AN OLD FRIEND, BRINGING OLD GHOSTS

Pastor Tim, hay un reverendo Dale Woods aquí para verlo. Tienes una cita a las dos, ¿debería hacerle pasar?

Sí, sí, por favor hazle pasar. ¿Podrías preparar un poco de café? Si no recuerdo mal, Dale bebe café solo.

Tim and Alice had been in Buenos Aires for almost 9 years now, the good part of it was that Claire Louise was now 9 and was speaking fluent Rioplatense Spanish. She also had a little sister, born to Alice and Tim in Argentina, as an American citizen. But because of Jus Soli, Claire Louise's sister was automatically also a citizen of Argentina - on the strength of that, both Tim as well as Alice now had the option to themselves become naturalized.

Something that they refused to do. Tim had secured his position in Buenos Aires, as the executive director of the World Council of Churches (South America) during the USA's 'Reagan years', and if the local Alfonsin reforms had continued in Argentina, he might have considered Argentinian citizenship by now. Alice, not so much.

Then 1989 hit. The Peronist, Carlos Menem had won the presidential election that year, reversing everything 'Alfonsin', and putting the country on a neoliberal path.

In 1989, the World Council of Churches as well as Pastor Tim, began to be 'red-tagged'. The way that conservative, evangelical churches in Buenos Aires portrayed the WCC, they made Pastor Tim out to be a virtual KGB appointee….. which was ridiculous. Yes, he was a progressive to be sure, he had also calmed Latin American-progressive doubts about him as a 'gringo'. He lifted himself above it to gain trust.

But depending on who you talked to in Buenos Aires, Tim was either an American imperialist or a KGB stooge! He successfully navigated all of that, and by 1993 not even the KGB was around any more.

So, now 1993, with four years of Menem inspired, constant red-tagging - Tim and Alice were making noises with one another that it was time to return to the USA.

Besides, Arkansas-liberal William Jefferson Clinton had just beaten CIA-man, President George H.W. Bush in the 1992 American election. The '90s. they looked to be a good time to reconnect his family with his and Alice's roots, in the northeast of the USA.

PASTOR/INSTRUCTOR DALE WOODS

Tim: Dale Woods! What brings you south of the equator!? Man oh man, are you a sight for sore eyes!

Dale: Tim! - they embraced, looked at one another, then both sat in the little coffee area of Tim's spacious office, the nook with the comfy chairs -

Tim: - Tim thanked his secretary for bringing the coffee, then she left - My oh my, Dale, what has it been? Ten years? I hope you don't mind me saying, I don't remember all that gray on your dome!

Dale: Ouch, Tim! You still have a full head of hair, and no gray. None! Another reason to hate you! - both smiled - Say, how's Alice? The girls? Wow, you've got two!

Tim: Well, they're a handful. Alice is not working, she's volunteering doing English instruction at the girl's school. It means they're in her sight 24/7. I don't know how much you've followed everything Argentina, but the WCC is now on watch lists. Me, I'm now followed. Just like the old days when we protested America's nukes. No, it's not the old 'dirty war', I'm not saying that, but a few of my staff, they've been arrested. Spent time in prison - always to be released without trial. It's harrassment.

Dale: Out of the frying pan, into the fire. Typical Pastor Tim stuff, living the faith, living the dream.

Tim: What about you? What brings you south? I thought you'd gone full time at Wesleyan Seminary!

Dale: I did. I left Reed Street Church a year after you, even the half-time ministry there was too much. I'm now a full-time lecturer at Wesleyan in D.C., but I'm here because I'm on the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) accreditation team, we're seeing to the accreditation of Seminario Internacional Teológico Bautista.

Tim: I know it. Isn't that a bit out of your wheelhouse? Aren't they evangelical?

Dale: Well, for some reason, probably to do with funding, they want the US-ATS accreditation.

THEN, THE JENNINGS-'FLU

Tim: Do you ever hear from anyone at Reed Street Church? I must admit, Alice has maintained contact with folk better than me, but only a few. I wanted to give the new regime space to operate, you know what it is to have a predecessor hanging around.

Dale: Well, I don't think I've been so lucky. When you left, I'm afraid I caught the Jennings-'flu from you. Apparently there's no vaccine. - pause -

At the mention of their name, the old, familiar pit in Tim's stomach returned. He'd spent the last 9 years trying to forget them. Trying to forget the obvious psycho-damage he'd seen in their daughter, Paige. Trying to forget the time when even they'd admitted to being Russians. They sought him out for advice on whether or not they should return home with the kids!

Communists. Asking Tim for parenting advice! That's how weird it had been.

As bad as The Jennings were, as bad as their admissions got, it had always been unsettling, he got the feeling they weren't saying everything. Coming to Argentina in 1984 had been a godsend on the Jennings-score alone. Some nights, though, being 5,000 miles away was not enough.

Tim had never put behind him that night, the one at the church when Philip Jennings had paid him a visit. The two of them, alone in that big building…. Tim feared for his life.

Then? The Jennings would have him and Alice over for dinner. They'd do BBQs. Mild mannered Philip would get group-travel rates for Somalia and Ethiopia. It had been crazy-making. After that dinner when the Jennings' FBI neighbour had joined them, Alice had been convinced that The Jennings were CIA or FBI assets. Like she'd seen on TV.

Buenos Aires was a salvation for Tim. Now, in 1993 it came flooding back, this time with his friend and colleague, Pastor Dale Woods - who, as he'd said, now had the Jennings 'flu!

THERE'S NO IGNORING IT

Dale: I left Reed Street Church in 1985, to go full time at Wesleyan, where I've been since. But I've worn out harddrives on the Jennings.

Tim: - stiffening a bit, trying not to appear defensive - Dale, I'm not sure I can say too much. You know what pastoral confidences are.

Dale: Well, there are marital affairs. But the Jennings, their right to a layer of confidence simply does not hold.

Tim: I don't know what you mean?

Dale: Tim, I think you do. It's the reason why I begged the ATS to include me on this Buenos Aires trip. I need to hear some things, straight from you. The horse's mouth.

Tim: Wow, friend. You give me too much credit. What could I possibly know?

Dale: Back in 1987, both of us had been long gone from Reed Street. - pause - There was this FBI Special Agent, Stan Beeman….

Tim: The Jennings' neighbour, Alice and I met him at the Jennings' house after the Somalia trip.

Dale: I know. Remember, I said I'd caught the Jennings-'flu, from you. - pause - I happen to know that 5, almost 6 years ago that Special Agent Beeman called you - here, he called from D.C. Called specifically about The Jennings. - pause - You lied to him, Tim. Bald faced.

Tim: How can you possibly know any of that? Old friend…

Dale: He told me. His next call was to me. I'd been gone from Reed Street Church for two years by then. He told me that he'd called you. He implied, heavily I might add, that you'd lied about the Jennings. Back then I was offended he'd say that. Now, I'm not so sure.

Tim: O God, Dale. You now sound like me. - pause - I never even told Alice about why I accepted the Executive Director position here. It was out of the blue. A gringo, 5,000 miles away from Virginia….

Dale: You know what I pieced together, Tim? You won't like it. - silence, Tim crossed his arms tightly across his chest - Remember 1983 in Vancouver? In Canada?

Tim: Sure. That July you went to the World Council of Churches general meeting there. I still run into people who remember you?

Dale: Do they remember Susan Hyack?

Tim: Who? I don't know who that is.

Dale: Yes you do, Tim. You and Alice had me and her over for dinner, the night before you flew south, your last night in the USA.

Tim: Okay, I remember, but not the name. - nervous pause - Alice and I, we wondered… about you and that woman.

Dale: Yeah, you can say it. During my 'women' period. Your subsequent letters from Buenos Aires, they were very supportive of me. I'll always be grateful for that. - pause - But I'm not out, not at Wesleyan. The Methodist denomination is not supportive of gays, Tim.

Tim: You can say that again! - pause - But you didn't fly 5,000 miles to talk about that, did you?

Dale: She's dead, Tim. - the silence was as heavy - She's now The Reverend Doctor Susan Hyack, pastor of the largest Methodist Church in Seattle. Found in a parking lot, face down. Robbery ruled out, sexual assault not ruled out.

Tim: Why are we talking about this woman, Dale? What are you saying? I thought we were talking about your Jennings-'flu!?

Dale: I am.

Tim: What!?

Dale: When I got back from Vancouver in 1983, I told you about the fight I'd had with a 'girl-friend'…. Well, Susan Hyack was that woman.

Tim: I just thought that that was because….. well, you know…. a relationship with a woman wasn't in the cards…..

Dale: No, we'd met at a colloquium in Vancouver that Archbishop Tutu spoke at. Then we were approached by delegates to the parallel, Christian Peace Conference. Me, I spoke at the general assembly about the plight of dissidents in the old USSR, Eastern Orthodox or evangelical, the CPC people tried to get me to have a 'balanced' view of how Russia was stifling dissent. Balanced? Ha! I'm now told that there were 47 KGB agents at the 1983 Vancouver gathering that caused the assembly to ignore all things Soviet.

Tim: Dale, forgive me for saying it, but that's the same sort of red-tagging this office, and me, endures from the Menem-regime. It's 1993, dude, how many communists are left?

Dale: How many KGB agents did we have at Reed Street Church, Tim?

- silence -

Dale: That's what I thought. - pause - Do you know who visited me, just before her death? Susan Hyack. She'd been out in Washington, D.C., from Seattle. - pause - Do you know what she said? That back in Seattle, she'd been on a Greyhound bus, from Vancouver to Seattle…. with a older woman who I suspect was Elizabeth Jennings.

Tim: Geez, Dale, you really have drunk the kool-ade.

Dale: Have I? - pause - Do you want to know what else she said? - pause - That just like us at Reed Street Church in the early 80s, she thinks she has a Russian agent in her own, Seattle congregation. A woman she'd only i.d. as 'Rene', not the woman from the Greyhound bus.

Tim: That's really conspiratorial, Dale. Where's the 'academic scrutiny' you were once good at, where's the 'stick to reliable sources' Dale Woods, the guy who worked so well with me at Reed Street?

- silence -

Dale: I think I'll be going, friend. - reaching into his valise, passing a stapled document to Tim, then standing - Here, this is for you.

Tim: - leafing through it - What is this?

Dale: Remember the Jennings-'flu, Tim? Just how did Pastor Tim, a mid-level progressive church leader known mainly in Virginia and environs, get shortlisted for a position with the WCC in fucking Buenos Aires? It's all there, Tim. - pause - You know me, commitment to legitimate sources. It's not conspiratorial if it is demonstrable. That's what keeps me employed at Wesleyan.

Tim: Are you saying that when Alice and I came here in 1984, that we were KGB plants?

Dale: Don't overthink this, Tim. Read what I wrote. No, you're not a KGB plant. I thought you were, but I saw the way they operated in 1983 in Vancouver. - pause - As per the last two pages of what you're about to read….

Why did the KGB want Pastor Tim out of Washington D.C. in 1984? How did the KGB, back then, arrange for such a surprise appointment 5,000 miles away? As Tim read, it was all there. Damn him, damn Dale.

Did he say that Elizabeth Jennings was now either in Vancouver or Seattle? Did Dale imply that Elizabeth had had something to do with Reverend Doctor Susan Hyack's death, a former ersatz-girlfriend of Dale's?

That was what Dale had got wrong. It hadn't been Elizabeth. Unknown to him, and everyone else - until Philip had confessed to Elizabeth - it had been him, Philip.

Dale was close. It was his obsession with all things 'Jennings', a ball Pastor Tim had gladly dropped when he'd been lured south.

Dale's next project, one that until 1993 had always eluded him?

Paige Jennings.