Color Of Blood

by Keith Yocum

  “Will you shut the fuck up?”

  “Wait. I bet you’re the investigator they sent from the IG’s office to follow up on my disappearance, right?”

  “You right-handed or left? Pick—right or left?” Dennis said. “Or should I just shoot both of them?”

  “So why did they send an OIG investigator to track me down? That’s odd. Guess you must be good at finding people. In a million years I would have never figured they’d follow me to Baselworld. Unbelievable.”

  Dennis tried to give him a stern look, as if it were a last warning, but he was also startled to know that Garder knew Dennis had been sent out to find him. How did he know that?

  “So if you’re from the OIG, then you know next to nothing about what’s going on right now. You have no idea what they had me doing in Australia, do you?”

  Dennis stared at him, trying to figure out how to make him shut up without hurting him. He half-wondered whether he should shoot him in one of his hands, like he had threatened.

  “Look,” Garder said, leaning forward a little, “I was on a ‘blind trawl’ in Western Australia. Do you know what that is?”

  Dennis pushed his chair back and looked at Garder’s legs underneath the table as if he’d consider shooting one of them, but none of it had any effect on Garder.

  “The Agency has a pretty clever way—actually they stole the idea from the old KGB—of making sure some of its more sensitive operations are airtight. It’s diabolically simple: they send a junior agent into the field to investigate some vague and suspicious activity that’s similar to their own black ops program that they’re running nearby. But the agent isn’t told anything about the real black ops program that’s being run by his own team. You get it? They let the agent stumble around to see if he or she will discover the real program. If the agent gets wind of the mysterious program, he reports it immediately, not knowing it’s being run by his team. The Agency gets some cheap quality assurance, maybe breaks in a green kid going into the field for the first time, and more importantly, they plug holes in the program’s cover so it’s even more hidden afterward. And the agent, who never knew his or her real job was Langley QA, gets reassigned. Get it? They call it a ‘blind trawl’ because the agent is blindly dragging a net, so to speak.”

  Garder stole a glance at his watch, a stainless steel model with an oversize face and several knobs on the housing. Dennis sneaked a glance at his own watch and realized that just fifteen minutes had expired since he made the call. Only thirty-five minutes to go.

  “So they sent me on a ‘blind trawl’ into Western Australia. They dropped me into the consulate in Perth and told me to research the mining industry there. Told me there were hints that some foreign powers were misusing mining permits and were shipping out unauthorized materials. I had no idea it was a ‘blind trawl,’ of course, I was just trying to do my job. But it turns out the Agency had a program going on that was incredibly supersensitive. And I found it, man. Took me a while, and I had a little luck, but I found it.”

  Dennis had decided to simply wait out Garder as he babbled on. Nevertheless, he found himself amused with his storytelling prowess. If nothing else, it helped pass the time.

  “And when I found it, of course I thought it was a foreign power running the program. But when I discovered it was the Agency running it, I was shocked. Who in their right mind would authorize something as crazy and dangerous as that? The more I thought about it, the more monstrously insane it seemed.”

  Garder sat back in his chair and sighed, pulling his hands to the edge of the table.

  “Put your hands back, Garder,” Dennis yelled. “Now!”

  “Sorry,” Garder said, sitting forward and pushing his hands palm down on the table.

  “I was so pissed off when I found out what was going on that I told them so. Of course they denied it and reassigned me right away. They even suggested I’d get a commendation. I was staggered with the sheer insanity of what they were doing out there. Who thinks of these crazy friggin’ schemes? And how in God’s name do they get approved? After telling them I was pissed off, they were, like, ‘Get your ass back to Langley and shut the fuck up.’ But I had a crisis of conscience, I guess you’d call it. Don’t laugh when I say that. See, you’re smirking, but you’d be furious, too, if you knew what those jackasses were doing.”

  “Do you have any idea what a pain in the ass it is for us folks in the IG’s office to spend our careers running around the globe trying to track you dopes down?”

  “OK,” Garder said. “So I pulled off the shark thing. I thought it was original: maybe not so much now. I guess I knew they’d figure it out eventually, and all I needed was a head start.”

  “I have to ask, now that you brought it up—and I’m only curious from a professional standpoint—but how did you manage to get a great white to bite your flipper?” Dennis said. “They pretty much certified that a white shark bit the flipper we found.”

  “Oh, that was easy. You can buy great white teeth in tourist shops in Fremantle,” Garder said. “They shed them all the time. So I did a little research and measured out the distance of a medium-size shark’s bite. I used a pair of pliers to hold the tooth, and I slowly punctured the flippers.”

  “Shit, that’s not bad,” Dennis said.

  Again, Garder shot a quick glance at his watch.

  “I’m sure they didn’t tell you what was happening because that would have blown the program. No, I bet you were duped, too: anything to keep the program rolling. Man, was I naïve. I hid out for a while and then prepared a detailed package of documents spelling out the whole filthy little operation and contacted a reporter for the Boston Globe. The guy was great, and I must have talked to him for, like, three weeks straight. We met in person in London. Then when the Globe contacted the Agency for comment on the story, the Agency absolutely killed me. They produced all these falsified reports that showed I was unstable, was a thief, and was blackmailing the Agency. In the end, the newspaper buckled. They said there was no independent, verifiable information to support my claims. They wouldn’t print it. So you know what I did?”

  Dennis tried not to listen but was intrigued.

  “I go to the New York Times—the goddamn New York Times—with the same story, and guess what? The New York Times owns the Boston Globe! They check with editors at the Globe, who say the guy is a flake! How was I to know the Times owns the Globe?”

  Dennis’s cell phone rang. Staring intently at Garder and pointing the gun at the center of his chest, he answered.

  “Cunningham, this is Massey. Do I understand you have Garder?”

  “Sitting in front of me.”

  “Goddamn it, Cunningham, you are good! This is the best news I’ve had in months. You are one hot shit. Is the extraction team there yet?”

  “Negative.”

  “After they leave, call me, OK?”

  “Roger,” he said and hung up.

  “You know they’re going to kill me?” Garder said.

  Dennis just shook his head in disgust and kept silent.

  Garder looked at his watch for the third time, and afterward Dennis cursed himself for not understanding why he kept looking at his watch.

  Chapter 26

  The sound of a key entering the lock of the hotel room startled Dennis, and he reflexively turned part way to look behind him.

  By the time he caught himself and turned back to face his prisoner, Garder had launched himself across the table.

  Dennis fell backward in his chair with Garder on top of him. Dennis’s head clipped the bottom of the bed frame, and it sent a bright light streaking across his field of vision.

  Garder grabbed Dennis’s pistol hand at the wrist, and with his free hand, he stabbed his fingers into Dennis’s eyes. Vaguely, in the midst of the tumble and rolling, Dennis thought he heard a woman scream.

  Garder had clearly been trained in the dark arts of close-in combat; Dennis was overwhelmed with pain in one eye as he twisted his head to
avoid the horrible scratching and poking. Still, he continued to hold the weapon, and he even managed to grab hold of Garder’s slashing hand. Using his leg that was squeezed against the wall, Dennis thrust upward, rolled over, and eventually got on top of Garder, straddling his stomach.

  Dennis heard a woman crying behind him, and Garder began to yell something in French. Dennis let go of Garder’s wrist with his left and took a vicious downward shot with his fist, catching the young man squarely on the side of his jaw.

  Before Dennis could hit him again, Garder slammed his open right hand underneath Dennis’s chin, pushing it upward. Garder spread his thumb and forefinger so that he could squeeze both sides of neck underneath the hinges of his jaw.

  Garder kept yelling furiously in French, and Dennis found himself strangely immobilized by the pressure underneath his neck. Even though he held a dominant position on top, his head was forced upward toward the ceiling. Dennis tried to take several swings at Garder with his left fist, but Garder’s stiff right arm blocked every clean shot.

  After several moments struggling in this odd position, Dennis began to feel faint. He realized, too late, that Garder was skillfully constricting his carotid arteries, slowing blood to his brain. Dennis twisted his head and neck from side to side, trying to break the grip.

  Just as suddenly, Garder released his grip on Dennis’s neck but kept a death grip on the wrist of his pistol hand.

  Breathing heavily, Garder said huskily, “She’ll kill you if you don’t stop.”

  Dennis was confused and panted heavily, trying to regain his breath.

  “She doesn’t want to shoot, but I’m telling you she’ll do it,” Garder continued. “Look.”

  Slowly Dennis turned to see a young woman holding a small revolver in two shaking hands about twenty-four inches from the back of his skull. She was sobbing quietly, and mascara ran down her cheeks.

  “Last chance,” Garder said.

  Dennis closed his eyes, released the pistol in his right hand, and slumped onto the floor. He lay there with his eyes closed, exhausted, his arms spread out on the carpet as Garder jumped up and scurried around the room yelling to the woman.

  “Roll onto your stomach, hands behind your back,” Garder yelled. Dennis complied, feeling a sickening wave of self-loathing sweep over him. How could he have screwed this thing up so badly? From hero to goat in about 120 seconds.

  With Garder sitting hard on his back, Dennis felt his wrists being bound together with some kind of tape; he could hear the ripping sound as it came off the roll. Garder grabbed his two ankles and bound them together with the same tape, then quickly ran the tape several times between his bound wrists and his bound ankles, so that his legs were bent up behind him.

  Standing up over Dennis, Garder kicked him onto his side. Holding up the plastic pistol, he laughed derisively.

  “These things are a piece of shit, didn’t they tell you?” He threw the pistol onto the bed.

  At ground level Dennis watched the two sets of shoes fly around the room; the woman would not stop crying, and Garder seemed to have trouble calming her. He lay with his cheek pressed into the carpet, his wrists and ankles beginning to ache as the tape cut into the skin. The smell of the dusty carpet against his nostrils made him gag, and he turned his head.

  The next thing he saw was Garder’s face twelve inches from his.

  “If I ever see you again, I’m going to have to kill you,” he said. “They’re playing you, too, but I don’t give a shit. I can’t afford to have idiots like you chasing me, so for your own good, stay away from me.”

  ***

  “There is not a bloody thing I can do about it,” Daniel said. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

  Judy looked at Daniel as he spoke and found her eyes focusing on his lips. They moved up and down, twisted, pursed, and flattened as he talked. She had never noticed his lips before, but now she could not take her eyes off them.

  “Jude, she’s thirteen! You would think Heather and I would be on the same page, but we’re not. A weekend with this boy’s parents on Rottnest! I know the father, and he’s a bloody dipstick.”

  She nodded in commiseration but could not keep her eyes off his lips. Were they the lips of a snitch? A liar? A man who would betray her?

  “Well, at least you were sensible enough during the term break to send Simon away,” he said. “Where did you say he went?”

  “Brisbane,” she lied. “Long lost aunt up that way; she’ll keep him busy, I’m sure.”

  “I would have sent my oldest to Mars if I had my way,” he said.

  Judy nodded again.

  “Jude, are you all right?” Daniel asked.

  “What?” she said.

  “Are you all right? You seem distracted or something.”

  “I do?”

  “Is it Phillip again?”

  “Yes,” she said, taking a final sip of her lukewarm coffee. “He’ll be the end of me for sure. Don’t know why I let him bother me so much.” She stood in the small kitchen alcove of the bureau’s office, emptied her coffee down the sink, and threw the paper cup into the waste bin.

  “We should get moving, Daniel. We have that meeting at ten o’clock.”

  “Did you injure yourself running again?”

  “No, why do you say that?” She turned to face him.

  “You’re limping.”

  She looked at his brown eyes and then let her eyes fall to his lips again, as if she could divine his intention from their shape.

  “Just a pull,” she said. “Nothing serious.”

  ***

  There were eight names on the sheet of paper; three had horizontal lines through them, leaving five unmarked names. Judy looked at them, as she had off and on for the past forty-five minutes. Each of the five remaining names was a senior AFP person she knew in the East.

  Seven days had passed since her return to work. With term break just starting, she had allowed Simon to join the Manning family in a two-week trip to New Zealand; to keep him safe, she repeated the lie to everyone that he was in Brisbane. It temporarily removed Simon from her worries. The AFP was still providing a police presence around her parents’ home, though she was not especially worried about them.

  Her overriding concern was keeping Simon safe, since the bastards had singled him out rather dramatically. When he returned from vacation, she would need to have a solution. But who to turn to for help? If this gang indeed had AFP snitches here in WA and back east, whom could she trust?

  Judy had immediately thought of turning to Miller, since she felt he was too pompous and patriotic to be a snitch. But she was more concerned about whom he’d turn to for help. He was just grandiose and stupid enough to talk to the wrong person, and in a perverse way, the gang had indeed left Judy with a lasting memory of their new relationship; the mere tingle of discomfort from her toe reminded her of what they threatened to do to her only child.

  The longer she waited, the more pressure she felt to solve her problem. It was only a matter of time until the mysterious Mandy would contact her. At that point the gig was up: she’d have to start snitching or figure out a way to get help without tipping her hand.

  The list of five senior AFP members in front of her was her best bet.

  Her mobile phone vibrated.

  The incoming number was blocked, and she watched it struggle to life like a wounded moth. Just before it cycled through to voicemail, she grabbed it and flipped it open.

  “Hello,” she said slowly, her voice an octave lower than normal.

  There was a crackling of electronic dissonance and then a voice.

  “Judy?” a man asked.

  “Yes.”

  “How are you?”

  “Who is this?”

  “It’s me—Dennis.”

  “Oh, I didn’t recognize you. I’m sorry.”

  “So, how are you?”

  She looked at the sheet of paper with the names on them.

  “Things are not so good, Dennis.”


  “Is it that ex-husband of yours again?”

  “No. It’s more complicated than that.”

  “Is it work-related?”

  “It’s everything-related,” she said.

  “You don’t sound very good.”

  “It’s because I’m not very good.”

  “Can I help in any way?”

  “Not likely.”

  “How about we just talk about it, that might help?”

  “I don’t mean to sound rude, Dennis, but I really don’t want to talk about this on the phone for the next hour,” she said. “I appreciate your offer, but that won’t help.”

  “I mean in person,” Dennis said. “Can we talk in person?”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m in Perth. At the Hilton.”

  “Perth? You sound much farther away,” she said.

  “It’s these Agency phones. They encrypt and then route to satellites over Antarctica, for all I know.”

  “It’s half-past nine at night.”

  “I just got to the hotel about twenty minutes ago,” he said. “I should have called earlier, but the trip was a last-minute thing.”

  “I suppose I could stop by the hotel.”

  “I’d love to see you, Judy,” he said. “If not tonight, maybe tomorrow?”

  “I can be there in thirty minutes. I need to put my face on first.”

  “Your face?”

  “Nothing, Dennis. See you in thirty minutes. I’m glad you called.”

  ***

  She saw him hunched over the mahogany bar, looking down at a large poster of some sort.

  “Judy!” he said, standing up. “It’s great to see you.”

  He threw his arms around her and hugged tightly.

  Judy rested her left cheek against his chest and suddenly felt like she was going to cry. She closed her eyes and swallowed, trying to regain her composure. The warmth, the sense of protection and physical intimacy were too much, and she choked.

  Dennis released her and held her at arm’s length.

  “Judy, are you crying?” he said.