by Steve Berry
“Dead.”
“From you?”
“I helped.”
“Killing two ex-FBI agents. What will your superiors say?”
“What did yours say when you did what you did?”
A moment of silence confirmed that he knew what I meant.
“They said good job. I spoke to Hoover directly, in fact.”
“That was unusual.”
“To say the least. But he asked to speak with me.”
I waited for more.
“Oliver took me to Hoover’s house, in the middle of the night. What a strange place. Every room was packed with antiques. So many you could barely walk. There were rugs on the floor and throw rugs on top of the rugs, which I’ve always thought really odd. Everywhere there were photos, paintings, cartoons, etchings, even busts, all of Hoover. The house was a shrine to himself. And there I was, standing in the middle of it.”
The lawyer in me had to ask, “What did he want?”
“My assessment of Eric S. Galt or, as he knew him, James Earl Ray. This was about three months before the assassination, maybe late January 1968. I told him that Ray could do the job and, if needed, also take the blame.”
It was weird discussing this, but my job was to gather information. “Did he say why he wanted King dead?”
“He rambled on about communism, how King was involved with the Soviets, and how Moscow was trying to topple the American government. I listened to him, but it was all a lie. Something he told himself to rationalize what he was doing. He killed King because he could. He hated change and considered civil rights dangerous. He particularly hated, as he called them, ‘uppity Negroes who do not know their place.’”
“Did he personally order the kill?”
Valdez nodded. “I made him. I looked him straight in the eye and told him that I wanted him to say the words. If not, then he could find another way.”
“Was Oliver there?”
“Not in the room. Outside. Hoover and I spoke alone, which is the only way he would have made that admission. I spent an hour listening to his speeches. He liked to talk. But in the end, I only wanted to hear the words.”
I waited.
“He told me to kill the burrhead.”
I closed my eyes and shuddered at the implications. If not for the files I’d read, and hearing Oliver and Jansen and Bruce Lael’s tape, I might not have believed this psychopath.
But I knew he was telling the truth.
“He told me to make it happen, then make sure Ray died so his corpse could take the blame.”
“You do realize that you’re no better than he was.”
“Unlike the dead director, I’ve never pretended to be anything other than what I am.”
“There was no need to kill Nate Perry.”
“It seemed the only way to get your attention. Let’s be honest with each other, you had no intention of voluntarily giving us anything. You want to keep it all to show to your superiors.”
“Why not shoot me, instead of Nate?”
“Oliver would not have been happy. He wanted those files. And I needed Oliver’s help to get out of the country.” He paused. “But things have changed, haven’t they? That’s no longer possible, and you still have my coin.”
“Where are Coleen and her father?”
“My man found Foster here, waiting for you. I now have them both.”
“I’m taking you down.”
He chuckled and shifted his arm from the top of the bench to my shoulders. “Amigo, if I don’t return exactly ten minutes from now, both father and daughter will have a bullet placed in their heads.”
I heard sirens in the distance.
The local police were converging on a double murder scene at Disney World. That meant plenty of backup to take this man down.
But not in the next ten minutes.
I considered the threat level from his words and determined it to be high. Killing Nate had proven to me that Valdez was prepared to do anything. The number of people left to corroborate the tape I still possessed was dwindling. Lael was gone. Oliver and Jansen dead. That left two. Foster and the man sitting beside me. The one who set the killing up, and the other who made it happen.
“Nine minutes,” he said.
I didn’t move.
The gun still nestled at my spine was somewhat reassuring.
“A few years ago,” he softly said, “there was a man in Havana I was ordered to eliminate. Castro loves to kill people, too. I was paid a worthy amount and told to make sure that nothing linked back to the Dirección General de Inteligencia. But they wanted it to happen in public, the death noticed. Something to send a message. So one day I followed the man to the street market. He wandered through the booths, talked to vendors, and bought some fruits and vegetables. When he finished shopping, he turned down a small alley that connected one of the busier merchant streets to the next. I was waiting in a doorway. He strolled by, bags in both hands, and I slit his throat. One swipe with a knife. Quick, deep, silent. He drowned in his own blood right there on the cobbles.”
I glanced to my right.
In his now open palm rested a knife, closed for the moment, that had been there the whole time.
“You see, I could have already killed you.”
His eyes were bitter with an almost unsensing animal gaze. He had the look of a thug, pure and simple. We sat at the far end of the covered porch, all of the other benches to our left, so no one could see the knife, that hand toward the outer railing.
“Seven minutes,” he said. “I was quite serious about that time, and my man will not disobey my order. He knows the price to be paid for that.”
I stood. “Let’s go.”
He came to his feet.
“I suggest we hurry. It’s a long walk and time is running out.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
He was right about the walk.
We retraced our previous path down Main Street, then turned right and headed through Tomorrowland, swinging around to the back side of the park where a section had been cordoned off, under construction. An eight-foot-high wooden wall separated the park from the work site, decorated with elaborate Disney murals. Valdez headed for a gate that opened through the wall, a wooden door with a simple keyed lock.
“It was easy to pick,” he said as we headed through and he closed the panel behind us.
I understood his problem. He would have preferred to leave the premises with both Coleen and Foster. But that might have proven a problem. Coleen came in willingly. Doubtful she’d leave that way. And Foster would only cooperate to keep her safe. Exiting the Magic Kingdom would not be easy. It required either a bus, monorail, or boat, all loaded with people, and the walking distances were impressive. Too many things could go wrong, so he’d chosen to take a stand within the gates.
I looked around. Some kind of new attraction was being built. There were piles of bricks and wire mesh fashioned into various shapes, like boulders, stacked one on top of another, awaiting mortar. A ladder leaned against one of the unfinished walls. No ceilings. Lights from the park spilled in from overhead, illuminating the scene in a dim glow. Everything was also wet from the rain. Coleen sat on the damp concrete, her back to an unfinished wooden wall, her hands bound behind her. Foster was in the same position to her left. One of the men from the inflatable boat back in the Dry Tortugas stood guard with a gun. Coleen’s and her father’s legs were unrestrained, but they were both gagged with strips of duct tape. The two manila envelopes I’d left with Foster lay in the preacher’s lap.
Valdez relieved his man of the gun and told him to leave.
“Now it’s just us. Oliver and Jansen are dead.” He motioned at Foster with the gun. “That leaves only me and you.”
I doubted Foster was going to say a thing about the cassette he’d listened to on the way here. That was the last thing he wanted Coleen to know about, and Valdez had no idea the tape existed. I’d left it in the truck, still in the player, protected by locked do
ors among a zillion other cars in a vast parking lot.
“First off,” Valdez said. “I need the gun you have.”
He was looking at me.
I hesitated.
He clicked the hammer of his weapon into place and aimed it straight at Coleen. “Surely you comprehend what I’m capable of.”
Absolutely. So I reached back and found the gun.
“Bring it out holding the barrel,” he said.
I did as ordered and handed it over. He tossed it away, gone in the debris.
“This entire situation has been a problem,” he said. “Just a simple trade. That’s all I wanted. Instead, we’ve had nothing but turmoil.”
My sense of humor had dulled. “You’re a murdering bastard.”
He nodded. “I am that. But people have long had a need for my services, your own government one of those.”
I glanced over at Coleen. As Valdez focused on me I saw her arms tense, her shoulders shift. She was working on her bindings, trying not to draw attention, and perhaps having some success. Her eyes told me to keep him occupied.
“You never wanted any credit?” I asked Valdez.
“My ego requires no such stroking. I prefer compensation.”
“You told us back in St. Augustine that you read all of Ray’s books. You found him. Recruited him. Encouraged him. He really had no idea he was being used?”
Valdez shrugged. “Not even a hint. It was easy to push him along. Hate filled him. As did the need to be somebody. He just lacked opportunity, which I provided. I read those books with a smile on my face. Nearly every word in them was a lie. Until the day he died he unknowingly did exactly what we wanted.”
I could see that Coleen was still working away, trying hard to keep her arms and shoulders still.
“Why not just kill him afterward, like Ruby did to Oswald?” I asked.
“I would have, if he’d made it to Africa. But not only did Hoover want to kill King, he wanted the credit for capturing the killer. He told me that when we met that night, in his house. Nobody then could accuse him of prejudice toward King. But that capture had to be a corpse. Jack Ruby, to his credit, never explained why he killed Oswald, and died quickly in prison. Ray, on the other hand, lived a long time and could not keep his mouth shut. Thankfully, he was a pathological liar.”
I was keeping him talking, buying Coleen time, but I was worried about the choice of subjects. We were drifting closer and closer to forbidden topics. Foster’s eyes pleaded with me not to raise any questions about him. But I was more concerned with what Valdez was about to do. He had not brought us here to chat.
Valdez flicked the muzzle of his weapon toward Foster. “Get those envelopes.”
A tingle of apprehension ran down my spine.
I walked over and retrieved them.
“Open them.”
I tore open the sealed flaps and removed the stacks of paper inside.
Each sheet was blank.
He chuckled. “I thought as much. I knew you wouldn’t bring that information along. I told Oliver, but he didn’t believe me. You still have my files.”
I nodded. “Stored away safely.”
At the Mail ’N More in Gainesville, Florida, stashed in a locker I’d rented, paid for six months in advance, where no one would ever find them.
“How did you plan to make a deal with Oliver?” he asked me.
“I didn’t.”
He chuckled again. “You have balls, I’ll give you that. I watched as you stole that seaplane in the Dry Tortugas, double-crossing me. That took nerve.”
He stepped away from me and walked over toward where Foster and Coleen sat on the dirty concrete. I noticed Coleen stopped all movement and sat still. Valdez crouched down in front of Foster, unconcerned that he’d turned his back on me, as if he were taunting me with a challenge. I may have been a rookie, but I was no fool and did not take the bait, deciding to wait until the odds were a little better.
He reached down and tore the tape from Foster’s mouth. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you. Something your daughter asked me. What did you do to get that Double Eagle?”
Foster said nothing.
But Coleen’s eyes were unmistakable.
She wanted to hear the answer to that question, too.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
I waited for Foster to reply, wondering how he intended to do so.
“For an operation like Bishop’s Pawn,” Valdez said, “Jansen had to have reliable and continuous information. He was directing me with great care, wanting Ray in a given place at a given time. I moved him around like a player on a chessboard. Each move calculated, and King was right there, every time. Jansen’s field reports talked about a reliable confidential source he used repeatedly. Was that you?”
“I loved Martin Luther King. I admired him more than any man I’d ever known. I still do to this day. I never would have betrayed him.”
I listened to the words, amazed at the sincerity of the lie.
“I stood side by side with him in the marches,” Foster said. “I was there, working to change the country. The FBI was working to destroy us.”
Valdez pointed a finger. “But they knew everything King was doing days in advance. I had Ray actively stalking King from the end of March until April 4. I was told precisely where to have him in Memphis at a precise time. Six P.M. In the bathroom of that rooming house. With a clear line of fire to the balcony outside Room 306 at the Lorraine Motel. How would Jansen have known that?”
“You should have asked him those questions,” Foster said.
“I did. Several times. He told me nothing.”
I noticed how Valdez kept his back to me, continuing to dare me to make a move. Or maybe he thought me incapable of challenging him? No matter. I was more concerned with Coleen and what she might do. I liked the idea of her freeing herself, but I preferred a coordinated attack.
Valdez reached over and ripped the tape from her mouth.
“What has your father told you?” he asked her.
“You never answered him,” she said to her father. “Why do you have that coin?”
An element of anger and pleading had entered her voice.
Foster said nothing.
She glared at Valdez and asked, “You never told us back at the restaurant, how did you know my father had the coin?”
“Jansen told me shortly after I was paid mine.”
I saw the surprise on Foster’s face.
So did Valdez.
“Yes, Reverend, I’ve known about you from the beginning. I just never knew your exact role, or why it was worth paying you a Double Eagle. Recently, when I came into a need for money, I decided to locate you.” He motioned at Coleen with the gun. “And if not for you calling me back, I would have never known that coin still existed.”
Valdez stood and stepped back my way.
Coleen quickly worked her shoulders and arms again, still fighting with the bindings to her wrists.
“Where is my coin?” Valdez asked me.
I ignored his question.
“Why can’t you answer me?” Coleen suddenly said.
Both Valdez and I looked her way.
She was staring at her father. “Why can’t you tell me the truth? You’re a man of God. Is not being honest with your daughter important to you? Why do you have that coin?”
Foster kept silent, feigning and stalling, seemingly trying hard to avoid a damaging admission. Finally, the older man said, “Being honest is the most important thing in my life, Coleen. I have never lied to you.”
“But you worked with the FBI, didn’t you?”
“My job was to find the spies within the SCLC. I did that.”
Not an answer, but realization dawned in her eyes. “But you didn’t tell anyone about what you found, did you? That’s why they paid you. To keep silent about their sources?”
“They would have paid a few thousand dollars in cash money for that,” Valdez said. “Not a Double Eagle.
Your father had to do much more for that coin.”
“Lieutenant Malone,” Foster said to me. “Surely you knew Oliver and Jansen were not going to be satisfied with blank pages. How did you plan to make a trade with them?”
I got the message. Change the subject.
“He didn’t,” Valdez said. “He’s young and eager to please. His superiors want those files and he intends to deliver them.”
“You placed us all in jeopardy,” Foster said. “Coleen especially.”
He was right, but that was a chance I’d been prepared to take. Now I wasn’t quite so sure. This had not played out as I intended, but with Oliver and Jansen gone there might be another way to get us all out of here alive. I hadn’t mentioned the coin. Valdez had no reason to believe it was here.
Time to use it.
But before I could play that card, Coleen leaped to her feet.
Valdez’s attention had been momentarily on me, but he turned at the sudden movement. She was fast and agile, springing his way in just a millisecond. Perhaps she sensed, as I did, that Valdez intended on killing us all. Why wouldn’t he? That way there’d be no trail, nothing left linking anything that had happened over the past two days to him. But Valdez was a seasoned pro. A trained operative accustomed to tight situations. Sure, she had thirty years on him in age, but time had not dulled his reflexes.
He swung the gun around and fired.
“No,” Foster yelled.
The bullet hit her square in the chest.
I reacted and started to pounce, but he whipped the weapon back my way. Coleen grabbed at her midsection, struggling to breathe. Blood spewed from her mouth with each exhale. Her eyes changed from rage, to concern, and finally to fright. I could do nothing but watch. Foster tried to come to his feet, but having his hands bound behind his back made it difficult. She looked my way, her expression pleading for help. Then her eyes rolled skyward and she smacked facedown to the concrete.
Foster’s face was filled with shock.
Valdez’s attention alternated from Coleen to Foster.
A rage I’d never felt surged through me. Uncontrollable. One that canceled all fear and focused everything on one thing.
Attack.
I dove at Valdez.