SILVER-2 (NORRIS FILES)

by Marshall Huffman

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  "Ladies and Gentlemen, if I can have your attention."

  The men and women setting around the table let the conversation die.

  "Thank you. I know this meeting is out of the ordinary and will cause a little discomfort for some of you, but the problems and differences that exist between our two agencies must be put aside, at least for now," said Ron Nielson, the director of OPS3.

  "I will be blunt and to the point. We have been ordered to work to together on a series of events that have been taking place over the past year and a half. Ordered, is the operative word here. Both Director Johnson of the F.B.I. and I have clear marching orders as to what needs to be accomplished. We have agreed that no one will be allowed to showboat. Any prima donnas will be relieved immediately. We are in full agreement on this."

  "Ron is quite right. Our orders are to cooperate or else. I didn't ask what the 'or else' meant. I didn't want to know."

  "So, I will bring you up to speed on what we have put together so far. A great deal of this is speculation but a pattern is starting to develop. For the past fourteen months we have seen a marked increase in assassinations. They have ranged in everything from homosexuals activist, sexual freedom activist and even radical environmentalist. We have had thirteen suspected assassinations in the time period. Of this amount, eleven have the exact same MO.

  We currently believe they have all been done by the same person. We are dealing with a very special person here. What evidence we have so far I can sum up quickly. Damn little. I can tell you that that the range is usually between 1000 and 1400 yards."

  A murmur ran through the people seated at the table. 1400 yards was a pretty challenging distance.

  "The weapon appears to be based on the .338 Lapua Magnum. We believe he is using an Accuracy International AWSM sniper rifle. Each bullet evidently is hand modified. They are then hollowed out and a small amount of mercury is placed in the cavity. The base is then resealed. When the bullet is fired the mercury is forced to the back of the bullet and upon impact slams forward exploding the projectile. The damage is massive. We have recovered one bullet that appears to have had the base seal break and the mercury leak out. Our person likes to shoot for the head. Unusual for a professional. Most like to center in on the heart area for the obvious reasons. 1400 yards right through the head. Hell of a shooter," with that, he turned the briefing over to Director Johnson.

  "So what do we have here? We think the person is ex-military. Any good army trains assassins. We need to find the person and put them away. 10 of the 11 targets that we suspect this shooter hit, were political activist or in a position to influence the government in one way or another. Only one, what's his name?"

  "James Worth."

  "Right, James Worth. We can't link him to much really, unless he just pissed someone off and they decided to blow him away for the hell of it. I'll say this; it was a hell of a shot. So what do we have here? Some hired gun that is working for a person or group of persons? Or is this just some wack-o who sees themselves as defenders of truth, justice and the American Way?

  “Uh..that would be Superman’s job,” someone blurted out.

  “Be as it may, it all boils down to the same thing for our two agencies. Trouble. Right here in River City. We believe that someone contacts our shooter and feeds him the details. He goes out and pops them, and gets paid. That's pure supposition except for the MO and the pattern that seems to recurring. In a nut shell that's about all that we have to date. I know it's not much, but now that our two agencies are going to be working together. We should be able to fill in a lot of gaps and catch this prick. Assuming that it is a guy. Sorry about that ladies," he said acknowledging that several women were in the ranks.

  "Alright," Director Neilson said, picking up the conversation, "I know you all have questions and so now I'll open the floor. Please not all at once."

  A hand shot up immediately.

  "Yes PJ?"

  "Can you tell me how this Assidi assassination fits into all of this? I may just be dumb but it seems to be a totally different scenario and yet the media keeps making it out to be a part of the same person or persons."

  "Good question PJ. There are two main reasons for that. I'll have to tell you that both the F.B.I. and OPS3 are mostly responsible for that misconception. We want it that way. We have done nothing to make them think different. You know how they are. They don't want the truth unless it sells. Sensationalism is what they want, not facts. We have been leaking just enough false information to keep them looking the other direction. The F.B.I. has made some real progress in the Assidi case, and it is politically sensitive. If the press got hold of it, the Bureau feels it would lose any advantage it had in cracking the case. I agree totally. Every day the media spends spinning their wheels is one day closer we come to solving that particular assassination. You are correct. We feel that there is no connection whatsoever."

  "That's good to hear. I thought I was missing something."

  "Rest assured, you’re not. Yes?" he said pointing to another agent.

  "I have one quick one. I don't want to seem like a smart ass or anything but just why is OPS3 even involved in this? Assassinations, unless they are extremely high profile, such as a very high government official, usually cabinet member or higher, don't fall within the realm of you guys."

  "You are?"

  "Sorry, Sean Parker, F.B.I."

  "Actually it is a very good question, Mr. Parker. You are correct in your assessment. Several things have brought us to this crossroad. The political overtones are escalating. It has gone from the assassination of rather routine radicals that love to spout their self-serving cause, to some politically significant figures. In the past seven months, a State Supreme Court Judge, a member of the House of Representatives, a US Senator and most recently, Judge Brooks. Judge Brooks is very high on the White House's list of potential US Supreme Court Judges. That in itself, may well have brought in OPS3. What really tipped the scales was the way in which he was killed."

  "How?" someone asked before he could continue.

  "How indeed? The F.B.I. investigated the case and came up with no known method, other than the fact that he was dead. I'm not trying to make out like they have no idea what they were doing it's just that it was done in a way never seen before. Because our agency was off doing its thing and the F.B.I. was off on its own mission the case seemed unsolvable. Once we joined forces and started sharing information much of the mystery was solved."

  "PJ, from OPS3, has been working on a case that now will shed light on what happened to Judge Brooks. PJ if you would?"

  PJ stood up and pushed his lips together while trying to think about how to bring them all up to speed in a way that made sense.

  "The initial report that I saw filed by the F.B.I. agents said that it looked like he had been internally blown up. It looked like he had literally exploded. They couldn't find one piece of him big enough to identify. They knew it wasn't a car bomb. The only physical evidence they found was a small hole in the windshield.

  OPS3, or specifically my team, has been working on a case that involves the break-in of one of America's most advanced weapons labs. The perps made off with a device known as SILVER-2. In typical military language code it stands for: Strategic Individual Laser Velocity Emitter Rifle. SILVER. The short version is that it is a fancy laser gun, rifle really, that has almost unlimited power. The model that was stolen has a range of 9000 feet with pin point accuracy. According to the lab, it never wounds. If you're hit, you're dead. Targets hit, are unrecognizable. They simply blow apart leaving a sort of burnt yucky goo-like substance behind."

  The room was totally silent. No one even dared to breath heavy. They were all dumfounded. Each agent was trying to come to grips with what they had just heard.

  "Who in the hell would turn such a weapon lose?" someone muttered at last.

  "Yes. Well, the real question is; who has it now?"

  "Some dumbass is running a
round with enough fire power to conquer the world and doesn't even realize it," one of the agents said.

  "I wish that were true. I would say, from what happened to Judge Brooks, they know full well what they have," PJ replied.

  "Man, we are in a world of shit," another agent muttered out loud.

  "Right you are, and that is why OPS3 and the F.B.I are pooling resources. We have been able to formulate a reasonable reconstruction of who and what has gone down. It goes like this," Ron Neilson said picking back up.

  "We now believe the master mind behind the theft of the SILVER-2 is none other than Harmon Wells. The name will ring a bell with most of you older agents and even a few of you younger ones. Harmon Wells, AKA 'The Fixer', AKA 'The Arranger', AKA on and on.

  He is the man most heavily linked with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He was the 'Fixer'. He wasn't the money man, but the guy that put it all together. His name has been associated with not only JFK, but RFK and Martin Luther King as well. Some believe he had a hand in the Malcolm-X slaying. It's hard to tell for sure. That was a crazy time.

  Whatever the truth is, if Harmon Wells is involved, its bad news for us. His most recent alias, as far as we can tell, was Captain Jon Zimmer, Chief of Security for Unitech Labs where the SILVER-2 was created."

  A low mummer ran through the room.

  "Wells dropped out of the picture around 1968. Sources tell us he has been living in Italy and Switzerland. It appears that he has come out of retirement. We don't really know why. Could be money, boredom or any number of things.

  The important thing is that he appears to be back. Wells is ex-military. He was a sniper in Korea and after his discharge, he dropped out of sight. He was not one of the shooters in the JFK assassination. He made the plans and hired the people, but it is very doubtful that he was anywhere near Dallas at the time. He is far too smart for that.

  Wells leaves nothing to chance. Don't get me wrong. Wells is not crazy. He only takes assignments that he personally believes in. He sees himself as a patriot. It doesn't matter what you think, that is his perception. Once committed, he will stop at nothing to redirect the flow of events if he believes it is for the better. Our job is to find out if it really is him.

  Right or wrong has nothing to do with it. We have nothing to indicate that he is on a mission to eliminate the current President but any time a player like Harmon Wells comes out of retirement, something big is up. Much bigger than Judge Brooks.

  This means he has started a new recruitment campaign. The guys he used in the 60's will have been out of it too long to be of much value today. All indications are that he has a new shooter. If it is him, he has supplied them with the most lethal weapon a sniper has ever used. Just who is this new found talent?

  Ladies and gentlemen that is we must find out. Director Johnson and his staff have been working that angle ever since we received our marching orders. Director," he said indicating that it was his show again.

  "Like Mr. Neilson said, as soon as we started working together it made the picture a lot clearer. We have been focusing on the new talent that seems to be responsible for the latest rash of assassinations. As we said earlier, we have attached eleven assassinations to this one individual. We could be wrong and this could be a team, but for now our feeling is that it's one person. I don't want to be a chauvinist, but our guess it's a military man.

  Probably Nam Afghanistan trained. The Marines had the best trained snipers in the world at that time and there were a lot of them. Our initial investigation produced a list several hundred names long. We started to narrow the list down a little at a time. Most of the really top snipers served in Nam between 1965 and 1973. Through hundreds of hours of tracking and backtracking, we are down to a more manageable list."

  The list was passed out to each agent at the table.

  "As you can see, we have it down to 28 names. We have no guarantee that he is on this list or that we didn't miss someone completely, but it's where we are at this point in time.

  In the past four weeks, with the help of the resources of OPS3, we have been able to eliminate 16 more. If you will look on the monitor you can cross off the names listed there. We have a line on three others at this time and they are currently under surveillance. We believe two more are independent contractors working out of the country. That doesn't mean we have eliminated them entirely, but they seem less likely to be involved with Wells.

  That leaves seven unaccounted, possible suspects. A long way from the original list and yet light years from actually catching them. We feel that you have before you, is the cream of the crop. Some of the best killers in the world. All Sniper School graduates, par excellence. Able to hit targets in excess of 1600 yards time and time again. This is where we intend to concentrate our combined efforts. We need to check out the three under surveillance, hunt down and locate the remaining seven in the states, and have our counterparts in Europe and the Middle East check out the remaining two. Is everyone following along?"

  He stopped and looked out at the agents. All were paying attention.

  "Now. This is how it's going to work. PJ Matts, of OPS3, and Sean Parker, of the Bureau, will head up the operation. They will report directly to Mr. Neilson and me. They tell us what they need and it's up to us to get it for them. Sorry, but the rest of you are all relegated to grunts this time. This is not open to debate or petty bickering. We very well could be looking at an assassination attempt on the President of the United States. It damn sure had better not happen or every single one of us will have our asses in a sling. Does everyone understand exactly what has just been said here? Oh, one other thing. No leaks. Each of you in this room has been cleared by either Mr. Neilson or me.

  Everything said in this room is strictly confidential. There will be no internal investigations, if either of us suspect someone of compromising the success of this operation, you will be dismissed on the spot. This is not a threat, simply an explanation of the rules by which we are operating. Any questions?" the Director asked.

  Sure, like someone was going to ask, JP thought to himself.

  "Ah sir, I have just one. How do we protect ourselves from this thing?"

  "Either stay 9001 feet away or be able to run fast. Very, very fast. As a last resort, kiss your ass good-by. Sorry, those are the only options I can think of at this time. Alright people, we have work to do. As they used to say in the Navy," he said holding up the peace sign and flipping his fingers around several times, "Turn to".

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Harmon Wells felt like he had been in this line of work forever. His expertise had always been making difficult arrangements for others. He had become independently wealthy doing so. People were always willing to pay an exorbitant price for someone else to take the risk.

  After several difficult arrangements had been made in the early '60's, his genus came to light when JKF was swept into office. JFK was loved by millions but considered a threat by the people behind the figure head office of the President.

  The rift between the C.I.A. and Kennedy over the lack of support during the Bay of Pigs, was only the first in a long line of conflicts that would ultimately lead to the final solution.

  Kennedy's bitter fight with the steel industry moguls did little to endear him to the powers that be. But most of all, they were not amused by the Kennedy Clan's lack of moral conviction. His romps with the famous Hollywood sex symbol was distasteful and an embarrassment. A disgraceful display that was not in keeping with the highest office in the land. Something had to be done. The talent of Harmon Wells was brought forth. It was decided that she had become a danger to both JFK and RFK and need to be eliminated in such a way as to not implicate the White House in any manner. Wells devised the plan that made sure it was carried out in such a way that the mystery could never be unraveled. The 'Fixer' was born.

  Would it all end there? The powers hoped so. But no. The continued fighting between the White House and both the C.I.A. and J. Edgar Hoover, of the F.B.I. continued
.

  The policy being displayed about the role of the US in Vietnam was a growing issue. Then came the famous, Missiles of October, showdown. How could the Soviets place fortifications just 17 minutes, by missile flight, in our backyard? It was too much. It was time to call in the 'Fixer' and find the solution to this fiasco once and for all.

  When General Duong Van Minh captured and killed Premier Diem in Saigon, with what many felt was the administrations blessing, the operation received its final 'go'. A clear, warm, sunny day on November 22, 1963, became a matter for the history books. A brilliant plan carried out in front of a whole nation and no one would ever know the real truth for decades to come if ever. His 'arrangement' made him a millionaire several times over as well as made him famous in the circle of power that could use his talents.

  Malcolm-X in 1965, Martin Luther King in April of '68', and his last major arrangement on June 6, 1968 saw the circle closing on Wells. Every major agency was aware that a major conspiracy was operation in the United States.

  Despite the Warren Commission's assurance that it wasn't so. Most knew that the Commission was a group of fools, made up by other fools, to try to fool everyone. Few bought into the plan. The agencies investigating the series of events knew it was a sham. The name of Harmon Wells was starting to surface far too many times to be a coincidence.

  Harmon knew his time was running short. He narrowly avoided capture on two separate occasions in 1968. He decided it was time to end his career and left the country to live in South America. The slower pace of Rio had an alluring appeal, but the moral degradation was more than he could tolerate and he soon made his way to Northern Italy. He finally settled in Como, only a short distance from the city of Milano.