completely delightful surprise.
“Well, I’m a big fan of your books, Mr. Flynn, and I wanted to give you something that you might find interesting.”
Flynn did his best to act as if this was all the conversation was about.
“Oh? What is it?” he asked.
The man held a folder leaned in close, speaking slightly above a whisper.
“This is a group of documents that shows how the CIA created the Bay of Pigs crisis. It wasn’t an accident. It was a well thought out and planned operation. And the American people have never known the truth about what happened during that time. I thought you might be the one to tell them.”
Flynn tried not to act too excited. First the JFK assassination, now the Bay of Pigs? If this was real, he’d have his next two book deals set. Somehow Flynn wondered if the man wasn’t trying to throw him off. Could the man’s information be trusted, especially since he spoke with a thick accent—an accent he struggled to place?
The man moved to hand the folder to Flynn before it slipped out of his hand and spilled onto the floor. He apologized to Flynn as the two men knelt down and scooped up the pages.
“Thank you for this. I appreciate it,” Flynn said as he stood up. “What’s your name again? I didn’t catch it.”
“It’s not important,” the man said. “In fact, it’s best that you not know me. Good bye.”
He patted Flynn on the shoulder before turning and walking away, leaving the folder in Flynn’s hands.
***
IVAN HEARD THE ELEVATOR BELL ring again, signaling its arrival. He didn’t turn around to look back at Flynn. He only smiled, reveling in his two-fold victory.
His cause didn’t like the idea of anyone getting close to figuring out who they were. They also preferred to use every other means necessary to persuade people rather than murder. Murder was messy and created more problems. More trails. More nosy people sniffing around in places they shouldn’t be. The CIA knew about them and that was more than enough.
Unfortunately, Emma Taylor required the messy kind of removal. Conspiracy theorists would use her untimely demise as a way of pointing out that her death had something to do with JFK’s assassination plot, based on her final tweet. But nobody ever believed those people anyway. They thought everything that happened was somehow related to an overarching government conspiracy to keep the public in the dark. Most of the time they were right. Yet Emma Taylor needed to be dealt with—and she was private enough of a person that her murder looked like a mugging gone wrong. At least, that’s how Ivan made it look.
But he couldn’t stop smiling as he walked away from his “chance” meeting with James Flynn. Not only did he deliver him papers that were sure to make him ditch his digging into the JFK assassination plot, but he also managed to swipe his phone and plant a bug on it. It was simple really. A surprise touch on the shoulder always gave him access to snatch whatever he was after. Then an accidental drop of the papers gave him all the time he needed to switch out Flynn’s phone cover with one embedded with a bug. All without Flynn knowing it. Even a trained CIA operative like Flynn couldn’t detect his sleight of hand. The tricks he learned growing up on the streets of Moscow served him well now.
If Flynn now decided to restart his investigation into who was behind the JFK assassination, Ivan would know about it immediately. Not that it would matter soon.
CHAPTER 5
FLYNN WAITED UNTIL HE WAS in his room with the door shut before he began thumbing through the papers handed to him by the mystery man. For most people, this would be a rare occurrence, perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime event. But this happened to Flynn all the time. His public image made him a dumping ground for every tin foil hat-wearing nut job. Theories about Area 51 scratched out on a bar napkin were handed to him in an airport. Strangers accosted him with doctorate-level dissertations