Mounting Fears

by Stuart Woods

  “Does this suite come with a bed?” she asked, conversationally.

  He got up, took her hand, and led her to the bedroom, where he allowed her to undress him, then they fell into the bed, locked in each other’s arms and began what would turn out to be a full-inventory exploration of each other’s body parts.

  Stanton did not think of Barbara Ortega once.

  BARBARA ORTEGA WALKED into the little town house in Georgetown and followed the agent around the place, the eighth one she had looked at this afternoon.

  “It belonged to a congresswoman who decided to retire,” the agent was saying. “It comes with everything you see.”

  The place was fully furnished, except for a lot of missing pictures, but Barbara had those in storage in Sacramento. The little two-story house even had linens, towels, and kitchenware in place, and it was decorated in a manner that she might have chosen herself, if she were doing it from scratch. “How much is she asking?” Barbara asked.

  The agent mentioned a figure. “But I’m inclined to think she would be reasonable.”

  The figure seemed in line with other properties Barbara had seen or researched. She deducted twenty percent and spoke the resulting number. “Please phone your client now and tell her that this will be my only offer.”

  “What about financing?” the agent asked.

  Barbara had inherited money from both her parents and grandparents, and she had been frugal. “All cash,” she said.

  “Excuse me for a moment.” The agent walked to the other side of the room and pressed a button on her cell phone. She spoke for a moment, then turned to Barbara. “When can you close?”

  “Just as soon as she can furnish me with a successful title search.”

  The agent spoke again, then closed her phone and turned to Barbara, smiling. “You have yourself a house.”

  Barbara took out her checkbook. “I’ll give you ten percent earnest money right now, and I want to sleep here tonight.”

  “I’m sure that will be fine, Ms. Ortega. When do you start at the Justice Department?”

  “Monday morning,” Barbara replied, tearing off the check and handing it over.

  “The utilities and phone are still connected,” the agent said. “As a courtesy, I’ll have everything changed to your name, if that’s all right.”

  “That would be perfect,” Barbara said, holding out her hand. “Good night.”

  The agent left, and Barbara kicked off her shoes and made another trip around the jewel of a house. Then she went to the bedroom, took off her clothes, and lay on the king-size bed. She got her secret cell phone from her purse and called Martin, her pulse racing with the anticipation of telling him. No answer.

  She closed the phone and touched herself, thinking of him, then she stroked herself until she came with a barely suppressed scream and lay, panting, on the bed until she fell asleep.

  44

  OWEN MASTERS FINISHED READING THROUGH THE FILES OF HIS FOUR RESIDENT agents. He had read them before, of course, but he was looking for something different this time, a kind of blind resolve. He thought he caught a glimpse of that in the report of a student’s unarmed combat instructor. “At times,” the man had said, “he seemed to want to kill his opponents.” Owen put down the file and buzzed the young man.

  Todd Bacon was ordinary-looking, Owen thought, except for his apparent fitness level. His blond hair was already going thin on top, though he was only, according to his file, twenty-eight. He sat in the hard, armless chair he had been offered, seemingly comfortable and calm.

  “Where did you go to college, Bacon?” Owen asked him.

  “The University of Alabama,” the man replied with a soft southern accent.

  Good, Owen thought, a state university man—something to prove to the Ivy League boys. “How long have you been with us?”

  “Three and a half years,” Bacon replied

  “Are you enjoying the work yet?”

  Bacon paused before he spoke. “Sometimes.”

  “Not getting into the field enough?”

  “I could use more field time.”

  “You think you could handle yourself in a tough situation? Physically, I mean?”

  “Of course,” Bacon replied.

  “You’d better give some thought to that,” Owen said. “In this business, you don’t get to square off with an opponent. It’s not like at the Farm.” The Farm was where agents underwent their first training. “Never let your guard down when you’re in the field,” Owen said. “You can be as easily killed by a small woman with a penknife as by a big guy with a gun.”

  “Good point,” Bacon replied.

  Owen noted that the man had never called him sir. “Do you think you might be just a tad overconfident?”

  “I don’t believe so.” Bacon was looking a little less comfortable in his hard chair now.

  “At your age and level of experience you don’t believe you’re mortal,” Owen said, “but you are. I’ve seen young officers brought home in pieces and in body bags. I know two who, at forty, are in wheelchairs for the rest of their lives. Do you think you have the tradecraft and good sense to avoid that?”

  “I hope so,” Bacon replied, showing the first sign of any modesty.

  “Hope won’t be enough,” Owen said. He was now ready to bring this boy into it, and he hoped, but doubted, that he had managed to put the fear of God into him. “I have a field assignment for you.”

  The young man leaned forward. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  Owen placed the photograph of Teddy Fay on his desk and pushed it across. “This man is an American, now in his sixties. This photo was taken some years ago. He is around six feet tall and could weigh anything from one-fifty to two-fifty, though I expect he has kept himself trim.”

  “Who is he?” Bacon asked, staring at the photo.

  “He has a range of skills worthy of a good spy novel. He is expert in manufacturing identity documents, forging background paperwork, and creating legends. He is athletic, with many physical skills, and adept at flying, scuba diving, marksmanship, and all sorts of killing. He could end your life with a couple of fingers before you knew what had happened to you. His bland appearance lends itself to disguise, and he is a master at that.”

  “Any other photographs?”

  “This one is, to the best of the Company’s knowledge, the only one in existence.”

  “Is he in Panama?”

  “He was; he may still be. He murdered an American reporter for a gossip rag—at least, it’s thought he was murdered. His body was found on a tanker on its way to Galveston after passing through the canal. Do you see how clever that is? It prevents the police from knowing where he died. If he had been found a day later, the Galveston police would be wondering the same thing. Am I building a picture for you?”

  “You certainly are,” Bacon replied.

  “Assume he is in Panama City,” Owen said. “I want you to find him.”

  “And then?”

  Owen ignored the question. “You will be at a great disadvantage: He will be disguised, you will not be. He will be ready for someone like you, you may not be. If you see him on successive days, he may appear to be another person, one you are unlikely to recognize. If you give him the slightest reason to suppose you may know who he is, he will kill you, and there will be little you can do to prevent it.”

  “Am I to kill him,” Bacon asked, “if I can?”

  Owen was so glad he had asked. “Please,” he replied. “And if you are so fortunate, his body must never be found, and you must not be connected in any way with him or his death.”

  “I understand,” Bacon said.

  “Mind you, Bacon, should you find him you must be certain of whom you’re dealing with. We don’t want some businessman from home to meet an untimely end and stir up a lot of trouble for us because of mistaken identity. You must be sure.”

  “How am I to identify him?” Bacon asked.

  “That will be the hardest part of all,”
Owen replied, “but he will probably be alone, or possibly with a woman, in a bar or restaurant. He likes the bar at El Conquistador and a restaurant called El Parador, across the canal, though I doubt if he will return there any time soon. He may look older or younger than he is. He will almost certainly bewig himself. Anything looking like a toupee will give you an indication. You were trained to look at subjects with your peripheral vision most of the time. See that you do. He must not know he has attracted your attention.”

  “Is that all you can tell me?”

  “Look at the photograph, at the left ear, which is turned slightly toward the camera.”

  Bacon did so.

  “Do you see it?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “It’s a fold in the flesh, just above the earlobe, like a tiny gully.”

  “Yes, I see it now.”

  “We can’t tell if this is symmetrical, if the right ear is the same, because of the way his head is turned, but that little mark will be present on his left ear. Unless, of course, he has filled it with spirit gum and makeup. But it gives us just a chance to identify him.”

  Bacon nodded. “May I keep the photograph?”

  “No,” Owen replied. “Take one last look at it, and give it back to me.”

  Bacon did so.

  Owen returned the photo to his safe and removed a box with some gadgets in it. He removed two cell phones and handed Bacon one. “Memorize this number,” Owen said, repeating it twice. “If you believe you have found him, leave the location in a taxi, call me at that number, give me any pertinent information—a companion, say. Then give me a meeting place nearby and return to his location by a circuitous route. Watch the place where you saw him and wait for me to turn up. Do not, repeat, not speak to him or confront him. If he speaks to you, be polite, then excuse yourself.”

  “Who is this man?” Bacon asked.

  Owen sighed. “Whoever he says he is.”

  45

  WILL SAT ON A SOFA IN THE OVAL OFFICE AND GAZED AT HIS POLLSTER. “ALL RIGHT, Moss, let’s hear it.” His chief of staff, press secretary, campaign manager, and political consultant were very still.

  Moss consulted his papers. “In the first poll since Henry King Johnson announced, he appears to have attracted about a quarter of the black vote.”

  Will made a point of not showing a reaction. “Go on.”

  “Bill Spanner, as you know, is doing much better than expected, and the combination of those two elements means that if the election were held today, you would lose to Spanner by around five points.”

  Will turned to Tom Black. “Tom?”

  “We have two commercials in the can showing you with civil rights leaders over the years. I want to punch up the voice-overs and rerecord, and we can have them on the air by the day after tomorrow.”

  Moss spoke up again. “Mr. President, I think you should know that as Reverend Johnson starts to campaign and get press coverage, the bleeding off of black voters is likely to continue.”

  “That’s depressing,” Will said.

  “Unfortunately, we haven’t yet reached a point in this country when voters will ignore race. He’s going to get a lot of black votes simply because he’s black, just as you’re getting some white voters for the same reason.”

  Sam Meriwether spoke up. “In addition to running Tom’s new commercials, we need to schedule more events with predominantly black audiences: schools, churches, wherever we can gather a crowd. Then we need to photograph those events and use them in advertising, particularly in southern states where black voters are a majority or nearly so.”

  “We can’t just let the black vote slide to Johnson,” Kitty said. “We have to stop the bleeding and as quickly as possible.”

  “Why is Henry doing this?” Will said. “I’ve always had a good relationship with him.”

  Tim Coleman, Will’s chief of staff, said, “I’ve had word that Reverend Johnson has bought property adjacent to his church and plans to tear down the old building, which is in disrepair, and build a rather grandiose new church and an office building, most of which he will rent out to black-owned businesses. He’s counting on the press exposure he receives during the campaign to put him over the top in his fund-raising.”

  “I’ve never heard of this plan,” Will said.

  “He’s keeping it under wraps. He presented it to his board of deacons only a few days ago, and it will go unannounced until he feels the moment is right.”

  Kitty said, “Maybe we need to find him a big contributor, who . . .”

  “No.” Will cut her off. “The moment we do anything that smacks of bribing him to get out of the race, we’ll take a big hit among voters at large, and justifiably so.”

  “I tend to agree,” Moss said.

  “Anytime a reporter raises the name of Henry King Johnson, we will use the opportunity to welcome him to the race and say good things about him,” Will said. “If we criticize him, we show fear, and fear is contagious.”

  “The other polls will have this in a day or two,” Moss said. “We’re going to have to face that.”

  “I’ll face it by saying that I’ve been down in the polls before, but I haven’t lost an election so far, and I don’t intend to start now.”

  “That’s exactly what you should say,” Tom Black agreed. “I want to talk to some of the black elected officials around the country and see if we can get them on record as supporting you.”

  “Don’t go to anybody who hates Henry,” Will said. “The tenor of any such statements should be that he’s a fine fellow and an outstanding preacher but that he knows he isn’t going to win this race, so why is he running? Tim, we need to get the plans for Henry’s new church to a columnist who can break the story in a way so that it’s on every front page the next day, and we don’t want this traceable to us. Tom, you could let this slip when you’re talking to black elected officials and let them do the leaking. Somebody won’t be able to resist.”

  “Good idea,” Tom replied.

  “Ideally, the column would run on the day Henry announces his plans,” Tim said. “If we can make his running look like a fund-raising ploy, then that might slow down the money to the point where he may wonder why he bothered.”

  “Maybe somebody could make it a church-and-state issue,” Kitty said.

  Sam Meriwether winced. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” he said.

  Will chuckled. “Kitty always wants to go for the jugular.”

  “Yeah, Sam,” Kitty said, “you’re way too soft. I think running for president in order to raise money for a self-glorifying church is a legitimate thing to attack.”

  “As long as the attack comes from just the right person,” Tim said. “Every big daily has a black columnist these days; those people might be a good place to get the word out.”

  “Tom,” Will said, “any efforts we make, like the two new commercials, are going to have to be on top of anything else we already have planned. We have to deal with Bill Spanner, win the independents and the few remaining moderate Republicans from him and win by a margin big enough to overcome any votes lost to Henry Johnson. We need people on every Sunday political show talking about that and ignoring Henry, except to answer direct questions.”

  “I’m doing two,” Kitty said, “and so is Sam. I think we can get the message out.”

  “I haven’t heard anything yet,” Tim said, “but I’d be very surprised if the Reverend Johnson isn’t on Meet the Press this Sunday.”

  “Then the day before would be an excellent time for the world to learn about Henry’s fund-raising plans,” Will said. “Russert would enjoy asking him about that. When should I do that program?”

  “The week after Henry Johnson,” Tim replied.

  “Mr. President,” Kitty said, looking at her watch, “your next appointment is camped outside the door right now.”

  “Let’s break it up, then,” Will said. “You all go out through my study, so that you won’t bump into the Republican le
adership. They want to talk about tax cuts again, so they can tell the press on their way out that I still won’t cut taxes, even though we’re running a nice surplus.”

  Everybody laughed and filed out.

  46

  WILLIE GAYNES WATCHED THE REPORTER ENTER HIS OFFICE. HE WAS NELSON Pickett, whom Willie had recruited from a rival rag to replace Ned Partain.

  “Did you listen to the recordings, Nelson?” Willie asked.

  “Yeah, I did,” Pickett replied.

  “Well?”

  “The guy is certainly Martin Stanton, but in order to go with that, we’d need to know who the woman on the recordings is,” Pickett said.

  “Tell me about it. Any candidates?”

  “Three, sort of.”

  “What do you mean, ‘sort of’?”

  “I mean it could be one of the following: Jean Rodgers, with whom Stanton was alleged to have had a long-running affair when he was still practicing law in L.A. She is the wife of Elton Rodgers, a very big real estate developer in southern California, and the two of them were a presence on the charity-dinner circuit. She’s twenty years younger than Stanton, gorgeous, and has a reputation for liking lots of sex, some of it with more than one partner. Apparently, gender doesn’t matter.”

  “That’s juicy.”

  “Yeah, but we’d have to put half a dozen stringers on it, maybe for weeks, to nail it down.”

  “Who else is on the list?”

  “His traveling campaign manager, Elizabeth Wharton. I’ve talked to two people on his campaign plane who say they’ve caught them looking hungrily at each other. Nobody, however, has been able to put them in the sack together.”

  “Okay, put on a stringer to shadow Stanton’s campaign schedule. I want staff bribed at every hotel they stay at. I want to know the location of their respective rooms and the room-service delivery schedule to those rooms. I want to know how many Stanton orders for.”

  “Will do.” Pickett made a note.

  “Who’s the third?”