The Confession of Joe Cullen by Howard Fast Read Free Book Online Page A

wanted to know was why O’Healey had been there in cuffs.
    â€œJust for what he was doing, being with the guerrillas and being a priest to them and to the Indians. They captured him, and the word was that they were going to send him stateside and that we would carry him in our plane. But a few hours before we were supposed to take off, they got some change of orders and I was told that they were going to fly the priest down to the contra main base. I guess I had shot off my mouth about being a class chopper pilot, so this Honduran officer there — his name is Sanchez — he tells me to pick up one of the helicopters and fly the priest there. So like the asshole I am, I did it, and a soldier brought O’Healey into the helicopter, and Sanchez comes with us and tells me to lift off.”
    â€œIn Spanish?” Ramos wanted to know.
    â€œIn Spanish. My Spanish isn’t the worst, but he had a mouthful of marbles and was hard to understand. I ask him where we were going. He says first we take the Christo home, so we go to the mountains.”
    â€œMother of God,” Ramos said.
    â€œI should have known, but until O’Healey yells to me, ‘Cullen, they’re going to kill me,’ I don’t know, and then Sanchez tries to shut him up, struggling with him, and meanwhile he opens the door of the chopper and I start down. We are up maybe eight, nine hundred feet and Sanchez and the guard throw Father O’Healey out of the copter, and with all the noise I hear his scream as he falls.”
    â€œYou saw his body?”
    â€œI saw it,” Cullen said. “I tried to get down. I guess I was half crazy, calling those bastards everything rotten I could think of and ready to dive and smash the plane and die with those bastards, and then Sanchez points the muzzle of his pistol at me, and maybe I could die in a crash, which was the way I always expected to go, but I couldn’t deal with the thought of a bullet smashing my head, so I brought the Sikorsky back and landed it as hard as I could, knocking Sanchez off his feet, and then I began to kick him, landing a few good ones, and then the soldiers pulled me off, and I wrenched myself out of their grip. Oscar was standing, watching, and I yelled to Oscar, ‘We are getting to hell out of here, now! Fucken now!’”
    Cullen stopped speaking. He was covered with sweat, his shirt wet under his jacket, the sweat beading his face, his hands trembling. Leary lit a cigarette and handed it to him. He puffed and then drew a deep breath of smoke.
    â€œThey let you go?” Freedman said. “Just like that?”
    â€œSanchez was unconscious,” Cullen answered, speaking with visible effort. “I guess the soldiers didn’t want to do anything until someone told them what to do, and Oscar didn’t know what the hell was going on. Our plane was fueled. I would have taken off without Oscar if he hadn’t come with me. He might have stopped me, but I picked up the pistol Sanchez had dropped and told him I’d kill him if he interfered with the takeoff.”
    â€œAnd when you got back to the States?”
    â€œI left my car at the airport in Texas. I got into it and drove. No one tried to stop me.”
    â€œSo that’s it? That’s the way it happened?”
    â€œThat’s it.”
    â€œAnd nobody stopped you there in Texas? Nobody called the cops?”
    â€œMaybe they didn’t know what happened.”
    â€œDidn’t Oscar tell them?”
    â€œI suppose he did. You want them to be crazy enough to call the cops?”
    â€œAnd the pistol?”
    â€œI emptied it and left it with Oscar.”
    â€œDid you tell Oscar what had happened?” Ramos asked.
    â€œI told him.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œHe said it was none of my fucken business.”
    â€œWhere is he?”
    Cullen shrugged. “I suppose he’s where I left him.”

Freedman

F REEDMAN told the