“Well, of course, I knew it would be something like that. I just wanted to let you know that you need not be concerned. They won’t come looking for you.”
“Well, thank you again, Mrs. Timmons. I very much appreciate your concern.”
“One thing, Mr. Foreman: if you should have a conversation with these people, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention that you rented the apartment from me. I wouldn’t want to be caught in a lie.”
“Of course not, Mrs. Timmons, and thank you again.” Teddy hung up and breathed a sigh of relief. They were looking for him, but they had missed. He’d be all right for a while longer.
FORTY-SIX
TEDDY NOW TURNED HIS ATTENTION to his next victim. He still had the photographs of the others he had identified as prospects, but he was growing tired of small fry; he wanted a bigger fish, someone who would strike fear into the hearts of America’s enemies.
He looked at his watch; time to call Irene. He dialed her cell phone number.
/> “Hello,” she said, knowing who was calling. “It’s been a while.”
“I’ve been a busy fellow,” he said,
“Believe me, I know all about it. I’ve completed my investigation of how you’re getting the information, and I turned in my report to the director.”
“And?”
“And I’ve blamed it on the FBI.”
Teddy smiled. “Good.”
“And, I understand, the FBI is blaming it on us.”
“Perfect! When are you coming to New York again?”
“Maybe in a couple of days. Can I let you know?”
“Sure, call me anytime on the cell phone.”
“Anything I can do for you?”
“Yes. I’m looking for a new kind of target, a bigger fish.”
“At the U.N.?”
“That would be good; I’d rather not have to travel to Washington.”
“Let me poke around and see who I can come up with. Maybe I can bring you a name when I come to New York.”
“Good. I’m looking forward to seeing you. Bye-bye.” Teddy hung up. He really was looking forward to seeing her. His increasing interest in Holly Barker was making him horny, and he needed relief.
Teddy went to his workbench and returned his attention to something he had been working on for several days. He didn’t have a sniper’s rifle, and buying one that would suit his purpose would be too complicated and too dangerous. Instead, he had decided to make one himself that would break down and be easily concealable.
He owned a virtually unused Walther PPK-S, the stainless-steel, updated version of the gun made famous in the James Bond novels. The caliber was.380, which posed a problem, but he could deal with that. He also had a Douglas.380 rifle barrel that he’d ordered more than a year ago.
He cut down the rifle barrel to sixteen inches and built a six-inch silencer to add to that. Then he replaced the pistol’s grip panel with an L-shaped piece of flat aluminum plating that came over the top of the gun. He shaped a folding stock of a strip of one-inch alloy that was fixed to the plating by a single screw, so that it could be quickly attached or detached using a dime for a screwdriver.
Finally, he mounted a 6x18 power Leupold zoom scope to the top of the L-shaped plating. He broke down the little pistol, removed the barrel and replaced it with the new, longer barrel, then reassembled it. Then he carved an eight-inch wooden grip and affixed it to the barrel, to protect his hand from the heat buildup when the weapon was fired. What he finished up with was a neat, small, very quiet rifle with a pistol grip that could be broken down and carried in a briefcase or raincoat pocket. This was perfect, but if the rifle were going to be effective at, say, a hundred yards, he was going to have to upgrade the ammunition; the standard.380 round was just not powerful enough.
He hand-loaded a hundred rounds of ammunition with a 115-grain, pointed, lead-tipped bullet and a cartridge packed with five grains of Unique powder. That would give the round the extra velocity, accuracy and destructive power it would need to hit an eight-inch target dead center at a hundred yards. Still, the bullet would drop more than it would from a higher-powered rifle, so he was going to have to fire the rifle to sight it in for the range.
IRENE ARRIVED in New York and followed Teddy’s instructions. She went to the fountain in Grand Army Plaza outside the Plaza Hotel at high noon and loitered for ten minutes. Then she set off across 59th Street and into Central Park. Teddy, who had been watching her from half a block away, was occupying a bench along the walkway toward the zoo, reading the Post. He dawdled a hundred yards behind her, looking for tails, then watched as she moseyed around the zoo and finally headed north.
He followed her for half an hour, then, when he was sure she was not being tailed, called her cell phone.