Free Smooth Operator (Teddy Fay) by Stuart Woods, Parnell Hall

operatives in the area. Three of them Teddy knew, but none would have fired the shot or were capable of coordinating the kidnapping and the assassination, if indeed the two were connected. They surely must be—attacks on two conservative Republican members of Congress couldn’t be coincidence. Had the CIA any inkling that the Speaker’s daughter had been kidnapped, this website would explode. The chance of nothing leaking would be nil. The Speaker’s daughter would be as good as dead.
    No, the CIA knew nothing. The girl’s fate lay in the hands of Teddy, Holly, and a young woman barely old enough to vote. Okay, what next? Ordinarily he’d have known, but a lack of sleep was catching up with him.
    On a whim, he looked up Lance Cabot. The director’s homepage was sparse, a brief bio listing training, positions, and titles. Any further information was coded and encrypted.
    “Lance, you paranoid bastard,” Teddy said. “What have you got to hide?”
    He rolled up his sleeves and began breaking the code.

24
    H olly Barker marveled at Kate’s poise. Holly couldn’t help watching the President during the briefing. No one in the room knew there’d been a kidnapping, yet here she was, conducting the meeting with a calm demeanor as if, aside from the fact that there’d been an assassination, nothing was wrong.
    “All right,” Kate said. “I realize it’s very early, but what have we got? Lance?”
    Holly suppressed a smile. Lance looked like a student who hadn’t read the assignment and was hoping the teacher wouldn’t call on him.
    “We’re canvassing for witnesses. Naturally, no one saw the shooting. We know where the shot was fired, from the rooftop across the street. A rifle cartridge shell is being processed even as we speak, not that there’s much to tell until we have a rifle tomatch it up with. We’re currently combing through security footage looking for anyone who could have smuggled a rifle in.”
    “With any success?”
    “Too much. Assuming the rifle was one that could be broken down and carried in an attaché case, we have a few hundred suspects. We’re sorting them out now.”
    “Who are we tracking who might be responsible?”
    Lance rattled through the list of suspected Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Taliban agents. “With each passing moment it becomes less likely any of them were involved.”
    “Why?”
    “Because no one has taken responsibility for it. With a terrorist attack of this sort, normally someone would. If there’s no claim within the next hour, we would be inclined to look on any subsequent claim as false.”
    The FBI and Homeland Security reported in, but as Lance said, it was way too early and no one had anything concrete.
    Holly Barker got back from the meeting to find Teddy Fay still online.
    “What are you doing?”
    “Requisitioning some equipment.”
    “In my name?”
    “No, of course not.”
    “Surely not in yours.”
    “No, but agent Charles Dobson has a very important mission. We don’t want to send our boys out ill-equipped.”
    “What is Charles Dobson getting?”
    “Sorry. It’s classified.” Teddy swung away from the computer. “You don’t have to tell me how your meeting went. I’m tracking no terrorist activity in the D.C. area yesterday. Today every top Al Qaeda agent not already romping with the eighty-two virgins is in town. No one’s got anything, so everyone’s making things up.”
    “That’s about it,” Holly said.
    “How’d they react to the bullet?”
    “You mean its being CIA? Lance didn’t mention it.”
    “Why is Lance so paranoid?”
    “What makes you say that?”
    “I checked out his file. His encrypted, classified, eyes-only, super-secret file.”
    “What’s in it?”
    “Nothing. That’s the point. He’s got this totally secure file no one can get into, and he’s afraid to put anything in it.”
    “You got into it.”
    Teddy waved that point away. “What’s he afraid of?”
    “You recall the incident when the plane