The Special Agent Jana Baker Spy-Thriller Series

Cautious Exhilaration

5

Cautious Exhilaration

Jana’s mouth hung open as the man disappeared out the door.

“What in the hell was that about?” she said as questions swirled in her mind. Who is that guy? And how does he know so much about me? And I’m not supposed to mention this conversation to anyone? How could I not?

The man knew specific details about Jana and her background. Who knows things like that? And who approaches someone then randomly spouts off their life history? Someone who has been looking into your background, Jana thought.

Still, as she exited the door of Dean and Deluca and flagged down a cab, she couldn’t help but notice a tinge of excitement building inside. And he said not to mention it to anyone at Petrolsoft specifically.

Several minutes later, her cab pulled up to Petrolsoft’s main entrance just as a text message buzzed on her phone. The incoming number was listed as Blocked. Jana got out of the car and began weaving in and out of people on the sidewalk, but when she read the message, her mouth again fell open.

Hope you enjoy your coffee.

Lunch—12:30—Shanghai Mung Bistro,

W. 32nd St., An Asian place about

1.5 blocks from your office.

It’s crowded, but you’ll find me.

Come alone.

“Who is this guy?” she said as she came to an abrupt stop. A man walking down the sidewalk sidestepped her and glared. She was talking to herself and she knew it. “What are you looking at?”

Jana walked through the massive set of black glass double doors, the entrance to Petrolsoft’s corporate headquarters, and shouldered her way into an overcrowded elevator. Jammed in the throngs of humanity on their way to work in one of the world’s most lucrative software companies, Jana felt small.

Her common sense told her to stay away from the stranger. But there was something about him, something in the look of his eyes that she couldn’t quite place. The eyes were soft, disarming; the kind of eyes you’d see when you looked at your father. Based on what he’d said, the details he knew about her, she should be afraid. But she wasn’t; she had a feeling of exhilaration. And she had to admit, her curiosity had been piqued.

She knew she’d walk to the next block at lunchtime to come face-to-face with the man. Besides, he was right. A public place. Every restaurant on West Thirty-Second would be packed at that hour. What could go wrong?

Being new to Manhattan had its disadvantages though. For one thing, Jana knew virtually no one. She’d only been here three weeks and her microscopic studio apartment still had boxes stacked against one wall. The exhilaration she felt upon meeting the stranger was one thing, but in the crush of people in the elevator, she felt very alone. The feeling was familiar to her.

When Jana was just two years old, her father had passed away. She had no recollection of being told that he was gone, but what she did have was tiny fragments of memories of him. A little flash here, a flicker of a face there. To Jana, thinking about her father was like watching an old newsreel whose image quality was so low, only fragments survived. There was one memory though, that stuck in her mind. It must have been not long before he died and Jana was standing on the living room couch, looking out the large bay windows onto the front lawn of their North Carolina home. These were the only solid images of her father she could muster.

He was outside, snow up over his ankles, and he bent down to form a snowball. Two-year-old Jana giggled endlessly as he threw snowballs at the window. She laughed so hard she flopped onto the couch over and over, only to stand back up again.

As the elevator doors opened for the fourth time on its way to the sixty-third and uppermost floor, several people exited and one man got on. For just a moment she thought she smelled her father’s aftershave.