Stuart Woods - Mounting Fears

Teddy noticed the bartender head for the men’s room. He excused himself from the table, walked over to the bar, to where the credit card machine was kept, and quickly fingered through the pile of receipts. Bacon-that was one of the names on the embassy’s website. Bacon belonged to Owen Masters.

Teddy rejoined his date, but his mind was elsewhere.

Teddy Fay lay in bed, spent but wide awake, watching CNN while the girl snored lightly beside him. He was profoundly disturbed by what he was seeing.

A tall, handsome black man in a gorgeously cut suit was speaking to a luncheon crowd of black businessmen in Birmingham, Alabama.

“It is time,” the man was saying, “that we put America and the administration of President Lee on notice that gradual is not fast enough, that transition has gone on too long, that half a dozen black CEOs of large corporations is not full integration into the business life of this country, that new legislation is essential for the reinstatement of programs to help young black citizens participate fully in education and careers…”

CNN cut back to its correspondent. “There you hear the Reverend Henry King Johnson making an appeal to an influential and wealthy audience for campaign contributions. Meanwhile, at the White House, President Lee and his advisors are poring over opinion polls that have to be shocking to them, polls that for the first time actually put the president behind Bill Spanner in the election race and all because the Reverend Johnson is siphoning off enough black votes to make a loss for Will Lee a very real possibility.”

Teddy’s heart was pounding; it was time to go home. He switched off the TV, got out of bed, and got dressed. He left some money on the dresser for the girl, let himself out of the suite, and headed to his little apartment. There, he began by putting everything he no longer needed into a trash bag and leaving it outside for pickup. Then he packed some clothes and all the equipment needed to maintain his identities and disguises. From among his few weapons he chose the very small Colt Mustang. 380 and slipped the holster onto his belt. He put the screw-on silencer and an extra magazine into his coat pocket and pulled a baseball cap on over his wig.

He packed his goods into the old station wagon he owned and drove them to the little airport outside the city where he kept his Cessna 182 RG stored in a ramshackle hangar. He packed the airplane carefully, then rolled the airplane out with the tow bar and over to the fuel pumps, where he filled the wing tanks and the ferry tank in the rear seat that doubled the airplane’s range. Then he returned the aircraft to its hangar, closed it, and drove back to Panama City.

He parked the station wagon near where he kept the scooter and wiped it clean of fingerprints, then he started the scooter and drove to within a few blocks of the American embassy. The sun was well up now, and rush hour had started. He parked near the embassy and looked for transportation to steal. He found an elderly but well-kept Honda light motorcycle and spent no more than a minute getting it started. That done, he drove to within fifty yards of the embassy and pulled into a side street that allowed him a view of the area.

He had not been there for more than half an hour when he saw young Bacon get out of a taxi and start up the front steps of the embassy. Teddy held his position. For sentimental reasons, he did not wish to harm a bright young man just starting his career with the Agency.

He waited another forty-five minutes before he saw Owen Masters get out of a cab across the street from the embassy and start picking his way through traffic. Teddy started the motorcycle.

Masters paused on the center island of the wide street to wait for the light to change, and, when it did, he started across. In company with half a dozen others, Teddy pulled into traffic, and, when the flow stopped for the light, he continued through the crosswalk, which took him within six feet of Masters’s back. He stopped. “Hello, Owen,” he called out.

Masters turned and looked behind him. With his left hand, Teddy pulled off the Vandyke beard, and he saw recognition in Masters’s eyes. Teddy shot him once, in the middle of the forehead, then gunned the motorcycle and raced off.

He made his way back to near where he had parked his scooter in an alley; abandoned the motorcycle; then stripped off his coat, wig, and baseball cap, and put on a windbreaker and a different cap that he kept in the scooter’s storage compartment. In a moment, he was on his way.

He drove by the embassy again and was made to turn off the main drag by the police, but he got a good look at the scene: Owen crumpled in the street, while two policemen tried to keep the curious crowd away from the corpse while they waited for backup.

An hour later, Teddy put the scooter inside the hangar, rolled the airplane out, and closed the door. He did a cursory preflight inspection, then got the engine started. He taxied to the end of the three-thousand-foot grass strip, did a brief run-up of the engine, and ran through his takeoff checklist, then he shoved the throttle in all the way and began to roll down the runway.

He needed nearly two-thirds of the airstrip to gain enough airspeed to rotate, and when he did, the Cessna climbed strongly. He flew north at five hundred feet to stay below canal radar and held that altitude until he had cleared Panamanian waters, then he climbed to eight thousand feet, leaned the engine, and settled in for the long flight. His fuel totalizer told him he had plenty for his plan, and he had a thirty-knot tailwind, to boot.

Four hours later he landed on a small strip in the Cayman Islands and took a taxi into George Town, where he visited his bank and replenished his funds. He also turned in his credit card and received a new one, usable anywhere and paid directly from his Cayman account; it was untraceable. He had some lunch, then returned to the airport, fueled his airplane, and filed a flight plan for Key West, using a false tail number.

He took off and flew north, contacting Cuban air traffic control for clearance to cross the island nation, which was granted. With Key West in sight he switched off his transponder, descended to wave top height, and flew northeast to Marathon, where he began a climb and contacted Key West approach. “November one, two, three Tango Foxtrot, off Marathon, VFR to Sarasota,” he told the controller.

Now he was just another American light-aircraft pilot, wending his way home. Well after dark, he landed at Covington, a small-town airport east of Atlanta. He had some dinner at a local restaurant, then checked into a motel and fell gratefully into a deep sleep.

Tomorrow he would begin his research on the Reverend Henry King Johnson and his movements, and within a few days, he was confident, their paths would cross.

Todd Bacon stood at the window of the office he shared with three other young CIA officers, sipping coffee and looking idly into the busy street below. He was, as usual, the first one in, so he had time to drink his coffee and take a look at the International Herald Tribune.

As Todd watched, he saw Owen Masters get out of a taxi on the opposite side of the street and start across. Owen limped a little and seemed older than his years, Todd thought. Would he end up like the older man? Station chief in some backwater, serving out his time? The traffic light changed, and Owen started across the street.

Todd was about to turn away when he saw something moving fast between the cars stopped for the light. He watched, thinking the motorcycle was going to plow into the crossing pedestrians, then it suddenly stopped in the middle of the crosswalk. Owen stopped, turned, and looked back. Then the man on the motorcycle held out his arm, and there was a wisp of smoke. Owen went down, and the motorcycle moved on.