Valley of Spies
Page 6
“Haven’t seen you do that in a while,” she said.
“I haven’t had to. This information is confidential. And it goes without saying that you will deny, even after five days of waterboarding, that I talked to you about this?”
“Please, Dennis, don’t start with your super-secret silliness.”
“Well, you’ve been warned.”
“So?”
“So, they’ve fingered an Iranian cell operating in New Zealand. Husband and wife team by the name of Farhad and Astar Ghorbani. And another guy named Ramin Lajani. Operations says this group nabbed her off the street and tortured her for information on her patients. When they were done, they killed her and buried or incinerated the body.”
“How would this Iranian team know an obscure therapist from the US was even in New Zealand?”
“They think there’s a leak in the agency,” Dennis said. “They appear to have some sigint to that effect.”
“Sigint is ‘signals intelligence’?”
“Correct.”
“And the agency wants to exact some kind of revenge on the Iranians?”
“Not revenge, actually; more like retribution.”
“But the director is not buying the Iranian connection? Do I have that right?”
“Looks that way.”
“And he’s asked you to take another look at it?”
“Yes.”
“How long will the project take? Do you have a deadline?”
“Two weeks.”
Judy laughed. “Are you serious?”
“I know, seems ludicrous,” Dennis said, closing the laptop. He leaned back and stretched his arms. “My guess is that the director is trapped. His entire team is saying ‘we know who did it and why, and the Iranians needs to be punished.’ He’s either too wimpy to start a small clandestine war, or he knows something else. Could be that he’s just stalling.”
“So, you’re on a wild goose chase?”
“Could be. Two weeks is silly. Can’t really investigate this thing properly in fourteen days. Still, I got the sense when we were talking in the airplane, that he was bothered by something.”
“Talk English, Dennis.”
He stood up, stretched again, and opened the refrigerator. Judy had bought some take-out Chinese food, and the leftovers were sitting in their containers, the strong smells of garlic and hoisin sauce permeating the apartment.
“Dennis?”
He grabbed a bottle of sauvignon blanc and poured himself a glass. Holding the bottle up for Judy, she nodded, and he poured another glass for her.
“There are two narratives,” he said sitting down. “I think I understand the first one, which is the disappearance of a woman in New Zealand. The second story is one that stumps me. Why isn’t the director content with the staff’s recommendation? And why me? In the realm of strange occurrences, the director sitting on the tarmac asking for my help is probably top of the list. Even Simpson thinks it’s ridiculous. And I’m beginning to agree.”
“But it can’t be ridiculous,” Judy said, taking a sip of wine. “The director—what’s his name?”
“Franklin—Kenny Franklin they call him in the news media as if he’s football player or something.”
“OK, here’s my two cent’s worth: Kenny is at the top of this vast espionage service, with thousands of employees and billion-dollar budgets, and he doesn’t trust the bureaucracy. And for the record, I don’t trust bureaucracies either. So, he’s worried that they’re either being too lazy or reckless, but either way, he doesn’t believe them. He has nowhere to turn. And Louise—you said that she is one of his top advisors—she remembers you’re just the right investigator to get to the bottom of it.”
He laughed. “Aren’t you forgetting that Louise and I are not exactly best friends?”
“You’re too hard on her.”
“I am? Don’t you remember her sordid role in sucking you into a dangerous set of events last year in London? And she was lying to you the whole time.”
“I remember all too well, and I think she believed it wasn’t dangerous. She’s a professional, and she did what she thought was best at the time. I still think you were too hard on her. You always told me that you like to operate in the gray area; not black or white, but somewhere in between. I think that’s where Louise works too, but you just don’t like to have company there.”
He turned, his eyes wide and his mouth open: “Where did that come from?”
“Just a reality check,” she said, dropping her eyes. “I think it would be healthier for us to be honest.”
Chapter 6
He was not happy, nor sad; he was some odd place in between.
Dennis could not see the ochre landscape below as the passenger jet screamed through the night toward Auckland. Dennis bought a first-class ticket on the Air New Zealand direct flight. It provided more physical and emotional room to be anxious in the event they hit turbulence. A lifelong fear of airplane turbulence had solidified into something approaching a well-established phobia.
And besides, first class included free alcohol. Tonight, he needed something to help him hide from the avalanche of confusing feelings about saying goodbye to Judy at Perth International Airport.
“I feel like I’m saying goodbye forever,” she said, clutching him tightly, her voice muffled as she pressed against his neck.
“Judy, stop that. How can a two-week assignment be forever?”
“It’s just a feeling. Can’t a person have feelings?”
“Well, I don’t like the sound of it. I’m going to New Zealand, which is right around the corner here in the southern hemisphere.”
She gave him a long, unsexy kiss; it felt more like a mother sending a child off to the first day of school.
“I love you,” she said quietly.
“I love you too,” he said uncomfortably. Dennis could not remember the last time he told anyone that he loved them.
Judy smiled at his awkwardness. “Just be safe,” she said. “Lot of attractive Kiwi women I hear.”
He laughed and did his best Cary Grant impersonation: “Judy, Judy, Judy.”
“He never said that,” she said, wiping a smudge of lipstick off his cheek.
“Yes, you keep reminding me that Grant never said that, but I like saying it anyway.”
“Hello there, Dennis, my name is Colin McCarthy, from the NZSIS and this is my colleague Rangi Winchester, from GCSB. Sorry for all the acronyms. You know how governments work: string as many complicated nouns together as possible so that no one is left out.”
Dennis shook their hands and tried to appear focused and alert. In fact, he was tired and a little hung over. The direct flight took six and a half hours, but it was overnight, and he had trouble sleeping even after several nips of single malt.
Simpson had told him to expect McCarthy as his contact, but never mentioned the other fellow. As Dennis pulled his roll-on suitcase behind him, the threesome made small talk about the flight, the time zone changes, and the weather.
A black Toyota sedan was waiting for them. The driver was a young blond-haired man introduced as Simon.
The three kept up innocuous chatter in the car as it slid through the busy highway toward the city’s harbor area. Dennis tried to stay engaged, but he was anxious to get moving on what he knew was an impossibly short timeline.
“Colin, is there an agenda for today?” Dennis said. “I’m under a tight schedule and was hoping to get going.”
“Of course, Dennis. Our offices are only about ten blocks away. We thought we’d meet here in our Auckland offices, then take a short flight to Blenheim on the South Island afterward.”
“I’m sorry that I’m pressing, but, well, I’m being pressed.”
“Understood,” McCarthy said.
Winchester nodded in agreement.
She looked out the window and watched the bullet-sized raindrops beat against the glass.
“And, Judy, what is your opinion on Frank’s dilemma in Bunbury? You had a similar case last year with that informant in Fremantle.”
She turned from the window and pursed her lips in feigned concentration. “I don’t have an opinion on what to do with Frank’s informant, I’m afraid. Frank is a competent agent. I’m sure he’ll decide how best to proceed.”
Her tone of gentle dismissal was not lost on the roomful of agents, and many turned to get a gander. Judy was normally mildly submissive in these meetings, so her change of demeanor was hard to miss.
Her partner Daniel, sitting to her right, gave her a what-the-hell-has-got-into-you look.
“We were discussing Frank’s conundrum, Judy. Surely you were listening. I was wondering what you thought he should do.”
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying close attention. Perhaps you could summarize Frank’s problem again?”
“Jude, you can’t talk like that in the staff meeting!” Daniel said, sitting in her small office with the door partially closed. “What is happening to you? “Blowhard”—the team’s nickname for the director—”is a stickler for paying attention. You know that.”
“Don’t you think after all these years on the force that Frank knows exactly what to do with his informant? Really, why do we have to sit there as a group and act like we’re still at uni. It’s demeaning.”
“Maybe that shooting got to you, Jude.”
“Not the shooting; that was bad enough. It was the humiliating investigation afterward.”
“But they found we did nothing wrong.”
“They shouldn’t have put us through it to start with.”
“It came from back east. The new bloke in internal affairs.”
“I don’t care if it came from the pope. Blowhard should have cut it off before it even came to us.”
“He’s just a political beast like the rest of us. Cut him a bit of slack, Jude.”
“Not any longer.”
Daniel took a sip of his bottled water, gulped it loudly and stared at Judy.
“Something going on with the Yank?”
“No, why do you think that?”
“Simply asking. You don’t seem yourself.”
“Maybe it’s time for me to be someone else.”
“I see.”
McCarthy was an average looking man of middle age, with thinning brown hair cut short, and large, thick eyebrows and brown eyes. Dennis estimated he was about five feet nine inches, and a little paunchy around the waist. McCarthy sat across from Dennis in the small, windowless office inside the NZSIS building.
Winchester sat to McCarthy’s right, and Dennis guessed he was of Maori heritage. He was broad-shouldered, stocky, and powerful looking. His broad forehead and short black hair were punctuated with piercing dark eyes. Winchester said nothing as his colleague explained New Zealand’s government investigation into the disappearance of the American psychologist.
A country of fewer than five million residents, New Zealand was a member of the Five Eyes group, an alliance of countries that share sigint with each other. The members—the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand—were on good terms theoretically, but on an operational level, there was the normal bureaucratic squabbling and suspicions. And with the US being the grand member of the Five Eyes, it was not uncommon that resentments simmered just below the surface.
“Dr. Forrester disappeared when she left her hotel to purchase something from a chemist down the road. She appears to have talked briefly at the front desk to get directions to the chemist. The hotel CCTV shows a time stamp 8:12 p.m. when she left through the front door. The distance to the store was approximately three hundred yards. There are no CCTV cameras in the parking lot or sidewalk. The chemist CCTV fails to show an image of Dr. Forrester entering the store.”
“There’s no video evidence that she made it to the chemist, or that she re-entered the hotel?” Dennis said.
“Correct,” McCarthy said.
“The presumption is that she was abducted between the hotel and the chemist?”
“Correct.”
“No cameras in the street or parking lots, and there are no eyewitnesses to her walking on the sidewalk at night?”
“Correct.”
“And her cellphone?”
Winchester spoke for the first time. “Her phone was left in her hotel room. She apparently had turned off roaming to keep her phone charges to a minimum, as many tourists do. If she had taken her phone with her, there would be geolocation tracking available.”
“This question was asked many times before, but I have to ask again: there are no links to similar disappearances or serial murders?”
“Stranger abductions are extremely rare in New Zealand,” McCarthy said. “Most cases of violence against women—including murder—are committed by men who know the victim. Dr. Forrester was not here long enough to establish relationships. She had her own hotel room, as the report shows, and her traveling partner, Dr. Caldecott, stayed in a separate room on the same floor. There is no video or electronic evidence that Dr. Caldecott left her room during the period that Dr. Forrester disappeared. Caldecott’s room key was not used until after 10 p.m. that evening when she went to the front desk to ask about Dr. Forrester.”
“Tell me something,” Dennis said to Winchester, “I’m not familiar with the GCSB. What agency is that?”
“It’s the Government Communications Security Bureau,” Winchester said.
“And what do they do, exactly?”
“Signals intelligence. Our part of the Five Eyes.”
“Yes, but what are you doing in this meeting?” Dennis said. “Why is sigint part of this investigation from the New Zealand side?”
“I assume you read the report?” McCarthy said.
“Yes, but there was no mention of GCSB or sigint in the report that I have.”
The two New Zealanders looked at each other.
“We don’t know what report you read, but this investigation from our side has always involved GCSB,” McCarthy said. “It’s the operating theory that your organization has developed regarding the disappearance of Dr. Forrester.”
“Why don’t you refresh my memory on what that theory is?” Dennis said.
McCarthy frowned and, Dennis thought, appeared genuinely confused.
“We can’t do that,” McCarthy said.
“Why not?”
“You’re asking us to characterize a theory proposed by your organization, and that’s not something we’re comfortable with. Surely you can get that theory from your side.”
“Yes, but I was wondering what you folks thought of that theory?”
“We’re not authorized to give you our opinion; we’re simply here to provide all of the facts surrounding the disappearance. Your side has made inferences based on those facts. We have nothing to do with inferences or theories.”
“Yes, I know all that,” Dennis said. “But what do you think of the theory?”
“Mr. Cunningham,” Winchester said. “Perhaps you should discuss the theory with your team first, then we can share the details. Our marching orders are very clear in relation to your visit. We’re to answer any factual questions regarding the disappearance, and to provide context. We’re not authorized to provide opinions.”
It wa
s a short hour-and-a-half, early afternoon flight of three hundred miles from Auckland to Blenheim. Dennis stood at the intersection of two roads in Blenheim, a town at the northeastern end of New Zealand’s South Island. About four miles inland from the sea, the town is the gateway to the Marlborough wine region that stretches southeast toward the west coast. It was a pleasant enough town, spread out in a gentle, English manner with tree-lined streets and very few buildings over two stories. He had walked around the small hotel Dr. Forrester stayed in, including the hallway to her room, the reception area, restaurant, and the parking lot. Standing next to Winchester and McCarthy, he said, “Let me get this right: the thinking is she might have cut across the park to get to the pharmacy?”
“Yes,” McCarthy said. “The receptionist told her it was the fastest route.”
Dennis started walking, his hands deep into the pockets of his raincoat. The sun felt warm on his face, but the cool winter wind chilled his hands. The three men walked up to the intersection, and then quickly hustled across the street to the entrance of a small park called Seymour Square.
“She walked this way?” Dennis said, pointing down the wide path that ran diagonally across the park. “Yes, that is how she was directed to get to the pharmacy,” McCarthy said.
“Is it safe to walk in the park at night?”
“Yes, of course,” Winchester said. “It’s not New York City.”
McCarthy shot his partner a sharp glance.
“Or Auckland,” Winchester added.
Dennis took in the surrounding bushes, trees, and structures as they walked. The cement path was wide open at the entrance, but thirty feet farther down the path, a tall evergreen stood only five feet away from the path. Dennis left the path and walked around the tree, while his tour guides waited.
“Looks like a charming ambush site,” Dennis said.
“Possibly,” McCarthy said.
The path was bordered by several benches as it led toward a small clock tower. On the other side of the tower were a fountain and pool. Dennis stopped, turned around, and mentally retraced his steps.