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A hand slid around his waist. As he moved, the soft, gentle arm pulled him tighter, snuggling against him beneath a warm blanket.

Jason turned slightly and saw Lily lying on the pillow next to him. She let go, allowing him to turn and face her.

“Good morning,” she said, brushing her hair from her eyes.

The RV rocked gently as someone climbed back into the vehicle. The engine started and Jason felt the vehicle pull back out onto the freeway.

Light filtered in through gaps in the blinds.

Jason lay on his back with his hands behind his head. Lily rested her hand on his chest, sliding her fingers up under his shirt. He sighed, wishing life could be as simple as it seemed right then, but he knew the nightmare would continue today.

“Sleep well?”

“Like a rock,” Jason replied as Lily ran her nails across his chest. Damn, that felt good, he thought. He rolled sideways, resting his head on his elbow as he faced her.

“I don't understand,” he confided, speaking in soft tones. “Up until yesterday, I was just an ordinary guy going to college. What changed?”

“You were never ordinary,” Lily said. She pulled her hand back. Her fingers rested on his forearm. “They needed you to think you were just like everyone else because it's only when you're relaxed that you doodle.”

Jason was silent.

“You've been doing them for years. Every time you scribble something on a scrap of paper and throw it in the garbage, someone hunts through the trash and matches the sketch with one of the formulas on the UFO. For you, it's nothing. For them, it's like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle slowly coming together.”

Jason looked deep into her dark brown eyes. Her voice was soft. There was compassion in her tone. Perhaps he was reading too much into her manner, but he felt like she cared deeply about him. The connection between them seemed like one forged over years, or perhaps decades, and not just a few days.

“They learned a long time ago that under stress you stop drawing, so they left you in the community.”

“What about Mitch and Helena?” he asked.

“I know they're your friends,” Lily replied, squeezing his arm gently. “But they aren't, not really. They're NSA agents. They're on a long term assignment.”

Jason was stunned. His mind was spinning with disbelief, but then he realized Mitchell was one of the people that had run down the street toward him when he jumped on the bike with Lily. So somehow, Mitch was mixed up in this, too. As much as Jason didn't want to believe Lily, there was a nagging persistence to that statement in his mind. It was the little things. Mitch was always there. Whether it was calling him when he was doodling or catching up with him on the steps of the university after the meeting with Lachlan. Mitchell was always a little too close.

“And you?” he asked, stiffening unconsciously .

“Me?” Lily replied, touching her hand to her throat and gesturing at herself. It seemed to be a question she hadn't considered before then. “I'm no actor. I didn't come because I had to or because I was ordered to. I came because I wanted to be with you. My father has told me so much about you, about how he rescued you, but it wasn't just you he saved from North Korea. He rescued my great grandfather, my uncle and my mother. He saved all of us.”

Jason watched as Lily swallowed a lump in her throat. She struggled to keep eye contact with him as she spoke.

“He told me that what they were doing to you was cruel. He told the NSA team they should be honest with you. They said they were making progress, but DARPA wanted more. My father tried to get permission to try another angle, to get you to relive that moment in the sea so many years ago. They told us this was the final attempt, that after this they would institutionalize you.”

She sighed, adding, “They wanted to treat you like a lab rat. That's when my father knew it was time to make a move.”

Tears ran down her cheeks. Lily tried to hide the tears, turning away and bringing her hand to her face.

“Hey, it's OK,” Jason said, pulling her hand back.

Lily sniffed, wiping her nose with the back of her hand.

“My father has spent two decades trying to unravel the mystery of the young boy from the sea. Some have said you're not human. Others say you're an alien experiment.”

“What do you think?” Jason asked.

“I think you are human. I don't know how or why, but somehow you're mixed up in something none of us fully understand.”

“And your dad,” Jason said, slowly getting used to referring to Professor Lachlan in that manner. “He thinks if I see this craft I'll somehow remember?”

“When the UFO first came to America, they brought you to it. You touched the skin and the craft glowed as if it was radiating energy. It scared them. There was no explanation as to why the UFO should react like that, so they made a decision to separate you from the craft.”

“And the pictures?” Jason asked.

“My father has worked hard to get them. I don't think he's seen the craft, but he's talked to people who have.”

The door to the bedroom opened and Professor Lachlan poked his head through.

“Good to see you kids are awake. Are you hungry?”

“Sure,” Jason replied, feeling awkward lying there with the professor's daughter. He sat up on the bed. Lily sat up beside him, still wrapped in a blanket.

“Well, get dressed and come on out. Bellum's rustled up some bacon and eggs.”

The latch clicked as the door was pulled shut again, leaving Jason and Lily lying there in the double bed.

“I'm going back to sleep,” Lily announced, flopping on the pillow.

“Oh, you are, are you?” Jason retorted. He reached beneath the covers and grabbed at her waist, tickling her.

“Ah, no! Stop!”

Lily writhed beneath the blanket, kicking feebly with her legs and pushing at him with her hands.

“Drag me into a conspiracy, will you?” Jason cried as he continued to tickle her. “Stand out in the rain like a lost puppy, will you?”

“Not fair,” Lily cried, laughing helplessly. She was trying to fight back, trying to tickle him, but she was far more ticklish than he was.

“OK, OK,” she called out. “Truce!”

Jason paused, his hands still resting on her hips as she lay there facing him with the blankets and sheets scrunched up around her. She had tears of laughter in her eyes as she added, “I promise, no more standing in the rain!”

“No more puppy dog eyes?” he cried, giving her a little tickle.

“I promise, I promise,” she replied, struggling to breathe, no longer trying to defend herself. She had her hands up in surrender. “Please, no more.”

Jason sat back on the bed and took a good look at her. Lily was beautiful. Maybe not by the standards of Vogue magazine or Sports Illustrated, but to him she was radiant.

“You did look rather stunning out there on the street corner,” Jason said.

“Standing there in the rain?” Lily asked in surprise. “I'm not sure I'd win a wet t-shirt contest.”

“Oh, no,” Jason replied, wondering how he'd ended up on the defensive. “I didn't mean it like that. I meant, you looked pretty throughout the day.”

“Sweating in a hundred and five degrees? Standing there under the blazing sun without any shade?”

Jason was digging a hole for himself. “Ah, I meant—“

“I know what you meant,” she said, leaning forward briskly and kissing him on the cheek. “God, I thought you were never going to come down.”

“I, ah,” Jason spluttered.

“Dad said you would. He said you were a gentleman. But I thought you were going to leave me out there all night.”

Jason laughed.

A smile lit up Lily's face as she laughed as well. Even with her tousled hair, she looked like something from his dreams. Strands of black hair fell across her face as she slumped back on her pillow.

“No sleeping in,” he said playfully.

Actually, he didn't mind if she went back to sleep, he was just feeling mischievous. She had come to him in the night, and he felt he had to reciprocate in some way, to show her in a playful manner that he was taken by her presence.

“Well,” she said, leaning over and resting her hand on his thigh. “Then I get the first shower.”

Lily jumped out of bed with a zest for life he found intoxicating. The shower was located with the toilet in a small cubicle to one side at the back of the RV. Lily grabbed a change of clothes out of the built in dresser and slipped into the cubicle. As she slid the door closed behind her, she added, “No peeking.”

Jason held up three fingers saying, “Scout's honor,” with mock solemnity.

The shower started and it reminded Jason of the rain last night. It wasn't raining outside anymore. He peeked out from behind the blinds at the farmland rushing by. They were on an interstate. The occasional red barn was visible from the road, nestled in with clumps of trees and seemingly endless rows of corn whipping past the window. The Sun was well up. It must have been nine or ten in the morning, he thought. He pulled the blinds up and leaned there gazing out at the world rushing by.

Lily was singing in the shower. Jason smiled. He couldn't have asked for a more perfect distraction after everything he'd been through. Although he couldn't make out the words, he could tell she could carry a tune. The shower stopped after a few minutes, but it was the fact that Lily had stopped singing that got his attention. He could hear her getting dressed, bumping against the closed confines of the tiny room. She stepped out of the shower cubicle still wringing out her hair with a towel.

“There's some spare clothes in the top drawer,” she said, squeezing past him. As she brushed against him, he could smell the scent of jasmine in her hair. Lily walked out into the main cabin as Jason hopped in the shower. The cubicle was cramped, and the pressure coming from the shower head was weak, but the water was warm. It felt good to run some shampoo through his hair and rinse off the dust and grime of the city.

Jason dried off and grabbed some clothes from the drawer. There were boxer shorts, cargo pants and an old concert T shirt from some band he'd never heard of before.

As he stepped out into the main cabin, he smelled eggs cooking and heard the crackle of bacon sizzling in a pan.

Lily was already eating.

Lachlan handed him a plate of bacon and eggs and he squeezed in next to Lily at the cramped dining table.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“Ohio,” came the reply from the front. “On the outskirts of Columbus.”

The RV slowed, turning off the highway and onto a side road. Jason could see a small, rural airport. Several hangars lined one end of a maze of concrete runways. A red crop duster sat to one side, rusting in a field while a white Learjet took center stage.

“So what's the plan?” Jason asked.

“We're going to fly that Learjet into the side of a nuclear power plant,” Stegmeyer replied, and with that pronouncement, a perfect morning was ruined.

Lee took the child by the hand, saying, “Come.”

The boy’s eyes looked down as the two of them walked out the door of the administration building. The night air was brisk, much cooler than just minutes before. The temperature was dropping. The rain had stopped. The night was quiet. Lee ushered the young child down the creaking, wooden steps to where Sun-Hee's brother paced nervously on the gravel.

“This is bad,” the brother mumbled under his breath. “We should be gone by now. The guard will change soon. We should have left him and run while we could.”

The boy looked up at the North Korean soldier, but not with fear. He appeared to be curious, perhaps amused.

The soldier was smoking a cigarette, his rifle slung over his shoulder. Sucking in hard, the hand-rolled paper of the cigarette flared slightly. Bits of smoldering tobacco fell from the tip, drifting lazily to the muddy gravel.

“It's going to be OK,” the boy said in English, reaching out and taking the soldier's hand.

Sun-Hee's brother jumped, jerking away from the child as though he'd received a jolt of electricity. Lee doubted he understood English. Was it that those words sounded so strange in another language that alarmed him? Or did he fear the boy? The man looked panicked, like a wild animal caught in a snare. His hands were shaking, his eyes wide with terror.

“Come,” the soldier said with a tremor in his voice, marching off on the gravel. With his good hand, Lee took the child's tiny one and followed after the jittery soldier.

They crept along the side of the wooden administration building, staying in the shadows. As they approached the motor pool at the back of the camp, Sun-Hee's brother held up his hand, signaling for them to stop.

He peered around the corner.

Through the quiet of the night, Lee could hear the soft crunch of boots on gravel.

Another guard was approaching from the far side of the hut.

Sun-Hee's brother waved, batting at the air behind him with his hand, signaling for them to slip beneath the crawlspace below the admin building.

He was still wearing the general's coat and Lee thought about trying to bluff his way past the guard, but the child would raise too many questions. This wasn't some soldier half-asleep on a chair. If the guard looked too closely at him, they were finished.

Lee crouched and began to crawl under the wooden floor, but with his injured hand he was moving too slowly. He'd barely clear the edge of the building before the guard was on them, and the boy would still be in the open.

Sun-Hee's brother straightened. Out of the corner of his eye, Lee could see he was trying to look natural. He tossed his cigarette on the ground, crushing it beneath his boot.

There was nothing else Lee could do. He had to drop and roll regardless of his injured hand.

“Quick,” he whispered, tucking his right hand up against his chest as he fell on his shoulder and rolled into the mud and dirt. Being smaller, the boy was able to scoot in beside him.

Pain flared through his hand.

Lee crawled forward on his elbows, moving between the concrete support pillars keeping the raised building off the ground. The boy stayed beside him. Lee's eyes never strayed from the legs of the guard walking up to Sun-Hee's brother.

“Where have you been?” the guard barked.

“Taking a shit!”

“Ha,” the guard said. “You were gone too long. What were you doing? Laying an egg?”

“Yeah,” Sun-Hee's brother replied, relaxing and laughing with the guard.

“Don't leave your route, you big fat hen!” the guard said, extending his metaphor. He laughed at his own wit, adding, “Un-Yong will have you cleaning the latrine if he catches you slacking off.”

“I know,” the brother replied as the guard continued past him, his boots falling with an almost hypnotic rhythm on the gravel, grinding and crunching at a leisurely pace.

Lee crept forward beneath the building, working with his elbows and his knees. He could see the motor-pool across the driveway.

Sun-Hee's brother rounded the corner. He crouched beside them as Lee wriggled out of the shadows.

“Stay here.”

“No,” Lee whispered under his breath. “This isn't going to work. If that guy sees the guard inside the admin building is gone, he's going to investigate and raise hell. Besides, as soon as you start one of these vehicles, you're going to wake the camp.”

“Stay,” the brother repeated, thrusting out his hand.

“But—“ Lee began as the brother ignored him, jogging away on the noisy gravel.

“
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
” Lee swore under his breath.

Memories of being caught and savagely beaten in the village haunted him. The concrete support pillars and wooden floor above felt claustrophobic around him, as though they were closing in on him, forcing him out into the night. He wanted to crawl out and run, even though he knew he wouldn't get far on foot.

There had to be a perimeter fence out there somewhere hidden in the darkness.

Lee wouldn't put it past the North Koreans to have lined the perimeter with mines, they had certainly built plenty and were paranoid about being attacked.

The front gate was the only way in or out, but getting out in a car or a truck was suicide. They'd be cut down by machine gun fire. Hollywood might make cars out to be bulletproof, but Lee knew better. Rounds from an AK-47 would punch through sheet metal without losing any of their lethal momentum. They'd pass through a car door like a scrap of paper.

“
Shit!
” he swore, louder this time, no longer talking in a whisper.

“It's OK,” the boy said, resting his hand on Lee's shoulder. “You make it! You escape from here, I know you do.”

Lee took a deep breath, drawing in the cold, damp air. The child's use of the past tense to describe the future was creepy. How could a boy of three or four know that? He couldn't.

“Who are you? Where are you from?”

“It's me, professor,” the boy said. “It's me, Jason!”

“Professor?”

Lee was perturbed. He was sure Jason had confused him with someone else. Lying there with the cold, wet mud soaking through his clothes, Lee couldn't help but wish he was caught in a dream. For him, it was a nightmare, but for this young boy, the night seemed to hold a mythical, magical quality. The boy should have been afraid, terrified, but his eyes were peaceful, his voice was calm.

“My name is John Lee, Captain John Lee of the South Korean Coast Guard. I'm going to get you out of here, but I need you to work with me, OK? I need you to do exactly what I say, OK?”

The boy nodded. And what exactly is it you are going to do? Lee wondered, keeping that thought to himself.

“I trust you, professor.”

“I'm not,” Lee began, but the innocence of childhood in Jason's eyes made him pause. If a case of mistaken identity could help the young boy through this without freaking out, then so be it. What the hell did the Americans and the North Koreans want with such a young child anyway? Lee noticed the child still had his crayon and paper, clutching it to his chest like a talisman.

The boy spoke matter of factly, as though he were talking to another child, saying, “You are Professor Lachlan. I remember you.”

Lachlan. That was his mother's maiden name. His mother was a Korean-American. She had been a lieutenant in the US Army, working as a triage nurse in Seoul. She'd met his father while on joint exercises and they'd settled in South Korea after they married. Like most married women, his mother had taken his father's surname, Lee. Why was this child calling him by his mother's maiden name?

Curious, Lee asked, “How old are you, Jason?”

“I don't know.”

“We're in danger. You need to understand that.”

The boy nodded, saying, “But you will find a way out. You always do.”

Lee was tired. He was cold and he was hungry. He was exasperated. Nothing was as simple as this boy assumed. He knew the boy meant well, but Lee was frustrated. Life had stopped being kind to him. Life was cruel. His injured hand throbbed. Deep down, he wanted nothing more than to scream in anguish.

If only life could be relived with different choices.

If only life came with several options available in advance, or allowed for mistakes to be undone.

What would he have done differently?

Should he have pulled out of the mission earlier?

Would the North Korean aircraft have stood down if they'd responded immediately instead of trying to sneak closer?

Should he have broken left instead of right in the Sea King?

And what about Sun-Hee? Should he have left her there?

Someone would have found her in the morning. She might have survived until then. Perhaps someone else would have rescued her and he could have slipped away in the dark of night.

And what if they were caught now?

Would he regret freeing the child? Freeing? Hah, he thought, some freedom. Free to wallow in the mud like an animal. Pig! Swine! That's what the North Korean soldiers had called him as they kicked him in the back of the truck. Irony, he chuckled mirthlessly.

Lying there shivering, he looked at the boy. The trust in Jason's eyes radiated absolute confidence. He shouldn't trust me, Lee thought. I'm going to get us both killed.

“You will think of something,” the boy said softly, perhaps reading the heartache and anguish written on Lee's face.

Tears came to Lee's eyes. He reached out to touch the child's hair only to realize he was reaching with his wounded hand. Blood had soaked through the bandages. Jolts of pain shrieked through the torn nerve endings, but he couldn't pull back.

With his index finger and thumb, he touched gently at the boy's forehead, brushing loose strands of hair to one side. He expected the boy to be repelled by the grotesque bloody ball of rags wrapped around his hand, but the boy smiled. It was almost as though he knew what would happen all along, and somehow already knew about Lee's brutal wound.

Tears rolled down Lee's cheeks as he whispered. “I wish I could believe you. I wish I deserved your faith, your confidence.”

They were never going to escape, Lee knew that. As soon as Sun-Hee's brother found a vehicle he could start, the noise of a diesel engine turning over would shatter the silence like an air raid siren. Within minutes, the camp would be crawling with soldiers.

Sniffing, Lee added, “If only I had wings to fly, I'd take you away from here. I'd take you somewhere you could be safe.”

Lying there, Lee felt helpless.

The pain surging through his hand was too much. He cradled his arm.

After all he'd been through, this was the lowest he'd fallen. Being captured, beaten, tortured, humiliated and deceived had been heartbreaking, but he'd never given up hope. Now, though, he felt defeated.

Being free from his cage beneath the barracks had raised his spirits, but now the impossibility of escaping the camp struck him like a physical blow. What could he do? There was nothing he could do to escape this military base, let alone North Korea. With all he'd endured, the sudden, overwhelming realization of his helplessness was crippling. Lee wanted to curl up into a ball and die quietly in his sleep, but there was the boy. The boy demanded that he be brave.

A moth flew past, fluttering on the breeze. Its wings beat at the air, allowing it to defy gravity as the tiny insect danced among the moonbeams just a few feet away from where they lay.

Lee watched as the moth settled on one of the outer support pillars for a few seconds before darting back into the air and flittering out of sight.

Moonlight glistened on the cars and trucks in the motor pool.

Ropes led from the rotor blades of the imitation Bell helicopter beyond the trucks, holding the blades in place so they wouldn't turn with the wind.

Lee was about to crawl out of hiding when the soft crunch of boots on pebbles marked the return of Sun-Hee's brother. He and Jason pulled themselves out from beneath the administration hut as the brother came over. He had his rifle slung over his shoulder and his head bowed as if in defeat.

“The quartermaster's office is locked,” the brother began. “It was unlocked when I last checked not more than an hour ago. We are trapped. We have no way to escape. One of the other guards must have checked the door and locked it behind me.”

“And he may have just saved our lives,” Lee replied, getting to his feet. “We were never going to be able to drive out of here. They'd catch us before we'd gone a quarter of a mile. But we just might be able to fly out of here.”

Lee pointed at the dark outline of the Bell helicopter beyond the trucks. Sun-Hee's brother followed his gaze.

“Are you mad?”

“Aren't you?” Lee replied, taking Jason's hand and creeping across the gravel road. They slipped into the shadow of a truck as Sun-Hee's brother came up behind them.

“You can fly a helicopter?”

“Yes. I'm a pilot.”

The three of them jogged lightly down between a row of trucks and halftracks, rusting howitzers and broken trailers. Most of the trucks had flat tires. From what Lee could see, they'd been stationary so long the air must have long since leaked away, leaving them stranded on their rims. Several of the trucks had been cannibalized for parts.

The chopper was a two seater Bell helicopter. Lee hoped it was in better condition than the trucks or they weren't going anywhere.

“Get the ropes,” he said to the soldier.

Lee crept up to the cockpit, staying in the shadows of the helicopter. He pulled on the stiff handle and opened the plexiglas door.

Jason clambered in.

Lee left him there, turning and pulling the covers off the engine seated behind the bubble shaped cockpit.

Oil had dripped on the ground directly beneath the engine. Fresh grease was visible on the metal nipples of the flywheel. That was a good sign. Someone had been maintaining the helicopter.

With his good hand, Lee ran his fingers over the copper piping and steel tubes, tracing the fuel line, pushing his mind to remember his training flights a decade before. He twisted a small butterfly valve below the fuel tank and primed the engine, wondering how much fuel there was in the thin sheet metal tank.