Stuart Woods Holly Barker Collection

by Stuart Woods

  He waited until evening and called Irene Foster.

  “Hello?”

  “Are you inside?”

  “I’m in New York, at the Waldorf again. We must meet.”

  “Central Park, in an hour?”

  “Where in the park?”

  “Outside the boathouse restaurant, find a bench; I’ll find you.”

  “All right.” She hung up.

  TEDDY ENTERED THE PARK only after walking around the block twice, checking for tails. He was going to have to relocate to another city immediately, that was clear. He walked up to the boathouse, past it, then back by another route, before he sat down on the bench where Irene was reading the Post.

  “I don’t know how you read that trash,” he said, not looking at her.

  “I never miss Page Six,” she said. “Can I pass you something?”

  “Put it inside the paper and hand it to me,” he said. She did so, and he found two CDs.

  “They’ve changed the codes again,” she said. “They suspect someone inside the Agency is helping you. In fact, I suggested that myself, in order to avoid suspicion, and Hugh English has put me in charge of the internal investigation.”

  “How very convenient.”

  “Yes, but it’s a pain in the ass. What I suggest you do is create a file for a fictional employee, give him all the proper clearances, then use his name when you log on. Can you do that?”

  “Sounds like a good idea; I wish I’d thought of it earlier.”

  “How’s it going, in general?”

  “I’ve been living in New York, but I’m going to have to leave immediately,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “That agent I told you about, Holly something; I’ve run into her again. It can’t be an accident.”

  “Holly Barker,” Irene said. “She did a teleconference yesterday, with Lance Cabot. Why are you worried about her?”

  “I saw her at the opera, at a record store and coming out of an apartment building a block and a half from my apartment. That’s too many coincidences.”

  “Take it easy,” Irene said. “I’ve read her report: the first time, at the opera, she was looking for you, but she didn’t figure out that she met you until you ran for a cab with your ‘new knee.’ The second time, she went to the record shop looking for you, because they were covering everything they could think of to do with the opera. That’s it. If you saw her coming out of a building, then that was a coincidence. She doesn’t know where you are or what you look like.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Absolutely. I read everything that comes through from Lance’s group.”

  “I met Lance once, a long time ago, in tech services.”

  “He doesn’t remember it, so you’re okay. You’ve got to change your log-in codes today, though. I’ve already gone into Hugh’s computer to make it possible, ostensibly as a test.”

  “That’s good; thank you.”

  “Listen, Teddy, this is going to have to become a two-way street, if I’m going to continue to help you. I have to know how to get in touch with you. If you’re using a phone like mine, it can’t be dangerous.”

  “It makes me nervous, though.”

  “Well, you’ve got to make a choice,” she said. “If I were going to give you up, you’d be surrounded right now.”

  Teddy sighed and gave her the phone number. “I want you to know that it was not because I don’t trust you implicitly; I was just being as careful as I could.”

  “I understand, but you’re going to have to trust somebody if you’re going to continue to do this successfully.”

  “What do they know about me?”

  “They think you’re in New York, and that’s it. And they know you’ve made Holly. That was very funny, the thing with the opera seats; it drove them crazy, but you’ve got to drop everything to do with the opera, except watching it on TV. That’s their big, new piece of information, that you love the opera.”

  “Oh, all right,” Teddy said, “though it was my chief pleasure in New York.”

  “Find another pleasure,” she said, “and make it something you’ve never done before.”

  “My new pleasure is going to be Holly Barker,” Teddy said. “I’m going to read her file, but what can you tell me about her?”

  “She’s an ex-army MP commander, and for four years she was chief of police in a little town in Florida called Orchid Beach, where she broke a couple of big federal cases, much to the embarrassment of the FBI. Lance met her in New York earlier this year and recruited her as part of his new group. She was in training at the Farm when they suddenly moved most of her class to New York to start looking for you.”

  “So she’s green?”

  “Yes, but she’s smart, or Lance wouldn’t have recruited her. He’s the best judge of talent I’ve ever seen, and she’s his fair-haired girl. Oh, and I’ve got to tell you, she broke Whitey Thompson’s nose in her self-defense class; it was the talk of the training command, and Whitey got fired as a result of it.”

  “That’s the funniest thing I ever heard,” Teddy said, laughing. “I always hated that guy.”

  “Everybody did. Well, he’s gone, now.”

  “How are you coming with your internal investigation?”

  “Oh, I’ll wring out the whole place, everybody but myself.”

  “They’ll polygraph you before it’s over. Can you handle it?”

  She nodded. “I have some pills that will do the trick.”

  “Good. Let me give you a code: if you ever learn that I’m about to be busted and I should run, call the number I gave you and say, ‘Is this Bloomingdale’s?’ then hang up. If I hear that, I’ll drop everything and go.”

  “Got it.”

  “Shall I find a hotel room?”

  “Can’t this trip; we’re too busy. Hugh thinks I’m running an errand for him, so I’ve got to get back.”

  “Thanks for the new codes, babe. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  “Bye-bye.” She got up and left.

  Teddy sat on the bench, feeling greatly relieved. He was glad he wasn’t going to have to leave New York, after all the trouble he’d gone to to set himself up here. He was sorry about the opera, though.

  THIRTY-SIX

  HOLLY CLEANED OUT her room and, with the help of the two security men in the lobby, loaded everything into her Cayenne Turbo and drove over to 868 Park Avenue. With the help of the doormen there, she got everything unloaded and upstairs into her new apartment, then she went back downstairs. The Cayenne was gone.

  The super approached and introduced himself. “I’m Danny,” he said. “I put your car in our garage. Just call the doorman when you want it, and someone will bring it around for you. They need about fifteen minutes’ notice.”

  Holly thanked him and went back upstairs to her apartment. She unpacked and put everything away, then she sat down on the living room sofa and called her father on her cell phone.

  “Ham?”

  “Hey, baby, how are you? I haven’t heard from you for a couple of weeks, and I thought maybe they killed you during training.”

  “I’m just fine,” she said. “I’m in New York.”

  “You finished at the Farm already?”

  “They cut the training short so that my class could join the New York team for a special project.”

  “And what is the project?”

  “If I told you I’d have to dispatch somebody down there to dispatch you. How’s Ginny?”

  “She’s just great; she’s hired two more instructors for her flight school, and business is humming.”

  “Ham, I bought an apartment in New York.”

  “Yeah, where?”

  “On Park Avenue. Can you believe it?”

  “Well, you’re a woman of some means,” Ham said. “It’s probably a good investment.”

  “I think it is. And you and Ginny can come visit. There’s only one bedroom, but I’ll get a pullout sofa.”

  “Thanks, but I can affor
d a hotel. We’re not bunking in with you; we screw too much, and Ginny is noisy.”

  “Oh, Ham, stop it. You’d be perfectly welcome.”

  “I know we would, but we’d prefer a hotel.”

  “Give me a little time to get my feet on the ground, then come visit.”

  “Okay. How’s the work going?”

  “It’s good but frustrating. We’ve got a tough assignment, and it isn’t going as well as I’d like.”

  “Well, if you’re willing to say that, things must be going pretty badly.”

  “Now you’re getting the picture.”

  “Tell me about the apartment.”

  “I’ll wait and let you see it. Your daughter has come up in the world.”

  “I’ve been tempted to open that envelope you gave me.”

  “Don’t you dare, unless you hear I’m dead.” The envelope contained a copy of her will and the second credit card that would give Ham access to the Cayman bank account, plus a letter explaining everything.

  “Okay, it’s in my safe until the day. But you better not die before me; I’ll kick your ass.”

  “I know that. Listen, I’ve got to run; I’ve got a ton of work about to fall on me. I’ll call you next week. Love to Ginny.”

  “Bye-bye.” Ham hung up.

  “Come on, Daisy,” Holly said. “Let’s go shopping.”

  TEDDY FAY WAS WALKING to his workshop when he saw Holly Barker and her dog on the other side of the street. He watched her out of the corner of his eye without turning his head; it still made him nervous to see her around. She must live nearby, he figured.

  Once locked into his workshop, he fired up his computer and used the disks Irene Foster had given him to log into the CIA mainframe. He spent two hours constructing a file for a fictitious officer, Charles Lockwood, supplying Lockwood with a biography, an educational background, a service record, a financial history and the proper security clearances. To entertain himself, he had Lockwood reporting directly to Hugh English, the deputy director for operations. Now he could safely log into the mainframe at any time.

  When he was finished, he went into the personnel records and pulled up Holly Barker’s file. He read through it carefully, then read the Agency’s investigation report on her background and the record of her training at the Farm. She sounded like a good one, he thought. He read the account of the incident with Whitey Thompson, which the director of training himself had apparently witnessed, and was much amused by it. He had outfitted Whitey, once, for a mission in East Germany, and from what he had heard later, the man had turned out to be a disaster in the field, blowing the whole operation and almost getting two of his colleagues killed. After that, he had been banished to the Farm, where the Agency had figured he couldn’t get into too much trouble teaching trainees to kill people.

  HOLLY WENT TO A HARDWARE STORE called Gracious Home, which also had a furnishings shop, across the street. Lance had given her the name of the place, and it turned out to be a gold mine for what she needed for her apartment. She shopped for an hour, then filled out a charge account application, giving Morgan & Bailey as her employer. The front operation was turning out to be a very convenient thing to have as support. She felt almost like a real New Yorker, now, with an apartment and a conventional job and the business cards Lance had given her. She asked the store to deliver her purchases to her apartment building, then she walked the few blocks to Central Park and made her way downtown, sometimes jogging alongside Daisy to give her some exercise. She enjoyed herself. Tomorrow she would be back at work, looking for Teddy Fay.

  TEDDY SPENT THE AFTERNOON going through the operations directorate’s files on terrorist suspects attached to foreign embassies and with diplomatic immunity. He’d let the Agency take care of the clandestine individuals and groups who had no immunity. He’d deal with the ones the Agency and the FBI couldn’t touch, because of their diplomatic status.

  There were a surprisingly large number of them. He selected three and began downloading their dossiers from the CIA mainframe.

  HOLLY ARRIVED BACK at her apartment, where her purchases from Gracious Home were waiting for her. She put everything away, then ran a hot bath and slipped into the big, old-fashioned tub, while Daisy curled up on the mat next to her.

  There was something still missing in her life; she had been able to put it out of her mind while she was in training and after her arrival in New York, but now it was creeping back into her brain, and into other places, as well.

  She needed a man.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  HOLLY SAT IN THE LITTLE THEATER on the eleventh floor of her headquarters, which the agents had begun calling the Barn. Kerry Smith, her FBI co-boss, was at the lectern; the screen behind held a sketch that Holly had worked on with an Agency artist.

  “This is a drawing of the man Holly Barker sat with at the Metropolitan Opera,” Kerry was saying, “minus the hat, the glasses, the nose and the bad toupee. This is the man we now know to be Teddy Fay.”

  It looked sort of like him, Holly thought, but he was so ordinary that he could qualify as the wallflower at any dance.

  “As you can see, there is nothing whatsoever distinctive about him,” Kerry was saying, confirming her judgment. “A description of him would probably match that of a hundred thousand other men in this city.”

  “He looks sort of like Larry David,” somebody said.

  “Who?” Kerry asked.

  “The guy who’s on Curb Your Enthusiasm, on HBO.”

  “I’ve never seen it.”

  “He does look a little like Larry David,” somebody else agreed. “But less distinctive.”

  “Swell,” Kerry said. “We also know that Fay likes the opera and that he has hairy forearms.”

  “How do we know he has hairy forearms?” somebody asked.

  “We had a frame of him from a security video at a church in Atlanta a few months ago, when he was trying to kill a TV preacher,” Kerry said. “He was disguised beyond all recognition, but he was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, and he had hairy forearms—gray hair.”

  “Do we have fingerprints?” somebody asked.

  “No, and we don’t have photographs, either,” Kerry said. “Fay went to great lengths to obliterate photographs of himself from the record of his life, such as it is. And when we got into his house in Virginia, every surface in it had been wiped down with Windex, so we don’t have any prints. None in his Maine house, either.”

  “What Kerry is saying,” Lance interjected, “is that everything we know about Teddy Fay adds up to just about zero, and that is remarkable. The man worked for the federal government, for the Agency, no less, for forty years, and when he retired, he vanished like a wisp of smoke. He’s faked his death twice: once after his retirement, when he managed to insert a death certificate into his home county records, and once when he jumped out of that Cessna on the Maine coast. We could legitimately consider him dead, except that he keeps killing people.”

  There was an uncomfortable stir in the room.

  “We need ideas,” Kerry said, “and I don’t care how crazy they are; Lance and I will listen to any suggestion.”

  Holly raised her hand. “Why don’t we pretend to be him?” she asked.

  “How would that help?” Kerry asked.

  “Well, could we say, after the fact, anyway, that the victims he chose were predictable?”

  “I suppose so,” Kerry said. “After the fact.”

  “So why don’t we make up a victim list, using Teddy’s criteria? Maybe we could get to one of them first, or at least, at the same time Teddy does.”

  “That is a very good suggestion,” Kerry said. “How would you go about it, Holly?”

  “Teddy is an Agency man; how would the Agency go about making a list of potential threats in New York City?”

  Lance stood up and walked to the podium, standing next to Kerry. “We have a watch list,” he said, “of threats working in United Nations embassies in New York, both people with and without
diplomatic immunity.”

  “How many people are on that list?” Kerry asked.

  “Probably between two and three dozen,” Lance replied. “Surely, the New York field office of the Bureau must have a similar list.” He looked at Kerry.

  “I’ll find out,” Kerry said.

  “Probably there’s a lot of overlap in our two lists,” Lance said. “What criteria should we use to assess these people, from Teddy’s point of view?” He posed the question to the room at large.

  Holly raised her hand again. “I think he would go after the ones the Agency and the Bureau can’t touch,” she said. “The ones with diplomatic immunity.”

  “Why?” Kerry asked.

  “Because he doesn’t care if they have diplomatic immunity, and he knows we have to care. The way Teddy sees things, he’s helping us, and in a weird kind of way, I suppose he is.”

  Lance broke into a broad smile. “Don’t ever let anybody outside this room hear you say that. Okay, Holly, you and your partner assemble a list of probable targets, using both Agency and Bureau recommendations. Anybody else have any ideas?”

  No one spoke.

  “All right, that’s it for the moment. Go back to your previously assigned duties.”

  Ty fell into step with Holly as they left the room. “That was brilliant,” he said.

  “No, just logical,” she replied.

  “I’m going to start thinking of you as Spock.”

  “I don’t have the ears for it,” she said, “but putting together this list ought to be more fun than keeping surveillance on that record store.”

  “I’ll second that,” Ty said.

  Holly looked her partner up and down. He was wearing a new tweed jacket, cavalry twill trousers and a yellow-striped shirt with a knit tie. “Ty, you’re looking pretty swift these days.”

  “I took your advice,” he said, “and bought some new clothes. I hope I look less like an FBI agent.”

  “Let your hair grow a bit,” she said. “Then you’ll look less like an agent.” He was a nice boy, but he wasn’t going to solve her man problem. “Excuse me a minute,” she said. “I forgot to ask Lance something.” She went back into the room and found Lance still in his seat.