Caitlin groaned in frustration.
“I may only see Raúl, depending on Fidel’s health. Rumor is, the maximum leader is drifting toward the minimum state. But I hope I get both of them.”
“You’ll really ask Castro about the JFK assassination?”
All the levity went out of Jordan’s face. “What year were you born, Caitlin?”
“1970.”
“I was born in 1960.”
Caitlin had a feeling she knew where the photographer was headed. “Surely you don’t remember anything about President Kennedy?”
Jordan shook her head. “No. But do you know who my father was?”
“Sure. Jonathan Glass. He disappeared while on assignment in Vietnam. In . . .”
“1972,” Jordan finished. “He was actually in Cambodia, just over the Mekong River. But he started as a photojournalist at the age of twenty. He was actually in Dealey Plaza the day Kennedy was shot.”
Caitlin sat up. “Really?”
“Mm-hm. He took a famous photograph of two Secret Service agents guarding Jackie Kennedy at Parkland Hospital.”
A brief black-and-white image flashed through Caitlin’s head: the Praetorian Guard and their widowed queen. Caitlin no longer knew where Jordan was going.
“Daddy wasn’t home much when I was growing up,” Glass said. “He was always on assignment somewhere, from Asia to the Congo. But after that day in Dallas, he came home to Oxford and stayed almost a month. All he did was drink. I remember him lying on the couch, stinking of gin, unshaven, his eyes glued to the TV while the phone rang and rang. I asked my mother about it when I was older, and she said everything I described was accurate. She also told me that he’d been within two hundred feet of the limo when Kennedy was shot. I don’t know exactly what he saw . . . but whatever it was wounded him in some way. We’re talking about one of the best war photographers in the world, remember—a man who’d seen everything. But something went out of him that day. He was collateral damage of those gunshots. Daddy was no gullible romantic; he was as cynical as they come. But he’d believed in Kennedy and the possibilities he represented.”
Jordan stared into her cup as if at a screen playing footage from her past. “When I was older, I found a cache of pictures from that trip. JFK and Jackie getting off the plane, the president speaking at the Hotel Texas in Fort Worth the previous day. Daddy didn’t save many prints, but he kept those. And every shot communicated either resolve or optimism, which definitely wasn’t what he usually memorialized on film.”
Caitlin expected the story to go on, or to end with some insight or revelation, but Jordan simply stopped speaking. As she stared into the cup, Caitlin said, “Did you ever get to ask him about it?”
Jordan shook her head. “He’d already been missing for four years when I discovered the pictures. I found out a few years ago that he survived his wound and lived on until 1979. Over there. But I never saw him again.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. He wasn’t the same man. I doubt he even remembered me.” At last Jordan looked up, her jaw set tight. “As for your question . . . yes, I will ask Fidel Castro John’s questions. This new line of inquiry could be bullshit, but somehow I don’t think so. And if I can help get to the truth, then I intend to.” Jordan reached out and set her empty cup on Caitlin’s desk. “Do you keep any vodka at the office?”
Caitlin shook her head. “Sorry.”
“That’s a tragedy.”
Caitlin smiled, but her brain was racing. As soon as Jordan left, she was going to get out Henry’s letter and journals and highlight every fragment of information about John and Robert Kennedy, Carlos Marcello, Marcello’s contacts with Brody Royal, and the “insurance” Frank Knox had kept to protect himself against Marcello. Perhaps most tantalizing of all was Snake Knox’s statement to Morehouse that the “insurance” document had been written in Russian. Something told Caitlin that while she’d been focused on the civil rights murders that had preoccupied Henry Sexton for so many years, the real story had been unfolding at a much deeper level.
“We’d better get some sleep,” she said. “We’re pulling out before dawn.”
Jordan closed her eyes for a moment, then stood and zipped her jacket. “Maybe I can get to sleep before John gets back to the hotel. I don’t fancy a long night of lying.”
“But you’ll do it if necessary?”
Glass gave her a crooked smile. “Same as you, right?”
CHAPTER 44
TOM AWAKENED IN a fog of pain and terror. A swarm of black, insectile faces hovered above him, peering down as if they meant to devour him any second. He fought to get off his back, but a flurry of strong hands pressed him back down. When his eyes adjusted to the backlighting, he saw one human face in the alien crowd. A boy, earnest and sweating, leaning over his left shoulder. The boy was working on his gunshot wound.
A syringe floated into his field of view, then stung his shoulder. Blessed relief washed through him. He hadn’t realized how painful his wound had been until the local anesthetic took effect. With relief from pain, his surroundings took on more detail. An IV line ran fluids into his right wrist. For a few seconds he wondered if he was in some kind of ambulance, but then he remembered that the black masks belonged to a SWAT team—the same killers who had broken into Quentin’s house and shot Melba.
“Melba,” he croaked.
“Don’t try to talk,” the boy advised. “You’re severely dehydrated, and your heart’s in bad shape. Let me take care of this wound.”
“Is she dead?”
“What’s he saying?” asked one of the masked faces.
“I think he’s asking about the nurse,” answered another.
“Don’t worry about her,” said the first man. “She’s fine.”