Stephen Hunter - The Third Bullet

Most important, I believed if he was captured, he’d find the pressures too much, and in time his mind would fall apart. He wouldn’t be able to recall his own truth. First he’d claim he alone authored the deed and cling to that for months because he wanted the glory, the notoriety, the fame. Finally, he’d tell them the “truth,” as he imagined it, that he’d been picked up by a Soviet agent, coached and prepped for a mission against General Walker, and at the last moment diverted to the president as target when that opportunity revealed itself. Dutifully, the FBI would check out the tale and find no evidence of it. No one would remember seeing Alek in the presence of this agent; someone at a desk near mine in Langley – maybe it would even be me! – would be given the mission of discovering if there had been any remote possibility of Soviet involvement and, using sources, networks, leverage, penetration, and analysis, would produce a report in a year that, aside from the idiot’s attempts to secure a visa from the Russian embassy in Mexico City in September, there had been no record, no rumors, no traces of Soviet contact with Oswald.

If Oswald went through photo albums of known agents in order to ID his mysterious mentor, he’d come up with nothing, for in truth I looked far more like Dave Guard of the Kingston Trio than I did Vassily Psycholosky, KGB killer and goon.

If all went well, there would be no physical evidence – no fingerprints, no footprints, no jimmied locks, nothing slightly out of the ordinary, nothing ambiguous in meaning; the clincher would be the ballistics, which, as I have explained, would suggest his rifle and his rifle alone.

As I drove away, he receded into the shadows. I would see him only one more time – the closest our plot would come to discovery. I quickly headed downtown to the Adolphus, where I still had to talk to Jimmy, to convince him, and where we had a great deal of planning to do.

When I got back to the hotel, I was not surprised to see Jimmy waiting for me in the lobby.

“Hi, Mr. Meachum,” he said, rising, smiling in that Irish way, “how about letting me buy you a drink.”

“Sure,” I said, and like two cronies from an Oklahoma vacuum-cleaner manufacturer, we trundled off to the dark Men’s Bar, not the Adolphus’s famous Century Room, where a Rosemary or a Gigi or a Maryanne was singing. We found a table well away from the few other drinkers left, ordered up our poison, and waited for the girl to bring it and then to depart. For the record, in those days Texas had insane drinking laws, and we’d had to “join” the club in order to receive our own private bottles.

“So, Jimmy,” I said, “I’ve been trying to reach you. Have you spoken to Lon yet?”

“No, I haven’t. I thought I’d let the two of you work things out between you today. It seemed like a good time to take a little break.”

“Actually, it was. From what you’re saying, I guess you’ve figured it all out. That I want to change the nature but not the purpose of the mission. Same operational principles, different target. Lon, to be fair, is not so sure. He didn’t sign up for what I’m proposing. Neither did you. Neither, come to think of it, did I. But it’s here, it won’t go away; I believe it can be done. I also believe it should be done. It’s really just a continuation of the original idea. Do you want the full nine-ninety-five sales pitch or the bargain-basement four-ninety-five version? It’s getting late and I haven’t eaten yet, so I suppose the five-buck version will have to do.”

“Mr. Meachum, you don’t have to break a sweat. I get it. If you say it needs doing, then I’m the one to do it. Loyalty. You boys in your outfit, you got me out of prison and got me a new life doing what I do best and doing some good in the world. Never thought I’d have a shot at a house in the suburbs and two boys in private school, which is what I have today. I’ll sail with you to hell or the edge of the world, whichever comes first.”

“You’re a good man, Jimmy.”

“Plus, I hate them Castle Irish. Always putting on the airs, always carrying on like they weren’t bog-slogging peat burners like the rest of us. My father hated them, his father before him hated ’em more than the English. You’re doing me old dad a favor, and he’s smiling in heaven.”

“You’re a great man, Jimmy. Knowing I have you along means I know we can do this thing.”

“That we can. Do you know what I did today?”

“Of course not.”

“I was all over a joint called the Dal-Tex Building. ‘Dal-Tex,’ know what that stands for?”

“Dallas, Texas?”

“Dallas Textiles. It’s the heart of what passes as the garment trade in Dallas. Office building, a warren of offices, you’ll find fifty of ’em in every city in America. Full of rooms with desks and telephones and secretaries. What else do you need to make a buck in America? That and a good case of business smarts. This one is worth exploring because it’s located behind the Texas Book Depository on Elm Street. It has at least twenty offices that give a good look down Elm Street from almost the same angle as the Book Depository.”

“You’re way ahead of me, Jimmy.”

“You know me. I’ve got a natural talent for mischief of all sorts. There’s a fair number of buildings on the plaza that would give Mr. Scott an angle, but the only one that’s a few degrees off from the Book Depository is the Dal-Tex Building. I don’t see where else we could run the operation from without running the risk – too big, in my mind – of leaving an obvious clue that some other birds, that is, us, were involved. They’re going to investigate this one up the ass, with all the national experts and the best techs the Bureau has. If anything’s wrong, they’ll sniff it out. Something you never heard of, like arterial spray pattern or skin stretch marks or powder dispersal pattern or something subatomic that not even Dick Tracy has thought of. We have to minimize everything that differentiates our shooter from the little red nuthead. It’s a much higher threshold than with General Walker. That’s what makes it a puzzle and, frankly, for this boyo, great fun. I love to match wits with the best, that’s for sure.”

“Glad you’re so excited,” I said.

“We have to get in and out of that building, find a shooting position, all within a few minutes, and over the last part, it’ll be screaming and panic. It’s no easy thing.”

“I suppose it’s too late to rent an office. We don’t know if one’s available, but it would attract a great deal of attention if we contacted the management and put down a deposit tomorrow.”

“No, they’d tumble to that right away.”

“Are there any bathrooms or deserted offices where we might set up?”

“No bathrooms, boss. They always put bathrooms on the interior side of the corridor, because they get more rental dough for a window. One or two of the offices I saw looked empty, but there’s no way of telling how they’ll be the day after tomorrow. It’s a tough one.”

“We’re two bright boys. And I see a gleam in your eye. I think you’ve already found a way.”

“That I have, boss,” he said with his total-mischief smile.

And then he told me his plan.

Marion Adams, gun expert and official lounge lizard to the monied collector set, had an insidious charm. It was easy to see that he was one of those gifted enablers who helps the big tall rich get what they think they want with a minimum of fuss. He was tall, fair, rather flitty, serious only about himself, hiding behind square black glasses and a suit so dowdy that it had to be expensive. He could have been an embalmer, and in a sense he was, masterminding the transfers of dead guns soaked in formaldehyde for a profit.