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

Автор книги: Niall Roche

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Chapter 7

Dallas, November 1963

The entire morning had been just like every other morning for him over the last few months. He'd gotten up around 6am, done a quick workout even though it was still dark outside, and then had breakfast. Eggs, bacon, and coffee – a lot better than he was used to, and it hit the spot every time. Sometimes, the simple meals really are the best.

After breakfast came two smokes to kick start his day. There’s been no excitement, just a lot of waiting around for a call he'd been waiting on for months. He was almost willing the phone to ring, but silently hoping that would never happen. The anxiety was starting to get to him just a little bit.

There was no sign of Marina this morning, so he figured she must have gone out early shopping for one thing or another. He was pretty sure he'd have left for work before she got back, but he'd catch up with her later on in the day. His job was boring as hell, but it was still a job. It was the job "they’d" given him, so he had no choice in the matter. He knew that boredom was part of his story, part of his cover to throw the scent off.

He knew that he had to play the part if he was going to stop what was about to happen. It had taken him years to convince these lunatics that he was one of them, and now, as a result, the very life of the president of the United States could be in his hands. It made him sweat like crazy every time he allowed that entire thought to form in his mind. The plot to kill President Kennedy had been uncovered a few months back, and he just hoped they’d made their move in time to stop it.

The entire world was balanced on a knife edge of nuclear violence right now, but only a handful of people knew where and when the button might be pushed. He was one of them, and having that stuff inside your head was enough to drive most folks crazy. Maybe he’d come close a few times himself already?

His coffee was just starting to cool down when the phone rang. His heart skipped a beat. Maybe it was just another of those new goddamned telemarketing people. I mean, who the hell buys washing soap over the phone? That whole idea was never going to take off, he figured.

He knew he was going to have to answer it, so he swallowed down the ball of fear in his throat, picked up the phone up, and said, "Hello?"

A single high-pitched tone played for several seconds, which was followed by some music. Was that 'Twist Again' by Chubby Checker? He'd always liked that tune. He liked hearing it now, too.

The music stopped and a series of words spoken in a monotone voice followed.

"63. Magic Dragon. Go. Go. Go".

That was the last he would remember of that conversation, or any other conversation that day. The next time he remembered anything, the whole world would have changed forever.

Lee Harvey Oswald calmly replaced the phone on the receiver, picked up his jacket, and left for work. Anyone looking at him would see a blank but relatively human look on his face. Almost like a robot wearing just the hint of a smile.

He never knew it but he'd been lied to on a scale he could never imagine. His programming wasn't to stop the president being killed. In fact, it was just the opposite.

Chapter 8

"Okay, I hear what you're saying, but how could a group of people conspire to kill Kennedy and then for no one to ever find out the truth about it? People are dumbasses, Heller, someone was bound to blab sooner or later," Jason said.

"The simplicity of it was beautiful. None of us knew the other gunmen in any way at all. No names. Nothing. We just knew that we had to be at a specific spot, at a specific time, and that we had a designated target on Kennedy's body. That was all we needed to know,” Heller said.

“I was the gunman for the CIA/black ops element of the hit, but I do know there was one mafia shooter, and a local radical, too. The two others are still a mystery to me. Oswald was, like I said, a distraction and nothing more,” Heller explained. “If he managed to hit Kennedy, then well and good, but if he didn't, then we didn't care. Christ, that Carcano rifle he was using was so poorly made, it could have backfired and killed him just as easily. That's why it all worked so well though – people would see and hear shots coming from everywhere. We had plausible deniability by the bucket load!"

"But what if Kennedy had been hit by several bullets, and they found evidence. Wouldn't that show that a conspiracy was involved because more than one gunman took Kennedy out?" He realized he was actually reasoning with himself here as much as he was with the old man. It was all too easy to start believing another person’s lie when they told it convincingly enough. Jason didn’t want to get so deep into this story that he could never climb out of it.

Heller smiled and laughed quietly to himself. It still never ceased to amaze him just how useful a lie can be if you simply told it over and over again until people recognize it as the truth. Any lie told often enough, and with enough conviction, can eventually become the truth, especially if no one tries to disagree with your lie.

"Jason...Kennedy was hit by several rounds. The first one hit him in the throat, that shot came from the front. It was a small caliber, low velocity round put together by the ZR Rifle team, so it didn't do much collateral damage. The first few rounds had to leave neat entry and exit wounds or we'd have people and police panicking far too early in the game for our liking. We didn’t want Kennedy getting blown apart in front of people until the time was right.”

The old man was eager to fill in the blanks here. “The 'Magic Bullet' theory that the Warren Commission came up with wants you to believe that the first shot came from behind, but if that was the case, Kennedy's throat would have exploded outwards as he was blown forward by the impact. That shot that came from the grassy knoll, the same shot that 21 different police officers reported hearing, and even seeing. That one was to shut Kennedy up. He wasn't going to be talking to anyone ever again after that."

"What most people could never know is that some of the shooters were armed with blank rounds, too. This meant that no one could really know who fired the fatal shot that killed Kennedy, giving every single one of us plausible deniability. We'd covered every eventuality, so the whole op was pretty much flawless." Heller explained.

He realized the old man was making a lot of sense here, but in everything he'd heard about the Kennedy assassination, Jason had never come across anything about these “ZR Rifle” guys Heller had just casually mentioned a few moments ago.

Heller seemed to sense his confusion. “"ZR Rifle” was a covert military unit, controlled by Richard Nixon and several other members of the National Security Council. The unit was put together to train anti-Castro fighters to overthrow the Communist government in Cuba, but we never got to use them because Kennedy put a halt to the whole thing. That meant those guys were ready and willing to take action against Kennedy, even without our help. An entire team of trained killers, eager for a little bit of revenge.”

"The funny thing is, or at least it's funny to me, is that even the doctors at Parklands hospital said the wound on Kennedy's throat looked like an entry wound and not an exit wound,” Heller snorted. “Lucky for us, no one paid attention to those doctors. Hysteria and ignorance did most of our work for us. If the Internet had existed back then, we'd have been exposed overnight. It didn't, so we weren't."

A few frames from the famous Zapruder ran through Jason's mind. This was the footage taken by Abraham Zapruder, which showed the moments of Kennedy's assassination, and his death. It had been hidden away for years until it was used in evidence as part of the Garrison investigation into Kennedy's death. He remembered the scene where Kennedy's head exploded. Everyone pays attention to that scene more than anything else. Morbid curiosity, he figured, the same as passing a car wrecked on the road and not being able to look away from the carnage. It’s the morbid monster inside each of us. The worst angel of our nature.

"Everyone pays attention to that split second of footage, frame 313 I believe, but no one ever seems to pay attention to the handful of frames before this that show Kennedy grabbing at his throat first. It's right there for people to see. They just choose not to see it because people don't always want the truth, no matter how much they bleat on about it," Heller said.

The penny dropped with Jason right then. Just that single piece of information, that single tiny wound to Kennedy's throat, proved that there had to be multiple gunmen. Surely other people had noticed this, too. Why hadn’t anyone done anything about it? Why hadn’t anyone spoken up?

"I remember something about people hearing three or five shots, but no one could ever say for sure if they'd heard three shots or nine shots. So let's say that I believe your story, how many shots were fired?" Jason asked.

"Jason, did you know that several members of the crowd in Dealey Plaza were injured by stray bullets and ricochets that day? You see, the image that people have of assassins and snipers is that they can kill anyone, from any angle, and from any distance with a single, well-aimed shot. That's nonsense, I'm afraid. Even the most highly-trained marksmen will miss now and again. It could be bad timing, a change in wind direction, or a split second of conscience, but a shot can always go wide. We took no chances though and each gunman was given the order to fire three rounds at their target, but no more. We knew that with at least 10 rounds going his way, we'd get two or three kill shots."

Jason found himself leaning forward, gesturing in disbelief at the old man. "But that would have meant his body was riddled with bullets like he'd been put in front of a firing squad. A blind man doing that autopsy would have seen that.”

"Tell me what you know about the findings of the Kennedy autopsy, Jason," Heller said. "Everything you know about it.”

He sat there staring blankly at Heller and tried to remember the details of what happened on November 22nd, 1963. He remembered seeing documentaries on the assassination. Kennedy had been shot. Tearful announcements from newscasters across the United States, and Lyndon B. Johnson being sworn in as President. He didn't remember any documentary or movie talking about an autopsy. The old man was looking straight into Jason's eyes, clearly seeing that he wasn't able to remember anything about an autopsy either.

"Exactly, Jason…what autopsy? We knew before Kennedy was killed that we could have a "private" autopsy on the body because LBJ was already involved with what we were doing, so he'd want it all swept under a giant rug as soon as possible. We knew we could keep Jackie Kennedy quiet because she was torn apart with grief, and we also made sure she was pretty heavily medicated. The autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital took place behind closed doors, and was done and dusted within a few hours of the shooting. Photos were taken, but we only published the ones that suited the single bullet theory."

Jason sat there mute, but listening to every word. The information was just flowing from the old man now and he didn’t want to interrupt. The only thing that risked interrupting this now was a couple of bored police officers wondering why a taxi cab was parked here for longer than a few minutes.

"America had its answers and moved on in sadness. A single assassin killed Kennedy with three shots. One of the shots was a magic bullet that hit two men, passed through at least 15 layers of clothing, skin, tissue, and muscle, and still inflicted multiple wounds on other people in the car.” Heller rubbed his hands against his face and continued, “We knew that the shock of Kennedy being killed would leave America stunned, and even if someone did discover the truth, it was going to take a long, long time because the files were kept locked away from prying eyes. Plus, even if someone did get close to the truth, we'd just silence them, too. If you can kill a president, anyone else is just child's play." Heller said.

“But surely the coroner’s photographs and other photographs taken by reporters would have shown a different story?” Jason said while he scanned the scene outside.

"There were multiple photographs of the autopsy made available afterward, but because we'd used a John Doe for some of the shots, we needed to make sure some of the photographers disappeared afterward, too. That's exactly what we did. Once we'd remove the evidence, and the president was buried, the case was closed – Warren Commission and Jim Garrison be damned! They were never, ever going to exhume Kennedy's body. We knew that for a fact."

Jason found himself nodding morbidly in agreement, and then snapped himself out of it. He didn't like the fact that this elderly hitman in the back seat of his car was making so much sense. He seemed so logical and rational in everything he said. He also didn't like that the old man almost seemed familiar in some weird way.

Jason replied, squeaking out, "...but you killed the president. You shot him." It was the first time he'd actually acknowledged Heller's story as being real, as being actual fact. It gave him chills to think that this old man was quite possibly part of one of the greatest conspiracies in human history.

"I can see you're disturbed by the idea of me being a killer, Jason. It's not something I set out to do, you see. All I wanted to do was serve my country as best I could. However, I possessed certain skills that made me more valuable than just being cannon fodder. People like me are born this way in as much as we're shaped and created. That's just the nature of the world. A few twists and turns of fate, before I knew it, I was zeroing my sights on Kennedy's upper body, and getting ready to change history."

"A man who doesn't look or sound like an assassin is what was needed that day. But then, a very good assassin is rarely a person who sticks out like a sore thumb, is he?" Heller said.

Chapter 9

He'd been living in a state of constant anxiety for the last few months waiting for today to arrive, and his guts told him just how tense he felt right now, whether he wanted to believe it or not. He was funny like that, his guts always gave away if he was nervous, no matter how icy cold he looked on the outside.

Everything had been planned with military precision, but there was still the chance something would go wrong. If this blew up in his face, he'd be lucky to get a firing squad. If today didn't work out, then a lot of people were going to be named, shamed, and thrown in prison for the rest of their days if they were lucky. If they were unlucky, they’d face a firing squad or a hangman’s noose. That just added to the ball of anxiety building up in his stomach right now. He felt like he wanted to puke, but there was no way he could break away from the timetable he was on. He swallowed the anxiety and the vomit down. No time to be scared. There was only time to move and get in position, nothing else.

The plaza had been sealed off to traffic for hours beforehand, so he'd made his way along the railway tracks nearby. Even if he had met anyone near the old tracks, the hobo clothes he was wearing would make damned sure no one got too close to figure out what he looked like. The promise of the smell of stale urine was enough to keep all but the nosiest sonofabitch well away from him.

There was a strong police presence here, but the vast majority of them had been bought or were co-conspirators just dressed as cops. The rest of the real boys in blue had been positioned well away from where the action was going to take place; far enough away to make sure they couldn't do anything, or change what was about to happen.

He scanned the area around him for any potential witnesses but no one stood out. Not that it mattered anyway, there were already plans in place to discredit anyone who saw anything they weren't meant to. If discrediting them didn't work, then there were other messier solutions available.

He checked his watch, it was just gone midday. Time to get ready. He picked up the pace just a touch – no point in missing the big day, eh?

Rounding a rusting freight car sitting on the tracks, he almost walked through his "handler". A brief glance later and his automatic rifle was passed to him in a soft case. He let the case swing down by his side as casually as he could. Big movements attract attention, so he made everything he did as mundane as possible. The Savage automatic rifle was a good choice, or at least the ZR Rifle guys seemed to love them, so he figured that made them as good a choice as any.

The Savage didn't take much assembly, and the scope had already been zeroed in. He gave it a quick check to be certain, but he also knew there were other shooters out there that day. No need for a silencer they told him, although he still wasn't crazy about that idea. People in this part of the world weren't stupid, and he was pretty sure someone was going to see the smoke, if they didn't see the muzzle flash.

12:28pm. No more waiting.

He carefully rested the rifle on top of the fence in front of him, hiding as much of the barrel as he could. He noticed then that everyone was facing away from him, looking to where Kennedy would be showing up, so he could have been pointing a bazooka over the fence and he doubted anyone would have noticed it.

12.29pm. The motorcade was very close now, he could hear the police escort bikes.

He buried the butt of the rifle in his shoulder, leveled his eye with the sight, and waited.

Kennedy's car came into view, slowing as it turned the corner into the plaza. This was a turkey shoot. He couldn't miss if he tried.

William Heller inhaled slowly, focusing all his attention on his target. He aimed for the upper center mass on Kennedy's body.

He exhaled slowly and gently pulled the trigger. What feeling goes through a sniper when they hit their target? Recoil. That’s about it though. It’s an emotionless exercise. It could be shooting tin targets at a fair for all that it’s worth in terms of emotional response.

A split second later, he fired his second round, and while everyone was still screaming and running around, he'd already handed his weapon to his handler, changed jackets, and was leaving Dealey Plaza behind him.

He knew he’s changed history today, but he hoped he'd changed it for the better.

Chapter 10

The car engine idled. Jason realized that the indicators were still clicking away in the background. He'd lost track of how long he'd been sitting like this, but the pain in his back and neck assured him it had been a lot longer than he might have thought. He turned around and sat back down in the driver's seat, staring out at the rain spattering on the road and pavement outside.

He realized that there was nothing actually going on his head right at that point in time. It was like someone had kicked his mind into neutral, and it was going to take another kick to get it started again. He felt Heller quietly watching him, analyzing every single twitch. What exactly do you say to a man like Heller? At first, listening to the old man's tale had been more about morbid curiosity than anything else, but his story rang truer the longer he listened to it. He described everything in such detail, but then, most crazy people did. Didn’t they?

He figured this was probably what severe mental shock feels like. It was unpleasant because you feel frozen to the spot, numbed to anything around you. He’d felt like that once before in his life, and it wasn’t a feeling he wanted to experience again anytime soon. It made you feel less than human.

He turned around to get a look at Heller. "I'll be honest that I don't know what to say at this point. I think I'll just get you to where you want to be, if that’s okay with you.” Jason wasn’t asking a question as much as telling the old man how this was going down, and Heller didn't respond except with a curt nod, which basically said, "Do whatever the hell you want."

Jason turned around, plopped himself back down in his seat with a sigh, pulled away from the curb, and drove on into the night. He was hoping Brinkley Clinic was a lot closer than he remembered. He also hoped he'd be able to forget pretty much everything this old man had just told him. Hearing stuff like this was what got you buried in the woods way out past Terlingua. The easiest way not to get buried in an unmarked grave is to keep your ears closed to anything people in power don’t want you to hear.

The rain outside was easing a little bit, but not enough to make a huge difference. Jason noticed that at least he could see a few meters ahead of him now, so he was able to relax a little bit. He didn’t want to think about anything his passenger had just told him, but he couldn’t help it. There was still every chance the old man was crazy and everything he said was a lie. There was also the chance that he was actually dying, that he had killed Kennedy, and now, Jason had the kind of insider knowledge that would put his life in danger if anyone ever found out. After all, as Heller had said, if they can kill a president, then some dumbass taxi driver wasn’t going to matter more to them any more than if they stood on an ant.

Jason was still lost in thoughts that were a mixture of wonder and panic when he heard the old man suddenly pipe up. "Stop the car please, driver.” Jason paid no attention. The old man raised his voice a little more. “Stop just here. STOP!"

The last "Stop!" was just a little south of an outright yell, so it caught Jason's attention big time. There was urgency behind it, and he knew it.

Jason looked around to see what was wrong – had he missed a red light? He knew his mind was preoccupied with the tall tale Heller had been spinning him all night, so running a red light was the very least of the problems he could wind up having right now. In fact, if that's as bad as this night got, he was pretty sure he'd chalk it up to experience and hopefully forget about it. Unless, of course, he happened to pick up Adolf Hitler as his next fare. At this stage in the game, nothing would have surprised him, including picking up dead dictators.

"What's wrong? What's the big deal with stopping here?" Jason was worrying again he might need to make a 911 call if this old guy suddenly keeled over in the back of the cab.

He glanced into the rearview mirror again, looking for some clue for what had spooked Mr. William Heller so much. He saw him looking out the window of the cab, his face illuminated by a set of flickering neon lights. Jason followed the direction of the geriatric assassin's gaze and found himself looking at an old diner. This wasn't your modern burger joint either. Nope, not by a long stretch. This was one of those old greasy spoon places, lots of chrome, nasty old jukeboxes, and where the top-ups were free, but tasted like they'd already been through a homeless guy before it reached your cup. Everything cost under $10, and the food poisoning was free of charge.

"I want to stop here for a while. Leave the clock running. Don't worry, I'll pay you. Money isn't a problem," Heller said in an almost whisper. He never broke away from looking at the old diner while he said this.

Heller's voice sounded disjointed, almost like he was talking on autopilot. Like someone who was having a vision but didn't quite want to share that with you because you'd tell them they were crazy. Jason also noticed that the old man mentioned he had lots of cash. He didn’t like the idea of being bought, but he liked the idea of being homeless even less.

"Are you hungry or thirsty, Jason?" the old man asked.

He knew his eating habits had always been lousy, and being a cab driver didn't improve that any. In that split second it takes the smell of freshly baked bread to make you insanely hungry, Jason found himself realizing he hadn't eaten all day. He was running on empty, and that always made him prone to telling people to stick certain objects in places the sun wasn’t ever likely to shine. He supposed there were worse ways to end an evening like this than to have a very late lunch with a raving lunatic. So before he realized what he was doing, he'd stood out of the cab and was opening the back door for Heller.

It was only when he watched Heller trying to get out of the cab that he realized just how sick this old fart was. The energetic way he'd gotten into the cab just a short while ago was the mirror opposite of his creeping attempt to haul himself, one limb at a time, of the back seat of the cab.

Instinctively, Jason reached out to help him. He suffered from a split second of internal conflict, knowing that he was helping a self-confessed murderer get to his feet, but that was immediately pushed aside by his need to do the right thing. He'd always been a bit of a boy scout. Being a Marine proved that much about him, if nothing else. It also proved he could survive situations no one expected him to. Situations no one else could survive. He quickly shook that thought from his head.

Heller wheezed his way to his feet, finally managing to get his walking stick underneath him. A small silver logo or crest on the stick caught Jason's eye, but it happened too quickly for him to pick up much detail from it. It looked like an eagle, or something along those lines. Probably from one of those fancy department stores, where a walking stick like that costs a couple of grand at least, he figured.

"I know this place. I've been here before, but not in many years. I've always meant to come back for a visit," Heller said. "It's very apt now that I should find it again tonight. All part of a final journey.”

Heller paused outside the front of the diner, appearing to drink up with his eyes the memories that were soaked into this building. "A reason for all things, eh? Let's get in out of this rain before I seize up. I hope they still do pie!" Heller suddenly walked briskly ahead of Jason, and he seemed to be smiling, too. It was almost charming, or at least it would be, if you could forget for a split second just what and who was underneath that warm, grandfatherly smile. Even murderers get hungry, it seemed.

Jason led the way inside the diner. It was busy inside, but he managed to find a booth for them to sit in. A diner like this was the kind of place you could expect to find just about anyone. Everything from arguing couples to people exchanging substances that can get you arrested. It wasn’t quite a wretched hive of scum and villainy, but it wasn’t too far away from that idea either.

While he was idly looking the menu up and down for something that sounded tasty and cheap, he noticed that Heller was glancing around the interior of the diner, smiling and nodding.

Looks like the place hadn't changed all that much then, old man, eh?