Chaingang

37

WATERTON

TWO MONTHS LATER

ROYCE HAWTHORNE was never terminated. ELINT rescinded the contract when SAUCOG'S murderer-at-large hit one of their own surveillance teams. That tore it. If they wanted anybody else hit, they could do it themselves.

MARY PERKINS started studying for her Missouri Real Estate Sales License, got serious about aerobics, and turned Royce on to health foods.

SAM PERKINS'S remains were among those positively identified in the mass grave site uncovered in the explosions that blew apart Ecoworld's concrete footings. Subsequent excavation revealed six males and two females, with predominant cause of death recorded in autopsy findings as “chemically induced pulmonary embolism(s)."

ECOWORLD, what was left of it, was sold to a Maysburg, Tennessee, investor group in search of a quick tax write-off, but development of their “high-concept entertainment mail” was halted.

GRANT SILBERMAN (aka Robert Newman, Christopher Sinclair, etc.), along with his wife and child, were killed in an automobile mishap, while vacationing in the Great Smoky Mountains.

GABRIEL “GABE” AUGUSTINE, whose Ready-Mix company was principal low bidder on the ill-fated Ecoworld job, won one of the largest lien judgments ever awarded in the state of Missouri. He purchased a three-thousand-acre cattle ranch in Montana, and the family estate included a Ready-Mix runway in the shape of a huge concrete letter A.

"MEAN” DEAN SEABAUGH was found dead in one of the Genneret stables. He'd suffered a broken neck, and it is believed he may have been kicked in the head by a horse.

DOYLE GENNERET was blinded when a package he received in the mail exploded in his face. Authorities determined that a “sophisticated letter bomb of the type favored by terrorists” had been sent to him by an unknown individual.

DANIEL EDWARD FLOWERS BUKOWSKI disappeared. He was last seen clean-shaven, sweet-smelling, and wearing a charcoal three-piece suit. “He was a big, heavyset guy with glasses. Mr. Conway, he said, from Marion, Illinois. Seemed like a real nice old boy,” a motel desk clerk told police. He was last observed in legal wheels, heading northbound on I-55.

CLANDESTINE SERVICES became “The Fifteen Group,” and that became something else. The assassination school was abandoned.

SAUCOG vanished. There is only one official record that the unit ever existed. A Chronology of U.S. Military Roles in Southeast Asia (vol. II), published by the Histories and Museums Division of the Tactical Institute of Military Sciences, states:

“For a brief period U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam/Special Advisory Unit/Combined Operations Group (USAMACSAUCOG) assumed tactical responsibility for the planning and execution phases of various operations mounted by their Covert Action Team(s).

“Following execution of these missions, USAMACVSAUCOG withdrew all personnel from the TAOR(s) and tactical responsibilities were reassigned to the Vietnamese military in place."

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