David walked up to Evan, leaned in and whispered. “Okay. What?”
“Watch this.”
Evan removed the watch from his wrist. He pushed a series of buttons on the bezel, and then he held the watch in front of his face. Cupping his other hand in front of the watch, he talked into it as if it were a microphone.
He walked over to where Melina was sitting, and pushed a button on the watch face. Then he set the watch on the ground behind the empty paint can that was lying on the ground a few feet away from Melina. After he had finished, he walked back to David and stood next to him. The two of them stared at Melina.
Thirty seconds later, the room reverberated with the sound of a loud voice.
Did someone here order a pepperoni pizza?
Melina jumped to her feet and got into a fighting stance, with her arms up ready to strike. She glared at the empty paint can where the loud voice was coming from. From behind her, she heard her dad and David laughing and only then realized that they had played a trick on her. She reached down, picked up the can, and saw the watch on the ground behind it. Still holding the can, she walked toward the others with a look of anger on her face.
“Uh… Evan,” David said as he backed up. “I don’t think that she thought that was funny.”
Evan watched her as she approached, but he held his ground. He had upset Melina in a way that he had not anticipated.
“What’s wrong, kiddo?” he said as he put one hand on her shoulder. “This isn’t something that I thought would bother you.”
“It’s just … that I’m scared. I do not know what to expect and then you bozos play a joke on me. I’m sorry. I’m not in the mood for that.”
“Scared, you say,” Evan said, crossing his arms and smiling. “Tell me something. When you heard that voice coming from behind that paint can, what was the first thing that you did? Did you run to the other side of the room to get away from it? Did you scream?”
“Ummm,” Melina said as she looked over at the wall and tried to remember.
Evan crouched into a fighting stance, a mean look on his face. “You looked like this. You looked as if you were going to pummel whatever was making that noise. That is not the look of a scared person. That is the look of a person that is unafraid.”
“Well, umm,” she said, still unconvinced.
Evan put his hands on both of Melina’s shoulders. “I have another confession to make.”
“You already told me about you and Mom,” Melina said.
“This is not about us, it is about you,” Evan said. “Do you remember, earlier, me telling you about the Stress Environment Simulator at the agency?”
“The one from take-your-daughter-to work day?” Melina asked.
“That’s the one,” Evan said. “When you were in fourth grade, you came to your first daughter-at-work day, and they hooked you up to the simulator along with all of the other daughters. But your test was different from the others. You scored so well on the basic test that is given to all of the daughters that they increased the stress level. And increased it. And increased it some more. By the time that they were finished, you were taking the same stress test that they use to evaluate potential agents.”
“So how did I do?” Melina asked.
“You scored better than I did,” Evan said.
“You became kind of a legend around the agency,” David said. “Evan’s ten-year-old kid, the one that dominated the simulator test.”
“Of course, every year you do a little better,” Evan said. “You may have noticed the crowd that gathers when you start your test. It has to be seen to be believed. The head of the agency asks me about you all of the time. He thinks that you will ultimately make an excellent field agent. I do too. That is why I enrolled you in krav maga classes. Those classes are open only to agents.”
“I don’t feel very dominating now,” Melina said.
“Look at me,” Evan said. “The response that you just had to that watch cannot be taught or learned. Either you have it or you don’t. And you have it. It is a part of you. I am confident with you at my side. You will do what needs to be done when the time comes.”
“If it means anything, I was pretty scared a moment ago when I saw you coming at us,” David said, only half-joking.
Melina stepped back away from her dad and stood up straight. She felt better. A calmness was starting to settle over her, and she began to feel an increased sense of confidence. She felt as though she could take on the world.
Evan could see that Melina was going to be okay. He put his arm around her. “You know, earlier this week, I used that recording feature on my watch to distract someone that was holding a gun on me?”
Melina looked at him with keen interest. “Someone was holding a gun on you? Can you tell me about it?”
Evan looked up and began talking. “I remember it as if it were yesterday …”
“Excuse me,” David said, rolling his eyes and walking away. “I’ve already heard this story.
………………………….
Travis’s bedroom door was closed, so Angela knocked and then waited patiently in the hallway for him to answer. Alex stood just behind her.
“Yes?” Travis said as he opened the door a crack and peered out. He sounded annoyed that he had been interrupted from whatever it was he was doing. When Travis spotted Alex, he opened the door a little more, and added an additional greeting to Alex, “Dude, what’s up?”
“I have a question for you,” Angela said sternly, trying to get him to focus on her. “Is there a room in the house that your mother used to spend a lot of time in? Like for several hours with the door shut?”
It was a strange question, but Travis’ face lit up as if she had asked him a question that he had always wondered about.
“Yeah,” he answered. “Pretty much the only room in the house that Mom spent that much time in was that small office downstairs. That’s what she called it, but I wouldn’t call it an office. It’s just a spare bedroom that has a small desk with a computer on it. It also has a few recliner chairs and a large bookcase against the wall. She used to spend hours on end in that room with the door shut. When I asked Mom what she did in there, she said she sometimes just needed some time alone to read.”
“Could you show me this room?” Angela said, touching his shoulder and ushering him toward the hallway.
Travis knew something was up, but Angela gave him a look that meant she did not have time for questions. He started down the hallway, and Angela and Alex followed. He led them down the stairs and into a small room just off the bottom of the stairs. Travis was right. There was not much to the room. There was a large bookcase that lined one entire wall and a few large, comfortable chairs with a small table between them. A computer sat on a tiny desk in the corner. What was a surprise to Angela was the size of the room. It was smaller than a normal bedroom. And it did not have any windows or a closet. Like it was a small study.
Angela paused to think. If she wanted any more help from Travis, she was going to have to tell him about his parents’ real lives. This was a momentous step that was always handled by the parent of the child. And it could all be for naught. But her gut told her that Evan, Melina, and David were in trouble. Evan had told her earlier in the week that he and Laura had planned to tell both the kids the previous summer, but he just could not find a way to tell the kids by himself.
Angela turned to Travis. “Okay. I haven’t much time, and there is no easy way to tell you, so I’m just going to tell you.”
Travis leaned away from Angela and gave her a confused look, unsure what she was trying to say. Angela paused, now unsure how to tell him.
“Dude, your folks are spies,” Alex interjected, wanting to get to the point. “They work for a super-secret organization called the Executive Reconnaissance Agency.”
“They work directly for the President of the United States,” Angela said. “Your father is an agent that travels the world infiltrating other countries to gain
intelligence and up until her accident, your mother worked in the group that supplied him with weapons and gadgets.”
Travis stared at Angela, mouth wide open.
She shrugged. “Your parents started working at the agency before you and your sister were born. In fact, that’s where they met.”
Travis thought for a moment and then burst out laughing. “Okay, okay. You got me. Very funny. Did my dad and sister put you up to this?”
Angela grimaced and sighed. “We are not trying to play a joke on you.”
“You guys know my dad,” Travis said. “He’s a total geek. He writes software for a living. I don’t think he’s ever been out of the country. And my mom totally doesn’t even work.”
There was more silence as Angela and Alex struggled to think of the words that would convince Travis that what they were saying was true.
Then Angela got an idea. “Hold on a moment,” she said.
She left the room and returned with her purse. She laid it on one of the chairs, reached in, and pulled out her phone.
“I have some photos stored on an online cloud server that I want you to see,” Angela said as she punched buttons on the phone’s screen.
After bringing up the server site, she began to thumb through the photos. She stopped on one of them and handed the phone to Travis.
“This is a picture of your father about five years ago when we were on a mission in Egypt together. He’s the tall one in front of the pyramid.”
Angela thumbed to another page while Travis still held onto the phone. “Here is a picture of your father in Afghanistan, taken about three years ago. I just had to take a picture of him with that village elder’s ceremonial hat on.”
Travis lowered the phone and looked at Angela with a blank expression. Angela feared the worst. It is hard on a child to be told that his folks have lied to him all these years.
After a few moments of silence, Travis was the first to speak. “This is awesome! My folks are not dorks! They’re spies! Do they have the killer gadgets and weapons and stuff?”
“That’s the reason we are in this room,” Angela said as she smiled, relieved that Travis took the news about his parents so well.
“We need to find your mom’s home office,” Alex said, again impatient. “It may have a piece of equipment that we need.”
Travis looked around the room. “We’re standing in her home office.”
“Not quite,” Angela said as she put her hand on Travis’s shoulder. “You see, your mother wanted to quit working for the agency and stay home when you and your sister were born. But the President asked her not to quit.”
“The President?” Travis asked, raising his voice. “Of the United States?”
“Yes, that one,” Angela said. “The President authorized your mother to have a satellite office installed in her house. That way she could work at home. Her office would have much of the same equipment that she used at work. The one requirement that the agency had was that the office be able to be sealed off when anyone else was home. That was not a problem because your folks were already having a house built. They just added the office into the plans. It is most likely attached to this room.”
“Attached to this room? You mean that my mom has a secret lair built into this house?”
“Well… yes,” Angela said. “I guess you could call it that. Cool, huh. Kinda like Batman.”
“And you are her young ward,” Alex said, laughing.
Angela gave Alex a stern look, and then she turned back to Travis. “Here is the situation. Your father, your sister and Alex’s father are long past overdue to have either returned home or to have called. It may be nothing, or they could be in some danger. Either way, we want to do what we can to investigate it. Your father has a watch given to him by the agency that can communicate his exact location using GPS coordinates. We hope that a piece of equipment that can receive the coordinates is in your mother’s office.”
“Okay,” Travis said. “Open the secret door and let’s go into her lair and get it.”
Angela grimaced. “Unfortunately, your mother never told me how to get into her office.”
“So what are we going to do?” Travis asked.
“There must be a button or switch somewhere in this room that opens the passageway. This room isn’t that large, so let’s just start looking around. Look behind and under everything.”
They all fanned out into the room. Travis lay on the ground as he looked under one of the chairs. Angela examined the table and Alex started looking behind the books on the bookshelf.
“Nothing under this chair,” Travis said as he slid over toward the other chair.
Alex started on the top shelf of the bookcase and worked his way all the way across to the other side, taking each book off the shelf and looking behind it.
“Check out this funky bookend,” he said as he picked it up. “It’s in the shape of a giant open hand.”
Travis stood up after finding nothing under the second chair. He knew the bookend that Alex was holding. It was one of several bookends on the shelf, but it was his mom’s favorite. It was up on a shelf that was too high for him to reach. With good reason.
“What’s that noise?” Alex said as he looked at Angela and Travis. A dull, grinding sound filled the room.
Neither answered him. They were too busy watching the bookcase behind Alex slowly move into the wall to the left.
“I think you found it,” Angela said.
As the bookcase disappeared into the wall, it revealed not another room but the top of a staircase.
“Our house has a basement?” Travis said.
“I guess it does,” Angela said as she moved toward it. “Let’s go.”
Angela flipped the light switch at the top of the stairs and the three of them headed down. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, they stopped and surveyed the room. The stairs led to an open room the size of a large living room. It had the appearance of a mini version of the tools group laboratory at the agency. One wall was lined with tall cabinets filled with spare parts and tools. The opposite wall was lined with a long workbench that had several pieces of electronic diagnostic equipment on it. Each piece of equipment was connected to a separate small device with a tangle of wires and probes. It was clear Evan had not disturbed the room as it still appeared as though Laura was in the middle of debugging her latest gadget creation. In the center of the room, there was a desk with a monitor and keyboard on it connected to a computer on the floor below. Angela recognized the computer as the type that they issued to people that did some work at home. It had an encrypted direct link to the agency.
“All right,” Angela said. “The receiver that we are trying to find looks just like a regular old laptop computer. It is a little thicker because it has a flat GPS transponder affixed to the bottom. Get to looking. Call out if you find it.”
Travis walked over to the desk and began looking in the drawers. Alex and Angela both began searching the cabinets, starting at opposite ends of the room.
“What have we here?” Alex said as he pulled something out of the cabinet.
“Did you find it?” Travis said.
“No, but I found a couple of shotguns,” Alex said as he held one of them up.
Angela looked over at him. “Those are not shotguns. They are LREDs. Be careful.”
“They’re what?” Alex replied.
“Just put it back and keep looking.”
Alex closed that cabinet and moved on to the next one. Travis had searched the desk and was now looking on the shelves below the workbenches. He spotted a small metal case on top of some boxes near the back of one of the shelves. He grabbed it, pulled it out from underneath the workbench, and opened it.
“I think I may have something here,” he said.
Angela crossed the room and looked over Travis’s shoulder into the case.
“Way to go, Travis! That’s the receiver that we were searching for,” she said as she reached in and pulled it ou
t of the case.
She reached into the case again, grabbed the power cord, and then rushed over to the desk, setting the receiver down on it. She plugged it into the power strip below the desk and flipped open the monitor. Then she sat down in the desk chair and pushed the power button. The receiver whirred to life.
“This will take a while to boot up,” she said, leaning back in the chair.
After a few moments, an operating system logo flashed onto the screen.
“Hey,” Travis said. “I thought that this was a GPS receiver? This thing boots up just like a computer.”
“Like I said before, the machine is a laptop computer,” Angela said. “The receiver is run as an application program that accesses the GPS transponder strapped to the bottom.”
Travis nodded acknowledgement, and the three of them continued to stare at the receiver’s screen as it went through the familiar, long boot sequence. When it finished, Angela located the launch icon for the receiver on the desktop and double-clicked on it. A window sprang open and filled the screen. Angela moved closer to it to read the small text. After a moment, she let out a sigh and sat back in the chair.
“What’s the matter?” Alex said.
“This receiver program is password protected,” she said. “Probably because the receiver is located in a house and not locked up at the agency. And I don’t know Laura’s password, so we are kinda out of luck.”
Alex grimaced as if he had been hit in the stomach.
Angela leaned back in toward the receiver. “Let me shut this thing down, so we can go back upstairs.”
“Don’t shut it off yet,” Travis said.
Angela stood up and faced Travis. “Do you know the password?”
“No. But I might be able to figure out what it is. Is the computer connected to the internet?”
“It’s got a wireless connection just like any other computer, but your mother had a direct wireline to the agency, so it wouldn’t be configured for your home wireless network. Why do you ask?”
Travis paused. He was not sure he should continue. “Well… I have been working with some of the people in my hacker club on a password prediction algorithm. You know, to help me to break into other people’s computers. If I can connect to the internet, I can try it out on the receiver.”
The Agent's Daughter Page 19
