Read Online Trail of the Twisted Cros by Buck Sanders - Free Book Online
Authors: Buck Sanders
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determining ink categories, a chart to group general handwriting styles into
general personality types, and all manner of close-up photographic lenses and reproductive mechanisms to preserve the original
appearance of whatever letter would be the one promising to dictate further information regarding the demanded release of
Johnny Lee Rogers.
“We don’t know if we’ve got a fucking bomb on our hands or not!” the man in charge screamed. He looked malevolently at the
agent who had brought the mail in the first place.
“Let’s let the idiot here open up this one,” he suggested. “Stand back, boys.”
The red-faced agent stared at the uncleared letter, then looked up.
“God, I’d better go after him!” he said.
“You figured that out all by yourself, did you?” the forensic examiner in charge said. “You bet your ass you’d better haul
him back here.
“And if the old man upstairs,” he added, pointing up toward the Nixon living quarters overhead, “if
he
ever finds out…”
The agent ran out the door into the street. He looked frantically eastward, toward Third Avenue. The mailman couldn’t possibly
have completed his rounds on this block, not as far from Third as Nixon’s house was. But where was he? He couldn’t be seen.
The mailman couldn’t be seen because he had removed the leather bag from its cart and had hopped a Third Avenue bus heading
uptown. The agent came across the cart at the corner.
Meanwhile, the mailman had gotten off the bus at a corner in the seventies, and entered a restaurant. Inside the restaurant,
he used the men’s room, but not to relieve himself of anything but his postal uniform.
Inside his mail bag was a change of clothing, jeans, and a T-shirt. Left behind in the men’s room stall were his mail bag,
the letters and parcels of several celebrated persons on the Upper East Side, and Postal Service-issue summer uniform and
safari hat. The “mailman” had exited the restaurant through the men’s room window.
The agent radioed back to the command post at The Residence. Before he walked back to the Nixon house, he paused in front
of a row of rubbish cans and vomited.
FAIRMONT, West Virginia
“Of course, we can’t at this time guess the cause of the blast,” a mine safety crewman told Slayton. “But I guess that doesn’t
matter all that much.”
Slayton watched as rescue operators tried desperately to crack passages between huge slabs of fallen rock and tree, to form
a life-saving tunnel to the trapped men, fighting time and flames that still licked up from below.
“No guesses?” Slayton asked, feebly.
“Only that this was sabotage.”
“How can you tell?”
“By our procedures, which I know for sure were fully in effect before this blast,” the safety crewman said.
“Ain’t no way even an accidental flash could set off that kind of fire. There ain’t any levels of combustible gas to such
a point. Whatever set this off must have been a torch, and flammable gas to boot—something to prime the pump, as it were.”
The crewman wiped his sooty face. “Somebody sure as hell knew what he was doing down there with explosives, that’s all.”
Slayton agreed. He sniffed the air. Unless he was imagining things, there was a definite smell of cordite hanging about.
“You smell that?” Slayton asked the crewman.
“What?”
“Cordite. Smell it?”
The crewman sniffed.
“Sort of gunpowdery smell?”
“That’s it. Do you use it or anything like it in your explosive work?”
“Hell no,” the crewman said. “Blasting to move through a pit’s the old-fashioned way. We use sonar today. Cleaner, safer,
and no heat source necessary.”
Nonetheless, Slayton knew the smell of cordite. It was even stronger now, wafting up from the main elevator shaft, the unmistakable
odor of nitroglycerin, gun cotton, and gelatinized acetone. He had smelled it many times in Vietnam.
“How do you control who goes down into the
general personality types, and all manner of close-up photographic lenses and reproductive mechanisms to preserve the original
appearance of whatever letter would be the one promising to dictate further information regarding the demanded release of
Johnny Lee Rogers.
“We don’t know if we’ve got a fucking bomb on our hands or not!” the man in charge screamed. He looked malevolently at the
agent who had brought the mail in the first place.
“Let’s let the idiot here open up this one,” he suggested. “Stand back, boys.”
The red-faced agent stared at the uncleared letter, then looked up.
“God, I’d better go after him!” he said.
“You figured that out all by yourself, did you?” the forensic examiner in charge said. “You bet your ass you’d better haul
him back here.
“And if the old man upstairs,” he added, pointing up toward the Nixon living quarters overhead, “if
he
ever finds out…”
The agent ran out the door into the street. He looked frantically eastward, toward Third Avenue. The mailman couldn’t possibly
have completed his rounds on this block, not as far from Third as Nixon’s house was. But where was he? He couldn’t be seen.
The mailman couldn’t be seen because he had removed the leather bag from its cart and had hopped a Third Avenue bus heading
uptown. The agent came across the cart at the corner.
Meanwhile, the mailman had gotten off the bus at a corner in the seventies, and entered a restaurant. Inside the restaurant,
he used the men’s room, but not to relieve himself of anything but his postal uniform.
Inside his mail bag was a change of clothing, jeans, and a T-shirt. Left behind in the men’s room stall were his mail bag,
the letters and parcels of several celebrated persons on the Upper East Side, and Postal Service-issue summer uniform and
safari hat. The “mailman” had exited the restaurant through the men’s room window.
The agent radioed back to the command post at The Residence. Before he walked back to the Nixon house, he paused in front
of a row of rubbish cans and vomited.
FAIRMONT, West Virginia
“Of course, we can’t at this time guess the cause of the blast,” a mine safety crewman told Slayton. “But I guess that doesn’t
matter all that much.”
Slayton watched as rescue operators tried desperately to crack passages between huge slabs of fallen rock and tree, to form
a life-saving tunnel to the trapped men, fighting time and flames that still licked up from below.
“No guesses?” Slayton asked, feebly.
“Only that this was sabotage.”
“How can you tell?”
“By our procedures, which I know for sure were fully in effect before this blast,” the safety crewman said.
“Ain’t no way even an accidental flash could set off that kind of fire. There ain’t any levels of combustible gas to such
a point. Whatever set this off must have been a torch, and flammable gas to boot—something to prime the pump, as it were.”
The crewman wiped his sooty face. “Somebody sure as hell knew what he was doing down there with explosives, that’s all.”
Slayton agreed. He sniffed the air. Unless he was imagining things, there was a definite smell of cordite hanging about.
“You smell that?” Slayton asked the crewman.
“What?”
“Cordite. Smell it?”
The crewman sniffed.
“Sort of gunpowdery smell?”
“That’s it. Do you use it or anything like it in your explosive work?”
“Hell no,” the crewman said. “Blasting to move through a pit’s the old-fashioned way. We use sonar today. Cleaner, safer,
and no heat source necessary.”
Nonetheless, Slayton knew the smell of cordite. It was even stronger now, wafting up from the main elevator shaft, the unmistakable
odor of nitroglycerin, gun cotton, and gelatinized acetone. He had smelled it many times in Vietnam.
“How do you control who goes down into the
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