by Stuart Woods
“Of course,” Holly said. “I’ll be right back.” She went into the bedroom to use the phone.
King spoke again. “You’re telling me that an assistant director of the FBI is a serial killer?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you, Dave. Are your people looking for Shelley yet?”
“That’s my call, and I’m not convinced,” King said.
Stone looked at his watch. “She could already be out of the District,” he said. “How long are you going to wait?”
Holly came back into the room. “My people are on it.” She went to Stone’s computer and logged on to the CIA mainframe. “Well, well, look at this,” she said, pushing back from the laptop so the others could see.
Stone and King walked to the computer and watched.
Holly pointed. “We’ve got Sutherlin’s, Kirby’s, and Shelley’s phones at the same point, across the river in Arlington, headed south.”
“They’re all in the same handbag, Dave, and pretty soon Shelley is going to realize that, and she’ll get rid of the phones. You need to catch her while they’re in her possession.”
King stared at the moving display for a moment, then he took out his own phone and made a call. “This is Dave King,” he said. “I want every agent in D.C. and northern Virginia looking for Assistant Director Shelley Bach on a charge of murder. She’s in a silver BMW SUV, in Arlington right now, headed south. When she’s apprehended, it’s very important that you confiscate her handbag immediately. Alert local PDs in the area, as well. Call me immediately when she has been apprehended.” He looked at Stone. “You better be right about this.”
“You better be right about it, too,” Stone said, “or she’ll be gone.”
Holly spoke up. “Uh-oh,” she said.
“What?” Stone asked.
“The cell phones are splitting up. Shelley’s still moving, but the other two have stopped. She’s ditched them.” Holly zoomed in and got a street address.
King got back on the phone. “There are at least two cell phones that have been discarded near this address.” He recited the street and number. “I want every trash can and dumpster near there searched, and when found, the phones are to be treated as evidence.”
They all watched the screen, and a moment later, Shelley’s phone disappeared from it.
“Now she’s ditched her own phone,” Holly said, “or removed the SIM card. Shelley Bach is now wild in the country.”
“Oh, shit,” Dave King said.
“She’s going to ditch her car, too,” Stone said, “if she’s thinking clearly.”
“She is,” Holly said. “She’s over the panic now—ditching the phones shows us that.”
Dino spoke up. “Let’s hope she’s winging it,” he said, “because if she has a plan, we’re fucked.”
“What kind of plan?” Dave King asked.
“Does she have a country place?” Dino asked. “Does she own another car?”
King got back on his phone and started issuing orders again.
“She’s had time to think about this,” Holly said. “If she’s really smart, and I think she is, she has a plan. She has a bolt-hole, and maybe another car, too, not registered in her name. Dave, you should find out who her friends are. If I’m wrong about the bolt-hole, she might go to someone for help.”
King nodded, still talking on the phone.
IT WAS NEARLY MIDNIGHT before Dave King and his partner left the suite. There had beenÀv> no further sign of Shelley Bach.
Shortly after he left, the phone rang, and Stone picked it up.
“Hello?”
“This is the White House operator,” a woman’s voice said. “Will you speak to the president?”
“Of course,” Stone said. He heard a click.
“Stone?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Please put Dino on an extension.”
“Yes, sir. Dino, pick up the bedroom phone. Holly, get the other one. Mr. President, we’re all here.”
“Good.”
“I’m on the phone, too,” Kate Lee said.
“I’ve heard from Kerry Smith what’s going on,” the president said.
“We’ve been brought fully up to date,” Kate interjected.
“We both want to thank you for sticking with this until it was resolved,” the president said. “At least, it will be when Shelley Bach is caught.”
“Dino and I jumped to conclusions the last time we all spoke,” Stone said, “and I want to apologize for that.”
“We’ve known Shelley Bach for some years,” the president said, “and of course we’re shocked. The media have already got wind of this, and the press office here is getting calls. I wanted you to know that. I’d appreciate it if you’d refer any questions to Kerry Smith. They’re stunned over there, but it’s their case now, and they should be seen to be handling it.”
“We will refer questions to the FBI with pleasure, Mr. President, and we’ll be out of here tomorrow morning.”
“Have a good flight back, then, and if you’re in Washington again before we’re done here, come and have dinner with us.”
“We’d like that, Mr. President.”
“Good night to you all,” the president said.
“Good night,” Kate echoed. “And, Holly, come and see me first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Holly said, but they had already hung up.
Dino and Holly came into the living room.
“I don’t know about you two,” Stone said, “but I’m exhausted.”
“Then come to bed,” Holly said, heading for the bedroom.
“I guess I’m sleeping alone tonight,” Dino said.
55
TEDDY SET DOWN HIS CESSNA AT MANASSAS AIRPORT WELL after midnight, then taxied to the FBO, which was dark. Everything, including the tower, was closed.
He went to the luggage compartment, got out a case, took the things he needed, then put the case back and locked the compartment. He removed the passenger door from the rear seat and rehung it on the airframe, then locked the airplane.
He went to the FBO door and inspected it for alarm sensors, then he shone a very bright flashlight around the walls, looking for an alarm box. Finding none, he took a set of lockpicks from his pocket and made quick work of opening the door. Inside, he went to the rental car desk and checked the keys hanginƀ="2em">
He unlocked the rear door of the FBO from the inside and stepped into the parking lot, then he unlocked a Toyota Camry, got in, and started it. A moment later he was on his way to an apartment development a fifteen-minute drive from CIA headquarters.
It was easy enough to find, since there was a large sign at the untended gate offering two- and four-bedroom town houses for rent, furnished or unfurnished. He parked two doors down from Todd Bacon’s house, slipped plastic booties on over his shoes, and, using his flashlight sparingly, walked between the two nearest houses to what would be backyards when the landscaping was developed. The ground was dry. He checked the two houses as he moved along, looking for signs of alarm systems, but he saw none. Bacon’s house would be alarmed only if he had installed the system himself, and he was unlikely to have done that for a rental.
Teddy circumnavigated Bacon’s house, figured out where the ground-floor master bedroom was, then decided that the best way in was the front door. He slipped out of his shoes and booties on the lawn next to the front walk and continued in his stocking feet. On the front porch, he stopped and prepared the materials he had brought with him. The moon gave him all the light he needed.
He donned latex gloves and picked the front door lock easily—it was right out of a hardware store—and let himself into the front hall, silently closing the door behind him. He stopped in the entrance hall for a full minute, listening for signs of life in the house. A faint snore came from the direction of the master bedroom, down the hallway. He walked slowly down the hall, the silenced gun held out in front of him, took a quick look through the open bedroom do
or, then jerked his head back and reviewed what he had seen.
Todd Bacon lay on his back, on the left side of the bed, snoring with each breath. The bedroom was flooded with moonlight. Teddy removed the small plastic hypodermic from his shirt pocket, uncapped it, put the cap into his trousers pocket, then clenched the instrument in his teeth. He walked softly into the bedroom, around the bed, and stopped next to the sleeping man. He took the hypodermic from his mouth, bent over until his lips were near Bacon’s ear, then poked the silencer hard against his temple. “Freeze!” he said. “Not a move, not an eyelash.”
Bacon’s eyes opened, and he did not move. Teddy plunged the short needle of the hypodermic into his carotid artery and pressed the plunger, then pulled it out and set it on the bedside table. This would only take a minute, he knew. When he had been at the CIA, they had tested the drug, first on animals, then on volunteers.
“It’s going to feel nice,” Teddy said. “You’ll feel warm all over, and you’ll be able to see and hear, but you won’t be able to move or speak. Don’t worry, it won’t kill you.” He pressed his fingers against the artery and felt for the pulse. He could feel its rapidity, then it slowed. It was done.
“You just lie quietly there for a minute,” Teddy said. “I’ll be ready for you shortly.” He left the paralyzed man and went into the bathroom. He switched on the light and looked around, checked the medicine cabinet. Then he saw what he wanted, standing in a drinking glass on top of the sink. He walked to the bathtub, closed the drain, and turned on the water, testing the warmth. He wanted it hot. Then he returned to the bedroom.
Bacon’s body was twitching a little as he tried and failed to move. Teddy removed the plastic cap from his pocket, capped the needle, and put the hypodermic into his pocket. Then he pulled back the coversˀied, exposing Bacon’s naked body, then took the man’s head in his hands and dragged him from the bed onto the floor. He took hold of Bacon’s wrists and dragged him into the bathroom, then he muscled the inert form into the bathtub.
“You’re going to have a nice hot bath,” Teddy said, “then you’re going to die.”
Bacon’s eyes swiveled and looked at him, seeming to open wider. “Lauren never knew what hit her when you fired that shot,” Teddy said, “but you’re going to know everything.” He went to the sink and took the straight razor from the glass on the sink. He had planned to use a kitchen knife, but this was much better. He returned to the bathtub and, in turn, made an incision in each of Bacon’s wrists, parallel with the forearm, then he dropped the hands back into the water.
“This is how you commit suicide with a razor,” Teddy said. “You don’t cut across the wrist, but along it. You bleed a lot more that way. Now, you have a couple of minutes before you lose consciousness. Use it to think about the stupid thing you did. Use it to think about that beautiful young woman whose life you took. Your autopsy will show that your cause of death was suicide by blood loss. They’ll never think to do a tox screen, and even if they do, it’s very unlikely that they’ll detect the drug I gave you. No one will ever know why you died but me, and whoever I choose to tell about it.
“Are you a Christian, Todd? I hope so, because then you’ll believe me when I tell you that you will wake up in hell, because you committed the sin of murder.”
Teddy sat by the tub for another couple of minutes, periodically checking Bacon’s pulse. Finally, his heart stopped. His body appeared to be afloat in a bathtub of tomato soup.
Teddy switched off the bathroom light and went back into the bedroom, scuffing the carpet to remove any sign of the body being dragged across the floor. He let himself out of the house, put on his shoes and booties, and walked back to the Toyota.
HALF AN HOUR LATER, Teddy pu
lled into the parking lot at Manassas Airport, still wearing his gloves and booties. He locked the Toyota and went inside through the back door, locking it behind him. He hung the car keys on the board at the rental counter, let himself out the front door onto the ramp, and locked the door behind him.
Back in the airplane, he retrieved his Apple AirBook. He had a strong signal from the FBO’s wireless network. He logged on to the CIA mainframe and sent a single e-mail, then he put away the computer, started the airplane, taxied to the runway, and took off to the south, not turning on his transponder. He flew low until he was sure he was out of Washington Center’s airspace, then he climbed to eight thousand feet, set the autopilot, and entered the code AVL into the GPS. He pressed the DIRECT button on the GPS, then the NAV button on the autopilot, and let it fly him toward Asheville Regional Airport, in North Carolina.
Now, flying through the smooth night air, the starry sky above him, the green landscape below, he allowed himself to weep for Lauren Cade, and what he had lost.
56
HOLLY WOKE UP AT SIX AND SLIPPED OUT OF BED, LEAVING Stone still dead to the world. She showered and put on fresh clothes, stuffed the other things she had left at the hotel during Stone’s stay into her bag, then she tiptoed out of the suite and went down to her car.
The drive to Langley went hotel quickly, since rush hour was not in full force, and back in her office she found a pastry in the kitchenette she shared with Lance Cabot, then made some coffee.
She took breakfast to her desk, switched on her computer, and while it booted, she shuffled through the mess in her in-box. She had some catching up to do, she reckoned, and she had to go and see the director at nine.
She had just stuffed a large bite of cheese Danish into her mouth when a message slowly materialized on her screen. This was not an ordinary e-mail, and she wondered who had sent it. She did not wonder for long.
Last night, your minion Todd Bacon, while trying to murder me, instead killed Lauren Cade, who was your friend. Apparently conscience-stricken, Bacon took his own life in the wee hours of this morning.
I will pay you the compliment of believing that you have honored our arrangement, that the attempt on my life was an act of Bacon’s own devising, without reference to you or Cabot, and I will conduct myself accordingly. Should you wish to reach me again, place an ad in the Arts section of the national edition of the New York Times, addressed to Wanderer.
Good luck to you.
Holly attempted to print the message, but when she touched a key, it gradually disintegrated and disappeared from the screen.
Lance looked in, his briefcase still in his hand. “Good morning.”
Holly was still staring at the screen and did not respond.
Lance stepped into the room, set down his briefcase, and took a seat across from her. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I’ve just had a communication from Teddy Fay,” she replied. “I tried to print it, but it disappeared.”
“And what did he have to say for himself?”
“Apparently, Todd Bacon went off the reservation last night and went after Teddy. He didn’t get him, but, as a result, Lauren Cade was collateral damage.”
“Good God,” Lance said, his face darkening. “Is Teddy going on another rampage?”
“No, he said he didn’t blame you or me, but I think he killed Todd and made it look like a suicide.”
“Thank heaven for small favors. Find out if he was telling the truth.” Lance picked up his briefcase and went to his own office.
Holly looked up Todd Bacon’s home number and called it. She got an answering machine. She tried his office extension and got voice mail. Maybe he was on his way in. It was nearly nine, so she went to the director’s office and was shown in immediately.
“Thank you for coming, Holly,” Kate Lee said, motioning her to a chair.
Holly sat down and prepared herself for a rebuke.
“I wanted to tell you that I think your idea of bringing Stone and Dino down here was exactly the right thing to do.”
Holly let out the breath she had been holding.
“Frankly, I had expected them to conclude that Brix murdered his wife before killing himself. I am astonished, of course, to see how t
his has played out, but I don’t want you to think that yoӀludu are in any way responsible for the events following Stone’s and Dino’s arrival.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Holly replied.
“I am, of course, going to be leaving the Agency next year, when Will’s term ends. I will resign.”
“I’ll be sorry to see you leave,” Holly said.
Kate smiled. “You can be sure that Lance is already preparing the ground for a shot at this chair, after I go.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Holly said.
“I don’t know if he’ll get it. That will be up to a new president, but if he does, I’m sure he’ll bring you up here with him. If he doesn’t, I want you to know that your personnel file will contain the highest possible personal recommendation from me, and I will make a few phone calls, too.”
“That’s very kind of you, ma’am, and I appreciate it.”
“The president has asked me to tell you that he is very grateful for your work over the past days, and that you may always use him as a reference, whatever you may decide to do. That goes for me, as well.”
“Thank you, Director, and please convey my gratitude to the president,” Holly said.
“Okay, get back to work, girl.” Kate opened a file on her desk and began to read.
Holly went back to her office, and Lance buzzed her to come into his office. “Where have you been?” he asked.
“The director asked me to come up to see her.”
“And?”
“She thanked me for bringing Stone and Dino down from New York.”
“That’s all?”
“She said nice things about me.”
“What about me?”
“She said you’ve probably already begun to do the groundwork for getting her job when she goes.”
Lance chuckled. “She knows me well. I have planted the idea in a few places on Capitol Hill, and with a couple of likely candidates for president. And if I get it, I’ll want you with me.”
