by Stuart Woods
The front passenger door of the first Suburban suddenly opened, and an agent came out, drawing his weapon. Ted floored the Mercedes, striking the agent and taking off the Suburban’s door, then he hung a sharp right, drove across two lanes of traffic, and headed down the street. He knew the driver of the first Suburban would have to check on the state of the second truck before pursuing, so he would have a good head start.
He whipped the car down an alleyway, drove a block, then turned left on Pennsylvania, headed back the way he had come. Now he slowed his progress, so as not to attract attention. The garage where he had parked the RV was in sight now, down the street a couple of blocks on his left. He pulled into a parking lot on his right, took a ticket from the machine, and found a spot. He took off the jumpsuit, the beard and the wig, put on a baseball cap and packed the weapon and the wig into a canvas bag; he got out of the car, locked it, and began walking down the street toward the garage where he had left the RV. Halfway there, he tossed the Mercedes’s keys into a trash can.
Kinney had been in his office for an hour when the first news came in; typically, it was from CNN.
“There has been a shooting incident in downtown Washington, D.C.,” the announcer said. “A black GMC Surburban with D.C. license plates was fired into several times from another car, and a second Suburban lost a door in the incident. We expect to have further details momentarily, but these vehicles are typical of those used by the government to transport VIPs around the city.” Kinney pressed the intercom. “Get me the chief of police.” A moment later he was buzzed; he picked up the phone. “Good morning, Chief,” he said.
“Not really,” the chief replied. “We’ve got three men down in a shooting on Pennsylvania Avenue.”
“Any ID?”
“I’m waiting for that, now. Hang on a minute.”
Kinney was placed on hold, and he waited impatiently, tapping a foot and drumming his fingers on his desk.
The chief came back on. “It’s bad, Bob,” he said. “Speaker Efton has been shot twice and is being transported to Walter Reed Hospital as we speak. One Secret Service agent is dead and another down.”
“Any suspects?”
“We’re looking for a silver Mercedes that left the scene at high speed,” the chief replied. “That’s all I’ve got at the moment. I’ll get back to you when I have more.”
Kinney had barely hung up the phone when his secretary buzzed him. “It’s the president,” she said.
Kinney didn’t want to talk to the man, but he had to.
Kinney took a few deep breaths while he waited for the president to come on the line.
“Bob?”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“Tell me about your trip to Atlanta.”
“First, Mr. President, I have to tell you that I’ve just learned from the D.C. police chief that the speaker of the House has been shot on Pennsylvania Avenue, on his way to the Capitol.”
“Good God! Is he dead?”
“He’s on his way to Walter Reed, sir. A Secret Service agent is dead and another wounded.”
“Was it Fay?”
“I have no evidence to that effect yet, sir, but I have no doubt that it is.”
“Was Rawls of any help?”
“Yes, sir. He told us that Fay might be using a hangar at Manassas Regional Airport, south of Washington. I landed there on the way back, and we raided it at the earliest possible moment.”
“And…?”
“The hangar was empty, but my crime scene team found a wristwatch that had apparently been run over by a car or truck. It had stopped four minutes before my SWAT team arrived.”
“And it was Fay’s?”
“I believe so, sir, but he had cleared the hangar of any evidence that he might have been there.”
“What’s your next move?”
“Rawls also told us that he believed Fay had bought a cottage on an island in Maine, Islesboro.”
“I know the place. My wife has spent some time on the island.”
“We’ve checked with the local postmaster and located the house. I have a team on the way to the island as we speak, and I had planned to leave myself almost immediately, until I heard about the Efton shooting. I want to look into that before I leave. I’ve also alerted every state police department between Washington and Maine to be on the lookout for Fay. We believe he’s driving an RV.”
“All right, keep me posted. I have to call Walter Reed now, and find out how the speaker is doing.”
“I’ll be in touch, sir.” He hung up.
Kerry Smith had come into his office while he was talking. “Are we on for Maine?”
“Yes, but first I want to check out the scene on Pennsylvania Avenue.”
“I talked to the ER at Walter Reed. The speaker is hanging on, but he’s gravely wounded. He took two fifty-caliber, armor-piercing slugs.”
“Christ, that’s machine gun ammo.”
“Right. It’s hard to know how Fay could have used such a large weapon in such a confined space as a car.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Kinney said.
Ted sat in the garage, in his RV, watching the story unfold on CNN, switching now and then to MSNBC, to see if they had any further information.
“This just in,” the CNN reporter said. “Police have found a silver Mercedes answering the description of the car driven by the shooter of Speaker of the House Eft Efton. The car has a damaged left fender bearing traces of black paint. The first Secret Service vehicle was a black GMC Suburban, and the Mercedes collided with it during its escape, striking a Secret Service agent and taking off the right front door. Crime scene investigators from the D.C. Police Department and the FBI are on their way to the scene now.”
The reporter was handed a sheet of paper. “State police units in states along the Eastern seaboard north and south of Washington have been alerted to be on the lookout for the suspect, Theodore Fay, who may be driving a recreational vehicle north on I-95.”
The report made him glad he had decided to sit things out for a day before heading for Maine.
Kinney stood beside the silver Mercedes and looked into it. All the doors, the hood, and the trunk were open, and it was crawling with technicians. “Anybody found a print yet?”
“There aren’t any prints,” a tech replied. “This baby is cleaner than when it left the factory.”
“This is no ordinary Mercedes, either,” another tech, who was looking into the engine bay, said. “Somebody has shoehorned a big, AMG V8 into it, and the suspension has been reworked, too. You can buy one of these off a lot these days. It’s called an E55, but this car was made before they came out with that model. This is a custom job. It must go like a scalded cat.”
Kerry Smith looked at his watch. “It’s been an hour and a half since the shooting,” he said. “He’s out of D.C. by now. And we can’t even prove it’s Fay.”
“The lack of evidence is part of his MO now,” Kinney said. “Not that that’s going to do us any good in court.”
“Suppose we caught him right now, Bob? Would we have enough to even hold him?”
“I don’t want to think about that at the moment,” Kinney said. “I just want to stop the guy from killing anybody else.”
“I suppose we could charge him with some sort of fraud in the faking of his death. We could hold him on that, couldn’t we?”
“I haven’t seen any evidence that he’s defrauded anybody,” Kinney said. “He doesn’t appear to have gained from faking his death.”
“Oh.”
“Let’s get to the airport. You packed your warm clothes?”
“Yes, sir.”
Will was at his desk when an aide came into the Oval Office. “Excuse me, Mr. President,” he said, “but we’ve just had word from Walter Reed that Speaker Efton has died from his wounds.”
“Ask the chief telephone operator to find Mrs. Efton and get her on the phone. She’s probably at the hospital by now.”
“Yes, sir.�
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“And order the flags on all federal buildings to be flown at half-staff.”
“Yes, sir.”
Now he had another grim funeral to look forward to.
54
Bob Kinney’s airplane landed at Rockland Airport in the late afternoon. He was met by an FBI agent driving a gray Explorer, and he and Kerry Smith were driven to a boatyard in Camden, a few miles north of Rockland, on the western shore of Penobscot Bay, where a shed had been rented as a rallying point for Kinney’s team.
A potbellied stove warmed the shed, with the aid of a large gas heater blowing hot air around. Masts from a couple of dozen yachts were stored in racks along the walls, and the only furniture was a large picnic table and some folding chairs. An easel held a large-scale map of Penobscot Bay. Everyone gathered around.
“All right,” Kinney said, “we’ve got to take this guy here, because if we don’t, we might never find him again.”
“Maybe some state trooper will take him on his drive up here,” an agent said.
“I don’t think he’s dumb enough to drive an RV from Washington to Maine,” Kinney replied. “He has to have heard the news reports that we’ve alerted the state police along I-95. Anybody want to take responsibility for that leak?”
Silence prevailed.
“I didn’t think so.” Kinney pointed at the map. “You’ve all had an opportunity to look at this while you were waiting for me. The house is here, on North Islesboro, directly on the water. There’s no cove, no anchorage, just a rocky beach. The airstrip is here, south of the house. We will not be using that, so get it out of your minds. This island is a sparsely populated place, especially in winter, where there are fewer than a hundred people in residence. If anybody sees anything, it’ll be all over the island in a flash. The only person who knows of our interest in Mr. Lawrence Keane is the postmaster, and it’s been stressed to him that he is a federal employee and is sworn to secrecy.
“Tonight, we’re going to put a team ashore about half a mile north of the cottage, where the beach is near the road. The team will go in civvies, and backpacks, warmly dressed, and try to be indistinguishable from hikers. We will not send any vehicle over on the ferry, since note might be taken of it. We will not use a Coast Guard cutter to get our people ashore for the same reason. We’ve chartered a lobster boat for that purpose, and the team will go ashore in a rubber boat and stow it in the woods.
“Something I want to stress to those of you on tonight’s team. This is a recce, not a capture mission. We don’t even know if he’s there. That’s one of the reasons for the recce. Please keep in mind that Theodore Fay is probably the most technically accomplished fugitive you will ever encounter. You must expect a super-duper alarm system, and I don’t want you to try to defeat it. I don’t even want you to approach the house until you’ve electronically swept the area around it. We don’t want to set off alarms.
“The sole reason for this mission is to establish whether Fay is in residence. Look and listen, find out what you need to effect a swift and decisive entrance, don’t trip any alarms. Any questions?”
“Suppose Fay is in residence and we have an opportunity to take him?”
“You will not do so, until I have cleared it, personally, by cell phone. We will not use radios, because Fay could very well have a scanner. You’ll be given a list of cell phone numbers for your commanders. Try to sound like a normal person when you call. Avoid jargon or any reference to the names Fay or Keane. Code name for Fay will be ‘Buddy’; I will be ‘Jack’; Agent Smith will be ‘Barney’; your swat team leader will be ‘Charlie.”“
“How do we leave the island?” somebody asked. “If we effect a capture or a kill, a chopper will land at the Islesboro strip, for a quick evacuation, and vehicles will take the ferry over with evidence-gathering equipment. Once you’re in the house, take extreme care not to disturb any part of it. Do what you have to do and get out clean.”
“If he’s not there, how long do we wait?”
“As long as I think is advisable. If Fay isn’t there, the recce team becomes a surveillance team. You’ll find a place to camp and wait him out, with two men watching the house at all times.”
“Something I’ve never understood,” somebody said. “Where did Fay get the money to buy all this stuff—the RV, the Mercedes, the house on Islesboro?”
“A combination of sources: He held patents on a number of small inventions that paid regular royalties, he saved his money, and he has a pension. He moved just over a million dollars in cash out of the country when he faked his death. Any other questions?”
Silence.
“All right, the lobster boat leaves at eleven p.m. It’s a good hour and a half out to and around Islesboro and to the area of the cottage. First, we’ll make a pass or two up and down the shore to see if there are any signs of life at the cottage, then we’ll put the team ashore. In the meantime, get some dinner and some rest.”
Just after midnight, Kinney stood in the big cockpit of the lobster boat and slowly swept the eastern coastline of North Islesboro with night binoculars. He found the cottage, and his pulse quickened: There were lights on. Then, as he watched, the lights went off, one at a time.
“He’s there, and he’s going to bed,” Smith said to Kinney.
“He may have the lights on a timer; let the team know.”
Smith went below and spoke for a moment to the half-dozen men huddled in the cramped forepeak, then came back on deck. “They’re briefed,” he said.
“We’ll put them ashore as soon as we’re around that point,” Kinney said, indicating a finger of land illuminated by starlight. “God, I hope this is an end to it.”
“So do I,” Smith said. “One way or another.”
Ted’s alarm went off at 3 a.m., and he sleepily put both feet on the floor and looked at his watch, which wasn’t there. He’d misplaced it, somehow, and that annoyed him.
He showered, shaved, and, as an afterthought, flipped up the clipper head on his electric shaver and shaved his head, giving himself one more disguise and making it easier to use the wigs.
He had some breakfast, and by 3:45 a.m. he was on his way south; he avoided interstates, sticking to surface roads. He switched on the built-in, hands-free cell phone and dialed 1-800-WXBRIEE “You have reached Richmond, Virginia, Flight Services. To speak with a briefer, press one.”
Ted pressed one.
“Good morning, may I help you?”
“Good morning. This is November one, two, three, tango, foxtrot. Will you please brief me for an IFR Flight from Manassas, Virginia, to Manchester, New Hampshire, departing in one hour? I’d like winds for twelve thousand feet.”
“Well, it’s pretty simple today. We’ve got a large high-pressure area dominating your route, ceiling and visibility unlimited all the way. Manassas weather is clear below twelve thousand, winds light and variable, no notams. Forecast at Manchester is for clear below twelve thousand, winds zero ninety at eight knots. Winds at twelve thousand along your route, two four zero at thirty knots, pretty much all the way. One notam, unmarked crane one mile west of the airport at two hundred AGL. That’s about it.”
“I’ll file.”
“Go ahead.”
“IFR, November one, two, three, tango, foxtrot. I’m a Charlie one eight two Romeo, stroke Golf. Departing hotel, echo, foxtrot at five a.m. local ten hundred zulu, at twelve thousand feet. My route of flight will be direct. Time en route, two hours, twenty minutes. I’ll have four hours of fuel. My name is Kenneth Wills, based at Manassas. My phone number is 202-555-6189. The airplane is white over green. There’ll be one soul aboard.”
The controller repeated the plan. “You know you’re never going to get direct along that route, don’t you?”
