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Without
pausing, Agent Williams pushed on: "What time did you arrive back at your
apartment?"
A cross-road
of sorts had been reached. If I told the truth, I would have to bring Rip into the
discussion which I didn't feel like doing at the moment.
On the other
hand, if I lied or was evasive, but if, for whatever reasons, I later needed to tell about
the abduction attempt or spending the night at the Center, then issues concerning my
credibility would arise. They would want to know why this question hadn't been answered
with full disclosure the first time around.
I really had
nothing to hide, but I didn't care to have them poking around in my life or asking
questions which I didn't feel like answering. I decided to stall.
"Look,
gentlemen, despite the immense enjoyment I am having in passing the time of day with you,
unless you tell me what this is all about, I'm not going to answer any more of your
questions."
Agent
Williams looked over at Agent Bradley. The latter moved his head in such a way as if to
indicate the decision was up to Agent Williams.
Turning his
gaze back to me, Agent Williams said: "Do you know Ken and Pamela Pratt of
Washington, D.C.?"
"Of
course," I responded. "I visited them last weekend."
"Yes,
we know," Agent Williams indicated. "Our Washington office has informed us you
were observed having a meal with the Pratts in a restaurant on Saturday evening."
"I
didn't know that was a federal crime," I retorted. "Have I been placed under
surveillance?" I asked.
"No,
Dr. Phelps, at this point you are not under surveillance, at least not by the FBI,"
he said. "The information concerning your whereabouts on Saturday evening came about
during an investigation being conducted in the Washington area by, among others,
Bureau officials."
Agent
Williams paused, looked at me in a strange sort of way and, then, proceeded to say:
"You are quite correct, Dr. Phelps, eating in a restaurant is not a federal crime,
but the murder of a federal employee may be."
"What
are you talking about?" I snapped in exasperation.
Both agents
were watching me very intently. Agent Williams said: "On Tuesday morning, the bodies
of Ken and Pamela Pratt were discovered in their homes by a neighbor."
He was
saying something else, but I couldn't hear what. I felt like there was a two ton rock in
the pit of my stomach.
I wanted to
cry, but I bit my lip and fought back the tears. I couldn't believe what I had heard.
The words:
"...bodies...were discovered..." kept ricochetting about in my mind. 'My
friends...my friends' reverberated its painful echo from everywhere deep within me.
Suddenly, I
thought about Ken's and Pam's boys. "What about the kids, Greg and Billy?" I
asked.
"They
are alright," Agent Williams informed me. "They had been staying with another
family for four or five days, so they were not home at the time of the murders."
Lowering my
head, I closed my eyes. I felt relief that the children were safe, but I struggled for
some semblance of control concerning the rest of the situation.
I was
vaguely aware that Agent Williams had been droning on about something. Gaining some degree
of composure, I said: "I'm sorry, Agent Williams, I haven't heard what you've been
saying. This news is deeply disturbing to me and has kind of left me numb."
"Let me
repeat myself, then, Dr. Phelps," he replied. "And, try to pay attention,
because we would like to know what your role in this is."
He was about
to continue when I stopped him. "What do you mean 'my role'?
"I
don't have any role in this. They are ... they were ... no, they are my friends.
"Just
what are you implying?" I demanded to know.
"We are
not implying anything," he answered. "As I was saying before, you are presenting
us with a major problem.
"Several
days after you visited Brian Idaho, he disappeared from a federal prison. Now, just after
you return from visiting with Ken Pratt, who works for the Justice Department, he and his
wife are found dead.
"We
believe there may be some link between the two events, but we are not sure what that link
may be. You are the only common denominator for both incidents with which we have to work.
"Your
role may be purely coincidental to, or your role may be integral to, the commission of
these crimes. We intend to discover that is the case."
"How,"
I inquired, "could you possibly think I had anything to do with the deaths of Ken and
Pam? They have been friends of mine for years."
"Perhaps,"
commented Agent Williams. "In doing a background check on you, Dr. Phelps, following
our initial meeting, we learned that a number of years ago you were found guilty, in
absentia, of draft evasion in Federal District Court. Ken Pratt, on the other hand, served
his country with distinction during the Vietnam War."
"You're
right on both counts," I confirmed. "So what?"
"So,
maybe, it was a point of irritation between the two of you that simmered beneath the
surface for many years. Maybe, you went to him to get some kind of help from the Justice
Department in relation to Brian Idaho and he refused to become involved.
"Maybe,
words were exchanged because of his refusal, and one thing led to another. Maybe, your
differences over the Vietnam war came out during the argument. Maybe, he questioned, and
rightly so in my opinion, your patriotism, manhood and sense of morality, and you took
exception to what he had to say.
"Maybe,
as a result, you began to plan his murder. Maybe, during your commission of the crime, his
wife was in the wrong place at the wrong time."
My
tiredness, together with residual stresses from the near-abduction ordeal, as well as my
current state of shock, may have been largely responsible for what happened next. First,
almost uncontrollably, for a few minutes, I half-laughed and half-cried.
The laughter
was an expression of my feelings concerning the absurdity of Special Agent Williams'
theory about the deaths of my two friends. The laughter, which might not have been
forthcoming under other circumstances, also was directed at the agent's incredible
arrogance and self-righteousness in relation to his opinions about Vietnam.
The tears
had been with me since learning of the deaths of Ken and Pam. What started out as laughter
soon became the sluice-gate that released the flood of grief for my friends.
I found
myself caught between two attractors of tears and laughter. At certain points, I underwent
a phase transition which took me out of the sphere of influence of one attractor, only to
find myself under the influence of the other attractor.
When the
laughter and tears had subsided, I said: "You know, Agent Williams, people like you
got America mixed up with the Vietnam mess in the first place. People like Ken Pratt and
myself, each in our own way, tried to extricate our country from that quagmire."
"I
suppose," he said, "you have never heard of the saying: 'My country, right or
wrong.' At least, even if Ken Pratt didn't agree with the policies of America at that
time, he had the decency to honor his obligations to his country."
Out of the
corner of my eye, I noticed that Agent Bradley had been trying, as unobtrusively as
possible, to get the attention of his partner. Unfortunately, the actions had been
unobtrusive to the wrong individual.
"Your
supposition would be incorrect, Agent Williams," I responded. "I have heard of
the saying: 'My country, right or wrong.' In fact, the last time I heard it, war crime
trials were held in Nuremberg and Japan for those who offered it as an excuse for their
unconscionable actions.
"People
like you, Agent Williams, have the poor taste to question my patriotism, manhood and sense
of morality, and, yet, members of the FBI have been the ones who have had complicity in
the death of innocent kids at places like Ruby Ridge, Idaho and Waco, Texas.
"During
these tragedies, people, whom you apparently would honor, break the FBI's own Rules of
Engagement. In the process, they violate the Constitution of the United States in order to
impose their own self-serving sense of morality on everyone else.
"The
people, Agent Williams, to whom you, seemingly, would wish to give your respect, have a
habit of becoming listening-toms and peeping-toms in the private lives of, among others,
civil rights leaders. They do so in order to try to find ways of controlling, or exerting
pressure on, those whose ideas are feared by certain vested interests ... vested interests
that you and your cohorts are seeking to serve.
"Some
of the people to whom you seem to be committed, Special Agent Williams, hunt down those
who would violate federal law and, then, quite hypocritically, they become co-conspirators
in third-rate burglaries, dirty tricks and cover-ups, all in the name of that which is
'true', 'good', and 'right'. Such people undermine the very heart of democracy and the
rule of law that you claim to honor.
"The
people whom you appear to admire, Agent Williams, have played a fundamental role in the
erosion of respect for law enforcement among many segments of the general public. Those
people you admire have helped to create an atmosphere of lawlessness and permissibility in
America which induces different segments of the general public to be more willing to
violate the laws and principles of democracy because they have been taught to do so by the
manner in which far too many federal authorities have conducted themselves.
"Why
should organized crime, drug dealers, bikers, or street gangs act any differently than
they do when various members of the CIA, FBI, police and government officials often do
precisely the same thing? All too frequently, the only difference is that one is labeled
'legal' and the other is labeled 'illegal'."
"Tell me, Agent Williams, are you a Christian?."
"Quite frankly, Doctor" he said, "I don't see how that is either relevant to the matter at hand or any of your business."
"Look," I shot back, "you're the one who introduced the topic of Vietnam, and I just am curious - if you are Christian ... or, for that matter, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Native American, or whatever - about how you go about reconciling the slaughter of millions of Vietnamese, not to mention hundreds of thousands of Cambodians, with the essential tenets of any of those spiritiual traditions?"
Agent Williams returned serve with: "Fortunately, Dr. Phelps, we live in a democracy where there is a separation of church and state, and I'm not required by the state to reconcile such issues. I'm only required to abide by its laws - something which you did not do when you ran away to Canada. Besides," he added, "if you want to invoke principles of religion, then, what about the morality of protecting innocent people from being invaded by a God-less bunch of Commies?"
I smiled, and decided to put several balls into play at once."To begin with, Agent Williams, I doubt you would understand the difference between a war of national liberation, with socialist leanings, and a Communist plot to overthrow the world, or why it is that if someone becomes sufficiently isolated and desperate - especially when the West has played such a leading role in generating such isolation and desperation among those who were not willing to bown down to the Western Liviathan - of how it might be understandable, albeit regrettable, that such people might be prepared to accept military and economic aid from those whom they are well aware probably don't have their best interests at heart. Surely, you have heard of the saying: 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend.' "
Without giving Agent Williams an opportunity to respond to the statement, I hit a few more balls onto his side of the conceptual court. "Moreover, it may interest you to know that before political powers of the West began redrawing the world's geography according to their latest economic whim - sometimes referred to as 'national interest', Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and a host of other countries did not exist. These countries were created by the West when, for example, Siam and other countries were divided up for profit-sharing by Western absentee landlords. So, what we in the West like to think of as an invasion of South Vietnam by North Vietnam was really an attempt - whether well conceived is another matter - by a people to reclaim its soul and sense of self-determination from the self-serving shopping mall known as South Vietnam which had been bankrolled by the English, French and, most recently, the United States.
"As far as your 'God-less' comment is concerned, Agent Williams, I have no idea what the faith of any single individual soldier of the Viet Cong or the North Vietnamese army may have been - and neither, in all likelihood, do you - but for someone, who just a few moments ago was running separation of church and state up the flag and saluting, then what right do you have to now invoke your anglocentric rendition of God and use that to try to justify the imposition of Western values and vested interests on another culture and people? In fact, if you, and those who share your jingoistic mentality had even a smidgen of the Buddhist compassion about which you seem to be so contemptuous, there might be millions of people still alive today - including fifty thousand, or so, Americans. Instead, what did they all die for? - well, apparently, so that some twenty years later a few Western businessness men would, once again, be able to think about opening up Vietnam for business. Now, that's progress."
Agent Williams had the kind of smile on his face that Goliath might have had when he saw his opponent was just a kid. He looked over at agent Bradley and said: "You see, Paul, you give a fool enough rope, and he hangs himself every time." Returning his gaze to me, he narrowed his eyelids somewhat. His facial features became much more serious than just a few seconds previously, and he said: "You do realize don't you, Dr. Phelps, you just have been making our case for us? Your recent rant would strongly suggest, as I indicated earlier, that your motive for killing your so-called friend did, indeed, revolve around differences you had over the Vietnam war."
Tired, frustrated, upset, distraught, annoyed, and impatient, I blurted out: "If you had half a brain you'd be embarrassed for yourself, and since you don't seem to be embarrassed, one might conclude that the first part of the hypothetical is false."
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