Behold a Pale Horse

by Franklin Allen Leib

  “The CIA may have got sloppy. As usual the Bureau will clean up after them.”

  “Who sent this assassin? Who paid him?”

  “Looking for someone to blame? Hell, General, the Miami Cubans do this stuff, we just try to keep a rein on them. Surely the president is in no position to offend the brave Cubans who have been victims of his … caution.”

  Kennedy stood and took a step toward the director. He knew the director meant cowardice. Bobby’s face flushed all the way to his hairline. “God dammit, Hoover—”

  “Director Hoover.” He remained seated as Kennedy towered over him, his fists balled. “Yes?”

  “Even you can’t say absolutely anything in this office!”

  “No disrespect was intended,” Hoover said with an insincere smile that said just the opposite.

  Kennedy turned away. “Who’s CIA’s man in Florida?”

  “His name is Fernandez, but he’s not on CIA’s payroll, or any other government agency’s.”

  “Get rid of him.”

  “What, to show your displeasure? No. Fernandez does useful work.”

  Kennedy turned back. He felt his color rising again, his hands trembling. Hoover was insufferable. “Director, I just gave you an order.”

  “You can’t fire him, General,” Hoover said blandly. “I’ve just told you he doesn’t work for government.”

  “But you could fire him.”

  “Yes, if I thought it advisable. I don’t.

  “You’re all but daring me to fire you.”

  Hoover laughed, a single bark. He slapped his hands on his fleshy thighs and pushed himself out of the soft couch. “General, you can’t know how far I go to protect you—and of course the president. So many secrets are on my files it would be perilous indeed to entrust them to the care of a political appointee.”

  “Blackmail?” Kennedy rasped.

  “Not at all,” Hoover said blandly. “I serve the nation; I work with each administration in its turn. The president needs steady advisers in shaping his policies; not only on communism and Cuba, but on his ambitions in the area of civil rights.”

  Bobby Kennedy believed Hoover kept secret files. “You have information that could damage the president.”

  “Safely locked away. Protected, General, by me personally.”

  Kennedy shook his head in disgust. How the old bastard was enjoying this. “I don’t suppose you’d show me.”

  “Files? Your brother’s? Yours?” Hoover chuckled. “Of course. Though the one you should enjoy the most is that of your favorite Negro preacher, Martin Luther King Jr.” Hoover turned to leave without waiting for his boss to dismiss him.

  “Director,” Kennedy said sharply. Hoover stopped with his hand on the doorknob and turned slowly. He did not reply. “I will have a look at the files. Today, please.”

  Hoover gave a little bow. “Of course. Yours and the president’s.”

  “Dr. King’s too,” Kennedy said sadly.

  Hoover turned and went out, leaving the door open behind him.

  4

  COBRA BLINKED IN THE harsh Havana sunlight. The lamp in his cell had been extinguished hours before, he assumed to disorient him. It had worked; he stumbled as he was marched across the stone-flagged courtyard to a waiting 6x6 truck. He was tossed in between two rows of seated soldiers. His hands were cuffed behind his back and he was blindfolded with a white handkerchief. He closed his eyes to rest them as the truck lurched forward with a clash of worn gears. Lieutenant Carvahal had told him he would be shot within the prison, so the movement away had to be a good sign.

  He reckoned they had been driving for about an hour over badly broken roads, never very fast. The truck stopped with a jerk that caused him to slide to the front of the bed and bang his head. Soldiers handed him down and the blindfold was pulled off. Hands held his as the handcuffs were unlocked. Lieutenant Carvahal stepped from behind him, putting the cuffs in a belt holster. “Come along, Cabron,” he said. Cabron was Carvahal’s little joke; it meant goat instead of cobra; it also meant cuckold.

  He followed the lieutenant down an irregular row of parked trucks, most resting on rusted axles, stripped for parts. At the end of the row was a dusty parade ground several hundred meters long. Carvahal led him up a steep grandstand to a dilapidated covered booth at the top. Inside on a rude bench was the Carcano rifle the Cuban exiles had given him weeks before in Miami. So Carvahal has convinced his bosses to let me show them how I hit the cigar instead of the man, Cobra thought with a glimmer of hope. He hoped the bright lights of his cell hadn’t damaged his eyes, especially his depth perception; he’d heard that could happen. He looked at the weapon and then at Carvahal; the lieutenant nodded. Cobra picked the rifle up and jacked the bolt open. Empty, of course, and dirty. “May I clean the rifle?”

  Carvahal smiled slightly. “There is a rod, rags, solvent, and oil in the holdall beneath the bench.” He watched as Cobra swiftly field-stripped the weapon and cleaned it with care. He removed the scope and cleaned it and its mounting, unscrewed and reseated the stock. He worked twenty minutes in silence, then set the rifle carefully on a rag spread over the bench. “What would you have me shoot?”

  “The same, Cabron. One shot for your life.”

  There was another grandstand at right angles to the one where they waited. Cobra saw two truckloads of soldiers pull in front of it, a dusty Buick in between them. The soldiers jumped down and formed a loose perimeter. Two men in green Russian-style fatigues left the Buick and climbed the grandstand halfway and sat. They and the soldiers looked expectantly toward the covered booth. So, Cobra thought looking at the burly man with his heavy black beard and his slighter companion, Fidel and Raul have come themselves to see if I can do it again. For some reason he found the Castros’ presence calming. “What’s my target?”

  “Are you ready to shoot?”

  Cobra turned the rifle toward Carvahal, the bolt open. “I trust you recovered the cartridges that were in this weapon when I left it.”

  Carvahal reached into a leg pocket in his fatigue trousers and withdrew a cardboard box. He laid it on the bench. Cobra flipped off the lid and found four cartridges nestled in oiled cotton. He picked up two and examined them; they were his and didn’t appear to have been tampered with.

  “What else do you need?” Carvahal asked.

  “A table, and a sandbag to rest the barrel. I made the shot prone.”

  Carvahal snapped his fingers. Four soldiers struggled in with the metal desk from the warehouse. The sandbag Cobra had carried when he was taken had been stitched and filled and was placed on the desk. Carvahal allowed himself a faint smile. “Everything shall be as you made it, Cabron.”

  Cobra looked across the dusty parade ground. There was very little wind, but a shimmer of heat, especially over the paved road that ran around the perimeter. “I had sunglasses when I was arrested. Polarized.”

  Carvahal produced them from a pocket with a flourish. “El Lider Maximo is waiting, Shooter. He is anxious to see a reconstruction of your sparing of his life.”

  “You haven’t told me what I’m to shoot.” Cobra climbed up onto the table and kneaded a groove in the sandbag with his thumbs. He placed the rifle on the bag and set the cartridges beside it; he made no move to load.

  “A man will be driven by in a jeep. The limousine is undergoing modifications suggested by your enterprise; an armored bubble just like the American president uses. The passenger in the back seat of the jeep will be smoking a cigar.”

  “Who is the man?”

  “A volunteer. An American, actually, but don’t kill him; we have plans for him.”

  “Just like that.”

  “Yes. The first run will be free; you can see the target and gauge the range. It should be very close to what you had in the plaza.”

  I was higher, Cobra thought, and I walked the plaza many times. Worries. What do I do if the subject doesn’t turn his head as Fidel did?

  “Take your shot on the second pas
s, just as the jeep turns away, as you did in the plaza.” Carvahal drew a Russian Makarov pistol and pointed it at Cobra’s head. “Be careful not to train your rifle this way at all.”

  Cobra looked beyond Carvahal to the brothers Castro. They seemed to be sharing a joke. “All right. Let’s begin.”

  Carvahal grinned. “Good shooting, Rhodesian. Believe it or not, I hope you make it.” He withdrew a whistle from his pocket and blew three sharp, shrill blasts. Almost immediately a jeep with Cuban flags on the front bumper emerged from among the parked trucks and drove across the far end of the parade ground, about five hundred meters away. Cobra loaded a single round and locked the bolt as Carvahal watched, holding the pistol two meters from his temple. Cobra picked up his subject easily in the telescopic sight, a big, dark-complected man with a thick black beard, dressed in fatigues and flat-crowned cap, lighting a big cigar as the jeep moved off. He looked very much like Fidel. The jeep reached the far corner of the field and turned toward the grandstands. Cobra measured the speed with his eye; the Cubans were playing him straight, at least so far; Carvahal might have a reason for wanting him to make the shot, but what of Fidel?

  The shooter forced his breathing to slow. He had had hours in the warehouse to lower himself into the near-trance state, heart rate and breathing to minimums so his body would impart no movement to the rifle. He always allowed himself time to ready his body and mind but now there was no time. He could feel his blood pumping as he slid in behind the rifle and braced his weight on his elbows. The image in the scope moved slightly but perceptibly in time with the pulse in his cheek. Deeper, deeper, he willed himself. Nirvana, a place of perfect harmony, stillness. Nirvana in Sanskrit meant no wind.

  The jeep turned left in the middle of the parade field, about two hundred meters away, simulating the short block of Avenida Jose Marti in the capital’s central plaza. When it turned again as if in front of the cathedral, he would fire. Cobra saw it all and saw nothing. Not this time; he’ll drive by again. The image continued to move in time with his vital rhythm. The American’s face was clear as he sucked vigorously on the cigar. He was very young and seemed at ease. A very brave man, Cobra thought as the jeep turned away. Brave or perhaps uninformed.

  Just there. A shot across the jeep would take the cigar cleanly. Cobra’s breathing slowed and his world became the crosshairs and the black cigar that looked finer than they did. Cobra allowed his elbow bridge to relax as the jeep turned at the top of the field and made ready for its second run, but he maintained his mental focus. He heard Carvahal ask a question but didn’t answer. Carvahal blew his whistle twice and the jeep came on.

  Cobra came up in his elbows, the rifle balanced lightly on the fulcrum of the sandbag. The image was crisp as the jeep made its first slow turn. On the first pass he had noted the rough places in the road that caused the subject to bounce; he hoped the second turn would be on smooth pavement as it had before. The jeep was still on “Avenida Marti” when he began squeezing the trigger, adding pressure in each still period of his heart. The subject’s profile was clear, the cigar jutting at a rakish angle. Cobra was shocked wide awake by the shot when it broke, but his eye never left the scope. The cigar disappeared.

  Cobra stood on the desk, leaving the rifle. The jeep jerked forward and swerved as the driver panicked; the subject rolled out of the jeep flailing his arms and legs in the dust. He jumped to his feet, his false beard askew and missing his hat. He looked around at the grandstands. “Holy jumpin’ Jehosaphat!” he bellowed in English. “What the fuck was that?”

  Uninformed, Cobra thought. He stepped down from the desk. Fidel and Raul rocked with laughter as the American continued to dart his eyes around in search of his assailant.

  The laughter of scared men trying to look brave, Cobra thought. Carvahal picked up the rifle and cradled it under his arm. “Wait here, Cabron.”

  Cobra sat on the edge of the desk as Carvahal climbed down the steps of the grandstand and walked over to the knot of giggling soldiers surrounding the Castro brothers. The jeep remained in the middle of the field, its motor idling. The American calmed down and stood limp, his head bowed. Cobra yawned. He always felt very sleepy after a shot broke; he supposed because his shallow breathing and slowed heart rate deprived his brain of oxygen—sometimes he was almost too lethargic to execute his escape. Today there could be no escape.

  Carvahal presented the Carcano to Fidel, who examined it quickly then handed it to his brother. Carvahal saluted and trotted back to the grandstand beneath Cobra. He was breathing hard when he reached the booth. “Congratulations, Cabron. You’re to live again.”

  To what end? Cobra wondered idly. He covered a great yawn. A show trial and back to the dungeon?

  “I’m to take you back to the capital, get you cleaned up, and let you rest. Tomorrow you will fly to Mexico City, then on to Dallas, Texas.”

  “What do I do there?”

  “Go to a certain hotel and wait. A man will find you and give you a job to do and some money. Not much; we’re a poor revolution, but enough to survive.”

  “Who is this man?”

  “He will call himself Howard Fernandez.”

  “Afterwards I’m free to go?”

  “To disappear. Cobras know how to disappear.”

  COBRA WAS FLOWN from Havana to Mexico City on a small Tupolev transport in the red, white, and blue livery of Cubana de Aviacion. There were several other passengers, mostly officials of the revolution dressed in the obligatory green fatigues. Cobra wore civilian clothes Carvahal had given him, a seersucker suit and cotton shirt, a knit tie, and cheap shoes. The clothes fitted him poorly; the label in the suit said “Sears, Roebuck and Co., Chicago.”

  The only other passenger in civilian clothes was the young American who had ridden the jeep smoking as Cobra aimed and shot. He was seated forward with more senior officials; he glanced back at Cobra a few times but made no attempt to approach him. Cobra kept to himself, glad to be out of Cuba, content to wait to see what would happen next.

  The officials departed in Mexico City but Cobra and the American were escorted across the airport to a Viscount turboprop of Aeronaves de Mexico. The American was a big man, handsome with a dark, smooth face. He looked very young, younger even than Cobra, who was nineteen. Cobra looked at him with an African’s practiced eye and felt certain the man had Negro blood, just a bit. The man winked at him and grinned as Mexican officials gravely studied his new Spanish passport, provided by Carvahal in Havana. Cobra noted the American used a green U.S. passport, perhaps even his own. When they boarded the plane, the American sat across the aisle but said nothing until the doors closed and the Viscount began to taxi away from the terminal. He leaned over and beckoned with a finger. “Name’s Rupert J. Tolliver. You the shooter damn near blowed my head off.” Cobra didn’t offer a name for himself, but shook the proffered hand. “A demonstration for Fidel. No offense intended.”

  “Hell, none taken. Damn glad you can shoot some.”

  “I take it you weren’t warned.”

  “Fuckin’ Cubans! Said they was shootin’ a movie an’ old Fidel gets carsick.”

  “What were you doing in Cuba?”

  “Just visiting my conscience, friend. Where I come from up yonder in Texas it’s so God-an’-country you got to carry a flag an’ two Bibles an’ pray for a third, but I think this damn Kennedy feller is about to get us into a war, if not with Cuba, then in some far-off Godforsaken corner of Asia. I reckon a young man’s got to stop that if he can.”

  “What will your government do if they find out you’ve been in Cuba?”

  Tolliver winked again. “They’ll not likely draft me into the army, and that’s a fact.”

  Ah, Cobra thought. Where have all the flowers gone?

  “You ain’t American, are you, boy?”

  “No.” Cobra turned to look out the window.

  “Where, then?” Tolliver pressed.

  Cobra patted the phony passport in his coat pocket.


  “Spain.”

  “Sure,” Tolliver guffawed. “Well, boy, when you get back to Spain, remember my name. My ambition is to be President of the United States one day.”

  Cobra grinned. The kid was so silly he was fun. “I’ll remember.”

  5

  PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY dropped the red and white FBI folder on the floor next to his rocking chair with a slap. His brother sat opposite him in the living room of the family quarters in the White House. A fire crackled low in the grate; the first chill of autumn was early in Washington, only the fifteenth of November. “Bobby, we knew Hoover had files.”

  “He threatens to use them against you, against your reelection.”

  “Yet he gave them to you.”

  “Copies. Excerpts.”

  The president rubbed his sore back beneath his suit jacket. “So what? Marilyn, poor dear. It was long ago.”

  Bobby leaned forward. “It was last month, Jack, in this very” room.

  The president chuckled. “Hoover can’t know that.”

  “He does. Also Judy Campbell, and he knows of the connection to Sam Giancana.”

  “More ’n we did, at the time. Hell, Bobby, I like a little pussy. Every red-blooded American would cheer if he knew.”

  “Men, perhaps. Fifty-six percent of the men in this country voted for Nixon, Jack. Women put you in the White House.”

  The president took a sip of scotch whisky. “You really think he’d disclose this shit?”

  “You willing to bet he won’t?”

  Jack grinned. “What’s he got on you?”

  The attorney general held his own file in his lap. “Nothing to compare.”

  “Come on,” the president said playfully. “Let me see.”

  Bobby reluctantly passed the slip folder across. “I’m not the president, Jack.”

  The president opened the file, leafed through, and tossed it on top of his own. “What about Dr. King?”