The Agent's Daughter (11 page)

“
Five minutes to drop,”
the voice from the cockpit said.

“
Once the minute is up,”
Shirley continued. “Follow the arrow on the screen and the GPS unit
will direct you to our recovery position just across the border.
It's twenty miles straight south. Any questions?”

“
None,” Evan said. “Let’s
do it.”

Shirley began checking the clips and straps
that held Evan in the SSC. After checking and counting each one
aloud, she closed the last panel of the SSC, sealing him inside.
Then she called to the cockpit to tell them that he was ready.

…………………………
.

Melina was in her bedroom reading when she
heard a knock on her closed door. She had been in her room since
she returned home from school, having gone straight up without
acknowledging the existence of Angela the nanny.

“
Come in,” she
said.

The door swung open, and Angela stood in the
frame of the doorway.

“
I figured that I would
start fixing something for you and Travis for dinner,” Angela said.
“Do you have a preference?”

“
Anything is fine,” Melina
said, without looking up.

“
Your brother said that he
would like chicken tenders and apple sauce,” Angela said. “Would
you like that too?”

“
Yes, that’s fine,” Melina
said, still not looking up but now with a bit of a miffed tone in
her voice.

“
Are you okay?” Angela
asked. “Is something wrong?”

Melina finally looked up from her book. She
could not keep it in anymore.

“
I’ll tell you what’s
wrong. My dad has gone on a trip, and he has left me with a woman
that he seems to be a little too comfortable with. An old friend.
Hah! I know how things work. Old friends connect on the internet,
and then the next thing you know, they are laughing in each other’s
kitchens. Well, my mom is not dead you know.”

Angela was stunned. She had never been on
the receiving end of a stream-of-consciousness rant of an upset
high school girl before. After a moment of silence that allowed her
to take in what Melina had said, she started to laugh.

“
What is so funny?” Melina
said with even more indignation than before.

“
My dear,” Angela said.
“Your father is a sweet man, but I actually do perform short-term
home care as my job. And I do work for the same company that your
father does. They provide my services to employees of a certain
importance whenever they travel. Besides, I could never get
together with your father. I am a close friend of your
mother.”

Then it hit her. Melina remembered where she
had seen Angela before. “You have been to the hospital to visit
Mom, haven’t you?”

“
Yes, I have,” Angela
said. “I go see her once a month.”

More silence. Now Melina had to take it all
in. Angela was a close friend of her mom, yet Melina had never even
heard her mom mention her before.

“
How do you know my mom?”
she asked.

“
I used to work with your
mother,” Angela said. “At the same company that your father and I
work for.”

Melina already had known that her mom used
to work at the same place that her dad worked. In fact, that is
where they met. But she hadn’t worked there for years. She had
stopped working to stay home when Travis was born.

“
Your mother was my best
friend at work,” Angela continued. “It’s funny how that works with
adults. We have dear friends at work that we do not see otherwise.
Nonetheless, your mother and I would try to have lunch together at
least once per week, even when she stopped working at the office. I
do miss those lunches.”

“
Did you work with Mom
before she met Dad?” Melina asked.

Angela smiled. “Your mother and I started
work on the same day. We met at the new worker orientation. Did you
know that was the exact day when your mother met your father?”

This was gold. Melina’s mom and dad always
put her off whenever she asked about their work. Other than knowing
that they met there, she had never heard the story of the event
itself.

“
Oh, please,” Melina said,
sitting up on the bed. “Could you tell me about the day they
met.”

Angela looked up in thought. “It was
lunchtime and your mother and I had gone down to the company
cafeteria to get something to eat. Once we sat down, I looked over
and saw that your father was sitting at a table near ours. I waved
to him and some of the other men from my new department. Your
mother pointed to your father and asked me who that handsome guy
was.”

Melina noticed that Angela was still
standing in the doorway. “Would you like to sit down?”

“
Thank you,” she said as
she came over and sat on the edge of the bed. “Your father thought
that we were checking him out, so he got up and came over to our
table. He was fresh out of college. We all were, but he had a
cockiness to him. He knew me because we had met earlier that
morning, but he did not know your mother. After saying hello, he
asked your mother if she were the new girl in the secretarial pool
that he had heard about.”

“
My Mom has a Master’s
degree in Applied Physics,” Melina said.

“
Yes,” Angela said as she
smiled at the memory. “And your father turned the brightest shade
of red when I told him that she was one of the new scientists at
the company. Your mother gave him a smug smile, and he was about to
walk away in defeat when another man from the department your
father and I worked in walked up. The man made a disparaging remark
about me to your father having to do with my being a woman and that
I would not cut it in our department.”

“
You mean he did not think
you could write good software code?” Melina asked.

Angela looked puzzled. Then she remembered
the cover story Evan had made up for the family. “Umm…yes,” she
said, “I was the first woman ever to be hired into your father’s
department. That man not only did not think that I could write
decent code, he did not think that there should be any women
writing code.”

“
Wow,” Melina said. “What
a Neanderthal.”

“
That’s true,” Angela
said. “And that is essentially what your father said to that man.
He stood up for me that day and continued to stand up for me
against all the men in the department. That’s what your mother took
away from that first meeting. That’s what won your mother
over.”

Melina looked at Angela with a look of
wonder. “I never knew any of this, thank you for sharing it with
me.”

“
Any time,” Angela said as
she got up off the bed. “How about we go downstairs and get you and
your brother something for dinner.”

As she headed for the door, Angela paused
and looked around the room and then looked at Melina. “What’s with
the purple walls?”

“
Periwinkle, actually,”
Melina said. “Don’t ask.”

…………………………
.

Evan could not see anything from inside the
SSC but the glow of the video monitor. The B2 pilot had already
given him a warning that they were one minute from drop.

“
Ten seconds,” the voice
in his earpiece said. “On my count, five, four, three, two, one,
drop!”

With a loud thump, Evan could feel that the
SSC was away and falling. It tumbled a bit at first, but the fins
attached to the sides aligned it so that it assumed a straight path
downward.

“
How are you doing, Evan?”
the voice in his earpiece said. This time it was
Shirley.

“
I’m doing okay, but I
have this weird sensation that I am falling,” Evan said.

Shirley smiled, “You are about three minutes
to parachute deployment. Is there anything else to report?”

“
Well, yeah,” Evan said.
“You know that high pitched whistling sound they use in cartoons
when something is falling. This thing makes that noise.”

“
I will make a note of
that for the tools group,” Shirley said as she pretended to write
it down, “Get… rid… of… cartoon… whistling… noise.”

Two more minutes passed. David called out
the altitude every five thousand feet.

“
Okay Evan, you are at ten
thousand feet,” David said. “One minute until parachute
deployment.”

“
Okay. Standing by,” Evan
said. He was focused now.

One more minute passed. “Ten seconds to
deployment … Five. Four. Three. Two. One… Pull!”

Evan could hear the parachute blast through
the cone at the top of the SSC. There were a few seconds of silence
as the chute unfurled. Then there was a loud thump as it popped
open. The falling sensation stopped, and Evan was under a full
canopy.

“
The canopy is open,” Evan
said. “Fall rate has declined.”

“
Copy that,” David said.
“I have the rate of descent steady at seventeen feet per second.
Prepare for SSC ejection. Ten seconds. Good luck, Evan. On my mark.
Five, four, three, two, one. Release!”

Suddenly, the bolts that held the eight
pieces of the SSC together all disengaged at once. At the same
time, a small charge attached to the middle of each of the eight
panels exploded, so the panels were blown free of Evan and the
glider. He was outside now. It was cold, and the only sound was the
wind hitting the unassembled glider above him. After a quick check
of the parachute to verify that it did not sustain any damage, he
leaned forward and the glider snapped into a horizontal position
with him dangling below.

He had another minute or so before the
glider began the automatic assembly process, so he spent some time
adjusting the focus of the camera. It was a clear, moonless night.
Evan could see the reactor base below and in front of him. It was
the only thing illuminated for miles in any direction. He zoomed
the camera in on the reactor building. It was lit up from all sides
with floodlights attached to the ground. Even at his altitude, he
could make out the details of the roof of the building.

The silence was soon pierced by the sound of
gears turning. It was the glider assembling itself. Slowly the
long, straight structure above him sprouted into a V-shape. The
fabric of the wings fluttered in the wind as the wings were
unfurled, but fluttered less as the wings grew wider. When the
wings got to their full extension and the glider was assembled,
there was a loud clank as a locking mechanism at the apex of the
glider fell into place. The assembly was complete, and he was ready
to pull the release for the parachute and begin his flight.

Evan reached for the release above him, but
then he paused. Since the glider had finished assembling, there
should be only the sound of the wind, but there was still a faint
grinding noise. He looked around for the source of the noise and
then he saw it. It was coming from the gears that had turned while
the glider was being unfurled. They had not shut off when the
glider assembly was complete. Evan had no way of stopping them. He
watched helpless as the gears continued to try to unfurl the wings
even further past their final position.

And then there was a loud snap.

It was the locking mechanism. It no longer
could handle the stress of the gears trying to hyper-extend the
wings. With no support at the apex of the glider, the sides drooped
down and enveloped Evan in fabric. He struggled with the wings and
supports until he untangled himself. Once freed, he could see the
broken pieces of the glider. It was clear that the glider was not
going to be able to fly. It was also clear that he needed to come
up with a new plan. Fast. He was still under parachute, but he was
only about two minutes from landing on the ground.

Evan looked up at the parachute canopy. He
needed to get to the parachute cords. If he could pull on the cords
on one side, it would create an air imbalance in the parachute that
would cause it to move in that direction. He pulled a knife from a
pocket in the leg of his jumpsuit and cut the straps that supported
the glider. He watched as it fell off into the night sky. This
allowed Evan to pull himself up to where the cords for the
parachute were located. He grabbed two of the cords on one side.
Immediately, the parachute changed direction. Satisfied that he
could control the direction, he spotted where he wanted to go,
pulled on the cords and headed down.

…………………………
.

"What do you mean the glider did not
deploy?" Shirley said anxiously.

David focused at a blip on the monitor. “I
can see that he is still falling at the same constant rate that he
was falling when the parachute first opened. Seventeen feet per
second. If the glider had deployed, the rate of descent would be
slower and erratic.”

“
Do you think that
something happened during the SSC ejection that made him lose
consciousness?” Shirley asked.

“
Oh, he’s not
unconscious,” David said. “He’s moving in a straight line. Evan
appears to be steering the parachute.”

“
Great,” said Shirley.
“Hopefully he can get much closer to the border, so we can send
someone in to pick him up.”

“
Umm… he’s not headed for
the border,” David said. “He appears to be steering the parachute
right at the reactor building.”

…………………………
.

Evan could see the base getting larger as he
descended. He had disconnected the video camera from its swivel
housing, and he held it in his hand as he shot video of the entire
base. Then he focused the camera on the reactor building. He wanted
to take a closer look at it because he was going to try to land on
the roof. The building was two stories tall and had a roof area
about the size of a couple of city blocks. There appeared to be
half dozen guards patrolling the grounds, but nobody on the
roof.