by Keith Yocum
“No. You folks have asked every question known to mankind. And to be honest, I hope you’ll forgive me, but it’s getting tiresome. I have no idea where he is or why he disappeared. He didn’t gamble that I know of, barely drank alcohol, refused to even take aspirin, so I don’t think he had a drug problem. You know I haven’t seen him in four years, and I have nothing to add. We didn’t keep in contact, which is not unusual for divorced couples. I’m sure you know that.”
Dennis sighed. “Well, I just have one more question then, and we’ll leave you be.”
Fred shifted on the couch next to Dennis, as if he was going to stand up.
“Mrs. Arnold, had your husband been involved in an affair? Were you aware of another woman in his life?”
Fred made a little breathing noise that sounded like a wheeze.
“Ha,” she said. “Hardly. Not his cup of tea.”
“Excuse me?” Dennis said.
“If you’re asking me whether he had an affair with another woman, I’d say I don’t think so. But maybe every woman says that about her ex-husband. And you’ll have to forgive me, because I have to leave now.”
✦
Judy refused medical attention and did her best to pass off the entire event as if it were normal to have a 110-pound dog knock you to the ground as one of your partners shot the animal dead in midair.
“No, really, Clive, please don’t worry,” she said. “I’m fine. It was just a bit of a shock, that’s all.”
All three Rottweilers had been killed, and Halo, the drug-sniffing dog, had its right hind leg badly mauled as well as an ear nearly torn off.
They had waited until another sniffer dog was brought in, along with more police, and they scoured the property looking for the Corolla. When they found it, the new dog found no trace of drugs.
Judy fumed about the errant bust.
“For God’s sake, you’d think they’d get better informers,” she seethed to Clive. “Three dead dogs, a fourth wounded dog, no drugs and a complete bloody waste of time.”
Clive put his arm around her shoulder and gave her a hug. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. On the drive back to Perth, he chatted endlessly about a football match that weekend, pitting South Fremantle against rival Subiaco. Judy barely paid attention and at one point raised her hand and felt a bruise at the base of her sternum where the dog’s snout had hit her.
✦
“Do me a favor, don’t ever ask me to join you on one of your ‘gut instinct’ forays again,” Fred said when they were driving away. “I’ll stick to my algorithms.”
“You didn’t pick up on the affair question?” Dennis said.
“I picked up on the fact that she was pissed off at you. That’s what I picked up.”
“Something happened back there,” Dennis said. “It was about another woman. I could see it in her face. I wonder if Arnold was having an affair. The reports we read distinctly rule out an affair, right?”
“They ruled out an affair, yes, but there was nothing she showed in her living room that suggests she knew he was having an affair,” Fred said, staring at the blur of lights on Route 50. “You’re reaching on this one. I can see why they warned me about your investigative style. It’s nutty, Dennis.”
“Did you get warned about me?”
“Of course I did,” Fred said. “You think they were going to pair me up with Dennis the Menace without warning me?”
“What did they say, exactly?”
“I don’t want to get into it, and slow down, you’re driving too fast.”
“She was lying about the affair,” Dennis said.
“Prove it.”
“I will, you’ll see.”
“After you prove it, I’ll declare defeat and embrace the confrontational mastery of the great Dennis the Menace. Meanwhile, I withhold judgment.”
“She’s lying.”
“Right. And I’m going to be late. You told me I’d be home by 7:30. I have a bridge match tonight.”
“Bridge? Like in cards?”
“Yes, like in cards.”
“You play bridge?”
“I just told you I have a match tonight, didn’t I? I’m on a team, and they’ll be pissed that I’m late. And all to confront a divorced woman about her missing husband. Sheesh.”
“It’s our job to ferret out the truth of what happened to Arnold.”
“Ha. I think you’re the ferret. Ferrets are part of the weasel family. Did you know that?”
“No, I did not. But it makes sense.”
✦
The pencil was driving Dennis insane. Finally, he said, “Louise, would you please stop drumming the desk! I can’t even imagine what the song is in your head that you’re following.”
“Don’t try to derail the conversation,” she said.
“I’m not derailing anything, but it’s irritating.”
“I think it’s irritating that you haven’t filed a single report on the Arnold disappearance.”
“Well, Marty, my old boss, didn’t much care when I filed reports, so I guess it’s just a habit.”
“For the record, please file a daily brief on this case; that includes weekends. That clear?”
“Yes, it’s clear. I just don’t know what all the fuss is about.”
Louise sighed, threw the pencil onto the desk and leaned forward. “I thought I told you that the subject was very sensitive and that there is suspicion here that NSA is not coming clean on this case. Didn’t we go through that? When the IG asks me whether I have an update on the case, and all I have is an email from you saying something like, ‘working on it,’ what the hell am I supposed to say? ‘Cunningham’s too busy to let us know what he’s doing, if he’s doing anything at all.’”
“I told you I don’t like being micromanaged,” Dennis said. “Freddie and I are reviewing the case files as a first step.”
“Let’s get clear on one thing: Representative Barkley specifically requested you to investigate this case. You are the last investigator we would have chosen to be attached to this wrap-up. The IG didn’t like it, I didn’t like it, no one liked it. We’re still trying to figure out why Barkley wanted you. We don’t know whether he knew you’d make the case even more opaque by screwing it up or whether he actually thought you’d get somewhere. But given your work so far, my guess it was the former.”
“That’s not nice,” Dennis said.
“After working with you for two weeks, that’s my professional judgment. Either that, or Barkley wanted to ruin my career. And why he would single me out for special treatment is only a wild guess.”
“Louise, I think you’re taking this thing a little too far.”
“And I think you’re not taking this thing seriously enough,” she said, her straight blond hair bouncing wildly as she sat back in her chair.
A twitter of anxiety hit Dennis as the adrenaline flushed into his bloodstream. This was the old, defiant Dennis rearing his ugly face and getting the typical reaction. Dr. Forrester had spent the better part of two and a half years trying to get him to own the depression and anger he struggled with over his family’s dark past and his wife’s death. And now, after being back to work for only a couple of weeks, he was trapped again in another self-defeating cycle with a new boss that played by a different set of rules.
Louise suddenly shot forward in her chair, tore a lined sheet of paper off a pad, and grabbed a ballpoint pen. She furiously drew a black circle about an inch wide and then scribbled back and forth to darken the circle. Then she pushed it across her desk at Dennis.
“See that?” she said.
“Yes.”
“Do you know what that is?”
“I have a lot of theories, but I’m going to say no, I don’t know what it is.”
“That’s a reset button,” she said. “We’re going
to have to reset our relationship. This is not working, and unless you’re committed to working with me versus against me, you’ll have to report to someone else in OIG. Like Nick Campbell, or even Nancy Klonowitz. I can’t work with you, and I’ll tell the IG you’ll need another manager.”
“I’m not going to work for that dope Campbell, and forget Nancy. Will never happen.”
“Then get your finger over here and push the goddamn reset button, because I’m ten seconds away from walking into the IG’s office and telling him to move you to someone else.”
“This is kind of dramatic, Louise.”
She stood up and struggled awkwardly to get around her desk. “We’re done. I’ll send you an email telling you who to work with next. Good luck, you’ll need it.”
Dennis used his thumb to press down on the drawing. “I pushed it,” he said.
“It’s too late,” she said. “Get out. We’re done.”
“For God’s sake, Louise, sit down,” Dennis said. “You win. I’m an asshole. I’m difficult to work with. Maybe getting shot in the head was bad for my self-esteem. But I can adjust. You’ll see. Sit down, please, you’re making me nervous.”
Louise looked down at him, her face twisted into something approximating a mix of fury and exasperation.
“Please,” Dennis said softly. “Sit.”
She returned to her seat and stared at him. Both of them were drained, and the room seemed frozen as neither moved.
“I’m good with all of this,” Dennis said. “I’ll post daily reports. Just one thing.”
She took a deep breath. “What?”
“Can I take this with me?” he said, pointing at the hand-drawn reset button. “Be a good reminder for me.”
✦
When did Starbucks become the preferred meeting venue for people in the intelligence community? Dennis wondered as he sipped his coffee.
He could see Connecticut Avenue traffic through the plate-glass window and marveled at the earnest and patriotic energy in the nation’s capital that kept people like him busy. Undeclared wars in the Middle East, drone strikes everywhere, Russians making life miserable for everyone, Iranian and North Korean nuclear saber-rattling — perfect conditions for espionage activities. And, of course, malfeasance, theft, murder and lying in the performance of those duties, which was the bailiwick of OIG at the agency.
Dennis looked up and saw Peter Harbaugh walk through the door. Several minutes later, the retired agency senior director settled into a chair next to him.
“Always good to hear from you, Dennis,” Harbaugh said. “Margaret says hello.”
“She’s a great person,” Dennis said. “Nice to see some agency marriages survive.”
“Well, let’s not make it sound too perfect; there were storms along the way,” Harbaugh said. “And speaking of storms, how are you feeling? I can’t even see a scar on your scalp.”
“Fine; seems like a blur now, the whole thing. But I’m feeling fine and back at work.”
“Everything going okay? You sounded a little stressed on the phone,” Harbaugh said.
Dennis had a long relationship with his fatherly mentor, and though the elder statesman had spent his career in the clandestine operations side of the agency, their friendship seemed to satisfy both men. Dennis desperately needed someone to provide counsel on agency nuances and personalities. Harbaugh felt a fatherly interest in helping the mercurial Dennis survive the byzantine organizational fights. Plus, Harbaugh liked to feel the thrill — albeit at a retired distance — of the hunt.
“Well, my new boss is a hoot,” Dennis said. “Very controlling. She seems pretty uptight, and we’ve already had a couple of run-ins. Kind of a pain, given this new case I’m on. Seems like a high-profile situation that’s got everyone in fits. Barkley on the House committee picked me to do a wrap-up on a disappearance, which seems very strange. And they’ve got me paired with this goofball from NSA. I mean, the entire thing is just plain nutty.”
“Barkley?”
“Yes, can you believe it? Asked for me specifically.”
“Wait,” Harbaugh said putting down his coffee, “this isn’t about the London station, is it?”
“Um, Peter, I’m not supposed to be discussing this, and I think you know that.”
“It is about the London disappearance then.”
“Christ, Peter, how the hell do you know so much about what goes on there still? I’d love to know who you talk to. Anyway, I can’t get into it, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course,” Harbaugh said, picking up his coffee again. “But can I just say one thing?”
“I suppose.”
“If it’s this particular case that I referenced, I can absolutely say without hesitation that this is possibly the worst thing you could be doing. Can you reject it? Is it too late for that?”
Dennis put down his coffee and stared at his table partner. They looked at each other in silence, the sounds of people laughing and the hiss of a milk steamer providing a backdrop.
“I’m a little stunned,” Dennis said. “You’ve never reacted like this to anything in our years of gossiping. In fact, I can see something in your face right now that I can’t figure out. And I’m not confirming for a second that I’m involved in the London disappearance.”
Silence again fell on the table.
Harbaugh reached into the inside pocket of his blue blazer, withdrew a fountain pen and then pushed a brown Starbucks napkin toward Dennis. He drew a circle about an inch wide. Then he drew a larger circle surrounding the first one.
“There are two governments at work in intelligence,” Harbaugh said. “See this inner circle? This is the real intelligence organization, made up of about twenty thousand bureaucrats who live and breathe intelligence work. They control everything, including all of the assessments, findings, reports — everything, really — that the elected government sees.”
Harbaugh moved the pen tip from the inside circle and touched the outer ring. “This is the elected government. When a new administration takes over, there are only about five hundred total appointed government positions. That’s all. These folks here—” he pointed to the outer ring “—think they’re in charge, but it’s these folks here that are actually in charge. Do you see that?”
Dennis nodded, but he was not sure why Harbaugh was droning on about a state of affairs he already knew. “Um, okay.”
“And right here,” the elder statesman said, putting the pen tip in the gap between the inner and outer circles, “is where you are. You work for the bureaucrats that actually run the intelligence business, but you also work for the other group, the elected officials like Barkley who think that they run intelligence. So you’re nowhere. Neither of these groups own you, nor do they trust you. You’re all alone, and no one is invested in protecting you. The problem you ran into with the Australia case was just a tiny reflection of the clash between these two governments. Do you see that?”
“I guess so,” Dennis said. “I mean, I appreciate the overview, Peter, but not sure what you’re getting at. I’ve been doing this for a while, and I’ve been able to negotiate the space between these two entities pretty well. Or at least I think I have. And I don’t know if this is a good thing, or a bad thing, but you’re the second person who’s drawn a circle for me recently.”
“What’s that about a circle?”
“Nothing,” Dennis said. “Sorry, go ahead.”
Harbaugh frowned. “I’m not getting through, am I?”
“Yes, you are, but I’m trying to say that I don’t think any of this is new to me.”
“Didn’t your former boss try to kill you because you stumbled upon something this inner group didn’t want you to find?”
“Yes, but that was a rogue operation, and it was a one-off disaster, not a reflection of the entire intelligence structure.”
“Ah, well that’s my point,” Harbaugh said, screwing the cap back onto the pen and returning it to his blazer pocket.
“What point?”
“That you’re wrong. It’s a reflection of the entire intelligence structure. You’ve always been a believer that the system is inherently good at its core, and that problems occurred when a couple of bad people acted up. I mean, I loved your enthusiasm for digging out the miscreants, but it was always a tad naïve. This London thing is eminently more complicated than you could ever know, because it is precisely at the intersection of the two governments. Someone is going to get hurt on this one, and I don’t want it to be you.”
“Peter, one thing I’ve never been accused of is being naïve,” Dennis chuckled. “Please don’t misconstrue what I’m about to say, but perhaps you’re overdramatizing the state of affairs? And I’m not confirming there is something going on at the London station.”
“Of course,” Peter said, smiling softly. “I’m not really in touch with folks there anymore.”
Dennis knew that was not the case, but he let the moment pass. They sipped their coffees.
“What’s up with this new boss thing?” Harbaugh finally said. “Who is he?”
“It’s a she. Her name’s Louise Nordland. I think she washed out in operations, and HR felt they needed a good balance of male/female, young/old, dumb/stupid in the OIG. So they gave her this position. I’ll get through it okay.”
“Nordland?”
“Yes, have you heard of her?”
“Wait. Is she the one who was injured in Lebanon several years ago? You know, the car bomb that Hezbollah set off at that safe house?”
“No, you must be mistaken. I don’t think Louise was involved in anything like that.”
“Well, if it’s that gal, she’s pretty decorated. Don’t you remember the incident? I mean, it was in the papers. Washington Post covered it. Pretty tawdry, even by our high standards.”
“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,” Dennis said, draining the rest of his coffee.
“You must pull your head up out of OIG and look around every now and then,” Harbaugh said, chuckling. “Does this Nordland woman have a limp?”