Amanda turned to Ginter. “Why don’t we just do it?” she asked softly.
“Do it? Do what?” he asked.
She waved her hand at the street. “Just do it. Screw the fake assassination. We want to stop Kennedy from pulling out of Vietnam this Sunday.” She waved her hand again. “Just do it.”
She turned square to Ginter who stood open-mouthed. “Just shoot him,” she said flatly.
“My God, you can’t be serious!” deVere exclaimed from the bed. “We can’t shoot the President.”
Amanda wheeled on him. “And why not?” she demanded. “We came back here to stop Soviet expansion, didn’t we? In two and a half months we’ve accomplished zilch. In five days he pulls out.” She shrugged. “Why wouldn’t it work?”
Ginter strode away from the window. “Impossible,” he said. “We have no idea what Johnson will do. Will he stay and fight?
“As a black man in 1963 I am not going to be part of a plot to shoot the President,” he added. “We’ve got Oswald and a rigged cartridge and enough propaganda material to frame him. Kennedy’s a war hero. Any of you seen P.T. 109 yet? When he finds out that Castro tried to have him bumped off, it’ll become personal very quickly.”
He turned to Amanda. “Like you said, we’re five days away from the decision and three days away from the motorcade. No one can be sure what will happen afterwards but this is all we’ve got.”
“O.K.,” Paul said standing up. “I guess we’ll find out Friday.”
Chapter 28
Lewis Ginter squatted on the planking of the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository and peered across to the opposite side of Elm Street.
“You think he’ll be on time?” Oswald asked.
Ginter turned to him. Oswald sat on a crate munching a piece of fried chicken, juice dripping down his chin. Ginter turned back to the street below. How could this guy be an ex-Marine?
“I’m not sure,” he answered in his broken Spanish accent. “There’s nothing to hold him up.”
As much as he loathed doing so he felt obligated to keep up the conversation.
“I’ve got your tickets and passport. I’ll hand them to you as you pass out of the building. This way if for some reason I get caught with them before then you can still clear the area.”
Oswald nodded and peered down the sight of the Mannlicher. Ginter tried to ignore the nervous twinge in his stomach. He had created a sniper’s nest from the book crates stored on the sixth floor. He was concerned that at any moment another employee in search of a better position from which to watch the motorcade might wander up to the floor. Ginter had planned to set up on the fifth floor but had overheard two workers talking about watching the motorcade from there. He had slipped upstairs and carefully moved the paper wrapped Mannlicher up another flight, where he had constructed the nest.
Oswald craned his neck out the window to the left. Ginter followed his gaze. Still nothing. Ginter checked his watch. Twelve-seventeen.
“It shouldn’t be long,” Ginter said.
Across the street he spotted Amanda Hutch walking along the edge of the grass. As per Ginter’s instructions she was vigilantly surveying the crowd, the building, and the surrounding area.
“One of our agents?” Oswald asked.
Ginter cursed to himself. He shouldn’t have let Oswald discern the object of his gaze.
“We have several agents in the crowd, Comrade,” Ginter said evenly. “They will tell us as the motorcade approaches and will provide help in our escape if necessary. But it is better if you do not know of them.”
Oswald nodded and again peered down the sight as if mentally selecting random targets. Ginter put his left hand in his pants pocket and fingered his walkie-talkie. He had bought the smallest one available at a Dallas military surplus shop but still marveled at how cumbersome it was. He longed for his cell phone. At least I never had to buy oversized pants for a cell phone, he mused.
Ginter resisted the temptation to reach inside his pocket and raise Hutch or deVere. If they had noticed anything suspicious they would have radioed.
He was uneasy with the patchwork nature of his plan. He was better qualified to be outside looking for the Russian. He questioned whether Paul and Amanda would be able to spot an agent. He questioned his decision not to arm them. But he couldn’t leave them up here to manage Oswald. If Oswald failed to fire then this would all be a waste. Ginter couldn’t be everywhere.
He brushed his right hand against his pants pocket and felt the bulge of the snub-nosed Colt .38. He would have preferred his .45, but the semi-automatic didn’t fit in his pants, and he had no reason to wear a sport coat to this job.
“What are you doing?” Ginter asked.
Oswald had removed the clip from the Mannlicher and was turning it over in his hand.
“Just checking,” he said.
“Well, check with the clip in the rifle, please,” Ginter said icily. With the lufrag already loaded first Ginter didn’t like Oswald tinkering with the clip. The wired cartridge was second. The third, fourth, fifth and sixth were real. When Oswald had come up just before noon he had removed the clip and studied it before replacing it as Ginter had held his breath. Seeing Oswald do it again was unnerving.
“You’re a bit edgy,” Oswald said, in his sneering tone.
Ginter breathed deeply. “This is an important mission for the Revolution,” he said, staring out across the street.
“And,” he turned to look at Oswald, “an important mission for us.” He let his gaze hold Oswald’s an extra moment.
Oswald hesitated before turning back to the street. Ginter checked his watch again. Twelve-twenty.
The sun was bright, but being inside shielded the pair from any glare. Amanda was now across the street to the far left, closer to where the motorcade was expected. She had her back to him, and appeared to be trying to use her walkie-talkie. She was shaking it as if trying to get it to work. He listened for his own to crackle but heard no sound from his pants pocket. What did she see? He craned his neck and scanned along the crowd back to his far right. He started scanning back to his left when he saw it, so commonplace that at first that he almost missed it. Walking toward him, from the direction of Houston Street, was a woman with a brightly colored yellow and red babushka, a babushka he had seen before, a babushka she had purchased in Connecticut 15 weeks earlier.
Damn! What the hell is she doing here?
Amanda must have seen her too and was trying to raise him.
Ginter’s pants pocket crackled. He looked at Oswald blankly for a moment before reaching in and retrieving the walkie-talkie. It wasn’t Amanda—it was deVere.
“I see a Dallas police officer crouched behind your building near the railroad yard,” deVere’s voice almost shouted through the radio. “I think it might be him. Over.”
Ginter and Oswald stared at each other.
“Why?” Ginter barked into the handheld set.
“I think he’s got a rifle in his hands.”
“Counter-revolutionaries,” Ginter said quietly to Oswald. “We knew they might try to stop us.” He glanced back outside and saw Rhodes again, leisurely walking toward the Book Depository. She was glancing around, obviously confused. Shit! What the hell is she doing here?
Oswald shrugged. “Maybe it’s a real cop.”
Ginter could feel the cold hand reaching up again. Not crouching.
“Are you sure? Over.” Ginter asked, as Rhodes stopped 200 feet to his left and turned around.
Ginter only heard crackled static.
The icy hand tightened. Maybe Oswald was not the target. Maybe there were two groups. Maybe…