Conversations With the Crow

by Gregory Douglas

  RTC: No! After all the attacks he makes on the holocaust and the Jews…are you sure?

  GD: Have I ever been wrong?

  RTC: Gregory, your hubris is showing.

  GD: Well, Robert, I thought I was wrong about a year ago but I found out later I was mistaken. Yes, by Jewish law, Dave is a Jew. Jewish self-hatred is well-known. I think your Angleton must have had some Jewish blood in him. In profile…

  RTC: Now, now, Jim was a good friend. True, he had his head up their ass and we could never keep him from babbling secrets to the Mossad. I did truly like Jim but he had his strange sides.

  GD: Young college boys, interested in poetry? Whispering Mossad agents? The odd Mafia friend here and there? Frantic obsessions with paranoia? Yes, I would say strange sides are indicated here.

  RTC: But very competent when he focused, Gregory. Poor Jim had too much on his plate. The Mafia business is best forgotten, I suggest.

  GD: What about the nubile college students? Mueller told me about an incident at the Park Plaza hotel in New York once.

  RTC: Jim strayed from the path from time to time, I admit, but I know from experience he was a dedicated worker.

  GD: You could say the same of Sweeny Todd or Sawney Bean.

  RTC: I know about Todd but Bean?

  GD: A Scots cannibal. Whole family of inbreds lived in caves and made sorties to waylay travelers and eat them. The King finally got enough troops together to wipe them out.

  RTC: You have the damndest mind for such things, Gregory.

  GD: I try so hard, Robert. Anyway, there is Irving, sliding slowly down into literary oblivion (that’s just outside of New Orleans by the way) and clawing and scratching at me. My books are much better written, far more factual and, even better, far more successful in his little world than his own recent failures.

  RTC: Do I detect professional jealousy, here?

  GD: No, a reporting of facts. If you doubt me, Robert, read his latest literary efforts and compare him with the manuscript I sent you. Make up your own mind. Of course, the ironic part of all this purse-swinging is that as far as the holocaust is concerned, Irving is absolutely correct. There was never any plan, implemented or theoretical, on the part of Hitler to gather up the Jews of Europe, ship them off to so-called death camps and gas them in huge chambers. No, none of that. Yes, Hitler used the Jews as a unifying factor in his rise to power. But he was dealing with a huge flood of horrible Polish Jews that Pilsudski had chased out of Poland in the early ’20 and who refused to assimilate into the German communities and who were, in general, rather filthy and sub-human. The respectable German Jews hated them. No, Mueller has told me very often and I have boxes of documents on this; all Hitler was doing, and he used to make public speeches on this so it was never a secret, was to boot all the Jews out of Germany and later, out of German held territories. Yes, Jews were rooted out from France and the Balkans, often at the requests of their governments, and shipped off to Auschwitz. But this was not a death camp but a huge work complex the SS had set up outside the nominal range of Allied bombers. Many died of typhus and, of course, shipping these people off was a nasty business and I have no sympathy with any of it but the huge gas chambers are figments of the imagination, used to raise money for the Jews. And when Irving points this out, they all gang up on him. He may be a fraud and a gasbag but his comments on this subject are basically accurate. I hate to say that, naturally, but Irving is correct. And by his persisting in this, the Jews will gang up on him and put him out of business.

  RTC: Too much influence here, Gregory. Small numbers but very powerful inside the Beltway. They own the press and politicians kiss their butts on a regular basis.

  GD: Well, they don’t own me and I do love a good fight. Eventually, they will think themselves immune and all-powerful and, like Irving, their own…what was your cultivated word? Hubris, yes, hubris. That will bring both of them down. Irving’s fall will be soon forgotten but when the Jews go too far in this country and the public turns against them, which it will, because the Jews never know when to stop, it will be a great fall. It will fall and, as the Bible says in Proverbs, and great will be the fall thereof.

  RTC: Not in the near future.

  GD: Only God knows that one, Robert, but the end will come there. It always has in the past, always. Look at history and be enlightened.

  RTC: I’ll take your word for it.

  GD: Why thank you for your confidence, Robert. I hope that when the quicksands close over Irving’s straining face, the last name he mentions as the sand fills his mouth is mine. The Germans call this ‘schadenfreude’ or the joy in the suffering of others but I say that, in German, schadenfreude is immer die beste Freude. The joy in the suffering of other is always the best.

  RTC: Very Teutonic.

  GD: No, very realistic. Unpleasant to contemplate but true. One must strive to attain absolute objectivity, Robert. To let yourself be mired in convention and platitudes is to know nothing. Now you can see why some elements of my co workers in the CIC hated me. I was interested in results and they were interested in cheap booze and third rate pussy.

  RTC: And you never drank or womanized?

  GD:I did drink sometimes and I have had more than my share of conniving girl friends but never to distraction, Robert, never. Sex, good food, a good bit of classic music, a trip to European museums like the Uffizi are all pleasures but never distractions.

  RTC: Yes, I can see why they hate you.

  GD: How many times have I quoted Bismarck? Many. Oh yes, many enemies, much honor. I judge a man by the enemies he has. The more and the louder they are, the more I can respect him. Never them, of course, never. Bleating, whining, snapping mass of vermin-infested sewer rats. By God, Robert, your fellow countryman was right. Dean Swift. Oh yes, Swift was dead on when he came to his literary assaults on the boobery and bipedal rodents. He’s gone, unfortunately, and they still survive, crawling around in the dung and shrieking their hatred of whatever they cannot be.

  RTC: No, I once said you would be a good agent but I think, on reflection, you would produce wonderful analysis and a legion of enemies.

  GD: Fuck them all Robert. In the end, we all are maggot bait but I love to watch them fall off one by one before I do.

  (Concluded at 2:38 PM CST)

  Conversation No. 34

  Date: Monday, September 9, 1996

  Commenced: 10:07 AM CST

  Concluded: 10:56 AM CST

  GD: Good day to you, Robert. How does it go with you?

  RTC: I’m tired today. I didn’t get much sleep last night. Ever have a night like that, Gregory?

  GD: Sometimes. Get to sleep about four AM and then wake up at seven. Can’t get back to sleep and feel like garbage the next day. If you are not up to talking, I can call back later.

  RTC: No, no, I’m fine. What are you up to?

  GD: Somebody I know just vanished. His wife is hysterical and has called me twice. I have no idea what happened to him and neither does she. The police were polite but they can’t do much unless they find his body in the middle of the road or feeding the varmints on some local farm. I guess he was getting along fine with his wife and no problems with his job.

  RTC: How did he disappear?

  GD: Went to do some shopping, made it to the market, bought things, put them in his car and drove off. People at the store remember this, because one of the boys helped him load the trunk. No sign of any trouble and the kid said he was cheerful and tipped him. Anyway, they found the car parked by the side of the road, keys still in it and no sign of trouble like the top his skull on the floor and brains all over the seat. Neighbors saw and heard nothing. Nobody has any idea. I can’t help her but I always try to be polite.

  RTC: We had a case like that once. Damnedest thing I ever ran into. I understand, however, that it wasn’t unique. One of our senior people lived on a nice farm down in Virginia. Late fall. It had been raining on and off. He gets up, has breakfast with his wife. The dog starts barking and
from the window, he and his wife see the mailman stuffing the box down on the road. Finished breakfast, puts on his fancy hiking boots and a warm parka and down the dirt driveway to the street. Never gets there. The wife took something off the table and put it in the sink and the dog starts in barking furiously. She goes to the window and looks out. Can’t see her husband anywhere. Fenced fields on both sides of the driveway with horses on one side and stubble on the other. She puts on a coat and goes outside. The driveway has some mud and the boot prints are very visible. And then, about halfway down to the street, nothing. Prints stop cold. She’s a Company wife and she gets a hold of us first. The local sheriff’s people are decent but clumsy. We sent people out right away and they were very professional and careful. Mail was still in the box. Gate was closed and chained up. Footprints very clear and then stopped. No sign of anything, no struggle, no mess and no other footprints except the wife’s coming down from the house. The fields are muddy and no sign of anyone walking along the fences on either side of them. I mean not a sign. He’s vanished into thin air.

  GD: The dog barked twice?

  RTC: Yes. He always barked to let his people know when there were visitors coming. Very reliable dog.

  GD: The dog that did not bark in the night. Sherlock Holmes.

  RTC: Yes, the team commented on that.

  GD: The wife was temporarily distracted….was it a long time?

  RTC: As I recall, about a half a minute. She put some coffee cups in the sink.

  GD: That takes about 30 seconds. No shouting or noises?

  RTC: No, nothing at all. Very disturbing and very strange. You know, Gregory, about 800,000 to 900,000 a year just vanish in the United States?

  GD: My God, that many?

  RTC: Oh yes but about 65 to 75 % are found. Mostly solved within 24 hours. Most of these are young people running away or kidnapped by a parent in a custody case. But let’s say that out of, say, 800,000, a low figure, 650,000 are accounted for. But that leaves a balance of 150,000 unaccounted for. And who are these missing ones? Men getting out of a bad marriage, stuck with a nasty wife and screaming kids. They might have a girl friend and they don’t want the long, drawn out process of a divorce that will probably bankrupt them and stick them with years of very punitive child support. Or we have children unhappy in an uncaring home, lonely, frustrated and trying to find a better life somewhere else. Or we have the wife taking off with a new boyfriend and becoming another person with a new name. And we have the criminal class to consider. A stock broker who just looted a customer of a half a million dollars or someone on parole who is sick and tired of continual harassment. These make up the bulk of runaways. But at the same time, Gregory, many of the vanished people had no wives or children to run away from, were perfectly normal people with no apparent personal or financial problems.

  GD: Would you add the children abducted for sexual abuse?

  RTC: Oh yes, that, too. But take all of these away and there are still so many missing. And these figures are only in the U.S. You can multiply this many times if you get global stats. Now our man was important to us so we really made a very thorough investigation. Finances in order, got on well with his wife, didn’t drink or use drugs, and we could basically account for every minute of his waking life. Left home, drove to work, worked all day, drove home, dinner with the wife and once in a while a movie in town. The wife did the shopping. Very peaceful and ordered life. And what happened to him, Gregory? No trace of him anywhere. No phone calls to anyone that didn’t check out, bank account untouched, credit cards and phone call cards never used. Walked down his driveway on a clear day and just vanished off the face of the earth. That was fifteen years ago and nothing, ever. Right off the face of the earth.

  GD: That’s a possibility, Robert.

  RTC: Went to Heaven?

  GD: No, not the silly Rapture fiction. Perhaps some entity from elsewhere nailed him. Abducted him.

  RTC: That’s not the sort of thing we put in any kind of official report, Gregory. We can’t even begin to get into that area. Easier to say the Russians got him.

  GD: I’m not advocating that but it has been reported before, and many times at that.

  RTC: Yes, and some of it is real and some isn’t.

  GD: But if you are giving me accurate information, Robert, what could have happened to this guy? Absolutely no reason for vanishing, no proof of any kind of abduction, What happened to him? Someone with a crane parked in the street suddenly reached over the fence and grabbed him? The wife would have seen it. A huge flying saucer hovering overhead? Now that might be possible, assuming you couldn’t see it. And they could beam him up like the TV show. That could explain it, couldn’t it? And the dog barked, didn’t it?

  RTC: If it were true, yes. And the dog could have barked at a passing car or a cat in the field.

  GD: Question here, Robert. We have warning radar all over the place, don’t we?

  RTC: We have many systems.

  GD: Well, assuming there are such UFOs, don’t the radar people pick them up?

  RTC: I read a report back then that is interesting. A radar station out in the wilds. Two men on duty. One goes out to take a piss and sees a huge round object hovering about a half a mile away. Scared the hell out of him and he ran back inside and told his partner. Radar was working fine but no trace. The other one thought the pisser was nuts so he went outside and saw the same thing. More fussing with the set. Nothing. They reported it and other systems got involved. They both went outside and watched it hover for about ten minutes and then off it went, straight up so fast it was gone in a few seconds. More calls and nothing to report. When they got off shift, there were some Air Force police and some intelligence people who wanted to talk to them. They had seen nothing and better keep it that way. Yes something obviously got in and the radar couldn’t pick it up. Mysteries. This vanished fellow was on my staff and so I have some inside knowledge of what happened. Abduction was indeed brought up but left way, way behind. In the end, we put it out that he had been transferred to a special project and left it alone.

  GD: I don’t suppose he ever showed up? Or even a part of him?

  RTC: No, not even an ear. Wife waited seven years, got the insurance and eventually remarried. We went through the house and embargoed all his papers, of course.

  GD: Here and there I encounter stories of abductions by aliens and some probings and so on. It wouldn’t surprise me if some fat housewife in Georgia didn’t have a boyfriend, two or three farms over and she would sneak out at night for a mattress polka. Boyfriend like to slap her around and watch the fat jiggle so when she gets back home, clothes torn and bruises all over her tits, she tells her hubby that some flying saucer grabbed her and they did awful things to her. All night. The police get involved and so do the local papers. Some other woman, two towns over, used the same story for the same reason, now starts in saying it happened to her. She had what looked like cigarette burns on her tits but now everyone realized they were alien test marks. Still, where there’s smoke, sometimes we find fire.

  RTC: Well, all speculation, Gregory.

  GD: But in the case of your man who vanished, Robert, did anything ever turn up?

  RTC: No, never. But anything could have happened.

  GD: I was doing research a few years ago on the German Zeppelins. You know, the Graf Zeppelin and the Hindenburg. That’s because I was working on the Hindenburg disaster for the Mueller book. I came across some fascinating material about odd so-called Zeppelin sightings in America back in the late 1890s. Hundreds…no thousands…of people saw what they believed to be some kind of silvery craft in the sky. It’s sort of interesting to note that these were mostly in the area in the Pacific northwest, near Mt. Shasta and south. Does that area ring a bell?

  RTC: No, it doesn’t.

  GD: That’s an area where pilots have seen what they all believed were some kind of high-speed, circular vehicles while flying in that region. I had a friend of mine in Canada who was training to
be a commercial pilot and he saw three so-called bright objects on his port side, paralleling his flight pattern. They, all three of them, suddenly shot straight upwards so fast that no human could have survived the G thrust. I knew him well and I trust him absolutely. By the way, he never reported this sighting anywhere. Told me that if he had, even though he was in Vancouver, the U.S. Air Force intelligence people would have visited him and harassed him into admitting he saw seagulls or something like that. He told me that a number of his other pilot friends had seen similar things but never dared to report them. I believed him when he told me and I believe him now.

  RTC: That doesn’t surprise me. They have been sitting on such things here for years. I never heard of the mystery Zeppelins before. When was this?

  GD: I would have to look at my notes, but if memory is good, and it usually is, I think the sightings started before Christmas in 1896 and ran through until…about six months I think….May or June of 1897. Almost all in the Northwestern area but some further east, into the mid-west. The papers reported it as fact although some thought it might be a hoax. Too many responsible people saw these things, Robert, to be a hoax.

  RTC: These days, the sightings are all put down as hoaxes. What they do is to get some obvious nut who claims he saw something, interview him and get him to make wild and lunatic statements. That’s usually enough. They keep away from professional pilots, doctors, policemen and so on. They home in on the nut fringe and play it up. That’s what they are supposed to do.

  GD: But to go back to the missing people. You know, I looked into this once and I found that hundreds of thousands of people have just vanished each year in this country alone. Yes, of course many are found, some are killed, some go crazy and get put in the nut houses and so on and many are guys running away from their families, bad marriages, child support payments and so on. But if you subtract these, there is still a huge number left. Like your co-worker. Just vanished. No reason and no trace. I mean you can look on the Internet at the official FBI reports and see what I say is true. I asked an FBI agent who dealt with missing persons and he told me that there was a fixed percentage of people who ran off or were taken away by family members in a divorce case or abducted by sex maniacs and probably killed. Fine. After that, they had no idea what happened to the rest. No idea. Tens of thousands of Americans vanishing off the face of this earth each and every year.