by James Grady
In 1949, he checked into Bethesda Naval Hospital—the medical factory that decades later housed Zane. At 2 a.m. on a May Sunday, pajama-clad Forrestal stopped hand-copying a Sophocles poem praising death after writing the fragment “night” from “nightingale,” tip-toed from his secured-window room to an unguarded kitchen, took a screen off a window… and jumped outside, sky diving 13 stories into the great darkness.
America bestowed his name on a government building and an aircraft carrier.
Not all big shots who meltdown are famous. Few people can name the cabinet official from the Ford Administration who hit the fence. President Gerry Ford, who loved cottage cheese with ketchup, took over the Presidency after oh-so-sane Dick Nixon skipped town ahead of the law in a Marine helicopter. A Ford cabinet prince lost it one Friday afternoon when a newspaper shark caught scent of blood the prince had shed sheltering a friend from America’s Watergate posse. While Zane was locked in Bethesda Naval Hospital and car radios played Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run, the cabinet prince drifted to the White House black pole iron fence, begged perplexed Secret Service guards to let him in so he could get the hell out of Dodge. His resignation was accepted.
No building or aircraft carrier bears his name.
Then, years before my first suicide, along came Vincent W. Foster.
July 20, 1993. Vincent Foster ate lunch at his White House desk. He had a cheeseburger, French fries, a Coke, and M&M candies. Told staff members: “I’ll be back.” He drove his car to Fort Marcy Park in nearby Virginia, turned off his pager, sat on the grass near a Civil War memorial cannon, and shot himself in the head.
Officially (after $30 million dollars worth of investigations), Foster killed himself because of despondency over his failures to protect his friends President William Clinton and future Senator Mrs. Hillary Clinton from the sharks of Washington, D.C., where, Foster said, “ruining people is considered sport.”
No building or aircraft carrier bears his name.
Conspiracy theories cast him as a key player in covert wars for power in America.
James Vincent Forrestal.
Vincent Foster.
Victor is my name.
Tell me three “V”s are coincidence. I like cheeseburgers and Coke, not Pepsi. Eat M&Ms. I write poetry. Have been a player in covert wars for America. Worried about how ‘they’ were scheming to terrorize us.
Making connections is a condition of sanity.
My first suicide took place on a sunny day at CIA headquarters. I wore a black linen suit tailor-made for me in Hong Kong. My tie was a soft silver striped with black lines given to me by an ex-lover. Not Derya. My shirt was Oxford blue.
The Director Of Central Intelligence, the head of the CIA who back in those days was also nominally in charge of the rebellious, multi-fiefdom republic known as America’s intelligence community, had just shown me my medal. Unlike Truman and Forrestal, the DCI didn’t pin the medal on my suit. Unlike Zane, they didn’t give it to me to keep, though like Zane’s honor, my boxed medal is secret. We dozen people present shook hands and smiled. No one took photographs. We were all some level of spy.
My boss’s boss looked at me, said: “We think you should take some time off.”
“OK,” I said.
“Don’t worry,” said my boss. “You’ll be back.”
Like Vince Foster, I said: “I’ll be back.”
Aides ushered us from the DCI’s seventh floor office.
A cool rush of outside air swept over me as I stood in the DCI’s outer office while my boss and his boss and other Agency hotshots lingered behind to grab a few heartbeats of precious face time with the man who ruled their careers. I glanced to my left.
Tarps covered the secretaries’ empty desks in the outer office.
Tarps like shrouds.
Waves of cool outside air came from the huge windows in the outside wall—windows without any glass. The curtains were wide open. The sky was bright blue.
Without a word I sprinted toward that wall of sky. Leapt on a tarped-desk and sprang straight out to the big blue seven stories above the earth.
Fell 12 feet. Hit the motorized scaffold rising up from below with the replacement pane of bulletproof, anti-eavesdropping glass. Slammed on to that wooden platform so hard two workers holding the new pane dropped it. The pane bounced when it hit the concrete six stories down. My crash flipped one worker over the scaffold rail.
Stunned, gasping, I saw him go and instinctively grabbed his shirt.
His tumble pulled me off the wildly swinging scaffold and we fell together.
He grabbed me.
And he, of course, wore a safety harness. His safety line jerked tight as his legs scissored around me. His arms hugged me to his chest. We bounced up and down like a yo-yo on the side of the CIA’s glass walls.
The only thought my jarred brain could form was: Caught.
18
Our meds slacked off at dawn as we neared Bath.
Zane drove our stolen Jeep. The radio played the Good Morning Maine show. Vents blasted hot air to where I huddled on the front passenger seat inside the topcoat Russell’d scrounged. My flight jacket in the cargo bay filled the vehicle with the scent of wet leather. My pants were drying on the dashboard. Zane wore only his boxer shorts and his decades-old khaki Army shirt. Running the heater full blast to heal me was risky: Don’t let Zane get hot!
The highway swooped on to a half-mile long bridge spanning the valley where the Kennebec river empties into a bay. When my Dad came home from fighting in Korea, Bath was one of America’s smokestack cities. Progress poisoned that culture, though on this 21st Century April morning, the bay still boasted sea-going shipping. From those docks rose a beastly steel T, a wondrous 15-story tall industrial crane.
Hanging from the crane’s long steel arm were our five bodies.
Ropes around our necks. Arms dangling. Swaying high above water in the chilly morning light. The eyes of my corpse flicked open. The lynched faces of Zane and Eric, Russell and Hailey popped their eyes open. They watched us drive past on the bridge.
“Listen!” said Zane, as he spun up the volume dial on the radio.
“…a traffic mess for the folks up north! First, there’s the clean-up of an accident where a Mom and two kids were pulled from their wrecked car by a good Samaritan who then vanished. Plus, state police have blocked off Route 703 while they work to recover a stolen car that crashed into the Reiss river last night. No word on any occupants of that car. In sports—”
Zane spun the volume down.
“Cover story,” I said, thought: Don’t tell the others about our hanging corpses. They’ll see what they’ll see soon enough. “The Firm’s nailed some kind of lid on us.”
“Cover-up,” said Russell. “But now the Agency is stuck with it. The CIA’s cover story will work like blinders on all regular cops. The Agency can’t make their lies to the press too different from their lies to non-CIA badges because local cops leak.”
“But not to us,” said Zane. “We need more intell. Or at least coffee.”
The Jeep swooped down a long exit ramp, caught a green light and carried us through a zone of warehouses and factories. The arrow on a traffic sign told us CITY CENTER was straight ahead, so Zane wisely turned left.
A motorcycle cop loomed standing in the road a block ahead. A blue light spun on his Harley parked crossways on the median stripe. The cop wore a white helmet, shiny black nylon jacket, mirror sunglasses that reflected our coming-towards-him Jeep.
“Ambush!” yelled Russell.
“No!” Zane slowed the Jeep. “Not here, not now, not this way. Too random.”
The black-gloved gun hand of the motorcycle cop beckoned us.
“Get your pants on,” Zane told me, but I was already pulling those damp, clingy trousers over my scratched-up bare legs. He passed me our pistol.
Hailey sent her dark wrap forward for Zane to drape over his bare legs.
The motorcycle cop beckoned us ever closer.
Don’t do it! I willed to the cop as I gripped the pistol. Don’t make me do it!
As our Jeep slowed to a crawl, Zane told me: “Don’t let ’m see you’re hurtin’.”
He braked the Jeep to a full stop. Lowered his window.
The cop swaggered to us. Radio calls crackled from the mobile unit on his belt.
Zane smiled. “How you doing, officer?”
Reflections of Eric and Hailey and Russell slid across the cop’s sunglasses. I saw my drowned rat self in those lenses. But when they stopped moving, what filled those mirrors was the image of a white-haired, white bearded driver wearing an old Army shirt.
The cop pointed to a red curbed bus stop. “Park it over there, sir.”
“Sure.”
The cop watched our Jeep park, waved another car to drive on past.
Hailey said: “‘Sir’?”
“Look at the people on the sidewalks,” said Russell. “Ordinary Wednesday morning, business, tradesmen, going this way and that. But see those other people all hurrying the same direction? Men, women—there’s a lady holding hands with two kids who should be going to school. That guy’s got just shined shoes.”
“Walking like they’re going somewhere,” said Eric.
Zane struggled into his still-damp pants. Cold worked for him.
The cop directed a CITY WORKS pickup truck full of white sawhorse barriers further down the street we’d been traveling. Turned his mirror glasses toward us.
“Get out of the Jeep,” I said. “We gotta go where we’re expected.”
“Not good,” said Russell as we stood on the sidewalk. “Broad daylight. Middle of town. Out on the street. No back-up. No evac route. No idea what’s what.”
“Nobody’s gunning for us,” I said. Nodded to the cop. “Least, not him.”
We flowed with the strangers headed to the intersection city workers had blocked with white barricades. Stood amidst quiet citizens who couldn’t all be secret agents.
“It’s a parade,” said Russell.
“No,” said a gray-haired woman in a worn cloth coat.
They were both right.
First came the honor guard. Men my father’s age. Even older men, two of them pushing a comrade in a wheelchair. They wore blue blazers and rectangular caps, gold braid; one had pinned up his empty left sleeve. They valiantly failed to march in step with three National Guardsmen who bore the flags for the State of Maine and America. Behind this honor guard tramped a dozen younger men and three women who wore a hodgepodge of military gear—jackets, shirts like Zane’s, caps, what was left of uniforms that they could still get into. The Dad came next. His blue suit was crumpled. The Mom’s black dress hung loose. They clung to a rein of a dark horse who clumped along behind them pulling the cart with its red-white-and-blue American flag draped coffin.
What struck me in that crowded city street was the silence. Silence broken only by a whisper of wind. By the clomping of a horse. By the creak of cart wheels.
Though maybe he was talking about more than spies, Zane whispered to us: “Never forget that what we do matters.”
“Gotta be worth it,” muttered Hailey.
Shivering, I said: “We gotta go.”
The Jeep took us to a trailer park neighborhood on the edge of town. A Mom & Pop convenience store had a window sign proclaiming: COFFEE! We bought newspapers, go-cups of java, boxes of donuts. Held our War Room picnic in the Jeep parked near a wrecking yard where skeletons of cars were stacked like pancakes.
“Nothing,” said Zane after skimming the newspapers. “Nothing in the Bangor or Portland or Bath papers, nothing in the Boston Globe. Nothing about us. No ‘Psychiatrist Dies of Heart Attack.’ No ‘Bizarre Drug Murders at Maine Motel.’ After the roadblock, the Firm regained control.”
“No vibe from that cop suggested an alert out for five freaks,” said Russell.
“Could come later,” said Hailey. “Even if the Agency has spun the cops, they’ll alert Homeland Security or the FBI or whoever’s in charge of something like us.”
“Never been something like us,” I said.
Russell shrugged: “Hell, since the 9/11 Commission caught them not talking to each other, I bet the Agency and Bureau are even more freaky about sharing stuff, but—”
He slammed his mouth shut. All of them reddened with embarrassment.
I ignored that, said: “We’re a secret the Agency wants to keep.”
Zane shook his head. “Who knew we were so important?”
“It ain’t about us,” said Russell. “Maybe it’s about keeping the Castle secret.”
“No,” said Hailey. “It’s about keeping Top Secret that they fucked up, lost control and two people died.”
“Plus they let five maniacs escape into America,” said Russell. “Bosses believe that getting caught as responsible for a mess is worse than the mess itself.”
“So,” he added, “that means we’re a problem to hide or disappear, not fix.”
“But,” I said, “that works for us. Feels like they’ve tied FBI or Homeland Security desk warriors with hands-off orders, and honest cops with believing lies that won’t backfire if they’re leaked. If we’re still such a secret, then our real hunters are hiding, too. Which means they’re limited.”
“They’ll have maps on a wall,” said Zane. “Circles of escape time estimates.”
“So we fuck with their strategies,” I said. “They know we’re running south. So let’s go to ground. I’m beat to shit, shaking from the river and cut up from the car wreck. We all need to sleep. Plus… What if we detour for a strategic Recon?”
“Six days,” said Hailey. “We’ve only got six days.”
“If we don’t use our time smart, doesn’t matter how much we have,” I said.
Russell said: “What do you mean ‘detour’?”
“And ‘Recon’ what?” said Zane.
So I told them where. And why.
We found a hospital where no way could we black bag the pharmacy, but where there was a multi-layered parking lot. We took a ticket from the machine, the crossbar lifted and we drove to an unguarded level. Eric and Russell jacked a gold four door Toyota. Zane switched the new vehicle’s plates with the set from a Mercedes. When we drove out, all the bored parking lot attendant saw was the $2 charge on her screen.
Hailey looked embarrassed as she stood next to Russell at the vertical motel 10 miles out of town. Russell casually leaned close to the registration clerk, casually asked for two adjoining rooms: “Not on the same floor as the rest of the MWA Symposium.” The clerk knew nothing about any symposium. Looked at Russell. Looked at Hailey. Took Dr. F’s credit card and casually agreed that since Russell was paying in cash for both rooms—“expense account issues”—he’d run the card as a security deposit but not charge it. Hailey and Russell took their room keys, rode the elevator to the fourth floor. Russell came down, parked the gold Toyota out back, went up to his room.
Zane, Eric and I snuck in the side entrance, followed the stairwell to the fourth floor, waited until the cleaning woman’s cart stood deserted in the hall. Presto, we were in two adjoining motel rooms with four real beds and eight hours until dark.
“You’re the walking wounded,” Zane told me, assigned the others their guard duty shifts and sent me to bed.
I stared out the motel window to the tops of spring trees. Almost like I was back in my room at The Castle, waiting for the day’s lone tear to trickle down my cheek.
Only here, I wasn’t alone.
Outside that glass waited a giant beast of a crane.
With our five hanging corpses.
19
The sound of scissors woke me before I got caught b
y my nightmares.
My motel room was dark. Light glowed under the closed bathroom door. The bed beside mine was empty. Hailey stood sentry at the window overlooking the parking lot and highway. She turned as I woke, said: “Nothing.” Went back to watching the night. A glance into the connected room to my left showed me one empty bed while on the other were a man’s legs: Russell.
Snip!
Zane sat naked on the lowered toilet seat, a white towel covering his groin. Even though he was long past 50, Zane was a rope. His wrinkles were tight from our daily gung fu workouts plus weight lifting like a lifer in prison. Instead of tattoos, he had scars.
And when I opened the bathroom door, he had no long white hair, no Jesus beard.
Eric held a pair of scissors as he stood behind Zane.
Who said: “We got them from a sewing kit left in the Jeep. How do I look?”
“Real,” came out of my mouth. “Like an eagle with a cap of white feathers.”
“I could shave it all off.”
“No,” I said. “A cue ball is as memorable as a white mane Jesus.”
“We’ll flush all the hair. Hailey and Eric are ready. You can shower after me.”
Behind me, Russell filled the doorway. His eyes met mine in the mirror above the sink. And the gun. Russell said: “Time.”
20
New York city’s night skyline filled our windshield seven highway hours after we left our Maine motel. Black slabs of skyscrapers dappled with window lights rose majestically into the indigo night air, but as we entered the city above Central Park, what filled our eyes were two pillars of empty sky.
Our strategic detour to NYC required us to do our Recon before we went to ground and before the streets filled with morning rush hour bedlam, but at that moment, we needed to get out of our vehicle, stretch, breathe fresh air.
Dawn painted Manhattan a magic rosy glow as we parked the stolen Toyota on an upper Central Park street. The sidewalks we walked were deserted. We drifted apart so no random witnesses saw ‘a group.’ Strolling with Russell on one side of an avenue, Zane and Eric half a block behind us, I glanced across the empty road to Hailey.
