“It would consist of everything in your wallet-credit cards, driver’s license, club and museum memberships, insurance cards, the works. And it would all be real. Let’s say he got stopped for speeding, and the cop ran his driver’s license and car registration. It would come back as genuine, and the address of record would be real, if somebody went and knocked on a door. Suppose he was questioned by the police when suspected of a crime. He would have college and high school transcripts inserted into the correct computers, and his fingerprints would not turn up any previous arrests. If he were employed, the employer would be real. He would have a credit record going back an appropriate number of years-he could even walk into a bank and borrow money. It would all be airtight, and there wouldn’t be any leaks.”
“Wouldn’t he need help from other people to make it airtight?”
“Not necessarily. Most background checking is done by requesting records, which are computerized. Let’s say his legend includes working for a large insurance company. The cops would call to verify his employment, and a clerk would enter his name into a computer and pull up his employment record. It would all be there for the clerk to read to the police, or he could even email them a copy. He would only need help if the police tried to telephone his supervisor and actually speak to someone who knows him. We would cover that for an agent, but Teddy might find it difficult, working alone.”
“So what do we look for? How can we pierce this legend, if we find him?”
“Odds are, you can’t. He will have constructed it in such a way as to make it completely plausible and verifiable. He could tell you his life story, and when you checked it out, it would all be, well, 'true.'”
“Do you have a record of his fingerprints?”
“No, I checked. It’s gone, along with everything else about Teddy.”
Kinney had a thought. “Could you check something for me?”
“If I can.”
“Teddy retired, so he’s on a pension, right?”
“Right.”
“Will you check with your accounting department and see if his pension is being paid, and if so, to what bank? And what address they have for Fay?”
“Give me a few minutes,” Gil said. He left the room, and a woman brought coffee and cookies for them.
TEN MINUTES LATER, Gil returned. “He didn’t delete his pay records. His pension is being paid into an account at the First National Bank of Arlington, and his address is the one on Riverview Circle where he lived for many years.” He laid a sheet of paper on the table containing all the information. “What else can I do for you?”
Kinney stood up. “I think that will do it. May I call you, if I think of anything else?”
“Sure. My extension is ten-ten.” He offered his hand. “Good luck on finding Teddy. You’re going to need it.”
DRIVING BACK TO THE Bureau, both agents were silent for a long time. Finally, Kerry Smith spoke up. “What do you think he’s doing?”
“Doing?” Kinney asked.
“He’s not finished,” Smith said, “but after the first spate of murders, he hasn’t killed anybody for a while.”
“You’re right, he’s not through,” Kinney replied. “He’s planning. He’s just getting ready to move again, in his own time.”
“Well, we’ve got a guard on everyone pictured on his website.
We can’t do more than that.“
“We can anticipate him,” Kinney said.
“How?”
“We’ve got to get inside his head, to figure out who the most likely target would be. If you were Teddy, who would you go after?”
Smith was quiet for a while. “Somebody high up,” he said finally.
“The president?”
“No, the president’s politics aren’t the kind that Teddy hates.”
“Speaker of the House?”
“That would be my bet. He has all the qualifications for getting hit by Teddy-right-wing, in-your-face politics-”
“That seems to be Teddy’s only criterion.”
“That and being well known.”
“Let’s get back to the office and make a new list.”
44
TED EXITED I-95 and made his way to Manassas Regional Airport, south of Washington, D.C. He inserted his security card to open the gate, then drove to the west side of the field, past some T-hangars, to a larger hangar behind them. He drove around back and punched a garage-door opener; the large bifold door opened, and the lights came on. Ted drove the RV inside and used the remote to close the door again. A large fan heater came on immediately, to compensate for the heat lost through the open door.
Ted maneuvered the RV into its assigned space, then got out and connected the power cable and the flexible drain leading to the septic system. He was home. He went into the RV and gazed at himself in the bathroom mirror. A very different Ted Fay stared back at him, one with a head of thick, gray hair and a walrus mustache. He peeled off the mustache, then the toupee and washed them both, leaving them on a form to dry. Then he went “outside” into the hangar.
The hangar held the RV and his car-a five-year-old Mercedes E320, which wasn’t really a 320, because he had modified it, installing an AMG Mercedes engine of five and a half liters and upgrading the suspension and tires. What he had now was a bland-looking family sedan that was capable of zero to sixty miles an hour in under five seconds, and he had replaced the speed-limiting chip with one that allowed a top speed in excess of a hundred and eighty miles an hour. Ted loved cars, and he loved this one best of all.
The final fixture in the hangar was a glassed-in office with a toilet and shower. Inside that were a desk and chair, a sofa, a comfortable recliner, and a large rear-projection television set. Ted loved TV, too. On the desk was a very powerful computer that he had assembled himself, modeled after the units used in Tech Services at the CIA, and incorporating their stolen chip, with a twenty-one-inch flat-screen monitor. With it he could access almost any government system, from the Pentagon to the CIA. Occupying an adjoining area was his workshop, which he had disassembled at his home and reassembled in the hangar.
Ted logged onto the ACT NOW website and gazed at the photographs displayed there, lingering over Efton, the speaker of the House. Efton was a tempting target, but in some ways Ted thought him a good man to have in the job, since the way he conducted himself often engendered great opposition among moderates. He eliminated the speaker from consideration.
He needed a more important, more pivotal figure. He went to another website where he had stored more photos and biographical information on other public figures, and he came to the Supreme Court. He quickly eliminated four of the nine justices, then lingered for a moment over a fifth, the one who was often a swing vote, finally eliminating her. He was left with four justices, including the chief justice, whom Ted had disliked for years. He was very old, now, and rumor was he would be leaving the Court soon, leaving President Lee to appoint his successor. No point in creating a fuss by dealing with him, so he eliminated the chief justice from consideration.
Now he was left with three justices, each of whom qualified politically. Each slavishly followed the chief justice’s lead on important cases, and the elimination of any of them would be good for the country, Ted figured. One, however, stood out. Thomas Graydon was the newest appointee to the Court, a man who had managed, during his confirmation hearings, to convince enough Democrats that his views were moderate to get him confirmed. Once on the Court, though, he had revealed himself as a hardline right-winger, infuriating the senators he had fooled during the hearings. He often addressed conservative groups, making inflammatory speeches backing far right-wing legal positions. He was the youngest member of the Court, only forty-nine years of age, and he could very well be there for thirty years or more, tossing legal hand grenades at the Bill of Rights.