Comraderie
1022 Words
4
Comraderie
The man walked up West Forty-Eighth Street and took the first right onto Rockefeller Plaza, a street normally blocked to all nonofficial traffic. He slid open the door of a white van parked there and got in.
“You get the tracker in place?” a man in the back of the van said to him.
“Larry, Larry, Larry. Of course I got it in place.”
“Well don’t be like that with me,” Larry replied. “I wasn’t the one to bounce you out of bed at four this morning.”
“No, you’re not. Sorry, didn’t mean to snap at you.”
“Sounds like somebody’s regretting not retiring? Come on, Chuck, you hit twenty years of service over three years ago. How come you decided to keep working? Don’t you have a beach to retire to or something?”
“A beach? As if a guy on a federal pension can afford a place on the beach.”
“Well still, after twenty-three years with the FBI, you should take a break. You’ve got some savings. Go live it up a little. You don’t need to still be slogging around the streets of Manhattan, working cases.”
“But I enjoy the commute from Trenton so much.”
The van pulled into Forty-Eighth Avenue traffic and drove away.
“You enjoy the commute from Trenton? Trenton is, what, a two-hour slog through humanity? Each way, I might add?”
“Well, nobody told me I’d get rich at the bureau. Trenton is the closest thing to Manhattan I can afford.”
“Damn, Stone. The divorce really took it out of you, didn’t it?”
Agent Chuck Stone had worked a myriad of cases in his time as a special agent with the FBI, and this one had started no differently than most of the others. What was different this time was Chuck’s reassignment to the FBI’s New York field office.
The Jacob Javit’s Federal Building at 26 Federal Plaza sat nestled into the Civic Center district in Lower Manhattan. The building, first opened in 1969, housed several federal agencies. But it was the FBI that took occupancy of the entire twenty-third floor. From this vantage point, agents on duty the morning of September 11, 2001 had been witness to the terror attacks on the World Trade Centers, which once stood a distance just nine football fields away. Most agents had no choice but to stand helplessly and watch as the buildings collapsed.
“Well,” Stone said, “divorce ain’t cheap. Hey, did I ever tell you that when she moved out, she even took the ice trays out of the freezer?”
“Took the ice trays out of the freezer? You mean to tell me you came home from work, found she had moved her stuff out, and she had taken the plastic ice trays with her? What a psycho.”
“Tell me about it. Hey, check the tracking device. I stuck it to the subject’s shoulder, but those damn things are so finicky. Make sure it’s working.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ve got it right here,” Agent Larry Fry said, pointing to the laptop monitor. On the screen, a blip pulsed on the map of Manhattan’s midtown district. “Looks like she grabbed a cab or something. She’s headed down Fifth right now, toward the headquarters of Petrolsoft.”
“Don’t you just love the start of a new case?” Stone said.
“Love the start of a case? As opposed to the end, when we kick down a door and arrest a terrorist or other such asshole?”
“Yeah, I mean, think about it. I’ve been doing this for twenty-three years, and I tell you, the start of a case still gets to me. It’s like the beginning of a relationship with a woman, you know? Everything is new, so much to discover.”
“You mean the s*x is great at the beginning of a relationship.”
Agent Stone looked at him. “No, that’s not what I mean. Not that what you said isn’t true. But no, I’m talking about the energy, the excitement.”
“Yeah, the s*x. I know.”
Stone laughed. “How old are you, Fry? Twenty-nine? Thirty?”
“Twenty-nine. Why?”
“You young guys. Wait till you get to be my age. Now don’t get me wrong. A fifty-one-year-old thinks about s*x, but . . . how do I put this? At this age, we find it easier to concentrate on the case we’re working instead of on our balls.”
It was Fry’s turn to laugh. “You are the simplest SOB I’ve ever met.”
“Well, laugh it up. I still like the beginning of a case. You never know where it might lead.”
As the van driver turned south on Fifth Avenue to follow the blip on the map—a beacon signal emanating from the tiny tracking device Agent Stone had placed on Jana Baker’s business jacket—Agent Fry said, “That reminds me. Since I was just assigned this surveillance an hour ago, I haven’t even seen a picture of the target. What’s she look like?”
Stone ran his hand across the front of his scalp where fewer hairs remained than in his younger days. He said, “You just want to know if she’s hot.”
“Well?”
“Man, eight million residents in the city, and what? At least half of them have to be female. And you have your sights set on the one woman we’re supposed to recruit to work as an undercover informant?”
“You going to tell me?”
Stone exhaled. “Yes, she’s attractive. You happy now?”
“Ah, come on, Agent Stone. You’re thinking the same thing as me.”
“Fry, she’s less than half my age. She’s a twenty-two-year-old, just out of college. I’m more than old enough to be her father. So no, I’m not thinking the same as you.”
“You know I’m just messing with you, right?” Fry said.
“Just so you know, if you want a career here, you can’t get attracted to anyone in the scope of the investigation. It clouds your judgment, distracts you.”
Fry shook his head. “They were right.”
“Who was right?” Stone said.
“They told me this was how you were. They said you’d picked up the nickname of ‘Pops’ by the other agents. Said you’re always fathering the younger guys.”
“Pops, huh? Yeah, I’ve heard that one myself. So let that be a lesson to you, sonny. You young whippersnappers need to listen to the advice of us old-timers.”
“So what’s your advice to me on this case?”
“Keep your hands off of our material witness.”
- Writer
