The Legacy

by Stephen W. Frey

  Magee was different. Magee’s attitude was so overwhelmingly offensive that Seward was actually looking forward to the day Magee would suffer his inevitable accident. The attitude was highlighted by an abrasive aura of invincibility and utter confidence, combined with an all-knowing, all-seeing demeanor. Given the slightest opportunity, Magee would launch into a self-serving oration, trumpeting his unparalleled knowledge of everything from aviation combat tactics and incendiary devices to predicting human behavior. Seward had worried over the last two years that this supreme self-possession might ultimately lead to trouble, but his direct superior, General Avery Zahn, had steadfastly maintained that Magee was the best man for the job.

  Now, however, Seward’s instincts had proved correct. Magee’s behavior last night in Manhattan had almost precipitated disaster. He should have listened to his instincts, Seward now realized. General Zahn should have as well.

  “How was the drive down Route 29?” Seward asked hesitantly. He hoped this would be a benign enough question not to spark one of Magee’s self-promotion speeches.

  “It took me two hours and twenty-two minutes to get here from downtown Washington,” Magee replied. “I’ve obviously done this trip a number of times, but I’ve never actually timed it before, so today before I left Washington I wrote down on a piece of paper how long I thought it would take. I wrote down two hours and twenty-three minutes. I was off by only one minute.”

  “Oh?” Seward rolled his eyes. Magee was off and running on another ego trip.

  “Yes. You see, I have an incredible innate ability to judge time. Christ, it works even if I’m asleep. I never have to request wakeup calls when I stay in hotels, or set the alarm at home. I wake up exactly when I need to, always. It’s subconscious, my mind working at several different levels simultaneously. I think that’s always been a key to my incredible success at such a young age. Knowing things without even having to—”

  “Thank you, Commander Magee,” Seward interrupted. He could tell from Magee’s expression that the commander wasn’t happy about being cut off, but the hell with him. “Let’s get started. Do you have the tape?” Seward asked impatiently.

  Magee opened his briefcase sullenly, withdrew the videocassette case and placed it on the maple coffee table between them. “Last night I acquired this tape on Thirty-ninth Street between Fifth and Madison Avenues.”

  Seward let out a long slow breath as he saw the tape physically in front of him. He tried not to allow his emotion to show, but that was impossible. He had been studying and shadowing Jim Egan for too long. If Magee hadn’t acquired this damning piece of evidence last night, thirty-five years of work would have washed down the drain like so much dirty bathwater.

  Suddenly Seward could no longer contain his anger. “What the hell were you thinking about last night?”

  Magee’s posture stiffened. He had never heard this tone in Seward’s voice and was unprepared for the rebuke. After all, he had successfully completed the mission. “What did you say?”

  Seward gritted his teeth. “I told you to acquire the tape as benignly as possible. Under no circumstances were you to jeopardize Cole Egan’s life. You completely disobeyed my orders.”

  “I got you the damn tape,” Magee snapped. Christ, he was tired of reporting to this doddering old fool. It was time to get back to the CIA. “And how would you know I jeopardized Cole Egan’s life?”

  “A Gilchrist window was shot out last night, and there was an explosion in Mr. Egan’s Manhattan apartment, killing an unlucky young woman named Maria Cooper.” Seward gritted his teeth more tightly. “I believe that explosion was meant for Cole Egan. It’s quite a trail of violence, too closely timed with your Manhattan visit to be coincidence. That’s how I know you jeopardized his life.”

  Magee shifted uncomfortably in his chair but said nothing.

  “You had to use your power, didn’t you?” Seward asked disdainfully. Magee was one of those psychopathic military zealots Seward had run into before. “You had to kill, now that you’re insulated.” Magee could commit murder and suffer no consequences. The government had bestowed that privilege upon him, and it sickened Seward that Magee would take advantage of this newly acquired carte blanche. “You fired on Cole Egan as you chased him out of the Gilchrist Building last night, and you wired his apartment for the explosion, didn’t you?” Seward demanded.

  Still Magee said nothing. But Seward thought he noticed a tiny smile move Magee’s scar. “What about the people under your command?” he asked curtly.

  “Catherine is dead,” Magee answered without emotion.

  “Some idiot came running at us immediately after I took the tape from Cole Egan.”

  “What?” Seward caught his breath as his heart rate jumped.

  “Yes. The man shot Catherine. Fortunately, I eluded him.”

  This was bad news. “Did you get a good look at this man?” Seward asked quickly, his pulse racing.

  “All I can tell you for certain is that he had curly yellow hair.”

  “You mean blond hair.”

  “If I had meant blond, I would have said it. Blond is a generic term covering many different shades. This man’s hair was yellow.”

  “Is everyone else accounted for?” Seward asked, trying to ignore Magee’s arrogance.

  Magee shook his head. “Agent Graham is missing. I presume he is dead as well.”

  “Dammit!” Seward slammed his fist on the table. “You really screwed this up, Magee.”

  So fire me and let me go back to the CIA, Magee wanted to say. But he held back. Something told him that discretion might be the better part of valor right now.

  “Do you realize what kind of trouble you might have caused us by harming Cole Egan,” Seward raged, “if our investigation into the Colombian affair turns up answers we don’t anticipate?” It was improbable that the investigation would turn up those answers, but then Jim Egan was an improbable man. Seward had learned that a long time ago. “Cole Egan must stay alive.”

  “Look, I’m sorry.” It took the only ounce of humility Magee possessed to say the words. “You told me it was absolutely imperative that we acquire that tape.” He gestured at the cassette case sitting on the table. “Cole Egan turned out to be a resourceful man, so as a precaution, in the event I couldn’t catch up with him, I wired the apartment for an explosion. That way, if we couldn’t get the tape, nobody else could either. It’s too bad about the woman in Cole Egan’s apartment.”

  “Uh-huh.” Seward was seething. He knew Magee didn’t give a rat’s ass about the young woman. “Fortunately, using our powers of persuasion, we were able to convince the New York City Fire Department that the explosion was an accident.”

  “Good.” Magee was suddenly impressed with Seward’s abilities to manipulate. Perhaps he had underestimated the man after all.

  “What about the fat man on the Gilchrist trading floor?” Seward asked. “I believe his name is Lewis Gebauer.”

  “What about him?”

  “Is he suspicious of what’s going on? Did you screw that up too?”

  Magee shook his head. “No, he’s positive I’m a private investigator working for the company holding Cole Egan’s mortgage. Gebauer is an idiot. He’s got no idea what’s really going on. He just wants to screw up Egan’s life. For some reason they hate each other. Of course, Gebauer would be an easy man to hate.”

  As are you, Seward thought to himself. “Is Gebauer still useful?”

  Magee knew what that meant. “Yes, if you want to maintain close surveillance on Cole Egan.” It meant that Gebauer’s days were numbered.

  “All right,” Seward said, more to himself than Magee. He was beginning to calm down. “You leave for Colombia tonight, Commander,” Seward reminded Magee, holding up his left hand and studying the nail of his index finger as he spoke.

  “I’m ready,” Magee answered confidently
.

  “I hope you don’t find anything alarming down there.”

  “I hope not too, sir.”

  Seward heard the derisive tone again as he picked up his cane and the tape, rose stiffly from the chair and limped out of the living room. At the doorway he hesitated momentarily. “Have a pleasant trip, Commander,” he said, then closed the door behind him and limped down the hallway toward his study.

  Magee shook his head and rose from the chair. What a bastard Seward was. And he had to endure a five-hour round trip just to put up with that crock of shit. Magee picked up his leather briefcase and headed toward the cabin door.

  Seward watched through the study’s tinted window as Magee strode to the silver government sedan, slid behind the steering wheel, gunned the motor and guided the car back down the driveway. He kept watching until the car had disappeared into the forest, then turned to face General Avery Zahn, who was sitting in a chair across the room.

  “Did you get all that?” Seward asked. He was still angry.

  Zahn gestured at the television in one corner of the study. He had observed the conversation between Seward and Magee via a tiny camera and microphone concealed in the stones of the living room fireplace. “Yes,” he said calmly. “I got it.”

  “Commander Magee went over the line in New York. I told you he would. He could have screwed up everything. He still might.”

  “He got the tape,” Zahn observed.

  “Yes,” Seward agreed. “But Commander Magee was specifically ordered not to harm Cole Egan. If he had, we might have had real trouble on our hands.”

  “Relax,” Zahn urged. “Commander Magee did what he had to do.”

  “Why would we have had real trouble?” The short man dressed in a charcoal suit spoke up for the first time from his seat on the couch. His voice was gruff, as if he were suffering from laryngitis.

  Seward glanced at the man. Though short, he exuded natural power. Not political power, but a cruder, rawer power. He wasn’t military, and Zahn wouldn’t explain his presence. Zahn even seemed slightly intimidated by him.

  “There is always the possibility that a second tape exists,” Seward said without awaiting Zahn’s approval to offer the information. There was more than a possibility, Seward judged. Even though Seward had never met Jim Egan, he felt as if he knew him very well after studying him for so many years. “Jim Egan was an intelligent man. He could have easily made another tape. Cole Egan is our link. Without him we’d be blind again.”

  The short man pursed his lips twice as he processed this new, disturbing possibility.

  “Jim Egan could have given someone the original film, too,” Zahn snapped, obviously irritated at Seward’s unauthorized editorial. “But he didn’t.”

  Seward’s eyes narrowed as he studied General Zahn. So the president hadn’t told Zahn everything. “Yes, he did give someone the original film,” Seward corrected Zahn quietly.

  “Huh?” Zahn lurched forward in his chair, and the short man’s eyes flashed to Seward’s.

  “Eight years ago a woman delivered the original film of the assassination to a civilian CIA employee who lived in the woman’s apartment building,” Seward explained. “The woman claimed to have come upon the film while she was clearing out her father’s attic after he had died.”

  “So we have possession of it?” Zahn asked. So the president was holding back on him.

  Seward nodded.

  “Why did the woman give it to a CIA employee?” the short man wanted to know. “Why didn’t she sell it for a great deal of money?”

  Seward smiled. “Those are excellent questions, and ones I might have asked if I’d had a chance. Unfortunately, the woman died in a terrible car accident on the Capital Beltway only a few hours after giving away the film.”

  “And you think the woman got the film from Jim Egan?” Zahn asked.

  Seward nodded again.

  “Why do you think that?” the short man asked.

  “I checked the woman out. Her father wasn’t dead at all. He was still alive and had no connection whatsoever to President Kennedy’s assassination.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” Zahn argued. “Maybe she found the film some other way and was being patriotic. Maybe Jim Egan never really had it at all.”

  “Jim was throwing me a curveball,” Seward said softly. “He wanted me to think he no longer had the film so I’d stop watching him. I’m certain he gave the film to the woman with instructions to give it to that specific CIA employee, because in fact that CIA employee wasn’t really a civilian at all. That was just his cover. That CIA employee was my direct assistant for Operation Snowfall at the time. He is now dead.” Seward hung his head for a moment. The man had died in one of those unfortunate accidents at the end of his tour of duty. “Jim must have somehow found out who I was and who my assistant was. He was a clever man.” Seward paused. “I’m also certain that the woman who delivered the film to my assistant didn’t die in an accident. I’m certain Jim killed her.”

  “What?” This was too much for Zahn. “Why in the hell would he do that?”

  “Because he didn’t want her telling anyone else what she had delivered,” Seward responded. “He wanted the existence of that film to remain secret until now.”

  The short man nodded subtly. “So you think he might have made one or more videocassette copies?” the man asked in his gruff voice.

  “Yes,” Seward answered definitively. “He was a careful man. He knew he was being monitored.”

  “Is that our only potential problem?” the short man asked. Seward was obviously much better informed than Zahn, and while he had the chance he was going to ask questions.

  “There’s Colombia,” Seward offered.

  “Enough, Mr. Seward,” Zahn interrupted. “We’ll deal with that if we have to.” He was annoyed. “I think you’re being paranoid.”

  Seward nodded stiffly. “All right,” he said. If that was the way Zahn wanted to play, so be it. He was the general.

  “Play the tape,” Zahn ordered.

  Obediently, Seward moved to the VCR positioned beneath the television and inserted the tape. He had seen the images many times while watching the original film, so this would be nothing new for him. But he was interested in seeing the reactions of the other two men to the shocking footage.

  7

  The Lassiter River begins in the remote forest of northern Wisconsin and flows through deep gorges and towering pine trees until it empties into Lake Superior forty miles east of Duluth, Minnesota. The river is fast-flowing, rocky-bottomed, relatively short—just thirty miles point to point—and accessible only after an arduous trek through the dense pines or at two small bridges maintained by Oswego County. The property on either side of the river is owned by a small group of monied individuals as well as the federal and state governments.

  Except at the tiny town of Hubbard, through which the Lassiter runs, only an occasional home is visible among the trees as one travels downstream, because there are only twelve estates along the entire length of the river. During the late spring and summer months these estates are occupied by members and guests of wealthy Minneapolis and St. Paul families, but the mansions are rarely inhabited from October to March. During these months the homes can be buried beneath mountains of snow dropped by a constant barrage of Alberta clippers and lake-effect storms.

  The town of Hubbard, ten miles south of Lake Superior, is little more than an outpost in the middle of the forbidding pine forest. The town consists of a gas station still displaying a rusted Esso sign, a diner, a motel, a few modest clapboard homes and a drinking establishment known as the Kro Bar. The townspeople, mostly farmers and loggers, are not overly friendly to strangers—not even to sportsmen who journey to the Lassiter in the summer to enjoy some of the best rainbow trout fishing in the country and to spend money on rooms at the motel, food at the diner an
d alcohol at the Kro Bar. It is an isolated land, and most of the natives, including a few Chippewa Indians, seem to prefer it that way.

  The sleek green-hulled canoe gathered speed as it cruised into the top of Devil’s Run just above a half-mile stretch of the river called Big Lake where the Lassiter expands to several hundred feet across and slows considerably. The few canoeists who find their way to the Lassiter are usually nervous at this point. Devil’s Run is a wild stretch of white water, and the odds of losing control and capsizing in these rapids are high. But Cole paddled confidently toward the first drop. He knew the Lassiter like the back of his hand and after years of experience had learned to identify submerged objects by reading surface swirls and shadows. He had grown up on this river fly-fishing, hunting and canoeing with the friends of his youth, most of whom he had lost contact with after moving to New York City. They couldn’t understand why he would abandon the pristine woodlands of Minnesota and northern Wisconsin to live in a place where crime was a way of life and the real outdoors was hours away. To them, no amount of money was worth that sacrifice. Maybe he should have listened to them, Cole thought to himself as he maneuvered the craft into the top of the rapids.

  Cole guided the bow of the canoe through the boiling water, deftly avoiding sharp rocks and submerged logs as he bounced downstream. Finally he steered to the right of a huge boulder at the bottom of Devil’s Run and slipped into the calm headwaters of Big Lake. He pulled the dripping paddle from the water, placed it across the gunwales and allowed the canoe to drift freely with the current as he relaxed and enjoyed the serenity of the fall afternoon. The only sounds on the river were the fading roar of the rapids behind him and the shrill screech of a territorial bald eagle overhead as it vacated its perch atop a dead birch tree, irritated at the uncommon human intrusion into its domain. The sky was a cloudless deep blue, and the scent of a far-off fire drifted through the air as the sun sank toward the horizon.