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Tim wandered far away from Pam and her pending phone conversation with Sebastian. Although it may have been helpful for him to hear how his wife actually interacted with Sebastian, he really didn’t feel like listening. He knew it would just piss him off.
He found himself in the section of the pharmacy where sleep aids were sold. There were certainly several different kinds of sleep aid products that did not require a prescription. Tim’s philosophy about insomnia was that, if you stayed awake long enough, you would certainly go to sleep at some point. The fact that so many people bought sleeping pills indicated to him that they would rather be asleep most of the time.
On Tim’s right, he could hear two women having a conversation about filling out forms. Not just one form, but several forms. From what Tim could tell, the woman that needed to fill out the forms was some kind of doctor. At least, that was how the pharmacist was addressing her. “You will also need to fill out the back page as well, Dr. Lockwood.”
Tim didn’t think he knew any doctors by that name, but there was something familiar about the woman’s voice. He moved to the other end of the aisle for a better look, but she was still bent over, filling out the back page of the form.
When Tim was in school, there were not a lot of women doctors, but now they were all over the place. He was not a big fan of women doctors, mostly because he could never get any of them to write prescriptions for anything good (with “good” meaning opioid pain killers or benzodiazepines). But, of course, these days, no doctors would give you any decent painkillers unless your broke your back—and sometimes not even then. Tim placed the blame for that at the feet of the pharmaceutical industry for the invention of oxycodone.
Oxycodone was a long-acting and extended release painkiller that had been advertised to doctors as having a low rate of addiction, or at least that’s what Tim had read. But whoever made the low addiction claim must have been a lunatic—or at least an idiot. If these pills had been taken as directed, then perhaps the addiction rates would have remained low, but when do Americans do what they’re told? Oxycodone would get patients addicted very quickly, and addicted very quickly they became, in epidemic proportions. The government’s reaction was to pressure doctors to no longer prescribe anything with any relation to an opioid, and those that refused because of a silly notion that they knew better than the government (and the media) were rewarded with suspended medical licenses and jail time. The media and government demanded scapegoats, since someone had to be blamed. The opioid crisis, as the media had come to call it, was still a major problem, but the story had played itself out. The election results of that November night in 2016 had changed the conversation.
Tim was still thinking about opioids when he heard a cheery voice say, “All done!” and finally discovered the identity of Dr. Lockwood. She was Nurse Jennifer, Dr. Justice’s nurse from Santa Domingo. Tim circled around to try and get another look. Yes, definitely her.
Nurse, now Doctor Jennifer had said little to Tim during his few days in Santa Domingo, but he could not forget her voice. She had a girlish-sounding voice that was kind of high and squeaky—a voice that might turn some men on, but others off. As Tim watched (now from a distance), Jennifer continued speaking with the pharmacist. She did seem to know everyone behind the counter, and they appeared to all be joking about something, since they were laughing.
Tim next looked back over his left shoulder to see if he could find Pam. He spotted her at the back of the store, having an animated conversation on her phone. Pam’s right arm swung around as she seemed to be making a point. Tim had determined that it was imperative that Pam did not meet Nurse/Dr. Jennifer by chance. It was possible that Pam did not know Jennifer, but it was more likely that she did.
Meanwhile, Jennifer had finished her business at the pharmacy and started for the exit. Tim followed her until he was sure that she’d left the store, then turned around and headed back to the pharmacy. The pharmacist was still at the register.
“Hi. Was that Dr. Lockwood standing here a second ago?” Tim asked.
The pharmacist eyeballed Tim for a minute, considering what she should say. “Yes,” she finally answered.
“Is she still in the medical building next to the old hospital?”
The knowledge that the hospital in Leesburg had two campuses, one in Leesburg proper and the other two miles east of the town limits, was a good indicator to many that you were a true local.
As soon as Tim made this known, the pharmacist opened right up. “Oh no, they’ve moved to the new office next to Lansdowne.” Lansdowne was the new hospital outside of Leesburg.
“With Dr. Justice?” Tim added, guessing that Dr. Justice had not changed his name for this charade.
“Oh, I just love Dr. Justice,” the pharmacist exclaimed. “He’s just the funniest man.”
“Yes, he certainly is,” Tim said, agreeing with the pharmacist for an entirely different reason.
“Tim?” Pam called, coming up behind him. “What in the world are you doing?”
“Oh, I’m just checking to see if they are giving away any free samples of Vicodin.”
The pharmacist did not find Tim’s joke funny whatsoever. “Vicodin is only available by prescription,” the pharmacist sternly informed him. “And we ask for identification as well.”
“As you should,” Tim answered as he walked away.
“Are you still taking codeine, Tim?” Pam sounded concerned.
“I wish, but you can’t get it anymore.”
“You don’t need it anyway,” Pam said as they pushed the shopping chart to the checkout lines.
$450 was the total grocery store bill, and Tim paid for it with one of his credit cards before Pam could stop him.
“Tim, I appreciate your generosity, but it was totally unnecessary. I expense account most of this as a business cost.”
“You mean you write off your groceries as a business expense?”
“Well, yeah, because they are,” Pam agreed defensively.
Pam and Tim loaded the groceries and began to drive home.
“Do me a favor and drive me by the new hospital,” Tim said. The new Loudoun Hospital was on the north side of Route 7.
“Why?” Pam seemed a little suspicious.
“Just want to see my tax dollars at work,” Tim answered.
Pam took the exit out of the Wegmans parking lot and crossed over Route 7 to the new hospital. Pam drove around, and Tim saw the office building where the pharmacist had told him Nurse Jennifer’s new office was. There were also a number of low-rise senior citizen assisted living centers, which Tim thought were very conveniently located. Maybe it was an unmentioned selling point, as in, “Hey, we’re right next to the hospital!” Thinking this made Tim laugh for some reason.
“What’s so funny?” Pam wanted to know.
“Oh, I was just thinking about being a senior citizen and living right next to a hospital,” Tim confessed.
It really was not all that funny. Tim had now reached the age where living in an adult community probably made sense, but he found the mere thought of doing so extremely scary. Perhaps Tim’s laughing was a response to this fear.
“Well, I guess it works for some people. But not for me,” Pam said.
Pam was almost six years younger than Tim and had no thoughts of retiring, which was a big reason she wanted out of her job managing the safe house. Pam had her sights on landing a Station Chief position somewhere in Europe. Tim knew this but did not believe Pam had much of a chance. Over the years, she’d pissed off too many people.
“So, have you seen enough?” Pam wanted to know, referring to the hospital campus.
“Yes, and thank you. You know me. I was just curious what all was back here.”
“Yes, I do know you,” Pam replied while laughing. “By the way, I did speak to Sebastian about inviting Mary Ann and Toby to dinner on Sunday night, but he doesn’t think it’s a good idea.”
“In other words, no,” Tim said.
“In other words, no,” Pam agreed. “He is willing to let you speak with her or even Skype her if you want. Anything to prove that she’s not locked in a dungeon somewhere.”
Tim hated Skype or any system where your face appeared on a screen. Although it sounded like a good idea, most people apparently did not enjoy seeing themselves live on camera. The technology for viewing a person you were speaking with on a telephone had been around for decades, but it just never took off.
“No, I think letting me speak with her in private will be enough.”
“Tim, I trust you, but Sebastian does not. He feels that if you and Mary Ann are together, you will do something crazy in order to escape with her. I told him that you are not that dramatic, but he’s not buying it.”
“Pam, you really need to stop this crazy thing,” Tim said, referring to Operation Poison the President, which was what he’d decided to name it.
“It’s too late to stop it, Tim. There are just too many people involved now, and the plan is moving forward.”
Tim took that to mean that the other conspirators had decided on a time and a place for the poisoning. Tim still believed that he might be able to stop it, but he needed to get Pam back on his side.
“Besides,” Pam continued, “No one likes this guy, and most Americans will be glad when he’s gone. Even if he were to lose the election next year, the President will remain a powerful force.”
“But it’s not a matter of if you like or don’t like the man,” Tim protested. “Removing a duly elected President by means not stated in the Constitution is illegal.”
“Gosh, Tim, let me find you some marching band music I can play while you say that again,” Pam answered sarcastically.
“Well, if you only read the Washington Post and the New York Times, then you might believe that no one likes the President, but you know that is just not true. There are a lot of people who like him.”
“Really, Tim? I think you like the President, don’t you?”
Pam was trying to back Tim into a corner. Tim did not like or dislike the President. He did feel that the President was treated unfairly by most of the media.
“The President could cure cancer and the New York Times would find a way to criticize it,” Tim would often say, but a lot of the progressive Democrats had drawn a line in the sand. If you said anything positive about the President, then you must support him, and supporting a racist and homophobic President must mean that you were also a racist and homophobe.
“I don’t hate him because my friends told me to,” Tim finally responded.
That was a shot directed at Pam and at some of Pam’s girlfriends. When Tim and Pam were together, Pam belonged to a couple of women-only groups, which was how Tim referred to them. Basically, these women would get together, have lunch, and bitch about their husbands or boyfriends, provided they had one to complain about. Tim found that harmless and even kind of funny until the most famous woman in the world decided to run for President.
“I tell you what,” Pam said. Tim could tell she was getting mad. “If they did not stop her from winning, we would not be in the situation we are in today.”
“No one stopped her from winning; she simply became overconfident and lost.”
This of course was a simplistic explanation of the election results voters woke up to on that Wednesday morning. The reasons behind why the woman lost the election had taken on almost Kennedy-esque conspiracy proportions. There were now countless theories about who was behind it all, and the Agency was a prime suspect, of course.
“Well, Sebastian feels that the Agency stopped her,” Pam said, trying to defend her statement.
“Really?” Tim asked Pam. “I didn’t know Sebastian had reached that level of management.”
The CIA, like other government agencies, was a top-down organization, meaning that decisions were made at the highest level, which was usually the Executive Branch or Presidential level. The notion that the U.S. government was full of rogue department heads willing to deviate from official policy for their own political gains was just not true, but that did not stop many from believing it. Believing that there was some unseen hand controlling everything seemed to be a comfort to many. Closer to home, Tim feared that Sebastian was preying on Pam’s conspiracy fears.
“Pam, I really do not feel that it would have been possible for anyone to rig a national election. Not the Russians, not the Chinese, not the Agency. Sure, it’s possible that someone might want to try, but the fact that the United States does not have a uniform system of voting for the President in a way protects that from happening.”
Pam had stopped at a traffic light, which gave her the chance to turn and give her husband a look that said, “Are you crazy?”
But Tim continued his explanation. “Just about all the states have a different method of voting, counting votes, and reporting vote counts. In other words, there is no central database of votes that can be hacked and manipulated. The worse thing that could happen would be a switch to internet voting. Now, those results could be easily manipulated.”
“In your opinion,” Pam reminded him.
“Yes, in my opinion.”
“Well, in my opinion, Tim, this election was rigged, and the simple fact that she won the popular vote tells me that.”
“She won the popular vote because the entire state of California voted for her,” Tim exaggerated. “And if this country were to dump the Electoral College in favor of the popular vote, then only the states with the highest populations would decide the Presidential election.”
“I think you’re using Tim math.” This was what Pam called Tim’s somewhat dubious calculations. “What you're saying might be true if the entire state’s electorate voted for one candidate over another, but when would that happen, Tim?”
Pam had a point, and since a President had only been elected by not winning the popular vote two or three times, there was probably no good reason why the Electoral College system could not be dropped. It bothered Tim that states with small populations would lose more of the little clout they had, though.
US Route 15 began its winding descent down to the Potomac River and the Point of Rocks Bridge. Pam would have to make a left turn onto Lovettsville Road into the oncoming traffic. It was a tricky driving maneuver, not to mention that drivers making the turn also had to be aware of the possibility of being rear-ended.
“They really do need to improve this intersection,” Pam commented as she successfully made the left turn.
“There is a lot of traffic heading in from Maryland,” Tim observed.
“And it’s the weekend,” Pam replied. “You should come down here during rush hour. Commuters coming to Virginia from Maryland, commuters driving from Virginia over to Maryland. The traffic is just insane.”
Nothing like two states divided by a river, Tim thought to himself. Maryland and Virginia, New York and New Jersey, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Everyone always seemed to be fighting over some land use issue or, in this case, building a new bridge and improving a dangerous intersection. But the area was still nothing short of beautiful, and even Tim would not be happy if it was disrupted.
Pam took the hard-left turn into her driveway like a pro. To begin with, the driveway was difficult to see, which that was done by design. The last thing anyone needed was weekend sightseers asking for directions. The first 25 feet of the driveway was gravel and appeared uninviting. That was also done on purpose to hopefully deter any motorist who may have accidently taken a wrong turn from proceeding any further. Those who did were met by the safe house security detail. Tim did not know how many men and women were on the property or even where they were located exactly, but he knew they were there.
Pam was not happy about what the driveway was doing to her new S560, and she told Tim about how she tried to get the Agency to pave the driveway all the way down to Lovettsville Road, but they refused. Pam had very little influence over safe house security.
“Does the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office know about this place?” Tim asked Pam as the S560 made the slow climb up the hill to the house.
“Oh, they are aware we’re here,” was all she would say about it.
Darrel was waiting to greet them as Pam pulled up in front of the house. “How was your shopping, Mrs. Hall?”
“Just the usual headache, Darrel. Would you be a dear and take the groceries into the kitchen?”
“Not a problem, Mrs. Hall,” Darrel replied as Pam headed straight for the house.
“Do you need any help, Darrel?” Tim offered.
“No, Mr. Hall, we got it.”
Tim was not sure who Darrel meant by “we,” but a young woman in fatigues appeared out of nowhere and began to help Darrel with the bags of grocery. Where do they all come from? Tim once again thought to himself as he followed Pam through the front door.
Pam had disappeared somewhere in the large house. Tim looked in the kitchen, but he only saw Darrel and the young women in fatigues, who were now putting away the groceries. Tim thought about telling Darrel that he and Pam would take care of that but changed his mind. Tim hated putting groceries away.
Thinking that Pam had gone to the secret security room, Tim decided to see if he could catch her coming out. Tim walked to the sunroom, which was the last room in the house. It only had a door that opened out to a patio and a swimming pool that had been covered for the winter, so Tim turned and walked back to the dining room. The door to the security room had to be somewhere in between.
Tim heard what sounded like a vacuum starting, then Pam’s voice. “It’s over here, Tim.”
He walked back to the sunroom. “Over here,” Pam said again, and Tim turned around.
There were two bookcases built into the wall. In between the two bookcases was a small table with a vase on top of it. Tim had checked the two bookcases, but neither of them appeared to be doors. That was because the actual door was behind the small table, opening inwards. The vase was glued to the table.
The doorway made a small opening, and it would have been difficult for anyone with a waist greater than 45 inches to fit through. “Pretty cool, huh?” Pam exclaimed. “I designed this myself.”
“But not for the overweight,” Tim replied.
“No, not for fat people.” Pam was only politically correct when she wanted to be.
The secret room was not very wide. Only about six feet, Tim estimated. On one end of the room, Tim saw a ladder which appeared to lead to the second floor and then to the roof. There was a metal desk and a filing cabinet with combination locks on each drawer. At the other end of the room was a metal door that Tim assumed led to the outside of the house. The locks on the door appeared to be very sophisticated.
On the wall, there were 15 video monitors showing the rooms in the house and parts of the grounds around the house. Below that, there were four telephones that Tim figured were direct hardlines to someplace. Most likely the central security station at Langley. There were also three laptop computers that controlled the entire system. Below that was a mini refrigerator. Tim opened that, saw some cans of Coke Zero, and took one.
“Don’t be spraying Coke all over my monitors,” Pam warned, but Tim ignored her.
“So, show me how it all works.”
“Well, first we have the property.” Pam had her hand on a joystick, which moved from one camera to the next.
Tim could see the traffic on Lovettsville Road and then at the intersection of Lovettsville Road and US Route 15.
“See, still quite a lot of traffic,” Pam remarked.
Next, Pam moved back to the safe house property. For the most part, all they saw were woods until she came upon two members of the Security Detail, who were leaning against a tree smoking a cigarette. Both were dressed in armor and armed with M16 automatic rifles.
“I will have to speak with Darrel about these two. I’ve caught them fucking off before. However, speaking of fucking, Tim, check this out.”
Tim looked to his right and saw two figures in bed. “Let’s get a close up,” Pam said, laughing as she zoomed in.
It was a video of Pam and Tim from the night before. Tim was somewhere between Pam’s legs, which she seemed to be enjoying.
“I need to make you a DVD of this in case I’m not around, honey. Do you think your girlfriend would like a copy?”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Tim repeated. He did not comment on the video.
“Don’t worry, dear, all of these are password protected,” Pam remarked. Tim took that to mean that Pam had videotaped both times they had made love.
“Why, Pam? Were you planning on posting them on YouTube?”
“No, but now that you mention it...”
Pam placed her hand in Tim’s lap and began to unbutton his blue jeans. “You know, Tim, this is the one room in the house where there are no cameras.”
At that point, they both stood up without saying a word. Tim took Pam by the shoulders and pushed her gently against the other office wall, so she was facing him. He began to kiss her as he reached down to her waist and pulled her knit sweater over her head, throwing it on the workstation.
“Be careful,” Pam giggled, whispering, “That’s a couple of hundred thousand dollars,” into Tim’s ear.
Pam was wearing sports bra, which Tim removed by lifting it over her head. Tim began to work his way down by kissing both sides of Pam’s neck until he reached her breasts, which he began to kiss one at a time. He then placed his head between them. Meanwhile, Pam reached down to undo her jeans. They were extremely tight-fitting, and she needed Tim’s help removing them. With Pam’s jeans now down to her ankles, Tim began to work his way back up, kissing Pam’s inner thighs as he moved. Pam just about lost it at that point and almost demanded that Tim get inside her right now.
The floor was covered by industrial-grade carpet, but someone had left a blanket on one of the chairs. Pam grabbed the blanket with her free hand. Her other hand was on Tim’s member to make sure he was as hard as possible. “Godammit, Tim, take me!” she demanded.
“How do you want it?” Tim was now teasing her.
“Any goddam way. Just do it!”
And they did.
Like many guys, Tim had given up trying to determine if a woman had an orgasm or not. They were very good at faking it, after all. However, Tim was pretty sure that Pam had reached that magical place.
The entire room smelled like sex afterwards, and the blanket was big enough that both Tim and Pam were able to wrap themselves up in it.
“I think I may have made a mistake, Tim,” Pam said.
“What kind of a mistake?”
“I’ll tell you later. Right now, let’s take a nap.”
That was an excellent idea, Tim thought as he began to fall asleep.
“Mrs. Hall, are you okay?” Someone was yelling this in Tim’s dream. Were they talking about his mother? What the hell was his mother doing here?
Tim opened his eyes and at first had no idea where he was. Then he saw the glow of the TV monitors and realized that he was still in the security room of the safe house. Pam had already risen from the floor.
“Yes, yes, I’m fine, Darrel. Mr. Hall and I will be out in a minute.”
“Okay, Mrs. Hall, just checking,” Darrel replied.
“So how long have you been Mrs. Hall?” Tim asked.
“I don’t know what you mean, Tim. I was Mrs. Hall the day we were married.”
“When we were married, you kept your maiden name, Atkins. Why change it now?”
“I don’t know, Tim. I guess I thought that going by Mrs. Hall instead of Ms. Atkins gave me a bit of legitimacy.”
“Legitimacy? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, I guess what I mean is respect. We get some very creepy guests staying in this house, Tim, and not just people from the Agency. During the slow periods, we contract with the US Marshal Service, and they bring all kinds here. Insisting on being called Mrs. Hall creates a kind of separation between the guests, the security details, and me.”
“So, you should thank me for giving you legitimacy,” Tim pointed out.
“Tim, does this have something to do with me and Sebastian leaving you in Baltimore for the last two years?” Pam wondered.
So, it was two years now. Tim had originally thought that he’d been in Baltimore for four or five years, but now Pam was telling him that it was just two. Now that Tim was thinking about it, he really could not be sure how long he’d been in Charm City. It was like he had been semi-conscious or in a daze the entire time. Tim did recall that anytime he did think that he may have been recovering his memory, he would wake up the next day back in a daze. Dr. Gray, his neurologist, had told him that the retrograde amnesia would often have that characteristic of feeling on the cusp of recall, only to fall back into the abyss. “It’s your brain protecting itself,” Dr. Gray had told him time and time again, but Tim could no longer be sure about that.
“I’m sorry, Pam, it’s all just this thing with my memory. Sometimes, I feel like I am on the verge of remembering everything—but then poof, it all goes away.” Tim made a gesture to illustrate this with his hands.
“It’s not a problem, dear. You had a horrible experience.”
Tim almost believed that Pam was being sincere, but then he remembered yet again that this was Pam, a woman ruthless enough to kill her own mother if it meant getting what she wanted.
Tim and Pam were both now dressed, and Pam opened the door that led outside the house. The door was on the west side of the safe house, and the March sun was beginning to set. Tim figured that it must be around 6 p.m. and would be dark soon.
Darrel came around from the front of the house to meet them. “Darrel?” Pam began. “Please tell your two guys on the east side post to quit smoking cigarettes and fucking off. A troop of Girl Scouts could take them out. Tell them to pay attention to their surroundings.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Darrel answered. Tim was a little surprised that he didn’t salute her.
As Pam and Tim began to walk away, Darrel called back, “Mrs. Hall? I think you better see this.”
Pam turned and walked back to Darrel, who had his iPhone raised to show a text message from one of Darrel’s contacts. “POTUS ill, taken to BNH,” it said.
“Holy shit!” Pam swore under her breath.
She started for the house, and Tim followed.