Mounting Fears

33

LANCE CABOT GOT INTO HIS OFFICE AT CIA HEADQUARTERS IN LANGLEY, VIRGINIA, at seven a.m., as usual. He had been deputy director for operations for some months now, and he had just begun to feel he had a firm grip on the job when his direct line rang.

This line was there so that station heads and, sometimes, field agents could go directly to the DDO, in extraordinary circumstances, and whenever it rang, Lance got tense. He picked up the instrument. "Hello?"

"Lance, it's Owen Masters in Panama City. Can we scramble?"

Lance pressed the scrambler button. "Good morning, Owen, we're scrambled." Lance didn't like Masters a hell of a lot. As a young agent he had found the man to be opinionated and rude. The only reason he had left him as station chief in Panama was that the man had only a few months until his retirement.

"Something has come up I think you should know about. Yesterday morning a dead body was discovered on the deck of an oil tanker that had passed through the canal en route to Galveston."

"Anybody we know?"

Masters ignored the question. "The body was taken off by the Coast Guard and flown to Panama City, which has the only medical examiner in the country. When an American dies in the Canal Zone I routinely get a call from a cop I know on the Panama City force, and this morning, on the way to work, I met him at the morgue and had a look at the body. It could be an accident, but it's more likely a homicide."

Lance was annoyed. Why on earth would a station chief take an interest in a local homicide? He repeated his question. "Anybody we know, Owen?"

"Not exactly, but he's an American journalist, in a manner of speaking, who works for a rag called the National Inquisitor, based in D.C. Know it?"

"Vaguely. It's gossip, isn't it?"

"Right."

"So how does this interest us, Owen?"

"I went through his effects. His name is Edward Partain, American. He had quite a lot of cash and credit cards on him, so it wasn't a robbery."

Lance was getting ready to hang up, when Masters stopped him.

"And he was carrying a photograph of Teddy Fay."

Lance was stunned. He took a moment to collect himself before he spoke. "There are no existing photographs of Teddy Fay," he said. "He removed them from all the databases before he started assassinating right-wing politicians."

"There's at least one photograph now," Masters replied.

"And how do you know the photograph is one of Teddy Fay?"

"Because I knew him when I was a field agent. He outfitted me for a couple of missions-fake passports, driver's licenses, credit cards-that sort of thing. He was the top guy in Tech Services."

"How long ago was this?"

"Twelve, fifteen years."

"And how old is the photograph?"

"I'm not sure. Five to ten years, I'd guess."

"Have you mentioned this to anybody in your station?"

"No. Nobody's in yet."

"Then don't. Scan the photo and e-mail it to me now."

"Will do."

"Did you get the original or a copy?"

"I got the only one on the body."

"Send it to me in an overnight pouch, and don't make any copies," Lance said.

"Okay. The e-mail just went out."

"Did the police know anything about this Partain?"

"He had a hotel bill in his pocket from a fairly elegant small hostelry, so they went there and turned over his room. The only odd thing was that he had a receipt for an envelope deposited in the hotel safe, and there was twenty-five thousand dollars in cash in it. It was odd, because he had another five grand in traveler's checks in his jacket pocket, plus a grand or so in cash and half a dozen credit cards. The police talked to the hotel bartender, who said Partain had a drink with a guy the night before last, somebody he met there in the bar."

"Description?"

"American, six feet, a hundred and seventy, fifty-five to sixtyfive, and balding, with a comb-over, thick eyebrows, and mustache. Wore heavy-framed glasses."

Disguise, Lance thought. "All right, Owen, I'll get back to you." Lance hung up and sat, thinking, for a couple of minutes. This was trouble. He'd certified Teddy Fay as dead to the director, and since her husband was president and was running for reelection, she wasn't going to like hearing this report. Teddy Fay had "died" before, then turned up on the island of St. Marks in the Caribbean last year, before being thought dead again aboard a sunken yacht in deep water.

The president had withheld the information from the public that Teddy Fay had turned up alive twice after being confirmed dead, and if this broke now it could torpedo his reelection, which meant that Katharine Rule would no longer be director of Central Intelligence and, since Lance was her handpicked boy, his prospects for holding on to his career wouldn't be so hot, either.

Lance picked up the phone and called Holly Barker, whose office was adjacent to his own.

"Yes, Lance?"

"Come in here, please." Lance turned to his computer, found the e-mail from Owen Masters and printed out the photograph.

There was a knock on the door between their offices, then Holly walked in. Since he had been promoted, she had become his most trusted assistant. "Good morning," she said. Holly was tall and newly slender with short-cropped hair and a firm jaw. She was a retired Army officer who had been chief of police in a small Florida town when Lance had discovered her, recruited her, and seen her trained. She was also one of a tiny handful of people who had actually met Teddy Fay.

Lance handed her the photograph. "Do you recognize this man?"

Holly looked at it carefully. "No, who is he?"

"Owen Masters in Panama says it's Teddy Fay." Lance related Masters's phone call.

"It could be," Holly said, "but I never saw Teddy except in some sort of disguise, and he was very good at it."

"Owen knew him fifteen years ago, when they were both at Langley."

Holly shook her head. "I'm sorry, I just can't tell. I didn't know a photograph existed."

"Neither did anybody else. I want you to go to the offices of the National Inquisitor this morning, get the negative and any copies of the photograph, and scare the shit out of the editor. I don't care what you threaten him with or do to him, but see that his paper doesn't run a word about the photo or Teddy."

"What about freedom of the press and all that?" Holly asked.

"Fuck freedom of the press. You can shoot the guy, if you think you can get away with it. Now get moving."