Ralph, Lien-hua, and I ended up talking about Bethanie’s murder and the White Night angle for a few minutes, but then Ralph said, “Wait, we need to stay on track here. What else happened down there in the jungle, Lien-hua? Anything else that might help us with this case?”
She thought for a moment. “Well, it’s with the assassination of Congressman Ryan that the conspiracy theories really begin. I wonder if they might be connected.”
“What conspiracy theories?” I asked.
“Bob Brown, an NBC photojournalist who was killed on the airstrip at Port Kaituma, got some video of the shooters. Some people who’ve analyzed the tape say the assassins were lined up in a military formation. The government has always maintained that the shooters were guards from Peoples Temple, but it was never confirmed. Eight years later one of the surviving temple members was tried and convicted for his involvement, but a lot of people think he was only a scapegoat. It went deeper than just one man.”
I thought back to what Terry had told me about Governor Taylor. That he’d been stationed in South America during the Jonestown massacre. That he’d been a government agent at the time. “Could it have been a government job? A professional hit?” I asked her.
Lien-hua had almost finished her rice. She nodded slowly. “Actually, some people think it was. Ryan was no friend of the CIA. A couple years earlier-I think it was in ’74-he’d co-sponsored a bill that required the CIA to report classified activities to Congress. At the time of his death he had another bill on the floor of Congress pushing for more restrictions. Two weeks after he was killed, the bill died in committee.”
“OK, now this is getting intense,” said Ralph.
“There’s more,” said Lien-hua. “The CIA had a top-secret psychosocial mind-control experiment going on back in the 1970s called MK-ULTRA. Supposedly, it was ended the year Jones moved to Guyana.”
“Nice coincidence,” said Ralph.
“You gotta be kidding me,” I said. “Mind control?”
“A combination of drugs, hypnosis, sleep deprivation, isolation, water-boarding, threats, brainwashing, social pressuring. The CIA has always been interested in seeing what it takes to break someone’s will.”
“Well, even if the CIA was involved,” I said, “those people in Jonestown weren’t robots. They made their choice.”
“Wait,” said Ralph. “Lien-hua, you said some of the people were murdered. Has that ever been confirmed?”
“At first the coroner said the cause of death for the people in Jonestown was cyanide by injection. He came to that conclusion after examining numerous victims with needle marks between the shoulders-the only place on your body where you can’t inject yourself. About a week later he changed the official records to indicate they all died by ingesting the cyanide, and that’s been the official story ever since-even though firsthand accounts record needle marks on the hands, necks, arms, and backs of the deceased.”
“So someone had a little talk with Mr. Coroner?” said Ralph.
“Maybe. No one knows. According to one account, at least 187 bodies had needle marks, then they just stopped counting. You don’t get needle marks between your shoulder blades from drinking cyanide-laced fruit punch.”
“No, you don’t,” he said. “Anything else?”
“All personal identification was removed from the bodies before they were returned to the U.S. No one knows why. And only seven autopsies were performed-out of 909 bodies-914 if you count the congressman and reporters.”
“This is unbelievable,” I said.
“It’s history,” she responded. “You can look it up. Then in the weeks and months following the massacre, a number of families were found dead in the U.S.-mostly ex-Temple members, some government officials with ties to Jones, a few CIA agents. According to one report, sixteen of the Green Berets that were assigned to remove the bodies from Jonestown committed suicide within three months of the tragedy. That, and there have always been murky ties between Jones and the CIA.”
“Spies, mind control, assassins, a suicide cult, a massive government cover-up…” said Ralph. “Whew… this would make one killer video game.”
Lien-hua and I just looked at him and shook our heads.
“What?” he said sheepishly. “It would.”
“So anyway,” I said to Lien-hua, “do people actually believe this stuff?”
“Some very influential people believe this stuff.”
“And what do you think?”
She took a deep breath. “Truth is, no one knows how many died willingly that day. There were armed gunmen surrounding the pavilion carrying AK-47s. Jones’s followers were isolated, territorial, paranoid about the government, and, for the most part, loyal to him. You choose-do you want a bullet in the back, or do you join the rest of your family and closest friends and give your children the ‘medication’? Do you try to fight off the whole community, or let someone you love press a needle against your arm? For most of them, it was at least coerced suicide, if not murder.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Does the term Q875 mean anything to you? Terry said it was a tape of some kind.”
She tapped her fingers on the table thoughtfully. “Well, that would make sense. Jones liked to record himself. The government found hundreds of his messages-talks, sermons, whatever you want to call them. When the FBI went in to clean up the place, they collected all the tapes and archived them. Then, back in 2000 or 2001 most of them became available to the public through a Freedom of Information Act request.”
“We need to listen to that tape,” I said to Ralph.
“Turn on your computer,” said Lien-hua. “It’s probably on the Internet.”
While I searched online, she continued, “Speaking of tapes and Jonestown and the CIA, Jones actually recorded his final talk as he convinced all the people to die together. It’s called the Death Tape. I listened to it when I was doing his profile. Very creepy. He called their action ‘revolutionary suicide.’ Anyway, on that tape, he tells his men to get Dwyer out of there, meaning away from the pavilion.” “Who’s Dwyer?” asked Ralph.
“Richard Dwyer was an official in the American Embassy in the city of Georgetown, Guyana. By nearly all accounts he was a CIA operative sent to infiltrate Peoples Temple. Although when he was asked about it later during the congressional investigation, he said, ‘No comment.’”
“Unbelievable,” I mumbled. “There’s even evidence a CIA agent was there when it all started.”
As it turns out, we didn’t have to search far to find tape Q875. Someone had posted it online. I downloaded the audio file, hit play. It was chilling. Throughout the tape you could hear radio announcers in the background talking about Congressman Ryan’s death and the rumors of mass suicide the day before at Jonestown.
The day before.
Which meant Q875 had been recorded on November 19, 1978. The day after everyone at Jonestown was already dead.
We listened to the whole thing. Twice.
Then again.
Static… a radio announcer talking about the tragedy… a chair squeaking… a few voices in the background, someone saying “Shh!”… the sound of people moving around, opening and closing drawers… someone sneezing… an announcer mentioning that there would be autopsies performed on Ryan and the others, and then the garbled sound of one of the people there in the cabin muttering curses… more news reports about Jonestown… someone saying “Shut up!”… a screen door slamming… static.
“That is very, very eerie,” said Lien-hua. “Whoever made this tape did it with nearly one thousand corpses lying nearby.”
“I wonder if they’ve ever done a voice analysis on it,” I said.
Ralph shook his head. “Speech segments are too short.”
“So this tape was recorded on November 19”-I was thinking aloud-“the day after everyone supposedly died. Why?”
“What I wanna know,” said Ralph, “is if everyone at Jonestown died on the 18th, who made the tape?”
“What tape?” asked someone in the doorway.
We turned.
Margaret.
Aaron Jeffrey Kincaid, the Father, the Master, removed a black and white photograph of three smiling children from the wall. A blowing ocean of wheat fields stretched behind them and ended at the base of a lush jungle. He tilted the photograph in the gentle, dancing candlelight. These children had been waiting in line when he ran into the jungle. Even now, thirty years later, he remembered their names: Jacob and Isaiah and Emilia. He remembered seeing them giggling and teasing each other as they waited for their turn to drink from the vat, just like schoolchildren might do while waiting in line beside the drinking fountain at recess.
“We are not committing suicide,” Kincaid remembered hearing Jim Jones say as the people lined up. “It’s a revolutionary act. To me death is not a fearful thing, it’s living that’s treacherous.”
Living is treacherous.
Kincaid turned to David. “We are in the business of sowing beliefs. And we must be ready for whatever fruit those beliefs produce. Both in our lives and in the lives of those we teach.” He put the picture down next to one of the candles.
“Yes, Father.” David’s voice rang with resolve.
Kincaid knew that David was a true believer. He had already made significant sacrifices, had already proven his devotion. Yes. Kincaid was proud of his son.
“And do you know the rest of the verse, David? The rest of the words of the Nazarene?”
A short pause and then, “No, Father. Forgive me.”
“‘A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.’ Matthew chapter seven.” As he said the words he stared intently at the photograph. Then he turned to look at his pupil. “We are about to cast the tree that does not bear good fruit into the fire. The corrupt tree cannot be allowed to grow any longer.”
“Yes, Father.”
Kincaid set the picture back on the shelf. “I’ll join the others soon, David. Tell them to begin with the children.”
“Yes, Father.” Then, without another word, David bowed deeply and backed out of the room.
Kincaid watched him go. Yes, beliefs bring forth fruit, and now the whole world would see the depth of his beliefs. The media elite and the United States government would taste for themselves the bitter fruit they had sown when they hunted down, harassed, and then defamed his family.
For a few more moments he watched the candlelight flicker and reflect. Flicker and reflect. Illuminating his faces of the children.
Then he blew out the candles so that he was once again alone in the darkness, with the stars blinking at him through the night. A family of daggers puncturing the sky. How many stars were in the sky, he did not know: to him there were 909-one of each family member who died in the jungle.
Always 909 points of light piercing the darkness.
Then, he reached up with his hand and felt his shoulder, the scar that had started it all.
Some scars are meant to be caressed forever.