“Did she ask about me?” Teddy asked.
“No.”
“Esmerelda, I have to ask you a favor. I knew her a couple of years ago. We had a relationship that ended badly, and since then she’s stalked me, done everything she can to make my life miserable. If she comes back and asks about me, I’d really appreciate it if you could deny all knowledge of me.”
“Sure, I can do that.”
“She might even send private detectives, and those guys use false I.D.s, say they’re cops.”
“Now that you mention it, a guy came in and flashed an FBI I.D., said he wanted to ask me some questions. I threw him out; I hate those guys.”
“You did the right thing,” Teddy said. He glanced at his wrist-watch. “Oh, my, I’m late for an appointment. I’ll have to come back.”
He left the shop and hurried toward Sixth Avenue. As he turned the corner, he saw the woman getting into a cab. He hailed another and got in. “Not to sound too dramatic,” he said to the driver, “but would you follow that cab, please?” He pointed to the taxi ahead.
“Sure, brother,” the cab driver said, sounding bored. “Whatever you want.”
“Not too closely,” Teddy said, “just keep it in sight.”
The cab made its way to an address in the East Forties, an apartment building. As Teddy waited in traffic, he saw her get out of the taxi and go into the building. The doorman touched his cap bill and opened the door for her. She was known there.
“Okay, now what?” the driver asked.
“Take me to Sixty-fourth and Madison, please.” He took out a notebook and jotted down the address of the building. What was the woman’s name? Holly something. He couldn’t remember the last name, though he tried all the way home.
Back in his apartment he went to the computer and logged onto the CIA server. What was her last name, dammit? He could check the Agency and FBI records for a file. He couldn’t think of the name.
Instead, he did a search for the address of the building she had gone into. The computer found three references to the address. He clicked on the first and found himself in a long, boring budget file. He checked the second reference. It was a memo: purchase of the building at that address was recommended, through a front real estate company.
He clicked on the third reference to the address and found a copy of a memo to the director from the head of purchasing, reporting on the appraisal of a building under construction and suggesting that it could be bought, approximately half-finished, for fifteen million dollars and finished to Agency specifications for another twenty million.
The building that the woman had entered was, at the very least, a CIA safe house, and, given the costs involved, more likely a center of some sort.
He slapped his forehead: he had sat through a performance of La Boheme next to a CIA officer.
“Jesus Christ,” he said under his breath. How had this happened? Were they that close to him? Impossible, he thought. If she’d realized who she was sitting with, she would have called in support, and yet she had let him walk. A coincidence? He hated coincidences.
TWENTY-EIGHT
HOLLY WAS CALLED into a meeting with Lance and Kerry Smith in the twelfth-floor conference room. Ty was there, and several other people who looked like FBI.
“Sit down, Holly,” Kerry said. “We’ve run a thorough check on your Hyman Baum character. There are several in the New York phone book, but none matching your description, and there is nobody recently in the garment industry by that name.”
“We think you’ve scored, Holly,” Lance said, “and I want to compliment you on your observation of this man. If he’s not Teddy Fay, then he’s someone else of the same description who goes around impersonating elderly dress manufacturers.”
Holly didn’t warm to the praise. “I didn’t score; I just stood there outside the opera and let him walk away. Or rather, run.”
“Don’t beat up on yourself,” Kerry said. “What’s important is that we now have a location and a target date for Teddy. We know he may be at the Metropolitan Opera next Friday night in seats H two or three. If he shows, then, for the first time since Maine, we’ve got a real shot at taking this guy off the street, and it’s all because of your good work.”
“Thank you,” Holly said.
“What we’ve got to do now is to formulate a plan for taking him in a crowded concert hall without anybody getting hurt,” Kerry said. “What I think we should do is put our people in seats all around him, and take him before the opera starts, the moment he sits down.”
“I’m not sure that would work,” Holly said.
“Why not?”
“Because Teddy has these same seats every week, and so do all the people who’re sitting around him. If he walks in and sees a lot of strange faces around his seat, he’s going to bolt. I think it would be better to take him either as he enters the building or as he leaves.”
“You have a point,” Kerry admitted.
“Holly,” Lance said, “you met him outside the hall, right?”
“Right.”
“Well, then, let’s have you meet him at the same place again.”
“He invited me for next Friday night, but I told him I would be in London by then.”
“So, your plans changed, and you went back to the opera in the hope of being able to accept his invitation after all. At the very least, if he sees you, he’ll come over to ask why you aren’t in London.”
“It could work,” Holly said.
“We’ll arrange a visual signaclass="underline" you’ll change your handbag from one shoulder to the other when you see him, and as soon as you start to talk, we’ll be all over him.”
“I’m game,” Holly said.
TEDDY CALLED Irene at home and had her walk out into her garden. “How are you?” she asked.
“I’m well. I got in with the new codes, but I had to log in as Hugh English the first time.”
“I thought that might happen,” she replied.
“If anybody notices, can you tell them that you logged on using his codes, just to be sure they were working?”
“Yes, I can do that; it might work.”
“Let’s hope nobody notices. Do you know a CIA officer based in New York with the first name of Holly?”
“No, I don’t, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one.”
“I sat next to this woman at the opera, and later, when I saw her on the street, I followed her to an address on the East Side.” He gave her the address. “Does that ring a bell?”
“Yes, it’s a new, joint CIA-FBI counterintelligence operations center. If she got past the doorman, it’s because she’s authorized to enter. Do you have a last name for the woman? I can check her out.”
“No, I can’t remember it, and even if I could, she was probably using a cover name.”
“Well, if she was that close to you, why didn’t she call in the cavalry?”
“Because she didn’t know who I was. She may have figured it out later, though.”
“Mike, if you’re in New York, maybe it’s time to go somewhere else.”
Teddy was not going to confirm this to her, so he ignored the question. “I need a new target,” he said. “What do you have?”
“Well, if you want one in New York, the U.N. embassies make for a target-rich environment.”
“Who’s running intelligence operations out of U.N. embassies besides the Iranians?”
“Who isn’t? How about the Syrians or the Israelis?”
“I’m not interested in the Israelis, but the Syrians sound good. What’s going on in their embassy?”
“They’re spying on the Israelis, of coarse, They’ve rented an apartment across the street from the Israeli embassy, and they’re doing everything they can to listen to their conversations or read their mail. So far, the Israelis’ counterintelligence has kept them at bay. But if you attack the Syrians, they’re going to blame the Israelis. Do you want that?”