Iron Orchid

TEN

Teddy finished installing the Peg-Board on the walls of his workshop, and he began hanging his tools and outlining them with a Sharpie. Someday they would find this shop, though not before he wanted them to, and he wanted it to be just as well-ordered as the shop at his Virginia home, which the FBI had visited after he had abandoned it. Somehow, it was important to him to impress the FBI.

When he had finished hanging the tools, he uncrated the multipurpose lathe and machine tool he had bought, set it on a thick, rubber pad, then secured it to the floor with lug bolts. Then he set up his computer station and began installing the software he had bought. He connected and tested the DSL connection he had arranged with the phone company, and then he set up a multistage connection to a server at CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia.

When Teddy had been a highly placed member of the technical services department, he had had access to the mainframe, and before he retired, he had set up a system of downloading files and software to an external location, while making it appear that some other member of the agency had done so. Now he began identifying and downloading every document in the Agency in which his name was mentioned. The process took him most of the day.

Then he began scanning the files, searching for any information that might be of use in finding out more about him. He had done this earlier in his career as an assassin, but now he wanted to eliminate anything that had surfaced about him since the Agency’s undoubted contact with the FBI to discuss him.

It was past eight in the evening before he finished cleansing the Agency’s files of any useful reference to him. He took one more look around his new workshop, found himself pleased, then went back to his apartment and ordered a sumptuous dinner from Restaurant Daniel to be delivered to his apartment.

As he dined, he thought about what the FBI must already know about him, and what they could find out from the trail of evidence he had left. They would certainly have discovered his visit to the cottage north of Kennebunkport and perhaps even have found his parachute. Now they would be checking all modes of transportation to Boston and beyond, and, once they had run down everything, they would know that he had taken the bus to Atlantic City. From there it would be tougher. The only possibility they had of tracking him from Atlantic City would be if they located the concierge who had arranged the limo to New York, and then the driver.

If they, indeed, traced him to New York, they would have to deal with two possibilities: one, that he might have left the city by any number of means for any number of destinations; two, that he had chosen to disappear among the eight million inhabitants of the city. In the first case, they were bound to find at least dozens of men traveling alone to various destinations; in the second, they would start from what they knew about him, that he was a simple man who had always lived simply. It was for that reason that he had chosen an expensive apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Besides, it was fun not to live simply anymore. He doubted if they had been able to determine the extent of his financial resources, so it was unlikely that they would suspect him of high living.

He finished his dinner, put his tray table outside his door for collection, then turned to the New York Times, specifically to the Arts section, where he perused the schedule of the Metropolitan Opera. He had never had enough of the opera and the theater during his working days, and he intended to make up for it. He ordered tickets for half a dozen performances by phone, paying with a credit card, then turned to the book of Winston Churchill’s speeches he had been reading.

BOB KINNEY SAT in his first daily national security briefing with the president, the secretary of defense, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, the attorney general, the director of Central Intelligence and the national security advisor. The president heard reports from all of them, saving Kinney for last.

“Bob, what do you have for me today?” the president asked.

“Mr. President, following your instructions I have ordered a top-to-bottom survey of the Bureau’s security, and I expect to have written reports and recommendations from all the relevant people by the end of the month. As soon as I’ve had a chance to digest their reports, I’ll submit a written report to you outlining what steps I intend to take.”

“Excellent. Have you had an opportunity to look for housing yet?”

“The General Services Administration has put someone in touch, and my fiancee is screening them for me. I’ll let the final decision be hers anyway.”

“You’re a wise man, Bob. Have you made any personnel changes yet?”

“I’ve appointed Special Agent Kerry Smith to be my chief of staff, sir, but I intend to make other changes as part of a more sweeping revamping of the Bureau’s management. It will be some weeks before I’ll be ready to do that.”

“I understand. Well, that wraps it up for today. Thank you all for coming.”

As the group was shuffling out, Kinney stepped up to the president. “Mr. President, may I have a moment alone?”

“Of course, Bob.”

“And I’d like for the director of Central Intelligence to stay, as well.”

“Kate, hang on a minute, will you?” Lee said.

When the room had been cleared the president invited Bob and Kate Lee to sit down again. “Now, what is it, Bob?”

“Mr. President, I have to tell you that, at the time of my appointment, I inadvertently misinformed you about the disposition of the Theodore Fay case.”

“How so?”

“When I returned to the Bureau, after the press conference, I learned that evidence had surfaced, literally, indicating that Fay parachuted from the airplane and survived the explosion.”

The president grimaced. “And we’ve been telling the press that was resolved.”

“Yes, sir; I’m very sorry about that.”

“Well, if you didn’t have the information at the time, you couldn’t give it to me, could you? Tell me why you think Fay is alive.”

“There is incontrovertible physical evidence that the pilot’s door of the airplane was jettisoned prior to the explosion and that Fay made his way to a disused summer cottage, where he changed clothes, buried his parachute and stole a bicycle. He rode that to Kennebunk, where he ditched the bicycle and got a Greyhound bus to Boston. From there he got another bus to Atlantic City, New Jersey, where he disappeared. We have so far been unable to trace his movements from there.”

“Do you think he may still be in Atlantic City?” the president asked.

“I think it’s more likely that he made his way to a major city- New York and Philadelphia are easily reached from there, but he could have backtracked and gone anywhere.”

“I suppose I’ll have to make an announcement to the press,” Lee said.

“Sir, I’d rather you didn’t, if that’s possible.”

Kate chimed in. “Bob has a good point, Mr. President. It would be better if we didn’t announce to Fay that we’re still after him, and even if you made the announcement and Bob made Fay number one on the FBI’s most-wanted list, I doubt if that would be of much help. Fay is far too slick to get spotted by an ordinary citizen from a wanted poster.”

“I see your point,” the president said. “All right, I’ll wait until you catch him, and then I’ll say I knew all along Fay was alive.”

“Mr. President,” Kinney said, “I have to be absolutely frank with you. It’s very unlikely that we will catch Theodore Fay, unless he commits another murder.”

“Bob is right,” Kate said. “Fay is an extremely resourceful man, and he knows how to disappear.”

“Well,” Lee said, “I’m not going to sit around hoping he murders somebody else. We’ll keep this knowledge among the three of us and whoever else in both your agencies needs to know.” He paused for a moment. “And I think I’d better share it with the ranking members of both parties on the senate intelligence and judiciary committees.”

“Thank you, sir,” Kinney said, standing up.

“And thank you, Bob, for telling me about this.”

As he and Kate Lee walked out to their cars, she tugged at his sleeve. “How can we help, Bob?”

“I think the only thing you can do right now is to comb the Agency’s files again for any information about Fay that might be useful to us. I’ll assign Kerry Smith to go over what you find.”

“I’ll give the orders as soon as I’m back in my office,” Kate said.

They shook hands and went to their respective cars. Kinney left feeling a little relieved that the president had taken the news as well as he had.