“Right.”
“Will you check with your accounting department and see if his pension is being paid, and if so, to what bank? And what address they have for Fay?”
“Give me a few minutes,” Gil said. He left the room, and a woman brought coffee and cookies for them.
TEN MINUTES LATER, Gil returned. “He didn’t delete his pay records. His pension is being paid into an account at the First National Bank of Arlington, and his address is the one on Riverview Circle where he lived for many years.” He laid a sheet of paper on the table containing all the information. “What else can I do for you?”
Kinney stood up. “I think that will do it. May I call you, if I think of anything else?”
“Sure. My extension is ten-ten.” He offered his hand. “Good luck on finding Teddy. You’re going to need it.”
DRIVING BACK TO THE Bureau, both agents were silent for a long time. Finally, Kerry Smith spoke up. “What do you think he’s doing?”
“Doing?” Kinney asked.
“He’s not finished,” Smith said, “but after the first spate of murders, he hasn’t killed anybody for a while.”
“You’re right, he’s not through,” Kinney replied. “He’s planning. He’s just getting ready to move again, in his own time.”
“Well, we’ve got a guard on everyone pictured on his website.
We can’t do more than that.“
“We can anticipate him,” Kinney said.
“How?”
“We’ve got to get inside his head, to figure out who the most likely target would be. If you were Teddy, who would you go after?”
Smith was quiet for a while. “Somebody high up,” he said finally.
“The president?”
“No, the president’s politics aren’t the kind that Teddy hates.”
“Speaker of the House?”
“That would be my bet. He has all the qualifications for getting hit by Teddy—right-wing, in-your-face politics—”
“That seems to be Teddy’s only criterion.”
“That and being well known.”
“Let’s get back to the office and make a new list.”
44
TED EXITED I-95 and made his way to Manassas Regional Airport, south of Washington, D.C. He inserted his security card to open the gate, then drove to the west side of the field, past some T-hangars, to a larger hangar behind them. He drove around back and punched a garage-door opener; the large bifold door opened, and the lights came on. Ted drove the RV inside and used the remote to close the door again. A large fan heater came on immediately, to compensate for the heat lost through the open door.
Ted maneuvered the RV into its assigned space, then got out and connected the power cable and the flexible drain leading to the septic system. He was home. He went into the RV and gazed at himself in the bathroom mirror. A very different Ted Fay stared back at him, one with a head of thick, gray hair and a walrus mustache. He peeled off the mustache, then the toupee and washed them both, leaving them on a form to dry. Then he went “outside” into the hangar.
The hangar held the RV and his car—a five-year-old Mercedes E320, which wasn’t really a 320, because he had modified it, installing an AMG Mercedes engine of five and a half liters and upgrading the suspension and tires. What he had now was a bland-looking family sedan that was capable of zero to sixty miles an hour in under five seconds, and he had replaced the speed-limiting chip with one that allowed a top speed in excess of a hundred and eighty miles an hour. Ted loved cars, and he loved this one best of all.
The final fixture in the hangar was a glassed-in office with a toilet and shower. Inside that were a desk and chair, a sofa, a comfortable recliner, and a large rear-projection television set. Ted loved TV, too. On the desk was a very powerful computer that he had assembled himself, modeled after the units used in Tech Services at the CIA, and incorporating their stolen chip, with a twenty-one-inch flat-screen monitor. With it he could access almost any government system, from the Pentagon to the CIA. Occupying an adjoining area was his workshop, which he had disassembled at his home and reassembled in the hangar.
Ted logged onto the ACT NOW website and gazed at the photographs displayed there, lingering over Efton, the speaker of the House. Efton was a tempting target, but in some ways Ted thought him a good man to have in the job, since the way he conducted himself often engendered great opposition among moderates. He eliminated the speaker from consideration.
He needed a more important, more pivotal figure. He went to another website where he had stored more photos and biographical information on other public figures, and he came to the Supreme Court. He quickly eliminated four of the nine justices, then lingered for a moment over a fifth, the one who was often a swing vote, finally eliminating her. He was left with four justices, including the chief justice, whom Ted had disliked for years. He was very old, now, and rumor was he would be leaving the Court soon, leaving President Lee to appoint his successor. No point in creating a fuss by dealing with him, so he eliminated the chief justice from consideration.
Now he was left with three justices, each of whom qualified politically. Each slavishly followed the chief justice’s lead on important cases, and the elimination of any of them would be good for the country, Ted figured. One, however, stood out. Thomas Graydon was the newest appointee to the Court, a man who had managed, during his confirmation hearings, to convince enough Democrats that his views were moderate to get him confirmed. Once on the Court, though, he had revealed himself as a hardline right-winger, infuriating the senators he had fooled during the hearings. He often addressed conservative groups, making inflammatory speeches backing far right-wing legal positions. He was the youngest member of the Court, only forty-nine years of age, and he could very well be there for thirty years or more, tossing legal hand grenades at the Bill of Rights.
Here was a man who had earned Ted’s attention. His elimination would allow the moderate president to make perhaps the most important appointment of his presidency, after the chief justice, should the old man die or yield his seat. The Democrats held a one-vote majority in the Senate, and Lee could get his appointees confirmed without too much trouble.
Ted eliminated the other justices, leaving only Thomas Graydon. Now he had to decide how to accomplish this death. He thought it should be done more subtly than the others, in fact so subtly that the FBI might think that Ted had not been responsible. An “accidental” death would certainly be preferable.
He scrolled through newspaper and magazine articles about Justice Graydon that he had collected during his confirmation hearings and the three years that Graydon had sat on the Court, and he was struck by a photograph of the man getting out of his car at the Capitol during the hearings. The car was a black, American-made SUV, and he found another shot of Graydon in the car, taken on a fishing trip, this shot more recent, which meant that he probably still owned the car. He would do a drive-by and see if it was parked at the Graydon home.
Then Ted hacked into the computer systems of the manufacturer of the car and went into the design department’s files. After a few minutes, he came up with the design for the main chip in the car’s computer system, the one that directed everything from its fuel management to its antilock braking system. He printed out the design and went carefully over it, seeing opportunity.
Next, he went to the manufacturer’s parts distribution center, entered the part number of the chip and got a list of dealers who had it in stock. The part was not one that was often replaced, so few dealers had it, only one of them east of the Mississippi, in Baltimore, which would do nicely.
He went back to the RV and made himself some dinner, then relaxed in front of the TV for the evening. His mind was preoccupied with the computer chip, however, and how he could modify it to suit his purposes.
Tomorrow morning he would check Justice Graydon’s house for the presence of the vehicle, and if he still owned it, then Ted would need to make a trip to Baltimore.
This would take time and effort, but it would be worth it; after Graydon, he would make his exit from the scene. A very nice little island cottage waited for him, and he looked forward to a quiet life, after he had made his mark on American political history.
Then the evening news came on, and Ted was surprised to find a very good drawing of himself staring out of fee screen. He hadn’t thought the FBI were so close, and he settled in to watch their performance.
“Now we take you to the press office at the White House, where Assistant Director Robert Kinney of the FBI is holding a press conference.”
Bob Kinney’s face filled the screen, and Ted studied it carefully.
45
KINNEY TOOK A DEEP BREATH and leaned into the microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a suspect in the three murders and one attempted murder that have captured so much attention in past weeks.” He pressed a button, and the drawing of Teddy Fay filled the monitors in the room. “His name is Theodore Fay, and he is a retired employee of the Central Intelligence Agency. Mr. Fay worked in the Technical Services division of the Agency for more than thirty years, where he acquired the skills that he employed in these crimes. Mr. Fay is sixty-seven years of age, five feet eleven inches tall, a hundred and eighty pounds, and physically fit. He has gray hair and is balding and has green eyes. Although he has gone to some lengths to fake his own death and move his assets out of the country, we believe Mr. Fay is living somewhere within fifty miles of Washington, D.C. He may drive a recreational vehicle. We expect that, due to the nature of his work at the CIA, he has established one or more identities, complete with driver’s licenses, credit cards, and other forms of identification, including valid U.S. passports, and that he may also employ various disguises.
“We ask the cooperation of the media and the public in finding Mr. Fay, and to that end, we have established a toll-free hotline where sightings may be reported.” He flashed the number on the screen. “I am authorized by the president to say that a reward of one million dollars, tax-free, is being offered for information leading to the arrest of Theodore Fay. We regard Mr. Fay as armed and dangerous and I urge members of the public not to approach him, but to call the hotline number or local law enforcement. Now, I will take questions.” He pointed at a woman in the first row.
“Mr. Kinney, what does the FBI believe is Mr. Fay’s motive for these killings?”
“We believe that Mr. Fay is unhappy with the present political situation in the United States and that he is seeking to redress it by removing certain figures from the scene.”
“Is Mr. Fay a communist?” someone shouted.
“That is extremely unlikely,” Kinney replied. “We believe that he simply holds political views to the left of the mainstream. Obviously, he is very angry.”
“Is Theodore Fay insane?” a reporter asked.
“Our profilers think that is unlikely, at least in the legal sense of the term, but clearly he is not behaving like a normal person. Normal people do not employ violence and murder to redress grievances.”
“Mr. Kinney, when Mr. Fay is caught, where will he be tried?”
“Obviously, law enforcement agencies in Virginia and Maryland are helping in the search for Mr. Fay, but when he is arrested he will be charged in a federal court with the murder of Senator Wallace. Murder of a U.S. government official is a federal crime and carries the death penalty.”
“Mr. Kinney,” a reporter called out, “does the FBI have any physical evidence against Mr. Fay?”
Kinney felt his ears redden. “I can’t comment on the evidence at this time,” he replied. “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, then walked off the platform.
TED MUTED the TV during the commercial and thought about the last question. Kinney had looked a little embarrassed, he thought, and well he should. Ted had left no evidence anywhere to be found, except for tiny pieces of the Vandervelt bomb, which would be of little use to the FBI lab. It was clear that the Feds were desperate now. They had identified him, but he had expected that would happen; all they had was that drawing.
The FBI’s special toll-free number would now be swamped with reports of sightings, but the man they were looking for just wasn’t there anymore.
IN HIS CELL at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, Ed Rawls switched off his TV set in disgust, if not despair. He began composing a new message to Kate Lee, one that he believed would lend a new urgency to any thoughts she might have of a presidential pardon. There was something new to look forward to, as well—the prospect of a one-million-dollar reward, which would sweeten his golden years considerably.
BOB KINNEY DROVE back to the Hoover Building and went up to his office. In a conference room across the hall, four agents were manning the phones, and, predictably, calls were already streaming in. Kerry Smith stood, waiting to speak with plausible callers.
“Anything promising?” Kinney asked Smith.
“One that sounds genuine, if not promising.”
“What do you mean?”
“A trucker saw someone he swears was Fay at a rest stop on I-95.”
“Did he ID a vehicle?”
“He said there were a couple of RVs at the rest stop, but he saw Fay sitting at a picnic table, eating a sandwich.”
“You’re right, it’s genuine, but not promising. ‘Useless’ might be a better word.“
Kinney pulled up a chair and picked up a phone, listening to each of the four lines in turn. Finally, he hung up. “Remember,” he said to Smith, “if we get anything from this, it will probably be only one phone call, so don’t miss it or underrate it when it comes in.” He left the building and went home.
46
KATE ARRIVED AT HER OFFICE and presided over a scheduled meeting, then she checked her email. There was one from Ed Rawls. Her first impulse was to delete it without reading it, but she couldn’t get past her curiosity.
“My Dear Kate,” it read, “Congratulations to somebody on ferreting out Teddy Fay’s name. The FBI has outshone itself, for once; they have the right man. Or rather, they don’t have him, do they? I can tell you where to find our Teddy— at one of two locations—and all I ask is my freedom and, of course, the reward the FBI has posted, to keep me in my old age. Come on, girl—let’s get this done before somebody really important gets waxed.”