by Noel Hynd
Cooper pushed all this aside with mild amusement. Laughs were for another day. His stomach was churning. He had endured this sense of foreboding before, but rarely with the intensity as he encountered it this evening.
He sat by himself and nursed a gin and tonic. He tried to put the entire Firebird case in perspective. Cooper had some of the facts in alignment now. Others were elusive. But on a higher level, translating the mayhem, homicide, and conspiracy into comprehensible human terms caused him problems. Rational decisions, decisive human acts, were all wrapped together in an ambient madness that formed the backdrop of the middle years of the twentieth century.
The inexplicable yielded its secret each time first to a logical progression, then to a larger insanity. Why, for example, should Presidents be murdered? Yet why should the guardians of public office—including Presidents—engage in criminal activity? Why did men set out on courses that would lead to murder? Usually they did it in the name of decency. Sometimes they did it in the name of national security. The citizens of a nation, they might argue, sometimes had to be killed in order to be protected.
Against his better judgment, Cooper ordered a second gin and tonic. He drank half of it as soon as it hit the table. He glanced at his watch again. Where in hell was Lauren? He wondered if he should have brought his pistol with him. He quickly decided that he should have and cursed himself for not having done so. He was slipping. There was the ostensible proof.
He sighed and tried to put himself in perspective. In the end, he was still an obit man, sitting in a bar, midway through his life if he were lucky, and trying to put some lives in order. No subject that he knew was as simple as a man’s death. None was as complicated as a man's life.
He finished his drink. The waiter was on him in a heartbeat and inquired if he needed a third. He declined. But when the waiter said he’d bring the bill, Cooper changed his tune. He’d order a third and nurse it as he waited.
Lauren was uncharacteristically late. He tried to settle himself. He took out his notepad. The gin was tiptoeing up on him. An impulse was upon him. He riffled through the worn pages of his notebook till he found what he wanted. A blank page.
Okay, he told himself, this was as good a time as any to take stock.
FRANK COOPER, 40
WRITER FOR THE NY EAGLE
He paused, then added on impulse or perhaps on some macabre instinct that he couldn’t suppress:
SHOT TO DEATH IN NYC
There. There it was. Well, why should he be murdered? Wasn’t that what had been intended at S&M Storage? Now, where to begin? He suddenly wondered. Where to end? How could he begin to explain his life? How could he make its final summation? He couldn't even place his finger on the most significant event so far. He wondered:
WROTE ‘IRISH COMICS’ FOR CITY TABLOID
or
INQUIRED INTO JFK SLAYING
Which did he prefer? Both? None of the above? He played with some concepts:
FRANK COOPER, 40
WRITER FOR THE EAGLE
LINKED JFK SLAYING TO CIA,
KGB AND WALLACE PRESIDENTIAL BID.
Very good, he thought. He gave himself a five-line heading, something he had never given to anyone else. Then he noticed he hadn’t linked any such things at all. Even in the arena of tabloid journalism a few shaky facts were needed at the foundation of a news story.
His attention lagged. He drank half of his third gin and tonic and felt a gentle buzz. Facts. Yes, he still lacked them. He didn’t have the ones he wanted. All he had was a lot of gut instinct.
His instincts had served him well many times before. And suddenly bad feelings overwhelmed him on the Firebird case. He kept his notebook on the table. He spent a few more minutes on his obituary. He redid the headline.
FRANK COOPER, 40,
NEWSMAN FOR THE SUN
DIES IN MANHATTAN SHOOTING.
Then he realized. He had written a headline more for a news story than a death notice. So be it. He added few pertinent details on his life. He re-read it.
A female voice interrupted. “What are you working on?” Lauren asked.
Cooper quickly covered his notes.
“Nothing much,” he said.
“Don’t lie to me.”
“My obituary. Just in case things go the wrong way.”
“You’re a bowl of good cheer this evening, aren’t you?’
“Maybe.”
“Where’s that coming from?”
“Decades of experiences.”
Lauren shook her head. She leaned forward and kissed him.
She gave him a second look. Then, “Sorry I’m late. Subway.”
“I get it,” he said. “Want a drink before we go upstairs?”
“Bad idea,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said. “I just had four bad ideas. I drank three of them.”
“What’s the fourth?”
“Thinking too much. And writing my own epitaph.”
“Let’s go,” she said.
Cooper left twenty dollars on the table.
The went to the front desk of the hotel. A clerk phoned Mr. Moreland’s room and announced the visitors. Cooper and Lauren turned and headed toward the elevators.
Chapter 87
Two minutes later, Cooper and Lauren stood before the door to suite 408. Cooper knocked. The door opened. A man whom neither of them had ever seen before stood before them with a Slavic face and deep gray eyes. He was muscular and off-kilter handsome. He appeared to be in his forties.
“Welcome,” he said. “Come in. Mr. Moreland waits for you.”
The man had an accent, but Cooper couldn’t place it. It struck Cooper as odd that a man who was a bundler for Wallace would employ someone foreign—America first, after all, right? Cooper didn’t have time to reflect. The man stepped aside. Cooper’s eyes raced through the room. They quickly settled upon Deke Moreland, who was standing before them.
“Thank you, Misha,” Moreland said to his assistant.
Misha nodded. Lauren held him in a studious gaze. He gave Lauren a bold smile.
Cooper and Lauren came forward, and the door closed behind them. Moreland extended a hand in greeting. They were in a small plush suite, a living room area with a small efficiency kitchen. There was a door open to a bedroom area. Cooper could see that the suite was on the corner of the floor, and that they were facing toward Grand Central and the Pan Am Building perched on top of it.
There was an RCA color television at the center of one side of the room. The set was tuned to ABC and the election results.
Midnight fluttered by. Moreland retreated to a seat. Cooper and Lauren sat across from him. Misha loomed near the door with his arms folded behind his back.
“Care for a drink?” Moreland asked. His voice had Southwestern inflections.
“I’m a Baptist. Don’t touch the booze myself but don’t care if you do. What would you like?”
“Nothing thanks,” said Cooper.
“Me, neither,” said Lauren.
“Obviously you know why I'm here,” Cooper said at length, turning back to Moreland.
“Truth is, I have no idea,” said Moreland. “But I’ll give you twenty minutes. Make it count.”
Lauren took a position on a sofa with a notepad and a pen in her lap. Cooper had assembled many notes and incipient theories. But they were all in his head.
“What I'd like to ask you about,” Cooper said, “is the degree of your knowledge about the assassination of President Kennedy.”
Moreland was momentarily startled, then laughed. “I have none of any special interest, Mr. Cooper,” he said. “I only know what I've read in books and newspapers. And you may have read more of them than I have. So probably you know more than I do.”
“I doubt it,” Cooper parried.
“And why’s that?”
“Because I have a theory that’s just come together in the last day or two. No harm in listening, is there? Would you like to hear it?”
&
nbsp; Moreland didn’t move a finger. He sat comfortably.
“Talk all you want,” he said. “Talk is cheap. Be a cheapskate.”
“Briefly, about five and a half years ago, you were in Paris in the absence of Mr. Chip Bohlen, the United States Ambassador. At that time, there was a defector named Ivan Lukashenko. You handled the defection. Lukashenko’s mission was to clarify the functions of a pair of Soviet defectors, Nosenko and Golitsyn, for the Central Intelligence Agency. I use the word ‘clarify’ very loosely. But in doing so, Comrade Lukashenko was in a position to resolve whether the KGB was involved in the Kennedy assassination or had any knowledge of it.”
Moreland didn’t budge.
“Many things were happening earlier in this decade,” Cooper continued. “There were persistent rumors that the CIA had been penetrated by a Soviet mole. There were inquiries. The defector named Golitsyn scored points by convincing James Angleton that Averell Harriman was the mole. It was a complete hoax, of course. Project Brontosaurus. A ruse. Harriman was clean. But the distraction, the disinformation, was a brilliant bit of Soviet tradecraft to disorient the west. That became evident to anyone seeing clearly, but not until it was too late.”
Moreland reached for a Marlboro. He lit it. He folded his arms across his chest.
“My guess is that you’re a career CIA man. No crime in that per se. You were also Lyndon Johnson's friend, confidant, and troubleshooter. You knew each other from Texas. Thus, you had the opportunity—as well as the cover—to go to Paris in Ambassador Bohlen’s absence. You used the name David Charles, the given names of your two sons. As a suspicious coincidence had it, that's when a Russian named Lukashenko chose to defect.”
Moreland was now leaning back on his sofa. He snuffed out the cigarette half-smoked. Cooper sensed he might be getting through to him.
“Back in Washington, however,” Cooper continued, “Ambassador Bohlen heard about the defection when it came across a classified State Department teletype. Here was disaster. Lukashenko, by the force of his argument, by the magnitude of what he claimed he had, could only have been bearing one asset. Lukashenko had the evidence that would prove Golitsyn's case within the CIA. He had the evidence that could link the KGB, at least marginally, to the Kennedy assassination. The links go in a multitude of directions, but they all focus on Oswald, Oswald’s time in the Soviet Union and his marital connections with the KGB. Mr. Bohlen flew back to Paris. He evicted you from the embassy. Sent you home. Wanted to handle this himself and didn’t trust the CIA to not get overzealous and compromise things. At the same time, the information blew back through Soviet channels that someone significant wanted to defect, someone carrying something big. By then, Lukashenko's arrest and execution by the KGB should have been a matter of course.”
Moreland sighed.
“But instead, he was flown out of Paris on an Air America plane that departed from the military airport outside of Paris, the field the CIA maintains. Vélizy-Villacoublay. And you know who stood at the top of the gangway and welcomed Lukashenko aboard the aircraft? You, under the same you were using for this operation: ‘David Charles.’”
“Rubbish,” said Moreland.
“The defector had a code name, ‘Firebird,’” Cooper continued. “Some arcane reference to a mythical creature that keeps appearing and re-appearing, and never really goes away.” Cooper paused. “But you know this. I don’t need to tell you. A major tenet of what Golitsyn was selling was that the Soviets had their fingerprints on Lee Harvey Oswald; more than the CIA or the Warren Commission was ever able to ascertain. They may have even trained him or sent a second gunman with him to Dallas. You know this ongoing love affair the Russians have with snipers. Can you name an instance of Soviet military history where snipers weren’t in the outer guard of an operation? I can’t.”
Moreland didn’t care to name one, either. He was too busy listening.
“Nosenko’s defection was aimed at discrediting Golitsyn. Nosenko was starting to fall in heavy disfavor by February of 1965. The CIA had turned on him and was holding him in a very unpleasant isolation. So the Soviets sent another ‘defector’ to support Nosenko. That was Lukashenko. But it was critical for him to get to Langley. There was an off-chance that a wise experienced ambassador like Mr. Bohlen would have smelled the hoax and sent him back to Russia. So you were the emissary to quickly approve Lukashenko and move him to the west. Under your David Charles cloak, of course. You got him to Langley and, lo and behold, shortly thereafter, his bona fides were sold to all but a few Langley cynics. Nosenko gets a reprieve and a pardon. He moves out of isolation and gets rehabilitated. Not the least of his helpers was another one of those little CIA gnomes, this one going by ‘GTH31761’. How am I doing?”
Moreland’s eyes rose and went to the man hulking in front of the door. “Misha” he said to his cohort. “I think it would be best if we spoke very privately here.”
Misha grunted an affirmative answer. He turned to leave.
“Oh,” Moreland added to Misha. “There’s a file on my desk in my office. Could you round it up and get it to Mr. Cooper? You have a key, I believe. I think it would interest him. Do it as soon as convenient, would you?”
“I do that,” Misha answered in English.
There was a pause in the room. The door closed with Misha on the other side of it. Cooper turned back to Moreland.
“You’re on a long road, Mr. Cooper,” Moreland said softly. “What makes you think there’s anything good at the end of it?”
“I’m not sure there is,” Cooper said. “But I’d like to know what’s at the end of it.”
“Why?”
“I’m a snoop.”
“You looking for a big story? A prize of some sort.”
“If that happened, I wouldn’t mind.”
Moreland scoffed. “It will never happen.”
“Why is that?”
“It leads in too many directions.”
“‘Too many directions’ to follow, as in the sense that the directions are unlimited and would never end?” Cooper asked. “Or ‘too many directions’ in the sense that one could never understand it?”
“Both.”
Three gins or not, Cooper’s head was now clear.
Moreland no longer seemed as confident.
“Let’s flash forward a little,” Cooper said. “Lukashenko became the toast of Langley. That bought him some more liberty. He started slipping his leash, going out and getting around. Talking too much. Maybe hitting on some American women who thought it might be interesting to be bedded by a real live Russian double-agent. He became a nuisance and, ironically, eventually a security risk. At least Nosenko and Golitsyn and dozens of others had the good sense to live quietly and out of view, if they weren’t actual prisoners. So now Lukashenko was downright inconvenient. So why not have Lukashenko killed and arrange it to look like a highway accident? His purpose had been served. So then some Langley genius says, why not put this pain-in-the-ass Russian and the fictional David Charles in the same grave? Two-for-one problem solving. Conveniently, you’re rid of both. My guess is the CIA had had enough of you by this time, also. It tied into a tight little knot. Or should have. Thereafter, a few snoops who knew too much, or even an odd critical detail, started to have untimely demises.”
“Life can be fragile,” said Moreland, midway between philosopher and killer.
“Your company is American Mustang Gas and Oil. You have no actual fields yourself, but you sell mining equipment and expertise. Things are loosening in the Soviet Union. Chairman Khrushchev started to abandon the old Stalinist ways, and Premier Kosygin is moving sectors of the state economy toward profitability. At the same time, the oil fields of Kazakhstan need to be developed. They need western expertise in oil development and you provide it. You’ve been moving equipment and engineers through companies in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands. Through a bunch of shell companies, your people are settling down in a godforsaken stretch of the world in Uzbekistan called S
amotlor Field. It’s potentially the largest oil field in the Soviet Union. Just discovered conveniently in 1965, about the time of the Lukashenko defection, but going full throttle now. Production should be up and running like gangbusters in a few years. That’s your payback from Moscow for selling Lukashenko and Nosenko.”
Moreland quietly listened.
“With any good story of espionage and treason, there has to be finances and motivation. We know yours. Before that, there are clandestine meetings, recruitment and courtship, how you came into the Soviet fold. In terms of cover,” Cooper said with some admiration, “this one is wonderful. Southwestern oil and gas man, performs functions as a far-right bundler of money. You probably have no real politics of your own or maybe you’re comfortable with Wallace’s blatant racism. Or maybe, with traditional Soviet gamesmanship, you’re comfortable with disrupting democratic institutions. Which is it?”
Moreland looked at Cooper very hard but remained quiet. No answer.
“In any case,” Cooper continued, “your business allows you to visit places like Switzerland, Libya, the Caymans, Venezuela. Wherever the sticky goo oozes up out of the ground, you do your regular business and slipstream with your Russian contacts as you go. Quite brilliant, really.”
Moreland glanced at his watch.
“All of this is complete hogwash, Mr. Cooper. Yes, I was in Paris. Yes, I was at the embassy. But there was never a defector. Never a Lukashenko.”
“So you categorically deny what I’m saying?”
“I do indeed.”
Moreland glanced at the television. The election had taken a critical turn. The ABC network was giving California to Nixon.
“Looks like Nixon is going into office,” Moreland said.
Cooper didn’t comment. Lauren made a face but said nothing.
“I was in Paris,” said Moreland. “But let’s be clear. I wasn’t there for anything involving a Russian. I’m an oil and gas guy, not a spook. I do private financial investigations. I was there to investigate some financial improprieties in the embassy bookkeeping.”