Iron Orchid

by Stuart Woods

  “Oh, he’s a good man,” the superintendent said. “He’s really put us through the ringer around here.”

  “I’m sure he has, but I still have to do my job.”

  “I’ll come with you,” the man said.

  “Not necessary,” Teddy said, holding up a hand. “I’d rather do it alone.”

  “Whatever you say; the elevator is right over there.” He nodded toward the construction lift. “Oh, by the way, we’ve got a homeless guy who’s made himself a little hutch in the basement of the building. I know it’s against code, but I haven’t had the heart to throw him out so close to Christmas.”

  “I’ll leave it out of my report.” Teddy left the shack and walked over to the elevator. He rode up three stories, looking through the grillwork toward the U.N. Plaza apartment building. He stopped on the third floor. The angle was perfect.

  The floor was empty of workers, since they were hanging steel on the higher floors, so Teddy didn’t have to shoo anybody away. He walked around the third floor looking for options. It wasn’t a very big building-ten or twelve stories-and fairly narrow. Immediately next door, on the side of the building opposite from First Avenue, was an empty lot where steel, lumber and other building materials had been stored. Teddy placed his two bombs at the corners of that side of the floor, then armed them. All he had to do now was to press the button on the garage-door opener. He checked his escape route again and found it satisfactory, then took a look at the box that housed the structure alarm.

  He glanced at his watch: twenty minutes to go, if ben Saud and his security team were on time. He took the parts of his sniper rifle from his inside coat pockets and assembled it carefully, checking everything as he went. He inserted a full magazine, then leaned against a steel beam and sighted down to the street. The distance was right, about a hundred yards; his only correction would be for his height above the target. Since his position was elevated, the tendency would be to shoot high, and he would have to correct for that on the fly. Fortunately, he had six rounds, plus two more magazines in his pocket.

  Ten minutes to go. Teddy set down the rifle and began doing stretching exercises. He hadn’t tried this for a while, and he was going to have to be limber to make it work. He repeatedly stretched the thigh muscles of his left leg, pulling his foot higher and higher to the rear. Finally, satisfied, he picked up the little rifle and began sighting through the scope again.

  At one minute before the stroke of nine, the first of the security detail left the U.N. Plaza building and did a quick survey of the sidewalk to the U.N. Headquarters building. They signaled the rest of the party, and the group left the apartment building, with ben Saud at their center, dressed in a business suit but wearing an Arab headdress.

  As they walked quickly toward U.N. Headquarters, Teddy checked through the scope and suddenly realized that the man in the Arab headdress was not ben Saud but a decoy. Ben Saud was three paces behind him, between two security guards. Good camouflage, Teddy thought as he sighted on the man’s Adam’s apple.

  FIFTY-SIX

  HOLLY WAS RIDING DOWN Second Avenue in a car with Lance at the wheel, and traffic was very bad.

  “There must be an accident or some construction a few blocks ahead,” she said.

  “Well, we’re stuck with Second Avenue, so we’re just going to have to ride it out,” Lance replied. He held up his cell phone and used it in the walkie-talkie mode. “This is Cabot. Has anybody made it to U.N. Plaza yet?”

  “It’s Martin,” a woman’s voice said. “Three of us have got it staked. I hope more are on the way.”

  “Everybody is on the way,” Lance said. “Be as unobtrusive as possible; we don’t want him to know we’re there, if we can help it.”

  “Roger.”

  Lance closed the cell phone. They were inching past 48th Street, now.

  “Maybe I should walk,” Holly said.

  “No, I checked out the pedestrians; we’re doing better than they are.”

  “God, I hate just sitting here.”

  “So do I.”

  Traffic suddenly sped up, for no apparent reason, and they were moving at thirty miles an hour, keeping up with the changing lights.

  “Drop me here,” Holly said.

  “Right. I’m going to cross to First Avenue at the next street. I’ll see you there.”

  Holly hopped out of the car.

  TEDDY SQUEEZED OFF a round, and ben Saud’s head erupted, spraying everyone around him with blood and gore. Security men were throwing themselves across his body, too late. There would not be an opportunity for a second shot, but one was not needed. He dropped his beautiful little rifle onto the floor; he wanted them to find it.

  Teddy walked quickly to a red metal box fixed to a beam and broke the glass with his elbow. An alarm began to sound and a mechanical voice began to repeat. “Structural failure; abandon the structure, abandon the structure.” He could hear people shouting on the higher floors.

  Teddy quickly headed for his escape route. He had spotted this on his earlier visit to the building: it was an aluminum tube about three feet in diameter that was fixed to the side of the building, so that construction debris could be tossed into it. Teddy looked up the tube to be sure nothing was coming, then he jumped into it and began to slide down.

  The tube made two 360-degree turns, then spat Teddy out into the Dumpster at curbside, creating a cloud of dust. He beat at his clothes for a moment, then collected the crutches he had placed in the corner of the Dumpster, and looked up and down the street. On First Avenue, all hell had broken loose, but the block he was in was oddly quiet.

  Teddy jumped out of the Dumpster, and, keeping it between himself and First Avenue, he reached down, grabbed his left foot and pulled it up behind him, sticking his toe through the loop of shock cord hanging there. He dusted himself off again, squared away his hat, picked up the crutches and began swinging slowly toward Second Avenue, picking up a rhythm and making good progress. Then, at the end of the block, on Second Avenue, a woman got out of a car and began walking quickly toward him. She looked oddly familiar.

  HOLLY WAS ALREADY out of the car when she saw the commotion at the other end of the block, on Second Avenue. This was not good, she thought; she began walking quickly up the block. The only person between her and First Avenue was an elderly, one-legged man on crutches, making his way toward her.

  TEDDY RECOGNIZED HOLLY BARKER, and he was relieved to see that she was looking not at him but past him, toward the action on First Avenue. She had begun to run, and he continued toward her. It occurred to him that she would run past the building, so he had no more time. He stopped, reached into his left coat pocket and pressed the button on the garage-door opener. The two explosions went off simultaneously.

  HOLLY STOPPED IN HER TRACKS and gaped at the sight of the steel skeleton ahead of her collapsing slowly and noisily into the vacant lot next door. The old man on crutches stopped, looked over his shoulder at the noise, then continued more quickly. Good idea, she thought; get the hell out of here. She stood and watched the building, waiting for the danger to be over so she could proceed. The old man continued past her, and she looked into his face for a moment.

  Sweat was streaming down it; he must have been frightened by the collapse of the building. “Are you all right, sir?” she asked.

  “YES, TANK YOU,” Teddy replied, using a vague mittel European accent. “Vot hoppen?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, truthfully.

  “I get out of here,” he said, starting to move again.

  “Good idea.”

  AS HOLLY WATCHED the dust settle, men in hard hats were running out of the cloud of dust ahead of her. There was much shouting. Then she froze as a horrible idea came to her. She turned and saw the old man on crutches nearing Second Avenue. “Teddy,” she said aloud. Then she shouted, “TEDDY!!!” He seemed to pause for a moment, then continued on his way, not looking back.

  “Look out!” someone shouted from behind her. She turned an
d just managed to avoid a group of men who were running past her, apparently escapees from the building. One of them stopped and stood beside her.

  “What happened?” she asked him.

  “I don’t know,” the man said. “The structure alarm went off, and everybody abandoned ship. Then there was a loud noise, and the building started to go. I think everybody got out.”

  Holly turned and looked back toward Second Avenue. The man on crutches was gone. She made her decision; she started to run toward Second Avenue.

  TEDDY REACHED THE GARAGE, unhooked his left toe from the shock cord and tossed the crutches ahead of him into the RV. He didn’t bother with his coat, just jumped in and closed the door. He was about to start the engine when Holly Barker ran past the garage entrance, headed downtown, never looking into the garage. He turned the key and pulled across the sidewalk and into traffic.

  Holly was running down the east side of the street, looking around her for something, looking for him, he was sure. He rolled up his side window, which was tinted dark and, slowly, overtook her. She was, perhaps, ten yards away, jogging down the sidewalk, looking up and down the street, and there was a gun in her hand. Traffic stopped for a light.

  HOLLY SEARCHED DESPERATELY through the crowd on the street for the old man on crutches, but he had vanished, as if into thin air. She grabbed for her cell phone and pressed the walkie-talkie button. “Lance. Holly. Do you read?”

  “I read you, Holly.”

  “What happened over there?”

  “Ben Saud is down, single shot to the head.”

  “I think I made Teddy.”

  “Where? Where are you?”

  “An old man on crutches passed me going toward Second, just as the building under construction collapsed.”

  “Teddy probably fired from that building,” Lance said.

  “I can’t see the old man,” Holly said. “I saw him headed toward Second, and I yelled his name, and he paused, but he kept going. Then I got distracted for a second, and when I turned around he had apparently turned the corner. I’m searching on Second, now, but I can’t see him anywhere. It’s like he just went poof and vanished into thin air. I mean, how far could he get on crutches?”

  “Well, if it’s Teddy, he’s not on crutches anymore. Maybe he had a car waiting. I’ll send help. Start looking in vehicles.”

  “Roger.”

  THE LIGHT CHANGED, and Teddy drove on, watching Holly running along the curb, looking into parked cars. He made his way across traffic and managed to turn right onto 42nd Street. His last glimpse of Holly was in his offside rearview mirror. She was standing stock still, looking in his direction, the gun still in her hand.

  Teddy continued on, toward the Lincoln Tunnel, New Jersey and 1-95 South to Florida.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  IT WAS NEARLY MIDNIGHT before Holly, Lance and the whole team got back to the Barn, every one of them streaked with dirt and dust from their search through the debris of the collapsed steel structure. Lance called everybody into the big conference room. There wasn’t room for everybody to sit down, so they stood along the walls, every one of them looking exhausted.

  Lance, appearing exhausted himself, looked around at the group. “I want to thank you all for sticking with this and bringing this hunt to a close at last. What I’m about to tell you is above your pay grade, but you deserve to know.” Lance set a shopping bag on the table, reached into it and pulled out a small, odd-looking rifle.

  “Teddy Fay made this in his workshop; the NYPD found the drawings for it. It’s simply a Walther PPK-S.380 pistol, to which Teddy added a scope, a longer barrel, a silencer and a folding metal stock. He shot Ali ben Saud with it this morning.

  “The weapon was found a few feet from the unidentified body that the firemen located in the search. Because the structure alarm went off when the building started to collapse, everybody working there survived, a few with minor injuries. Only this one corpse was unidentified. I’ve just spoken to the medical examiner, who has done a preliminary autopsy, and it seems certain that the corpse is that of Teddy Fay.”

  There was a stir of approval in the room, and applause broke out.

  “Since, for public purposes, the corpse of Teddy Fay was supposed to have been eaten by fish off the coast of Maine many weeks ago, no inquest will be held, and no public announcement will be made. And no one in this room will ever discuss this subject again with anyone outside it.

  “Our job is done, and that’s it. Our task force is officially disbanded or rather, unofficially, since it never existed. Tomorrow morning, all Bureau personnel will report to the New York City field office downtown at nine a.m. the day after tomorrow for reassignment. All Agency personnel will report to Langley at nine a.m. next Monday in the director’s conference room. She would like to thank you personally before you are given new assignments.

  “Everybody is ordered to get a good night’s sleep. Kerry Smith and I would like to thank each and every one of you for your hard work on what must have seemed like a fruitless assignment. You will all have commendations placed in your personnel files, and you will all get new assignments that are better than you would normally expect at this stage of your careers. Good night and good luck.”

  Lance and Kerry walked out of the room, and Lance tapped Holly on the shoulder as he went. “Follow me,” he said.

  Holly followed Lance down the hall to his office. He stopped, said goodbye to Kerry Smith and motioned for Holly to come in and sit down.

  “You look upset,” he said. “Do you have any questions? If so, ask them now and never again.”

  “Who was the corpse found in the wreckage?”

  “It was Teddy Fay, and don’t you ever let me hear you doubt it.”

  “Was the homeless man who lived in the basement ever found?”

  “These people move freely about the city; now that his home no longer exists, I’m sure he has taken up residence elsewhere.”

  “I saw Teddy Fay on the street; he spoke to me.”

  “Oh? Do you know that?”

  “I know it.”

  “How?”

  “Instinct.”

  “Instinct isn’t good enough when you have to sign your name to the kind of report that Kerry and I are submitting to our superiors. You were mistaken; you simply saw an old man. Is that clear?”

  “Can we talk, off the record, for a moment?”

  “Just this once, then we’re done with it.”

  “Do you really think this is over?”

  “I do. Teddy pulled up stakes: he abandoned his base and a workshop that he went to a great deal of trouble to assemble.”

  “Did we find anything of use among his papers or on his computer?”

  “All the paper in the place had been shredded and burned; the computer hard drive had been reformatted, so every byte was scrubbed from it.”

  “So we still don’t know exactly how he got into the Langley mainframe or who his contact was?”

  “We have no hard evidence that he ever got into the mainframe, and a very thorough internal investigation has determined that no one at Langley aided him in any way.”

  “Suppose he starts killing again?”

  “I’ve no reason to suppose he will, but should that happen, I’ll screw that elephant when it sits on me. If he pops up someplace else and starts killing, he won’t be Teddy Fay, he’ll be someone else. Are we done?”

  “Won’t we all have to answer to our superiors, if that happens?”

  “Let me give you an important lesson in politics, Holly: Kerry’s superiors and mine-at every level, right up to and including the president of the United States-are going to be vastly relieved when they read our report. All of them participated in covering up the fact that Teddy was still alive; the president told the congressional leadership of both parties the truth, and they helped cover it up, in the hope that we would stop Teddy before his continued presence became known to the press. They’re all going to feel very good about this.”


  “But it will come out, eventually, won’t it?”

  “Certainly not. Teddy Fay’s body will be cremated before the day is out, and his ashes will occupy a landfill on Staten Island. If rumors start, they’ll have nowhere to go.”

  “But the president will be part of a big cover-up.”

  “No, he will not. He will receive our report and accept it, because it is in his interest to do so. He will have no knowledge of anything outside that report, and thus he will have nothing to cover up. Now are we done?”

  Holly took a deep breath and nodded. “We’re done.”

  “If you think about it, you’ll know that you have nothing to be anything less than proud of. Don’t let your mistaken identification of an old man trouble you; there is nothing whatever to support that identification.”

  Holly nodded. “I understand. Do you know what my next assignment will be?”

  “You’re not going back to the Farm or to Langley. You’re going to be staying here, with me. It’s been intimated to me that the Agency’s New York station will be reorganized in this building, under me. You’re going to like your assignment.”

  Holly smiled. “Good. What’s next?”

  “Something interesting.”

  “Tell me.”

  “After you’ve had twelve hours sleep and a couple of days off. Go home, see your father and his girl and Daisy. I’ll see you Monday morning. Merry Christmas.”

  Holly got up and went home.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  BOB KINNEY CAME HOME from the Bureau at midnight. Nancy was waiting up for him.

  “Want some eggs?” she asked, kissing him.

  “Love some,” he said. “I didn’t get any dinner.”

  “Can you tell me what was going on?”

  “You know I never tell you Bureau secrets.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Teddy Fay is dead.”