Stuart Woods: Shoot Him If He Runs

“Oh, shit,” Stone muttered to himself.

Lance smiled and extended a hand. “So nice to see you, Stone.”

Stone had not seen Lance for several months, and that had been all right with him. Every time he saw Lance he found himself in the middle of some sort of problem, and it seemed to be happening again. He shook the hand. “Hello, Lance,” he said. “What the fuck am I doing in the Oval Office, about to go to St. Marks?”

Lance arranged himself in a chair and motioned for Stone to sit. “Relax, Stone, all is about to be revealed.”

Stone couldn’t wait. “Please start revealing.”

“Have you ever heard of a man named Teddy Fay?”

“Of course; everybody’s heard of him. He killed several right-wing political figures a couple of years ago, and when they were about to catch him, he killed himself by exploding the small airplane he was flying.”

“You’re half right,” Lance replied.

“Which half?”

“The first half. Teddy didn’t die in the aircraft explosion. He got out, made his way to New York and spent some time last year killing Middle Easterners whom he believed to be enemies of the United States.”

“ That was Teddy Fay?”

“Indubitably, it was.”

“Was he the guy who died in the collapse of the building he bombed, then?”

“Not quite. At the time there was every indication that the body found in the ruins of the building was that of Teddy, but a woman who had reported her homeless father missing gave the NYPD a DNA sample last week, and it matched that of the body we found.”

“So Fay is still alive?”

“I’m afraid we don’t know, but we have no conclusive evidence that he’s dead.”

“And what does this have to do with my going to St. Marks?”

“Let me begin at the beginning, Stone, since there’s a lot you may not know about Teddy from press reports.”

“Please do.”

“Theodore Fay was a career employee of the CIA, joining in his twenties and retiring at age sixty-five. He worked in Technical Services, which is the rather bland name of the department that supplies all sorts of things to agents going into the field: clothing, disguises, false passports, driver’s licenses, insurance cards, credit cards and other documents an agent requires to establish a legend-that is, a false identity-in the field. The department also supplies weapons-some of them quite exotic-communications equipment and, well, you get the picture.”

“I do. What did Teddy do there?”

“Teddy, over the course of his long career, did everything . He was the most skilled technician and inventor the Agency has ever employed. Twice, he was offered the job of heading his department, and he turned it down both times, because he enjoyed his work too much to become a manager.

“For the last twenty years of his career Teddy ran one of several teams that supplied the tools of their trade to, for want of a better word, spies. He was expert in virtually every area of his work, and he trained other specialists.”

“So that would make him able to change his own identity with documents, et cetera, with some ease?”

“It would, which is why it has, so far, proved impossible to catch him.”

“Is he on another rampage now?”

“No, not that we know of. My guess is that he is living quietly in retirement.”

Stone frowned. “In St. Marks?”

“Perhaps. That is what we want you and Holly to learn.”

“Why St. Marks?”

“There is another Agency employee named Irene Foster living there. She retired after twenty-five years, shortly before Teddy’s most recent vanishing. Another former Agency employee has told us that many years ago, she and Teddy had a rather torrid affair. We’ve not been able to establish that there has been any contact between them since then, but still…”

“That’s a pretty slim connection, isn’t it?”

“Irene’s last post was as Assistant Deputy Director for Operations, and she was in a position, had she chosen to do so, to provide Teddy with a great deal of information that he would have needed to conduct his campaign in New York.”

“Wasn’t she investigated at the time?”

“There was a full internal investigation into who, if anyone, might have been helping Teddy.”

“And?”

“No culprit was discovered. Irene Foster conducted the investigation.”

“Oh.”

“Irene told her colleagues at the time of her retirement that she had bought a house on the island of St. Barts, but not long after her retirement, she sold the house and left the island.”

“For St. Marks?”

“We’ve only recently learned that she bought another house on St. Marks.”

“Why Holly and me?”

“Three reasons: one, Holly was the only member of the New York team who thought Teddy was still alive after the building collapsed, and she has actually seen him twice, though he was disguised; two, you are under contract to us as a consultant, and you are an experienced investigator with some experience of St. Marks; and three, a couple would excite less interest in such a setting than a single person, and you are the only man Holly would agree to share…ah, quarters with.”

“I have a feeling there’s another reason,” Stone said.

“Ah. Yes. I take it you have a personal interest in seeing President Lee reelected.”

“I support him, yes.”

“You did not know that Teddy Fay had survived the aircraft explosion, did you?”

“No.”

“Neither does anybody else outside the FBI director’s office, my director’s office and those designated by the current occupant of this room. The president was persuaded to conceal his knowledge of Teddy’s survival, in the interest of helping catch him. He shared that knowledge with only three other people-all members of Congress.”

“So?”

“Since we now believe that Teddy may still be alive, and since the president knows this, he is vulnerable if it should become known. In effect, he has kept from the public, on two occasions, the knowledge that a wanted criminal is still at large. His wife, as director of Central Intelligence, shares this vulnerability. Should Teddy’s continued existence become known in the months remaining before the election, Katharine Rule Lee would be forced to resign from the Agency. Since she was always an unpopular choice with the political opposition, they will make much of it, and the ensuing uproar might very likely torpedo the reelection of the president.”

“I’m uncomfortable with this,” Stone said.

“ Everyone is uncomfortable with it,” Lance replied, “not least the president and the first lady, but there it is, and we have to deal with it.”

There was a knock on the double doors. “More of this tomorrow.” Lance called out, “Come in.”

The door opened and a tall, very slim woman with shoulder-length red hair wearing a striking evening gown entered the room. “Hello, Stone,” she said. Stone and Lance got to their feet.

It took Stone more than a moment to absorb the change. “Holly?”

“Amazing what losing a little weight, a dye job and a tan will do, isn’t it?”

“You look gorgeous.” Stone had hardly noticed the man who had followed her in, but now he did. “Dino? What the hell are you doing here?” He had never seen Dino in a tuxedo before.

“I got the same invitation you did, pal.”

Lance spoke up. “I forgot to mention that Dino will be going along, too.”

“I believe we’re due at dinner,” Holly said.

“That we are,” Lance replied. “There’ll be a further briefing for you and Dino tomorrow, Stone, but right now, the president awaits.” He led the way out of the Oval Office and from the West Wing to the White House proper, where they joined a receiving line. When Stone was introduced to the president and first lady, they greeted him without reference to their earlier meeting.