Phil Carter sat in his car, the rain patting gently on the rooftop. "God, how I hate stakeouts," he thought as he struggled to stay awake. No matter how much coffee he drank, it did absolutely nothing to help keep him awake. And now the rain was tapping out a gentle tune that called for him to sleep, come on... sleep.

He had spent his life in law enforcement, dealing with the worst that humanity had to offer. When he retired after twenty years, he swore that he would never work in enforcement again. But the deal he'd been offered was just too tempting, particularly with a son in college and a daughter set to graduate from high school in a year. His assignment: to protect humanity from threats from other alien races. "My God," he thought, "the real X-Files!" And the technology put at his disposal-well, it's just too bad it wasn't available to the cops working the street. With that kind of power he would have been able to clean up his beat in a few weeks instead of constantly having to battle against the bad guys... and lose.

The woman he'd replaced in this position had told him that he would never find another job like this. And after he'd finished his six months of training and got on the job he knew she was right. He was assigned to the watch for the Zar-rons, the alien race that had crashed a probe into the desert near Roswell, New Mexico, back in 1947. Phil had seen what was left of the spacecraft as part of the training to understand the technology he'd be using. The Zar-rons had no idea that they had made the largest mistake in the history of the known universe by leaving something like this for mankind to find. Humans have this tendency to take something, rip it apart, find out what makes it tick and make it better. Even worse, they had dropped it in the lap of the United States right after the Second World War when the attitude was that we could do anything better than anyone else. The little bits and pieces that had made their way out to the public accounted for the surge in growth of technology in the world. While the original computers that had been developed were likely nothing like what the Zar-rons probably possessed, time and the incentive (read: making a profit) allowed mankind to greatly improve upon what had been found.

But no matter how much we might appreciate what the Zar-rons had done for mankind, humanity still had that suspicious bone in their bodies. Why had they done this, what did they want and what was the price that mankind had to pay? That's why the governments of the world had entered into a secret pact (can't let on to the common man that there is intelligent life out there in the universe, it might upset the apple cart) that they would provide law enforcement personnel from each country to work together in a ultra-secret organization whose job it would be to watch, patrol, investigate and deal with aliens who landed here upon the planet Earth. This had been going on since 1954, with new members being added constantly since 1989 as the Cold War had ended and new democratic countries had arisen out of the remains of the former Soviet Union. The personnel who worked in ALERT, as the organization was called, dedicated themselves to working together as one united group and did not worry about borders or state allegiances. Their calling was on a higher level. ALERT had started off intending to serve as a tripwire if something happened. The people from the law enforcement communities who had staffed it had changed its meaning and given it its own title... Alien Landing Emergency Response Team. In other words, a special-purpose SWAT team trained and prepared to deal with alien landings or activities on Earth.

Phil had learned all the agency's great tricks and secrets during his training, plus he added his own experiences to the job. The technology that was available was beyond belief. He had the capability of monitoring activities on the Internet by just setting up the necessary parameters on his Mac. Not the usual PowerPC PowerBook but a specially "tweaked" Mac just a "bit" above the normal standard. No worries of power sources, no matter where he was. The internal power supply was good for up to 10 years without a recharge. The speed of the unit was based upon the user and the level that he or she was mentally capable of handling. It's software did all the normal things a laptop user would want and more.... like being able to initiate a search on the Internet without being connected to an ISP. Or setting up a monitoring program to watch the Internet and LANs throughout the world for specific activities, such as name checks, background checks or personal information searches. The other items that were available were just as tremendous: surveillance trackers the size of the period at the end of this sentence, that could be injected into an individual without them even realizing what had just occurred; audio and video monitoring equipment that could be carried in a small pocket calculator-sized unit; plus other items too numerous to list. Phil had decided that he was going to put the technology at his disposal to good use, but setting up someone to place certain information out there on the Internet wasn't going to be easy. But if the Zar-rons were still here and watching, they wouldn't be able to resist the chance to find out how that person knew certain non -publicized information. And that made the risks worth taking.

The first thing that Phil decided he needed was a patsy... well, more along the lines of an unknowing "volunteer." Using a Mac, Phil had gotten into checking out most of the online websites and had discovered an online magazine called My Mac Magazine. He noticed that one of the writers, a guy named Pete Miner, liked to push the edge and write about aliens visiting Earth and stuff like that, which is why Phil decided that he would make an excellent volunteer. So Phil set into motion a series of events which would ensure that Pete Miner would come into possession of certain information regarding the Zar-rons and their assistance to mankind. Playing the role of another believer in alien life, Phil, working undercover, was able to pass on the information after "bumping" into him at a meeting of "alien life" believers. Miner happened to receive an invitation from the group mailed by Phil so that the sting could be set into motion. Miner had taken the bait and thus set into motion the plan to expose the Zar-rons.

Phil had no intention of having any harm come to Miner or his family, so as soon as he had taken the bait, Phil initiated a tight security web around them. Phil's PowerBook was then set up to monitor any electronic information searches that might be made on Peter Miner-no matter how insignificant-wherever in the world they might originate. If someone wanted to know something about Pete, then Phil wanted to know about it. Then Phil "arranged" that Miner's residence, vehicles, and then even Pete and his family would begin experiencing sudden minor problems which necessitated some form of intervention, like telephone company personnel having to come to the house to repair the phone lines, vehicles requiring a trip to the repair shop, or a family member requiring a visit to a doctor. On these occasions Miner's property and family were all carefully "bugged" with tracking and monitoring devices which would permit Phil and his team to always know where everyone was. Phil's team and their backup personnel were always around them in the guise of a repair man, a new neighbor, or a new friend. Phil's goal was to make the web both escape-proof for the Zar-rons and extremely protective for the Miners. When Miner's story of the Zar-rons appeared online, Carter wasn't really sure that he'd get any nibbles. After all, more then 50 years had passed since the original contact, and they very well could have left our little planet. So Phil wasn't really ready when the checks began-checks into Miner at every possible level: birth records, driver's license, taxes, electric bills... any and all ways of checking on Pete Miner of Seattle, Washington were being done... and apparently by one source.

Carter activated the Gold Plan as soon as he verified the inquiries. He couldn't help noticing that these data searches on Pete and his family were different from what he'd been used to seeing, as these were too intense and subtle to be made by any computer hacker he'd run into. These were being done by someone with advanced technology. Now he just had to be sure that his attempts at tracking them were even more subtle so as not to frighten them off. When he finally tracked down the source, the assets were in place and the monitoring began. When she walked out of the building and got into her vehicle and drove off, the web began to tighten. This was one fly that was not going to get away.

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