by Thomas Babak
Fred came out onto the porch. Sandy looked over at him. Fred’s two dogs pushed past him and ran out towards Sandy. He just stood there and watched them run towards him. Sandy didn’t care if they were friendly or not. He just didn’t care. They came up barking but stopped and circled around him sniffing. One came over and sniffed his hand. Sandy reached down and stroked its head a couple times. Fred came walking up. He didn’t say anything. Sandy’s expression was explanation enough.
Silently, Fred walked over to the barn and opened the door, stepping inside. The barn doors opened, Sandy got back into the van and in Driving mode backed in. Down to 2% power.
Fred brought the extension cord over but Sandy shook his head and spoke for the first time. “There’s something wrong with the batteries.” Fred nodded his head.
Sandy popped the hood and inventoried the damage. The batteries had been wired in parallel. One of them had come loose and shaking around with Sandy’s frantic flying had caused the heavy battery to damage a couple others and pull cabling off others ones. Sandy removed the battery and checked all of them. He had to replace three batteries that had been damaged. He and Fred talked while they worked but only about what they were doing.
Fred volunteered to go into town to the auto parts store to get replacement batteries. Sandy gave him a stack of twenties for them; Fred finally accepted them after Sandy insisted. Sandy grabbed fresh clothes and they closed the barn doors.
In the house, Fred showed Sandy the food he had in the fridge and pantry and then left. He took the dogs with him. Sandy showered and shaved and sat in the kitchen thinking about what had happened that morning.
Tasha helped them. She helped them try to trap him. There was no question about that. The question was whether or not they forced her to do it? Tasha’s “I can’t” from his first rescue attempt echoed in his mind.
Fred found Sandy sitting at the table when he returned from buying batteries. He made them both a lunch of soup and sandwiches. Sandy ate mechanically.
“What happened?” Fred finally asked.
Sandy looked up from his bowl and plate. Fred sat there waiting. They were both finished and just sitting there at the table.
“She helped them try to trap me,” he said.
Fred seemed to consider this for a few moments and then said “Lot of things going on in the water that you never see…it’s under the surface.”
Sandy thought about this. It summed up all the questions he had. He loved Tasha. He trusted her. He had trusted her. There must be something going on that he didn’t know about. There had to be. “I can’t” still echoed in his mind and he tried to push it away. He ended up just nodding his head back to Fred.
They got up and replaced the batteries and plugged in the extension. The onboard charger would do the rest. Sandy got into the van and sat there for a little while. The power read 43%. He powered the systems down. It was the first time everything had been powered down since all of this had started days ago. He looked around the inside of the van. The .45 sat in its holster on the passenger seat. Sandy looked at it for a little while and then got up. He picked it up and stored it in one of the cabinets. He grabbed his now full trash bag and carried it out throwing it into Fred’s trash bin.
He watched TV with Fred the rest of the afternoon. The Flying Van was still in the news. Fred put it on a movie and they settled down.
At one point Fred asked “What are you going to do next?”
Sandy said “Call them up,” but didn’t say anything else. Fred didn’t ask any more questions. They went back to watching the movie.
Thirty-Eight
Kate and her team sat around a hotel conference room table. The Air Force Reserve base had served its purpose. They had made the attempt to capture the boy but he had escaped easily. There would be other opportunities. If not for them, then there would be for others. The others were already on their way.
Sitting straight in her chair, palms flat on the table Kate looked at Travis to begin. A smart phone sat next to one of her hands. It was a clone with the phone number they had posted in the conference room and on the roof for Sandy to call.
Travis wasn’t smiling. It had been his plan to use Tasha as bait and the Lowry Hill tunnel as the cage. He was positive it would work. The kid made him look like a jackass. No one did that without paying. The kid would pay.
“The girl is in lockdown on the base. The FBI has assumed responsibility for her.” He hesitated for a few seconds and then said “A team member saw the kid…saw his Bubble” – at the word he made air quotes with his fingers. They had gotten the term from Tasha. “The smoke they laid down outlined it. One of the men fired a smoke canister at it and it bounced off.” He looked at Kates’ lack of reaction and then down and then said “The tac team is on standby. They are ready to go anywhere in five,” he finished. He didn’t mention anything about the cleanup and repair efforts at the tunnel. Kate didn’t care about things like that.
Kate shifted her gaze to Jenkins. He looked down at his tablet and then quickly said, “Media is uncontained. We have A-packages ready to go now for several options. Hero. Villain. Etcetera.” The packages were news stories and press releases describing Sandy as everything from a nut job to a genuine American hero inventor. There hadn’t been a decision on which way to “spin” things yet. Jenkins swiped his screen and said “There were several reports but no pictures or videos of the Flying Van briefly appearing and heading south.” He looked up. He’d said “Flying Van” and knew that Kate didn’t like the term. Her expression hadn’t changed so he looked back down and swiped his screen again. “There are reports coming in from all over the world of sightings. All are garbage so far. We are tracking,” he finished and looked up.
Kate shifted her gaze to Dr. Fossberg.
“My team took measurements and samples from out at the tunnel. Incredible!” he exclaimed with enthusiasm. Kate didn’t change her expression.
He continued. “We are still analyzing but the power and potential of the technology is incredible.” He shifted to his next topic. “I had every type of detection device I could think of on the roof of the building” referring to the Air Force Reserve headquarters, “seismic, infrared, radar, acoustical amongst others. We picked up nothing on most of them though we know that he must have been nearby. We picked up some interesting things with our acoustic equipment. Some anomalies that were associated with air movement. It’s given us some ideas of additional equipment we can develop. We also picked up some unusual traces on sonar.”
Kate raised an eyebrow. No one noticed, as they were looking at Dr. Fossberg.
“There were some readings that we are working on. We may be able to create a refined profile that can detect more accurately. We need the Bubble Tech to test though,” he finished.
Kate almost smiled. Travis actually laughed. Dr. Fossberg’s idea of using Sonar had been brilliant. His last sentence had been idiotic though. If they had the Bubble Tech they wouldn’t care about testing Dr. Fossberg’s equipment.
He was finished with his part of the briefing and looked over at Kate. Travis and Jenkins did as well.
She’d been on the phone all morning with the White House staff. Major changes were occurring in the hunt for Sandy and the acquisition of Bubble Technology.
“We will be here onsite for another 36 hours.” Surprise broke out on Travis’ and Jenkins’ faces. Dr. Fossberg sat there nonplussed. “A Joint Task Force has formed and will be assuming control. Advance elements will be here this evening to begin the transition process. Please prepare briefing packages for your respective areas. We will continue to be associated once we return to Washington but on an on call, ad hoc basis. Any questions?” she asked looking around.
There weren’t any.
“Anything else?” she asked.
There was silence around the table.
The phone rang. Kate looked down at it and let it ring several more times before picking it up and answering it.
Thirty-
Nine
Morning found Sandy in the barn. He’d repacked several cabinets and had showered and changed after eating breakfast with Fred this morning.
Fred had a workshop fully stocked with tools and equipment. Most of it was dusty. Sandy had spent most of the morning there. He finished up what he’d been working on and came back out of the workshop and walked around the van. Fred was sitting on a toolbox.
“What do you have there?” he asked.
Sandy looked down at the object in his hand and said “What they think they want.”
Fred looked back up at him and nodded.
Sandy flew south and landed in Missouri. Driving into the nearest gas station he noted casually that the GPS said he was in a town called O’Fallon. He parked around the back of the building next to a dumpster and looked around. There was some traffic on the road but nothing else so he got out, looked around again and with the key fob activated the Bubble field.
Walking around the side of the building to the front, he paused and looked around. No one seemed to notice or care. Several cars drove by. He headed into the store and got a bottle of water and bag of potato chips.
As he was paying for them, he asked “Do you have a pay phone in here?”
The girl behind the counter thought Sandy was very cute. There was no phone except for the back office. No one was around, so who cares? she thought. And he is cute.
“No, but you can use the phone in the office” she said smiling shyly at Sandy.
“Thanks,” Sandy said. Usually, he would have tried to refuse, but not today.
She walked him back to a closet-sized office and showed him the phone. Sandy sat in the single chair facing back to the door. She kept standing there smiling, Sandy stared unsmiling back until she finally realized what she’d been doing.
“Sorry!” she exclaimed and closed the door to go back to the counter.
Sandy took the scrap of paper he’d scrawled the phone number from the Air Base on out of his pocket that. He picked up the phone and dialed.
It rang several times and a female voice answered. “Hello, Sandy.”
It must be the Lady in Charge, Sandy thought. “Hello. Who am I speaking with, please?” he said after a few moments of hesitation.
“Deputy Under Secretary Kathleen Phillips,” the voice said.
Sandy didn’t say anything so she added, “You may call me Secretary Phillips.”
“Ma’am,” Sandy said tentatively and then more forcefully “Ma’am. Why don’t you leave me alone?”
“Sandy, why don’t you come in and we’ll talk about it,” she said reasonably.
“Where is Tasha?” Sandy asked shifting the conversation.
“She’s safe , Sandy. Why don’t you come in and you can talk to her?” she said, again speaking very clearly, calmly and reasonably.
“Where is she?” Sandy asked again, his voice rising.
“Sandy. She is in a safe place. Can we talk?” she asked.
There was no response.
“Sandy?” she asked and waited for a second or two and then continued in her reasonable tone “Sandy. You’ve created an amazing, world-changing technology. There are so many people that are impressed with you and what you’ve created. We want nothing more than to sit down and calmly discuss it. Can we do that, Sandy?”
Jenkins by this time had brought up a program on his laptop and plugged his earbuds into the audio jack. He held one out to Travis who after looking at it as if it were a dead bug, had his curiosity overwhelm him and stuck it into his ear. They listened into the conversation. The phone number was already preprogrammed to trace any calls to it.
“What happens to me?” Sandy asked. Before she could answer he continued with “You’ll lock me up like you did with Tasha!” he yelled.
“Sandy, that was all an unfortunate misunderstanding. We initially thought you were a terrorist. It was a mistake. We didn’t know you were who you are. We do now,” her tone still clam and clear.
Terrorist! What the hell is she talking about?
“You freaking tried to trap me in a cage yesterday. How is that a misunderstanding?” Sandy yelled. He slammed the phone down as he stood up.
Secretary Phillips had told him nothing. She’s playing with me. Just trying to manipulate me. The thoughts frantically raced through his mind.
The girl tentatively opened the door and stuck her head in. “Is everything okay?” she asked shyly. She’d heard yelling from the cute boy.
“Yes,” Sandy said immediately calm again. “Thanks for letting me use the phone,” he said, forcing a smile onto his face. She smiled back. He had a really nice smile.
He left after thanking her. He forgot his water and chips.
Five minutes after he left, the police arrived. The convenience store girl was kept for two days until she signed a Federal Non-Disclosure Agreement. She lost her job at the convenience store, too.
Sandy flew back north and went home.
The Yard was empty. The barriers were gone and no patrol car was sitting out front. He flew around looking in windows. The rooms were still empty. Out back the yard was a mess. They’d moved junked vehicles for several hundred yards all around. There were new piles from where they’d torn up the ground looking for what Sandy assumed were clues to him or his technology.
His house was same. No patrol car and the rooms were empty. The only sign that something had happened was the overgrown grass and a placard sticking in the window of the front door. It said “Do Not Enter. Crime Scene” on it.
Sandy flew slowly back towards the Cities. He was looking for good ground for what he planned to do next. After an hour and half he found what he was looking for after a careful search: a wide open field, stubble from last year’s corn still on it. He could see for about a mile all around except for a tree line several hundred yards away and a single road.
He marked the spot on his GPS and wrote down the latitude and longitude. He flew back to Maple Lake to find a pay phone. He dialed Secretary Phillip’s number.
She answered on the first ring with, “Sandy?”
“Ma’am. I want to make a deal,” he said.
“Sandy, absolutely. You are making the right decision. How about you come in and we’ll talk about it” she said.
“I said, I want to make a deal” he said calmly. “I’ll trade you the Bubble Tech for Tasha.”
Kate hesitated for a second then said “That sounds reasonable Sandy, how about…” but he cut her off.
“I want to do it my way. Do you have a pencil to copy this down?” he asked.
Without hesitating, Kate said “Yes.”
Sandy gave her the latitude and longitude and then said “Bring Tasha. Come alone. Come now. I’ll be waiting,” and hung up.
He walked over to the Bubble Van and got in. Taking a deep breath and letting it out he pushed some buttons and disappeared. Literally.
Kate drove the black SUV almost to the GPS coordinates. It had taken about 40 minutes to get there. Tasha sat next to her in the passenger seat.
“There!” Tasha said pointing.
Sandy was standing in the open field holding something in his hand next to his side several hundred feet away.
“Remember. Do what we told you,” Kate warned before they both got out of the car.
They walked onto the shoulder, down into and out of the ditch and into the field.
Tasha was wearing sneakers, so had an easy time of it. Kate was wearing high heels and proceeded slowly, looking down at her feet mostly as she walked carefully towards Sandy. Kate had to glance up periodically to make sure he was still there. Tasha would speed up every few seconds, excited to see Sandy but then slow down and wait for Kate.
Sandy stood there, not moving.
They walked up and stood ten feet away, looking at Sandy. Sandy didn’t say anything and just looked at Kate. He was afraid that if he looked at Tasha he would lose it.
In the black SUV, Travis carefully knelt behind the scoped rifle set up
in the back seat. He’d hid it in back on the drive out so the girl wouldn’t see. It was an awkward position and the rifle barrel was just a couple inches from the slightly open window. He had a terrible sight picture in his crosshairs. “The jailbait is in the way,” he said out loud to himself. He could always drop her and get the boy with a second shot. The thought made him feel better. He almost smiled.
The tactical team that deployed behind the wood line behind Sandy began moving forward, spread out, across the field as soon as Kate and Tasha entered the field. They were gambling that Sandy wouldn’t look back and that by the time he heard them coming, it would be too late. They’d have him. They’d taken a separate route and had arrived minutes before Tasha, Kate and Travis.
“We’re here Sandy, where is the van?” Kate asked.
“It’s near,” Sandy said.
“So let’s deal Sandy. You said Tasha for the technology.”
Sandy held up what he’d been holding in his hand. The object that he had made in Fred’s shop that morning. “This is a Stator,” he said. “It’s the key to all of the Bubble Tech,” he said simply. “I’ll trade it for her” finally looking directly at Tasha.
Tasha met his eyes for only a second or two but then looked down at the ground. Sandy looked back over at Kate.
“That wasn’t the deal Sandy,” Kate said calmly.
“It’s the only deal you’re going to get,” Sandy said harshly.
“Take it or leave it” he said after a few seconds of silence.
“I think I’ll leave it” she said turning away.
“Come on, Miss Johnson” she called over to Tasha.
Tasha stood rigid, staring now at Sandy. Sandy looked over at her, his bluff called. Fear showed on his face finally. Fear that he would lose Tasha.
“Sandy!” Tasha exclaimed
Sandy had been holding the Stator up. Now he dropped his arm to his side still holding it so clenched tightly in his hand that the white of his knuckles stood out.