“Could you wait till someone comes, captain?” It sounds actually more like a plea.
“You stay! Wait here!” he demands, brandishing harsh gestures. Wading into the water, the captain pushes his boat out into the deeper water and jumps aboard. The boat motors away from shore and then speeds off out of sight of the cove. Soon even the trailing sound of the boat finally dies out.
I stand there looking at the Pacific, then turn and stare at the jungle. Finally weary of the silence, I cup my hand and yell into the jungle.
“Hello, is anybody there?” I call. Monkeys scold me from the trees in reply. Taking a deep breath, I decide to rest my weary bones.
Just as I am about to sit down in the sand, I catch a movement out of the corner of my eye. Two young Costa Rican men slowly ramble from the thick growth and diffused light of the jungle, out into the intensity of the light of day. The first thing I notice is that each man carries what looks like an AK-47. Cautiously they move progressively toward me, their heads constantly oscillating to and fro.
When they are still a stone’s throw away, one of them calls out to me.
“You, are you Brooks?” The other man standing behind and to the side of him is warily at attention.
“Yes, I am Brooks.”
“I’m sure glad you…” Before I can finish they turn and start walking back towards the jungle. Just before they re-enter the Jungle, one of them turns around and gestures to me.
“Come, you follow, señor.” Saying this, he then disappears into the density of the rain forest. Any previous hesitance on my part has now vanished. I come to my senses and run after them until I am walking right behind. One man looks over his shoulder at me, then over at the other man beside him. He shakes his head saying something in Spanish, and they both break out in a grin. I’ve never felt so out of place in my life.
The trail through the jungle is barely detectable. Without these two guides, I am sure I would quickly be lost in no time at all. As we walk the hidden trail, quantities of screeching birds protest from the treetops, and reptilian creatures of all sorts and kinds scramble from our path. Assorted mosquitoes of various sizes have gathered around my head like a cloud, and the heat and humidity are claustrophobic. I pray that this trail through the jungle will prove to be the shortest jaunt of my journey.
§
TWENTY SIX
After a hundred or so yards of walking in the liquefying torridity of the jungle, we come to a clearing. On the far end of the clearing a French style plantation house comes into view. As we approach the house, I see two more intimidating young men standing as sentinels on either side of the screen door. It is apparent that they are officiating as bodyguards, looking very foreboding with their AK-47s in their arms.
The men on the porch watch with intensity as I slowly climb the stairs to the porch step by step. As soon as I reach the porch they gesture me to stop and put my hands up. After they thoroughly frisk me, one of the men opens the screen door and reports my arrival to someone inside.
The two men that guided me through the jungle quickly take leave to their unknown assigned location. The screen door is held open for me, and the guard motions for me to go inside.
The room is dark, and my eyes take a moment to adjust to the dim light. Finally, I make out a man sitting in an old leather overstuffed chair, his feet resting on an ottoman. The room is fully ornamented with South American curiosities of all kinds; a virtual museum of aboriginal artifacts.
“Mr. Brooks, I presume?” I expect him to reach over and shake my hand, but he remains seated in the indistinctness of his own protective shadow.
“Sit down Mr. Brooks. You must be tired. How ’bout a drink, or better yet, how ‘bout an ice-cold beer?” he offers.
“A beer sounds wonderful, thank you.” I accept his welcome with gratitude and sit down on a small chair opposite of him. I anticipate him to get up and go to the kitchen for the beer, but instead he yells an order from his seat.
“Una cerveza por favor,” he orders. Soon a short round señorita comes into the room, balancing a bottle of beer and a glass on a tray.
As she sets the tray down on the coffee table before me, I notice an old 45 Colt revolver lying on the table, half-hidden underneath a newspaper. I stare at the pistol out of a curiosity for a moment, then I look up at Riker, his eyes are already there in advance to meet mine. He half-smiles and raises his eyebrows in response to my concern.
“That’s Imperial beer, made right here in Costa Rica,” he informs me. “Hope you like it.” He is ignoring the existence of the revolver on the table beside him.
“Oh yes, I’m familiar with Cerveza Imperial. I drank half a dozen of these in Playas Del Coco while I was waiting,”
I confess.
“I’m sorry you had to wait so long, Mr. Brooks. As you can see, it isn’t exactly a well-beaten path to my door. Living in Costa Rica, I have had to learn to be patient and endure, and be willing to go to unusual means to make things happen. I’ve been down here so long now that I am used to it. I have forgotten what it is like to visit this place for the first time,” he apologises.
“Oh that’s OK Mr. Riker, it’s not that bad. I am just a soft city boy who rarely encounters the jungle, bloodthirsty mosquitoes, giant lizards, and death-dealing dehydration. It’s amazing how fast you get used to it,” I quip sarcastically.
I tip up my cold beer to my lips rapturously, like a ravenous animal of prey. The ambrosial frosted fluid flows over the surface of my cardboard-like tongue and throat, quenching them back to health.
I down the beverage in less than five seconds and then exhale a large breath of satisfaction. Taking note of my thirst, Riker turns himself towards the kitchen and orders me another beer.
“Uno más cerveza por favor,” he calls out to his maid. He turns around and notices me admiring his collection of South American curiosities and works of art.
“Quite a collection huh, Mr. Brooks?” he is full of pride.
“Those blankets you’re looking at, hanging on the wall there, are Guatemalan,” he adds.
“They’re so beautiful! I love the colors.”
“Those baskets over there are made by the Kuna Indians of Panama. The weave is so tight they can hold water without even leaking a drop.”
“What are those long things over on the wall?” I ask him.
“Those are blowguns made by the Yanomami Indians that live in Amazon jungle of Peru. Believe it or not, I’ve seen a Yanomami warrior hit a locust at fifty yards with one of those things.”
“You’ve got to be pulling my leg,” I am in disbelief. “I don’t think I could see a locust at fifty yards, let alone hit one with a dart from a blowgun,” I confess in amazement.
“It’s true, and I’ve seen it. Of course the locusts in the Amazon are a lot bigger than they are in Portland. Maybe that has something to do with it.”
I take a swallow of my second beer and look down at the gun on the table again.
“What’s the gun for, Mr. Riker?”
Riker looks at me for a moment then suddenly smiles. He tips his bottle of beer and swallows till it is drained dry, save for the foam. He sets his bottle down on the table next to the pistol.
“After working for the FBI for twenty years, you make a few friends and even more enemies. I keep beer for my friends and the Colt 45 for my enemies. You never know when one of your friends or enemies may stop by.”
“What about our mutual acquaintance, the one whose photo I put in The Herald? What if he should stop by for a visit? Does he get a beer or the Colt?” I ask jokingly.
“Well, since it seems obvious that that guy is determined to kill us both, I would say that he would definitely be on the enemies list.”
“Kill us both, you say?”
“I say ‘us’ Mr. Brooks, because since you’ve now plastered his face all over the newspapers, I’m sure that he’ll try to terminate your life with the same zeal that he has tried to terminate mine.” He is very blunt.
<
br /> “Tell me Mr. Brooks, how is it that you came by those photographs of this man? And why in the world did you put them in the paper?”
“Look, if we are going to be telling each other secrets, don’t you think we should at least be on a first-name basis?” I ask diplomatically.
“I think you’re right, Mr. Brooks. Call me Stephen, Steve.”
“Good to know you Steve. You can call me Matt.”
“OK Matt. When and where did you find this guy and what about the photographs in the paper? Where in the world did you get them?”
“It all started a few weeks ago. I went to the Portland Airport with my photographer to investigate a plane crash. The plane had crashed only twenty minutes or so before we got there. It was a brutal thing to see; there were bodies everywhere. The photographer began taking her photographs, and I was making notes of the grisly scene. Out of nowhere this man, running away from the crash site, knocked me down.”
“You saw him running away from the crash?”
“Yes. He was running away, and he had the strangest look on his face. He looked scared but he also had kind of a weird smile. Now that I think about it, he almost had the look of guilt on his face. You know what I mean, like when a little mischievous kid does something wrong and tries to run away before someone finds out.
“He was running away from that crash site, as if he…” I pause for a second. Riker interrupts before I can continue.
“He was running away as if he was the one who caused it you mean?” He concludes.
“Well yeah, that’s exactly how he looked. It didn’t occur to me then, but he sure looked guilty, guilty in kind of a sadistic way.”
“Putting his picture in the paper may not be the only reason he wants you dead, Matt. Maybe he feels that you know he was the one that killed all those people on that plane.”
“I never thought of it that way before, but that wasn’t the only time I’ve seen him, that was only the beginning.
“One time he was dressed as a Forest Service Ranger, while I was on a story tracking down Bigfoot. Another time I saw him while I was following a story about a new dinosaur discovery in Montana. I’ve caught him following me several times, and he even tried to kill me on top of the Seattle Space Needle.
“As far as the photographs in the paper, they are just historical photographs I just happen to stumble upon.”
“Historical photographs?
“I mean that I found him appearing in old photographs, as old as a hundred years old and older.”
“He was actually in hundred year old photographs? You mean like, he was right there posing, right along with people that lived a hundred years ago?” He asks doubtfully.
“That’s right.” I nod my head.
“Are you sure you weren’t looking at photos that had been fiddled with or touched up, because if they were real it wouldn’t make any sense. It must be some trick or something.”
“Oh I suppose it could be a trick if I found one or two photos like that.” But I have found several, and they came from very reliable sources that don’t deal in fake photographs,” I argue.
“Like where?”
“Well, the first one I found was from an old 1937 issue of The Herald. It was an article about the Hindenburg disaster. He was right in front in the photograph where you could see his face well. The Hindenburg was collapsing in the background and he was in front of the photo, running away from the crash site, again.”
“OK that’s one. What else?”
“Kelly and I were assigned to do a story about the Historical Museum Exhibition in Seattle. While I was there I discovered several original authentic historical photographs with our friend in them.”
“Like what?”
“In the Crimes of the Century exhibit, I found our man in one of the old photographs of Jack the Ripper’s murder scenes. He was right there posing as one of the policemen, those strange eyes of his looking right into the camera, wearing that same strange smile.
“Then there was the World Wars exhibit. There were hundreds of relics and old photographs were on display there. I found him in several Civil War photos, in one he was a captain or some kind of an officer.”
I pause for a moment, looking over at Riker, as his face scrunches up at my exposé.
“Matt, don’t you think those men in those old photos could just simply look like our man, you know it’s not unheard of?”
“You’re right, it’s not unheard of. But there seems to be an awful lot of people in history that look exactly like this guy.
“Here, take a look at this and tell me what you think.” I brought with me all the newspaper clipping photographs I had found and saved, for such an occasion as this. I pull out of my pocket one of the newspaper clippings folded so only the image of our infamous man could be viewed.
“Yeah, well it looks like our man all right. Is this one of the photos you put in The Herald?” he asks.
“No, not The Herald, the London Times.”
“London Times? Did you put his picture in the London Times too?”
“Unfold the newspaper clipping Steve, so that you can see the whole thing,” I request. I watch his face as he slowly unfolds the newspaper clipping from an issue of the London Times from 1933. Now he sees that the complete photograph is of our notorious mysterious man being honored by Adolf Hitler for designing and creating the new symbol of the Nazi party, the swastika.
Riker stares in disbelief for a long moment at the photograph before making a remark.
“You’re right Matt. He sure looks like our man, doesn’t he? Still, how could it be him? He looks the same age in 1933, as he did when I saw him at the launch pad at Cape Canaveral back in 1986. I guess I don’t exactly know what to think now.” He seems very bewildered.
“Yes, and he looks the same today as he did in all of the rest of the photographs I’ve found, including the ones from the Civil War. Somehow he knows we are aware of not only his deeds of murder, but also the photographs in history he has posed for. He knows that he has been found out. The scary thing is that he has eliminated others in the past, long before they got this close to the truth.
Just like you said Steve, he most likely plans to eliminate you and me for the same reason. He’s got to if he wants to stay in the shadows. It is just a matter of when and where.”
“By the way, how in the world did you get a copy of The Herald way down here?” I wonder.
“I make it my business to keep up on what’s going on Matt, if I am going to stay alive.”
“You say you were an FBI agent assigned to NASA.”
“That’s right.”
“What was it again that you did at NASA?”
“Basically agents are assigned to security, and they investigate any possible threats or sabotage to the program. The day the Challenger exploded I was assigned to the launch area. I was making sure that no one was in the area that wasn’t supposed to be there. That’s when I observed our gentleman in the photos shooting down the shuttle. “
“By the way, I have some posters of the last flight of the Challenger I brought with me. I thought you might like to see them.” I I pull out the posters and invite his attention.
Riker contemplates each photo of the Challenger flight in silence, his eyes continue to widen until the entire whites of his eyeballs are revealed.
“Where in the world did you get these?” he asks, his eyes still glued to the posters.
“Actually they came from a video tape I bought at that Seattle History exhibition. I took the tape in and had some of the frames made into posters.”
“Boy, that must have cost you a few dollars,” he remarks, looking a little uneasy about the whole thing.
“Yes, in fact you could say that the cost of those posters just about cost me my job.” I pause for a minute while he studies that last poster in his hand.
“Well, what do you think?”
“The day the Challenger took off, NASA of course took photographs of the shuttle fr
om every conceivable distance and angle possible. They even took photos from satellites a hundred miles above the Earth.
After the explosion we took all of the photographs available and began our own investigation. It didn’t take us long to figure out what had actually happened”
“You mean that the shuttle had not blown up but it had been shot down, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well if that is true, why didn’t the media know about it?”
“Do you realize what kind of ripple effect that sort of information would have had on the general population of the United States, or the world for that matter? The President gave the order to muffle it until we knew for sure who the perpetrator or perpetrators or possible terrorists were.”
“Well, tell me Steve, what exactly did you actually see happen that morning of the launch?” I question him.
“On the morning just prior to the launch of the Challenger, I was driving around the launch area, patrolling. I parked the car so I could watch the launch, about a mile away from the launch pad. The shuttle blasted off as usual. It was a perfect routine launch.
Then about 300 yards to the south of me I saw what looked like an arch of light shoot from the ground up to the sky. The light only lasted about a second or two. It was a curious kind of light. I had never seen anything like it before in my life.”
“Like a laser light?” I ask.
“No, it was more like the intense brightness of when someone arch welds a piece of metal, only this was a beam or arch instantly flashing up into the sky in a straight line.”
“What did you do?”
“I got back in the car and started to drive over to where the light came from.
“On my way over to where the light had originated from, I got a call on my radio. The control room was warning everyone in the area that the shuttle in fact had blown up and to beware of falling shuttle fragments and debris that was falling back to Earth. All security personnel were given the order to secure the area. I continued to drive my jeep towards the area of the light.”
Wyatt, Richard Page 26
