Justification For Killing (29 page)

“
Just glad to see you Bud,
just so glad to see you, please if you don’t mind, take that empty
seat next to Olive Marie.”

“
Well, thanks Grandpa, I
don’t mind if I do since that’s where I was sitting a few minutes
ago anyway.”

No, this isn’t the end of
the story, but it isn’t the beginning of the end either. This
meeting in the center of the room with the Captain and Bud is just
the end of the beginning.

Forrest sat at the table
watching the heartfelt exchange; he could not understand why
Captain Scarburg was so excited at seeing Bud.

“
Okay, now you are all
here we can finally begin.”

“
I thought we had already
started, Grandpa,” Gabby exclaimed.

“
All right Gabby - how
about a meaningful synopsis of our meeting so far to refresh all
our minds.”

“
Okay Grandpa -we came
into the room a little while ago. You were standing at your board.
We sat down at this table. Then you started talking about the
forty-ninth anniversary of the attempted assassination of President
Kennedy. Wait why did I say ‘attempted’ I meant the assassination
of the President.”

“
You are doing good Gabby
- where was everyone seated at the table?

“
Why Grandpa! We are still
seated right where we sat down a while ago. What are you getting
at?”

“
Go on Gabby. What
else?”

“
Well Grandpa, I know you
talked about the Zapruder film that was taken the day Kennedy was
killed. You explained how, you, Spook, and Tinker watched it in
living color complete with sound. You all counted four shots while
watching the actual shooting in Dallas, Texas instead of the three
that had been officially determined.”

“
Good Gabby, you are on a
roll - go on.”

“
Okay,
then you mentioned
Pegasus
and you thought the SCAR facilities should
explore the Kennedy shooting by going back to 1963. And you wanted
us to go back to the Kennedy assassination on
Pegasus
. I certainly remember what I
said then, ‘Grandpa! Are you crazy? We don’t even know if that
contraption works!’

“
Next you asked about the
information written on the board. You wanted to see if we agreed
with the things you had written. After some discussion, you asked
us to put our initials beside the facts with which we agreed, and
we agreed with you on all your facts.”

“
You then took a picture
of the board and a picture of all of us sitting around the table,
and as you left the room to go downstairs to the lab you took
another picture. As you left you also reminded us not to mess with
your whiteboard. You said big brother was watching.”

“
You’re doing great Gabby
– good, concise synopsis of the meeting up to now. Why did I leave
the room?”

“
You said you had
forgotten some information and had to go downstairs to the lab to
get it.”

“
And Gabby, how long was I
gone?”

“
Oh, I dunno, maybe five
minutes or so.”

“
Pretty decent
grand-daughter, now let me start trying to explain what I believe
you have been wondering, ‘What the heck was I up to!’

“
Okay, let me start at
Gabby’s last statement, she said, ‘I had to go downstairs to get
some information.’ Well I got it! Did I ever get it! I’ll cover
that in a minute.

“
Right now I want to dwell
on Gabby’s outburst, ‘Grandpa! Are you crazy? We don’t even know if
that contraption works!’ Anyone remember what I was talking
about?”

For once it wasn’t Gabby
venturing the answer, it was Sam Lin. “Captain you had been talking
about tomorrow, November the 22nd being the forty-ninth anniversary
of the President Kennedy assassination. You explained in detail our
involvement with the Zapruder film and the implication the four
instead of three shots implied. We knew at the time when SCAR was
started someday we would have to investigate the Kennedy
assassination.”

Si Lei added his comments,
“After the return from Thailand we knew to follow the leads in the
Kennedy investigation would require the entire resources of the
SCAR facilities. And dealing with covert government agencies and
possibly organized crime would exhaust a vast amount of time, and
it could be dangerous.”

Yes,” Lou added,
“you said SCAR had developed
Pegasus
to travel back in time.
Forrest asked if you wanted to send someone back to the Kennedy
assassination.
Pegasus
was designed to travel from one Parallel Universe to another
Parallel Universe, but Forrest thought this could be extremely
dangerous to the person picked to be the first guinea pig. He
questioned if we were even close to being ready to attempt human
transport. Forrest also asked if it were your intention to send
someone back to do some research on the John Kennedy
assassination.”

“
And I’m going to say it
again until you understand Grandpa ‘Are you crazy?’ Said Gabby.
“Forrest is right – as I have already said - we don’t know if this
gadget will ever succeed. An actual human trying to travel in that
machine - it’ll be suicide.”

Forrest added, “Gabby is
right, we need to start with insects, move up to a rat, then,
maybe, a rabbit. Later we can work with a larger mammal such as a
dog or monkey. Then and only then can we even consider a human - we
are years away from human testing! Remember we have never gotten
one of our ‘time-traveling’ machines to return.”

Chapter
Twenty-Two

THE CONFESSION AND
VOTE

“
I don’t believe you are
quite correct Forrest - we may not be as far away from success as
you might think.”

“
What’s that supposed to
mean Grandpa?”

“
I’ll tell you in a
minute. Okay, I guess I have toyed with you all long enough. In
front of each of you is the brown envelope taken from my previously
sealed bag. I told you not to look inside the envelope - does
everyone agree the contents are still secret?” All nodded yes.
“Great... all right, each of you remove the material from your
envelope.”

Inside the large brown
shipping envelope, they found a manila folder. The outside of this
folder had the title:

MISSION: JFK ASSASSINATION
ATTEMPT

Removing the
contents and placing them on the table, they found a front page of
the local newspaper; a copy of a death certificate; a copy of a
U.S. Army Certificate for the Award of the Purple Heart including a
picture of the front and back of the gold heart shaped medal with a
relief of George Washington on front; a picture of a President
elected in 2008 captioned,
‘President
William Dixon’
; a newspaper picture
subtitled
,
‘Lee
Harvey Oswald Applying for Parole’
and the
last item was a book entitled the
‘Warren
Commission’s Report on the Attempted Assassination of President
John F. Kennedy, November 22, 1963’.
The
Report was dated September 24, 1964.”

“
What is the meaning of
this Captain? This death certificate has Bud’s name on it - Buddy
Edward Scarburg. What is this Captain? I don’t find this at all
amusing.” Spoke Krista angrily.

“
Krista,” said Captain
Scarburg sternly, “it is not supposed to be amusing. Just bare with
me and I will explain.”

Before Krista could
respond, Bud shouted, “Grandpa, this Purple Heart in the picture
has my name engraved on its back. I’ve never even been in the
military!”

Gabby announced,
“Look at this photograph, it’s caption reads,
‘President William Dixon’
, who in
the heck is President William Dixon?”

Lou holding up the
blue bound copy of the Warren Commission’s Report said, “Grandpa
this book says
‘...the Attempted
Assassination of President John F. Kennedy
.... why is it titled
‘Attempted...’
?

Sam Lin was the last to
join in, “Captain, what’s this about Oswald trying to get paroled.
This newspaper article is only dated a couple of months ago. We all
know Jack Ruby murdered Lee Harvey Oswald in the basement of the
Dallas Police department on Sunday, November 24, 1963. Oswald has
been dead forty-nine years! What gives?”

Gabby stood up, shoved all
her material from the envelope toward the center of the table and
turned to Captain Scarburg, “Grandpa why did you make up all this
false information about the John Kennedy assassination? What was
the purpose? What did you want to prove with these fake documents?
Oh yeah, now I think I get it! You’re trying to get us to do
something! You want us to travel on that blamed Lightening Rod
thing, right?”

“
Pegasus
Gabby, ‘
Pegasus
’... not ‘Lightening Rod’,
please be seated, and I will try to explain. All the items you have
lying in front of you have not been faked! At the time I placed the
pieces inside the envelopes the various things and the data they
contain were indeed real! I did not fabricate anything. If you will
remember, those envelopes were in my shoulder bag when I left to go
downstairs to the lab. I brought the bag back with me in the same
condition, as it was when I left. You saw me break the seal when I
returned; however, Gabby is correct, I suppose I AM trying to
convince you to do something.”

“
Grandpa, please... make
some sense,” said Lou.

“
Do all of you remember my
actions the last few moments before I went downstairs? Remember I
took a few pictures?”

“
Yeah,” Lou said, “The
first one was of the board with your JFK notes and our initials
beside the statements we all agreed on; another was just a picture
of all of us sitting at this table, and as you were leaving the
room you stopped and snapped another photo of the entire
room.”

“
Well the word “all of us
sitting at this table” is incorrect Lou. Krista, please insert a
cable to my Iphone then plug it into the projector controls. I will
get the lights. Do you all agree I only snapped three photographs?
Okay, that is good... everyone agrees. Krista please, hand me the
remote control, and I will project the pictures myself.”

Walking to the light
switch Captain Scarburg dimmed the lights and Krista inserted the
USB cable into the laptop computer controlling the plasma screen.
The large, wall size screen in front of the room began to lighten –
an image was beginning to form. In a second or two the image filled
the screen for all to see. The screen displayed the picture of the
Captain’s board sitting on the easel in front of the conference
table. The image on the large screen and the writing on the small
whiteboard looked, at first glance, to be the same. What was the
Captain trying to prove?

‘
Wait,
something IS wrong with the picture’,
Forrest thought.
What is it? Look
closer.
Now he saw it.

“
Are you all having
difficulty seeing the problem? Okay, let’s try this. Look at the
screen then look at the whiteboard on the easel. Look at the easel
then look back at the screen. I think then you can see the forest
in spite of the trees. The whiteboard being projected onto the
screen is the same board you all initialed as having statements
that you agreed were correct, the same board that was here on the
easel when I walked out a few minutes ago.

“
Grandpa”! Forrest
yelled... literally yelled. “Grandpa, the list on the easel! It’s
not the same as the photo. And look at the photo on the big screen,
our initials are right there beside the statements we supposedly
agreed on.”

“
You are correct Forrest,
do all of you see it. Lou arose from his chair and walked to the
wall to get a better view. Sam Lin also got up and walked closer.
In a moment, they were all huddled in front of the
screen.

“
Okay, a few minutes ago,
as you said, you read and initialed the chart on the screen, you
can see your initials after each item. You all initialed all ten
items on my whiteboard.”

Not believing their eyes
on what they had initialed, each read the ten items slowly
anyway:

1. Attempted Assassin -
was Lee Harvey Oswald. (Initials)

2. Oswald fired shots from
Texas School Book Depository at 12:30 P.M. (Initials)

3. Official records - 3
shots fired. (Initials)

4. President wounded by an
assassin at Dealy Plaza, Dallas, Texas. (Initials)

5. President Kennedy
received severe bullet wounds to head and back.
(Initials)

6. Secret Service Agent
Hill wounded. (Initials)

7. Jack Ruby arrested as
he entered Dallas police basement. (Initials)

8. Severely injured but
after months of recuperation JFK survives. (Initials)

9. Brother Robert Kennedy
was JFK’s vice president in 1964. (Initials)