Authors: Keith Yocum
This is how adults should break up,
he thought
. They should talk it out, make peace, and move on.
The fact that he cared for Judy made the breakup more painful.
But this is normal painful. This is good.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call,” she said again after a minute of silence.
“That’s all right,” he said. “I understand.”
They stared at the coffees.
“You know, I think I was taking advantage of you, Dennis,” she said slowly. “Can you look at me, please?”
Dennis raised his eyes from the swirling steamed milk of his flat white and looked into hers.
“I feel bad about using you. I mean I didn’t realize it at first, but you came on with your investigative solution so quickly, and it seemed so rational that I just decided to let you get me and Simon out of our troubles.”
“Well, if it’s any consolation, I liked helping you.”
He smiled, but it was a lame smile.
“I miss you,” she said. “I’ve come to that conclusion as well.”
“I miss you, too.”
“This feels awkward,” she said. “I didn’t want it to be awkward. I wanted it be a confession. And then I’d feel better. We’d feel better.”
Dennis smiled. “Maybe we’re just awkward people.”
“Yes, I suppose,” she said. “Do you think we can continue to see each other?”
“That might be difficult.”
“What do you mean?” she said.
“I’m leaving on a trip up north, and then I have to fly back home immediately. I just don’t know when I’ll be able to get back here. I can try in a couple of months, maybe.”
“I see,” she said. “There is the distance thing.”
“Maybe we could try a long-distance relationship for a while?” Dennis said.
“More like interplanetary thing,” she said. “It’s a very long plane trip.”
“Yes, that does sound a little optimistic, given the distances.”
“Do you mind telling me why you’re going on this trip north?”
“Oh, well, that’s my little mission to discover what this fellow Garder found up there. I know it’s kind of silly. But it seems like something I should do.”
“Where precisely are you going?” she said.
“Ah, well, that’s my problem. WA is so damn large, and I’m just going to take a guess at places to visit.”
“The map. That’s why you had the map on your wall.”
“Yes. That stupid map; I’m going blind looking at it.”
“And you think Garder was onto something important?”
“Yes, I do,” he said, idly turning his coffee cup in quarter turns like a radio dial. “I feel like I’m a pretty good judge of liars, thieves, sociopaths, borderline personality disorder—the folks at the other end of the bell curve that cause the Agency so much trouble. And Garder just didn’t fit that profile. Granted, it’s not like we had a normal conversation. Hell, I had a gun pointed at my head. Still, he wasn’t like the other scumbags.”
“What are you saying, Dennis?” she said.
“I think he’s telling the truth.”
“You mean about trawling, or whatever he said?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“Dennis, that seems dangerous. You’re not authorized to do it, I presume, and even if you find it—which is unlikely—what are you going to do then?”
“Now that’s a great question,” he said. “I’m not sure yet.”
After a few moments she reached out and placed her hand on his wrist.
“That’s not a good idea, Dennis. You should go home and rest up for a while before you decide to do that. You’re sounding like Garder, for heaven’s sake. And you have no idea where you’re going in the bush.”
“That part is true. The map and Garder’s travel notes are the weakest link. But I’ll give it a try.”
“Let me see your map,” she said.
“No. You need to stay out of this. Not your problem.”
“Well, without being histrionic here, Dennis, I think I at least owe you a helping hand. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Not with this stuff,” he said. “If Garder’s right, it’s a black program. And the last thing you need to get involved in is digging out a secret Agency program hiding out in the wilds of Australia. Besides, you’re famous now.”
“Oh God, isn’t it awful? The media won’t leave me alone.”
“I noticed you were absent from all the coverage,” he said.
“A photographer from a UK newspaper followed me and tried to take a photo in front of my house. I ran up to his car and told him I’d shoot his bloody tires out next time he followed me. Simon doesn’t need me to be in the news.”
Dennis laughed. “Seems a little aggressive.”
“Well, how would you feel being hounded like that?”
“Pissed off.”
“Precisely!”
“But shooting out tires?”
“I was exaggerating, of course.”
“Of course. But the photographer doesn’t know you as well as I do.”
“You think you know me well?” she said, squinting.
“Maybe not completely well. But enough to know not to piss you off.”
“Well, if you don’t want to piss me off, you’d let me look at your silly map so I can stop you from ending up lost or out of petrol and water.”
“No.”
“I didn’t say I was going to ride with you; I just asked to look at your map.”
“That’s all?”
“Of course. It worries me that you don’t know anything about driving in the bush. Let me just look and see what I can find.”
Dennis’s hotel room was strewn with maps, papers, and writing utensils, including a large magnifying glass with the price tag still on.
“Good heavens, it looks like Simon’s bedroom.” She laughed. “Are you planning on sitting for your exams soon, too?”
Dennis picked up two pieces of lined writing paper that were taped together to form one long sheet of handwritten items.
“OK. So here’s what I did. I mapped Garder’s trips—or at least the ones in his report—to known mining sites in Western Australia. It took a long time, but I think I have his trips catalogued.”
Judy walked over and stared at the paper and smiled. “You’re nothing if not organized.”
Dennis had numbered each trip in Garder’s file, given it a start date, and listed the destination of record and the mining company visited.
“My guess is that on one of his official scouting trips he took a detour and found his big surprise,” Dennis said. “If I could just figure out which trip he used as cover, I could at least zero in on the rough geography of the black site. Given the fact that his clothing had low-level uranium contamination, I’m looking for matches near existing uranium mines. Unfortunately, I’m stuck trying to figure out which trip because Western Australia seems full of uranium mines.”
Judy sat in the chair and put her purse on the floor. “But how did Garder ever figure out where to look in the first place? I mean it stretches the imagination to think he was driving in the outback going to destination A, when he stumbled upon mystery destination B.”
“Oh, that’s easy,” Dennis said. “It was Pearson.”
“Pearson?”
“Yes, he was the most knowledgeable person in the state on mining operations. My guess is that Pearson stumbled upon this black site because he knew something was not right. Either the permit didn’t match the operation, or there was no permit, and he inquired and was told through channels to just drop it. I mean, really, who knows how Pearson figured it out? But my guess is that he did.”
“And Garder found Pearson and started paying him as a source?”
“That’s my hypothesis,” he said.
“And I gather you don’t think Pearson died a natural death?”
“Correct.”
“And that Garder did not sneak back into the country and take him out?”
“Correct. If my young, high-minded agent was correct—another wild hypothesis, I grant you—I think it was our friends in Langley or JSOC. They put a team onto it after Garder went AWOL and discovered, ironically, where the breach was in their black program—it was Pearson. And they plugged the leak.”
“Dennis, but doesn’t that seem, well, too outlandish? The CIA puts together a secret operation in the outback that presumably no one knows about, and then starts killing Australian citizens when they find out? Really!”
“Ah, but you’re thinking of the normal CIA, and you’d be right to think that way,” he said. “But this thing was being run out of the Agency’s Special Activities Division. This group operates in complete secrecy and has almost no oversight, except from the White House. And those guys are off their rocker. I’ve heard of some wild programs going on that you just have to shake your head at.”
“Dennis,” Judy said, putting down the long sheet of paper, “I promise this is the last time I’ll bring this up, but don’t you think you might have been manipulated by Garder?”
“You’re right to keep pressing me on this, Judy, but my gut tells me that Garder was telling the truth. He could have put a bullet in the back of my head and been done with me while I was tied up. But he didn’t. And you have to remember these younger millennials in the Agency aren’t as cynical as the rest of us. Some actually have a conscience. Not like me; I don’t give a shit.”
“Technically that’s not true any longer,” Judy said. “I’m gathering you do give a shit, and that’s why you’re on this crazy, self-appointed mission.”
“I can’t tell you why I suddenly give a shit, but there it is. Yes, I give a shit now.”
She sighed. “All right then, let’s look at the map, and I’ll try to advise you on your ‘give-a-shit’ mission. No more warnings from me. I’ll be dispassionate about this.”
Dennis gently removed the tape holding the map on the wall and dropped it onto his bed so that they looked straight down on it. Small numbered pink sticky notes peppered the surface of the map.
Judy followed Dennis, and they stood side by side like two Greek gods staring down at the world below.
“Do you want something to eat or drink before we start?” Dennis asked.
Judy looked at her watch. “Well, I am a little hungry . . .”
Dennis ordered two large chicken Caesar salads, dinner rolls, and a bottle of sauvignon blanc from room service. They plowed into their task while waiting for the food. One by one they went through Garder’s trips, estimating how long it took him to drive and what his likely route was. They eventually found themselves kneeling on the floor, side by side, their elbows on the bed as if in a church pew. Judy used a yellow highlighter to trace the estimated driving route of each trip. The bed was soft, and she had to press lightly or the entire map would cave in.
Halfway through, they were interrupted by room service. They ate at the small meeting table after clearing it of academic supplies. Dennis poured two glasses of wine.
“I didn’t know you drank wine,” she said.
“I don’t,” Dennis said. “But I’m game.”
As was often the case, Dennis left CNN on in his hotel room with the sound turned down. Every now and then he’d glance up to see what might be happening in the crazy world around him, but mostly it was just habit that offered a sense of continuity to every trip. The hotel room, the city, the maladapted agent may be different, but CNN was always the same.
While they ate their salads, Judy pointed to the TV set that showed a correspondent reporting from Baghdad.
“Can you answer a question?”
“About what?”
“The war in Iraq. It’s been going on now for, what, four years?”
“Something like that.”
“So the US invades Iraq and deposes Saddam Hussein because they think he has weapons of mass destruction.”
“Yes.”
“But it appears there were no weapons of mass destruction.”
“So far that’s correct.”
“Now isn’t it true that Iraq and Iran hate each other and fought a brutal war in the 1980s?”
“That’s true.”
“And isn’t it true that Iran is the hated enemy of Israel, and by extension the US?”
“Where are you going with this, anyway? I thought we were having a bite to eat?” Dennis laughed.
Judy put another mouthful of salad in her mouth but continued to talk, alternately chewing and speaking.
“So let me get this straight. The US neuters Iran’s hated Arab enemy, Iraq, by destroying its military and letting the Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites fight among themselves. And Iran, which is hated by the US, sends Shiite fighters into Iraq to fight and kill Americans and Sunnis.”
“I don’t pay much attention to politics or foreign policy,” Dennis said.
“Well, that’s very American of you. But listen—now you’re sending even more Yank troops into Iraq, and undoubtedly more of them will be killed by Iranian fighters that America literally opened the gates for. Doesn’t that seem odd to you?”
“Stop trying to be logical about these things. Governments make stupid mistakes all the time. I’ll let the historians figure this one out.”
“Mmm,” she said, taking a sip of wine. “Maybe I don’t have the right amount of testosterone to understand these things.”
“You understand them just fine,” he said.
They finished their meals and started into a review of Garder’s trips. After nearly two hours, they had gone through each of his trips and identified three weeklong trips during which Garder was in proximity to uranium mines.
Judy was sitting down on the floor, her legs curled backward to the left. Her beige slacks had collected lint from the carpet, and she absently plucked away the fluff and tossed it back onto the carpet. Dennis was tired, but he remained on his knees, his stomach and elbows resting on top of the bed, staring at the map.
“It doesn’t seem right,” Judy said.
“It doesn’t?”
“No.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because I don’t think Garder found a known mine. That just doesn’t work for me. If it were an established mining operation, then there’d be nothing secret about it, and the environmental regulations and record keeping would be very tight, even by Australian standards. That doesn’t sound like a black operation to me.”
Dennis turned and looked at her from the bed, the map crinkling as he twisted. He stared at her.
“So you think Pearson steered Garder to an unauthorized mining site, something not registered and not on the books?”
“Yes,” she said, looking distractedly at the fluff balls on her bent knees. “That would be my guess.”