Color of Blood(4)
“Come on, Cunningham,” he muttered. “Get it right this time.” In times of stress Dennis had developed the habit of referring to himself in the third person.
With painful deliberation he typed in the username and password, double-checking every click of the keyboard.
The computer unlocked, and he found the file he was looking for.
GOVERNMENT FORM D-10
TOP SECRET
FOR USE BY THE INSPECTOR GENERAL’S OFFICE OF THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY. IT IS UNLAWFUL FOR ANY UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL TO READ THE CONTENTS OF THIS FORM. PLEASE CONTACT THE INSPECTOR GENERAL’S OFFICE IF YOU COME INTO POSSESSION OF THIS DOCUMENT.
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DATE: OCT. 10, 2007
INSPECTOR: DENNIS CUNNINGHAM
ASSIGNMENT: REVIEW THE PRIOR INVESTIGATION OF THE DISAPPEARANCE OF AGENT GEOFFREY GARDER, UNDERCOVER AT US CONSULATE IN PERTH, WESTERN AUSTRALIA. AGENT GARDER FAILED TO REPORT TO WORK ON SEPT. 3, 2007, AND WAS REPORTED MISSING ON SEPT. 5 WHEN CONSULATE EMPLOYEES ENTERED HIS APARTMENT. WEST AUSTRALIAN POLICE WERE NOTIFIED OF HIS DISAPPEARANCE AND HIS LEASED AUTOMOBILE.
BACKGROUND: AGENT GARDER, AGE 29, HAS BEEN EMPLOYED BY THE AGENCY FOR SIX YEARS IN THE DIRECTORATE OF OPERATIONS. PLEASE SEE GARDER’S ATTACHED PERSONNEL FILE. THIS WAS HIS SECOND OVERSEAS ASSIGNMENT.
GARDER’S ASSIGNMENT AT THE CONSULATE WAS “HUMINT” ON AUSTRALIAN MINING AND MINERAL INDUSTRY. AGENCY SOURCES HAD RELIABLE INFORMATION THAT SEVERAL NON-FRIENDLY COUNTRIES HAD SET UP SHELL COMPANIES IN ASIA, AFRICA, AND AUSTRALIA TO FRONT ILLEGAL PURCHASE OF VALUABLE MINERALS FOR DEFENSE-RELATED PROJECTS.
AGENT GARDER’S ALIAS WAS: GEOFFREY JANSEN. HIS COVER WAS DEPUTY ASSISTANT TO THE CONSULATE GENERAL IN PERTH. HIS IDENTITY AS AN AGENCY EMPLOYEE WAS KNOWN ONLY TO THE CONSULATE GENERAL, AS IS SOP FOR AGENCY-STATE DEPT. COOPERATION.
AGENT GARDER HAD BEEN ON SITE FOR ELEVEN MONTHS PRIOR TO HIS DISAPPEARANCE. INTEL FROM HIM HAD BEEN ORDINARY AND GENERATED NO COMMENT FROM LANGLEY ANALYSTS. HE WAS SCHEDULED FOR REASSIGNMENT IN DECEMBER. HE WAS NOT AWARE OF THE REASSIGNMENT PLANS.
AGENT GARDER WAS FULLY VETTED DURING HIS TRAINING AT CAMP PEARY. ALL PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSESSMENTS WERE NORMAL. HE HAS NEVER BEEN DISCIPLINED.
MARITAL STATUS: HE IS SINGLE, BUT POSTDISAPPEARANCE INVESTIGATION SHOWS HE HAD BEEN DATING AN AGENCY EMPLOYEE IN LANGLEY (SEE PERSONNEL ATTACHMENT, ALSO DEBRIEF FROM RHONDA SAMPSON). SAMPSON REPORTS NO CONTACT WITH AGENT GARDER AFTER SEPT. 1. EMAILS BETWEEN AGENT GARDER AND SAMPSON END ON SEPT. 1. SAMPSON REPORTS THE RELATIONSHIP WAS INTIMATE THOUGH STRAINED BY LONG DISTANCE. SURVEILLANCE OF SAMPSON WAS INITIATED ON OCT. 4 AT THE DIRECTION OF THE DEPUTY IG. TO DATE THIS SURVEILLANCE HAS PRODUCED NEGATIVE RESULTS.
ON SEPT. 23 TWO AGENTS FROM DIRECTORATE OF OPERATIONS WERE DISPATCHED TO INVESTIGATE AGENT GARDER’S DISAPPEARANCE. (SEE ATTACHED REPORT.) CONCLUSION: CRIMINAL (NOT CLANDESTINE) FOUL PLAY SUSPECTED. AGENT GARDER IS FEARED TO HAVE BEEN VICTIM OF RANDOM CRIMINAL ACT. AT THE TIME OF THE REPORT, AGENT’S AUTOMOBILE HAS NOT BEEN RECOVERED. INVESTIGATORS EXPECT ADDITIONAL DETAILS RELATING TO HIS DISAPPEARANCE ONCE HIS VEHICLE IS RECOVERED.
AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE INVOLVED IN INVESTIGATION; SECURITY PACT REQUIRES OVERSIGHT BY AUSTRALIAN INVESTIGATOR ON NONDIPLOMATIC PROPERTY. COMPLIANCE REQUESTED.
ASSIGNMENT FOR INSPECTOR CUNNINGHAM: FULL REVIEW OF PRIOR REPORT ON DISAPPEARANCE OF AGENT GARDER. PRESS LOCAL AUTHORITIES ON LIKELY SCENARIOS REGARDING CRIMINAL ACTIONS AGAINST AGENT. FINAL REPORT EXPECTED WITHIN THIRTY DAYS.
He reread the assignment form and painstakingly reviewed the accompanying reports. Dennis tried to remain excited about the assignment, but he knew it was what he and the other investigators referred to as a “Grade D” assignment—pure, bureaucratic dog shit.
Chapter 3
A life has a trajectory, much like an artillery round, Dennis believed. It starts with an explosion out of the womb—OK, not a great metaphor, but stick with the idea—and follows a parabolic arc across time with varying gravitational influences on the projectile exerted by objects like marriage, sickness, war, idiotic families, and crap like that. The other end of the arc was another womb, of sorts—a coffin that held a body in the ground.
It wasn’t the most original concept about existence, but he didn’t care. It suited Dennis just right; it was blunt, cynical, and approximately accurate.
Here was his conundrum, sitting in a hotel room on the west coast of Australia—was he near the end of the arc, or somewhere near the middle? Lately he was consumed with an overarching sensation that his life was about to end. He had even experienced panic attacks, which he found more disturbing than his fear of turbulence—at least in an airplane he knew the cause and effect of his hyperventilation. The free-floating anxiety attacks, on the other hand, were unpredictable and upsetting.
And of course there was the enervating sadness that seemed to follow him when he wasn’t anxious. So much had occurred over the past half-year that his psyche was exhausted, regardless of Dr. Forrester’s spirited pep talks.
With his wife gone, he was now alone: really alone. He was, by his own reckoning, a workaholic widowed father who lived by himself in a small house in Arlington, Virginia. He knew vaguely that it would not stay this way forever, but his appetite for change had been lost.