Текст книги "Driver Chronicles: Book 1 - The Passenger"

Автор книги: Niall Roche

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Chapter 4

He was keeping a watchful eye on the old man because the conversation with him so far hadn't made a lot of sense. He was claiming to have saved millions of lives by killing just one man. There was a really good chance that this guy wasn't playing with a full deck, plus he was also obviously dying, which added the wild card factor, too. He had to give him credit though, because he was 100% certain this was the only time he was ever going to have a conversation like this with any passenger.

Jason was still running through this particular mental assault course in his head when the old man started muttering to himself. It sounded like numbers, and something else thrown in for good measure.

"Are you okay back there? All good, buddy?" He was just hoping this old man wasn't going to croak in the back of his cab – that meant no fare, calling the paramedics, and lots of other unpleasantness.

The old man was looking down at his hands, quietly repeating, “I can't ever change it. It had to be done. It had to be. 11.22.63.”

Jason thought he heard just a tiny amount of sadness and regret in his passenger's voice. Despite how he looked, this guy was still very human underneath it all. This made Jason more curious than he really wanted to be. The question was already half way out of his mouth before his brain realized what his mouth was doing.

Jason asked, "Is that number special for some reason, Bill? It seems to mean an awful lot to you? It sounds like a birthday or something?" Empathy had gotten the better of him again. He’d always been a sucker for a sob story, and he heard genuine regret in the man’s voice. Maybe this had been his wife’s birthday or something. Whatever it was, it was important to him at a very deep level.

"It means more than you can probably ever understand. It's not just a number though. It's a date,” the old man explained. “Are you a fan of history by any chance?”

Jason replied, “Not really, Bill. I was never what you’d call an ‘A’ student, or anything close to that. I did what I had to do to get through high school and out the other side, to be honest.”

He quickly scanned his memory to see if there was anything important that came tumbling out in relation to that date, but, as usual, he was drawing a total blank. That was partly because of his ability to remember absolutely useless information, like the real names of every member of the A-Team and what movies scored on IMDB. The flip side of this was his total inability to remember things, like birthdays, anniversaries, and important dates in human history. You know…important stuff and the like.

"I'm sorry, Bill...it's not ringing any bells, should it?"

"Jason, the date is November 22nd, 1963. That was the day the world changed forever. It was the day the world took a step away from the light and further into darkness than it has been in many decades.”

He tuned his entire body into what his passenger was saying now. The old man wasn’t finished talking yet, and that thought filled Jason with a new sense of dread. He was really hoping this guy was just a random lunatic right now. At least that way, he could dismiss it once he was gone on his way.

“11/22/63 is probably the most important date in human history, young man. It was the day President Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, Texas.”

There was a just a split second of panic in Jason's mind, just enough to make him want to either slam on the brakes, or floor it and get the hell out of there. Get the hell out of where though? The talking, wheezing history lesson in the back seat would still be there no matter what he did at this point. Jason tried to figure out exactly just why he felt like he needed to escape really, really quickly, but came up with nothing. He just felt a sudden and very primitive urge to survive.

A split second later, he was able to put his finger on the panic button that had just been pushed inside his head.

He’d said "Murder". No one ever says Kennedy was murdered, people always say he was assassinated. Everyone except the guy in the back seat of his cab. Jason didn't like the sound of that. Not one little bit. This guy was getting creepier every time he opened that old mouth of his.

Instinct took over. Jason pulled the car toward the curb, slammed on the brakes without even thinking about it. The car lurched the to a sudden halt, and he spun around to get a better look at whoever the hell was sitting back there giving him history lessons.

His passenger didn't seem to be bothered by the sudden stop. In fact, he was smiling, and Jason could have sworn he’d almost expected him to stop the car like that. That made his nerves jangle just a little, and he got that sinking feeling you get in your stomach when something just ain’t right. He had the impression nothing much would phase the old man he was staring at right now. Nothing much at all.

The old man was taller than he expected, and you could tell that when he was younger that he'd been a strong guy – there was still some hint of that in him now. The gaunt, bearded face, topped with the fedora, was attached to a neat three piece suit, held together with an equally neat tie. This guy looked like he was going out for a night on the town, instead of just going out forever. He looked utterly harmless, but something inside Jason hinted that wasn’t quite as accurate as he might have hoped.

A long, pale hand extended toward him in the darkness of the cab.

"Jason, my name is Bill Heller. I'm dying. I deserve to die. I think I'd like to clear my conscience before that happens, and I don't think I have more than a few days at best to do that.”

Jason shook the old man's handed briefly and firmly, somehow feeling he'd suddenly damned his own soul by doing that.

"Mr. Heller...I mean, Bill...what the hell? I'm just a taxi driver! If you need to clear your conscience, why not go talk to a priest? Boston is full of them."

Heller replied, “I'm damned. There's no real salvation for people like me. You can’t baptize the devil and get him forgiven for the stuff he’s done. You or a priest, it makes no difference really. It's all the going to be same to me in the end.”

“Actually, telling some random taxi driver what really happened makes more sense. No one would believe you even if you told them what I'm about to tell you. In fact, they'd probably just call me a crazy old man, and they'd put you in a rubber room wearing a 'hug me' jacket for the next few years. Jason, I have nothing to lose here, and you might learn a lot about how this world really works. Does that sound like a deal?”

This was one of those moments in life when you absolutely know you have to ask a certain question, but you'd rather remove your own face with an angle grinder instead of asking that question. Jason felt his throat get very tight and very dry at the same time.

"Bill, just who the hell are you?" he croaked. His throat was way drier than he wanted it to be. Instead of sounding self-assured and a bit brave, he just sounded hoarse and scared instead. He sounded like a frightened kid asking a pretty girl out on their first date.

Jason knew that he sounded afraid. And he was.

Chapter 5

The silence that filled the cab seemed to last forever, but, in reality, it was just a handful of seconds. Time has an annoying habit of slowing up or speeding down depending on how you’re feeling at any given point in time, and, right now, time was dragging its sorry ass.

The rain was still pouring down outside while the inside of the cab was lit with the sickly orange glow from street lights. The noise of other cars driving and honking their way by in the night faded to almost a whisper. Something or someone had to break the cloud of anticipation that was gathering inside the confined space these two strangers were sharing.

Jason knew that what he really wanted to hear was that this was just some tired old man sitting in the back of his car, spinning a yarn. A crazy old loon who was happily getting his last few kicks scaring the living shit out of some dumbass. But that wasn't going to be what he would hear. In fact, he had a pretty strong feeling it would be the exact opposite of that.

The old man paused, straightened himself up, and said, "A lot of people want to know who killed Kennedy, or even think they know who might have been responsible. They all have their theories. You're looking straight at him right now though, the same way I was looking straight at Kennedy when he crossed Dealey Plaza that day in '63.”

Heller continued, "A famous man once said that people sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf. I'm a 'rough man', Jason, and I have done terrible things to keep people safe. In a world filled with terrible dark secrets, I have been responsible for some of the darkest and most horrible. What we did that day is just a sample of it all...just an entrée in a 4-course meal of chaos.”

"Okay. So you're telling me that you're the guy who killed Kennedy, right?" Jason said.

Heller sat staring at Jason, nodding slowly and sadly. There was a lot of sincerity in that gesture.

Jason blurted out, “So you pulled the trigger on Kennedy! What about that guy, Oswald, then? Everyone said he did it and they had proof, too!" He was surprised at how emotional he’d become on the subject. Kennedy had been a national icon and a symbol of changing times. He didn’t like people dirtying that memory with their own brand of BS.

His passenger sat there and said nothing for a few moments, obviously going over in his head what he wanted to say next. He could see that Jason didn't believe a single word of what he was saying.

"I was one of the shooters, but not the only one. You see, we had to be certain that we silenced him that day. There could be no chances taken. None. Everything was planned to make sure that we couldn’t fail.”

The old man paused again for a few moments, staring straight ahead, but also 50 years into his past. He had that 'far away' look people get when they're remembering something especially nice, or something really horrible. Like the 'Thousand Yard' stare 'Nam vets apparently have. It's that 'the-lights-are-on-but-nobody's-home' look.

"Oswald was there that day, you're right about that. But for us, Oswald was a tool, just a pawn in a bigger game. We needed a believable scapegoat, someone the American people could be made to hate and be baying for their blood. But they wouldn't have to hate him for very long, we made sure of that, because that was all part of the bigger plan, you see.”

Jason sat there, not saying a word. In fact, he was pretty sure his head was also empty of anything like a normal thought at this point. Even if this guy was just batshit crazy, this was too good to interrupt. Heck, if nothing else, he had a hell of a story to tell his buddies some night over a few beers. "Yeah, guys...I drove the guy who shot Kennedy to a cancer hospice, but before he got there, he told me about the whole thing. All of it. No, really, he did – no shit."

It was at that point he realized that Heller was right about this whole last confession business. The entire story sounded like the ravings of a mad man. Clever old man. This whole thing was deniable, even if anyone ever bothered to check any of the details he was being given.

"So Oswald was part of the whole plan, too? He was in on it, so that’s why he wound up getting killed?" Jason asked.

"Well, in a manner of speaking, Oswald was part of the plan, but he didn’t really know what was going on until it was too late. By then, his work was done, our mission was accomplished, and America was allowed to go back to sleep, safe in the knowledge that the world was back to normal. We balanced the books. We always do." Heller replied.

Jason was confused at the explanation. "How the hell can someone not know they're going to be part of assassinating one of the best-loved presidents in the history of the United States? What did you do, drug him?"

Heller paused again, choosing his words carefully. "We 'medicated' him more than drugged him. You see, Oswald was our first attempt at psy-ops, our first attempt at destroying a human mind and then rebuilding it to suit our own purposes. The techniques were sloppy though, and Oswald's own personality floated back to the surface a whole lot sooner than we expected. We'd hoped to have him stand trial, admit guilt, and face the death penalty. It would all have been very nice and neat. That's not what happened though, as you know.”

Jason wasn't sure what Heller meant. "Oswald's personality 'floated back' to the surface?" he asked.

"Yes, that’s exactly what happened. We'd been working on new ways of conducting warfare all the way through the 1950s, and, in the end, we’d created a new training and recruitment program that we simply called 'Ultra'. It was the first step in reshaping the world around us as we saw it. It was a way to control people and steer the world in a specific direction, a better direction."

Heller elaborated, "Part of the 'Ultra' program was to use a mixture of hypnosis, subliminal messaging, and advanced psychoactive medication to basically suppress a person's existing personality and then replace it with a completely new one. In effect, the person becomes a human robot that can be instructed to carry out a series of basic commands. Some idiot made a movie called 'The Manchurian Candidate' in '62; he was closer to the truth than he could have ever known. We came very close to neutralizing that filmmaker, too, just in case he’d heard or seen anything he shouldn’t have.”

“In any case, our version of Oswald started becoming the real Lee Harvey Oswald again about a few days too early, so we had to neutralize him before anyone had a chance to interrogate him. What was stuck inside that guy’s head would have had heads rolling from Washington to London,” Heller said.

This explained a whole lot to Jason. He remembered seeing the confused look on Oswald's face after the assassination – he looked genuinely confused. Every documentary he’d ever seen on the event had always shown Oswald looking confused. No defiance. Just confusion. It was the same look you see on someone's face when they wake up at a party in a strange house and have no idea how they even got there. Oswald looked like a guy who'd just woken up and was praying that all these people pushing and pulling him around were just part of a really vivid dream, and that he’d wake up soon enough. A really bad dream that he could shake off and joke about later on. Someone made sure though that Lee Harvey Oswald never made it more than a few steps outside the Dallas police headquarters on November 24th, 1963. Oswald the sleeper was going back to sleep forever to help keep a dirty secret buried.

Jason wanted to know more now – he was hooked. "So Oswald didn't fire the shot that killed Kennedy then?"

Heller shook his head, "No, no. Never, but we’re just glad that people still believe that. The first problem was that Oswald apparently fired three shots in less than ten seconds. That was impossible and they proved it when several trained marksmen couldn't even come close to Oswald’s shooting ability. And that doesn't even cover the skill required to fire three aimed shots at a moving target and in that tiny timeframe. Each shot would have to have been one-in-a-million for that to happen.”

"In fact, it was impossible for him to fire those miraculous shots because of where he was meant to be sitting. There were trees outside the window of the book depository, Jason. He would have been firing through trees at a moving target. The only miracle that happened on 22-11-63 was that people fell for the cover story.”

Heller sat silently for a few moments. There was more coming though and Jason knew it. He mentally buckled himself in for whatever was going to come pouring out of the old man's mouth next. Whatever was going on in the outside world didn’t matter right now.

Chapter 6

“So you’re saying that Oswald was a patsy then? He was telling the truth when he said he had nothing to do with the Kennedy assassination,” Jason asked his passenger.

"We just needed Oswald to make some noise, draw attention to himself, and be captured. It was just a distraction crime really. All we needed from him is to dance around in front of a public audience while we killed the president. Fear, confusion, and human nature took care of the rest of that for us. Oh, and people like Jack Rubenstein, too, of course."

Jason's mind flashed back to the image of Oswald being shot live on television. This was the first time the American public has been exposed to a televised murder. It wouldn't be the last time though. For most people, this single event was the beginning of America becoming desensitized to violence – once you've seen it, you can't unsee it, so, in a way, watching someone being executed or assassinated on television became almost acceptable. Jack Ruby had walked out of the crowd and blown Oswald away in front of everyone, not giving a damn who saw him. That either took a huge amount of balls, vast quantities of Dutch courage, or a man who had absolutely nothing left to lose.

Heller interrupted Jason’s train of thought. "There were only a few potential problems we saw with the plan to kill Kennedy, and this included Oswald making a break for it afterward, which is exactly what he did. That wasn't ideal, but, by then, we'd already gotten the wheels in motion for America to hate Oswald, so he was guilty before being presumed innocent. We'd anticipated that Oswald might break from his programming, so we built an 'Alamo' element into his program – that's why he hid in the cinema. Once they hauled him out of that movie theatre, he'd managed to make himself look guiltier than we could ever have hoped. After all, why run if you have nothing to hide? Why hide unless you're afraid of something or someone?"

Jason knew this made sense. After all, by the time they'd cornered Oswald in that cinema, the entire country wanted his blood, whether he was guilty or not. A lone gunman had shot President Lincoln, and now another lone gunman had cut another much-loved President down before his time. The people wanted a gunman, and he was served up to them within hours of Kennedy being cut down in broad daylight. In fact, it looked like the police had managed to track him down in no time. Doesn’t that stuff normally take days or weeks?

"What people have forgotten was that Dallas was a city that was very hostile to Kennedy and his entire family. He had very few friends or allies there, but, being the man he was, he still decided to go there. His advisors warned him against it, but Kennedy wasn't a man who scared easily, Jason. Believe me, we all tried or damnedest to scare that man so we wouldn't have to go through with what we had planned.”

"A lot of people wanted Kennedy out of the picture, and Dallas was the perfect location for that to happen because so many people there hated the guy," Heller said.  "Actually, even if we hadn't taken care of Kennedy then, there was a very good chance some random Texan was going to try doing the job for us, but we weren't leaving anything to chance. We just needed Kennedy to be in a wide open space with lots and lots of witnesses. Dealey Plaza was the perfect location for what we had in mind. All that was left then was planning and training. The wheels were already in motion."

"So you're saying that Kennedy was a dead man regardless, right? He was going to die that day, one way or the other." Jason asked.

"I'm afraid so. He'd just trod on far too many toes in a lot of important places. Kennedy was a very popular president, but to be that popular means that you have to piss some very important people off. The mafia was mad at him because he was cracking down on their businesses, even though there were rumors that some of the bigger mafia guys had helped him get elected in the first place. Long story short, Kennedy was bad for business, and they were looking for some way to either off him or blackmail him out of office. Integrity wasn't something the mafia were used to dealing with. Kennedy had a lot of that, plus, he knew Marilyn and the others would keep their mouths shut to protect him.”

“Then the rumors about Kennedy were true? That whole thing with Marilyn Monroe was legit?” Jason asked.

Heller smiled. “Jason, you have to remember that John F. Kennedy was the most powerful man in the world for several years. Not only was he powerful but he was charismatic, too, and a war hero. Despite his health problems, Kennedy was the kind of guy who walked into a room and got the attention of every single woman sitting there. That kind of power can go to a guy’s head, but, to be fair to Kennedy, he did his best to keep his flings as far away from his family as possible. Kennedy was basically one of the good guys.”

Jason nodded and said, “Not good enough to be kept alive though, right? The mafia wanted him gone, and who else?”

"Well, you had the military industrial complex looking for his head after the ‘Bay of Pigs’ fiasco." Heller said. "Plus, he was doing everything he could to wind down the war in Vietnam. The military guys wanted a president who was more pro-war, but Kennedy wasn't as eager for the slaughter out there as they were. By all accounts, he'd seen enough death and misery to last him a lifetime while he was fighting in the Pacific during World War II. Plus, he'd seen what happened to the French when they got their asses kicked at Dien Bien Phu. That wasn’t warfare, that was a massacre.”

Jason knew the war in Vietnam had never been popular, mostly because it wasn't actually a war at all, it was a policing action that grew into a conflict where over 50,000 American soldiers lost their lives. Kennedy had done what he could to scale the conflict down, probably for no other reason than realizing that America was never going to be able to win it without using nuclear weapons, and that would have meant war with China. And even at that victory against a trained, supplied, and creative guerilla army was almost impossible. History has proven Kennedy to be 100% correct on this subject several times since.

Jason was still absorbing all of this when Heller added, "Kennedy had also failed to weaponize the space program, which got a lot of military types angry with him, too. These guys wanted nukes mounted on space satellites, and on the moon, too. They wanted a war to test out their new nuclear 'toys' and Kennedy wasn't going to ever give them that, so they decided to stage a very quiet coup d'etat and take control of the United States by killing him instead."

Very few people know that the U.S. military had put together a number of different plans for putting weapons in space, and this included everything from testing nukes on the moon, to testing them in space just above the Earth’s atmosphere. This was back in a time when the full impact of nuclear weapons wasn't properly understood. That didn't stop projects like 'Operation Fishbowl' going ahead though, a project that resulted in 5 separate nuclear weapons being detonated in Earth orbit. It also allegedly didn't stop various factions from weaponizing space through a series of covert programs in the years that followed.

"Jesus...he never had a chance.”

Heller shook his head. "None. John F. Kennedy was a dead man a long time before that day in Dallas. That decision had been made months beforehand."