Libra - Don Delillo [137]
Alpha was not known for shyness or tight security. They held press conferences to announce their raids on Cuban installations and Soviet freighters. Once they invited a Life photographer on a raid, ten men in two boats. A storm ruined the mission and the pictures but Life did a story anyway. Brave boys of Alpha. South Florida was full of Alpha members, uncounted, devout, screaming in their teeth.
“And this is what you also planned, all this time, T-Jay, to get Kennedy?”
“It’s just his time has come.”
“I don’t think we kill an American president so easy. Miami, they’ll have extra protection. This is not like walking into some little capital city, walking into the palace, buying off some bodyguards with a few dollars.”
“The barrier is down, Frank. When Jack sent out word to get Castro, he put himself in a world of blood and pain. Nobody told him he had to live there. He made the choice with his brother Bobby. So it’s Jack’s own idea we’re guided by. And once an idea hits.”
“Not that I don’t wish to see it happen.”
“Oh I think it will.”
“Someone has to pay for Cuba.”
“You and I demand it, Frank.”
“And it will point to Castro. They will say here is the source. He sent the men.”
“This is what we’re looking for. But even so, if all the gears don’t mesh, at least we have our man. Someone has to die. It is very much a part of our thinking that Jack is the one.”
“This is like Alpha. Someone has to die, they say.”
“They can’t contain it anymore.”
“Do we go in with them?”
“I say why not, Frank.”
“Do you trust them to run it?”
“They cross the water to blow up Russian shipping. What the hell. This is a man in an open car.”
Frank needed to get some sleep.
“Who’s in the camp?” he said.
“Raymo and Wayne and a visitor. You don’t say too much to him. Smile nice, shake hands.”
Oswald wanted his path to be tracked and his name to be known. He had private designs, a hero’s safe haven in Cuba. He wanted to use the rifle that could be traced to him through the transparent Hidell. Mackey was cautious. The kid had a dizzying history and he was playing some kind of mirror game with Ferrie in New Orleans. Left is right and right is left. But he continued to fit the outline that Everett had devised six months earlier. There were the homemade documents, the socialist literature, the weapons and false names. He was one element of the original plan that still made sense.
Mackey trained the headlights on the skiff. Frank climbed in and switched on the deer lamp and the boat moved quietly through the duckweed and past the sunken trees.
Mackey sat in the dark again.
Some of Alpha’s boldest operations were run by elements hidden in the Agency. Alpha had CIA mentors. These were men Mackey wasn’t even close to knowing. They weren’t necessarily known to the leaders of Alpha. A case officer would show up to provide money and to advise on sabotage missions. He would limit his contacts to one or two men in Alpha. They would not know his real name or his position in the Agency. There’s always something they aren’t letting you know. Alpha was run like a dream clinic. The Agency worked up a vision, then got Alpha to make it come true.
Too many people, too many levels of plotting. Mackey had to safeguard the attempt not only from Alpha but from Everett and Parmenter. They might decide to expose the plan now that he’d removed himself from contact, leaving them to their hieroglyphics. Then Banister and Ferrie and the men dealing out the cash. He had to protect the attempt, make it safe from betrayal.
He waved a hand at the persistent hum that jumped around his ear. A mosquito is a vector of disease. He got out of the car and listened. Something felt strange. Then he heard a vast rustling in the trees, coming louder with the wind. It took him some time to realize it was only water