him think of the Toyota Cargo Van that he had seen in that area the day before, and the Chevrolet 2500 Passenger Van that he saw the day before that. 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 the school on more than one occasion.
After a quick tally of his recollection, Deputy Lerner ran a search on the license plate 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 they did despite Deputy Lerner's suspicion that something unusual was going on with these vans.
Two hours later, Deputy Lerner steered his patrol car back to Roswell High School and parked it a short distance behind the white Ford E-350 van. His partner thought the decision to do that was a waste of their time, but Deputy Lerner argued that they had no better use for it at that moment. They had been staking out the vehicle for nearly five minutes when they noticed movement that was likely being generated by someone inside the vehicle. That was when Deputy Lerner decided to go knock on the van door.
"License," Deputy Lerner requested with a somber expression.
Agent Seitz had just stepped out of the van and greeted Deputy Lerner when that request was put to him. Agent Seitz knew that he had done nothing to warrant that request, but he also knew that it was best to be cooperative. He quickly produced his license and military identification card and extended them to Deputy Sheriff Lerner.
"Is there something wrong, Deputy?" Agent Seitz questioned with a pleasantly.
Without responding to his question, Deputy Sheriff Lerner took the identifications and went back to his patrol car. Deputy Heaps stood on the sidewalk and watched Agent Seitz from nearly twenty feet away. A couple of minutes later, Deputy Lerner returned to Agent Seitz holding both IDs in his hand.
"What's your business here, Agent Seitz?" Deputy Lerner questioned with emphasis on the word agent.
"No business," Agent Seitz responded with a slight shake of his head. "I'm just admiring the community."
The pleasant expression of Agent Seitz was having the opposite effect of what he intended. Deputy Lerner's experience told him that the person in front of him was being deceptive. After taking a few seconds to examine Agent Seitz, 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 Lerner playfully countered.
"Really," Agent Seitz spoke back with a feigned surprise. "I must have lost track of the time."
Deputy Lerner gave that response a smile before making his next inquiry with a quizzical expression.
"Weren't you here last week, admiring the community?"
"That's possible, Deputy," Agent Seitz answered with a shrug. "I don't keep track of the places I visit."
Deputy Lerner had reached the end of his patience for the game that Agent 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 Lerner gruffly challenged.
Agent Seitz quickly picked up on Deputy Lerner's dismissal of the pretense civility, and he promptly dropped his own charade of cordiality from 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 Lerner knew he had no chance of getting a search warrant. He also knew that it would be hazardous to his career to detain the Agent or attempt to run him off without provocation. After another few seconds of glaring, Deputy Lerner turned away, went back to his patrol car and got in behind the wheel. Deputy Heaps got into the car on the passenger's side.
"Who is he?" Deputy Heaps asked.
"He's an OSI agent," Deputy Lerner answered as he gave Agent Seitz a last look.
Deputy Heaps was surprised by that answer. He expected the occupant to be someone in the Air Force because of the plates on the van, but he did not expect him to be anyone who could be there in an official capacity.
"What's he doing here?" Deputy Heaps quickly asked with a surprise.
Just as Deputy Heaps finished that question, Deputy Lerner put the patrol car into gear and began steering it into the street. Shortly he gave Deputy Heaps the only answers that he knew were accurate.
"I don't know, but he's not admiring the community."
Agent Seitz watched them drive out of view before returning to the interior of the van.