Jack Be Quick Ch. 06

"What effect did all this have on the project?"

"Everybody was told that you had a minor accident and were lucky enough to come away with just a cut on your ear. No details beyond that. I think you'd better scrap that furniture moving story. You'll have to use a loaner car while yours is being fixed, so I suggest that you blame it on a traffic accident. Whatever you feel comfortable with. Your crew told Jim they want to get a big card for you and all sign it, which says to me that this hasn't killed their morale. Jim says they're working all right, just bringing the problems to him that you'd normally handle."

We ate in silence for a minute, and then Jerry said, "Speaking of your car, Woody told me that before he did a single thing to it he called Red to get his permission. Here's Woody, a top mechanic in anybody's league, and to him that car is a masterpiece and Red is the master. Of course, Red told him to go right ahead, and to call him if he runs into any problems."

I thought about that for a couple of chews. "You know, common sense tells me it's only a car. It'll do things I never thought a street legal car could do, but even so it's just a machine. I've sure become attached to it, though. When I'm in a regular car it feels like walking around in public in my underwear. So I can understand how Woody must feel when he's allowed to work on it. He's like an artist who's been called in to repair the Mona Lisa."

Something was bothering me, something that Jerry had said before. I must have been frowning as I tried to get back to it, and Jerry picked up on that. "What's the matter, Jack? Spit it out."

"Something, wait. Yeah, I've got it. The guy who left the scene was driving an Audi. Funny, but I haven't seen any Audis around here, that I can remember. Some dealers handle Audi and Porsche, and they may push the Porsche line harder because it's more profitable. Any chance you can get a line on this guy just from the make of his car?"

"That's one of the things the analysts should be working on. I'll ask them how they're doing on it. But it seems improbable that the guy holding the reins of an espionage ring would be from around here. Maybe the Audi guy is just their local rep, keeping an eye on what's happening in the universities. Between Cambridge and Boston there sure are a lot of colleges and universities and specialty schools, so they might find it useful to keep a guy here.

"All this espionage stuff is new to me. I know how to do the usual things, kidnaps, all sorts of financial scams, bank robberies, but I never dealt with spies before. They've brought in some experts to back me up, so I'm not worried about handling it. But it's completely different from everything we usually do. When the bad guys try to pull off something violent my heart starts racing, because I know all about that world. I suppose the people upstairs in the Bureau, the ones we agents never see, are trying to get me some spy experience to make me well rounded. This stuff is going to fill out my resume, I guess."

Jerry relaxed a bit and seemed to be mentally reliving some of his involvement in the project. He seemed to wax philosophical for a minute. "The Bureau wanted me to broaden my scope when we decided together that they wanted to keep me and I wanted to stay. I'd simply reached the point where it's either up or out, and I'm glad we agreed it'd be up. The woods are full of former agents. Go to any decent size company and they'll have a loss prevention department with a former agent running it. Loss prevention is modern slang for security or investigation. But there are so many former agents from all the different federal branches that snoop all over the world, and of course on each other, that they're no big deal. So as a career move, the 'out' option didn't look attractive to me. The Bureau is a strange outfit to work for, but the work is usually interesting and it's hard to beat the combination of pay, benefits, and retirement. There's a lot of prestige that goes with staying the course, too. Big difference between 'retired agent' and 'former agent.' 'Former' can be read as 'not worth promoting' or 'doesn't play well with others' while 'Retired' usually means 'able to handle more responsibility' or 'a real keeper' to anybody who knows the Bureau.

"The way the world is headed, everybody is instantly in touch with everybody else. Moscow and Berlin and Paris are as close as Plymouth. What happens anywhere seems to affect people everywhere. I guess the spy business must be a growth industry, on both sides of the street."

I nodded as if I were about to turn equally serious. "I guess I'm lucky to have a friend with his finger on the pulse of the world."

"Who's that?"

"Why, you, of course."

"What you're lucky to have is a friend who'll pay for your coffee and burgers at the Goose. As for my finger, I'll let that go without the obvious comeback, as a courtesy to Trudy. I'll just have to take my finger off that pulse and poke it around and finger the guys that want you dead or alive. I guess I'm lucky to have a friend who's as popular as you are. Folks are just dying to meet you."