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Tim Hall was a former spy for the Central Intelligence Agency. As a matter of fact, his official title was “Case Officer” and he spent much of his career in Central America. In 1981, Tim participated in the training of a paramilitary group known as the Contras and participated in the fighting of the Nicaragua civil war. Although this was a very controversial time in the United States, Tim was proud of his contribution and had no problem telling his friends at The Blue Goose about his exploits. The problem was that no one believed that Tim had ever been out of the City of Baltimore Maryland, much less a spy and Tim really had no way to prove that he did what he claimed. Unlike the local Police Departments, The Central Intelligence Agency did not issue “Retired Spy Identifications. As a matter of fact, the Agency was more than happy if their former employees did not brag about their exploits. The only thing Tim could prove related to his United States government employment was the two years spent working as a clerk for the Social Security Administration. He had been assigned to work there after he had recovered from the accident. The accident that took the life of his wife Pam and about four years of his memories.
Tim had woken up at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center with little idea how he had arrived there. A world class hospital, the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center was known to save the lives of those who would or should have died if they had not been treated within what was known as the Golden Hour. The general concept of the so-called Golden Hour was in cases of severe trauma, such as internal bleeding, required surgical intervention within 10 minutes of the accident. Other issues such as shock may also occur if the person was not treated appropriately. Patients whom did not receive treatment with such injuries within this time frame often died sometime days or even weeks later but if treatment could be administered within the Golden Hour, the survival improved exponentially. This was however not without controversy since some in the medical community felt that the complications that a survivor would be forced to live with may not outweigh the benefit of death, but such subjects were not openly discussed.
After Tim recovered from his traumatic injuries, he was transferred to John Hopkins Hospital department of neurologically under the care of Doctor Felix Gray. It was Dr. Gray who told Tim that his wife Pam had died in the accident and explained to Tim that he was suffering from “Retrograde amnesia”. Tim’s recall was limited to the fight that he and Pam were having that day. It was an uncommon condition, but it did indeed occur. Tim did remember his wife Pam but his memories of her mostly existed in the 1990s and the years beginning in 2000 but it was 2012 when things became fuzzy. Pam was also a Case Officer with the CIA, but they rarely saw one another because of an Agency rule about married couples working in the same locations. It just was not allowed and is even still discouraged today. This was a big reason that one spouse of a CIA marriage would often resign so they could remain together. The majority of the spouses taking that option were the women and that fact bother Pam to no end. That part Tim remembered well.
It had taken Tim a full year to recover before he could even begin to consider returning to work and the transfer to the SSA made sense, since that agency was located in Baltimore and was close to the hospital where Tim still needed occasional treatment. Besides, there was nothing for him to go back to in Northern Virginia, where Tim and Pam had owned a house. A second cousin from Tim’s mother’s side, Tim’s only living relative, appeared and handled the sale of his house and found Tim a condo in Baltimore. Tim was not even sure what he and Pam had been doing in Maryland the day of the accident, but none of this made any difference now. Pam was gone, and now Tim only had incomplete memories of her.
Before the accident, Tim, like many, had considered amnesia to be a condition that only happened on daytime soap operas and old movies. Tim watched a lot of old movies on TCM while recovering from his accident, and one film in particular called Random Harvest had a strong impact on him. In the movie, a man played by Ronald Coleman suffered amnesia due to an injury during World War I. His faithful girlfriend (played by Geer Garson) followed and supported him through the entire film. “If only,” Tim had sighed after seeing the film for the first time.
He did not remember much of anything from the year 2015 going back to 2013. Tim’s doctors told him that he was lucky that he was only missing a two- to three-year gap. Many who suffered from retrograde amnesia had much longer periods of memory loss. Occasionally, Tim would remember something, but would have to ask if it had actually happened or if it was from a dream. He read newspapers and magazines to try and catch up on all that he had missed, although he occasionally needed to remind himself that he was physically present during those years. To make matters worse, Tim had no one to fall back on to help with his memories. If anyone had been close to either Tim or Pam before the accident, they were not making themselves known. The CIA, or “the Agency” as Tim called it, was certainly living up to its reputation as a secretive organization. The Agency seemed to be happy that Tim had no lasting memories of the previous three years. Tim did not even know if the second cousin who showed up to sell his house in Virginia was really his mother’s relation or just someone the Agency had hired—but he was happy at the time that anyone was willing to help him, so he’d decided not to question it.
Tim did feel that it was odd that no one from the Agency stopped by and explained his retirement or Pam’s death benefits which all Federal Employee received. He tried to speak with the Human Resource Officer at the Social Security Administration but each time she tried to access Tim’s information, a red screen would appear with the words Access Denied in black and white letters. Although she assured Tim that she would get to the bottom of “his issue”, she seemed to “change her tune” the next and last time they met. She informed Tim that since he was hired under the old Federal Retirement System that he was only eligible for 10,000 dollars a month plus free medical. She reminded Tim that few federal employees received over 100 thousand dollars a year and if she were him then she would not complain. This response appeared to Tim to be something that the woman had been told to say and his years of experience in interrogation techniques told him that something or someone had scared her. He decided to let the subject drop since he now had more money than he could possibly spend but why put the fear of god in this lady? This simply told Tim that somebody was hiding something. As the HR lady walked Tim to the door, she mentioned that perhaps he could obtain more information from his Congressmen or US Senator. Tim thanked her but had to keep from laughing out loud. Both the Maryland and Virginia Congressional delegations were in the pocket of the CIA.