Stuart Woods Holly Barker Collection

by Stuart Woods

  “I’ll get right on it,” Holly said, and returned to her office.

  EDITH TIMMONS, a sixty-year-old Realtor who managed the Crown and Palmer office at Madison and 60th Street was at her desk when a young man came into the office. Through her open door she could see him flash some sort of ID at the receptionist, and she got up and went to the door. “May I help you?” she said to the young man.

  “Mrs. Timmons,” the receptionist said, “this gentleman is from the FBI; perhaps you should speak to him.”

  “Yes, please come into my office,” she said. Edith turned back to her desk and began to take deep breaths, composing herself. She sat down at her desk and clasped her hands together to keep them from shaking. “Yes, come in,” she said.

  The young man showed her his identification. “I’m Special Agent Harding, with the FBI,” he said.

  “How may I help you?” Edith replied, trying to keep her voice steady. Forty years before, Edith, whose name was not Edith, had participated in a Weather Underground bank robbery in downtown New York, and a bank guard had been killed. She had only driven the getaway car, but she knew that somewhere in the Justice Department bureaucracy there was an arrest warrant with her real name on it and that there is no statute of limitations on murder.

  “I understand that your firm handles short-term rentals on the Upper East Side,” Harding said. “Is that correct?”

  “Yes, it is,” she replied, relieved that he did not seem interested in arresting her. “It’s a specialty of ours.”

  Harding handed her a sketch of a middle-aged man. “Have you, during the past few weeks, shown an apartment or rented an apartment to a man who looks like this?”

  Edith tried not even to blink. “No, we haven’t,” she said. “I handle the short-term rentals, myself, so if he had come in here, I would have seen him.”

  “You’re certain you haven’t rented to someone who looks even vaguely like this man during the past weeks?”

  She shook her head. “I’m sure; I’ve only rented to couples for the past three or four months. It’s been more than a year since I rented to a single man. And none of the men in the couples looked like this. Why are you asking?”

  “It’s just a routine investigation,” Harding said. “We’re talking to all the Realtors in the neighborhood.”

  “I see.” She stood up. “Well, I’m sorry I couldn’t have been more help, Agent Harding. Good day.”

  “Good day, and thank you.” The young man left her offices and turned up Madison Avenue.

  Edith closed her office door, sat back down in her chair and rested her face in her hands, trying to tame her wildly beating heart. She took a tissue from the box on her desk and dabbed at the beads of perspiration that had popped out on her forehead, then she got out her compact and repaired her carefully applied makeup.

  For a moment, there, she had thought her life would go up in smoke: her partnership in the realty firm, her marriage to a Park Avenue physician, her two sons and her five grandchildren.

  What was that man’s name? She got out her card file of rentals and began going through them, then stopped at one. Foreman; Albert Foreman. She dialed the number.

  TEDDY WAS IN HIS WORKSHOP when the phone rang. He routinely forwarded the calls from his apartment to this phone, but he never got calls, except from telemarketers. He picked up the instrument. “Hello?”

  “Mr. Foreman?”

  “Who’s calling, please?”

  “This is Edith Timmons of Crown and Palmer. Is this Mr. Foreman?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sure you’ll recall that I rented you your apartment at the Mayflower a few weeks ago.”

  “Of course, Mrs. Timmons. Is anything wrong? Are the owners returning earlier than planned?”

  “Oh, no, nothing like that. I just wanted to tell you about something, purely for your own information.”

  “Yes?”

  “A few minutes ago I had a visit from an FBI agent, who showed me a sketch of someone who looked vaguely like you and asked if I had rented an apartment to such a person.”

  Teddy’s gut clenched. “And what did you tell him?”

  “Mr. Foreman, I have to tell you that I have no love for the FBI and I have no wish to help them. I told him that I had not rented to any such person, so you shouldn’t be bothered.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Mrs. Timmons. It’s just a tax matter. I’ll contact them, and I’m sure we can work it out.”

  “Well, of course, I knew it would be something like that. I just wanted to let you know that you need not be concerned. They won’t come looking for you.”

  “Well, thank you again, Mrs. Timmons. I very much appreciate your concern.”

  “One thing, Mr. Foreman: if you should have a conversation with these people, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention that you rented the apartment from me. I wouldn’t want to be caught in a lie.”

  “Of course not, Mrs. Timmons, and thank you again.” Teddy hung up and breathed a sigh of relief. They were looking for him, but they had missed. He’d be all right for a while longer.

  FORTY-SIX

  TEDDY NOW TURNED HIS ATTENTION to his next victim. He still had the photographs of the others he had identified as prospects, but he was growing tired of small fry; he wanted a bigger fish, someone who would strike fear into the hearts of America’s enemies.

  He looked at his watch; time to call Irene. He dialed her cell phone number.

  “Hello,” she said, knowing who was calling. “It’s been a while.”

  “I’ve been a busy fellow,” he said.

  “Believe me, I know all about it. I’ve completed my investigation of how you’re getting the information, and I turned in my report to the director.”

  “And?”

  “And I’ve blamed it on the FBI.”

  Teddy smiled. “Good.”

  “And, I understand, the FBI is blaming it on us.”

  “Perfect! When are you coming to New York again?”

  “Maybe in a couple of days. Can I let you know?”

  “Sure, call me anytime on the cell phone.”

  “Anything I can do for you?”

  “Yes. I’m looking for a new kind of target, a bigger fish.”

  “At the UN?”

  “That would be good; I’d rather not have to travel to Washington.”

  “Let me poke around and see who I can come up with. Maybe I can bring you a name when I come to New York.”

  “Good. I’m looking forward to seeing you. Bye-bye.” Teddy hung up. He really was looking forward to seeing her. His increasing interest in Holly Barker was making him horny, and he needed relief.

  Teddy went to his workbench and returned his attention to something he had been working on for several days. He didn’t have a sniper’s rifle, and buying one that would suit his purpose would be too complicated and too dangerous. Instead, he had decided to make one himself that would break down and be easily concealable.

  He owned a virtually unused Walther PPK-S, the stainless-steel, updated version of the gun made famous in the James Bond novels. The caliber was .380, which posed a problem, but he could deal with that. He also had a Douglas .380 rifle barrel that he’d ordered more than a year ago.

  He cut down the rifle barrel to sixteen inches and built a six-inch silencer to add to that. Then he replaced the pistol’s grip panel with an L-shaped piece of flat aluminum plating that came over the top of the gun. He shaped a folding stock of a strip of one-inch alloy that was fixed to the plating by a single screw, so that it could be quickly attached or detached using a dime for a screwdriver.

  Finally, he mounted a 6 x 18 power Leupold zoom scope to the top of the L-shaped plating. He broke down the little pistol, removed the barrel and replaced it with the new, longer barrel, then reassembled it. Then he carved an eight-inch wooden grip and affixed it to the barrel, to protect his hand from the heat buildup when the weapon was fired. What he finished up with was a neat, small, very quie
t rifle with a pistol grip that could be broken down and carried in a briefcase or raincoat pocket. This was perfect, but if the rifle were going to be effective at, say, a hundred yards, he was going to have to upgrade the ammunition; the standard .380 round was just not powerful enough.

  He hand-loaded a hundred rounds of ammunition with a 115-grain, pointed, lead-tipped bullet and a cartridge packed with five grains of Unique powder. That would give the round the extra velocity, accuracy and destructive power it would need to hit an eight-inch target dead center at a hundred yards. Still, the bullet would drop more than it would from a higher-powered rifle, so he was going to have to fire the rifle to sight it in for the range.

  IRENE ARRIVED in New York and followed Teddy’s instructions. She went to the fountain in Grand Army Plaza outside the Plaza Hotel at high noon and loitered for ten minutes. Then she set off across 59th Street and into Central Park. Teddy, who had been watching her from half a block away, was occupying a bench along the walkway toward the zoo, reading the Post. He dawdled a hundred yards behind her, looking for tails, then watched as she moseyed around the zoo and finally headed north.

  He followed her for half an hour, then, when he was sure she was not being tailed, called her cell phone.

  “Yes?”

  “There’s a room booked in the name of Frances Williams at the Lowell Hotel, on East Sixty-third Street, between Park and Madison. Go there and check in, telling them that your luggage was delayed by the airline and will be delivered later. When you’ve satisfied yourself that you’re clean of tails, call my cell from your room and give me the room number.”

  “Got it,” she said.

  Teddy followed her all the way to the hotel, then walked past it and around the block again, making sure he was not followed. Halfway around, his cell phone rang.

  “Yep?”

  “Six one six. All is well.”

  He continued around the block, then entered the hotel, went straight to the elevator and rode to the eighth floor. He walked down two flights, and, after checking out the hallway, knocked on the door.

  There was a pause, and he was inside. Irene was already naked under a terry robe. He was out of his clothes in a flash.

  AN HOUR LATER, as they lay, half asleep, in each other’s arms, she spoke for the first time. “How about a nice, flashy Saudi prince with financial connections to Al Qaeda?” she asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” he murmured.

  “His name is Ali ben Saud, and he’s one of hundreds of Saudi princes,” she said. “What sets him apart is that he actually makes money, instead of just lying around and collecting whatever allowance the king allots him. He’s invested cleverly, too cleverly, we think. What caught our attention is that he invests more than his allowance, and we think the extra funds come from an Al Qaeda contact in Syria. There is constant activity in his accounts, money being wired here and there, some legit, some questionable.”

  “How sure are you of his involvement with Al Qaeda?” Teddy asked.

  “We’re sure, but we couldn’t prove it in a court of law.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He lives flashily, right here in New York. He’s an assistant secretary general at the UN, and he has a big duplex apartment in the UN Plaza building.”

  “I love that building,” Teddy said. “I remember once a character in a movie saying that if there is a god, he probably lives in that building.”

  Irene laughed. “He has a penthouse apartment, and the building’s security is excellent, so it would probably be very difficult to get to him there.”

  “What’s his work schedule, and how does he get to the office?”

  “He leaves his apartment every morning at nine for work and walks to the main entrance of the UN building. Then he exits the UN building every afternoon at four, regular as clockwork, and walks home.”

  “That’s very cooperative of him,” Teddy said. “He must drive his security people crazy.”

  “He walks with an entourage of six or eight guards, who are heavily armed. Our people have observed this, but we’re not allowed to maintain any real surveillance on him, because he’s too well connected with Saudi officials in this country who have a lot of influence with the State Department. We haven’t even told the New York station of our interest in him, though that’s going to happen any day now.”

  “Good,” Teddy said. “That means I’ll have to deal with only his personal security people and not worry about surveillance from anybody else. I’ll have to go down to UN Plaza and take a look at the area.”

  “Not right now,” Irene said, pulling him toward her.

  “Oh, no, indeed not,” Teddy said, kissing her.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  HOLLY WAS HOME at lunchtime to walk Daisy, when the phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s the old man,” Ham said.

  “How you doin’, Ham?”

  “Not bad. Ginny and I thought we might come up to New York and do some Christmas shopping.”

  “Great! It would be wonderful to see you. I can put you up, you know.”

  “Nah, suggest a good hotel. I told you why.”

  “There are two good ones in the neighborhood, though, the Lowell, on Sixty-third, and the Plaza Athenee, on Sixty-fourth. They’ll both have thick walls.”

  “Okay, I’ll book us in.”

  “When you coming?

  “Tomorrow okay?”

  “Sure. I’ll see if I can get some time off, and if you’ll give me your flight information, I’ll have a car meet you.”

  “I’ll e-mail it to you. Bye.” He hung up. Ham had never been one for long telephone conversations.

  Holly got Daisy’s leash and left the building, headed for the park. She tried not to be self-conscious, tried not to look over her shoulder, but the thought that maybe Teddy might be following her never left her mind. They entered the park at 64th Street, walked past the zoo and headed north at a fast walk for Holly and a slow one for Daisy, but since she had a lot of sniffing and inspecting to do, the pace was good for both of them.

  At the Bethesda Fountain Holly looked around for a cop and, seeing none, unclipped Daisy and let her range around the open area, while Holly sat on the fountain’s edge and kept an eye out for the law. It was a one-hundred-dollar fine to have your dog off the leash in the park after nine a.m.

  Immediately, Holly saw two men who could be Teddy Fay: one older looking, in a long topcoat with a short, gray beard, and another in a sheepskin coat and a tweed cap, with a big yellow muffler that partly covered his face. She looked away from both of them, then glanced back when she could. She made sure her cell phone earpiece was firmly in her ear, then she reached into a pocket and pressed the single key that connected her to the team leader.

  “I’m here,” he said.

  “I’ve got two candidates,” she replied without moving her lips. “Old man in topcoat with beard, younger man in sheepskin coat and tweed cap. Can’t be sure about either.”

  “We’re on it.” He rang off.

  Holly gave them another couple of minutes to identify the two men, then she called Daisy and headed back toward 64th Street, still walking quickly. She made the last few blocks in record time, and as soon as she was inside she called Lance.

  “Yes?”

  “I identified two prospects to the team,” she said.

  “I know; they’re tracking both. The older man with the beard has been eliminated—he’s really old—but they’re still on the sheepskin coat. Come on back to work.”

  Holly left some fresh water for Daisy, told her to guard the apartment with her life, and got a cab back to the office. She went immediately to Lance’s office.

  “What’s going on?”

  Lance was watching a jerky television image on a monitor next to his desk. “There’s the sheepskin coat,” he said. “He’s leading them on an erratic walk, and they’re having trouble keeping him in sight without losing him or blowing the tail. I’ve dispatched another team to help
. You think it could really be him?”

  “Well, it could be Larry David, I suppose.”

  “I’m never going to be able to watch his show again without thinking about this,” Lance said, laughing. He picked up his phone and pressed a button. “I want one team member to get close; Holly’s here, and I want her to have a good look. Have someone approach and pass him from in front.”

  Holly watched the screen, and a moment later the perspective changed: the camera was a block away, and the man in the sheepskin coat was walking toward it. The man and his pursuer stopped on opposite sides of the street for a traffic light.

  “Zoom in as close as possible,” Lance said into the phone.

  The camera began a slow zoom, and as it framed the man more tightly, he took off his tweed cap and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. Holly got a good look at his face; he couldn’t have been older than forty-five. “Not him,” she said. “Too young.”

  Lance spoke into the phone again. “He’s not our man,” he said. “Break it off; everybody back to the Barn.” He hung up the phone.

  “I’m sorry, Lance. I thought he might be Teddy.”

  “Don’t worry about it; the exercise was good practice for the team.”

  TEDDY APPROACHED THE UN PLAZA BUILDING on foot. The elegant apartment house soared forty stories or more into the New York skyline. Teddy started near the front door and walked slowly toward the UN building, perhaps a block away. He wanted to see the area from the target’s perspective.

  This was not going to be as easy as the others, since ben Saud would have up to eight armed guards with him. If Teddy tried to do a drive-by from a motorbike or bicycle, they’d cut him to pieces the moment he fired, maybe sooner. No, he was going to have to be stationary and, preferably, elevated. As he walked toward the UN he saw, across the street, a building under construction, a small office or apartment building. The steel structure was up, and the floors appeared to be in, but cladding of the exterior had not yet begun.