The following morning Allender had his driver take him to Langley to meet the woman who coordinated forensic investigations within the Agency. Appropriately, she was a pathologist who’d been enticed away from the Bureau’s lab ten years ago. They met in her office and Allender asked why there was a problem getting tissue samples in the Wallace investigation over to the Bureau.
“What tissue samples?” she asked. Her name was Dr. Willis Cooper. She was in her fifties, with prematurely gray hair and a heavily lined, no-nonsense face. “And what Wallace investigation?”
“Let me back up,” Allender said. He told her what Carson McGill had told him about the death of Henry Wallace and the ensuing autopsy. She shook her head.
“All news to me,” she said. “Admittedly, I don’t play at those levels. I did see an Agency-wide notice that Deputy Director Wallace would be away for medical reasons for the next sixty days or so, but dead? No. And I can assure you that none of my labs, in-house or contract, have done an autopsy on the deputy director of this agency.”
Whoops, he thought. He realized that he might just have screwed up. McGill had told him that Wallace’s death had been kept close-hold. But he’d also said that the Borgias had handled the remains and the autopsy. If that was true, this woman would know about it.
“Doctor Allender?” she prompted.
“Sorry,” he said. “I was thinking. Let me ask you this: If the DDO wanted an autopsy done, and done without anyone in the Agency knowing about it, how would he proceed?”
It was her turn to think. “Most forensic pathologists work for hospitals or law-enforcement agencies,” she said. “If the DDO has a captive lab, say, at a university med school, or maybe even out at the NMMC Bethesda or the Defense Department med school there, then he could get it done and I’d be in the dark. Still, you’re saying Hank Wallace is dead?”
“So I’ve been told,” Allender said.
“Except you have a problem, don’t you—you don’t habeas a corpus, and that notice was bogus.”
“They told me that someone in your office told them the samples would be forthcoming,” he pointed out. “Any idea of who that might be?”
She shook her head. “Nobody who works for me, Doctor. You have a name?”
He held up a finger and got on his phone to Lansing. Rebecca put him on hold and then came back with a name. Allender thanked her and gave Cooper the name. Melissa Wheatley. Cooper drew a blank.
“Got a headquarters directory?” he asked. She did and she looked. No Melissa Wheatley in the Langley HQ directory.
Allender sighed. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. When he opened them he saw Cooper’s reaction. He put the glasses back on and apologized.
“Holy shit, it’s true,” Cooper said. “That Dragon Eyes stuff. Goddamn! And you did interrogations?”
“Among other things,” he said. “But now it seems as if I’ve been drawn into something a little more complex.”
“By no less than Carson McGill,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Well, sir, my advice is to watch your ass. There are rumors upon rumors that he’s on the make for the top slot. And while none of us are all that impressed with the current director, most of us cube slaves would be less than thrilled with someone like McGill at the helm.”
“Fancy that,” Allender said. “So: Do I have to tell you to not speculate out loud about Henry Wallace?”
“No, you do not,” Cooper said. “I’ve got four years until I get my retirement.”
“It can come sooner than that, if certain people feel so inclined.”
She grinned at him. “You being a classic example, or so I’ve heard.”
“Just so,” he said. “Thank you.”
“I’ve got a suggestion, though,” she said. “Go out to Bethesda. It’s actually called the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center now, but everyone in town still calls it Bethesda. I’ll give you the name of a senior pathologist there. See if his people did the autopsy, assuming what you’re saying is even true.”
“Would you call him, tell him I’m coming to see him?”
“Want me to say why?”
“You don’t know, but I’m some high muckety-muck in the Agency, and I’m also a doctor.”
“Can do easy, boss.”
* * *
His driver took him out Wisconsin Avenue to what had been the navy’s national medical headquarters complex and was now the National Military Medical Center. The gate guards directed them to building 9, which contained the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Services. Upon checking in, he was met by a navy commander named Bill Waring, who wore the insignia of the navy’s medical corps on his shoulder boards. They sat down in Waring’s office. Allender introduced himself and then asked if their department had performed an autopsy on one Henry Wallace of the CIA.
“When would that have been?” Waring asked.
Allender realized he didn’t know, but said it would have been within the past thirty days. Waring consulted his computer, which apparently had decided to slow down to a turtle’s pace that morning.
“Who was he?” Waring asked as he waited for the machine to find the name.
“A senior officer at the CIA,” Allender replied.
“CIA?” Waring said. “You guys have your own labs, don’t you? I mean, when Willis called, she didn’t say this involved an autopsy…?”
“She didn’t know that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Allender said. “I’ve been detailed to the FBI to help with a tangential investigation. They were told that tissue samples had been retained prior to Wallace’s cremation. That’s what I’m really trying to find out: where are they, and if they’re here, can you get them to the FBI lab.”
Waring was still looking at his computer with an expression that said he wanted to give it a glass of water. “Tissue samples?” he said. “We don’t normally do that, unless we’re talking a homicide or something like that.”
Allender said nothing.
“Oh,” the doctor said. “Okay, if this damned—wait. Last name Wallace, first name Henry?”
“Yup.”
“No record,” Waring announced. “Who would have sent the remains here?”
“The Agency.”
Waring looked at him as if to ask, The whole Agency, or someone in particular? Allender still did not elaborate.
“Okay,” Waring said. “I get it—this is spook shit. But: Whoever did send remains to us would have had to specifically ask for bodily fluids, tissue samples and specifically which tissue: organs, brain, extremities, et cetera. Otherwise, we report cause of death and then request instructions for disposition of remains. Okay?”
“And there is no record of a Henry Wallace being here?”
“There’s no record of a Henry Wallace being here,” Waring said. “In our clammy little hands. Want me to check the big base?”
“The ‘big base’?”
“The whole medical facility, Doctor Allender. This is the National Military Medical Center. We have thousands of people come through Bethesda—excuse me, the Walter Reed NMMC. Inpatients, outpatients, vets, civilians, even presidents, occasionally.”
“Of course you do, and yes, please, let’s query the big base. And I apologize for playing sphinx with you. It’s just the nature of our work.”
Waring ran the keys and then sat back. “What’s your specialty, if I may ask?”
“I’m a shrink. Specialty is interrogation training. I’m actually retired but I’ve been recalled to help with the Wallace—problem. I was an assistant director in our training department for clandestine services.”
“Wow—they do that? Recall people? Don’t they have people?”
Allender smiled. “Sure they do,” he said. “None of whom wanted to touch this case with a ten-foot pole. So: Get a retiree. No career implications. Once it’s done, he goes back to pasture.”
Waring grinned. “Now, that I understand. You guys have no exclusive lock on bureaucratic bullshit, believe me. This place—”
The computer finally responded. “Well, now,” Waring said.
Allender raised his eyebrows.
“Igor here says that the name, Henry Wallace, is in a restricted part of the database, and that access is denied to us mere quacks by no less than the US Secret Service.”
“What the fuck,” Allender said. “Secret Service? That’s the White House.”
“We-ell, yes,” Waring said. “But if the president of the United States has a medical emergency, like, he gets shot here in town, or needs a physical, this is where he comes. There are two floors in that big white tower where no one is allowed in, even when His Majesty is not in residence. If access to one Henry Wallace’s records is being denied by the Secret Service, then he could well be on one of those floors of the tower building, and probably, he’s not dead. I didn’t tell you that, but…”
Allender just stared at him. Not dead? This was getting murkier and murkier, he thought. Carson McGill, what the hell are you up to? He decided he’d better go ask McGill himself that question. He thanked the commander, asked him not to speak about his visit, and left.