The Agent's Daughter (12 page)

His plan was straightforward. He would land
on the roof where there were no guards and where he could hide the
parachute. There, he would wait while the radiation detector did
its job. Then, at the right moment, he would climb down from the
roof and find a break in the guard patrol, so he could run to the
edge of the base. After climbing the base’s perimeter fence, he
would hike the twenty miles to the border.

At five hundred feet, Evan could see the
lights from the base begin to be reflected off him. In a few
moments, he would be easily visible to anyone on the ground. For
the last two hundred feet, he would be illuminated by the lights on
the ground. That would be when he needed some luck that no one saw
him. Evan continued to drift in silence toward the top of the
reactor building. He was fifty feet from the top of the building
when he saw a guard that was patrolling the grounds coming around
the far corner of the building. The guard pointed at him and began
to run toward the front of the building. So much for luck. He had
been spotted.

Evan landed on the top of the building as he
heard the first wails of a blaring siren that echoed throughout the
base. Below, on the ground, he could hear the sounds of footsteps
running around the building. They must not have known that he was
on the roof because they were searching for him in the bushes at
the base of the reactor building. Evan quickly unstrapped himself
from the parachute and looked around. He had landed near the corner
of the building between two massive air conditioning units. Evan
searched through the parachute until he found the radiation
detector. He cut it loose and placed it at his feet. He was going
to have company in a few moments, so he put the camera in his
pocket and reached for his sidearm. The sidearm was a standard
military issue fifteen-shot semi-automatic revolver that was
supposed to be located in a holster near his waistband. It had
apparently shifted during the landing and was now probably the
thing in his pants that was trying to give him a wedgie. As he was
fishing through his jumpsuit trying to find it, Evan heard a noise
behind him.

“
Do not move,” the voice
behind Evan said in Russian.

It was the guard that had first seen him,
though he appeared to be alone. He walked around Evan until he was
in front of him. The guard kept his rifle pointed at Evan the whole
time, and then he motioned for him to stand up. The guard was now
five feet in front of Evan, the barrel of his gun a few feet from
his chest. Slowly, Evan moved his hands to an interlocking position
behind his neck. He thought about lunging at the guard when a
thought occurred to him. With one of his fingers, he pressed a
button on his watch. The guard, lacking a radio to alert the other
guards, was unsure of what to do next, so he just stood there
waiting for others to show up. Evan stood there, smiling at the
guard but not moving. Finally, after about thirty seconds the
silence was broken by another voice, loud and behind Evan.

“
Hey software doofus, did
you finally fix the dictation feature?”

The guard instinctively turned around,
unaware that the voice was coming from Evan’s watch. As he looked
away, Evan executed a palm heel strike to the guard’s face that
sent him flying into one of the air conditioning units and knocking
him out cold.

Evan laughed to himself. He was going to
have to tell that software doofus to leave his watch just as it is.
Kneeling down, he removed the jacket and helmet from the guard and
put them on, and then he grabbed the guard’s rifle and slung it and
the radiation detector over his shoulder.

Moving over to the edge of the roof, Evan
tied one end of his parachute to one of the air conditioning units
and draped the other end over the side. Using the parachute as a
makeshift rappelling rope, he quickly made his way down the side of
the building until he was on the ground. Once he stepped away from
the building, he was joined by two guards.

“
There is a parachute,”
Evan said in Russian as he pointed the rifle at the dangling
parachute. “He must be on the roof.”

With that, the two guards rushed toward the
door of the building. Evan held the rifle in front of him, and he
ran the other way toward an area that was not as well lit. As he
headed down a dark passage between two buildings, he could hear the
sound of a loud machine. He carefully crept toward the noise, and
when he came to the end of the passage, he found himself on the
edge of a small grassy area. In the middle of the area, there was a
helicopter with the blades running at ready speed. It appeared that
it was waiting for someone before it took off.

Evan looked around, but he did not see
anyone about to board. He raised the rifle, and held it out in
front of him as he saw the guards do, and then he marched across
the grass toward the helicopter. It was an older generation Russian
two-seater, used for close-in air support of the ground troops.
Evan had flown a similar version that Afghan allies had captured
during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. He hoped it had
similar controls. The pilot did not see Evan approach, but he
looked up when Evan opened the cockpit door.

“
Take off the helmet and
get out,” Evan said, pointing the rifle at him.

The pilot complied and got out of the
helicopter with his hands up.

“
Lay down on the ground,
face down,” Evan said as he put the pilot’s helmet on.

Evan climbed into the cockpit and shut the
door. The controls were a little different from what he remembered.
But there were enough similarities in the basic controls that he
was going to be able to fly it. He grabbed the stick and increased
the engine power to full. Because the blades were already turning
at ready speed, the helicopter immediately was aloft. Evan
continued to climb straight up to put the helicopter out of range
of the ground illumination. Looking down, he saw the pilot on the
ground get up and run away. He was going to have company soon if he
did not get out of there now, so he turned the helicopter in the
direction of due south and flew as fast as the helicopter would
go.

…………………………
.

“
Do you see anything with
the cameras on the B2, David?” Shirley said.

“
Nothing yet. There is
just a bunch of people running around in all directions. They must
not have found him. I do see his parachute, though. It’s draped
over the side of the reactor building.”

“
Anything on the
radar?”

“
I do have a helicopter
that just took off. It is hovering at about five hundred feet. They
probably want to try to locate Evan from the air. Wait a minute. It
is starting to move. Whoa. Very fast in this direction. Over two
hundred miles per hour. This makes no sense.”

Shirley smiled. “I think we’ve found
Evan.”

“
You mean he’s the one
flying the helicopter?” David asked. “He can fly a Russian
helicopter?”

“
Among other things,”
Shirley said, “but I would bet that he doesn’t have the GPS unit.
Get a flare in the sky to guide him in.”

“
Will do,” David said as
he hung up his headset and ran outside.

David ran up to one of the support trucks
and grabbed a flare gun from the back. Flares were normally used to
indicate where to pick someone up when they needed rescuing, but
now they were going to use one to act as a beacon for Evan to
follow. David pointed the gun into the air and fired it straight
up. The flare was aloft in a second and lit up the entire area in a
bright red glow. He threw the gun back in the truck and returned
the building.

As he sat back down at his equipment and put
his headset back on, he looked at the screen again.

“
Wait, Colonel Beal. I see
two objects behind the helicopter closing fast. From their radar
signature, they appear to be missiles. They must be ancient
soviet-era missiles because they are only travelling about twice
Evan’s speed.”

“
Get your anti-missile
battery locked onto them, but don’t shoot them down until they
cross the border. We do not have the authority to fire into Malaz
airspace. Does he have enough time?”

“
His helicopter is about
halfway here, and the missiles are traveling about twice its
speed,” David said. “I did the math in my head. It’s going to be
close.”

David watched the radar monitor closely for
several minutes. The radar screen had a line that marked the border
and he saw the slow moving dot that represented Evan inch toward
it. Soon, he could even hear the helicopter approaching in the
distance.

“
Ten seconds,” David said
as he placed his finger on the fire button for the anti-missile
battery. He watched as the three dots on the radar monitor began to
converge at the line that marked the border.

“
Fire! Missiles away,” he
yelled as he heard the thunderous whoosh of rockets leaving the
anti-missile battery behind the building.

Almost instantly, there was an explosion.
David looked back at the monitor. There was only one dot left. And
it was not moving. Then he heard the roar of a helicopter overhead.
It sounded as if it were hovering just outside the building. David
went outside and saw a Russian helicopter slowly turning around and
descending to the ground. The tail of the helicopter was still
smoking from where paint had been burned off. Evan guided the
helicopter to the ground in a small patch of open space fifty feet
from the building. After it touched down, the loud noise of the
helicopter blades were replaced by the slow drone of the engine
winding down after being shut off.

Evan climbed out of the cockpit, ducked
under the slowing blades and walked toward David.

“
I believe this is yours,”
Evan said as he handed David the radiation detector.

David took the detector and the two men
looked at each other and smiled. Nothing else was said. David
patted Evan on the shoulder, opened the door to the building, and
they went inside.

Melina and Jean moved slowly through the
school cafeteria while they looked for an open table. It was Taco
Friday featuring the famous build-your-own taco bar, so seats were
scarce. It was even louder than usual because there had been a pep
rally before lunch for the football game that night, so everybody
was still pumped.

“
Over here,” Jean said as
she sat down at a newly available table.

Melina laid her tray down and slumped into
her chair. “I am exhausted. I stayed up way too late last night
watching TV.”

Jean looked at her with a raised brow. “I
thought your dad had a strict early to bed policy on school...
that’s right. He’s on a trip. Yeah, I’d be up all night too.”

“
I may need a nap when I
get home,” Melina said.

“
When does your dad get
back?” Jean asked.

“
He was supposed to be
home sometime this afternoon, but his meetings have been pushed
out. He will be home later this evening.”

“
How have things worked
out with the babysitter?” Jean asked.

“
She is not a sitter,”
Melina frowned. “She’s a friend of my mom’s named Angela. We had
the greatest conversation last night. She has known my mom for
twenty years. She worked with her when Mom still went to work. I
found out things about my mom that I never knew.”

“
Like what?”

“
Like, she and Angela used
to go to happy hours at the karaoke bar across from work. It seems
my Mom specialized in singing ABBA songs.”

“
That is so wrong,” Jean
said. “I have a hard time picturing a lady in mom-jeans singing
karaoke.”

Melina smiled. “I’m sure she didn’t wear
mom-jeans back then. Oh and get this, Angela told me about a
business trip she and my mom took to the Soviet Union.”

“
Who takes a business trip
to the Soviet Union?” Jean asked.

“
Apparently, they were on
some fact-finding tour for their company. You know, seeing if there
were new markets there for the company’s products. She says that
they got tossed out of a bar in Moscow after they had one too many
ice vodka shots, and they started a fight with the house
band.”

“
They must have thought
they were in a karaoke bar,” Jean said as she laughed at the
thought. “This lady sounds pretty cool.”

“
If you come by the house
this weekend, you can meet her,” Melina said. “She is going to stay
with us through next week.”

“
I thought you said your
dad was coming back tonight.”

“
He is, but he may have to
go back for more meetings. He doesn’t know when so Angela agreed to
stay with us just in case.”

Just then, Melina stopped looking at Jean
and started looking far across the cafeteria. She leaned forward
and squinted in an effort to bring the distance into focus.

Jean turned around and looked, as well.
“What are you looking at?”

“
Alex just came into the
cafeteria,” Melina said.

“
Where?”

“
Way over there by the
taco bar.”

“
Wow,” Jean said. “Either
you have incredible eyes or you’ve got some new Alex radar going.
Did you guys ever schedule a time to get together to work on your
physics project?”

“
No,” Melina answered. “We
were going to talk about it today, but the pep rally cancelled our
class.”