September, 1974, Kansas
n September 1974, while Kennedy immersed himself in works I of the CASE Foundation, a bitter William Robert Walker walked out of the military prison in Kansas, after having served nine years. His first task: to hunt down and punish those involved in his incarceration. The first and last time anyone would jail him, he resolved.
The cash from his earlier life in south Texas still earned interest in several banks, under false names. He could have bought a home in which to live, but he decided it would be safer if he kept on the move. For the next thirty years, he rented a series of houses, apart-ments, townhouses or condos, and never stayed in the same place more than a year or two. He wanted to be difficult to trace, so he changed his character with each move. The first was an upscale property, where he kept himself well-groomed and well dressed.
The next was a crappy rental in a bad part of town, and he dressed the part for that image. Each time he left an identity, he became the opposite in his next incarnation. If anyone went looking for him, it was one more obstacle to finding him. This was the life he chose, and he would do it well. No one on Earth would ever again know where to find him.
He wasn’t as rich as he’d have liked. What had looked like a fortune in 1961 was only a small fortune in 1974. It was adequate, however. He rented safe deposit boxes in Georgia, New Mexico, South Dakota, Michigan and New Jersey. He deposited enough cash in each box to enable him to start over. He planned to move on ef-243
ficiently each time he moved, losing as little as possible in the process. However, he wanted the freedom to move quickly, to abandon everything, if he felt it were necessary. The cash in the boxes gave him that freedom.
To avoid drawing down his reserves too early, he took a variety of jobs, working sporadically. None of the jobs were glamorous, most were dangerous, and most were illegal. They all paid well. In cash.
His four Vietnam cohorts, he found them easily, almost too easily. He spaced the killings out so no one would link them. He made them look like accidents, which was remarkably easy. A dead hunter in the woods during deer hunting season, a liquored-up driver in a car at the bottom of an embankment, another drunk who stepped in front of a bus, and a skydiving enthusiast who met with an unfortunate accident. That one was fun.
The Army prosecutor, he was hard to track down. He found him, however. The fuck had moved to Mexico, for Christ’s sake!
Livin’ on the cheap, south of the border, on his military pension. He didn’t even try to make that one look accidental. He watched him for three days and found him to be a creature of habit. The fourth night, when the dope came outside to piss out his beer before bed-time, Walker waited with a two by four. He dragged him back inside, unconscious, tied him up and waited for him to regain consciousness, just so he could see who was cutting his throat.
And Sandy, that little prick. He knew way too much. He felt sorry for him though, pleading for his life the way he did. Then he almost blew it, stuck around to hear the wifey’s reaction when she came home, and it was sweet. But the bitch hit some damn panic alarm loud enough to wake the dead, and caught him outside an open window, illuminated damn near like daylight. Neighbors streamed out of their houses. He had to hit the deck and crawl through a vegetable garden and thorny hedge, and then run like hell.
The good Colonel Brewster was a special case. He was the eas-iest to find, living in Minnesota, near St Paul. Walker paid him a visit two years after getting out of prison. The colonel was big on 244
security. His property wasn’t grand or luxurious, but it was fenced, and guarded by two Dobermans. Pushing a button at the gate would bring Brewster out to open it. Walker had watched service vehicles come and go. He could have rung the bell and gunned Brewster down when he came to the gate, but he thought the colonel would be suspicious of anyone he wasn’t expecting. Walker didn’t want just to gun him down, either. He wanted the colonel to know it was Walker punching his ticket. He wasn’t sure he could easily get that close, and besides, the street had too much activity. Too many houses across the street, too much chance someone would see it go down.
The colonel had security inside the house as well, as advertised on nine by six-inch signs staked in front and back of the house.
Walker found the security company that monitored the system. He watched employees come and go for a day, then picked the most corruptible looking one and followed him one night to a bar, got to know him a bit. It cost him six hundred dollars to find out that the colonel had every door and every window on both levels of his two-story house alarmed, and he kept the system armed day and night.
It would be tough to get inside.
Walker decided he would bide his time and hope for an opportunity later. He came back to watch the colonel for a few days every two or three years. He watched as Brewster grew older and frailer, but the colonel was a tough old bird, and Walker never found him vulnerable enough for his liking.
Good Captain Hardson was a big disappointment. He couldn’t find him, no matter how hard he looked. Asshole ratted him out and all he gets is a tour of Greenland. He looked for a long time, gave up, then began searching again when the internet came to be, still to no avail. He gave up then. Almost. Once a year he sent a money order to an Army FOIA officer. If anyone came snooping around, looking for information on any of the five persons on his list, Walker would find out. Never know, something might turn up, maybe someone even leads him to Hardson, give him something to care about in his senior years.
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