Billy Barnett walked off the Centurion Studios back lot and hopped into the 1958 D Model Porsche Speedster parked in the space reserved for the producer. Billy was five-ten, 175 pounds, with short-cropped brown hair, graying at the temples, a wiry, athletic-looking man of about fifty-five.
Except when he wasn’t.
Billy Barnett, aka Teddy Fay, could be anywhere from five-eight, 160 pounds to six-two, 220, his age anywhere from forty-five to eighty-five. With the right makeup he could be an elderly Jew, a young Hispanic, or a middle-aged Muslim.
In his twenty years at the CIA, outfitting agents for assignments, Teddy had learned the game well. He could disguise himself as anyone, create the identity, upload it into the CIA database, the FBI database, as well as those of the NSA and Homeland Security. He could create documents from passports to driver’s licenses, from credit cards to agency IDs.
He could also delete from the mainframe any identities no longer useful. Before leaving the CIA Teddy had carefully erased all his own fingerprints and photographs. For all intents and purposes, Teddy Fay had ceased to exist.
Teddy drove out to the Santa Monica Airport and pulled up in front of Peter Barrington’s hangar. Teddy had found the hangar for Peter, paved the way for him and his father to buy it on the cheap from a rock star who was selling off his aircraft and looking to dump the storage space. It was a nice setup, big enough for one jet and two smaller planes. At the moment it held Peter’s Cessna Citation Mustang and Teddy’s turboprop.
Teddy got out of his car, left the motor running and the lights on, unlocked the office, and fumbled on the wall for the switch.
A gun barrel jabbed him in the back of the neck.
Teddy couldn’t believe it. After a lifetime of diligence, the most clever, careful, and resourceful agent in the history of the agency, who had eluded an international manhunt orchestrated by the upper echelon of the CIA, was about to be brought down like this.
And he had only himself to blame. He had grown complacent in his new life as Billy Barnett, with his wife and his house and his job and his normal daily routine. That and the fact that no one was looking for him anymore.
Teddy had been on the run ever since leaving the agency. He’d had to be. The charges against him, including murder, were so numerous it was hard to imagine a conviction that would not result in a life sentence. Teddy had resigned himself to being a fugitive all his life.
He probably would have been if he hadn’t helped Peter Barrington by dealing with some Russian mobsters who were stalking him. Teddy, disguised as Billy Barnett, had followed Peter to L.A., where he secured a job at Centurion Studios outfitting movie actors with weapons and rigging explosions.
Then he teamed up with Peter’s father to stop a terrorist attempt to detonate a nuclear weapon in L.A. Stone revealed Teddy’s role in the matter to then-president Will Lee, and obtained a presidential pardon, ending the CIA manhunt. Teddy had been able to settle down, though prudently not under his own name.
And, irony of ironies, his routine lifestyle had made him lazy and careless, and now he was about to die.
“Put your hands on your head.”
Teddy let out a breath and thanked his lucky stars. He’d been spared. This was no seasoned hit man. This was a rank amateur who didn’t know what he was dealing with.
Teddy complied immediately, raising his hands to the back of his head.
Then he spun like a flash, lunging sideways and chopping down.
The gun rattled to the concrete floor. Teddy ignored it. He grabbed the man’s arm, twisting it around and down.
The man came to his feet, his face contorted in pain. He flailed at Teddy ineffectively with his left arm while Teddy twisted his right. Teddy dropped to the floor and scooped up the gun. It had a silencer. That was what had poked him in the neck.
Teddy scowled at his assailant. Even in the dark he looked young and inexperienced. Teddy snorted in disgust. “I’m sorry, kid, but you’re just no good at this. Who hired you?”
The young man said nothing and set his jaw.
“I don’t have time for you to be coy. If you don’t want to talk, I’ll shoot you. Who hired you?”
“No one hired me.”
“You do this just for fun?”
The young man’s eyes flashed with determined resignation. “For the cause!” he said, and lunged for the gun.
Teddy shot him in the head.