Last Witness

by Glen Carter

  Jack looked up to see the stone-like face of Richard Wolff.

  Jack judged the President’s hand was way too steady for a man so recently snatched from death’s maw. They stood eye to eye in the boardroom of Air Force One, along with Kaitlin and Seth, as well as Paul Braithwaite, National Security Adviser Alex Brooster, and the President’s press secretary M.J. Dumont.There were several other faces, but they begged anonymity. Richard Wolff watched from the sidelines.

  “I want to thank you, Jack,” said the President. “It is likely because of you that we’re standing here.”

  Jack was nearly without words. “I’m glad you’re all right, Mister President,” he managed, shaking Denton’s hand.

  Wolff nodded. A gesture that said well done.The agent had been a mystery on their way forward. But now Jack tingled with excitement. Seth had been escorted to the cargo area to collect the rest of his gear. It meant someone needed the CNS crew, and aboard this airplane, the President himself called those shots. That had been confirmed when the door to the boardroom was opened and Frederick Denton rose from his seat to greet the three of them.

  There were smiling faces around the room, though Dumont seemed to be taking more than her fair share of pleasure from the moment. Jack searched her face for clues but found none.

  Denton motioned them towards seats at a finely sculpted executive table. “Coffee?”

  Jack nodded. Kaitlin declined. Seth asked for tea instead. “Earl Grey, if it’s aboard.”

  “I think we can manage that.”

  A moment later a cup was placed soundlessly in front of Jack, along with small porcelain dishes containing cream and sugar. No one else was offered the same service. They just stood there. Waiting. Dumont exited the room without saying a word. It was surreal. Coffee and conversation with the leader of the free world. Fresh from a brush with death. Christ, what was coming next? Alice? The rabbit?

  A moment later, a steaming silver pot of tea was placed on the table in front of Seth, along with duplicate porcelain containers. Seth scratched at the presidential seal as if to convince himself it was real.

  Denton walked to the front of the table and sat. After a moment he began to speak. “As you know,” he said ruefully, “there was an attempt on my life a short time ago in Havana.”

  Everyone listened intently.

  Jack was thinking forward.What was the President going to do? Demand that Kaitlin give up her video. She was closest to Denton when it happened. A witness to Ortega’s final seconds. Kaitlin would not surrender the tape. Even if she could, what difference would it make? The place had been bristling with cameras, most of them live to the world.

  Jack guessed Denton wasn’t used to being told no, though what sworn defender of the Constitution could ignore freedom of the press? What the President said next came as a total surprise.

  Denton looked directly at Kaitlin. “At the risk of sounding really corny, the show will go on. And that’s the reason you’re here.”

  “I’m not following you, sir,” Kaitlin said.

  Denton continued. “What we were trying to accomplish in Cuba today is too important to abandon now, not because of the vile actions of one man.”

  One man. Jack filed that away. What had the administration already learned? No doubt the CIA was on it, in a large way.

  Jack listened.

  “We have every intention of signing the accord worked out between our two nations.”

  Had Jack heard him right? We. There was no we.The other half of we was on a morgue slab somewhere in Havana. Ortega had gone down. Jack was also certain that at that very moment, rogue elements within the Cuban military were likely marshalling to reassert communist rule.Within hours there’d be a face and a name, a new Maximum Leader wearing crisp fatigues and, hell, maybe even the beginnings of a beard.The accord was dead, as dead as Ortega.

  A second later, the boardroom door opened, and an apparition walked in.

  Kaitlin gasped.

  Seth spilled his tea.

  The rabbit had arrived.

  “We’re good to go,” Seth announced, rechecking the cable that ran from his camera to a “drop box” in the bulkhead at the far end of the boardroom. “Natural light’s gonna have to be OK.”

  “Fine,” Kaitlin replied. “How’s the audio?”

  Seth raised his finger. “Gentlemen, a ten count please.”

  President Frederic Denton counted backwards from ten.When he finished, Pilious Ortega did the same.

  “Not bad for a dead man,” Seth whispered.

  Jack stared at him blankly. “Are you colour balanced?

  “Camera’s set.”

  Pilious Ortega was no apparition, but maybe a miracle. He’d gone down all right, but a man on his protection detail had taken the bullet meant for him.

  “A national hero,” Ortega called him. “He will be medaled for his sacrifice. His family will be taken care of.”

  Jack and Kaitlin needed more. And now was the time to get it. This was now an impromptu news conference aboard Air Force One, and they would be the only ones asking the questions.

  Both presidents signalled that they were ready.

  Seth rolled the camera.

  Ortega recounted the hellish seconds on the ground, then being grabbed by Secret Service agents and tossed into the back of the presidential limo.Ortega’smen were quite pissed about that, he said, using other words, of course. The two presidents shared a good-natured chuckle.

  Jack smiled too, and then turned serious. “President Denton, what can you tell us about the attempt on your lives?”

  “Jack, I can tell you that the full force of our nation’s investigative powers has already been tasked to uncover the identity of the plotters. In the fullness of time, I expect to have the answers we all need. Until then, I’m afraid there’s not much I can say.”

  Both Jack and Kaitlin nodded, reasonably satisfied with the answer.

  Kaitlin asked the next question. “President Ortega, you sit here aboard Air Force One, only minutes after an attempt on your life that looked a lot like an attempted coup. Can you tell us that you’re still in control of your country, especially your armed forces?”

  Ortega waited a moment. Gathering his thoughts. When he spoke his voice was calm, his tone confident. “What I can tell you is that through the hospitality of my dear friend, President Denton, I am in close contact with all elements of the Cuban armed forces and I can assure you my government is still very much in control. As President Denton just said, investigators from both our countries have already begun their work in Revolution Square. Unfortunately, it appears that in the moments following the assassination attempt, an explosion at the Interior Ministry building annihilated much of the evidence.Though a body has been recovered, reasonably intact. Several other corpses were discovered at another location.There may be a connection.”

  Denton couldn’t hide his look of surprise.

  “Also,”Ortega continued. “There have been a handful of arrests, the details of which I will not share at this moment.”

  Jack expected the tight lips. No one was going to spill anything yet, including him.There was still much to learn. Though, clearly, it was an attempted overthrow led by hardliners whom Ortega had failed to root out. Frederic Denton had been a target, as well. Vasily Rusakova, aka Marc Poole, had set out to kill two presidents. Driven by money and vengeance.That part of the story would not be revealed yet, but Jack didn’t doubt Wolff would be all ears when it was.

  With a nod from Kaitlin, Jack moved on. “President Denton,” he said. “This is all very unusual, to say the least.This news conference aboard Air Force One.”

  “Just you and us,” Denton replied.

  Simple answer. Jack smiled. “Why are we here?”

  “Because you’re a very important part of what we have to do next,” the President replied.

  Ten minutes after the impromptu news conference, documents were carefully placed in front of the two presidents.

  The d
oor opened, and Kaitlin walked back in.

  Jack knew she was nervous. “You look great,” he said.

  “Jack…”

  Gently, he cut her off. “I just talked to Carmichael.He says break a leg.”

  A communications technician spoke into a headset and nodded. Above their heads, on the upper level of Air Force One, another technician confirmed that a satellite uplink was feeding the image from Seth’s camera. New York had video and audio. CNS anchor Frank Simmons was about to take air. He’d intro the story and then toss to Kaitlin for the first live news conference from Air Force One.

  Jack helped Kaitlin with her earpiece. “Remember,” he said, “This is a story about two men with a dream that couldn’t be destroyed. A dream that began with these two men a long time ago. For once,” he added, “the good guys win.” Jack wanted to say more but thought better of it. She gets it.

  Kaitlin studied her notes, words forming on her lips. Inwardly Jack smiled. She was going to nail this.

  President Denton and Ortega had their heads together, discussing final points before Air Force One went live to the world. No

  mics were to be rendered hot until the news conference actually started. Other than that, the communications people aboard the aircraft would exert no control whatsoever over the feed.That, Kaitlin had demanded and Dumont had given her word.The communications tech nodded and then Kaitlin began to tell the CNS producer on the other end of the line how everything was going to unfold. There’d be a short explainer on where they were and why, and then quickly to tape during which she would describe the dramatic events in Revolution Square. There’d be clips from both presidents from the earlier news conference and, once all major elements had been covered, Kaitlin would invite President Denton to address the nation. After that, the Cuban president would speak and then the documents aligned on the table in front of them would be signed. Kaitlin would then step back into the shot and would summarize everything that had happened. Then she’d throw it back to the anchor desk in New York.

  “Do you understand all of what I’ve just said,” Kaitlin said, knowing that Frank Simmons was likely listening.

  “What about a Q and A?” Simmons broke in. “As the senior anchor, I’ll need to speak with President Denton.”

  “Sorry, Frank. No questions.” Dumont had been clear on that.

  “Where the hell is McCoy,” Simmons replied angrily.

  “Wishing he was here,” Kaitlin replied.

  The communications tech easily assumed the role of studio director. “Sixty seconds,” he said.M.J.Dumont and Alex Brooster took positions behind the presidents while Paul Braithwaite staked out his place off camera.

  President Denton looked over at his old friend and, after a shared moment between them, he placed a hand on Ortega’s shoulder. “Aces and queens, Pilious,” he said, quietly. “This time we all win.”

  Ortega pondered his old friend and with only a minute or so remaining before the start of the live broadcast from Air Force One, while everyone was too busy to notice, he reached inside his jacket and pulled out a photograph. It was a relic that had been long forgotten, contained in a file that was hidden for decades in a vault beneath the General Directorate for State Security in Havana.The name on the file was Julio Rasconi. The photo, which now lay before the President of the United States, had been snapped by a Cuban intelligence officer on November 22, 1963.

  Denton’s eyes widened when he saw it. Then the photograph was quickly spirited away.

  Ortega stared straight ahead and realized sombrely that history was being repeated. Not exactly repeated, but in some respects, yes. In November of 1963, Air Force One left Dallas carrying a new American President and a coffin.Things had ended differently this time, even though the evil unleashed in Revolution Square was the same evil in Dealey Plaza. Tonight, neither nation would have to grieve. Sometimes the good guys did win.

  “Fifteen seconds. Everyone quiet. Please.”

  Kaitlin brushed a strand of hair from her forehead and reached down to straighten her skirt. She owned this moment. She would shine. “Wish me luck,” she whispered.

  NEW YORK CITY

  In a production suite of the Public Broadcasting System the images flashed by in a blur.

  “There,” Jack said. “Take that shot.”

  The editor froze the video. “You want a dissolve?”

  “Show me how it looks.”

  The editor previewed the effect. A soft overlapping of two pieces of video, one ending, one beginning.

  Jack nodded. “Lay it.”

  There was a soft knock at the door. A young woman appeared, a clipboard clutched to her chest. “Eighteen minutes to air.What do you want me to tell them?”

  “Tell them no more interruptions,” Jack replied.

  “Sorry. You know how jumpy they get.”

  “No worries, Bobbie. Tell them it’ll be there. I promise.”

  She was gone.

  The editor grinned. “I don’t know where they get these kids.”

  “Probably where they got us,” Jack grinned. “How much left to do?”

  “Just gotta check some audio levels and trim a few shots. Not much.”

  Jack took a long breath and checked his watch. They’d spent eleven hours in the editing suite. “Make that seventeen minutes to air.”

  “No worries.”

  With two minutes to spare, a line item magically appeared on the server in the network’smaster control room.The operator looked over his shoulder at the clutch of people standing behind him. “We’re good to go,” he reported.

  Faces brightened. They exhaled loudly. Someone actually hooted.

  By the time they settled down, and after a network ID dipped to black, the operator fingered a button on his board to begin the most highly anticipated news documentary in the history of broadcasting.

  Good evening. I’m Jack Doyle.

  PBS had won the bidding. Jack had wanted it that way. Lou Perlman had agreed and once the deal was struck, Jack began the task of drawing together the elements. It had been a flurry of airports and shooting.There were hours of videotape to sort through, a mountain of facts and information. Malloy was gone but not his story. The Helena Storozhenko letter, his trip to Odessa and to Bark Island where Helena was briefly employed as a housemaid.Then there was the Japanese puzzle box and Helena’s film canister. Hidden right under Jack’s nose. It was an astounding coincidence that could have tainted the credibility of the whole story.

  “Straight up,” Kaitlin had said to him. “Just lay it out there.”

  She was right.The puzzle box and the silk scarf were priceless pieces, now being exhibited by the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. Helena’s diary, too.

  Buck Kelly had refused at first to appear on camera. Then, as promised, Jack had given him a copy of the story shot at Arlington National Cemetery. A tribute to the brave marines killed when terrorists bombed their barracks in Beirut. “I’ll do it for them,” Kelly had said stoically. “I’ll do it for Malloy.”

  Roberto Sevier and Julio Rasconi were the central elements of the story, upon whom all else was constructed. It began with the fiasco of the Bay of Pigs, then Rasconi’s imprisonment, and the slaughter of his family, which had driven him mad. Sevier, the Cuban operative, had betrayed Rasconi with brutal consequences and had nurtured his insanity. It was Sevier who had whispered into a madman’s ear that John Fitzgerald Kennedy was to blame for the murder of his family.

  It was harder to expose Sevier’s connection with the mob and its ties to Oswald, though most believed in the larger conspiracy which, given the evidence, now included Roberto Sevier. Using the photographic evidence, sworn to by experts, Jack had skilfully tied Julio Rasconi to Dealey Plaza, and that meant Sevier was not far behind. As a communist, Sevier had enjoyed the filthy lucre of Florida capitalism, which meant having his cake and eating it too. He was one of the hundreds of ex-pat Cubans who were recruited for Operation Pluto. It meant that back home in Havana, Sevier’s hand
lers knew what he knew about the operation. Decades later, it was Sevier, still an agent of Cuba’s communist hardliners, who had financed and orchestrated a campaign of terror, including the drive-by shooting in Little Havana. Pabon had been killed, too. The two perpetrators were under arrest and talking.The attempt on the lives of both presidents in Revolution Square was designed to annihilate any opportunity for rapprochement. Had it succeeded, a new government would have taken hold in Cuba with military leaders determined to return to the old ways.There were many who were desperate to reenergize a revolution too shabbily discarded.The soldiers who died battling Batista’s forces deserved honour. Jack would never deny it. But their leaders were men of another time, just as Roberto Sevier and his confederate general had been. Both Sevier and Vega were in custody. Others were imprisoned and talking as well.

  Jack knew M.J. Dumont and her boss would be watching. She told him so over lunch a week before when she had placed an envelope on the table. “You need to see something,” she had said. “It’s time.”

  Jack opened the envelope.There was a photograph inside.The one given to Frederick Denton by his old chum, Pilious Ortega, aboard Air Force One. Jack was dumb struck when he saw it. “You’re serious?”

  “Yes, Jack.We are.”

  “Can I ask where you got it?”

  “You could, yes.”

  Jack didn’t.

  He stared at the photograph, speechless. In it, a man was cradling a rifle. In the background, beyond the stockade fence, a convertible limousine was visible, a man with his hands at his throat, a woman in pink leaning towards him. A split second later, Rasconi’s bullet busted Kennedy’s head wide open.He ditched his weapon and had scrambled to the grassy knoll, becoming invisible within the chaos. Helena Storozhenko had seen it all and had snapped her photograph in the seconds following. A tragedy full of heartbreaking images would now have two more.