Valley of Spies

by Keith Yocum

  “Let’s get right to work then,” Dennis said. “I’m investigating the disappearance of an agency contractor. This contractor is someone you are familiar with. This missing person had access to confidential medical information of agency employees. I’ve been asked to verify the official conclusion about the disappearance. Does this make sense?”

  “If you say so.”

  Dennis struggled to find the correct approach with Keating. Of all the individuals connected to Dr. Forrester’s disappearance, Keating had not one but two connections: he was a patient of the missing psychologist, and he was the top Iran analyst that presumably was involved in identifying the Ghorbanis as the likely abductors.

  “How long had you been seeing Dr. Forrester in therapy?”

  “Ah,” Keating said, “this is about Forrester.”

  “Yes. Are you surprised?”

  “No, I suppose not. I thought this was concluded already.”

  “Can you answer my first question, please?”

  “I saw her for a little more than a year.”

  “How often did you see her; was it weekly?”

  “Why do you want to know that?”

  “As you can imagine, we are not privy to the detailed notes that Forrester kept, and I’m trying to determine if you saw her once a month, once a week, or once every couple of months.”

  “I saw her twice a week in the beginning, then we went to once a week.”

  “When was the last time you saw Forrester?”

  “The last time?” Dennis noticed a slight hesitation in Keating’s response.

  “Yes.”

  “It was about ten days before she left on her trip.”

  “So, you knew about her trip to New Zealand?”

  “Yes. She mentioned that we would be skipping a few sessions while she traveled abroad to New Zealand for a conference. She was a friendly person. By the way, are you interviewing everyone who was seeing Dr. Forrester, or just me?”

  “If you could just stay with me on these questions, I’d really appreciate it,” Dennis said. “I have a very tight schedule.”

  Keating frowned.

  “So, you knew she was going to New Zealand because she told you in a therapy session?”

  “Yes.”

  “When did you find out she was missing in New Zealand?”

  For the first time in their interview, Keating sighed and dropped his guard a bit.

  “That was a strange coincidence, and a little upsetting,” he said.

  “How was it strange?”

  “I was pulled into a task force to evaluate the possible involvement of Iranian agents in the abduction of an agency contractor. I lead up the Iran desk here, and so it’s not unusual that I get tagged to participate in anything to do with them. At the first task force meeting, the details of the case were laid out, and I was a little surprised at the coincidence that the contractor had disappeared in New Zealand. It never occurred to me that it was Forrester. I mean, what are the chances of that? And a psychologist? Never crossed my mind that an intelligence service would go after a psychologist who was seeing agency clients. I’m not sure I’ve heard of a similar case. Very strange.”

  “At what point did you find out it was Forrester?”

  “In that first meeting; I remember taking notes and listening to Simpson lay out the details. Then he mentioned Dr. Jane Forrester’s name, and I just froze. I mean, I knew her. I’ve been on plenty of task forces over the years, and it’s rare that I personally know any agent, contractor, or asset that’s being discussed.”

  “Simpson was presenting at this meeting? He’s the deputy director of operations. Why would he be presenting and not one of his underlings?”

  “I don’t think he was happy about it, to be honest. He said there was tremendous pressure from the top to solve this thing quickly and put an action plan in place. Everyone in that room felt the pressure, believe me.”

  “When did you disclose that you had a therapeutic relationship with Forrester? And who did you tell?”

  Keating looked down at the blank pad of paper, picked up the pen, and examined it briefly.

  “That was awkward,” he said, looking at the pen. “I pulled Simpson apart after the meeting in the hallway and told him I needed to talk privately. We grabbed an office and then I just told him.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Nothing, really.”

  “Nothing?”

  “He just looked at me for a moment, and said, ‘noted.’”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yes. I thought he would ask me some questions, but he didn’t seem to care or think it was important. As I said, he seemed under a lot of pressure.”

  “Then I’m to presume that you were involved in identifying the Ghorbanis as people of interest in the disappearance?”

  “I don’t think I can talk to you about the Ghorbanis without permission,” Keating said, putting down his pen and crossing his arms again.

  “Listen, I’ve had access to the files and I’ve already met with the Kiwis on the intelligence side. I’ve been by the Ghorbani’s house; I’ve seen sigint on their text messages. I know that there’s an NSA listening post in the valley.”

  “Sorry. I need clearance to talk to you about them.”

  “Fine, get clearance ASAP, and contact me at this number when you do.” Dennis wrote his agency mobile number on Keating’s pad of paper.

  “One more question for now. Did you go to New Zealand as part of this investigation?”

  “I need clearance before I can go further.”

  “Jesus; go get your clearance and call me at any time of day.”

  Dennis stood.

  “The least you could do is show me how the hell to get out of this building,” Dennis said. “We’re so far into the bowels of this facility that they’ll find me weeks from now still walking around.”

  “Hell if I know where we are,” Keating said.

  “Boy, you keep returning like a bad penny,” Peter Harbaugh laughed.

  Harbaugh, a long retired senior agency official, maintained an odd-couple relationship with Dennis. The contrast between the two was so large that their relationship defied explanation. Harbaugh was erudite, a Yankee WASP, Yale graduate, patrician, dignified, and extremely well connected to agency matters even in retirement. Dennis was convinced that Harbaugh still had top security clearances.

  Dennis, on the other hand, was working class, community-college educated, rough around the edges, direct, and confrontational. He had, Harbaugh teased, “a chip on his shoulder the size of a Winnebago.”

  And so, they got along famously, perhaps because each aspired to some of the other’s attributes.

  As usual for these random meetings, they met at a Starbucks on Wisconsin Avenue in Northwest Washington, D.C.

  “I thought you retired to Australia after that London row,” Harbaugh said.

  Dennis, who was not an aficionado of film or TV series, repeated the only script line that he had latched onto over the years. In a terrible Italian immigrant accent, Dennis repeated the line uttered by the character Michael Corleone in The Godfather, later used in the TV series The Sopranos: “I thought I was out of it, but they pull me back in again.”

  Harbaugh laughed. “You love that line. It’s a good one. The only problem is that it infers the agency is like the mafia.”

  “Like I said, ‘they pull me back in again.’”

  “Alright, you’ve piqued my interest! Are you really doing work for the agency again? After the last fiasco?”

  “The short answer is: yes. The longer answer is: I have no idea why I agreed to do it.”

  “Can you hint about what you’re working on?” Harbaugh said, leaning in to hear him above the din in the coffee shop.

  “An abduction. A strange abduction, reall
y. They want me to validate the conclusion that operations produced about who did the abducting, if that makes sense.”

  “Seems innocuous enough. Are you enjoying being back in the muck?”

  “Not really. I admit to being bored in Perth, but now I think boredom would be better than this stuff. It’s a ridiculous assignment that I’m beginning to think they—or some unidentified person—knew that I could never complete. I’m not saying I’m being set up, just that the terms of the investigation are so short and geographically spread out that a single person can’t possibly do justice to it.”

  “That sounds about right,” Harbaugh sighed. “Not much has changed, I suppose. Just younger people doing the same stuff. Is there anything that I can help with? You sounded a little urgent on the phone.”

  “Well, I was wondering what you know about Kenny Franklin?”

  “Ah, Franklin. Are you in contact with him? That is a little odd. Why would the director be in contact with you? Now you definitely have my attention.”

  Dennis explained how Franklin flew into Perth on a side trip elsewhere and gave him the assignment. He told Harbaugh about the ridiculously short delivery date, as well as the requirement that he work through Simpson.

  “Simpson?” Harbaugh said. “I’ve known him for years. Why would you be handled personally by the deputy director of operations? That’s not kosher, or even sensible. Good heavens, what’s going on over there?”

  “Not only do I have to report to Simpson, but he’s riding me all the time. Doesn’t he have a million fires to put out each day?”

  “But why you?” Harbaugh said, his long, gray eyebrows arching. “I’m not suggesting you’re not an extraordinarily talented investigator. But why go half-way around the world to tag a retired OIG investigator? I don’t even know what to say.”

  “Remember Louise Nordland? She recommended me for this assignment, and, voila, here I am making a fool out of myself while the clock ticks down. Should be playing golf on the west coast of Australia.”

  “I’m sure there’s a reason why Louise wanted you involved. She trusts you, and she knows you’ll stop at nothing to get to the bottom of it.”

  “Maybe. She’s also involved, peripherally I hope.”

  “Well, that makes things complicated. How much more time do you have?”

  “Seven days counting today.”

  “Let me poke around a little for you, if you don’t mind,” Harbaugh said.

  “Be my guest. Rowing in circles makes me dizzy.”

  “Both of you have been tasked to help the Serious Crime Financial Task Force investigate the finances of a Perth-based mining company,” Calvin Miller said. “I think you will find this work interesting. As you know, the AFP works closely with our Taxation office when it comes to white-collar crime. It is a major initiative of the government, and we’ve been asked to help.”

  Judy felt the orbits of her eye sockets tighten as she stared in wonderment.

  “Judy, you seem perplexed,” he said. “What’s on your mind?”

  “I’ve been working almost exclusively on criminal gang activity related to the trafficking of drugs. I have no experience in financial crime analysis. Craig and I have just started to work together to pick up the pieces on three cases, and you want to detail us to yet another investigation having nothing to do with drugs and gangs?”

  “Craig here has a degree in finance, isn’t that correct?” Miller said.

  “Yes, but it’s been a few years since my uni courses. I’m certainly not an accountant.” Judy and Craig exchanged glances.

  “To be clear,” Miller said. “You will be assisting the Taxation blokes, not leading the investigation. And I don’t expect it will take a lot of time out of your schedule. As you point out, you have more pressing issues to attend to.”

  Judy prayed her cheeks were not blazing pink as she grew angry. She ran the fingers of her right hand through her hair to expend some nervous energy.

  “Judy, I think you and Craig will find this case interesting, and it will burnish your curricula vitae, as it were, with financial crime experience. This is a major initiative of the AFP and will be for some time. See this as a chance to expand your area of expertise.”

  After returning to her office, Judy sat down and picked up a pen and sullenly started to doodle.

  Taxation investigation? she thought. Has Miller started me down a long path of demotion? Why do I feel like I’m being punished for the Golden Bay shooting?

  Craig knocked on her open office door. “Got a sec?”

  “Sure. Come in.”

  “What do you reckon Miller is doing sending us on this tax case?” he said sitting.

  “I have no bloody idea. He’s never done this kind of switching of expertise before, or at least that I can remember. It’s a foolish idea.”

  “Suppose I can brush up on my economics, but it’s a bit of a stretch for me, Judy.”

  “A stretch for you, perhaps, but an intercontinental leap for me,” she said, painstakingly scratching out the word “Miller” on her pad of paper.

  The Hyatt bar in Rosslyn, Virginia, was like any chain hotel bar; several TV sets on the walls showed eerily soundless sporting events, the food was ordinary but good, and the bartenders were attentive.

  Dennis stared at the dark reflection on the top of his glass of red wine. Normally he would sip a single-malt whiskey with one or two ice cubes, preferably a Macallan 12, and toy with a plastic swizzle stick in boredom.

  In retirement he realized it was not a good drink for him; he sipped too fast, ordered more often, and felt awful and depressed in the morning. Judy slowly converted him to wine, especially reds like cabernet sauvignon, merlot, and shiraz. She said Australia had developed a robust wine industry with many excellent wineries comparable to those in France, Italy or the states.

  But Australia and Judy were a long way from the Hyatt in Rosslyn. Dennis missed her and the slow, predictable life of retirement.

  Or so he told himself, as he stared at the mirror surface of his dark-purple wine. Dennis had not touched the glass in several minutes, and the wine reflected the blinding overhead lights of the bar. He sighed and opened the notebook he carried at all times. Maybe if he flipped through the notes on the investigation, something might jump out at him.

  One of his cell phones vibrated and he reached into his sports jacket; it was his burner that was going off.

  “Yup,” he said.

  “Got something,” Karl said.

  “Fire away.”

  “This is prelim, ‘cause my two guys are not done yet. But the background is clean on your buddy there at Agriculture. Nothing in public databases shows anything whacky. No claims, no accidents, not even a fuckin’ speeding ticket. Credit is excellent.”

  “A real Mary Poppins,” Dennis said. “Great.”

  “Didn’t say that; you gonna listen? I said the public database was clean. My guy doing the surveillance thinks your guy is a sugar daddy.”

  “Sugar daddy in that he has a girlfriend?”

  “A young one; gal works in Agriculture too. He spent last night there. Unless they’re working on a PowerPoint together over Chinese take-out, my guy thinks they’re a couple. He’s there again tonight.”

  “Your guy’s got a camera, right?”

  “Of course he has a fuckin’ camera.”

  “I need photos of him leaving in the morning, or late at night, with the time stamp. Need them quick.”

  “We can do that.”

  “Thanks, Karl. Now I’m getting somewhere for once. Maybe I’ll order another wine to celebrate.”

  “You and wine; doesn’t seem like you, Cunningham.”

  “People change.”

  “I guess.”

  “What,” Louise said. It was not a question, but a statement. Her voice was gruff and tired.
/>   “That’s a fine ‘howdy-do’,” Dennis said.

  “What do you want, Cunningham? In case you hadn’t bothered to check your watch, it’s 10:55 p.m.”

  “Keating.”

  “What about him?”

  “Can you get access to the geolocation data from his agency cell phone?”

  Silence.

  “Hello?”

  “Why do you need that?”

  “Because I’m curious. If you can get the data, I’d like to see it.”

  “Are you just grasping at straws or do you have something?”

  “Louise, please, can you just get the data?”

  “Christ. What time period do you need?”

  “The month prior to Forrester’s disappearance up to the month after.”

  “That’s a lot of data. Just geolocation for his agency cell phone?”

  “Correct, that’s all I need.”

  “I’ll see. I’m gathering you didn’t try Simpson on this?”

  “No. I need it ASAP. Simpson’ll just say it’s a stupid idea and why aren’t I back in New Zealand. Please help me with this. Keep Simpson out of it.”

  She hung up without saying goodbye.

  Dennis sat in his sterile hotel room looking out into the cluster of soulless skyscrapers. Peering between two concrete monoliths, he could see a small wedge of the Potomac River and into Georgetown and Washington, D.C.

  The city looked benign enough by night, but he was not lulled by its similarity to normal cities. Washington was its own answer to the mystery of Russian nesting dolls. Just when you think you’ve found the last doll, there’s another one inside. And another one.

  Dennis hooked up both his agency phone and his burner to chargers, turned off the light and tried to sleep. He felt depressed and wondered if he should get up and watch TV or try to read a magazine. Depressed and stewing in bed for hours was a bad combination.

  His agency phone lit up and shook like a wounded bat, flopping around the table top.

  “Yes?”

  “Gidday, is this Dennis?”

  “Yes, who’s this?”