“Director,” Hugh English said, “I’ve reviewed every aspect of Irene’s investigation and I’ve found it to be thorough and complete. I’ll stand by it, too.”
Kate stared at English and Foster. “You are absolutely certain about your conclusions?”
“To a great deal more than a reasonable certainty,” English replied.
“Then where is Teddy Fay getting his inf
ormation?” Kate asked.
“Director,” Irene said, “Fay could be compiling this information from multiple sources-half a dozen agencies have bits and pieces of what he is learning-but the only other agency that has it all is the FBI. My reluctant conclusion is that the Bureau is the source of Teddy Fay’s information, and my report so states.”
“Great,” Kate said. “Bob Kinney is going to love that.”
“You want me to put it to Kinney?” English asked.
Kate sighed. “No, Hugh, I’ll save that treat for myself.”
Irene Foster stood and handed Kate a thick document. “Director, here is my written report. There’s an eight-page summary of the work up front, detailing the steps I took; the rest is substantiation: copies of interviews and polygraph tapes.”
“Thank you, Irene,” Kate said. “That will be all, everybody.”
The group shuffled out of the conference room, and Kate walked back into her office, picked up her phone and spoke to her secretary. “Please get me Director Kinney at the FBI.”
A moment later her phone buzzed and she heard a male voice. “Kate? It’s Bob.”
“Bob,” Kate said, trying not to sound weary, “can I buy you lunch over here today?”
“What’s up, Kate?”
“Something I’d rather tell you about when you’ve got half a bottle of wine in you. I’ll even send a chopper; you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“I don’t fit very well in helicopters, Kate,” Kinney said. “If it’s bad news, I’d rather hear it right now.”
Kate sighed. “There’s good news and bad, Bob. The good news is we’ve conducted an extraordinary, in-depth internal investigation, involving thousands of employees and hundreds of polygraphs, plus an audit of everybody’s computer time, and the only conclusion we can come to is that Teddy Fay is not getting his information from the CIA.”
There was a long silence on the other end of the phone.
“Bob?”
“I’m still here, Kate. I take it that what you’re telling me is that Fay has somebody in the Bureau who’s feeding him stuff?”
“I’m afraid that’s the best conclusion we could come to, based on the evidence. You can go ahead and blow, now.”
“Kate, I’ve just come from a meeting with all my deputy and assistant directors who’ve been investigating this matter Bureau-wide. They’ve handed me a thick report on their investigation, and to give you the short version, they have determined that Fay’s information could not possibly be coming from anyone at the Bureau or from our computers. Their best recommendation is that it’s coming from the Central Intelligence Agency.”
There was a short silence, then both of them burst out laughing.
____________________
TEDDY FAY RODE DOWN the escalator into the East 63rd Street subway station and stood on the platform with twenty other people, waiting for the next train. A minute and a half later, there was a rush of cool air and a rumble as the train squealed to a slow halt.
As the last moving car trundled past where Teddy waited, he caught a glimpse of a familiar face and figure aboard the car. The next car stopped where he stood, and the doors opened.
Teddy hesitated, and people were surging around him.
“C’mon, Mac,” a man said. “Get on or step aside.”
Teddy stepped aside. The doors closed, and the train departed the station. The person he had seen in the previous car was the CIA operative Holly Barker, and she was with a younger, neatly dressed man, who had to be her partner.