by Greg Ahlgren
“Stop General Lee from defecting,” Ginter answered, reaching across her and shoving the maps into the glove box.
“Huh?”
“O.H. Lee. The future ‘Hero of Acapulco.’ The American who saved, or will save, Ché Guevara in Bolivia in 1968. According to his autobiography he is currently in New Orleans. He defected to the Soviet Union a few years ago, but returned. He’ll defect to Cuba later this year. He’ll head up a guerilla expeditionary wing that will save Ché from the Bolivian army. If I can stop the defection, he won’t be in Bolivia. If Ché is killed or captured there’s an excellent chance the insurgency falls apart in South America. And without that toehold America may not have to capitulate.”
Pamela sat silently, staring at the side of the building.
“So, that’s your plan, stop this Lee guy from defecting to Cuba?”
“That’s it,” Ginter said.
“When did he defect?”
“September, 1963.”
“What’s the significance of this Friday, in New Orleans?”
“In his autobiography he talks about August 9, 1963 as a pretty big day. He’s going to get into a fight with a bunch of anti-Castro zealots on a street corner while he’s distributing pamphlets. I know exactly where he’ll be, or at least, I know where he said he was. If I miss him there, he’ll be at the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City in late September to defect. Once he’s in Cuba I can’t get him.”
“And how are you going to stop him in New Orleans?” Pamela asked, pursing her lips.
Ginter stared straight through the windshield. Pamela’s gaze dropped to his left armpit.
“Jesus, Lewis. That’s it? That’s what you’ve got? You’re gonna’ shoot the fucker in broad daylight?” Pamela asked incredulously. She became frantic. “How are you ever going to get away?”
Pamela threw herself back against her door and turned sideways to face Ginter.
“This is stupid. I’ve driven down here with you for 10 hours on your way to just waste a guy? Even more important, how do I get away?”
Ginter turned to face his passenger. When she had calmed down he spoke softly.
“Wasting him is your phrase, not mine. He has to be stopped, and I know where he is on August 9th. I don’t know where he is after that. If I’m going to stop him in the United States, it has to be Friday.”
“Doesn’t his autobiography say what he does between August 9th and September whatever, when he defects?” she asked.
Ginter waved his hand. “He makes some reference to being in Clinton, Louisiana for a CORE voter registration drive in September. But I don’t have a date.”
“What was he doing there?”
Ginter shrugged. “Search me. He’s pretty vague about it himself. Probably just to promote the image of himself as a champion of the oppressed, which was a load of shit,” he added contemptuously.
Pamela snorted. “Doesn’t sound like you have a lot of intelligence on this guy. For being former Special Ops and all. Tell me again why I agreed to come with you.”
“Basically, you had no choice. And given our situation we don’t have a better plan.”
Pamela turned back to the front.
“I’m scared,” she said slowly. “This is so crazy I can’t believe it. Plus, I don’t even have any ID. How much trouble can I get in?”
Ginter shrugged. “I thought about going into New York to score a fake ID but was afraid we’d get caught. I’d say at this point we’re stuck with no identification, but I don’t think you’ll have a problem.”
“Well, we could have at least stayed in New York. That’s always been a fun town for me. We could have painted it red,” she said, her mood changing.
Ginter looked at her quizzically. “Sounds like you’re trying to shill for the Big Apple,” he said carefully.
Pamela laughed out loud. “Just nervous. Trying to figure out a way to blow off some steam, I guess.”
Ginter nodded thoughtfully. “You’re right,” he said. “This is crazy. And it seems to be getting crazier all the time.”
“I just can’t believe this is all happening,” Pamela said. “Two days ago I was in Portland, Maine, trying to figure out how to screw people injured in car accidents, and now here I am 63 years ago.” She shook her head.
“Yeah, well, it’s that way for all of us,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Speaking of Maine,” he said, “I have a question. You said that Pomeroy wasn’t your boyfriend. How’d you meet him?”
“Arthur?” Pamela pondered the question. “I met him in New Hampshire. My brother has a one-week time-share up there. Same week in December every year. He and his wife use it as a sort of retreat. They sit around and play board games. Kind of weird, I know. I usually go up and join them for a few days. One Friday I drove over for the weekend. The three of us went out to dinner and Arthur was at the bar. My sister-in-law knew him from Portland and called him over to our table.”
Ginter nodded. “My niece used to have a time-share up at Loon Mountain. She always said it was a lousy investment. Was Arthur by himself?”
“That weekend?” She shrugged. “As far as I know. I think he was up there skiing.
“Do you think he’s really back here?” Pamela asked.
“Sometimes I wonder if I’m really back here.”
Lewis Ginter switched off the engine and extracted the key. The two got out and removed their newly purchased suitcases from the undersized trunk. Pamela began lugging hers toward the front door. There were about 15 cars in the parking lot. Just outside the entrance Ginter paused to listen to the crickets chirping in the adjacent woods. Such a beautiful night, he thought. But people sure do seem to go to bed early in 1963, he mused as he swung in through the doors.
Inside the door he stopped at a newspaper stand and studied the headlines, momentarily contemplating a Washington Post. He decided to get the morning paper instead. Better to get a good night’s sleep.
At the front desk Pamela Rhodes was already signing the guest book and Ginter put down his suitcase and waited. When she handed her cash to the manager and stepped aside Ginter shoved his suitcase up to the desk with his foot and smiled. The clerk did not smile back.
“What do you want?” the clerk asked. Ginter was tempted to make a smart remark but instead just answered, “A room,” while glancing at Pamela who stood fumbling her change back into her purse.
“This ain’t a colored motel,” the clerk said. “There’s a colored motel down the road.”
Ginter turned back to the clerk. He could feel the hairs on the back of his neck rise. To his left Pamela stopped, her purse only half shoved back into her pocketbook. When he felt his left elbow beginning to press against his armpit he came to his senses and dropped his arm.
“Didn’t you hear me, boy?” the clerk asked. “You can’t stay here. You’ll have to get out before I call the police.”
The clerk looked at him expressionlessly, but Ginter could sense the hatred behind the veneer. Time stood still.
“I, I have money,” Ginter stammered, knowing even as he spoke the pointlessness of the words. He started to reach for his wallet.
The clerk leaned forward and raised his voice. “Nigger boy, are you deaf and stupid? I said no colored here. This is not a colored motel. You gotta’ go down the road. You best get along before you be seen here. Now get out of here.”
Without thinking Ginter blurted out, “I’m with her.”
As soon as the words were out of his mouth he realized his mistake. The clerk’s eyes moved from Ginter to Pamela before narrowing with fury.
“What he means is, he’s my driver,” Pamela said quickly. She looked at the clerk and cocked her head toward Ginter.
“Or actually, my husband’s driver,” she continued. “You know how it is. My husband didn’t want me to come all the way down to visit my cousin in South Carolina by myself. And I wanted to take my car so he said he’d get by with no driver and Lewis here could drive me.”
Sh
e leaned up against the counter and whispered to the clerk. “It’s not that I don’t trust him with my car or anything but I want to get going early in the morning and”-she tilted her head sideways toward Ginter-“you know how they can be by themselves in some hotel.” She winked at the clerk.
The clerk appeared uncertain. “I don’t care. He still can’t stay here. You can stay here, ma’am, but he’s gotta’ go to the colored motel. He’ll have to pick you up in the morning.”
“Well, O.K.” Pamela pouted. “But would you happen to know how much the colored motel costs because I don’t want to give him too much money. You know,” she added conspiratorially.
“I have no idea,” the clerk said icily.
Pamela pulled her purse back out and handed Lewis a ten dollar bill.
“Now take this, Lewis, and pick me up at 10:00 tomorrow morning sharp. And don’t be late! And Lewis,” she added as she turned to go with her suitcase, “I want to see a receipt and some change.”
Pamela exited the motel at exactly 10:00 and walked to the waiting Corvette. The engine was running and the car was facing the exit. She had barely closed the door when Ginter slammed the car into first gear and popped the clutch, chirping the rear tires on the gravel before pulling out onto the paved road and heading south.
They rode in silence with no radio on for almost half an hour before Lewis said simply, “Thank you.”
Pamela snickered. “Remember that old movie, Driving Miss Daisy? That’s where I got it from.”
“You thought fast. Coming up with that story.”
Pamela nodded. “Part of my training.”
“In the Resistance?” Ginter asked.
She shook her head. “Insurance adjusting,” she said.
Ginter exhaled deeply. “Back in ‘04 during the Balkans War we were outside of a Greek town called Porti. It’s in the mountains. It was all hilly to the west and there’s a wooded plain to the east. There was a mobile Russkie command post directing artillery that had been clobbering us. We had tried to get a bead on the radio transmissions but they were keeping them real brief and this guy kept moving around.”
Ginter guided the Corvette out and around a tractor-trailer truck before continuing.
“We had a plan called ‘one, two, three zap.’ Basically, I take a squad and circle around to the west and enter the town just after dawn. It would look like we had arrived late because of the hills rather than attacking at night, as they would have expected. The subterfuge only has to last a few minutes and we figured they’d counter-attack the probe. Then we’d attack with a full platoon from the east so the Russkies would think that the west was a feint. At that point, their command would take full control of the defense and should start ordering a full redeployment to defend the real attack from the east. And in that momentary flurry of redirection orders we had a ‘copter loaded to lock on to the surge in radio traffic and track a missile into the transmission point and, hopefully, take out the whole C and C.”
Ginter took a deep breath. He kept his eyes on the road. Pamela remained turned toward him, saying nothing.
“Anyway, that was the plan,” Ginter continued. “I came in with a squad on time and there was no perimeter guard. Nothing. We crept into town and I saw a courtyard with a dinky antenna in the window of a building behind a stone wall. There was no gate but we scoped it and still didn’t see anything so I went over the wall. Still nothing. Then through these French doors I see the whole fucking Russkie Command Center including a fat General with his feet up on a desk talking on a regular phone. I figure there have to be guards up the yin-yang. I figure I’m about to die in a hale of bullets. But no one looked up. There was no time to get anyone else without alerting every Russian. I didn’t even have a grenade on me, just my M-16.”
Ginter was gripping the steering wheel hard and sweat beaded on his forehead. He wiped his face with the back of his hand.
“There was no time, and nowhere else to go. I kicked open the doors. It looked like it had been a café. The general turned and started to say something and I lowered the M-16 and put one in his mouth and then I sprayed the room. Three guys burst open a door from a balcony and I sprayed them too. In less than a minute it was all over and there was no need for the ‘copter. I called in my guys and we blew up the room and that was it.”
Ginter took a deep breath. “For maybe 45 seconds of hosing down a room I got a medal from the Greek government. We counted eight dead Russian soldiers. And in those 45 seconds I wasn’t scared. Not one bit. Didn’t shake afterwards. Crazy and adrenaline rushed all over the place, but not scared. Just blew the room and left.”
Ginter swerved back into the right lane, slowed the Corvette, and swiveled to look at Pamela. “Last night was different,” he said. “Last night I was damn scared.”
Chapter 18
On Friday morning, August 9, 1963 Lewis Ginter sat in his car outside the New Orleans train station. In the 84 hours since the Virginia motel incident, whenever he and Pamela were hungry, Ginter remained in the car and dispatched Pamela on a run of shops for sandwiches, chips and sodas. Bathroom breaks had been harder. Ginter had flinched when he first saw a “Colored” restroom, while Pamela had confidently strode past into the one marked, “Whites Only.”
Buying the Corvette had been rash. Registering it with New Hampshire license plates before driving into the South compounded the error. Although he had not yet been stopped by the police for being black-in-a-Corvette, he chastised himself for his lack of forethought. He compensated by only driving at night, or by having Pamela drive while he remained slouched in the passenger seat. He had resolved that if stopped and threatened with arrest he would shoot his way out of it. But that determination had not been comforting. Shooting a white police officer would have left him on the wrong end of a manhunt.
Ginter wondered if traversing back in time had eroded his intellectual or cognitive ability.
“It’s all screwed up,” he kept telling himself. “That’s all it is. Everything is messed up and you’re just not thinking clearly.” He resolved to dump the Corvette.
Across the street, a black shoeshine boy stood outside the terminal. The kid looked about 14 and Ginter mentally calculated that by 2026 he would be about 77. He wondered if he would still be alive, an African-American elder living in New Orleans. He toyed with the idea that when he got back to Cambridge he would travel to New Orleans and find the man, until he remembered that Hurricane Katrina had displaced most of the city’s black population.
Seeing no police, Ginter exited the Corvette and approached the youngster. He asked him for directions to Canal and St. Charles Streets. After getting them he retreated to the car.
Pamela had spent the last three days trying to talk Ginter out of shooting Lee. She had repeatedly emphasized that he would get caught. Driving the Corvette out of New Orleans would be impossible. The police wouldn’t arrest him; they’d just gun down the nigger who had shot the white guy. And even if he were arrested no defense would stop his eventual execution. And for what? Just so maybe Ché Guevara would get killed in Bolivia? Did Lewis want to throw his life away on a plan that might possibly thwart one small piece of the Communist initiative? Besides, Pamela argued in summary, what if someone else saved Ché anyway?
“You won’t get away with it,” she said. “And it probably won’t work. So why do it?”
But she had stuck with him. She hadn’t asked to leave the car at any of a number of way stops. Here in New Orleans, she was with him still.
When she emerged from the terminal with hotdogs and open soda bottles he checked his watch. If he had calculated it correctly, he would be there in plenty of time.
He hoped he had the date right. He was sure he remembered correctly. But what if the little weasel himself had been wrong? Or worse, had lied?