Iron Orchid

THIRTY-NINE

TEDDY FAY TACKED THE PHOTOGRAPHS of five men and one woman on his bulletin board and sat back to read each of their files. For some reason-it may have been the man’s face-he strongly wanted to go after one Hadji Asaam who, under another name, was listed as a chauffeur at the Iranian embassy. Asaam was an assassin, pure and simple, and he had already been in the country for eight days. How long before he would be instructed to ply his real trade? Of course, there would be Agency or FBI surveillance on him, but he would find a way to lose them when he wanted to work. In the meantime, he was driving an attache around New York, probably learning the streets.

His decision made, Teddy went to a newsstand and bought several newspapers. Back in his shop, he went carefully through the classifieds, until he found something that suited him in the Village Voice:

Vespa 180, only 1200 mi, pristine, $3K for quick sale.

He called the number. “I’m interested in your Vespa,” he said. “If it’s as described in the paper, I’ll buy it for cash today.”

“It’s exactly as I described it,” the young man said. “You’ll love it.”

“You have the registration and the insurance card?”

“Yep.”

“You have the title? It doesn’t have a loan on it, does it?”

“Nope, I have the title.”

“Can you meet me at the Twenty-third Street Lexington subway stop at two o’clock? We can do the deal right there; I’ll bring cash.”

“Sure, I’ll be there. What’s your name?”

“Jeff Snyder. Yours?”

“Bernie Taylor.”

“See you at two, Bernie.” Teddy hung up.

He went through his makeup kit and selected a prominent nose and a large mustache. Half an hour later he was somebody else. At one-thirty, he walked down the street to the subway stop at 63rd and Lex, and took the train downtown. At street level, Bernie was sitting on the scooter, waiting.

“Let’s go for a ride,” Teddy said, indicating that Bernie should take the passenger seat. Teddy hadn’t driven a Vespa for years, but how much could have changed? He drove quickly around the block; the engine ran as it should, and the gears shifted smoothly. Teddy stopped.

“You’ll throw in the helmet for three grand?”

“Sure,” Bernie said.

Teddy handed him an envelope containing thirty one-hundred-dollar bills. He waited while Bernie counted the money carefully without actually salivating.

“Here’s the registration and title,” he said. “And the insurance card, but you’ll have to change it to your name. Oh, and it has a full tank of gas.”

“A pleasure doing business with you,” Teddy said. He pocketed the papers and drove away. Back at his workshop, he parked the scooter in the downstairs hallway and went upstairs to start planning his surveillance, based on the daily schedule of the attache Asaam would be driving. He would not have long to wait, since the attache was picked up daily at precisely six p.m. and driven to his apartment twenty blocks away. Teddy liked the idea that it would be at rush hour.

At five o’clock, Teddy dressed in black coveralls over his clothes, checked his makeup and went downstairs for the scooter. With the helmet and goggles, plus the makeup, he would be unidentifiable. He wiped the scooter for prints, then put on his driving gloves and pushed it into the street.

Twenty minutes later he was driving past the Iranian embassy to the U.N. and checking out the block. No doubt the embassy was under surveillance, and the second time around the block, he spotted two bored-looking men in a green Chevrolet sedan. They were dressed too neatly for NYPD detectives, so he reckoned they were FBI.

He went around the block again, then parked at the end of the street, some distance behind the surveillance vehicle, and waited. At five minutes before six, a black Lincoln with diplomatic plates drove up and double-parked in front of the embassy. At exactly six o’clock, the front door of the building opened and a middle-aged man in a pin-striped suit came down the front steps and got into the car. While the driver was holding open the door, Teddy checked his face against the photograph Irene had e-mailed him. A moment later, the driver was behind the wheel, and the car was moving. The FBI guys were moving, too.

Teddy stayed behind the two cars waiting for rush-hour traffic to do half his job for him. This took less than five minutes. Everything came to a halt because of some obstruction ahead. And Teddy saw the head of the diplomat’s driver come out the window, checking out the traffic.

Driving between lanes, Teddy accelerated around the FBI car and kept moving forward, his feet occasionally touching the pavement to help with his balance. The driver’s window was still open as he pulled alongside.

AT THE BARN, Holly and Ty were making their presentation to Lance and Kerry.

“There are a dozen candidates,” Holly said, “but we’ve narrowed the field to three for our purposes.”

“What criteria did you use for narrowing?” Kerry asked.

“Nothing more than a gut feeling,” Holly said, “because that’s what we think Teddy will use to make his choice.”

“Why?”

“We think this process is emotional for Teddy. He’s doing this out of hatred for people he believes are enemies of his country.”

“Okay, let’s hear the three candidates,” Kerry said.

“Two men and a woman,” Holly said. First there’s Ali Tarik, who is a thug whose specialty is tracking down Syrian defectors to the States and beating them up or killing them. Then there’s Carla Mujarik, who is in charge of buying materials for the Iranian nuclear weapons program. She buys what she can get, either in the U.S. or abroad. It’s a tough job, but she’s had some success. We haven’t cut her off yet, in the hope of catching some big rats among the sellers.“ She held up another picture. ”This is Hadji Asaam, an assassin, pure and simple, who’s only been in the country for a week or so, but who we think has been brought in to kill some specific person as yet unknown to us. As you know, we’ve got this heads-of-state meeting at the U.N. coming up, and that makes him worrying to us.“

“Ugly bastard, isn’t he?” Lance said.

“That’s why he’s our number-one candidate,” Holly said. “We think Teddy will have the same reaction you did when he sees his picture.”

“You’re operating on the premise that Teddy still has access to Agency files?”

“Yes.”

“But all the codes have been changed, and there’s a big internal investigation run by Irene Foster in Hugh English’s office underway. How could he possibly get into the mainframe again?”

“We don’t know, but we have to operate on the premise that Teddy is smart enough to figure out a way to know what we know.”

Lance shook his head. “That’s a mighty big assumption,” he said.

“Why?” Holly asked. “He was at the Agency long enough to figure out ways into the computers, and he may even have inside help among the people he knew and worked with before he retired. Some of them may feel some sympathy with what he’s doing. To be perfectly frank, I feel some sympathy with what he’s doing. Don’t you?”

“I’m not answering that,” Lance said. “All right, let’s follow your hunch and see where it leads us.”

“God knows,” Kerry said, “we don’t have anything else to go on.” He opened a file and looked through it. “Looks like the New York field office of the Bureau has round-the-clock surveillance of Asaam.”

“How much surveillance?” Lance asked.

“Two men.”

“All right, let’s triple that,” Lance said. “Let’s put Holly and Ty on him, and we’ll assign another team, as well.”

A secretary knocked and opened the door. “Lance, there’s a Lieutenant Bacchetti on the phone for you; he says it’s important.”

Lance picked up the phone and pushed the blinking button. “Dino? What’s up?” He listened for a moment. “How long ago?” He listened again, then thanked the caller and hung up, shaking his head.

“What?” Kerry asked.

“A man on a motor scooter shot Hadji Asaam fifteen minutes ago, while your two agents watched. He got away in the rush-hour traffic”

Holly and Ty exchanged a glance.

“Well, Holly,” Kerry said, “it looks like your theory of how Teddy chooses targets might be pretty good.”

Holly felt a warm glow inside. “If it is, then we’d better beef up surveillance on Ali Tarik and Carla Mujarik.”

“Done,” Kerry said.