ADX Praxis (The Red Lake Series Book 3) Page 26

  “There is no incentive for me to talk, ” Van de Meer replied.

  “Perhaps. But we could probably make you talk. I doubt you are as tough as Stangl was, but even he broke.”

  Beads of sweat formed on both Hill’s and Van de Meer’s foreheads.

  “Is that why you had him killed, because he broke?”

  “He bungled the operation. When he escaped from the hospital I assumed you took him. There was nothing else to do with him.”

  Harry smiled. “It surprises the hell out of me that fat boy took him.”

  Claus shrugged, “I think he was lucky. Three bullets, all hits. I’m surprised Kurt let him get that close.”

  “Let’s talk about Nadim Wafi.”

  “Why?”

  “Cuz as long as you are talking you are still alive, fool!” Barton cut in.

  It was Claus’ turn to sigh. “I’m sure you already know. It was you who accessed Kurt’s files, I assume?”

  Harry nodded, “The boy is innocent.”

  “He’s collateral damage in the war on terror. Unknowingly, he is serving his adopted country. America has gone soft. The people must know fear, so they are willing to stand up and fight.”

  “So you frame some poor orphan kid and put him in jail for life?”

  “It is easier than the old way. Cameras, computers, videotapes, always problems, always the chance an Eddie Ames will come along to snoop. Then you have another problem to be eliminated.”

  The Warden looked confused. “What about Ames?” he demanded of Harry.

  “Your partner ordered him killed,” said Harry. “A man named Speer’s arranged the murder to look like an accident.”

  “Easy to say, Mr. Grim. It is another thing to prove it,” Claus said smugly.

  “I know nothing of murder!” Hill protested. The man’s nerves were fraying rapidly as he saw death or a long prison term a likely possibility.

  “You are what the D.A would call a co-conspirator, Warden,” Harry said casually.

  Claus notice Harry used the word 'would' and not 'will' about the D.A., it gave him hope.

  “I never…”

  “Shut up Calder.” Claus snapped, momentarily letting his anger show. “This is a national security issue. It will never come to trial.”

  “That’s what Stangl said to me,” Barton put in, “And he's lying in the morgue.”

  Harry feigned a sigh. “We’re back to that again. Do you have any alternatives to the mine shaft, Claus?”

  Van de Meer snorted with contempt. “You are as foolish as the rest of them Grim.” His look was one of total disdain. “We are at war. The commies, subversives, terrorists, it doesn’t stop. I would expect you to appreciate that. DPIO has done some outstanding work. We stymied the Russian sub fleet for years. The Chinese are tearing their computers apart looking for back doors that don’t exist while our Trojan program has thrown the front door of their system open. Domestically the people are realizing the homeland is in danger!”

  “And Nadim?”

  “A little Arab shit. He’s a nothing. If he lived in the Middle East he would be a terrorist, or a victim, or a peasant. If he was in our armed services he could easily die in a firefight or at the hands of a suicide bomber. It doesn’t matter what happens to him.” Claus was heated, but he halted himself. He needed to work Harry, and Harry seemed to care about the little rag-head. “However, if it would make you feel better I could arrange for him to be released like the others.”

  Harry shrugged. “That’s an idea. I can’t say I care for manipulating the masses with false bombings but the other work was really quite brilliant.”

  “I hoped you might appreciate our operations.”

  “I suppose the woman who died in the Crystal Lake bombing is collateral damage, too?”

  “Sadly yes. But her death has made America more vigilant and safer. She probably deserves a medal as much as some of our soldiers. Didn’t you ever kill people inadvertently Mr. Grim? Surely in Afghanistan?”

  Harry shrugged at the suggestion.

  “Come work for us. You are the sort of man we need!”

  “I’d still worry you might pull a Stangl on me.”

  Harry did not know if Van de Meer actually thought this a possibility or not, but he did wonder about the man’s sanity. Van de Meer was a true believer, the sort of man who if he were a Lieutenant in Viet Nam would get a hand grenade tossed in his tent by his own men. He was the sort who would kill whole villages of men, women and children if it served his cause. He wrapped all his actions in the flag and justified them with patriotism.

  “What about Hill?”

  Claus shrugged for the third time.

  “I worry he is the weak link,” said Harry. “I also fear he might be vindictive.”

  “Eliminate him if you want.”

  Hills eyes bulged at Van de Meer’s words.

  “You son-of-a-bitch. I’ll see you in prison!”

  “More likely hell Calder.” Claus said with a chuckle.

  Harry shook his head sadly. “I think he has to go.” He nodded to Barton. Hill never saw the blow coming. He slumped to the floor. Barton undid the bike chain. He hoisted Hill’s immense mass onto his shoulder and effortlessly carried him out of the room.

  Harry and Claus watched through the dirt-laden window as Barton crossed to the mine. A small cloud of dust rose as Barton dropped him in the dirt to open the mine gates.

  They disappeared into the mine.

  “What about him?” Claus whispered.

  “Who?”

  “Your partner.”

  “I don’t know. Barton’s a mercenary. I doubt he would work for you. He’ll probably die in some third world civil war.”

  “We might all be safer if it happened sooner.”

  Harry thought about this without comment. He looked out the window toward the mine.

  After a minute he asked, “What about Kennedy?”

  Van de Meer paled; he inadvertently sucked in his breath. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “Not that again. How can I trust you if you won’t trust me? If I don’t have some leverage to bank, I don’t see how I can avoid killing you Claus. And I have to say, I might consider that a great loss to this nation.”

  “Get rid of Barton and I will tell you everything,” he hissed like the snake offering Eve the first apple.

  Nothing more was said. Barton returned. He dropped a pair of handcuffs on the table. “Didn’t see any reason to throw those away with the warden. Son-of-a-bitch was heavy, made a hell of a splash at the bottom of the hole.”

  Barton paced around the room. “Let’s kill him Harry and be done with it.”

  “Go ahead!” Van de Meer challenged him, his chin thrust out in defiance.

  Barton took a swing that snapped Claus’ head back and sent him sprawling from his chair. He spit out blood on the wood planks..

  Barton pulled his gun and lowered it toward Van de Meer’s head, watching the tension build on the man’s face.

  Behind his back Van de Meer heard a thump and Dirk fell hard at his side. Harry dragged him over to where Calder Hill recently sat. Claus heard the cuffs and chains being locked behind Baron’s back.

  “Welcome to the team, Harry, Claus crowed. “Let me out!”

  “I need to think.” Harry walked outside.

  Ten minutes later Barton groggily woke up. Harry patiently sipped coffee while he waited for the cobwebs to clear.

  Barton tried to move his arms. The chain rattled behind his back.

  “You son-of-a-bitch. I’m sorry I saved your ass,” shouted Barton

  “Sorry, Dirk. I have an offer I need to consider. It’s business.”

  Claus seemed pleased with himself.

  Harry looked from one to the other. “One or both of you will join the late Calder Hill.” He turned to face Van De Meer. “ If you really want me to work for you I want to know about DPIO and Kennedy. It’s the leverage I need.”

  Claus had al
so thought about his options. Whatever Grim learned could not hurt him personally if he was dead. If he lived he could take care of Grim later. Any information he hid could be squeezed out of him.

  “It was before my time. But the Agency was furious with Kennedy for the Bay of Pigs fiasco. If he had not gone spineless we could have cleared out Castro a half-century ago. Instead he pulled the air support and the Cubans were slaughtered.

  “Then he almost got us into a nuclear war with the Russians. He and his kid brother, Bobby, were dangerous. The Russians had stolen the bomb from us. They put up Sputnik. McCarthy was discredited. The commies were winning. ”

  Van de Meer was warming to his task as he spoke. Consequently, some people who are long gone decided to take action.

  Harry said nothing. If he waited, someone else would fill the silence.

  “A few men in the CIA formed a special unit for domestic actions. Usually the Agency is bifurcated between intelligence and field operations. The Department for Proactive Intelligence and Operations was formed to fill that gap. It was a small group that gathered their own data and took action on it. They were fighting back, something America lost the stomach for. Look at the Goddamn hippies in the sixties! Traitors, holding up little red books by Chairman Mao, burning banks and holding protest rally’s while patriots died fighting in Viet Nam.”

  Barton spoke up, “And who decides who the enemy is?”

  “If you can’t tell, you are it boy!”

  Barton jerked at the chains. “Let me kill the this racist Cretin, then you can shoot me. It will be worth dying for.”

  Van de Meer looked at Barton with contempt. “You are just a mercenary Dirk. No philosophy to guide you, an ignorant foot soldier.”

  Harry intervened in their verbal spat. “Tell me about Oswald. If I believe you are leveling with me, you’ll walk, if not you’ll join Hill.”

  “Lee defected to Russia in 1959. He came back in June of ’62 disillusioned with the socialist movement and saddled with a wife. There were those in the Agency who thought he could be used to infiltrate socialist or communist organizations. His defection as a marine was well documented, so it was thought to be a perfect cover.

  “Oswald was young, pugnacious and difficult to control. As a kid psychiatric evaluations describe him as schizoid and having strong passive aggressive tendencies. Our people agreed he was unstable, but thought he could be constrained.

  “Johnson came from Texas. Sooner or later it was inevitable the President would visit. We settled Oswald in Dallas. But the guy could not hold a job and we began to wonder whether we could use him or not.

  “When our boys came back from Korea a decade before we realized how far ahead of us the gooks were in brainwashing and mind control. So the CIA organized MK-ULTRA. For the next decade the Agency and others worked on ways to extract information from people or to exert mind control. A variety of drugs and techniques were tried, the most notable being LSD, which was given to unsuspecting victims. At the time psychotropic drugs was an exploding field. The Company experimented with hallucinogens and amnesiacs. However the results with drugs alone were erratic. They found a balance of hypnotic suggestion, drugs, and aversion therapy was quite effective.

  “Oswald proved to be extremely suggestible. Sub-conscious manipulation and hypnotic suggestions were used to fuel his passive aggression. In training drugs were used as part of the aversion therapy. However, one night he had a bad trip while on acid, while stoned Oswald went out and took a pot shot at General Walker.”

  “Who?” asked Harry?

  “Walker was a whack job that was a right wing John Bircher. He was relieved of his command in Germany in 1961 because he wrote fascist articles. Oswald got it into his head it would help his cover to kill him. Fortunately, he was too stoned to hit a barn and he missed.

  “Lee was shipped off to New Orleans. The Company set him up in a dummy office of Fair Play For Cuba Committee. Mostly he passed out fliers on the street. At the time our real task was to hone his shooting skills. In the Marines he barely made Sharpshooter and before he left he dropped to only a Marksman.

  “He spent hours practicing long shots with a Carcano rifle we sent to him. There were better sniper rifles but if things went south the Agency figured Oswald could be discredited by tying him to the bullet that missed Walker. During his time in New Orleans the psychological manipulation was stepped up. Amnesiac’s were surreptitiously given him to create time distortion. Opiates were used to reward him. Hypnotic suggestions were made that Kennedy was banging his wife, Marina. By October Oswald could hit a fly’s ass on a moving car with ease. He also loathed and hated Jack Kennedy for what we made him believe was their on-going affair. The guy was a bottle of unstable nitro.

  “Kennedy was very erratic on Cuba. He cancelled the air cover flying out of Nicaragua for the Bay of Pigs and blew his chance to oust Castro. If he had followed through we never would have had the Cuban Missile Crisis, which was a byproduct of his own incompetence but got him a reputation for being tough. Lucky is a better word for it.

  “So after the botched invasion in ’61 he turned around and embraced Operation Mongoose.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It was a CIA campaign to de-stabilize the Cuban economy and discredit Castro, it included sabotage, disinformation and assassination attempts, though it never included the exploding cigar people talk about. For the next year Kennedy blew hot and cold about the program.

  “Meanwhile, his kid brother Bobby was using his office as Attorney General to go after the Mafia. Kind of strange coming from a family that made a fortune importing bootleg booze. A lot of the mob Families were upset with Bobby and they blamed Jack. They had also lost their playground in Havana thanks to the revolution, but they were secretly negotiating with Castro to re-open. He needed the hard currency and they needed a place to launder cash from other less legal enterprises.

  “The Bay of Pigs and then Mongoose pushed Castro toward the Soviets and negotiations for casinos died. That left a lot of people blaming the Kennedy brothers and looking for payback. The general idea was to send Bobby a message to lay off.

  “Then Kennedy let us wander into Vietnam. The CIA warned him repeatedly that the Viet Cong were no pushovers. Instead he replaced Eisenhower’s 900 advisors with 16,000 troops.

  “Certain people from the Agency and organized crime Families held a meeting to discuss the situation. The CIA worried that Kennedy was leading us into another confrontation with the Soviets over Vietnam and feared the next time might not end as well as the Cuba Missile Crisis. It was bad enough he gave up our Jupiter missiles in Italy and Turkey to appease the Soviets.

  At the meeting a decision was made that Kennedy had to go.”

  “You don’t believe this crap, do you?” Barton snipped.

  “Shut up, Dirk!” Harry’s words were an order.

  “You don’t tell me what to do.”

  “I’m getting real tired of your stupidity, Dirk”

  “Go to hell, Harry.”

  Harry picked up his gun, aimed at Barton’s chest and pulled the trigger. The blast made Van de Meer jump. Barton jerked once and his head fell forward. Blood covered his chest.

  Claus looked away.

  “Sorry for the interruption,” Harry said apologetically, “continue.”

  “I think I’ve said enough. Are you with us or against us?”

  “Can’t be that many of you left.”

  “I admit, you and your late friend did significant damage to our operation. Join us and you can have a command.” On the floor, Dirk moaned. Van de Meer glanced at him, “Just take care of Dirk.”

  “I’ll have to. The question is still whether you join him or I join you. Finish.”

  “The Secret Service began making security plan’s for a Presidential trip to Dallas. It was decided to take care of the problem there. Lee was put on a bus and told he was being deployed for action in Dallas.

  The preliminary travel plans included passing th
rough Daly Plaza. We arranged for Lee to get a job in the Texas School Book Depository.

  The FBI almost ruined the plan. They thought Oswald’s wife was a Soviet agent and came to her house a couple of times when he wasn’t there. Lee went nuts and actually threatened the FBI if they bothered her again. Privately he was talking about bombing the FBI offices. Our side convinced Lee that the FBI was checking out the house to facilitate Kennedy and Marina’s illicit affair. When the President came to town Oswald thought he was showing up to bang his wife.”

  “So Oswald was a lone gunman?” Harry asked.

  “The loner shooter. We had contingency plans.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If they changed the motorcade route, Kennedy would still have left Dallas in a body bag.”

  Harry paced excitedly. “What power! The ability to shape events! That’s what I hated in Afghanistan, we were all just pawns.”

  When he looked over, Van de Meer saw Harry’s eyes burn with the lust for power. But then they filled with worry.

  “One thing troubles me. Why kill Oswald?”

  “We didn’t, at least not then.”

  “What about Jack Ruby?”

  “It was staged. Ruby was in trouble with the mob. They provided him to the Agency by making him an offer he couldn’t refuse, play a role in shooting Oswald, or die. He was told he would be firing blanks, which in fact he was. After Oswald was rushed out of the building by our people Ruby was arrested for murder. He could not prove Oswald was alive, nor could he talk for fear of the mob. Ruby was a loudmouth though. It was decided to eliminate him. In the prison he was heavily irradiated under the guise of chest x-rays. He was also injected with cancerous cells. Whether that actually worked or it was just coincidence I don't know but he developed lung cancer in ’67.

  “You weren’t around when this happened, were you?”

  Hell no, this is fifty years ago, I’ve only been head of DPIO, for the last twenty-five.”

  “It’s just that you frequently say, ‘we' when you talk.”

  “The team, Mr. Grim. I am and you could be part of a team!”

  Claus saw the spy equivalent of gold fever in Harry’s eyes. He was hooked on the possibilities of being above the law.”