Shoot Him If He Runs

“Since I don’t represent her anymore, I can say candidly, absolutely not. Both she and her husband deserve worse than being where they presently are, and the country is better off for having them there.”

The president chuckled. “We are of one mind,” he said. “Stone, someone is going to ask you to go back to St. Marks for…a visit.”

“That would not be unpleasant duty, Mr. President. It’s a beautiful island.”

“I hope you can take the time to go.”

“I was requested to pack my bags, Mr. President, and I have done so. May I ask why you want me to go back?”

“Oh, I haven’t asked you to go back,” the president said. “Someone else will, but I will not. And I must ask you to recall this meeting, this room, this bourbon and this conversation as wholly imaginary.”

“As you wish, Mr. President.”

“Stone, I’m sure you know that I am up for reelection in the autumn, and I wanted to tell you personally that your visit to St. Marks may, in one way or another, have a profound effect on my chances. Since, in light of your campaign contributions in the past, I have some reason to believe you think it might be important for me to finish my administration’s work, I wanted to tell you personally that you may soon be in a position to contribute to my campaign in a larger way than you imagine, and I want you to know, in advance, that you have my deep gratitude for your help.”

Stone was too baffled to speak, and he was relieved of that obligation when a door behind him opened and a woman’s voice said, “Will, honey, it’s time for us to go in.”

Stone sprang to his feet and turned to see the first lady, who was also the Director of Central Intelligence, standing in the open door.

“Kate, darling, this is Mr…” the president started to say.

“I know who he is, Will,” she replied, walking over and shaking his hand. “And I’m glad to have the opportunity to thank you for your efforts in solving the death of your cousin, Dick Stone, last summer. Dick was about to assume an important post at the Agency, and I had hopes that he might one day succeed me, when I’ve played out my string. Lance Cabot has told me how helpful you were to him during the investigation.”

Funny, Stone thought, and I was laboring under the apparent illusion that Lance was helping me. “You’re very welcome, ma’am.”

“Good luck on St. Marks, Mr. Barrington.” She turned and walked out the way she had come in.

“I must go,” Will Lee said, shaking Stone’s hand. “And by the way, the woman you just met was entirely imaginary, too. Have a seat; someone will come for you.”

The president followed his wife out the door, closing it behind him.

Stone stood in the center of the Oval Office, alone with its ghosts. He recognized the President’s desk as the one John Kennedy had used, and he remembered a photograph of John-John playing under it. He took in the portraits and the model of a yacht on one side of the room, and the rug under his feet with the Great Seal of the United States woven into it.

Then the door through which he had entered opened and Lance Cabot walked in.

“Oh, shit,” Stone muttered to himself.

3

Lance smiled and extended a hand. “So nice to see you, Stone.”

Stone had not seen Lance for several months, and that had been all right with him. Every time he saw Lance he found himself in the middle of some sort of problem, and it seemed to be happening again. He shook the hand. “Hello, Lance,” he said. “What the fuck am I doing in the Oval Office, about to go to St. Marks?”

Lance arranged himself in a chair and motioned for Stone to sit. “Relax, Stone, all is about to be revealed.”

Stone couldn’t wait. “Please start revealing.”

“Have you ever heard of a man named Teddy Fay?”

“Of course; everybody’s heard of him. He killed several right-wing political figures a couple of years ago, and when they were about to catch him, he killed himself by exploding the small airplane he was flying.”

“You’re half right,” Lance replied.

“Which half?”

“The first half. Teddy didn’t die in the aircraft explosion. He got out, made his way to New York and spent some time last year killing Middle Easterners whom he believed to be enemies of the United States.”

“That was Teddy Fay?”

“Indubitably, it was.”

“Was he the guy who died in the collapse of the building he bombed, then?”

“Not quite. At the time there was every indication that the body found in the ruins of the building was that of Teddy, but a woman who had reported her homeless father missing gave the NYPD a DNA sample last week, and it matched that of the body we found.”

“So Fay is still alive?”

“I’m afraid we don’t know, but we have no conclusive evidence that he’s dead.”

“And what does this have to do with my going to St. Marks?”

“Let me begin at the beginning, Stone, since there’s a lot you may not know about Teddy from press reports.”

“Please do.”

“Theodore Fay was a career employee of the CIA, joining in his twenties and retiring at age sixty-five. He worked in Technical Services, which is the rather bland name of the department that supplies all sorts of things to agents going into the field: clothing, disguises, false passports, driver’s licenses, insurance cards, credit cards and other documents an agent requires to establish a legend-that is, a false identity-in the field. The department also supplies weapons-some of them quite exotic-communications equipment and, well, you get the picture.”

“I do. What did Teddy do there?”

“Teddy, over the course of his long career, did everything. He was the most skilled technician and inventor the Agency has ever employed. Twice, he was offered the job of heading his department, and he turned it down both times, because he enjoyed his work too much to become a manager.

“For the last twenty years of his career Teddy ran one of several teams that supplied the tools of their trade to, for want of a better word, spies. He was expert in virtually every area of his work, and he trained other specialists.”

“So that would make him able to change his own identity with documents, et cetera, with some ease?”

“It would, which is why it has, so far, proved impossible to catch him.”

“Is he on another rampage now?”

“No, not that we know of. My guess is that he is living quietly in retirement.”

Stone frowned. “In St. Marks?”

“Perhaps. That is what we want you and Holly to learn.”

“Why St. Marks?”

“There is another Agency employee named Irene Foster living there. She retired after twenty-five years, shortly before Teddy’s most recent vanishing. Another former Agency employee has told us that many years ago, she and Teddy had a rather torrid affair. We’ve not been able to establish that there has been any contact between them since then, but still…”

“That’s a pretty slim connection, isn’t it?”

“Irene’s last post was as Assistant Deputy Director for Operations, and she was in a position, had she chosen to do so, to provide Teddy with a great deal of information that he would have needed to conduct his campaign in New York.”

“Wasn’t she investigated at the time?”

“There was a full internal investigation into who, if anyone, might have been helping Teddy.”

“And?”