“Then how do we know Fay is the guy?”
“First, he has all the qualifications-the skills to make the bombs and poisons. That’s apparently what he did at the Agency. Second, he’s faked his death, cashed in everything he owns, except his house, which hasn’t sold yet, and sent the proceeds out of the country. It seems likely that he would have created one or more new identities for himself before he left the Agency.”
“But how is the FBI going to connect him directly to the killings?”
“I don’t know. Maybe their lab will find something in one of the crime scenes that will connect him. Or a witness will turn up, somebody who can put him at a scene.”
“And what do you want me to do?”
“This evening-right now, in fact-Kinney is assembling some retired Agency people who knew Fay. He wanted to do it earlier, but none of them would talk to the FBI without Agency approval. I want you to call Kinney’s office, speak to the group on speaker-phone, and tell them to cooperate fully.” He handed her a sheet of paper. “This is a list of their names.”
“Okay, I can do that right away.”
“Then I want you to let the FBI talk to anybody in Technical Services who can help them catch Fay.”
“Where?”
“At the Agency, where they work.”
“You want me to let FBI agents into Technical Services? My people down there would rather meet with Osama bin Laden and his boys and show them around the shop.”
“Kate, this is not about interservice rivalry, this is about catching a murderer who is an embarrassment to the CIA and to this administration. Tomorrow morning at ten o’clock, two FBI agents are going to present themselves at Langley, and I want them to talk directly to anybody they need to talk to who can help them find him.”
“They don’t have to see the labs and the shops, do they?”
“They are to see anybody and anything that will help them.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it until they need something else. And there will be something else. When they catch this guy there’ll be a trial, and an appropriate person in Technical Services is going to have to testify about how he made the Vandervelt bomb and the Calhoun poison and about any other skills or devices he has employed to murder people, and when that happens, I don’t want any crap from the Agency about revealing its secrets.”
“You’re really a barrel of fun, you know that?”
“You’re talking to your commander-in-chief. Watch it”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s better. Now, are we perfectly clear on what you have to do?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then go do it, and then you can have a drink.”
Kate went meekly to the phone and made the calls. When she came back, there was a gleaming vodka martini waiting for her on the coffee table.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he said, kissing her.
“Hey, Will,” she said. “How was your day?”
“I’ve had worse,” he said, touching his glass to hers.
42
KINNEY WATCHED THE FACES of the five men and women sitting around his conference table as they listened to Katharine Rule Lee instruct them on cooperating with the FBI. He understood that these people had spent their working lives not talking about their work, their coworkers, or their employer, and he was hoping to see the bland defiance in their faces dissolve into something more amenable. It did not happen.
Mrs. Lee finished her instructions. “Does anybody have any questions?” she asked.
A man spoke up. “How do we know you’re who the FBI says you are?”
Mrs. Lee’s voice came back. “Call the White House switchboard and ask for me. Use the code name Huntress.”
The man nodded. He was handed a phone, and he did as Mrs. Lee instructed. When she answered, he thanked her and hung up. “All right,” he said, “I’m on board.”
“Anybody else have a problem?” Kinney asked.
Everyone shook his head.
“Now, let me tell you why we’re here. We have reason to believe that a former coworker of yours, Theodore G. Fay, known as Teddy, is the person who has murdered three prominent Americans over the past few weeks.” He paused to let this sink in, and there was shock on some of the faces.
“Why do you think Teddy Fay would do that?” someone asked.
“His political views were antithetical to those of the people he murdered. He possesses the skills used to murder them. He has faked his death, moved his assets out of the country, and has disappeared.”
“That doesn’t sound like hard evidence,” someone else said.
“It’s convincing circumstantial evidence,” Kinney replied. “Starting there, we expect to develop more material information, but we need your help. Teddy Fay has destroyed all the CIA’s records of his employment, so we have no fingerprints, no photograph, and no other evidence that would help us find him.”
“Smart,” a woman said.
“He is not a stupid man,” Kinney replied. “What I want from you is a description that we can use to make a drawing of him, and-”
A man spoke up. “Give me a drawing pad, and I’ll do one for you.”
Kinney motioned to the FBI artist who was sitting against the wall, and the man provided the materials.
“While you’re doing that, do any one of you have one or more photographs of Fay? Something taken at a reunion or a party?”
They all shook their heads.
“Do any of you have knowledge of Fay owning or having access to a second home? A cabin in the mountains, a house on Chesapeake Bay, anything like that?”
They all shook their heads.
“Wait,” one of them said. “He used to keep a boat at a yacht club in Annapolis. I had a conversation with him about it once.”
Kinney motioned Kerry Smith forward. “Would you please go with Agent Smith and tell him everything you know about it?”
The two men left.
“Do any of you have any other information of any kind that might help us locate Fay? Anybody with knowledge of family members or friends inside or outside the Agency that he might feel safe with or try to contact?”
A woman spoke up. “Teddy’s wife died several years ago. She was all he had. They were childless, and I’m pretty sure Teddy was an only child. He didn’t like her parents, so if they are still alive, he wouldn’t go to them.”
“Did any one of you ever take a vacation with Fay? A weekend sailing or hunting trip, anything like that?”
No one spoke.
“All right, I’d like the personal impressions of Fay of each of you in turn. May we start with you?”
He pointed to a woman.
“Brilliantly inventive, technically accomplished in many skills, very self-contained, tightly wound.”
She sat back and folded her arms.
“Did you ever work with him on assignments?”
“Many times.”
“Did any other personal characteristics stand out?”
She shook her head.
A man spoke up. “I worked with Teddy, oh, maybe a dozen times,” he said. “What Jean says is true. I also felt that he was an angry man, though I never knew about what.”
Another man spoke. “I’ll second that. He didn’t encourage knowing him. He always brought his lunch and ate it in the garden in warm weather and at his desk when it was cold. I don’t ever recall seeing him in the cafeteria, let alone lunching with anybody.”
“He was knowledgeable about investments,” another man said. “I was talking to someone about putting some money into a mutual fund on one occasion. Teddy overheard me and named three other funds he said were better, and he was right.”
“Did you have any idea of the extent of his own holdings?”
“No, he would never have talked about that.”
A woman spoke up. “You have to understand that Teddy wasn’t exactly an oddball in Tech Services. There were lots of people who would have seemed odd in other surroundings. Lots of us were freaks, techies, nerds, and bookworms.”
There was a chorus of agreement from the group.