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Page 19.
 A nearby parking lot spilled full of cars as the hour drew nigh. The lot's center was dimly lit with observatory-safe lights the color of bloody-pink grapefruit flesh. As each car sought a parking space, its twin white headlights curved cautiously to a halt and went out. Simultaneously, at each car's tail, red brake lights winked out.
An expensive—-youthful-looking, though understated—sports coupe pulled in rather smartly to a far end of the parking lot. Amid loosely rolling elm leaves, the Ferrari disappeared into shadows in a tree-fringed parking lot. Its stabbing chilly-bluish headlights winked out, as did the tooled red lenses of its taillights. The sports car seemed swallowed in the night.
It was October, the time of year when the first frost moves down in a broad wave from Canada, shooting bright yellow and amber death into trillions of leaves from the Atlantic coast west into the blurry center of America. It was time for football, when the summer humidity had gone, and the days were mild, breezy, and sunny. The time of year seemed almost a false spring—promising harvest and rebirth, but bringing death and Hallow E'en. The night sky was clear ash-azure, a deep pure indigo amid an atmosphere that smelled like fresh blue ink for writing history notes, or whatever your passion inclined you toward. The air had a crisp feel, smelling faintly of wood smoke and fragile, dying leaves that circled in wind-blown spirals.
A light came on, along the lower border of the door, as it opened. Out stepped a wiry man in his mid-30s, with short, dark hair, blue eyes, and athletic features. A softened cragginess was just the right touch, the olive in the gin and tonic, for discerning women who prefer their man formal—though certainly not stiff—with just the right outdoorsy flavor for a campfire and cozy stories.
Jack Gray wore an expensively understated, dark-gray suit. His shirt was eggshell blue, starched, with a dark blue tie. The door slammed shut, but an interior light stayed on, revealing the outline of a young woman. Dark brown hair fell in rich waves over her bare shoulders and curled around her pale neck. Jack walked around the car, opened the door, and offered a hand, which she took though she did not need to. She was tall, with an elegantly beautiful face. She wore a white sheath, knee-length gown as she stepped out on high heels that became her. She wore these dangerous shoes, and her Italic beauty, with accustomed grace. Unable to resist, he embraced her. They kissed romantically in the shadows. He made a delighted sound, inhaling her scent, and she offered a sensuous, naughty giggle in return. It was a familiar giggle—they were old friends.
Nearby, a rectangle of light spilled from an open doorway. Men and women in evening wear came from all directions for the seven p.m. lecture by Dr. Jack Gray on the Flaminian Circus in ancient Rome. As the university tower clock sought the hour, a carillon could be heard winding up in its wooden framework. At the door stood a university employee in rouge and gray uniform, handing out programs. He was a slight Asian or Asian-American who bobbed his head in a friendly way each time he handed a copy to yet another beaming pair.
"Hello there!" called a woman in a red dress from the sidewalk near the door, waving her program in one hand, while her other arm was joined with her husband's.
"The Lightfields," said Minica as she detached herself from Jack Gray. They'd been expecting to meet for the lecture.
"Oh yes," he said. "I was expecting to meet them inside. They got a little bit ahead of themselves."
"Or you were getting a little behind," Dr. Dominica Albrisi, Ph.D.-Econ. said, lightly elbowing Jack in the ribs. For an elegant woman, she had a touch of the tomboy.
Jack's palm brushed her behind as he nudged her toward Claire and Tony Lightfield. "Go on, I'll be with you in a moment."
Minica kissed him wetly in his ear. "I'm looking forward to your lecher."
"I'll speak in tongues for you," Jack said.
He watched as Minica strode away—on sturdy, beautiful legs muscled from running, skiing, and surfing. They'd known each other since their college days. It had been a long, steamy, intermittent friendship. She was between husbands at the moment, and Jack was between gigs. He was on his way home from China, via this lecture at the university this evening. By tomorrow night, he would be home in San Diego County—where his real life lay. Nobody knew about his real life, not Minica or any other woman out here in the world, except his two liaisons—Claire Lightfield of Sigma 2020; and Johannes Rector of Compass News.
Jack believed in making the most of every moment, and this was no exception.
After his lecture here, there was to be some sort of surprise award for him later in the evening, hatched up by Claire Lightfield and Sigma 2020, at a secret Compass News safe house in the city.
He would spend the night with Minica at the safe house tonight, and take a shuttle plane across Long Island Sound to JFK International on Long Island. Then he'd fly off to San Diego for his well-earned vacation. Minica would be on a plane bound for Germany, where her fall semester consisted of teaching Micro and Macro Economics at the Englisches Collegium of Heidelberg University. How his luck in meeting her on short notice had come about: his stop in New Haven coincided with a visit home with her parents in Fairfield.
When Minica was safely beyond viewing angle, Jack opened the trunk of his late-model Ferrari. From under his jacket, he removed a holster containing his Swiss-made U.S. Coast Guard special 9mm SIG Sauer P229R DAK semi-automatic, small clip of 13 .40 Smith & Wesson rounds. He placed this in a padded plastic carrier toolkit in the trunk. He put his right foot up, and lifted his right trouser leg. He attached an ankle holster with one of his favorite secondaries—a snubby, Hungarian-made blue-steel finish Walther PPK/E compact, chambering the .32 caliber ACP round in a niner-clip. He hated ankle holsters. This would have to do for an uneventful hour or two. To his taste, ankle holsters were no good for running or climbing, nor even for walking—it was like limping around with a rock tied to one foot. Might not be perceptible to a desk-bound blob, but it made all the difference if you happened to be running for your life in some situation. He was not expecting any such situation tonight.
Jack clicked the trunk lid closed. He lightly stomped his foot a moment to settle the ankle holster. Then he joined the two women and Tony at the door, where lecture goers were still pouring into the smallish hall beyond an inside corridor.
Jack, a man of multiple hats, worked free-lance for Compass News Corporation. This was not a media organization, but an anti-terrorist, surveillance, and intervention firm headquartered in San Diego. Compass News, headed by Johannes Rector, was named for the four compass points—North, East, West, South. Through Compass News, Jack worked freelance, and almost exclusively for Sigma 2020, with Claire Lightfield as his liaison.
Claire Lightfield was a civil servant, an intelligence officer, employed directly by Sigma 2020. This was a wholly owned subsidiary company or branch of the world's most powerful corporate entity. Camelback Consortium, based in Phoenix, had over 100 major branches around the globe. Its extended network included countless lesser nodes, including many governmental offices. Claire's liaison orbit included the U.S. government in the form of Senators Bloviant and Hawgbile; the Executive branch including CIA, FBI, and OPOTUS; and MILINT offices of several 'Western' foreign corponations.
Jack worked not, as he liked to say, for Claire or with her or despite her, but with her able assistance. Ever diplomatic, while tough as an oak board, Dr. Claire Lightfield, Ph.D.-Physics, chose not to disagree, and let it go at that, as long as her mission ended up being accomplished. Claire's husband Tony was with her this evening, tall, balding, congenial. Tony was a mellowed sort of Lord Haw-Haw who had made a fortune internationally trafficking in expensive and aromatic bath products. Tony could always be relied on for cheerful and erudite repartee.
As Jack joined them to enter the lecture hall, he took Minica by the elbow and squeezed. She squeezed back, as if to say I can't wait to have you in the sack later tonight. He was sometimes tempted to make his relationship with her more solid. But that could not be. It would violate his basic principle—putting her too much at risk—based on bitter and unspeakable personal experience. Jack might be a very eligible single man, but he was not a bachelor.
Jack and Minica entered the building through a single door, which was propped open by a tilted chair. Inside was a crosswise corridor smelling of old books and carpets, as well as noodles and old hats. A double door, both of its wings open, admitted one into the 100 seat hall where Jack and another professor were due to each give a 45-minute talk that evening.
Minica had met the Lightfields on one or two occasions before—once at a tea for a newly arrived Chinese consul from Shanghai, at Camelback's glass and fountain-splashed HQ in Langley, Virginia. At the time, Minica was staying in Alexandria, and Jack brought her along as his date; another time at a resort in Vermont, where Jack and Minica stayed in a ski lodge adjacent to that of the Lightfields.
"Claire," Jack said, holding Minica tightly arm in arm, "you'll take care of her for me while I speak?"
"Of course," Claire said. She was echoed by a graying, balding, and therefore all the more dashing Tony Lightfield, who peeled a compliant Minica from Jack's arm.
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Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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