ADX Praxis (The Red Lake Series Book 3) Page 27

  “So what happened? You mean he could still be alive?”

  “He was relocated to Alaska. However his instability grew. The shrinks labeled him a megalomaniac. It’s kind of ironic that his name means, god power or god ruler. By 1965 he was insane, probably from a mix of bad genetics, hallucinogenic drugs, and mind manipulation. For pragmatic reasons he was terminated and interned in his unused grave at the Rose Hill Burial Park. And a fortunate decision that turned out to be when they exhumed him in 1981.”

  Harry looked completely stunned. He asked, with hunger in his voice, how far can you reach? Bobby Kennedy? Martin Luther King? Were those your actions, I mean DPIO’s?

  Van de Meer merely smiled, “Are you with us or not, Mr. Grim?”

  Chapter 69

  Harry dragged Barton across the mine yard. Claus saw him disappear into the tunnel. Several minutes of silence followed. Then he heard the Hummer start. It rolled out of the mine. Harry stopped in front of the stamp mill. He gathered up his belongings and packed the chain and lock into a rucksack. He considered Van de Meer silently.

  “What the hell!” he said. He unlocked Van de Meer’s cuffs. “Let’s get going, boss.”

  Van de Meer climbed in front. Secretly he was pleased with the results of the incident. Hill was no longer a threat and Harry’s backup, Barton, who seemed the more dangerous of the two was gone. He might have been useful if he wasn’t so belligerent.

  The Hummer crawled down the hill to the dirt road. They bounced along toward the highway trailing a tall cloud of dust. Claus saw no point in trying to overpower Grim there were others who could dispose of him. Claus’ only goal was to be safely free of this unstable killer.

  At the highway Harry turned south toward Beaumont. He seemed to have an agenda so Claus remained silent and let him drive. Around the second curve they saw one of the black SUV”s. Squad cars surrounded it. A deputy waved them past. In passing, Claus saw the bloodied head of a man slouched over the steering wheel. He recognized the ADX Praxis uniform

  “I thought you dumped the bodies?”

  “We had too many cars. When Dirk shot the driver it left a nice powder burn. I figured you didn’t advertise where you were going. So I put him back in the car and left a gun in his hand. On the dash I left a printed note that read, ‘I’m Gay’. That can’t be too popular at Praxis. I figure it will keep the cops occupied. Being red necks, if they think he’s a faggot they won’t work it too hard. We dumped the other car where they will never find it. There are a lot of old mines in these hills.”

  Claus had to admire him. He’d thought Barton the more able killer but he underestimated Harry, the man was a stone cold killer.

  They drove in silence for ten minutes. As they crested the pass Claus ventured to ask, “Where are we going?”

  “Back to your plane. You can return to Washington and I plan to go home and mind my business until things die down. Then I expect to hear from you.”

  Van de Meer smiled and nodded, while silently he swore to himself, he’d be damned if he would tolerate this ‘meeting of equals’ attitude that Harry assumed.

  They came out of the mountains and across the flats. Five minutes later the Hummer pulled up to the private jet facilities at the Beaumont Airport.

  “How did you know I flew in?” Claus casually asked.

  “I thought you would. I had a spotter.”

  This news worried Claus. Who was it and what did he know? There was time to think about after he was safely inside the jet.

  Claus stepped out, eager to be in his plane.

  “Sorry about your suitcase,” Harry apologized, “whichever one it was, it went down the mine with the rest of the crap in the other car.”

  “We’ll talk.” Van de Meer nodded then hurried off into the lounge where he rousted his pilot from conversation with the office secretary. Ten minutes later the Gulfstream’s turbines wound up. As it taxied out, Claus noticed Harry standing along the chain link perimeter. He was smiling stupidly and waving his hand. Safely out of range and sight, Claus gave him the finger.

  Harry drove along the airport highway toward Beaumont. The jet raced past on the runway, the engines rumbling the afternoon air. The nose lifted and the plane climbed steeply into the cloudless sky. Soon it was a small speck that glinted in the sunlight as it banked east-southeast, and then it was gone.

  *

  Paula looked at the bouquets of flowers on the table and the one on the buffet and another on the coffee table. Brad never knew when to quit. She was already growing tired of playing the domestic wife. After a few days their wild sex was just sex, again. The jolts of arousal passed and become pokes of irritation.

  Too quickly Brad fell into adoring her. It was suffocating. More than that it was a form of control. He put her on a pedestal, where there was nowhere to run. She found herself dreading his arrival home and the predictable behavior, coat on chair, gun on buffet, a light kiss, and his usual inquiry, “What’s for dinner?”

  Following a sleepless night, Paula waited for him to leave for work. Quickly, she packed her suitcase and called a taxi. Twenty minutes later the cab arrived.

  “Where to miss?”

  “The bus depot.”

  The driver left her in peaceful silence. At the depot she paid him off and went inside to check the schedules. There was an eastbound bus due to stop in thirty minutes. After a half hour lay over it would continue east.

  Paula crossed the street to a cafe. She ate her breakfast alone by the window. Suddenly she saw her ex-husband drive past in his unmarked sedan. She worried he was looking for her, that he would go into the bus station. But he drove on without a glance.

  An hour later she was riding along watching the landscape slide past. Paula dug into her purse for her cell phone and dialed Harry’s number.

  Harry was at the top of the pass on his return to Red Lake. His phone rang. Despite the law against it, he answered. “Harry Grim.”

  “It’s me, Harry. I’m coming home.”

  As he began to descend toward Red Lake a contented smile spread across his face.

  Chapter 70

  Harry drove directly to the sheriff’s station. Gaines was with Barton Dirk.

  “How are you?” Harry asked.

  Barton looked down at his shirt, still red with fake blood. “Worked like a charm.”

  “Where’s Hill?” Harry asked.

  “I have him in an interrogation room cooling his heels,” said the Sheriff. “He was quite defensive demanding I arrest the two of you for kidnapping. When I told him you were both deputized working as undercover agents he was apoplectic. The Miranda warning sent a shock through his system. After I said I had questions about the death of Eddie Ames he began to jabber like a Mynah bird. Swore he knew nothing about murder only that some prisoners did not exist. He said he was told it was classified and swore he was just following orders.”

  “What about Wafi?”

  “He claims he’s regular prisoner. The only time his name came up with Van de Meer was in connection with medical records. Van de Meer provided a medical file but he also insisted Wafi see the Praxis doctor.”

  Gaines paused to stroke his mustache, “Not much we can hold him on. “

  “You record all of that?”

  “Standard procedure.”

  “It should be enough to keep him quiet. I mentioned he might be a co-conspirator. That set him off too. Van de Meer virtually promised him cover under national security. It couldn’t hurt to remind him that CIA domestic operations are illegal.”

  “I’ll do that. I let the Praxis driver go. He was cooperative once I explained it was an undercover operation.”

  Barton spoke up, “It helped to have your man waiting in the woods, to calm him down and have someone to turn him over to.”

  “What about the CIA man?”

  “He’s cooling his heels with the others,” said Gaines before continuing, “We got everything on tape. The microphones in the stamp mill worked perfectly. The ra
dio transmission was clear where we staged the guard’s body in the SUV. I haven’t had so much fun doing police work in years. I just wish we had video.”

  “I gotta thank that woman who rigged the exploding blood caps on me. When I looked down I half believed I’d been hit.”

  “Without an electronic trigger I worried the timing might be off, but you were perfect Barton.”

  He grinned and boxed the air, “We rope-a-doped that little sucker. First his men are gone and then he thinks I killed the driver and guard. He could only assume the same happened to his private army.”

  “They had a lively discussion while you two were off to get the bodies,” put in the Sheriff.

  “That was a mistake not to have a receiver in the car so we could listen. We should do that next time.”

  “Next time?” The other two men questioned in unison.

  Harry shrugged, “You never know?”

  “Back to business,” Gaines looked to Barton. “This is your line of work, lay out your plan.”

  “Van de Meer will go on the offensive as soon as he can. That means an attempted hit on Harry, me, or both. He will know it was a con as soon as his men reach a phone. After that he’ll be on defense mode but I doubt he will call the dogs off.”

  “Can we book the four guys in the holding cells? It will stall for time and we can take photos and prints off all of them. Their ID’s too,” Harry asked.

  “Sure. Our bureaucracy can move very slowly in a small town.”

  Barton waved his fingers tips, “Don’t forget to look for falsies.”

  “If you let these guys know every deputy will have their picture it might deter them. I think DPIO is getting short of men.”

  “Hell why not put their faces on flyers and warn people to call in if they see these men in the area? We can pop ’em right over the ones they put up for Stangl.” Barton laughed at his own idea.

  Gaines spoke up, “They aren’t listed as Deputy U.S. Marshals which is the only way they could be legally carrying and transporting arms, so aside from some nasty calls I doubt we will hear much about detaining them. Eventually, some federal judge will kick the case out of the system. That’s about all I can do from my side of the fence. I’ll try to deflect any incoming flak.”

  Harry took over from him

  “Our best defense is the media. Lou Harding is already working on an expose for the Clarion. He started yesterday. We briefed him last night and gave him the electronic files. His first segment will go to press tonight, as soon as it hits the streets tomorrow, The Clarion will post it online. “

  “I’d like to see Van de Meer’s face when he reads that. He’s gonna hate knowing he was hustled.” Barton’s grin filled with malice.

  “If Lou met with Hill and then the four DPIO men it could be helpful.”

  “I doubt they will talk, Harry, but I can bring them together, the sooner the better with Hill, I can’t hold him. He can visit the other four after they are booked.”

  Harry resumed, “Once the story is online, data will pop up on the net that substantiates Lou’s claims. We have someone putting together a packet of data gleaned from DPIO files. If we can get copies of your audio tape, he can add that to the file, too.”

  “I got some good resolutions pictures of Van de Meer at the mouth of the mine when Harry and he left. Why not post his picture?” asked Barton.

  “Hell why not put them all up? Someone will say we are exposing CIA operatives but then they’ll have to explain why they were in Red Lake.”

  The men reflected on their plans.

  “We stayed off the radio during the operation but the media may sniff it out. Any suggestions?”

  “Let’s leak some of it. Call the television station and tell them four heavily armed men were picked up in Canaan County carrying weapons illegally. Say they claim to be from the CIA. Arrange for them to get some good footage of the weapons and of the men as they leave custody. Tomorrow morning Lou will have the details in the Clarion.”

  “All hell is going to come here. There’ll be satellite trucks everywhere.”

  “Don’t complain, you’ll be famous Barton.”

  He scowled “Don’t wanna’ be famous. Being an anonymous nigger is just fine.”

  The men rose.

  “I’ll have the CIA boy’s sent over for booking.”

  “Thank you Sheriff.” Harry put out his hand.

  “You’re welcome.”

  At the door Harry turned back, “I forgot this,” he held a deputy’s badge out to the Sheriff.”

  “Better keep it for a couple days. Or at least as long as you aren’t planning anything illegal.”

  Chapter 71

  The Clarion article broke the story the next day.

  SPY HOAX at ADX PRAXIS

  CIA RUNS ILLEGAL OPERATION

  They ran an overview that filled two pages. They printed photos of Van de Meer and of the four agents as they left custody.

  Ziegfeld steadily fed the web with files that the media assumed were leaks. The data was copied, edited, replicated and disseminated around the globe by other news teams.

  By mid-afternoon in Washington, reporters and television vans lined the road in front of CIA headquarters. The CIA press office at first dismissed the allegations saying, “This is another conspiracy theory unsubstantiated by facts.”

  The Bureau of Prisons issued a flat out denial.

  The next day satellite trucks arrived in Red Lake. Camera crews and news van’s filled the parking lot at Praxis. The Clarion ran a detailed piece on the CIA’s disinformation operation and Praxis. Teams of reporters waited to interview Lou Harding or Sheriff Gaines. Harry Grim, who was the most sought after interview in town, was not to be found.

  Headlines ran in resurrection type.

  “DID THE CIA KILL KENNEDY’

  “CIA FRAMES INNOCENT MAN”

  “WAFI ALLEGED TO BE INNOCENT”

  “DOMESTIC SPYING BY CIA”

  The CIA, OSWALD, WAFI, and ADX PRAXIS were the four most searched words for two weeks.

  Barton arranged for a stakeout at Deutschland Properties & Investment Opportunities, housed in the building across from CIA headquarters on the eastern side of the George Washington Parkway. For a spy, Claus was not particularly adept at spotting a tail. Ziegfeld leaked Claus Van de Meer’s home address.

  The next morning when he came down to his breakfast room several reporters were peering in his windows. Even more distressing was the fact there was no coffee or breakfast. Juanita called a few minutes later to say she would not be in. Having seen the reporters, and worried about lacking a green card, she kept on driving.

  Claus turned on the teakettle. The headlines on the news were ones he created but now he was getting the unwanted credit.

  In south Florida, Abdul-Alim Khalili who was actually Jaden Qudar found reporters outside the office of his construction company. He insisted repeatedly it was a case of mistaken identity.

  Chet Parker, who lived in a retirement community in Tucson, Arizona, was identified as Edwin Alden Darwin. Age made it difficult to see in his face, that of the much younger man who spied for the Soviets, twenty years earlier. Mr. Parker firmly stuck to a terse, “no comment”, as he made his way to the golf course. His lack of denial made the reporters all the more certain he was Darwin.

  Other reporters gleaned facts in Carlsbad, talking to the late Charles Chan’s neighbors. They reported that a semi-trailer truck moved everything out of the house the day before he died in Lake Tahoe.

  By the third day President Sturgis Carrington called a press conference.

  “My Presidency pledges to fully investigate any criminal wrong doing at the Central Intelligence Agency. We are a country of laws and none of us are above that law.

  “The claim that Lee Harvey Oswald was in the employ of the CIA is at best difficult to believe. Neither the Warren Commission in 1964, nor Ramsey Clark’s panel in 1968, nor the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations in 197
9 uncovered credible evidence linking or implicating the Agency to President Kennedy’s tragic death.

  “I have every confidence however that in due time the truth will be revealed and these past findings confirmed.”

  The Bureau of Prisons released a revised statement.

  “We take these allegations very seriously and will establish a commission to study if they are true. Calder Hill has taken an unpaid leave of absence from his post as warden at ADX Praxis..”

  That same day, the CIA press office began to hint that, “It is possible that a rogue operation was run in the United States. We do believe its scope was grossly exaggerated.”

  On Capitol Hill, Congressional members called for “transparency to establish the full facts.” Both the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence announced investigations. Members of Congress fought for face time, each promising to be harder and more thorough then the other.

  Over three days Lou had continued his series on ADX Praxis, the Prisoners, the DPIO and the Kennedy Assassination.

  Then the push-back began. Articles appeared on the web about Harry Grim. Unidentified “expert witnesses” declared documents frauds. Some commentators focused on whether of not it were treasonous to release photos of employees working for the CIA. This led the discussion farther astray to comparisons with the Valerie Plam Affair.

  Editorial style pieces were posted that talked about the Pentagon Papers and the DPIO downloads, the articles asked, was it patriotism or criminal activity?

  The discussion raged across America for a week, dimmed by the second, and then gradually tailed off as the public’s attention span waned and the media was distracted buy other stories.

  Chapter 72

  Harry laid tanning. His friend’s houseboat rode at anchor in a small bay on a warm afternoon. The bullet wound in his shoulder was still bruised but the cicatrix was forming nicely.

  Paula climbed the companionway ladder to the upper sun deck. She carried a tray with two margarita glasses, a bowl of salt, and a pitcher of drinks.