Justification For Killing (7 page)

The President
replied,
“Dag nab it, Mathew, ever since
Mary give me this darn stovepipe hat I always have to have my
picture took with it! I hate this dab blasted
thing!”

General McClernard
laughed and said,
“Sir your admiring
public has gotten used to your stovepipe hat."

Mr. Lincoln motioned
to Allen Pinkerton,
“Git into this here
dadburn phottygraph Alan, I need somebody to make me look
good.”
All three men in the picture
laughed.
“Git on with it Matthew —
.”
At the word ‘Matthew’ the ‘photograph’
stopped moving and talking, ending Tinker’s
demonstration.

“
That’s as long as we have
been able to ‘energize’ a photograph,” said Tinker, “that’s what we
have been working on recently, trying to extend the ‘energizing’
time.”

At first Sarge, Little S
and Spook just sat there, they did not look at each other. They
were flabbergasted. All they could do was stare at the now blank
screen. Then Sarge started laughing, not just a chuckle, it was a
whopping belly guffaw.

“
What is so funny?” Little
S said quizzically.

“
Who
would have thought Abe Lincoln sounded like Walter Brenner (TV star
of
The Real McCoys
of the early ‘60s)?” Sarge said still snickering. “I bet if
this thing played longer Abe would have been limping too!” (Mr.
Brenner walked with a limp in the TV series).

THE IMPOSTER

Sergeant Scarburg, Captain
Scarburg and Spook could not believe what they had just witnessed.
They believed some trickery was involved. Tinker, sensing their
skepticism, suggested they find another photograph within the boxes
and boxes of alien procured documents.

This time Dr. Kim was
going to find something that could not possibly be preloaded on
film and already be in the ‘Edison’. He shuffled through dozens of
different photographs in the cardboard boxes until he final settled
on exactly the right one. He pulled it from the box and carried it
over and showed it to Sarge and the Captain, they nodded their
heads in agreement.

Dr. Kim handed it to Miss
Lu. She looked at the photograph and passed it back to Dr. Kim
asking, “Do you all know this man?”

Dr. Kim answered, “Yes
indeed we do, do you recognize him?”

“
Sorry no,” she answered,
“is this person someone prominent?”

“
Put it in the Edison, and
see if your ‘Edison’ machine can tell us!”

Miss Lu went through
the same routine she had previously done with the photo of
President Abraham Lincoln. She inserted the photo, pressed the
button, heard the hum, watched the lights flicker and extracted the
CD; placed this new version into the small opening and watched it
slide back into the machine and pressed
‘PLAY’
, then they anxiously waited
for the event if any, to unfold on the tiny
screen.

They all believed they had
fooled Miss Lu this time. She was from Taiwan, there was no way she
would know who was in this photograph. They did not believe
anything would happen when she attempted to run the machine;
however, what they witnessed was unbelievable. That was a farce, a
stunt, a magic trick a… well, they ran out of words to try to
describe how they could rationalize what they had just seen on the
screen.

Even though, the three of
them had confidence nothing was going to happen, Spook, Little S
and Big S all squeezed in as close as they could. They all wanted a
better view of the tiny television screen.

A faint glow began to
brighten the screen – realizing he was holding his breath Dr. Kim
sucked in a lungful of air and slowly exhaled. Scenes on the bantam
television started to appear. Although the images were not yet
clear, they could see it was a man standing on the outside of a
building.

The scene on the screen
cleared slightly. They now could vaguely see, what appeared to be,
a young man dressed totally in black. He was holding a rifle in his
left hand with the butt supported on his hip; in his right hand,
close to his chest, and underneath his chin was, what again
appeared to be, two newspapers. A pistol could be seen sticking out
of his pants on his right hip. More and more details were beginning
to become apparent, but Dr. Kim, Sarge and the Captain were not
surprised as to what was starting to materialize on the TV screen –
they knew the photograph was LEE HARVEY OSWALD.

They had known his Russian
wife Marina, had taken the photograph behind Oswald’s house in
Dallas, Texas. Sarge also remembered police officials later would
use this photograph to establish one of the pieces of concrete
evidence proving Lee Harvey Oswald and his Italian Carcano rifle,
shown in the photograph, assassinated President John F. Kennedy on
Nov 22, 1963!

A spontaneous GASP erupted
from all three men who stood viewing the image as it became crystal
clear!!

What they were seeing was
impossible!! The man's face!! The face, which finally emerged, in
the picture – it was not LEE HARVEY OSWALD!!

Suddenly there was a
voice in the background of the photograph. The voice spoke,
“Hurry up Tony, get Oswald’s camera and get them
pictures!!

The action on the
screen moved slightly as if the camera had shifted positions and
then was heard,
“Damn, hold still Bill,
the distance has to be perfect, or the guys at the lab can’t get
the heads to match perfectly.”

The ‘Lee Harvey
Oswald look-a-like’ spoke up and replied,
“Come on Tony, get the picture, this gun’s gettin’ heavy. We
got to get this film back to the boys…”

Sarge, stood
mesmerized watching the screen and barely in a whisper quoted
–
‘be not afraid of greatness, some are
born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust
upon them.’
Gentlemen, we have just had
greatness thrust upon us. This easily is the most fantastic,
awe-inspiring, mind-blowing historical thirty seconds witnessed by
any American in the history of the United States; and we did
nothing, it was just thrust upon us.”

After the television
screen went blank they just stood there – did they see what they
thought they saw? Dr. Kim said to the others, "That was supposed to
be the famous picture of Lee Harvey Oswald holding the rifle he
used to shoot President Kennedy, wasn’t it? I know it was. I’ve
seen that picture too many times before! And it wasn’t even Oswald
in the picture after all!"

Sarge uttered in
disbelieve, “This ain’t right, it ain’t right, I’m telling you it
ain’t right!”

Little S, as if awaking
from a bad dream, nervously said, “Fellows do you realize what we
have just witnessed?”

Spook said loudly, “Darn
right, and Miss Lu I’m sorry for doubting you. That was amazing.
No, there has to be a better word meaning amazing times a
thousand!”

Tinker had been
standing behind the men as they watched the scenes unfolding from
the ‘CD’, and she could not understand what all the fuss was
about.
‘It is just some guy holding a
rifle in his yard, big deal, they’ve surely seen enough guns in
their time,
’ she thought, but she said
instead, “Gentlemen, who is that man? You all seem to think he is
significant or something – who is he?”

Almost in unison they
replied, “We DON’T know who he is!!”

Now Miss Lu was thoroughly
confused. They seemed to know whom he was when they selected the
photo, and she placed it into the Edison, but yet they are now
saying they did not recognize him, “What do you mean you don’t know
who he is, earlier you said you did”?

Captain Scarburg finally
spoke, “Miss Lu, you have heard of President John F. Kennedy,
right?”

“
Yes, I know of him, he
was your President they attempted to assassinate,
right?”

“
Good, now we are getting
somewhere. What you just witnessed is heart stopping! The person
that shot JFK has always been thought to be Lee Harvey Oswald. He
was shot and killed before his trial, but circumstantial evidence
‘proved’ he was the assassin.

“
One of the biggest pieces
of this evidence pointing to his guilt was this photograph of Lee
Harvey Oswald holding the Italian rifle. The rifle was left on the
sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) in Dallas
after the attempted assassination. That rifle later proved to
belong to Oswald and was further established as the actual weapon,
which shot the President.

“
Oswald, after his arrest,
protested the photograph was ‘doctored’ or faked, but no one
believed him. Oswald protested vigorously that his head had,
somehow, been superimposed on someone else’s body. This body
belonged to 'Bill', the person holding the rifle and
newspapers.

“
Our government’s
so-called ‘experts’ performed test after test on the original, and
it was determined to be an authentic picture of Lee Harvey
Oswald.

“
Today Miss Lu you have,
with your CD, proved Lee Harvey Oswald was right all along – the
man on this CD, identified as ‘Bill’, was an Oswald
imposter.

“
Your ‘CD’ proves Lee
Harvey Oswald was framed for the assassination attempt of President
John F. Kennedy.”

“
Thank you Captain, I know
you realize the importance of this one photograph, but you must
remember we have been doing this day in and day out for months. We
have heard and seen the innermost secrets of some of the world’s
most famous leaders, actors and politicians.”

She continued, ”There are
things I have witnessed that you would never believe, so I’m not
surprised this picture is unbelievable to you.”

THE MOVIES

The three of them stood
trance like, for what seemed to be an eternity when suddenly Dr.
Kim returned to his senses and began to speak.

“
Miss Lu, after seeing the
things you have shown, I will believe the Earth is flat if you say
it is so, please, just tell me one thing, on second thought, make
that two things. First, where did the aliens get all these
photographs, and I would like to know if the method works on movie
film?”

“
Dr. Kim, I do not know
where the photographs came from. A lot of them were all ready here
when I arrived, and our captors would bring in more all the time.
As far as film, yes. We work in teams here, and there was a team
dedicated to reproducing sound from old silent film. The old silent
films date back into the twenties, and yes, they were able to put
sound to them too.”

“
Wait a minute, Miss Lu,
if you can only put, maybe thirty seconds on a ‘CD’, how do you
handle moving pictures”? Asked Dr. Kim.

“
Do you see the machine
over there? It’s called a ‘Motion Decelerator,” she said, pointing
to another grey, metal machine. “That gadget is like a copy machine
– you run the film in and it copies film frame by frame, or a
series of multiple frames of the movie as photographs onto a CD,
then we run that CD through this machine,” she motions toward a
different gadget, “called, yeah, you guessed it: a Motion
Accelerator. Next into the Magnetic Synchronizer, and then we send
them through the same ‘Edison’ that you have already witnessed;
however, notice there is a smaller slot on the Edison for CD
insertions. The ‘movies’ come out on other CDs, we put them in the
miniature TV and just sit back, watch and listen.”

The Captain asked, “Is it
possible to reproduce the entire, or maybe just part of a movie
file?”

“
Oh yes, simple, all you
have to do is flip this switch on top, (pointing to a half-inch
long, silver, toggle-type switch) and it will produce one
photograph, the whole thing, or only certain scenes
within.”

“
Miss Lu,” said Spook,
“you are making me nervous. Where do you store the
film?”

“
Nervous? Why would I make
you nervous?” she replied.

Ashamed of his tone
Spook said, “I’m sorry Miss Lu, I did not mean
you
were making me nervous, it was
the implications of what you just said.”

“
That’s okay, I just want
to help – the eight-millimeter films are stored in that five-drawer
filing cabinet, next to our fancy copy machine. They are filed by
their names or titles. If your looking for the old Hollywood silent
movies, those films will be on the shelves next to the
cabinet.”

ZAPRUDER

Dr. Kim, Sarge and the
Captain all jumped, as if shot out of a cannon, and bolted to the
filing cabinet.

Miss Lu stood there,
frozen in the moment, and watched three grown men act like Mommy
had just called them in for cake and ice cream!
They are definitely up to something... I wonder what it
is?
She asked herself.

Little S was the first to
get to the filing cabinet - yelling, “It has to be in the bottom
drawer!” Swiftly jerking it open. ‘W’, ‘X’, ‘Y’, ‘Z’, he announced,
“surely it has to be here! Yes...! Yes...! Here it is... ‘Z’! Oh,
thank you God...! Thank you!” Holding the round, metal film can to
his lips he kissed it.