Shoot Him If He Runs

Stone woke up a little before seven, got out of bed and switched on the TV; out of habit, he wanted to get the local weather before flying. He went into the bathroom, peed and brushed his teeth, then came back into the bedroom, where Holly was sitting up in bed and pointing silently at the TV.

First reports from the police are that Colonel duBois was standing on the terrace of his penthouse apartment when he was struck in the chest by gunfire. This recalls the death earlier this week of his predecessor in the police, Colonel Croyden Croft, who was shot by a sniper while he sat in the courtyard of the police station.” The reporter accepted a sheet of paper from off-camera. “We have a report that an attempt has been made on the life of the prime minister, Sir Winston Sutherland, but no confirmation yet.”

“Holy shit,” Stone said quietly.

“You’re damned right,” Holly said.

“What do you make of it?”

“I make of it that Teddy Fay is alive and well and shooting people,” Holly said.

“And what do you want to do about it?” he asked.

“I don’t know what to do about it,” she replied, “but I’m going to ask Lance.” She got her satphone, switched it on and went outside for reception. No answer on Lance’s satphone; no answer on his office phone, so she left a message about what had happened; no answer on his home phone, either. Where the hell was he? She looked up at the sky: looked like it was going to be a cloudy day, the first since they had arrived.

Lance had left his house, on his way to Langley, five minutes before Holly called him there. He picked up coffee, a Danish and copies of the Sunday New York Times and Washington Post at a deli near his house, then drove in a leisurely fashion, listening to local news radio, alert for any story that might involve the Agency on a Sunday. He was waved through the front gate, after showing his ID; he parked in his reserved spot in the basement garage, near the elevator, swiped his ID card at the door and went upstairs to his office, clearing three more security checks.

He put the papers and his breakfast on the coffee table and sat down on the sofa, glancing at the headlines while he sweetened his coffee and munched on the Danish, not noticing the tiny, flashing red light on the phone behind his desk. He switched on the TV, which was already set to CNN.

He had finished his breakfast and was halfway through the Times when he glanced at a clip of yesterday’s golf tournament and, almost simultaneously, caught sight of the tape crawling across the bottom of the screen:…TWO POLITICAL SHOOTINGS ON CARIBBEAN ISLAND OF ST. MARKS

Lance walked around his desk and picked up his phone, noticing the flashing red light. He dialed voicemail and listened for a moment, then dialed Holly’s satphone number. “You’d better answer the bloody thing, girl,” he said aloud to himself.

55

Holly grabbed the ringing satphone and went outside.

“Hello?”

“Where the hell have you been?” Lance demanded.

“Right here,” she said. “I left a message for you.”

“I just got it; do you know who got shot on the island?”

“Only what I’ve seen on local TV,” Holly said. “A policeman named duBois was shot, and they’re saying there was a reported attempt on the PM’s life, but no confirmation yet.”

“Jesus, that has ‘Teddy’ written all over it.”

“I don’t know what we can do about this, Lance; our search for Pemberton and Weatherby came up dry, and we don’t have any other suspects for Teddy.”

“Did you go over the photographs I sent you?”

“What photographs?”

“Check your e-mail; our photo analyst says Pemberton and Weatherby are the same man, and she’s made up sample photos of what he might look like in different disguises.”

“I’ll check that out right now,” Holly said.

“Forget about Robertson; he turns out to be one of the Heathrow Robbers, a guy named Barney Cox. Call me back if you have any ideas. You know about the airplane?”

“Yes, at noon; I hope he can land; they’ll probably shut down air travel again.”

“I’ll get word to the pilot to declare a fuel emergency, if necessary; then they’ll have to allow him to land. You just be there.”

“Okay.” She punched off the connection and ran into the house.

“What’s going on?” Stone asked.

Holly switched on her computer and waited for it to boot up. “Lance had the photographs of Pemberton and Weatherby analyzed, and the analyst says they’re of the same man.” She typed in her e-mail password and waited. “Here we go.”

“They don’t look like the same man,” Stone said.

Holly scrolled down. “Look at this; without the facial hair and the wigs they do,” she said and kept scrolling. “The analyst has made up some others showing what he would look like in different disguises; here they are.” She scrolled slowly through a dozen pictures.

“Wait a minute,” Stone said, pointing. “Look at that one. Who does that look like, except for the hair color?”

“Holy shit,” Holly said. “That one is a ringer for Harold Pitts! But he sailed yesterday, didn’t he? I mean, we saw him.”

Stone picked up the phone and rang Thomas Hardy.

“Hello?”

“Thomas, to the best of your knowledge, did Harold Pitts sail for Ft. Lauderdale yesterday?”

“Yes, he did. I was down at the marina, and I cast off his lines myself.”

“Yeah, we saw him sail out of English Harbour and turn to the east. Is there anywhere along the eastern shore where he could have anchored? Another marina or a cove?”

“No, it’s all cliffs on that end of the island, and there’s heavy surf from the trade winds, so he couldn’t anchor there, either. What’s going on, Stone?”

“Have you heard about duBois and the prime minister?”

“Yes, there was just a report that Sutherland was DOA at the Markstown hospital.”

“DuBois, too?”

“Yes. That pretty much cuts off the heads of the government and the police force. There’s going to be chaos, and I think you should expect to be questioned again.”

“Our airplane is due at noon, and they’ve been instructed to declare an emergency, if necessary, to get permission to land. Do you think we’ll be able to get out of here?”

“I’ll drive you to the airport and do what I can to help.”

“Thanks, Thomas.”

“Why are you asking about Harold Pitts?”

“Because we think he may be Teddy Fay.”

Thomas was silent for a moment. “Well, it wasn’t Harold who shot duBois and Sutherland. He’d be a hundred miles north by now.”

“Could you do me a favor and call every marina and anchorage and see if his boat is still on the island?”

“Well, there’s no way to call anchorages, but there are only a couple of decent ones; I’ll have somebody drive to them and check, and I’ll call the marinas, then get back to you.”

“Thanks, Thomas.” Stone hung up. “Did you get that?”