Caged to Kill

by Tom Swyers

  “God Almighty, I wish you hadn’t done that.”

  “Done what?”

  “Paid O’Neil a visit.”

  “I didn’t have a choice. They weren’t going to let me live a new life on the outside unless I did something.”

  “But you exposed us as knowing much more than they could have ever believed possible.”

  “Knowledge is power; you got to use it to make things right.”

  “But by showing that you know too much, you re-energize them to kill us.”

  “It was a risk I had to take.”

  “If the CIA is involved, that’s how they work. The world is littered with the remains of people who knew too much.”

  Because Phillip firmly believed that O’Neil was leading the effort to kill him, he thought a visit to him would spur some other option to fall into place. He hadn’t considered what would happen if it didn’t. “I wish you hadn’t come to O’Neil’s office; I wish you hadn’t tried to save me.”

  David didn’t respond. As much as he hated to admit it, he realized now that he’d made things worse for himself and his family by trying to rescue Phillip. He’d shown O’Neil that he knew too much, too. No good deed goes unpunished. Then it hit him that the CIA might be paying a visit to his house right now. His family might be in danger. Gritting his teeth, he lifted his hands and pounded the steering wheel like a jackhammer. Then he put the pedal to the floor.

  Chapter 26

  On the way home, David barely stopped the car long enough to let his passenger out so he could walk the rest of the way to the motel.

  While Phillip was closing the door, David leaned over and called through the open window, “Please stay put in your room until you hear from me. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  Phillip didn’t say anything, just nodded. David put on his signal, pulled out into traffic, and applied his foot to the gas so the Mustang sped off. The car flew back to his suburban refuge in record time.

  When David burst through the door at home, he saw Annie and Christy at the dining room table eating lunch. He grabbed a napkin off the table to mop his brow as he breathed a gusty sigh of relief.

  Annie stood up to walk over to David’s side. She placed a hand on his arm, then leaned in to study his face. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, I’m fine,” David replied, searching out the window for any sign of strange vehicles parked on the street.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Christy said, pushing his half-eaten sandwich aside. He focused on his father, far too keen on the scent of new developments to be bothered with finishing lunch.

  “That’s not too far from the truth. How did your exam go?” David walked into the kitchen with a casual air. He stood at the window to check the backyard. Nothing out of the ordinary there. Yet.

  “Fine, but what about Mr. Dawkins?” Christy persisted.

  “Yes,” Annie said, “Were you able to stop Phillip before he got to the state office?” She was back at the table, but her attention was all on David too; lunch could wait.

  “Not exactly. But I was able to stop him at the state office before anything bad happened.” David tried to stanch the flow of information, for all the good it would do him.

  “That’s good,” Annie said. “Where is he now?”

  “Back at the motel room.”

  “Why didn’t you bring him back here?” Annie asked.

  “Ah . . . because he needed to rest.” It was a flat-out lie. He hated to do it, but David had another more pressing reason. He wanted to create space between himself and Phillip, between his family and Phillip. If Phillip had stirred the pot to excess, David wanted him to suffer the consequences alone. If all they wanted to take out was Phillip or Boris—or whoever this guy was—David hoped that a single kill would satisfy them. He didn’t want to put himself or his family in the crossfire for Phillip if he could help it.

  But he wasn’t going to stop at Phillip. David now wanted to separate himself from his family too for a while, to create another layer of protection—a geographic layer. “You know what? Christy’s done with school and the summer is here. Why don’t we all take a vacation? We could all use one, that’s for sure.”

  Annie tilted her head, her eyebrows lifted. “What are you thinking, David?”

  “I’m thinking we could rent a nice place on Lake George for the summer. You two could go up there. You could work remotely. They have fiber-optic internet service in some areas around the lake. Christy can have his friends up.”

  “What about you, David? Where are you going to be?”

  “I have some work to do down here. But I’ll join you on the weekends. Maybe even Phillip can come up after things settle down for him.”

  “I know you, David Thompson. I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to protect us.” She poked a finger at him, almost like an accusation. This was going to be a tough sell.

  “Why shouldn’t I? It looks like Phillip killed that police officer.”

  “Christy and I talked about that. We’re not sure that he did. Furthermore, even if he did, we believe he’s a different man than he was back then.” The wife was hanging tough. She had her arms crossed and the faintest hint of a pout around her mouth.

  “She’s right, Dad.” Christy was poised to chime in when David was saved by the phone ringing in his pocket. He pulled it out. The caller ID said it was Julius. “Hold that thought. I need to take this call. What’s up, Julius?”

  “You were right,” Julius blurted.

  “About what?”

  “The vitamins and the radio.”

  “What about them?”

  “The vitamins contained a strong dose of LSD in one part of the pill. The lab folks missed it the first time because they tested a different part of the pill.”

  “That means someone was drugging Phillip.”

  “Yes.”

  “And the radio?”

  “It had this chip in it. Very sophisticated technology that was hidden quite well. My tech guys removed it and found a subliminal message that was barely audible. It played repeatedly when the radio was turned on.”

  “Unbelievable. It’s Cameron and his psychic driving all over again. It smells like a CIA op for sure. What’s the message?”

  “’Kill David Thompson.’”

  “I don’t like the sound of that, but it all adds up. That’s the message Phillip heard in his head.”

  “You were right on both counts.”

  “I kind of wish I wasn’t.”

  “Understood. You need to send over your DNA results for Dawkins so I can compare it to what the FBI has from the murder scene.”

  “Will do.”

  “Other than looking at that, there’s nothing much else I can do without opening up a case file. I’ll have no control of it after that. If the CIA is involved, I don’t know what we’d end up doing here, if anything. It might make things worse for you if word floats up to the big boys and girls at the political level of either the FBI or CIA.”

  “You’re right.”

  “That’s all I’ve got for now. I’ll be in touch.”

  “Thanks, Julius. I’m grateful for all you’re doing.”

  “Take care of that family, David.”

  “Yes, I will.” David hung up and joined Christy and Annie at the table. He dropped into a chair with another sigh. “That was Julius, my friend at the FBI. Someone was drugging Phillip with LSD and telling him to kill me.”

  “What?” Christy and Annie exclaimed in unison.

  David went on to explain Cameron’s research—electroshock to wipe memories clean followed by drugs and messaging to replace them with something else. Then he explained what Julius had found.

  “That’s incredible,” Annie said softly, shaking her head in disbelief.

  “That’s insane, Dad,” Christy said, stroking his chin with a look of wonderment. “That’s all news to me. I’ve never run across anything like that in my neuroscience studies.”

  “I don
’t think that dark snippet from our history is something they want to include in your textbook.”

  “I suppose. You know, all this goes to support what Mom and I were saying about Phillip.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If what you said is true, Phillip is not responsible for wanting to kill you. That’s not him. It’s someone else trying to force him to do it. Even if he did kill that police officer decades ago, I don’t think he’s the same person today.”

  “Me either,” Annie added with a nod for emphasis.

  “But what if Phillip is really Boris Dietrich?”

  “What do you mean, Dad?”

  David went on to explain to Christy about how Phillip’s DNA showed he was the father of Janet Nowak and how that wasn’t plausible. He explained, however, that it was possible if Phillip was Boris; then he showed how that theory meshed well with everything else.

  “It’s an interesting theory, Dad. But there may be competing, alternative theories that you haven’t considered.”

  “Like what? If you’ve got one I’d like to hear it.”

  “I don’t know. But there must be some other way for Phillip to end up being her father. Use your imagination, I’ll bet you can come up with a theory.”

  “Christy, no flights of fancy, please. I’m looking for a theory grounded in facts.”

  “So am I, but the truth is that we don’t have all the facts. We’re trying to piece together something that happened thirty years ago with a person whose memory looks like it’s been altered, even manipulated.”

  Annie jumped in. “Whether he’s Phillip or this guy Boris, he’s not a terrible person from what I can tell.” Annie always trusted her gut instincts.

  “You two don’t know Boris Dietrich. He was a sadist with electroshock back at the Allan Institute. Don’t you guys think we should be held accountable for our past actions?”

  “Yes, David, to some extent I agree with you. But this man we know as Phillip is not a bad person now. He’s been neglected and tortured. He has every reason to be an absolute savage beast, but he’s not,” Annie reasoned. “Don’t you agree?”

  “I suppose, but I don’t want him to repeat his past with us, even if it’s just a reflex.”

  “Neither does he,” Christy said. “He’s been honest with us about his past. He’s been protective of us. From what Mom told me, I don’t think he wanted you to go down to the commissioner’s office because he wanted to protect you.”

  “Think about it,” Annie added. “If Boris was really Phillip they’ve made him harmless in comparison to what you described Boris as being in his past. Why would these evil people behind all this want to tame Boris? I guess that’s one big reason why I don’t believe he’s Boris. I don’t think he’d hurt a fly.”

  David pondered what Annie said. He thought about the fish in the aquarium in the state office building, about the chipmunk in the window well, about the Karner Blue butterfly—about how Phillip interacted so well with those small creatures. Maybe Phillip wouldn’t hurt a fly. Then David thought about the baby bird on the ground—about how Phillip wanted to crush it to take it out of its misery. But even then, Phillip didn’t want to kill the baby bird for the hell of it; he wanted to shield it from suffering a slow, painful death.

  Annie pressed, “If he isn’t Phillip, then where is Phillip?”

  “I don’t know,” David replied. “You two make some good points. I honestly don’t know what to believe about Phillip now. One thing I do know, Phillip—as we know him needs to know about the LSD and the radio chip. I think he’d be relieved to know that these evil thoughts were not his own, but were implanted in his head.”

  “You’re right,” Annie said.

  “I agree,” Christy chimed in.

  “Oh, and David,” her lifted eyebrow accompanied the rising tone of her voice. “I think I can also speak for Christy here; we don’t plan to leave your side. Not even for the lure of a summer on Lake George.”

  “That’s right, Dad.”

  “All right.” David didn’t like the idea, but he was outnumbered. He decided to let it go for now, perhaps revisit the topic later. David walked off toward his office door, “I need to call Phillip right now.” The radio chip and the LSD brought the CIA into focus. It sounded like Cameron’s research was not only alive but even thriving within the walls at Kranston. David knew all too well that the CIA played by its own perverted rules when it came to men like Phillip who had become a liability.

  David had discovered the legendary Frank Olson treatment in his research of Ewen Cameron. It took decades to uncover, but when CIA employee Frank Olson started having reservations about his agency’s torture experiments in the 1950s, he decided he wanted out. Before he could resign, the CIA slipped him some LSD. Olson had a bad trip that caused him to lose his mind. Within ten days Olson was dead, reportedly having committed suicide by crashing through a hotel window, falling to his death in New York City. That was the testimony of his hotel roommate, who also happened to be a CIA employee.

  In the 1970s, the CIA was forced to admit to slipping Olson the LSD, but it stuck to the suicide narrative. That held until Olson’s body was exhumed in 1994. James E. Starrs, a George Washington University professor of law and forensic science, found no evidence that Olson had crashed through a window. He did find evidence that the former CIA operative had been struck in the head before falling. Olson appeared to have been murdered and dropped from the window because he knew too much—posed too great a risk of ratting out the CIA. All this was consistent with a 1953 CIA assassination manual unearthed in 1997. It stated that “the most efficient accident, in simple assassination, is a fall of 75 feet or more onto a hard surface.” Olson fell around 140 feet from the thirteenth floor, about double the recommended amount, for good measure.

  David saw the writing on the wall for Phillip and for himself. They both knew too much. Worse yet, if the CIA was involved, the Feds would know through O’Neil that they knew too much. It was Frank Olson all over again with a new twist. Not only did they want to off Phillip by feeding him a steady dose of LSD, they wanted him to waste David in the process. It was a CIA twofer, sort of like the Doublemint gum commercial jingle—“double your pleasure, double your fun.” But the only people having fun were the spooks. How many unknown Frank Olsons have they murdered over the years?

  Down in his office, David emailed the DNA report on Phillip to Julius. Then he got up to pace while dialing up Phillip on his cell.

  “Hello?” Thank goodness Phillip answered.

  “Phillip? It’s David. How are you doing? Are you okay?”

  “Yeah . . . I’m fine. Why do you ask?”

  “Are you in your motel room?”

  “Yes.”

  “Listen up, Phillip. Julius, my FBI friend, he confirmed that your vitamins were laced with LSD.”

  “Oh my God!”

  “Yeah, and your radio had a chip that played a subliminal message to you while you listened to it.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Your radio had a computer chip that repeated just one message—‘Kill David Thompson.’”

  Silence from the other end of the line.

  “Did you hear me?”

  Now David heard breathing—heavier and heavier—until it sounded like there was a gust of wind blowing on the other end.

  “Phillip, are you there?”

  “Those bastards!”

  “Phillip, listen up—”

  “Son of a bitch. I think O’Neil is really Boris Dietrich—”

  “Forget Dietrich, already. I know how this must anger you, but you need to focus and listen to me. You can’t eat or ingest anything that you don’t know everything about the source, or anything that’s been left in your room unattended. They could try to drug you again at any time. Be careful of your television or any electronic device that they might have accessed. Know that they could be trying to message you again. Do you hear me?”

  “I can’t believe i
t. I can’t believe they did this to me.”

  “Believe it. At least now we know what’s going on. It wasn’t you. You didn’t want to kill me. They wanted you to kill me. Then they wanted to take you out once you finished me off.”

  Silence.

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  “Yes, I understand.”

  “Good.” The landline began to ring. David couldn’t believe it when he saw the caller ID was flashing Edith Nowak’s name. “There’s a call coming in that I need to take.”

  “Okay.”

  “Please be careful, Phillip.”

  “I will. Thanks for the heads up.”

  “I’ll be in touch,” David said, before hanging up the cell and grabbing his landline phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Is that you, Mr. Thompson?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Edith Nowak.”

  “Yes, Ms. Nowak.”

  “I need to talk with you in person. Can you come out tomorrow morning?”

  “Yes. Sure.”

  “How’s 10 a.m. sound?”

  “Fine. Can I ask what this is about?”

  “Edmund O’Neil. I need to tell you the truth about him. I can’t talk about it over the phone. I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “Thank you,” she said, before hanging up.

  What is she going to tell me? That Edmund O’Neil is the mastermind? That he’s really Boris Dietrich the way Phillip believes?

  Chapter 27

  David sat on the same couch as he had before in Edith Nowak’s living room. It was a dreary Saturday morning and another layer of dust had fallen on Edith’s tchotchkes since David’s last visit. Nothing else had changed.

  “I’d offer you something to drink, Mr. Thompson, but my hands don’t work well. Every time I get chemo, my fingers go totally numb, like I don’t have them anymore. I can’t manipulate things with my hands without dropping them.”

  “That’s okay. I’m fine. You said you wanted to talk.”

  “Yes. I don’t have much time left. The chemo isn’t working. It’s killing me faster than it’s killing the cancer. I’m going to stop treatment. I’m going into a hospice shortly. They’ll drip me morphine until God takes me.”