by W. Green
“You’re crazy, Ethan,” she said. Her face flushed. “You are crazy.” You have just violated the first rule of time travel. You’re purposely trying to change history. We are now in big trouble.”
Ethan looked relived and excited. His voice was almost high-pitched as he spoke. “We’re here to save JFK. If that changes history—so be it. Do you like the history that we live with? Do you like our society? Look around you. Do you see any cameras? Do you see those damn bees? Don’t you see people who are free to make up their own minds? Free to live their lives. Just plain free.”
Emma and Zak were dumbfounded.
“Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.”
Saying little along the way, they walked back to the hotel and entered the hotel restaurant, where they found A.C. Currant having an animated conversation with a pretty young waitress. He looked up as they approached. “Ah. My young charges have arrived. I must bid you adieu, my dear Susan. Until later. Here’s a little something for you,” he said as he handed her a crisp dollar bill. The young girl’s face flushed and she thanked him before heading off to the kitchen. He watched her walk away and turned to face the trio. “Where have you been? Luckily I can keep myself amused. I’ve been playing ball. You should too. Let’s go back to my room and talk about our future.” He laughed aloud at the concept.
Emma thought he wouldn’t be laughing so hard if he knew about Ethan’s telephone call.
Returning to Zak and Currant’s luxurious but compact hotel room, the four took seats around a small coffee table. A.C. tossed a couple of Chicago newspapers down—a Tribune and a Chicago’s American. The latter flipped open to expose its lead article. Emma grabbed the newspaper and read the article aloud. “By Thomas Quinn. JFK Here for Football Game. President Kennedy will be attending the Army-Air Force football game to be held this Saturday at Soldier Field. Mayor Daley announced today, ‘Our president can expect a gala welcome from the fine citizens of Chicago.’ The mayor indicated that thousands of schoolchildren would line the motorcade route when the president makes his way from the airport through downtown Chicago. ‘This will be a special day for Chicago and a special day for the president. We have a wonderful surprise for the president, which I will give to him at the game. I know he is a Navy man so he doesn’t have a dog in this hunt, but I’m looking forward to joining him on the 50-yard line and cheering on our brave soldiers and airmen who have chosen to do battle in the finest city in the heartland of America.’” The article went on to describe the fact that Jackie would not be joining the president on this trip and that more than 500,000 people were expected to line the motorcade route. Included within was a small map, which showed the entire motorcade route from O’Hare Airport to the site of the game. “Check it out,” she said.
Zak brushed back his hair with both hands. Then he signed, “Nice of them to show the parade route…especially if you’re an assassin.”
The article upset Emma. It was 1963. This was real. In two days, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy—now flesh and blood in her mind—would die. Ethan’s phone call to the Secret Service. What was he thinking? Maybe he was right. She wondered if she should tell Dr. Currant. No. Not now. “The map,” she said. “It was all there for Vallee. He knew the motorcade would be driving up Jackson Boulevard right past the building he worked in. It almost seems predestined.”
“Almost?” questioned Ethan. “Seems pre-planned. Was it just bad luck that Vallee worked in that warehouse? A nice clean shot from the roof right at JFK, who just happened to be driving by?” Ethan sighed. “Bad luck, my ass.”
A.C. Currant arose and walked to the window. Emma could see the wheels in his mind turning. He looked out the window as he spoke. “He’s coming, my friends. What are we going to do? What’s our plan? What scheme to you detectives have in mind?”
Ethan cleared his throat before speaking. “We’ve already begun. I called the Secret Service this morning and warned…”
“You what?” shouted Dr. Currant as he quickly turned to face them.
“I called them,” he said, “to tell them about Thomas Vallee. To get them to stop him before he kills JFK.”
Currant reddened. “Son, you have really done it now. We’re supposed to be here to document history. Not create it. Do you realize the spot you’ve put us in? We’re in danger of being discovered now. And you may have changed history.” He clenched his fists and grimaced as if he was experiencing a migraine. “You actually called the Secret Service. Damn. Damn. Damn.” He muttered the last three words, each one more quietly than the previous. “We are in trouble.”
Emma could feel her brother’s pain. He did exactly the wrong thing. But that was Ethan. He always leads with his head. Quickly, she spoke. “Well, I think we must do what we came here to do. Let’s start acting like detectives and hit the streets. We came here to see for ourselves what in fact happened back in 1963. Ethan, you don’t believe Vallee shot the president. But in our world, somebody did. Our job is to find out who did it. Maybe your little phone call will change history, and maybe it won’t.”
“What do you mean?” Currant seemed intrigued.
“Well,” she continued, “if my brother is right, then Vallee didn’t do it, or at least he wasn’t alone. Even if the Secret Service checks out Vallee, even if they put him in jail—JFK could still die. We have no idea whether Ethan’s call will make any difference. I suggest we visit the assassination site and begin to understand the logistics of the crime. We have to start somewhere. Agreed?”
Dr. Currant concurred and they quickly left the hotel, waved down a taxi, and made the five-minute ride to the West Loop location.
“Sure you want out here?” asked the cab driver as he looked about. They were parked in the center of the Jackson Boulevard bridge, which spanned the Northwest Expressway.
“This is it,” answered Dr. Currant. The twins and Zak exited onto the sidewalk while A.C. paid the fare and then joined them.
Noisy traffic and a cold wind blew through the valley of the newly constructed interstate highway below them. Emma surveyed the scene. Multi-story warehouse structures surrounded the bridge. To the east, on the right side of Jackson Boulevard about a block ahead stood an eight-story loft warehouse building—the official “sniper’s nest.” Thomas Arthur Vallee was employed there as a printer apprentice. It offered a good straight-on shot, particularly from the roof, but she could easily judge that there were even better gun positions available in buildings both in front and in back of the proposed motorcade route. Better sniper’s nests—triangulation too. The highway below ran north and south. There was an entry ramp in the middle of the bridge and an off-ramp to Jackson Boulevard on the west side. They looked at this ramp, which in their time had become one of the most infamous sites in the world.
In her mind, Emma played back the motion picture she had seen hundreds of times. The motorcade finally arrived from the airport. The lead car and two motorcycle policemen swept up the ramp toward the camera, followed by JFK’s midnight-blue Lincoln. Hundreds of waving, shouting people lined the chain-link-fenced area on the far side of the ramp. All were smiling. So was JFK. It was a cool, bright day. Kennedy sat alone in the back seat of the open-topped limo. As if on a throne, the 43-year-old leader waved to his subjects. The sun glistened off his bronze complexion. He looked radiant. Because of the tight left turn, the car slowed almost to a stop at the top of the ramp and then made a wide turn, heading east on Jackson. Both sides of the bridge were lined with people three-deep, craning their necks to get a view of the thirty-fifth president of the United States—the first Catholic president—the first Irish president—the man who had finessed his way through the October Cuba crisis the year before—who took the blame for the lack of air cover at the Bay of Pigs—who was loved by millions and hated by many others—the man who was about to die. Halfway across the bridge, about the point where the time travelers now stood, something happened. A shot was fired.
Most people ignored the noise. There is no evi
dence Kennedy sensed danger. At the right edge of the film, a bystander, a little blonde-haired girl, her smile frozen in time, held a cardboard sign. She crumpled down into a ball at her mother’s feet. The camera jiggled and then refocused on the death car. In the next few seconds other shots were heard. The crowd panicked and people rushed in all directions. One man tripped over the bridge railing and tumbled onto the roadway below. He survived, amazingly unhurt, having landed in the bed of a truck carrying discarded cow trimmings. The newspapers called it “The Butcher’s Blessing.” JFK was not so lucky. He was just butchered. The film captured the limo coming almost to a stop. With the direction of incoming bullets impossible to determine in that instant, the Secret Service driver didn’t know if he was heading into fire or away from it. This indecision created an easy target. The car inched ahead. Kennedy’s shoulders were driven sharply backward by some unseen force. His head dropped. Then it sprung forward violently, exploding into a pink mist. A large portion of his cranium disappeared, deposited in a rain of brain onto those stunned onlookers too slow or too fascinated to run. Immediately after this brief violent bullet-storm, the driver recovered and slammed the accelerator down, driving the car forward at high speed. In the movie, it disappeared into the distance like a shrinking, dark, metallic dot—until nothing and no one was visible. Then the camera panned to the shooting victims and those kneeling next to them, screaming for help. It was over.
“Long live the king—the king is dead,” muttered Emma to herself.
“What’s that?” asked her brother.
“I said, ‘The King is dead.’”
“Not yet, sis. Not yet,” replied Ethan. His voice offered hope. He looked at his watch and then he leaned over and whispered in her ear, “We have less than forty-eight hours. We must act quickly.”
LOG of Zak Newman
October 31, 1963: 12:46 (Day 3 of time travel)
Visiting the Chicago assassination site troubled me greatly. It was a perfect place to commit the “Crime of the Century”. The death vehicle crawled around a tight turn surrounded by many buildings with excellent shooting positions—lots of windows for the Secret Service to watch. And watching was all they did. Later reports showed they didn’t check out any of the warehouse buildings in the area. If anything, they were only interested in crowd control. They scanned the people who lined the streets—apparently with no thought that someone with a well-aimed rifle could strike from a distance. When the shots were fired they were slow to react. In fact, not one agent did anything to protect the president. He was on his own in the big Lincoln’s lonely back seat. By the time one of the agents in the follow-up car reacted and raced toward the car, it was too late.
Anyway, after our little visit to the most famous place in the world, we reconvened over lunch to discuss our next move. We agreed that time was running out. Emma suggested we might visit the Chicago’s American reporter who wrote the article about JFK’s visit, a fellow named Thomas Quinn—going straight to a source of information to get information. Everyone thought that would be a good idea. In keeping with our plan, we would pretend to be budding journalism students on a tour of the city seeking mentoring. A.C. Currant could not find fault in this approach, but he also suggested that in the interest of saving time, he would visit Thomas Arthur Vallee (we have his address and every other tidbit of info about Vallee courtesy of the FBI assassination summary report). A.C. will take along the special eavesdropping tools we brought from the future. If necessary, his cover (complete with phony papers) will be that of Veteran’s Administration worker checking to see if Vallee is receiving proper benefits from the government related to his being wounded in the Korean War. I must say that Dr. Currant, while still very cautious, seems very interested in Mr. Vallee. So we have our plan for this afternoon’s detective activities.
I am feeling somewhat like deadweight. Without my Voicenator, I am el hombre silencioso. Other than the twins, no one can understand me. Certainly not Dr. Currant, who seems compelled to ridicule and brush me off. The Voicenator is a small electronic device worn like a collar around the Adam’s apple that creates and delivers sounds just like a normal human voice box. The sound quality is good. A turtleneck sweater hides it from view. It’s actually wonderful for a person like me. While the Employ America program’s cloning protocol, as usual, provided tall, dark, handsome, and smart genes, something dropped out of the petri dish when they made me—no vocal cords. A minor problem for the technocrats. When I was about six years old, they delivered the Voicenator. I learned its operation quickly and began to rely on it over the sign language I had been taught earlier. I’ve been offered later Voicenator models—the implant kind, but I’ve taken a pass. As you might guess, I’m a bit gun-shy of the technological solutions offered by the government. And while my voice got lost, other things were added to me. I’m very strong. I don’t look it, but I can bench-press 700 pounds. And somehow they gave me the ability to read people’s emotions. This is sometimes a blessing and sometimes a curse. People can be very emotional.
Well, it’s time to go visit our new reporter friend. Later.
End 10-31-63
-Chapter 5-
Cub Reporters
Not far from the assassin’s sniper nest and a short walk from their Loop hotel, the twins and Zak found themselves staring up at the stark, gray stone façade of the Chicago’s American offices. Earlier Ethan had made another phone call—this time to request permission to stop by the newspaper offices. But the reporter Tom Quinn didn’t answer the call. Whoever answered told them to just come by and hung up.
“Well, let’s give it a shot,” said Ethan, trying to hit an enthusiastic note. “Remember, we’re students interested in a career in journalism. We’re here to gather up the blessings of knowledge from the news gods. Right?”
Zak nodded and Emma made a face. They entered the building and sensed the throbbing sounds and vibration of the printing presses. The building was giving birth to today’s edition. They walked up two flights of stairs and found the paper’s newsroom. On opening the door, the three were immediately greeted by an onrush of smoke, smell and noise. This was an office nothing like those typical of the year 2028. Worn wood floors, old black metal file cabinets and desks, bare-bulb fluorescent fixtures overhead, and people—almost exclusively men and boys—dashing about, shouting, talking on phones, chewing cigars, scribbling on legal pads, and most interesting to the twins and Zak, totally ignoring their presence.
Finally someone noticed them. “What do you kids want?” They spun around to face a tired looking bottle-blonde woman sitting in the glare of a tall, dirty window, casually blowing cigarette smoke in their direction. “Well…?” To her left was a small green potted plant, the only semi-pleasant object in sight. She snuffed her cigarette out in its dirt.
Emma spoke. “We’re here to see Mr. Quinn. We’re students.”
The blonde picked a particle of tobacco off her lower lip. Then she cupped her hands to form an improvised megaphone. “Hey, Tom. You got company,” she shouted over the noise. Halfway back into the depths of confusion, a sitting man at an ancient typewriter lifted his head and looked at her. “What?” he shouted back.
With a look of total disinterest, the woman lazily pointed in the direction of the travelers. In response, the man looked at them and shrugged his shoulders. Then he dropped his head down and continued his two-finger typing for a few seconds, finishing his thought. He got up, stretched, and looked at his guests. Emma smiled at him. After rolling his eyes, he pushed his way toward them through a gaggle of other reporters. A short man, ruddy-faced, with patches of black hair hanging onto the sides of his otherwise bald head, he cleared his throat and coughed noisily as he walked.
He was about forty, Ethan surmised, although it was difficult to gauge a person’s age in this time. Everyone looked much older. More than slightly overweight, Quinn’s suspenders curved around both sides of his gut like the rubber fenders of a tugboat bow. The loose striped tie roped around his
prominent neck, dangling limply. A pencil and pen shared space in a yellowed plastic protector lining the pocket of his starched white shirt. His other shirt pocket neatly bulged. Ethan deduced this was the source of his clogged lungs and wicked cough—a pack of cigarettes. It seemed to him that everyone was smoking something in 1963. Sometimes the people-generated smell and smoke overwhelmed the time travelers, who were not accustomed to such massive personal pollution. Quinn sized up the boys quickly, spending slightly more time on Emma, who looked striking in her black outfit. “What are you selling?” His voice was gruff, but had a tinge of humanity.
“We’re not selling anything. We’re…” said Ethan.
“Everyone is selling something, kid. It’s the nature of things.”
Emma jumped in. “Please, Mr. Quinn. We’re students from Springfield Heights High School out east. We’re taking a journalism course, and well…”
“And you’re here to see the professionals in action.” Quinn laughed aloud. “Well, look around. This is our zoo. Anything particular in mind—I do have a couple of things to do this afternoon, kids.” He looked over at the blonde for an out, but she was gone. “I don’t give guided tours. Sorry.” He wrestled the pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, tapped one out, popped it between his tight lips, extracted a khaki-colored Zippo from his front pants pockets, and in one deft move flipped the top, spun the spark wheel, lit the cigarette, closed the top, and returned the lighter to his pocket.
Fascinated by this display of nimble fingering, Ethan couldn’t help but ask, “Were you in the armed services?”
“What?” Quinn paused. “Oh. My lighter. Yeah. Pacific. Marines. The Zippo was a gift from my Uncle Sam. Four years of hard labor. One lighter. Not a good deal. But we saved the world for you kids.” He took a deep drag from the unfiltered Lucky. The burst of nicotine seemed to relax him for a moment. “Well, you got eyes, kid. That’s a good start in this business. Where did you say you’re from?”