Valley of Spies

by Keith Yocum

  When he got to the street, dusk had turned decidedly into night. The hot, muggy air from the Potomac River wafted over him like a fine, oily mist. He walked down North Lynn Street toward Gateway Park, a three-acre urban park that passed for nature in this part of concrete suburbia.

  His head down and hands in his pockets, he started to sweat in the Jell-O-thick humidity.

  “Hey,” he heard from a car that had stopped next to him. “Get in.”

  Dennis was surprised, not so much by the driver, who he recognized, but because there was a man in the back seat. The driver leaned over and pushed the passenger door open.

  Dennis got in and the driver pulled away quickly.

  “What’s with the guy in the back?” he said, motioning with his chin.

  At that moment, with his head turned toward the driver, Dennis felt a sharp prick on his neck.

  “What the fuck!” he yelled, grabbing his neck.

  The gray, fuzzy darkness fell over him like a thick theater curtain. It was not painful, just confusing. He was aware of movement and voices, but that was about it. His name was mentioned several times, and he would have liked to answer but nothing worked; it was as if his battery had been disconnected.

  Judy stared at the message and image from Dennis. It was 10:30 a.m. on Monday morning, and she was attending the weekly staff meeting. Since their recent altercation, Craig had kept his distance, and she was just as happy. Instead of seeing a handsome, sexy young man, she saw an immature, manipulative spoiled brat. How fast things change, she thought.

  She tried to read the words on the image of a sheet of paper that Dennis sent her, but it was too small to read on her phone. She would print it out later and review. She was also thrilled that Dennis wanted her opinion on the case.

  She texted back: u have all the fun. will read later and send back dissertation! get home soon. miss u

  Later that evening, Judy sat in her parent’s kitchen.

  “Dad, you look good. I’m so happy they caught this heart problem.”

  “I’m right as rain,” he said, tapping his chest. “These little stents are lifesavers, I’ll tell you. Bloody amazing what they can do without opening you up. Send the damn things right up your leg artery.”

  “He just needs to take it easy,” Judy’s mother said.

  They sat at the old kitchen table that Judy remembered fondly from her childhood. The accumulated smells of a thousand food items saturated the room. Judy could pick out hints of curry, fried eggs, breakfast sausage, butter, roasted chicken, and meat pies.

  The phone vibrated in her purse.

  “You work too hard, dear,” her mother said as Judy pulled it out. “We worry about you sometimes.”

  “Oh Mum, you worry too much,” Judy said, looking at the blocked number on the incoming call. “I think I need to get this.”

  “Hello, this is Judy,” she said.

  “Judy, this is Louise. Did I catch you at a bad time?”

  “No,” she said, as she waved to her parents and walked into the living room. “I’m fine. What’s up?”

  “Have you spoken to Dennis lately?”

  “He sent me a text message this morning, why?”

  “About what time did he send it?”

  “It was 9:30 a.m. Monday, my time. Let me see, that would be 8:30 p.m. your time on Sunday if I got that right. Why? What’s wrong?”

  “We can’t find him.”

  “Can’t find Dennis?”

  “Yes, Dennis. He’s not answering phone calls or texts. He’s not in his hotel room. His phones have gone dark. Do you know where he is? What was his last text about?”

  Judy froze.

  “Well, he must be taking a walk or went for a drive.”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Louise said. “Can you tell me what his last text was about?”

  “Nothing. Just that he was hoping to get back here soon.”

  “Well, as you know, he was on a time-sensitive assignment and he’s gone missing. If you hear from him, please tell him to contact me or Simpson ASAP.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “I hate to ask this, but Dennis in the past was known for going on a bender every now and then. He had a bit of a drinking problem. Do you think he’s on one now?”

  Judy bristled. “No. I don’t believe it.”

  “You don’t believe he has a drinking problem or that he’s on a bender?”

  “He’s not on a bender.” Judy’s teeth were clenched, and she was reminded of how much Dennis distrusted Louise.

  “Please contact me if you hear anything. My number is blocked on your phone, so here it is.”

  Judy wrote it down and hung up.

  “What is it, dear?” her mother said from the kitchen. “Is everything alright at work?”

  “Yes, Mum. Work is fine.”

  Chapter 14

  It felt like a dream, but it was also unlike a dream.

  Dennis could walk—or did he dream that he could walk? He could also talk, or it seemed that way, but the words he spoke were garbled.

  Was he on an airplane? It looked small inside the airplane. Someone put on his seatbelt. He thanked them, but he wasn’t sure they heard him.

  He slept a lot. Or it seemed that way.

  Someone would tell him to do something, and he would do it. It made no difference what they said, he felt impelled to complete any task given to him. None of this made sense, and he was not troubled by it. There was no panic or fear. Time flew past. Or did it crawl past?

  Scenes of this dreamtime changed, like the moment a woman hugged him.

  “Hey, David,” she giggled.

  “His name is Dennis. Call him Dennis.”

  “Does he talk?”

  “Not much.”

  “He’s kinda cute.”

  “You’re all set, right?”

  “You bet,” she said.

  “You bet,” Dennis mumbled.

  “He is cute!”

  The lights were kaleidoscopic; he was moving fast and was mesmerized by the lights. He could not stop looking at them. He felt his forehead pressed against the cold glass. His mouth was open, and he felt saliva falling onto his chin.

  “Mmm,” he said.

  “Yeah, Dennis. Lots of lights! Pretty, huh?”

  “Dizzy.”

  “Yeah, baby. I bet you are. You’re cute, you know that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re funny,” she said.

  Later, there were too many people and noises, and Dennis felt more confused.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “Sign your name. Right there. Here. Hold the pen like this and sign your name. He’s a little under the weather.”

  Dennis did not know who she was talking to, but he was certain that he was supposed to sign something, and he did his best.

  “You don’t have to take the pen with you, darling,” she laughed. “Dennis, you’re a hoot. Let’s get going.”

  Judy stared at the print-out of Dennis’s writing that he had sent her. It was a list of the key elements in Forrester’s disappearance. Without Dennis to explain what the notes meant, she did her best to interpret. There was a primitive timeline that he drew starting from the day Forrester left on her trip. For some days there were notations like: “Phone tip/body found near the beach” and “autopsy: headshots, fingers broken/body moved?”

  But the summation was clear: whoever wanted Forrester’s therapy notes was the killer. And then there was the addendum. “NB: what does Louise have to do with any of this?” Judy was curious why Dennis used the abbreviation of the Latin phrase nota bene, translated roughly into “take special notice.” Why was he so concerned about Louise?

  Judy gave up calling and texting Dennis; the calls went to voicemail and the texts were unanswered.

  S
he knew Dennis could become so transfixed during an investigation that he failed to pay attention to common courtesies, like answering a text.

  Judy was angry Louise brought up Dennis’s drinking; in the past, he had been a hard drinker, but she resented Louise’s insinuation that he was a drunkard on a binge. She could not remember the last time he was blotto, certainly not since he lived in Perth.

  Still, where the hell was her Yank?

  “Why?” Dennis asked.

  “Why, what, silly?” she said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You really are messed up, aren’t you, Dennis? Boy, they weren’t kidding. OK, so Dennis, are you paying attention? You put this pipe in your mouth like I did, and I’ll light the bowl here, and you breathe in. Watch me.”

  “Holy shit!” she said. She leaned back in on the sofa. Dennis watched her. She finally sat up, her cheeks pink and flushed, and showed Dennis how to do the same thing.

  He coughed.

  “Let’s do it again, do it slowly.”

  This time he felt very good, though he coughed for several minutes.

  “What do you think of that, Dennis, baby? Fucking incredible, yeah?”

  Dennis nodded.

  “Mmm,” he said.

  “Let’s do some more, OK?” she said.

  Dennis had difficulty focusing. He wanted to stand up and leave, but he also felt very tired.

  “More?” she said.

  Dennis shook his head.

  “We have to do more. Come on, I’ll help you.”

  Later, he realized he was in a car moving again. The lights outside were not as bright as before. The woman was talking a lot, but he could not understand her.

  “Shit, is this where I’m supposed to go? Shit, shit, shit,” she said.

  The car stopped near a building. She turned off the car and parked.

  “Should we do more, Dennis? I have a lot. Too much really. What do you think? Let’s do more, OK? Yeah, why not. Fuck it, it’s free.”

  They did more, and this time Dennis felt very strange.

  “No,” he said.

  “Fine, no more for you,” she said.

  Dennis closed his eyes. Someone spoke to the woman, and she opened the door. There was a commotion outside. Dennis’s door opened, and he was helped outside into the cool, dark air.

  The woman was sitting on the ground with her back against a building. The front of her shirt was red.

  “Oh my god,” she mumbled.

  Someone pushed Dennis to his knees in front of the woman, took his right hand, wrapped it around something, and pushed it toward the woman’s stomach.

  Dennis resisted. “No,” he mumbled.

  Someone smacked him on the side of his head and pushed his hand again.

  The woman was quiet.

  “Hey,” Dennis said, sitting in front of her on the gravel parking lot.

  He touched her face.

  “Sorry.”

  Later he tried to walk but kept falling. He crawled on all fours, making strange sounds with his mouth. He tried to stand again but fell, so he continued to crawl. He was cold. And angry. People were bothering him.

  Judy couldn’t wait any longer and she dialed the number. It was 10:45 p.m.

  “Have you heard from him?” Louise said.

  “No. Have you?”

  “No.”

  “Have you checked his hotel room?” Judy said.

  “Yes. We had some people go by today. He’s not there. Nothing has been taken that we can see. His computer is there, though not his phone. I think he had a burner too. That’s gone. It seems that he left the hotel and never returned. A surveillance camera in the lobby showed him walking out at 8:58 p.m.”

  “His cell phones?” Judy said. “Did you ping them.”

  “Both are offline. No pings. Last geolocation was from Rosslyn yesterday. No other CCTV of him.”

  Neither spoke for several seconds.

  “Has he done this before?” Louise asked.

  “Done what?”

  “Gone off. Disappeared.”

  “No.”

  More silence.

  “Maybe he took a walk and was hit by a car or fell down an embankment,” Judy said. “A freak accident.”

  “Not corroborated by any reports from hospitals in the area,” Louise said.

  “Something is very wrong,” Judy said.

  “Are you aware of any problems he’s had with drugs?”

  “For god’s sake, no,” Judy said. “Never.”

  Dennis opened his eyes, but the glare was blinding, and he shut them again.

  “I think he just opened his eyes,” someone said.

  “Sir, can you hear me?” a man’s voice floated from far away. “Hello? Sir, can you open your eyes?”

  He opened his eyes again, closed them, and finally squinted through thin, watery slits. A man’s face was only a foot away.

  “Sir, can you hear me? Just nod if you can hear me.”

  He nodded.

  “That’s great. Can you open your eyes? Can you look at me? Yes, I’m right here. Can you see my hand? I’m waving it.”

  He nodded.

  “Great. How are you feeling?”

  Dennis stared up at the face of a young man with short, dark hair and a white coat.

  “Can you talk, sir? Can you tell us your name?”

  He felt immense confusion as if he was locked inside a white room with white walls, a white table, and a white light. He tried to speak, but his lips felt leathery and cracked. He tried to raise his right hand to his face, but his hands would not move.

  He craned his neck up from the pillow and looked at his hands. They were bound to the sides of his bed. He dropped his head back onto the pillow. He coughed.

  “Sally, can you give me the water?” the man said.

  He felt something on his lips and saw that the man in the coat was pressing a straw from a container against his lips. He sucked and his mouth filled with cold water. He gulped huge amounts of the liquid, until the overflow streamed down his chin and onto his chest.

  “There you go, sir,” the man said. “That should help.”

  He coughed, cleared his throat, and tried to speak, but only managed to gargle. He heard a motor humming and felt his head being raised.

  “That should be better for you,” the man said. “Now, can you speak? Can you tell us your name?”

  Dennis tried to speak, but it felt like his tongue was fighting a mouthful of steel wool. He managed a word.

  “What was that? What did you say?” the man said.

  “Hand,” he said.

  “Hand? Did you say ‘hand’?”

  He nodded.

  “I see. Of course. Your hands. Your hands are being kept in restraints. You’re in a hospital. I’m afraid we needed to use restraints before you hurt yourself or someone else. Do you understand? You were brought into the hospital last night by the police. You were naked and had no identification. We’d like to know what your name is. Can you tell us? It would help us a great deal if we know who you are.”

  He closed his eyes. Naked. No name. Hospital. Police. He shook his head.

  “You don’t know your name?” the man asked. “Did you fall and hit your head? Did someone hit you? Were you taking any drugs, or were you drinking heavily, sir? Is there anything you can tell us about what happened last night? Do you even know where you are?”

  Dennis rocked his head back and forth on the pillow.

  “Sir, you’re in Las Vegas. Do you remember coming to Las Vegas?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know what hotel you’re staying at?”

  “Hotel?”

  Dennis watched a uniformed policeman enter the back of the room.

  “I thi
nk we got him ID’ed, Dr. Kellis,” the policeman said, handing something to the doctor.

  The man with the white coat leaned in close. “Sir, are you Dennis Cunningham?”

  Dennis nodded slowly, then closed his eyes.

  “Good,” he heard the policeman say. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

  “Murder!” Judy yelled into the phone. “What? You’re off your bloody rocker!”

  “You’re not being helpful,” Louise said. “Can you just calm down for a second.”

  “Calm down! How the hell can I calm down? I can’t believe this.”

  “Do you want to call me back later?”

  Judy closed her eyes, took several deep breaths, then said, “Go ahead.”

  “He’s in a Las Vegas hospital—”

  “Las Vegas!”

  “Jesus, Judy. Call me back later.” Louise hung up.

  Judy stood up from behind her desk, walked around it, and looked out the window into the Perth skyline. The sky had a gray cast to it, with thick, billowy clouds scudding across her view. She bit the inside of her lip absently, held the phone up, and dialed.

  “Keep going,” Judy said, as if the conversation had never ended.

  “He’s in a Las Vegas hospital. But before I go on, you’ve got to listen and don’t lose it on me. Just listen. I have no idea what’s going on, and I’m hoping you can help because none of this makes any sense. I know Dennis a little bit—not as much as you, certainly—but this situation is very bizarre. Should I continue?”

  “Yes.”

  “As I said, he’s in a Las Vegas hospital. He was brought in last night at around 3 a.m. their time. I know this is going to sound strange, but here we go: he was naked, disoriented, hostile, and covered in blood. When EMTs tried to calm him down he attacked one of them, and they had to restrain him. He was a John Doe at the hospital until police found the body, his clothes, his driver’s license, and government passport. The passport is what led them to Langley, and finally to me.”

  “Body?”

  “A woman. A prostitute and drug addict named Pamela Stanton. She was found next to her car, stabbed multiple times. There was cocaine and crystal meth in the car. Dennis’s clothes, heavily bloodstained, were found in and outside the car. Police are investigating this as a homicide. They have Dennis and the woman checking into the Bellagio earlier that night. They’re checking for video at the casino, though it will take an administrative subpoena and a few days for that to come back. One eyewitness on the hotel staff said Dennis was under the influence because he was propped up by the woman throughout their stay. He was in the hotel for less than eight hours.”