Melina interrupted again. “Are you off your medication? You seem to be a bit delusional. My dad writes software and works at Hadron Systems. I was just in his office this afternoon.”
William gave a forced sigh like the conversation had suddenly become burdensome.
“Ask your father what the meeting he went to this morning was about. Ask if the President herself attended via videoconference,” he said as he looked at Evan. “Surely he would not lie to his little girl about this. At least, not anymore.”
Melina looked over at her dad. “Dad, help me out here. Tell him that what he said is a little kooky.”
Evan turned away and looked upward with closed eyes. There was an uncomfortable silence.
“Dad?” she asked, trying to prompt him.
“I think you have your answer,” William said.
Melina continued to look at her dad, hoping that William was wrong. Evan opened his eyes and looked back at Melina. His eyes were sad, and his mouth grimaced.
“I am sorry, kiddo,” Evan said. “This is not how I wanted you to find out.”
Melina sat down on the floor and put her head in her hands, trying to sort through all that William had said and what it meant.
“Okay, William,” Evan said as he turned to face him. “You’ve had your fun. Tell me what all this is about. Why are we here?”
William frowned and started to pace the floor. “Let’s just say that I have some outside business associates that have been negatively affected by your recent activities abroad.”
“Outside business associates?” Evan asked. “What do you mean, outside business associates? Are you selling intelligence that the agency has gathered? Or maybe some of the equipment from the tools group?”
William laughed. “I’m not selling any secrets, but you are not far off on that second one.”
“So you have been selling watches and other gadgets?” Evan said.
William drew close to Evan and lowered his voice. “Hardly, Evan. Try, partially enriched uranium.”
Evan stood there motionless, staring at William, not knowing quite what to say.
“I understand your shock, Evan,” William continued. “You see, I have supreme control over both the small uranium storage vault in the tools lab and the larger storage annex in New Mexico. Nobody but me knows exactly how much total uranium the agency has in place.”
“And you sold some of it?” Evan said, raising his voice. “You are the source of the uranium for Malazistan.”
“They are amongst my customers,” William said. “To answer your earlier question, you are here because the Malaz asked me to send you to them. They want to use you as a bargaining chip. They think that because you have a deep knowledge of top-secret information, they can get the President to back off on their nuclear program in exchange for your return. They are sending a plane for you as we speak. It should be here in the morning.”
“But what about …” Evan said.
William held up his hand. “I’m not the chatty villain type. It is not in my best interest to tell you anything further so I will leave it at that. All will be explained later.”
William walked backward toward the door, not taking his eyes off Evan and keeping the gun trained on him.
“Try and get some sleep,” William said as he paused in the doorway. “You have a big day tomorrow.”
William slammed shut the door and locked it from the outside. Evan stood still in the middle of the room as he listened to the sound of footsteps moving away down the hall. At first they could be heard through the door and then just in the vents and finally they just faded away.
………………………….
Angela was in the kitchen making dinner for Travis when she heard the phone ring.
“Maybe that is your father,” she said, relieved that she would hear from him at last. “He and Melina should have arrived home hours ago.”
“They probably stopped to get something for Melina’s big date,” Travis said, after which he made exaggerated kissing noises.
Angela smiled at Travis and picked up the phone. “Hello?”
“Hello. I’m calling for Melina.”
Angela’s face changed as she realized that neither Evan nor Melina was on the other end of the line.
“I am afraid she is not here,” Angela said. “Can I take a message?”
“This is her friend Jean. Do you expect her home soon?”
“I’m not sure,” Angela said. “I haven’t heard from Melina since she and her father left to visit her mother at the hospital.”
“I texted her a couple of times, but I haven’t heard back,” Jean said. “I even tried calling Melina’s number, but it goes right to voicemail,” Jean said.
“I’ve tried her father’s cell phone several times too, and there has been no answer, as well. I even called the hospital, and they said that Melina and her father left hours ago.”
“Well, I’m sure that they just stopped off somewhere,” Jean said. “Would you just ask Melina to call me when she gets home?”
“Okay, bye-bye.”
………………………….
Evan paced back and forth across the room. He thought about continuing to try to find a way out, but from what William said, they were not in any immediate danger. While the official U.S. policy was not to negotiate with terrorist organizations, agents were a different category. The government would do whatever it took to get agents back, so at worst they were in for a couple of long plane rides and some unpleasant food. At this point, he figured he should try to smooth things over with Melina. He took a deep breath, walked over to where Melina was sitting and sat down beside her. He wanted to put his arm around her and give her a hug, but he was afraid that she would not let him. He settled on just leaning against her.
“I guess that came as a shock,” Evan said.
Melina finally looked up at her dad. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you make up a lie?”
Evan chuckled loudly.
“What about that do you find funny?” Melina asked.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just had a flashback to the day that I told you that there was no Santa Claus. Do you remember?”
Melina shook her head.
“You were in third grade. One day, when I picked you up from school, as soon as you got in the car, you started asking me a bunch of questions about Santa. Logical questions. Like, ‘How does he travel all over the world in one night?’ and ‘How does he fit all those presents in that one bag?’ I asked you what was with all the questions, and you told me that some of the kids had said that their parents had told them that Santa did not exist. That it was all a big lie. You were indignant. I knew then that I had to tell you because I did not want you to be teased by the other kids. We stopped by the ice cream shop on the way home, and I spilled the beans about Santa as we were eating our ice cream. When I was finished, you were extremely angry with Mom and me. You did not have a problem with the fact that Santa was not real. You had a problem with the fact that we lied about it. Just like now.”
“I still don’t understand why you didn’t just tell me,” Melina said.
“Don’t you see?” Evan said. “Parents tell you about things when it is in your best interest for you to know them. In the case of Santa, it was fun for you to believe in Santa until you became old enough to know better. Then it was inappropriate for you not to know. The same is true for my job, and that is why your mom and I kept it from you. There was no reason for you to worry about me when I was away.”
Melina rolled her eyes. “I think that I could have handled knowing the truth a long time ago.”
“I work in a dangerous business, kiddo. Few of the agents tell their kids about it before the age of ten. Kids below that age are susceptible to being blabbermouths. You don’t want your child blurting out to the neighbors that Dad is a spy.”
“I’m not ten, Dad,” Melina said.
“I know that. Your mom and I had planned to tell you thi
s past summer, and then … well … I just never did.”
“It’s okay, Dad,” Melina said as she put her arm around him.
“Look, I know you are plenty old enough to know. In fact, you are on the high end of the age scale for the kids that don’t know. I am a little embarrassed that I didn’t tell you. Even your friend Alex found out last year.”
“Alex?” Melina said. Now she was mad. First, there was his lunch with Ellen and now this. “Why would he know about you and not me?”
“You don’t understand,” Evan said. “His father David works with me.”
Melina stood up. “And Alex knows about all this? Arrgh! I am so mad at him right now.”
Evan grimaced as he realized he just threw Alex under the bus. Melina looked angry. Sorry about that Alex.
“Calm down, Melina,” Evan said as he stood up. “Alex was not allowed to tell you.”
“Not allowed?”
“There is no formal law governing squealing about an agent’s real job, but there is an unwritten rule amongst my coworkers that it is not done. I’m sure that Alex’s dad told him under no circumstances was he to tell you. It must have been difficult for him to keep quiet about it.”
“Well …” Melina said, looking visibly calmer.
“I’ve been with the agency for a long time. I have never heard of someone’s kids being told about their work by someone other than them.”
“Just how long have you had this job?” Melina asked.
“I joined the agency right out of college,” he said.
“I thought that you had a degree in Computer Science?” Melina asked.
“I do. That’s why I chose software engineer for my cover story. But back when I was a senior in college, there was a job fair for potential employers to come on campus and recruit college graduates, and the Executive Reconnaissance Agency sent their recruiters.”
Melina laughed. “Was there a bunch of guys in dark suits and sunglasses?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact,” Evan said, smiling at the thought. “As I was making my way to the booths of all of the software companies, I walked by the agency booth. I stopped when I saw that they were handing out these extremely cool t-shirts. One of the dark suits manning the booth asked me if I had considered working for the government. He said that they had software jobs too.”
“But you don’t write software for them,” Melina said.
“That’s right. In order to get the t-shirt, you had to fill out a short, written questionnaire. It was supposed to tell them if I were the right person for their organization. I seriously wanted that t-shirt, and I had half an hour to kill before my next interview, so I agreed to fill out their questionnaire. And was it ever an odd questionnaire. All of the questions revolved around various dangerous situations and what I would do to handle them. Not one of the questions was even remotely about software. After I had finished, I turned it in, grabbed my t-shirt, and then left. About a week later, I got a call that I had made it through the screening phase and that they wanted to give me a more extensive hands-on test.”
“Hands on?” Melina asked.
“Yeah. They wanted to fly me to Washington and test me in some of those dangerous situations, in a virtual reality machine called the Stress Environment Simulator.”
“Why would a software engineer need to be in those types of situations?” Melina asked.
“I couldn’t figure that out either,” Evan said, smiling. “At that point, I had received job offers from several software companies, but this sounded intriguing. And it was a free trip to D.C. I thought, heck, I could check out the Air and Space Museum while I was there. So I flew out there and let them hook me up to their simulator. In addition to the virtual reality helmet, they had monitors for heart rate, respiration, brain activity, and saliva production.”
“Saliva production?” Melina said, laughing.
“I’m not making that up. It apparently is an indicator of how nervous you are. Anyway, through the helmet, I watched all sorts of scenes where I was in a dangerous situation. Scenes of people with guns jumping out from behind things. Scenes of me parachuting off of buildings.”
“Why would they show you those things?” Melina asked.
“The simulator was designed to find out how well you performed in ultra-stressful situations. For example, in the simulation, I jumped off a building with a parachute and halfway down, my parachute failed. They wanted to know what I would do in that situation. Since it was a virtual reality simulator, it was able to translate my movements into actions in the simulation, so they could accurately gauge a real world response.”
“What did that have to do with software?” Melina asked.
“As it turned out, nothing. After I was finished taking the test, the head of the entire organization was there to talk to me. He told me that no one had ever scored higher in the Stress Environment Simulator. The test technicians said that as the test wore on and the stress level increased, my heart rate lowered to near hibernation level and my brain activity skyrocketed. They had never seen levels like that before. They offered me a job on the spot. Of course, not as a software engineer. I have been a field agent ever since.”
“Wait a minute,” Melina said. “I remember something like that simulator at your work that we get to do every year on ‘Take Your Daughter to Work’ day. All of the girls were asked to try on a helmet that simulated different, dangerous situations. Then you measured our heart rates. You said it was a computer simulation program that some of the folks in the lab did on the side for fun.
Evan looked down, sheepishly. “Yes. That was the exact same machine.”
“How did I do?”
“Let’s just say that the head of the agency told me to have you come by and see him when you finish college.”
“That’s funny,” Melina said. “I don’t think of myself as being invincible.”
“Being an agent is not about being invincible. It is about not being afraid. It’s about being able to set aside thoughts that would distract you in a high pressure environment and focus on the task at hand.”
“Is that what you think of when you think of me?” she said.
“Absolutely,” Evan said.
“How can you be so sure?”
“I’m going to let you in on a little parent secret,” Evan said. “We sometimes look at our kids and their accomplishments through an egocentric lens. We like to think that if they are smart, it is because we are smart. If they are funny, it is because we are funny. We are always on the lookout for our best qualities in our kids. On the flip side, we also do not wish to see our worst faults show up in our kids, so we are on the lookout for those too.”
“This is interesting, Dad,” Melina said. “Obvious, but interesting.”
“One quality that I hoped that you got from me and not from your mom was my sense of adventure. Now, I love your mom a ton, but that woman is afraid of her own shadow. I have lost count of the number of times I have run into the kitchen because I heard screaming only to find your mom standing on a chair because there is a spider on the floor that turned out to be a piece of lint with some hair on it.”
“How do you know that I did not get my sense of adventure from Mom?” Melina asked.
“Sit down, kiddo. I have another story to tell you,” Evan said.
Melina sat down on the floor across from her dad.
“A few weeks before your brother was born, your mom sent me on some errands to pick up some last-minute things before the baby was born. I brought you along so Mom could get some sleep. It’s strange, but even though you were almost three years old, it was one of the few times that you and I went anywhere just the two of us. We had a fabulous time shopping. I let you carry the list of items, and you checked the items off the list as we bought them. When we had finished buying all of the items, you asked if we could go to the fish tank store.
“The Adventure Store!” Melina exclaimed.
“That’s right,” Evan replied. “The giant
camping supply store outside the mall. You used to love to go there because there is an enormous fish tank in the middle of the store. We didn’t need anything from there, and it was clear across town, but that day you could have asked me to drive to Oklahoma and I would have. We drove over there and spent some time looking at the fish. Then, after we were done, you wanted to check out the boats.”
“Boats?”
“Yes. The store is massive, so inside the store, right next to the fish tank, they have several new boats on trailers for sale. We went over to where they were, and I lifted you up into the driver’s seat of one of the boats. Then I climbed into the passenger seat. You sat in that seat and pretended to drive the boat for twenty minutes before I finally said it was time to go. I left you in the driver’s seat, and instead of using the stairs to get down, I climbed up onto the bow of the boat and jumped the five feet to the ground. As I turned around to lift you out of the driver’s seat, I saw you jump from the same spot that I had just jumped. I quickly thrust my arms out, and I caught you just inches from the ground.”
“I’ll bet there was some crying,” Melina joked.
“You would think, but no there wasn’t. I held you in my arms and asked you if you were okay. You said that you wanted to go back and jump off again. You had this look on your face. I will never forget that look as long as I live. It was not a look of terror. You had a look on your face like you had just done the most amazingly fun thing that was possible to do. I knew then that my genes had won the day. You had the adventure spirit.”
“How do you know that I still have that spirit?”
“Because I have seen that look on your face countless times since then,” Evan replied. “I saw it your first day of kindergarten. I saw it when you learned to ride a bike, and you begged me to take off the training wheels. I saw it when you were in krav maga class, and you were fighting men twice your size. You don’t back down from dangerous situations. That stress simulator was one hundred percent accurate.”
“Are there many women at your work that do your job?” Melina asked, now with considerable interest.
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