Capital Crimes

Then the evening news came on, and Ted was surprised to find a very good drawing of himself staring out of fee screen. He hadn’t thought the FBI were so close, and he settled in to watch their performance.

“Now we take you to the press office at the White House, where Assistant Director Robert Ki

Bob Ki

45

KINNEY TOOK A DEEP BREATH and leaned into the microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a suspect in the three murders and one attempted murder that have captured so much attention in past weeks.” He pressed a button, and the drawing of Teddy Fay filled the monitors in the room. “His name is Theodore Fay, and he is a retired employee of the Central Intelligence Agency. Mr. Fay worked in the Technical Services division of the Agency for more than thirty years, where he acquired the skills that he employed in these crimes. Mr. Fay is sixty-seven years of age, five feet eleven inches tall, a hundred and eighty pounds, and physically fit. He has gray hair and is balding and has green eyes. Although he has gone to some lengths to fake his own death and move his assets out of the country, we believe Mr. Fay is living somewhere within fifty miles of Washington, D.C. He may drive a recreational vehicle. We expect that, due to the nature of his work at the CIA, he has established one or more identities, complete with driver’s licenses, credit cards, and other forms of identification, including valid U.S. passports, and that he may also employ various disguises.

“We ask the cooperation of the media and the public in finding Mr. Fay, and to that end, we have established a toll-free hotline where sightings may be reported.” He flashed the number on the screen. “I am authorized by the president to say that a reward of one million dollars, tax-free, is being offered for information leading to the arrest of Theodore Fay. We regard Mr. Fay as armed and dangerous and I urge members of the public not to approach him, but to call the hotline number or local law enforcement. Now, I will take questions.” He pointed at a woman in the first row.

“Mr. Ki

“We believe that Mr. Fay is unhappy with the present political situation in the United States and that he is seeking to redress it by removing certain figures from the scene.”

“Is Mr. Fay a communist?” someone shouted.

“That is extremely unlikely,” Ki

“Is Theodore Fay insane?” a reporter asked.

“Our profilers think that is unlikely, at least in the legal sense of the term, but clearly he is not behaving like a normal person. Normal people do not employ violence and murder to redress grievances.”

“Mr. Ki

“Obviously, law enforcement agencies in Virginia and Maryland are helping in the search for Mr. Fay, but when he is arrested he will be charged in a federal court with the murder of Senator Wallace. Murder of a U.S. government official is a federal crime and carries the death penalty.”

“Mr. Ki

Ki

TED MUTED the TV during the commercial and thought about the last question. Ki

The FBI’s special toll-free number would now be swamped with reports of sightings, but the man they were looking for just wasn’t there anymore.

IN HIS CELL at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, Ed Rawls switched off his TV set in disgust, if not despair. He began composing a new message to Kate Lee, one that he believed would lend a new urgency to any thoughts she might have of a presidential pardon. There was something new to look forward to, as well-the prospect of a one-million-dollar reward, which would sweeten his golden years considerably.

BOB KINNEY DROVE back to the Hoover Building and went up to his office. In a conference room across the hall, four agents were ma

“Anything promising?” Ki

“One that sounds genuine, if not promising.”

“What do you mean?”

“A trucker saw someone he swears was Fay at a rest stop on I- 95.”

“Did he ID a vehicle?”

“He said there were a couple of RVs at the rest stop, but he saw Fay sitting at a picnic table, eating a sandwich.”

“You’re right, it’s genuine, but not promising. 'Useless’ might be a better word.“

Ki

46

KATE ARRIVED AT HER OFFICE and presided over a scheduled meeting, then she checked her email. There was one from Ed Rawls. Her first impulse was to delete it without reading it, but she couldn’t get past her curiosity.

“My Dear Kate,” it read, “Congratulations to somebody on ferreting out Teddy Fay’s name. The FBI has outshone itself, for once; they have the right man. Or rather, they don’t have him, do they? I can tell you where to find our Teddy- at one of two locations-and all I ask is my freedom and, of course, the reward the FBI has posted, to keep me in my old age. Come on, girl-let’s get this done before somebody really important gets waxed.”

Kate deleted the email and sat at her desk, staring at the Helen Frankenthaler painting hanging on the wall opposite, soaking it in. Finally, she pressed the intercom button.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Please ask Morton Koppel, Hugh English, and Creighton Adams to come and see me right away. It’s urgent.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

THE THREE MEN were in her office in five minutes.

“Something up?” Adams asked.

“Yes, Creighton,” she said. “We talked about this before, but now we have to talk about it again, and very seriously. It’s about Ed Rawls.”

Hugh English tossed a pencil onto the conference table in disgust, while Koppel and Adams sat quietly, waiting.

“Hugh, what do we hear from Stockholm?” she asked.

English shrugged. “All right, there were four bugs in the apartment.”

Koppel spoke up. “What apartment?”

“Let me bring you up to date,” Kate said. “After di

“This still doesn’t make Ed Rawls anything other than a traitor,” English said petulantly.

“It makes him less than a man who would betray two people who worked for him in Stockholm, costing them their lives. Can we agree on that?”