Dr. Dennis McMurtry

Concept: Over the hill spook

Desc: The first thing you notice about Dennis is his bulk. He is a bit overweight, which is to be expected from a man who spends much of his day writing and reading. but much of his bulk comes from the fact that he’s fairly broadly framed. and for a man his age, he’s not terribly fat. There’s still muscle underneath and with some time and effort, he could be back down to his fighting weight in no time, should the need arise.  His hair is running to silver and he is beginning to look like a bit Santa Claus-like. Every once in a while he shaves his beard off and seemingly drops ten years. He smiles a lot and has an open manner. His nails are a mess and he tries not to bite them, but you know how it is.  He wears glasses that are mostly for reading, but he puts them on to look smart too. He can wear a suit without looking uncomfortable in it but tends to opt for sweatpants and t-shirts around the house. In any event, there will be traces of dog hair on everything he does wear.  Dennis’s body bears a few scars from an unpleasant time he spent in the hands of the Bulgarian secret police. Those guys are all dead now. Just saying.

History: They say that every single university in America hosts at least one recruiter for the CIA. Dennis is one of those guys. A career spook straight out school with a fresh Poli-Sci degree. Dennis became one of the many many people involved in the shadowy world of the cold war in the 70’s and 80’s and also during the transition after the fall of the soviet political party in the nineties.

A life like that has its ups and downs. He got married and he and Margarett traveled around extensively in Europe and Russia. Dennis’s cover was that of a photojournalist and it turned out he had an actual flair for the work. They had two kids, but one got sick and died from leukemia. Tommy’s death drove a wedge between Dennis and Margarett. especially since Dennis was often away for long periods of time. While Dennis and Margarett’s marriage ended several years ago, they are still in touch and talk often about their daughter Cecilia. (Each has a somewhat complicated relationship with their daughter and it’s one of the few things that they still commiserate over.)   Dennis lives alone now, but dates on occasion. He’s a bit of a silver fox.

Dennis works at a nearby university. He teaches journalism (His doctorate is not bullshit) and when time permits, writes books. (mostly about journalism, but he’s still got that potboiler spy thriller he’s been working on for a decade.) He earns extra money on top of his CIA pension by kicking the occasional bright young thing in the direction of Langley.  He does this by going over the papers that his students write with a program designed to textually analyze their papers and cross-reference the word choices to various indices of the Meyer-Briggs personality inventory.  Not only does it usually yield him at least one recruit per semester but it has come in handy as a means of academic advising.  (“I’ll be honest Ms. Daniels. While I think you have a keen mind and decent writing skills, I can tell you absolutely do not have the temperament for television news. You’re flatly too nice.”) 

Attitude: Dennis is very relaxed. The kind of relaxation that comes from a knowledge that you’ve done some very bad things in the name of truth, justice, and the American way, and yet somehow...Managed to live through it.  Dennis was a very hard man once but time and the exigencies of spook life have softened him some.  He would have been miserable if he’d stayed at Langley and gone into analysis or whatever. So now, Dennis enjoys his life and allows some of the more horrible memories to recede into the background of his past.  Heck, seems like all that stuff happened to another fella...and official documents seem to bear that out.

Which is not to say that Dennis doesn’t still occasionally have that itch to get back in the field. But lately, he finds that there are ways to work that out.  two semesters ago, there were a series of rapes that occurred on campus. One of the young ladies was a journalism student... and then, the rapes just stopped. It’s almost as if the rapist simply vanished from the face of the earth. What does that tell you?

Skills:  Old habits die hard. While most of the Dennis’s “Instruments” are under the concrete in his garage, he still has a pair of pistols (legally obtained, serial numbers and everything) that he puts through their paces once every couple of weeks. Dennis’s fighting skills could probably stand to have the dust shaken off of them, but the reflexes are still there. He is idiomatic in Russian and German language families and can get by in Spanish, and Mandarin. Additionally, his Journalism and spy training have made him into a top flight investigator. and he knows a small smattering of combat medicine.  Dennis is the kind of guy who has plans and resources at his fingertips.  He knows how to make thermite and IED’s. He knows where you can get burner phones at 4 in morning, and he knows at least 5 places in the surrounding area where you could dump a body.

Gear: Other than the aforementioned pistols, Dennis has a few dots of Armory and at least 1 Dragunov sniper rifle that is in perfect shape. He normally carries a smart phone. A small razor sharp pocket knife. A wallet with a decent amount of getaway cash. and a taped roll of quarters.

Home: Dennis place is not some spy haven, but he does own it outright. He's got a number of slicks and hidey-holes, but not really much to put in them. His garage has a decent number of tools and there is a black metal cabinet in one corner full of mason jars or various chemical compounds ready for mixing should the need arise.

Circle: Dennis has allies and contacts in the following areas: Local Journalists, Academics, Police, Municipal. 

Story Uses:

“Don’t worry. I’ve had some experience with this sort of thing before.”

Dennis is the sort of person that you’d want in your corner or on your side when things go sideways. He’s not the sort of person who flips out in the face of danger and has skills in unusual areas. He makes a great Ally. He makes a great Contact. He makes a phenomenal Mentor. 

“This is Harbinger. I’ve encountered a situation. I need to come in.”

The downside of this, of course, is that Dennis can be a bad person to cross. He’d be the sort of fellow who’d go to a meeting with you with comprehensive files on you in button-down mode, a knife taped to the small of his back, a radio detonator in his pocket, and a sniper on the parking garage 3 blocks away. Has he encountered the supernatural before? Well... There have been things that he’s seen for which he still doesn’t have a good explanation.  So getting on the wrong side of Dennis is bad not only because he’s got the backing of the university behind him, not only do most of the journalist working in radio and TV in the surrounding area owe their jobs to him, but a couple of calls might get the CIA to look very carefully in the direction of people causing him trouble...and maybe Task Force Valkyrie too.

Connections:
* Aldous Church and he worked on a thing some years ago.  It was not pleasant.
* Detective Bela Janofski was the lead detective on the campus rape case. Dennis suspects that Bela knows exactly what happened to the rapist but has chosen not to say anything.  Detective Janofski struck him as being pretty darn smart.
* Patricia "Carnie" Pitt was one of his students. and a good one too. He has her in his rolodex.