Mounting Fears

50

KATHARINE RULE LEE LEFT HER OFFICE FOR THE DRIVE HOME A LITTLE AFTER SIX. Normally, she worked on papers and reports during the drive, but she had left all of that on her desk or in her safe. She had something else to think about, and she didn't want to be distracted, not even by the thought of sixty people en route in the black of the Afghan night to the Pakistani border. Her driver seemed to sense that she was deep in thought and did not wish to be disturbed with chat.

Kate was now able to admit to herself that Teddy Fay was still alive, and she was pretty sure he had killed Owen Masters, but she didn't know why. Lance Cabot knew, but he wasn't going to tell her unless she pressed him, and she couldn't afford to press him. She couldn't afford, in fact, to know that Teddy Fay was alive.

TEDDY WAS SUPPOSED to have died in a small aircraft crash off the coast of Maine, but the FBI had tracked him to New York, where he was supposed to have died in the collapse of a building under construction. Later, he had been rumored to be on the island of St. Marks, in the Caribbean, and Lance Cabot had dispatched a team to find him and, presumably, kill him.

She had thought the Fay problem had ended when the small yacht he had owned was witnessed in a sinking condition, and no body had been found. But now he had been spotted in Panama by a tourist who knew him, and she had produced an old photograph. She presumed that no copies of that photograph existed, since Holly Barker had confiscated all the copies and the negatives while posing as an FBI assistant director.

The only official threat now was Assistant Director Kerry Smith of the FBI, and he couldn't prove that Teddy was still alive. No one, in fact, could prove it, and Teddy wasn't going to turn himself in. Her only choice seemed to be to sit on the Teddy Fay problem until after the election. If it came out then, well, she was good at damage control.

Her husband didn't know any of this, of course, and she had to keep it that way. By the time she reached the White House, she had made and reconfirmed that decision.

At least, she thought, Teddy Fay was out of the country, and nothing he could do there would affect the election.

TEDDY FAY, MEANTIME, was working on his laptop in a Covington, Georgia, motel room, reading the schedule of the Reverend Henry King Johnson on his very nicely constructed and informative website. One question that lay heavily on Teddy's mind was: Did Johnson have Secret Service protection? His guess was that Johnson did not, because he had not run in the primaries and didn't loom large enough in the polls.

Johnson was traveling a lot now, raising money and working to get on the ballot in as many states as possible. That made him a moving target, but his published schedule also made him predictable, and that was good enough for Teddy.

He noted that the Reverend Johnson was due on Amelia Island, Florida, for a convention of black undertakers in a week. He knew something about Amelia Island: it was a golf-oriented upscale community near Jacksonville.

Then he noticed something else on the reverend's website: he was to perform a marriage ceremony the day before on Cumberland Island.

Teddy Googled Cumberland Island.

MARTIN STANTON CHECKED into the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver, which dated from its days as a cow town, and rapped on the door to the adjoining room. Liz opened it and gave him a big, wet kiss. "More later," she said. "I have some phone calls to make."

"Before you do that, order yourself dinner from room service," Stanton said. "We don't want them delivering two dinners to my suite."

"Right," she said.

Stanton closed the door, ordered his own dinner, and went to get a refill for his pen from his briefcase. As he opened it, he heard his secret cell phone vibrating, and he picked it up. "Yes?"

"It's me, baby," Barbara said.

"Good to hear from you," Stanton replied, not entirely convincingly.

"That sounded like something you'd say to a campaign contributor," she pointed out.

"I'm sorry, hon. It's just that they've had me on a breakneck schedule for three weeks, and I'm sort of operating on autopilot. How are you? What are you up to?"

"Well, I've started my new job at Justice, and now it's up to you and Will Lee to get reelected, so I won't get fired by a Republican attorney general early next year."

"We'll do our best," Stanton said. "We've got to keep you in work."

"And I bought a house," she said proudly.

"Well, that was fast. Where?"

"On a beautiful block in Georgetown," she said. "It's tiny, having been previously occupied by a Republican congresswoman who didn't think she could be reelected, and you're going to love it. It's the sexiest place you ever saw!"

"Then I look forward to sex in it!"

"Oh, me too, baby! I'm aching for you."

"Then let's not wait. What's wrong with now? Are you alone?"

"No, I'm with you."

"Then get your clothes off," he ordered.

"You, too."

"Are you naked now?"

"I am. How about you?"

"I am." He was not, but the two of them proceeded to have phone sex until Barbara climaxed noisily. Stanton had to pretend, because his mind and his cock, which were co-located, were both in the room next door.

The doorbell rang. "Kid, there's somebody at my door," he said into the phone. "Gotta run."

"Bye," she had time to say before he ended the connection.

Stanton went to the door and let the room-service waiter in, signed the ticket, and went to wait for Liz to wheel in her dinner.

He had been turned on, in spite of himself, during the phone sex, and now he would spend that pent-up energy on Liz.

When she rolled her tray in, she was naked, and they dined that way.

TODD BACON SAT at his new desk in Owen Masters's old office and leafed through a file marked "Golf in Central America," and looked at the photograph of Teddy Fay. Todd had lied to Lance Cabot when he had told him that he had destroyed it. Who was this guy? he wondered. Some drug dealer, like the cops said, or just some hit man? But if he was any of that, why would Owen care about him? It seemed obvious to Todd that Owen had wanted the man killed, so he must have been a danger of some sort, but what sort?

He pored over the two pages of notes that Owen had kept in a haphazard way and found references to Ned Partain. He was the reporter from that tabloid who had been found dead on the ship. Owen hadn't mentioned him, but Todd had seen a reference to it in the daily news digest circulated inside the embassy.

Then, down at the bottom of one page, he saw the entry, in block capitals: PARTAIN/TEDDY?

Teddy? Teddy who? And then something clicked in Todd Bacon's mind.