Color of Blood(36)

“I don’t like this thing,” Marty said. “Drop it. I have another assignment for you. I think we’ve got a situation in Taiwan. We’ve been asked to investigate some missing funds. You’ll go in with a forensic accountant, a new college kid from Fordham. She’s very young and new, so for God’s sake be nice to her.”

“You can’t be serious about dropping the Garder case?”

“Deadly serious.”

“But something’s very wrong here, Marty.”

“You already turned in your report, Dennis. Don’t be an idiot.”

“But that was before his clothes showed up radiated.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Marty! Just because Garder was involved with Special Activities doesn’t mean we have to turn away from it.”

“This isn’t a strict Agency deal, and I don’t think we need to do anything else,” Marty said. “Besides, I’ve got a few more years before retirement, and I’d just as well go out on my own terms and not be shown the door. You get my drift?”

“OK, fine, but can I at least talk to the guys in Special Activities here to see if they’ll let us keep going?”

“Why in the hell would you do that?” Marty said.

“Come on, Marty, maybe we’re missing something. You’re jumping way too far ahead. They may be looking for answers, too. We could look like heroes. They’re very powerful people since they go right into the White House.”

Marty sat back on his creaking chair, and Dennis took it for a good sign. They stared at each other. Marty suddenly leaned forward.

“OK, Mr. Smartass. Go ahead and talk to them, but that’s all. Hell, maybe you’re right. Maybe we could come out looking good in this. Those dicks over there think they know everything.”





Chapter 16


The message was audacious.

Judy’s father had gone to the pharmacy one morning, and when he returned to his car from picking up his wife’s heart medicine, there was a folded piece of paper under his windshield wiper.

It said simply: “Your family is in danger. Just ask Judy why.”

Her father was so startled that he dropped the note, and only after calming himself did he get on his knees and reach under the car to grab it.

Judy’s mother called her at work, sobbing uncontrollably, and told her what happened. Judy ordered her father not to touch the note again and warned her parents that investigators would be there soon, and they were not to tell anyone—their neighbors, her sisters, anyone—about the contents of the note. She assured them it was an idle threat and was nothing to be upset about.

But after explaining to Miller in his office what had happened, she began to shake.

“Good God, Jude,” Miller said. “That’s outlandish. What a pack of bloody bastards.”

“My family,” Judy repeated again and again. “They went after my father and mother.”

Judy had an outlier status in the office; she was quietly resented by the male agents for being treated differently and was condescendingly coddled at times by the senior staff to show they were being inclusive.

But through it all, she liked her career. Besides the welfare of her son and her family, her career was most important to her. It was her place to stand out and be recognized.

***

The two men sat on the other side of the desk and faced Dennis with the classic blank Agency stare—no facial expression of any significance, just a look bordering on ennui. Dennis was mildly perturbed that there were two people on the other side of the desk. The unstated rule in these kinds of delicate meetings was that a one-on-one meeting allowed for discretion and deniability; either person could say things that might be denied later.

A meeting with two people on the other side of the table raised the intimidating inference that whatever Dennis reported about the content of the meeting could be effectively disputed by the recollections of the two other participants.

In the highly nuanced world of agents, handlers, and intelligence bureaucrats, the ability to deny you uttered something was more important than the initial utterance. Dennis knew it, and the two men staring at him knew it. This was a critical procedural point because the Agency forbade taping of any conversation inside Langley for fear they’d be involved in cataloguing, processing, and repeatedly turning over sound files to congressional oversight committees. So, inside Langley, unless it was a formal written report, it was classic he said/she said gamesmanship.

“So what makes you so sure Garder did not die as attested by the shark expert in your report?” said Sam Massey, the man sitting behind a desk. He was a large man, perhaps two hundred fifty pounds. His face was a florid pink, enhanced by the white, synthetic, short-sleeve shirt he was wearing and the pile of thick, gray-white hair on his remarkably round head.

“I don’t have any direct evidence at this point, though I’m waiting on a report that might help make my case. I think we might have blood splatter in his car.”

Massey arched his unkempt eyebrows.

“Blood?”

“I think so,” Dennis said. “If it matches his blood type, I’d make the case that he never made it to the water alive.”

Massey stared at Dennis; Dennis stared at Massey. A short, thin man with black hair swept straight back from his forehead sat in the chair to Massey’s right. Massey had neither introduced the short man, nor acknowledged his presence, so Dennis decided to act like he wasn’t in the room.