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“You just said they were,” I said
He pointed a finger my way and smiled
“How about we dispense with the bullshit and you answer her question,” I said “What about Valdez?”
“J Edgar Hoover thought hience business Before 1947 he ith the CIA and did a good job rooting out Nazi spies in World War Two But after the war the FBI was supposed to get out of the intelligence business Spies becao He kept his nose in the intelligence business After the CIA cut Valdez loose, Hoover brought hirown communists In 1967 Hoover switched him over to Bishop’s Pawn Nearly e
verything we have on Bishop’s Pawn is gone, except for records that detail Valdez’s employment history”
I considered the i articles and books I’d read on the King assassination Everyone saw a conspiracy The various theories ranged fro to the fantastical But this was no theory If what I’d read was true, the FBI had been an active party to an actual conspiracy to commit murder
Which reminded me about Bruce Lael
“We just watched ablown up,” I said
“To about conspiracies By definition, they require participants We were about to bring Lael in for questioning This inally meant for him We assume Oliver found out and decided to move first I honestly didn’t think he’dabout Oliver before”
“Arrest him,” Coleen said
“There is a little thing called proof We’re gathering it, as we speak When you two appeared earlier, I hadyou here instead of Lael Of course, we’ve been looking for you both since we found out what happened on the Dry Tortugas”
“How much of Bishop’s Pawn do you know about?” I asked
“What you’re really asking is, Did the FBI participate in King’s death?” He shrugged “I can honestly say I don’t know the answer to that question I can also say that there’s not a single piece of paper I’ And I would know”
“Because you’re the keeper of secrets,” I mocked
“Precisely”
“But you know that Bishop’s Pawn involves King’s death,” I pointed out “Valdez blackht back then had to point that way”
He nodded “It did The bastard sold just enough to keep theone, too I only knohat I just said froo, as there back then Another keeper of secrets who’s dead now”
I knew this guy’s type He craved order
And all he had right noas chaos
“I do know Bishop’s Paas an atypical FBI operation, highly classified Jansen, Lael, Oliver, and Valdez participated My guess is James Earl Ray knew the least, on purpose, since the idea seemed to be for him to take the fall when it was all over”
“Ray pulled the trigger?” I asked
Veddern nodded “No question in , really One shot, fro way off And he was no marksman He’d barely fired a rifle and certainly had no sniper training But he did it” The guy cocked his fingers to forht in the head”
It was a tacky gesture, but I assu with bad crap all the time People died in the law enforceet that such was not the case with 999999 percent of the rest of the world
“This whole thing is a night ti back for more We cannot have any public speculation that the FBIIf Stephanie Nelle had cos involved she has no way of knowing Instead, she sends you out there to generate a hurricane”
“It is rin
“Lucky for us”
I caught his attempt at humor
“We want this to be over,” he went on “We want it contained Look, everybody knows Hoover kept a slew of secret information on people It’s one of the ways he stayed in power for as long as he did Thank God, when he died, his secretary destroyed those private files For days she shredded paper, and bless her soul for doing that Nothing good would have coone Over Done with And the same is true for Bishop’s Pawn Any and all records of that need to be gone, too”
But so me “You said there were FBI employment records about Valdez that survived Were they pay records?”
Veddern nodded “We knoas given a 1933 Double Eagle And that’s not in a record Soo Hence our interest when those words were mentioned recently”
“He didn’t want cash?” I asked
“He apparently needed to ingratiate himself with Castro A lot of people don’t know this, but Castro fashioned hi ed “I suppose everyone has to have a hobby”
I got it “And what better way for hiratiate himself than to present Castro with the rarest coin in the world”
“Exactly”