The Agent's Daughter

by Ron Corriveau

  Karl put his hand on Evan’s shoulder. “When he retires, and they look for a replacement, I’m betting on me.”

  Evan lifted Karl’s hand off his shoulder and turned to head for the locker room. “I wouldn’t bet all my chips on that.”

  ………………………….

  Evan entered the waiting area of Arthur’s office and walked up to the desk of the administrative assistant.

  “Hello, Mildred,” Evan said as he approached. “Is Arthur available?”

  Mildred had worked for Arthur since he became head of the agency and she was a fixture outside his office. She had a Midwestern charm and a ready smile for everyone.

  “Why, it is so nice to see you, Evan,” Mildred said, “but you and I both know that he doesn’t like to have people just show up at his office. And he’s not in a particularly happy mood today.”

  Evan gave her a serious look. “This is important. Could you ask him if he has a few minutes?”

  “All right,” she said as she winked at Evan. “Just you have a seat. I’ll be right back”

  Mildred got up and disappeared into Arthur’s office. Evan sat down on one of the couches in what had to be the largest office waiting area in town. As the head of the agency, Arthur had a large budget at his discretion. Evan looked around at the décor, and figured that a fair amount of the budget had gone into his office.

  “He said that he has a few minutes,” Mildred said as she returned.

  Evan got up from the couch and headed for the office door. “Thank you, Mildred,” he said as he went inside.

  Arthur stood up behind his desk as Evan entered. “Come on in and sit down.”

  Evan took a seat in one of the two chairs in front of Arthur’s desk.

  “What’s on your mind, Evan?” Arthur said.

  “I’m going to need a sitter,” Evan replied. “For a couple of days.”

  Agents with children that went on missions sometimes requested that the agency place someone in the home of the agent while they were away. Such as, if the spouse were uncomfortable being alone or as in Evan’s case if there were no spouse at home. The agency had a separate department comprised of individuals whose job it was to stay at an agent’s house and serve as a form of bodyguard. The name of the department was Agent Assistance, but the agents just called them sitters. The people within the Agent Assistance department weren’t too keen on the nickname because they were mostly young men fresh out of the armed forces.

  “Hmm,” Arthur said as he arched is brow. “You know you don’t need me to get that done. Mildred can take care of that. In fact, you never come down here to see me at all, to my gratitude. It would seem that there is something else on your mind.”

  Evan sat back in his chair and smiled. “You’re right. I’ve heard rumors that you may be retiring. I just wanted to hear from you what your plans were.”

  “Angling for my job, are we?” Arthur said.

  This prompted both Arthur and Evan to laugh. Arthur had told Evan several times over the years that he would be a perfect replacement when Arthur retired. Every time, Evan had told him that he had no interest in heading the agency.

  “The rumors are true,” Arthur said. “I have been the director of this agency for a long time. It is about time that I retire while I can still fish. I have not decided the exact date, but it will be soon. Why are you asking?”

  Evan took a more serious tone. “I ask because there is someone that I know that is acutely interested in replacing you. If that happens, it influences my future with the agency.”

  “Karl,” Arthur said, shaking his head.

  Evan did not answer.

  Arthur leaned forward on his desk. “You and I both know that there is a congressional committee made up of presidential appointees that oversee this organization. It is there as a safeguard, owing to the extreme secretive nature of our work and the potential for the abuse of power by the President. I answer to them, and they choose my successor. They do not tend to choose ex-agents for the position so I wouldn’t worry about Karl getting the job.”

  “Why don’t they choose ex-agents?” Evan asked.

  “The committee is made up of bureaucrats and pencil pushers,” Arthur said. “People who have been appointed as a political favor. They are people that have attended the finest schools and consider people that didn’t to be beneath them. Their perception is that agents are reckless and not all that bright. They believe that the supervision over the agency would be less strict and that the agents would get away with whatever they wanted.”

  “That would be funny if it weren’t so sad,” Evan said.

  “If you would let me submit your name, I will try to push them to make an exception.”

  “Thank you for the offer,” Evan said. “I’m afraid I’m still not interested.”

  Arthur leaned back in his chair. “Fair enough. Now, let’s see about getting you a sitter.” He pressed the intercom button on his desk. “Mildred, would you bring in the Agency Assistance personnel list? Thank you.”

  Arthur turned back to Evan. “I hear from the studio that your daughter has stopped her martial art studies.”

  “That is correct,” Evan said. “She has gone through a difficult time since Laura’s accident, and I am not pushing her.”

  “I don’t need to remind you of the agency’s interest in the situation,” Arthur said, leaning back in his chair. “You let me know if there is anything that I can do.”

  “I understand,” Evan said. “Thank you.”

  Mildred entered the room carrying a printout of all of the people in the Agent Assistance department that were available. It had their name, age and a brief biography. She handed the list to Evan.

  Evan scanned the list until he came to a name he recognized. He smiled and held up the list for Arthur to see. “I want her.”

  “Angela Coleman?” Arthur asked. “Quite a surprising choice. You do realize that she is about your age. Not that there is anything wrong with being forty-something.”

  “She is an ex-agent,” Evan said. “And she is a fifth-degree black belt in four different forms of martial arts. I pity anyone of any age that messes with her.”

  “Then it is done,” Arthur said, standing up from his chair. “We’ll send her over to your house this afternoon. Is there anything else on your mind? Tomorrow’s mission perhaps? Your first mission in a while.”

  “Piece of cake,” Evan said as he stood to leave. “Thank you for your time.”

  ………………………….

  Melina sat on the school bus looking out the window. Her dad could drop her and her brother Travis off at school in the morning, but he was unable to get off work early enough to pick them up. That meant that they were forced to take the bus on the way home. Their neighbor, Mrs. Baker was kind enough to volunteer to watch them until her dad got home from work. She would not accept any money either. Mrs. Baker said that since her husband had died, it was just lovely to have someone else in the house.

  Melina had been sitting on the bus for a while already when she spied Jean leaving the school building. For some reason, the school dismissed the advanced classes early, so each day Melina got to the bus five minutes before everyone else. It worked out well as she could get a decent seat, within the bounds of the seating hierarchy that existed on the bus, of course.

  The back of the bus was the top of the hierarchy. It was populated by the recognized popular crowd as well as any juniors or seniors that were not thought of as total geeks. There did not tend to be many juniors and seniors that rode the bus as anyone that had a driver’s license or that had a friend with a license wanted no part of the bus scene. Technically, what was considered the back of the bus for popularity purposes extended forward to include the four rows up to, but not including, the emergency exit row. The large section of middle rows was populated by the anonymous nobodies. The average student. These kids were not particularly popular, but were not notorious for just how unpopular they were. The notoriously
unpopular sat at the very front. It worked out well as they needed to be near the bus driver, so they would not be picked on by those in the back.

  Melina was sitting in the emergency exit row. Not because she wanted to be in the first row adjacent to the popular back section, but because Jean was claustrophobic and felt better if she sat where there was an exit. She made Melina promise not to tell anyone about it.

  Jean boarded the bus and made her way toward the back. “Excuse me, madam. Is this seat taken?” she said as she plopped down in the seat next to Melina.

  Melina looked down her nose at Jean and gave her a prim look. “Not at all. By all means, madam. Please sit down. I should welcome the company.”

  “When did you get a British accent?” Jean asked.

  “About the same time you started referring to people as madam.”

  They both smiled. They went through this every day in one form or another. It was their usual.

  “So,” Jean started. “Is there anything else to report on the Alex front?”

  “No,” Melina said. “We have physics in the morning, but we have just that one class together in the afternoon. We sit close together, but there was no opportunity to talk in class today. Frerking lectured the whole time. That lady is so dull she could kill me with her voice.”

  “Did you get to talk at all?” Jean asked.

  “I talked to him for a few minutes after class,” Melina said. “We are going to get together at my house sometime this week to start work on our project.”

  Jean smiled. “Just let me know what day. I’ll come over and help you two out. Wink. Wink.”

  “Uh, no thank you Miss Jean,” Melina said, with full eye roll. “I think that I can handle this myself. We are not getting together tonight, why don’t you come over and hang out. ”

  Jean shook her head. “Can’t. My mom invited the ladies that she plays cards with over tonight, and she asked if I would help her out. How about this weekend. You have any plans?”

  “Why, yes I do,” Melina said. “You will never guess what my dad and I are going to do.”

  “You’re finally going to visit the History of Barbeque Museum downtown?”

  Melina smiled. “Uh, no. I can’t believe that you went to that.”

  “What can I say,” Jean said. “I loves me some barbeque. I can’t believe that you were born in Texas and have not been there. I thought it was required of the natives.”

  Melina grabbed Jean by the arm. “My dad is going to practice driving with me this weekend.”

  “Whoa,” Jean said. “This is huge for your dad.”

  “Yeah,” Melina said. “My driver education instructor sent home a note that said that if I did not practice at home that I was in danger of not passing the class. I’m trying not to push my dad too hard about it, but he just needs to stop worrying about me so much. It seems like he is afraid of everything.”

  “Well. It sounds like things might be working out for him,” Jean said. “Just go with it for now.”

  Melina looked away in imagination. “I can see it now. I’ll get my license. My dad will let me use the car, and we can escape the hell that is this bus ride. Won’t that be awesome?”

  Jean did not respond. Instead, she looked toward the front of the bus. “Isn’t that your little brother getting on the bus? He’s in seventh grade.”

  “Yeah,” Melina said, looking at the front of the bus. “As part of the Castle Grant that he won, he is going to be taking a few classes here at the high school a couple of days a week. One of the teachers comes and picks him up from his school. They are apparently setting up some new lab here just for him. Today is his first day.”

  Travis made his way up the aisle of the bus and stopped when he saw Melina and Jean.

  “Hey there bro,” Melina said. “How was your first day?”

  “Terrible,” he said. “I spent most of the day getting introduced to everyone and watching them set up the lab. I didn’t get anything done.”

  Jean patted the seat across the aisle from her. “Well, little dude, have a seat and join us for the ride home.”

  Travis did not like being called ‘little dude’. He knew that he was a little smaller than the other kids in his grade were, but he still thought comments that drew attention to it were demeaning. It seemed to him that no one else was offered a greeting using a euphemism for one of his or her physical traits. No one said, Hey man-boob, how are you doing? Or Unibrow, my man! What’s up?

  “Thank you,” he said. “But I am going to the back. There is a large bench seat back there. Maybe I can get a quick nap.”

  The girls looked at each other and started to laugh.

  “No, seriously,” he said. “I can fall asleep pretty much anywhere.”

  “That’s not what we are laughing about,” Melina said. “You can’t just sit anywhere. Especially the back.”

  Travis arched his brow in confusion. “What? Are there assigned seats? Nobody told me what my seat was.”

  “It’s not like that,” Jean said, in a half whisper. “Only certain people sit in the back if you know what I mean.”

  A look of understanding crossed Travis’s face. “Oh. You mean the learning challenged kids sit in the back?” he whispered back.

  Melina smiled. “In a manner of speaking.”

  “The popular kids!” Jean whispered a little louder. “They sit in the back.”

  “Ohhh, I get it now,” Travis said, nodding his head. “Popular. In the back. I should fit right in then.”

  Travis turned and headed for the back. Jean turned to Melina. “You are not going to let your brother sit back there, are you? They will eat him alive.”

  Melina looked at Jean and then toward the back. Travis had taken off his shoes, and now he was stretched out on the long back seat. He was using his backpack as a pillow, and he was well on his way to sleep.

  “We are right here,” Melina said. “At the first sign of any trouble, I will go back and get him. He needs to see how things work here.”

  The relative silence of the bus was interrupted by a small commotion toward the front. Ellen Barrow and a few of her minions were getting on the bus. Ellen didn’t have her driver’s license either, and her parents didn’t let her ride in the car of any of her fellow students, so she had to ride the bus. Every day she took out this misfortune on the poor souls at the front by making a few rude comments about their clothing or hair as she passed through to the back.

  She stopped when she got to Melina and Jean. “I heard that you are Alex Winfield’s partner for the magnetism lab.”

  “Yes,” Melina said, with mock dread. “I am going to be forced to spend hours at a time in close contact with him. Oh, the horror.”

  Ellen smirked. “Laugh now, Roberts. I told you that he was way out of your league. It’s just a matter of time before he-”

  Ellen looked toward the back for the first time.

  “What is that thing in the back row?” she said as she moved toward the back of the bus.

  She stood over Travis as one of her gang poked at him. He opened his eyes and slowly sat up.

  “Who are you and why did you wake me up?” he said indignantly as he sat up.

  “Wait, how old are you?” Ellen said as she got a better look at him.

  “I am in the seventh grade,” Travis said. “I take classes here a few days a week.”

  “What are you doing back here?” Ellen snapped.

  Travis got that confused look on his face again. “I thought it was obvious that I was taking a nap. You know, lying down. Eyes closed. What do they teach here? Sheesh.”

  Melina stifled an audible laugh. Ellen was not smiling. “You don’t belong back here!” she said with a raised voice.

  “I was told that there were no assigned seats and that I could sit anywhere on the bus that I wanted,” Travis said as he looked around the back.

  Ellen pointed right at him. “Look little boy. Only certain people are allowed back here. I would suggest that you
get your little seventh grade butt out of that seat and move to the front of the bus.”

  This was it Melina thought. Time to get ready to comfort her little brother as he slinked away from the back. Travis, however, had other ideas.

  He arched his brow and displayed his angry face. “Listen, toots. I don’t know who you are, but you should get to know me. My name is Travis Roberts. I won a Castle Grant this year. Do you know what that is?

  Ellen and her minions looked at each other. None of them had the answer.

  “I didn’t think so. It is a grant given to the top five middle school students in the country. That may not impress you, but here is the sweet part. It comes with a stipend of 250,000 dollars to be spent at the school that I attend.”

  Ellen rolled her eyes. “Big deal, so you won a prize.”

  “Focus here, lady,” Travis continued. “You are missing the sweet part. The 250,000 dollars. That pays for three teachers and a whole science classroom full of expensive new equipment. At the school that I attend. All I have to do is call up Principal Kalis, and tell her that I am transferring to another high school because the environment is too hostile at this school. At that point, she has a couple of choices. She could let me, the teachers, and all of the science equipment go down the street to another high school. Or she could eliminate the hostility by sending the hostility to another high school down the street. I have her on speed dial. Number seven. Why don’t we ask her? I’m sure she is still in her office.”

  Travis grabbed his backpack, took out his phone, and started pressing buttons on the screen.

  “There is no need to call Principal Kalis,” Ellen said, the words sounding high pitched and nervous. “Continue your nap, please. We’ll sit over here in this row.”

  Travis put his phone back in his backpack, punched it a few times to shape it into a pillow and then he lay back down.

  Melina and Jean looked at each other with their mouths agape.