Stuart Woods - Iron Orchid

“The Pavarotti sounds perfect,” Holly said. As she waited for the sale to be rung up she started to ask about anyone resembling Teddy, then thought better of it. She’d come back in a day or two and ask then. The woman might be more open if she recognized her as a previous customer.

“There you are,” the woman said, handing her a bag and her change. “Please come back.”

“I’d like to,” Holly said. “I went to see La Boheme last night at the Met. It was my first time at the opera, and I loved it.”

“We’ll always be happy to help you find recordings,” the woman said. “We have synopses and scores, too.”

“Thanks very much,” Holly said, smiling. She left the shop and walked toward Sixth Avenue.

TEN MINUTES LATER, the woman came out of the shop, and Teddy watched her back as she walked toward Sixth Avenue. Should he follow her or find out what she had done inside? Both, he decided. He ran across the street and walked into the shop. “Hi, Esmerelda,” he said to the clerk who was always behind the counter.

“Hi, there,” she replied, smiling at him.

“I thought I just saw someone I know just leave the shop. Was there a woman in here?”

“Yes, just a moment ago,” Esmerelda replied. “She bought a copy of the Pavarotti La Boheme. Said she’d seen the performance at the Met last night and loved it. Everybody loves La Boheme.”

“Did she ask about me?” Teddy asked.

“No.”

“Esmerelda, I have to ask you a favor. I knew her a couple of years ago. We had a relationship that ended badly, and since then she’s stalked me, done everything she can to make my life miserable. If she comes back and asks about me, I’d really appreciate it if you could deny all knowledge of me.”

“Sure, I can do that.”

“She might even send private detectives, and those guys use false I.D.s, say they’re cops.”

“Now that you mention it, a guy came in and flashed an FBI I.D., said he wanted to ask me some questions. I threw him out; I hate those guys.”

“You did the right thing,” Teddy said. He glanced at his wrist-watch. “Oh, my, I’m late for an appointment. I’ll have to come back.”

He left the shop and hurried toward Sixth Avenue. As he turned the corner, he saw the woman getting into a cab. He hailed another and got in. “Not to sound too dramatic,” he said to the driver, “but would you follow that cab, please?” He pointed to the taxi ahead.

“Sure, brother,” the cab driver said, sounding bored. “Whatever you want.”

“Not too closely,” Teddy said, “just keep it in sight.”

The cab made its way to an address in the East Forties, an apartment building. As Teddy waited in traffic, he saw her get out of the taxi and go into the building. The doorman touched his cap bill and opened the door for her. She was known there.

“Okay, now what?” the driver asked.

“Take me to Sixty-fourth and Madison, please.” He took out a notebook and jotted down the address of the building. What was the woman’s name? Holly something. He couldn’t remember the last name, though he tried all the way home.

Back in his apartment he went to the computer and logged onto the CIA server. What was her last name, dammit? He could check the Agency and FBI records for a file. He couldn’t think of the name.

Instead, he did a search for the address of the building she had gone into. The computer found three references to the address. He clicked on the first and found himself in a long, boring budget file. He checked the second reference. It was a memo: purchase of the building at that address was recommended, through a front real estate company.

He clicked on the third reference to the address and found a copy of a memo to the director from the head of purchasing, reporting on the appraisal of a building under construction and suggesting that it could be bought, approximately half-finished, for fifteen million dollars and finished to Agency specifications for another twenty million.

The building that the woman had entered was, at the very least, a CIA safe house, and, given the costs involved, more likely a center of some sort.

He slapped his forehead: he had sat through a performance of La Boheme next to a CIA officer.

“Jesus Christ,” he said under his breath. How had this happened? Were they that close to him? Impossible, he thought. If she’d realized who she was sitting with, she would have called in support, and yet she had let him walk. A coincidence? He hated coincidences.

HOLLY WAS CALLED into a meeting with Lance and Kerry Smith in the twelfth-floor conference room. Ty was there, and several other people who looked like FBI.

“Sit down, Holly,” Kerry said. “We’ve run a thorough check on your Hyman Baum character. There are several in the New York phone book, but none matching your description, and there is nobody recently in the garment industry by that name.”

“We think you’ve scored, Holly,” Lance said, “and I want to compliment you on your observation of this man. If he’s not Teddy Fay, then he’s someone else of the same description who goes around impersonating elderly dress manufacturers.”

Holly didn’t warm to the praise. “I didn’t score; I just stood there outside the opera and let him walk away. Or rather, run.”

“Don’t beat up on yourself,” Kerry said. “What’s important is that we now have a location and a target date for Teddy. We know he may be at the Metropolitan Opera next Friday night in seats H two or three. If he shows, then, for the first time since Maine, we’ve got a real shot at taking this guy off the street, and it’s all because of your good work.”

“Thank you,” Holly said.

“What we’ve got to do now is to formulate a plan for taking him in a crowded concert hall without anybody getting hurt,” Kerry said. “What I think we should do is put our people in seats all around him, and take him before the opera starts, the moment he sits down.”

“I’m not sure that would work,” Holly said.

“Why not?”

“Because Teddy has these same seats every week, and so do all the people who’re sitting around him. If he walks in and sees a lot of strange faces around his seat, he’s going to bolt. I think it would be better to take him either as he enters the building or as he leaves.”

“You have a point,” Kerry admitted.

“Holly,” Lance said, “you met him outside the hall, right?”

“Right.”

“Well, then, let’s have you meet him at the same place again.”

“He invited me for next Friday night, but I told him I would be in London by then.”

“So, your plans changed, and you went back to the opera in the hope of being able to accept his invitation after all. At the very least, if he sees you, he’ll come over to ask why you aren’t in London.”

“It could work,” Holly said.

“We’ll arrange a visual signal: you’ll change your handbag from one shoulder to the other when you see him, and as soon as you start to talk, we’ll be all over him.”

“I’m game,” Holly said.

TEDDY CALLED Irene at home and had her walk out into her garden. “How are you?” she asked.

“I’m well. I got in with the new codes, but I had to log in as Hugh English the first time.”

“I thought that might happen,” she replied.

“If anybody notices, can you tell them that you logged on using his codes, just to be sure they were working?”

“Yes, I can do that; it might work.”

“Let’s hope nobody notices. Do you know a CIA officer based in New York with the first name of Holly?”

“No, I don’t, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one.”