Target Churchill (21 page)

“I always avoid prophesying beforehand, because it is a much better policy to prophesy after the event has already taken place.”

Truman laughed.

“You are a card, Winston.”

“Let's hope it's not the joker.”

“Speaking of cards, Winston. Can we interest you in a bit of poker after dinner tonight?”

Churchill rubbed his chin and smiled.

“Be happy to join you. Gin and bezique are my principal gambling vices, although I have been known to be quite keen around the poker table.”

“Is that a challenge?” Truman asked.

“We accept then,” Vaughn said, with a chuckle.

“I must warn you, Winston, we take no quarter.”

“Nor do I, Harry. Nor do I.”

“A well-known fact, sir,” Admiral Leahy added.

“I'm sure we won't break the Bank of England, Winston,” Truman said.

“Not that we won't try,” Vaughn chortled.

The convivial conversation continued for a while longer, then Truman noted that Churchill's energy seemed to flag.

“I guess we should allow Mr. Churchill a bit of rest before dinner.

“Capital idea, Harry.” Churchill stood up. “I'm a siesta man, Harry. Clears the cobwebs. Makes me a more interesting companion at dinner.”

He paused for a moment, his eyes glazing over as if his thoughts had drifted suddenly. Then he spoke, “You said curtains, didn't you, Harry?”

Truman shrugged, baffled by the comment. Churchill turned and left the car to be ushered to his designated compartment.

Miller carried the lifeless, nude body of Stephanie Brown and put it into the trunk of his car. She had given him little choice, and his survival instinct had kicked in. Unfortunately, he had to wait until dark. His testicles still ached from her blow, but in the interim, he was able to put the entire episode into perspective.

He had been a fool, trapped in an emotional prison by a conniving and manipulative Jewess. With her dead body only a few feet from where he sat in the only chair in the cabin, he felt and truly believed that his action had caused the poison to seep out of his body and mind.

His SS tattoo, he reasoned now, had saved him from certain disaster, as if the Führer were protecting him from becoming entangled with the devil. Like the feelings induced by the mystical rituals of the SS, he sensed some otherworldly meaning in the murder of this Jewish temptress, as if it were necessary for him to experience this killing as a test of his dedication to rid the world of this filth. These people were evil, cunning, sly, and duplicitous, and he had almost been seduced into their net. At this moment, he could not imagine ever having had such a strong feeling of attachment to a woman. But the fact of her gender was less compelling than the reality of her race.

Finally, he had cleansed himself of her and broken the spell of her erotic attraction. Now, he must dispose of her body and put the whole episode behind him.

Emptied of this obsession, he could now turn himself to the matter at hand, his assassination of Winston Churchill. A plan was forming in his mind. He had studied the road maps and figured out the best route to Fulton. The
Washington Post
that morning had written that the president and Churchill would leave by train in a couple of days, which would give him a good head start. With luck, he could make it to Fulton in twenty-four hours, stopping occasionally for brief naps.

He needed to get there to explore all the aspects of the so-called landscape. He would have to visit the hall where Churchill was slated to speak and explore the surrounding area. His principal preoccupation would be the matter of his escape. He would treat the attack as a military operation, scouting the terrain for the weakest link, finding the most vulnerable moment to attack and retreating intact to fight again.

After putting the body in the car trunk, along with her nurse's uniform, underwear, and white shoes and stockings beside her, he took off. He decided to drive at least five hundred miles, the halfway point to Fulton, before he would begin to consider where to dump the body.

Driving carefully, keeping well within the speed limits, he headed west on a route he had mapped beforehand. To eliminate the possibility of running out of gas, he topped off his tank a number of times along the road and stopped in a small town for bread, cheese, fruit, milk, and a large supply of aspirin to sustain him for the entire journey. At a hardware store, he bought a large spade.

He reached the five-hundred-mile point in late afternoon. Taking advantage of the waning light, he drove along country roads looking for an area that appeared deserted and infrequently used. He found what he was looking for just as darkness descended. In the pitch-black of the moonless night, he dragged the body into a copse surrounded by trees and dug a hole deep enough to contain her remains.

The effort exacerbated his leg pain, which he partly assuaged with aspirin. The drug seemed to be having less and less effect. He was well aware that once his mission was over, he would have to seek medical care. Obviously, he had removed the cast before his leg had fully healed.

Working diligently, he dug until he was satisfied with the length and depth of the hole. Then he rolled the nude body into it, covered it with the removed soil, and patted it down so that it would be level with the ground, returned the spade to the trunk, and headed back to the main road.

This done, he wiped the event from his mind. He likened it to burying garbage. Like the people he had killed in battle—those whom he had personally executed and the men he had killed in the German prison cell—he felt nothing for them. He was now free to concentrate fully on his mission.

He reached Fulton on March 3, two days before the speech was scheduled. The small town of eight thousand was clearly buzzing with anticipation. Crossed flags, the Union Jack, and the Stars and Stripes were posted along most of the streets. Posters with Harry Truman and Winston Churchill's pictures were plastered on every available storefront. His first action was to buy a Fulton newspaper.

The paper contained articles on every aspect of the event, which was expected to draw twenty-five thousand people, including a large press contingent and dignitaries that would tax every facility in the town.

The event was to be held in the college gymnasium, the largest building on the campus, which could accommodate approximately twenty-eight hundred people. It seemed to Miller a paltry number, considering the people involved.

An overflow would be able to listen via loudspeaker at the Swope Chapel on the campus, which could hold an additional nine hundred people. According to the newspaper, nine voluntary committees had been established to plan and monitor the event.

Miller could now understand part of the reasoning behind the Russians' insistence that the deed be done during the speech, when the ears and eyes of the world would be focused on it, an event in which he, of all people, would have the most significant role. It was also obvious that the Russians needed to pin the deed on a disgruntled Nazi and deflect any suspicion from themselves, hence their obvious indifference to whether or not he was caught. The placement of the rifle and the note would offer clues to enhance the motive. He was well aware of the strategy, but he was determined, come what may, to survive.

That the town would be jammed was a point of optimism for Miller; the more crowded the better. He imagined doing the deed and getting lost in the swelter of people. Still, what was planned was a far cry from the huge Hitler rallies he had attended, giant spectacles that brought huge crowds together to honor the Führer and hear his immortal words. Even now, his pulse quickened with the memory of the Führer's voice and the great rolling cry of “
Sieg Heil!
” as if one voice had risen to reach the heavens.

According to the articles in the newspaper, this little Presbyterian college of not more than two hundred twenty male students had seized the attention of the world. He noted the weather report: sunny and warm.

The articles contained every detail of the event and saved Miller the trouble of inquiring further. Timing of the event, rules of admission, and other specific details and explanations were well covered. Also published was a detailed map of the gymnasium building, complete with the numbered layout of all entrances and exits, the seating plan, and other details, including the locations of bathrooms and the first aid station. Studying the map in depth, he carefully tore it from the paper, folded it, and placed it in his pocket.

He inspected the town, pondering his exit strategy if he were lucky enough to make it after the initial impact of the deed. Then he drove to the Westminster College campus. The area was filled with activity, which centered on a flat-roofed building, obviously the gymnasium in which the event would be held. He found a parking space not far from the building.

In front of the gymnasium, people were unloading metal folding chairs and bringing them into the building.

“Can I help?” he asked one of the adult men who carried the chairs to the gymnasium.

“Of course,” the man said. “We're all volunteers.”

He couldn't believe his good fortune. Lining up behind those who were receiving metals chairs from the truck, he took two in each hand and moved to the gymnasium. His leg ached, but he managed the process. It was essential that he inspect the interior of the building.

Carpenters were constructing a two-tiered wooden platform. Electricians were stringing up a public address system. Rows of metal seats stretched from the front of the platform and were building toward the rear. Along the sides of the gymnasium were rows of wooden bleachers. It would be a tight fit for what was going to seriously tax the facility's space.

Following directions, he placed the chairs where he was told and roamed through the premises. Few paid him any attention. Workmen were also building a platform behind the rostrum, presumably for important officials. A smaller platform was being built in the rear. A man supervised the construction and occasionally glanced at a blueprint.

“What are you building?” Miller asked innocently.

“Platform for news photographers and others from the press,” the man said, without looking up from his blueprint.

He noted two high, double-door entrances at the front of the gymnasium and two single-door entries at the sides of the gym and two entrances at the rear behind what was obviously to be the speaker's platform. Consulting his map, he noted that the narrow doors were locker rooms, one for girls, one for boys. The boys' locker room had been designated a first aid station. He supposed that the gymnasium was sometimes used for events for a nearby girls' college.

Above the floor and not designated on the map was a scoreboard that he noted was not electrified but apparently relied on large cardboard signs that were inserted into frames to reflect the scores of basketball games. Above one of the frames was a sign indicating that the home team was called the Blue Jays. He noted the backboards and hoops at either end of the gym, partially hidden by bunting. The scoreboard piqued his curiosity. How did one get there to change the numbers? There had to be a space up there for someone to insert the scorecards.

Amid all the carpenters banging away and the various workpeople and volunteers, no one paid any attention to him, and he was able to walk through every door without anyone stopping him. If they did, he could always feign ignorance. Everyone seemed absorbed in his or her own work.

He explored both locker rooms and discovered that there was an inner door in each that opened to the back of the gymnasium, leading to a parking lot. Intrigued by the scoreboards on either side of the gymnasium, which seemed a perfect sniper's perch, he decided that there must be some entranceway that permitted someone to get up there. There were no visible doorways from the floor. It took him a while to figure out that there must be an access stairway somewhere in the locker rooms on either side of the gymnasium.

Entering the boys' locker room first, he noted a narrow doorway concealed behind a bank of lockers. On either side of the door were two metal rings that had obviously at one time been used as loops for a chain to be held together by a lock. There was no lock in place at the moment. He opened the door, which led to a winding metal staircase.

With effort, he painfully climbed the staircase that ascended to a small area behind the scoreboard, just enough for someone to crouch behind. There were two stacks of scorecards neatly placed in bins alongside the opening. Obviously, a single operator could watch the game and slip the scorecards into their metal frames so that the spectators could keep track of the score. He poked his head into the opening. From there, he could see the entire length of the gym with a bird's-eye view of the speaker's platform now being constructed. He was elated; he had found the perfect sniper's perch.

He descended the steps again, timing the descent. It took him less than five seconds to reach the door. Cautiously, he opened the door a crack, and since a bank of lockers hid the entrance to the stairway, he could slip in and out unobserved. Still, he had not yet worked out a way to get in and out undetected. Also, he was certain that the president's security detail would sweep the area thoroughly prior to the event and check every entrance and exit, including the one he had just come from. He needed to come up with a plan that would neutralize their inspection and keep their focus off the possibility of any foul play from that location.

Another fortunate stroke of luck was that the door to the outdoors was close enough to the edge of the bank of lockers to provide quick access to the parking lot. As he moved toward this exit, a couple of men were measuring the width of the door opening.

“Just makes it,” the man who had measured the doorway said to the other as he read the tape. “We can get a wide stretcher in if we have to.”

“Let's hope we don't have to,” the other man said.

“Never know,” the first man said. “Best be prepared.”

“We'll park a couple of ambulances from Fulton State outside.”

“Just a precaution,” the man with the tape measure said. “Hell, it's the president of the United States and Churchill.”

“What if someone else needs help, a spectator with a coronary?”

“We'll have extra people on duty, doctors, nurses. Strict orders from Washington.”

The men left the locker room and went out the back door, leaving Miller to contemplate how his mission was to be accomplished and his escape secured.

He returned to the floor of the gymnasium and reconnoitered the area, wracking his brains on methods and strategy. He felt confident that he could do the job. Wasn't he born under a lucky star? Then he inspected the girls' locker room. There, the entrance to the scoreboard stairs was impenetrable. A bank of lockers was pushed tight against the doorway. Apparently, this area was to be reserved as a VIP holding area, from which Truman and Churchill would make their dramatic entrance.

Helping with the chairs again, he fell into line with the others and placed the chairs in rows. People were now putting bunting on the platform. He stood in the back of the gymnasium and observed the scene.

“Biggest thing that ever happened to Fulton,” a woman said behind him. “I'm so excited, I can't stand it.”

He wasn't sure if the remark was meant for him, but he turned to face her anyway. She was middle-aged and gray-haired.

“It will certainly be a blast,” he said, enjoying the irony.