Heller paused to slurp coffee before continuing. "The Zapruder film clearly showed Kennedy clutching at his throat when he was hit by the first round. He then slumped forward after being hit by a second bullet, and finally the fatal shot came from another angle again. This didn't even come close to explaining how Governor Connolly was shot several times, or the fact that numerous bystanders were also hit by ricochets and bullet fragments. Everything that day pointed to well over a dozen rounds being fired at the presidential motorcade."

Jason felt his head spinning again. Heller was right, people knew that Kennedy had been murdered but somehow wanted to accept the sugar pill of crazed gunman with Communist links killing their president instead. The masses might be outraged, but they definitely weren't ready to accept the real truth of what happened that day in 1963. Blaming communists had been an easy way to cover up a lot of the shit the U.S. government had gotten up to in the past, and it worked just as well for covering up the Kennedy hit.

"Look at it this way, Jason. The files on the Kennedy assassination should have been made public decades ago, but we still have to wait until at least 2017 for the CIA to release all of the 90,000+ pages of documentation they have. Why so long? Why do people have to wait over 50 years to find out what really happened to Kennedy? What does the CIA really know about the whole mess?"

Jason scratched his chin, and shrugged his shoulders, showing he had no clue why that might be the case. Listening to this guy was almost hypnotic, but then he imagined that natural charisma in Heller's game probably opened a lot of doors for him. The people behind those doors would obviously have had a lot of reason to regret ever allowing him to walk into a room with them.

Heller chuckled just enough for Jason to pay a little bit of extra attention to him. Somehow, this crazy old man had found something funny in his story.

"The men who know what happened are a dying breed, Jason. Literally. It won't be too long now for the last of us to be gone. We know the real secrets. We know where the bodies are buried. We know what happened to all the witnesses. Dead men don't talk, and by the time 2017 is rung in, the last of the Kennedy men will be dead men. Case closed."

"So what part did you play on the day, Heller? Where were you standing? What was your job?" Jason asked. He was in this deep now so he might as well get all the gory details, too, although he kinda hated himself for even wanting to know more about this. It was all a bit...unsettling.

"I took the first shot. Not as a manner of honor or priority, it was just how it went. Just before Kennedy turned into Dealey, we had most of his Secret Service detachment hang back, so he drove into that plaza completely naked; there was nothing or no one to protect him. I didn't need to take another shot, although I did, because the split second I saw Kennedy grab at his throat, I knew I'd hit the bull’s-eye. After that, it was up to the rest of the shooters to finish the job, which they obviously did. It's almost funny, looking back at how much evidence there was for multiple shooters, but how no one wanted to acknowledge it. It was blatantly obvious that Oswald could never have shot Kennedy in the throat. Not unless he was floating in front of the presidential motorcade, which he obviously wasn't."

That much at least made sense to Jason. Experts had been trying to prove for years that Oswald had not only been one of the best snipers in the world, but that he could also cause bullets to defy the laws of physics. That kind of thing would look cool in a movie, but it didn’t add up in real life.

Heller sighed. "Almost every one of the doctors at Parkland Hospital said that Kennedy's throat wound was a bullet entry wound - a small, neat little hole. Once Kennedy had been moved to Bethesda Naval Hospital, the 'entry wound' had become a tracheotomy scar instead, although if it was, then it looked like a blind man had performed it with a screwdriver. Except for the military cover up that day, we'd have been exposed almost immediately. They made sure all the evidence was hidden before anyone ever had a chance to examine it. Any civilian doctor, given enough time to examine Kennedy properly, would have figured out we were lying our asses off and that he'd been shot from at least 3 different locations.”

"So to answer your question about whether or not we were afraid we'd get caught, Jason...well...we knew it was possible, but we were also pretty sure that the panic we caused that day would cover our tracks for months at least. In the end, our tracks were covered forever. The nation was in mourning, and once all that had calmed down, there was still that little war in Vietnam to worry about and good ole LBJ was more than happy to escalate that conflict to a whole new level. America was distracted, and that was just fine with us.”

Jason just sat there, listening intently. Anyone else listening to this old guy talking would have thought that it was just a crazy old man telling tall tales. Another conspiracy nut boring people to tears in some diner. Jason knew different though. He now knew Heller was telling the truth.  He also had to remind himself Heller was also a murderer. He shivered slightly.

Chapter 16

Just as his story was taking on a life of its own, Heller paused for a few seconds and then started to get up from the table. “Excuse me. I need to use the restroom, I'm afraid my bladder isn't quite what it used to be. I won’t be long.”

Jason found himself half standing up to help the old man out of the booth. He sat back down instead, reminding himself that there was still plenty of steel left inside this old dude - he didn’t really need any help. Only for the fact the cancer was eating this guy alive, Jason figured he'd have lived to be well over 100. Heller was tough as old boots. Jason could feel it.

Bill Heller strolled slowly to the rest room, opening it to find it empty. It was a pretty typical rest room, with some urinals and two crappers behind him for the guys who couldn't wait to get home. It was pretty typical example of a restroom.

Going to the toilet at his age was an adventure all on its own though. His prostate was the size of a small balloon, and, of course, the fact that he was basically a walking tumor didn’t help either. This sickness hadn’t really crept up on him so much as suddenly arrived just over 2 years ago. Still though, the universe has to balance the books, doesn’t it? Young Armstrong had been right about that. Probably had more insight into the whole thing than he’d ever understand, too.

After several moments of struggling, he’d finally managed to empty his bladder, then zipped up, and moved to the faucet to wash his hands. He glanced in the mirror and tried to recognize the face looking back at him. The eyes were still his but the face belonged to someone else - that haggard, bag of skin attached to his skull just never looked right. His mind was as sharp as it ever had been, but his body was finally failing under the weight of years of abuse he’d inflicted on it, and the evils he’d inflicted on others.

He closed his eyes while he was washing his hands, and, in that split second, he saw Kennedy grab his throat and lurch forward again. He heard the screams of confusion as the other shots rang out. It was as real now as it had been 50 years ago. He had done the right thing, hadn’t he? He’d help to save millions by making sure Kennedy died. It seemed that the older he got, the more he had to justify to himself what he'd done that day. It was almost as if time made things worse rather than easing the pain of it all. He deserved the pain though. No doubt in his mind about that.