Chapter 43

It took the better part of the day for Evan Gold to approach the termination center.  The cover of the night had been a help as he moved away from Katherine and the safe house.  Having a vague notion of the facility’s direction facility from the planning of the botched decoy plan, Evan meticulously zigzagged his way to the city’s limits.  It took all day, but he’d gotten good at recognizing the government’s surveillance equipment and hoped that he had avoided enough of them to present a false picture of his intentions and where he was going.

By the time the star neared the horizon, Evan reached the terminaiton center.  He hunkered down behind an abandoned structure several yards away to see what his approach should be.  For an active penitentiary site, the perimeter was very quiet.  As the sky got darker, Evan inched his way all around to see where the best access point was.  From this assessment, he chose an open loading bay, which, under his observation, stayed open and was not accessed but maybe once.

Once Evan felt that the dark was sufficiently cloaking him, he began his approach.  The loading bay was lit extremely well, which he hoped would also give enough contrast to further hide him from spying eyes.  In a few heart-pounding moments, his back was pressed against the center’s outer wall.  Evan looked back to see the city’s skyline in the distance.  He couldn’t believe that he’d made it that distance without getting caught.  Perhaps, he thought, this was a good sign of things to come.

Evan peaked his head around the loading bay’s door and saw an empty space – no vehicles, no personnel.  This was too good to be true, which put Evan on high alert.  It was much easier to deal with what was out in the open.  Across the space, he saw a sign next to a ladder.  The sign had an arrow pointing up, and Evan followed the ladder to see an access door to a series of ducts.  He weighed his options.  The ducts would provide him a certain layer of cover, but he might lose all sense of direction inside.  Evan reminded himself that the first order of business would be to figure out where in this structure Lillian was and then work out the path.  So, he decided against the ladder and kept looking for his way from the bay to the rest of the building.  

Just then, a guard entered the bay, and Evan froze.  With his head only partially visible and the guard not expecting him there, if he just remained still, he might not be noticed for a long time.  The guard walked to a device on a wall and worked with it for a moment before strolling to the open bay door.  Evan held his breath and was determined not to move.  For a long while, the guard gazed at the night sky.  There was no urgency that Evan could notice, nothing the guard was looking for.  As far as Evan could determine, the guard was simply enjoying the fresh air.  Still, Evan couldn’t relax.  If the guard had reason to glance in Evan’s direction or simply turned wrong, it was all over.

The guard stood there for what felt like hours until a voice squawked over a communication device. The guard replied to the voice and dutifully left the loading bay.  

Evan exhaled.

He gathered his motivation and quickly went from the bay door to the door he’d seen the guard use.  The corridor was clear of people, so Evan walked forward with determination, his eyes constantly scanning the walls for any sign or symbol that might let him know where Lillian might be or a map of the building.  Eventually, he found a mounted chart that listed every cell and who resided in each.  Once he located the cell level and number, Evan worked his way to free the princess.

Now, Evan thought, the ducts would be a good transit system.  As he continued through the hallways, he looked for open or unlocked rooms.  He was certain that he should find other guards somewhere in the facility, but as of yet, the place seemed deserted.  This did nothing to relax Evan.  He was certain he would open a door to find a hundred guards or something worse.  Evan soon found a door cracked open and lights off.  He pried the door open further and stepped inside.  Finding the room empty, Evan searched for an access point for an air duct of some kind.  It was in the ceiling.

Evan moved furniture as silently as he could to give him the access he needed, and within a minute, he was safely tucked in the building’s ductwork.  This was going too well, Evan thought.  Something was off.  He’d expected fistfights or narrow escapes, but he didn’t expect anyone to be minding the store.  The only person he’d seen was the guard in the bay, and there must be at least one other person that the guard reported to. But this facility was holding the enemy number one of the Merlain people.  Evan couldn’t get over how unprotected she was.  The best he could figure was that the city was so locked down that the risk of someone doing what he was doing was low.  That or the resistance to Dol’s government was very small, and should Evan get Lillian out of the building, the war would be a lot harder than either Amnon or Keetha had led him to believe.

He crawled his way through the duct until he came to a grand junction.  Here, Evan found another ladder and access up and down through the building’s core.  He descended the ladder to Lillian’s level and re-entered the ducts.  It was not long before he determined that he was near her cell.  

A faint light shone into the duct, and Evan spied through the vent screen to see Lillian reclining on a spartan bed.

Evan removed the duct cover, which caused Lillian to sit up.

“Who are you?” Lillian said.  Evan had forgotten the heartwarming tone of her voice.  There was no fear or stress in it, only curiosity.  Evan dropped down into her cell.

Standing before Princess Lillian, all Evan could say was, “I’m here to keep my promise, Your Highness.  Now, let’s get you out of here.”  He extended his right hand to her.  She, in turn, did not take it.

“Where are the others?”  Lillia gazed at the mark on Evan’s palm.  “Have you applied the information I gave you to the Central Processing Unit?”

“Uh,” Evan uttered, reasserting his hand, “first things first, Your Worship.  I can’t believe they didn’t find me sneaking in here, but I don’t want to press our luck.”

Lillian took his hand in his.  Instantly, Evan’s mind was filled with images from his past, such as his time as a soldier in war and a variety of cases he worked as a detective.  Other images he assumed were the future, though he couldn’t tell what to make of them since they had no context, only blips and snips.  Though her grasp only lasted a moment, Evan was suddenly filled with regret and shame.

“You’ve had a long history of going out on your own, Evan Gold,” Lillian said in soothing tones.  “By this, you survived war, but by mistake, you’ve carried this attitude into your heart and applied it where it should not be applied.  You have taken on the way of the wolf in all things and yet have been given many people with which you would be better off cooperating.”

“You mean Amnon.”

Lillian nodded.  “But not him only.”

Evan’s mind flashed to Katherine.  He’d stood on a stage and vowed to be her protector, not her buddy.  He’d wanted marriage to be more than it was, more than he’d made it.  Was Lillian suggesting that what Evan craved in his marriage was the whole point of the union?

“I don’t know how to cooperate with her,” he said out loud.  The words made him feel childish.  Then, as a weak justification, he added, “She’s so different from me.”

Lillian smiled broadly, “That’s the adventure of it.”

“I left her behind to get you.  I should have waited.”

“Yes,” Lillian said, “and I fear this will jeopardize the mission’s survival.”

Evan searched Lillian’s eyes for more details about what she meant.  He found nothing.

“But what’s done is done.  I cannot see well enough how this ends.  Saw Yatha has set up snares to impede my powers.”  She took his hand and said with a wink, “Shall we make our daring escape?”

Most of Evan’s confidence and courage had been replaced by regret.  He pointed to the open vent cover, “I’ll climb up and then lift you.”

She squeezed his hand. “Evan Gold, you may be a wolf, but you are one of the most courageous wolves I’ve ever known.”

Evan let go of her hand and hoisted himself up into the duct, then, after securing his feet for leverage, reached down to pull Lillian out of her cell.  The lifting went so well, Evan wasn’t sure if he was that strong in this realm, if Lillian was that light, or if she was assisting in some magical way.  Regardless, he was glad for the help.  In a moment, the vent cover was replaced, and the pair began crawling toward freedom.