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Tim opened The Practical Application of Chemical Formulas and went straight for the copyright page. 1974, University of California Press. This was the book Tim had written during his doctoral work at Berkeley. He hadn’t really forgotten this, but since he had no use for that information, he’d just put it out of his mind. Now, though, it was all coming back. He’d studied chemistry at UC Berkeley for, god, six years and had started working on his Ph.D. when he was recruited by the Agency. The book was the last thing he had finished before he traveled east to spy school, where he met Pam.
Spy school was the first time Tim had ever been east of the Mississippi River, and that was just a short trip to visit Northwestern University in Chicago. Tim was born and bred in Fort Bragg, California, the only child of two schoolteachers who Tim recalled paid very little attention to him. His parents made sure that he was clothed and fed but did little else. Tim could not even recall having one conversation with either of his parents of any significance.
Tim’s parents did put aside a sum of money for his higher education. Tim’s college fund, as it was known. He’d picked Berkeley because it was close to home and the only life he had ever known.
After earning his undergraduate degree, Tim decided to become a teacher like his parents and return to the Fort Bragg area. This plan changed when both of Tim’s parents died within six months of each other, effectively leaving him an orphan at the age of 22. Tim buried one and then the other parent, then sold the small house where he was raised. He took the proceeds from his parents’ estate and returned to Berkeley. He got an apartment and moved in with his college girlfriend, a woman named Sarah.
With his girlfriend’s encouragement, Tim decided to enter the graduate program in chemistry in order to obtain his Ph.D. From there, Tim thought he would eventually become a college-level chemistry professor. This particular plan seemed to work out very well. Tim was popular with the professors in the Chemistry Department and was even able to publish a textbook with their support. Tim also got along with Sarah very well and thought seriously about asking her to marry him. The two of them could then become teachers, just like his parents. The irony of this was not lost on Tim, yet he determined that it was the life he wanted.
All of that would change the day Tim was visited by two men in dark suits.
Tim had already been recruited by a number of large corporations such as Dow Chemicals and DuPont, but he had little interest in that kind of work. Teaching, on the other hand, seemed to offer a sort of relaxed, easygoing lifestyle. And if he could become a tenured professor at one of the many colleges and universities in the state of California, then he and Sarah would have it made for life.
Tim expected that these two men in the dark suits were just two more recruiters from some major chemical corporation. Therefore, he was quite surprised when they told him that they represented the United States government and that his talents were needed to help save the world from total destruction.
In 1975, the Vietnam War may have ended, but the Cold War was still going strong. Men and women were not only needed to work in laboratories, but also to analyze what was happening on the other side. The men were rather vague in describing exactly what they needed from Tim, but they continued to stress nuclear deterrence. They concluded their sales pitch by telling Tim that men like him were the future and that the safety of the world would be in his hands. Tim asked where he would be working, and they replied that, after training, he would initially be working in the Washington, D.C. area—but after that, anywhere in the world. The thought of “anywhere in the world” was what convinced Tim there and then to sign up.
That decision did not sit too well with Tim’s girlfriend Sarah. She was a holdover from the Berkeley of the mid-sixties and the protests that went with it. The thought of Tim even considering working for the government was more than she could stand, and she moved out of the apartment at the end of that week. Tim left for spy school the following month.
How green the state of Virginia was, Tim thought to himself as his unmarked bus took a special exit off of Interstate 64. Tim was used to the tall redwoods and yellow fields of Northern California and had never seen such dense green foliage. He had done some research about the area and discovered that he was not far from the first permanent English settlement at Jamestown. He thought about what a strange wilderness this all must have been back then.
The bus stopped at a guard’s gate, where two Army MPs boarded. The MPs stopped at each passenger and examined their IDs. Tim noticed that the MPs had pictures of each person on the bus on a clipboard.
After the MPs were apparently satisfied that everyone was who they said they were, the bus continued down a tree-lined road, which opened to a clearing. Spy school looked pretty much like any small college campus, with a large expanse of grass, buildings with classrooms, and dorms. There was also a dining hall and a gymnasium. The bus pulled in front of the gymnasium, and the man who was acting as a kind of proctor announced, “All right, kids, this is home.”
Everyone made a single file line and entered the gymnasium. There were ten rows of ten folding chairs, but everyone ended up sitting where they liked. Pam was sitting directly in front of Tim. Her hair was much longer in those days, almost reaching the small of her back. She wore what smelled like patchouli oil as a fragrance, which seemed to go well with her turquoise jewelry. Pam turned, smiled, and asked if Tim had an extra pencil. He did have one and gladly gave it to her. Tim had already fallen in love with her.
Speaker after speaker spoke about what would be expected of everyone, including what offenses a student could be dismissed for. One speaker, a woman, told the class that fraternization between the men and women of the class was prohibited. She also mentioned that there were more women in this particular class than ever before. The government had made an effort to recruit more women into the FBI and CIA and had even gone so far as to set up phony schools for airline flight attendants in order to give the agencies opportunities for vetting. Pam had told Tim that this was how she had been hired, although Tim was never really sure if that story was true or just another Agency myth. There were quite a few Agency myths.
Although he saw Pam from time to time during school, there was never a good opportunity to get to know her. Eventually, however, Pam and Tim did have some classes together, and they always sat next to one another. Tim was never athletically inclined and initially had trouble with the various obstacle courses. Pam was a natural athlete and had not had trouble passing any, and she took the time to work with Tim. During one such session, while Tim was doing push-ups, they began to kiss each other right in the middle of the football field—but that was as far as it went. Before either of them knew it, they graduated and were given different assignments. They promised to stay in touch but were unable to keep the vow. Tim had no idea where Pam had gone or what assignment she’d been given. Tim was assigned as an Analyst based at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia. It was not until almost two years later that Tim was finally able to ask Pam on a date, when they happened to meet by chance at the Langley cafeteria. They were married a month later.
As Toby crossed the Baltimore County and city line, Tim thought again about the Agency recruiter telling him that he could be assigned anywhere in the world. He wondered if that included downtown Baltimore. Baltimore was a city that was always on the cusp of revitalization, yet never seemed to quite get there. This was still apparent from the number of vacant storefronts Tim could see as they traveled down Lombard Street.
Sebastian told Toby to drop him off at his hotel and then take Tim back to his condo. This would be the first time Tim and Toby would be alone together, and Tim wondered if Sebastian was doing that on purpose.
Sebastian turned to Tim as Toby entered the driveway of the hotel. “Take a look at the textbooks tonight, Tim. In the morning, I’ll tell you what our mission is about.” With that, he exited the SUV and headed into his hotel.
Before Toby started to drive again, he turned to face Tim. “Would you like to see a very funny video?” he asked.
“Sure, Toby,” Tim said, almost happy that Toby seemed to be acting friendly toward him.
Toby handed Tim his iPhone. “Just press the start button,” he said as he began to drive the few blocks back to the condominium.
In the video was a woman with dark hair in a kitchen, washing dishes in a sink. Suddenly, a man wearing a ski mask that covered his entire face appeared. The man entered from behind and grabbed the woman by her neck, placing her in a chokehold. He next forced the woman onto the floor, where he produced a coil of rope. He bound the woman’s hands and feet, then hog-tied those together. The masked man then produced a roll of duct-tape. He shoved something into the woman’s mouth and began to wrap the duct-tape several times around the woman’s head. He next pulled down the women’s top to expose her breasts. The masked man then left the frame, leaving the woman to roll around on the floor.
“Gosh, Toby, do you get your rocks off watching bound and gagged women rolling on the floor?” Tim asked with a fair amount of sarcasm.
“I’m always interested in women who are willing to be humiliated,” Toby replied. “For example, look at the woman in the next video.”
The next video featured what looked to be the same woman, but this time she was already bound and gagged, naked while sitting on a couch.
“Take a closer at look who it is,” Toby said, and Tim placed his finger on the pause key for a closer look.
It was Mary Ann Layback, and so was the woman featured in the first video.
Tim handed the iPhone back to Toby. “So, Toby, is there a reason you’re sharing this with me?” he asked.
Tim knew that this was just Toby’s method of trying to psych him out. This was actually one of the first things Tim was taught in spy school. Recording subjects in compromising sexual situations used to be one of the most effective ways for agents to control their assets. Frankly, it was just plain old-fashioned blackmail, except that the sexually compromising situations were no longer as effective as they had been, especially in regard to homosexuality. Now that many men and women had “come out of the closet”, recording a man receiving a blow job in a restroom no longer had the impact that it once did. Even catching men dressing up in women’s clothing no longer had the same damning effect. This was not to say that pictures of subjects in sexual situations no longer had any value. For example, a man or even a woman with an underage person would be career-ending, if not a criminal prosecution. But people just having sex was no longer the big deal that it once had been.
“So, what’s your point, Toby?” Tim repeated. “What should I garner from your bondage videos?”
“I think you really need to know the kind of person you are letting share your bed, Tim.”
Toby actually sounded sincere, as if he was concerned about Tim’s wellbeing. “Mary Ann is a compulsive liar,” he added. “Sometimes, she doesn’t even know when she is telling you the truth. It took me a year to understand that, which is why we are no longer together, although I’m still in love with her.”
That was certainly a mouthful, Tim thought. Was Toby really trying to tell Tim that he was still in love with Mary Ann despite the fact that she was a known liar? Over the years, Tim had become pretty good at evaluating people, or “subjects,” as the Agency called them. The word “subjects” kept everything impersonal, and Tim often looked at Mary Ann as a subject as opposed to his lover. He knew that Mary Ann might be dangerous and was most likely capable of cutting his throat while sleeping, although he felt that the chances of that happening were slim. Tim had met a number of men and even a couple of women who were programed to kill with little remorse, but Tim felt that the lack of remorse was something that typically had to be trained. It’s not personal, it’s just part of my job. I may not like doing it, but there is a reason it needs to be done was the mantra that was taught in the classroom. On the other hand, sociopaths and psychopaths (Tim really did not distinguish between the two) were basically just plain selfish people who were working solely for their own gain. In Tim’s opinion, Mary Ann was a somewhat complex and confused person, whereas Toby was just a run-of-the-mill psychopath. Toby was attempting to manipulate Tim to his side by pretending that he and Tim had some mutual affection for Mary Ann. Toby was certainly up to something, but Tim could not figure it out—at least not at this point.
As the SUV pulled in front of Tim’s condo, he collected the two textbooks from Pam’s library, then looked at Toby. “Well, I do appreciate you sharing the video. It has certainly opened my eyes to a couple of things,” he said.
Tim was referring to deciding that Toby definitely possessed a number of psychopathic tendencies.
Toby made a fist and offered Tim a fist bump. “Anytime, my man,” he replied as their knuckles touched. “We will see you in the morning.”
Tim got out and watched Toby drive away. He quickly reviewed his day and thought about how each new day seemed to reveal more than the day before. He turned and walked toward the entrance of his condo, still thinking.