“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. Kinney, when Mr. Fay is caught, where will he be tried?”
“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. Kinney,” a reporter called out, “does the FBI have any physical evidence against Mr. Fay?”
Kinney felt his ears redden. “I can’t comment on the evidence at this time,” he replied. “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, then walked off the platform.
TED MUTED the TV during the commercial and thought about the last question. Kinney had looked a little embarrassed, he thought, and well he should. Ted had left no evidence anywhere to be found, except for tiny pieces of the Vandervelt bomb, which would be of little use to the FBI lab. It was clear that the Feds were desperate now. They had identified him, but he had expected that would happen; all they had was that drawing.
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 manning the phones, and, predictably, calls were already streaming in. Kerry Smith stood, waiting to speak with plausible callers.
“Anything promising?” Kinney asked Smith.
“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.“
Kinney pulled up a chair and picked up a phone, listening to each of the four lines in turn. Finally, he hung up. “Remember,” he said to Smith, “if we get anything from this, it will probably be only one phone call, so don’t miss it or underrate it when it comes in.” He left the building and went home.
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 dinner, when he was here, Majorov, who was KGB station head in Stockholm at the time of Rawls’s arrest, told me that Ed was not involved in the killings of Lewis and Barbara Moore, that he didn’t set them up. The Soviets learned of their activities from a bug in the Moores ’ apartment-or rather, as Hugh tells us, four bugs. I asked Hugh to have the apartment torn apart, and they were found.”
“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?”
English shrugged.
“Hugh, does this new information mitigate at all your determination not to see Rawls let out of prison?”
“No,” English said, “it doesn’t. I want him to rot there until he dies.”
Neither of the other two men looked at English.
“Mort, Creighton, are you still of a mind to see Rawls out of prison?”
“I have no objection,” Adams said.
“Neither do I, given his age and health problems,” Koppel said.
“All right. Hugh, I have other information for your consideration.”
“Sure, I’ll listen,” English replied, making an attempt to sound reasonable.
“I’ve had several communications from Ed regarding the identity of the man who killed Wallace and Vandervelt and Brennan, and tried to kill Calhoun. He told me that he knew the identity of the murderer.”
“Well, now we all know, don’t we?” English said. “Anybody with a television set knows.”
“The problem is, we don’t know how to find him,” Kate said. “Given the skills that he acquired at this Agency over the years, he could remain free for the rest of his life, killing at will, and he might never be caught. Rawls says he knows where Theodore Fay can be found.”
English sat up. “How the hell could he know that?” he demanded.
“I don’t know. Certainly, it’s possible that the two worked together on some assignment in the past, and it’s possible that Fay told Ed something that might be of use in finding him.”
“So Rawls is trying to trade this information for a presidential pardon?” English asked.
“Yes, he is. Does this at all change your views on letting him out?”
English said nothing, but seemed to be grinding his teeth.
“Hugh, we’re talking about two rogue Agency people-one who betrayed us and has served a long time in prison, and another who has betrayed us and is at large, killing prominent Americans.”
“Does the president know about this?” English asked.
“No. I learned about it only a few minutes ago, in an email from Rawls.”
“He has your email address?”
“I don’t know how he got it, but I’ve had the same address for a long time. It wouldn’t be all that hard to figure out.”
“What do you want me to do, Kate?” English asked.
“I want to go to the president and recommend a commutation of Ed’s sentence, if that’s possible, or a pardon, if it is not, based on Ed’s information leading to the arrest of Fay.”
English looked at Adams. “Creighton, you worked with Fay, didn’t you?”
“Several times, over the years,” Adams replied.