“There the story was thought to have ended, but a search turned up fragments of the airplane that indicated that he had escaped. He stole some things from a vacant beach house, made his way first to Boston, then to Atlantic City, then he disappeared. The news of his survival has been kept secret from the public and most of the Congress, to avoid tipping Teddy off that he’s being pursued again.

“Yesterday, as you know, there was an explosion in a townhouse not far from here. Our people had the building under surveillance, and they photographed this man delivering a package and departing.” He pressed a remote control, and a series of photographs appeared on the screen. “We believe him to be Teddy Fay. He is about five feet, ten inches tall and weighs about a hundred and sixty pounds. He is balding, but often wears wigs, along with false beards and mustaches. He is otherwise hirsute, if his forearms are any indication. That’s all we’ve got. The photographs you are looking at are the only ones of him that exist, if indeed, they are of him.

“The president has ordered the director of the FBI and the director of Central Intelligence to create a combined task force to find and arrest Teddy Fay. The people in this room are the task force, along with all the support personnel you require. The task force has two leaders: me, representing the CIA, and Special Agent Kerry White- stand up, Kerry-representing the FBI.”

Kerry White, at the other end of the table, stood briefly, waved and sat down again.

“I expect you’ve heard a lot about how American intelligence and American law enforcement need to be working more closely together” Lance continued. “This task force is the result of that need. Each CIA officer will be paired with an FBI special agent, and you will work as coequal partners. You will both report to both Kerry and me. No CIA officer is to withhold any information from his partner or from Kerry. Does anyone here question that?”

Nobody said anything.

“Any of my people question that?” Kerry Smith asked.

Nobody did.

“Kerry is going to bring us up to date on the latest information on Teddy Fay,” Lance said. “Kerry?”

Kerry pushed back from the table. “The story of this bombing, as far as we know it, will give you a nutshell description of how Teddy is able to operate,” he said. “He somehow learned that the CIA was surveiling a townhouse where, it was suspected, a terrorist team was being sheltered, before a planned attack on the U.N. head-estate conference that begins tomorrow morning and lasts two days. Teddy understood that, since most or all of the people in the town-house had the diplomatic protection of Iran’s U.N. embassy, there was not much that could be done except to surveil them and hope to catch them in the act, so he took it upon himself to remove the threat. He did an outstanding job, though he was probably helped by the presence of explosives already in the building.

“First, though, Teddy had to obtain the explosives. This is how we think he did it: he hacked into the FBI’s computer databases to learn the locations of C- 4 in New York City, then he hacked into CIA computers and created for himself FBI identification and letterheads, then created a letter from the director to the New York City agent in charge, directing that four pounds of C-4 be surrendered to an agent named Curry-this was Teddy, himself-for delivery to Washington as evidence in a federal trial. I’ve seen the letter, and it is perfect in every respect.

“He then built his bomb and hand-delivered it to the building. We don’t know why they accepted delivery or what they did to inspect the package before it exploded, but the thing worked. Everything Teddy does seems to work.

“The CIA has since changed the access codes to their computers, and so has the Bureau, so we will at least have robbed him of those resources. We have also been back and reinterviewed every person we first talked to when Teddy was killing right-wing political figures, and we have come up with one shred of information that might have some small importance: Teddy Fay loves the theater and the opera. That’s it. That’s all we have.

“I need hardly tell you that we are at a disadvantage; we are up against an opponent who is smarter than all of us, with the possible exception of Lance and me.” Kerry permitted himself a smile. “We cannot rely on him to make a mistake, because, to the best of our knowledge, he has never made a mistake.”

A man in a suit spoke up. “If he didn’t make any mistakes, how did you find him in Maine?”

Kerry sighed. “A federal prisoner, a former CIA officer, read about the murders and offered information in exchange for a pardon. The prisoner had a summer home on the Maine island that Teddy chose for his hideout, and several years ago saw him at the post office and recognized him. So, the prisoner got his pardon and the reward, and we got Teddy’s hideout. Unfortunately, we didn’t get Teddy. So, you see, Teddy didn’t make a mistake. We found him because of a coincidence.”

“Who here knows something about the opera?” Lance asked. Nobody moved. “Oh, come on. Somebody must know something about the opera. You’re not all philistines, are you?”

Holly slowly raised her hand. “I sometimes listen to the Saturday afternoon broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera,” she said. “I like the opera; I just don’t know a lot about it.”

An FBI agent in a suit across the table from hex raised his hand. “I sometimes listen to those broadcasts, too, and I’ll watch PBS if an opera is televised. I’ve been to the opera a couple of times. That’s about it for me.”

“Okay,” Lance said, “you two are partners; you’re the Opera Patrol. Teddy likes the theater, too, but there are too many theaters in New York for us to cover. The opera is pretty much contained in the New York City Opera company and the Metropolitan Opera company. Get on it.”

After the meeting broke up, the FBI agent approached Holly. “I’m Tyler Morrow,” he said, extending his hand. “How do you do?”

“Hi, Tyler,” she said, looking him up and down, at the sharply pressed blue suit and the shiny shoes. She judged him to be in his late twenties. “I’m Holly Barker. You’re going to fit right in at the opera.”

“Thank you,” he replied. “I hope you will, too.”

He didn’t crack a smile, but Holly thought she had just been speared.

AT EIGHT O’CLOCK on Monday morning, prior to his daily intelligence briefing, President Will Lee convened a meeting of the congressional leadership of both parties in the Oval Office, along with the director of Central Intelligence and the director of the FBI. When they had all been served coffee and pastries he welcomed them.

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” Will said. “I’ve asked you here this morning to impart to you some news that you will not like, as I do not. You will recall that recently, at a White House press conference, I announced that the aircraft flown by Theodore Fay during his escape from Maine had exploded and that Mr. Fay was presumed dead. Not long after that announcement an examination of the wreckage of that aircraft revealed that Fay had probably parachuted from the airplane on the coast of Maine. Later, it was discovered that someone had broken into a nearby beach cottage and stolen some items, and still later, a parachute was discovered buried in the garden of that cottage. So it now seems clear that Mr. Fay is alive.”

“Why haven’t we heard about this on the news?” the speaker of the House asked.

“That’s why we’re here today,” the president said. “The directors of the FBI and the CIA have asked that we not announce that Fay is still alive.”

“Why not?” the speaker asked.

“Bob, you want to explain that?” the president asked Kinney.

“Mr. Speaker, we feel that, because of the lack of photographs of Fay, along with his ability to disguise himself, it is unlikely in the extreme that an ordinary citizen could identify him, and we do not want to be flooded with false sightings by the public.”