“Quit playing with that, Fred. Don’t draw attention to it,” said Mark. It came out like more of an order. Fred’s hand fell away from the pin on his lapel.
Neither one of the men stood out easily in downtown Richmond. Both had on the uniform that defined staid upper middle class men in the small southern city. Grey suit with a barely visible light grey or blue pin stripe and a tie that often reflected an alma mater. Fred’s graying hair was neatly trimmed, cut just above the collar and ears while Mark had an afro that was just this side of being shaved. Fred wore the Florsheim’s and Mark mixed it up a little with Italian loafers. There wasn’t much to notice.
“Like they don’t know who we are,” said Fred, letting out a deep sigh. “They’ve always known who we are, remember? They picked us out.”
Fred nervously looked around and nodded discreetly in the direction of the small group of women sitting on the ledge near the basin by the entrance to the building.
“Secretaries are the worst,” he said, “constantly going through the files, asking questions.”
“Or they’re just doing their job, Fred. You can’t let this stuff get to you. Come on, you used to be better at all of this. What happened?”
“They killed some guy who was never on the list, that’s what happened.”
“Yeah, I know, but they see us as harmless and I’d like to keep it that way,” said Mark. “I have a nice quiet life going on and it’d be nice to make it to old age with my streak intact.”
“How do you think they even knew about some country boy who’s living in the suburbs?” asked Fred. Fred stuffed his hand into his pants pocket where he began to clink together the few coins he had left after stopping at the Gourmet on the Go cart. Mark gave him a withering look but it was just to hide his own growing restlessness. Fred’s information about the missing Circle file worried him but he wasn’t about to let Fred know that.
“Well, I have to do something with my hands,” snapped Fred.
“I have to get back to work anyway,” said Mark. “Quarter’s almost finished, numbers will be due out soon.” Mark was a senior technology architect with the Richmond office of the Federal Reserve.
“Someone’s going to have to deal with it,” began Fred, but Mark abruptly cut him off.
“Not you,” he hissed. “You drop it. There are channels to go through and it’ll get taken care of. You did your part. I’ll take it from here. You forget all of this and go back to your job.”
Fred looked like he was about to say something but finished the last of his coffee instead.
“Talk to you later,” he mumbled as he tossed the cup in a nearby trash can and he turned to head toward the building.
“I’ll see you later,” said Mark, as he walked toward the Gourmet cart, giving a quick glance around to note how many people were still left outside. The numbers were thinning as he reached for his iPhone, quickly tapping the screen and sliding a new picture into view. The swift slides and tapping quickly turned off the small frequency generator that was installed to put out a low-level white noise undetectable to human ears.
The family photo of his kids popped into view as he gave a slight tap and dropped the phone back into his coat pocket.
“A large coffee, leave room for cream,” he said, pulling out his wallet. The two dollar bills were tucked behind the rest with the corners carefully bent. He always paid with cash wherever he went so that it was less noticeable when he was passing messages.
Carefully chosen bills were always at hand, the serial numbers ending in three digits that specified whether or not it was necessary to meet or if someone had been pegged by the larger forces. Or, even worse, if information was sliding in and out of hands that were never meant to have it. The meanings behind the short series of numbers changed every quarter and varied depending on the region of the country. Even then, only certain cells within the Circle knew their own series and even fewer knew the numbers of other regions. They were all playing games with a large, well-organized force that had more members that were trained from a very early age to be loyal to the other side, to Management. It was better if information about who was an active part of the Circle was kept to a minimum.
“Let me get it.” The man had suddenly appeared by Mark’s side and ordered a muffin. Mark glanced up to see if it was a stranger and looked for the familiar lapel pin, but there was nothing there.
“Thank you, but I have it,” he said, trying to sound distracted, feeling his heart rate picking up speed. It was unusual to see anyone he didn’t recognize hanging around this time of day.