Authors: Keith Yocum
Nathan laughed, and Beth made an odd, startled smile.
“Since when do you make jokes?” she countered. “I’ve never heard you make a joke before. What kind of medication do they have you on?”
“Beth!” Nathan said. “What are you doing?”
“I’m not on any medication,” Dennis said. “Don’t be silly. I’m fine. Don’t I look fine?”
“Yes, actually you do,” she said, reaching for her glass of wine. “You even look tan. Didn’t you say you were in Australia?”
“Yes, I was there for a bit. It’s a pretty interesting place: really nice people.”
“You know—and don’t get all mad at me, but when you called me from there I had the strangest feeling you were in danger,” she said. “I mean it gave me goose bumps. It was very creepy.”
“Yeah, it was weird,” Nathan said, finishing off his meatloaf. “She thought some evil force was descending upon you there in the great Australian outback. I couldn’t talk her out of it. Thank God you came back to the States because, honestly, she was a nervous wreck.”
“Beth, I told you that I don’t have the kind of job that puts me in danger,” Dennis said. “And please tell me you didn’t call Langley again looking for me.”
“I told her not to call,” Nathan said, standing up and clearing the plates from the table. “But she had it in her head you were in trouble, and she needed to talk to you. And when Beth gets her mind on something, there’s no letting go.”
“Now you’re ganging up on me! You think people don’t have premonitions? I’m telling you that I had a strong feeling something bad was going to happen to you, or that you were near something that would harm you.”
Nathan laughed from the kitchen. “See, Mr. Cunningham? Was she like this growing up?”
“Well, she was always headstrong, that’s for sure,” he said. “This premonition thing, though, I don’t remember much of that.”
“Just promise me that you’re not going back to Australia,” Beth said, raising her glass of wine and taking a long sip. Dennis watched the deep ruby-red liquid swirl in the glass bowl as it tipped back.
“No, I’m not going back to Australia,” he said. “And if I were, I certainly wouldn’t tell you.”
Nathan laughed loudly as he sat back down at the table. “That’s my approach as well! Great minds think alike.”
“Men are pigs,” she said.
For a brief moment—perhaps a millisecond—Dennis felt a profound sense of warmth toward his daughter that he had not experienced before. It felt alien, but surprisingly good.
***
Dennis stopped going into Langley and busied himself with silly, nameless tasks like going to see a movie at 2:00 p.m. at a deserted multiplex. He bought a new pair of shoes he didn’t need. He cleaned the bathroom, though it took a long time to find the cleaning materials—and he waited.
To fill the time he called Judy twice; once she was traveling and could not talk. He wondered if she was just blowing him off. He chatted with her a few days later, and they talked like long-lost friends. Like Marty, she did not think working for Massey was a good idea.
“I sort of worry about you,” she said, trying her best to not sound emotionally invested.
“If I can’t handle Massey,” Dennis replied, “then I’ve no business working for the Agency.”
“But he’s powerful, Dennis. You said so yourself. Be careful.”
“Roger that,” he said.
***
The contact protocol was always the same. First, he called the man’s home, and his wife, Margaret, would answer; the man never answered the phone himself. Dennis and Margaret would then chat amiably about the weather, politics, and whatever was on their mind. Finally Margaret would say something like, “Dennis, would you like to talk to Peter? He’s in the den.”
“Sure,” Dennis would respond.
Peter and Dennis would make their own attempt at small talk until Dennis asked Peter if he’d like to grab a cup of coffee sometime.
Peter Harbaugh was seventy-seven years old and retired from the Agency, where he had worked for forty-one years. An éminence grise, Peter was a product of the gritty and complex Cold War that was fought on nearly every continent. Dennis had come in contact with Peter at the end of his career when the gray-haired veteran was briefly detailed to the IG’s office to help assess operational culpability for a failed assassination attempt. A Pakistani nuclear weapons engineer was discovered selling his services to henchmen like Moammar Khadafy in Libya and Saddam Hussein in Iraq. After the Israelis failed to kill the engineer, the job was taken up by the Agency, but it failed, too. Peter and Dennis had authored a report detailing broad-based Agency malfeasance in their failed attempt.
Dennis had instantly taken a liking to the diminutive, reserved, and professorial Harbaugh. Peter, for his part, seemed to relish Dennis’s brash investigative style, and they developed one of those odd Agency relationships—so much so that when Peter retired, Dennis managed to visit him at least once every six months. Dennis enjoyed chatting with the elder statesman, though he was not always sure why. Perhaps he found comfort in Peter’s wise and calm demeanor, or maybe Dennis was simply lonely for company. Nevertheless, their relationship endured.
On this occasion, Margaret chatted for a very long time before passing the phone along to Peter, and the two men agreed to meet at a Starbucks near Peter’s Wisconsin Avenue condo.
Peter dressed in the same preppy attire in retirement that he was famous for during his tenure. Dennis smiled when he saw him dressed in a navy-blue blazer, pressed blue button-down dress shirt, and khaki slacks. His slacks were always cuffed at the bottom. With his thinning gray hair and small, angular face, he looked like the aging preppy that he was. Peter sat at a small table cradling a coffee cup and smiling. Dennis waved, purchased his coffee, and joined Peter.
“How are you feeling?” Peter asked. “You look good. Is that a tan I see on your face?”
“Very observant,” Dennis said. “Australia.”
“That’s a funny place for a man of your talents.”
Dennis chuckled. “Was on a vetting mission to cross-check an MIA investigation by Operations. Marty said it was a small job to get my sea legs back. Something like that.”
“How is Marty?” Peter asked, slowly raising the cup to his lips.
“Piss and vinegar,” Dennis said. “Mostly vinegar.”
“When is he going to retire?”
“Says he can’t because of his divorce, but I think he just likes this crap. Plus, I think his second wife drives him nuts, and he’d rather be at work.”
“And you, when are you going to pull the ripcord and float out of there?”
“Ah, well, you know I’m in no rush to sell my soul to a Crystal City contractor at triple the pay. I mean I’d just be driving around Kabul in an armored Humvee wearing a flak jacket and eating goat kebabs. Naw, I’ll pass on that exciting lifestyle.”
“Well, you have an unusual talent for investigations, Dennis, and I’m glad you’re back at the IG’s office,” Peter said. “I gather things are falling apart inside and outside of Langley. War is exciting for the first ten minutes, and then the rest is just horrid. I hear from my friends that we’re in the vast horrid phase of the two wars.”
“I would say that is a roger.”
They took simultaneous sips of coffee.
“What’s on your mind?” Peter asked.
“Well,” Dennis started, “I think I did something stupid.” He told Peter the convoluted story of Garder’s disappearance, the hazmat alert, the phone records showing Garder’s calls to his parents, and finally his enlistment by Massey to find the missing agent.
“Massey?” Peter grimaced.
“Yes.”
“Why would you fool around with Massey?” Peter looked directly into Dennis’s eyes.
Dennis put down his coffee cup and looked away. “I don’t know, really. I just felt like I could solve this puzzle. Guess I was being brash; you know, the regular bravado from me.”
“Mmm. Massey is not a nice person,” Peter said.
“Yes.”
“And you knew that going in?”
“Sort of.”
“Well, if you can’t find the kid, you’ll be back to the IG’s office soon enough. And of course if you do find this young man, then you’re golden. Massey will probably get you permanently reassigned to his group. Is that what you want?”
“No, of course not.”
“Do you want my advice?” Peter asked.
“Sort of.”
“I’d go back and tell Massey that you’ve reconsidered, and that you’re not up for the assignment. Make something up.”
“He got me detailed,” Dennis said. “The IG signed me over. It’s too late.”
“Mmm. Next time you get involved with folks like Massey, come see me first before you commit to anything.”
“So you think he’s that bad?”
“It’s not just him, it’s the context. There are no more rules, and when there are no rules, anything can happen—especially bad things. At least we had rules against the Russians, the East Germans, the Bulgarians—well, maybe not the Bulgarians—but there were rules, as strange as it sounds.”
“And you think it’s worse now?”
“Of course it is. You know that. Or you used to know that. I’m troubled by the fact that the first thing you do after coming back to work is insert yourself into Massey’s group.”
Dennis frowned and looked out into the street again. “Like I said, it was a mistake.” They sat in silence.
“I was tired of sitting at home brooding and thought this chase was perfect for me. I like the chase; I’m good at it.”
“In that case you’ve done the right thing, Dennis.” Peter pushed his empty cup away. “Just watch Massey. Happy hunting. Let me know how it goes. And how bad could it be if you get to visit Australia?”
***
And still Dennis waited.
It was the same quirky method he’d used over the years: he would ruminate over the details of a case and wait for something to emerge to point him in the right direction. Maybe it didn’t always work, but his most successful cases had turned out that way.
More than anything, Dennis felt impelled to prove his worth to Massey.
Dennis reread the schoolboyish notes that he kept in his spiral notebook. Now that Massey had reopened the Garder case, he also had access to the official files again.
There were a couple of new items he discovered: Garder was missing once for three weeks. His report showed that he had visited several mining operations, including a nickel mine five hundred miles northeast of Perth called Adams Mining Ltd. Garder’s notes on his interview with the director at Adams Mining were painfully boring, like nearly all his reports.
But there was no explanation for one particular three-week period that was marked as “intrastate travel” in his daily report. In contrast to his other travel reports, no destinations were listed. It was blank.
Dennis was also perplexed by one aspect of the Garder case: how did Garder know so much about mining in Western Australia? His files and research materials on mining companies were perfunctory. How did he learn so many corporate details about the vast, desolate expanse of Western Australia? How did he know where to visit? And what was he looking for?
Dennis wondered again about the interview with Drew Pearson from the WA Mining Board. It had been a useless interview, but of all the people Garder had contacted, Pearson would have known the most. If Garder had money to spread around to buy information, wouldn’t it make sense that Pearson could have been a key paid source?
Massey had finally given Dennis access to Garder’s black money account. It showed he had originally been given fifty thousand dollars to pay for information and develop contacts. He barely drew down the account, and then suddenly in September the account was drained and was replenished with $1 million. Soon that money was gone, too.
Dennis was given the list of people Garder was allegedly paying as sources. Not only were the sources ordinary citizens of WA that Garder had used to cover his tracks, but Drew Pearson was specifically not on the list. Normally Dennis would interview the Canberra station chief who handled Garder. But Garder was being run outside of normal channels directly by Massey’s group.
The poetry-reading, wristwatch-loving kid had run off with a million bucks that belonged to the US government. Dennis loved exactly this kind of case where right and wrong was clear. Some Agency employees simply chose wrong. His usual role was to lead the foxhunt until the fox was cornered; this time he’d have to lead the hunt and catch the fox.
***
Judy sped to work, anxious not to be late for a scheduled conference. She had just left her lawyer’s office and was furious. Phillip had petitioned the court to adjust alimony payments downward, and even though her lawyer told Judy it would certainly be denied, Judy was infuriated. Why would he bring this frivolous item to court? To torment and humiliate her? To cause her to burn money for legal fees, as her father had wondered?
Phillip was a well-connected criminal lawyer in Perth with a small commercial and civil practice on the side. His criminal work had forced Judy to recuse herself from several cases because he was defending the suspect. Perth was a small city with too many solicitors and barristers, but Phillip seemed to find plenty of work.
They had rarely discussed their work at home. Maybe that’s why the relationship did not work out, she had wondered after the divorce.
A taxi pulled out in front of her on Stirling Highway, and she rode the car horn for a few seconds, releasing her frustration. Her mobile phone rang, and she kept looking at the road while blindly groping her open purse.
“Judy, it’s Dennis again. I looked at the clock, and I think it’s noon there, right?”
“Yes.” Her closest relationship with an adult male right now, besides her stepfather, was with a cranky, blue-eyed Yank twelve thousand miles away.
“You know, I’ve been thinking about that guy Pearson from the Mining Bureau that we talked to. I think I’d like to talk to him again. I’m going to request a background check on him through your AFP. Just wanted to give you a heads up in case you saw it come through.”
“Unfortunately it’s a little late.”
“I thought you said it was noon out there?”
“No, I don’t mean it in that way. I mean Pearson. He passed away recently.”