The Trade (2 page)

"Sorry," he said.

"Look," Rick went on. "It'll just go better
for both of us when they ask you about your friends, you disown me.
Okay? Tell them you know me, that we work together, that we played
golf a few times, even went on a road trip together, but leave it
there. Tell them we had a disagreement over a girl or something and
that we’ve been distant ever since. You can honestly tell them you
don’t know much about me."

"Okay," Jay answered defensively. He was
offended, mystified. Jay worked his way back around the rusted out
Ford 150. His mind was in turmoil. Jay was about to lose his best
and only friend and now he had to disown him as well?

The rest of the trip passed in a strained
silence, broken only when the Reds hit a home run to tie the
ballgame in the eighth inning. The two friends shook hands outside
the departures drop off at the airport. Jay got back in the truck
just in time to hear "And this one belongs to the Reds" from long
time radio announcer Marty Brenneman. The words didn't produce the
feeling of well-being that they usually did. Jay drove back to his
apartment in Oxford with his mind running, awash in emotions of
loss and confusion that he didn't understand.

When he finally got back to his small
apartment, he sat and wondered what the hell he was going to happen
to him.

Chapter

The kid looked good on paper. Very good.
Cryptography, computer viruses, born in the Midwest, American
citizen, both parents American citizens, dad a veteran, mom a
member of the PTA. Very good indeed. But San Krantz hadn’t risen to
his post at the CIA relying on paper. Humint. That’s what he’d
asked for on the Calloway kid. Human intelligence. And he’d gotten
very little of it. Apparently no-one in Vinton county knew the kid,
or if they did, they didn’t want to talk about him. At least there
were some loose-lipped people at his university. And that’s where
something wasn’t perfect. One of the people he knew at school, Rick
Hewlett. There was something there. So today, Stan knew he’d get a
chance to grill the kid and see if he held up. Like any good
lawyer, Krantz wanted to know the answer to all the questions he
was going to ask before he asked them. And he mostly did. But he
didn’t know all the answers. He doubted that Calloway even knew the
answer to all the questions he was going to be asked.

But that wasn’t the point. He had all the
data, all the statistics. He wanted to crawl around inside this
kid’s head for a while. And today, in Langley, was his chance. Stan
put the Calloway resume back in his desk, walked across his office,
and strode down the hallway to where the kid was waiting.

"So what do you want out of the CIA?" Stan
Krantz asked Jay Calloway. "Excitement? Adventure? We don't have
much of that. Most of it is painfully dull work, especially in your
field. Hour after hour, day after day, grinding out code that maybe
never gets used. Brutal. Or worse, grinding through someone else’s
code, trying to figure it out. I don't mean to disillusion you. I
just want you to know what you're getting into,” Stan Krantz said.
He was watching Jay's face closely, evaluating him, seeing if Jay
understood his impending situation.

"Ninety-nine point nine, nine percent of our
technical personnel spend their entire career without ever seeing a
bad guy. In your field, no-one has ever seen a bad guy. We see
their code, their hacks, their trails, their files, their accounts,
but never see them. You just see computer screens and computer
geeks.”

Jay shifted in his seat. He liked the idea of
the job security and the secret, high-tech equipment, and getting
paid to figure out how to break into computers while preventing his
from being compromised. But he didn't like the idea of bad guys, or
guns. Had never been the beer drinking, deer hunter like so many
others from his rural Ohio home. Over half of the 27 senior boys in
his high school had joined the military. Not Jay.

"Well sir, I really would prefer to never see
a bad guy. I'll help find 'em and track 'em and hack ‘em, but I
don't want to go into the field.”

Now it was Jay's turn to study the face of
the older man looking for any clue. Did they plan to make him an
operative or keep him in the shop? Were they shocked at his
pacifist attitude? Stan's face gave away nothing. They were like
two good poker players searching for a sign in the opponent's face.
Jay flinched first.

"I don't have anything against the use of
force, and I'm for the death penalty in capital offenses. But I'd
prefer not to be in on it personally,” Jay said.

"Could you handle it if push came to shove?"
Stan asked.

Jay waited a millisecond, "Yes,” he
answered.

“
Because the code you write
might be more lethal than any bullet or any poison. A bullet is one
shot one kill, but one virus could kill millions.”

“
Still yes,” Jay
answered.

He'd just passed a major test. A theoretical
test. Stan would plan a practical test for later. Maybe a mugger,
maybe someone pushing around one of his weaker students, maybe
someone trying to break into his apartment. If he passed that test,
and this Hewlett thing went away, Stan knew he had his man.

"So you've met everyone right?" Stan Krantz
asked, shaking Jay's hand again. Jay had never shaken hands as much
as he had today.

"Yes I've seen everyone on the list,” Jay
answered. He carefully scanned the clipboard in front of him,
twelve codenames all initialed by their owner. "Yessir, seen 'em
all.” Stan watched him scan the list. The kid was methodical,
thorough. The investigators had used those words more than once. It
was how some of his students described him. Others had said
“relentless.” Stan could see how it had happened. A genius. All
alone in the boonies of Ohio. No close friends. A not-so-recovering
alcoholic for a father, a mother who didn’t care. He’d turned
inwards, to the math, to the computers, to a universe he could
create and control. But a universe that required precision and
patience. A world where every comma, every dash, and every bit
counted. He mentally congratulated his investigators, then himself
for sending out the A team on this kid.

"Well then, there's just one more thing for
today. We'll get you started on the personal history. I've got a
couple of my colleagues here to help you clarify things. It'll take
about an hour and a half, maybe two hours. You'll probably be
pretty tired by the end. Just try to remember. Whatever comes into
your mind is okay. It's better to tell us now than to have us find
out later. We can tolerate a lot, more than you’d think. But the
one thing we categorically cannot accept is lying. For example, if
you tried to get your date drunk at the senior prom so you could
get some, I don’t care, as long as you don’t lie about it to me. My
colleagues will tell you the same thing. If they wreck their car
and kill a civilian over the weekend because they were dead drunk
and getting a blow job from a crack whore while driving a hundred
miles an hour on the wrong side of the freeway, I don’t care, as
long as they don’t lie to me. We can stand pretty much anything
except a lie. It’s the only leverage anyone can ever get over you,
catching you in a lie.”

Jay's mind immediately switched to his
promise to Rick.

"After you're done, I'll pick you up, take
you back to the hotel, let you rest up for a bit then take you to
dinner and we'll talk. Alright?" Stan asked. It was more a
carefully planned itinerary than a question. Jay thought for a
minute. He wanted to establish his uniqueness from the start, leave
no doubt about his knowledge of his perceived value or his desire
to have some special privileges. He hadn't worked all those years
of college to be pushed around on his first job interview. And
after Stan’s “I can stand anything but a lie” speech, Jay felt the
need to push back.

"Sounds great sir. But if it’s all the same
to you, after your colleagues are done grilling me, and I have no
delusions about that, I'd hoped to get in a few miles on the track
I saw earlier, maybe hit the weight room for a minute. Think we've
got time?"

Stan reacted calmly.

"Sure Jay. No sweat.” Stan Krantz waited for
a chuckle but his joke went either unobserved or unacknowledged.
Stan Krantz realized he'd been manipulated, didn’t seem to mind,
and gave the kid another mental mark.

"No problem,” he said again.

Two men and what must have been a woman
materialized from a side office and Stan excused himself. The
personal history began while Stan observed from the next room.

The sort-of woman was in charge. Her and her
unabrow.

"You understand, of course, that the nature
of the job requires that we investigate you, your past, your family
and friends, in great depth. Most of the investigation will be done
without their knowledge. We'd like you not to apprise them of your
situation or our interest. Before we begin, we need to get you to
read carefully and then sign this agreement.” She slid a paper and
a pen towards him. He read the paper carefully.

"Let me make sure I understand,” Jay said,
his hand hovering above the paper. "From this moment on, I don't
tell anyone about my interview, any offer or basically about
anything? I tell you everything I remember about myself and
everyone I know, and then, if you decide at some future, as yet
undetermined date, to make me an offer of employment, you will
contact me? Is that it?" Jay asked. He was trying not to sound
incredulous. It wasn't much worse than he'd expected.
After all
it is the CIA
, he thought.

"That's about it,” the woman said. Her voice
was matter-of-fact, refused to acknowledge his modestly sarcastic
tone. Jay signed. The three interviewers took turns asking
questions. After a while Jay picked up their pattern. Self. Family.
Others. Self, family, others. Starting a long time ago, moving
forward through the years. Near the end of the two hour session
they asked him about his friends at college, Rick and C. Daniel
Kinchon.

"I know Rick from class and from the
department, but he's not my friend anymore or anything,” Jay lied.
Pencils scratched on papers.

"Oh?" the woman asked.

"Yeah, he's older you now. And. He’s weird,”
Jay lied. He'd never once thought Rick was weird. Remote yes,
illusive sure, weird, not really.

“
We went hiking a few
times, and even went out west. That was a lot of fun. But that was
a couple of years ago. We don’t really do anything together
anymore. I mean, we share an office, and we talk, you know, March
Madness pools, super bowl, stuff like that, but I wouldn’t say
we’re friends or anything. We used to golf a lot. Now not so much.
We kinda got sideways with each other over this girl. She was a
freshman…”

Again pencils scratched on paper.

After a few more minutes and a few more
questions, the interviewer moved on to C. Daniel.

“
He’s my brightest student,
a good kid. Kind of like me. He’s from Kentucky, I’m from Ohio, but
rural Ohio, you know that. Anyway, I like him, think he can do some
cool stuff. And he likes working on my research, on the viruses.
Sometimes we square off and see if we can hack each other’s
computers. It’s a lot of fun.” The interviewers took notes, knew
these facts well, evaluated his tone and facial expression more
than his facts. A few more questions, a few more topics, and the
interview was over. Stan Krantz appeared and shepherded Calloway
towards the fitness center.

"Sure you want to run? Maybe you want to take
on the old man in a game of racquetball?" Stan offered, swinging an
imaginary racquet.

"Nah. I suck at racquetball. I just like to
run pretty much every day. You know. A couple of miles, clear the
head, stay in shape. Stress management,” Jay said. Stan shook his
head and escorted him into the facility. When he saw Jay loping
around the track he headed back to his office. “He likes to run,
but only slow, and always alone,” he said to his colleague.

“
We could use that for the
insertion,” she said.

“
Yes. That would be
good.”

"So what do you think?" Stan asked the
assembled investigators turned interviewers.

"Pretty regular guy for a fucking genius,”
the woman answered. Stan noted that she still had a foul mouth.

"Yeah. Nothing out of the ordinary
family-wise for one of your basic whiz kids,” the one man said.
“His father drinks and his mother enables it, but they seem to keep
it at home. When it got too bad he took to the books and the back
roads.”

"He's led a somewhat isolated life, doesn't
have a lot of close friends, if any. His check will be easy to
finalize. However,” the second man paused.

"Yes?" Stan asked, sensing an alarm bell
about to sound.

"However..." the second man's tone changed.
"He may have equivocated about one of his college colleagues. Our
initial investigation seemed to indicate a close friendship with
one Rick Hewlett. Yet in the interview he did not indicate this to
be the case.”

Stan mentally flinched. "Check up on it.
Thoroughly. This Hewlett thing bothers me. See if they're homo for
each other. If Calloway's lying and it's loyalty to his friend,
that's okay, but... if it's anything else..." Stan Krantz trailed
off.

The 'else' hung in the air. The investigators
assigned to Jay Calloway nodded their heads. Months of additional,
unplanned work had just materialized, instantly vaporizing eagerly
anticipated vacations.

Chapter

"Welcome to New York,” Bill Beck said to Jay
Calloway. Bill Beck, the rangy manager from MacKenzie Lazarus had
been standing at the bottom of the escalator at the arrivals area
at La Guardia Airport holding a sign lettered with Jay Calloway's
name.