Jae's Assignment

by Bernice Layton

  “Probably as bad as I felt for having to submit that report on Randy Cross, but listen, Trevor, ah, Dr. Grant and I discovered something today. It’s really huge.”

  “Woo hoo,” Iverson roared. “You see guys, I told you, size does matter to women.”

  Before Jae jumped on Iverson, Darius said, “Iverson, shut the hell up. You and McGuire check and see if Trevor, ah, Dr. Grant,” he mocked, “left anything, including a shoe print.”

  As soon as Iverson and McGuire went down the hallway in the direction of her bedroom, Jae turned to Darius. “Listen to me, we need Trevor’s help to find Grainger.”

  “Jae, I received an email from Luke late last night. He’s on a special OP and there was nothing to suggest that anything was wrong. The email was sent from his personal account.”

  “But you didn’t talk to him. Did you authenticate the message?” When he nodded that he had, Jae was really stumped as to how to explain that. She also needed to find out how Trevor made it out of her apartment without being seen by the security detail that Darius had in place around her building. That meant all four corners were manned, including the hallway, elevators, and stairwells leading to her door.

  “Come with me.” Darius took her by the hand and led her across the living room to the patio where he pointed to the swing. “Have a seat,” he said then sat on the stool facing her. “Now, how the hell are we supposed to go back to the office without the good doctor in tow and explain that you weren’t a co-conspirator? It’ll look like we’re covering for you, especially since we all saw him here this morning.”

  Jae waited for Darius’s tongue-lashing to end, but in her mind she pictured Trevor sitting in that same spot earlier. He too had stared at her in disbelief.

  “Okay, it’s just you and me, because I know you don’t want those two boneheads in there in your business, so come on, Jae. What’s really going on with you and the former hairy ape-man who, by the way, makes pretty decent pancakes?”

  “Oh, please! Nothing’s going on,” she squealed in exasperation.

  “Did it start when you worked that assignment in his office a few months ago? Did the two of you stay in contact?” Darius tilted his head. “Did you guys have a little fling going on?”

  Crossing her arms over her chest, Jae gave him a critical look. “Only in his dreams.”

  “That’s not how it looked this morning.”

  “Forget this morning, Darius. I was in total shock when he showed up here.”

  “I can’t forget it, Jae. It looked like he came here early enough to make a sweet little ‘morning after’ breakfast and because you never have that much food in your refrigerator, perhaps he slept over, then this morning the two of you woke up hungry and then skipped off to the market,” Darius teased despite the serious issue at hand.

  Jae leaned forward and poked his chest. “Wrong, bonehead number one, he broke in some time around two-thirty.”

  “He broke in at two thirty in the morning? Did that idiot hurt you?”

  “No, just scared the hell out of me.”

  “What’d you do?” Darius asked with obvious concern. “Did he pull a weapon on you?”

  “No, but I sure as hell pulled mine on him.”

  “Then you should have shot him!” Darius snapped. “What’s going on with this guy?”

  “Absolutely nothing, and Darius, you’re as bad as those other two boneheads in there who’re probably rummaging through my underwear drawer. I’m not that hard up or stupid to do what you’re suggesting.”

  “All I’m saying is that’s not how it looked this morning.”

  Jae pushed herself up from the swing and stepped away. When she heard him grunt, a satisfied smile lifted the corners of her mouth as she walked over to the left front railing.

  “I know you wanted that swing to hit me, but I anticipated your move and it missed my knees. I’m real fast, honey,” Darius said. He chuckled as he walked over and stood at the railing beside her.

  “Yes, I know. That’s what your wife, said while we were out shopping one day.”

  Darius was flustered, but quick to explain. “Hey, she was probably still harping about that time we drove down to Florida. I was dead tired and there she was showing off some little sexy outfit and…” When he caught Jae grinning and guessing that his wife hadn’t said any such thing, Darius clammed up. “Okay, you got me. So why’d that hairy ape come here?”

  Jae told him what Trevor had said about the unreadable data drive.

  “And you believed that crock of crap? Now, you see, Jae, that’s what concerns me. You’re a tough agent. You’re smart. You’ve got guts and you don’t fall for the line of BS these guys try to run on you.”

  “You’re damn right I don’t! So why would I jeopardize my job and self-respect if I didn’t feel strongly in my gut that something isn’t right about Grainger? You know him. And it’s obvious that Trevor is connected to all of this.”

  “But there’s no case, Jae. Grainger sent you on an assignment originally because the geek doctor slash terrorist was looking for some secretarial help, right?”

  “Administrative help,” Jae corrected.

  “Whatever. In any case the report you filed following your administrative stint in his office has vanished from the database; even the photo of that hairy ape is gone. I can’t even say the man I saw here this morning, all shaved down to his skin, was the same Dr. Grant aka hairy ape-man we’d received a photo of in our initial meeting several months ago.”

  Jae turned around to face him. “What do you mean? There’s a file on the mainframe. I accessed it when I returned from Virginia to prepare the supplemental report.”

  “As of this morning the file isn’t there, so I figured Grainger must have reclassified it since the last time I saw it. ”

  A fleeting idea raced through Jae’s head. Something she’d only thought about that now made her believe that Trevor knew Luke Grainger personally, despite his claim to the contrary.

  “Darius, you know I always trust that gut instinct you’ve told us time and time again to listen to. Please believe me when I say Grainger may be in trouble and if I’m wrong I’ll walk away from the Bureau,” she said just as Iverson and McGuire came out on the patio, both munching on a fist full of corn chips. “And if you guys made a mess in there, I’ll kill you!”

  “They didn’t. I told them to take a load off while I talked to you,” Darius admitted.

  McGuire walked over to the side railing, looked out, and suddenly yelled, “Hey, stop!” as best he could around a mouthful of corn chips, pointing out over the railing.

  Jae assumed McGuire was getting another parking ticket on the sedan. That is until he spit out the chips and shouted. “Don’t you move, Dr. Grant!” Whipping out his cell phone, he raced back inside the apartment and out the front door.

  Jae, Darius, and Iverson rushed to the front railing just in time to see Trevor turn and look up. He gave them a mocking salute before casually walking up the street and rounding the corner as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  All three were spurred into action as they rushed inside the apartment. Darius was last out the door, but shouted for Jae to stay put.

  Jae sprinted into her bedroom and snatched up her bag from the chair. Stopping suddenly and looking around, something was missing. Her digital picture frame wasn’t on the dresser and she didn’t have to guess why he’d taken it. Pulling her digital camera from her workbag, Jae turned it on and accessed the media card where her photos were also stored. Scrolling through the pictures she halted at several that had been taken at Grainger’s house. In the background of one particular picture was the street sign, boldly showing the name of the road leading to the development where Grainger lived.

  Hearing several sirens, she rushed over to the bedroom window and looked out. Police cars and unmarked sedans were circling the block and
scouring the parking garage of the building next to hers. The manhunt was on.

  Tearing a slip of paper from the notepad on her nightstand, Jae scribbled a quick note for Darius and then taped it to the dresser mirror.

  She’d written eight words she hoped would put an end to the chaos going on, at least where she lived.

  I’m going with my gut. Please trust me.

  * * * * *

  After leaving Jae’s apartment and then Grainger’s house, Trevor headed to the public library to do some research.

  He’d initially thought he needed to go back to the beginning to find out who blacklisted and incriminated him in the deaths of the soldiers. At first, he blamed General Murphy and Dr. Harmon, the two men who’d approved his funding. Now, he decided to change his point of reference.

  Trevor just couldn’t understand why Grainger would go to such lengths to protect him. By all accounts Grainger had risked his position and his life to help him. Trevor wanted to know why because finding that out might give him the answers he needed to get his life back.

  One disturbing thought kept resurfacing. Was Grainger involved in the mishandling of his research? Could he have been connected to the people behind his research funding? Jae had told him that Grainger was ex-military, which could mean that he might have personal connections with the top brass.

  Closing his tired eyes, Trevor recalled the day he had met Grainger on the airplane in the middle of the night. In that brief meeting, he believed the agent was genuinely concerned for his safety and sincerely wanted to help him. Grainger warned him if he wanted to stay alive, he needed a new identity. If not, his family could be targeted to get to him. Grainger he explained how the witness protection program worked, before presenting him with that packet of papers—his new life; a life that didn’t include his family, friends, career, or Gina.

  But now there was nothing in the FBI database to show that he ever existed. If that was the case, then there was probably no trace of his true identity, either, he thought. Unless his identity was deeply buried somewhere in the system.

  Opening his eyes, the library’s logo was bobbing slowly up and down, back and forth on the computer monitor. In the screen’s reflection Trevor saw the man he really was inside. Adian Cole.

  Sadly, despite taking on a new name and faking his own death, he was no safer than he had been before he went into hiding. The blue eyes staring back at him were those of his late mother. The plastic surgery he’d had the day after that airplane landed somewhere in Connecticut couldn’t change his eyes or the shape of his mouth.

  If only for a moment, Trevor allowed himself to be Adian Cole again—a happy, fun-loving physician with a deep love for his family and friends.

  Trevor saddened as he thought back to everything he’d given up. His lips thinned with suppressed anger before he glanced around to see if anyone was looking his way. He needn’t have worried. The library was practically deserted except for the desk clerk and one person studying at one of the large brown worktables.

  He thought he’d spent so much time becoming Trevor Grant that the sound of his own voice often took him by surprise. It sounded foreign to his ears because he rarely carried on long conversations with anyone.

  No one at the Kincaid Institute had questioned it or thought it odd. He recalled a colleague commenting that researchers were notoriously standoffish and introverted.

  And yet he found himself talking to Jae Randall a lot and as often as he could. He was surprised at how easy it was to be himself around her. He felt bad for skipping out on her, but he didn’t have a choice. He couldn’t risk the FBI arresting him, not now when he had so much to do, like track down Grainger.

  Trevor knew he couldn’t remain with Jae, especially after Darius told him it would be in his best interest to have Jae bring him down to the field office in two hours or they were coming back for him. Before he joined Jae on the patio earlier, he’d noticed the digital photo album in her bedroom. He walked in, picked up the photo album and began scrolling through the pictures until he returned to the picture of Grainger. The second he noticed a street address in one of the photos he decided to check it out.

  After swiping the photo, he prepared Jae a glass of orange soda pop. He’d put the smallest amount of the sleep aid he’d concocted right there in her kitchen into the soft drink. As she slept, he’d gone to work, gathering his things and tidying up so as not to leave any tracks. He was well aware of everything he touched in her apartment and made sure to wipe it down. Before leaving, he took a quick glance out of the bedroom window and spotted three similar sedans pulling up and parking strategically along the street.

  In the living room, he weighed his escape options and determined he would have to leave the same way he’d come in, through the patio. But he couldn’t do that with the FBI and cops posted at his drop point, not to mention it was broad daylight. When he heard squeals of laughter out in the corridor, he’d looked through the peephole, then put on his brightest smile as he opened the door. He asked the five bikini-clad young women coming down the hall for a favor.

  A few minutes later, he went back onto the patio where Jae was sound asleep. He kissed her beautiful sleeping lips then had to bite back a chuckle when she puckered up. “I sure wish you were dreaming about me, sweetheart,” he whispered against her lips.

  When he crept across the patio and leaned over, he spotted Darius getting out of one of the sedans and rushing toward the building. Iverson and McGuire followed close behind.

  With one last look at Jae, Trevor eased himself behind the four-paneled screen that was positioned on the far right of the patio for privacy from the neighboring building.

  It was there he waited. Soon, the patrol officer and FBI agent were busy watching the bikini-clad women strolling around the pool, catching the attention of the men. It was then that Jae yawned as she awakened.

  From his position behind the screen, he saw her get up and walk over to the railing briefly before going inside the apartment. He could hear her calling out for him. Did he hear fear in her voice? Or perhaps it was exasperation once she’d realized he wasn’t there. Trevor believed it was the latter.

  For ten minutes he sat behind the screen on an uncomfortable milk crate holding a big bag of potting soil. After the police swept her apartment and left, he overheard Darius’s interrogation of Jae. He felt bad but was proud of her for holding her own. He made a mental note that he and Darius would have words when he saw him again.

  Trevor couldn’t believe the man had referred to him as a hairy ape-man. He snorted as he resumed his Internet search.

  * * * * *

  Jae glanced at the buzzing cell phone. She was pretty sure it was Iverson calling his own phone hoping somebody would answer and tell him where his smart phone was. Only for a second did Jae feel guilty about snatching up his cell phone from where he’d carelessly left it lying on her bed.

  She didn’t want to chance taking hers. When the phone buzzed again, Jae smirked, knowing Iverson was going to freak out and start searching like a madman. She’d already seen a few text messages he’d received from women. Serves you right, she thought snidely.

  Jae reflected on when she’d left her apartment the day before. It had been easier than she thought it would be. Of course, she’d had to do a little acting again, but it worked.

  She’d pulled the legs of her jeans up above her knees, slipped on a pair of flip-flops, and thrown on a knee-length cover-up, a big floppy hat, and sunglasses. She blended right in with a family walking down the corridor outside her apartment to the elevator, heading for the pool. Her plan was to bypass the elevator and go through the steel gray door at the end of the hall, which opened out onto the garage level where her parking spot was.

  To her dismay, she’d spotted a patrol officer standing by the door, so she had to change her strategy. She followed the family to the elevator and piled on with them.
>
  Reaching the ground level she walked to the pool area and crossed behind the lifeguard’s chair, heading for the locker rooms and slipping out the side door.

  Once there, she cursed her luck when she spotted a rookie field agent, Special Agent Jenson, standing guard at the side exit door. With no other option, she got on the outside elevator that led up to the garage on the far end of her building. Not only was it clear glass, it took her out of her way, but she was ready.

  Jae’s only hitch occurred when the elevator filled with young women in their skimpiest bikinis. They drew the attention of many males, including Iverson and McGuire, who stared at them with interest as the elevator rose.

  As best she could, Jae pulled the cover-up tighter around her legs. She was afraid those two gawking boneheads would notice her rolled-up jeans underneath her cover-up. When the elevator stopped on her level she sauntered off nonchalantly until the doors closed, then she made a mad dash for the steel door on the opposite end of the parking garage.

  As she rushed to her car, sweat dripped from her forehead and adrenaline rushed through her. Making her way across the warm concrete she was on the lookout for cops or FBI agents staked out in the garage.

  Just as she was about to turn the corner, Jae was aghast to discover that her car key was missing from the key ring. As she frantically fumbling inside her large bag, she spotted a patrol car slowly coming up the ramp. Dropping behind a car that smelled as if it had been driven through horse manure, Jae smacked her forehead and cursed her luck when the patrol car stopped one car to the right. She held her breath as long as she could until finally unable to take the smell any longer, she waddled, duck fashion, to the left.

  Eventually the patrol car cruised past her and onto the next level of the garage.

  She guessed Darius had returned to her apartment and saw that she’d taken off despite his order for her to stay put. Now the cops were circling and searching for her as well as Trevor.