The Trade (29 page)

"Now the tough part,” Jay said. He crossed to
the phone, aware that agents may already be alerted to his activity
through his call to his apartment. He dialed Tonia's number. Though
he was certain they'd be tapping the line, he hoped they'd be
asleep, that they’d be slow on the uptake, and he'd get to talk to
her for a minute before hopping on Ted's motorcycle to evade the
dragnet. He knew a call from a pay phone would be safer, especially
with the motorcycle helmet on so no-one could recognize him. But,
he was sure it was simply too early, and too out of his normal
routine.

If I only had a cellular phone I'd be
okay
, Jay thought.

Tonia Taggert answered the phone on the fifth
ring.

"Hello?" her sleepy voice said. "Hello?" she
repeated.

Jay tried to think of something to say and
failed.

"Hello? Who's there? Jay is that you? Are you
alright? Where are you?"

Jay heard her voice rise in pitch. He
struggled to speak but no words were forthcoming.

“
Who is it?” he heard Angus
ask in the background.

He hung up the phone.

Damn that was stupid
, he thought.

"It must have been Calloway,” Warren Fishky
said.

"Yep,” the other freshly awakened agent
responded.

"Did we get an address?" Fishky asked.

"Nope.”

"Did we get anything?"

"Not even a caller-id number.”

"Shit.”

Chapter

Jay scurried out of the apartment. He hurried
to the garage, stored his supplies and sleeping bag in the
motorcycle's saddlebags and fired up Ted's 450 Honda Rebel. A
satisfying mechanical purr reverberated through the underground
parking. Jay pulled on Ted's helmet. It was a good fit. Once
outside, with the visor down, no-one would be able to see his face.
There would be no 'Calloway sightings' that day.

"You mean he called and you weren't able to
pin him down?" Stan Krantz asked incredulously.

"Yessir,” Warren Fishky replied meekly.

"Why?"

Warren mentally cycled through a list of lies
before finally deciding on the truth. "We were asleep sir.”

Stan Krantz had figured as much. He calmly
drew his 9mm Beretta from his shoulder holster. He pointed it at
the middle of Fishky's chest and drew back the slide, chambering a
round.

"You know what we did to people who fell
asleep on guard in 'Nam?" Krantz asked coldly. He thumbed the
cocked hammer. Warren felt his bladder let go and warm liquid run
into his crotch. Stan Krantz handed the gun to the other agent. "If
he falls asleep on duty again, you know what to do.”

Chapter

"It had to have been him,” Stan Krantz
said.

"Aye,” Angus answered. His educated Oxford
had degenerated into East End street talk.

"If he’s still calling her, there has to be a
way we can use her as bait," Stan said.

Angus slowly nodded his head.

"Besides Calloway she's the only one who can
tie this whole thing back to us. She's a liability. If you can
think of a way to use her as bait go ahead. Otherwise kill her and
dump on the beach, near where she fucked him the first time,” Angus
said. “And plant some shit from Calloway’s apartment near her. And
some of his DNA. His, not yours!”

Stan was left with no doubt about Angus'
attachment to Tonia. Stan added "ruthless" to his mental inventory
of Angus MacKenzie. The two men left the house and got in Angus’
Mercedes limo. They had an early morning meeting planned at Angus'
office in the World Financial Center.

Chapter

Even at the early hour that Jay hit the
streets of Manhattan on Ted's Honda, there was plenty of traffic to
alternately dodge and blend in with. Driving a motorcycle on the
streets of NYC is both a blessing and curse. A blessing because you
can move around a lot of stalled traffic, a curse because you have
no protection at all, you are a target. But Jay was done feeling
like a target.

Along with the other things Jay had taken
from Ted's apartment, Jay had acquired Ted's 9 shot,
semi-automatic, highly illegal, .25 caliber handgun. Jay had never
asked Ted where he'd gotten the gun. It fit easily into the
flapped, left side pocket on the leather road jacket Jay wore.
Twice when Jay was stopped at a light his hand drifted into the
pocket to touch the gun. If anyone could have seen his eyes through
the dark visor on the motorcycle helmet they would have sworn that
the dull glint of gun metal matched the steely blue in his
eyes.

Jay drove back and forth on the city streets,
wandering randomly. Stopping, starting, turning abruptly. After
half an hour Jay was sure he wasn't being followed. Jay's path
became straight and determined. In twenty minutes he was idling the
Honda between two early morning tour busses parked just outside the
World Financial Center.

Jay's hand was inside his left pocket, his
‘gun pocket’ as he now thought of it. Jay waited patiently. He was
directly across the street from the executive entrance to MacKenzie
Lazarus, the entrance Angus was most likely to use. Two or three
other scooter-couriers were idling in the same location. Smoking
and waiting for a radio call to pick up a document that needed
immediately delivery.

For a company that just had a bomb attempt
on their CEO and founder, they don't seem too concerned about
security
, Jay thought. There wasn't even one guard in sight.
Several cars came up to the entrance and dropped off ML executives.
Jay recognized most of them from the party. Just as he was getting
ready to forget about it and simply head out of town, just as his
conscience was getting control over his need for revenge, a long
black Mercedes limo arrived. A man who could only have been a body
guard jumped out of the driver side and did a walk-around of the
car. Jay went unnoticed amongst the regular couriers.

The back passenger side door opened. Jay
eased the Honda out from between the other couriers and started
rolling toward the limo. A head, then neck, then finally another
body appeared from the door. Even from the back Jay could tell it
wasn't Angus.

Still the figure was familiar. Jay's left
hand went into the gun pocket. His fingers found the gun and
clinched the gun butt. His trigger finger went to its appointed
place. The Honda continued its slow roll closer to the limo. Jay
recognized the third man to emerge. It was Angus MacKenzie.

Another head appeared from the limo. There
were now four people on the sidewalk. Jay was no more than fifty
feet from the group. The .25 caliber pistol came out of his pocket.
Jay turned the Honda up onto the sidewalk and accelerated.

The heads of the men turned as the Honda's
engine wound up to a growl.

Jay raised his left hand, his finger tensed
on the trigger. Jay saw the body guard reaching into his jacket and
hoped the guard would be too slow. Jay was within ten feet, then
seven, then five. He raised the gun and pointed it directly at
Angus’ center of mass. The Honda passed within a foot of Angus, the
gun's nose brushed against Angus' suit jacket. But Jay did not pull
the trigger. He dropped the gun and peeled out, accelerating around
the corner of the building before the guard could shoot.

"Who the hell was that?" Angus roared. He
looked back and forth from the guard to the other men.

"I'm not sure Angus,” Stand Krantz offered.
"But if I had to guess, I'd say Calloway.”

"The gutless little bastard,” Angus spat.
"I'd have pulled the trigger.”

Stan looked closely at Angus. A single bead
of sweat trickled down from Angus' left temple. Stan’s mind
visualized that drop of sweat as the river of blood it could just
as easily have been if Calloway had pulled the trigger.

"I never figured him for a killer,” Angus
said contemptuously.

"Neither did I,” Stan answered. "Neither did
I.”

Quickly putting time and space between
himself and the site of the attempted drive-by, Jay moved as fast
as the Honda and traffic would let him. He was shaking from the
adrenalin rush of the murder he didn't commit. Within minutes he
was all the way up the West Side. The sun shone brightly as he
crossed the George Washington Bridge. Recognition suddenly came to
him.

The other guy was Stan
, Jay
realized.

The lonely miles on the long empty highway to
Kentucky helped Jay pull a lot of the last year together. By the
time he arrived, he was sure he had it figured out.

Chapter

Stan Krantz walked the last few feet into the
gym in the MacKenzie mansion.

"I saw your boyfriend today,” Stan said.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Tonia
answered from the stair master. She was stepping quickly and
swinging hand weights in curling and pressing motions.

"I said I saw Calloway this morning,” Stan
repeated.

"Calloway's dead,” she said. "Remember? You
killed him? With a huge frickin’ bomb?” Tonia took a drink from her
designer bottled water. She toweled her face. Stan watched her
closely for a reaction. She hid it in the towel.

"I don't think he's dead,” Stan said.

"He's dead,” she said. "If he wasn't dead
he'd have shown up here by now crying for me to run away with
him.”

"Would he?"

"You know he would.”

"And what would you do if he did?" Stan
asked.

"Fuck off,” Tonia snapped.

Stan walked over beside the stair master. He
kicked the plug out of the wall. The machine growled to a halt.

"I just want to make sure I know what side
you're on,” Stan said.

"Fuck you,” Tonia said. “I’ve got a year in
on this assignment. I’ve fucked him in the sand. I’ve sat through a
dozen stupid baseball games. I’ve listened to more computer geek
shit than you can even imagine. You think I want to let him get
away now?”

Stan watched her intently.

Tonia did not like how close Stan was
standing.

"Why don't you get off that thing and sweat a
little on me?" Stan said.

"Fuck off.”

"You give it up for Calloway and Angus and
lord know who else...”

"Get out of here,” Tonia said. "NOW.”

"Maybe I will, maybe I won't,” Stan said,
reaching out to feel her breast.

Tonia cracked him on the head with her hand
weight. Stan went down in a heap.

"Jesus,” she said, resting her head on the
stair master. "I've got to get out of here.”

Five minutes later Tonia was packed and out
the door.

Chapter

After the missed assassination attempt, two
surveillance teams were assigned to watch Jay's apartment. Knowing
that he probably wouldn't return there, it was one of their only
chances to reacquire him. Their setup included inside and outside
patrols and phone monitoring. What they overlooked was that Jay was
a computer geek and MacKenzie Lazarus had given him $50,000 worth
of computer equipment for his apartment. No-one thought to turn it
off or disconnect it from the network cables Jay had run.

Teams were also assigned to watch Angus and
Stan, both to protect them and to try to catch Calloway if he did
try to approach them again. Stan Krantz was leaving no possibility
unchecked.

The final team was trying its hardest to
unearth anything about Rick Hewlett. From the interviews with Jay's
father and from the pictures in Jay's apartment, they realized Rick
was Jay's only friend. They figured Jay would have to eventually
contact him.

But Rick Hewlett was turning into a puzzle
for them, one they could not seem to unravel. He had simply
disappeared after Miami. Rick Hewlett appeared in their files as a
draft dodger in 1973. According to FBI records he'd been to Canada
and returned with the Presidential Pardon. He had been clean up to
and including his graduation from Miami University. His current
whereabouts were unknown. He had just vanished.

If the team had thought of Rick as anything
but a draft dodger turned computer geek they might have recognized
some of their own electronic track covering methods. But they
didn't. Rick had most certainly not dodged the draft, had never
been to Canada, and had been extremely busy from 1968 to 1974 and
even busier in a much different way since graduation.

Jay pulled off the interstate just outside of
Columbus, Ohio. His back was tired from the ride from New York
City. Dark was falling. "Better go to ground,” he figured. Jay
found a dark roadside copse of woods and coasted quietly in. After
keeping vigil for an hour to make sure that no-one was watching, he
set up trip wires, connected them to the empty cans from his dinner
and crawled into his sleeping bag. Jay slept uneventfully by Ted's
bike. The thought of going to a hotel never crossed his mind. Jay
wanted to be alone, outside, safe.

"Every day you screw-ups find nothing is one
more day he has to get away for good,” Angus MacKenzie blustered.
Stan Krantz took it. His patience with Angus was wearing thin but
he didn't let it show. Stan wanted to point out that his teams were
doing everything they could but knew that would sound like a very
weak excuse. Stan also knew Angus was right. He could feel Jay
Calloway slipping through his fingers.

"Maybe we could try Tonia again,” Stan
suggested.

"Tonia?" Angus snapped. "Thanks to you we
don't even know where she is, remember? Or did that crack on the
skull fuck you up even more than you were before?” Angus took
another deep breath as the memory of how Tonia had disappeared
crashed into him.

"How did this go to shit so fast?" Angus
asked.

Chapter

"Jay Calloway. Welcome home,” Fr. Dan Brennan
said as the he helped the road weary cyclist off his mount. "Your
ass must be raw from that thing.”

"Yes Father it is,” Jay answered. He looked
deep into the eyes of his missionary friend. "I didn't do it,” Jay
said simply. “I didn’t do any of it.”