A Dark Place

by Keith Yocum

  “Wait,” Judy said, stopping Dennis. “That plug thing you took. Did that have anything to do with the sudden interest by the director?”

  Dennis did not answer but kept looking over Judy’s shoulder into the distance, trying to put the pieces together.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Now I’m cold. Let’s get going.”

  They walked briskly back to the hotel, heads bent forward into the slight breeze.

  ✦

  “Ha!” Judy said. “He had an ICD.”

  Dennis was sitting on the bed, his back against the headboard, reading his notes. Judy sat at the desk, perusing Dennis’s computer.

  “What?”

  “His medical files show Arnold had an ICD. Did you and Freddie know that?”

  Dennis tilted his head down and looked over his reading glasses.

  “What?”

  “I said, did you know Arnold had an implantable cardioverter defibrillator?”

  “No, what are you talking about?”

  “Didn’t you read Arnold’s medical files? I’ll bet Freddie read them. Did he say anything about this?”

  “No, he didn’t, or at least I don’t remember. But I don’t even know what that thing is you’re talking about. Something to do with the heart?”

  “The only reason I know about it is that my dad might have needed one, but they put in a pacemaker instead.”

  “Did Arnold have a bad heart?”

  “Says here that he was diagnosed with something called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy when he was forty-nine years old. And they put in an ICD then. He’s had it for a few years.”

  “Is that why he didn’t go through the metal detector?”

  “Has to be. I’m looking it up now on the web, and you are not supposed to go through metal detectors. So yes, that’s why he avoided them at Menwith Hill.”

  Dennis slid off the bed, walked over and sat down next to Judy.

  “So what do these ICD things look like? Are they big or small?”

  Judy looked back at the computer and started searching the web. After twenty minutes they stopped.

  “So these things are maybe seventy-five millimeters tall, forty millimeters wide and fourteen or so deep. They have circuitry inside and wire leads going to the heart,” Dennis said. “That’s pretty big.”

  “Do you think he might have hidden that plug you found next to his ICD so that he could get it through security?” Judy said.

  “But how would he do that?”

  “Well, you were there several times. If Arnold did not go through the metal detector, but only got wanded, then the wand would have picked up the ICD in his chest, no?”

  “I think so.”

  “And we saw how small that plug was. What if he simply taped it to his chest over the ICD, and it was masked by all the electronics in the device? Or maybe he had it inserted under his skin, and that’s what he was doing in the bathroom stall.”

  “Mmm, I don’t see why not. But we don’t even know if that stupid thing is anything important.”

  “When did you say the postcard will get to your mystery man?”

  “Tomorrow. Then either he gets curious or he doesn’t.”

  “And your time is up on this case the day after tomorrow?”

  “Officially, yes.”

  “What are you going to tell Louise when she gets here tomorrow?”

  “Guess I’ll tell her everything.”

  “Even what Ian said about Arnold being picked up on phone traffic in Moscow?”

  “Not that. I’m going to hold that one. I’m having a hard time trusting her for some reason.”

  “What is it with you and that woman? Did she do something to you?”

  “Judy, I’m just saying that people’s motives in this business are not so linear. I know that’s hard to understand, but it’s the truth. Louise is from an operations background. But those people are trained liars.”

  “God, what a business you’re in.”

  ✦

  “You just took it?” Louise said, leaning forward across the small coffee table.

  “Yes, just like I said. Pulled it off the power cord, saw that it was some kind of extension and brought it back.”

  “And you gave it to this NSA employee that Kaczka turned you on to?”

  “Yes.”

  “But this guy doesn’t even know you gave it to him?”

  “Well, like I said, I think he knows now. Hopefully he’ll try to figure out what it is.”

  “Let’s just say he does figure out what it is, and he wants to tell you. How will he tell you if you don’t know who he is?”

  “He contacts me.”

  “How does he do that? And what is the address you send the postcard to?”

  “I’m not going to tell you.”

  Louise closed her eyes in what Dennis took to be an attempt to control her fury and leaned back in her chair. Her bright white-blond hair swung against the top of her fashionable navy pea coat.

  She opened her eyes and focused her gaze above his head, biting the inside of her bottom lip.

  “I have no idea how you have held this job for so long,” she said. “You’re insolent, disobedient and a royal pain in the ass. These aren’t qualities highly prized by OIG.”

  “No, they’re more highly prized by folks in operations,” Dennis said.

  “I’m not in operations any longer, and you know that. Jesus, Cunningham, you are a piece of work. So we have one more day on this case, then it’s shut down. And I say we because I’m on this case too, in case you forgot. I’m your boss, remember?”

  “You asked me to come back and solve the case. I’m doing that. Let me do my work. You’ll have everything when the time is up.”

  “You won’t come clean with what you have, and somewhere back at Langley warning bells are going off about this case. I’m not the brightest bulb, but you may need more friends than you know.”

  “Mmm.”

  She got up and walked out of the shop.

  Dennis stared at his coffee cup, turning it in small motions, as if it was the dial of a radio.

  ✦

  It was after 1:00 p.m. when Dennis got out of the elevator and walked toward his room. On the floor in front of his room was a glossy multi-colored brochure for an Indian restaurant. But it was the white sticky note on the front that caught his attention.

  He picked it up, used his key swipe and entered the room. Judy was on the bed reading a book.

  “Did you hear anyone at the front door?” Dennis asked.

  “No, why?”

  “I found this.” He waved the brochure.

  “Is that from your mystery man?”

  “Maybe. But it’s blank. And the paper color is different.”

  Judy got off the bed, and Dennis put it on the desk. They stared at it silently.

  “I think it’s from him,” he said. “I just don’t know what it means.”

  “Why didn’t he just do what he normally does with these notes?” she said.

  “Don’t know. Maybe he’s scared. Or maybe it’s not him after all. Maybe it’s just Louise screwing with me.”

  “She’d do that?”

  “Everything is on the table right now.”

  They continued to stare.

  Dennis slowly peeled the note off the brochure and held it up to the light, looking for writing.

  “There’s nothing here. I’m not sure it’s him. Could be someone else who’s trying to trick me. But what’s the trick?”

  “Don’t ask me why,” Judy said, sitting down. “I think this is him. He’s trying to tell you something. You’ve said before that he’s very cautious about electronic surveillance. That he doesn’t trust technology, that he says old-school street craft is all that works nowadays, correct
?”

  “Yes, that’s true.”

  “So, think old-school. What could this blank sticky mean?”

  Dennis pulled at his earlobe and frowned, sitting down in the other chair.

  “Jeez, I can’t think. What does white mean? I surrender?”

  “No. Why go through all the trouble to have some kid or bellman deliver this to your door just to say that?” she said. “Think harder.”

  “It’s a restaurant brochure. An Indian restaurant. I don’t like Indian food.”

  “That’s not it,” she said. “When he first sent the brochure from St. Paul’s, what did he do?”

  “Well, he highlighted letters, or words, or symbols to get his message across. And we pretty much put it together. It was sort of simple, really. Kind of Boy Scouty, if you get where I’m going. It was the complete opposite of what you’d expect from a modern cryptographer.”

  They stared at the brochure for a long time.

  Dennis cocked his head slightly.

  “Where was this sticky note when I pulled it off the brochure? I mean exactly where? I can’t remember.”

  “I think it was right there.” She pointed to a spot under a picture of a dish of chicken.

  “No, I thought it was there,” Dennis said pointing to a spot an inch away.

  He picked up the brochure and held it an angle under the lamp so that he could look closely at the glossy coating for evidence of an adhesive.

  “Right there,” he said. “You were right. Let’s put it back.”

  He slowly put the sticky back, and again they stared at it.

  Above the sticky was a picture of a yellow bowl of rice with vegetables.

  “It’s a lemon rice dish,” Judy said. “Says so here.”

  Dennis leaned back in his chair, again pulling on his earlobe.

  “Something is resonating…”

  “Rice?” Judy asked.

  “No. Lemon.”

  Silence.

  “Lemon. Huh.”

  Dennis twisted his head and looked at Judy.

  He picked up a pen and put two lines on the brochure to mark the position of the sticky and then peeled it off.

  “Come on,” he said, walking to the bathroom.

  He spread a white hand towel on the sink counter then put the sticky note down.

  “Use this pen on the corner of the paper to hold it down. I’m going to use your hair blower on it, and I don’t want it to blow away.”

  “I don’t get it,” she said.

  “Neither do I. But it’s worth a try.”

  Dennis picked up the hair dryer, looked around at the controls and turned it to medium, then cranked it up. The sound of the blower filled the room.

  “Ready?” he yelled.

  She nodded.

  He lowered the nozzle until it was eight inches from the fluttering paper. Judy was forced to stab the corner to stop it flying away. After twenty seconds he turned it off and put his face next to the paper.

  “It’s hot in here,” Judy said.

  He smiled. “Think we got it.”

  He turned the blower on again and trained it on the paper.

  Judy bent over and began to make out some numbers emerging.

  ✦

  The bar smelled of stale beer, perfume and fried food. Dennis sat as near as he could to the stool he typically sat in. He ordered a single malt and toyed with it while waiting for his visitor.

  The sticky note had had a set of numbers on it, written in lemon juice. It was a very old method of using invisible ink that had been popular for children in the early 1960s playing make-believe secret agent. It was dumb but painfully simple. The acid in the juice turned brown when it was heated gently, so writing could be seen on white paper.

  The number sequence on the paper suggested a date and time, which happened to be that night. Dennis expected to meet his mystery man at the bar at the appointed time. Either that or Louise would be there. Or his friend from the Ukraine.

  After thirty-five minutes of Dennis being jostled by the dense, after-work crowd of revelers, the bartender leaned forward and smiled.

  “You Dennis?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “Here you go, mate.” He handed Dennis a ticket.

  Dennis looked at it. “What is Ministry of Sound?” he asked the grinning bartender.

  “Dance club. Doesn’t get going until later tonight. You must have an admirer.”

  “Who gave this to you?”

  “Cabbie. Had clear directions he repeated about ten bloody times. Man of your description will sit near one of these stools at such and such time. He’s a Yank named Dennis. Give him the bloody ticket. And here’s ten quid for your work.”

  “How far away is the club from here?” Dennis asked.

  “A ways; just tell the cabbie where you’re going. No worries.”

  Dennis thanked him and looked at the ticket.

  A dance club? Really? I’m getting a little pissed off at this guy, Dennis fumed. He looked at his watch; the ticket stated the club opened at 10:30 p.m. What the hell was he going to do until then? He called Judy using one of the two new burners he had purchased; he did not trust Louise’s burner any longer.

  “Perhaps he just wants to make sure you’re not being followed?” she said. “And a dance club will be loud and distracting, with lights and music. Good cover, I suppose.”

  “I think it’s stupid,” Dennis said.

  “What if it’s not him?” she said. “You’ve got me feeling paranoid now. What if it’s that Ukrainian bloke? You need to be careful, Dennis. The more I think about it, the less I like this meeting.”

  “I think it’s our mystery man; it’s something a nerd would think up. Hell, I don’t know. I’ll just go and hope for the best.”

  “Please be careful, Dennis.”

  “I don’t dance.”

  “Not what I mean, and you know it.”

  “Maybe Louise is dying to dance with me.”

  “Stop it.”

  “I’ll call you afterward, though it may be late.”

  “I’ll be up.”

  ✦

  The line to get into Ministry of Sound was easily a block and half long at 10:00 p.m., and Dennis felt completely out of his element. The average age of the people in line was about twenty-five, and they were decked out in flashy clothing. Hulking bouncers monitored the door, and as they finally started letting people in, Dennis panicked. Maybe going in was a bad idea.

  As an older single male, he stood out like a palm tree on the Arctic tundra. He could already hear the thumping music vibrating through his clothes from outside and wondered if the noise might disguise foul play directed against him. More importantly, he studied the front of the long line for evidence of his mystery man but could see nothing as he inched forward.

  “ID, granddad?” the bouncer asked. Dennis dug out his wallet, and the bouncer looked at it with a flashlight. “Tourist, eh?”

  “Yes, I guess.”

  “Put your wallet and phone in your front pockets, otherwise you’ll have them taken.”

  “Thanks for the tip.”

  The club was enormous, with a long bar on one side facing a dance floor. No one was dancing now, because the show hadn’t started, but the music was so loud that Dennis cringed. He made his way to the bar and shouted out that he wanted a beer.

  Leaning against the bar, he waited.

  And waited. The show started at 11:00 p.m., with a DJ on the stage, a video screen behind him and hundreds of colored laser light variations shooting above and around the crowd of dancers.

  At eleven thirty Dennis began to feel not only stupid but tired. The music was so loud that his head ached. The bass notes from the huge speakers made his shirt flutter. There appeared to be more women than men in the c
lub, and many looked like models, with short skirts and long torsos.

  Finally, at 11:45, he guessed he had been made to look like a fool and wondered vaguely whether he had been purposely lured away from Judy.

  He found a far corner of the dance hall and called her.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. “Is everything all right?”

  “Yes, of course it is. Why? And I can barely hear you.”

  “Don’t answer the door if anyone knocks.”

  “No one is going to knock, Dennis.”

  “Just promise me that.”

  “I promise. What’s going on there?”

  “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I’m coming back now.”

  “That’s disappointing.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said, IT’S DISAPPOINTING.”

  “Yes, very. Home soon. Bye.”

  Dennis made his way past the flashing lasers, drunks, Ecstasy-fueled dancers and wandering bouncers to the front door. The winter air felt nice for once, and he made his way to a stand of taxis. The first one in line started his car as Dennis got near. As he reached for the door he felt a man brush past him.

  “Come!” the man said. It was the mystery man in a long, herringbone wool coat.

  Dennis followed as the man walked quickly down Southwark Bridge Road. Few people were on the street, and his natural caution had him glancing left and right and occasionally even behind him. Soon the mystery man was twenty yards ahead of Dennis, though he never looked back.

  And suddenly he was gone.

  Dennis stopped. A car went by. A young couple walked toward him. He strained to see ahead, but the man had simply vanished. He decided to advance slowly past dark storefronts and morose, lonely street lamps. Nothing. The man had vanished.

  “Hssst.”

  Dennis looked into an alley to his right. The mystery man’s face shone briefly in the glare of a street lamp then disappeared again into the dark alley.

  Dennis walked closer but stopped.

  “I’m not going in there. Come out and let’s talk.”

  Nothing.

  “Did you hear me?” he said. “I’m not going in there. You come out.”

  Nothing.

  Dennis felt a cold river of fear run up his spine, and he quickly scanned the street around him. He backed away from the alley entrance.