by Keith Yocum
✦
Dennis was whisked through the safe house’s garage and into a room with several more people in white Tyvek suits and masks. No one spoke to him — they only gestured and continued to push wands over his entire body, including down his underwear.
He was asked for a urine sample and was followed into the bathroom by a man who watched everything closely.
Finally, a very small woman pulled off her mask and said, “He’s clean. We’re okay here.”
Her command was met with the rustling sounds of the synthetic material being ripped off. “I was sweating up a storm in that damn suit,” one man said, stepping out of his overalls.
“Can someone tell me what’s going on?” Dennis said.
No one spoke as they looked at the small woman.
“You’ve been checked for contamination, Mr. Cunningham, and are clean. You’re lucky, and I guess we are too.”
“Damn right,” someone said.
“I’m not a complete idiot, folks. I figured those were Geiger counters,” Dennis said, “but what the hell do they have to do with me?”
“Follow me, please,” the woman said, walking away through a door as the other people in the room ignored Dennis.
She walked into a well-appointed living room, where several people were sitting talking in hushed tones. They looked up at him.
Dennis recognized Chandler from the London station and Sorenstam from Menwith Hill, but there were three others he had never seen before, two women and a man.
“Pull a chair over here, Dennis,” Chandler said. “I think you know Sorenstam, but this is Mary Martinson from MI5, Signey Colpitt from our Russia team at Langley and Bill Clarkson, from the London station.”
Dennis did his best to appear calm and matter-of-fact as he grabbed a small wooden chair and dragged it across the oriental carpet, but he was entirely confused. In the past twenty-four hours he had visited his pal in the hospital, rekindled his relationship with Judy and spent a glorious night with her, been kicked out of his own hotel by strange people in white protective gear, whisked away in a van and poked and prodded aggressively in a London safe house.
“Dennis, I just want to make sure that we acknowledge that you report through the Office of the Inspector General, and as such, take orders from his staff,” Chandler said. “The law is pretty clear about separation of church and state, as it were, regarding OIG and the rest of the group at Langley. But given the severity of the situation, we have been in contact with the IG and he has authorized us to move ahead with you directly.”
“Ahead with me,” Dennis repeated.
“Yes, that is correct,” Chandler said.
“What does ‘ahead’ mean?”
“It means that we are to debrief you and explain the circumstances as they now present themselves. It is up to the IG to decide what, if anything, he chooses to do with your current assignment.”
“I really hate to say this,” Dennis said, “but someone better start explaining what this is all about or I’m getting up and leaving. And you’ll have to Taser my ass to keep me here.”
CHAPTER 10
I can’t explain it right now, Judy, but I’m caught up at work. It’s kind of important, and I’ve been in meetings all day. I’m not sure we’ll be able to have dinner tonight.”
“Oh God, what happened?”
“It’s so complicated — and confidential — that I can’t talk about it. I’m sorry, Judy. But I’ll call you later this evening after I finish up here. It’s been a very strange day. But don’t fret, it’ll be cleared up soon.”
Judy hung up and looked at herself in the mirror. She was happy until about fifteen seconds ago, and now those old fears of insecurity and hurt began to work themselves into the corners of her eyes.
How strange, she thought. One moment I’m on top of the world, the next I’m falling. I wonder if I should just return to Perth. Dennis has no intention of following me to Perth; he’s married to his silly, stupid job.
✦
Dennis paced back and forth across the room, unconsciously wringing his hands as if washing them. They had given him a break, during which he’d called Judy, but then it was back at it.
“You’re absolutely sure,” Dennis persisted. “There is no doubt whatsoever?”
“None,” Chandler said. “It was pure luck that one of the physicians at Royal London overheard someone talking about the case. Otherwise, we’d never have known why he was sick. It’s so rare. It’s pure serendipity that the physician overheard the discussion. The tests are positive. No doubt about it.”
“What is it again?”
“Polonium-210,” Martinson from MI5 said. “It’s a rare radioactive substance. Almost certainly Russian, since they’re the only ones who still manufacture it.”
“And it’s inside Freddie?”
“Yes,” Chandler said.
“And there’s nothing we can do? Nothing?”
“We’re flying over two physicians from the US right now, but we’ve been warned that it’s causing something called ‘acute radiation syndrome,’ and that is impossible to stop.”
“He’s going to die?” Dennis said.
“Almost certainly, yes,” Sorenstam said. “It would have been much better if you would have avoided confronting Pavlychko. Or if you had to do it, you could have left our guy out of it.”
“Nathan!” Chandler said. “Is this the time for that?”
Dennis slumped in the chair. He was so agitated and filled with guilt that he had trouble concentrating.
“Can we do this one more time?” Dennis said, avoiding Sorenstam’s comment. “I want to make sure I got this. So, Arnold disappears, several prior investigations are completed, and it’s determined that the only likely scenario is a Middle Eastern jihadist group nabbed him. Is that part one of this thing?”
Chandler nodded.
“Okay, part two is that Freddie and I are sent to take one more look at Arnold’s disappearance. And in the process, Freddie stumbles across two possible geolocation matches of Arnold and a Ukrainian named Pavlychko.”
“None of this information he bothered to share with Fort Meade,” Sorenstam said.
“Nathan, can we just take it easy? Go ahead, Dennis.”
“So Freddie stumbles on this potential long shot with Pavlychko, and we make this visit. We know MI5 is probably watching this guy, but we go anyway. Pavlychko answers the door, says almost nothing, and then closes the door. Part three: couple of days later Freddie has a woman drape herself over him at the hotel bar. She begs him to bring his good American friend along, but the American friend declines. She parties with Freddie, and as I understand it, she slips a minuscule amount of Polonium-210 in his drink. He comes home, gets sick and now we know he’s dying from radiation poisoning.”
Everyone except Sorenstam nods in agreement.
“And we can’t find the girl?” Dennis said.
“No match anywhere,” Martinson said. “We have a few CCTV shots, but she was probably wearing a wig. We have hundreds of thousands of foreigners living in London. And of course some are illegal. I’m afraid we haven’t had much luck so far.”
“So, number four,” Dennis said. “Our best theory is that Pavlychko freaked out when Freddie and I showed up, somehow figured out where we were staying, grabbed some polonium-210 that he kept in his refrigerator for special moments like this and sent someone out to poison Freddie.”
“And you, if you would have gone with them,” Chandler said. “I think that’s pretty clear. Fred admits that the woman pressed him pretty hard on bringing his American friend.”
“Number five: the only reason we can think that our Ukrainian friend would go through the trouble to poison US intelligence personnel is that he’s nervous we’re on to something worth killing for. And he does it in a manner that will not look like the Yanks
have been poisoned. No one is supposed to suspect this polonium stuff.”
Martinson nodded. “Seems that way.”
“And Pavlychko?” Dennis said.
“He hasn’t left his house yet,” Martinson said. “We’re reluctant to be aggressive on this since our suspicions are circumstantial. But I believe the consensus is that we’re ready to bring him in for questioning today.”
“Does Freddie know what the prognosis is?” Dennis asked.
Martinson nodded.
✦
“Hey, kemosabe, you look like shit,” Fred said.
Dennis wore a surgical mask, overalls and a hair guard. He was glad that much of his face was covered, because he felt like it was melting into a grim, depressed pool of muck.
“Well, you’d look like shit too, if you felt as guilty as I do.”
“Oh, don’t start. You had no idea what was going to happen. I mean, who could predict anything like this? Not in a million years.”
Dennis stood next to the bed looking down at Fred, who was losing most of what hair he had left. His face was an odd shade of yellow and his cheeks sagged. His eyes, though, were still bright.
“They have some physicians coming from the States,” Dennis said.
“Yeah, I heard.”
“You in much pain?”
“They’re giving me some stuff to get rid of the pain. Makes me sleep all the time. Great dreams, though.”
“Are they going to fly you back home?” Dennis asked, even though he knew that was too dangerous.
“Don’t think so. They’re just going to leave me here. For a while. See what happens.”
Dennis could not stand to look at him and walked over to the window. “What kind of view do you have here? Charming. Looks like an alley about eight stories down.”
He put his forehead against the cold glass and stared at the asphalt alleyway.
I could break this window right now, he thought. I could jump. They wouldn’t be able to stop me. Would be over in maybe ten seconds. No more pain, no more guilt. Nothingness.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m checking out your neighborhood,” Dennis said.
“No, you’re not. I know what you’re doing.”
Dennis turned.
“You’re trying to figure out how to find that bastard Pavlychko.”
“Yeah. You’re right, Freddie. The Brits finally go to bring him in for questioning, and he’s gone. They search his home and find lots of cash, couple of guns, and traces of you-know-what. Total incompetents, the Brits.”
“Well, you must feel pretty good about it.”
Dennis frowned and moved toward Fred. “What are you talking about?”
“That your hunch was right. That Pavlychko had something to do with Arnold’s disappearance.”
“Oh, that. Given the circumstances, Freddie, I’d just as well have been wrong on that.”
“Do me a big favor, would you?” Fred said.
“Sure. Whatever you want.”
“Stop being a baby.”
Dennis stared.
“I mean it. You’re acting like a child. All droopy-eyed. I can only see your eyes, but they’re bloodshot and sunken. Don’t beat yourself up over it. I’m sure my name will go onto the plaque of heroes at Fort Meade. At least I’ll be remembered for something there. I mean, I’m getting more attention now than at any time in the last fifteen years. I got a call from the director. Can you believe it?”
Dennis shook his head and looked away. “It’s not funny, Freddie.”
“Everything’s funny if you try.”
“Not for me. Everything’s fucked-up right now on my side of the fence.”
“Come here,” Fred said. “Closer. Want to tell you something.”
Dennis walked over and looked down on Fred. He was beginning to feel the petrifying sadness again and tried to fight it by biting his lip.
“The video,” Fred said.
“The what?”
“The video.”
“What video?”
“Menwith Hill.”
“Sorry, Freddie, I’m not getting it. What video?”
“Arnold’s video. His last visit.”
“Oh, that.”
“Yeah. It’s not right.”
“You mean it’s been edited? Something like that?”
“No.”
Dennis leaned forward and looked closely at Fred. Is the poor guy hallucinating? Is he too drugged to make sense?
“We missed something. I asked if they’d let me see it again, and they said no. You need to watch it again. See what we missed.”
“Sure, Freddie. I’ll look at it again. Good idea.”
“You know it’s the alpha rays that are doing all the damage.”
“I, I, I’m not sure—” Dennis said.
“Polonium-210 doesn’t have gamma rays, just alpha. The rays can’t penetrate a piece of paper. But they can do a job on your organs, you know?”
“Oh, okay. I didn’t know that.”
“Has a half-life of about forty days. Clever.”
“I guess.”
“What are you going to do when you find Pavlychko?”
“Um, well, I’m going to make him pay.”
“Good. Not that I hate the guy. But I thought I had some more bridge games left in me, and he’s pretty much put the kaibosh on that.”
Dennis looked away.
“Hey, Dennis?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you get the nurse for me? Don’t feel so good right now.”
“Sure.”
✦
“They just poisoned him with this stuff? And it could have been you too?” Judy said.
“It should have been me,” Dennis said. “Poor Freddie was just going along for the ride.”
Judy had tried several times to distract Dennis, but he was depressed. She remembered his dark moods in Australia and was struck by how she’d buried those memories. He is a very complicated man.
“What are you going to do about the video?”
“I think Freddie was just acting goofy with all those drugs in him.”
“But what if he wasn’t? You said so yourself that he was a pretty bright fellow.”
“I don’t think it’s worth reviewing. If you would have seen the shape he was in, you’d come to the same conclusion.”
“Ah, Dennis, come on. He could be on to something important.”
“I doubt it.”
“But you owe it to Freddie to look at it,” she said, leveraging the only thing she knew could move him away from his gloom: anger.
Dennis sighed. “Well, he did ask me to look at it. And I don’t give a shit what that idiot Sorenstam says. I’ll demand he show it to me.”
Judy would have preferred introspection or self-awareness as a motivating factor in her Yank, but she knew by now that anger focused him in a way that other emotions did not.
“To hell with Sorenstam,” she said.
“Bastard.”
✦
“Don’t think it’s a good idea,” read the email from Chandler. “Sorenstam is pretty sore about the whole thing and is being a pain. Do you really think it’s that important?”
“Yes, please persist,” Dennis typed back.
Dennis signed off his clunky encrypted laptop, the ones all agency personnel were ordered to use in the field. He could hear Judy in the shower after one of her jogs and then heard her yelp.
“Damnit!” Her voice was muffled behind the bathroom door.
“You all right?” he yelled.
“Damnit,” she said over the running shower.
He opened the bathroom door.
Judy had just turned off the shower and pushed back the curtains. Dennis marv
eled at her sexy, shiny and slick skin, like a candied apple.
“Hand me some tissues,” she said, pointing at the box next to the sink.
He grabbed several and gave them to her.
She pressed them hard against the inside of her calf. “Damn, damn,” she said. “These bloody razors are so sharp these days. Why must women shave their legs, anyway?”
“I don’t know,” Dennis said. “You tell me.”
“Because men don’t like women with hairy legs or hairy underarms. That’s what we’ve been told.”
“Well, this man could care less.”
“More tissues,” she said, holding out the bloodstained pile.
“I don’t like the sight of blood,” Dennis said, resisting taking the stained tissues.
“You are such a baby.”
Dennis grabbed the tissues, tossed them in the trash and gave her another handful.
She stood bent over in the bathtub with the foot of the cut leg up on the tub rim, pressing the wound.
“I hope you don’t take this the wrong way,” Dennis said, “but I’m getting pretty aroused just looking at you soaking wet in the shower.”
“Out,” she said.
“Okay, it was just an observation.”
✦
The dread was overpowering as he put on the protective clothing. Sorenstam had called and told Dennis that Fred’s organs were failing, and he would not survive for more than a couple of days. Since Fred insisted that he see Dennis one more time, the medical staff had relented.
Dennis did not want to face Fred again, but Judy had insisted.
“You can’t run from this,” she said. “He wants to see you. Go see him. Say goodbye. I know this is tragic, but it’s not your fault. And he needs you. Go.”
“You sound like my therapist,” he said.
Dennis stepped into the hospital room, the protective clothing making him sound like a walking paper bag. He was barely recognizable as the Freddie that Dennis knew. This new Freddie was completely bald, his skin had a dusty yellow hue, and his face had lost that chubby boyishness. His eyes were closed, and Dennis thought for a second that he was dead. He began to panic.
There was a nurse in the room, also in protective clothing, adjusting a device attached to a drip line. She gave Dennis the practiced, polite half-smile employed by all nurses attending to end-of-life patients: part welcoming, part somber.