The Trade (14 page)

“
I can’t,” she
said.

"I'm sorry,” he said.

"I’m sorry too,” she answered. She pressed a
warm tender kiss to his lips. Jay's eyes closed in surrender. And
then she was gone. Back to the mansion. Back to Angus. Back to her
secret life that Jay could never even have imagined. He watched her
disappear into the fog and then, for the longest time, just stared
into the fog where she had disappeared.

Chapter

"Bill I need a vacation,” Jay Calloway
announced Monday morning at work. "Time to get away for a few
weeks, recharge. Get some fresh air.”

"Can you wait two weeks until we have more
people trained on the PT109?" Bill Beck asked.

"Yeah sure. That'll give me time to plan,”
Jay answered.

He had a lot of planning to do. It was
approaching the start of November and he had to figure how to meet
his friend Rick Hewlett at the top of Clingman's Dome on November
11th at 11:11 am as they had agreed at their graduation. Jay also
had to get in better shape for the climbing, not just jogging.

"Where's he going to go?" the woman
asked.

"He didn't say.”

"Well find out!" she snapped.

"How?" he asked. The strain of 7 months of
surveillance was wearing the team down. They'd made a few mistakes
in the last month. They'd lost their tail on Jay twice and Jay had
actually seen one of them. The man had been reprimanded and
replaced. The team had learned that Jay Calloway was almost ready
to be put in play so they had to be certain he was clean.

"Get Stan Krantz to give him a call. Tell him
the CIA needs to know if he's been on any trips or if he's planning
any. Tell him they need to know for their background check.”

"What'll Stan say if Jay asks about the
job?"

"Let Stan worry about that,” she snapped.

The tension was getting thicker and thicker
in the room next to Jay's apartment as the critical date
approached.

Jay answered the phone on the third ring.
"Hello?"

"Hello, Jay Calloway please?"

"Who's calling please?" Jay answered. He
never gave out his name to people whose voice he didn't
recognize.

"Stan Krantz.”

The name set off alarms in Jay's brain. He
thought he'd seen someone following him a couple of weeks ago and
lately he'd had a feeling that something wasn't quite right in his
apartment, or with his computer. He couldn't point to anything
specific but he just felt that something was a little weird. And
the TV in the next apartment always seemed to be tuned to the same
channel as his TV. It was odd. His mother had asked him several
times if he'd heard some static on the phone when they were
talking. Jay hadn't. He figured it might have had something to do
with Tonia and her husband.

Maybe Angus MacKenzie was suspicious of him
and was checking up on him? Jay's stomach had become a little jumpy
over the whole deal between him and Tonia. But now, with Stan's
call, Jay figured it must have been the CIA keeping track of him.
Maybe they're finally going to offer me a job
?

"Stan Krantz? From... from...,” Jay searched
for the company name they'd told him to use in phone
conversations.

"Yes. From Allied Computer Consulting,” Stan
answered. "How's everything going?"

"Oh not bad. You know. New York can be pretty
intimidating at times but everything's going pretty well for me. I
was just getting ready to go on vacation. What's up with you?” Jay
tried to sound casual, like a hiring manager from the CIA called
him every day.

"Things are fine with me. I just wanted to
let you know that we are still considering you for the position. We
ought to be making a decision in the next couple of weeks. Are you
going to be around? Will we be able to get a hold of you at this
number?" Stan asked.

"Well, actually no. I'm going on vacation for
a couple of weeks.”

"Oh?"

"Yeah.”

As Stan let the silence spin and grow, Jay
offered no more information, refused to fill the void as so many
would. He was upset at the CIA. Upset that they had interviewed him
and grilled him and checked out his family and friends and now,
months and months later they put a tail on him and then called him
to let him know they might be offering a job so he should sit by
the phone?

I don't feel like being jerked around, not
even by the CIA
, Jay thought.

"Somewhere special?" Stan finally asked.

"Not really. Just a trip to the mountains,”
Jay said, trying to be vague.

"You're not leaving the country though are
you?" Stan asked. Jay could hear the urgency in his voice. He
figured that maybe the CIA was actually going to offer him the job.
He decided to stop busting Stan's ass, throw him a bone.

"No I'm not leaving the country,” Jay said.
"And I'll be back by Thanksgiving. If you've waited this long,
another couple weeks won't matter will it?"

"No I suppose not,” Stan answered. The nasty
tone in Jay's voice was unexpected. "Listen. I'm sorry about the
delay. But you knew it could be a long time, we told you at the
interview. We haven't been in touch in between then and now because
we didn't want to interfere, didn't want to lead you on. We're
serious about you, always have been. I probably shouldn't tell you
this but if everything works out the way I think it will, sometime
in the next three or four weeks we'll be asking you to join us. So
why don't you think about that on your vacation okay?"

"Okay,” Jay answered.

The two men chatted for a few more minutes.
Stan tried by clever devices to find out where Jay was going. Jay
tried equally cleverly to figure out what the job at the CIA would
be. After a few mutually fruitless minutes the conversation
ended.

"How'd he do?" the woman asked.

"Nothing. He got nothing,” the man who'd been
listening answered.

“
Damn.”

“
Damn is right. We got
anybody that knows anything about mountain climbing? If so, we
better get them on call and up to speed.”

Chapter

"That's right, I'd like the chalet for two
weeks, starting November 9
^th
," Jay repeated. "Yeah sorry
about the noise, I'm calling from the subway. It can be a little
noisy down here," Jay explained.

He wasn't sure why he was making all of his
vacation plans from public pay telephones in the New York City
Subway System, but he was. Ever since he'd discovered the
suspicious tail and his father had mentioned the static on the
phone, Jay had become paranoid about the CIA finding out anything
about him. Jay's overactive imagination was kind of on a persecuted
secret agent kick, which made sense, he'd just read The Firm and
seen the movie Wall Street.

"No, I'll be paying cash, no credit cards,”
Jay explained. "I'll mail a money order for the deposit to you
today alright?" he asked. "Good. No. No reason I'm paying cash, I
just believe if you can't pay cash you can't afford it,” Jay lied.
He wasn't using his credit card because he wondered if someone
might be monitoring it.

"So how do I let my mom know that I'm going
somewhere on a trip without calling her at home?" Jay asked himself
as he jumped back on the uptown bound Number One subway train. Jay
had developed a routine of going out at noon for his jog and riding
the subway uptown for a few miles then running back downtown. He
hadn't noticed anyone following him on the subway today so at Penn
Station he'd jumped off, made a call from a payphone there and
jumped right back on.

"He just gets on the subway at the Cortland
Street, World Trade Center Station, rides uptown, then jogs back
downtown. He always comes down the West Side Highway. Sometimes he
gets off at Times Square, sometimes he goes all the way up past
Central Park.”

"Damn. Do you think he's on to us?” the woman
asked. The two agents looked at each other. "I doubt it, but it's
possible.”

"Well, we better not get caught on a subway
car with him. Keep doing what you've been doing. Track him on foot
until you're sure he gets on the subway then pick him up on the
West Side Highway as he's heading back. If he's gone too long then
we'll tighten up, but it's too risky to follow him down in
there.”

"Okay boss.”

"No sir I'm not in any trouble with the law
or anything,” Jay explained into the phone the next day.

"Then how come you can't call your mother
yourself?" the Calloway family lawyer asked from his office in
Athens, Ohio.

"Because we kind of had a fight,” Jay lied.
"And we kinda need a few days to cool off. I just wanted you to
know that I was going to be out of town for a few weeks and how you
could get in touch with me if anything happened while I was away
alright?" Jay asked.

"Yes son. I do hope you'll patch it up with
your folks right quick though.”

"Yessir I will, as soon as I get back from
vacation. It's just been so crazy here in New York that I've gotta
get away and think for a while so I’ll be able to make a proper
apology."

"Jay. I've known your mother and father for
more than thirty years, so I'll keep this conversation just between
us. I'd hate to think what it would do to your parents to know that
there was something you couldn't talk over with them."

"Yessir,” Jay answered, accepting the lecture
that was the fruit of his lie to the family friend. He hung up the
phone and jumped back on the subway. He figured it was time to find
a new dodge, just in case.

"Anyway, that's that,” Jay said to himself as
the subway train rocked back and forth, headed uptown.
"Everything's set, now I've just got to get in good enough shape
for this climb!"

The subway carried Jay all the way to 92nd
street before he piled out. His jog back would be over six miles
today. The agents had no difficulty spotting him as he cruised down
the West Side Highway in his bright blue Lycra running tights.

Chapter

As the miles stretched away behind his beat
up pickup truck, Jay Calloway felt the tight grip of the frantic
city reluctantly loosen its hold on him. The frenzied beat of New
York City started to wane. The lights of his adopted city dimmed in
the rearview mirror and were finally replaced by the quiet darkness
of the open road.

"I'm on vacation,” Jay said out loud.
"Gatlinburg Tennessee, the gateway to the Smokey Mountains, here I
COME.”

His immediate goal was to get there and
settle into the mountain chalet he'd secretly arranged to rent for
two weeks. On the third day of his vacation, November 11th, Jay was
going to climb to the top of Clingman's Dome and meet his college
friend, Rick Hewlett.

"Rock and roll, hoochee coo,” Jay sang along
with the radio.

He pulled his diet coke from the cup holder
in his rusted out truck and took a long hit. What had looked like a
ten hour drive on paper was proving to be a much longer trip. Jay's
problems had started at the Holland tunnel where he'd had to wait
two hours for an accident to be cleared. During the delay he'd not
even been able to sing along with his radio, the signals had been
blocked in the tunnel.

He thought back to the incident in the
tunnel.

The silence had been driving him crazy.

"What the hell is going on?" Jay demanded.
The hushed radio offered no reply. "Time for a stroll,” he said out
loud. Jay turned off the truck and walked back to the next car in
the jam up.

"What's goin' on man?" the black driver
asked.

"Don't know,” Jay answered. "Must've been a
wreck or something.”

"Damn.” The driver shut off his car and got
out. "Billy Ray Lincoln,” he said, extending his hand.

"Jay Calloway,” he answered. "Nice to meet
you.”

"Come on,” Billy motioned. He walked around
the back of his car, popped his trunk and pulled out a football. He
tossed it easily to Jay who dropped it.

"Damn,” Jay said. He never could catch.

"Nice catch,” Billy teased. Jay smiled and
they were crazy fast friends in a traffic backup, misery making
company of them all. Jay picked up the ball and fired it back. He
couldn’t catch, but he could chuck it. Billy caught it. A couple of
teenage kids got out of their parents mini-van and motioned for the
ball.

"Go deep man,” Billy said.

"Sure.” Jay trotted down between the jammed
up cars and Billy tossed the ball. Jay dropped it again, this time
fumbling it onto the hood of an old Crown Victoria. Jay figured he
was in for it but the middle aged man in the car gave no signs of
anger.

In fact, he looked like he was absorbed in
adjusting his stereo or something and didn’t even look up as Jay
approached the car to retrieve the football.

"Strange,” Jay noted. “Must be a tourist!”
Jay and Billy Ray passed the ball for a few more minutes until it
became clear that Jay was hopeless.

"Sorry,” Jay apologized.

"Don't worry about it,” Billy answered. They
retreated to Billy's car where Billy cranked up the stereo. The
sound seemed to threaten to bring down the walls of the tunnel.

"What is that?" Jay asked as the ripping bass
beat tore through the huge speakers mounted in the back seat of
Billy's car. “I’ve never heard anything like this.”

“
Not many white boys in
rusted out trucks have,” Billy answered.

They looked at each other and laughed. Jay
just settled in to listen to the strange, loud music. He felt it
growing on him. Finally the wreckage cleared and he thanked Billy
Ray and got free of the tunnel. Now, six hours later, on the dark
open road, with the driving bass still reverberating through his
head he was less than half way to Tennessee.

"Maybe I ought to shut it down for the
night?" he asked himself. "Next hotel I see that looks half decent
I'll pull into,” Jay continued. Half an hour later he was checked
into a cheap Interstate Motel and was sound asleep.