Valley of Spies

by Keith Yocum

  “I understand that,” Dennis said. “And I fully appreciate the task I was given by him. I intend to complete my work by the end of day fourteen. I was given a wide range to evaluate the findings, and that’s what I’m doing.”

  Dennis was suddenly aware that Canton’s gum chewing was very loud, like the slapping of wet feet on a pool deck.

  “Do you mind not chewing gum while we’re having breakfast?” Dennis said, pivoting to Cameron.

  He froze in mid-chew, and then closed his mouth slowly and kept it closed.

  “Thank you,” Dennis said, looking back at Simpson. “I’ve got five days remaining, and I will do my utmost to complete it on time.”

  Simpson tossed his napkin on the table, took a final sip of coffee, then pushed his chair back. This prompted the two bodyguards to jump up and scan the room.

  “Remember one thing, and this is the last time I’m going to say this. You were directed to work through me, and only me, at the agency. I’m your lead contact. You are not currently communicating with me on anything, and unless that changes, I’ll be forced to complain to the director. It appears that you’ve been working with other senior agency individuals, and that must stop.”

  Simpson stood up, and the entourage flew out of the restaurant in a gaggle.

  Dennis pulled out his burner and texted to Louise: just met with simpson; told me not to talk to u anymore

  He had no intention of abiding by the order to avoid Louise, but knowing how much the two senior agency officials disliked each other, Dennis could not resist spreading discord and perhaps finding some new leverage. He finished his cold scrambled eggs, took a final sip of coffee, and saw his burner light up and dance around the table.

  Glancing at the message, he laughed.

  fuck him, Louise wrote.

  There’s bluffing when you have a good hand of cards and you guess your opponent doesn’t; and then there’s wild, reckless bluffing when you have no idea what cards your opponent has. Dennis was using the latter method of bluffing, as he sat across from Keating in another commandeered empty office at Langley.

  Keating was not just displeased to be talking to Dennis; he was furious. His lips were pursed tightly, creating huge angry dimples on both cheeks.

  “Can we get on with this?” he said, looking at his watch. “I’m missing an important meeting.” Just then Keating’s phone hummed on the corner of the desk between them. Dennis had purposely sat in the visitor’s chair in the unused office and let Keating sit behind the desk. He wanted his interviewee to feel in control of the meeting.

  Keating grabbed his phone and appeared to read an email or text.

  “Shit,” he said, sighing. “Can we start please?”

  “Sure. I just have a couple of questions, and I think we’ll be done. I appreciate you taking time out of your day for this.” Dennis smiled but was met with Keating’s quivering dimples.

  “We noticed that you were absent from work at the time Dr. Forrester disappeared in New Zealand.” Dennis used the pronoun “we” to imply—incorrectly—that there was a team working on this case scouring every bit of data. If Keating had anything to hide, the implication that others were digging up every bit of dirt would spook him.

  “Yes, that’s correct,” Keating said.

  “Your record of absences says that you were at a religious retreat for one week with your wife, which overlaps with the day Forrester disappeared. The following week you were on vacation.”

  “Correct.” It might have meant nothing, but Dennis noticed that Keating’s dimples sagged a bit.

  “And just to be accurate, the retreat was in Maryland?”

  “Yes.”

  “And for vacation, where did you go that week?”

  “I think they call it a ‘staycation’ these days. My wife and I hung around here in Virginia. Took some day trips.”

  “Because of your status and expertise in the Directorate of Analysis, you would have been on call 24x7, so you had your agency phone with you at all times, correct?”

  “Correct. Are we done yet?”

  “Yes.”

  Keating stood up and grabbed his phone. “I hope I don’t have to do any more of these interviews. This is tiresome. I keep repeating myself.”

  He walked two steps to the closed office door and yanked it open.

  “Oh, just one more thing,” Dennis said. “Charlottesville. What were you doing in Charlottesville for two weeks?”

  Keating froze with his right hand on the knob to the open door. He stood perfectly still as if hit by a 1950’s-style science-fiction ray gun.

  “Hello?” Dennis said.

  Keating made a snorting sound, pushed the door closed, and sat back down, clenching his cell phone tightly as if it were a primed grenade.

  “Can you answer my question, if you don’t mind?” Dennis said. “Your agency-issued cell phone was in or near Charlottesville for most of the two weeks you were out of the office. The phone was not in Maryland. Unless there’s an error in the data, or you lent your phone to someone else—which is a serious breach of regulations—you were in Charlottesville, Virginia.”

  Keating’s demeanor had changed dramatically. Gone were the dimples from taut facial muscles. Instead, his shoulders drooped, and he slumped forward refusing eye contact. He placed his phone on the desk in deliberate, slow motion. He licked his lips.

  “So, this is how it goes,” he said to Dennis, raising his gaze off the desk to stare directly at him.

  “What goes?” Dennis said.

  “Don’t play around with me, you bastard,” Keating said, his eyes now large and watering. “You’ve been planning this all along. Setting me up. Trapping me. Ruining me. I should have known you weren’t on the up and up. You slimy bastard.”

  Dennis said nothing. The small office was painfully quiet. Keating’s phone vibrated, but he ignored it.

  “Were you even in Charlottesville?” Dennis said. “Did someone else have your phone? Were you someplace else?”

  Keating’s face suddenly contorted in fury.

  “You know exactly where I was, you bastard. You fucking bastard.”

  Judy had a headache that felt like someone had driven a large tenpenny nail through her skull into her frontal lobe. She used the fingertips of her right hand to massage the area above her eyebrows.

  She, Craig, and four other members of the white-collar crime team had spent six hours reviewing and matching dates on banking and tax records for Adonis Kadlec, a Greek-Australian dual citizen from Brisbane. Kadlec was under investigation for money laundering and tax evasion, and for using a West Australian mining company to help in this scheme.

  “I think we’re done for today, aren’t we fellas?” Craig said, standing up from his computer monitor and stretching.

  “Yeah,” answered Phillip Connester from the Tax Office. “Think I’m stuffed. Let’s be back tomorrow at nine?”

  “How ya doing, Judy?” Craig said. “You alright? You look crook.”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Bit of a headache, I’m afraid.”

  “Feel like a pint after work?”

  She was surprised, but not unhappy with the offer.

  “Sure. A quick one.”

  They walked to a busy pub on Outram Street, making small talk and complaining about the boring work of tracking income and tax payments.

  Judy’s headache began to subside half-way through her glass of wine.

  “I don’t reckon I like this kind of police work, Judy,” Craig said, rapidly moving through his beer. “Not sure why Miller chose us to help the tax blokes. You think he likes us?”

  Judy smirked. “I have no idea. Not sure how we can keep up with the other cases when we’re spending our days poring over spreadsheets.”

  “What do you think of Connester? A bit full of himself, cracking the whip
like we’re a mob of uni students. ‘Let’s get going, team. We don’t have much time before Mr. Kadlec leaves the country again.’ I think we all know what the stakes are.”

  Judy laughed. “You sound just like him. A bit much, isn’t he?”

  “Really, shouldn’t accountants be doing this kind of work?” Craig persisted. “Not what I signed up for. Thought we’d be chasing drug dealers, stuff like that. Besides, it’s better to be busy than bored, yes? Hey, another wine?”

  “I don’t know,” she said looking at her nearly empty glass. “Haven’t had much to eat today.”

  “Aw, come on, Judy. Have another. Keep me company. I can’t stand going back to an empty flat so early. My shout.”

  “Sure. But this is the last one.” Judy watched Craig walk to the bar, and she struggled with how handsome her partner was. She guessed he was half-a-dozen years younger than her, maybe more. He wore his thick, sandy-blond hair short, complementing his thick neck and broad shoulders. A small, diagonal scar ran across his chin, giving him a rakish, warrior look.

  Judy had complained to her best friend Cilla about Craig’s looks. “It’s bloody distracting,” she said over dinner recently. “He’s so cute. And I think he’s flirting a little with me. Or maybe I wish he was flirting with me. It’s nice to be flirted with every now and then.”

  “You know how they define flirtation,” Cilla said.

  “No, how do they?”

  “Flirtation is attention, without intention,” Cilla said. “So be careful young lady. I thought you said Dennis will be back here in a week.”

  “Dennis,” Judy had replied. “Will he ever return?”

  “Judy, why are you so uncertain about him? When I’ve seen you two together, he’s devoted to you. I love his brash sense of humor. Yanks can be so funny sometimes. What is going on with you?”

  “I don’t know,” Judy said. “I’m lonely. And bored.”

  “That is a bad combination for an attractive woman like you,” Cilla said.

  Judy snapped out of her reverie as Craig returned with two drinks.

  “Cheers,” he said raising his beer and tapping it against her glass.

  She looked into his hazel-colored eyes and smiled.

  “I hope you don’t think I’m too forward, Judy,” Craig said. “But I heard about your former husband and his prison sentence. Must have been a difficult time for you and your son.”

  “People talk too much,” she said. “I wish they wouldn’t.”

  “I don’t think anyone meant to be critical. Quite the opposite. You have a lot of respect around the office. Blokes told me I was lucky to team up with you.”

  “Really?” Judy said, taking a sip. “Well, they never say things like that to my face. If I’m so respected, what am I doing looking at spreadsheets?”

  “Ah, Judy. Lighten up. You’re too hard on yourself.” Craig reached across and patted Judy’s hand briefly.

  For a moment she allowed herself to feel the thrill of a handsome, young man touching her.

  With all his years wrestling with complicated investigations, Dennis had grown to expect anything from a cornered suspect. Once, after Dennis accused the Thailand station chief of embezzling agency funds to pamper his Thai girlfriend, the man reached into his desk, pulled out a .32-caliber revolver and placed it against his temple. Dennis barely had time to knock the pistol out of the man’s hand.

  So, he was completely unprepared for Keating’s reaction to being called a liar.

  “You enjoy ruining people’s lives, don’t you, Cunningham?!” Keating yelled, spittle flying out of his mouth. “So, they sent you to do the deed? Well, fuck them and fuck you. I’ve spent my whole career here, busting my ass to help this damn organization get out of its own way. And this is how they want to drop the ax? Away from prying eyes. Down in an abandoned office, with an asshole from OIG?”

  Keating covered his eyes with his hands, apparently trying to block out the site of his interrogator.

  “Keating,” Dennis said quietly. “What were you doing in Charlottesville? Or were you even in Charlottesville?”

  Keating kept his hands over his eyes and gulped several deep, measured breaths.

  “Don’t be mean,” Keating said, his voice suddenly soft and weak. “I can’t even look at you. The grim reaper cleaning out the agency of broken pieces. Nice work, Cunningham. You’ll burn in hell if they’ll even take you there.”

  Dennis tried again.

  “Can you tell me about Charlottesville?”

  Keating remained sitting behind the desk with his hands covering his eyes, breathing slowly. Dennis wondered idly whether Keating was capable of violence.

  “Why do you act like you don’t know?” Keating said. “Why do you have to be so cruel? You seem good at this stuff. You must really like it. You’re a strange man, Cunningham.”

  “Put your hands down please, Keating. Come on. Look at me.”

  Keating dropped his hands slowly. Dennis could see that his eyes were wet.

  “Charlottesville,” Dennis repeated.

  “You’re serious? You want me to play along?”

  “Yes, play along. Tell me about Charlottesville.”

  “Well,” Keating said in a sing-song, mocking voice, “I was there for two weeks, and it was just like the last time. But you already know that. And, yes, it was helpful. And yes, I didn’t tell the agency. It’s never fun there, but, well there you go. Happy now?”

  Dennis was utterly confused, and he kept bluffing. “Just tell me the name of the place. Let’s start there.”

  “Right,” Keating said. “I’m playing along to make it official. OK. It’s called The Macon Center. Dr. Forrester had recommended it. It was my second time.”

  “Why did Dr. Forrester recommend it?”

  “It’s ultra-private. I could pay out of pocket. No money trail.”

  “For what kind of treatment?” Dennis said.

  Keating put his hands behind his neck and arched back, looking at the ceiling tiles.

  “Depression. Severe depression. They still use ECT there, which Forrester still believed in.”

  “ECT, help me on that one,” Dennis said.

  “Oh, I get it,” Keating said. “You must be recording this; that’s why you’re making me go over all this stuff that you already know. It’s for the confession.”

  “Keating. ECT.”

  “Electroconvulsive Therapy. Shock treatment. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, remember the scene? It still works for some people. Works for me, but I need to recover from it and can’t go back to work immediately. And they make you go to daily group and individual therapy sessions.”

  “The Macon Center had you for two weeks for treatment for depression. Were you in contact with work while you were there?”

  “Once, when there was an emergency. Dr. Forrester had disappeared, and the Kiwis thought it might be Iranians. Of all people, Dr. Forrester.” He shook his head.

  “When you returned, you were pulled into the task force on her disappearance.”

  “Yes.” Keating still stared up at the ceiling, drained and exhausted as if he’d run a marathon.

  “Did you or anyone at the Iran desk suggest it was the Ghorbanis, or did that tip come from somewhere else?”

  “The Kiwis.”

  “And you vetted them from our side?”

  “Yes. Everyone’s been watching them for a while.”

  “There was no doubt from your end that the Ghorbanis abducted Forrester, presumably to coerce information about her agency patients?”

  Keating dropped his hands, leaned forward, and stared with red-rimmed eyes.

  “Why are you asking about the Ghorbanis? I just told you about Charlottesville. You got me. I’m toast here. Who gives a shit about the Ghorbanis?”

  “Keating, you have not be
en listening to me. From the beginning, I told you my task was to evaluate the recommendation to punish Iranian intelligence for the Forrester abduction. Operations is planning a series of highly coordinated assassinations. I couldn’t give a shit if you were in a whore house for two weeks, or an opium den; I’m only interested in your involvement in the Forrester case, especially your part to validate the Ghorbanis.”

  Keating swallowed twice in rapid succession, his Adam’s apple bobbing aggressively.

  “You’re serious that you’re not here to out me on my treatment?”

  “Now you’re making me mad,” Dennis said. “Can you just answer the goddamn question?”

  “Alright. The Ghorbanis. They were the closest hostile team near Forrester’s disappearance. It made sense, as far as the geography went. But there was the DNA evidence that our guys got. I’m sure you know of that. And there were intercepts showing suspicious interchanges around the time she disappeared.”

  “If there had been no DNA evidence, would you be so inclined to finger the Ghorbanis?”

  “That’s a trick question.”

  “No, it’s not. Answer it.” Dennis could feel his anger growing by the second out of frustration. And Keating’s battle with depression reminded him, perversely, of his own struggles.

  “I probably would have held back my agreement that it was the Ghorbanis,” he said. “But there was tremendous pressure on the task force. It was obvious Simpson didn’t like having to take this thing on himself. Scuttlebutt was that Franklin demanded it.”

  Dennis clicked the ballpoint pen he used for his notes, attached it on the inside pocket of his sports coat, and closed his notebook.

  “Just so we’re clear, Keating, I have no intention of doing anything with the information you provided about Charlottesville. So please proceed as if we never talked about it. Do you understand that point?”