“I’ve been reading about it for years, so I guess it’s finally certified?”
“Just barely. This is the first one bought by the government; we’re anxious to see if it flies.”
“Oh, great,” Dino said. “We’re an experiment?”
“Relax, Dino,” Stone said. “The airplane has been through the whole gamut of tests, and only one has crashed.”
“Where can I get the nearest commercial flight?” Dino asked.
“Dino,” Lance said, “shut up, put your luggage in the locker, and get aboard.” Everybody started to climb aboard, but Lance pulled Stone aside. “I don’t want you to draw any inferences from what I said yesterday.”
“And what was it you said?”
“I said to let me know if you find Teddy Fay, and that I would take care of it. I meant just that. You should know that Teddy is dangerous when he’s cornered, and you are not equipped to deal with him.”
> Stone felt his ears starting to get hot. “Lance, I’ve dealt with more cornered rats than you’ve had hot dinners. While you were sitting behind your desk at Langley or wandering around Europe, Dino and I were putting away heavily armed bad guys, whether they liked it or not, and we never needed help from the Central Intelligence Agency.”
“Calm down, Stone; this is a special case, and it has to be handled carefully. We don’t want this hitting the papers, or the president and the director could end up as collateral damage.”
“You’ve already explained that very thoroughly,” Stone said. “We’ll be in touch.” He turned around and got aboard the airplane, followed by a single pilot. “Mind if I fly right seat?” Stone asked.
“Not today,” the pilot replied. “Maybe on the return trip.” He began starting the engines and running through his checklist.
Stone shrugged, took off his jacket and found a seat. It wasn’t hard, because there were four seats and only one was available, facing aft, opposite Holly.
“I hope you don’t mind sitting there,” Holly said. “I sometimes throw up when I travel backward.”
“I’ll be fine here,” Stone said. He settled in and fastened his seatbelt. The airplane began to move.
“What were you and Lance talking about?” Holly asked.
“Oh, it was just the usual stuff with Lance, the control freak.”
“Well, he is that, but he’s good at it.”
“Great.”
The airplane turned onto the runway without slowing down, and a moment later they were in the air, climbing fast.
“Are you going to be able to recognize Teddy Fay?” Stone asked. “You’ve met him twice, is that right?”
“Sort of. The first time I met him at the opera, and he invited me to sit with him; since he had better seats than I did, I accepted. Problem was, he was well disguised. Second time, I’m not even sure it was him; it was an old man on crutches, with one leg.”
“Since there are no photographs, do you have any idea what he looks like?”
“He’s about six feet tall, slender, balding or bald. We had a sketch done with the help of people in Tech Services who had worked with him.” She fumbled in a large handbag and handed him a sheet of paper.
Stone looked at the face. “This looks like Larry David from the HBO TV show.”
“Everybody says that, so it must be true. He’s pretty bland-looking, so he disguises easily, and he’s good at it.”
“Is he likely to go armed?”
“I’ve no idea, but he certainly knows how to use-even build-weapons of all sorts.”
Dino and Genevieve looked at the drawing. “I’ve seen this before,” Dino said. “I doubt if it’s worth the paper it’s drawn on.”
“There’s something else you both need to know,” Holly said. “Every time we’ve gotten close to him, Teddy has always had a well-planned escape route. Expect him to be slippery.”