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

would never jeopardize his clean slate.”
    “He buy that?”
    “He said so. Deep down inside I suspect he still thinks I did it.”
    “I happen to know you didn’t.”
    “Thanks for your support.”
    “Well, it’s not like I’d put it past you, but we happened to be having brunch at the time.”
    “That’s right. The last time we talked it was just a kidnapping. Now we have an assassination.”
    “You think they’re related?”
    “Only if this is all about passing the veterans aid bill. I find that hard to believe.”
    “No kidding,” Stone said. “So, is that all you’ve got?”
    “You’re disappointed I haven’t found the girl yet? Well, I found out who bugged your phone.”
    “Really? Who?”
    “Margo Sappington, just like I thought. She was a setup. She was told to get close to you and plant the bug. I’m sorry to deflate your ego, but she didn’t just fall for your manly charm. She was programmed by a man posing as a CIA agent.”
    “Any description?”
    “Not good enough to work with. Middle Eastern features, clean-cut, looked like an agent. I’ll track him down when I’ve had some sleep. Right now I can hardly think straight.”
    Stone frowned. “What does any of this have to do with the missing girl?”
    Teddy shrugged. “I don’t know yet.”

27
    K aren had to get out of there fast before the Arab came back with his doctor bag. She had no idea what the phone call was that saved her, but she couldn’t count on it happening again.
    The big man came in with her lunch, a sandwich on a plastic plate. He set it on the floor and went out. Karen didn’t have to look at it to know what it was. Processed cheese with mayonnaise on white bread.
    Karen ignored her lunch, went to the door. There was no sound from the other side. The big man was gone. She took out the safety pin. She’d bent it wrenching it out of the door. She folded it back into the shape that had almost worked before. She exhaled nervously, and fitted it into the keyhole.
    It wouldn’t go. Something was blocking it.
    Karen pulled it out, knelt down, and peered through the keyhole, trying to see what the problem was.
    She couldn’t see a thing. They’d plugged the hole. Why? Just to keep her from looking? If so, what didn’t they want her to see?
    Or were they on to her? Had they plugged the hole so she couldn’t try to pick the lock?
    Karen took the fully straightened pin and thrust the pointed end into the keyhole. She immediately hit the obstruction. She poked around at it, and realized what it was.
    The key!
    The big man had left the key in the lock. Now if she could just turn it from the inside.
    She poked at the key with the point of the safety pin. But it was hopeless. She couldn’t get a purchase to turn the key. And she couldn’t grab it with the other end of the pin.
    What could she possibly do?
    She needed a newspaper. If she had a newspaper she could slide it under the door, poke the key out so it fell on the paper, and then pull it back. But they weren’t going to give her a newspaper. She’d asked, but they refused. Probably didn’t want her to know what was going on. It wasn’t that they didn’t want her to read. After all, they gave her a book.
    All right. What could she do with a book?

28
    T eddy stopped in at the CIA headquarters to pick up the equipment he’d requisitioned online under the name of Charles Dobson. He flashed Dobson’s ID and looked appropriately bored while the agent verified the card and double-checked the provisions. Naturally they checked out. Teddy had uploaded agent Dobson’s service record to the CIA mainframe while he was on Holly’s computer. And Charles Dobson looked enough like Fred Walker that the ID photo wasn’t hard to match. A slightly different hairstyle did the trick.
    Minutes later Teddy was out the door with four handguns, a sniper rifle, a generous supply of ammunition, half a dozen burner phones, and a few choice burglar tools, such as heavy-duty bolt