Open Writing

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PART ONE

POSSIBLE

Cause and effect – if a butterfly flaps its wings in China, ripples are created which affect events clear around the world. - Chaos Theory

CHAPTER ONE

Katyn Forest
Near Smolensk, Russia
April 14, 1940

The men stood steaming in the early dawn, their greatcoats drawn about them as protection against the penetrating cold, even though the worst of winter, this worst of winters, was surely now behind them.

There had to be 1000 men in the forest clearing already, its tall pines looming above them, and others were still arriving. All around them, trucks came, discharged their human cargo, and headed off in mysterious purpose to collect still more.

Wojtyla looked around the clearing at the standing mass of humanity. Everyone appeared to be Polish, if uniforms could be trusted, and all appeared to be officers. Men spoke in low tones, sharing cigarettes, while on the perimeter of the circle they formed, German guards stood, Schmeisser machine pistols leveled. Wojtyla spoke to the man standing beside him, who was blowing into his cupped hands, “I don’t like the look of this, Jerczy.”

Jerczy Zabinsky, a short, sallow-faced man of laconic nature, glanced at the Germans, “No shit. So what’s the plan?”

Wojtyla looked around again, taking in the entire scene as if for the first time, even though he and Zabinsky had been in one of the first trucks to arrive from nearby Smolensk where they and thousands of other Polish POWs had been interred. With a glance at the German guards again, he said, “All right, I know Russians and Germans are supposed to be allies, but who ever heard of the Huns coming this far inside Russian territory?”

Zabinsky shrugged, “Things happen, Karol. What’re you gonna do?”

They watched another truck disgorge its human cargo, then saw the German troops surrounding them move in, raise their machine pistols and aim them at the mass of Polish officers.

“Run, Jerczy. They’re going to kill us!” Wojtyla yelled. Automatic weapons chattered, and men fell, bullets ripping into them, bodies jerking, blood flying.

At the edge of his vision, Wojtyla saw Zabinsky hit and fall. Then events moved in slow motion and Karol Wojtyla seemed to have plenty of time to form thoughts. Zab and I have been through so much together. How can it end like this?Then something slammed into his head and he fell into darkness.
Later, as consciousness returned, he felt a sensation of moving, of tumbling, rolling over and over. Noises became clearer; the roar of machinery, the hiss of hydraulics. Gradually, Karol became aware that he was being pushed as part of a greater mass, rolling across the semi-frozen ground, alternately covered and uncovered by bodies around him. Then he was falling, only a few meters; his fall cushioned by other bodies, and other bodies falling on him. He closed his eyes, and only had time for a small prayer before he lost consciousness again.

* * * *

The bulldozers shoved the mass of bodies across the ground like garbage in a city dump, pushing them into vast pits. German troops, their faces covered with squares of cloth soaked in vinegar to mask the stench, shoveled lime onto the bodies as more rolled on top of them. Other guards patrolled the edge of the pits, jackboots crunching on the frozen ground, occasionally firing into them as they saw a limb twitch, a head roll.

Finally, all of the bodies were in the pits, and the bulldozers covered them with huge mounds of dirt. The soldiers climbed into the trucks, which moved off through the misty forest, and all was still. Only the broken ground confessed that the thousand Poles had ever existed.

By 6 PM, night had fallen over the mass grave. In one spot the dirt moved and raised. A dirty hand pushed up and felt around. The small hole grew, and the hand became an arm, and was joined by another. Then, a dirt-smeared head emerged cautiously and two haunted eyes looked around carefully, then wriggled and struggled out of the hole to lie gasping on the cold ground.

Looking up at the stars, glimpsed through the canopy of the trees, Karol Wojtyla knew he was alone; Zabinsky was gone. Their journey together was over. Wojtyla rolled over, got up and stood swaying, contemplating the horrific fact that, out of more than 1000 men, he was the only survivor.

He looked up at the stars again and vowed that he would see justice brought against the people who had done this. Not the soldiers; they were only tools, not much different from the guns they used to do the job. The faceless ones pulling the strings were who Wojtyla wanted.

Resting only a few minutes longer, Karol Wojtyla shook himself to get rid of the worst of the dirt and stench from the pit, then checked the stars to orient himself. Gathering his courage, the man who would one day lead the Roman Catholic Church began walking east, towards Poland.

* * * *

Augsburg, Germany
May 10, 1941
1745 Hours

The Messerschmidt ME 110 sat on the rain-swept tarmac like a predatory bird, awaiting the order to strike. No mechanics bustled around its fuselage; no one stood by the cockpit, closed against the rain, ready to assist the pilot into his seat. Its single propeller turned, the engine idled. A wooden chock lay in front of each wheel. Muted landing lights lit the edges of the runway.

A single figure emerged from the hut that was the airfield’s administration office and stepped into the driving rain. The figure, clearly a man, wore flight gear: a leather flying helmet with ear flaps, goggles pushed up on to his forehead, a fur-lined leather jacket, jodhpurs, and tall black boots. He carried a briefcase and had a bulky parachute strapped on his back. In the light from the window, he turned and looked back, then turned and began to walk out to the waiting aircraft.

At the plane, he removed the chocks from in front of the wheels, then climbed awkwardly onto the wing. Struggling upright, he braced himself against the wet gale, slid back the cockpit canopy, then quickly clambered into the narrow space, sat on his parachute in the seat, stowed the briefcase at his feet, and then reached up and slid the canopy forward, shutting out the rain. He wiped his face with a white handkerchief, which he dropped to the floor of the cockpit, then pulled the goggles down over his eyes. Reaching forward, he took the control stick in his hand, savoring the feel of it. A long time had passed, and many great things had been achieved since he had last sat at the controls of an airplane.

He advanced the throttle with his left hand, increasing the engine’s revolutions while keeping one foot on the brake, then looked through the canopy ahead, down the dimly lit runway. Peering through the spinning propeller, he paused. What he was about to do would not be understood by all or even most of his contemporaries, but he was confident those who mattered backed him; especially the one who mattered above all others.

Drawing a deep breath, he opened the throttle wide, and the engine’s roar rose. He released the brake, and the small one-man fighter began to roll. Louder, faster, rushing down the runway now, its wheels bumping lightly over the tarmac, the rain splatting against the cockpit and being swept aside by the force of his passage. Although his flying experience was limited, like all pilots he knew that take-offs were relatively easy, and that flying the plane was even easier. Landings were the tricky part, the part for which, as the Americans said, pilots earned their pay, but he had no concerns on that score. On this flight, landing was not something that would concern him.

The fighter, burdened by extra fuel tanks, took longer than usual to reach take-off speed, and as the end of the runway approached, he pulled back on the stick gently, and immediately the thumping noise ceased, and the plane struggled into the air. There were no other aircraft in the vicinity tonight, and the man continued climbing, reaching the cloud cover at 5000 feet. Continuing to climb through the grayness and rain, he finally emerged into a clear and starry night at 8000 feet. Then he checked his compass and set his course northwest, away from the Fatherland, towards the enemy; toward Britain.

* * * *

The small plane crossed southern Germany, passing directly over the port of Hamburg on the Elbe River, then headed out over the North Sea. The pilot brought the aircraft back down through the clouds into the rain and leveled off at an altitude of 1000 feet, holding a course of 285 degrees. He had chosen this night carefully, using all the skills and intelligence available to him, anticipating the weather, and knowing there would be no enemy fighters or bombers in the air that night. His planning had been meticulous because his mission was too important for errors, and while the signs had been excellent, he knew he still had to be careful.

After 100 tense but uneventful minutes, he checked his position, then turned to a heading of 270 degrees, due west. After about 15 minutes, he saw a coastline in the rain-flecked gloom, and a minute later, the blacked-out countryside slid beneath his wings. However, he needed no lights as navigational aids; he had studied maps of the area exhaustively, memorizing every detail of it until its topography was burned into his memory.

Keeping his speed at a constant 300 knots, he continued on his course for seven minutes, gradually climbing to 6000 feet. Then he throttled back to 150 knots, locked the stick in position and reached between his feet for the briefcase. He clipped it on to a metal dog sewn onto his tunic and slid back the cockpit canopy, admitting a roaring rush of freezing air. Awkwardly, he stood in the cockpit, then grasping the edge of the canopy, stepped out onto the wing.

At its present speed, the plane would continue across the country, eventually run out of fuel and crash harmlessly into the Atlantic Ocean. With one last prayer to a God in whom he had only recently come to believe again, he gripped the ripcord of his parachute tightly in one hand and allowed himself to fall backwards off the wing into the dark of the wet Scottish night.

* * * *

The coal-fire in the hearth glowed with a welcome, friendly warmth as Constable Arthur MacPherson carried his mug of steaming tea to his comfortable armchair beside the fire. Setting the mug carefully on the small table beside his chair, the policeman sat and glanced up at the black-curtained window of the tiny station and shivered.

Brrrr, Arthur me laddie, he thought, 'tis no’ a night for man nor beastie out there. One thing is for certain; there’ll be no jiggery-pokery this night. All self-respectin’ poachers ’n burglars’ll be tucked up in their wee beds, I’ll wager.

MacPherson added a small shot of single malt whiskey to his tea from a bottle on the table, supplied to him by a local unlicensed distiller in exchange for the occasional blind eye turned to the man’s illegal but, in the constable’s opinion, harmless operation, then picked up his mug and slurped the hot, sweet liquid noisily.

“Ahhhh,” he sighed aloud, “tha’ hits the spot, right enough.”

The station was a one-man police post in the village of Ballycord, on the river Dee, 37 seven miles from Aberdeen. More strategically, it was only 10 miles from Balmoral Castle, the Scottish home of the British royal family. Under normal circumstances, the constable would have been correct in his assessment of the nocturnal habits of the local lawbreakers, but this was to be no ordinary night. Something momentous was about to enter the life of Arthur Angus MacPherson.

When the heavy knock came on the door, the constable started, his hand jerked, and hot tea slopped over the side of his mug onto his hand.

“Och! Now, who’d be oot on such a night as this?” He put the mug down on the table, stood, and went to the door, his bunch of keys clinking against his hip. Wiping his hand on his uniform pants, the constable opened the door far enough to look out. He gaped, then opened the door wider.
The man standing in the rain wore flying gear and carried a briefcase. He looked to be in his mid-to- late 40s, had an authoritative, if shifty look, and MacPherson’s experienced eye typed the man as a potential criminal.

But if MacPherson was surprised by the man’s appearance in this Scottish backwater, where nothing ever happened save when the royals came to stay at the castle, the man’s words struck him dumb.

“Good evening,” the man said in a heavy German accent. “I am Rudolf Hess, Deputy Reischfeuhrer of Germany. I am in your country on a mission of great importance, and I demand to be taken at once to Mr. Churchill.”

* * * *

H.M. Prison
Broadmoor
May, 1941

The footsteps of the four men echoed against the damp stone walls of the prison’s gloomy labyrinthine corridor. Warden Alastair Chrichton led the small procession, followed by two men in dark pinstriped suits and heavy overcoats, with a uniformed guard at the rear. They stopped at a heavily barred door where two British Army soldiers guarding it stamped to attention, their Lee Enfield .303 rifles with bayonets fixed at their sides.

The warden eyed them appreciatively. They were regular army MPs, hard, experienced men drawn from the toughest military prisons in the country. He took a key from the large ring he carried, put it into the door’s lock. After turning it noisily back and forth, he was rewarded with a satisfying clunk, and the massive door swung open inwards. He stepped forward.

“We’ll take it from here, if you don’t mind.”

Surprised, Chrichton turned and looked at the young man behind him. “That’s a bit irregular, sir. I don’t like leaving you alone with him. I mean, you and…and the other gentleman,” he finished uncomfortably.

“I believe you know who I am, Warden?” said a familiar voice.

“Yes, sir,” the warden nodded.

“Are you suggesting I require someone’s permission to speak to the prisoner?”

“No…no…uh…, the warden shook his head, trying to form an apology.

Finally, the man silenced him with an upraised hand, then continued in a softer tone. “I don’t believe we’re in any danger from this man, Mr. Chrichton. Thank you for your concern, but I’m quite sure he didn’t come all this way just to do me harm.” He glanced at the two soldiers meaningfully. “I think we’ll be quite safe.”

“Yes, sir. If you say so, sir.” The warden nodded reluctantly, then glanced at the guard, “Come on, Charlie. We’ll leave these important gentlemen to their business. We’ll be close at hand if you need us, sir. Just give a call when you’re ready to leave.” Then he and the guard moved aside, allowing the two men to enter the cell, and the younger man pushed the door shut behind them.

* * * *

Inside, it was darker than in the corridor, and the men stood a moment to let their eyes adjust. They saw a relatively large room for a cell, lit by a single bulb hanging from a cord in the center of the room, stone walls and floor, a bed against the wall to the right of the doorway, and a washbasin and toilet in the opposite corner. Beside the bed stood a small table and two straight-backed chairs.
A man sat stiffly at attention on the bed, both feet on the floor, hands clasped before him, and his intense gaze focused on the elder of his two visitors. The younger man, about thirty or so, stepped aside, and the older man moved to the center of the cell. Standing before the seated man, he took an aggressive, belligerent stance; feet apart, hands on hips, chin thrust forward, topcoat unbuttoned, and his bullet head bare. He looked at the man, then said in a rasping, familiar voice, “All right, Herr Hess. I believe you wanted to see me. Well, here I am. Now, tell me why I shouldn’t have you taken out and shot as a Nazi spy.”

The man on the bed looked up at the famous bulldog features he’d seen in newsreels and studied in hundreds of photographs, and a thin smile creased his lean, ascetic face, “Oh, I do not think you will want to do that, mein Herr, not when you hear why I have come. But I forget my manners.” He gestured at the two chairs. “Please, sit down. I fear I have no refreshments to offer you. The hospitality of these accommodations leaves something to be desired.”

The younger man glanced at his superior, then they moved to the table and sat on the chairs. Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of Great Britain, took a long metal tube from his coat pocket and removed an equally long Cuban cigar from it, while the younger man dug in his coat pocket, found a box of matches and struck a match and held it for him. Churchill drew on the flame until the end of the cigar glowed to his satisfaction, and the cell was filled with the pungent aroma of tobacco smoke. Then he leaned towards the man on the bed.

“Very well, Reischfeurher. You have our attention. Now, as my American colleagues say, this had better be good.”

Hess nodded, then said, diffidently, “I wonder, mein Herr, if I might have one of those excellent cigars? It has been a long time…”

Churchill paused, then reached inside his topcoat and withdrew another of the thin, steel cigar tubes and handed it to the German. Hess rose from the bed and reached across the table, accepting the offering; then, with shocking suddenness, he whirled and drove the tube into the younger man’s left eye.

So unexpected was this move, Churchill sat immobile, his mouth open in shock and the cigar in his hand. There was no sound made except for the pop of the young man’s eyeball exploding while the cigar tube passed through the fragile bone and into his brain, killing him instantly. Like a striking cobra, Hess yanked out the tube with a small, obscene sucking sound and, in one smooth movement, he transferred it to his left hand and drove it into Churchill’s right eye.

The larger man gave only a small grunt of surprise, then toppled backwards, still on his chair, onto the stone floor of the cell. There had been little noise, and Hess was confident the guards outside had heard nothing. Still, he paused, waiting for some sign that the murder of Great Britain’s wartime leader had gone unnoticed.

When he was satisfied that they had not been alerted, Hess leaned over Churchill’s still twitching body and removed the metallic tube from the Prime Minister’s eye socket. Placing it on the table, he stooped back down to Churchill and stubbed out the still-burning cigar next to the body, then quickly searched the man’s coat pockets for the silver flask of cognac he was rumored to always carry. After a moment, he rose, clutching his prize, then retrieved the cigar tube, still coated in gore.

He carefully washed the lower half of the tube in the small basin beside his bed, removed the cigar and found the box of matches in the younger man’s pocket. He sat down on the bed, swung his legs up on to it and placed his pillow behind his back. When he was comfortable, he struck a match and lit the cigar, drawing on it until it glowed. He then unscrewed the cap of the silver liquor flask and took a long, deep draft of the fiery liquid, shuddered, then let out a sigh.

He drew on the cigar again, blew a perfect smoke ring into the air and smiled. It had indeed been a long time; the Fuhrer did not approve of tobacco or alcohol, and the last diplomatic party hosted by Germany had occurred before the war.

Thinking of the splendor of the Reichstag, Hess looked around the cell. Well, he thought, at least I won’t have to spend the rest of my life in this stinking scheisshaus. All in all, he thought as he drew on the cigar and sipped the excellent brandy, considering the gain, it was an equitable exchange.
After about 15 minutes or so, he took one last draw on the cigar, then leaned over the side of the bed and stubbed it out on the stone floor. Then he sat back and reached into his mouth; with a sharp twist, he removed the false tooth that had been placed there. Holding it firmly between his thumb and forefinger, he bit down on it, then tipped the contents into the flask.

Rudolph Hess raised his left arm in the Nazi salute, bent at the elbow Hitler-fashion, then lifted the flask in homage. Heil Hitler, he intoned silently. For you, Mein Fuhrer, and an infinity of Reichs. Tipping back his head, he downed the remaining contents in one long swallow, then sat back and waited for the cyanide to do its work.

The wait was short.

* * * *

Washington D.C.
July, 1952

President Harry S. Truman was in the Oval Office of the White house on the evening of 27th July, signing some correspondence prior to joining his guests in the dining room for dinner. He was at his desk, behind the famous plaque that said, “The Buck Stops Here”, when his chief of staff entered the office unannounced.

Truman looked up as the man said, “I think you’d better come and see this, Mr. President.”
Truman scowled. “What is it, for Christ’s sake? I’ve got to get this done and I’m starved. They’re holding dinner for me and my guests are waiting.”

“Sorry, sir, but you really need to see this.”

With a sigh, the President put down his pen and stood. “This better be good,” he said, following his Chief of Staff out the French doors, where Secret Service agents flanked them immediately. “Well, what’s so damned important?”

“Look up, Mr. President,” the C.O.S. pointed up. Truman looked up at the sky and his mouth dropped open. “What in blue blazes…?”

Above them, in the sky over the nation’s capital, lights danced against the dark sky. They were circular or oval in shape, white or pale yellow in color, and they were moving very fast in seemingly random patterns across the sky.

“Anything from the Air Force?” President Truman asked.

“Not yet, Mr. President.” He smiled wryly. “Although I think we might be hearing from them very soon.”

They stood looking at the phenomenon for a few minutes, then Truman said, “What do you think, Walt?”

“Well,” he answered quietly, “I’ll tell you one thing, Mr. President. They’re not ours.”

“Mmm. Russian?”

“No, I don’t think so, sir. If we can’t do this, then I think it’s safe to assume neither can they.”

As they watched the lights for a while. Some of the strange objects came closer, but none actually threatened the White House or any other Washington landmark. Their paths seemed without purpose, although they zipped from one part of the sky to another. Finally, the President said, “Well, if we can see them, others can, too.”

The Chief of Staff nodded. “Yes, sir. Shall I call a press conference? Best to handle it right away to keep the other side of the aisle from making trouble.”

Truman nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Get a hold of Samford to field the questions.”

The other man nodded. Major General John Samford was the Director of Air Force Intelligence, and the obvious choice to head up the press conference.

“Tell John to tell them the usual: don’t have all the information right now, no cause for alarm, that kind of thing. Tell him we want it played down, but not an outright debunking. Can’t exactly deny what we and probably thousands of others in Washington saw with their own eyes. Keep our options open, you know the drill,” Truman said.

The Chief of Staff nodded again. “Yes, Mr. President,” he said, and moved toward the door to get to work.

Truman stood craning his neck at the sky. My God, he thought. What the hell is this? More of those damn things from Roswell? What do they call them, flying discs? No, that’s right, now they call them flying saucers. Maybe they’ve come for their friends.

With that uncomfortable thought in his mind, he turned around and went back into his office.

* * * *

The White House
Eleven years later

The short, rotund man walked briskly across the spectacular blue and gold rug, regretting that his leather heels didn’t produce that sharp, authoritative sound, and sat in the guest chair in front of the desk, without waiting for an invitation from the tall man who stood beside the desk, his back to the room, staring out through the bulletproof windows at the White House lawn.

The young man turned his attention to the man in the chair. “Well?”

The shorter man nodded gravely. “Mr. Kennedy, the President died at about 1 PM Eastern time.” He glanced at his watch. “A little over eight minutes ago.”

The other man looked at him bleakly, his eyes haunted, then turned away again.

“President Johnson has been sworn in by the Chief Justice on board Air Force One, and will be touching down at Andrews in a few hours. Mrs. Kennedy is also on board, and….” The short man’s voice trailed off as he realized that the tall man wasn’t listening. “There was nothing else to be done, sir. Surely you realize that he would have been the ruin of this country, the ruin of us all. He was going to pull our troops out of Vietnam, for God’s sake! Surely you can see…”

John Fitzgerald Kennedy rounded on the man and fixed him with a cold gaze. “What I see, Mr. Director, is that my brother is dead, and I am responsible. Do not speak to me of ruin.”

The other man attempted a smile that didn’t come close to sincerity.

“Really sir, you were hardly responsible. The Cubans…”

“Nothing would have happened had I not been persuaded not to interfere!” Kennedy barked. Then his voice, with its distinctive Down East twang, grew quiet. “My God, why did I listen…?”

“Mr. Kennedy, try not to think of such things. The security of America is assured, and the line of succession is preserved. Johnson will do what is expected of him, then next year, he will run again. And he will win…a nation torn apart, etc. Then, in 1968, it will be your turn, and there will be a Kennedy in the White House once more.” He covered his mouth briefly to hide his grimace of distaste. “I urge you to remain calm. All things pass; this will too.”

Staring out the window, John Kennedy was deep in thought, formulating a strategy that had been in his mind since he had agreed reluctantly to go along with The Plan, as it was presented to him. His thought was to continue to cooperate; then, when he was elected in 1968, he would make a full confession to the American people and throw himself on their mercy. One way or another, Bobby would be avenged. Without turning, he waved over his shoulder, dismissing the other man.

Bristling, the short man stood and walked out of the Oval Office, down the hall and out of the White House, past his driver, who held open the rear door of the Lincoln Continental, stepped in and sank into its luxurious interior. “Back to the office, Charlie.” As the car pulled away, J. Edgar Hoover sat back in the soft leather seats and thought about the conversation. If that Mick doesn’t want to go along with The Plan, if he’s going to lose his guts at the eleventh hour, well, As the English say, “May as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.” We got rid of one Kennedy and, given the prize, what’s another?

Sighing, Hoover leaned back in the car’s soft embrace and thought of the pool party he had planned for that evening. Only select guests, of course, those who shared his…tastes, and whose discretion could be relied upon. He smiled, watching the lights of Pennsylvania Avenue slide past his window.