The Hydra Conspiracy

by Len Levinson

  “Thanks for everything, chief.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  Shankham turned and walked down the corridor. The jailer slammed the door shut and locked it. Butler was alone again.

  Chapter Seven

  His lawyer turned out to be a portly gentleman named Sidney Gersch, and he arrived at Butler’s cell at ten-thirty in the morning. Carrying a briefcase, politely refusing to sit on the wooden cot beside Butler, Gersch stood close to the bars and began by saying that he was a former judge. Then he inquired about the facts of the case, shaking his head and frowning as Butler described the series of unfortunate events that had taken place the night before.

  “I must tell you in all sincerity that the situation doesn’t look good,” Gersch said.

  “But I’m innocent.”

  “Of course you are,” Gersch cooed, “but on the basis of the facts, nobody will believe you.”

  “I want to plead innocent.”

  “By all means do.”

  “We must find that cabdriver.”

  “We’ll leave no stone unturned.”

  “What do you think my chances are of getting off?”

  “One in a thousand.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “Afraid so.”

  “Can we bribe the judge?”

  “Perhaps we can influence him into giving you a lighter sentence, but he can’t let you go scot free.”

  “Perhaps we can tamper with the jury.”

  “Anything’s possible. However, we’ll have plenty of time for that. The immediate problem is the arraignment. Let me go to a quiet place and assemble my case; then I’ll see you in the courtroom. All right?”

  “Yes.”

  Gersch called the guard and left the cell. Butler was alone again. The guard brought breakfast: a cup of tepid coffee and two slices of toast. Normally Butler ate a huge breakfast, and now he was very hungry, but he had to be satisfied with the skimpy fare provided by the state of New York. He was getting angrier and angrier. Somebody was going to pay for all this.

  At two in the afternoon he was arraigned before Judge Cavalieri of the Third District Court of New York. Butler pleaded not guilty. A trial date three months hence was set, and bail for fifty thousand dollars was laid down in view of the seriousness of the offense and the preponderance of evidence against the defendant. Gersch disputed the amount vociferously and succeeded in getting the bail reduced to thirty-five thousand dollars. The bail was posted and soon Butler was walking down the front steps of the courthouse in the company of his lawyer.

  “You realize of course that you’re not supposed to leave the city,” Gersch said.

  “Of course,” Butler replied, sniffing the polluted air and looking at the sky. It was wonderful to be free again.

  “Whatever you do, don’t get in any more trouble.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  Gersch held out his hand. “It’s been a pleasure defending you, and why don’t you call me in a few weeks so we can discuss various strategies and so forth?”

  “Right.”

  “Bye-bye.”

  “So long.”

  Butler got into a cab waiting at the foot of the courthouse steps and told the driver to take him home. The driver went straight up Third Avenue, with Butler looking morosely out the rear window, reflecting on what a difference a day could make. Yesterday he was a top spy for the Agency. Today he was unemployed and the chief suspect in a gruesome murder. Somehow it all seemed unreal. But one thing was for sure: somebody was messing with him, and he had to do something about it.

  “Stop at the newsstand over there for a paper, will you, driver?”

  “Sure thing.”

  The cab stopped next to the newsstand and Butler got out, bought a paper, and returned to the cab, which continued up Third Avenue. He unfolded the paper and gazed solemnly at the headline.

  GAL EXEC FOUND MURDERED IN EAST SIDE LOVE NEST

  Butler read the accompanying story and found that the gal was Wilma B. Willoughby and the East Side love nest was his apartment. His occupation was listed as real estate agent, which was one of his covers. A police official said that the murder was one of the most gory he’d ever seen.

  Something very weird is going on here, Butler thought, and I’m going to get to the bottom of it. The cab stopped in front of his apartment building. He paid the driver and walked into the lobby. The doorman looked at him and didn’t know whether to shit or go blind, because he’d read the papers too and had gotten the inside story first hand from the doorman on duty the night before.

  “Hiya, Jackson,” Butler said cheerily, heading toward his mailbox.

  “Hello,” Jackson replied cautiously.

  Butler opened his mailbox and found bills from the phone company, Con Edison and American Express. There were no love letters, no invitations to parties, and no strange messages that might shed light on the events of last night.

  He took the elevator upstairs and entered this apartment. The first thing he did was check the bathtub to see if he had any more visitors, but it was empty and scrubbed clean. He wondered who’d scrubbed it clean. He’d wanted to have the blood analyzed to see if there was anything abnormal about it. The blood was scrubbed out of his rug too. He wondered if the blood was gone because somebody didn’t want him to analyze it.

  Things were getting weirder and weirder. He took a steak out of the freezer, put it in the broiler, and took a long hot shower in the very tub where Wilma B. Willoughby had lain the previous night. Then he shaved and returned to the kitchen, where he took the steak out of the oven and devoured it. He figured he would need a lot of protein for what he was going to do.

  He was going to fly the coop because he realized that whoever had set him up had done it in a manner so thorough that he wouldn’t stand a chance in court. His adversaries were very capable people, but he was very capable himself. Several years ago, during a period of acute paranoia, he’d decided to sock away some cash in a sleepy little city someplace where he could hide in case that should ever become necessary. Subsequently he thought about withdrawing the cash, but never got around to it. Now he was grateful for that period of acute paranoia; because of it, he had fifteen thousand dollars in a bank in Guadalajara, Mexico. So that was his next stop—if he could pull it off.

  He went to his bedroom closet and retrieved the two thousand dollars he’d hidden in the clothes rack in case of emergency. That would be his getaway money. He’d have to travel light, because he knew he was being watched. If he were seen leaving his apartment building with a suitcase they’d know he was attempting to jump bail. So he got out his favorite lightweight blue suit, designed by Calvin Klein, and put it on. Into his pockets he put his passport, his set of special CIA picks that could open any lock in the world, his special CIA miniature laser gun disguised as a fountain pen, and a few other implements of his trade. He put the two thousand dollars in his pants pocket, adjusted his maroon Countess Mara tie, checked his appearance in the mirror, and left his apartment.

  Outside, he noticed two men sitting in a Chevrolet across the street. Were they waiting for a friend or for him? He walked toward the subway stop on Lexington Avenue and 86th Street, and there were various people on the sidewalk behind him who could be working for the various agencies of the world. Butler glanced back at them in the little mirror concealed on the face of his wristwatch. They could be ordinary citizens or they could be members of the crew that wanted him in jail.

  He descended the steps into the subway station and took the Lexington Avenue Express to Grand Central Station.

  Then he took the shuttle to Times Square. He climbed the stairs to the sidewalk and got in the first cab he saw, telling the driver to take him to Columbus Circle. During the ride he kept glancing out the rear window to see if he were being followed. It was hard to tell.

  “Take the next left,” Butler told the cabbie.

  “I thought you wanted to go to Columbus Circle,” the cabbie protested.

/>   “Do as I say.” Butler looked out the rear window of the cab.

  “Are you in trouble? Are you runnin’ away from the cops or sumpin’? Am I gonna get in trouble? Hey, I don’t wanna get in trouble.”

  Butler took out the FBI badge he and other CIA agents used in tight situations like this. “Police,” he said. “You’ll get in trouble if you don’t do as I say.”

  “Next left?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Hey, wait a minute. Do you want to go left or right?”

  “Left.”

  The cabbie steered left on 49th Street, and Butler looked out the rear mirror to see if any other cars made the same turn. Three of them did: a Plymouth, a Chevy and a Buick.

  “Make another left on Eighth Avenue.”

  The cab turned left into the porno-movie-and-massage-parlor district of Eighth Avenue, and Butler saw that the Plymouth and the Buick made the turn also.

  “Another left,” he told the cabbie.

  “Okay.”

  The cabbie made the turn and so did the Buick. In the front seat were two men in fedoras.

  “Left on Broadway,” Butler said.

  The cab turned left on Broadway, and so did the Buick.

  “Make the first right.”

  The cabbie steered right and Butler looked through the rear window at the intersection; sure enough, the Buick also made the turn. It was clear now that the Buick was following him; there could be no doubt about that. But Butler knew how to shake tails. He’d been doing it for years. He stayed prepared for this sort of thing. He took out his wallet; in a special compartment were a number of theater tickets. Taking one out, he said to the cabbie, “Go around the block.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The cabbie turned left on Sixth Avenue and left on 53rd Street. The Buick made the same turns, and Butler’s fingers tingled with excitement. He loved the thrill of the chase, the exquisite suspense of a hairy situation. Ahead on the block was a porno movie theater that was showing something called Suburban Sex Kittens.

  “I’m going to jump out of the cab in front of that theater,” Butler said, putting a ten-dollar bill in the slot. “Don’t slow up—just keep on going like nothing happened. Don’t worry about me, got it?”

  The cabbie clawed the ten-dollar bill out of the slot. “I’m your man,” he said.

  Butler looked out the rear window. The Buick was five cars back on the crowded cross-town street. The cab was approaching the porno theater. Butler got his ticket ready. When the cab was beside the theater, Butler jumped out and ran through doors plastered with photographs of naked girls.

  “Ticket, please,” said the usher, dourly tending his post.

  Butler held it out. The usher took it, tore it in half, and held out a portion to Butler, but he was already inside the theater. On the screen a blonde was on her hands and knees on a bed, while three men were trying to stuff their penises into her big mouth. Butler ran down the aisle and through a door marked EXIT in red. Now in the dark passageway backstage, he headed toward another door, unlatched it and stepped into the alley behind the theater.

  Beside the door was a fire escape. He climbed it rapidly, the soles of his shoes clunking against the metal stairs. Pulling himself onto the roof, he stood and looked around at the Manhattan skyline. Then he ran across the roof and jumped across the alley to the roof of the next building. Crossing that one also, he jumped to the roof of the building behind that one, and then looked behind him. There was no one there. The poor bastards were probably still snooping around in the porno theater. He opened the door on the roof and walked down to a corridor lined with closed office doors. Proceeding to the elevator, he pressed the button. When the elevator came he rode it down to the first floor.

  The lobby of the building ran from 51st Street to 50th Street. Butler walked to 50th Street, crossed the street, and entered another building’s lobby that went to 49th Street. Emerging from that building, he hailed a cab and told the driver to take him to 125th Street and Lenox Avenue in Harlem. Upon arriving at that destination, he climbed the stairs to the train station on a trestle above the intersection, and waited for the New York Central train that took commuters to their homes in Westchester and beyond. When the train came he got on board and rode it to Poughkeepsie, where he got off, bought a piece of luggage near the train station, and took a cab to the local airport.

  At ten in the evening a plane departed Poughkeepsie for Albany and he was on it. He passed that night in a motel near the Albany Airport; first thing in the morning he caught a plane to Philadelphia. At that big international airport he booked passage on a flight to Houston, Texas, arriving late in the afternoon. In the early evening he boarded a flight to Mexico City, arriving shortly before midnight.

  He tensed as he approached the Customs counter in the Mexico City Airport and opened his suitcase. Inside were a few articles of clothing he’d purchased along the way so that he’d look like a legitimate traveler.

  “What’s the purpose of your trip to Mexico?” the customs official asked, looking at his passport.

  “I’m a tourist.”

  The customs official handed back his passport. “Have a nice time.”

  “Thanks.”

  Butler walked to the booth of Mexicana Airlines and learned that the next flight to Guadalajara was at six o’clock in the morning. He decided to get some sleep at a hotel and leave on the flight at ten in the morning. He bought a ticket and then took a cab to the nearest four-star hotel near the airport, checked in, had a huge dinner, and went to bed.

  Chapter Eight

  Butler arrived in Guadalajara at one o’clock in the afternoon of the next day. He took a cab from the airport and checked into a hotel not far from the Dellogado Theater, the classiest theater in town, where performances of opera and ballet were presented to that rarified strata of Mexicans who could afford to see them.

  Butler had visited Guadalajara many times in his life and liked it because it was the most Mexican of all Mexican cities. It was the home of mariachi music and the charro horsemen renowned for their flashy costumes and daring feats. It also was the place where tequila was first brewed, and it was the second largest city in all of Mexico. Its women were said to be the most beautiful in the world, but then every city says that about its women.

  Butler took a cab to the Banco Jalisco of the Avenue Juarez not far from Libertad Market Square. He went inside and asked in his flawless Spanish to see the bank manager. After a brief wait he was ushered into the office of that gentleman, a husky old man with white mustaches wearing a tan suit. Butler shook hands with him, then sat down.

  “Several years ago,” Butler said, “I rented a safe-deposit box in this bank. I haven’t been back since then but I would like to obtain the contents of the box at this time.”

  “Why of course, sir,” said the bank manager with great dignity. “It’ll take just a moment.”

  The bank manager pressed a button on his desk and Butler wondered if he was calling his secretary or the local representative of the Mexican Secret Service, which had close ties with the CIA. The bank manager muttered into his telephone and soon a middle-aged secretary entered the office with some forms. These Butler signed “Michael Wilkerson” which was the name he had used when he rented the safe-deposit box. The secretary left with the forms and Butler chatted with the bank manager about the weather, local market conditions, and the deteriorating relations between Mexico and the United States because of the marijuana problem. Finally the secretary came back with more forms and asked Butler to follow her to the vault.

  Butler was admitted to the vault and given his safe-deposit box. Opening it, he took out a large manila envelope, the only thing it contained. Thanking everyone, he left the Banco Jalisco and took a cab to the Banco Alvarro on the Avenida Alcade. During the trip he opened the manila envelope and took out a pale green bankbook and some identification papers which belonged to Ralph Varick, another of his phony names.

  Getting out of the cab
at the Banco Alvarro, he went inside and filled out slips to withdraw all the money he had in the account, accepting it in cash and travelers’ checks. Returning to his hotel, he looked out the rear window of his cab to see if he were being followed, but there was no one. He realized that his getaway from New York had been a success. He’d lay low in Mexico for awhile, maybe as long as a year, and then return to the states and try to figure out what had happened to him.

  In his hotel room he sat by the window and tried to figure where to go next, because a man like he was always had to stay on the move. He decided it might be nice to spend the winter in Merida, a quiet little city on the Gulf of Mexico. There were old Aztec ruins in the vicinity and he thought he might want to study them, since archeology had been one of his favorite subjects at the University of Georgia during the happy days of his youth.

  He picked up the telephone and called Mexicana Airlines to make his reservation for the morning flight to Merida.

  Chapter Nine

  Butler arrived in Merida at one-thirty in the afternoon and checked into an old wooden hotel in a quiet section of town. Old men in white shirts and pants played dominoes on the front porch, and above the check-in desk was an old fan lazily turning around, producing no effect whatsoever on the environment. The hotel was only three storeys high; Butler’s room was on the top floor, with a balcony overlooking the Gulf of Mexico.

  He stood on the balcony sipping tequila and pineapple juice, feeling proud of himself. No one could possibly have followed him on his circuitous route from New York to here. It was a perfect example of how to elude pursuers. He might have been fired from the Agency, but he was still a master spy who could match wits with the best of them.

  He dined alone that night in the hotel’s small dining room. No one paid any special attention to him because his Spanish was perfect and he could pass for a Mexican, his complexion being on the dark side. A girlfriend once told him he looked somewhat like the young Clark Gable without a mustache, and later when Butler studied himself in a mirror he realized that there was a slight resemblance between him and the departed film star. He’d even thought about growing a mustache, but decided he shouldn’t try to capitalize on another man’s success.