The Trade by JT Kalnay

Jay,
remembering his plans to get to the hotel beside the Islip airport
tonight, only sipped at his diet Coke. After a few minutes Bill
returned and quieted the small crowd.
    "Jay. You've set a tough pace to keep up. But
we like it. Good work.” Bill reached into his pocket and pulled out
a wad of bills. He stripped off ten $100 bills and counted them
into Jay's hand. "Take Monday off with pay and have a nice time
this weekend.” There were whistles and cheers all round. The
whistles and applause kept increasing as Bill kept stripping off
bills and distributing them, along with Monday off, to Jay’s
co-workers.
    As the booze ran out the party waned even as
people tried to figure out what to do with their newly acquired
long weekend. Finally Jay was able to shut everything down and get
home. By the time he got to the hotel in Islip, it was 9:30. Jay
was exhausted from both the excitement of the day and from fighting
the Long Island getaway traffic. He phoned the front desk for a
wakeup call, set his watch and the room's alarm clock for an hour
before his date with Tonia and lay down to sleep. Minutes later he
was out. Dreaming of his big day at the office and what he hoped
would be a good day with Tonia.

    "He made the company 1.9 million dollars
today,” the one man said.
    "He's cost us nearly that much in security
and surveillance so far,” another replied. They'd been debating the
merits of the new kid for days.
    “ Yeah. But you know that
1.9 million from today? That’s going to be around 1.9 million EVERY
day… So keep a close eye on him. We need him. And if we’re going to
pull of what we want to pull off, we're going to need him and the
others.”
    "Yes sir.”
    "How are things with him and you know
who?"
    "About to get a lot more intimate.”
    "Be sure of it.”

Chapter
     
    At exactly five am Tonia Taggert pulled up to
where Jay Calloway stood shivering in the dark summer morning. Jay
clambered into her BMW.
    "Where are we going?" he asked.
    "Patience," was all she said.
    The road from Islip McArthur airport went
west for a short bit then plunged south, toward the Atlantic Ocean,
passing through ever larger stands of trees that formed into a
park. They drove through the National Forest in the dark. Here they
saw pines and spruce clinging to the sandy soil of Long Island.
Visions of the remote wildness of the Island's yesterdays were all
around them. Miles later the friends emerged from the forest and
burst onto a narrow causeway perched precariously high above the
still, dark waters of the south shore salt water bays. Jay didn't
even know this beauty existed on Long Island. Tonia threw her
windows open and the salt air came rushing in, attacking their
senses. She shook her long blonde hair free from its ties and
breathed deeply of the pure, fresh air. Jay's every sense seemed to
arrive at a new level of awareness.
    The road stretched out before them. It seemed
to go off endlessly into the near-dawn. Jay had no idea where they
were headed until they suddenly rumbled over an old steel grated
bridge and dove down off the causeway to a thin sand spit that
seemed to barely rise out of the water. Tonia braked and turned
east. The sky was just beginning to lighten. She parked and got out
of the car. She pulled off her sweat suit and called to Jay who was
just staring at the sky and sand and water.
    "Come on,” she urged him. "We can't miss it.”
Tonia started jogging east.
    Jay got out of his sweats and set off after
her. The surf lapped gently and deliciously to his right, the rye
grass waved and whisked at the dunes to his left. The plaintiff cry
of an unseen seagull drifted in from somewhere off the ocean.
    Jay's heart beat in his ears as they picked
up the pace. He slowly closed the distance between himself and
Tonia. His new level of fitness was evident in his stride. As he
came upon her from behind, he was struck yet again by her
incredible fitness and stunning beauty. Every muscle was toned and
in