Iron Orchid

by Stuart Woods

  “Oh, Dino and Mary Ann have been having some problems, and I was just counseling him.”

  “Counseling him? It looked more like you were yelling at him.”

  “He needed yelling at.”

  “You aren’t exactly qualified to be a marriage counselor.”

  “All right, all right. What are you doing in New York? I thought Lance had shipped you off to some place in Virginia to be remolded by the Agency.”

  “I was already a deadly weapon and performed brilliantly, so they graduated me early and assigned me to New York.”

  “How’d the rest of the class do?” Stone asked suspiciously.

  “Well, they did brilliantly, too,” she said.

  “So he brought your whole training class to New York?”

  “Everybody who survived the training,” Her drink arrived, and they clinked glasses.

  Stone leaned in close. “You’re on that Teddy Fay thing, aren’t you?”

  She was surprised he knew. “Sorry, that’s classified.” She took a deep sip of her drink.

  “Come on, Dino’s been reporting to Lance about a bunch of murders around the U.N.,” Stone said. “And I think Lance let something slip.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Lance,” she said, keeping her guard up. “But if anybody lets anything slip about anything, it ain’t going to be me.”

  “Okay, okay. God, it’s good to see you; it’s been months.”

  “Has it?” she asked, feigning indifference.

  “You know very well how long it’s been. I tried to call you in Orchid Beach, and I got some young lady who’s house-sitting for you. That’s when I knew you must be in Virginia.”

  “You’re so clever, Stone; how could I ever hide anything from you?” she said, batting her eyes theatrically.

  “So, how’s life as a spy?”

  She looked around to be sure nobody could hear. “Actually, I appear to be still a cop, the way things are going. I’m looking forward to this thing being over.”

  “He’s a very smart guy,” Stone said. “It may never end.”

  “I don’t know who you’re talking about,” she said, “but the thought of it never ending is more than I can bear. Let’s talk about something else.”

  Dino came back to the table and sat down. “So,” he said, sipping his drink, “how’s it going on the Teddy Fay thing?”

  Holly sighed. “Dino, I don’t know what you’re talking about, and even if I did, I wouldn’t know what you were talking about.”

  “I get your drift,” Dino said, “but I still want to know what’s going on.”

  “Then you’d better have dinner with Lance,” she said, “and you’d better not tell him you even mentioned the subject to me.”

  A waiter brought them menus.

  “Shouldn’t you be getting home to your wife?” Stone asked Dino pointedly.

  “I haven’t had dinner yet,” Dino said indignantly. “You want me to starve?”

  “As I recall, Mary Ann is a very fine cook.”

  “Yeah, well the last time she cooked for me was so long ago that I can’t put a date on it.”

  “If you weren’t in here every night, maybe she’d cook for you more often,” Stone said.

  “All right, you two,” Holly interjected. “Cool it; let’s order dinner.”

  “You have any idea what a pain in the ass Stone can be?” Dino asked.

  “Dino, I am not going to spend the evening refereeing, so if you and Stone can’t just remember what good friends you are and talk pleasantly to each other, then I’m having dinner elsewhere.” She put down her menu.

  “All right, all right,” Dino said, patting her arm. “I’ll be nice if he will.”

  “Stone?”

  Stone nodded.

  The waiter came back. “Is there any osso bucco left over from last night?” Holly asked. Wednesday was osso bucco night.

  “I’ll check,” the waiter said. He left and returned. “Yep.”

  “I’ll have that, too,” Stone said, and Dino joined the movement.

  “Sorry, there’s only one order left,” the waiter said, “and the lady gets it.”

  The two men grumbled and ordered something else.

  MUCH LATER, as they finished their coffee, Dino stood up, “Well,” he said, “I guess I’d better go home and face the music.”

  “You make home sound like a horrible place, Dino,” Holly said.

  “Sometimes it is,” he replied. He gave her a kiss, put on his coat, gave Stone a wave and walked out.

  “Well, now,” Stone said. “We’re finally rid of him; what are we going to do now?”

  Holly laughed. “I take it you have a suggestion?”

  “I have several suggestions,” Stone said.

  "And what are they?"

  “They are better transmitted by nonverbal communication,” Stone said. “Can we communicate at my house?”

  “I’ve got a better idea,” Holly said. “Why don’t we talk about it at my house?”

  “You have a house?”

  “I have an apartment, thank you. Anyway, I have to walk Daisy.”

  “How is Daisy?” Stone asked, getting up and retrieving their coats.

  “You’ll see shortly,” Holly said, slipping into her coat and buttoning up.

  THE CAB PULLED UP in front of Holly’s building, and they got out.

  “You’re moving up in the world,” Stone said.

  “Onward and upward.”

  They took the elevator to the twelfth floor, and Holly opened her front door.

  “You don’t lock your door?” Stone asked.

  “The security is good here,” Holly said, “and here it comes.”

  Daisy made a fool of herself over Stone.

  “We’ll be right back,” Holly said, reaching for Daisy’s leash. “Don’t go away.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  MUCH LATER, Holly rolled over in bed and encountered the sleeping Stone. This was much better than sleeping alone, she thought, even better than sleeping with Daisy.

  FORTY-FIVE

  TEDDY WAS HALF A BLOCK from Holly’s building when he saw a man come out with a Doberman on a leash. The two stopped when the dog wanted to inspect a street lamp.

  Teddy continued past but spoke. “Good morning, Daisy,” he said. Daisy interrupted her business and came over to say hello. Teddy scratched her behind the ear and talked to her for a moment. “She’s very popular in the neighborhood,” he said to the man.

  “I’m not surprised,” the man replied.

  Teddy gave him a quick once-over: six-two, a hundred and ninety, blond hair, stubble. He had the look of a man who had just gotten out of bed and hadn’t had his coffee yet. Teddy felt a pang of something he recognized as jealousy. “Bye-bye, Daisy,” he said. “Good morning to you,” he said to the man, then continued down the street. Jealousy? That was something he hadn’t felt for many, many years, but it was real, and it was disturbing.

  HOLLY WAS PUTTING breakfast on the table when Stone and Daisy returned. “Thanks for taking her out,” she said.

  “Glad to. Daisy seems to be very popular in the neighborhood.”

  Holly turned and looked at him. “Why do you say that?”

  “Oh, a passerby stopped and chatted with her, knew her name. She reacted as if they’d met before.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “I don’t know,” Stone said. “Maybe six feet, slender, graying, mid-fifties. He looked sort of like Larry David.”

  “Holy shit,” Holly said, rushing to her windows overlooking Park Avenue and opening the blinds. She looked up and down the street. “Only one neighbor has made friends with Daisy. Come over here, Stone.” Stone came. “Do you see him anywhere?”

  Stone looked up and down Park. “Nope.”

  “Which way was he headed?”

  “North to south. He may have turned a comer toward Madison a block down. I wasn’t really paying attention. Why are you interested in him?”<
br />
  “Because I think you just met Teddy Fay.”

  Stone blinked. “You’re kidding.”

  “No, I’m not.” Holly was on the phone. “It’s Holly Barker; just had a Teddy sighting in front of my building; he was headed south on Park, west side of the street. Right.” She hung up the phone. “Damn,” she said, “and I had the team pulled last night.”

  “Team?”

  “The team that’s been following me, trying to get a shot at Teddy.”

  “You’re planning to shoot him?”

  “No, I mean a shot at capturing him. We think he may live or work in the neighborhood. What was he wearing?”

  “A tweed overcoat and one of those Irish tweed hats with the brim turned down all the way around; sunglasses.”

  “Did he speak to you?”

  “After he spoke to Daisy and petted her, he said she was very popular in the neighborhood. Then he said good morning and continued on his way.”

  Holly waved Stone to a seat and sat down in front of her bacon and eggs. She stared into the plate. “He said Daisy was very popular in the neighborhood?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then he must live in the neighborhood.”

  LANCE LISTENED TO HER REPORT quietly and waited until she had finished before he spoke. “Someone else was walking Daisy this morning?”

  “A friend,” she said.

  Lance nodded. “And you pulled the team last night. Of course.”

  “Of course, what?”

  “Of course Teddy would turn up just when the team wasn’t there. He knows Daisy?”

  “Yes, the first time I saw him outside the building, he petted her and asked her name.”

  “Maybe Teddy is following you,” Lance said. “Why else would he be camped outside your building?”

  “I don’t think he was camped,” Holly said. “I really think he lives in the neighborhood.”

  “Or works in the neighborhood.”

  “There aren’t any workshops on Park Avenue,” she said.

  “Holly, I want you to put some people on visiting all the fealty firms in the neighborhoods that handle rentals, especially short-term rentals, a year or less. Find out if anyone answering Teddy’s description has rented something on Park Avenue or in the immediate environs during the past month. Don’t go yourself; I don’t want Teddy to see you in a real estate office. And tell them to go singly, not in pairs, and use FBI agents. They have a more instant authority with the general public than we do.”

  “I’ll get right on it,” Holly said, and returned to her office.

  ____________________

  EDITH TIMMONS, a sixty-year-old realtor who managed the Crown and Palmer office at Madison and 60th Street was at her desk when a young man came into the office. Through her open door she could see him flash some sort of I.D. at the receptionist, and she got up and went to the door. “May I help you?” she said to the young man.

  “Mrs. Timmons,” the receptionist said, “this gentleman is from the FBI; perhaps you should speak to him.”

  “Yes, please come into my office,” she said. Edith turned back to her desk and began to take deep breaths, composing herself. She sat down at her desk and clasped her hands together to keep them from shaking. “Yes, come in,” she said.

  The young man showed her his identification. “I’m Special Agent Harding, with the FBI,” he said.

  “How may I help you?” Edith replied, trying to keep her voice steady. Forty years before, Edith, whose name was not Edith, had participated in a Weather Underground bank robbery in downtown New York, and a bank guard had been killed. She had only driven the getaway car, but she knew that somewhere in the Justice Department bureaucracy there was an arrest warrant with her real name on it and that there is no statute of limitations on murder.

  “I understand that your firm handles short-term rentals on the Upper East Side,” Harding said. “Is that correct?”

  “Yes, it is,” she replied, relieved that he did not seem interested in arresting her. “It’s a specialty of ours.”

  Harding handed her a sketch of a middle-aged man. “Have you, during the past few weeks, shown an apartment or rented an apartment to a man who looks like this?”

  Edith tried not even to blink. “No, we haven’t,” she said. “I handle the short-term rentals, myself, so if he had come in here, I would have seen him.”

  “You’re certain you haven’t rented to someone who looks even vaguely like this man during the past weeks?”

  She shook her head. “I’m sure; I’ve only rented to couples for the past three or four months. It’s been more than a year since I rented to a single man. And none of the men in the couples looked like this. Why are you asking?”

  “It’s just a routine investigation,” Harding said. “We’re talking to all the realtors in the neighborhood.”

  “I see.” She stood up. “Well, I’m sorry I couldn’t have been more help, Agent Harding. Good day.”

  “Good day, and thank you.” The young man left her offices and turned up Madison Avenue.

  Edith closed her office door, sat back down in her chair and rested her face in her hands, trying to tame her wildly beating heart. She took a tissue from the box on her desk and dabbed at the beads of perspiration that had popped out on her forehead, then she got out her compact and repaired her carefully applied makeup.

  For a moment, there, she had thought her life would go up in smoke: her partnership in the realty firm, her marriage to a Park Avenue physician, her two sons and her five grandchildren.

  What was that man’s name? She got out her card file of rentals and began going through them, then stopped at one. Foreman; Albert Foreman. She dialed the number.

  TEDDY WAS IN HIS WORKSHOP when the phone rang. He routinely forwarded the calls from his apartment to this phone, but he never got calls, except from telemarketers. He picked up the instrument. “Hello?”

  “Mr. Foreman?”

  “Who’s calling, please?”

  “This is Edith Timmons of Crown and Palmer. Is this Mr. Foreman?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sure you’ll recall that I rented you your apartment at the Mayflower a few weeks ago.”

  “Of course, Mrs. Timmons. Is anything wrong? Are the owners returning earlier than planned?”

  “Oh, no, nothing like that. I just wanted to tell you about something, purely for your own information.”

  “Yes?”

  “A few minutes ago I had a visit from an FBI agent, who showed me a sketch of someone who looked vaguely like you and asked if I had rented an apartment to such a person.”

  Teddy’s gut clenched. “And what did you tell him?”

  “Mr. Foreman, I have to tell you that I have no love for the FBI and I have no wish to help them. I told him that I had not rented to any such person, so you shouldn’t be bothered.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Mrs. Timmons. It’s just a tax matter. I’ll contact them, and I’m sure we can work it out.”

  “Well, of course, I knew it would be something like that. I just wanted to let you know that you need not be concerned. They won’t come looking for you.”

  “Well, thank you again, Mrs. Timmons. I very much appreciate your concern.”

  “One thing, Mr. Foreman: if you should have a conversation with these people, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention that you rented the apartment from me. I wouldn’t want to be caught in a lie.”

  “Of course not, Mrs. Timmons, and thank you again.” Teddy hung up and breathed a sigh of relief. They were looking for him, but they had missed. He’d be all right for a while longer.

  FORTY-SIX

  TEDDY NOW TURNED HIS ATTENTION to his next victim. He still had the photographs of the others he had identified as prospects, but he was growing tired of small fry; he wanted a bigger fish, someone who would strike fear into the hearts of America’s enemies.

  He looked at his watch; time to call Irene. He dialed her cell phone number.

/>   “Hello,” she said, knowing who was calling. “It’s been a while.”

  “I’ve been a busy fellow,” he said,

  “Believe me, I know all about it. I’ve completed my investigation of how you’re getting the information, and I turned in my report to the director.”

  “And?”

  “And I’ve blamed it on the FBI.”

  Teddy smiled. “Good.”

  “And, I understand, the FBI is blaming it on us.”

  “Perfect! When are you coming to New York again?”

  “Maybe in a couple of days. Can I let you know?”

  “Sure, call me anytime on the cell phone.”

  “Anything I can do for you?”

  “Yes. I’m looking for a new kind of target, a bigger fish.”

  “At the U.N.?”

  “That would be good; I’d rather not have to travel to Washington.”

  “Let me poke around and see who I can come up with. Maybe I can bring you a name when I come to New York.”

  “Good. I’m looking forward to seeing you. Bye-bye.” Teddy hung up. He really was looking forward to seeing her. His increasing interest in Holly Barker was making him horny, and he needed relief.

  Teddy went to his workbench and returned his attention to something he had been working on for several days. He didn’t have a sniper’s rifle, and buying one that would suit his purpose would be too complicated and too dangerous. Instead, he had decided to make one himself that would break down and be easily concealable.

  He owned a virtually unused Walther PPK-S, the stainless-steel, updated version of the gun made famous in the James Bond novels. The caliber was.380, which posed a problem, but he could deal with that. He also had a Douglas.380 rifle barrel that he’d ordered more than a year ago.

  He cut down the rifle barrel to sixteen inches and built a six-inch silencer to add to that. Then he replaced the pistol’s grip panel with an L-shaped piece of flat aluminum plating that came over the top of the gun. He shaped a folding stock of a strip of one-inch alloy that was fixed to the plating by a single screw, so that it could be quickly attached or detached using a dime for a screwdriver.