Off Chance: A clean action adventure novella

by Glen Robins

  But maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he was just misunderstood and falsely maligned.

  Either way, Lukas was committed to finding out.

  Chapter Eight

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  Sophomore Year

  Lukas had settled into a routine by the start of his sophomore year at MIT, which included increasing responsibility with Bring IT and continual spying on Penh for the NSA. His meetings with Mahoney became perfunctory. Penh was moving very slowly, so Lukas had almost nothing to report most weeks, despite having grown closer to Penh.

  Lukas had attended every club meeting since he joined, had enthusiastically volunteered for additional assignments, and had helped recruit more like-minded individuals. Penh had noticed not only his commitment, but his abilities. Penh and Ms. Khat began to invite Lukas to join them for coffee on occasion to discuss the club’s aim generally and his role specifically.

  During the first meeting of the year, Penh was more animated than he had been before. He teased the club members and first-timer attenders with a few pictures from last year’s project and promised to show more the following week. That spurred more excitement. The second week’s attendance was so high, there were more people standing than sitting. “Maybe we need to find a larger venue,” Penh announced. But rather than do that, they simply opened each meeting in the garage, shared announcements and discussed progress with the club, then broke into groups.

  The slideshow created a veritable buzz of enthusiasm. The club members enjoyed seeing themselves working and seeing the final product being in the hands of a grateful recipient in Cambodia was enough to cause the crowd to erupt into applause and cheers. A sense of accomplishment filled Lukas and the others, as evidenced by the high-fives, hugs, and smiles.

  It was determined that the goal for this second year would be to deliver four kiosks. Their experience would help them work faster and their numbers would allow them to be more productive. Another round of cheers filled the room as the group celebrated the past and anticipated the future.

  ****

  Unbeknownst to anyone else, Lukas was working his way into the good graces of someone deemed an enemy of the United States. He rather enjoyed his clandestine role, duplicitous as it may have been. He got the best of both worlds. Participating with Penh’s club and its humanitarian projects while helping his government keep track of a potentially dangerous threat, appealed to his sense of social justice and his innate protective nature.

  Lukas’s relationships with Mahoney and Steele were deepening. They expressed their confidence in Lukas, despite the fact that Penh seemed to be “flying under the radar” for the most part. Lukas’s observations uncovered details about Penh’s psyche that the NSA had never known, but which lead them to believe that the time and effort Lukas was putting into his assignment was well worth it.

  For Lukas, learning that his food and lodging had been paid for by an anonymous donor who specifically named Lukas told him that the NSA appreciated his work. Lukas sensed more and more that his path in life had already been determined to some extent, like a bowling ball rolling down a lane furnished with the guard rails they used for little kids. Rather than chaffing at the idea, Lukas felt secure, hopeful, and needed. He also felt assured that in the end, he would bowl a strike. It may not be the hard-hitting, pin-splitting kind, but he knew his ultimate objectives would be realized, nonetheless.

  Slowly but surely, Lukas had ingratiated himself into Penh’s inner circle. This fact became clear when, at the end of his sophomore year, Lukas was invited as a friend to Penh’s convocation ceremony, where Penh received his bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, graduating with high honors. Lukas realized as he looked around that most graduates were surrounded by parents and siblings. Penh had no one else to invite to the ceremony, so he gave his four tickets to Lukas, Mr. Tsai, and Ms. Khat. The fourth seat remained empty.

  The invitation, however, marked a deepening trust between Penh and Lukas, one Lukas had carefully fostered in hopes of peeling back more layers of the onion. If he could discover Penh’s heart, he could either prove or disprove the NSA’s presumption of Penh’s sinister designs.

  The week before his graduation Penh had announced to the club that he had been accepted to a graduate program on campus and would start his master’s degree at MIT in the Fall. This meant that he would continue as the club’s president and they would continue their important work to bring technology to those who could least afford it but could gain the most benefit from it. This development also gave Lukas two more years to work closely with the man the NSA suspected was hatching a destructive plot. Two more years of secret meetings with Mahoney. Two more years of observing and being observed. It felt like an elongated audition for a role he had been groomed for since his arrival on campus.

  To mark his entry to the next level, Penh extended an offer to Lukas that he wasn’t sure he could or should accept. He asked for some time to consider it, saying he needed to talk it over with his parents when in reality he needed to run it past Mahoney. The offer was to work for the club over the summer. Lukas would accompany Penh to Cambodia where they would deliver the four additional kiosks the club had built and prepared. He would train and educate the owner/operator of one of the new units while Penh, Mr. Tsai, and Ms. Khat worked with the others. Lukas was stunned, thrilled, and nervous all at the same time.

  When Lukas presented the idea to Chief Mahoney, Mahoney said simply, “You’re going.”

  “But this is part of what you warned about. Once I get comfortable under his employ, I’ll be trapped in his web. I don’t think I want that,” Lukas protested.

  “But we want that. The intelligence you can provide will be invaluable. You’re already closer to this guy than we could have ever hoped. This is the golden ticket. You’ve got nothing to worry about. Just keep us in the loop like you’ve been doing, and we’ll get you out of that web when the time comes.”

  Chapter Eight

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  Senior Year

  As Lukas started his senior year at MIT, Pho Nam Penh was completing his master’s thesis.

  Lukas had spent an inordinate amount of time with Penh during the intervening months, working on the kiosks, traveling to and around Cambodia with him for much of the two previous summers, and becoming a ranking official within the club.

  Trust had grown between the two. Penh turned to Lukas for input and data for his thesis research and for preliminary editing of the early drafts of his paper. Lukas’s insights were, as Penh noted, “Always spot on.” This further ingratiated him to Penh and further solidified his position as a trusted member of Penh’s inner group.

  Lukas had worked through the discomfort of his duplicitous role. Mahoney had steeled him against the time when he would have to pull away and accuse his boss/mentor of the crimes he had committed in the name of the cause. Because of Penh’s rise from the depths of rural class in a near-forgotten corner of the Third World, and because of his sharp mind and his charismatic leadership style, Lukas respected and admired Penh. But he was not subdued by any of it. His rational brain won’t allow him to be carried away so easily. How could he forget Harold Fung? How could he ignore the murder of Penh’s own benefactor, the billionaire Mr. Seng? In Lukas’s mind, no matter how much good Penh projected, Lukas saw into the dark side of his soul and feared that his own complacency could allow that latent, insidious kernel of Penh’s ambitions to grow out of control and lay to waste all in his path.

  Near the end of his Junior year, Lukas had grown cozy with a girl named Theresa, a stunning example of brains, beauty, and unrivaled marksmanship. The dark-haired, long-legged junior studying biomechanical engineering and robotics, loved shooting guns almost as much as she enjoyed designing aesthetically pleasing electro-mechanical “helpers” that could handle some of life’s more mundane tasks, such as mopping, dusting, and dishwashing.

  Yes, she was a math and science nerd who loved to build thi
ngs with her hands. She was as gifted mechanically as she was pleasing to look at.

  By the time he returned for Fall semester, Lukas realized he was madly in love with Theresa. What began during his first lecture in a lab he conducted as a Teacher’s Assistant the second semester of his junior year, had blossomed into a full-fledged romance. Things seemed to work out in a magical sort of way, including the job that brought them together.

  Lukas’s knowledge of programming was far superior to many of the seniors on campus, thus prompting his professor to invite him to teach the lab section as a junior. Lukas gladly accepted the offer, never expecting anything beyond some teaching experience and some much-needed spending money. Nervous in front of people and inexperienced as a lecturer, Lukas bungled his way through this first session, covering the material adequately, but not engaging his pupils. That’s when Theresa met with him and gave him a few suggestions. She admired his command of the material but encouraged him to be confident in himself. “You need to make more eye contact with the people you are trying to reach. Don’t worry, they won’t bite you. If they feel you are sincere and enjoy what you do, they will listen better.”

  Later in that same conversation, she said, “You need to smile more. Relax and enjoy yourself. It’s obvious you know your stuff, so show them that. Smile and show them you are human, just like them. That will help them relax, too.” She had stopped talking, but Lukas coaxed her to continue, sensing she was holding back. “And you need to slow down a bit.”

  “I can do that,” he said. “But I’m not sure how I’m supposed to smile.”

  When she demonstrated how he should smile, Lukas felt something inside melt. He was captivated by the way her supple lips spread to reveal her gleaming white teeth. Even more, he was drawn to how her eyes danced and sparkled and conveyed a flirtatious streak. He was captivated and the two soon began spending time outside of class studying, sharing meals, taking walks, and watching movies.

  Early in his senior year, Penh showed up unexpectedly to one of Lukas’s study groups. Theresa was there, sidling up to Lukas and flashing those flirtatious eyes in his direction as she laughed at something he said.

  Upon their introduction, Penh kissed Theresa’s hand with a lingering kiss and held her grip for an uncomfortably long time. His eyes softened as he watched her blush. Penh’s charm and charisma were on full display and Theresa seemed to enjoy the attention. Witnessing this, Lukas’s stomach dropped, and his insides went cold. He sensed a looming competition for the affections of this gorgeous brainiac.

  Memories of Ms. Khat’s witness statement in Harold Fung’s disappearance roared back to the forefront of Lukas’s memory, and his throat tightened. His choking snapped Penh’s attention away from Theresa and he furrowed his brow at Lukas.

  Penh’s interest in Theresa grew with each “random” meeting. Those meetings happened more often as she and Lukas spent more and more time together and as Lukas and Penh worked closely together on both club business and Penh’s Master’s thesis. The initial flirtations and friendly gestures turned into outright overtures as Penh grew more enamored with Theresa over the course of the school year. Lukas made subtle comments to Penh and Penh waved off his concerns saying he was just having a little fun. “Nothing wrong with flirting with a pretty girl now, is there?”

  Lukas wanted to say, “Yes, when it’s my girlfriend, there sure as hell is,” but he refrained for fear of retribution. He didn’t want to jeopardize his relationship with Penh and risk being shunned and, thereby, unable to gather intel for his other boss, Section Chief Mahoney. Afterall, Mahoney had helped with room and board, plus promised to erase Lukas’s student loan debts if he continued to provide the information the NSA needed. Despite the scholarship, which covered fifty percent of his tuition, and the work on campus and for the club, Lukas had racked up debt just trying to get through his four years. MIT was, after all, an elite educational institution and the price tag of its tuition showed it. The size of his student loans was the source of no small amount of stress to Lukas, like many others who didn’t hail from top one percent households.

  At their next meeting, Lukas reported Penh’s coquettish behavior to Mahoney, who wrote it off as petty romantic interest and nothing more. “I don’t know, Lukas. Maybe he’s just insecure and needs to vie for the attention of a pretty girl to make himself look and feel better. Human nature, I suppose.”

  “Maybe, but it worries me,” said Lukas. “He seems to be trying harder to win her over. She’s truly not interested in him in that way but doesn’t want to be rude. She respects him and likes him, you know—and knows nothing about what I’m doing for you. She finds the whole thing confusing and a bit distressing. It’s to the point where she tries to avoid him. But it seems the harder she tries to ignore or avoid him, the harder he tries to impress and connect. It’s got us both quite uncomfortable.”

  “Has he done anything criminal?”

  “You mean like something violent? Like what he did to Harold Fung?”

  “Allegedly did to Harold Fung, you mean?”

  “Yeah, right, ‘Allegedly.’ No. Nothing like that. Just creepy stuff.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like showing up at my apartment early Saturday morning, which happened to be the first time she spent the night.”

  “Had he ever been to your apartment before?”

  “Yeah, a few times, but never at 6:30 in the morning.”

  “Why did he say he was there?”

  “He stammered a lot, you know, then finally said something lame about the project for the club. He said he needed a status report and was concerned that my group had not done sufficient testing.”

  “Not a legit concern, I would assume, knowing you?”

  “No,” Lukas said emphatically. “He knows I insist on rigorous testing. The thing is, who shows up at 6:30 on a Saturday morning for a status report? Add to that the fact that he looked very, how shall I say? Unkempt? It looked and smelled like he had been out all night drinking. Not only that, he also had this strange look in his eye. The whole thing gave me the creeps. I don’t know why, but it just seemed like he had been outside my apartment spying on us. Theresa was completely freaked out.”

  Mahoney frowned. “That would be unnerving.”

  “But what if it’s more than that? What if he’s suspicious of me? What if he has somehow found out about our meetings or the work I’m doing for you?” Lukas was uncharacteristically rattled.

  Mahoney’s expression turned even more sour. “If Penh has become a stalker that makes him more dangerous. Someone with an unstable emotional make up—enough so that he stalks—becomes far less predictable, more erratic, and therefore more of a threat. But if he’s got you on his radar as a mole or interloper…”

  Mahoney didn’t finish the thought. He didn’t need to. Lukas knew what he was thinking.

  Mahoney’s voice was now solemn. “If this unravels any further, I’m afraid we’re going to have to move Theresa and you under protective surveillance.”

  “But that could potentially jeopardize all the work I’ve put in. If he caught wind of something like that, it could send him underground, making it that much harder to keep track of him, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, but I can’t play around when innocent lives are on the line. This happened just this past Saturday?”

  “Yeah, three days ago.”

  “Anything unusual since then?”

  “Just that he asks about her a lot. Like I said, she’s been trying to avoid him, even before that incident. But now, she’s almost afraid to hang out with me.”

  “Did something more happen to make her that afraid? I mean, showing up on your doorstep isn’t that bad.”

  “Yeah, he didn’t just stand on the front stoop. He came right in. He pushed past me at the front door even though I never invited him in. I mean, all I had on was a pair of gym shorts. He had this sort of feral look in his eyes. Like he was hunting. It was weird. He began looking around, almo
st like a little kid in a new place, you know? He even went down the hallway toward the bedroom.”

  “Was she in there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did he see her?”

  “No. When she heard his voice, she just raced to the closet and hid in there until he left. No way he saw her, but her clothes were spread out on the floor. Hard to miss.”

  “This is a concern, Lukas. I don’t take this stuff lightly.” Mahoney tapped his finger on his chin. “Listen. There’s only three weeks left in the school year. You’ll graduate soon. Penh will complete his master’s, and you two will part ways. We’ve got an offer letter coming from one of our shell companies out of New York. It will be a good offer; one you would be a fool to refuse. It will look one-hundred percent legit. Your classmates can Google the company and will be very impressed with its website and reputation. You can show that to your friends and to Penh and start angling toward your new life. In the meantime, I want to put some protections in place for your girlfriend.”

  “What kind of protections?”

  “An unmarked car outside her apartment to keep an eye on things and make sure she’s safe.”

  “Won’t that be a little suspicious. A guy like Penh is bound to notice something like that.”

  “Our guys are professional. They do this all the time for people we need to keep alive when they’re sourcing for us. Don’t worry. We’ll give you two your space. In fact, if you need some alone time, we can spring for a hotel room if you want.”

  “Listen. That’s a really nice offer. I will definitely consider it, but I don’t think I could explain it to Theresa. We’re poor college students, remember?”