Chapter Six
“It’s…” Kim scratched the side of her head as she looked down at the object Ron had discovered. “What is it?”
The item in question was resting between them in a small crevice formed by two granite boulders. It was a container of some sort, about half the size of the survival kit they had discovered earlier and made of what looked like high-impact plastic. The general make reminded her a lot of the cases people use to carry valuables such as electronics, camera equipment, …and guns. At this point, she felt, none of the above would have done them much good. Next to her, Ron appeared equally stumped.
“You think it came from the plane?” He asked, looking around at their desolate surroundings.
“No…” Kim shook her head. The survival kit they found the night before had several dents and scratches on it from the landing. From what she could see of the plastic case before them, it looked like it had been delicately placed between the rocks. “It looks like someone placed it here deliberately.”
The idea that other people had been there recently should have had her jumping for joy, but for some reason it gave her a nervous feeling deep inside her gut. Ron, apparently, felt the same way.
“So that means someone else has been here. That’s good… right?” He rubbed the back of his neck nervously and looked from Kim down to the case. “How long you think it’s been here?”
“I don’t know,” Kim shrugged. “Less than a week for sure.”
“Well,” Ron urged. “We gonna see what’s inside… I kinda doubt someone would put a bomb or something up here.”
Kim knelt down and reached into the crevice to retrieve the case, but recoiled at the last moment, shooting her friend a suspicious glance. “Ron… what were you doing when you found this? You didn’t… on this… did you?”
The blond cocked his head and gave her a confused stare before the concept reached him and his face turned crimson. “Oh, no-no-no!” He assured her. “I was on my way back from… y’know… I looked down and there it was.”
She allowed her suspicious gaze to linger for a few more seconds before she reached in and pulled the case out, placing it on another rock between them.
“Well…” Ron asked after several seconds of inaction from Kim. “You opening it or am I?”
Kim brought her apprehensive gaze from the small black case and shrugged nervously. “I don’t know… what if it is a bomb or something…”
Ron let out a sigh and stepped in front of the case. “I guess I just got promoted from ‘distraction’ to ‘bomb-squad’ huh?” Kim watched anxiously as her partner undid the latches and cracked the case open. After a few seconds of silence, the blond turned his face to meet Kim’s; his expression was one of utter confusion. “Uh…”
“What?”
He held the case up for her to see. Inside the foam interior of the container was a bag of what appeared to be…
“It’s full of coffee beans…” The confused boy observed.
Back in the living room of the Possible residence the tension had nearly reached its breaking point. Only the occasional muted ring of a government cell phone and the continuing drone of the television news program broke the dead silence from the occupants.
It had been close to forty-five minutes since the FBI had muscled their way upstairs and, since then, the families had only seen them on occasion, usually when one of Agent Pollard’s lackeys would cross the entryway with their arms full of Kim’s personal belongings.
“Why do they need to take her monitor?” Ann moaned as one of the agents carried her daughter’s computer monitor out the door to his waiting car. “What information could they possibly obtain from that?”
“Honey, please…” James warned, placing an arm around his wife and pulling her closer. “They have a warrant, they can pretty much take what they want.”
“B-but why?” Ann sobbed. “Why are they treating her like a criminal!” This question was directed not at her husband, but at Dr. Director, who had been standing quietly next to them for some time.
“I don’t know,” The head of Global Justice replied sadly. “But I intend to find out…” She added with venom in her tone.
“Excuse me,” Just as the room once again fell into silence, Agent Pollard reemerged down the stairs from Kim’s room with yet another form in his hand. He walked over toward the grieving doctors and held out the paper for James to retrieve. “We’re done here for now,” He informed them in a condescending tone. “This is a seized property receipt, everything we took from your daughter’s room has been listed here. You can call that number circled on the top in a week or two to see about getting them back.” He then turned to face the Stoppables, who already knew what was coming. “We’re going to check your son’s room now… will we be able to get in, or do you need to unlock the house for us?”
“I don’t think you’ll have a problem getting in,” John Stoppable growled. “It’s up the stairs and to the right… think you can remember that agent?”
“Well I was considering writing it down,” The fed replied cynically. “But I think I’ll go ahead and just remember it.” The young agent turned to leave the room, but Dr. Director blocked his path.
“Excuse me,” She asked, annoyed. “But just what the hell do you think your doing here Sean?”
“I’m conducting an investigation, Betty.” Sean replied, regarding the woman in front of him with contempt and irritation. “Now if you’ll excuse me,” He began to step around the woman. “I have a job to…”
“Now you listen here,” Dr. Director said, pushing the FBI agent back a step and moving to get into his face. Before she could step forward, however, Sean had regained the ground between them and shoved his finger in front of her un-patched eye.
“No you listen Director!” The man hissed. The speed of his attack caught the woman off guard and sent her back against the wall. “You and your ‘organization’ have been the red-headed step-child of this government ever since you were founded back in 2000.” He continued to close the distance between them and leaned forward until he was within inches of the woman’s face. “You were given an unbelievable opportunity, despite your impaired vision and shady family ties, to head up the Justice Department’s new Global Justice network and you blew it! Your one job… one job, was to obtain intelligence data on foreign terror plots against the US and its assets overseas. And what do you do? You train a teenage Langley dropout to speak Latin and praise him as your top agent, and you conduct a three-month in-depth study of the benefits of naked mole rats in combat situations! Meanwhile, the people you’re supposed to be watching manage to obtain flight lessons and fly jumbo jets into our own damn buildings!”
He stood up and took a few steps back so that everyone could hear what he had to say next.
“You, and Global Justice, are a joke… now if you want to stay here and play grief counselor that’s fine. But don’t even think of getting yourself involved in this case or so help me god, I’ll see to it that you’re black-balled by so many organizations you’ll end up working mall security by week’s end.” He once again got right up into the stunned woman’s face. “Are we understood?”
Dr. Director, despite being almost twice as old as the man standing in front of her, stood cowering against the wall. Her facial expression was teetering between fear and rage.
“Are… we… understood?” Sean repeated, this time adding force and volume to each word.
“…Y-yes…” Dr. Director managed to force out.
Sean leaned back and gave her a conceited smile. “Excellent…” He turned and headed for the door. When he reached the hallway, he turned to face her again. “Oh yeah; say ‘hi’ to your brother for me, will you?” With that, he exited the house and left the occupants in a stunned silence.
Exiting the house, Agent Pollard walked across the front lawn to where his associates were waiting next to two black government sedans. All three of them wore sadistic grins on their faces.
“Mr. Humanitarian eh Sean?” Agent Marks commented from his position leaning against the open door of the lead sedan.
“Yeah,” Agent Olmo joked. “You should have kept going man… maybe you could have made her cry.”
Agent Pollard donned a pair of sunglasses and shot his colleagues an annoyed glance. “Yeah-yeah… shut up and get to work processing that crap.” He ordered, pointing to the half-dozen boxes of personal property taken from Kim’s room.
“What about Stoppable’s room?” Marks queried.
“Forget it,” Pollard replied. “He’s the sidekick… he’s useless. Just find the info we need and give me a call if anything new develops.” He turned to Agent Johansson, who was standing beside the second sedan. “You, come with me…” He ordered.
“Where are we going?” The third agent asked.
“According to the Air Force, the last person Team Possible fought was a mad scientist by the alias of ‘Dr. Drakken’… I figure we should go have a talk with him; see what he knows.”
Agents Marks and Olmo both let out a muted chuckle.
“Would that be an ‘investigative’ talk sir… or the kind that makes the US Constitution cry?” Johansson asked sarcastically.
Sean grinned and shrugged his shoulders. “We’ll play it by ear…”
“Coffee beans?” Kim asked, staring at her friend as if he had lost his mind.
“That’s what they look like, see?” He brought the case over and allowed her to examine the contents up close.
Sure enough, inside the foam-lined interior of the case was a large zip lock bag filled with several hundred small beans. They didn’t look like coffee beans, however, their size and shape were different. Whatever was inside of the case resembled hardened kernels of corn with a multicolor spotted hue ranging from black to light brown and tan.
“Those aren’t coffee beans.” She noted.
“How do you know?” Ron asked doubtfully.
“Because coffee beans are bigger…” She pointed out. “And they have a more waxy luster.”
Ron looked down at the mystery beans and then back up at Kim. “Luster? That’s one of those school words I’m supposed to know, isn’t it?”
“’Luster’,” Kim defined. “Refers to its appearance.” She gestured toward the bag of beans in Ron’s hands. “See how those are shiny… almost like glass?”
“Uh-huh…”
“Coffee beans are dull and look like they’re made of wax. They’re also an entirely different shape.”
“So what are they?” Ron asked, taking one more look at the opened case in his hands.
“I don’t know,” Kim admitted hesitantly. “But we may as well take them with us. Who knows, maybe they’re edible.”
She took the case from Ron’s arms and closed it gently before turning and walking back toward their makeshift camp.
“Mystery beans?” Ron shrugged and followed after her. “I guess it still beats cafeteria lady’s cooking…”
“Let’s get packed up and head down to the lake before it gets too late ok?” Kim suggested. “Maybe we can take a shot at fishing…”
“’Take a shot at fishing’…” A wicked grin formed across the blonde’s face as a new idea came to him.
“What?” Kim asked, giving her friend an apprehensive frown.
“Think about it KP… who needs fishing gear and bait when you’ve got a rifle!” Ron announced proudly. Kim gave him a disgusted sigh and shook her head. “What? Well, sure it may get a bit messy… but that’s why you only shoot the big ones and…”
“Ron?” She interrupted sternly.
“Yeah?”
“You start acting like Charlton Heston on me and I’m revoking your rifle privileges… got it?”
Ron gulped nervously and nodded. “Got it…”
“Good.”
“Why are we not flying low?”
Herbert Whittier turned his head slightly and keyed the inter-craft radio button on his control stick. “What’s that chief?”
He was doing his best to make eye contact with the man sitting next to him without taking his eyes completely off the instrument panel of his helicopter.
“I said, ‘why are we not flying low’?” The man seated next to him repeated. He was staring straight ahead and made no attempt to look over at the pilot. Any specific facial expression he may have been making was hidden behind a neatly trimmed beard and oversized pair of aviator sunglasses, giving him an unnervingly calm expression.
Behind them in the helicopter his two associates, whom Herb had yet to learn the names of, sat quietly; conversing with each other in what, to the middle-aged pilot, sounded like Arabic.
“Well,” Herb explained. “That peak up ahead there is Granite Pass. That’s where we’re going. I’m gonna bring us up to ceiling altitude so we can just glide right on in.” He gestured to the area where the large valley beneath them rose steadily to form the peak of Granite Pass; the highest point in the Western area of the park. “If we stay low to the ground it’ll take longer to get there, and the turbulence will be a bit…”
“I don’t care!” The man snapped impatiently. “I want you to fly within 150 feet of the ground at all times. So if you want your money, get your ass down there!” He ordered, pointing toward the ground beneath them.
Herb was not the type of guy who took to being ordered around, even by his paying customers, lightly; but since these three were offering him what amounted to more than half of his son’s college tuition for a one-way trip, he decided to let it drop. It was rather unusual, however, for a customer to request a specific altitude… especially one so low to the ground. It wasn’t that Herb was worried about a collision, he just wasn’t used to someone giving such a reckless order without batting an eye.
With in inward sigh, the forty-six year old bush pilot brought his eyes back to the front of the cabin. “You’re the boss Mr. O’Day.”
Adopting a mischievous grin, Herb eased forward on the control stick and watched the tree-studded ground slowly fill the windshield as the sleek red Aerospatiale went into a controlled dive. If there was one thing he knew would get a rise out of his uptight employer, it was a sudden drop such as this.
After a few seconds, he eased the copter back into level flight just as the needle dipped below 150 feet AGL (Above Ground Level). He turned to spy the reaction of the bearded man and found him to be glaring back at him in a very unsettling manner.
Herb nervously cleared his throat and pointed to the altimeter mounted in front of him. “150 AGL, just like you asked Mr…”
“It’s Odah…” The man interrupted.
“I beg your pardon?”
“My name is ‘Odah’; O-D-A-H, not O’Day. Mispronounce a man’s name once and it is forgivable… but do it again, and it is highly disrespectful.” Though not outwardly noticeable in their earlier short conversations, Herb began to detect a bit of an accent hidden in Mr. Odah’s tone.
“My apologies,” Herb offered. “I have a bit of a problem hearing sometimes… particularly when the wife tells me to do the dishes.” He let out a small chuckle, which was met with a painful silence. After a minute of awkward quiet, Herb decided to give conversation with the strange man another go. “So Mr. Odah, any particular reason you want to stay at 150?”
Unseen to Herb at the time, Odah’s friends both tensed up slightly and shot each other uneasy glances when he asked the question. Odah himself, however, merely smirked and shook his head.
“Above 200 feet and we will be visible to radar.” He stated wryly.
“Actually it’s 500 feet for civilian radar,” Herb corrected. “And you don’t have to worry about that…” He tapped a small digital readout mounted in the center of the chopper’s console. “I switched off our Transponder (Aircraft ID) before we left. Far as the FAA knows, this trip did not happen.”
Odah snorted and relayed something to his friends in Arabic, which elicited a diminutive laugh from each of them.
“I was referring to military radar Mr. Whittier, not civilian.” The man advised.
“Oh…” Herb nodded understandingly, not sure what to make of the man’s bizarre logic. “You seem to have a lot of knowledge about flying Mr. Odah. Are you a pilot too?”
“Years ago, yes, when I was in the Air Force.”
‘Finally, common ground.’ Herb though. “Air Force eh? I got my certification in the service. US Army 18th Cavalry ‘Aircav’.” He announced proudly. “I flew an AH-1 Cobra for almost fifteen years through Panama, Grenada, and the first Gulf War, how about you?”
“Me?” Odah asked, confused.
“Yeah you, what kind of bird did you fly in the Air Force? F-15 Eagle, F-4 Phantom, or were you in a bomber?”
“I flew a Mikoyan-Gurevich 21 Fishbed.” He stated calmly.
“Fishbed?” Herb sat silent for a moment racking his brain as to what type of aircraft the man was referring to. “Wait a minute, are you talking about the MiG-21 Fishbed? The Soviet fighter jet?”
“It was sold to us by the Soviet Union, yes…”
“Exactly whose Air Force did you serve in?” Herb asked suspiciously.
“I was a commander in the IQAF.”
“IQAF? What is…”
“The Iraqi Air Force.” Odah elaborated coldly.
Herb decided at that point that all further conversation was officially ended… his only objective from that point on was to get to Dusy Basin as quickly as possible and get rid of ‘Commander’ Odah and his friends. Whatever they did after that didn’t concern him one bit…
