Iron Orchid

TWENTY-SEVEN

Teddy had worked hard on the new log-in codes for the CIA computers, but he had had to first log on as DDO Hugh English; it was unavoidable. Now, though, he once again had free rein to romp through the mainframe and the various servers and to go from there into other government computers, state and federal, all over the country and in many places abroad.

It made him laugh. He could now register a car in Bulgaria or obtain an Idaho driver’s license; he could upload a Florida license to carry a concealed weapon, which worked in twenty-six states. Access to the Agency’s computers was a license to be anybody or to simply vanish into America. And nobody knew he could do it. He spent until early afternoon creating half a dozen new identities for himself, complete with credit reports, licenses and passports and uploading them into state and federal computers. Now he could enter the country or depart through any airport, and his I.D. would hold up.

After lunch he took a cab to the corner of Fifth Avenue and 43rd Street and walked down the block toward Aria. He was a few feet short of the shop when a woman got out of a cab and walked across the sidewalk to the shop’s front door, passing no more than six feet ahead of him. He felt a physical shock; it was the woman he had taken to the opera the night before-Holly something. He kept walking.

She had not so much as given him a glance, of course, since he looked very different today from last night. He crossed the street and stood behind a parked truck, trying not to tremble, watching the reflection of Aria’s shopfront in a store window. What was she doing in Aria? Had they somehow traced his interest in the shop? Of course, she liked the opera, or she wouldn’t have been there last night, but still, this was too much of a coincidence. He fought the urge to run, to go directly to the bus station and leave New York. But no, he had worked too hard to create this existence to simply walk away from it before he was sure how much trouble he was in.

HOLLY WALKED INTO ARIA and stopped when she saw the woman behind the counter. Ty had found her a tough nut to crack, and she looked just as tough now.

“May I help you?” the woman asked.

“Oh, I’d like to find a good recording on CD of La Boheme ” she said.

The woman got down off her stool and led her to a bin of CDs. “My favorite is the Pavarotti,” she said pleasantly. “Did you have a preference as to cast?”

“The Pavarotti sounds perfect,” Holly said. As she waited for the sale to be rung up she started to ask about anyone resembling Teddy, then thought better of it. She’d come back in a day or two and ask then. The woman might be more open if she recognized her as a previous customer.

“There you are,” the woman said, handing her a bag and her change. “Please come back.”

“I’d like to,” Holly said. “I went to see La Boheme last night at the Met. It was my first time at the opera, and I loved it.”

“We’ll always be happy to help you find recordings,” the woman said. “We have synopses and scores, too.”

“Thanks very much,” Holly said, smiling. She left the shop and walked toward Sixth Avenue.

TEN MINUTES LATER, the woman came out of the shop, and Teddy watched her back as she walked toward Sixth Avenue. Should he follow her or find out what she had done inside? Both, he decided. He ran across the street and walked into the shop. “Hi, Esmerelda,” he said to the clerk who was always behind the counter.

“Hi, there,” she replied, smiling at him.

“I thought I just saw someone I know just leave the shop. Was there a woman in here?”

“Yes, just a moment ago,” Esmerelda replied. “She bought a copy of the Pavarotti La Boheme. Said she’d seen the performance at the Met last night and loved it. Everybody loves La Boheme.”

“Did she ask about me?” Teddy asked.

“No.”

“Esmerelda, I have to ask you a favor. I knew her a couple of years ago. We had a relationship that ended badly, and since then she’s stalked me, done everything she can to make my life miserable. If she comes back and asks about me, I’d really appreciate it if you could deny all knowledge of me.”

“Sure, I can do that.”

“She might even send private detectives, and those guys use false I.D.s, say they’re cops.”

“Now that you mention it, a guy came in and flashed an FBI I.D., said he wanted to ask me some questions. I threw him out; I hate those guys.”

“You did the right thing,” Teddy said. He glanced at his wrist-watch. “Oh, my, I’m late for an appointment. I’ll have to come back.”

He left the shop and hurried toward Sixth Avenue. As he turned the corner, he saw the woman getting into a cab. He hailed another and got in. “Not to sound too dramatic,” he said to the driver, “but would you follow that cab, please?” He pointed to the taxi ahead.

“Sure, brother,” the cab driver said, sounding bored. “Whatever you want.”

“Not too closely,” Teddy said, “just keep it in sight.”

The cab made its way to an address in the East Forties, an apartment building. As Teddy waited in traffic, he saw her get out of the taxi and go into the building. The doorman touched his cap bill and opened the door for her. She was known there.

“Okay, now what?” the driver asked.

“Take me to Sixty-fourth and Madison, please.” He took out a notebook and jotted down the address of the building. What was the woman’s name? Holly something. He couldn’t remember the last name, though he tried all the way home.

Back in his apartment he went to the computer and logged onto the CIA server. What was her last name, dammit? He could check the Agency and FBI records for a file. He couldn’t think of the name.

Instead, he did a search for the address of the building she had gone into. The computer found three references to the address. He clicked on the first and found himself in a long, boring budget file. He checked the second reference. It was a memo: purchase of the building at that address was recommended, through a front real estate company.

He clicked on the third reference to the address and found a copy of a memo to the director from the head of purchasing, reporting on the appraisal of a building under construction and suggesting that it could be bought, approximately half-finished, for fifteen million dollars and finished to Agency specifications for another twenty million.

The building that the woman had entered was, at the very least, a CIA safe house, and, given the costs involved, more likely a center of some sort.

He slapped his forehead: he had sat through a performance of La Boheme next to a CIA officer.

“Jesus Christ,” he said under his breath. How had this happened? Were they that close to him? Impossible, he thought. If she’d realized who she was sitting with, she would have called in support, and yet she had let him walk. A coincidence? He hated coincidences.