The Agent's Daughter (28 page)

“
That’s it,” he said.
“Should be just a few moments.”

No one said anything as the three of them
began to watch the monitor. The lone indication that anything was
happening was the skull was now slowly turning on the screen.

After ten minutes had passed without any
sign of progress, Angela and Alex began to have their doubts that
Travis was going to have any luck finding the password. They both
stepped back behind him and gave each other a look that said one of
them should stop him and give up.

Angela volunteered and stepped forward and
put her hand on Travis’s shoulder. “Travis, honey. I don’t
think-“

“
Okay. We’re in,” Travis
said in a calm voice as he sat up in the chair.

Angela looked over at the monitor. The
receiver program was continuing past the password screen and had
already begun to load a map of the area.

Travis got up from the chair and stood next
to Angela and Alex. “Sorry that took so long. Mom must have had a
pretty strong password.”

“
Dude, that was awesome,”
Alex said as he gave Travis a guy-smack on the shoulder with his
hand.

Angela gave him a giant hug. “Awesome
indeed.”

She moved to the chair,
sat down in front of the receiver keyboard and began typing and
using the mouse until she had the program set up to monitor for
agent watch transmissions. Then she clicked on a
Start
button and the
receiver began its scan of the area.

“
I have it set up to scan
an area that encompasses a fifty mile radius from downtown. It
should take a few minutes.”

Angela leaned in close as the scan started
redrawing the map from the top of the screen. Her eyes widened as
the scan displayed the area around downtown. There was a small red
dot on the map just east of downtown.

“
I see something, but this
is not good,” Angela said. “The dot should be green, but this dot
is red. That means that the person wearing the watch has set the
distress beacon.”

Angela turned to Alex and gave him a look
that said she was sorry. He was right about something being
wrong.

She continued. “Agents set the distress
beacon when they are in immediate danger and need to get out
fast.”

“
Can it be activated by
accident?” Alex asked.

“
That can’t happen,”
Angela said. “There is an exact sequence of buttons on the watch
that must be pressed to activate the distress beacon.”

She zoomed in on the area around the red
dot. The red dot grew in size on the map, and more information was
displayed in a bubble attached to it.

“
Well I’ll be,” Angela
said to the screen. “She still has it.”

“
Still has what?” Travis
said. “And why does the red dot have my mom’s name next to
it?”

“
That’s your mother’s
watch but your sister is wearing it!” Angela said. “I caught Melina
with it yesterday and told her to put it back. Apparently she
didn’t. Way to go, girl!”

“
So does that dot tell us
where they are?” Alex asked.

“
Not quite,” Angela said.
“Downtown is about thirty miles away. At that distance, the
receiver can only pinpoint a watch to the square mile. We need to
be closer to downtown to get an exact location. We’ll have to drive
down there.”

Alex and Travis looked at each other and
then back at Angela.

“
Let’s go,” they said
together.

Angela unplugged the receiver and put it
back in its case.

“
Take this case upstairs,”
Angela said to Travis and Alex. “I will be up there in a
moment.”

As the boys scrambled up the stairs, Angela
walked over to one of the cabinets and opened the door. She reached
in, grabbed a small wooden case and opened it. She took the gun
from the case as well as a few extra clips and put them in her
pocket. As she was walking away from the cabinet, she paused and
went back. She grabbed the two LREDs and headed for the stairs.

Melina stood at the sink washing her hands,
trying to clean the filth of the room off them. And it was not the
first time. It seemed like everything she touched was covered in
thick dust or some sticky substance. Of course, there was no soap,
so she did her best to clean them as she rubbed her hands together
under the water.

As Melina focused on her hands, her eyes
were drawn to the water stream. She thought her eyes were playing
tricks on her because the water had stopped flowing straight down.
It was now flowing sideways at an angle as it left the faucet, like
gravity somehow had shifted. She stopped rubbing her hands and just
stood there watching the water stream. It continued to flow at an
angle further and further to the left until it almost flowed out of
the sink. But before it did, it slowly straightened out and then
began moving toward the right. Melina turned around to yell to her
dad that the water in the sink was acting weird when she noticed
that he was standing right behind her waving one of his arms all
around. She looked back at the water and saw that the water was
moving in unison with the movements of his arm.

“
How are you doing that?”
she asked.

“
I am a descendant of the
great Poseidon,” he said with a deep and powerful sounding voice.
“I have dominion over all water!”

She gave her dad a look that said she was
not amused. Again.

“
Okay,” he said holding
out his arm. “It’s the watch. I have the magnetic bullet deflector
on. You see water is a dipole, so the individual molecules have
both a positive and negative orientation. Just like metal does.
This means that water molecules are affected by a magnetic field.
The difference in the force exerted on one side of the molecule
versus the other causes it to move away from the field. Cool trick,
huh? Fun at parties. Amuse your friends.”

“
He’s a real hoot around
the lab,” David chimed in.

Melina held out her hand. “Can I try …?”

She stopped talking. Her dad’s smiling
expression suddenly turned serious as he turned around and walked
over to the middle of the room. Melina had seen him do this before,
so she looked up at the vent in the ceiling as he did.

“
They’re coming,” he said,
now strictly business. “Both of you come over here under the vent
and listen carefully to the sound of these footsteps. Try and
determine how many there are.”

The three of them stood under the vent,
looking up at it and not saying a word. The sound was low and
muffled at first and then became louder with each passing second.
Then, the sound of the footsteps increased in clarity until they
became distinct from each other.

“
I hear three sets of
footsteps,” David said.

“
I hear three, too,”
Melina said.

“
Three it is,” Evan said.
“From the cadence, two of them are the same two that visited us the
last time. William is not with them. Everyone to their places. Ten
seconds.”

Melina ran to her position along the side
wall behind the cabinet next to the sink. Evan and David had moved
it out a few feet away from the wall. This was her dad’s idea,
giving her something to hide behind at the beginning of the fight
when it was anticipated that there might be shooting. He wanted to
move all of the shelf units over too, and surround her with them.
But Melina put her foot down, so they just went with one cabinet.
They did make sure that the cabinet had an outlet behind it, so she
could still plug in the extension cord when it was time. She
reached down, grabbed the end of the extension cord off the ground,
and held it near the outlet.

David moved to his position behind the shelf
unit. It had been moved right next to the area around the door just
outside the door’s swing radius. The top shelf was filled with the
shelves from several of the other units to make it top-heavy and
easy to tip over.

Evan walked to a spot in across the doorway
from David’s shelf unit where would be behind the door when it
opened inward. At his feet was a paint can that had been filled to
the top with water.

The sound of the footsteps continued to get
louder and became a mesmerizing staccato as they approached the
outside of the door.

Then they stopped.

Melina peered from behind the cabinet and
focused on the doorknob. She could see the shiny metal stub of the
deadbolt that stretched between the door and the doorjamb. She
listened closely as she heard the jangling of keys being pulled out
of a pocket and moved toward the key hole. Then there was a loud
click as the metal stub of the deadbolt retreated into the door.
The door was unlocked. Melina turned to the outlet and forced in
the plug.

In an instant, there was a loud wail from
the other side of the door followed immediately by a loud thump as
the person on the other side of the door hit the floor. Melina
looked over at her dad. He gave her a thumb’s up and then motioned
for her to unplug the extension cord. Evan watched as she yanked
the cord out of the outlet. Then he stepped forward, grabbed the
doorknob and threw open the door.

As Evan expected, he saw
the large man from the earlier visit, only now he was bent over an
unconscious man lying on the floor, trying to figure out what was
wrong with him. Evan could see the unconscious man’s face, but he
did not recognize him. He looked past the large man and saw that
the little nervous guy from earlier was in his assigned position
across the hall. Again, he was leaning on the wall across from the
door with his gun drawn in a sideways
gangsta
style. The large man looked
over at Evan and stood up. He was not holding a weapon, but Evan
could see the outline of a shoulder holster inside the man’s
jacket. Evan looked the large man in the eye and assumed a fighting
stance with his arms up and his fists clenched. This made the large
man squint and put his hands together to crack his
knuckles.

“
I’m gonna break you
apart,” the large man said as he stepped over the unconscious man
and made his way toward Evan.

“
Go bust him up, man,” the
little nervous guy said.

Evan kept his fists up but backed slowly
into the room and away from the door. The large man followed him
into the room. After a few steps backward, Evan stopped and
extended the index finger of one of his clenched fists.

That was the sign. Suddenly, the cabinet
next to the door tipped forward and crashed down onto the large
man, knocking him to the floor and coming to rest on top of him.
Evan stepped forward, and prepared for the man to push the cabinet
up off himself and begin to fight. However, it was clear from the
large man’s closed eyes and the lack of movement that he was not
getting up.

Evan looked out the door at the little
nervous guy across the hall. His eyes were wide open in terror as
he realized that he was now alone. Evan could see in the man’s eyes
what was coming next, and he dove for the closest cover available
behind the open door. He tried to shut the door, but it was blocked
by the cabinet on the floor. In an instant, the hallway resonated
with the sound of gunfire as the little nervous guy fired
indiscriminately into the room. At less than ten feet away, the man
was too close for the magnetic bullet deflector to be much
help.

As the nervous man fired into the room, he
didn’t move forward, and he continued to lean against the wall
across the hall. Evan listened carefully from his position behind
the door, and he counted each of the bullets as they were fired. He
knew that a standard semi-automatic pistol held fifteen rounds.
Those that like to live a little dangerously keep an extra round
live in the chamber. Evan figured this guy to be the type.

Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen
bullets fired. Then silence.

Evan looked over at where Melina was hiding.
She appeared unfazed as she poked her head from behind the cabinet
and waved at him. He looked over at David and saw that the bullets
had somehow missed him too.

Evan could hear no movement out in the hall.
He moved to the left a little, so he could peer into the hall
through the crack between the door hinges. The little nervous guy
was not reloading. He was just standing there with wild eyes
looking into the room. His gun was still drawn. Evan could rush
him, but there might still be one bullet left. He slowly bent down
and grabbed the handle of the paint can by his feet. In one swift
motion, he sprang up and swung the paint can around the end of the
door, letting it fly into the hallway.

Evan watched as the can sailed across the
hall and struck the little nervous guy square in the chest with a
monstrous thud. The liquid in the can sprayed all over the hall
like a watery explosion and the impact sent the little guy reeling
against the wall. As he hit the wall, he involuntarily fired a
round into the ceiling. Number sixteen. Without hesitation, Evan
took three quick steps and then launched himself across the hall
hitting the nervous guy in the midsection with a roundhouse kick.
As the man bent over and groaned, Evan kneed him in the forehead
and he crumpled to the ground.

Evan reached down and grabbed the gun from
the man’s hand. He began to search the man’s pockets for extra
bullet cartridges when another shot rang out and hit the wall just
above his head. He turned around and saw the man that earlier had
been shocked by the doorknob. The man was awake and was now
pointing a gun at him. He looked like he was still a bit
disoriented, so Evan was unsure if the shot the man fired had just
missed badly or was a warning shot.