by Keith Yocum
“Don’t you dare let that doctor touch Dennis,” Judy hissed, staring directly into Louise’s face. “You can’t wait to get him out of the way. You’re all senseless killers. All of you.”
Judy felt a huge tear roll down her right cheek, and she struck at it fiercely with the back of her right wrist.
Louise stood and walked several steps away, then returned and stood over Judy.
“You don’t have to trust me, or like me, or do anything except tolerate me. But you need to do it for Dennis’s sake. They won’t answer any of my questions here because I don’t have status as a family member, and he’s too sick to be moved to a US facility. I need your help. Jesus, Judy, Dennis needs your help. Please look at me. Just answer a few questions. Please.”
Judy glanced up and locked eyes with Louise. She hated her right now and had the desire to punch Louise in the throat then stomp her face when she went down.
“Control yourself,” Louise said. “Dennis needs you to be strong.”
Judy looked away across the room, as if she was standing on a hill looking down at a shadowed valley.
“When did Dennis show signs of being sick?” Louise asked.
Judy answered her questions in a monotone. She was a hostile witness and did nothing to hide her contempt.
After many questions, Louise suddenly sat down next to Judy.
“The man that stumbled into Dennis, had you seen him before?”
“No.”
“Did the man stop to apologize or check on Dennis?”
“I already told you twice: the man said something like ‘sorry, old man,’ and kept walking.”
“Was there anything on his ribcage when you looked at it back at the hotel?”
“I told you: there was a bruise near the bottom rib.”
“And nothing else? No blood?”
“No blood. Well, there was a tiny fleck of blood. Probably from the corner of the briefcase. Or maybe Dennis was scratching it. It was tiny.”
Louise stood up and left without speaking. After several minutes Judy turned and saw Louise talking to Dr. Ravishana outside the waiting room. Louise seemed to be grilling the doctor, who bent away at the waist from the small woman. Then the two of them disappeared, and Judy jumped up and followed them.
She caught up outside Dennis’s isolation room.
“What are you doing?” Judy asked the doctor.
“I received a phone call from the medical director here, and he directed me to answer any and all questions about Mr. Cunningham’s health this woman may have. This woman insists that she see Mr. Cunningham’s chest area, and I am complying.”
“Don’t you dare let this woman touch him. Watch her closely.”
“It’s all right, Judy,” Louise said. “You can watch me through the glass.”
After donning the protective gear, they went in and Judy watched as the gloved doctor gently pulled back Dennis’s hospital gown to expose the right side of his chest. Louise bent forward and then appeared to ask the doctor for something. He took out a small flashlight and shined it on Dennis’s chest. Louise drew very close and looked at his chest.
Then she stood upright, turned and left the physician holding the flashlight. Judy watched Louise tear off the protective gear, wash her hands under the direction of a nurse and bolt down the hallway, reaching for her phone.
Judy returned to the waiting room. It was 11:32 p.m. The door opened behind her and the doctor returned.
“There is nothing you can do here. You should go home and rest. We will call you if we need to reach you for any reason.”
“Don’t let that woman touch him, do you hear me?”
“I won’t let her touch him,” he said.
✦
Judy stopped at the hotel bar and ordered a glass of red wine. She put it down in three long gulps then retired to her room.
She had purchased a strong antibacterial soap at a chemist on the way home. After taking a scalding shower and scrubbing religiously, she put on her pajamas and brushed her teeth. She stared at Dennis’s toothbrush. It was his travel toothbrush that he insisted on putting back into its protective cap after each use. Judy had argued that it was better to let it dry first, but Dennis said he always did it this way and that he had not caught hoof and mouth disease yet. It was one of their silly little arguments. The memory of it left her feeling sad and lonely. She quickly went to bed and fell sound asleep.
The phone seemed to scream at her, and she knocked it off the bedside table trying to grab it. She used the charging cord as a tether and slowly pulled it toward her as she leaned over the bed.
“Hello?”
“Tthis is Dr. Ravishana. I wanted to update you on Mr. Cunningham’s condition.”
Judy said nothing.
“Ms. White, are you there?”
“Yes.”
“I wanted to tell you that Mr. Cunningham is showing signs of improvement. We’ve adjusted our antibiotic regimen to better match his specific bacteria.”
Judy looked at the clock. It was 7:12 a.m.
“Do you think this is just temporary?” Judy asked.
“When someone with MRSA gets the correct antibiotic treatment quickly, the patient can improve dramatically with minimal damage to their organs. We think he’s on the way to a complete recovery. We appreciate Ms. Nordland’s help on this.”
“You didn’t let her touch him, did you?”
“No, no, please calm down. She did not touch him. She helped us identify the correct regimen to treat him.”
“She’s not a doctor. What could she possibly know about regimens?”
“Well, she brought in an American doctor, who, in consultation with our medical director and the head of our infectious diseases department, procured a new experimental antibiotic that we did not have. Frankly, it’s probably the reason he’s doing so well now.”
“You let those bastards touch him!” she screamed.
“Ms. White, you’re overreacting. Please calm down. I know this has been a strain on you—.” But Judy had already hung up and raced to get dressed.
CHAPTER 29
I can’t believe it,” Judy said, standing next to Dr. Ravishana.
“He is doing well, but he will need time to recuperate,” he said.
“Can he leave soon? Today or tomorrow?”
“Heavens, no. He’s still quite sick. But we’re pretty confident that he’ll get through this.”
“Can I see him?”
“Yes, but you know the rules. Please, no contact.”
Judy moved within several feet of the bed and leaned forward. Dennis raised his head and looked at her, his bright blue eyes dimmed and pink around the edges.
“Hey,” he said through his plastic mask.
“How you feeling, Yank?”
“Strong like bull,” he said weakly through the mask.
“Bullshit. You look like hell,” she said.
“Like bull,” he said, closing his eyes.
Judy choked up, waved at Dennis, though his eyes were closed, turned quickly and left. She did not know why she was trying to hide her emotions from him. Perhaps she was trying to hide them from herself.
Judy was not surprised to find Louise in the waiting room.
Louise approached and sat down. The two women sat parallel to each other and faced forward, looking out the same large window into the gray sky.
“What did you do to him?” Judy asked without turning.
“Antibiotics. A new version.”
“You Yanks have all the answers.”
“Not all, just some.”
They fell silent.
“Do you want to help Dennis and me?” Louise asked.
“I’ll help Dennis but not you.”
“He and I are on this assignment together, Judy. I�
�m sure you know that.”
“I thought the assignment had run out of time,” Judy said.
“He told you that?”
“Yes.”
“Officially, it has been terminated. But Dennis and I were still trying to crack this thing.”
“The Arnold case?”
“Yes. I wasn’t sure how much he told you. This is a highly confidential and peculiar case. Dennis and I were committed to solving it.”
“Well, it’s over now. So Dennis can just relax and recuperate.”
“You think Dennis is going to let this just go?” Louise asked, turning to face Judy.
Judy avoided the gaze and continued to stare out the window.
“Maybe,” she said.
“I don’t think so,” Louise said. “You know he’s going to jump right back into it, regardless of the rules. That’s the way he is. I don’t know him as well as you, but I know he’s not going to let this go.”
Judy shrugged.
“And that’s why I’m asking for your help,” Louise said. “You must know something about what Dennis was working on. I can’t wait for him to get well and then wait for him to confide in me. It’s clear that he was withholding things from me. He said as much. Maybe you could help me. Just tell me what he might know.”
“Louise, he didn’t trust you. As I already said before, I don’t trust you. Why in God’s name would I do something that he wouldn’t approve of? Just because you’re sitting in this room playing nice? Trying to take advantage of a woman who’s scared for the man she loves? Please don’t insult me.”
The two women commenced their parallel positions, both silent and looking out the same window on the same rooftop view of a gray London winter sky. Judy became increasingly uncomfortable as the silence lingered. Finally, unable to stand it any longer, she stood up.
“Okay,” Louise said.
Judy stopped. “Okay?”
“Yes, okay. I’ll tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
“Sit down and I’ll tell you.”
Judy sat down.
“Someone tried to kill Dennis,” Louise said, rubbing her eyes with her fingertips, refocusing on the window.
“I don’t understand. Are you suggesting it was the man who stumbled into Dennis?”
“It was the pinprick.”
“Pinprick?”
“Yes. If you hadn’t mentioned the little bit of blood you’d seen below his ribcage, it would never have occurred to me.”
“I’m listening,” Judy said.
“I started off my career at the agency in operations. Street work. Managing assets, running teams here and there. Dirty work, some of it.”
“So?” Judy said.
“So, in this kind of work, we study the street craft of our opponents. I mean, everyone does it. It’s like espionage graduate school. I know it sounds silly, but that’s what we do. Some of the most famous cases of espionage and assassinations are studied and in some cases copied.”
“I think I’m going to get some breakfast,” Judy said, standing.
“In 1978 a Bulgarian named Markov was murdered in London by the Bulgarian Secret Police,” Louise continued. “He was injected with a minuscule pellet that contained the poison ricin. The pellet was delivered by the tip of an umbrella.”
Judy looked down at Louise, who continued to stare out the window.
“There have been lots of these outrageous assassinations over the years. Russians and Israelis are best known for their creativity; neither of those organizations have any adult supervision, so they do seem to have fun trying to kill people in the most inventive ways. The best methods, by far, are those that make the death look accidental or non-malicious.”
Judy sat down.
“In 2004 one of our operatives in Rome got sick. He was involved in a very complicated surveillance program of a Syrian general who was purchasing chemical weapons on the private arms market. The agency guy died from a bacterial infection that at the time was considered unrelated to his espionage activities. I mean, people get infections and die all the time.
“In 2007 Israel took in a Syrian defector who had lots of stories to tell. One of them involved the use of Russians to kill an American intelligence official in Rome. The American had uncovered a plan by Syrian military to buy nerve gas from Russian arms dealers. The defector said the Russians sent a female agent to bump into our guy on the streets of Rome and accidentally prick him in the stomach area with a needle infected with a rare type of MRSA. When the Israelis reported the tip back to us from the defector, Langley didn’t believe it.
“We get misinformation all the time; sometimes defectors are double agents, or they’re fed misinformation without knowing it. It’s a mess, but stick with me. Some analyst in Langley got curious and looked at the old autopsy photos of our dead agent in Rome. Sure enough, there was a little tiny pinprick on the left side of his stomach.”
Louise raised her hands behind her neck, intertwined her fingers and left them there. She leaned back in the chair, still staring out the window.
“They exhumed the body of the agent who died in Rome. It was an unknown strain of MRSA. So we cloned it and developed an antibiotic protocol for it. Just in case the Russians got frisky with one of our people again.”
Louise pulled her hands away from the back of her neck and pointed them at the ceiling as she stretched and yawned. She stood up, picked her purse off the chair, and said, “That’s as far as I’m going with this. The rest of the math is up to you. If you feel like trusting me, let me know. Otherwise, you’ll never hear from me again. And don’t forget, when Dennis gets better, he’ll jump back into this case, only he won’t have protection or help from me. I’m getting reassigned.”
As Louise walked out of the room, Judy noticed she had an odd gait.
“Wait,” Judy said. “Maybe I can help.”
“You’re the only person right now that can help me figure out what Dennis knew,” Louise said. “I think he has most of the pieces of the puzzle.”
“Well, if you coax information out of me that harms Dennis, then I’ll kill you, Louise.”
“Wow, that’s pretty intense.”
Judy rubbed her eyes and bit the inside of her lip. “So Arnold is in Moscow. He defected.”
“Bullshit,” Louise said.
“And Dennis got back into Menwith Hill and stole something.”
“How in the hell did he get inside there again?”
“I’m starving,” Judy said. “I feel faint and I need food. Let’s go to the cafeteria.”
✦
Judy noticed that Louise had a very intense style of concentration. Over a simple breakfast in the cafeteria, she leaned in toward Judy’s face and repeated questions.
What did the stolen device look like in precise detail?
Stainless steel with black plastic housing.
How many millimeters long was it?
Maybe twenty.
Did Dennis know for certain that Arnold sneaked the device in by inserting it under his skin near the ICD or did Dennis just guess?
A guess.
Who did Dennis talk to at MI5?
Judy did not know.
Was Judy sure that Dennis mentioned power line communications and nodes and repeaters?
Yes, that’s what he said.
What was the neighborhood in Moscow where Arnold was seen?
Judy couldn’t remember; only the name of the coffee shop: The Grind.
Did Dennis know why Chandler in the London station didn’t report the tip from the Brits that Arnold was seen in Moscow?
He thought Chandler was either hiding something or was incompetent.
“I can’t do this any longer, Louise,” Judy said. “You’re a very intense person, and it’s exhausting having you interrog
ate me. I’m going up to the waiting room.”
“We’re moving him today,” Louise said.
“What? You can’t do that. He’s sick.”
“Did you not hear what I said happened to him, Judy? Someone tried to kill him. Did you not notice that two people who came closest to figuring out the Arnold disappearance were in someone’s crosshairs? Fred Kaczka was poisoned and killed. Now Dennis. It’s just a hunch, but the fact that Dennis probably disrupted the Russians’ eavesdropping equipment at Menwith Hill upped the ante for them. You think I’m going to leave him here at a public hospital?”
“Where is he moving to?”
“A military hospital north of London. More controls. He’ll be safe there.”
“Can I visit him?”
“Of course. Maybe we can even move you into a room nearby. But I need to make a phone call first. I’ll be right back. We need protection for Dennis right now.”
Judy waited, toying with her cold coffee, anxious about the prospect of Dennis lying unprotected in the isolation room upstairs. And for the first time in a while, she felt homesick for her family and Perth. It would be midsummer there now, a perfect antidote to the gloomy London weather. Trevor was living with her parents and had called her again yesterday wondering when she was going to return.
“Very soon,” she had told him. “Perhaps next week.”
“Can I go with Jimmy and his family to Bunbury? You know Mrs. Wilson.”
“Yes, I do. When are they going and for how long?”
“I think next week, and for a fortnight. I would love to go with them, Mum. Please?”
“Sure. Can you send me Mrs. Wilson’s mobile phone number? I’ll call her.”
“You’re the best, Mum.”
✦
Louise returned twenty minutes later and sat down.
“I’ve arranged for some freelance protection for Dennis while he waits to be moved. Dr. Ravishana says he is doing well.”
“I just want him out of this place,” Judy said. “And out of this damn city. I’ve always loved London, but not anymore. I don’t like its cellars, its pedestrians or its hospitals. I’ll never come back.”
