The Trade (28 page)

Jay sat in gape-jawed disbelief. The radio
announcer went on.

"Reading from a prepared statement, the
Calloway family lawyer spoke on behalf of Calloway's parents.” The
recorded voice of the lawyer from Athens leaked out of the
radio.

'We don't believe any of it. Jay is simply
incapable of such things. He knows nothing of bombs or murder. We
are hopeful that someone with true information about what really
happened will come forward and clear our son.”

"Way to go mom,” Jay said. The radio
continued.

"A spokesman for MacKenzie Lazarus indicated
that Calloway had been under investigation for unspecified security
trading violations. He was also under suspicion for a recent
unauthorized extended absence from the firm.”

"Calloway was the chief architect for
MacKenzie Lazarus' new electronic currency trading programs. In
other news..."

Jay clicked off the radio.

"I am in deep shit,” he said out loud. "Deep
shit.”

Jay stood up. He paced a few steps in tight
circles around the small room. Looking at Morag's desk he saw a pad
of those yellow post its. 'To Do Whenever' was stenciled across the
top. Jay sat down at her desk, pulled a pen from her overcrowded
drawer and started rapping it on the pad. After he wasn't sure how
long, he read the list he'd written:

Call Rick

Eat

Get Cash (lots)

Get OUT of NYC (where to?)

Find somewhere to hide (months? years?)

See Tonia? (why should I?)

Kill Angus? (don't have a gun)

As he sat there looking at his list, he heard
footsteps approaching in the hallway outside the door. Jay tensed.
They couldn't possibly have found me here
. The door swung
open. Jay froze. Morag and a girlfriend walked in, both shocked to
see Jay Calloway sitting at her desk.

"I guess this isn't a good time Mo?" the new
girl said lasciviously.

"I guess not,” Morag answered. Both girls
giggled and the new girl retreated, closing the door behind her on
her way out.

"I didn't expect you to be here,” Morag
said.

"I overslept.”

"No shit. Don't you have to go to work today
or something?" she asked.

"I called in sick,” Jay lied.

"Well in that case,” Morag started. She
didn't finish her sentence. In two minutes she was naked and seated
on his lap. Before he could protest she was kissing him and
grabbing at his shirt. She undressed him in a hurry and threw him
down on the bed. She rode him like a wild woman. When she was done,
she rolled off of him, worked her way over to the edge of the bed
against the wall and fell sound asleep. Jay watched all this like a
separate distant observer. He was amazed by it all. It was the
first time he'd ever had sex and not come. He watched his just used
dick shrink and shrivel.

After a minute he turned to his list. Morag's
phone was a skull and crossbones model. He opened the plastic
cranium and dialed Rick's machine.

"Hi. Unless you've been off planet I guess
you've heard I'm in a bit of a pickle. It's Thursday noon and I'm
still okay. I'm going to hide out. If you can, please let my
parents know I'm okay but I can't contact them okay? I'm going to
make one more call then head for South Podunk.” Jay hung up the
phone. He crossed the first item off his list.

Looking at the second item, 'Eat', Jay
realized he was extremely hungry. Morag's tiny room continued to
surprise him. There in the corner by the door was a little dorm
fridge. Checking to make sure she was still asleep, he slinked over
and opened it. Beer. Completely filled with beer. Not one single
thing to eat.

"Shit,” Jay murmured. But then his eye caught
something interesting beside the fridge. A full bag of Doritos. He
tore into the bag and started crunching away. Jay looked at the
skinny sleeping body of Morag. She was blissfully slumbering
through his crunch fest.
Where the hell does she put
it
?"

Jay climbed back into his clothes, preparing
to skulk out of her room. He saw her purse on the floor beside the
door where she'd dropped it in her sexual frenzy. He looked in.

"Money!" he exclaimed. Reaching in he pulled
out one hundred dollars.

Where the hell does a college kid get a
hundred bucks
? Jay wondered. He remembered his own poor days in
college. Jay guiltily looked to see if she was still asleep. He
wrote her a short note and put it on the desk.

I borrowed $100. You can get it back from my
ring, or from the newspaper article you’ll be able to cash in on
soon. Thanks for everything. Jay Calloway. Jay slipped off the gold
ring his mother had given him for his graduation and dropped it on
the note. He hoped it was worth $100. Jay slipped out of her
room.

Chapter

Once outside in the warm spring day Jay
started to feel much better. He was in motion. It felt good. He was
suddenly sure that in a city the size of New York no-one would know
him. He relaxed. If he'd seen his picture on the television news
like 2.5 million New Yorkers had the night before and like another
3 million had this morning he might have thought differently.

"Now what?" he asked himself. "I've gotta get
out of New York. But on a hundred bucks? His stomach growled, the
Doritos just weren't going to be enough. Responding to his hunger
for some real food Jay drifted into a stand-up pizza joint on
4
^th
Ave. He got two slices and an extra large diet coke.
He could feel the first unmistakable signs of caffeine withdrawal.
Just as he was finishing his two stacked and folded slices, an old
Italian woman behind the counter started shouting. She was
alternately pointing at Jay and motioning at the television. Jay
looked around to see who she was pointing at. He saw no-one. When
he looked up at the TV he finally saw what had excited her. His
college graduation photo was right there in living color over the
perky newswoman's shoulder. He couldn't hear what she was saying
and didn't stick around to find out.

"Shit,” he said as he got out of the joint as
fast as he could. He ran into the street even as he heard sirens
several blocks away. A yellow cab almost ran him down.

"Watch where you're going asshole," the burly
driver shouted. Jay realized the man had no fare.

"I need a lift,” he said quickly.

"I need lunch,” the driver answered.

Jay pulled out one of Morag's twenties and
thrust it through the open window as he scrambled into the back
seat.

"I really need a lift,” Jay said.

"I really need lunch.”

Jay dropped another twenty into the front
seat.

"Alright already. Where to?" the food-crazed
cabby asked.

"West 102nd and 2nd,” Jay said.
"Yesterday!”

"Yes sir,” the cabby replied, jamming his
foot down. The old cab leapt ahead and Jay was safe of the Italian
woman.

"Say. Don't I know you from somewhere?" the
cabby asked.

"You a hockey fan?" Jay asked.

"Nah, I hate that Canuck game.”

“
Too bad eh. I play for the
Rangers. I'm Mark Messier eh?" Jay lied.

"Damn. I figured you was an actor or a jock.
Wait'll I tell the wife,” the cabby said.

Wait'll he figures it out
, Jay
thought.

Chapter

Jay Calloway stood in the foyer of Ted
Spencer's co-op apartment. His dead colleague had given Jay the
combination to his upper east side "woman trap" months ago and had
shown him around the night he had stayed over.

"He doesn't need it now,” Jay said looking
around the tacky lair. "Angus MacKenzie looked after that.” Jay
flashed back to the bomb blast and envisioned Ted and the rest of
the group in the conference room. His head snapped back as he
remembered the crunch of the explosion. Jay went all the way into
the co-op and sat down. He slept for the next ten hours.

Chapter

Jay fixed himself a huge breakfast from Ted's
refrigerator.

"He must have been planning a 'weekender'"
Jay mumbled. Jay settled onto the couch and picked up the remote
control. After erroneously dimming the lights, lighting the
fireplace and starting Johnny Mathis on the stereo, Jay finally got
the TV turned on. A soft core porn show was playing even at this
early hour on the channel that was programmed to come up, the
Playboy Channel. Jay shook his head, remembering Ted's woman-crazy
ways and his long-winded tales of lusty conquests.

Flipping to Channel 3, Jay watched the
morning news. He was still the lead story. There was an interview
with several witnesses from the pizza shop but no mention of the
cab driver or Morag. Nevertheless Jay was glad he'd had the cabby
drop him 10 blocks from Ted's place. The reporter quickly recycled
yesterday’s news in a voiceover while new images of Jay and Tonia
together were displayed. Jay realized that they must have been
following him for some time, and that Tonia must have known where
the cameras were at least once.

Jay flipped to ESPN to watch Sports Center
and plan his next move.

I figure I'll be good here for at least a
week
, Jay thought.
There's food, a phone, keys to Ted's
motorcycle, a TV a computer and ESPN. What else do I need?

Jay sat bolt upright on the sofa, his
breakfast suddenly forgotten. "Phone and computer!" he said loudly.
He looked around as though someone might have heard him. "Phone and
computer,” he repeated. Jay now knew what his next step was and how
he was going to get out of New York unseen.

Chapter

The alarm clock in Ted Spencer's co-op
insisted it was six in the morning, time for Jay Calloway to get up
and go to work. Jay's tired body and overworked brain resisted
every effort of the clock to rouse him. It was the lead story on
the news about a bomb blast in Kuwait killing 27 American soldiers
that finally jolted Jay awake. As his eyes opened he remembered
that today was the day he started fighting back against Angus
MacKenzie. He’d been a victim long enough.

Since Friday morning when he'd come up with
the plan, Jay had been programming Ted's computer to be the host
computer for a small but virulent computer virus. Jay intended on
infecting as many computers in MacKenzie Lazarus' worldwide network
as possible as fast as possible. Once they were infected he wanted
them to simultaneously start running the already installed currency
trading program they'd run so effectively against Panama. But this
time the target wouldn't be some third world dictatorship, it would
be Japan, and this time, the program would be run in reverse, with
the program trading so that MacKenzie Lazarus would be the loser,
not the winner.

Though he doubted that the program could
penetrate and dominate Japanese currency trading the way it had in
Panama, he also knew that it could cause havoc in world markets and
that all the blame would be squarely on MacKenzie Lazarus. There
would be no masking activity, no subterfuges to hide the virus this
time.

Getting into the MacKenzie Lazarus network
was easy. Jay had a dozen phony login ids scattered throughout the
system. Most computer geeks do. The trick for Jay was going to be
trying to make it look like the virus had started somewhere other
than Ted's co-op. When Jay realized that he could still get to the
computers in his apartment, equipment that MacKenzie Lazarus had
given him, he knew from where the virus would originate. Jay loved
the sublime irony of it all. Wrecking ML with equipment they had
given him so that they could keep track of him.

He was sure he could plant the seed quietly
enough throughout the network so that the initial infection would
go unnoticed. But still, his work from 8 am until 12 noon was going
to be the most dangerous time for him. If anyone in the huge
corporation was taking their computer security seriously Jay would
be caught.

As is so often the case at businesses all
over the world, no-one was on guard against the educated,
determined, internal computer interloper. By noon Jay had
down-loaded all the programs needed into enough computers on
MacKenzie Lazarus' worldwide network to ensure the widespread
distribution of his trading virus. Jay turned off the computer and
made lunch. He'd had a program running to monitor the security
channels on the network and had seen no unusual activity. Jay knew
he'd gotten away with it and could relax for a while.

After lunch Jay settled in to watch a day
game between the Mets and Expos from Olympic stadium in Montreal.
By the fifth inning he'd grown restless, thinking about the virus
and what could have gone wrong. He had to resist the urge to log
back on and monitor the spread of his rogue program. There was no
reason to watch the pot boil. He knew it was a needless risk and
went back to the game. Around four he ate a second lunch or early
dinner, set the alarm clock for three am and went to bed. Jay's
plan was starting to come together.

"Why haven't you found him yet?" Angus
MacKenzie asked his top security man. The agent had no answer. "I
want him found and I want him dead,” Angus said.

"We know that sir,” Stan Krantz answered
calmly. "But you have to understand that Calloway is an extremely
bright kid who only has two or three vulnerable spots; his parents,
Tonia, his apartment, and some friend from college. Unless he makes
a mistake, and he hasn’t yet, we may never find him.”

"So let's make sure he makes a mistake,”
Angus answered.

"How?" Stan asked.

"Attack his vulnerabilities. When you get a
man down, kick him!” Angus' face contorted into a wicked grin. Stan
understood Angus' rage. They put their heads together and made
plans. Stan's respect and loathing for Angus MacKenzie grew, along
with his fear.

Chapter

Jay was already awake when the alarm went
off. He got up, shaved, showered and dressed for the road. Filling
Ted's backpack with enough food for two days, Jay was ready to
travel cross country. He ate a light early breakfast then turned on
the computer. One codeword would activate his hidden virus wherever
it had spread. He logged in to his computer at his apartment,
routing his call through Miami University and the National
Institute of Computer Science in Washington. Jay entered the code
word and logged out. Total connect time with his apartment had been
1.3 seconds.