by Stuart Woods
Here was a man who had earned Ted’s attention. His elimination would allow the moderate president to make perhaps the most important appointment of his presidency, after the chief justice, should the old man die or yield his seat. The Democrats held a one-vote majority in the Senate, and Lee could get his appointees confirmed without too much trouble.
Ted eliminated the other justices, leaving only Thomas Graydon. Now he had to decide how to accomplish this death. He thought it should be done more subtly than the others, in fact so subtly that the FBI might think that Ted had not been responsible. An “accidental” death would certainly be preferable.
He scrolled through newspaper and magazine articles about Justice Graydon that he had collected during his confirmation hearings and the three years that Graydon had sat on the Court, and he was struck by a photograph of the man getting out of his car at the Capitol during the hearings. The car was a black, American-made SUV, and he found another shot of Graydon in the car, taken on a fishing trip, this shot more recent, which meant that he probably still owned the car. He would do a drive-by and see if it was parked at the Graydon home.
Then Ted hacked into the computer systems of the manufacturer of the car and went into the design department’s files. After a few minutes, he came up with the design for the main chip in the car’s computer system, the one that directed everything from its fuel management to its antilock braking system. He printed out the design and went carefully over it, seeing opportunity.
Next, he went to the manufacturer’s parts distribution center, entered the part number of the chip and got a list of dealers who had it in stock. The part was not one that was often replaced, so few dealers had it, only one of them east of the Mississippi, in Baltimore, which would do nicely.
He went back to the RV and made himself some dinner, then relaxed in front of the TV for the evening. His mind was preoccupied with the computer chip, however, and how he could modify it to suit his purposes.
Tomorrow morning he would check Justice Graydon’s house for the presence of the vehicle, and if he still owned it, then Ted would need to make a trip to Baltimore.
This would take time and effort, but it would be worth it; after Graydon, he would make his exit from the scene. A very nice little island cottage waited for him, and he looked forward to a quiet life, after he had made his mark on American political history.
Then the evening news came on, and Ted was surprised to find a very good drawing of himself staring out of fee screen. He hadn’t thought the FBI were so close, and he settled in to watch their performance.
“Now we take you to the press office at the White House, where Assistant Director Robert Kinney of the FBI is holding a press conference.”
Bob Kinney’s face filled the screen, and Ted studied it carefully.
45
Kinney took a deep breath and leaned into the microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a suspect in the three murders and one attempted murder that have captured so much attention in past weeks.” He pressed a button, and the drawing of Teddy Fay filled the monitors in the room. “His name is Theodore Fay, and he is a retired employee of the Central Intelligence Agency. Mr. Fay worked in the Technical Services division of the Agency for more than thirty years, where he acquired the skills that he employed in these crimes. Mr. Fay is sixty-seven years of age, five feet eleven inches tall, a hundred and eighty pounds, and physically fit. He has gray hair and is balding and has green eyes. Although he has gone to some lengths to fake his own death and move his assets out of the country, we believe Mr. Fay is living somewhere within fifty miles of Washington, D.C. He may drive a recreational vehicle. We expect that, due to the nature of his work at the CIA, he has established one or more identities, complete with driver’s licenses, credit cards, and other forms of identification, including valid U.S. passports, and that he may also employ various disguises.
“We ask the cooperation of the media and the public in finding Mr. Fay, and to that end, we have established a toll-free hotline where sightings may be reported.” He flashed the number on the screen. “I am authorized by the president to say that a reward of one million dollars, tax-free, is being offered for information leading to the arrest of Theodore Fay. We regard Mr. Fay as armed and dangerous and I urge members of the public not to approach him, but to call the hotline number or local law enforcement. Now, I will take questions.” He pointed at a woman in the first row.
“Mr. Kinney, what does the FBI believe is Mr. Fay’s motive for these killings?”
“We believe that Mr. Fay is unhappy with the present political situation in the United States and that he is seeking to redress it by removing certain figures from the scene.”
“Is Mr. Fay a communist?” someone shouted.
“That is extremely unlikely,” Kinney replied. “We believe that he simply holds political views to the left of the mainstream. Obviously, he is very angry.”
“Is Theodore Fay insane?” a reporter asked.
“Our profilers think that is unlikely, at least in the legal sense of the term, but clearly he is not behaving like a normal person. Normal people do not employ violence and murder to redress grievances.”
“Mr. Kinney, when Mr. Fay is caught, where will he be tried?”
“Obviously, law enforcement agencies in Virginia and Maryland are helping in the search for Mr. Fay, but when he is arrested he will be charged in a federal court with the murder of Senator Wallace. Murder of a U.S. government official is a federal crime and carries the death penalty.”
“Mr. Kinney,” a reporter called out, “does the FBI have any physical evidence against Mr. Fay?”
Kinney felt his ears redden. “I can’t comment on the evidence at this time,” he replied. “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, then walked off the platform.
Ted muted the TV during the commercial and thought about the last question. Kinney had looked a little embarrassed, he thought, and well he should. Ted had left no evidence anywhere to be found, except for tiny pieces of the Vandervelt bomb, which would be of little use to the FBI lab. It was clear that the Feds were desperate now. They had identified him, but he had expected that would happen; all they had was that drawing.
The FBI’s special toll-free number would now be swamped with reports of sightings, but the man they were looking for just wasn’t there anymore.
In his cell at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, Ed Rawls switched off his TV set in disgust, if not despair. He began composing a new message to Kate Lee, one that he believed would lend a new urgency to any thoughts she might have of a presidential pardon. There was something new to look forward to, as well—the prospect of a one-million-dollar reward, which would sweeten his golden years considerably.
Bob Kinney drove back to the Hoover Building and went up to his office. In a conference room across the hall, four agents were manning the phones, and, predictably, calls were already streaming in. Kerry Smith stood, waiting to speak with plausible callers.
“Anything promising?” Kinney asked Smith.
“One that sounds genuine, if not promising.”
“What do you mean?”
“A trucker saw someone he swears was Fay at a rest stop on I-95.”
“Did he ID a vehicle?”
“He said there were a couple of RVs at the rest stop, but he saw Fay sitting at a picnic table, eating a sandwich.”
“You’re right, it’s genuine, but not promising. ”Useless’ might be a better word.“
Kinney pulled up a chair and picked up a phone, listening to each of the four lines in turn. Finally, he hung up. “Remember,” he said to Smith, “if we get anything from this, it will probably be only one phone call, so don’t miss it or underrate it when it comes in.” He left the building and went home.
46
Kate arrived at her office and presided over a scheduled meeting, then she checked her email. There was one from Ed Rawls. Her first impulse was to delete it without reading it, but she couldn’t get pa
st her curiosity.
“My Dear Kate,” it read, “Congratulations to somebody on ferreting out Teddy Fay’s name. The FBI has outshone itself, for once; they have the right man. Or rather, they don’t have him, do they? I can tell you where to find our Teddy— at one of two locations—and all I ask is my freedom and, of course, the reward the FBI has posted, to keep me in my old age. Come on, girl—let’s get this done before somebody really important gets waxed.”
Kate deleted the email and sat at her desk, staring at the Helen Frankenthaler painting hanging on the wall opposite, soaking it in. Finally, she pressed the intercom button.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Please ask Morton Koppel, Hugh English, and Creighton Adams to come and see me right away. It’s urgent.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The three men were in her office in five minutes.
“Something up?” Adams asked.
“Yes, Creighton,” she said. “We talked about this before, but now we have to talk about it again, and very seriously. It’s about Ed Rawls.”
Hugh English tossed a pencil onto the conference table in disgust, while Koppel and Adams sat quietly, waiting.
“Hugh, what do we hear from Stockholm?” she asked.
English shrugged. “All right, there were four bugs in the apartment.”
Koppel spoke up. “What apartment?”
“Let me bring you up to date,” Kate said. “After dinner, when he was here, Majorov, who was KGB station head in Stockholm at the time of Rawls’s arrest, told me that Ed was not involved in the killings of Lewis and Barbara Moore, that he didn’t set them up. The Soviets learned of their activities from a bug in the Moores’ apartment—or rather, as Hugh tells us, four bugs. I asked Hugh to have the apartment torn apart, and they were found.”
“This still doesn’t make Ed Rawls anything other than a traitor,” English said petulantly.
“It makes him less than a man who would betray two people who worked for him in Stockholm, costing them their lives. Can we agree on that?”
English shrugged.
“Hugh, does this new information mitigate at all your determination not to see Rawls let out of prison?”
“No,” English said, “it doesn’t. I want him to rot there until he dies.”
Neither of the other two men looked at English.
“Mort, Creighton, are you still of a mind to see Rawls out of prison?”
“I have no objection,” Adams said.
“Neither do I, given his age and health problems,” Koppel said.
“All right. Hugh, I have other information for your consideration.”
“Sure, I’ll listen,” English replied, making an attempt to sound reasonable.
“I’ve had several communications from Ed regarding the identity of the man who killed Wallace and Vandervelt and Brennan, and tried to kill Calhoun. He told me that he knew the identity of the murderer.”
“Well, now we all know, don’t we?” English said. “Anybody with a television set knows.”
“The problem is, we don’t know how to find him,” Kate said. “Given the skills that he acquired at this Agency over the years, he could remain free for the rest of his life, killing at will, and he might never be caught. Rawls says he knows where Theodore Fay can be found.”
English sat up. “How the hell could he know that?” he demanded.
“I don’t know. Certainly, it’s possible that the two worked together on some assignment in the past, and it’s possible that Fay told Ed something that might be of use in finding him.”
“So Rawls is trying to trade this information for a presidential pardon?” English asked.
“Yes, he is. Does this at all change your views on letting him out?”
English said nothing, but seemed to be grinding his teeth.
“Hugh, we’re talking about two rogue Agency people—one who betrayed us and has served a long time in prison, and another who has betrayed us and is at large, killing prominent Americans.”
“Does the president know about this?” English asked.“
“No. I learned about it only a few minutes ago, in an email from Rawls.”
“He has your email address?”
“I don’t know how he got it, but I’ve had the same address for a long time. It wouldn’t be all that hard to figure out.”
“What do you want me to do, Kate?” English asked.
“I want to go to the president and recommend a commutation of Ed’s sentence, if that’s possible, or a pardon, if it is not, based on Ed’s information leading to the arrest of Fay.”
English looked at Adams. “Creighton, you worked with Fay, didn’t you?”
“Several times, over the years,” Adams replied.
“Do you think he could be this murderer?”
“Yes, I do,” Adams replied. “And if he isn’t, we’ll know after he’s found, and no harm done.”
“Except his reputation and ours are smeared all over the media.”
“That’s already done. Nothing we can do about it. What about you, Hugh? You knew Teddy, could he be the killer?”
English’s shoulders sagged. “Yes, I suppose he could. All right, Kate, you’ve got me in a box. I’ll sign off on a commutation or a pardon or whatever. But I don’t like it.”
“You’re not in a box, Hugh, at least not one of my construction. You can dissent from this recommendation, and I’ll go to the president with Creighton’s and Mort’s backing and tell him of your objections.”
English raised his hands in submission. “No, no, I’ll go along quietly.”
“Fine,” Kate said. “I’ll compose a memo to the president and my secretary will bring it around for your signatures.”
“Why don’t you just call him?” English asked. “You’ve got the number.”
“I want this done properly and on the record,” Kate said. “And I want the president to have it in writing from us for his own protection.”
“I didn’t know this was about covering your husband’s ass, Kate,” English said.
“I would do the same for any president,” Kate said, “and Hugh, if you ever speak that way to me again I’ll fire you in the same instant.”
“I apologize,” English said, unapologetically.
The three men left, and Kate sat down at her computer to compose the letter. She had not wanted to do this, but she was the one in a box.
47
Ted drove at a moderate pace past Justice Graydon’s house near Rock Creek Park, ignoring the security van parked across the street. The black SUV was parked in his driveway, and Ted noted the license plate number. That was easy; now the hard part. He headed for Baltimore.
The parts manager stared at the number on the sheet of paper Ted had handed him. “Gee, I don’t think we’ve got this in stock; we wouldn’t ordinarily keep one, unless we had ordered it as a replacement for somebody’s wrecked car.”
“The manufacturer’s customer hotline says you’ve got it,” Ted said.
The manager went to a computer terminal and typed in the part number. “That’s what it says here, too. Let me go check.”
Ted sat down and picked up an old magazine. He had to be patient; he didn’t want to create any clear memories of him in the parts manager’s mind.
Ten minutes later, the man returned, holding up a plastic envelope. “Got it,” he said. “How do you want to pay?”
“I’ll give you cash,” Ted said, relieved. He paid for the computer chip, then drove back to his hangar at Manassas Regional Airport. He put the chip under a strong magnifier and compared what he saw to the design he had downloaded from the manufacturer’s computer. Shortly, he had what he was looking for—the location of the microchips that controlled the SUV’s automatic stability program and antilock brakes. This feature had finally filtered down from the high-end sedans to SUVs, and what it did was automatically apply the brakes to individual wheels in critical situations such as a skid, helping the car correct its path. H
e also removed the chip’s restriction on acceleration and top speed, which had been designed for fuel economy.
Ted spent most of the rest of the day adapting a chip reader, connecting it to his computer, and testing it. Finally, with the chip displayed on his large computer screen, he reprogrammed the stability program to do the exact reverse of what it had been designed to do. It was now, effectively, an instability program.
Now he had to get the chip into Thomas Graydon’s car, which, with the security detail watching him, was not going to be easy. He read through his clippings file on Justice Graydon again and found something he thought might be useful: Graydon kept a cabin in a fairly steep and remote area of the Maryland mountains, not all that far from Camp David.
