And her confidence wasn’t limited to her appearance, either. She’d been confident enough to make a break for the door. Which meant keeping her sequestered until he figured out what to do with her might not be an easy task.
Time to play hard ball, Brad decided. “Right now all I know is that you were trespassing on private government property. And,” he added as he reached out and grabbed the camera strap from around her neck, “you were taking pictures on government property without permission. Illegal pictures,” he said as he quickly flipped the back of the camera open and jerked the film out to completely expose it. “Pictures I’m personally authorized to destroy on behalf of the United States Air Force.”
The color drained from her face so fast Brad was prepared to catch her if she fainted. It was then Brad realized the Black Ghost wasn’t the only thing his pretty captive had been photographing on her expedition in the desert.
“Do you have any idea what you just did?” she gasped as her hand flew to her mouth.
“Yeah, I just did my job,” Brad told her.
“No, you just destroyed the only evidence I had to support the research I’ve been working on for the last six months.”
Destroying her research hadn’t been his intention, but there was nothing he could do about it now. Stuffing the exposed roll of film into his pants pocket, he slipped the camera strap carefully back over her head and said, “I’m going to have to detain you until I can verify your identity. Sergeant Baker will escort you to my living quarters. You can stay there until I notify you otherwise.”
“Your living quarters?” She jerked her arm away when the sergeant tried to take it. “If I’m under arrest, Captain Hawkins, then I insist you take me to the proper authorities!”
She could insist all she wanted, but Brad had his own problems to worry about. Like explaining to his wing commander how his test flight that afternoon had suddenly turned into a quasiespionage mission. A mission that had resulted in one suspect being apprehended, while a search party was now racing across the desert in hot pursuit of suspect number two.
Knowing he could no more divulge those details than he could successfully restore her ruined film, Brad folded his arms across his chest and said as calmly as possible, “Look, Dr. Morgan. If that is who you are. We can do this easy, or we can do it hard. It’s your choice. But you are going to go with Sergeant Baker one way or the other until I get this whole mess straightened out. Understood?”
Another lift of her chin told Brad she wasn’t even going to acknowledge his question with an answer.
Turning to his copilot, Brad said, “Wait at least thirty minutes before you make your move. Be discreet. Take her through the back way. And don’t answer any questions if anyone stops you. The fewer people who know she’s here, the better.”
“You’re going to regret this, Captain. I’ll see to it,” she threatened with a deadly look.
Brad held her gaze a second longer than necessary, then turned away. “Don’t let her out of your sight,” he called back over his shoulder before he opened the side door of his multimillion-dollar Black Ghost and slammed it soundly behind him.
2
“YOU DID WHAT?”
Brad squeezed his eyes shut when the powerful fist of Brigadier General Joseph Gibbons made contact with his heavy wooden desk and sent a loud crack echoing through the room. Still standing at attention, Brad took a deep breath and said, “I’m sorry, sir. We were right on top of her before I even saw her. If she hadn’t picked that moment to play photographer, I could have been out of there so fast her head would still be spinning. But under the circumstances, I didn’t have any choice but to bring her back to the base.”
“And you destroyed that film?”
“The minute we landed,” Brad said, then took the exposed roll from his pocket and gave up his straight-back pose long enough to place it on the desk in front of his commander.
Gibbons, who had seen more combat action than Brad ever planned or hoped to see, pushed back in his chair and stood up, then began pacing around his office. Standing at attention again, Brad never moved a muscle.
“And you say she’s a professor?”
“A professor of entomology,” Brad affirmed, still rather impressed by the fact. “I did a quick background check. She teaches at a small private college in Georgia. She’s out here doing research on an endangered species of butterfly.”
Gibbons’s scowl made Brad take a deep breath before he added, “But there is another slight problem, sir. Someone else was with her. She says it was her sister. The sister split so fast there wasn’t any time to stop her. I radioed ahead and have a patrol out now to bring her in. She was way off the main road. I’m sure we’ll stop her before she gets back to Roswell.”
“You’d damn well better stop her!” Gibbons bellowed. “Do you have any idea what will happen if that woman hits Roswell screaming a strange aircraft carried off her sister? Hell, every news team in the country will be on top of us so fast we won’t know what hit us!”
Brad cringed. “That isn’t going to happen, sir. They should bring her in any minute now.”
Gibbons resumed his pacing, then stopped to glare at Brad again. “I want both of those women in my office within the hour. Do you hear me? We have a top secret operation to protect here, and I don’t intend to let a couple of tourists jeopardize our testing.”
Brad nodded. “I’m sure they can be convinced to keep silent, sir. It may take some fast talking, but…”
“Fast talking, hell!” Gibbons shouted. “I intend to scare the living crap out of them.”
“Well, we do have the upper hand here.” Brad threw that in for good measure, hoping he might spare his pretty prisoner and her sister some of the old man’s wrath. “I mean, the professor knows she was trespassing. I’m sure if you explain…”
“You leave those details to me.” Gibbons made another lap around the room, then flopped back down at his desk. “Now get the hell out of here and see if they’ve located that sister yet.”
Brad gave his commander a salute, turned on his heel and was one step from reaching for the door-knob when a loud knock brought him to a stop. The commander’s anxious-looking aide stepped into the room the second Brad swung the door open.
“Sorry to interrupt,” said the young lad who barely had a trace of peach fuzz on his face. “The patrol Captain Hawkins sent out just called in to say they weren’t successful in their search. They said you’d want to know.”
Brad prepared himself for the rage that immediately followed.
“Get your ass to Roswell, Hawkins. And do it now,” the voice of authority yelled from across the room. “And don’t step foot in my office again until you have this whole mess straightened out!”
After a quick salute Brad hurried from his commander’s office, already suspecting, however, that his new assignment would be his own personal version of Mission Impossible.
MADDIE CONTINUED TO PULL away every time Sergeant Baker tried to take her arm. “I’m perfectly capable of walking unassisted,” she told him in a frosty tone that should have turned the big goon into an ice sculpture.
“Just following orders,” Baker mumbled.
“Well, as far as I’m concerned your orders are every bit as ridiculous as you bailing out of the air to capture me like some common criminal,” Maddie huffed.
“You were trespassing,” Baker reminded her.
“And exactly what penalty does trespassing carry in the Air Force, Sergeant Baker? Does the rule book say jump out of the sky and pounce on your trespasser? Shove them facedown with their arms held behind them? Bruise and