Capital Crimes

by Stuart Woods

“Did any other personal characteristics stand out?”

  She shook her head.

  A man spoke up. “I worked with Teddy, oh, maybe a dozen times,” he said. “What Jean says is true. I also felt that he was an angry man, though I never knew about what.”

  Another man spoke. “I’ll second that. He didn’t encourage knowing him. He always brought his lunch and ate it in the garden in warm weather and at his desk when it was cold. I don’t ever recall seeing him in the cafeteria, let alone lunching with anybody.”

  “He was knowledgeable about investments,” another man said. “I was talking to someone about putting some money into a mutual fund on one occasion. Teddy overheard me and named three other funds he said were better, and he was right.”

  “Did you have any idea of the extent of his own holdings?”

  “No, he would never have talked about that.”

  A woman spoke up. “You have to understand that Teddy wasn’t exactly an oddball in Tech Services. There were lots of people who would have seemed odd in other surroundings. Lots of us were freaks, techies, nerds, and bookworms.”

  There was a chorus of agreement from the group.

  “Does anyone have any inkling of where he might have gone when he disappeared?”

  There was a moment’s silence, then a man spoke up. “You have to understand the work we did. Apart from the weapons—the bombs, the exploding fountain pens, the exotic firearms—what we did was to invisibly alter perceptions. We manufactured personalities, created documents, constructed legends—all the things that would make an agent or friend seem to be something other than what he was—and verifiably so. Teddy not only had access to all those techniques and equipment, he invented much of it. If he chose to disappear, then he would have done so in such a way that you could not find him. You would never think of looking for him where he went, and neither would I or anyone else here.”

  Another murmur of agreement.

  Another man spoke up. “You’ve got just one chance of finding him,” he said.

  Kinney turned to face him. “Tell me.”

  “If Teddy turns himself in.”

  Kinney was still thinking about that when the artist shoved his drawing pad across the table to him. Kinney looked at it and saw a bland face with a slight smile, one that seemed nearly featureless. He turned the pad around and showed it to the group. “Is that Teddy Fay?”

  There was a chorus of assents.

  “Thank you all for coming,” Kinney said. “My secretary will give each of you my card, and should you think of anything else pertinent or, especially, if you should hear from Mr. Fay, please call me at once, day or night.”

  He watched them file from the room, then looked again into the face of Teddy Fay—enigmatic to a fault.

  43

  Kinney and Smith drove out to MacLean, Virginia, the following morning and presented their ID to a guard at the main gate of tile Central Intelligence Agency. They were admitted, parked in a visitors’ spot, and walked into the main lobby, which was familiar to Kinney, with its memorial wall of dead agents, from various movies and magazine photographs. A middle-aged woman in a business suit was waiting for them.

  “Agents Kinney and Smith?”

  “That’s right,” Kinney replied. “Is it so obvious?”

  “Yes, it is,” she said without smiling. “Would you please follow me?” She led them into an elevator, then inserted a plastic card into a slot and pressed an unnumbered button. The elevator seemed not to move for several moments, but then the door opened and they stepped into a hallway.

  Kinney was not sure if they had gone up or down. He followed the woman, who had not mentioned her name, down a long hallway and into a conference room, where she asked them to wait. A few moments later a gray-haired man, apparently in his fifties, came into the room while struggling into his suit jacket.

  “Agents Kinney and Smith?”

  They rose and shook hands.

  “Call me Gil,” the man said. He waved them to seats. “I’ve been instructed by the director to cooperate with your investigation, so I will answer any of your questions that seem relevant. I understand you want to know about Theodore Fay?”

  “That’s correct,” Kinney replied. “We want to know everything you can tell us about him.”

  “Of course, I wanted to print out his employment record for you, but as you’re now no doubt aware, it has been removed from our computer files, and there is, apparently, no hard copy.”

  “Yes, we know about that. What can you tell us about the nature of his employment here?”

  “I understand you already have the personal recollections of some of our people who are retired.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “They would have known Teddy as well or better than I, so I’ll tell you what I know about what he did here until his retirement.”

  “Thank you, that would be very helpful.”

  “I must ask you to treat everything I tell you as secret and not to share this information with anyone not directly connected to your investigation. I would also prefer it if you would not make written notes of our conversation or include them in any reports circulated to your own people or others.”

  “We understand your need for secrecy,” Kinney replied, “and we’ll do everything we can to keep your confidence.”

  “Thank you. First, let me give you an overview of the kinds of things we do here. Our Department of Technical Services is divided into, roughly, four segments: weapons, both offensive and defensive, including firearms and various others; chemical, again both offensive and defensive, including explosives and poisons; communications, including radios and computers; and documents, including manufacture of same, as well as analysis of found materials. Our capabilities in all these areas are far beyond those of any police department in the world, and very probably, well beyond those of your own FBI labs.”

  “In which areas did Teddy Fay work?” Kinney asked.

  “All of them,” Gil replied, “at one time or another. Teddy came to work here at a time when the department was less segmented that it now is. He had degrees in mechanical engineering and chemistry from MIT and a growing reputation as an inventor. He already held a number of patents that continued to produce income for many years. He was an amateur gunsmith, and in his youth, an amateur actor, and he started here working on firearms and disguises.

  “When personal computers became available, Teddy bought one at Radio Shack and taught himself programming. He wrote some software products that, updated for the newer operating systems, are still in use here. Computers remained an obsession with him, but then, Teddy was obsessed with nearly everything. He was the ideal employee—completely dedicated to his work and, apparently, nothing else. We could have kept him in a cage and thrown him meat once in a while, and he wouldn’t have noticed. He’d have just shown up for work every morning with a new idea. I hated to lose him.”

  “What was he doing in, say, the last two years of his employment?” Kinney asked.

  “He was a key supervisor. Let’s say we were planning to insert an agent into a foreign country: Teddy would draw up a plan which would include documentation and backup, weapons, disguises, clothing, transportation, and communications, plus anything else the agent might need. Then Teddy would supervise the obtaining or creation of all the things the agent needed. His skills were such that he could fill the shoes of anyone who worked for him, if necessary. If his passport artist was down with the flu, Teddy could create a passport from scratch, or figure out where to steal a blank one.”

  Kinney interrupted. “You said documentation and backup. What did you mean by backup?”

  “Let’s say that our agent was detained while crossing a border. The local police would do everything possible to check out his background and his legend, so every document, every word he said, every part of his legend, had to be verifiable. Teddy was an absolute genius at that. I’ll give you an example, though I can’t be too specific. Some years ago, Tedd
y broke into the computer systems of an Eastern European country and downloaded thousands of passport records. From that he learned how to create a passport file for an individual that was indistinguishable from the genuine article, then upload it into their system. So, if an agent’s passport was checked against the central files, there he was, making his passport unassailable.”

  “You said he could create documents from scratch?”

  “Yes, if he had to, and if he had a sample to work from. Something our agents are always looking for is blank documents from other governments—expense reports, criminal records, employment applications, anything a government uses, and especially passports. If we couldn’t get the real thing, then Teddy could make the paper, the watermarks, the holograms, the seals and stamps, and anything else that went into the manufacture of the original. It was time-consuming, but it saved many lives.”

  “We know that Teddy has faked his death, and we’re sure he’s out there somewhere in America with one or more fake identities. Based on what you do here, what would one of those identities consist of, and how would it be backed up?”

  “It would consist of everything in your wallet—credit cards, driver’s license, club and museum memberships, insurance cards, the works. And it would all be real. Let’s say he got stopped for speeding, and the cop ran his driver’s license and car registration. It would come back as genuine, and the address of record would be real, if somebody went and knocked on a door. Suppose he was questioned by the police when suspected of a crime. He would have college and high school transcripts inserted into the correct computers, and his fingerprints would not turn up any previous arrests. If he were employed, the employer would be real. He would have a credit record going back an appropriate number of years—he could even walk into a bank and borrow money. It would all be airtight, and there wouldn’t be any leaks.”

  “Wouldn’t he need help from other people to make it airtight?”

  “Not necessarily. Most background checking is done by requesting records, which are computerized. Let’s say his legend includes working for a large insurance company. The cops would call to verify his employment, and a clerk would enter his name into a computer and pull up his employment record. It would all be there for the clerk to read to the police, or he could even email them a copy. He would only need help if the police tried to telephone his supervisor and actually speak to someone who knows him. We would cover that for an agent, but Teddy might find it difficult, working alone.”

  “So what do we look for? How can we pierce this legend, if we find him?”

  “Odds are, you can’t. He will have constructed it in such a way as to make it completely plausible and verifiable. He could tell you his life story, and when you checked it out, it would all be, well, ”true.“”

  “Do you have a record of his fingerprints?”

  “No, I checked. It’s gone, along with everything else about Teddy.”

  Kinney had a thought. “Could you check something for me?”

  “If I can.”

  “Teddy retired, so he’s on a pension, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Will you check with your accounting department and see if his pension is being paid, and if so, to what bank? And what address they have for Fay?”

  “Give me a few minutes,” Gil said. He left the room, and a woman brought coffee and cookies for them.

  Ten minutes later, Gil returned. “He didn’t delete his pay records. His pension is being paid into an account at the First National Bank of Arlington, and his address is the one on Riverview Circle where he lived for many years.” He laid a sheet of paper on the table containing all the information. “What else can I do for you?”

  Kinney stood up. “I think that will do it. May I call you, if I think of anything else?”

  “Sure. My extension is ten-ten.” He offered his hand. “Good luck on finding Teddy. You’re going to need it.”

  Driving back to the Bureau, both agents were silent for a long time. Finally, Kerry Smith spoke up. “What do you think he’s doing?”

  “Doing?” Kinney asked.

  “He’s not finished,” Smith said, “but after the first spate of murders, he hasn’t killed anybody for a while.”

  “You’re right, he’s not through,” Kinney replied. “He’s planning. He’s just getting ready to move again, in his own time.”

  “Well, we’ve got a guard on everyone pictured on his website.

  We can’t do more than that.“

  “We can anticipate him,” Kinney said.

  “How?”

  “We’ve got to get inside his head, to figure out who the most likely target would be. If you were Teddy, who would you go after?”

  Smith was quiet for a while. “Somebody high up,” he said finally.

  “The president?”

  “No, the president’s politics aren’t the kind that Teddy hates.”

  “Speaker of the House?”

  “That would be my bet. He has all the qualifications for getting hit by Teddy—right-wing, in-your-face politics—”

  “That seems to be Teddy’s only criterion.”

  “That and being well known.”

  “Let’s get back to the office and make a new list.”

  44

  Ted exited I-95 and made his way to Manassas Regional Airport, south of Washington, D.C. He inserted his security card to open the gate, then drove to the west side of the field, past some T-hangars, to a larger hangar behind them. He drove around back and punched a garage-door opener; the large bifold door opened, and the lights came on. Ted drove the RV inside and used the remote to close the door again. A large fan heater came on immediately, to compensate for the heat lost through the open door.

  Ted maneuvered the RV into its assigned space, then got out and connected the power cable and the flexible drain leading to the septic system. He was home. He went into the RV and gazed at himself in the bathroom mirror. A very different Ted Fay stared back at him, one with a head of thick, gray hair and a walrus mustache. He peeled off the mustache, then the toupee and washed them both, leaving them on a form to dry. Then he went “outside” into the hangar.

  The hangar held the RV and his car—a five-year-old Mercedes E320, which wasn’t really a 320, because he had modified it, installing an AMG Mercedes engine of five and a half liters and upgrading the suspension and tires. What he had now was a bland-looking family sedan that was capable of zero to sixty miles an hour in under five seconds, and he had replaced the speed-limiting chip with one that allowed a top speed in excess of a hundred and eighty miles an hour. Ted loved cars, and he loved this one best of all.

  The final fixture in the hangar was a glassed-in office with a toilet and shower. Inside that were a desk and chair, a sofa, a comfortable recliner, and a large rear-projection television set. Ted loved TV, too. On the desk was a very powerful computer that he had assembled himself, modeled after the units used in Tech Services at the CIA, and incorporating their stolen chip, with a twenty-one-inch flat-screen monitor. With it he could access almost any government system, from the Pentagon to the CIA. Occupying an adjoining area was his workshop, which he had disassembled at his home and reassembled in the hangar.

  Ted logged onto the ACT NOW website and gazed at the photographs displayed there, lingering over Efton, the speaker of the House. Efton was a tempting target, but in some ways Ted thought him a good man to have in the job, since the way he conducted himself often engendered great opposition among moderates. He eliminated the speaker from consideration.

  He needed a more important, more pivotal figure. He went to another website where he had stored more photos and biographical information on other public figures, and he came to the Supreme Court. He quickly eliminated four of the nine justices, then lingered for a moment over a fifth, the one who was often a swing vote, finally eliminating her. He was left with four justices, including the chief justice, whom Ted had disliked for years. He was very old, now, and rumor was he woul
d be leaving the Court soon, leaving President Lee to appoint his successor. No point in creating a fuss by dealing with him, so he eliminated the chief justice from consideration.

  Now he was left with three justices, each of whom qualified politically. Each slavishly followed the chief justice’s lead on important cases, and the elimination of any of them would be good for the country, Ted figured. One, however, stood out. Thomas Graydon was the newest appointee to the Court, a man who had managed, during his confirmation hearings, to convince enough Democrats that his views were moderate to get him confirmed. Once on the Court, though, he had revealed himself as a hardline right-winger, infuriating the senators he had fooled during the hearings. He often addressed conservative groups, making inflammatory speeches backing far right-wing legal positions. He was the youngest member of the Court, only forty-nine years of age, and he could very well be there for thirty years or more, tossing legal hand grenades at the Bill of Rights.