by Marc James
“You are Jacob’s mole, you will not get away with any of this.”
Chapter 81
David reached the telephone after the third ring.
“Hello.”
“David is that you?”
“Faraday thank God, are you okay?”
David could hear men shouting in the background.
“I’m alive. I’m with Chase and Will.”
“Will?” David asked in surprise.
“He saved us. David you need to get in touch with Howard Hughes, we need a flight out of here.”
“Are you in Havana?”
“We are at the airport but its chaos, we can’t get a flight anywhere. Government officials are being shot in the street and half of the town is on fire.”
“I’ll get someone down there right away.”
As David replaced the receiver he was unsure as to who he should call. He knew he should probably phone Abaddon or Hughes, but since he had just got Bobby back on side perhaps Kennedy would be the better choice.
He stared at the phone for a minute before he eventually decided to call Kennedy.
“Mr President, it’s David.”
“David how are you?” Kennedy sounded delighted.
“Good sir and you?”
“We have been given a gift today David. That bastard is out of Cuba.”
David had not heard Kennedy this cheery all year. “That’s actually why I’m calling, Faraday called. He, Chase and Will are at the airport in Havana. They need to get out.”
“They are all alive?” Kennedy asked, sounding slightly surprised.
“Yes.”
“Excellent. I will send a plane for them.”
Chapter 82
The plane had been in the air for little over an hour. Faraday had managed to change his clothing, but he had not been able to wash, so he still smelled awful. He had been able to dress in US military uniform, it was all they had had on the plane.
He looked at Chase who was asleep on the chair across the aisle, he too smelled disgusting, but his main problem was that he had lost his mind. Will was sitting in the chair facing Faraday, they had barely spoken since getting on the plane. Will had a nasty cut above his eyebrow that was still bleeding.
“Why did you come for me?” Faraday eventually asked.
“It was the right thing to do.” Will replied.
“How did you know where we were?”
“I spoke to Sidney Gottlieb, he told me that you were being held captive in Havana, so I took the flight with the doctor that hypnotised Chase. He told me something about David.”
Faraday froze, if Will knew then Bobby would know. “What did he tell you?” Faraday asked knowing the answer.
“He is going to assassinate Martin Luther King.”
Faraday was scared now. “Does Bobby know?”
“Bobby fired me.” Will snapped.
“Are you going to tell him?”
Will was surprised by the reaction. “Did you know this?”
“No.” Faraday replied hastily.
“You don’t want Bobby to find out?”
Faraday could feel himself blushing. “I never said that.”
“But you don’t, it’s obvious.”
“I would rather speak to David first.” Faraday lied.
Will looked puzzled. “Why?”
“He’s my friend and Bobby would kill him.”
“So you will let him kill Martin Luther King?”
“No, but I want to speak to him. Maybe Gottlieb was lying.”
Will shook his head in disbelief. “Do what you want, I’m not part of this anymore. I’ll stay quiet if you give me your word that I will never see you again.”
Faraday stared at Will. “Did you rape her?”
“Why would you even think that?”
“Just answer the question.” Faraday snapped.
It was Will who blushed this time. “No.”
“I have your word on that?”
Will nodded.
“Since you saved me and Chase, and as long as you stay quiet about David, then you have my word that I won’t come after you. It’s over.”
Will almost smiled. “It’s over.” He repeated.
Chapter 83
In the months following the Cuban revolution, things in America began to return to normal. Bobby Kennedy’s approval ratings were now up to 60%. Whilst they were certainly not as high as they had once been, given the turmoil that had ensconced his Presidency at the beginning of the year, things seemed to be improving.
It was the 18th July 1969, as Bobby ordered the round of drinks for the table. They were attending a party on the small island of Chappaquiddick, Massachusetts. It was a party hosted by Teddy Kenney, celebrating the staff who served during Bobby Kennedy’s re-election campaign. They had been having a nice evening, but Teddy was beginning to let the drink take over him again.
Bobby returned to the table with the drinks and put the tray down. David, Faraday, Abaddon, Bobby Kennedy and Ethel took their drinks, as Bobby retook his seat and sipped his beer. The distrust that had once threatened to destroy this group of friends was now long gone. Bobby saw Faraday lighting a cigarette and followed his example. He took a deep pull and listened as Ethel spoke.
“Look at him, he’s all over her.” She said, shaking her head.
President Kennedy looked at his brother in disgust.
“I guess the marriage problems aren’t any better.” Faraday commented, before taking a sip from his beer. He was now drinking on a regular basis despite the liver damage.
“He’s too much like Jack.” Kennedy replied.
Bobby turned to see what Teddy was doing and saw that he was practically groping a young woman. “Who is she?” He asked.
“Mary Jo Kopechne. Lovely girl.” Ethel replied.
“So are you all prepared for the Moon landing?” Faraday asked.
Abaddon smiled. “Preparations are coming along well, aren’t they David?”
“Very well.” He smiled.
The Apollo 11 rocket had been launched two days previously.
They were interrupted as Teddy and Mary Jo staggered over to the table.
“We are going to leave.” Teddy announced.
“Together?” Ethel replied.
“I’m just dropping Mary Jo off at home.” He shot back.
“You’re not driving are you?” Bobby Kennedy asked.
Teddy laughed. “I’ll get my driver.”
“Good.” Bobby Kennedy replied.
Teddy and Mary Jo staggered from the room, it was 23:15.
“You need to talk to him.” Ether warned.
“I have, he doesn’t listen.”
“Virginia is pregnant and he is out drinking and sleeping with any woman in sight. He should be ashamed of himself.” Ethel declared.
There was an awkward silence around the table. Bobby Kennedy eventually broke it.
“Speaking of women, we need to find Bobby and Abaddon a date.”
Bobby blushed and Abaddon laughed. “I’m alright without the hassle.” Abaddon replied.
“What about you Bobby? Plenty of pretty girls here tonight?” David suggested.
“He’s already found a girl.” Faraday joked.
“Who?” Ethel replied, intrigued.
“He’s talking nonsense.” Bobby replied feeling embarrassed.
“He likes that journalist.” Faraday said.
“Shut up.” Bobby instructed.
“Which journalist?” Abaddon asked.
“Sarah Salmond.” Faraday replied.
Bobby was mortified. He finished his drink quickly. “I am going to call it a night.”
“I think that’s a good idea.” Abaddon agreed.
“We should be getting home.” Ethel said.
Faraday and David shared a look. It was early enough yet. As the others got their coats and left, Faraday moved over to the seat beside David.
“Do you reckon he’ll ever ask her out?” Fara
day asked.
David shook his head. “He’s never even had a girlfriend.”
“He should ask her. I never thought Jane would go out with me, but she did.” Faraday followed this with a drunken smile.
“How are you feeling Faraday?”
“I miss her. Every day I see something that reminds me of her.”
“Have you had anymore of those dreams?”
“Yes, Nancy keeps on visiting me, but Jane isn’t ready to see me yet.”
“Do you think it really is her?”
“It could be, when Kennedy visited me in Dallas he told me that you were all in danger.”
“So you think it was the wormhole?”
“It would make sense, Bobby doesn’t age and you don’t sleep. Maybe I can talk to dead people.”
David nodded. “Have you decided where you want to go?”
Faraday shook his head. “I just can’t fathom how I could save Jane. If I go back and save her from the car bomb, then I would never have helped Abaddon, and so I wouldn’t be able to enter the wormhole in order to save her. If I go to the future and stop her from going to Loch Ness, then I wouldn’t go through the wormhole to find her. It just makes no sense.”
“Well you have a point, but remember Nancy and Clint were Bobby’s grandmother and father. He only went through the wormhole because he tried to kill himself after Nancy died. But now he can never be born, so how is he here?”
Faraday took a sip from his beer as he considered this. “So do you think this is some parallel time line?”
“I have no idea.” David admitted.
“Do you think you can save Sharon?”
“Saving Sharon would not actually affect anything I have done. If she doesn’t get on the helicopter, but I do, then I would still enter the wormhole and I would still have been transported back here. And I would still want to get back so that I can be with her.”
Faraday nodded in agreement. “Has Abaddon told you how much longer we have to wait?”
“He said we will both be gone by the end of this year.”
“Do you trust him?” Faraday asked.
“What choice do we have?”
Chapter 84
Bobby was late in reaching his office the following day, it was around noon when he finally took his seat. He had planned on finally studying through the COINTELPRO files that Hoover had kept concerning Bobby, Faraday and David. He had been so busy trying to trace Jacob Cohen and authorising surveillance on Black Panther members, that he hadn’t had the chance to read them. He opened the box that was placed on his desk, but before he could begin he was interrupted by the ring of the telephone.
“Hello, Bobby Stinson.”
“Bobby!” Teddy Kennedy said frantically.
“Teddy are you alright?”
“Bobby the Kennedy’s are cursed.”
“What’s wrong Teddy?”
There was silence on the line.
“Teddy?”
“Jesus Christ, Bobby.”
“Talk to me?” Bobby said, beginning to worry.
“She’s dead Bobby.”
“Who?”
“Mary Jo, she’s dead.”
Bobby did not reply, he couldn’t remember who Mary Jo was. “Who?”
“The girl from the party.” Teddy replied hurriedly.
“What do you mean she’s dead? You said you were just taking her home?”
“Bobby, I don’t know what to do.”
“Where are you Teddy?”
“I’m at the police station.”
“What happened?”
“I was driving”
“You idiot! You were in no state to drive Teddy!” Bobby interrupted.
“My driver was still eating when we left.” Teddy offered by way of an explanation.
“Why didn’t you just wait?” Bobby snapped.
“I don’t know Bobby. I was driving towards the ferry but I turned onto Dike Road by accident. It’s unpaved and unlit, I couldn’t figure out where we were. We got to this bridge and the car went over into the water.”
“Fucking hell.” Bobby interjected.
“The car landed upside down in the water. I managed to swim free and I thought she had as well. But when I got to the shore I couldn’t see her.”
“So what did you do?”
“Well I called out for her and tried to swim back to the car, but I couldn’t.”
“Okay?”
“So I rested on the shore for a little while.”
“You took a fucking break! Teddy are you out of your mind?”
“I know, I don’t know why I did it. I went back to the party.”
“Teddy why didn’t you just call the police?”
“Well I thought maybe she had escaped the car and gone back to the party.”
“Teddy, I honestly am struggling to believe this.”
Teddy was silent for a moment. “So I got a couple of guys from the party and we went back to the water. We all tried to swim down and save her but none of us could do it.”
“So did you call the police?”
“No I thought that she was probably okay, so I swam back to the hotel.”
“You swam?!”
“Yes, by the time I got there I was exhausted, so I fell asleep.”
“Without phoning the police!” Bobby yelled.
“Well I got up this morning and thought about phoning the police, but the car had already been found by a couple of fishermen. The police got her out of the car, but she was dead.”
“Jesus, Teddy how could you have been so stupid!”
“I panicked.”
“Teddy you killed that poor girl. Have you told your brother?”
“Not yet.” Teddy replied.
“I honestly have no idea what to do.”
“I spoke with my attorneys and they told me I would receive a suspended sentence. I gave a statement to the police, I think we could keep this quiet.”
“Teddy the media will be all over this. You drunkenly crashed the car with a girl who isn’t your wife, and you fled the scene!”
Teddy was silent.
“I mean for Christ’s sake Teddy, your wife is pregnant!”
“I didn’t call for a lecture Bobby! I need advice!”
“You need advice? Stop sleeping around, stop getting hammered and don’t drive when you are drunk. You will have to step down as Attorney General.”
“Come on Bobby, there is no need for that.”
“Do you really think your brother will allow you to continue in the post?”
“I made a mistake.” Teddy tried.
“Teddy this has nothing to do with me. The police are dealing with it and your brother will decide your fate. Don’t expect me to defend you.” Bobby slammed down the receiver in his rage.
Chapter 85
David Lewis stood silently beside Clint Hill as they watched the professionals at work. Stanley Kubrick and Howard Hughes were rushing around the studio putting the finishing touches on the set. The set was undoubtedly impressive, but there were a few issues that David had pointed out.
There were wires everywhere. He had mentioned this to Stanley, but he had been ignored. They were to be used to allow the astronauts to perform the long jumps that would be possible on the Moon, due to the lower level of gravity. The black screens around the set had no stars on them, Howard Hughes had explained that it was impossible to chart the position of every star, and if they made a mistake, the video would be discovered to be a hoax.
They were shooting the video high in the Hollywood hills. The astronauts had been required to stay in the studio since Apollo 11 had been launched, they hadn’t even been allowed to tell their families that they were heading to Hollywood, rather than the Moon. The astronauts were still in the makeshift living quarters that had been arranged for them. David had been amazed to see that Stanley Kubrick had written a script for the astronauts, it was he who had coined the historic saying “One small step for man, one giant leap for man
kind.”
David was unsure as to how to react to Stanley, he seemed like a nice enough man but he held some odd beliefs. He was in his early forties and had dark brown hair with a dark brown beard. He was a Jewish man, but he had actually mentioned during their first meeting that he thought Hitler had done almost everything right. Hitler had come up in conversation after the announcement that Wernher Von Braun had been given the death sentence, for war crimes and treason. Stanley also seemed to be critical of America in general, which made David wonder why he had agreed to help stage the Moon landing.
David watched on as Howard Hughes and Stanley Kubrick bickered about the lunar module.
“We have to make it look as though there is a crater underneath the module.” Howard instructed.
“That wouldn’t happen Howard. The Moon is solid rock.”
“But it is covered in a layer of dust, when we walk on this, we leave footprints. It would look insane if there were footprints but no disturbance where the module has landed.”
“When a plane touches down it does not cause a crater.” Stanley argued.
“People will expect a crater.” Howard argued.
“Well we can explain it away. All we have to say is that with lower levels of gravity, we didn’t require as much thrust when we landed.”
Howard was silenced by this reasoning. Both men began walking towards Clint and David, Howard tripped over one of the fake Moon rocks, but managed to stay on his feet.
“Are we ready?” Clint asked eagerly.
Both men nodded.
“I’ll go and get the stars of the show.” David said.
He walked away from the three men and out of the studio, it genuinely did feel as though the studio was the Moon. It was incredibly realistic. He walked to the astronaut’s living quarters and knocked on the door.
It was Michael Collins who opened it, he was not dressed in his space suit, as he would not be walking on the Moon, he was to be the astronaut that stayed aboard Apollo 11. But he still had to be kept out of sight.
“Are we ready?” Michael asked.
David nodded.
Michael held the door open for Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, who were both dressed in space suits. They walked slowly through to the studio, they seemed slightly nervous.
Everyone took their positions, David stood beside Clint and Michael, as Howard and Stanley directed Buzz and Neil.
