“Hopefully sometime around seventeen hundred.”
“Then what’s the plan?” asked McMahon. “That’s what you and I need to talk about.
You have to decide if you want to go knocking on doors and question these guys personally, or if you want to put them under surveillance and watch them.”
“How many suspects are we talking about?”
“There are fourteen former black commandos who live in the metro area and fit the description of the assassin that killed Downs.” McMahon did the math. “That’s going to take a lot of agents to run twenty-four-hour surveillance on fourteen people. What about the other commandos that are going to come up on the general’s list?”
“What I think we should do is have you get solid surveillance set up on the fourteen former black commandos and let the Agency handle the other names that come up on the general’s list. When all of your agents are in place, and all of my surveillance people are in place, then you can start beating the bush.” McMahon nodded. “And then we sit back and watch who talks to whom.”
“Exactly.”
“Do you have enough people to run that many surveillance teams?” asked McMahon.
“We have to be talking about at least fifty suspects.”
“We have enough assets,” Kennedy said with a slight smirk on her face.
“Seriously?”
“We conduct our surveillance a little differently than you do.”
McMahon shook his head and said, “I don’t even want to know what you’re going to do.” He looked to General Heaney. “I’m going to need the complete dossiers of the
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fourteen guys on the probable list. I would also like the names of their commanding officers while they were in the service.”
Turning back to Kennedy, McMahon asked, “How long will it take you to get your people in place?”
“Depending on how many names come up, we should have everything ready to go by
Friday morning.”
“I’ll call Brian and get everything rolling on my end, and, Irene, you do …”
McMahon waved his hand in the air. “I don’t want to know what you’re doing. Just please be careful and don’t end up on the front page of the Post.”
THE SMALL CESSNA FLEW ALONG THE SOUTHEAST RIDGE OF THE
APPALACHIAN Mountain Range. Autumn colors painted the mountains beneath.
Dotted among the rich reds, oranges, and yellows, tall Georgia pines jutted into the sky. Not a cloud was in sight, and the sun added an extra intensity to the full mix of colors below. They passed over a mountaintop, and a town farther up the valley came into sight. Seamus pointed and said, “There she is.” Brasstown, Georgia, was a small town about one and a half hours north of Atlanta that was nestled in a valley at the southern end of the Appalachians. From the far end of the valley they could barely make out two church steeples and a water tower that broke above the trees. As they neared, other buildings and streets became visible. “The airstrip is out on the southern end of town,” said Seamus, who banked the plane farther to the southeast and came in for a sweeping pass. The airstrip was cut right out of the tree line. Passing over it, Seamus took note of the direction the bright orange wind sock was pointing and came back around for a landing. He lined up his approach with a slight allowance for the crosswind and came in low above the trees. When he reached the clearing, he throttled back and let the plane float down onto the grass strip. She bounced once and then settled in, rolling to the end of the runway. An old, rusty fuel pump was the only structure in sight, and next to it was a Dodge pickup. Leaning against the hood was a man in boots, jeans, a red-and-black flannel shirt, and green John Deere hat.
Seamus cut the engine and shut everything down. He and Michael got out of the plane, and the man by the pickup approached. Seamus met him halfway and they embraced, slapping each other on the back. Seamus turned and said, “Michael, you remember Augie, don’t you?” Michael stuck out his hand.
“It’s been a while. Good to see you again, sir.”
“Good to see you, Michael.” Jackson stared at him for a moment and said, “God, you look just like your grandfather.” Michael smiled and Augie asked, “Things have been pretty hectic in Washington lately, haven’t they?”
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“Yes.”
Augie gestured toward the rear of the truck. “Let’s go sit down. My old legs don’t work so well anymore.” Augie led them to the back of the truck, where he lowered the tailgate. He and Seamus sat and Michael stood with his arms folded across his chest.
Augie pulled out a pipe and a bag of tobacco. He filled the bowl and offered the bag to
Seamus.
While Augie packed his pipe, he said, “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since I got your call last night, Seamus. In fact, I’ve been, doing a lot of thinking since this whole thing started. Kind of a professional curiosity I guess you’d call it.” He put the packing tool back in his pocket and pulled out a lighter. “Michael, did your grandfather tell you what I used to do for the CIA?”
“A little.” Augie lit the lighter and held the flame over the bowl, sucking on the pipe until the packed tobacco caught fire. Exhaling the smoke, he moved the pipe to the corner of his mouth and said, “Well, I’ll give you the short version. After the war, I stayed in the
