Prologue (56 page)

DeVere and Hutch sat silently. The sound of late afternoon street noise could be heard in the room. Amanda stood and joined Lewis at the window. Together, they peered at the traffic below.

Amanda turned to Ginter. “Why don’t we just do it?” she asked softly.

“Do it? Do what?” he asked.

She waved her hand at the street. “Just do it. Screw the fake assassination. We want to stop Kennedy from pulling out of
Vietnam
this Sunday.” She waved her hand again. “Just do it.”

She turned square to Ginter who stood open-mouthed. “Just shoot him,” she said flatly.

“My God, you can’t be serious!” deVere exclaimed from the bed.
“We can’t shoot the President.”

Amanda wheeled on him. “And why not?” she demanded. “We came back here to stop Soviet expansion, didn’t we? In two and a half months we’ve accomplished zilch. In five days he pulls out.” She shrugged. “Why wouldn’t it work?”

Ginter strode away from the window. “Impossible,” he said. “We have no idea what Johnson will do. Will
he
stay and fight?

“As a black man in 1963 I am not going to be part of a plot to shoot the President,” he added. “We’ve got Oswald and a rigged cartridge and enough propaganda material to frame him. Kennedy’s a war hero. Any of you seen
P.T. 109
yet? When he finds out that Castro tried to have him bumped off, it’ll become personal very quickly.”

He turned to Amanda. “Like you said, we’re five days away from the decision and three days away from the motorcade. No one can be sure what will happen afterwards but this is all we’ve got.”

“O.K.,” Paul said standing up. “I guess we’ll find out Friday.”

Chapter 28

Lewis Ginter squatted on the planking of the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository and peered across to the opposite side of
Elm Street
.

“You think he’ll be on time?” Oswald asked.

Ginter turned to him. Oswald sat on a crate munching a piece of fried chicken, juice dripping down his chin. Ginter turned back to the street below. How could this guy be an ex-Marine?

“I’m not sure,” he answered in his broken Spanish accent. “There’s nothing to hold him up.”

As much as he loathed doing so he felt obligated to keep up the conversation.

“I’ve got your tickets and passport. I’ll hand them to you as you pass out of the building. This way if for some reason I get caught with them before then you can still clear the area.”

Oswald nodded and peered down the sight of the Mannlicher. Ginter tried to ignore the nervous twinge in his stomach. He had created a sniper’s nest from the book crates stored on the sixth floor. He was concerned that at any moment another employee in search of a better position from which to watch the motorcade might wander up to the floor. Ginter had planned to set up on the fifth floor but had overheard two workers talking about watching the motorcade from there. He had slipped upstairs and carefully moved the paper wrapped Mannlicher up another flight, where he had constructed the nest.

Oswald craned his neck out the window to the left. Ginter followed his gaze.
Still nothing.
Ginter checked his watch.
Twelve-seventeen.

“It shouldn’t be long,” Ginter said.

Across the street he spotted Amanda Hutch walking along the edge of the grass. As per Ginter’s instructions she was vigilantly surveying the crowd, the building, and the surrounding area.

“One of our agents?”
Oswald asked.

Ginter cursed to himself. He shouldn’t have let Oswald discern the object of his gaze.

“We have several agents in the crowd, Comrade,” Ginter said evenly. “They will tell us as the motorcade approaches and will provide help in our escape if necessary. But it is better if you do not know of them.”

Oswald nodded and again peered down the sight as if mentally selecting random targets. Ginter put his left hand in his pants pocket and fingered his walkie-talkie. He had bought the smallest one available at a
Dallas
military surplus shop but still marveled at how cumbersome it was. He longed for his cell phone. At least I never had to buy oversized pants for a cell phone, he mused.

Ginter resisted the temptation to reach inside his pocket and raise Hutch or deVere. If they had noticed anything suspicious they would have radioed.

He was uneasy with the patchwork nature of his plan. He was better qualified to be outside looking for the Russian. He questioned whether Paul and Amanda would be able to spot an agent. He questioned his decision not to arm them. But he couldn’t leave them up here to manage Oswald. If Oswald failed to fire then this would all be a waste. Ginter couldn’t be everywhere.

He brushed his right hand against his pants pocket and felt the bulge of the snub-nosed Colt .38. He would have preferred his .45, but the semi-automatic didn’t fit in his pants, and he had no reason to wear a sport coat to this job.

“What are you doing?” Ginter asked.

Oswald had removed the clip from the Mannlicher and was turning it over in his hand.

“Just checking,” he said.

“Well, check with the clip in the rifle, please,” Ginter said icily. With the lufrag already loaded first Ginter didn’t like Oswald tinkering with the clip. The wired cartridge was second. The third, fourth, fifth and sixth were real. When Oswald had come up just before
noon
he had removed the clip and studied it before replacing it as Ginter had held his breath. Seeing Oswald do it again was unnerving.

“You’re a bit edgy,” Oswald said, in his sneering tone.

Ginter breathed deeply. “This is an important mission for the Revolution,” he said, staring out across the street.

“And,” he turned to look at Oswald, “an important mission for us.” He let his gaze hold Oswald’s an extra moment.

Oswald hesitated before turning back to the street. Ginter checked his watch again.
Twelve-twenty.

The sun was bright, but being inside shielded the pair from any glare. Amanda was now across the street to the far left, closer to where the motorcade was expected. She had her back to him, and appeared to be trying to use her walkie-talkie. She was shaking it as if trying to get it to work. He listened for his own to crackle but heard no sound from his pants pocket. What did she see? He craned his neck and scanned along the crowd back to his far right. He started scanning back to his left when he saw it, so commonplace that at first that he almost missed it. Walking toward him, from the direction of
Houston Street
, was a woman with a brightly colored yellow and red babushka, a babushka he had seen before, a babushka she had purchased in
Connecticut
15 weeks earlier.

Damn! What the hell is she doing here?

Amanda must have seen her too and was trying to raise him.

Ginter’s pants pocket crackled. He looked at Oswald blankly for a moment before reaching in and retrieving the walkie-talkie. It wasn’t Amanda-it was deVere.

“I see a
Dallas
police officer crouched behind your building near the railroad yard,” deVere’s voice almost shouted through the radio. “I think it might be him.
Over.”

Ginter and Oswald stared at each other.

“Why?” Ginter barked into the handheld set.

“I think he’s got a rifle in his hands.”

“Counter-revolutionaries,” Ginter said quietly to Oswald. “We knew they might try to stop us.” He glanced back outside and saw
Rhodes
again, leisurely walking toward the Book Depository. She was glancing around, obviously confused. Shit! What the hell is she doing here?

Oswald shrugged. “Maybe it’s a real cop.”

Ginter could feel the cold hand reaching up again. Not crouching.

“Are you sure?
Over.”
Ginter asked, as
Rhodes
stopped 200 feet to his left and turned around.

Ginter only heard crackled static.

The icy hand tightened. Maybe Oswald was not the target. Maybe there were two groups. Maybe . . .

“Paul, can you hear me?” Ginter asked urgently. To his relief deVere answered.

“I’m here.”

“Can you get to the overpass? Keep your eye on the overpass. Amanda, are you there?
Over.”

When there was no response Ginter cursed again. He could no longer see
Rhodes
. Ginter surmised that she had continued around the far end of the Depository. He couldn’t see Hutch either. She must have spotted
Rhodes
and was following her around the building. If so, with the building now between them, the 1963 walkie-talkies would be useless.

“Paul, I’m on my way.” Ginter stood and turned to Oswald. “I’m going to take out the cop. He will be trying to circle around to the overpass to get a shot off at you to prevent you from shooting Kennedy. No matter what, complete your mission. I’ll meet up with you at the rear door to the building as we planned. If I’m late wait for me in the lunchroom.”

“If they know what I’m doing, why don’t they just run up here now?” Oswald asked suspiciously.

“We’ve got the government with us. It’s the reactionary renegades who are here,” Ginter answered. “Comrade, complete your mission!”

Ginter turned and walked briskly across the warehouse floor to the stairwell. He raced down the steps two at a time. At the ground level he turned and stepped outside, still clutching the walkie-talkie.

“Anything?”
Ginter barked.

“No,” deVere answered. “I don’t see anyone now. The policeman was on the knoll. I can’t raise Amanda. I didn’t catch all of what you said.”

Standing next to Ginter, a man with an umbrella turned and gave an inquisitive look. Heart pounding, Ginter turned away. “Keep looking for the cop,” he barked back.

What are they up to? Could a Soviet agent have tailed him there without any plan? Not if the guy had a rifle.
Whoever it was had to be stopped.
If the agent knew Ginter and his plan, he would know that Ginter’s priority would be to protect Oswald. That meant Ginter would return upstairs.

Or, the fake policeman might be a lure to get Ginter out of the building away from the approaching motorcade, while all the while circling back around the building. Another thought struck him. Maybe he has Hutch already and that’s why she’s not answering.

“Amanda, are you there?” Ginter barked. His brain raced. If an agent already knows from history what I did, he knows we all have radios. He’ll have one and be listening in. Perhaps it’s time to change the change in history.

Ginter studied the overpass. From there, one would have a clear, but angled, shot at Oswald’s sixth floor window. When Oswald leaned out to fire, a shooter on the overpass could take him out.

There was no response from the walkie-talkie. To Ginter’s right, a man held a small movie camera like those Ginter had seen in old movies. Ginter abruptly turned left, away from the overpass and brushed past the man with the umbrella. He quickened his pace and shifted the walkie-talkie to his left hand. They can’t know I’m outside. He raised the walkie-talkie for one last transmission. “I’m heading back inside the building,” he said, even as he raced away from the door. “Everyone complete their mission.”

Ginter switched off his walkie-talkie before jamming it back into his left pants pocket. As he rounded the Depository’s corner, he reached in to his right pocket and tightened his fingers around the Colt.

From across the street, Paul deVere saw Lewis Ginter emerge from the Texas School Book Depository, speak into his walkie-talkie, and heard him say that he was going back inside even as he turned left. DeVere was confused. He looked at the triple overpass, but saw no one on it.

At the top of the Depository, the large clock read
12:25
.

DeVere’s radio crackled. It was Hutch.

“Lewis, can you hear me? I saw the man Paul saw. I think
it’s
O.K., he’s a policeman. Do you want me to follow him?”

Paul jumped in. “Amanda, this is Paul. Lewis said he was going back inside but he went around the building. I don’t understand what’s going on. The cop I saw was the other way. Where are you? Do you see him?”

There was more static before he heard Amanda answer, “... railroad yard behind the hill.”

DeVere looked back to his right. Ginter had disappeared from view and any transmission to him would now be blocked.

“Lewis, are you there?” Hutch pleaded.

Paul raised his radio. “Amanda, Lewis has gone around the building. He told me to watch the overpass.” DeVere looked back at the still empty structure.

“I’m coming,” he spoke into his handheld unit. DeVere saw the clock change to
12:26
as he stepped into the street. To his right he could sense the
crowd begin
to stir.

“Where’s he now?” deVere asked on the run. “Can you catch up with him?” But all he heard was more static.

Across the street a grassy slope extended to deVere’s left, past the Depository, up to the fence where he had last seen the police officer. As the crowd’s excitement grew, deVere stepped over the far curb and began striding up the hill.

At the crest was a stark wooden fence. He moved toward a break fifty feet away. When he reached it and turned to go behind the fence he heard what sounded like a firecracker coming from behind him and to his right.
A gunshot?
He instinctively turned and looked back down the hill. The front of the police escort was approaching the overpass. One of the motorcycle officers turned and looked back over his right shoulder.

As deVere crossed behind the fence, he saw a
Dallas
police officer in full uniform, standing on a tree limb, holding a rifle. It extended across the top of the barricade. DeVere recognized it as out of place in 1963: a laser scoped sniper rifle.

A second shot rang out, sounding like yet another firecracker. DeVere was confused as to why there was no explosion. To his right he saw an open black Cadillac begin to slow.

Even as deVere’s brain urged him forward, the officer took careful aim. DeVere stumbled over twisted tree roots. The officer remained steadfast, face against the stock, staring down the sight.

DeVere concentrated on the shooter’s trigger finger as he launched himself. He cringed for the rifle blast but heard only a dull whoosh, and, for an exhilarating moment as he and the officer tumbled down the back of the hill, he thought that the rifle had jammed.

At the bottom deVere scampered to his feet, but the officer was up before him.

“My God,” deVere gasped. The officer’s cap had come off and Natasha Nikitin’s long brown hair tumbled around her shoulders.

“Surprised to see me?” she asked, tossing back her head.

“I . . . I . . .” deVere stammered.

“There’s no time,” Nikitin answered, looking back behind her across the railroad yard. “We’ve got to get out of here.
Quick.
We can’t be found.”

Natasha turned away and then hesitated. She turned back and tossed the rifle to deVere who surprised himself by catching it.