Rhodes looked wildly from one to the other. “I was in your room,” she stammered. “But only because I wanted to help. I wanted to do something and you weren’t telling me what was going on.”
Paul deVere cleared his throat. “It’s true,” he said. “Oswald called himself a patsy. And Lewis called him that to me and Amanda.”
“You called him a patsy,” Rhodes cried, indicating Ginter. “You had even written it down.”
“But I never told him that,” Ginter said evenly. “Only if someone saw the plan and talked to Oswald would Oswald use that word.”
Ginter turned full to Rhodes. “When I last saw you in Dallas you had crossed the street and were out of view. The plan said we would be on the fifth floor. You climbed up to the fifth floor to find Oswald, didn’t you?” he demanded.
“You’re crazy,” she croaked, but her voice was only a whisper.
“From the plan you would know that the second bullet was charged. You know explosives and knew what would happen. You knew that our plan was to not kill Kennedy and you told Oswald that. The Mannlicher never blew up and Oswald got off three shots. They only found three shell casings and two unused cartridges. That’s five. What happened to the loaded one? When I ran down the stairs did I pass you as I ran past the fifth floor? Had you gone in there looking for Oswald? Did you see me go by and then climb up to the sixth, knowing that Oswald was now alone? Did you tell him that he was being used as a patsy, that he had been set up? Did you empty his clip and show him the charged cartridge? Did you take it from him and race down after me, leaving an angry and hurt Oswald alone with just enough time to reload his clip? But you didn’t know about the ‘frag, did you? After you left he reloaded the clip bullet, ‘frag, bullet.”
Ginter had moved closer to her. Rhodes clutched her pocketbook in her hands.
“Let’s see what’s in the bag,” Ginter said softly.
“I don’t have any exploding bullet,” Pamela wailed. “Look, I can prove it.”
With a sudden movement she reached into her shoulder bag. Ginter realized too late what she was doing. Even as he reached under his left armpit he felt, rather than heard, two muffled thuds from the red pack to his left. Pamela jerked backwards, her right hand holding the short bladed survival knife she had yanked from her bag and was spastically attempting to slash at Ginter. She was dead before she hit the ground.
“Jesus!” Paul exclaimed, staring at Pamela’s motionless body.
“Why did you start that, without a gun on her?” Natasha asked Ginter matter-of-factly. “Agency grads always have a blade.”
Ginter walked over to Pamela’s body. “Sloppy, I guess. I was Special Ops, not Intelligence, remember?”
“Are, are you sure?” Amanda stammered, starting to sob, her arms tight around Paul deVere. She buried her face in his chest.
“I am sure,” Natasha said. She stood and walked over to the body and peered down before nudging it with her foot. Two holes through Pamela’s jacket two inches apart had turned crimson and a tiny line of blood extended between them.
“I wonder how she likes the connection of those dots?” Natasha asked tonelessly, looking at the corpse without emotion.
“I didn’t know you could assemble it blind in a backpack,” Ginter said.
“Not the whole thing,” Natasha said. “The ‘S’ model has a shortened barrel and a folding metal stock which I didn’t need for such a point blank shot.”
“Are you really, really sure?” Amanda sobbed.
Natasha nodded. “Igor’s superior, Petrovchenko, would have had someone to get around me. He always had a back-up plan. Perhaps he was suspicious of me, having seen that parts of my file were soft. Even Igor accused me of having a protector when I wouldn’t submit to him. She was Petrovchenko’s insurance.”
“But Pamela saved us from Igor,” Amanda blubbered. “At the lab.”
“Had to,” Ginter answered. “She knew that Natasha had disappeared from the hallway and figured out that she was already in the wormhole. She had to follow her at that point.”
“But why not just let Igor kill us and then she could go after Natasha?” Amanda asked.
“Rostov didn’t know who she was,” Ginter said. “And she needed us to work the Accelechron. She didn’t know how to do it and the wormhole was closing. Petrovchenko obviously didn’t trust Natasha, and so Rhodes had to follow her. And she couldn’t kill us back here because she needed us as bait to find Natasha.”
“She must have killed that campus police officer who went missing,” Natasha added. She pointed with her toe at the serrated knife lying next to Rhodes’ body. “Probably trying to get in to see your little machine and the officer came upon her. The patrol car was found near the lab.”
“What do we do now?” Paul asked. He gestured to the ground. “With the body, I mean.”
Ginter considered. “The quarry. It’s deep enough. Weigh the body down with rocks.”
Amanda looked at her watch. “The wormhole, it’s opening now.”
Ginter reached over and picked up Pamela’s shoulder bag. He pried it open, snickered, and reached in. He pulled out the loaded cartridge.
“Why’d she keep it?” Amanda asked.
“In case she needed a quick explosive,” Natasha answered.
“The wormhole will be open for about two hours and thirteen minutes,” Paul said. “Anyone who passed through can pass back. Anyone who didn’t pass through won’t even notice any physical disturbance. Is everyone ready?”
Ginter turned to Natasha. “The police who were here in the park when we arrived,” he asked simply. “You called them?”
The Russian nodded.
“The wormhole departure ratio was 55 to one,” Ginter continued. “If you jumped in even two minutes before we did you would have gotten here almost two hours before us. Plenty of time to find that store with the pay phone. But why?”
“To make you think a neo-Soviet might be back here,” Natasha answered. “To get you thinking about your Ms. Rhodes, just in case.”
“Why not just tell me?” Amanda asked. “I could have warned them.”
“How?” Natasha demanded. “What could you have told them without letting the cat out of your pocketbook about you and me? No, I had to make them suspicious on their own.”
“And at the hotel?” Ginter asked. “You sent them again?”
Natasha laughed. “Dr. Hutch told me the story. No, I did not send them again. I do not know why the police were at your hotel but apparently you made a right turn on red, which is not legal in 1963. Like you said, Comrade,” she added with a smirk, “you were never in Intelligence.”
“The wormhole’s open now, “ Paul said, rising to his feet.
Ginter stepped back. “You three go. I’m staying.”
Hutch physically reacted. “There’s plenty of time to, to, take care of this,” she said pointing at Pamela’s body. “We can all carry it to the quarry. We’ll have to dump in her body, weigh it down. The gun too,” she said pointing at Natasha’s red backpack with the hole in it. “And, and that bullet.”
“No, I mean I’m staying here and not going,” Ginter said.
“What? Lewis, you can’t,” Amanda said vigorously. “We’ve discussed all this. You know too much. It would be too dangerous for history.”
Ginter tilted his head back and chuckled. “Know too much? Know what?” he demanded. “Everything is changed now.”
He pointed to Natasha. “Thanks to our Russian friend here. Or, hopefully will be changed. There’s no history now except what we make and I want to be here to help make it. If she didn’t change it in Dallas, maybe I can still do something here.”