Shoot Him If He Runs

by Stuart Woods

  Teddy did not tarry. He disassembled the rifle, packed it into its case, viewed the park from the bushes to be sure he was still alone and walked unhurriedly toward his vehicle, pulling his baseball cap low over his face and donning sunglasses.

  He reached the vehicle, and as his hand touched the door handle, a woman stepped out of her house a few feet away, bent, and picked up a newspaper, then glanced up at him as he started the engine. She smiled and gave him a little wave, and he waved back. She didn’t know him, but he had been seen.

  He drove back to Black Mountain, never going faster than thirty miles an hour. Then, as he approached the turnoff to the road up the mountain, the black Mercedes that carried Sir Winston Sutherland to his office each day turned onto the main road and passed Teddy, going in the opposite direction. Before Teddy had even had time to think, he had made a U-turn and was following the Mercedes at a distance of a quarter of a mile.

  Teddy’s mind began to work at top speed, calculating time and distance and plotting an escape route over a road through the hills. All this just in case the opportunity arose. He had thought about doing this many times but he had devoted his energies to eliminating Croft and duBois; Sir Winston would be more complicated, he knew, and he had not done the planning, and he was cautiously excited.

  He watched as the Mercedes entered the outskirts of Markstown and came to a screeching halt. Children dressed in their Sunday finest were pouring out of a church and crossing the road toward three school buses, apparently for an outing of some sort. A nun stood in the road holding a stop sign.

  Teddy stopped some distance back and watched; then Sir Winston made his decision for him. He got out of his car and waded into the group, kissing them and touching their hands. The nun remained at her station, stopping traffic, as did another nun on the other side of the children.

  Teddy turned right and up a hillside, then made a left into a dirt track that ended in a small clearing. Occasionally, he caught sight of the Mercedes and the crowd. He turned his vehicle in the clearing and pointed back toward the road; then he got out, grabbed the rifle case and started back on foot, looking for gaps in the foliage. He came to one that gave him a view of the rear of the car and part of the crowd, knowing that Sir Winston was a few steps away, among the children.

  Teddy was not willing to risk hurting a child, but Sir Winston would have to return to his car, and when he did, Teddy would be waiting. He knelt, opened the case and quickly assembled the weapon. It would be a standing shot, and he clipped on a shoulder strap, wound his arm through it and sighted. He had a window about a yard square, and he knew he would have only a second or two to fire.

  Then Sir Winston appeared in that frame, his driver holding the door open, no policemen in sight, and he did something unexpected: he stopped at the open door, turned and stood waving at the departing children.

  Teddy got off his shot, and he was reminded of the effect the bullet had had on Colonel Croft’s head. He carried the rifle back to the vehicle, trying not to hear the screams of the children, tossed the weapon onto the front seat, started the truck and drove. When he came to the road, he turned left, away from the scene of the shooting, and began climbing into the hills.

  The road turned to dirt, and Teddy drove through a series of crossroads, always turning right, making his way back to the main road. Along the way he stopped for a moment, disassembled and repacked the rifle, then continued on his way. He reached the main road and stopped to check for traffic. He turned left and made his way back to Black Mountain Road. In the distance he could hear sirens.

  Back at the house he noticed that low clouds were moving over Black Mountain. He went over every surface of the truck with a cloth soaked in Windex, then locked the vehicle in the garage and went back to his workshop. He switched on his police scanner and began to wipe down every surface of the workshop. The scanner was alive with police broadcasts, directing cars both to duBois’s building and to block off streets around the church.

  He turned on the local radio station to hear the first news reports; TV wouldn’t come on until seven o’clock.

  Stone woke up a little before seven, got out of bed and switched on the TV; out of habit, he wanted to get the local weather before flying. He went into the bathroom, peed and brushed his teeth, then came back into the bedroom, where Holly was sitting up in bed and pointing silently at the TV.

  First reports from the police are that Colonel duBois was standing on the terrace of his penthouse apartment when he was struck in the chest by gunfire. This recalls the death earlier this week of his predecessor in the police, Colonel Croyden Croft, who was shot by a sniper while he sat in the courtyard of the police station.” The reporter accepted a sheet of paper from off-camera. “We have a report that an attempt has been made on the life of the prime minister, Sir Winston Sutherland, but no confirmation yet.”

  “Holy shit,” Stone said quietly.

  “You’re damned right,” Holly said.

  “What do you make of it?”

  “I make of it that Teddy Fay is alive and well and shooting people,” Holly said.

  “And what do you want to do about it?” he asked.

  “I don’t know what to do about it,” she replied, “but I’m going to ask Lance.” She got her satphone, switched it on and went outside for reception. No answer on Lance’s satphone; no answer on his office phone, so she left a message about what had happened; no answer on his home phone, either. Where the hell was he? She looked up at the sky: looked like it was going to be a cloudy day, the first since they had arrived.

  Lance had left his house, on his way to Langley, five minutes before Holly called him there. He picked up coffee, a Danish and copies of the Sunday New York Times and Washington Post at a deli near his house, then drove in a leisurely fashion, listening to local news radio, alert for any story that might involve the Agency on a Sunday. He was waved through the front gate, after showing his ID; he parked in his reserved spot in the basement garage, near the elevator, swiped his ID card at the door and went upstairs to his office, clearing three more security checks.

  He put the papers and his breakfast on the coffee table and sat down on the sofa, glancing at the headlines while he sweetened his coffee and munched on the Danish, not noticing the tiny, flashing red light on the phone behind his desk. He switched on the TV, which was already set to CNN.

  He had finished his breakfast and was halfway through the Times when he glanced at a clip of yesterday’s golf tournament and, almost simultaneously, caught sight of the tape crawling across the bottom of the screen:…TWO POLITICAL SHOOTINGS ON CARIBBEAN ISLAND OF ST. MARKS

  Lance walked around his desk and picked up his phone, noticing the flashing red light. He dialed voicemail and listened for a moment, then dialed Holly’s satphone number. “You’d better answer the bloody thing, girl,” he said aloud to himself.

  55

  Holly grabbed the ringing satphone and went outside.

  “Hello?”

  “Where the hell have you been?” Lance demanded.

  “Right here,” she said. “I left a message for you.”

  “I just got it; do you know who got shot on the island?”

  “Only what I’ve seen on local TV,” Holly said. “A policeman named duBois was shot, and they’re saying there was a reported attempt on the PM’s life, but no confirmation yet.”

  “Jesus, that has ‘Teddy’ written all over it.”

  “I don’t know what we can do about this, Lance; our search for Pemberton and Weatherby came up dry, and we don’t have any other suspects for Teddy.”

  “Did you go over the photographs I sent you?”

  “What photographs?”

  “Check your e-mail; our photo analyst says Pemberton and Weatherby are the same man, and she’s made up sample photos of what he might look like in different disguises.”

  “I’ll check that out right now,” Holly said.

  “Forget about Robertson; he turns out to be one of the Hea
throw Robbers, a guy named Barney Cox. Call me back if you have any ideas. You know about the airplane?”

  “Yes, at noon; I hope he can land; they’ll probably shut down air travel again.”

  “I’ll get word to the pilot to declare a fuel emergency, if necessary; then they’ll have to allow him to land. You just be there.”

  “Okay.” She punched off the connection and ran into the house.

  “What’s going on?” Stone asked.

  Holly switched on her computer and waited for it to boot up. “Lance had the photographs of Pemberton and Weatherby analyzed, and the analyst says they’re of the same man.” She typed in her e-mail password and waited. “Here we go.”

  “They don’t look like the same man,” Stone said.

  Holly scrolled down. “Look at this; without the facial hair and the wigs they do,” she said and kept scrolling. “The analyst has made up some others showing what he would look like in different disguises; here they are.” She scrolled slowly through a dozen pictures.

  “Wait a minute,” Stone said, pointing. “Look at that one. Who does that look like, except for the hair color?”

  “Holy shit,” Holly said. “That one is a ringer for Harold Pitts! But he sailed yesterday, didn’t he? I mean, we saw him.”

  Stone picked up the phone and rang Thomas Hardy.

  “Hello?”

  “Thomas, to the best of your knowledge, did Harold Pitts sail for Ft. Lauderdale yesterday?”

  “Yes, he did. I was down at the marina, and I cast off his lines myself.”

  “Yeah, we saw him sail out of English Harbour and turn to the east. Is there anywhere along the eastern shore where he could have anchored? Another marina or a cove?”

  “No, it’s all cliffs on that end of the island, and there’s heavy surf from the trade winds, so he couldn’t anchor there, either. What’s going on, Stone?”

  “Have you heard about duBois and the prime minister?”

  “Yes, there was just a report that Sutherland was DOA at the Markstown hospital.”

  “DuBois, too?”

  “Yes. That pretty much cuts off the heads of the government and the police force. There’s going to be chaos, and I think you should expect to be questioned again.”

  “Our airplane is due at noon, and they’ve been instructed to declare an emergency, if necessary, to get permission to land. Do you think we’ll be able to get out of here?”

  “I’ll drive you to the airport and do what I can to help.”

  “Thanks, Thomas.”

  “Why are you asking about Harold Pitts?”

  “Because we think he may be Teddy Fay.”

  Thomas was silent for a moment. “Well, it wasn’t Harold who shot duBois and Sutherland. He’d be a hundred miles north by now.”

  “Could you do me a favor and call every marina and anchorage and see if his boat is still on the island?”

  “Well, there’s no way to call anchorages, but there are only a couple of decent ones; I’ll have somebody drive to them and check, and I’ll call the marinas, then get back to you.”

  “Thanks, Thomas.” Stone hung up. “Did you get that?”

  “Only your end.”

  “Thomas cast off Harold’s lines himself and saw him leave the harbor. He’s checking to see if he could have anchored somewhere else on the island.”

  “Let’s go up to Irene’s and see if he’s there.”

  “Wait a minute; don’t go off the deep end. Let’s wait to hear from Thomas. Anyway, we aren’t armed, and we don’t want to go after Teddy naked.”

  Dino was standing in the door. “You want a gun?” he said.

  “You have a gun?” Stone asked.

  “I’m a police officer; I’m armed at all times.”

  “Good thing we didn’t have to explain that to St. Marks customs.”

  “I don’t mind explaining to customs,” Dino said. He went away and came back with a small 9 mm semiautomatic and a spare magazine. “Here you go,” he said, handing it to Holly. “I’d rather you didn’t shoot anybody with it, unless you really have to; it’s registered to the NYPD.”

  “You don’t have any instructions to shoot anybody,” Stone said to Holly.

  “I want it for defense,” she replied. “We could need it, as you pointed out.”

  “We? What’s this we stuff?”

  “Aren’t you going with me?”

  “Where?”

  “Up to Irene’s?”

  “Before I answer that, I want to know your plan,” Stone said.

  “Well, I’m just going to go up there and confront Irene.”

  “And she’s going to say, ‘Oh, yeah, Teddy’s in the bedroom closet’?”

  “Well…”

  “In the unlikely event that he’s there, she’s going to protect him.”

  “I guess so.”

  “I think you’d better call Lance again.”

  “You’re right,” Holly said, grabbing the satphone. She went outside and called Lance’s office.

  “Yes?”

  “Lance, among the photographs you e-mailed me is one that looks an awful lot like Harold Pitts, Irene Foster’s friend from Virginia, the one you checked out.”

  “And he checked out just fine,” Lance said.

  “Also, Pitts left St. Marks yesterday in his sailboat, bound for Ft. Lauderdale. We saw him leave; we’re checking out other marinas and anchorages on the island now, to see if he didn’t really go.”

  “When will you know?”

  “Soon.”

  “Call me the minute you hear. In the meantime, I’m going to run another check on Pitts.” He hung up.

  Holly went back inside. “Lance is running another check on Harold; he wants to know when we’ve heard whether the boat is still here.”

  The phone rang, and Stone picked it up. “Hello?”

  “It’s Thomas. Harold’s boat is not on the island. Not anywhere.”

  Stone turned to Holly. “Thomas says the boat is not anywhere on St. Marks.”

  “Well, I’m going up to Irene’s anyway,” Holly said.

  Stone turned back to the phone. “Thanks, Thomas. We’re going to run up to Irene’s and have a word with her.”

  “I don’t think I’d do that, Stone.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because if Harold is the shooter and he’s still there, you don’t want to be anywhere near him when the police come to talk to him, and they will talk to him. If you’re there, they’ll figure you’re in cahoots with him.”

  “Good point. I’ll explain it to Holly.”

  “Stone, if you’re going up to Irene’s, let me come with you. If the police show up, I can help.”

  “Thanks, Thomas, good idea. We’ll see you in five minutes.” Stone hung up and turned to Holly. “Thomas has pointed out that if Harold is Teddy and Teddy is the shooter, we don’t want to be around him when the police arrive. Thomas is going with us; he can help if the police turn up.”

  “Okay with me,” Holly said, jamming the 9 mm into her jeans. “Dino, if we don’t come back immediately, will you take our bags to the airport, and we’ll meet you there?”

  “Sure,” Dino said.

  Teddy had moved everything he needed out of his workshop, and now he turned on a fan he had rigged up that blew dust around the room. His cell phone buzzed on his belt.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Thomas. Stone and Holly are determined to go up to Black Mountain, looking for you. I’m coming with them.”

  “How much time do I have?”

  “Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes.”

  “Slow them down if you can.”

  “I’ll try.”

  Teddy hung up and took his things outside.

  56

  Thomas hung up and called Sir Leslie Hewitt.

  “Hello?”

  “Leslie, it’s Thomas. Have you heard?

  “Yes, it’s all over the TV. I was astonished that he got Winston Sutherland. How did that happen?�
�

  “I haven’t spoken with him about it yet, but my guess is he had the opportunity and took it.”

  “Well, that advances things rather more than we had planned, doesn’t it?”

  “It certainly does, and I think we’d better get the group together tonight to discuss our options. We can’t make any moves until after Winston’s funeral, but we’d better be talking to a lot of people before they bury him.”

  “Do you have any idea where Teddy is now?”

  “I just spoke to him; I assume he’s either at Irene’s or in his workshop. Stone Barrington and Holly Barker are going up there now looking for him, and I’m going with them.”

  “Will they be armed?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Thomas, we can’t let Teddy be caught.”

  “I’ll do what I can to get him off the island.”

  Leslie paused for a moment. “Thomas, I’m not sure you’re taking my meaning.”

  “I’m sorry, Leslie, what am I missing?”

  “Certainly, it would be good if Teddy immediately got off the island, but if that seems in any way in doubt, then you can’t allow him to be taken by the police. I don’t know what the ramifications are of having him taken by this CIA woman, but I can’t think that that would be to our benefit, either.”

  “For all practical purposes, Teddy is off the island now; his yacht sailed, and I’ve asked the fellow we put aboard to be sure to be seen at the western end of St. Martin, so the police can confirm that Harold left yesterday.”

  “I think, in view of Winston’s rather sudden demise, we may have to replan a bit.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “First, as I said before, we cannot allow Teddy to be caught. We can’t even allow his body to be found.”

  “His body?”

  “Thomas, please focus; if he’s in danger of being caught, you’re going to have to kill him and get the body into the sea.”

  Thomas sat quietly for a moment and thought.