Capital Crimes

42

KINNEY WATCHED THE FACES of the five men and women sitting around his conference table as they listened to Katharine Rule Lee instruct them on cooperating with the FBI. He understood that these people had spent their working lives not talking about their work, their coworkers, or their employer, and he was hoping to see the bland defiance in their faces dissolve into something more amenable. It did not happen.

Mrs. Lee finished her instructions. “Does anybody have any questions?” she asked.

A man spoke up. “How do we know you’re who the FBI says you are?”

Mrs. Lee’s voice came back. “Call the White House switchboard and ask for me. Use the code name Huntress.”

The man nodded. He was handed a phone, and he did as Mrs. Lee instructed. When she answered, he thanked her and hung up. “All right,” he said, “I’m on board.”

“Anybody else have a problem?” Kinney asked.

Everyone shook his head.

“Now, let me tell you why we’re here. We have reason to believe that a former coworker of yours, Theodore G. Fay, known as Teddy, is the person who has murdered three prominent Americans over the past few weeks.” He paused to let this sink in, and there was shock on some of the faces.

“Why do you think Teddy Fay would do that?” someone asked.

“His political views were antithetical to those of the people he murdered. He possesses the skills used to murder them. He has faked his death, moved his assets out of the country, and has disappeared.”

“That doesn’t sound like hard evidence,” someone else said.

“It’s convincing circumstantial evidence,” Kinney replied. “Starting there, we expect to develop more material information, but we need your help. Teddy Fay has destroyed all the CIA’s records of his employment, so we have no fingerprints, no photograph, and no other evidence that would help us find him.”

“Smart,” a woman said.

“He is not a stupid man,” Kinney replied. “What I want from you is a description that we can use to make a drawing of him, and-”

A man spoke up. “Give me a drawing pad, and I’ll do one for you.”

Kinney motioned to the FBI artist who was sitting against the wall, and the man provided the materials.

“While you’re doing that, do any one of you have one or more photographs of Fay? Something taken at a reunion or a party?”

They all shook their heads.

“Do any of you have knowledge of Fay owning or having access to a second home? A cabin in the mountains, a house on Chesapeake Bay, anything like that?”

They all shook their heads.

“Wait,” one of them said. “He used to keep a boat at a yacht club in Annapolis. I had a conversation with him about it once.”

Kinney motioned Kerry Smith forward. “Would you please go with Agent Smith and tell him everything you know about it?”

The two men left.

“Do any of you have any other information of any kind that might help us locate Fay? Anybody with knowledge of family members or friends inside or outside the Agency that he might feel safe with or try to contact?”

A woman spoke up. “Teddy’s wife died several years ago. She was all he had. They were childless, and I’m pretty sure Teddy was an only child. He didn’t like her parents, so if they are still alive, he wouldn’t go to them.”

“Did any one of you ever take a vacation with Fay? A weekend sailing or hunting trip, anything like that?”

No one spoke.

“All right, I’d like the personal impressions of Fay of each of you in turn. May we start with you?”

He pointed to a woman.

“Brilliantly inventive, technically accomplished in many skills, very self-contained, tightly wound.”

She sat back and folded her arms.

“Did you ever work with him on assignments?”

“Many times.”

“Did any other personal characteristics stand out?”

She shook her head.

A man spoke up. “I worked with Teddy, oh, maybe a dozen times,” he said. “What Jean says is true. I also felt that he was an angry man, though I never knew about what.”

Another man spoke. “I’ll second that. He didn’t encourage knowing him. He always brought his lunch and ate it in the garden in warm weather and at his desk when it was cold. I don’t ever recall seeing him in the cafeteria, let alone lunching with anybody.”

“He was knowledgeable about investments,” another man said. “I was talking to someone about putting some money into a mutual fund on one occasion. Teddy overheard me and named three other funds he said were better, and he was right.”

“Did you have any idea of the extent of his own holdings?”

“No, he would never have talked about that.”

A woman spoke up. “You have to understand that Teddy wasn’t exactly an oddball in Tech Services. There were lots of people who would have seemed odd in other surroundings. Lots of us were freaks, techies, nerds, and bookworms.”

There was a chorus of agreement from the group.

“Does anyone have any inkling of where he might have gone when he disappeared?”

There was a moment’s silence, then a man spoke up. “You have to understand the work we did. Apart from the weapons-the bombs, the exploding fountain pens, the exotic firearms-what we did was to invisibly alter perceptions. We manufactured personalities, created documents, constructed legends-all the things that would make an agent or friend seem to be something other than what he was-and verifiably so. Teddy not only had access to all those techniques and equipment, he invented much of it. If he chose to disappear, then he would have done so in such a way that you could not find him. You would never think of looking for him where he went, and neither would I or anyone else here.”

Another murmur of agreement.

Another man spoke up. “You’ve got just one chance of finding him,” he said.

Kinney turned to face him. “Tell me.”

“If Teddy turns himself in.”

Kinney was still thinking about that when the artist shoved his drawing pad across the table to him. Kinney looked at it and saw a bland face with a slight smile, one that seemed nearly featureless. He turned the pad around and showed it to the group. “Is that Teddy Fay?”

There was a chorus of assents.

“Thank you all for coming,” Kinney said. “My secretary will give each of you my card, and should you think of anything else pertinent or, especially, if you should hear from Mr. Fay, please call me at once, day or night.”

He watched them file from the room, then looked again into the face of Teddy Fay-enigmatic to a fault.