Generations Beyond

The call took longer than expected. It didn’t come until a month and a half after Easter eve. In the middle of June, both Aarons and Cross were home when her phone rang. She looked to see his number and name… Penn.

Christina sat in the office next to the master suite. The desk, centered under the window, overlooked to the backyard and the mountains in the distance.

Christina lifted her eyes from the phone to look into the distance. Penn rarely called her. He felt it was beneath him. She took a deep, slow breath and then answer the phone on speaker.

“Aarons,” she answered in a louder than normal voice.

A few seconds after she answered the phone, Jonathan stood in the doorway, his arrival and presence silent, with his arms crossed over his chest. He watched and listened.

“Secure location, now.” Penn’s voice barked.

“Yes, sir,” she answered while she looked at the office door. “I’m in the office at the house we procured, Cross is en route from the base.” She locked eyes with Jonathan.

“Progress report.”

“On track for the August fifteenth delivery date, sir,” she replied, feeling the bile rise in her throat. There was a moment of silence on the phone.

“I need you in Washington, sensitive mission. You will complete within the next 48 hours. Return to Belvoir for your detailed instructions,” he said.

“Sir?” she ended the word as a question and closed her eyes.

“God damn it, Aarons. Don’t question me. Know your role,” he snapped and the call ended.

Christina stared at the phone in disbelief. Her lips pressed in a thin line as she grabbed her phone and shoved it into her pocket as she stood. She put away the papers she was working on and turned off the laptop, closing it and putting it in her bag. When she turned around she looked at Jonathan.

“How far’s your family from a major airport?” Jonathan asked with a crease in his forehead and a slight frown on his lips.

“Hour-and-a-half,” she answered him. “Why?”

“It’s a five-hour flight. Two hours from DC to Orlando, two from New Orleans to Orlando. He gave you two hours.” He took a few slow steps forward, hands clasped at his back. “Seven hours before he knew you weren’t coming. Five hours to have your family exfil to a secure location.” He arched a brow, “it would be doable.”

“Where?” The frustration filtering into her voice. “I’ve tried to think of every conceivable place to take them… if I convince them to go. You’ve called me stubborn in the past, you haven’t met my father,” she said, giving him a look. “I know my brothers, but,” she sank into the chair and ran her fingers through her hair. “Where could we go, be safe, and survive?” she looked at him.

“I can have a team at their location inside of four hours. Through Fort Lauderdale and to Grand Bahamas.” He thought for a few seconds. “A boat from there would get them into Central America,” he pursed his lips, “getting you out would be trickier.”

She shook her head. “No, it’s not just me, Jonathan,” she stood. “It’s an us. He’ll know you helped me, he will find out you know. If I go, you go. We go together, or I don’t go at all.”

“Christina,” he said and followed with a sigh. “Penn can’t touch me. I can get out through Vancouver and we meet in Columbia in a few months. We’ll figure it out from there. If you’re quick, you could get enough funds transferred and we can be set in Europe by the end of the year. This can all be behind us.”

She shook her head. “I don’t like it. I don’t like splitting everyone up. It’s not planned, too much could go wrong. We need to plan, get set, in place and then we go, disappear. I’ll go, do this one last time,” her body violently reacted. “Last one,” she repeated to convince herself.

“Spoken like an analyst.” He shook his head. “Fine. Go.” He took the last step toward her to close the gap, tilting her chin so their eyes met. “Put it in a box. Got it?”

She nodded as her chin met the resistance of his finger. “I will, I promise. I’ll come back and we’ll work it out.”

“Good,” he let her chin go and slipped by her to the desk. “When you land, and I mean as soon as you’re wheels down.” He grabbed a slip of paper and a pen and wrote. “You find a landline, something unlikely to be monitored, and call this number.” He held the scrap of paper. “Ask for Zak. Once you get him, say exactly what I am about to tell you. Nothing more, nothing less, until he asks you what you need. Understood?”

“Yes, I got it,” she said, taking the paper as he handed it to her. She looked at him but before she said any more, he interrupted.

“Good. Now, you say, great day for the beach. He’ll say, yeah but the sand’s a bitch. He’ll sound confused, but it’s fine. And this is important, you say, at least it’s partly cloudy.” He watched her face, “got it?”

“Yes, I got it,” she said, nodding as she repeated it in her mind.

“He’ll give you an address and time. It’ll be in public. He’ll ask you questions about me. Anything he asks, you should already know. Zak’ll take care of you.” He offered a smile. “He knows what I’ll do if he doesn’t.”

“Thank you, Jonathan. I mean it. We need to get away from here, I can’t wait until after August. Can you plan while I’m gone?”

He laughed, despite the seriousness just moments before. “Yeah,” he said with a smirk, “I’ll start planning.”

“I…,” she said, but stopped before she said anything. Christina looked away for a moment before looking at him, resolve showing in their depths. “I need to pack,” she tucked the piece of paper into her right front pocket and turned to walk out the door.

She pulled out the overnight bag shoved in the back of her closet. She stopped for a moment for reality to sink in. She made a call to get on a flight that was leaving the airbase in an hour. She hefted the bag over her shoulder, walked from her room and called for Jonathan.

Jonathan sat in the living room, reading a magazine. “Yeah,” he looked from the couch and toward the sound of her voice, “here.”

Christina stood by the couch. “I need a ride to the airport, handsome.” She tried to sound cheery but was failing. “Will you help me?”

“Sure,” he tossed the magazine to the coffee table, stood, and checked his front left pocket for his keys. “How long do you think you’ll be gone?” He slipped on a pair of sandals he left in the garage by the door in the kitchen.

She watched him move through the house. “No more than three days.” She walked to the garage door. “We better get our good byes out of the way here,” she looked at him.

He turned and looked at her with a teasing smirk. With her still in the kitchen and him in the garage, they were the same height for the first time. “You gonna get mushy on me?” He grabbed her around the waist with one arm and lifted her in a tight hug before he set her inside the garage on the opposite side. “’Cuz I’m not sure I’m ready for the whole teary-eyed goodbye thing.” He shot her a wink before he gave her a quick, measured kiss.

“No,” she smiled at him. “I wanted more than a handshake at the plane.” She walked to the passenger side, opened the door, and tossed her bag in the back seat.

Jonathan armed the security before closing the door to the house, and opening the garage door. He pulled the driver’s door open and looked across the car at her. “Think it’s some kind of trick or trap?” He got into the car and waited to start the engine.

“I don’t know.” She got in, pulled her seatbelt across her lap, and snapped it into place. “I don’t have a good feeling about this.”

“You’ll get through it. You’ll get back here and relax.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

When they got to the Air Force base, they shared a handshake before she boarded the plane. Christina promised to call when she left Virginia. With a nod, she turned to leave.