by Stuart Woods
35
Holly and her group were sitting on their patio having breakfast when Thomas Hardy arrived and pulled up a chair.
“Colonel Croft is dead,” he said.
Holly reacted with surprise, but she was not displeased. “Oh, good,” she said. “Now we can rip out those fucking bugs.”
“I suppose so,” Thomas said. “His people will be in such disarray that they probably won’t even be listening.”
“How did he die?” Stone asked.
“There is a courtyard at the police station, and word is, he was sitting on a bench there, talking to a man named Tiptree from the American embassy, when his head exploded. No one heard a gunshot.”
“Single shot from a silenced rifle, explosive-tipped bullet,” Dino said, matter-of-factly.
“Could be, I suppose,” Thomas replied.
Holly was staring out to sea, an amazed expression on her face. “It’s Teddy,” she said.
“What?”
“It’s Teddy Fay; this sort of thing is his specialty.”
“This is the man you came here to find?”
“Yes.”
“But why would he shoot Colonel Croft?”
“I can’t go into that,” Holly replied. She stood up. “Will you excuse me? I have to make a phone call; I think our work here is done, Stone. We can go home today, if they can send an airplane.”
“Just a minute,” Thomas said. “You’re not going anywhere today, and maybe not for several days.”
“What?” she asked.
“The airport is closed; the prime minister is furious about Croft, and he is determined that whoever killed him is not going to get off the island, which means nobody else is, either. The airport is closed.”
“Oh, shit,” Holly said. “No reflection on your lovely inn, Thomas, but I’m ready to get out of here. I miss my dog.”
“I can understand that,” Thomas replied, “but be assured, you are welcome to stay on here for as long as this takes.”
“Excuse me,” Holly said again, then left. She went into the cottage, got her satphone from the safe and went out back, dialing Lance’s direct number.
“Lance Cabot.”
“It’s Holly; shall we scramble?”
“Yes, please.” There was a click on the line. “How’s this?”
“Fine. There has been a major uproar here.”
“What’s happened?”
“Colonel Croft was shot this morning by a sniper with a silenced weapon; he’s dead.”
There was a stunned silence. “I’m going to have to get back to you,” Lance said, and hung up.
Holly stared at the phone in her hand. “What the hell kind of reaction was that?” she said aloud.
Lance hung up the phone and looked across his desk at Hugh English, who had turned a funny color. “I’m sorry, Hugh, please go on.”
“As I was saying, Lance,” English said with elaborate courtesy, “it appears that you have co-opted an agent of mine, the result of which is that he has been arrested and is probably being tortured by that animal Croft.”
“Hugh, the director has already spoken to you about this.”
“Right, and now I am speaking to you about it.”
“Hugh…”
“What in God’s name was he doing for you that would result in his arrest?”
“Hugh, he was simply retrieving some documents from the St. Marks government computers, something I understand he’s been doing for months. The fact that he was doing it for me had nothing to do with his arrest.”
English suddenly jumped and grabbed the vibrating cell phone on his belt. “Yes?” His face slowly grew more astonished as he listened. “Why?” he demanded. “Are you perfectly serious about this? I’ll get the ambassador on it right away, and I’ll talk to you later.” He hung up. “That was Bill Pepper; Jim Tiptree went to the jail and effected the release of Bill and his wife, but now the police are holding Jim.”
“Why on earth would they do that?” Lance asked.
“Apparently, Jim was sitting on a park bench, talking with Colonel Croft, when his head exploded.”
“Single shot with an explosive-tipped bullet,” Lance mused.
“Yes, but the St. Marks police haven’t figured that out yet, and they’re holding Jim while they mull it over. I have to go back to my office and call the ambassador,” English said, standing. “Lance, did you have anything to do with Croft’s assassination?”
“Nothing whatever, Hugh; I give you my word. I certainly wouldn’t have done such a thing while he was sitting next to your station head, and I don’t have anyone on the island who could do it.”
“I’ll speak to you later,” English said, and it sounded like a promise.
Holly’s satphone rang. “Yes?”
“Scramble.”
Holly did so. “Okay.”
“I’ve just heard about Croft’s death in some detail. Apparently, Jim Tiptree, our station head down there, was sitting next to him when it happened. Of course, you didn’t have anything to do with this.”
“Of course not; Teddy Fay did it.”
“What?”
“It’s practically his trademark, isn’t it?”
“Well, yes, but what possible motive would Teddy have for killing Croft?”
“From what I’ve heard, anybody on the run who wants to live on this island and not be found has to pay off Croft. Maybe Teddy didn’t like him, or maybe he just did it on a whim, who knows?”
“I’ve got to have time to figure this out,” Lance said, “but it’s just as well you’re being picked up tomorrow. I’m sending a larger airplane, and Bill Pepper and his wife are coming back with you.”
“No,” Holly said.
“What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“Sir Winston Sutherland has shut down the island; nobody leaves, maybe for days, while Croft’s death is investigated, so you may as well cancel the airplane.”
“Swell,” Lance said.
“Yeah, well…Do I have your permission to get in touch with Bill Pepper?”
“For what?”
“I want to find out if he got those housing applications of Robertson, Pemberton and Weatherby. They could help us identify Teddy.”
“I suppose so. All right, go ahead and call him on his satphone. He should be home by now.”
“He’s been released?”
“Yes, but they’re holding Jim Tiptree; it’s a huge mess, and we’re trying to sort it out now. Let me know if you’re sending the photos.”
“All right; good-bye.” Holly hung up and called Bill Pepper’s number. No answer. She went back to the patio. “Stone, can I have the car keys?”
Stone handed them to her. “Where are you going?”
“Where we were last night,” she said.
“Hang on, I’m going with you.”
36
Lance presented himself in the director’s office for the second time that morning.
“Now what, Lance?”
“There’s a bit of a flap in St. Marks.”
Kate Lee massaged her temples. “Oh, God.”
“Let me explain what’s happened.” Lance gave her the rundown on Croft’s murder and Tiptree’s detention.
“What a mess,” Kate said.
“It gets worse,” Lance replied. “Holly Barker thinks Teddy Fay did it.”
“I’m sorry, my mind just boggled; I’m unable to follow her logic.”
“She may have a point. First, Croft was shot in the head with an exploding bullet, apparently from outside the Markstown jail building, an expert shot, and that sounds like Teddy. Second, Holly points out that anyone hiding on the island would have to bribe Croft to remain safe, and that’s a motive for Teddy.”
“Could Teddy know about Bill and Annie Pepper’s arrest?”
“I don’t see how he could.”
“I can see him being angry with Croft, if he knew.”
“If Holly is right, then that settles the question of whet
her Teddy is on the island. Now we have to find him.”
“You want to keep Holly there longer?”
“No, but I don’t have a choice. Sutherland has shut down all transportation from the island; nobody can leave until he says so. If we tried to bring some sort of pressure to allow Holly and her group to leave, it might bring suspicion to bear on her.”
“Do we have any idea what identity Teddy is using?”
“There are the three men I told you about. Bill Pepper was caught trying to get photos of them from government computers, so we could circulate them here to see if any of Teddy’s former coworkers could make him. If somebody can, then we’ve got a chance of…detaining him. Holly is trying now to learn if Pepper downloaded the photos before he was arrested.”
“From what you’ve told me, there’s no way to connect any of these men to Holly.”
“No.”
“Unless she has contact with them and one of them is arrested.”
“Well, yes.”
“Order her to have no contact with them, to ask no questions of anyone about them.”
“Certainly.”
“There’s another problem,” Kate said.
“Yes?”
“What happens if one of these men is Teddy and Teddy is the shooter and they catch him? I’m sure that Colonel Croft was not the only man in St. Marks who knows how to extract a confession from a suspect.”
“Director, do you have any reason to believe that you and I are being recorded at this moment?”
“I have every reason to believe that we are not,” she replied.
“If Teddy is arrested by the St. Marks police, then we have to kill him before they can question him.”
“That’s pretty brazen of you, Lance.”
“Think about it: if Teddy is, ah, persuaded to reveal his true identity, and if Sir Winston Sutherland chose to make an issue of a former Agency operative as murderer, then we have a flap of major proportions on our hands. If the American press got hold of that, I think it’s safe to say that the outcome of the next election might be in doubt.”
Kate Lee turned and gazed out the window at the Virginia landscape.
Lance waited for her to speak; he had said all he intended to.
“Lance,” she said finally, “you are authorized to use whatever means you feel are necessary to prevent Teddy Fay from falling into the hands of Sir Winston Sutherland’s police.”
“May I have that in writing, Director?”
She turned and looked at him. “Certainly not,” she said.
“I may not be able to handle this without the cooperation of Hugh English,” Lance said. “May I confide in him?”
“Certainly not,” she replied. “But you may use whatever resources we have on the island without Hugh’s knowledge.”
“I’m afraid that would not be possible; we’ve seen that already. Hugh would have to be…out of the picture. Unless he is, I would not have the freedom to operate.”
Kate’s face was expressionless. “You’re right,” she said finally. She pressed a button on her phone.
“Yes, Director?”
“Please ask Hugh English to join me in my dining room for lunch at noon,” she said. “Don’t take no for an answer.” She disconnected and turned to Lance. “You’re invited, too.”
37
Holly drove quickly out of the inn’s grounds and toward the Peppers’ house.
“Slow down,” Stone said. “We don’t want to attract the attention of the police.”
Holly made a determined effort to drive more slowly.
“That’s better; we’re just a couple of tourists out for a drive.”
Ten minutes later Holly turned into the Peppers’ driveway. The small car was parked where it had been before, but this time the front door was ajar.
Holly and Stone got out of the car and approached the front door.
“I don’t know if we can eat this,” a woman’s voice said from inside.
“Just heat it up, it’ll be fine,” a male voice answered.
Holly rapped on the door. “Hello?”
Bill Pepper came into the living room with some sort of electronic device in his hand. When he saw Holly, he tapped an ear.
“Hi, Bill,” Holly said, “I’m Ginny Heller, a friend of your sister’s in Miami. She asked me to drop in on you and see how you were doing.”
“Hi, Ginny,” Pepper said, but his attention was on the device in his hand. He walked toward the telephone in the living room, picked it up and started unscrewing the mouthpiece.
“This is my friend Stone; we’re traveling together.”
“Hi, Stone.”
“Hi, Bill.”
Pepper took a small disk from the phone and held it up, then he put it on the stone floor and stomped on it. “There,” he said, consulting the meter on the device in his hand, “that’s the lot. Now we can talk.”
“Good,” Holly said.
“I hear we’re flying out of here tomorrow with you.”
“I’m afraid not. Sutherland has locked down the island; nobody leaves until Croft’s assassin is found.”
Annie Pepper came into the room. “Hello,” she said.
“Annie, this is Holly Barker and her friend Stone Barrington. You saw them at the inn earlier in the week.”
“Of course,” Annie replied.
“Annie and I had already left the police station when the Croft hit happened,” Pepper said. “I think we were in a cab by then. I didn’t hear about it until I called Lance.”
“Thomas Hardy told us,” Holly said.
“Thomas knows just about everything about everybody on this island,” Pepper said.
“Would you like to stay for lunch?” Annie asked. “I’m heating up last night’s dinner; I was arrested while I was cooking it, but it seems to be okay.”
“Sure, if it’s no trouble,” Holly said. “Bill, business first; did you get the housing applications for Robertson, Pemberton and Weatherby downloaded before the cops came?”
“Yes, but they’re on my laptop, and they confiscated it. I forgot to demand its return when we got out of jail, so I was going to call Jim Tiptree and ask him to retrieve it.”
“Has he been released?”
“The ambassador is working on that now, I think. There’s no way they can make him complicit in Croft’s murder. The sergeant on duty heard Croft suggest to Jim that they go outside. I think maybe Croft’s office is bugged, too, like everywhere else.”
“Our cottage at the inn is bugged,” Holly said. “We were thinking of ripping them out, as you’re doing.”
“What the hell? Croft’s not around to listen anymore.”
The phone rang, and Pepper picked it up. “Hello? Hi, Jim; are you out? Good; I didn’t think they would have any reason to hold you. Listen, in our haste to get out of there, I didn’t get my laptop back from them; do you think you could handle that? There’s something on it that I need. Don’t worry, it’s encrypted; they’ll never be able to get into it. They caught me downloading the stuff from the government computer from their end. Great, Jim, and thanks; give me a call when you’ve got it, and I’ll come get it. Well, all right. Thanks again.” He hung up. “Jim’s going to send somebody over there for the computer and have it delivered here.”
“Great; do you know when?”
“Let’s have lunch, and maybe it will be here by the time we finish.”
They went into the kitchen, where Annie was setting the table, and Pepper opened a bottle of wine. They sat down to eat.
“Are we all family here?” Pepper asked as we sat down.
“Yes; Stone is a consultant to the Agency, and he’s aware of everything that’s going on.”
“Have you talked to Lance recently?”
“Not since earlier this morning.”
“You need to talk to him again; things are heating up.”
“How so?”
“I take it you think Teddy Fay might have killed Croft?”
“Yes, it’s like him, especially if he had some motive. My guess is he may have been paying off Croft, so that he could stay on the island.”
“Possibly,” Pepper said. “I only knew Teddy slightly. He outfitted me for a mission earlier in my career.”
“Did you get a look at the photos on the applications of Robertson, Pemberton and Weatherby?”
“Yes, and one of them could be Teddy, if he’s as good at disguise as they say.”
“Do you think Sir Winston Sutherland might have any reason to suspect either of them?”
“I don’t know; it depends on how much Croft told Sutherland, but from what I know about the PM, he’s a hands-on guy, a control freak, so I can’t imagine there’s much Croft knew that Sutherland doesn’t. I think we have to assume that Sutherland knows everything Croft knew. Of course, he’s unlikely to know that one of the Brits is Teddy. He probably thinks that Teddy is dead, like the rest of the world.”
Stone spoke up. “Sutherland is not a stupid man; I’ve dealt with him before, and you should think of him as dangerous at all times.”
“Yeah, I heard about your trial here a few years back,” Pepper said, “and I tend to agree with you.”
“If Sutherland goes after Robertson, Pemberton or Weatherby, then we’ve got to get there first,” Holly said.
“Funny, that’s what Lance said, which means that’s what the director has said, too. He’s working directly for her on this, and I think Hugh English is royally pissed off about it. Something’s going to blow at Langley pretty soon.”
“How do you think this is going to play out?”
“Well, I don’t think Lance will want to work with English or vice versa, and I also don’t think Hugh will sit still very long with Lance poaching on his turf, so the director is going to have her hands full.” He toyed with his food. “There could be political implications, too.”
“I can see how there might be,” Holly said, “but I’m not mixing in that.”
Pepper sipped his wine. “I think that if we can prove that one of the three Englishmen is Teddy, one of us in this room is going to be asked to do something about him. You’d better be prepared for that when you talk to Lance.”