First Marine Division
Solomon Islands—South Pacific
May 1943
Seeing it set in the ground under the glare of light, Matlock had the feeling he was looking at a grave.
He pushed away the surrounding mud and dug a tiny trench around the metal. On his hands and knees, he slowly, awkwardly lifted the plaque up and carefully placed it to one side.
He had found it.
Buried in earth was a metal container—the type used in library archives for valuable manuscripts. Airtight, weatherproofed, vacuumed, a receptacle for the ages.
A coffin, Matlock thought.
He picked it up and inserted his cold, wet fingers under the lever of the coiled hasp. It took considerable strength to pull it up, but finally it was released. There was the rush of air one hears upon opening a tin of coffee. The rubber edges parted. Inside Matlock could see an oilcloth packet in the shape of a notebook.
He knew he’d found the indictment.
30
The notebook was thick, over three hundred pages, and every word was handwritten in ink. It was in the form of a diary, but the lengthy entries varied enormously. There was no consistency regarding dates. Often days followed one another; at other times entries were separated by weeks, even months. The writing also varied. There were stretches of lucid narrative followed by incoherent, disjointed rambling. In the latter sections the hand had shaken, the words were often illegible.
Lucas Herron’s diary was a cry of anguish, an outpouring of pain. A confessional of a man beyond hope.
As he sat on the cold wet ground, mesmerized by Herron’s words, Matlock understood the motives behind Herron’s Nest, the forbidding green wall, the window shades, the total isolation.
Lucas Herron had been a drug addict for a quarter of a century. Without the drugs, his pain was unendurable. And there was absolutely nothing anyone could do for him except confine him to a ward in a Veterans’ Hospital for the remainder of his unnatural life.
It was the rejection of this living death that had plunged Lucas Herron into another.
Major Lucas Nathaniel Herron, USMCR, attached to Amphibious Assault Troops, Raider Battalions, Fleet Marine Force, Pacific, had led numerous companies of the Fourteenth Battalion, First Marine Division, in ranger assaults on various islands throughout the Japanese-held Solomons and Carolinas.
And Major Lucas Herron had been carried off the tiny island of Peleliu in the Carolinas on a stretcher, having brought two companies back to the beach through jungle fire. None thought he could survive.
Major Lucas Herron had a Japanese bullet imbedded at the base of his neck, lodged in a section of his nervous system. He was not expected to live. The doctors, first in Brisbane, then San Diego, and finally at Bethesda, considered further operations unfeasible. The patient could not survive them; he would be reduced to a vegetable should even the slightest complication set in. No one wished to be responsible for that.
They put the patient under heavy medication to relieve the discomfort of his wounds. And he lay there in the Maryland hospital for over two years.
The stages of healing—partial recovery—were slow and painful. First, there were the neck braces and the pills; then the braces and the metal frames for walking, and still the pills. At last the crutches, along with the braces and always the pills. Lucas Herron came back to the land of the living—but not without the pills. And in moments of torment—the needle of morphine at night.
There were hundreds, perhaps thousands, like Lucas Herron, but few had his extraordinary qualifications—for those who sought him out. An authentic hero of the Pacific war, a brilliant scholar, a man above reproach.
He was perfect. He could be used perfectly.
On the one hand, he could not live, could not endure, without the relief afforded him by the narcotics—the pills and the increasingly frequent needles. On the other hand, if the degree of his dependence was known medically, he would be returned to a hospital ward.
These alternatives were gradually, subtly made clear to him. Gradually in the sense that his sources of supply needed favors now and then—a contact to be made in Boston, men to be paid in New York. Subtly, in that when Herron questioned the involvement, he was told it was really quite harmless. Harmless but necessary.
As the years went by, he became enormously valuable to the men he needed so badly. The contact in Boston, the men to be paid in New York, became more and more frequent, more and more necessary. Then Lucas was sent farther and farther afield. Winter vacations, spring midterms, summers: Canada, Mexico, France … the Mediterranean.
He became a courier.
And always the thought of the hospital ward on his tortured body and brain.
They had manipulated him brilliantly. He was never exposed to the results of his work, never specifically aware of the growing network of destruction he was helping to build. And when finally he learned of it all, it was too late. The network had been built.
Nimrod had his power.
April 22, 1951. At midterm they’re sending me back to Mexico. I’ll stop at the U. of M.—as usual—and on the way back at Baylor. A touch of irony: the bursar here called me in, saying Carlyle would be pleased to help defray my “research” expenses. I declined, and told him the disability allowance was sufficient. Perhaps I should have accepted.…
June 13, 1956. To Lisbon for three weeks. A routing map, I’m told, for a small ship. Touching the Azores, through Cuba (a mess!), finally into Panama. Stops—for me—at the Sorbonne, U. of Toledo, U. of Madrid. I’m becoming an academic gadfly! I’m not happy about methods—who could be?—but neither am I responsible for the archaic laws. So many, many can be helped. They need help! I’ve been in touch with scores on the telephone—they put me in touch—men like myself who couldn’t face another day without help.… Still, I worry.… Still, what can I do? Others would do it, if not me …
February 24, 1957. I’m alarmed but calm and reasonable (I hope!) about my concerns. I’m told now that when they send me to make contacts I am the messenger from “Nimrod”! The name is a code—a meaningless artifice, they say—and will be honored. It’s all so foolish—like the intelligence information we’d receive from Mac-Arthur’s HQ in So-Pac. They had all the codes and none of the facts.… The pain is worse, the medics said it would get worse. But … “Nimrod’s” considerate.… As I am.…
March 10, 1957. They were angry with me! They withheld my dosage for two days—I thought I would kill myself! I started out in my car for the VA hospital in Hartford, but they stopped me on the highway. They were in a Carlyle patrol car—I should have known they had the police here!… It was either compromise or the ward!… They were right!… I’m off to Canada and the job is to bring in a man from North Africa.… I must do it! The calls to me are constant. This evening a man—Army, 27th—Naha casualty—from East Orange, N.J., said that he and six others depended on me! There are so many like ourselves! Why? Why, for God’s sake, are we despised? We need help and all that’s offered to us are the wards!…
August 19, 1960. I’ve made my position clear! They go too far … “Nimrod” is not just a code name for a location, it’s also a man! The geography doesn’t change but the man does. They’re not helping men like me any longer—well, maybe they are—but it’s more than us! They’re reaching out—they’re attracting people—for a great deal of money!…
August 20, 1960. Now they’re threatening me. They say I’ll have no more once my cabinet’s empty.… I don’t care! I’ve enough for a week—with luck—a week and a half.… I wish I liked alcohol more, or that it didn’t make me sick.…
August 28, 1960. I shook to my ankles but I went to the Carlyle Police Station. I wasn’t thinking. I asked to speak with the highest man in authority and they said it was after five o’clock—he had gone home. So I said I had information about narcotics and within ten minutes the chief of police showed up.… By now I was obvious—I couldn’t control myself—I urinated through my trousers. T
he chief of police took me into a small room and opened his kit and administered a needle. He was from Nimrod!…
October 7, 1965. This Nimrod is displeased with me. I’ve always gotten along with the Nimrods—the two I’ve met, but this one is sterner, more concerned with my accomplishments. I refuse to touch students, he accepts that, but he says I am getting silly in my classroom lectures, I’m not bearing down. He doesn’t care that I don’t solicit—he doesn’t want me to—but he tells me that I should be—well, be more conservative in my outlook.… It’s strange. His name is Matthew Orton and he’s an insignificant aide to the lieutenant governor in Hartford. But he’s Nimrod. And I’ll obey.…
November 14, 1967. The back is intolerable now—the doctors said it would disintegrate—that was their word—but not like this! I can get through forty minutes of a lecture and then I must excuse myself!… I ask always—is it worth it?… It must be or I wouldn’t go on.… Or am I simply too great an egoist—or too much a coward—to take my life?… Nimrod sees me tonight. In a week it’s Thanksgiving—I wonder where I will go.…
January 27, 1970. It has to be the end now. In C. Fry’s beautiful words, the “seraphic strawberry, beaming in its bed” must turn and show its nettles. There’s nothing more for me and Nimrod has infected too many, too completely. I will take my life—as painlessly as possible—there’s been so much pain.…
January 28, 1970. I’ve tried to kill myself! I can’t do it! I bring the gun, then the knife to the point, but it will not happen! Am I really so infused, so infected that I cannot accomplish that which is most to be desired?… Nimrod will kill me. I know that and he knows it better.
January 29, 1970. Nimrod—he’s now Arthur Latona! Unbelievable! The same Arthur Latona who built the middle-income housing projects in Mount Holly!—At any rate, he’s given me an unacceptable order. I’ve told him it’s unacceptable. I’m far too valuable to be discarded and I’ve told him that, too.… He wants me to carry a great deal of money to Toros Daglari in Turkey!… Why, oh why, can’t my life be ended?…
April 18, 1971. It’s a wondrously strange world. To survive, to exist and breathe the air, one does so much one comes to loathe. The total is frightening … the excuses and the rationalizations are worse.… Then something happens which suspends—or at least postpones—all necessity of judgment.… The pains shifted from the neck and spine to the lower sides. I knew it had to be something else. Something more.… I went to Nimrod’s doctor—as I must—always. My weight has dropped, my reflexes are pathetic. He’s worried and tomorrow I enter the private hospital in Southbury. He says for an exploratory.… I know they’ll do their best for me. They have other trips—very important trips, Nimrod says. I’ll be traveling throughout most of the summer, he tells me.… If it wasn’t me, it would be someone else. The pains are terrible.
May 22, 1971. The old, tired soldier is home. Herron’s Nest is my salvation! I’m minus a kidney. No telling yet about the other, the doctor says. But I know better. I’m dying.… Oh, God, I welcome it! There’ll be no more trips, no more threats. Nimrod can do no more.… They’ll keep me alive, too. As long as they can. They have to now!… I hinted to the doctor that I’ve kept a record over the years. He just stared at me speechless. I’ve never seen a man so frightened.…
May 23, 1971. Latona—Nimrod—dropped by this morning. Before he could discuss anything, I told him I knew I was dying. That nothing mattered to me now—the decision to end my life was made, not by me. I even told him that I was prepared—relieved; that I had tried to end it myself but couldn’t. He asked about “what you told the doctor.” He wasn’t able to say the words! His fear blanketed the living room like a heavy mist.… I answered calmly, with great authority, I think. I told him that whatever records there were would be given to him—if my last days or months were made easier for me. He was furious but he knew there wasn’t anything he could do. What can a person do with an old man in pain who knows he’s going to die? What arguments are left?
August 14, 1971. Nimrod is dead! Latona died of a coronary! Before me, and there’s irony in that!… Still the business continues without change. Still I’m brought my supplies every week and every week the frightened messengers ask the questions—where are they? Where are the records?—they come close to threatening me but I remind them that Nimrod had the word of a dying old man. Why would I change that?… They retreat into their fear.… A new Nimrod will be chosen soon.… I’ve said I didn’t want to know—and I don’t!
September 20, 1971. A new year begins for Carlyle. My last year, I know that—what responsibilities I can assume, that is.… Nimrod’s death has given me courage. Or is it the knowledge of my own? God knows I can’t undo much but I can try!… I’m reaching out, I’m finding a few who’ve been hurt badly, and if nothing else I offer help. It may only be words, or advice, but just the knowledge that I’ve been there seems to be comforting. It’s always such a shock to those I speak with! Imagine! The “grand old bird”! The pains and the numbness are nearly intolerable. I may not be able to wait.…
December 23, 1971. Two days before my last Christmas. I’ve said to so many who’ve asked me to their homes that I was going into New York. Of course, it’s not so. I’ll spend the days here at the Nest.… A disturbing note. The messengers tell me that the new Nimrod is the sternest, strongest one of all. They say he’s ruthless. He orders executions as easily as his predecessors issued simple requests. Or are they telling me these things to frighten me? That can’t frighten me!
February 18, 1972. The doctor told me that he’d prescribe heavier “medication” but warned me not to overdose. He, too, spoke of the new Nimrod. Even he’s worried—he implied that the man was mad. I told him I didn’t want to know anything. I was out of it.
February 26, 1972. I can’t believe it! Nimrod is a monster! He’s got to be insane! He’s demanded that all those who’ve been working here over three years be cut off—sent out of the country—and if they refuse—be killed! The doctor’s leaving next week. Wife, family, practice.… Latona’s widow was murdered in an “automobile accident”! One of the messengers—Pollizzi—was shot to death in New Haven. Another—Capalbo—OD’d and the rumor is that the dose was administered!
April 5, 1972. From Nimrod to me—deliver to the messengers any and all records or he’ll shut off my supplies. My house will be watched around the clock. I’ll be followed wherever I go. I’ll not be allowed to get any medical attention whatsoever. The combined effects of the cancer and the withdrawal will be beyond anything I can imagine. What Nimrod doesn’t know is that before he left the doctor gave me enough for several months. He frankly didn’t believe I’d last that long.… For the first time in this terrible, horrible life, I’m dealing from a position of strength. My life is firmer than ever because of death.
April 10, 1972. Nimrod is near the point of hysterics with me. He’s threatened to expose me—which is meaningless. I’ve let him know that through the messengers. He’s said that he’ll destroy the whole Carlyle campus, but if he does that he’ll destroy himself as well. The rumor is that he’s calling together a conference. An important meeting of powerful men.… My house is now watched—as Nimrod said it would be—around the clock. By the Carlyle police, of course. Nimrod’s private army!
April 22, 1972. Nimrod has won! It’s horrifying, but he’s won! He sent me two newspaper clippings. In each a student was killed by an overdose. The first a girl in Cambridge, the second a boy from Trinity. He says that he’ll keep adding to the list for every week I withhold the records.… Hostages are executed!—He’s got to be stopped! But how? What can I do?… I’ve got a plan but I don’t know if I can do it—I’m going to try to manufacture records. Leave them intact. It will be difficult—my hands shake so sometimes! Can I possibly get through it?—I have to. I said I’d deliver a few at a time. For my own protection. I wonder if he’ll agree to that?
April 24, 1972. Nimrod’s unbelievably evil, but he’s a realist. He knows he can do nothing el
se! We both are racing against the time of my death. Stalemate! I’m alternating between a typewriter and different fountain pens and various types of paper. The killings are suspended but I’m told they will resume if I miss one delivery! Nimrod’s hostages are in my hands! Their executions can be prevented only by me!
April 27, 1972. Something strange is happening! The Beeson boy phoned our contact at Admissions. Jim Matlock was there and Beeson suspects him. He asked questions, made an ass of himself with Beeson’s wife.… Matlock isn’t on any list! He’s no part of Nimrod—on either side. He’s never purchased a thing, never sold.… The Carlyle patrol cars are always outside now. Nimrod’s army is alerted. What is it?
April 27, 1972—P.M. The messengers came—two of them—and what they led me to believe is so incredible I cannot write it here.… I’ve never asked the identity of Nimrod, I never wanted to know. But panic’s rampant now, something is happening beyond even Nimrod’s control. And the messengers told me who Nimrod is.… They lie! I cannot, will not believe it! If it is true we are all in hell!
Matlock stared at the last entry helplessly. The handwriting was hardly readable; most of the words were connected with one another as if the writer could not stop the pencil from racing ahead.
April 28. Matlock was here. He knows! Others know! He says the government men are involved now.… It’s over! But what they can’t understand is what will happen—a bloodbath, killings—executions! Nimrod can do no less! There will be so much pain. There will be mass killing and it will be provoked by an insignificant teacher of the Elizabethans.… A messenger called. Nimrod himself is coming out. It is a confrontation. Now I’ll know the truth—who he really is.… If he’s who I’ve been led to believe—somehow I’ll get this record out—somehow. It’s all that’s left. It’s my turn to threaten.… It’s over now. The pain will soon be over, too.… There’s been so much pain … I’ll make one final entry when I’m sure.…