Smooth Operator (Teddy Fay) (10 page)

W
hen shooting wrapped for the day, Betsy snuck away and went home. Since Teddy left she’d been a good girl and followed Peter and Ben back and forth to work, but enough was enough. She needed a change of clothes, just in and out. She wouldn’t pack a suitcase, just throw a few things into a grocery bag.

At least she told herself that was the reason. But if the truth be told, she didn’t know if Teddy had stopped by the house before he left. If he had, she was hoping there’d be some clue as to what he was doing, how he was connected to what was going on.

Betsy knew Teddy wouldn’t like what she was doing. But she was a big girl. She’d taken care of herself in Vegas for years, and she could take care of herself now. It was not like she was some babe in the woods.

Betsy drove by the house slowly, checked the place out. There were no cars in the street, no cars parked in the vicinity. The car in Mr. Rydell’s driveway belonged to the owner.

Betsy was not going to park blocks away and walk in. It was her house. She’d park in the driveway, bold as brass. Grab the clothes and check for clues, more or less at the same time.

Betsy unlocked the front door. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was taking an interest in her. No one was.

Betsy pushed the door open and gasped.

The place had been wrecked.

S
tone Barrington grabbed his cell phone off the end table and checked caller ID. It was Peter. Stone pressed the button, clicked it on. “Hi, Peter. How’s the filming going?”

“Slowed up a little bit. Someone trashed my assistant’s house and the police were around asking lots of questions.”

“Everything all right now?”

“Oh, sure. It’s just vandalism, nobody was injured.”

“Well, that’s good. Sorry to hear you got troubles. You must not have time to talk. Listen. Take care of business, I’ll call you another time.”

Stone got off the phone.

Peter had been discreet, not mentioning any names, but he’d gotten the message across. Something needed to be done.

Stone went out to a pay phone and called Teddy.

“I told you not to call me.”

“I’m at a pay phone.”

“I’m surprised you found one. What’s up?”

Stone told him. Teddy wanted to go home.

“You can’t.”

“I know.”

“Let me handle this for you.”

“How?”

“Mike Freeman.”

Teddy considered. “Total coverage?”

“Total.”

Teddy exhaled in frustration. “All right. Thanks.”

Stone went back to his room and called Mike Freeman at Security Services.

“Hi, Stone,” Mike said. “Calling to thank me for the cell phone? Of course a lot’s happened since.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Is this about the assassination?”

“I have a personal matter, Mike. I was hoping you could help me out.”

“This isn’t business?”

“Actually, it is. I find myself in the market for some security services. I can’t think of a better person to call.”

“Frankly, I can’t either. What’s up?”

“My son Peter’s run into a bit of a snag.”

“Didn’t he just get married?”

“Not that type of problem, Mike. His assistant on the movie crew just had her house broken into.”

“Anyone hurt?”

“No.”

“Anything taken?”

“Not that she can tell. But the place was trashed.”

“That’s not good.”

“No kidding. My son’s putting her up for the time being, but he’s a newlywed, and I’m sure playing bodyguard wasn’t high on his wish list.”

“I can imagine.”

“I want complete coverage. But surreptitious. Unobtrusive.”

“You won’t be needing a camera in the bedroom. I quite understand.”

“There’s another honeymoon couple. Dino’s son, Ben, just got married also. Ben and Peter are making a movie out there. Peter’s directing, Ben’s running the studio. There’s a lot going on. We’re not necessarily talking home invasion.”

“You want my men to get jobs as extras in the movie?”

“No, and if they’re starstruck and distracted I will not be amused.”

“My men are pros.”

“Men are men. You haven’t seen some of these actresses.”

“I’ll read them the riot act,” Mike said. “Tell me, this assistant you speak of. Would that be anyone in particular?”

“She’s the wife of a mutual friend.”

“Ah. This begins to make sense. And you don’t want your son to get caught in the crossfire.”

“Something like that. I was sort of hoping for the survival of the assistant, too.”

“I didn’t mean to give you the impression I wasn’t. All right, I’ll give it my highest priority.”

“I’m glad to hear it. But you have to understand this job’s important to me. I would really like
personal
coverage.”

“What do you mean?”

“How’d you like a vacation in sunny L.A.?”

K
aren came to in the back of the van. Not the one the man had driven up to her dorm—that had been an SUV. This was a service van, and she was bumping along on the metal floor. It was the jouncing that had woken her.

She tried to stand up and fell on her face. Her hands and feet were tied. Why? Didn’t the door lock? Could it be opened from inside? Her pulse leaped.

Was this her chance?

Karen struggled to her feet. It wasn’t easy. Her hands were tied behind her, so she couldn’t use them to push up.

There were no windows in the van. There were curtained rear windows, with the blinds just loose enough to let in the tiniest sliver of light. She wobbled over there, supporting herself against the side, praying she wouldn’t fall, afraid she’d
never get up again, and tried to move the curtain with her nose. She pushed it aside but there was nothing to see. The only light was from the headlights shining in the opposite direction. Behind the van there was only darkness, a void.

That couldn’t be right. There had to be some sort of light. Was there another curtain beyond the one she was looking behind? No, then the light from the headlights wouldn’t show. The van was simply driving where there were no lights.

And where the road was bumpy. It was all she could do just to stand.

The van pulled to a stop in the middle of nowhere and she felt an icy rush of fear. Was this where it was going to happen?

An instinct for survival told her she shouldn’t be found standing. She threw herself to the floor of the van, forced herself not to cry out as she banged her head.

The rear door opened. She kept her eyes closed. The big man dragged her out of the van, picked her up in his arms. He carried her up a couple of steps. Karen heard the squeak of a door.

He banged her head going in. He didn’t seem to notice, just kept going.

He sat her down on what seemed like a mattress. Only he’d lowered her too far for her to be on a bed. She heard the floorboards squeak. The big man was going away.

She risked opening her eyes.

She was on a mattress on the floor in a tiny room of what appeared to be a cabin. There was a small window in the back wall, but it was too high for her to see out. There was a door on
the opposite wall, or at least a doorway. A tattered sheet had been hung from the top of it to form a curtain. The room was bare except for the mattress on the floor.

Where the hell was she?

And why had they brought her here?

T
eddy couldn’t get over the pictures on Millie’s phone.

“He photographed the guy?” Teddy said. “It’s a brave new world. In my day, if you wanted to confront your significant other with infidelity, you hired a private eye.”

“Are you suggesting that’s better or worse?” Holly said.

“Well, it’s certainly different. All right, let’s see what we’ve got here.”

Millie scrolled through the pictures on the phone.

“This is incredibly disappointing,” Teddy said.

“I know.”

“The guy’s three-quarters profile and he’s in the dark.”

“The boyfriend was afraid to get any closer.”

“Could he see any better? Can he describe the guy at all?”

Millie shook her head. “He couldn’t. Of course, he was drunk
when I met him and I couldn’t push the point, but I really don’t think he knows.”

“What you see is what you get,” Teddy said. He scrolled through the photos, chose the one with the best angle. “All right, let’s see if we can make this any better.”

Teddy sat down at Holly’s computer and loaded the picture into Photoshop. He cropped the man’s head, enlarged it, and played with the color and contrast. A face emerged from the shadows.

Millie sucked in her breath. “Look!”

“Nicely done,” Holly said. “You think it’s our guy?”

“Let’s find out. Millie, that’s all for now. On your way out, call Margo Sappington in the White House counsel’s office and ask her to drop by, would you?”

Margo wasn’t happy to be called back. “I told you everything I know,” she protested when Holly ushered her into the conference room.

“I’m sure you did,” Teddy said. He slid a copy of the photo across the table. “Do you recognize the man in the picture?”

Margo studied it and frowned. “It’s a bad shot.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Are you asking if this is the agent who spoke to me?”

“Is he?” Holly said.

“He could be. Like I said, it’s a bad shot.”

Holly looked at Teddy. He nodded.

“Okay, thanks for coming in,” Holly said.

“That’s all you wanted?”

“That’s all.”

Margo went out.

“So, what now?” Holly said.

Teddy took a breath. “All right. We know Margo Sappington bugged Stone Barrington’s phone. We don’t know who told her to do it.”

“An Arab-looking guy posing as a CIA agent,” Holly said. “Most likely the guy in the picture.”

“Right. The question is, how did the bogus agent know Stone would be at Margo’s table?”

“Aren’t there several possibilities?”

“Actually, no. Stone didn’t know he was going until that very afternoon. He was summoned to the dinner by the President’s chief of staff, Ann Keaton.”

“It wasn’t her.”

“Are you sure?”

“She’s a personal friend of Stone Barrington, and fiercely loyal to the President. She wouldn’t have told anyone.”

“She had to tell the tailor who made his suit.”

“She had to tell him Stone’s measurements. She would not have told him what table he was sitting at, so he couldn’t have tipped the phony agent off to get Margo Sappington to plant the bug.”

Holly’s intercom buzzed. She picked up the phone. “Yes?”

“Lance Cabot is here to see you.”

“Just a moment.” Holly covered the mouthpiece. “Lance is here.”

“Oops,” Teddy said.

“He won’t be long. Wait in the conference room.”

Teddy slipped through the door.

Holly uncovered the phone and said, “Send him in.”

Lance came in with a manila folder. He smiled. “Is that payback, Holly?”

“What?”

“Making me wait.”

“Thirty seconds,” Holly said.

“It’s symbolic.”

“What’s up, Lance?”

“We got the shooter.”

Holly raised her eyebrows. “What!”

“Well, we don’t have him, but we think we’ve identified him.”

Lance took a photograph out of the folder, passed it over. The CIA had gotten it right. It was a picture of the man who was the actual shooter.

“This gentleman here. We’re running facial recognition on him. So far we don’t have a match.”

“What makes you think he’s the shooter?”

“This picture was taken from the surveillance video of the building where the shot was fired. He took the elevator up to the nineteenth floor at nine-fifteen that morning. He took the elevator down from the
eighteenth
floor at one-oh-five. The building
is twenty-one stories high. We figure at nine-fifteen he got off at nineteen, slipped through the fire door, and took the service stairs up two flights so as not to be seen getting off on the floor with access to the roof. We figure after the shooting he lost track on the stairs and went down an extra flight.”

“Is there any company with offices on both floors?”

“No. And he didn’t take an elevator from one floor to the other.”

“That’s a good deduction. Did they have his name at security?”

“No. The guards at the desk make you present photo ID. If your face matches the face on the ID, they let you in.”

“They don’t keep written records?”

“No.” The inflection in Lance’s voice showed what he thought of that practice.

“It’s just an office building, Lance, with no government affiliation.”

“Yes, I know. It’s just frustrating.”

“What are you going to do with the photo?”

“We’re going to let the D.C. police put it out as a person of interest they’d like to question.”

“Why not put out a general alert?”

“We don’t want to cause unnecessary panic. Though we suspect terrorism, we haven’t yet discovered this man’s identity or affiliations. If we basically declare that the assassination was a terrorist attack, the populace will wonder when the next one is coming.”

“Do you think there’s more to come?”

Lance looked grim. “Given what we know, it seems a safe assumption.”

“You want to tell me what this guy would be doing with a CIA shell?”

“No. And I’m glad I don’t have to be telling anybody else.”

Lance smiled, and went out.

Teddy came out of the conference room. He picked up the photo and could see immediately it wasn’t the same man they’d identified in the photo from Karen’s ex-boyfriend. “So. Another terrorist. I wonder what Lance would think if he knew we had one, too.”

“I’m surprised facial recognition didn’t work,” Holly said. “This shot is certainly clear enough.”

“These guys aren’t mainstream, that’s been clear from the start.”

“So who are they?”

“And why in the world would they care about some bill in Congress?”

“It’s a veterans aid bill,” Holly said. “Maybe they’re disgruntled vets.”

“Disgruntled Middle Eastern terrorist vets? Trying to pass a bill? What the hell is that all about?” Teddy shook his head. “Can you get someone in here who knows something about Congress?”