Hothouse Orchid

by Stuart Woods

  “No, but I was unconscious, and had passersby not come to my rescue, the worst could have happened.”

  “Are you all right, Holly?” Lance was almost solicitous.

  “I’m all right, Lance, honestly I am. I spent one night in a local hospital, recovering from a dose of Rohypnol, administered by the perpetrator.”

  “Will you be able to identify him?”

  “No. I hate to say this, but it all happened so fast.”

  “You’re sure you’re all right.”

  “I’m sure. I’ve had the proper medical care.” Including two dates and one roll in the hay with Josh, she thought.

  “All right, then, use my authority to do any searches you need to,” Lance said. “Apart from being drugged and nearly raped and murdered, are you having a nice vacation?”

  “Just lovely,” she said. “Apart from that.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” he said. “Goodbye.” Lance hung up.

  Holly printed out the news reports and put them into a file folder, then she relocked the office and started thinking about dinner.

  The phone rang. “Hello?”

  “Hi, it’s Josh. How about dinner?”

  “You’re on,” she replied.

  17

  While Holly was working on her Agency computer, another user had logged on from the Bahamas, routing his connection through a number of other computers around the country. Teddy Fay knew the CIA computer system better than most of its employees, and he routed through the mainframe to connect with the Federal Aviation Administration’s list of U.S.-registered aircraft at a level that allowed him to edit. He created a new entry, gave the airplane a registration number that had not been assigned to any other airplane and entered the name and bogus address in South Florida that he had chosen for himself. That done, Teddy packed up his laptop, got up from his makeshift desk in a corner of the ramshackle hangar he had rented for the past few weeks and put the case into the luggage compartment of his airplane, along with the possessions he considered necessary to maintain whatever identity and appearance he chose.

  For some years now, Teddy had been retired from the CIA, where he had been a highly placed member of the Technical Services Department, the division of the Agency that supplies its agents with identities, passports, disguises, weapons, clothing and any other resource they require to roam the world, doing the bidding of their masters. Almost since the day of his retirement, Teddy had been a fugitive, having employed the skills he learned during his thirty-year career to deliver his own brand of justice to those who had disagreed with him, some of them highly placed in the government.

  He had faked his death a couple of times, but he knew there were those at the Agency who still wanted him even more dead. His greatest protection lay in the fact that the denial of his existence was just as much in their interests as in his.

  His Cessna airplane, a model 182 retractable, sported a new paint job that masked a number of replacement-skin panels where the aircraft had taken fire from one of the Agency’s minions some weeks before. He shook a rolled-up sheet of plastic from a cardboard tube, peeled a layer of it away and applied it to the rear of the airplane, repeating the process on the other side. Then he peeled off another layer, leaving his brand-new registration number affixed to the airplane.

  That done and the airplane packed, he swung open the doors of the battered hangar and, employing a tow bar, rolled the airplane out onto the weedy tarmac. Ten minutes later he was headed north-west at a very low altitude, nearly skimming the waves. Whenever he saw a boat in the distance he swung astern of it and kept far enough away so that no one aboard could note his tail number, then he resumed his old course, using the onboard GPS units.

  He made landfall at the northern end of Amelia Island, Florida’s northernmost barrier island. Shortly, he spotted the Fernandina Beach Airport a few miles away and climbed to pattern altitude. He announced his intention to land over the local radio frequency, entered the traffic pattern, set down and taxied over to the local fixed-base operator or FBO. He shut down the engine, went inside and ordered fuel.

  “Where you in from?” the woman at the desk asked.

  “I’ve been visiting my sister in north Georgia,” he replied.

  “Where you bound for?”

  “Key West,” he replied. “I’m based there.” He paid for the fuel with a credit card from a Cayman Islands bank, where his comfortable wealth was on deposit, took off and headed south, under visual flight rules. Forty minutes later he called the Vero Beach tower and received landing instructions. Once on the ground he arranged for a tie-down space, ordered fuel, then went into the SunJet Aviation terminal, carrying his briefcase, and found an attractive middle-aged woman waiting for him.

  “Adele Mason?” he asked.

  “Mr. Smithson?” she replied. They shook hands.

  “Jack,” he said.

  “Jack, I have half a dozen properties to show you,” Adele said. “My car is right outside.”

  Teddy followed her to the car.

  “I thought we’d start with a couple of beachfront properties,” she said. “They’re more expensive than things on the mainland, though.”

  “That’s all right,” Teddy said. As she drove, he memorized the route from the airport to the beach.

  Once on the barrier island, she drove south for a couple of miles, through a comfortable-looking, older neighborhood, then she turned down a driveway. They passed a 1950s ranch house.

  “That’s the main house,” she said. “The owners live in Atlanta and don’t get down all that often. The guesthouse is next.” She continued past the main house, drove behind a hedge and stopped at a small cottage.

  Teddy could see the ocean thirty yards away. He got out of the car and followed her to the front door. She unlocked it and led him inside.

  The house reminded him of his childhood on Chesapeake Bay, on the eastern shore of Maryland. There was a living room with a small dining table, a kitchen with older appliances, two small bedrooms and a small room with a desk in it.

  “How much?” he asked.

  She told him.

  “How long?”

  “As long as you like.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  She looked surprised. “Don’t you want to look at anything else?”

  “No. This is perfect. Did you bring a lease?”

  She sat in a chair, put her briefcase on her lap and opened it. “I can fill in the blank form for you. You sign it, give me a check for one month’s rent and a security deposit, and I’ll mail it to the owners for their signatures.”

  “I’d like to move in right away,” Teddy said.

  “Let me call them and see if that’s satisfactory. My office will run a credit check, as well.” She handed him a form. “Please fill this out.”

  Teddy entered the information he had assembled for his new identity, including the social security number he had implanted in that agency’s computers, then he walked around the house again while she made her calls. He came back, and she handed him the lease.

  “Everything’s fine,” she said.

  “I don’t have a local bank account yet,” Teddy said. “Will you take American dollars?”

  She laughed. “Of course.”

  Teddy opened his briefcase and counted out some of the cash he had obtained on a recent trip from the Bahamas to the Caymans, then closed it again.

  “Here’s your lease,” she said, handing it to him. “I’d better run.”

  “Could you drop me in town?” he asked.

  “Of course.”

  She drove him back into Vero Beach and he pointed at a Toyota dealership. “Just over there will be fine,” he said.

  He got out of the car and stood at her open window. “Thank you so much for finding me just the right place.”

  “It was my pleasure.”

  “By way of thanks, I’d like to take you to dinner.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “Tomorrow night?”


  “What time?”

  “Seven o’clock?”

  “I’ll come and get you,” she said, “since you don’t know your way around yet.”

  “I’ll look forward to it,” he said as she drove away.

  It took Teddy half an hour to find and assess a four-year-old, low-mileage Camry and buy it, after which he returned to the airport, unloaded the airplane and began putting everything into the car. As he was doing so, a Beech Bonanza taxied onto the ramp and parked a couple of spaces down from his airplane. Two women got out.

  Teddy’s heart began to beat faster. He knew one of them; she had taken a shot at him once, but, of course, she wouldn’t know him now, with his balding head covered with a clever gray hairpiece and his eyes hidden behind aviator glasses. They walked past him with hardly a glance and went into the little flying school beside the ramp.

  Teddy got into his car, took a few deep breaths and let his pulse return to normal as he drove away. That woman, Holly Barker, worked for the Agency, for Lance Cabot; what the hell was she doing in this beach town that he had so carefully selected?

  All the way to his new house, he made turns and checked his rearview mirror, and he didn’t turn into his drive until he knew there was no one following him.

  18

  Holly sat in her living room with Hurd Wallace and Lauren Cade. She laid her file on Jim Bruno’s juvenile record and the stories from the New Jersey newspaper on the coffee table and sipped a Diet Coke while they read it.

  “Well,” Hurd said finally, “this is all very interesting, but there’s nothing here that ties him to the recent rapes and murders locally.”

  “Not in an evidentiary sense,” Holly admitted, “but all this shows a past which gives him a predisposition to that sort of crime.”

  “None of this could ever be presented in court,” Hurd said. “You haven’t even tied him to the New Jersey murder when he was still a young man.”

  “Don’t you think I know that, Hurd?” She tried not to sound irritated. “All I want to do here is place Bruno on your list of suspects. Oh, and you can add to this material that he keeps a boat at the marina that’s tied to the death of two victims and the disposal of one body.”

  Lauren spoke up. “I have to agree with Hurd, Holly. Even that could be no more than a coincidence. Eighty or ninety other people, including Detective Jimmy Weathers, keep boats there, too.”

  “Maybe you should investigate all of them, Lauren, and when you’re done I’d be willing to bet that not one of them would have the sort of background that Bruno has.”

  “You’re convinced that Bruno is our perpetrator?” Hurd asked.

  “Of course not, Hurd. I just think he’s your best suspect right now.”

  “Our only suspect,” Lauren said.

  “All right,” Hurd said, tucking the file into his briefcase, “James Bruno is a suspect. Is that what you want?”

  Holly nodded. “Thank you, Hurd. And for God’s sake, don’t show his juvenile record to anybody. It was sealed by the court, and I don’t want to have to explain how I got it.”

  “How did you get that record?” Lauren asked.

  “Don’t ask,” Holly replied.

  “Holly,” Hurd said, “do you want to work on this full-time? Do you want me to get you a badge?”

  “No!” Holly said. “Please, no! I’m on vacation here, and I don’t want my head filled with this case. Of course, I would appreciate updates.”

  Hurd laughed. “You mean you want to be involved but not involved.”

  Holly laughed, too. “I mean I don’t want to explain to anybody my past with Bruno or how I’ve looked into his past, especially in court. My boss would not like for me to be cross-examined by some hot defense attorney.”

  “All right,” Hurd said, “we’ll keep you out of the official record on the case.”

  “Thank you, Hurd. I appreciate your understanding.”

  Hurd got to his feet, and Lauren followed him out the front door. Holly waved them off, then turned back into the house. She had to shower and change before Josh came for her.

  Josh arrived, and they took their drinks outside to Holly’s deck and sat down in comfortable chairs to watch the light change on the ocean as the sun went down.

  “I ran into the county ME at the hospital this afternoon,” Josh said. “He told me something interesting about one of your crime victims, the one you found on the beach.”

  “Tell me,” Holly said.

  “He checked for needle marks on her neck, and he found how the Rohypnol had been administered. It wasn’t by needle, it was by gun.”

  “I don’t follow,” Holly said.

  “A vaccination gun,” Josh explained. “Surely you had one of those used on you during your years in the army.”

  “Yes, you’re right,” she said, “but I remember those things as attached by hoses and electrical cords to things.”

  “There’s a version that holds a vial of something and is powered by a fairly small battery, the way power tools are these days.”

  “Still, it wouldn’t be something you could stick in your pocket, would it?”

  “If you had a big enough pocket,” Josh pointed out. “It would be easier to deal with than a hypodermic syringe. You’d just press it against the neck and pull the trigger.”

  “Where would a perpetrator obtain one?” Holly asked.

  “Probably from the manufacturer or maybe even from a medical supply store-there’s a big one in Vero Beach.”

  “Okay, I buy it.”

  “It makes the perpetrator more interesting, doesn’t it?”

  “I suppose,” Holly said. “It also adds another way to find him. The police could visit that medical supply store in Vero and find out whom they’ve sold the things to. Anybody who wasn’t a doctor or a hospital purchasing agent would stand out as a suspect.”

  “I think maybe I should have been a cop,” Josh said. “I enjoy knowing about this stuff, even if I am a couple of steps removed from the process.”

  “Well,” Holly said, “maybe you did miss your calling, but it wasn’t as a cop.”

  “Really? What should I have been.”

  She laughed. “A porn star,” she said.

  Josh blushed. “First time I’ve been told that,” he said.

  “I don’t believe it. When you’re carrying around that sort of equipment, it gets noticed.”

  “Okay, it’s been mentioned,” he admitted, “but nobody ever suggested I should have been in porn films.”

  “You know what I think you need?” Holly asked.

  “What?”

  “Another audition.” She took his hand and led him into the house and upstairs.

  “We’ve got a dinner reservation in half an hour,” he said.

  “We’ll manage,” Holly said, unzipping his fly.

  19

  Teddy Fay awoke as the sun’s rays struck his face. His right arm was numb. Adele Mason’s head lay across it, and her leg was thrown over his. Gently, he extricated his arm and lifted her knee so that he could recover his leg. He slithered silently out of bed, walked to the window and looked out, opening and closing his hand, trying to get his circulation going. The sun had just broken the horizon. He closed the venetian blinds, walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind him.

  He shaved, got into a shower, soaped up and then rinsed in cold water. He tiptoed into the bedroom, found some shorts in a drawer and put them on, then he went into the kitchen. He had managed a trip to a grocery the day before, and he put on some coffee and fried bacon in the microwave while he toasted a couple of English muffins and scrambled some eggs.

  “Smells good in there,” Adele called from the bathroom.

  “Breakfast in five minutes,” he called back, then he heard the shower running.

  She came into the kitchen wearing only a towel and kissed him on a shoulder. “Jack, do you mind if I ask how old you are?”

  “Sixty,” he lied. “How about you?”


  “Forty-nine,” she replied.

  “You look wonderful,” he said, emptying the eggs onto two plates.

  “You are wonderful,” she said, “at least in bed.”

  “Thank you ma’am.” He laughed.

  “Oh, I forgot something,” she said, hurrying from the room. She came back with the local newspaper. “I called the paper yesterday and got you a subscription; I always do that with a new client.”

  “Thank you,” Teddy said and set the paper on the little table.

  They washed down their breakfast with fresh orange juice and finished it with coffee.

  Teddy sat back in his chair and picked up the paper. “My goodness,” he said, “according to this you’ve got a serial rapist/murderer in this town.”

  “I’m afraid so,” Adele said, “and I hope it’s not going to be bad for business.”

  “Why? Doesn’t everyone want to live in a town with murderous thugs?”

  “Stop it. I’m serious.”

  “I know you are. I’m glad I arrived when I did, or I’d be a suspect, being the new guy in town.”

  “What sort of work do you do, Jack?” she asked.

  “I’m retired.”

  “From what?”

  “I’ve invented things all my life, the sort of gadgets you see in those infomercials on TV.” This was not a lie; those little inventions had made him a comfortably wealthy man, and the continuing royalties went, eventually, into his Cayman bank account.

  “Can you make a living doing that?”

  “You can if you have a few great sellers and if you’ve negotiated a good royalty agreement.”

  “Why did you retire?”

  “Oh, I just got tired of it, I guess. A few months from now, though, I’ll get an idea for something, and I’ll be back at work. I’ve retired before.”

  “Were you ever married?”

  “Yes, but she died four years ago of ovarian cancer.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I, but I’ve had time to get over it.”

  “What brought you to Vero Beach?”

  “I thought I’d like to live in a place with a warm winter, and I read something about Vero in a magazine or a newspaper, I forget which.” He smiled at her. “So far, I like it just fine.”