D.C. Dead

47

Teddy Fay and Lauren Cade lay naked on the beach at Gay Head, on Martha’s Vineyard. It was Sunday afternoon. Most of the other nudists, all locals, with beach parking permits, had gone. Teddy and Lauren had sneaked down the trail from the parking lot and had managed to blend in with the couples and families who had been enjoying the sun on their bodies. They had enjoyed a long weekend in a B and B in Edgartown.

They packed their dirty dishes into the picnic hamper, folded their blanket, then got back into their clothes. It was a bit of a hike up the cliffs, and they were puffing a bit when they got to the car.

Teddy got the rental started and they began driving to the airport.

“You know,” Lauren said, “this island might make a better place to live than D.C. It’s lovely here.”

“It is,” Teddy agreed, “but remember, it has a New England winter, and what with one airport and a ferry to deal with, it’s a hard place to get out of, should we have to leave in a hurry.”

“You’re right,” she said. “But let’s find a place that has a good climate year-round, and where escaping our pursuers isn’t such a problem.”

“We had a place like that in La Jolla,” Teddy said. “The San Diego weather was great year-round, but we were run out of there.”

“But you did say they aren’t pursuing us anymore,” Lauren pointed out.

“That’s what they agreed to,” Teddy said. “Now we have to find out whether they really meant it, and to do that without getting caught we have to be ready to move on a moment’s notice.”

“For how long?”

“A year, maybe.”

“Or we could just go now,” Lauren said.

“If we went now, where would you want to go?”

“How about Asheville, North Carolina?” she asked. “I was there once, and they seem to have a good year-round climate, not too hot in the summers or too cold in the winters.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Teddy said. “Maybe we could fly down there next weekend, if the weather cooperates, and take a look at it.”

“That would make me feel as if we’re doing something,” Lauren said, “not just waiting for something terrible to happen.”

“Nothing terrif we’re ble is going to happen,” Teddy said. “Not if we go on being careful.”

“I just can’t get over the feeling that we’re living too close to the Agency, that sooner or later we’re going to bump into someone from your past that we’d rather not see.”

“I know, baby,” Teddy said, patting her on the knee. He pulled into the little Vineyard airport. They parked the car in a rental slot and left the contract and the keys with the rental car agency. They stowed their luggage in the airplane, and Teddy did his usual careful preflight inspection of the airplane.

They took off to the south, headed back to Clinton Field, in D.C., and their comfortable hideout hangar. Teddy figured to be on the ground there before dark.

Todd Bacon landed at Clinton Field in the Agency’s Bonanza, usually kept at Manassas Airport, in Virginia, and taxied to the FBO, where he ordered fuel. There were two airplanes ahead of him, waiting for the fuel truck. The delay would give him time to have a look around.

Late on a Sunday afternoon, students were still doing touch-and-goes, and pilots based at the field were coming back from weekends away. Todd strolled nonchalantly over to the rows of hangars, where airplanes were being put away.

His number two had been fuzzy on which hangar he suspected of being Teddy’s, so as he walked, he mentally eliminated the ones where he could see the owners taking care of their airplanes.

Todd wore a baseball cap and sunglasses; he didn’t want to be noticed among the locals, especially by Teddy himself. He had not been able to keep the couple out of his thoughts, and he knew that coming here was against the clear instructions that Holly Barker had given him to think of Teddy as dead. He wasn’t even sure what he would do if he came face-to-face with the old man. He was armed, sure, but Teddy would be, too, and he couldn’t get into a gunfight in a place like this.

As he came to the end of a row of hangars he looked up and saw, silhouetted against the setting sun, a Cessna 182 RG on final for the runway. Same airplane as Teddy’s, but of course it was a different color. This one was two tones of blue, with red stripes, not a factory-issue paint scheme.

He watched it touch down, then brake and turn off the runway, and in the moment of that turn, the setting sun illuminated the pilot. He wasn’t young, and, like Todd, he was wearing a baseball cap and dark glasses. Todd couldn’t say he recognized him, since he had never seen Teddy up close, but there was a younger woman seated next to him, and he had seen her before, he thought, in San Diego.

Todd stood at the corner of the row of hangars and watched the airplane turn again and taxi toward him. Now the sun was reflecting off the windshield of the Cessna, and Todd couldn’t make out either of the people inside. He stepped back behind a corner of the corrugated metal building next to him and waited for the airplane to pass him, when he could get a better view of its occupants.

Then, from his position at the corner of the hangar opposite, he saw the door across from him go up. Apparently, the owner used a garage-door remote control to operate the big bifold door. The airplane slowed, and he caught sight of a wingtip as it turned away from him. Now he could look around the corner and see the whole airplane, but as it entered its hangar, the engine died, the airplane came to a stop, and the bifold door came rattling down. He had seen nothing of the occupants.

That was smoothly done, Todd sun was rthought. The owner could have stopped, fussed with his airplane, then affixed a tow bar and pushed it backward into the hangar, but instead, he had simply driven it inside. Of course, when he departed the hangar again he would have to push the airplane out, but Todd had no way of knowing when that would be.

There was probably a car inside the hangar, too, so the owner could drive, instead of fly, away. Todd walked from his hiding place toward the hangar, then walked around to the rear corner, looking for a window or an opening that would allow him to see inside, but the place was sealed.

He stepped out from the hangar, and he had to admire the way it was built. There was a bifold door at the rear, as well as in front: the owner could get into his airplane, start the engine, then depart through the rear door, again without exposing himself to people on the ground.

As Todd stood there, a light went on over his head. There was a security spotlight at each corner, and as he looked up, he saw a window on a second story.

He couldn’t get far enough away to see who was inside without bumping into another hangar. Todd walked back to the front of the building and looked toward where his Bonanza was parked. The fuel truck was just pulling away from it.

If Teddy Fay was upstairs, Todd hoped he didn’t have surveillance cameras, as well as security lighting. He started back toward the FBO to pay his bill and fly back to Manassas.

Upstairs, Teddy was staring at a flat-screen TV, which had been divided into four parts, each assigned to an outside camera.

“What is it?” Lauren asked, walking up behind him and looking at the screens.

“There was a man outside,” Teddy said, “but he’s gone now.”

“There are all sorts of people around here,” Lauren said, “especially at this hour on a Sunday.”

“You’re right,” Teddy said, returning the screen to one large one, with CNN on it. “I won’t worry about it.” He went to his reclining chair to watch the news. “What’s for dinner?”