Editor’s Note: This is the latest installment of our serial novel, Over the Edge, each chapter written by a different author. To read Chapter 1, click HERE; to read Chapter 2, click HERE; to read Chapter 3, click HERE.
Back at his small rustic cabin near the edge of the woods deep among the hill towns, Adam Jessex sat at his desk and clicked away on his computer while Patricia Feinstein wandered about his tiny study taking one book after another off the shelf, leafing through the pages. After studying the titles, she slid each back into its preordained spot. What an odd assortment he had. A few novels, but mostly the John LeCarré-, Alan Furst-type…Spy vs. Spy, which always made Tricia think of the MAD Magazine cartoons. Neither spy ever really won. Many computer reference books resided next to books on math theory. There were some recent war memoirs such as “The Forever War” by Dexter Filkins and others: “Foxtrot in Kandahar,” “Echo in Ramadi,” “One Bullet Away” and “Ghost Riders of Baghdad.” The Roman and Chinese classics all referred to war, the art of war or the outcome of major battles: Marathon, Carrhae, Zama.
Hmmm, she mused, I thought Adam was interested in economics. Which is what she heard him talking about when people talked to him over the counter at the Fuel Coffee Shop. She continued perusing the shelves and finally came across a whole section on economics, but mostly agricultural economics. She didn’t even know there was such a thing.
Economics? ping! a brain pod opens. Wasn’t Zain Toma an economics professor? Maybe Adam knew the prof better than she thought, though the prof had only been at Pine Rock for a few weeks. Enough time to have every other woman on campus swooning over his good looks and spiffy wardrobe. Even Curry the provost seem to swoon when she was with the prof. Thank Greta Garbo I’m in drama…the only economics I need to know is whether I will get a paid for my acting or whether I will have to rely on Daddy all my life.
Adam clicked away. Tricia wandered and stared at his broad back, his sandy hair curling over his shirt collar. He had been in the army, she knew that, but had he gone to college? He certainly had a scholarly collection of books worthy of any college student. Well, not any. Her bookshelf was littered with novels, many many novels, biographies of film stars, directors, cinematographers, books on movie-making, and even a few scholarly tell-alls by Peter Biskind. Her schooling in Switzerland was academic enough. Not only could she walk balancing a book on her head, she read the books she balanced. That was a prerequisite.
Occasionally, she asked herself why did I go to school in Switzerland? Did I actually say I wanted to travel and my parents just bought a ticket? Maybe it was because they travelled a lot, being in import and export of Mediterranean antiquities and Asian art. War was good for that trade. I did so love living in England when I was 12, the root of all culture,–ell, the root of all ’60s music, anyway.
Tricia stepped into the living room and examined the shelf there. Again with the aggie econ books, these more on practicality rather than theory. At the end of the row of books, there was a box of cell phones. Curious…I’ll have to ask him about that when he’s done. She sat down and picked up a bottle of 19Crimes, an Aussie red with a picture of a convict on the label, from the table where Charles C. Mann’s “The Wizard and the Prophet” lay open to the chapter on climate change.
“May I help myself to a glass?” she asked Adam.
“Are you 21?”
“Be 22 in April. How old are you?”
“Help yourself.”
Adam continued clicking.
* * * *
Meanwhile, Cynthia Curry was pacing back and forth in her large office fretting about that damnable professor. Why, oh why, did she agree to help Forbank out? She knew there was something fishy when he said he would not only pay all Toma’s expenses (she had to add a line to the budget for an endowed-for-a-year position that she would have to explain away one of these days), but also Forbank tossed out the shiny lure of that job in D.C. where she always wanted to be. Her four years at State were wonderful in retrospect. Can’t believe I gave that up for a man. Would have been better to have cultivated Ron, though she always suspected he danced in another’s shoes.
What to do? What to do? Curry picked up a lovely, small bronze statue left in her office by the previous provost and looked at the label: Nathan Hale by Frederick MacMonnies. A New Englander for sure…maybe a relative of one of the founders? She placed it back on the shelf. Back to the present…Ron told her he was waiting for the Norcross report if the CIA would allow its release. Tock was good, but Norcross was better, he said.
When she told Ron that witnesses claimed that Toma and Mr. Rotund were not speaking English or any language that anyone recognized, he said well, maybe it was Iraqi. Patooti, she thought…not according to the barista who spent a tour or two in Iraq. Nor, according to others interviewed, was it French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Italian, Swahili or Turkish. Yes, she told him. Pine Rock had students from all over and they’re as addicted to caffeine as the rest of the world.
Back and forth, back and forth…she walked staring at her paintings. How she loved her watercolor of hawks by Louis Agassiz Fuertes, which she purchased with her graduation money. Hawks were so powerful and the females a bit larger than the males. Other paintings were snowy landscapes and non-jarring abstracts she had chosen to suit the school, to please the parents.
The phone rang.
“Curry here,” she said abruptly.
“Curry there, curry everywhere,” a voice echoed through the receiver. “I just want to curry favor.”
“Ron, what is it now? Dammit, I said to use my cell phone.”
“Does the name GuzmanTaliaferro mean anything to you?”
“No.”
“Or Suarez y Muñoz.”
“No.”
“How about Esmeralda Reyes?”
“Again, no,” she fairly shouted.
“Are you still into birding?”
“Whaaattt?”
“Want to add to that life list?”
“Ron, what are you getting at?”
“I need for you to retrieve your professor. We believe he’s at the Rainforest Riviera.”
“Me? Whaaattt? Where?”
“In Panama! Lots of species there, especially in the rainforest.”
“Let me think? Why on earth would he go to Panama?”
“He didn’t go on his own volition. We have no idea what’s going on…that’s why we want him back. Need him back. Panama is…well, is on the cusp of becoming a ecotourism country. Don’t know why they would want the services of an economics professor. Do you?”
* * * *
Adam shouted out, “Yes!!!!”
Tricia jumped off the couch nearly spilling her wine and raced over to stand behind Adam. There on the screen was a report entitled, “Toma, the Taken.” He scrolled down and began recapping.
“I was able to dog his footsteps, trail his fingertaps, to track exactly what he did on the computer.”
“Him being….?
“Someone named Boyd Norcross, a CIA operative. Do you know him?”
“CIA? What do they have to do with anything? Why would I know him?”
“Toma…he might be one of them…or he might play for the other side.”
“You are kidding! Spies here?”
“Hey, Trish, look at your school. How many countries are represented by your student body? I hear them talking when they are at the coffee shop. People from everywhere. And all ages…some older than traditional students.”
“Well, yeah. Students come here to be out…of…the mainstream, out of the…public eye.” Tricia spoke slowly and then dramatically rolled her eyes and clutched a hand to her chest. “A school for spies?”
Adam just stared at her.
She started thinking, “OMG! All we learn in drama class is how to be someone else. We observe, then we become that person…for a time. That would be useful for a spy, wouldn’t it?
Looking back at the screen, Adam scrolled through the report and the attached photos.
“Stop,” she screamed. “I know her, that guide. Essie Reyes, the Panamanian Princess. Princess indeed!”
It was his turn to stare at her, “Essie? Says her name is Esmeralda.”
“It’s Essie. I was at school with her in Switzerland.”
“You went to school in Switzerland?”
“Yeah…Finishing school.” Tricia sighed.
“Finishing school for spies, I bet.”
“Huh?” But the thought was planted in her brain. She thought of all the girls from around the world with whom she shared classes, meals and late-night talks. Another sneaky thought crept in: If these were the children of spies training to be spies, what am I? Are my parents really in import/export? They do travel a lot. I mean, a lot. And my godfather Peter Tock has always had that secretive spy aura about him. Was that why I was stashed at a faraway school? She shook her head as if to toss off the scary thought.
She pointed to the shelf in the living room and asked Adam, “What are all those phones for?
He gave her a great big smile, “Geocaching!”
* * * *
Cynthia Curry, looking to all the world like a visiting touristy birder, stepped off the plane onto the tarmac at Tocumen Airport in Panama City and stared around at the swaying palms. A couple of small birds flitted in and around the fronds, way too far for her to even tell what family they were in. She was very excited about the birding but nervous about everything else. Quickly she cleared customs and headed out the door, her backpack heavy with binoculars, camera, bird guide and other gear slung behind her.
As promised by Ron, a car waited for her. The dark, curly-haired chauffeur held up an iPod with her name in big letters and smiled, “Hola, Ms. Curry.”
She had dreamt on the plane that the Reyes woman would be her driver and she would have been tongue-tied. The driver, Rigoberto, knew she was a birder and, as they left the city, he pointed out any and all birds…in marshes, on wires, in trees, flying across the road.
She barely had time to study up on what species to look for but listened intently to Rigoberto, craning her neck to see great egret and little blue heron in the marshes near the airport, pale-vented pigeons, snail kite, common black hawk perched on poles, lapwing at the side of the road. A grey-headed chachalaca dashed in front of the car. As the car drove up into the hills, he mentioned other smaller birds that were mere wisps of color disappearing into the green of the rainforest.
As she was…
