License to Love (An Agent Ex Novel)

by Robinson, Gina

  Long before anyone had thought of this, though, UFO spotters had reported the saucer-shaped crafts. Rock had never been able to decide whether the crazy shape of flying saucers validated or invalidated reports of extraterrestrial ships. Let’s face it, not one piece of transportation on earth, from ships to bicycles, was saucer-shaped.

  Which gave Rock pause for just a minute as he stared in awe at the craft above him wondering whether it had a Romulan cloaking device as well. Which would explain the sudden appearance. Or could mask the real shape of the aircraft, which to his knowledge would need a propulsion engine.

  Rock aimed his binoculars toward it. Black and unearthly, with spinning rims of light shooting outward from it, it was impressive. Rock wondered whether it was an optical illusion, because the thing looked big enough to house a small city. What was it made of? A composite, like the new airplanes being manufactured? Radar-absorbent materials?

  The way it had sneaked up on the now hushed and frozen NUFO crowd in front of Rock, the craft had to have reduced acoustic, infrared, visual, and radar signatures. Full of a fair share of serious scientists who were determined to find alien life and ferret out fakes, the NUFO crowd was armed with radar and infrared detecting equipment. And everyone had ears. The NUFOs wouldn’t be easily fooled.

  Rock glanced at the crowd. They were entranced by the flying machine above them. The scene reminded him of a dozen alien movies. No one was moving. Mouths hung open. Eyes were wide and it was as if everyone held their collective breath.

  This was a sight that had never been witnessed before. It didn’t take a mind reader to know what everyone was thinking. Would the ship attack? Suck the crowd up into its portals? Perform hideous alien experiments and then dump the victims back on earth with their memories wiped clean? Or worse yet, disappear before it could be documented?

  Rock, of course, was thinking something altogether different. This is the illusion of the century. Or is it? Maybe that thing really is an alien ship. Or one of ours reverse-engineered from one.

  Rock’s pulse roared in his ears, even though he knew the truth of the ship’s origins. Or thought he did. You couldn’t trust those bastards from the CIA. They were as much liars and illusionists as he was.

  Suddenly, the crowd of NUFOs, as if realizing the craft wouldn’t hover above them forever, jumped into action. Hundreds of flashes of light penetrated the darkness as people snapped photos of the craft from their cell phones and cameras. Pieces of scientific equipment were aimed at it and the collective hush of the crowd broke into an excited murmur.

  Only Rock held his breath as he waited for the perfect moment to signal to his crew to act. Timing, timing, timing.

  Adrenaline and the thrill of performing overshadowed Rock’s desert stage fright. As a beam of light shot from the craft’s belly to earth, to the precise coordinates where Jake and Ashley hid, ready to appear as aliens, Rock pressed a button on his cell phone and set their part of the illusion in motion.

  Will set off a series of flash powder explosions to mask Ashley and Jake and aimed his lasers to add to the illusion.

  Rock held his breath again, watching as closely as the NUFOs would be for any sign of fakeness. Faking an alien landing wasn’t as simple as dressing in a big, hairy suit and staging a Bigfoot sighting. The technology involved. The movements required.

  Jake materialized from the smoke on cue, looking as if he’d been beamed from the ship rather than popping up from the ground, as was the reality. Ashley appeared a second later.

  As the crowd of NUFOs gasped and pointed, Rock congratulated himself on choreographing the illusion so well. Yes, I’m a genius.

  And only a magical genius would have thought of all the details that Rock had. Only two highly talented young people could have pulled off his instructions.

  The “alien” spaceship hovered a second longer, and with a sudden burst, blew past the crowd toward Area 51, disappearing as suddenly as it had appeared.

  Beside him, Ty swore beneath his breath.

  Will shook his head in amazement. “Does that thing have a cloaking device or what?”

  The crowd let out a collective gasp.

  Rock watched the crowd for signs that Britt had also sprung into action. Any second now the masses should begin pursuing the two newly beamed-down aliens.

  They’d reached the part of the illusion that Rock thought of like a movie. A movie can lead the audience down a path that seems logical as it unfolds, exciting, stimulating. But if the viewer pauses, the inconsistencies and illogical nature of the movie can be seen.

  Rock hoped the crowd would be too frenzied to wonder why a highly sophisticated alien culture, with technology that surpasses ours by light years of scientific discovery, would make the mistake of beaming two of its life-forms right onto the edge of a mass of earthlings.

  Of course, there were explanations. Like the two aliens were being punished for some hideous crime or another. Banished to be captured and tortured by earthlings.

  Still, if that were the case, was it reasonable to go after hardened alien criminals? Who knew what lethal-force technology they might possess?

  Rock had insisted his aliens not be armed with any obvious weaponry. He felt semiconfident the NUFOs wouldn’t shoot unarmed aliens. After all, their stated goal was to take aliens alive and try to communicate with them.

  Semi being the operative word. One can never tell what a drunk UFO watcher might do. For safety, both Jake and Ashley wore bulletproof vests. Even though the vests had made costuming harder and weighed Jake down, making his job more difficult.

  The crowd suddenly surged forward, as if controlled by a single mind.

  “Get in!” Ty screamed at Rock.

  Rock jumped into the hovercraft, night-vision goggles trained on his magicians. Ty fired up the engine and took off toward the gates of Area 51. At the same time, a large part of the crowd decided Area 51 was the place to go, too, and jumped on their motorcycles, or into their vehicles to join the chase.

  Rock’s pulse pounded, beating a rhythm that matched the march of the crowd of people and vehicles surging toward them as they kept just ahead of Jake and Ashley.

  Right on cue, Ashley veered right and took off toward the back gates, which were still miles away. This was delicate, so delicate. Ashley was on foot and running for her life while still executing the moves Jake and Zach had taught her. She leaped and darted, sprinted and jumped, looking natural and believably alien.

  Rock had his fingers crossed. If Ashley, Jake, or Zach, when he appeared, made the slightest threatening movement or apparently reached for a weapon, all hell and gunfire could break out.

  Rock and Ty were in the only manned, nonremote-controlled hovercraft. Ty was grinning like a kid with his first car as he piloted them toward the front gates and the big finale. “Finally, a hot vehicle. This makes up for a lot of crap.”

  Rock barely heard him as he watched the crowd closing in on Ashley. Damn, they were taking chances with this illusion. If anything went wrong, if anyone got hurt, it was all on his head.

  Ashley stumbled. Rock cursed. The crowd closed to within fifty yards of her as Ashley sprinted to her vanishing point.

  Rock held his breath, hoping Will was on with his timing as he provided smoke and laser cover. Will was heavily camouflaged in the hovercraft, code-named the duck blind, so well hidden that Rock couldn’t see him even using the goggles. Because the NUFOs also had night-vision goggles, it had to be this way. Rock was trusting the engineers at the home base to pilot Will into position. And he was trusting Will to perform accurately and on cue to cover Ashley.

  If the NUFOs realized they were being punked, the show was over.

  This was just like a stage production. All his magicians were used to working with precision timing. But this was open country. Rock prayed a wind wouldn’t kick up or that a new gopher hole hadn’t opened up overnight since they’d plotted and cleared Ashley’s path and planted stage markers as guides.

  Ashley
was running in the dark. She was wearing night-vision goggles, true, but they didn’t provide the same visibility as bright daylight.

  Rock counted the paces as he watched Ashley run. Now, now, now!

  Rock held his breath. Ashley raised her arm and tossed a pot of flash powder onto the ground. Will ignited a larger cache of smoke and lit the scene with eerie alien-looking lights, as if Ashley glowed.

  Rock crossed his fingers, which was highly unmagicianlike. Use every diversionary mind trick possible, but never rely on luck was a cardinal rule of magic. But, hell, for once no one was watching Rock, who was used to being the center of attention and taking all the heat. Rock was experienced enough to recover from an unexpected snag or snafu, but these kids? He crossed his fingers tighter, hating the feeling of not being in total control.

  The crowd reached Ashley’s location and paused, waving their hands to clear the smoke and looking around in confusion. Ashley had obviously disappeared.

  Beside Rock, Ty was also scanning the crowd, looking for Ashley to reappear. He wore an expression of complete seriousness. Could it be that one of those unflappable NCS agents was as nervous as Rock was?

  Ty pointed. “She did it! I have a visual. She’s part of the crowd now. Look!”

  Rock followed the direction of Ty’s finger, squinted, and just made Ashley out. She was wearing a distinctly marked NUFO T-shirt that glowed in the night-vision goggles so they could easily spot her.

  Rock and Ty watched as Ashley gestured and pointed. She was wearing a wire so she could communicate with them.

  “There!” they heard her say. “It went that way!” She pointed.

  Roughly a third of the crowd had followed Ashley. They were now committed to chasing her alien.

  Yeah, you guys chose wrong, Rock thought, feeling almost disappointed for them. Almost. He could feel those unfortunate NUFOs wishing they’d decided to chase the other alien, the one who was still visible, but too far away for them to catch.

  “It’s heading to the back gate of Area 51!” Ashley screamed. “If it gets there, we’ll lose it forever. Follow it!”

  The crowd, moving like a free-flowing, irregularly shaped amoeba drifted, and then surged in a charge toward the back gate where Daniel and Smokz would perform the reveal as assistants to the holographically projected Rock, who would be performing live at the front gate. Smokz would be on dressed as an alien to do a little head levitation. Yeah, it was going to be awesome. Epic. Record breaking. Wasn’t CIA technology grand?

  In the meantime, Jake was leading his part of the crowd, more and more of whom were jumping into cars, ATVs, and motorcycles, toward Area 51. His movements were fluid and so convincing, he nearly fooled Rock. As Jake stood on the hidden hovercraft, he looked as if he was running on his own steam and pulling away from the crowd, but not so far that they would lose hope that they could catch him.

  The first big “jump” was coming up. Rock held his breath again and counted down, whispering his mantra—timing, timing, timing!

  Jake leaped, arms pumping, feet striding in the air like a triple jumper. The boy could fly. He got good height and was a beauty to behold. Just at the height of his jump, he disappeared.

  Beside Rock, Ty was silent, watching with the same intensity as Rock was.

  Off in the distance, Zach appeared in a beam of light provided by Will, dressed identically to Jake so that he appeared to be the same alien creature. His timing was perfect as well. He, too, was striding through the air, looking as if he was the same creature completing a hundred-yard jump on his own power.

  “Impressive, like Superman.” Ty laughed as if this mission was the most fun he’d had in a long time. “Only half a dozen more jumps and nine more miles of performance to go until we reach the gates.”

  Ty threw the hovercraft into warp speed, the earthly approximation at least, throwing Rock backward as they surged forward just ahead of the crowd.

  * * *

  Back at Dreamland HQ and security control, Lani watched the security feed as Emmett’s UFO cruised into its hangar. Stunning. That’s the only way to describe the aircraft she watched fly in, looking as if it belonged in a sci-fi movie or the twenty-fifth century or something. Even knowing it was of this twenty-first-century world and one of theirs, it struck terror in her, along with a swell of pride and awe.

  Imagine being attacked by that thing. She shuddered. Imagine it in the wrong hands. At the same time, the plane from Vegas taxied onto runway five. Lani went cold. Random, is that you? Or one of your agents?

  If it wasn’t, she, Tate, and Tal were in deep space doo-doo. Emmett would be furious at them for ignoring orders.

  The Vegas plane coasted to a stop. Tate and Tal were in position, hiding and ready to make their surprise move. Both men were excellent shots and had nerves of steel. But Lani couldn’t help wishing the Agency’s top assassin, Jack Pierce, could be in two places at once—saving her baby and here. Even after coming back from a near-fatal accident and having to retrain, Jack never missed. He was so calm and calculated, sometimes she swore he didn’t have a heartbeat.

  Jack had taught her an assassin’s trick or two and helped her improve her shooting. But now she was stuck in the observation booth. What, exactly, was she supposed to do if Tate and Tal got into trouble? Run to their aid? A lone gun against everyone, friend and/or foe? There was no way she’d be able to get backup.

  And what happened if Ty and Rock and the young guns ran afoul? What did she do then?

  The door to the plane opened. A uniformed Dreamland employee pushed a set of mobile stairs to the door. Lani held her breath as a man emerged from the jet.

  * * *

  Jake and Zach leapfrogged and appeared and disappeared at will. With Will’s laser and smoke cover, everything was going according to plan. The crowd chased after them, eager, yelling greetings in Klingon and gibberish that must have been other alien tongues as they hung out of their cars and waved. Why Klingon? Who knew? Sounded alien, Rock imagined. They signaled the aliens with flashing lights that mimicked Morse code and waved banners with crazy-looking characters.

  Rock had to hand it to the NUFOs. They came prepared for every kind of alien sighting.

  Less than a mile to the gates. Rock wasn’t exactly superstitious except about opening nights like this one. Rehearsals had gone too well. There was always a bug, and opening night usually found it. If he was very lucky, it was something small that the audience wouldn’t notice. Tonight, though, he couldn’t afford anything to go wrong at all.

  He went over everything in his mind. He’d planned the illusion so the audience would be so diverted by the alien craft and the aliens themselves that they’d overlook the mechanics of what was really going on. No one would notice the hovercrafts.

  Now that part of the performance was nearly over and the most dangerous part, his part, stopping the crowd, was almost upon them. And there was still no word from the rescue team.

  The hovercraft cooked along, skimming above the earth, and providing the smoothest ride Rock had ever had. He was going to be spoiled for life now. And from the look on his face, so was Ty.

  The ride was so smooth and bump-free that Rock had stopped holding on and stood watching the crowd without bracing himself as he might have in a regular land vehicle.

  The mind is an amazing thing. When it’s fully concentrated, it can be so single-minded of purpose that it blocks out all other stimuli. A person deeply engaged in reading a novel won’t hear their spouse call their name. Deep in the heart and world of his illusion, concentrating on details, Rock didn’t hear Ty speaking to him until Ty shook his arm.

  “Do you hear that?” Ty’s voice was urgent. A second later, he began cursing and shoved the hovercraft into full throttle.

  Rock was still coming out of the fog of concentration. The sudden movement of the hovercraft sent him sprawling backward on his ass. “What the hell?”

  A second too late, he heard the distinctive whistle of a missile coming at them. Ty do
dged and weaved as Rock tried to get his bearings.

  Ty swerved to the right, throwing Rock against the hovercraft wall. “Hold tight. It’s locked onto us.”

  “That can’t be good.” Rock’s right arm throbbed from banging against the side of the hovercraft. “Can we outrun it? Force the missile to blow something else up?”

  Ty shook his head as he concentrated on steering the craft. “Hell, no.”

  Ty pulled a lever and the hovercraft suddenly lost altitude. “I’m taking us down. When I get near enough to the ground, I’m going to throttle way back. We’ll have a short window to abandon the craft before the missile hits it. Tuck and roll when you hit the ground. On my signal, bail. And run like hell when you get your feet beneath you.”

  Rock pushed to a stand. Here was his bug. And it was worse than he’d ever imagined—a bomb. The last thing he wanted was a bomb in any sense of the word.

  “Ready.” Ty veered the craft sideways.

  Rock climbed the wall of the craft, balancing on it as if he was on a high-wire. Good thing he’d seen so many Cirque du Soleil shows.

  “On three,” Ty said. “One … two … now!”

  Rock threw himself over the edge of the craft.

  * * *

  The pilot emerged from the plane with his hands raised, strapped to a bomb.

  Lani leaned back in her chair and held a hand up to the security section chief next to her in the security booth. Tate emerged from his cover and approached the pilot. A squad of armed military guards appeared from nowhere to back Tate up.

  “Don’t come any closer! Any movement could set the bomb off.” The pilot sounded calm enough, but the look in his eyes said he was terrified.

  Tate’s voice came over the TV in Lani’s security room. “Send the bomb squad.”

  “I’m on it.” Lani hardly needed to contact them. They were already on their way.

  “What about the plane?” Tate asked the pilot.

  “Clean, as far as I know.”