He could hear the bed squeaking, and he knew that it took two people to make the other noises he was hearing. As long as they were vocal, he need not worry about being detected. He stepped to the bedroom door.

Omar Said was in the saddle, pumping away. The girl’s face was turned toward Teddy, and her eyes were squeezed tightly shut. Then, as he approached the bed, she opened them.

Teddy pointed the pistol at her and brought a finger to his lips. She now had to decide whether to sacrifice her life for her lover’s. She made her decision; she closed her eyes again. Teddy took another step and put one round into the back of Said’s head.

The Syrian rolled off the girl and onto the floor on the other side of the bed. Teddy walked around the bed and put another round through his forehead. He looked back at the girl, who lay rigid on the bed, her eyes screwed shut.

“Wait ten minutes before you call anyone,” Teddy said in Arabic. He didn’t speak or understand the language, but he had memorized a number of handy phrases. The girl nodded.

Teddy left the apartment, listened for others in the hallway, then, hearing no one, walked downstairs, rolling his ski mask back into a cap. He took a look through the glass of the front door and saw Said’s chauffeur’s head laid on the headrest of his seat. He was asleep; no need to kill him.

Teddy left the building and checked the block for surveillance. Nothing. He walked three blocks, checking, before he took a cab back to his own neighborhood.

HOLLY STOOD OUTSIDE the Metropolitan, watching the last of the operagoers leaving the building. Lance, elegant in a cashmere topcoat and soft hat, came over and stood beside her.

“He didn’t show,” she said.

“He showed, but not here,” Lance replied. “I just got a call from Dino Bacchetti at the 19th precinct. A Syrian diplomat named Omar Said, who is an intelligence operative, was shot twice in the head while in the throes of passion at his girlfriend’s apartment.”

“I don’t think Teddy will go to the opera next Friday night, either,” Holly said.

THIRTY-TWO

WILL AND KATE LEE were in bed, reading, when her private line rang. “Yes? Say again? This doesn’t make any sense; how long have we been watching him? That’s what I thought. Fay had already left the Agency when we started watching him. All right, we’ll meet in the morning and talk about it then. Good night.” She hung up.

Will looked at her sideways but said nothing. She looked back at him.

“Oh, all right, I’ll tell you. Teddy Fay didn’t show up at the opera tonight. While all our agents were enjoying Le Nozze de Figaro…”

“I love that overture,” Will said.

“Don’t interrupt. While they had the opera house staked out, Teddy killed a Syrian spy named Omar Said, who we’ve been surveilling for about four months, ever since he arrived in New York. He is… was attached to the Syrian mission to the U.N., and he had diplomatic immunity.”

“Is Mr. Said a great loss to the U.N., the Agency or the human race?” Will asked.

“Certainly not; he was a goatish, murderous son of a bitch, and the planet Earth is a better place without him.”

“Then I take it we have no complaints?”

“It’s an embarrassment to the Agency that a diplomat who was under our constant surveillance was murdered while we were lured away.”

“You weren’t providing him with any sort of protection, were you?”

“No, we were trying to catch him hobnobbing with terrorists, so we could arrest them and kick him out of the country.”

“Does anybody know you were surveilling him?”

“Just the FBI. They were helping us.”

“Then, if he wasn’t your charge and nobody knows you cared, why is it an embarrassment?”

“It just is,” she said. She turned out her light, fluffed her pillow and turned away from him.

“I suppose this terrible news means you’re not in the mood for…”

“I didn’t say that,” she said, turning back to him.

Late the following morning, Kate convened a meeting in her conference room. Attending were Hugh English, the DDO; his deputy, Irene Foster; Ian Thrush, the DDI; his deputy, George Weaver and, by television conference hookup from New York, Lance Cabot,

“All right, Lance,” Kate said, “give us the whole thing.”

“Good morning, Director,” Lance said.

“Good morning from all of us.”

“One of my officers, a new one named Holly Barker, while looking for Teddy Fay at the opera a week ago yesterday, found him, quite by accident. He walked up to her and invited her to join him for La Boheme. He was heavily disguised, and she didn’t recognize him, and she thought it might be a good idea to look around inside, so she accepted. He told her his name was Hyman Baum and that he was the retired owner of a dress business in the garment district.

“After the opera, he invited her to join him. She declined, saying she would be traveling, and they said good night. Part of his disguise was a cane, ostensibly because he had had a recent knee replacement, but after they parted, Holly saw him sprinting for a cab. On the way home, she realized that she might have spent the evening with Teddy. Her suspicions were reinforced by the fact that our investigation determined that Mr. Baum did not exist.

“He told her that he had the same seats every week; accordingly, last night we staked out the Met in large numbers, pulling people off other assignments. Teddy had exchanged his tickets three times with other operagoers, leading us on a wild goose chase around the hall. While we were chasing Teddy at the Met, he was dispatching Mr. Said, at the apartment of his girlfriend. We questioned her, and she said all she saw was a man in a ski mask with a small gun. She phoned the police, and one of our consultants, Lieutenant Dino Bacchetti, of the NYPD, called me. That’s it.”

“There are two things that concern me here,” Kate said. “One: if Teddy didn’t show and went to the trouble of exchanging his tickets three times, he must have made Ms. Barker as one of us. How?”

“Holly introduced herself, using her own name, but that would have meant nothing to Teddy, and she cannot think of any other reason he would know who she was. Neither can I or anybody else who has addressed the issue.”

“Two,” Kate said. “Said has only been in the country for four months, and we have only been interested in him for that long. Since Teddy retired from the Agency more than a year ago, how would he have been aware of Said’s existence, let alone his presence in New York?”

“I think that is an issue best addressed at your end of this hookup,” Lance said.

Irene Foster half-raised a hand. “That information had to have come from inside,” she said, glad to be the one to point it out.

“Or from someone on the New York task force,” Kate said. “Lance, question everyone there who knew about Said. While you’re at it, I want you to wring out Ms. Barker and figure out how he made her.”

“Will do,” Lance said.

“Hugh,” she said, addressing her DDO, “I want your people to make a list of everyone in this building who knew we were surveilling Omar Said and put every one of them through the ringer- polygraphs, the works.”

“Yes, Kate,” English said. He turned to his deputy. “Irene, this will be your baby; get on it as soon as we’re out of this meeting.”

“Certainly, Hugh,” Irene replied.

“Director,” Lance said from New York.

“Yes, Lance?”

“Holly Barker is with me, and she may have figured out how she was made.” Lance introduced an attractive woman to the group. “Tell them, please.”

“Good morning,” Holly said. “A couple of days before I first met Teddy at the opera, my FBI partner and I checked out a record store called Aria, on the West Side, at Lance’s suggestion. My partner went in alone, and when he identified himself as an FBI agent, the clerk behind the counter refused to talk to him and told him to get out. The day after I met Teddy, I went back to the shop, looked around and bought a CD. I mentioned to the clerk that I had seen La Boheme the night before and that I wanted the recording, and she suggested a version.”