“You’ve forgotten about Washington, Symons. The CIA aren’t all like you.”
Boyd saw the uneasiness change to fear in Symons’s eyes. A different kind of fear. Disbelief fighting it out with fear that it could be true. That the sprawling machine that was used against others could be used against him. When that happens you can suddenly remember back to names and incidents, facts and rumours, when you were on the inside, when you never had to plead the Fifth or the First or the Fourth or even the Fourteenth Amendments. When it was normal to sit in a mahogany-panelled office round a table and discuss the feasibility study of the assassination of a dictator or a president; the advantages and disadvantages of a change of regime in some Middle East country; and the pros and cons of shovelling a million dollars down the pipeline to dissidents with unpronounceable names in countries that you couldn’t find in an atlas because they were smaller than the State of Oregon. When altering the history, the destiny, of some foreign country was a matter of expediency not moral judgement.
Men who dealt daily in those terms spent little time discussing the termination of an individual life. They might spend a few minutes on a list of names, but one individual, theirs or the other side’s, was not important enough to take up their valuable time. And when you had regularly sat-in on such meetings you were aware of how inexorably the machine worked. When the tick went beside your name it was just a question of time. And Symons was well aware, as Grabowski himself was aware, that not only did many top CIA people deplore Grabowski’s operations, but even those who approved accepted that an essential part of its function was its disposability. Officially, you and the others didn’t exist, and when the need was pressing you didn’t need to exist even unofficially. Grabowski would always survive. He was the exception. The rest were expendable. And he, Tony Symons, was one of the rest.
Symons looked at Boyd. “D’you really mean that? The lead was from Langley.”
“Concerning your identity and whereabouts, yes.”
“Can we do a deal?”
“What kind of a deal?”
Symons shrugged. “You give me cover and I’ll give you what you want.”
“Maybe. You haven’t answered my questions.”
“What were they?”
“About the Kennedys.”
“They just got in the way of too many powerful groups and people. They wanted to be the guys in the white hats. The knights in armour. They weren’t, they were a couple of Irish Micks whose old man had made a pile of dough. They wanted votes; and by harassing the labour bosses, the Mafia, and investigating corruption in government, they thought they’d get the votes. And they were right. So in the end they had to deliver. Bobby was the number one target until John F got to the White House and then, as one of the mob once said … ‘Cut off the rooster’s head and his tail will just drop off naturally.’ So JFK became number one target. They were actors those two. OK, they had good scriptwriters and producers, but they had no real talent. They should have gone to Hollywood. One of these days the country will do it in reverse. They’ll go straight to Hollywood and pick a guy who plays the right kind of parts and make him president.”
“But he was put in the White House by the people’s vote.”
Symons half-smiled. “He was put in by a combination of every minority we have. The Irish, the Catholics, the blacks, the Hispanics, the poor, the manual workers. They were used and orchestrated just the same way any other political group makes a candidate into a president. There’s nothing to choose between them, any of them. People expect too much. None of them matter. The Kennedys didn’t matter. They were just figureheads. Prettier than most, but nothing more.”
“And the people who arranged their killings?”
“They were the people with real power. They proved that.”
“How did they persuade you to carry out these hypnotism programmes?”
“I need a crap.”
Boyd walked Symons to the toilet. Released his right hand and clipped the handcuffs and Symons’s left hand to a pipe on the wall. Boyd stood outside the toilet door. When Symons called out Boyd released him, and Symons said, “Can I wash my face?”
Boyd nodded and led Symons to the sink in the kitchen. He didn’t fasten back the handcuffs when the washing was over. When they were back at the table Boyd returned to the question.
“What motivated you?”
“I guess at first it was the fact that I was picked out. Headhunted. When you’re very young it’s flattering. And then of course there’s the sheer scope of what you can do. No more rats in experimental cages, but real people. Everything you do is new. Virgin territory. Maybe no more than three other psychiatrists in the world know the things that I know. There’s no frontiers. Nothing’s closed to you. And almost everything you discover has some use for the CIA or the Pentagon.
“You’re not as vulnerable as even a four-star general. There are thousands of three- and two-star generals with much the same qualifications, eager to take over and capable of doing the job just as well if not better. But there was nobody to replace me. Not one single soul could take over from me.” Symons paused. “You won’t be able to understand what it’s like to be unique. It’s almost like being God. I don’t mean playing God … any totalitarian dictator can do that. Being God is different.”
“It didn’t concern you that you were distorting people’s minds. Maybe ruining their lives.”
“You mean people like Walker and the Shaw girl?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t consider their lives are ruined. Walker is healthy. He’s got a block of about a year in his life, but thousands of enlisted men have worse
