A Dark Place

by Keith Yocum

  “So why do you need to see it again? And why didn’t you just ask Chandler? He has a copy.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to tip Chandler that I’m seeing it again.”

  Sorenstam looked up at Dennis, who was still standing in front of his desk.

  “I don’t like this. Something doesn’t sound right.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you. The best thing you could do is let me watch the video one last time and send me on my way.”

  “You’re a reckless man, Cunningham. You already got one of our men killed.”

  Briefly — very briefly — Dennis considered launching himself across the desk.

  “Show me the goddamn video so I can get out of here. And I want to see it in the room where Arnold sat the last time he was here. Hurry up. I can feel my body getting fried with all the microwaves you’re producing up here.”

  “You’re an asshole, Cunningham.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  ✦

  Judy read the Guardian, then the Sun, and finally found a six-month-old edition of the glossy Tatler. She had already eaten lunch at the pub that was attached to an inn and then found a comfortable chair in a small waiting area.

  She tried to convince herself that Dennis was all right; that he was not going to get into trouble, or worse, arrested. She would never tell him, but Judy had grown to despise the intelligence services that so immersed Dennis. She knew, despite his crude protestations, that he reveled in the dark passions of the business. It kept him from being depressed; it occupied his restless mind.

  She wondered whether he would truly be happy in Perth, one of the most isolated cities of its size in the world. Even if he moved there, would he be traveling all the time for work? Would she be one of those ‘work widows’ that have boyfriends or husbands married to work?

  Judy could smell the beer from the pub as it infiltrated the inn. What she wouldn’t give for a glass of wine, a bright and citrusy New Zealand sauvignon blanc, or a hearty cabernet. She glanced down at her right wrist protruding from her maroon sweater. She could still make out several small scars where the small man had damaged veins.

  What could a single glass of wine do to me? she thought. They said I might be able to drink alcohol again, but only after a long wait.

  Judy put down the Tatler and made her way to the pub, clutching her purse tightly like it was a life preserver.

  ✦

  Dennis made sure he sat with his back to the camera to duplicate Arnold’s position in the video. He had been given a printed set of directions for the laptop in front of him and followed the steps to sign in as a visitor and to find the online folder with the video file. He was sitting in the exact chair, looking at the same screen that Arnold had looked at. He watched the video of Arnold’s back as he appeared to look at the screen.

  Dennis turned and looked back at the camera near the ceiling and realized that it was not situated on the ceiling but about two feet below it on the wall. The angle of the camera made it nearly impossible to see what was on the computer screen, and he guessed that was intentional.

  The video droned on as Arnold appeared inert, shoulders flat, neck bent downward, arms not moving.

  Then Arnold stood up, hunched over the laptop and seemed to do something with his left hand, but that was only conjecture since his body shielded his actions. Just as quickly, Arnold sat down and remained almost motionless for two full minutes. Then he keyed something into the computer, stood and left through the door to his left.

  Dennis paused the video. He studied the small black laptop in front of him, and finally lifted it off the table. There were two cords attached, a power cord and an Ethernet cable. Dennis had been told that Wi-Fi was blocked in sensitive areas at Menwith Hill, so this laptop was only connected to the network though a standard Ethernet cable. There were no USB ports on the laptop.

  Dennis put the laptop down and decided to wind the video back to the part where Arnold stood up and did something with his left hand.

  What the hell is he doing? Dennis wondered. He’s very quick and seems to adjust something.

  Dennis hit “pause” again. He stood up and used his left hand to imitate Arnold’s motion. At the back of the laptop, near the left corner, was the power supply plug. He made sure he shielded his actions from the camera by hunching forward like Arnold did.

  With his left hand, he put his fingers around the power cord and pulled it out of the computer, knowing the battery would kick in. He stared at the metal tip of the cord for a second, then reinserted it and sat back down.

  He stood again and used his left arm to reach around to the right rear of the computer, where the Ethernet cable attached. It was too cumbersome to do with his left hand, and Dennis could tell that the motion required for this behavior did not match Arnold’s actions in the video.

  He sat down again and looked at his watch. Sorenstam had given him only twenty-five minutes to review the video, and he had ten minutes left.

  Think, Cunningham! he thought. What the hell was Arnold doing in those fifteen seconds when he stood up? He couldn’t have put anything into a USB port, because there are no USB ports; he couldn’t have reached around to the Ethernet cable. It’s the power cord. Maybe he had lost power? No, you idiot. He didn’t lose power! Think!

  Dennis stood up abruptly, reached around to the power cable and removed it again. This time he pulled the shiny metal piece up to his face. It looked like any other battery charging cable he’d seen, except that it had a half-inch long black plastic cowling where the wire entered the metal tip. Then he tilted the laptop up to see the power plug on the computer. He ran his finger over the plug outlet on the laptop. He quickly reattached the power cable and sat down.

  He had less than five minutes before he’d be escorted out of the building.

  He ran his fingers through his hair, scratching the back of his head absently.

  Damn, damn, damn, he thought. Maybe Freddie was wrong. I mean, he was dying, for chrissakes!

  He stood up, reached around the back of the laptop with his left hand again, pulled out the power cord, ran his fingers over the jack and then the plug. He put the metal plug up to his face quickly, shielding it from the camera with his body.

  Dennis felt a charge of electricity; not the kind that came from the wall, but the kind that came from synapses. He fiddled with the cord.

  “Christ,” he said out loud, and then sat down.

  CHAPTER 27

  Dennis found the inn easily enough and painstakingly stayed to the left side and parked properly. Inside, he expected to see Judy dozing from boredom in one of the inn’s armchairs, but she was not there.

  Looking into the pub, almost as an afterthought, he saw Judy at the bar talking to the bartender. There was one older gentleman at the other end of the bar. It was 2:20 in the afternoon.

  “Hey there,” he said, sitting next to Judy, eyeing her half-full glass of white wine.

  “Gidday, Yank.” She smiled. “How was your mission?”

  Dennis shot a glance at the white-haired, thin bartender.

  “Been here long?” he asked.

  “No, not long, have I, Bob?” she said to the bartender.

  “Bob, is it?” Dennis said.

  “Yes, that’s Bob. Bob this is Dennis. He’s a Yank, but he’s a bit of all right.”

  “Nice to meet you, Dennis,” Bob said. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “Um, no, but thank you. We need to get going.”

  “Right then,” the barman said, walking toward the register.

  “Can’t we stay a little longer?” Judy pleaded. Her eyes were a little glassy, and she smiled an odd, distant smile.

  “No. We really must get going. How many have you had?”

  “How many what?”

  “Glasses of wine?�
��

  “Oh, perhaps three.”

  “Mmm.”

  “I was bored,” she said. “And worried. You always worry me.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to worry you.”

  “But you do.”

  “I’m sorry. Can we leave, please?” Dennis said.

  “Can I finish my wine?”

  “If you must.”

  “I must.”

  ✦

  Judy slept most of the ride back to London, waking now and then to reposition herself.

  When they were an hour away from the city, she roused herself.

  “I don’t feel well,” she said.

  “I’m sure you’ll feel better in a while.”

  “I think I was drunk,” she said. “I used to be able to drink three glasses of wine without a problem. Now it feels like I drank three bottles.”

  “That’s okay. Derrick said you need to be careful, remember?”

  “I remember.”

  They drove in silence.

  “Do you want me to drive?” Judy asked. “You’re not going very fast.”

  “I’d love it if you would drive, to be honest, but not if you’re not feeling well.”

  “Pull over when you get a chance,” she said, running her fingers through her hair. “I need to do something other than feel bloody awful.”

  ✦

  “What the devil is that?” Judy said in the hotel room, standing in the bathroom doorway, drying her hair with a towel.

  Dennis had bent the small table lamp down six inches off the desktop and was using a pen to gently push around a thin shaft of shiny metal with a black cap at one end.

  “It’s a metal tip for a laptop power cord.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “At Menwith Hill.”

  “Why did you take it?”

  “It didn’t seem like it belonged there. Or that’s what I thought.”

  “Do they know you took it?”

  “No. At least I don’t think so.”

  She stopped rubbing her hair.

  “Dennis, that seems a bit rash, doesn’t it? Just pulling something off a computer and stealing it?”

  “Well, ‘stealing’ is a strong word. I borrowed it. Maybe this has something to do with what Arnold was doing during his last visit there. Or maybe it’s nothing. Just seemed strange to me. So I took it.”

  She walked over, clad in the hotel’s terrycloth robe, and peered over Dennis’s shoulder.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked, looking up at her.

  “A little embarrassed, perhaps, but fine otherwise.”

  “Headache?”

  “Mostly gone. Shame, on the other hand, lasts longer.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it, Judy. You’re a strong woman.”

  “Everyone says that.”

  “Everyone’s right.”

  They were silent for a moment.

  “What is it again?” Judy asked. “That tiny thing.”

  “The end of a power cord, the piece that connects it to the back of a computer. Only it’s a duplicate. I don’t know whether Arnold added this on purpose or whether the NSA puts these things on themselves for some cyber-security purpose.”

  “I’m lost. What are you talking about?”

  Dennis reached over to his laptop and pulled the power cord out of the back. He held it under the table lamp.

  “See that plug right there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, these are pretty much universal for laptops. And the Menwith Hill computer had the same setup. But when I pulled the power cord out of the computer, I noticed that the plug on the end of the power cord had a black plastic collar, which I’ve never seen before. Right before my time was up there, out of desperation, I just started to fiddle with the plug, and it slid off the end of the cord, showing another plug. Look. I’ll show you.”

  Dennis picked up the piece from Menwith Hill, and using his laptop’s power cable, showed how his power cable could be inserted into the back of it.

  “I think it’s an extension of some sort. I’m not going to plug my cord into it, but I’m thinking that this piece from Menwith Hill was slipped onto the real power cord by Arnold and quickly reinserted into the laptop. I mean, you can hardly tell it’s there.”

  “Are you sure this isn’t some kind of filter thing the NSA put on?”

  “No, I’m not sure. I just need to have someone look at this and tell me.”

  “Who do you know?”

  ✦

  Dennis sat in the bar and waited, taking the opportunity to sip a single malt without having it on his breath around Judy. While he wasn’t worried about her brief relapse into drinking, he didn’t want to make it harder for her.

  After forty minutes he grew restless. He was sipping this third Scotch when the tall man sat down next to him. He asked the bartender for a menu and looked it over.

  “What do you want?” the man said, speaking into the menu.

  “Advice.”

  “Are you clean?”

  “Of devices? Or just clean of thought?”

  “Devices.”

  “Yes.”

  “I can’t help you any more. Stop contacting me.” He put down the menu and stood up.

  “What’s this?” Dennis said, pushing over a bar napkin with the miniature power plug from Menwith Hill resting on top.

  The tall man leaned over and looked at the power plug for nearly thirty seconds, then sat down.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “Would be better if I didn’t tell you.”

  “Try again.”

  “Menwith Hill. Stuck on the end of a laptop power cord. You ever see anything like this before?”

  The man stared at it in silence for at least a minute; the raucous sounds of the pub offered a strange counterpoint to his rapt concentration.

  “No,” he finally answered.

  “Do you think it’s a filter put on by you folks?”

  “Maybe. I’m not a hardware guy.”

  “I think our missing agency employee slipped this onto a laptop at Menwith Hill right before he disappeared.”

  The man could not take his eyes off the small plug.

  “Would you mind taking it and telling me what it is? Maybe you could do some analysis.”

  “No,” he said, pushing the napkin back to Dennis. “Stay away from me.”

  “Fred said you could help me.”

  “Fred’s dead.”

  “Thanks a lot,” Dennis said.

  The man stood up just as the bartender asked if he wanted a drink. Dennis grabbed the plug off the napkin and stood up next to the man. With his left hand he grabbed the man’s coat lapel, and with his right he dropped the plug into the man’s coat pocket.

  “You’ve got to help me,” he said.

  “Go away, you idiot,” the man said, yanking Dennis’s hand from his lapel.

  ✦

  “Did you really put it in his coat?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “But it’s so small, he’ll never know it’s there. What the point of that?”

  “Well, when he gets this postcard he’ll know it’s in his coat. I’m betting that his curiosity will drive him nuts. If not, well, not much more I can do with that damn thing.”

  Dennis finished the postcard, put a stamp on it and said, “Let’s take a walk through this cold town.”

  “Can we take our mobile phones out of the fridge? I’d like to call Trevor.”

  “Sure.”

  They walked two blocks, where he put the postcard into a Royal Mail slot.

  The weather was unusually nice for January, and they walked for at least a mile before Dennis’s phone rang.

  “Ugh. It’s
Louise,” he said to Judy, grimacing.

  “Stop being so negative about her,” Judy said.

  “Well then, you talk to her.”

  Dennis put the phone to his ear.

  “Hey, Louise.”

  “What’s going on over there?”

  “I’m working on the case. I have two days left. Making some progress.”

  “Were you going to fill me in on the progress?” she asked.

  “Yeah, but it’s a long shot, and I don’t want to raise expectations.”

  “How could you possibly raise expectations on this investigation?”

  “You have a point, Louise. I think I’ll be able to give you something tomorrow.”

  “You bullshitting me like you normally do?”

  “Nope,” he said.

  “How is Judy doing?”

  “Nice of you to ask. She’s doing well.”

  “So nothing else is going on?”

  “What are you driving at, Louise?”

  “Something unusual happened today.”

  “Okay, I’m waiting.”

  “Got a call from the IG,” she said.

  “Okay, good for you.”

  “No, not good. I never get a call directly from the IG. I get a call from Sandy, the IG’s executive deputy, but never from the IG.”

  “So maybe Sandy was on vacation.”

  “Let me finish, Dennis. So the IG asked what was going on with the investigation. He said he’d just got a call from the director asking about a status update.”

  “The director of the CIA wanted a status update?” Dennis said, looking sideways at Judy, who was stamping her feet in the cold. “Since when does he give a shit about this thing? I thought he wanted it shut down?”

  “Uh-huh,” Louise said. “Which gets me back to you. Did anything happen there? My guess was it was you, but maybe not.”

  “I can’t talk like this, Louise. I don’t trust these phones.”

  “I’m flying out tomorrow. Same hotel room?”

  “Yes. Is that really necessary?”

  “I’ll text when I land.”

  “Okay.”

  “What was that about?” Judy said, pulling Dennis along the street. “I’m freezing.”

  Dennis told Judy about the impending visit.