Chapter 16

We headed upstairs and got a beer. It was close to 5 and I started the charcoal to put some steaks on. Everyone was crowded around Earl, trying to calm him down. By the time I got back inside, they had him to the point that he was only going to castrate Clinton and superglue his wife's cunt together. He was far from stable, but he had backed off from putting several missiles into the IRS building and slowly carving up Snelling with a piece of flint. I really couldn't blame him for his feelings. If I were him, I'd feel the same way. It's just that his plan wasn't workable.

We had probably been up there about 45 minutes when Gary called on the intercom and said there was a problem with Snelling. We all rushed down to see what was happening.

Bob took a look at the monitors and his heart rate was down to 25 and his respirations were down to 15. "This ain't good," Bob said and went to the fridge to get a vial of something and a needle.

He put on his headnet and went inside the room. He did a physical examination of Snelling and then injected him with something to bring his heart rate up. It took a bit, but the heart rate came up to 50 and the respirations came up to 35.

"I'm gonna have to stay with him for a while to make sure he stabilizes. I'm not sure if he had a heart attack or not, but this has him runnin' again. There were some anomalies on his EKG, but it didn't look all that bad. It's probably a reaction to how long we kept him under. We'll know something for sure in about 2 hours."

Dave relieved Gary on the watch and they started a second IV bag on him. The rest of us went back upstairs. I put the steaks on and had Bubba nuke some potatoes. I'd fix some frozen corn when the steaks were just about done.

I took Dave's and Bob's dinner down to them and the rest of us ate in the dining room. It was a bit more somber with the new problem. We didn't want to lose him and have to dispose of the body. Actually, we wanted the news that we had broken him to get back to the powers that be so they would know someone was on to them. This put a whole new wrinkle in the plan.

The rest of the evening was pretty quiet. Butch took over for Dave on watch and Bob said he was going to sleep down there just in case something happened during the night.

"We need to put off any questioning of him for at least a day. I want to make sure he's stable enough to withstand the things that we'll probably need to do to get him to open up," Bob stated.

Everyone agreed that was a good idea in light of the circumstances. We retired upstairs and I took a blanket and pillow down to Bob so he could sleep down there. The rest of us headed for bed. It had been a long day and it would probably be a long week.

Bubba was scheduled to relieve Butch at 2. We wanted to keep Earl off watch for a day or so until we knew he was out of his physical revenge phase. It was a quiet night as far as Snelling was concerned. His respirations and heart remained within acceptable limits.

I relieved Bubba at 6 and took over the watch. He filled me in on what Bob had told him to watch for on the monitor and then went up to get some sleep. Bubba brought breakfast down for Bob and myself about 8 and included two pots of coffee for us.

Snelling woke up about 9:30 and was back to demanding to be released. Bob went in and tried to calm him some, but it wasn't working. So he injected him with something to calm him down and he went back to sleep.

Earl relieved me at 10 and I went up to take a nap. We figured it was safe to have Earl down there as long as Bob was there to prevent him from doing something crazy. Nothing was going to happen today. We just had to watch him closely to make sure he remained stable. It was probably a good idea. It gave everyone a chance to come down from the high we'd been on yesterday with getting the info.

When I got up at 2, Frank was pouring over Snelling's computer and downloading files as evidence of what was happening in this Administration. We all read over his shoulder to see the kind of crap that he had found.

Bob came up and said that he would probably be ready for questioning tomorrow but that we should go slowly at first to make sure he didn't have a relapse of whatever happened.

"Bubba, I need four copies of the tape we made yesterday, with our voices masked. Can you get that out?" Frank asked.

"Sure Frank. What format do you want it in?"

"Probably VHS, it's universal and can be played most anywhere."

"Not a problem, I'll have the voices masked before supper, but it will take a bit to dub them on to a cassette. I can only do two at a time."

"Not a problem, we've got until Thursday or so. I want to get these tapes out before we release him. Once he gets to Chicago and they find out what has happened, they will be in damage control mode. I figure I'll fly out on Thursday and get these tapes and documents delivered by Friday morning. That will give the people time to digest them before the convention."

"Who are you givin' them to?" Bubba asked.

"Two senators and two congressmen. One from each party. But these guys are not radical and they will not go ballistic with them. If they have them before any damage control is put in place, then we'll be ahead of the game. They won't have a chance to get the word out that they are fakes and a vast right wing conspiracy is out to do them harm."

"Ok, but remember I have to cut the other tapes too. That will take time. The process will probably be longer than this one, because we will need to piece it together."

"Ok, this is Monday. We will question him tomorrow and you should have whatever is left of tomorrow and Wednesday to work on the tapes. I would like to leave early on Thursday so they can be delivered on Friday early. Will that give you enough time?"

"Ya, I think so. The dubbing together will be the biggest amount of time. Once that is done, then it's just a matter of recording the tapes, two at a time. They shouldn't be any longer than this one."

"Ok, well if he is stable enough tomorrow, well work on him. I don't think it will take all that long. He should be fairly easy to break. Once he sees we have all of the information, he should give it up fairly easily. Somehow, I just don't think he's the kind of guy that will go down with the ship."

Bubba left to work on the tapes and Frank went back to his tasks.

Bob kept a constant watch on Snelling. He was down there every couple hours during the day to check his vitals and EKG printout. We sure didn't need a dead or crippled person to deliver to Chicago.

It was about 4 when Bubba brought up a tape for us to watch. He had disguised Frank's and Bob's voice so it wouldn't be recognizable, but Snelling's voice was crystal clear. Every word he uttered could be understood, with no problem. Once he got the ok for it, he took it down to be dubbed onto 4 other tapes for delivery.

Frank pulled out several packages of paper that he had brought with him. "This paper is only sold locally in South Carolina and Georgia. If they decide to do an investigation, the source of the paper will lead them away from here."

He put on rubber gloves to open the paper and then started printing out the documents from Snelling's computer. He collated and stapled things together and packaged them up to be delivered with the tapes. The tape's cases would be wiped with a special cloth to remove any traces of fingerprints before they were delivered.

I lit the charcoal in the grill and got things ready for supper. Snelling was still being fed via IV's, so he wasn't going to need anything to eat. I grilled some pork chops and we had some corn on the cob to go with them, along with a Dos Equis.

After we ate, Bob went to check on Snelling again and then came up to talk with us.

"I'm not sure how much of a strain we should put on him with our questioning. He is stable, but I'm not sure how good his heart is. It might be too much for him to take."

"Well, let's give it a try tomorrow. We'll let you make the call. If we run into problems, you can alert us and we'll call it off. I'd really like to have him spill his guts when he's not under. But if that don't happen, we'll just have to go with what we have," Frank said.

We all pretty much agreed that we didn't want a dead man on our hands, but we sure would like him to talk. It was fairly somber that night and we were all waiting for the morning questioning to see how that went.

Bubba woke us around 7:30 with his breakfast and we made plans for the rest of the day. Frank was going to be doing the questioning, at least at first to see how it went. He would start slow, but gradually increase the pressure to get what we needed.

Frank gathered things from his briefcase and we all headed downstairs. Bubba went to the recording area and made sure that all the machines had fresh tapes in them. He checked all the sound levels and then signaled to Frank that everything was ready. Bob went in first to get all the monitors set up properly and make sure Snelling was stable. Snelling peppered him with a bunch of questions and Bob just told him that he was a nurse here but someone was supposed to be coming to talk with him.

Frank gathered up his collection of items, including a bunch of files he had printed out, and headed in to question our culprit.

"Mr. Snelling, I see by your computer that you lead a very interesting life. Most of it is illegal, but it sure is interesting."

"Who the hell are you and why am I here?"

"You are here because you need to answer some questions for us. It seems like you've been a very naughty person and acting on orders from the White House. Most of what you've been doing is illegal and we are going to get to the bottom of this."

"I ain't telling you a fucking thing. Now, who are you and why am I here?"

Frank just ignored his ranting and proceeded with the questions. "It would appear, Mr. Snelling, that you have been doing things that are not only illegal, but could lead to the arrest of a lot of people and a big scandal. Now we know you are not doing this by yourself, so we want to know who is giving you orders."

"I ain't telling you a fucking thing. Where the hell are we and why am I being held against my will?"

"It seems like you have information that we need and we are going to keep you here until we get the answers we need. Who do you receive your orders from?"

"Who the fuck are you?"

"You are being very uncooperative Mr. Snelling. I am afraid if you keep this up we are going to have a very long and painful session. Now again, who are you taking your orders from?"

"Fuck you, I ain't telling you a goddamn thing until I get some answers."

"Ok Mr. Snelling, I'll answer some of your questions. If you need to have a name, you can call me number one. You are being held in a medical facility. We are here to obtain what all you have been doing for the White House. We have a bunch of files from your computer and there is already enough to put you away for a long time. But that is not what we want. You going to jail is not going to solve anything. If you cooperate with us, you will probably live through this. If not, then we'll just dump your body out in the ocean after we have chummed the water with some bloody fish and leave you to the sharks. Your level of pain depends on how soon and how well you cooperate with us."

"I ain't telling you a damn thing. All the information you have is not worth a damn in court. You got it by kidnapping me and stealing it. There is no way I'm going to prison, so just let me go so I can get on with my life."

"You don't seem to understand Mr. Snelling, we can do anything we want to. We kidnapped you and we can do with you exactly what we please. I will give you a guarantee that if you cooperate with us, you will not die. You will then be allowed to return to your normal life and do most of the things you do now. You will not be able to cause people pain by getting them audited, but the rest of your life will be fairly normal."