Chapter 22: The Nothing Sandwich

“Ever hear of a wish sandwich?” Major Blake asked. He answered his own question. “That’s when you have two pieces of bread and nothing between the slices. You wish you had a sandwich. Only in your case you don’t even have the bread.”

“Yes, sir,” I agreed. “Rumor and gossip and lies, sir.”

“I checked the rifle serial number against what we found in New Orleans,” Billie said. “We found three rifles with serial number C2766. The Carcano in Walker’s house was C2799. Close, Jackie, but no cigar! Oh, that’s right, you don’t smoke.”

“I would like to take the three 6.5mm rifles and use them to test how accurately forensic ballisticians match up bullets to gun,” I said. “I’d use that research in court to create reasonable doubt in a jury.”

“What brought that on?” Major Blake asked.

‘The difference between police work and intelligence work. The misuse of science. Remember, I didn’t drink, I didn’t smoke, I didn’t chase girls. A fella’s gotta do something on the weekend,” I babbled. “Police must follow the law—or the law is compromised. Spies break the law, so spy antics can’t be used as evidence in court. One antic is framing the innocent by faking evidence.”

“And you know that because?” Billie asked.

“The Counterintelligence Corps had both law enforcement and intelligence missions,” I said. “On occasion my mission was neutralizing hostiles by framing them for crimes that they didn’t commit. Ballistic fingerprints are suggestive but not as conclusive as prosecutors pretend. Imagine a prosecutor arguing that a .45 caliber bullet had been fired from a .32 caliber pistol while held by Major Blake to the exclusion of all other pistols and all other hands in the world.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Major Blake objected.

“General Walker commanded the First Special Services Force in World War Two,” I stated. “I had to draw personnel from 24th Infantry Division to staff my protection details during 1961 because the personnel formerly used were assigned priority missions—but regular infantry wasn’t. General Walker was the commander of 24 ID until he resigned on 2 November 1961. I barely managed to get enough troops to staff the strike teams and I held onto them for a year. One month after they were committed in support of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the personnel were reassigned, and my program ended.”

“I tasked you to clean up our stay-behind program,” Major Blake added. “You completed your task in mid-December. We suspect that the coup here in America involves stay-behind units organized during the last decade. Yes, General Walker resigned to organize political action in the USA. That’s why Walker still has funds. You might want to clean up General Walker. I’m not giving you orders—use your own judgement. Just remember that it’s peacetime.”

So many players that I needed a program to keep track. Who was what?

“We can remove thousands of street-level foot soldiers,” I said. “I located and targeted the people who were going to give the orders back in October. The police in France and Germany and Spain picked up the foot soldiers. So far, we’ve been finding foot soldiers—mostly. I have noticed a few top dogs, but they’re protected. I think I met Carlos Marcello. Here we’re eliminating only foot soldiers.”

“Yes, but you worked on finding the key men in the anti-nuclear strike force network from the year 1948 to 1962,” Major Blake remarked. “You had time to do it right. We don’t even have a year. It may be too late.

“Thank you both for wearing clothes. You’re cute but you’re distracting when naked.” Major Blake grinned. “Taking your clothes away to prevent your escape is funny. What next? Post an armed guard on the two of you?”

Billie whipped off the bathrobe borrowed from Joe. I wore one of Paul’s undershirts—but not for long. We followed Major Blake out of an office and to lunch. The major took his leave and his briefcase.

It was dinner time. There was a ceremony prior to the meal.

“All of my girls will be wearing my collar,” Joe Fish announced. “Jackie, part of this ceremony will include a symbolic spanking. Please don’t rip my arm off and shove it up my ass.”

Laughter.

Joe placed a gold band around his sister’s neck and then spanked her. Hard. Then the two of them placed a silver band around Connie’s neck and both Debbie and Joe spanked her. Billie and I received tan suede chokers and a painful spanking. Paul Rose was nude except for a black leather strap around his neck. Paul wasn’t spanked—but then, he had been castrated. The chain of command was clear as far as the outside world was concerned—all the girls answered to the harem eunuch. Then it was the sister, Debbie, the wife, Connie, and Billie and I were on the bottom.