by Bob Blink
“How can I help?”
“I need to be free to move around. I know I promised to take care of Janna, but it would be helpful if you could place her in the daycare the rest of the week.”
Jake’s jump had brought him back to the evening before he intended to begin his surveillance of Ray. He hadn’t been certain how the two long jumps in less than twenty-four hours might affect him, and had wanted time to recover. He’d also expected it would take more time than it had to make Karin understand. All it had taken this time was his mention of the move against Janna, and she had become very protective. It seemed the younger Janna was, the stronger Karin reacted to a perceived threat.
Jake was in the parking lot when fake Henry Ray drove in the next morning. Unlike the other times, he looked hesitant, and uncertain where to go, and chose to park in a visitor’s slot rather than the assigned parking he’d use later. It made sense. He was reporting in for the first time.
Jake waited until Ray was out of his car and was making his way toward the building. He was easily recognized now. His style of dress was unchanged, and his uncertainty showed.
“You must be Henry Ray,” Jake said as he caught up with the other.
Ray looked back at him questioningly.
“Wally said a new guy was due today,” Jake explained while watching Ray for any sign of recognition, although from his earlier encounters he knew that had to be impossible. “You looked uncertain, and it’s a little early for anyone who doesn’t work here to be wandering around. Come on, I’ll show you the way. “I’m Jake Waters,” he said, just to check the actor’s reaction to the name once again.
Ray displayed no reaction to the name this time either. “I’m supposed to meet a man named Fred Hickam,” Ray explained. “Apparently Mr. Hamilton, the editor, won’t be in until later.”
Jake nodded his head encouragingly. “Fred is probably upstairs with Stan Mathews. They both are usually here early. Come on, we’ll stop by the receptionist. She’ll log you in.”
Ray nodded, the Mathews name meaning nothing to him. He followed as Jake led the way. There was zero doubt in Jake’s mind at this point. This fake Ray had no idea who he was.
They stepped into the building, and Jake pointed to the familiar receptionist.
“You go ahead,” Jake said. “She’ll get you taken care of. I’ll go up and tell Fred you are here.”
Ray headed toward the woman, and when she had his attention, Jake stepped back outside. Quickly he returned to his car and drove away from the newspaper plant. He’d learned absolutely nothing. Part of him had expected as much, and he’d wondered why he felt so strongly about checking this out. He should have simply jumped the extra week and gone directly to where he expected to find the real Henry Ray. There was no point in delaying.
Chapter 13
After the long jumps he had been making, the one-week back-track was effortless. He didn’t even have a headache when he arrived. The hard part was explaining to Karin once again. Jake was starting to find it tiresome to go through the whole situation time after time, but for his wife, this was all entirely new, and she had many questions. It turned out also that Janna had been sick for the past several days, something he’d forgotten about, and as a result Karin was tired and a little irritable. Jake could feel the tiredness in his own body from the sleepless nights endured the last couple of days by the ‘him’ his memories had moved into.
Despite being eager to check on Ray, Jake realized that he had promised Karin to watch over Janna so she could go into work to catch up on an important task of her own. The daycare wouldn’t accept children who were sick, and while much improved, Janna still had a bit of a temperature. Somewhat reluctantly, he knew he had to forego running off immediately. He had time. Coming back a week was more than had been necessary. He’d wanted to be certain that he caught Ray under somewhat normal conditions, not just his last day at the old newspaper. It might have been better to go back several weeks, but Jake hadn’t felt ready for another long jump just yet, and something in his gut told him this transition period was unique somehow. This was where the real Ray was going to disappear, Jake was certain of it. That made this a critical time. All he had to do was first verify he was watching the real Ray, and then see how he did it. Jake didn’t think it would be complicated. Ray had setup the fake disappearance a couple of months in the future from this time as a diversion in case Jake checked and wouldn’t have expected Jake would discover the ruse that a man working at the San Francisco paper was a fake. The situation showed that Ray really didn’t fully understand how Jake’s ability worked. Actually, it was surprising that he understood as well as he appeared to. For anyone who hadn’t experienced it as Jake had, it was confusing. Even Carlson, and Karin for that matter, still got it wrong sometimes, and they had been involved more than anyone.
While Karin was away at work, Jake spent most of his time in the study. Janna was a cooperative child, spending most of the afternoon sleeping. Jake completed a programming task in a couple of hours that had taken him several days the last time he’d passed through this period, because he recalled the solution he had stumbled upon after several iterations. That meant he wouldn’t be late on the delivery to his client if he spent the next couple of days away and chasing his problem.
Then he jumped on the Internet for a bit of research. Jake’s frequent back-tracking over the years had honed his memory skills, and he recalled the name of the Oakland newspaper where Ray worked from the briefing Carlson and Laney had given him so many months from now. It took only a short time to learn all he needed, including locating the facility on a map and choosing the best route. Like the San Francisco paper, this one wasn’t one of the major papers in Oakland, actually somewhat lower on the scale than where Ray had moved, making the transition a step upward.
The next morning after Karin had headed off to work with a now fully recovered Janna, Jake set off to see what he could learn about Ray’s situation before he’d made the move to the far side of the Bay. He didn’t need to work his way to the City and then across the Bay Bridge this time. Before, when he’d made the trip to Oakland, he’d been at the southern edge of San Francisco and it made sense to use the Bay Bridge to cross to the eastern side. Starting from his home in San Jose, it made sense to travel up the east side of the Bay, and approach Oakland from the south. It didn’t matter much. The traffic on the eastern side was horrendous as well. As a result, it was nearly ten thirty when he pulled into the parking lot of the ancient buildings that housed Ray’s current employer. Jake had decided he might as well use the same approach he’d found successful before. It wouldn’t matter, because at some point he was certain he would be going even farther back, and the fact he’d revealed the future corruption scandal from across the Bay would never happen.
No parking spots were marked for visitors, so Jake simply parked in the first open slot he found. Inside he encountered a different receptionist. This one was older, black, with heavy framed glasses with incredibly thick lenses. Unlike the lady he’d dealt with across the Bay, this woman was far more focused on her job, greeting him with her full attention, and anxious to be of help. When Jake explained what he wanted, giving her a meaningless name, she picked up her phone to call back to someone Jake hoped was Ray.
“Henry, honey,” she said when her call was answered. “There’s someone out here who claims to have a tip on an important news story for you.”
Jake had already learned that the woman was one of those who addressed everyone as honey. He’d already been labeled as such several times in the brief conversation he’d had with her.
Wanda, as Jake had seen her name was by the writing on the overly large badge attached to her blouse, listened and nodded to herself several times.
“Okay, I’ll send him right back,” she said, and then hung up the phone.
She treated Jake to a dazzling smile, and explained where he was to go, pointing in the general direction as she talked. This time Jake needed to pay atten
tion as he’d never been here before.
There were no stairs. This was a single story building, that rumbled faintly as the vibration from some large machinery was transmitted through the concrete floor of the structure. The printing presses Jake guessed as he headed down the dark somewhat narrow hallway deeper into the structure. He counted intersections as he passed, turning left at the third one, seeing a pair of double doors at the far end. When he reached the doors he saw they were without a latch, and were merely swinging doors designed to help keep some of the outside noise from the room. He pushed through into a large area reminiscent of the reporter room of the other facility. This time, however, there were more than half a dozen reporters present, most busily typing away at their computers. Jake had no trouble deciding which was Ray’s desk. Only one of the people in the room had been watching the doorway expectantly.
A wooden name plate clearly identified the occupant of the desk as Henry Ray. The letters were rounded and raised from the wood and plated in some cheap metallic gold colored foil. The man held out his hand, and Jake took it automatically, doing his best to gauge the reporter’s reaction to him. At the same time, Jake worked to control his own expressions.
“Hi, I’m Henry Ray,” the man said while looking him over. Jake detected no recognition in the man’s eyes or expression upon seeing him.
He looked like Ray. More so than the fake one pretending to be Ray at the San Francisco newspaper. Seeing the man Jake believed was the real Henry Ray he could see the match to the photograph Carlson had showed him. He was the same height as the imposter with the same lanky build and thinning hair. Even the eyes were the same color. The only difference was the scar. That hadn’t been in the photograph Jake had seen, but somehow he knew that despite the disparity, this was his man.
“Who are you?” Ray was asking, mirroring the thought going through Jake’s mind at the moment.
“I’m Jake Waters,” he said, watching carefully for any hint of recognition.
Like the fake Ray, the real one didn’t blink at the name. Jake couldn’t be positive, but he believed the name wasn’t known to this Ray. Either that or he would be a great poker player. That suggested that it was something he had yet to learn. Perhaps when he did so he set in motion the disappearance of the actor a few months from now.
“My friend said I should come and see you with what I discovered. For some reason he thought you would have a personal interest. It’s a little unusual, almost unbelievable,” he added.
“I see,” Ray replied, although it was clear he didn’t.
Ray waved a hand at one of the chairs. Carlson had told him that Ray was a loner of sorts, yet when he was pursuing a story it was clear he could appear as sociable as anyone. He smiled and looked directly at Jake.
“Can you tell me a little more what this is about?”
“Do you remember the attempt on Senator Kerns last year?” Jake asked.
“Of course,” Ray replied as his hand subconsciously went to the deep scar in his left cheek. The scar was something that made the man stand out, and it hadn’t been in the photograph that Carlson had shown him.
Now Ray was looking at him expectantly, but had still shown no hint of recognition. In for a penny, Jake thought.
“I have a friend whose wife works for the San Francisco field office of the FBI,” Jake said.
“Does this friend have a name?” Ray asked.
Jake hesitated as though he was revealing something maybe he shouldn’t, then he said, “His name is Stan Mathews.”
Again, Ray didn’t blink. The name meant nothing to him, or he was even better at hiding surprise than Jake thought. Somehow Jake had expected Ray to know the name, since he would have expected the name to have been revealed at the same time someone discovered Jake’s existence and abilities. It was possible Ray somehow learned it later. That might be why the actor hadn’t been aware of the name at first.
“Why didn’t this Mathews bring this information, whatever it is, to me himself?”
“I believe he feels it is something that probably wasn’t meant to be released, and since his wife works there, it is best to maintain some distance.”
Ray nodded his understanding. “So you got chosen.”
“Well, he told me, and I said that I thought this needed to be revealed, and he said I should be the one to do so. I guess your name was somewhere in the reports as well for some reason.”
“I was one of the first reporters on the scene,” Ray explained.
“That might be why,” Jake agreed.
“So what is there in the report that isn’t already known. It was a major story, and ran in the papers for days. I cannot imagine that anything was left unreported. Unless they know who was behind it. That was something that was never learned.”
“If they know, it wasn’t in what my friend’s wife found. But they did know the attack was going to take place,” Jake said. “They knew and didn’t tell the Senator, letting the attack proceed and placed a sniper on the roof to stop the drones just before they could hit.”
“Why would they take such a risk?” Ray asked, showing more interest in Jake’s tale.
“Whoever informed them said if they warned the Senator, or they moved him, then the people behind the attack would know and call it off. That would destroy any chance of finding out who was behind the attack, and it would simply be tried again at a later date. This would be the best chance of catching the culprits.”
“That certainly didn’t work out,” Ray replied. “I can’t believe they would operate in such a way, and how did this informant know so much?”
Ray rubbed the scar again
“That’s the weird thing. The report says they have used the guy before. Someone named Bob Trask. The papers indicate he has some kind of ability to know what is going to happen before it does.”
“A clairvoyant?” Ray shook his head. “That’s not like the FBI.”
“That’s what the report claims. He told them where, and even when it would happen. Told them how they could prevent anyone from getting hurt.”
“They weren’t entirely successful there,” Ray said off-handedly.
Jake played dumb. “The newspapers said no one was badly injured. A few cuts from broken glass, nothing more.”
“No one in the hotel,” Ray said. He pointed to the scar he’d been caressing. “This is a result of the attack.”
“You were close enough to get caught in the blast?” Jake asked, hoping his acting wasn’t too transparent.
“I was riding to the hotel with my sister,” Ray said. “The newspaper had scored a seat at the news conference the Senators were planning for later in the morning. My editor owed me one, so I was the one selected to go.”
“You were hit by something from the hotel?” Jake asked. “Maybe that’s why your name was in the reports.”
Ray shook his head. “My sister was driving. My own car was in the shop, and I’d gotten the word I needed to be at the hotel late. The stupid bitch was high as usual, and not paying attention to what she was doing. When the blast went off, quite loud let me tell you, she started looking up at the sky trying to see what it was. She kept saying a plane had exploded. She wasn’t watching the road, and there was a construction vehicle loaded with steel rebar just ahead. Damn woman nearly killed me. She ended up skewered by a dozen long pieces of steel.”
“My god!” Jake exclaimed. The story matched what he knew, but clearly this guy wasn’t playing the loving brother role well. What bothered Jake was he told the story in such a manner that it made one understand he’d been there and narrowly escaped with his own life. Then there was that scar.
They talked for another half hour, Jake providing a lot of fake details on what else his friend had told him, including a reference number to the FBI file that supposedly contained the information. Ray seemed quite interested. More than a little. He watched Jake carefully as he told the tale and provided details. Jake used the number of the real file, as he wanted to be sur
e he didn’t make up a number that was obviously false. There was no chance this guy would ever see the file that Carlson had on the event. Jake intended to wait and see how this developed when he left here rather than immediately back-track and erase all memory of his visit. He’d do that later. As he left, he couldn’t decide how much was news to Ray. He’d acted like it was something he’d never heard of before, but several times Jake had thought he detected more than a simple reporter interest, especially given the far out nature of the story.
Not certain what to expect from the man he’d just spoken with, whoever he was, and what the information, both true and false, that he’d passed along might cause him to do, Jake knew the next step was to watch and see what developed. He climbed into his Highlander, drove across the street and through a fast food joint to pick up something to tide him over, then drove halfway down the block and parked to see what might happen.
Henry Ray didn’t leave the office until 5:30 that afternoon, and then he drove home without any side trips. By nine that evening, Jake was convinced he wasn’t going anywhere, so he started the car and started the long drive back home. He called Karin to tell her he was coming home. On the way he tried to make sense of the situation. Today was Wednesday. Four days from now the fake Ray would be starting a new job across the Bay. Four days from now, someone else would be Henry Ray and this man would disappear. Ray appeared to know less than made sense, and he didn’t act like someone planning on disappearing in a few days.
“What does it mean?” Karin asked when Jake arrived back in San Jose. She had a warm meal waiting. Janna was long since asleep, so they could talk uninterrupted.
“I wish I knew,” he admitted. “I have been watching the wrong guy for weeks now. Ray is being clever. He decided to disappear long before I expected. He knows enough to guess what might have happened during the Kerns attack, but he doesn’t know names. At least I think he doesn’t. He knows, or will know later, that the person involved can loop backwards and change things, otherwise why would he have made the demands with regards to his sister? Somehow in the weeks ahead he comes up with names and puts a plan into motion. He anticipates I’ll check back when he acts. That means he needs to disappear. But he correctly assumes I’ll check. But instead of just simply slipping away, he gets clever. He chooses a time to go. But that isn’t enough. I’d find him. So he arranges a new job, one where no one knows him. He hires a replacement to take over for him at the new assignment. This substitute stays in place for many months, until he is directed to make his own disappearance. The real Henry is free all that time to set up how that will work, and I’ll bet that somehow he is in the background directing the fake Ray all the time.”