by Peter Parkin
She took another sip—a longer one this time. "James was a loyal soldier to the Pentagon. But something horrible happened in September of 1977. He flipped out. He told me only that it involved the moon. He never mentioned Apollo 19 or 18. He just said that what the United States of America had done was irreversible and a tragedy waiting to befall all of us. He said we'd violated international law and had taken a reckless action. He wouldn't tell me any more than that. He was obviously better at keeping secrets than me."
Dennis jumped in. "What did he do about it?"
"He told me that he had confronted the Secretary of Defense and the President himself. They wouldn't listen to him."
"He must have become a very frustrated man."
Barb wiped away a tear. "Oh, the dear man was a wreck. He had a conscience—I know that sounds funny knowing that he was having an affair with me, but it's true. And he did always feel guilty about the affair, by the way. But for him, like me, what happened between us was so powerful, he couldn't turn away from it.
"Anyway, he started seeing a psychiatrist and went on anti-depressants. None of that helped. He couldn't sleep at night, started behaving erratically. He told me he'd pretty much had it and was going to go to the Press."
Dennis was jotting down notes. He looked up. "So, Barb, did he go to the Press?"
"I don't know. But my gut feel tells me he did. And within only days of him telling me that he was going to go to the Press, he was dead."
"You said that it wasn't suicide. How do you know that? Did someone tell you that?"
"I'm the one who found his body. He died late at night. The halls and offices were empty. We were scheduled to meet at his office that night and grab a late meal together. I had a key to his office; I know, I shouldn't have, but I did. I worked one floor down from James."
Dennis was writing furiously. "Geez, Barb. That must have been horrible!"
"It was. I was stunned. I felt for a pulse, and then ran. I didn't report it. I waited for someone else to find him and do that. Denny, there was no suicide note that I could see."
"That doesn't mean there wasn't one."
"No, it doesn't. But it wasn't suicide."
"Barb, maybe you just didn't want to believe it was suicide."
"Denny, the entry wound was on the right side of his skull. James was left-handed."
*****
Cliff Tonkin was a happy man. He had the world by the tail. He couldn't believe how lucky he was, and he was so glad that he'd hired that lawyer. Although, if truth were known, the Washington Police were so incompetent even an untrained chimpanzee could have gotten him off. But, he had to give credit to his lawyer for at least pouncing on the stupidity the way he had.
No warrant to search his apartment, no service of his Miranda Rights. Ha! Idiots! He had to endure a trial anyway, despite all that. But the trial was based solely on an eyewitness identification of him running away from the house. The judge wouldn't allow the jury to hear of the stolen goods found in his apartment. The goods that came from that family: the TV, stereo, iPad, iPhone, iPod, Blackberry. The jury couldn't hear about any of that.
Now he was a free man. The case against him, after all that stuff was excluded, was a joke. They couldn't even include the DNA evidence because that was taken illegally from his apartment. And he hadn't been read his Miranda. Idiots!
He thought back to that night. Knocking on their door, the father opening up. Cliff kicking him in the balls before he had a chance to say, 'Can I help you?' Then forcing the father at knifepoint to tie up his two teenage boys. Then forcing the sobbing mother to tie up her husband. Then gagging all three.
Cliff was getting excited thinking about it.
But he left the mother free as a bird. He made her usher him around the house, filling his sack with all the electronic toys and whatever money was sitting around.
Then Cliff got the sudden urge to make love.
She wasn't particularly good looking, but he didn't care. He pulled the duct tape out of his back pocket again, and wrapped her mouth tightly. Dragging her into the living room where the rest of the family was, he threw her onto the couch. He wanted the entire family to watch.
And they did. And they cried. And Cliff laughed, right up until he slit her throat from ear to ear. He did the same to the other three. First the boys, so dad could watch. Then, finally dad.
Yes, Cliff was a happy man tonight. And a free one.
He opened the door to his apartment while humming 'For Once in My Life,' Stevie Wonder's hit song. He locked the door behind him, and hit the light switch.
He knew the man was there. He just knew it.
He whirled around and saw him, lounging on the couch with one of Cliff's favorite beers in his hand. He was struck by how nonchalant the guy was—really, sitting in his apartment drinking one of his beers, how could he be so calm?
The man didn't say anything.
In the instant before Cliff yanked the knife out of his back waistband, he marveled at the movie star handsomeness of the guy. Strong jaw, piercing eyes, broad shoulders.
He lunged at the stranger.
His eyes felt like they had blurred over. Movement was surreal. He felt his knife hand being hit square on by a bullet-fast beer bottle, liquid spilling over his arm and chest. Then the man's body moved as if being levitated. It seemed to rise from the couch with no effort at all, into the air feet first.
Cliff felt the impact against his throat and he fell to the floor, choking.
The man stood over him with absolutely no expression at all on his face. No anger, no regret, no sorrow. Just passive, the same kind of look that Cliff saw every day at the gas station where he worked—people just filling their tanks, faces blank.
The stranger knelt...and sighed. Then Cliff watched as he rammed his forefinger into his abdomen. So deep that Cliff felt as if it would come out through his back. Finger withdrawing now, blood and other stuff morosely dripping from the tip.
He simply wiped his finger along Cliff's shirt. Twice—to make sure it was clean. Then he got to his feet and started walking toward the door.
Cliff panicked. "Hey, man! Don't...leave me like this! This is a gut wound—
the worst kind. I'm gonna...die real slow if you...leave me. Take me...somewhere, anywhere! A hospital, a drugstore—I don't care! Somewhere I can get help!" The pain was horrible, an ache that shot from his ass to his throat. He felt his life ebbing away, and in fact watched it ebbing away onto his cheap shag carpet.
He looked on as the man yanked the phone out of the wall and smashed it with one swipe of his hand.
He was walking back toward him now. Cliff was encouraged.
But all he did was unclip the cellphone from Cliff's waist, toss it into the air and explode it into pieces with a lightning stab of his forefinger. Cliff shivered.
He glanced down at his stomach and was shocked at how much blood and other disgusting material was pouring out of the wound. It was pouring out real fast now. Blood he recognized, but he didn't want to know what that other stuff was.
Cliff glanced up at his attacker and could feel the confusion in his own eyes.
The man still hadn't said one word. He turned around and left the apartment without a backward glance.
And Cliff was left wondering why on earth anyone would want to kill him.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Brett picked up the phone and dialed John Switzer. It had been a couple of nights since their long drink-fest, and he wanted to pretend that he cared about how John was feeling.
In reality, he wanted—no, he needed—more information and hoped he could possibly squeeze it out of the egotistical old bugger. He'd have to stroke his ego a bit.
He knew he could probably get all he needed by just hurting the old guy, but Brett didn't have the heart to do that to an eighty-five year old man. God, he was getting soft.
"John?"
"Yes. Is that you, Brett?"
"It's me, alright—your drinking buddy! I w
anted to ask how you've been feeling the last couple of days. Recovered okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine for an old guy. I can still drink you under the table." "Well, if I recall correctly, I was the one who rolled you into a cab in an almost comatose state! So, I think I won that drinking contest, old man!"
Brett could hear John chuckling. "Okay, I'll give you that one. But next time will be different."
"Hey, John—gotta tell you, I was blown away by all that stuff you shared. And trust me, it's just between you and me. As you know, I've always been impressed by your gray cells, but geez, what you did with that moon mission was pretty 'over the top' brain-wise."
John was chuckling again. "Us scientists are usually flying under the radar—no one really gets to hear about the brilliant stuff we do. The Suits and the Generals take all the credit, and we get the gold watches."
"Yeah, not quite fair, is it? We should honor our brightest lights more than we do."
"At least I know what I did for them. That's what really matters to me."
Brett carefully chose his next few words. "John, it must have been real hard for you to have been involved as deeply as you were, only to be completely cut out of the picture once the...um...material was brought back from the moon. Hard to believe they wouldn't still tap into that brain of yours as the project moved forward."
"Well, they did to a certain extent, Brett. They had to still consult with me on some of the aspects. But, my role was largely finished—I'm a nuclear and aerospace engineer, not a microbiologist. The next set of brains had to take over—although I think they had the easy part."
"Sounds like they would have. Were they afraid to keep you in the loop after awhile? Kind of a 'need to know' thing?"
"I'm the one who chose not to know any more after they brought the things back. I'm sure they would have kept me informed if I'd asked to be."
"I'll bet they went ahead and gave the next stage a funny name just like the 'Rebel's Cause' they used for your side of the project. I'm sure if they'd asked you, you could have given them a good name to use, eh?"
"Well, it just so happens that I did name it for them. The microbiology stage was called, 'Creepy Crawlers.' Isn't that a good one? Thought of it myself."
Brett faked a good belly laugh. "Ha, that's a good one, John. Very appropriate! Did they take you to the site they used for the experiments— you know—to kind of christen it for them?"
"No, I wouldn't want to go, to tell you the truth. I trust plutonium and uranium much more than that microbiology stuff. Scares the shit out of me!"
"Have to agree with you there. I wonder where they took the stuff." "Don't know. Don't want to know. What I do know though is 'Creepy Crawlers' became a joint project of the Pentagon and the Centers for Disease Control. I believe the CDC chose the location and staffed it with their best scientists. The Pentagon probably does inspections from time to time, handles security and directs the experiments."
"Makes sense. Well, let's hope they're doing it right otherwise we're all going to suffer for it."
"Well, maybe you will—not me. I'm too old to give a shit."
"I guess you're right on that, John. Hey, we'll grab another beer real soon. Take care, John." Brett hung up and immediately chastised himself for not going over there and just torturing the old asshole to death.
*****
The four of them were meeting for lunch at a downtown restaurant. Fiona was dressed in a classy beige business suit, Mel was wearing something that resembled a smock and Barb was once again the shining star, adorned in a green sleeveless dress contrasting nicely with her silver high heels. Dennis was wearing a boring business suit, having snuck out of the office for this extended lunch.
Seafood salads around, they started recapping once again the things they had discussed a couple of nights before.
Mel stated the obvious. "If James Layton was murdered, it was to silence him. They must have seen him developing into a loose cannon, somebody they couldn't control any longer."
Dennis washed the last bite of his salad down with the remnants of a vintage Merlot. "And mom took over the job, after which you warned her, Barb." He looked across at Barb Jenkins.
"Yes, I did. But I waited until after Lucy was announced as the interim Chief Counsel. I knew then that she would very soon be made privy to all of the secrets she needed to know to do that job. Including what drove James to question everything."
"So how did mom react? What did she do?"
"She believed me. She didn't tell me why, but she said she believed me.
I think she already knew a few things by the time I told her. Her face went ashen, and all she said was, 'What have I gotten myself into?'"
Mel leaned forward with her elbows firmly on the table, smock crunched up to her chin. "Barb, do you think she blackmailed them to save her life and also walk away with a big payday?"
"Yes, I do. But she couldn't do it the way James tried. They would have just killed her too. She couldn't have just threatened to go to the Press. She was too smart for that, knowing how James met his end. She must have had something—something she got out of the Pentagon, something that she could threaten them with if anything ever happened to her."
"The package."
"Yes, the package."
Dennis rapped his knuckles on the table. "Well, something has happened to her now, hasn't it? If something was to be released upon her death, guess what, it's going to happen soon."
Barb gasped. "Holy shit! You're right, Denny! It could be in the process of happening as we speak!"
Fiona was listening carefully to the exchange. She finally spoke. "Whatever it is, it's serious enough to have caused the murder of a high level Pentagon official more than three decades ago. And to have tried to extract the information from an old Alzheimer's patient. They were then—and still are now—desperate to keep this quiet, whatever it is."
Dennis scratched his chin. "Desperate is right—even scaring the life out of you. But let's think about this for a second. Mom might have been naïve to think the Press would even do anything about it. They're pretty much controlled by government, told what to say, not to say. I think that's pretty obvious with the pathetic reporting that takes place, and the real issues and questions that are never addressed."
Fiona grimaced. "Unless, Dennis, she had arranged with a lawyer to have the package sent to foreign Press outlets. Certain countries wouldn't hesitate to embarrass the U.S."
"True. But you know what—I'm so cynical about world powers, that I don't think they would do anything with it other than extract better loan and import/export tariffs with the U.S. Just a higher level of blackmail—they're all prostitutes. They don't represent the people, they represent themselves."
Barb laughed. "Denny, dear, you are in a mood today, aren't you? And don't forget, you work for a branch of government yourself. What does that say about you?"
Dennis chuckled. "I guess I'm a hooker too. Wait until you get my bill for your share of lunch. I'll add on a 'special services' fee!"
"Promises, promises. Always teasing me but never delivering. What 'special services' are you going to give me, Denny?"
Mel scoffed. "Why don't you two just go get a room?"
They all laughed as the coffee and dessert wagon came rolling by their table. Each went for the coffee but no one wanted to indulge in the rich looking pastries.
There was a moment of silence around the table as they began sipping their coffees. Melissa was just putting an extra spoonful of sugar in her cappuccino when her hand began to shake. The spoon gave her away by clinking against the side of the cup.
Dennis noticed that her face had turned white as a sheet. "Mel, are you okay? What's wrong?"
She put the spoon down and clasped her hands together. "Denny, the old cabin on Chesapeake Bay!"
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
"What about the cabin, Mel?"
"That's where she's hidden it!"
They all leaned forward to listen to Mel. Barb rubbed
her shoulder.
"What makes you think that, dear?"
"Mom has owned that cabin for decades. Denny and I used to go there as kids with mom and dad. In fact, dad was the one who bought it. He loved the place. After he died, mom refused to sell it even though none of us wanted to bother going up there anymore."
"Yeah, I haven't seen the old cabin for at least twenty years now. I don't think mom's been up there since dad died."
"If she did, Denny, she went without us knowing. Do you remember that after she retired, she told us she would never sell it while she was alive? She even transferred the ownership out of her name and into a blind trust."
"I remember that—don't know why she did that. Maybe for tax reasons?" "There's no tax advantage to her in doing that, Denny. She was still the sole owner of the Trust. It simply shifted the ownership out of her name and off the records if her assets were searched."
"Jesus, I think I'm starting to follow you."
"You'll also remember that I agreed to be the executor of mom's estate." "Yes, being an accountant, you were the obvious choice over me." Melissa continued. Her hands were no longer shaking. She was getting quite animated the more she spoke. "Well, here's the kicker. Mom's will stipulated that the Trust be liquidated upon her death. She knew we didn't want to be burdened with the place, but said that in dad's memory she didn't have the heart to sell it while she was still alive. So, we'll get the proceeds of the sale."
Denny scoffed. "The place is probably worthless. Rat infested, crumbling—it will probably cost us to liquidate. We'll have to tear it down and just sell the land, which might not even cover our costs. Also, if I remember correctly, there was asbestos insulation in that place. We could face huge environmental costs just demolishing it."
Mel gave Dennis a disapproving 'big sister' look. "Denny, you're getting off track. Just listen to me for a few minutes and stop interrupting."
Dennis nodded at his clever sister, and smiled. She'd done this to him his whole life—and he loved it.
"Mom's lawyer, Sydney Fox, phoned me a couple of days after the funeral. I didn't think much of it until we all started talking more today about this package thing. And it was just expected that he would get in touch with me. I'm the executor and whatever is left of mom's estate that you and I haven't already taken possession of has to be dealt with. The will has to go into probate."
