Stuart Woods - Iron Orchid

“No, just meet me at the elevator.” Teddy collected his two bags and briefcase and went down in the elevator, where William met him. A black Lincoln was idling at the curb.

“How long will you be away, sir?” William asked as he put Teddy’s bags into the trunk.

“A week or so. Please hold my mail.”

“You never get any mail, Mr. Foreman. You’re the only one in the building that doesn’t.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Teddy said, chuckling. “It goes to my office. Would you let the people at Daniel know that they can pick up my room service dishes?”

The doorman held the car door open, and Teddy got in. “Have a good trip, Mr. Foreman.”

“Thank you, William,” Teddy said, slipping him a fifty.

“Thank you , sir!”

The car drove away. “Which airline?” the driver asked.

“British Airways,” Teddy replied and settled in for the ride.

AS THE DOORMAN WALKED back into the building, the super emerged from his ground-floor apartment. “Willie,” he said, “I just thought of something.”

“What’s that, Rich?”

“That agent who was here earlier this evening. The sketch didn’t look familiar, but you know, the description she gave sounded kind of like Mr. Foreman.”

William shrugged. “I hadn’t thought of that, but I guess it could describe a lot of guys.”

“Only one in this building, though,” the super said. “Have you still got her card?”

William rummaged in a drawer and came up with it. “Here it is,” he said, handing it over.

The super went back into his apartment, looking at the card.

Twenty minutes later the woman agent, accompanied by a dozen other men and women, flooded into the lobby of the building.

“Can I help you, ma’am?” William asked.

“What’s the apartment number for Albert Foreman?” she asked.

“Fourteen B,” William replied, “but Mr. Foreman left about twenty, twenty-five minutes ago.”

“Do you know where he was going?”

“Yes, ma’am, I got him a car from our service; he was going to Kennedy Airport to catch a ten o’clock flight for London.” He looked at his watch. “That means he’ll be taking off in about an hour and a half.”

The super emerged from his apartment. “Please take these people up to Mr. Foreman’s apartment,” she said to him.

The super handed her the key, and she handed it to another agent. “You take the group up there and go over the place with a fine-toothed comb. I’m calling this in.” She turned to William. “How was Mr. Foreman dressed?”

“He was wearing a dark business suit, a topcoat and a gray hat, a fedora,” William replied.

The agents headed for the elevator, and Martin called Lance.

“Cabot”

“Lance. It’s Martin. We’re at the building, and Foreman left twenty-five minutes ago for Kennedy Airport. Said he was taking a ten o’clock flight to London.”

“Then he’ll be arriving there in ten or fifteen minutes, with decent traffic,” Lance said. “I’m on it. You and your people do the apartment”

“We’ve already started.” She gave Lance Foreman’s description.

LANCE TURNED to Kerry Smith. “This guy, Foreman, who sounds like Teddy, is going to be at Kennedy airport shortly. How many people do you have there?”

“Half a dozen agents,” Kerry replied, “but we can mobilize the NYPD unit out there, plus airport security.”

“Good. Have them go directly to the departing-passenger set-down and the departure lounge for every airline with a London flight tonight. He’s traveling as Albert Foreman, and he’s wearing a dark suit, a topcoat and a fedora. Go!”

AT KENNEDY, Teddy got out of the car, paid the driver and carried his own luggage into the terminal. He took the escalator down one floor and emerged at the curb where passengers from arriving flights waited for taxis. Upstairs, unknown to him, FBI, the police and airport security were flooding the departure areas, looking for him.

Teddy waited in line patiently for a cab, and ten minutes later, he was headed back to the city. He gave the driver the address of his Lexington Avenue shop. He didn’t feel like carrying his luggage anymore.

“Where you in from?” the driver asked.

“London,” Teddy said without thinking.

“London flights don’t arrive this time of night,” the man said. “They get in during the afternoon.”

“We had the mother of all flight delays,” Teddy said.

FIFTY-FOUR

LANCE AND HOLLY WALKED into the Foreman apartment on Park Avenue and looked around. “Looks like nobody lives here,” Holly said. An agent came up to them.

“Clean as a whistle,” he said. “Not so much as a partial on any surface.”

“Then Foreman is Teddy,” Lance said. “Get a sketch artist up here and put him with the doorman and the super. Maybe well at least get a better sketch.”

“You know,” the agent said. “When we were canvassing realtors last week I interviewed the woman whose office is the rental agent for this building, and she denied having rented anything in any building to a single man during the past couple of months.” He handed Lance a rental agreement. “We found this in the desk drawer, wiped clean, of course. Her signature is on it. The woman lied to me.”

“Find out why,” Lance said. “Maybe she’s an old acquaintance of Teddy; maybe she knows something else that could help. Pick her up, scare the shit out of her and milk her dry. Print her and do a background check, too. See if her path has crossed Teddy’s at some time in the past.”

The man left.

“He’s not going to be at Kennedy,” Holly said.

“Maybe not,” Lance replied.

“Certainly not,” Holly said. “Teddy’s not going to tell a doorman where he’s going, then go there.”

“We checked the car service; it dropped Teddy at Kennedy fifteen minutes ago.”

“Then he’s not there anymore. My guess is, he’s on the way to LaGuardia-if he’s running-and he’s on the way back into the city, if he’s not.”

Lance called Kerry. “He may be headed to LaGuardia or back into the city,” he said. “Turn out as many people as you can at the other airport; I’ll deal with the rest.” He closed his phone and shouted, “Everybody listen up!”

Everybody stopped talking and moving around the apartment.

“Teddy may be headed back into the city,” Lance said. “I want you to divide into three groups and cover the Triborough Bridge, the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge and the Midtown Tunnel. Call the bridge and tunnel authority and have them squeeze traffic down to as many lanes as you can manage. Check the occupants of every cab that goes through.”

“Lance,” Holly said. “I know it’s a stretch, but shouldn’t we check the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges, too?”

“Oh, all right,” Lance said, and gave the instructions.

TEDDY’S CAB WAS on the Van Wyck Expressway now. “Tell you what,” he said to the driver. “Let’s go to Brooklyn on the way. I’ve never been over the Brooklyn Bridge.”

“Whatever you say, Mister,” the driver said. “It’s your meter. I’ll take you over the Verrazano Bridge, if you feel the urge to visit Staten Island.”

“Why not?” Teddy said. “We’ll take the ferry back. It’ll be fun.”

“Tourists,” the driver chuckled to himself, shaking his head.

BACK AT THE BARN, Lance, Holly and Kerry took the phone reports from the teams on the bridges and tunnel.

“Zip,” Kerry said. “We didn’t move fast enough.”

“Yes, we did,” Lance said.

“Maybe he did a costume change, and he’s still at Kennedy or LaGuardia, waiting for a plane.”

“Every gate agent was alerted,” Lance said. “Anyway, we have a confirmation from the cab starter at Kennedy; Teddy definitely got into a cab. He must have left his car and gone directly to the arrivals area.”