by Keith Yocum
“So who would follow the war poets, like Owen, these days?”
The man laughed again, this time out of exasperation.
“I can’t really answer that! All kinds of people are interested in poetry.”
Dennis pressed ahead anyway, feeling the conversation stumbling.
“What was unique about Owen?” Dennis asked. “What made him so great?”
The man sighed. “Well, I suppose you could say he had an extremely beautiful way of describing some of the worst traits of mankind.”
“What traits?”
There was a pause on the line. “Have you read any of his poems?” the man asked.
“I tried, but they’re too hard for me to understand.”
“Well, I suggest you read them again and slow down when you read,” the man said. “It’s really not that difficult. Read one line at a time. Slowly. Reread if you have to, but just read slowly. It’s not a novel or a film script. It’s more like a lyric to a song that’s painstakingly composed.”
“OK, I’ll try again,” Dennis said. “But you were mentioning something about the ‘worst traits of mankind.’ What did you mean?”
“Owen was furious about the slaughter during the war. He wasn’t alone, of course, with those feelings, but he had a unique way of describing the tragedy and horror of that war. You must understand the scale of the carnage. On July 1, 1916, for instance, Great Britain lost more than nineteen thousand men with thirty-eight thousand more wounded in a single battle in a single day. Toward the end of the war, young men like Owen grew increasingly outraged by the slaughter and wrote about it. I would think it’s an aspect of Owen’s poetry that is quite accessible, although in Owen’s case, it was quite tragic.”
“Tragic in what sense?”
“Well, he suffered a nervous breakdown during his first tour of the front. What they called shell shock in those days, but we call PTSD now. Apparently, he was trapped in a forward position for several days with the dismembered body of another British officer. He spent months convalescing and writing his best poetry. He was finally deemed healthy to return to the front, and he did so with apparent relish. Interestingly, he was awarded the Military Cross for an action soon after going back into the line.
“Even though he thought the war was a huge mistake, and other poets like Siegfried Sassoon were making anti-war statements, he still wanted to return to his men at the front.”
“So what happened to him?”
“He was killed in one of the last major actions of the war, five days before the armistice was signed. It was said that his parents were listening to the ringing of the celebratory bells in his hometown marking the end of the war when the telegram arrived with news of his death.”
“Oh.”
“There’s no doubt Owen—and perhaps millions of soldiers since the beginning of time—died from a kind of survivor’s guilt,” the professor said. “Owen couldn’t resist going back to be with his suffering trench mates. But if you ask what was unique about his poetry, I’d say that it was his eloquent outrage against the stupidity of the powers that be.”
***
Dennis could not get a handle on this young agent, Geoffrey Garder. He had read his psych profile that had turned up the usual stuff. He tested high-average on his Wechsler, his Rorschach showed no abnormal traits, and he scored normal on the ARC, a personality test the Agency had developed and used exclusively to find—it seemed—healthy, impressionable, patriotic men and women from America’s heartland.
Garder was an only child and had the classic profile for the Agency. He came from a semirural, politically conservative environment, was athletic, competitive, and patriotic. He was a good student, majored in International Affairs and had won a coveted internship at the State Department, but he also collected fine watches and was fascinated by a long-dead World War I poet.
Dennis spent all day ruminating about what had really happened to Garder—and why. He walked around the giant Langley facility; he had lunch in the cafeteria with an old friend from Translations. At the end of the day, he drove home and pulled up in front of his cold and lonely house. It was nearly dark when he parked in his driveway.
He sat in his car for several minutes with the engine running, listening distractedly to the all-news radio station, and then he knew what he had to do, even if he didn’t have all the answers and would be in a lot of trouble.
***
Massey sat in his large, elaborate chair and swiveled it slightly from side to side. His sidekick was with him as usual. Dennis asked Massey not to tell Marty they were meeting on the Garder case because he was contravening direct orders not to discuss the case.
It was a nettlesome arrangement, but Dennis felt compelled to do something about what he now believed to be true. Marty would find out sooner or later, but Dennis guessed that Massey’s power and influence could inoculate him from his boss’s wrath.
Dennis was still uneasy.
“If you suddenly think, am I being reckless,” Dr. Forrester had told Dennis in one session, “then you are being reckless and self-destructive. That’s your sign to back off and think.”
Massey looked at Dennis and said, “You’re being a little tiresome about this Garder thing.” Massey made a bridge of sorts with the fingertips of both hands touching their opposite number while his wrists stayed anchored to the desktop.
“Yes, suppose I am, and I apologize,” Dennis said, “but I thought you’d want to know.”
“Know what?” Massey collapsed his finger bridge.
“Garder is alive and well, apparently. He’s not in the digestive tract of a great white shark. He staged his own death to look like he was eaten by a shark. It was very clever, actually.”
Massey swung his head to his right, made brief eye contact with his constant companion, and swiveled back to face Dennis.
“Go on.”
“Garder planned the whole thing and knew the shark thing was plausible enough, especially in Australia. He also knew that they wouldn’t need a body to prove his death. And they wouldn’t look long for him. And he did it without an accomplice to make it clean and completely airtight.”
Massey looked down at his desk and slowly opened a red file folder. He pulled a pair of tiny reading glasses out of his coat pocket and adjusted them on his bulbous nose. After several seconds of reading, he looked up.
“Says in the report that Garder’s car was found on a remote beach in Western Australia. How do you think he managed to get away without an accomplice? Do you think he swam to Singapore? Or caught a ride on a passing tramp steamer? Or a shrimp boat?”
“No, he had a motorcycle or motorbike in the back seat of his car. A test showed that a drop of motorcycle transmission fluid was found in the back of his car. He just drove away. By himself. Probably went north. My guess is that he purchased a fake passport from someone in Australia. There is quite a cottage industry for fake passports these days. No one would follow him because they thought he was dead. Must admit it was very clever.”
Massey took off his glasses and tossed them onto the desk.
“OK. Let me grant you everything up to now. But how do you know he’s alive? This is just bullshit speculation. Come on, Cunningham, for Christ’s sake. We’re not idiots. We do this for a living. This is all you have? A drop of transmission fluid?”
“He called his parents,” Dennis said.
Massey exchanged another quick glance with his friend, this time lingering a bit, almost like they were lovers. When he returned his gaze to Dennis, there was something new in the man’s demeanor: a kind of low-grade anger.
“I assume you can provide corroboration for the contact between the parents and son?”
“I have unauthorized phone records that I will not turn over to you. But you can go through channels and get them yourself. And I talked to the parents. They’re lying to protect their son. We could pressure them if we had to, but I wouldn’t recommend that approach.”
Massey stared at
Dennis; it was a cold, hostile glare, and it unnerved Dennis the longer it went on. Finally Massey pursed his lips and said, “I want you to stay in this room. Under no circumstances are you to leave or communicate with anyone until we return. No phone calls, emails, or texting. I’m going to have someone watch the door. You got that?”
“That’s a strange request,” Dennis said.
“You’re a strange man,” Massey said, standing. The two men left the room.
In all his years at the Agency he’d never been ordered to stay in a room. Was he going to be arrested? He began to berate himself for his stupid attempt to go directly to Massey. The longer he waited in the room, the deeper the funk became. After nearly fifty minutes stewing, the office door finally opened.
Chapter 20
Massey entered first, followed by his silent friend, then Marty and Betty, Massey’s secretary. There were now five people and four chairs in Massey’s once-spacious office. A flurry of activity ensued, and another chair was procured for Betty.
Marty never acknowledged Dennis, and Dennis did his best not to look in his direction, though they were sitting next to each other.
Betty opened a spiral-bound notepad and clicked a ballpoint pen. In sensitive meetings like this, Dennis knew, the Agency preferred to have written notes. They could easily record the meeting electronically, but digital records needed to be protected, stored, encrypted, and catalogued. More importantly, those records could be requested by troublesome outsiders like the IG’s office, congressional committees, and lawyers. Written notes, on the other hand, could be sufficiently manipulated and edited—or destroyed—to avoid disclosure. And participants’ recollections of meetings were, by their nature, vague and subjective enough to provide inconclusive results.
“Cunningham, while you’ve been disobeying orders in pursuit of solving the disappearance of one of our young agents, it appears that you’ve come up with some valuable information. I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you how surprising this information is. If young Garder is, in fact, alive and well, as you suggest, it would explain something that’s been puzzling us.”
“Excuse me?”
“We’re missing some funds,” Massey said.
“How much?”
“One million dollars. Perhaps a bit more.”
“And you just discovered it? The missing money was never mentioned in the earlier investigation. I never saw a single reference to it in any of the reports.”
“Suffice to say Garder had access to the funds. The money disappeared over a three-month period, and we thought it was accounted for. We were wrong. It’s complicated.”
“Sounds odd that the loss wasn’t picked up earlier,” Dennis said.
“I couldn’t care less what you think,” Massey said.
Silence settled over the room; the only sound came from Betty, who had a nervous habit of clicking her ballpoint pen.
“If you suspected he had stolen the money, why didn’t you just tell me?” Dennis said. “I’m a little confused about the timing of my investigation on the heels of the earlier one done by Operations. They must have picked up on the missing funds.”
“We didn’t find out that his payments were bogus until after you left,” Massey said. “As you can imagine, it’s a delicate task to confirm that people he listed as sources were in fact not sources at all. And then you report back from Australia that he’s been eaten by a shark. Your report seemed pretty definitive about his death, no?”
“Yes, I suppose,” Dennis said. “So, let me guess: you were a little embarrassed—is that too strong a word—by the missing dollars, but now that Garder was dead, well, why report it back up the chain?”
Massey raked Dennis with a withering stare.
“Fuck you,” Massey said. “Is that too strong a word?”
Betty clicked her pen twice in succession.
“Well,” Dennis said, standing, “Garder’s running around with your million dollars. Go get the bastard before he spends it all.”
“Sit down,” Marty said.
Dennis sat down.
“We want you to help us find Garder,” Massey said with a half-smile, half-grimace.
“I don’t do that kind of work,” Dennis said. “Marty can vouch for that. That’s typically handled within Operations. You guys do that for a living. We always maintain lists of bad agents circulated to all the other friendly intelligence agencies. The Germans, Brits, or Israelis will find him. There’s nothing a lone IG investigator could do in this circumstance.”
“On the contrary, Cunningham,” Massey said, “we think you could help us a great deal. Your reputation is one of a dogged, intrepid—if somewhat prickly—investigator. We’ve got permission from the inspector general to have you attached temporarily to our unit. Your job is to do whatever it takes to find this little shit. We’ll give you two months; if at the end of eight weeks you’re no closer to finding him, then we’ll repost you to the IG’s office. We will of course be sending other teams out to look for him; mostly new agents in training.”
Dennis looked at Marty, but he already knew what his boss’ response was going to be. Sure enough, Marty gave him one of those you-called-it-upon-yourself-you-stupid-shit looks.
“Fine,” Dennis said. “It’s about as unorthodox a use of the OIG as I’m familiar with, but sure, I’m a good soldier. I’ll do what I’m told. Just two questions.”
“Shoot,” Massey said.
“Number one: Who do I report to?”
“Me,” Massey said.
“Two: What do I do when I find Garder—because you know I’m going to find him, don’t you?”
Massey smiled. “You’ll get a single phone number, and you will call it if and when you’ve found him. Just observe him remotely and point our team in the right direction; we’ll take care of the rest. If it looks like he’s in danger of fleeing, you can apprehend him and hold him until help arrives. We can get an extraction team to you within an hour in most major metropolitan areas of the world.”
“So I can’t just shoot him?”
“No,” Massey said. “Shoot to wound as a last resort only.”
“I was just kidding,” Dennis said.
“Ha, ha,” Massey said.
***
“I tried to help you,” Marty said back in his office. “I warned you to stay away from them, and you just kept going. Now you work for them. You may be a bright, intuitive investigator, Dennis, but you have a knack lately of finding trouble where none existed beforehand. I’m trying to cut you some slack about what happened to your wife, but it’s getting tiresome.”
Dennis sat slumped in a chair with his neck bent so far back that he looked straight up at the ceiling. He felt very strange, since he knew all along that he was toying with Massey. Why did I do it? What did I think was going to happen? Given the circumstances, Marty was indeed looking out for me, he thought. Now that I think about it, yes, I was egging Massey on. Why did I do it?
“I feel sorry for you,” Marty said, sighing. “I really do. This is not going to end nicely. You’re not cut out for those folks.”
“So why did you let them grab me?” Dennis asked.
“They made a request directly to the IG, Dennis. I tried to explain your circumstances: that you were an excellent investigator with an unorthodox style and had just returned to work after your wife’s passing. I said you were not suited to this Special Ops-type of work.”
“And what did the IG say?” Dennis asked, his voice squeaky from his bent windpipe as he continued to stare up at the ceiling.
“He said: ‘If it’s that important, then you’ve got him, but only for eight weeks.’”
“Mmm.”
“Let me ask you a tough question,” Marty said. “Sit up and look at me, for God’s sake.”
Dennis sat up.
“Now would be a good time to think about an early retirement. I mean it. You’ve got your time in; you don’t need this shit. Staying around now will only add a few bucks to your pens
ion. You could do some consulting and make a fortune.”
“Are you serious?”
“Of course I am. Take the plunge early. Get out. Go hang around a beach in Florida or Greece. Play golf. Leave all this shit behind.”
“I can’t do that, Marty. I don’t do anything else but this stuff. Sitting around after Martha died just about killed me.”
Marty sighed. “For the record, that was my last attempt to save your sorry ass. And try to remember, Dennis—I know this is difficult for you—but given your family background, you wouldn’t even be allowed into the Agency these days. You would be screened out. Just remember that; you have a lot to lose.”
Dennis felt a strange sensation swarm over his skin, akin to vertigo. It was the same feeling he felt when Dr. Forrester tried to bring up the same subject.
After a few moments, his normal breathing returned, and he stood up.
“And I’m going to find that little prick.”
Chapter 21
Daniel had a way of sipping tea that Judy found comical. Not only did her partner continue to drink tea when many Aussies had moved on to coffee, but he insisted on steeping his teabags for exactly three minutes. He then added just the right amount of regular milk that turned the drink an almond-brown color and finished up with two sugar packets that he stirred for fifteen seconds. When he was finished with his preparation, he held the cup in both hands—always with two hands—anchored his elbows on the table, and leaned forward to drink.
“So,” he said, “why do you think they picked on you? What’s the bloody point in frightening you and your parents? Please don’t misunderstand, Jude, but you and I know that your piece in the money laundering investigation was perfunctory. You weren’t leading the team, nor did you contribute any more than I did, or William—or Des for that matter. Doesn’t really add up to me.” He took a long, loud sip of tea.
Judy sighed. “I know. The only thing I can imagine is that they think I know more than I do. They just assume it.”