"THE WHISTLEBLOWER"

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THE WHSITLEBLOWER
REFLECTIONS OF A WANDERING MIND...
...SKATING THE EDGE BETWEEN DARKNESS AND LIGHT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1 DANCING WITH CASPER
CHAPTER 2 FOUL WINDS AND TROUBLED SEAS PAGE
CHAPTER 3 BOHICA
CHAPTER 4 SEARCHING FOR SUBMARINES IN SUPPLY
CHAPTER 5  SWIMMING IN A WHIRLPOOL WITH SHARKS
CHAPTER 6 WALKING A TIGHTROPE IN A HURRICANE
CHAPTER 7 CONGRESSIONAL SMOKE AND MORRORS
CHAPTER 8 DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE
CHAPTER 9 AND THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE
CHAPTER 10 STEPPING INTO THE CROSSHAIRS
CHAPTER 11 FADE TO BLACK
APPENDIX DOCUMENTS

Chapter One

Time seemed to slow down. I started to feel light headed. I could sense the energy draining from my legs. My vision was narrowing like a train's light in a dark tunnel. I couldn't see anything around me; I took a step, my legs went weak. The darkness began to set in and I knew that I was about to black out. I kept my eyes focused on the telephone. Just need to take one more step... I reached up and grabbed the telephone handset and punched in 9-1-1. Then my legs buckled. As I began to fall the handset came loose from my hand. Using the last of my energy I wrapped my fingers as tightly as I could around the cord. I tightened my fist ñ but gravity took over.  Sitting on the ground with my back to the glass booth I tried to scream into the phone, but only a whisper came out, "Help..."

Then the world, my world, went black. There was no white light... no Angels... no noise, just nothingness. I awoke in a hospital. As my eyes regained focus I could see that the room was filled with nurses and doctors, everyone seemed to be scrambling. The room was full of machines. I could hear the beep of the heart monitor. A male nurse was forcing a tube down my throat...

"Mr. Jackson I need you to help me here. You are going to feel a little pain but I need to insert this tube down your throat to help you breath...."

I was laying on a gurney.  The room was antiseptic white... the pain intense. The air from the tube was pushing warm dry air down my throat... fading in... fading out.  The cold fingers of darkness gripped me, the voices drifted off... I fought to stay awake, but the fingers kept pulling me down into a silent void of nothingness...

DANCING WITH CASPER

"He is scared to death he thinks that the CIA will bump him off; and like Hashemi, he may also get overnight acute myoblastic leukemia and die. So because he was ordered by the court not to talk to us we never knew what he was going to tell us, but it must have been something serious. I mean it is wild, let me read you this... the following is in reference to your request 13 May for CIA reference on subject .... Blacked out ... Cyrus Hashemi... blacked out..."

I was sitting in the Hollywood home of Nico Minardos listening as he read from CIA traffic and giving me the history on Iran-Contra. Nico was a Greco-American actor born in 1930. He was tall, had chiseled features, and was very likable. He had a worldly presence about him, yet he projected an air of kindness. He started his film career in 1952 in the movie Monkey Business and through a long and distinguished acting career starred in many, many movies and television shows such as Maverick, The Twilight Zone, Alias Smith and Jones and the A-Team. In his twilight years however he would find himself, with a large group of other powerful men, being prosecuted as an arms dealer for participating in a weapons deal to Iran in April, 1986. They would be branded by the Rudolph Giuliani, (US Attorney for the Southern District of New York) as the "Merchants of Death."

Nico was speaking of Cyrus Hashemi; an Iranian man who had died a sudden and painful death. Hashemi was an Iranian banker, and was also connected through Republican intermediaries to Ronald Reagan's Vice President, George Bush; to the BCCI (the corrupt Bank of Credit and Commerce International) scandal; the October Surprise (the alleged Reagan-Bush campaigns' sabotage of President Carter's hostage release negotiations by promising the Iranians five million dollars to hold the hostages until after the November, 1980 elections). Hashemi was an Iranian go-between for the Republican Party going as far back as President Nixon. He was also connected to Bill Casey, the CIA Director, and the 1980 Reagan-Bush campaign director - all in all Mr. Hashemi had a nefarious, double dealing and colorful career.

In the spring of 1985, two Israeli arms dealers, Albert Schwimmer and Ya'acov Nimrodi, met in a London hotel room with Cyrus Hashemi, Saudi financier Adnan Khashoggi and Manucher Ghorbanifar an Iranian intelligence agent. Hashemi proposed more weapons sales for Iran. He was working with John Shaheen, a Republican businessman and friend of Bill Casey. Bill Casey by then was President Reagan's director of the CIA. In a plot twist reminiscent of a Hollywood movie, Cyrus Hashemi was also being wire tapped by the FBI - but the Fumbling Bumbling Idiots who had 548 wiretap tapes on Hashemi would somehow end up with an eight-day gap on one tape and eleven other tapes that would become totally blank ñ as if they had been intentionally erased. It was even rumored that the FBI had heard Ronald Reagan on one of Hashemi tapes. The Blank and fouled FBI wiretap tapes were eerily reminiscent of the twisted song that Tricky Dick had played for America in the Watergate scandal.

A year later in 1986, Hashemi in his forties fell suddenly ill and died with what was diagnosed as acute myoblastic leukemia. Hashemi would ultimately play a vital role in what would become known after his death as the Iran-Contra Affair.  Many believed that Hashemi had been eternally silenced, and now his attorney was terrified that he too might meet the same fate as his former client at the hands of CIA if he told the arms dealer's lawyers what he knew.

What had began as a simple story of petty crooks and bogus financial books while I was in the Navy - had now spun into a life threatening tale of international intrigue and mystery. It was the summer of 1988; I was homeless, and working for minimum wage at the shipyards during the day. I attended the local community college at night. I slept in a friend's chilly, dark, dusty basement on an old dirty beat up couch. I showered in the school's gym and kept my life in my Navy duffle bag. For me, it was a cold, cruel, ugly gray adventure where I measured survival on a day to day basis. My life had been threatened multiple times since I had blown the whistle on Navy fraud, waste and abuse. My journey would take me down the dark path of arms dealers, and international intrigue as I searched for the white light of truth. I had cars mysteriously catch fire when I started them, multiple cars that were stolen, manipulation on my credit, clandestine meetings with arms dealers, and veiled visits by government spooks, some in front of witnesses and others in the middle of the night. I had learned to sleep softly and to live light so that I could be ready to move with only thirty minutes notice.

San Diego in August is not much different than San Diego in April. The sun sets a little earlier in April, but the temperature is about the same. I was finishing my second year at the community college, getting ready to transfer to a private university on the hill. I would start as a sophomore at the University of San Diego in September. I figured the university was a very safe place to be since it was a perfectly manicured Catholic campus and full of wealthy people's kids - not a ideal place for a messy murder. I had kept my grade point average at three point six, even while living like a nomad. I had received a small tuition assistance grant from the university. I had to take out student loans that would probably take me the rest of my life to pay off, but I really didn't believe that I was going to live long enough to graduate college, so student loans were the least of my concerns. I had been able to put together the financing to live on campus. I would once again have a place that I could call home, and more importantly, my own bed. After paying for my books, tuition, and the rent for the dorm room, I had just enough money for a meal plan that would allow me to have one meal a day. I worked with a temp service full time. I also found a job on campus working in the computer lab on the weekends to pick up extra money. I had even found the time to do some volunteer work in the English tutoring center. After three grueling years, the sun was finally setting on the whistle blowing chapter of my life. I could finally see the dawn of a new day.

When I blew the whistle on the Kitty Hawk for internal fraud, waste and abuse, along with Primo's pirates, I was torpedoed in the press by the US Navy. The Navy went out of its way to tell the world that I was just a fool, naive about the operation of the Navy Supply system and its procedures and that everything I blew the whistle on was a load of crap. The full firepower of the Navy had been directed towards besmirching my character to such a degree that I once I left active duty I found it impossible to find a job. The Navy kept to its mantra that no weapons had been stolen off of the Kitty Hawk and sold to Iran. I knew better. I knew that there was a ring of storekeepers pilfering supplies and weapons off of the Kitty Hawk. How did I know? I was the ship's internal supplies auditor, and I was also responsible for the training of over two hundred and fifty divisional and departmental supply petty officers. These were the guys who actually used the supply system to spend US tax dollars. These people were being given a checkbook, but not taught how to balance their checking accounts. How stupid can the military be? Give someone a checkbook but not teach them how to balance it?  I had taught the divisional supply petty officers how the supply system worked, along with how to audit their ship's department and divisional accounts. It really pissed me off that the Navy had lied during the Congressional hearings, so, I did what any pissed off twenty six year old would do, especially, if you knew you were in the right, I didn't let it go. Instead, I started to follow up on the news events surrounding the Kitty Hawk. I began to follow the dominoes as they fell, interviewing people who had been in the newspapers, or on television, about any information they had on the corruption trail that lead off of the Kitty Hawk. I found myself in a very short time, knee deep in the Iran Contra affair. Tonight, however, was going to be the final chapter.

After three years, I had tired of the entire matter and just wanted to wrap up what I had learned from the international arms dealers, and others that I had interviewed, deliver it all to the Congressman and Speaker of the House and MOVE ON! I knew it was only a matter of time before the spooks would approach me again, as they had done two years earlier. The Crooked Intelligence Agency would want to know what I had learned from the two international arms dealers that I had interviewed, and more importantly, if I had received the documents from Yasser Arafat, the Middle Eastern PLO leader that had the vice president's signature on it; a document that would be able to offer proof that the Iran Contra affair was sanctioned by the White House itself.

September, 1988. Everything was in place. I had carefully hidden the microphone that was attached to the miniature tape recorder under the television stand so it was out of sight, but would still pick up the conversation in the living room. I had set the speed on the tape recorder to slow so I would have about two hours of tape as soon as I turned it on. That should be enough time to get the spook to spill the information that I needed.

The living room was twelve foot by ten foot wide with a low ceiling. It had a futon for a couch and a beat up chair with a slip cover in the corner. The hardwood floor had a small throw rug in front of the futon. The white painted walls made the room bright even in the sun's setting light that was streaming in through the bay window. It was a sailors' sunset filled with red and orange. The light seemed to pour off of the wall, onto the futon, splashing onto the coffee table that was in front of the futon and spilling onto the floor. The shelves were full of knick knacks and trinkets that Susie had picked up along the path of her life.

 I looked out the bay window at the beach and watched the surf crash upon the sand. I liked the sounds that only the ocean can bring. At times, I would just sit on the beach in the warm sand and listen to its crashing rhythm letting the waves wash me away. San Diego had very temperate weather, and generally, was a nice place to live. The bungalow's front door was open. The screen door, though closed, was not locked and was tapping as the wind whispered through it. It opened about a foot as a strong gust of wind came off the ocean then came crashing back, "BAM."

"Is that him, Bob? "She chirped from the kitchen.
"No, just the wind Susie," I answered.

The screen door was haggard and worn by the weather and in desperate need of a new coat of paint. Standing in the doorway, I could smell the salty air that hung heavy with the scent of seaweed. I watched the waves crash on the beach, and listened, to the seagulls as they fought over bits of a dead fish. The clouds were rolling in off the ocean, rain was on the way. The meeting had been set up by Susie, who was my political science teacher at the local community college. She was in her mid thirties, about five foot eight, medium build with jet black hair, straight out of the bottle. She had green eyes and a smile that was very receiving. It was her home. She was in the kitchen making coffee and cookies, and getting out the plates, cups and spoons. How naive, I thought; she had a master's degree in political science, and yet she didn't have a clue about the ugliness, and danger of real world politics. Susie was book smart and street stupid. She was acting as if this were nothing more that an afternoon tea party. Three months earlier she had no idea what she had stepped into when she said she wanted to help me write my story. When we drove down to Los Angeles for the second Minardos interview we had been followed to and from the meeting. When we had arrived back at her place we found the house had been ransacked. Nothing had been stolen, but the place was turned upside down. I remember Susie turning an ashen white; her body literally trembled when it dawned on her that it was no coincidence that her house had been trashed while we were off interviewing Minardos. Since then I would have thought that she would have appreciated the weightiness of our adventure as we went walking blindly into the darkness - stepping into the cross hairs; and more importantly, if we weren't careful - we wouldn't be coming out alive.

As I looked down the seashore I could see a man walking towards the small beach house. He was about twenty yards away. He was smoking a cigarette. He walked with a gated step, looking to his left and right, as if he was unsure of his destination. He fit the description that Susie had given me. He was black and stood about six foot tall, late forties maybe early fifties. He had a close cropped afro with tints of gray at the sideburns. He had thin hollow cheeks. It looked to me as if he had grown up as a child without having enough to eat. He was about ten yards from the house. I bent down, reached under the television set and turned the tape recorder on.

 I called out, "Susie, I think this is him."
"Okay," she called back. "I'm coming."

Susie came out of the kitchen carrying a tray with cookies, coffee pot, cups, and the assorted tea party tidbits that every little girl learns as they grow up. She had her hair pinned up and was wearing a blue top that buttoned down the front, the first two buttons were undone, just enough so you could see her bust. She wasn't wearing a bra and her nipples were noticeable. She had tight jeans. It worked for me. I hoped it would also work for our new friend.  I had learned that it was easier to ply information from people if they were distracted and not focusing on the conversation too much. Susie was just being Susie.

I pushed open the screen door as he reached the third and last step coming up the porch. Stepping back into the living room, I looked at him directly, searching into his eyes for any sign of threat. Not in a menacing way - but not overly friendly either. I had learned to read people quickly, it was a survival instinct. I had been through multiple Navy survival schools, aircrew training schools and Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) School. Sometimes, the difference between being the victim, or victor, is determined in the split second it takes for someone to stab you - before you can stab them. Watching people's body language, eyes and their slight muscle movement was the only warning available.

He was taller than me by about five inches, although we were about the same weight. He had narrow brown eyes, a hollow leathered face, sideburns and yellow stained teeth. He smelled of stale cigarettes. Instantly I knew I didn't like him. He reached out his right hand.

"Hello, my name is Robert," he said with a slow southern drawl, as we shook hands.

He had a surprisingly strong grip for a stringy man. I could smell the staleness of tobacco permeating from his rumpled clothes. We stared into each others eyes. We were about foot away from each other standing in the doorway.

"Hi, I'm Bob," I responded coolly as we shook hands.

Stepping back I released my grip, and let him pass by me. He took three steps into the living room, reached out and took Susie's right hand with both of his hands.

"Hello, Susie," he cooed, like a school boy with a crush.

His eyes focused on her breasts, and then slowly moved up to meet her eyes. Her nipples were hard. Susie liked attention. Sellers was sufficiently sidetracked. Game on.

"Good evening Robert, "Susie spoke with a New York nasal accent.

I moved casually over to the chair in the corner and sat down. Robert Sellers and Susie sat down on the futon with about two feet separating them. Susie was on the side of the futon closest to me.  Robert Sellers was about five feet from the hidden microphone. He was sitting across from the television, and at the angle that he was sitting he wouldn't be able to see the microphone or recorder. Susie, the space cadet, was turned towards Sellers. Her headlights were still on, but her mental motor wasn't running. What was running was Susie's mouth. I sat back and surveyed them both. Susie had opened her body up to Sellers, with her legs parted and her head at a slightly cocked angle. Robert Sellers was postured in a such a way that he was facing me and Susie, more Susie than me, but that was all right. I really needed him to be thinking with the wrong head in hopes that he would slip the information out that I needed.

"So Mr. Sellers, Susie tells me that you are in one of her classes?"

I asked slowly, in an insubstantial indifferent voice. I didn't really care why he had asked for the meeting with me anyway. My first order of business was to verify that he was a valid agent of the National Suck-Ass Agency. If he was the real McCoy then I wanted to interrogate him about Operation Medical Supply. Watch his reaction and see if he would slip up and tell me what I needed to know. Although I didn't know it at the time, I was just a pawn in a political chess game. Congressman Bates had asked me to find out for the Democrats all of the information on Iran-Contra and Operation Medical Supply that I could dig up. He had been passing the arms dealer interview notes to Congressman Lee Hamilton who was leading the House hearings on the Iran Contra affair and the Speaker of the House.

I had danced with Casper before and knew there was no such thing as a coincidence. In the past, when the alphabet soup group wanted to find out what I was doing they had bugged my phone, and even offered me a job with a C.I.A. front company. I suspected that Robert Sellers was asking to meet with me because it was probably his assignment to find out what I had learned from the arms dealers; and why I had met with the Congressman and the Speaker of the House. I suspected that the alphabet soup gang had tailed me as I had met with the last arms dealer. I also figured they knew that I had called another arms dealer; the financier for the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and the Israeli arms dealer. I had been a busy little beaver.
"Yes, I'm in her Tuesday afternoon poli-sci class."

He said it slowly, almost too slow as if he were trying to make sure he stayed within the script he had been given by his handlers.

Looking straight into his eyes I asked him, "So, if you're already working with the NSA why have you been taking college classes at the local community college?!"

I watched him closely; he looked at Susie, and rubbed his chin, and then looked back at me. He blinked and looked down at the coffee table. He turned his body away from Susie and faced me directly.

"I have grown disillusioned with the NSA and want to start a new career," he drawled.

I thought to myself, "Bullshit!"

I deadpanned back at him, "How do I know you really work for the National Security Agency? Maybe, you're just playing a game with Susie's head?"

I kept watching his eyes and his body language. I kept looking for the telltale signs of lying from within his face, or mannerism.

He stood up! I stood up. Our eyes were locked. Slowly, He reached backwards. I didn't know what he was reaching for? However, it would be easier to defend myself standing than sitting. He pulled open his wallet, took out a green ID card and handed it to me. We both sat down. I looked at the card. It looked just like the ID card that I had when I was in the Navy. It looked like the real thing. I casually read the card out loud. I wanted to make sure that I had the card number, name and agency on the tape. I was scheduled to meet the Congressman and the Speaker of the House in two weeks, and I wanted to make sure I had the information, and an audit trail to verify the veracity of how I had garnered the information. Of course, the card was probably real - but I'm sure the name wasn't!

"Robert Sellers, National Security Agency, ID card number D750765385952L," I read in a slow strong voice.
"Ok, so you are the real deal. "I, casually, said to him.

I stood up, he stood up, I handed him his identification card back. We both sat back down. I crossed my legs and folded my arms over my chest. I wasn't here to spill my guts to the National Suck-ass Agency. If anything, I wanted to pry information from him.

I said, "So, how long have you been in the NSA"

He replied in a Southern drawl, "about eighteen years. I was recruited while I was in "nam" I was a chopper pilot"
Sellers then blurted out.

"I now fly Cessna planes for them and deliver covert cargo."

He continued, "I've flown down to South America quit a few times."

Susie suddenly out of the blue blurted out, "Bob and I met with a Nico Minardos, the Greek Arms dealer in July."

Trying to stop Susie from telling him too much I quickly snapped out, "I'm sure you've heard of him. He is a Greco-American actor born in 1930, who started his film career in 1952 in the movie "Monkey Business" and also starred in television shows such as Maverick, The Twilight Zone, Alias Smith and Jones and the A-Team to name just a few."

Susie however was once again running her mouth with her brain disconnected. I didn't try to stop her. I figured that the NSA already knew that I had met with Nico, and that was why I was getting this visit in late August from Mr. Sellers. Hell they were probably the ones that tossed Susie's house, "What did he tell ya'll?" Sellers twanged.

He was once again starring at Susie breasts. Susie didn't seem to mind.

"He let us read C.I.A. traffic, including a message from the C.I.A. Director to the Italian Ambassador. We also learned from another arms dealer how the NSC was using the aircraft carriers as floating supply depots in the quid pro quo, arms for hostages swap, of the Iran-Contra program, "Susie blindly blurted out to Sellers.
"What's Octogate? "Susie purred like a sex kitten.

Sellers, who had been turned towards Susie with his body in a relaxed posture, suddenly sat straight up!  I could tell that the comment had caught his attention. Susie however who was obviously lost in her own simple world.

She continued, "Another arms dealer had said that the Kitty Hawk had been used to ship new F-4 engines to the Philippines - and that the Philippines was then supposed to ship the new engines to Iran. But, in an act of double dealing, the Filipinos had kept the new engines and instead sent Iran a bunch of beat up engines that didn't work? He said that the double cross really pissed off the Iranians"!

Sellers, now facing Susie directly had moved his gaze from her breasts to her eyes. Susie stopped talking as if her pea brain had suddenly realized she had said too much. The room grew quiet. No one spoke. I could hear the wall clock ticking. Sellers sat back in his chair, he folded his arms, looked at Susie, and after what seemed like an hour but was only a minute he started talking, like a professor giving a lecture, or someone who had memorized a script.

"The US government was plausibly denying its participation in the Iranian arms deals. The arms dealing had been privatized. Low level arms dealers, the middlemen, both foreign and domestic were approached by Senators, Congressman, Ambassadors and military industrialists. These people of power assured the low level arms dealers that it was ok to sell weapons that they had secured legally, or illegally, to Iran. Iran provided a shopping list to the underground arms network of weapons, aircraft parts and other types of supplies that the Iranians needed so they could maintain their military in their war against Iraq. Due to the big dollars involved in selling arms the low level arms merchants would act as fences to people who were in the military and stealing weapons, and also to the people who would steal from the military industrial complexes. The low level arms dealers would then bundle up all of the items that they had received from the domestic and international black markets and broker a sell of the weapons through an arms broker who then brokered the large deals to the Iranians. The other way that Iran and the Contras were being supplied weapons was via the NSA, CIA, DCI, NSC, the basic alphabet soup group, and through military industrialists. The military industrialists will build two aircraft or two F-14 engines for example. One engine will legally be sold to the United States military and the second engine will be taken off the books and sold in the black market by the alphabet soup group. These off book weapons and parts are shipped to multiple foreign nations that act as shipping hubs."

When he finished talking Sellers sat back on the couch, he had a neat little smile on his face.

What he had just told me was almost word for word what I had heard from Bill Northrop an American-born former member of Israeli military intelligence and arms dealer, during my first interview with Mr. Bill Northrop. Both Mr. Bill Northrop and I had figured that his phone was tapped at the time, but he didn't care and neither did I. Later I would think about clandestinely meeting with Bill Northrop to see if he would give me some top secret CIA traffic and contact information for the next domino in the chain of corruption of the Iranian arms sales.

A minute went by - two minutes. Finally, I felt the time was ripe, so I looked directly into Robert Sellers eyes, and asked him what I wanted to know, since I already knew the answer to the question. The Greek and the Israeli arms dealers had told me the story when I interviewed each of them - separately. I wanted to see the reaction of Robert Sellers weasel's face. Sometimes, just like in poker, the reaction can tell you more than the person's words.

I leaned forward and slowly asked, "So Mr. Sellers, What do you know about Operation Medical Supply? The covert program where the alphabet soup group, including the US military, ships weapons under the guise of "medical supplies" to Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines, and the rest of the shipping hubs within the Octogate countries. These eight countries are the warehousing and distribution hub for the US government. From these countries the arms are then sent to whatever countries the US government wants to secretly provide weapons, parts, supplies, and other military support without any Congressional oversight, or accountability. I know that is over simplified, but you get my drift, I'm sure."

I asked my question in a calculated blunt tone without any emotion in my voice. I kept watching his eyes. I had unfolded my arms, and uncrossed my legs. In less than a second he had jumped up and cleared the coffee table. His face had turned pale; I could see in his eyes that I had hit a nerve. I jumped to my feet. I turned sideways. I was on the balls of my feet. I wanted to present a smaller target, and I also wanted to be able to kick, or punch if I needed to. I began to pump my fists to get the blood into my hands. I felt a rush of adrenaline - my hair on my arms and head stood up. Time seemed to slow down. We were about four feet from each other. Our eyes were locked. He was standing with his body facing me. He had his hands open and at his sides. With my left hand, I reached into my sweat pants pocket and grabbed my change. Thinking, if I needed to, I would throw the change at his face with my left hand. That should give me the significant second I needed to distract him, so with my right hand, I could punch him in the throat and hopefully collapse his windpipe. I also wanted to be able to punch, pivot, drop, spin and knock his legs out from under him, then roll and deliver an elbow to his sternum and a fist to his throat to insure that I crushed his windpipe. The entire move should only take less than three seconds.  Time continued to creep slowly. Susie stood up and got between us. I kept my eyes on Sellers. He took his eyes off of me and looked at Susie. He stepped back.

Susie cried, "Please, both of you need to calm down."

I removed my hand from my pocket with the change tightly gripped. Sellers continued to back up. "How do you know about Operation Medical Supply" he squealed at me.

Amazing, his southern drawl was gone!?

Seller continued now in a mid-western accent, "I was pre briefed before I ever arrived here, and no where in your dossier did it say you knew anything about Operation Medical Supply. That is a top secret operation and only a handful of people are supposed to know about it. The NSA knew that you had been tipped off by Bill Northrop the Israeli arms dealer about Octogate, because we had his phone tapped. You do realize that I have to go back to my superiors, debrief, and tell them that you know about these operations, both of you could very well wind up dead. These guys don't play around - they will have you terminated with extreme prejudice. Just in case you don't know what that means. It means it is not a question of whether or not you will die. It is more a matter of how much pain you will feel before you are allowed to die! You had better tell me how you found out about Operation Medical Supply, if you know what's good for you!"

I shifted my weight on the balls of my feet, I wanted to remain poised to strike if I needed to, "Hey, you and the National Suck-Ass Agency can piss off! You can go tell your superiors that I have already given the information to the Congressman, the Speaker of the House and a couple of newspapers. If I wind up dead in a ditch with overnight acute myoblastic leukemia like Hashemi, the Iranian financier turned informant for Customs, the interview tapes from the arms dealer's interviews, along with the C.I.A. traffic, and other information that I have gathered will be released to the public. I really don't think your superiors want that." I said in an antagonistic pitch.

I continued to push his buttons even more, hoping that he would tell me something that I didn't know.
I know that Operation Medical Supply, a covert operation crafted by the NSC, was used to have the aircraft carrier, Nimitz, pull into Jaffa, Israel in 1985, and unloaded weapons bound for Iran under the guise of medical supplies. I also know that the Kitty Hawk off-loaded J-7917 jet engines in the Philippines that were destined for Iran. Hey needle dick, since when does the NSC and C.I.A. deal in humanitarian missions?" I said acerbically, just to let him know that I knew specific parts of the operation and how it was connected to the Navy.
I continued , "Furthermore, we both know that using the aircraft carriers as supply transports helped to keep Congress in the dark about the massive five billion dollars worth of weapons that the NSC diverted from US military stockpiles to third party countries in a quid pro quo that ultimately would wind up with weapons going to both Iran and Nicaragua."

Sellers began to pace back and forth by the front door. He kept looking at me and then Susie. He wasn't staring at her boobs anymore. I think his brain had overridden his tiny head. Susie was the weak link, he knew it and I knew it. Susie just stood in the middle of the living room. She looked like a deer caught in a car's headlights. I was standing in front of the chair. I put the coins back in my pocket. This guy was no threat - he was only a messenger boy.

"Susie, come with me," he commanded to her. "We need to talk."

"Ok," Susie said sheepishly.

Susie picked up her sweater and put it on. Sellers went out the front door first and Susie followed him. The screen door slammed behind them - BAM! I watched them go down the steps and disappear into the darkness.

The sun had set. There was no moon, the skies were cloudy. I could hear the waves lapping the beach. Standing in the doorway, I could smell the rain in the air. I slowly cracked open the screen door and watched them as they went around the corner of the house. I stepped back into the living room and bending down I reached under the television and retrieved the microphone and recorder. I put them into my sea bag along with the second Minardos interview notes.

I walked over to the telephone, picked up the receiver. I screwed the bug zapper onto the mouthpiece, it lit up. The phone had a bug on it. I dialed the number that my white knight had given to me. His name was Ed Lawson. He was about thirty-five. He stood about six foot two. He weighed about one hundred and eighty pounds. He had long dreadlocks. He was clean cut, only ate natural foods, no meat. Ed had given me money when I needed it, or found me places to stay when I needed to disappear. He also helped me to disperse documents to people that I didn't know as a life insurance policy. Even if the NSA made good on their threat to terminate me with extreme prejudice they wouldn't learn anything from me. Lawson was the man who had helped me to stay alive thus far as I continued my quest for more information on Iran-Contra... and Octogate. He had introduced me to some very powerful people and generally gave me sound advice.

I dialed the number, he picked up, and I said two words: "Code Red!"

Code Red meant that my life had been threatened and I needed immediate extraction to a safe house. I hung up. The entire call lasted less than two seconds. They would know the number I called but that didn't matter, it was a pay phone on the boardwalk of Long Beach, California. I put on my black sweat top, pulled the hood up and went out the back door. I looked around. I stood still and listened. I didn't see anything - the only sound I could hear was the ocean. I moved quickly down the back steps, crossed the small back yard and opened the gate.  I dropped down to my knee and looked out the gate and listened, not hearing anything I crawled out of the backyard and slowly in a crouch I moved down the alley. I was making my way to a pay telephone two blocks away, careful to stay in the shadows. Ed knew about the meeting tonight. We had a preset protocol where I would call him and then go to the pay phone. He would wait five minutes and then call me back.

As I rounded the corner in a fast walk I could hear the phone ring. The pay phone was in a gas station's parking lot. It was located in the back by the air and water. It was perfect because I could come out of the dark alley and not be seen answering it. Ring. Ring. I left the phone booth door open because I didn't want the light to turn on. I picked up the receiver.

"Hello" I said in a low voice.

"Have your duffle bag and be ready in thirty minutes," said the voice at the other end of the phone.
Click. The line went dead. I hung up the phone, slipped out of the phone booth and sprinted back to the bimbo's house. When I came to the alley I slipped into the shadows, crouched down on the corner, and froze. I wanted to listen if I was being followed; nothing, I stood back up and kept moving. When I got to the back gate I stopped and listened again, not hearing anything, I slid through the gate and quickly moved up the stairs and cautiously opened the back door. I was in the kitchen. I quickly took off my sweat top. Walking across the kitchen to the corner where I had put my duffle bag I stuffed the top in. I could hear Susie's voice coming up the front steps. I left the duffle bag and walked from the kitchen back into the living room, just as Susie was opening the screen door.

Susie entered the living room. She was as white as a ghost, she was shaking, and I could see the political science teacher had just been baptized into the real world.
"Oh my God" she cried.

"We have got to give him the C.I.A. traffic and tapes."

"They will kill us if we don't!"

 I looked Susie in the eyes.
I walked up to her and grabbed her by the arms and said bluntly.

"They can go shag themselves!"

 "How stupid are you Susie anyway"?

"Don't you realize that if we give them the documents, they will have us killed anyway to make sure the story doesn't get out?"

 I stepped back from her and started to go into the kitchen. I had about twenty minutes before my pick up would show up, and the ride was not going to wait if I was late.

"Susie, just forget that you knew me, forget what you've learned, let it go. Go back to teaching and tea parties. "
"He knows about the tape recording you made tonight,"

Susie called out to me as I was walking towards my duffle bag in the kitchen.
"He said he wants the tape."

I stopped. Damn. My mistake, I should never have allowed Susie to become involved.
"He's not getting the tape!"

"I am going to make copies of the tape and give the copies to Ed Lawson and via Congressman Bates to Congressman Hamilton and the Speaker of the House, and the newspapers when I meet him next week."
I said as I swung the duffle bag over my shoulder.

Susie had been good for a bounce and a warm bed to sleep in but I needed to loose this bimbo before she ended up getting me killed. Book smart - street stupid!

"Tell Sellers, or whomever, alphabet soup sends over, that you don't know anything, and that I told them to go piss up a rope."

It had been a remarkable night. I had found out what I needed to help verify the Octogate and Operation Medical Supply stories, but at the same time, I was tired of dancing with Casper. I was so angry that I really had the urge to call Isa Ayub, the PLO arms dealer to see if he could get me to the PLO leader Yasser Arafat and ultimately to the documents that proved Vice President George Bush was the puppet master behind the Iranian arms sales. I continued walking to the door, opened it, and without looking back I stepped out onto the back porch. I could hear Susie sobbing. I had eighteen minutes to the pickup.

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Chapter Two
The doctor had given me something for pain. As the medication hit my system my eyes closed and I drifted off into emptiness... August 1977. I had just graduated high school and being in a family of eight kids I wanted OUT of the house. I wanted out on my own. I, like so many other middle and low income kids, however didn't have the money to go to college. The Navy seemed like my perfect ticket out of small town America. Company 77-230, Honeyman's Flat Smooth Round Headed River Rocks. That was the name of our company in boot camp. The name was perfect because our company was as dumb as a box of rocks. I was the Right Guard, because I knew my left from my right, and I knew how to march, thanks to a year of penance in the Civil Air Patrol. But there were others in my company, including the Recruit Chief Petty Officer (our fearless company leader) who would turn left face when the company commander ordered right face. It was comical and reminded me of the television comedy show "F" Troop.  We were a bunch of buffoons who couldn't march to save our asses, but we did win the 3rd week Academic Award, along with the 2nd and 3rd week Barracks Awards and the 2nd and 3rd week Athletic Awards. All in all, we were a company of book smart, athletic clean machines who couldn't march a strait line if it was painted on the blacktop. We all had to participate in a swim test which included jumping from a tower, treading water, swimming, walking or crawling around the pool. For me it was a welcome break from the endless marching. I jumped from the tower, tread water for five minutes and then swam free style to the end of the pool. Boot camp was nine weeks of marching, classes learning about Navy tradition and military rank, marching, inoculations, marching, physical exercise, marching, obstacle courses, marching, water survival, marching, rifle instruction, seamanship, damage control and fire fighting, gas chamber, personnel inspections and of course more marching.

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