Iron Orchid

TWENTY-ONE

LANCE SAT DOWN WEARILY at the head of the conference table.

“Good morning,” he said. “Those of you who have just arrived, welcome to New York. Ladies and gentlemen of the FBI, welcome to the CIA.

“This building is the new headquarters of the New York City station of the recently formed counterterrorist arm of the directorate of operations of the Central Intelligence Agency. We bought the building when it was under construction and added many, ah, improvements. For instance, the exterior walls are clad with two half-inch layers of armor, one of steel, one of Kevlar. The exterior cladding and the interior drywall are installed over that; the windows facing the streets are two-inch-thick armored glass, so that you may feel safe in your beds. Those of you who do not already live in New York are being housed here temporarily, until you learn something of the city and are ready to move into quarters of your own choosing, which you may not choose until the location and other attributes have been approved by our chief of security.

“There is no smoking anywhere in this installation. Meals are served continuously in our own restaurant on the penthouse floor, one above us. Laundry and dry cleaning may be left at the front desk; there is a laundry room in subbasement one, and a garage in subbasement two. Communications, technical services and the armory are in subbasement three, well underground.

“The building is as secure as we can possibly make it, with cameras and audio pickups practically everywhere. You will be admitted to the building only after you have properly identified yourselves, and you are not to have visitors without a written pass from the chief of security’s office, which will not be given lightly.

“Each of you will be issued a rather special personal telephone which operates on both cell and satellite systems and which has a GPS capability, so that you can be tracked, when necessary. You are to carry it on your person at all times, set to vibrate, and you are never to turn it off, so carry at least two backup batteries. You are not to lose it; I hope that is perfectly clear.”

Lance took a deep breath. “Now, let me tell you why you are here. Last year a man retired from the Technical Services Department of the Agency. I expect you’ve heard of him: his name was Theodore Fay.”

Everyone shifted expectantly in their seats.

“Teddy Fay was a genius at his work. At one time or another in a career of forty years or so, he worked in every division of Tech Services-documents, communications, weapons, electronic surveillance-and he excelled in each one of them. For the last ten years of his career, he served as a Tech Services coordinator-an outfitter, as the field agents call them. It was his job to equip a field agent with clothing, documents, weapons, communications devices, maps-everything he or she could possibly need.

“When Teddy retired, he kept busy by faking his own death and disappearing from the face of the earth. At the same time, he caused to disappear every photograph and every record of his employment by the agency that ever existed. After he dematerialized, he began killing people whose politics he disagreed with-all right-wing political figures. You’ve read about those killings, of course, and seen the TV news reports.

“Finally, or almost finally, he retreated to a well-prepared hideout on a Maine island, but the FBI tracked him there and surrounded the place. But Teddy also had a well-prepared escape route. He got out, walked to the little airfield on the island and flew himself out. At the behest of the FBI the president ordered two navy jets into the air to pursue him and force him down or shoot him down. Before they could accomplish their mission, Teddy exploded his own aircraft and himself with it.

“There the story was thought to have ended, but a search turned up fragments of the airplane that indicated that he had escaped. He stole some things from a vacant beach house, made his way first to Boston, then to Atlantic City, then he disappeared. The news of his survival has been kept secret from the public and most of the Congress, to avoid tipping Teddy off that he’s being pursued again.

“Yesterday, as you know, there was an explosion in a townhouse not far from here. Our people had the building under surveillance, and they photographed this man delivering a package and departing.” He pressed a remote control, and a series of photographs appeared on the screen. “We believe him to be Teddy Fay. He is about five feet, ten inches tall and weighs about a hundred and sixty pounds. He is balding, but often wears wigs, along with false beards and mustaches. He is otherwise hirsute, if his forearms are any indication. That’s all we’ve got. The photographs you are looking at are the only ones of him that exist, if indeed, they are of him.

“The president has ordered the director of the FBI and the director of Central Intelligence to create a combined task force to find and arrest Teddy Fay. The people in this room are the task force, along with all the support personnel you require. The task force has two leaders: me, representing the CIA, and Special Agent Kerry White- stand up, Kerry-representing the FBI.”

Kerry White, at the other end of the table, stood briefly, waved and sat down again.

“I expect you’ve heard a lot about how American intelligence and American law enforcement need to be working more closely together” Lance continued. “This task force is the result of that need. Each CIA officer will be paired with an FBI special agent, and you will work as coequal partners. You will both report to both Kerry and me. No CIA officer is to withhold any information from his partner or from Kerry. Does anyone here question that?”

Nobody said anything.

“Any of my people question that?” Kerry Smith asked.

Nobody did.

“Kerry is going to bring us up to date on the latest information on Teddy Fay,” Lance said. “Kerry?”

Kerry pushed back from the table. “The story of this bombing, as far as we know it, will give you a nutshell description of how Teddy is able to operate,” he said. “He somehow learned that the CIA was surveiling a townhouse where, it was suspected, a terrorist team was being sheltered, before a planned attack on the U.N. head-estate conference that begins tomorrow morning and lasts two days. Teddy understood that, since most or all of the people in the town-house had the diplomatic protection of Iran’s U.N. embassy, there was not much that could be done except to surveil them and hope to catch them in the act, so he took it upon himself to remove the threat. He did an outstanding job, though he was probably helped by the presence of explosives already in the building.

“First, though, Teddy had to obtain the explosives. This is how we think he did it: he hacked into the FBI’s computer databases to learn the locations of C- 4 in New York City, then he hacked into CIA computers and created for himself FBI identification and letterheads, then created a letter from the director to the New York City agent in charge, directing that four pounds of C-4 be surrendered to an agent named Curry-this was Teddy, himself-for delivery to Washington as evidence in a federal trial. I’ve seen the letter, and it is perfect in every respect.

“He then built his bomb and hand-delivered it to the building. We don’t know why they accepted delivery or what they did to inspect the package before it exploded, but the thing worked. Everything Teddy does seems to work.

“The CIA has since changed the access codes to their computers, and so has the Bureau, so we will at least have robbed him of those resources. We have also been back and reinterviewed every person we first talked to when Teddy was killing right-wing political figures, and we have come up with one shred of information that might have some small importance: Teddy Fay loves the theater and the opera. That’s it. That’s all we have.

“I need hardly tell you that we are at a disadvantage; we are up against an opponent who is smarter than all of us, with the possible exception of Lance and me.” Kerry permitted himself a smile. “We cannot rely on him to make a mistake, because, to the best of our knowledge, he has never made a mistake.”

A man in a suit spoke up. “If he didn’t make any mistakes, how did you find him in Maine?”

Kerry sighed. “A federal prisoner, a former CIA officer, read about the murders and offered information in exchange for a pardon. The prisoner had a summer home on the Maine island that Teddy chose for his hideout, and several years ago saw him at the post office and recognized him. So, the prisoner got his pardon and the reward, and we got Teddy’s hideout. Unfortunately, we didn’t get Teddy. So, you see, Teddy didn’t make a mistake. We found him because of a coincidence.”

“Who here knows something about the opera?” Lance asked. Nobody moved. “Oh, come on. Somebody must know something about the opera. You’re not all philistines, are you?”

Holly slowly raised her hand. “I sometimes listen to the Saturday afternoon broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera,” she said. “I like the opera; I just don’t know a lot about it.”

An FBI agent in a suit across the table from hex raised his hand. “I sometimes listen to those broadcasts, too, and I’ll watch PBS if an opera is televised. I’ve been to the opera a couple of times. That’s about it for me.”

“Okay,” Lance said, “you two are partners; you’re the Opera Patrol. Teddy likes the theater, too, but there are too many theaters in New York for us to cover. The opera is pretty much contained in the New York City Opera company and the Metropolitan Opera company. Get on it.”

After the meeting broke up, the FBI agent approached Holly. “I’m Tyler Morrow,” he said, extending his hand. “How do you do?”

“Hi, Tyler,” she said, looking him up and down, at the sharply pressed blue suit and the shiny shoes. She judged him to be in his late twenties. “I’m Holly Barker. You’re going to fit right in at the opera.”

“Thank you,” he replied. “I hope you will, too.”

He didn’t crack a smile, but Holly thought she had just been speared.