Iron Orchid (29 page)

“What happened?” she asked him.

“I don’t know,” the man said. “The structure alarm went off, and everybody abandoned ship. Then there was a loud noise, and the building started to go. I think everybody got out.”

Holly turned and looked back toward Second Avenue. The man on crutches was gone. She made her decision; she started to run toward Second Avenue.

TEDDY REACHED THE GARAGE, unhooked his left toe from the shock cord and tossed the crutches ahead of him into the RV. He didn’t bother with his coat, just jumped in and closed the door. He was about to start the engine when Holly Barker ran past the garage entrance, headed downtown, never looking into the garage. He turned the key and pulled across the sidewalk and into traffic.

Holly was running down the east side of the street, looking around her for something, looking for him, he was sure. He rolled up his side window, which was tinted dark and, slowly, overtook her. She was, perhaps, ten yards away, jogging down the sidewalk, looking up and down the street, and there was a gun in her hand. Traffic stopped for a light.

HOLLY SEARCHED DESPERATELY through the crowd on the street for the old man on crutches, but he had vanished, as if into thin air. She grabbed for her cell phone and pressed the walkie-talkie button. “Lance. Holly. Do you read?”

“I read you, Holly.”

“What happened over there?”

“Ben Saud is down, single shot to the head.”

“I think I made Teddy.”

“Where? Where are you?”

“An old man on crutches passed me going toward Second, just as the building under construction collapsed.”

“Teddy probably fired from that building,” Lance said.

“I can’t see the old man,” Holly said. “I saw him headed toward Second, and I yelled his name, and he paused, but he kept going. Then I got distracted for a second, and when I turned around he had apparently turned the corner. I’m searching on Second, now, but I can’t see him anywhere. It’s like he just went
poof
and vanished into thin air. I mean, how far could he get on crutches?”

“Well, if it’s Teddy, he’s not on crutches anymore. Maybe he had a car waiting. I’ll send help. Start looking in vehicles.”

“Roger.”
                                                          _____________________________

THE LIGHT CHANGED, and Teddy drove on, watching Holly running along the curb, looking into parked cars. He made his way across traffic and managed to turn right onto 42nd Street. His last glimpse of Holly was in his offside rearview mirror. She was standing stock still, looking in his direction, the gun still in her hand.

Teddy continued on, toward the Lincoln Tunnel, New Jersey and 1-95 South to Florida.

FIFTY-SEVEN

IT WAS NEARLY MIDNIGHT before Holly, Lance and the whole team got back to the Barn, every one of them streaked with dirt and dust from their search through the debris of the collapsed steel structure. Lance called everybody into the big conference room. There wasn’t room for everybody to sit down, so they stood along the walls, every one of them looking exhausted.

Lance, appearing exhausted himself, looked around at the group. “I want to thank you all for sticking with this and bringing this hunt to a close at last. What I’m about to tell you is above your pay grade, but you deserve to know.” Lance set a shopping bag on the table, reached into it and pulled out a small, odd-looking rifle.

“Teddy Fay made this in his workshop; the NYPD found the drawings for it. It’s simply a Walther PPK-S .380 pistol, to which Teddy added a scope, a longer barrel, a silencer and a folding metal stock. He shot Ali ben Saud with it this morning.

“The weapon was found a few feet from the unidentified body that the firemen located in the search. Because the structure alarm went off when the building started to collapse, everybody working there survived, a few with minor injuries. Only this one corpse was unidentified. I’ve just spoken to the medical examiner, who has done a preliminary autopsy, and it seems certain that the corpse is that of Teddy Fay.”

There was a stir of approval in the room, and applause broke out.

“Since, for public purposes, the corpse of Teddy Fay was supposed to have been eaten by fish off the coast of Maine many weeks ago, no inquest will be held, and no public announcement will be made. And no one in this room will ever discuss this subject again with anyone outside it.

“Our job is done, and that’s it. Our task force is officially disbanded or rather, unofficially, since it never existed. Tomorrow morning, all Bureau personnel will report to the New York City field office downtown at nine a.m. the day after tomorrow for reassignment. All Agency personnel will report to Langley at nine a.m. next Monday in the director’s conference room. She would like to thank you personally before you are given new assignments.

“Everybody is
ordered
to get a good night’s sleep. Kerry Smith and I would like to thank each and every one of you for your hard work on what must have seemed like a fruitless assignment. You will all have commendations placed in your personnel files, and you will all get new assignments that are better than you would normally expect at this stage of your careers. Good night and good luck.”

Lance and Kerry walked out of the room, and Lance tapped Holly on the shoulder as he went. “Follow me,” he said.

Holly followed Lance down the hall to his office. He stopped, said goodbye to Kerry Smith and motioned for Holly to come in and sit down.

“You look upset,” he said. “Do you have any questions? If so, ask them now and never again.”

“Who was the corpse found in the wreckage?”

“It was Teddy Fay, and don’t you ever let me hear you doubt it.”

“Was the homeless man who lived in the basement ever found?”

“These people move freely about the city; now that his home no longer exists, I’m sure he has taken up residence elsewhere.”

“I
saw
Teddy Fay on the street; he
spoke
to me.”

“Oh? Do you
know
that?”

“I know it.”

“How?”

“Instinct.”

“Instinct isn’t good enough when you have to sign your name to the kind of report that Kerry and I are submitting to our superiors. You were mistaken; you simply saw an old man. Is that clear?”

“Can we talk, off the record, for a moment?”

“Just this once, then we’re done with it.”

“Do you really think this is over?”

“I do. Teddy pulled up stakes: he abandoned his base and a workshop that he went to a great deal of trouble to assemble.”

“Did we find anything of use among his papers or on his computer?”

“All the paper in the place had been shredded and burned; the computer hard drive had been reformatted, so every byte was scrubbed from it.”

“So we still don’t know exactly how he got into the Langley mainframe or who his contact was?”

“We have no hard evidence that he ever got into the mainframe, and a very thorough internal investigation has determined that no one at Langley aided him in any way.”

“Suppose he starts killing again?”

“I’ve no reason to suppose he will, but should that happen, I’ll screw that elephant when it sits on me. If he pops up someplace else and starts killing, he won’t be Teddy Fay, he’ll be someone else. Are we done?”

“Won’t we all have to answer to our superiors, if that happens?”

“Let me give you an important lesson in politics, Holly: Kerry’s superiors and mine—at every level, right up to and including the president of the United States—are going to be vastly relieved when they read our report. All of them participated in covering up the fact that Teddy was still alive; the president told the congressional leadership of both parties the truth, and they helped cover it up, in the hope that we would stop Teddy before his continued presence became known to the press. They’re all going to feel very good about this.”

“But it will come out, eventually, won’t it?”

“Certainly not. Teddy Fay’s body will be cremated before the day is out, and his ashes will occupy a landfill on Staten Island. If rumors start, they’ll have nowhere to go.”

“But the
president
will be part of a big cover-up.”

“No, he will not. He will receive our report and accept it, because it is in his interest to do so. He will have no knowledge of anything outside that report, and thus he will have nothing to cover up.
Now
are we done?”

Holly took a deep breath and nodded. “We’re done.”

“If you think about it, you’ll know that you have nothing to be anything less than proud of. Don’t let your mistaken identification of an old man trouble you; there is nothing whatever to support that identification.”

Holly nodded. “I understand. Do you know what my next assignment will be?”

“You’re not going back to the Farm or to Langley. You’re going to be staying here, with me. It’s been intimated to me that the Agency’s New York station will be reorganized in this building, under me. You’re going to like your assignment.”

Holly smiled. “Good. What’s next?”

“Something interesting.”

“Tell me.”

“After you’ve had twelve hours sleep and a couple of days off. Go home, see your father and his girl and Daisy. I’ll see you Monday morning. Merry Christmas.”

Holly got up and went home.

FIFTY-EIGHT

BOB KINNEY CAME HOME from the Bureau at midnight. Nancy was waiting up for him.

“Want some eggs?” she asked, kissing him.

“Love some,” he said. “I didn’t get any dinner.”

“Can you tell me what was going on?”

“You know I never tell you Bureau secrets.”

“Of course not.”

“Teddy Fay is dead.”

“Well,
that’s
a relief.”

“You know it. I expect that opinion is being voiced at a number of residences around the city, including the big white one on Pennsylvania Avenue.”

“Is there going to be an investigation of all this?”

“You can’t investigate something that never happened.”

“That’s your story, and you’re sticking to it?”

“You got it.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“I hope so, too, baby.”

“You want bacon or ham with your eggs?”

“I want you with my eggs.”

“Done.”

FIFTY-NINE

WILL LEE WAS IN BED, watching a DVD of
Casablanca,
when Kate came home from work.

“You’re pretty late,” he said. “I didn’t know people at your level of government service worked after midnight.”

Kate dropped her clothes on the floor and crawled into bed with him, snuggling her warm body against his. “Why, Mr. President, you’re not wearing any clothes.”

He groped around. “Why, Madame Director, neither are you.”

“Hang on,” she said. “I’ve got some news that will put you in the mood.”

“I don’t need any news to get in the mood,” he said, turning toward her, “but I have a feeling you’re going to tell me anyway.”

“You’re right. It was Teddy Fay who shot Ali ben Saud this morning, then blew up an office building under construction across the street from the U.N.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“I just thought you’d like it confirmed. What you don’t know is that they found Teddy Fay’s body in the wreckage of the building, along with the homemade gun he used.”

“So, it’s over?”

“It’s over.”

“Are we going to announce anything?”

“I’m
certainly not, and you’re crazy, if you do. Tell your congressional leaders and tell them to sit on it.”

“What happens if they don’t?”

“Then they’re guilty of hiding the whole business from the American people.”

“I don’t know if I’m comfortable with this.”

“You made that decision weeks ago, pal; learn to live with it.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

“You
know
I’m right.”

“Now can I molest you?”

“You’d better.”

They reached for each other.

SIXTY

THREE WEEKS LATER, Irene Foster got home, tired and not a little drunk. Her living room was piled with boxes; her walls and bookcases were bare; there were still sheets on her bed, but that was the only comfort of home left in her little townhouse.

From somewhere, she heard the muffled ring of a cell phone, and she tore at her handbag looking for it, finally dumping the contents on the floor.

“Hello?”

“Hello, yourself.”

“Thank God, I was beginning to think…”

“Don’t ever think that”

“Where are you?”

“Somewhere in the Middle East.”

She laughed. “Oh, that is
very
good news.”

“I thought so, myself. What have you been up to?”

“Today was my last day. There was a party; I’m roaring drunk.”

“I wish I were there to take advantage of you.”

“If I can join you in the Middle East, we’ll arrange that.”

“Come ahead.”

“Really?”

“There’s a little inn; I can’t pronounce it properly, but it translates, literally, as the Hostelry of the Three Forces. I’ve no idea what that means.”

“You’re there now?”

“When you check in, a Mr. Charles Lockwood will be waiting for you, and he’ll have half a dozen houses for you to look at. When will you check in?”

“You can’t use that name!”

“I’m not using it; it’s the name of the real estate agent who’s going to show you the house.”

“Are you serious?”

“Perfectly.”

“And what name are you using?”

“We’ll invent one when you arrive. When will that be?”

“The sale of the house closes at ten tomorrow morning. If the airlines cooperate I can be in the Middle East by tomorrow night.”

“Perfect. Tell me, how did that little matter that so concerned your people work out?”

“It’s dead and gone, and so is the subject of the matter.”

“Really? Do they really believe that?”

“Probably not, but they would prefer to.”