Jon Symons

 

“The only thing new in the world, is the history that you don’t know.”

Harry Truman

“We need men who can dream of things that never were.”

John F. Kennedy

 

 Prologue

 Friday, November 22nd 1963

The sun was nearing its zenith, the shooter watching the growing crowds and sensing the charge of excitement that hung over Dealey Plaza.  He was standing back from the barriers, his two-piece suit and overcoat seemingly out of place with the short-sleeve shirts and slacks worn by the thronging office workers.  A young boy skipped past him, a fluttering Stars and Stripes clutched tightly in his small hand.  The shooter continued to watch the crowds for several more minutes before turning and casually walking back towards a wooden fence that snaked diagonally along a grassy knoll above and to the left of the Plaza.  Opposite, and to his right, was the Texas Book Depository.

He and Brown had checked the whole route.  The car would travel down Main Street, past Police Headquarters, along Field Street and into Dealey Plaza.   They had chosen the Plaza because the motorcade would slow to below five miles per hour as it negotiated the ninety degree bend beneath the concrete bridge at the far end. 

The open-top car would be in full view for five seconds; their orders specific: head shots only.  Under no circumstances were they to shoot if there was even the slightest chance of hitting any of the other passengers.  The shooter looked back down towards the Book Depository, knowing that his partner would already be in position.  He wondered, not for the first time that morning, whether Lee would react as they had planned.  The previous evening, Brown had planted the bolt-action rifle with the ex-marine’s palm print on the stock and they had both watched from the parked car as he had entered the building at eight thirty-two.  It was now a little after twelve seventeen, one seventeen in Washington.

The outriders were now at the top of Field Street, the crowd beginning to press forward as the flashing lights came into view.  The shooter had picked his firing position with care.  Behind him was an open area and a small copse of trees, his nondescript rental parked on the other side.  He had already paced the distance from the wooden fence to the car; it was five minutes at a brisk walk, seven if he took his time.  The sun was now directly overhead, the reflected glare from the Depository windows thankfully gone, making the downwind one-hundred-yard shot far easier. 

He had measured the distance back to the fence and adjusted his telescopic sight for the slight drop in elevation.  The soft nose bullets would reach maximum velocity by the time they smacked into the mark’s head.  He knew all too well the damage the bullets would cause.  The victim’s brain would implode into a pink mush as the shock waves spread through the skull; the force of the exploding exit wound sucking the dying flesh through the gaping hole and showering both car and passengers with wet, dead brain matter.  He knew his partner would have the harder shot and that the trajectory would have to be judged perfectly to ensure the bullet passed over the woman and into her husband’s head.

The crowd suddenly began to cheer more loudly.  The shooter knelt down behind the picket fence, carefully lowering the rifle from under his overcoat and placing it between his legs.  He waited several seconds, slipped out of his coat and casually laid it over the rifle.  He looked around and then removed his dark shades.  There was no one within fifteen yards of his position; all eyes looking left, towards the top of the road and the headlights of the leading car and the motorcycle outriders.  Gathering up the coat, he casually draped it over the fence, only the final six inches of the gun’s barrel protruding from the material.  Pulling the flaps back, he squinted through the telescopic sight.  He could not miss: the man’s head looked like an over-ripe pumpkin. 

A fresh tremor of excitement ran through the crowd, their heads craning over the barriers and the uniformed cops on either side of the wide Plaza.  More cheers rang out as the motorcade rolled slowly down the centre of the road.  The man in the back was smiling and, as the car reached the tight bend opposite the Depository, he turned and looked directly towards the grassy knoll and the man leaning over the fence.  The smile that had charmed a post-war generation beamed with confidence.  He raised his arm and waved.   Crack.  The first bullet entered the President’s right temple and exited through the base of his skull.  Crack.  The second bullet entered his neck and severed his main artery.  Crack.  The third bullet missed, hitting Governor Connally. 

The shooter swore as he placed the gun between his legs and pulled on the coat, his eyes never leaving the crowd.  Their patriotic cheers had already been replaced, first by murmurs of confusion and then by sounds of disbelief.   A secret service agent was scrambling over the back of the presidential car as people threw themselves to the ground, pandemonium and panic now breaking out around Dealey Plaza.   Jackie’s two-piece pink suit was blood splattered, her eyes wide and horror-filled as she screamed for someone to help them.  She tried to grab hold of Clint Hill’s wrist as the agent looked into the car and registered that the back of the President’s head was missing.  John Connally was semi-conscious, the upper half of his body slumped sideways on his hysterical wife’s lap. 

Jackie’s black hair blew in the wind as the driver gunned the engine and accelerated towards the freeway and Parkland Memorial Hospital. 

The man walking towards the small copse of trees knew that it was already too late; he had seen the wet, sickening mush through his telescopic sight, the same pink mush that millions would later see replayed in slow motion on the Zapruder footage.

——————-

Thursday, November 22nd 1990

John Capriotti looked at his watch and silently cursed his Editor.  British Airways flew direct from Houston to London with a connecting flight from Heathrow to Moscow.   Apparently, the Chronicle now had a special discount with the ailing Pan Am and it was cheaper to fly from Houston to New York’s JFK and then on to London.  He had questioned the logic, pointing out that he would be able to claim an extra day’s expenses.  The man in accounts had sniffed and told him that it was out of his hands.

Capriotti pulled heavily on his cigarette and then stubbed it out in the metal ashtray, the electronic board above his head finally flashing and telling him to board now.  He picked up his briefcase and walked towards the departure gate and the blue and white nose of the Pan Am 747 Clipper looming large on the other side of the plate glass window.  The pilot was running the last of his pre-flight checks, the baggage handlers closing the forward cargo door.  The smiling girl checked his boarding pass and then waved him through.  He took the left-hand corridor and walked along the cold metal skyway to the business class section.  As the purser showed him to his seat, he turned down the proffered glass of champagne and instead took the orange juice, his four-hour wait at JFK having already seen him knock back too many Jack Daniels.  He removed his shoes and then placed his briefcase in the overhead locker.  The stewardess handed him the menu, video card and a set of earphones.  He tried and failed to match her welcoming smile. 

Several minutes later she came back and offered him a selection of newspapers.  He chose the Washington Post and the front page with a picture of Bush shaking hands with Margaret Thatcher.  Brave man, Capriotti thought.  He had interviewed the British Prime Minister during one of her rare visits to Dallas.  She had been spending time with her son and he’d been made patently aware of her direct and overbearing manner.  The headline was succinct and to the point.  ‘Thatcher Calls the Tune.’  Capriotti smiled, despite his black mood.  Several days earlier he had spoken with James Baker, the man Bush had tasked with trying to convince Saddam Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait.  Once that had failed, the Secretary of State had been given the difficult job of making sure that the coalition forces gathering on the Saudi border would stand firm.  Baker had spent the previous weeks shuttling between Washington, Cairo, London, Moscow and Tel Aviv.  He had taken the journalist’s call on one of his rare days in the country’s capital, Capriotti avoiding the normal preamble and simply asking if Thatcher and Bush would back down.  Baker had laughed aloud.  “Margaret won’t let him, even if he wanted to.  No, this thing’s going to the wire.  Either Saddam withdraws or we force him out.”

After take-off, Capriotti leaned back in the seat and closed his tired eyes.  He knew – probably better than most – that America was going to war.  Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the American military had been scouring the globe for another enemy and Saddam was their latest bogey man.  There had of course been Gaddafi before Saddam but the pre-emptive bombing raid on Tripoli had led to nothing, much to the chagrin of the Chiefs of Staff.  Saddam was different.  If Gaddafi was a fox, Saddam was an ostrich, burying his head in the sand and pretending that as long as he kept it there, everything would turn out all right. 

Capriotti sighed audibly.  He knew what it was to behave like an ostrich.  Eleven years earlier, he had ignored all the signs and had hoped his wife would understand the importance of his job.  She had given him an ultimatum: spend more time with the family or lose them.  He had promised to do better but ten days later had been on a plane flying to another hot spot.  On his return, he had found an empty house.  Within six months they were divorced.  Susan had moved to Houston and twelve months later was married to an oilman.  He was several years older than Capriotti and many times richer.

“Would you mind if I joined you?” a lilting voice asked.  Capriotti turned to see a young, auburn haired woman leaning over him.  He smiled and quickly pulled the papers, headphones and other airline paraphernalia off the empty seat.  She squeezed past him and as she did her fragrance wafted under his nostrils.

“Catherine Whitlock,” she breathed huskily.  “And you’re John Capriotti, the Chronicle’s foreign correspondent.”   He smiled again in acknowledgement.  “Sorry, I’m with Reuters in Moscow,” she added, holding out her hand.  He shook it, impressed by her striking good looks and the forthrightness of her approach.

“Your reputation precedes you, Miss Whitlock, a mutual friend speaks very highly of you.”

“He wouldn’t be old, fat and rather grumpy?”

“The very same.”

“Dan’s meeting me at Heathrow.  I’m spending several days there before flying on to Moscow.  He’s covering the Peace conference.”

“Seems you got the better deal; how’d you manage to swing that?”

“Friends in high places,” she replied, a knowing smile crossing her face. 

They chatted amiably until the meal arrived and with it a bottle of Chardonnay.  As they ate, he learned that she was nearly thirty, single and wanted to go all the way to the top.  He told her about his teenage years in the Bronx and his close shave with crime, the Mafia and too many bar fights.

“You should definitely feel at home in Moscow,” she commented as the stewardess poured their coffee.  “The Russian Mafia’s everywhere and runs most of the hookers that hang around the better hotels.”

“You obviously think I’m pretty desperate.”

“Aren’t most men?”  Capriotti ignored the comment, preferring instead to studiously unwrap the dark chocolate on his tray.  “How did you get into the newspaper game?” she asked, moving back onto more solid ground.

“My Sicilian grandfather decided I should move to Dallas, rather than hang around New York with him and the ‘Family’.”

“Sicilian as in Giovanni Capriotti?” she said, arching a sculptured eyebrow.

“Local crime boss and all ’round good guy,” he chuckled.  “He had a younger sister in Dallas who was married to the Tribune‘s accountant.  He found me a job in the mail room.”

“And?”

“There’s not much to tell.  Several months later I asked the sub editor for a job as a reporter and he laughed me out of the office.  Apparently, my great-aunt heard about it and called her big brother in New York.   A few days later, or so the story goes, the sub-editor was interrupted at home during dinner.  The man doing the interrupting was built like a bull elephant, the conversation  short and very much to the point.  The following morning, a rather contrite sub-editor offered me the position as the Tribune‘s trainee reporter.”

“It would seem I’m not the only one with friends in high places,” she said, an ironic tilt to her voice.  “It must have been pretty cool having a Mafia don on your side?”

“Sometimes,” he agreed.

The stewardess removed the trays.  Catherine pulled out the small television screen from the seat arm and began flicking through the channels.  Capriotti closed his eyes and thought back to his early days on the Dallas Tribune. 

For his first year, he had covered the courts with a time-served reporter called Jimmy Delaney.  The old-timer had noted the promise in the young New Yorker, teaching him how to dig beneath the banal to find the meat in a story and later introducing him to the underworld element that continually moved through the revolving courtroom doors.  It was Delaney who had gripped him by the arm as they watched Walter Cronkite announce the death of John Fitzgerald Kennedy; Delaney who downed his Jack Daniels in the Irish bar off Main Street and cursed the ‘Protestant bastards’ who had assassinated his President.

Capriotti was still smiling at the memory as he called over the stewardess, asked her to bring him a large J.D. and then leaned back as Catherine Whitlock looked up from the screen and ordered a malt.  Once the drinks arrived, he took a long pull before carefully placing the glass on the tray.  “I suppose you’re too young to remember much about JFK?”  he mused, his mind still back in the Irish bar with Jimmy Delaney.

“I was two when he was assassinated,” she replied, obviously surprised by the question, “although, I recall the effect his death had on my parents.”

“An only child?”

“I had an older brother, he would probably be about your age, perhaps a bit younger; he was killed in Vietnam, a month before the withdrawal.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It was a long time ago.”  She took another sip of her malt.  “Were you in Dallas when Kennedy was shot?”

He nodded.  “Me and an old hack called Delaney.  He knew Jack Ruby from the bad old days and his connection with the anti-Castro movement.  The man hated Kennedy and blamed him for the Bay of Pigs fiasco.”

“So, you’re one of those who believes in the conspiracy theory,” she said, a mocking glint in her jade-green eyes.

Capriotti drained the glass.  The stewardess was by his side before it was back on the tray.  She refilled it and then tactfully left the half-full bottle.  “Delaney certainly did,” he finally answered, remembering back to the funeral and the cold day they had buried his friend. 

Jimmy had been walking to his car after a longer than usual session in the Irish bar.  Capriotti had been working late at the office.  An old tramp had been the only witness.  The car was black, fast and never stopped.  Jimmy, like Kennedy, had been pronounced DOA at Accident and Emergency. 

Standing over the open grave, Capriotti had cried for the first time since grade school.  Neither the car nor the driver was ever found.  ‘Hit and run’ the cops had said.  Happens all the time.  Probably another drunk on his way home.  Jimmy’s wife had been inconsolable.  They had no kids, only each other.

They drank in companionable silence for several minutes.  Most of the people around them were settling down to sleep, although a few of the business die-hards were making sure that their  company got its money’s worth from the free bar service.

“Married?”  Catherine asked.

“A long time ago.”

She seemed to sense the coolness of his response.  “Acrimonious?”

“You could say that, although to be fair it was pretty neat early on.  I guess things began going downhill after Delaney died and I took over his patch.  It wasn’t long before I was sent to Saigon and thereafter began a love affair with politics, war and the futility of both.  By the time I got back I’d a daughter, a mortgage and a cynicism that was bigger than both.” 

Catherine Whitlock smiled sympathetically.

“The following year, the Chronicle offered me more money and the chance of a syndicated column.  I guess Susan hoped I’d be able to spend more time at home with her and the kids.”  He paused, thinking back.  “My little girl was around five when I began to cover the El Salvador conflict.”  He hesitated again, the memories now in full flood.  “Whilst down there sweating it out in the jungle, my darling wife decided to pack the furniture and kids into a U-haul trailer and move south to Houston.  That was over ten years ago and we’ve barely spoken a civil word since.”

“And you’ve never re-married?”

“Why do I get the feeling you’d be better with the Enquirer than Reuters?” 

She hit him with the blue pillow and  exaggerated pique.  “I’m just surprised you haven’t found someone else.”

“I’m not saying I took a vow of celibacy,” Capriotti said, thinking of Carla Anderson and how much she had once looked like the woman now sitting beside him.  Carla had been an energetic lobbyist with her own D.C. apartment.  She was young, flamboyant and available but Capriotti soon discovered that he was simply one of many who had passed through her bedroom and across her fashionable silk sheets.  The smile crossed his lips again.  They had met up several months earlier at one of Washington’s numerous political cocktail parties. Carla, now married to a West Coast Senator, had looked tanned, older, and not quite as flamboyant as he remembered.  Their eyes had met across the crowded room; her coy smile speaking volumes. Capriotti had felt sure that same little smile had passed between Carla and another half dozen men in the room. 

He turned his head and glanced across at Catherine Whitlock.  Her eyes were half closed; his gaze sliding from her face and down onto a well-filled silk blouse.  The top two buttons were undone.  He sighed and consciously pulled his eyes away.

“And they’re all mine,” she murmured contentedly, pulling the blanket up around her shoulders.  Capriotti shivered.  The plane’s heating had been turned down as one by one its passengers fell asleep over the North Atlantic.  He pulled his own blanket up as Catherine Whitlock again murmured sleepily and placed her head on his shoulder.  He lifted his arm and let her snuggle in closer.  She really was a stunning woman.  The steady hum of the four Pratt and Whitney engines eventually lulled him off into an uneasy sleep and the dream that had plagued him for ten years.

——————-