Iron Orchid

by Stuart Woods

  Twenty minutes later he was driving past the Iranian embassy to the U.N. and checking out the block. No doubt the embassy was under surveillance, and the second time around the block, he spotted two bored-looking men in a green Chevrolet sedan. They were dressed too neatly for NYPD detectives, so he reckoned they were FBI.

  He went around the block again, then parked at the end of the street, some distance behind the surveillance vehicle, and waited. At five minutes before six, a black Lincoln with diplomatic plates drove up and double-parked in front of the embassy. At exactly six o’clock, the front door of the building opened and a middle-aged man in a pin-striped suit came down the front steps and got into the car. While the driver was holding open the door, Teddy checked his face against the photograph Irene had e-mailed him. A moment later, the driver was behind the wheel, and the car was moving. The FBI guys were moving, too.

  Teddy stayed behind the two cars waiting for rush-hour traffic to do half his job for him. This took less than five minutes. Everything came to a halt because of some obstruction ahead. And Teddy saw the head of the diplomat’s driver come out the window, checking out the traffic.

  Driving between lanes, Teddy accelerated around the FBI car and kept moving forward, his feet occasionally touching the pavement to help with his balance. The driver’s window was still open as he pulled alongside.

  AT THE BARN, Holly and Ty were making their presentation to Lance and Kerry.

  “There are a dozen candidates,” Holly said, “but we’ve narrowed the field to three for our purposes.”

  “What criteria did you use for narrowing?” Kerry asked.

  “Nothing more than a gut feeling,” Holly said, “because that’s what we think Teddy will use to make his choice.”

  “Why?”

  “We think this process is emotional for Teddy. He’s doing this out of hatred for people he believes are enemies of his country.”

  “Okay, let’s hear the three candidates,” Kerry said.

  “Two men and a woman,” Holly said. First there’s Ali Tarik, who is a thug whose specialty is tracking down Syrian defectors to the States and beating them up or killing them. Then there’s Carla Mujarik, who is in charge of buying materials for the Iranian nuclear weapons program. She buys what she can get, either in the U.S. or abroad. It’s a tough job, but she’s had some success. We haven’t cut her off yet, in the hope of catching some big rats among the sellers.“ She held up another picture. ”This is Hadji Asaam, an assassin, pure and simple, who’s only been in the country for a week or so, but who we think has been brought in to kill some specific person as yet unknown to us. As you know, we’ve got this heads-of-state meeting at the U.N. coming up, and that makes him worrying to us.“

  “Ugly bastard, isn’t he?” Lance said.

  “That’s why he’s our number-one candidate,” Holly said. “We think Teddy will have the same reaction you did when he sees his picture.”

  “You’re operating on the premise that Teddy still has access to Agency files?”

  “Yes.”

  “But all the codes have been changed, and there’s a big internal investigation run by Irene Foster in Hugh English’s office underway. How could he possibly get into the mainframe again?”

  “We don’t know, but we have to operate on the premise that Teddy is smart enough to figure out a way to know what we know.”

  Lance shook his head. “That’s a mighty big assumption,” he said.

  “Why?” Holly asked. “He was at the Agency long enough to figure out ways into the computers, and he may even have inside help among the people he knew and worked with before he retired. Some of them may feel some sympathy with what he’s doing. To be perfectly frank, I feel some sympathy with what he’s doing. Don’t you?”

  “I’m not answering that,” Lance said. “All right, let’s follow your hunch and see where it leads us.”

  “God knows,” Kerry said, “we don’t have anything else to go on.” He opened a file and looked through it. “Looks like the New York field office of the Bureau has round-the-clock surveillance of Asaam.”

  “How much surveillance?” Lance asked.

  “Two men.”

  “All right, let’s triple that,” Lance said. “Let’s put Holly and Ty on him, and we’ll assign another team, as well.”

  A secretary knocked and opened the door. “Lance, there’s a Lieutenant Bacchetti on the phone for you; he says it’s important.”

  Lance picked up the phone and pushed the blinking button. “Dino? What’s up?” He listened for a moment. “How long ago?” He listened again, then thanked the caller and hung up, shaking his head.

  “What?” Kerry asked.

  “A man on a motor scooter shot Hadji Asaam fifteen minutes ago, while your two agents watched. He got away in the rush-hour traffic”

  Holly and Ty exchanged a glance.

  “Well, Holly,” Kerry said, “it looks like your theory of how Teddy chooses targets might be pretty good.”

  Holly felt a warm glow inside. “If it is, then we’d better beef up surveillance on Ali Tarik and Carla Mujarik.”

  “Done,” Kerry said.

  FORTY

  HOLLY STOOD AND WATCHED the young man through the one way mirror of the interrogation room. He looked worried and baffled; the contents of his pockets lay on the table before him. She opened the door, walked into the room and sat down, opening a thin file folder and regarding it for half a minute before speaking.

  “Your name is Bernard Taylor?” she asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “Bernard, you own a Vespa motor scooter with the New York State tag number 1059, is that correct?”

  “Yeah, uh, or at least it was until earlier today.”

  Holly tried to look disgusted. “Come on, Bernard, you’re not going to tell me it was stolen earlier today.”

  “No. Uh, I sold it. Earlier today.”

  Holly shook her head. “Let me put you straight, Bernard.”

  “You can call me Bernie; everybody does.”

  “Listen to me, Bernard. You’re about to be arrested as an accessory to a murder. Do you know what sentence you could get as an accessory?”

  “No. Uh, I mean, I didn’t commit any murder.”

  “We’re not saying you pulled the trigger, Bernard, just that you supplied the motor scooter. As an accessory, you get the same sentence the murderer does, and in New York, that’s the death penalty.”

  “All I did was sell my motor scooter!” Bernie wailed.

  Holly poked among the pile of his pocket contents on the table and her finger stopped on an envelope. “What does this envelope contain?” she asked, though she already knew.

  “The money from the sale of the scooter,” Bernie replied.

  Holly opened the envelope, removed the contents and quickly counted thirty one-hundred-dollar bills. “Three thousand dollars,” she said. “Bernard, is that your price for participation in a cold blooded murder? You came cheap.”

  “No, ma’am,” Bernie said, “It’s my price for my scooter. That’s what the guy paid me.”

  “All right,” Holly sighed. “Tell me your story for the record. Just for your information, you’re being recorded.”

  Bernie related the details of the sale of his motor scooter, while Holly took notes.

  “His name was Jeff Snyder?” Holly asked.

  “That’s what he said.”

  “What I.D. did he show you?”

  “Nothing. I didn’t ask for nothing. He had the money; that was all the I.D. I cared about.”

  “Describe this Jeff Snyder.”

  “About my height, with a big nose and a handlebar mustache. On the thin side.”

  “The mustache?”

  “No, that was thick. His build was on the thin side.”

  “What was he wearing?”

  “A kind of car coat and a cap, you know, like golfers wear? Like Ben Hogan?”

  “Where did you meet?”

  “A
t the entrance to the subway station at Twenty-third and Lex. He came out of the subway, I think.”

  “What do you mean, you think?”

  “Well, I didn’t exactly see him come out of the subway; I just assumed that’s how he got to the corner. I didn’t see him get out of a cab or a car.”

  “And he paid you three thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills for your scooter?”

  “It was a fair price; the scooter had only twelve hundred miles on it. Not a scratch. Pristine.”

  “And you’re sticking to this story?”

  “Lady, it’s the only story I got,” Bernie said heatedly. “It’s what happened.”

  Holly got up and walked out the door. Lance and Kerry were waiting for her on the other side of the mirror.

  “What do you think?” Lance asked.

  “I think he’s telling the truth. It was a slick way for Teddy to get the scooter he needed without stealing it and running the risk of getting pulled over. Obviously, the big nose and the handlebar mustache were a disguise. A witness would concentrate on features like that. I’m surprised that Bernie, here, gave us as good a description as he did.”

  “Cut him loose?” Lance asked Kerry.

  “Sure,” Kerry replied. “We’ll know where to find him, if we need him again.”

  “Oh,” Lance said, “the NYPD found the scooter, and they’re processing it for prints.”

  “They won’t find any,” Holly said. “Where did they locate the scooter?”

  “Parked between two cars on East Twenty-fourth Street, off Lexington.”

  “It’s the subway,” Holly said.

  “What?”

  “Bernie said he met Teddy at the subway entrance at Twenty-third and Lex. That’s how Teddy got there, and it’s how he went home. I’ll bet you he lives within a block or two of the Lexington Avenue subway.”

  “Possibly,” Lance said. “How is that going to help us?”

  “Let’s put somebody on the subway eight hours a day and have him photograph every possible person who fits Teddy’s description as to height, weight and age.”

  “You’re talking about thousands of people,” Kerry said.

  “All right,” Holly said, “skip rush hour at both ends; Teddy probably would, since he doesn’t have to be at work anywhere. Photograph all the sixtyish, tallish, slenderish men between, say, ten and four, every day for a week, then run… no, we don’t have any photographs to compare them to… show the photographs to people who worked with Teddy at the agency. Maybe somebody will give us a positive I.D., and if we get that, then we’ll have a photograph to circulate.”

  “That’s a lot of work for a slim hope,” Lance said.

  “It would be, if we weren’t so desperate,” Kerry replied. “Even with a new murder every few days, this investigation is drying up. We don’t really have all that much for our people to do.”

  “All right, Holly, you set it up,” Lance said. “We’re probably going to need more than one body on each train.”

  “I’d suggest picking up every train at Ninety-sixth Street and riding it to Twenty-third,” Holly said. “I don’t know how many trains there are, but I’ll find out. When our people get to Twenty-third, they’ll turn around and go back to Ninety-sixth Street, and we’ll do it for five days.”

  “Sounds good,” Lance said. “I’ll call a meeting and assign you everybody who isn’t already following another lead. But I warn you, if we get something new, I’ll pull off as many people as it takes to run it down.”

  The new assignment was received in stony silence by the group of eighteen unassigned agents in the conference room. Lance made his little speech, then turned the meeting over to Holly and left.

  “Questions?” Holly asked.

  “Yeah, just one,” an agent said, raising his hand. “Are you nuts?”

  “Have you got a better idea?” Holly asked. “Have you got another lead? Are you too busy for this?”

  The agent looked at the ceiling, and nobody else spoke.

  “All right, listen up,” Holly said, and she began reading a list of names from a clipboard. “You’re being issued concealed cameras; the lens can be worn in a lapel or on the brim of a baseball cap. We’re looking for full-frontal shots, here, folks, no backs of heads or pulled-down hat brims. We need faces, got it? Isn’t intelligence work fun?”

  She got back a collection of grumblings she was glad she couldn’t quite hear.

  FORTY-ONE

  WILL LEE, AT THE END of his daily national intelligence briefing, dismissed everyone but Kate Rule of the CIA and Bob Kinney of the 149, then he held up a copy of the New York Times and pointed to a story in the lower left-hand corner of the front page. “I suppose you’ve seen this?”

  MIDEAST U.N. EMBASSIES CLAIM CIA

  IS MURDERING THEIR DIPLOMATS

  Both nodded.

  “Just for the record,” the president said, “tell me the CIA is not murdering Mideast diplomats.”

  “The CIA is not murdering Mideast diplomats,” Kate said. “I believe you know who is murdering them.”

  “I believe I do,” Will said, “and I’m getting very uncomfortable about knowing it. If this continues, we’re going to have to announce that Teddy Fay is still alive and working.”

  Bob Kinney spoke up. “I hope you won’t feel that is necessary right now, Mr. President.”

  “Well, Bob, you can always hope, but I’ve dug myself a hole, here, based on the advice of the two of you, and nobody’s getting me out of it. How close are we to arresting Fay?”

  “About as close as we were when we thought he was dead,” Kate said glumly.

  “All right, Madam Director,” Will said, “I want you to issue a statement, through your spokesperson, saying, as dryly as possible, that the CIA is not murdering Mideast U.N. diplomats. Let’s have that denial on the record, and be sure this guy at the Times gets the message. But I have to tell you both, I don’t know how much longer we can continue keeping a lid on the Teddy Fay story. I’ve had two calls from congressional leaders this morning, and they’re squirming in their seats, believe me. As much as I dread doing it myself, I don’t want one of them to be the one to break this to the press.”

  “Yes, sir,” both directors said in unison.

  LATER THAT MORNING, Kate Rule sat in a meeting in her conference room with the deputy directors for Intelligence and Operations and their deputies.

  “All right,” Kate said, “let me have your reports on your internal investigation into who might be helping Teddy Fay with his little crusade.”

  Hugh English, deputy director for Operations, spoke up. “Director, I’m going to let Irene Foster, who personally conducted the investigation, bring you up to date.”

  Kate turned and looked at the handsome, middle-aged woman across the table from her. “Irene?”

  “Director, under my supervision, every department head in the building has conducted an in-depth investigation of every channel of communication in and out of the Agency that could be a means of passing information to Teddy Fay. In addition, our Computer Services division has audited the computer time of every employee with level-one access to the mainframe, which is the only level at which this information could be accessed. Finally, two hundred and twelve employees who possibly could have had access or gained access to this information have been given class-one polygraphs, and every single one of them has passed. The only possible conclusion that we can draw from all this work is that the source of the information that Teddy Fay is getting is not inside the Agency.” She paused. “That’s my report, and I’ll stand by it.”

  “Director,” Hugh English said, “I’ve reviewed every aspect of Irene’s investigation and I’ve found it to be thorough and complete. I’ll stand by it, too.”

  Kate stared at English and Foster. “You are absolutely certain about your conclusions?”

  “To a great deal more than a reasonable certainty,” English replied.

  “Then where is Teddy Fay getting his inf
ormation?” Kate asked.

  “Director,” Irene said, “Fay could be compiling this information from multiple sources-half a dozen agencies have bits and pieces of what he is learning-but the only other agency that has it all is the FBI. My reluctant conclusion is that the Bureau is the source of Teddy Fay’s information, and my report so states.”

  “Great,” Kate said. “Bob Kinney is going to love that.”

  “You want me to put it to Kinney?” English asked.

  Kate sighed. “No, Hugh, I’ll save that treat for myself.”

  Irene Foster stood and handed Kate a thick document. “Director, here is my written report. There’s an eight-page summary of the work up front, detailing the steps I took; the rest is substantiation: copies of interviews and polygraph tapes.”

  “Thank you, Irene,” Kate said. “That will be all, everybody.”

  The group shuffled out of the conference room, and Kate walked back into her office, picked up her phone and spoke to her secretary. “Please get me Director Kinney at the FBI.”

  A moment later her phone buzzed and she heard a male voice. “Kate? It’s Bob.”

  “Bob,” Kate said, trying not to sound weary, “can I buy you lunch over here today?”

  “What’s up, Kate?”

  “Something I’d rather tell you about when you’ve got half a bottle of wine in you. I’ll even send a chopper; you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  “I don’t fit very well in helicopters, Kate,” Kinney said. “If it’s bad news, I’d rather hear it right now.”

  Kate sighed. “There’s good news and bad, Bob. The good news is we’ve conducted an extraordinary, in-depth internal investigation, involving thousands of employees and hundreds of polygraphs, plus an audit of everybody’s computer time, and the only conclusion we can come to is that Teddy Fay is not getting his information from the CIA.”

  There was a long silence on the other end of the phone.