“Any time,” the man said and returned to his beat.
At around 8:30 a.m., Lee Harvey Oswald was being driven to work at the Texas Book Depository by a friend. He often did this, bummed rides. He didn’t have a license and, in fact, didn’t enjoy driving.
He had mixed feelings about his decision to spend the night at the Paines’ house in Irving. It was smart because it provided a good hiding place from those bastards who wanted to kill him. He’d looked forward to seeing Marina and their two daughters, one of whom was only a month old; they were staying permanently with the Paines. But that turned out to be a disappointment. He’d hoped to reconcile with Marina after a recent fight but it hadn’t happened. The bickering resumed, the night had turned to shit and he was upset.
“Whatcha got back there?” his friend asked as they nosed through morning traffic. He was nodding toward the long, paper-wrapped bundle in the backseat.
“Just some curtain rods.”
“Ah.”
Oswald continued to be cautious, shifting his gaze around the surrounding streets and sidewalks. Yes, some people seemed to be watching him, wary, suspicious, as if they knew exactly what he was going to do today. He reflected that he had told too many people about his contempt for Kennedy. And, hell, he’d just written an angry letter to the FBI, warning them to leave his family alone… That wasn’t too bright.
And curtain rods?
Jesus. No, it’s a 6.5-mm Carcano model 91/38 rifle. That’s what was wrapped up in the paper. How could anybody believe the bulky package was curtain rods? You need to think better. Be smarter.
And be cautious. He had a sense that his enemies were getting closer and closer.
He had the chance to make an indelible mark on history. He’d be famous forever. He had to make absolutely sure nothing would prevent that.
He looked around the streets of central Dallas, partially deserted now. There’d be crowds later, that was for sure, right there along Elm Street. Thousands of people. He knew this because the local newspaper had conveniently reported the exact route the President’s motorcade would take. The vehicles would come west on Main, then north briefly on Houston, then turn west again on Elm, passing right under the windows of the Texas Book Depository where he would be waiting in a sixth-floor window.
“You okay there, Lee?” his friend asked as he eased to a stop at a light.
“What’s that?”
“You didn’t hear me, I guess. I just asked if you’d be needing a ride back to the Paines’ tonight?”
Oswald didn’t answer for a minute. “No. I’ll probably just take the bus.”
“There. That’s a good place to shoot.” Luis Suarez said.
Carlos Barquín was examining the intersection where his partner was pointing—the sidewalk in front of the side door to the Texas Book Depository. “Looks like the only place to shoot. Good or bad, we don’t have any choice. Where else could we do it?” He seemed impatient.
Suarez nodded, though he didn’t much care for the man’s attitude. “Not very private, though.”
“Well, we don’t have the luxury of private. Not with a paranoid asshole like him.”
They had parked their Chrysler on North Record Street in downtown Dallas and were looking over the sidewalk in front of the Texas Book Depository. The morning was chill but they kept their jackets buttoned up because of the guns in their waistbands.
“I think it’ll work. All the buildings, they’ll cover the sounds of the shots.”
“Cover them?” Barquín asked.
“I mean the sounds’ll bounce around. Nobody will know where they came from.”
“Oh.”
“Nobody’ll know it was us. We’ll shoot him, drop the guns and walk back to the car. Walk slowly.” The pistols were wrapped in a special tape that didn’t hold fingerprints.
Barquín said defiantly, “I know what to do. I’ve done this before.”
Suarez didn’t say anything. He and Barquín shared both a certain ideology and a love of liquor. They’d even shared the same woman once or twice. He really didn’t like the man, however.
As they continued through the cool morning, Barquín asked, “That man, back there at the boarding house? In the suit, talking to the cop. He was police too, you think?”
“I don’t know.” Suarez had pondered who he’d been. He’d been armed and had been talking to that patrolman but it would have been odd for a cop to be there changing the tire of his own unmarked car—and an old DeSoto? No, the man was trouble but he couldn’t figure out how he fit into the picture.
They had some effects back at the boardinghouse, which they’d stashed there last week, but they’d have to abandon them now. Not that it mattered; they could pick up whatever they needed on the road as the Underground spirited them out of the country and back to Havana.
As they walked up Houston toward Elm, they passed a dim alley. A car was parked there, rear end facing them, the engine running and the trunk open. What was familiar about it?
“That car, haven’t we—?”
And Suarez realized it was the same DeSoto parked in front of the boardinghouse earlier when they’d seen that man changing the tire. The big, blond man. It was his car! Which meant—
He turned quickly, Barquín too. And both instinctively reached for their weapons, but the man was approaching fast from across Houston Street, already aiming his own gun at them.
The two Cubans froze.
Without a hesitation, without a blink, without breaking stride, the hulking blond man fired twice, hitting Barquín in the forehead.
Pop, pop.
He dropped to the ground like a discarded doll.
Suarez decided there was no choice. He continued to draw his gun, and hope he could get a round off in time.
The weapon wasn’t even out of his waistband when saw a tiny flash, then felt a tap between his eyes, a burning.
Which lasted less than a second.
Kaverin got the bodies into the trunk of the DeSoto quickly.
This was effortless. They were slight, weighing half what he did.
He fired up the DeSoto—he liked the Bel Air better—and pulled into Houston Street and then made his way out of downtown.
The search to find the men had been tense, though he’d known in general where they would be going—the most likely place to shoot down Comrade 35. Once there, central Dallas, he’d cruised the streets, looking for a yellow Chrysler. Finally he’d spotted it, near North Record Street. Suarez and Barquín were just getting out and walking south.
There were too many people to kill them there but Kaverin had noted the route they were taking and he’d pulled into an alley several blocks ahead of them. Once again he’d opened the trunk, then slipped into a doorway across Houston Street and waited. The men strode up the avenue and when their attention turned to the DeSoto he’d stepped across the street, drawing his gun.
Pop, pop…
Kaverin now drove out of the downtown area, parked and walked up the street to the Western Union office he’d located earlier.
There the spy spent some moments with a cipher pad writing a telegram reporting his success. He sent it to a safe house in Washington, D.C., where someone with the Russian consulate was waiting.
In fifteen minutes the response came back. It referred to shipments of wheat and truck allotments. But after deciphering:
Have submitted to the Special Council of the Presidium the report regarding your successful elimination of the threat to Comrade 35. Please proceed to any locations where the two counterrevolutionaries had contact in Dallas and secure any helpful information.