PERSONAL OBLIVION

Chapter One

Riley Folsom didn’t really want to join the “D” Association, but membership was mandatory for anyone who earned a varsity letter in football at Desmond High School in the late 1960’s. At age 16, Riley had played varsity football for the first time as a sophomore and managed to log enough minutes of playing time to earn a letter. He was proud of his achievement, not only because he was not a particularly athletic individual, but because it meant he would have at least a chance of getting some girl to go on a date with him. He was right. During the first part of the second semester of the school year, he was able to secure dates with several girls, although none of them had accepted his offer for a follow-up date. So, if he didn’t join the lettermen’s club, not only would he be ridiculed by his teammates, he would have no further chances with the girls – at least that’s the way he figured it.

Initiation into the “D” Association was a brutal and demeaning affair, involving seven days and nights of serious physical abuse, disgusting rituals and every form of hazing one could imagine. This process had been going on for years and one could be sure that this year’s group would be treated no better than any who had gone before. Each of the upper-classmen who would be administering the initiation treatment had themselves been through the process and generally held the view that every new recruit should and would receive equal abuse. Eventually, hazing at this level would be addressed and restricted, but that time had not yet come in Desmond, Texas.

Adam Carter, a senior member of the “D” Association, held somewhat different ideas about the initiation process. As a three-year letterman on the football team, Adam was well-respected by his peers, not only because he was a star running back on the team but because he was an excellent student, who retained a level of humility that ingratiated him to teammates, fellow students and faculty members alike. He had already secured an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and would be heading to that distant locale soon after his upcoming graduation day. Although he had endured the awful initiation process three years earlier, Adam was of the view – which he maintained in silence – that the barbaric treatment of new recruits should be seriously revised, if not abolished altogether. Man’s inhumanity to man had been demonstrated in all manner of circumstances, sometimes based on religious grounds, political convenience, territorial disputes and even simple attitude discrepancies. Practicing this concept as a ritual for no meaningful purpose seemed particularly distasteful. So, while he would attend the sessions where attendance was considered mandatory, he never could bring himself to actually participate in the proceedings.

On one evening during the latter part of the hazing week, the new recruits, including Riley Folsom, were encouraged/forced to drink excessive amounts of some high-alcohol content beverage cooked up at one member’s house. In their drunken states, the recruits were made to perform all sorts of self-deprecating acts, all the time being fed more and more alcohol. Eventually, a few of the recruits passed out, one of them being Folsom. Without much delay, the inebriated individuals were roused and required to continue with the night’s program. Riley Folsom, however, could not be awakened. Finally, two of the members turned to Adam Carter, who had been sitting on the ground nearby with his back leaning against a tree, waiting for the rituals to conclude. The hazers must have figured that Adam would be best suited to deal with any problems exhibited by Folsom – and they would have been right, except that the problem with Riley Folsom was that he was dead, most likely from alcohol poisoning and its severe effects.

After a series of “oh geezes”, “oh shits” and “oh dears”, followed by much hand-wringing and head scratching, Carter suggested that the other two boys find the rest of the group, call off the rally and send everyone home, saying nothing about the Folsom situation. The rest of the party had moved on to another part of the farm and were quite receptive to the idea of calling it quits for the night, the novelty of the drunken recruits’ antics, punctuated by much puking and pissing, having worn a little thin by that time. Wes Tanner and Pete Malone, the two boys who were involved with Carter in dealing with the Folsom problem, quickly returned to discuss their options. Carter immediately said they should just call the police and let them handle it. Tanner and Mason both chimed in with their strong disagreements.

“Are you serious man? No way am I getting involved with the police” Wes said. “I’ve already had one run-in and something like this will get me in more trouble than I can handle right now.”

Pete followed with “You know my old man is on the police force and he has made it clear he would disown me if he ever had to run me in, especially if it was something this serious.”

“Well, what do you suggest we do,” Carter asked.

Tanner cleared his throat several times before speaking in a very low voice, “We can’t let him be dead.”

Malone piped up, “What the hell do you mean by that, genius? Take a look to your left and tell me what you see. No, don’t bother. It’s a dead body.”

“OK,” said Tanner. “Hear me out. I’ve been thinking about this ever since we came across this problem. Folsom’s parents are a couple of dead-beats, right. His dad is a lazy-ass boot-legger and his mom is a lay-about sot who drinks up just about half the liquor the dad is trying to pawn off. Folsom has said many times to anyone who would listen that as soon as he got his driver’s license and a car, he was going to leave this shit-hole town and head for Canada. His parents would never miss him or even know he was gone, he said time and again. While I doubt that rattle-trap car of his could make it to Canada, who knows for sure.”

“So, you’re suggesting we drive hm up to Canada and drop him off somewhere,” Malone wanted to know.

“No, dumb-ass. I’m suggesting we get rid of his body and his car and let everyone assume he has gone and done exactly what he has threatened to do all along – run away from home and headed for Canada.”

Adam Carter wasn’t ready to dismiss this idea out of hand. He had reasons of his own for not getting caught up in this mess. His appointment to West Point could easily be rescinded for almost any reason, but being mixed up in the death of a fellow student would most certainly produce that result. He had worked toward getting into West Point for as long as he could remember and certainly didn’t want to have his goal thwarted only a couple of weeks before he was to report to the academy. So, he asked, “just how do you propose we carry out this crazy plan and how long do we have to keep Folsom alive – forever?”

“Not forever. Just long enough for people to forget about him, which I don’t think will take very long at all,” offered Tanner.

“We’re going to have to do something besides letting people assume he’s run off. Maybe we could make up a note he can leave behind somewhere,” Malone chimed in.

“That won’t work ‘cause we don’t have any idea what his handwriting looks like,” Tanner responded.

“OK, OK, let’s forget about how we keep him alive for a while – I have some ideas about that. Right now, let’s figure out what to do with the body,” Carter suggested, now being fully onboard with the plan to keep Folsom alive.

Malone said, “Remember last summer when we were up at Lake Texoma scouting around and found this place with a kind of high cliff that was set back in the woods out of the way, sort of? We all jumped off the cliff into the water and discovered it was one of the deepest parts of the lake. Maybe we could drive his car up to that point and, with him in the driver’s seat, we push it off into the lake and let it sink. If it sinks, great. If it doesn’t, with all the alcohol in his system, people might think he was so drunk he just drove himself off the cliff by mistake.”

“They’ll be able to figure out he was already dead before he went in the water, so what then?”

“Maybe so, if they investigate it thoroughly, but whose to say they’ll go to that much trouble. Plus, I’m pretty sure the car will sink all the way down, in which case it may never get discovered.”

Obviously, the boys were not thinking clearly, so, in desperation, more or less, they decided to go with Malone’s suggestion. They drove Folsom’s car up to Lake Texoma, about 40 miles away, found the spot with the cliff and rolled the car over the edge with Folsom buckled up inside. They all watched as the car did, in fact, sink out of sight.

Before strapping the body in the driver’s seat, Carter had retrieved Folsom’s wallet, removed the driver’s license and Social Security card and put the wallet back in the rear pocket of the boy’s jeans. He then proceeded to Folsom’s home where he found both parents passed out and snoring heavily in the living room, one on the couch and the other in a reclining chair. Mason jars were sitting nearby containing small levels of liquid Adam could only assume to be some form of alcohol. The back door had been unlocked when Adam arrived and he noticed the front door being wide open as well, with only a screen door separating the couple from the outdoors. Moving swiftly and quietly, though he probably need not have worried about waking the parents, he gathered up some of Riley’s clothes, walked a short way down the road where he had parked his car and headed home. A bit of light was beginning to show in the east by that time, so Adam determined he would dispose of Riley’s clothes later.

Instead of feigning illness and staying home from school that morning, Adam made the effort to show up for classes as usual, thinking it would be important to be around to deflect any concerns and questions regarding the whereabouts of Riley Folsom. On that first day, no one even seemed to notice his absence. In the days following, when the issue came up – which it did only infrequently — Carter, Tanner and Malone would each provide similar, but not identical explanations, saying, in essence, that Folsom was quite upset after the hazing rally and insisted he was not going to take any more. He was leaving for Canada right away, he had said, just like he had threatened on numerous prior occasions. Folsom’s parents did not bother to ask the police for help in finding their son. Presumably, they just figured he had finally made good on his multiple threats and ran away from home. As they would have put it, Riley had simply r-u-n-o-f-t (and that’s precisely how they would say it – spelling it out, letter-by-letter; and that is exactly how they would spell it, with a T).

Chapter Two

In the summer of 1975, a tall, lean young man showed up in Aspen, Colorado, looking for work, but with no references and little relevant work experience, he was having some difficulty. Finally, he walked into a restaurant called “The Shaft” and was immediately hired as a waiter/bus boy after providing nothing more than his New York driver’s license and a legitimate Social Security card. The resident owner had been impressed with the manner in which the young man carried himself, his articulate speech and his readily apparent physical conditioning. So, Riley Folsom from Fishkill, New York, as his identification documents would verify, began a stay in Aspen that would last for many years to come. He would not only learn how to ski, he would become something of an expert at it, ultimately landing a job as a ski instructor. Coupled with another endeavor as a hunting and fishing guide during the summer months, Folsom was able to earn a living working outdoors on a year-round basis.

During the course of his development as a skier, Riley met and fell in love with one Louella Masters, a high school teacher in nearby Glenwood Springs, Colorado. The two were married after a one-year courtship and a child was produced roughly one year after the marriage. The little girl quickly became the apple of her father’s eye and the two became inseparable over time. It was in the child’s 7^th year when two events occurred during a three-day span which would eventually turn their happy world in Colorado upside down.

One such event occurred when Riley and his daughter, Gemma, went into town to take care of a couple of business matters and then do a little shopping for fall clothes for Gemma, with the new school year fast approaching. Their first stop was at the bank, located in the central part of the town of Aspen. As they walked through the front door, a man wearing a ski mask grabbed Gemma by the arm and jerked her in his direction. As he did so, he said something like, ”Come here girl, we can use you. And you, big guy, get over there on the floor with the rest of them,” pointing a gun he held in his right hand in the direction of a group of men and women on the floor of the bank lobby.

Many would say that what happened next was an intuitive reaction by a parent upon seeing his child grabbed away from him. But intuition does not normally point to violence, except in extreme cases of self-preservation. No, what happened was a result of extensive and intensive training. Riley turned away from the man with the gun for a second, giving the appearance of following the instruction to join the others on the lobby floor. Instead, he was positioning himself to swing his right leg in a high arc, giving due regard to the disparate heights of the man and his daughter, striking the man with the heel of his boot squarely against the temple of the man’s head, knocking him senseless immediately. As the man staggered and began to crumple to the floor, Riley grabbed Gemma’s arm and pulled her behind him, while simultaneously reaching for the gun which the man was releasing as he fell.

A second man in a ski mask was standing at a teller’s window, hurriedly stuffing cash into a duffle bag, when he heard the commotion caused by his partner in crime collapsing on the floor. The gun the second robber had been carrying had been placed on the shelf by the teller’s window while he busied himself with collecting the cash. Before he could turn, recognize the situation and reach for his gun, Riley was on top of him, chopping the arm outstretched to retrieve the weapon. Riley planted his knee squarely in the man’s back and shoved him against the counter of the teller’s window, causing a loud scream of pain. While subduing the man by holding both arms behind his back, Riley shouted at the teller to activate the silent alarm and to call the police, which she did. In the moments that followed, with Gemma still standing close behind her father, a great sigh of relief burst forth from the people on the lobby floor as they realized the affair was basically over. Two unarmed security guards, who were among those on the floor, came forward, retrieved the robbers’ weapons and relieved Riley from any further obligations to control the situation. Riley suggested to the guards that a third perpetrator was most likely waiting outside in a get-away car.

At this point, Riley checked to make sure Gemma was unhurt and then attempted to hurry out the door of the bank, something that proved impossible as the customers and employees who had witnessed the occurrence surrounded the two, offering their sincere thanks while demanding to know who they were and how he had managed to overcome the two robbers. As politely as he could under the circumstances, Riley introduced himself and his daughter to the crowd as being local residents and then hustled out the door before the police arrived. If Riley harbored any hopes of avoiding attention by hurrying away, they would have been dashed rather quickly. After completing their planned clothes shopping in town, when they got to their home on Red Mountain across from the ski area, Riley and Gemma were met by quite a crowd, made up mostly of reporters, but led by two uniformed police officers.

The police officers were invited into the house and all others were asked to leave, a request that was universally ignored. While photos were taken, Riley made certain to turn away or cover his face so that no one got a clear picture. Once inside, the police wanted a complete description of exactly what had happened in the bank lobby that morning. Riley simply recounted that an armed man in a mask had grabbed his daughter and pulled her away from him, saying something about using her, no doubt meaning that he planned to take her as a hostage, something Riley could not abide, so he fought with the man briefly and then subdued a second masked gunman who was stuffing cash into a duffel bag.

“Once the police were called and bank security took charge, I left with my daughter. That’s about all there was to it,” Riley concluded.

“Well, there seems to be a little more to it than that, I think,” one policeman said. “Where did you learn to fight like that?”

“There wasn’t much of a fight, really,” Riley replied. “The first robber went down with just one blow and the other one I caught off-guard while he was busy shoving money into a bag.”

“True enough, it seems,” said the other police officer. “Yet most people don’t start a fight leading with a heel kick, wouldn’t you agree?”

“I guess not,” was Riley’s only response.

The policemen were obviously not satisfied, so they questioned further, demanding to know more about Riley’s background.

“OK, OK,” Riley finally offered. “I really don’t want to get into all this because I spent the Viet Nam war years in Canada, refusing to be drafted for a war I didn’t believe in. That position didn’t sit well with quite a few Americans, especially those who had been in the military, and I found I had to defend myself on quite a few occasions. So, I started taking some self-defense classes and got pretty good at it, I guess.”

The other officer then spoke up, “We were told you came to Colorado from New York, some place called Fishkill, which sounds kinda fake, not from Canada.”

“Actually, Fishkill is a really nice town located very near the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Maybe a little irony there – I hadn’t thought of it that way before – which is where I landed when I first came back to the states from Canada shortly after President Ford issued his amnesty rule for Americans in Canada who had avoided the draft. I was only there for a short time, maybe a couple of months before moving out here.”

None of what Riley had said about Canada and self-defense classes was true, actually sounding a little lame, but the officers seemed to be buying it, so he shrugged and asked, “Anything else?”

Folding up their note pads and heading to the front door, one officer said, “Nope, that’ll do it for now. Thanks for your help at the bank and with this info. You know the FBI will want to talk to you since a bank was involved. I’m surprised they haven’t already been out here. But, right now you have some real problems to deal with” pointing to the group of reporters and onlookers lurking outside.

After a few minutes, Riley said to Gemma, “Maybe we should get out of here and drive up to Glenwood Springs and find your mother before she hears about all this from someone else.”

“OK, but I’m scared, Daddy,” Gemma said. “That man at the bank grabbed my arm really hard. Are those men gonna come back here?”

“No, No, dear. The police took those men away and locked them up in jail. They will never be able to bother us again,” Riley responded.

“But why were those policemen here?” she wanted to know.

“Well, I think they just wanted to get to know us a little better and thank us for our help in catching those bad men in the masks. And I really do mean us –you and me — because you were so brave during that whole thing at the bank. I can’t wait to tell your mom how brave you were. Let’s go tell her about it.”

***

While classes were not in session at the time, Louella had been at the school all day in teachers’ meetings preparing for the school opening. It would have certainly been possible for the news of the failed bank robbery to get to her, but when Riley and Gemma caught up with her as she was leaving the school to head home, she was completely unaware of the robbery attempt or the involvement of her family. After recovering from the initial shock and with assurances that both were completely unharmed, Louella wanted to know about all the people gathered around their house and how they would deal with it.

“For right now,” Riley said, “I think we should just stay away from the house for a while, maybe have dinner here. I have some things to talk to both of you about.”

Chapter Three

The other of the two disruptive events had come just three days before the bank incident. It arrived in the form of an envelope addressed to R. Folsom, General Delivery, Aspen, Colorado with no return address. There was no letter inside, only a newspaper article that had been clipped from The Tishamingo News, published a week earlier. Tishamingo is a small town in Oklahoma, located a few miles north of the Texas border. The subject of the article was Lake Texoma, where an unusual phenomenon was occurring, which had local residents both curious and upset.

Lake Texoma is a large man-made lake situated on the border of Oklahoma and Texas. The lake was created during World War II as a means of controlling flooding in the area and providing certain hydro-electric power. Interestingly, most of the labor force used to build the Denison Dam, which created the lake, was performed by Nazi prisoners-of-war being held in camps nearby, most of them coming from General Edwin Rommel’s famed Afrika Korps. The Geneva Convention prohibited the use of prisoners of war to perform labor on any projects relating to the war effort; but building a dam to control flooding and to provide electrical power to the local citizenry was apparently not considered related to America’s war effort, which appears to have been a fair assessment.

It seems that, according to the article, a large vortex had developed somewhere near the southern end of the lake, causing massive drainage and creating a highly dangerous situation for boats, which could be swallowed up by the gigantic whirlpool effect. The vortex occurred when the Army Corps of Engineers undertook to drain some of the lake water after a period of four weeks of heavy rains in the area. The exact cause of the vortex problem remains a mystery, so it now appears the plan will be to drain the lake completely so that the area where the vortex developed can be reconstructed to avoid future problems of a similar nature.

For Riley Folsom, this bit of news represented a major cause for concern for him and two friends from his high school days in Desmond, Texas, a town located a few miles south of Lake Texoma.

Chapter Four

“He can do just about anything once he sets his mind to it” was a statement often used in assessing the potential and future prospects of Adam Carter. After a rather unremarkable childhood, somewhere during his 8^th grade year, Adam decided he wanted to attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to start a career in the Army. No one was ever really sure why he made such a decision, but once it was made, he developed an entirely new attitude about academics and his participation in school sports programs. Obviously, he had determined that getting in to West Point would not be easy and that excellent grades in high school would be an absolute necessity. As a high school freshman, he joined the football, basketball and baseball teams, showing enough potential in all three sports to launch a three-letter participation in those sports. In his senior year, Adam was elected President of the Student Council and finished as the Salutatorian of his graduating class. He also completed his Boy Scout training as an Eagle Scout. Even with all these credentials, Adam was still concerned about his prospects for being accepted at West Point. In order to gain acceptance, an applicant to West Point had to receive a recommendation from a U.S. Congressman or U.S. Senator from his state of residence. Adam and his parents had never been politically active – they didn’t even know who their Congressman was until Adam started his application process — so securing a meeting to convince such a political figure of Adam’s worthiness would prove to be difficult. But a combined effort from school faculty members solved the problem. Apparently, Adam’s resume and his personal interview produced the needed political recommendation and ultimate acceptance.

So, off to West Point he would go. But he didn’t travel there directly. Instead, he left home a day early in order to make a short trip up across the Canadian border, where he would mail three post cards which needed to be marked as having originated in Canada. Once that was accomplished, Adam headed back down to West Point to participate in the new cadet basic training program aptly called BEAST. Having planned and trained for this ordeal for many months, Adam sailed through the program while others around him were dropping like flies for a variety of reasons, but mostly because of poor preparation.

During his four years at the academy, Adam fully confirmed that he had made the right choice, excelling in all areas of his training there, especially the physical aspects. During his last 2 years at West Point, Adam had directed his efforts toward becoming an Army Ranger, but upon graduation he ultimately found himself moving in a slightly different direction, participating in the Special Forces Assessment and Selection (“SFAS”) program, an extremely grueling selection process and the first step toward becoming a member of the Army Special Forces (among those who ultimately qualify, the exhausting program is referred to simply as “Selection”, as in “Hey, man, how’d you do in Selection?”). After his eventual qualification, Adam found himself in the most demanding physical and mental training program in the American armed forces. Every form of combat was addressed, ranging from the most basic, being one-on-one, to the most sophisticated forms of tactical forces combat in all geographical situations, in jungles, in deserts, on mountains, in cities and in open fields. The training tested the human body, mind and spirit to the absolute limits – and Adam relished it. He was good at it and he developed a sense of pride in knowing what he could accomplish in any conflict situation. Unfortunately, as it would turn out, the skills developed in this training process would go mostly unused in a short career as a member of the Green Berets. His first assignment entailed a deployment overseas, where he spent a year without any form of combat duty before being called back to the states to participate in a domestic operation in Louisiana.

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency had uncovered an incredibly unique operation in New Orleans whereby the largest crime family in the southern regions of the country, the Caminitis in New Orleans, were not only conducting a huge trade in illegal drugs, but were using the money generated from those operations to purchase and then distribute large shipments of military arms to various buyers all over the globe, but mostly to smaller under-developed countries in Africa and Central America. Law enforcement officials had been unsuccessful in stopping the drug trafficking, managing only irregular and insignificant arrests of minor players in the drug distribution process. The higher-ups in the Caminiti family had thus far managed to evade any charges that could be made to stick. However, this new intelligence that the Caminitis were also engaging in illegal arms trading gave new hope for bringing down the mob group.

The resources within the CIA to confront and eliminate the arms activity were deemed insufficient. Thus, the Special Forces were called upon to participate in a combined operation, which was expected to include the serious risk of some form of armed conflict. The factor of international arms trading was cited as a basis for the jurisdictional issues surrounding the Special Forces involvement. The CIA had learned of an arms delivery event believed to be scheduled two weeks hence, to take place on Boudreaux’s Pier, one of the more obscure piers in the New Orleans area. The purchaser was to be an official delegation of the Nicaraguan government and the shipment was expected to be quite large. Nicaragua was a small country with essentially no military forces, but believed to be engaging in an effort to establish an organized militia, if not a true military force, for which sophisticated arms were essential.

On the night in question, Adam Carter and six other members of Special Forces, waited in hiding on the designated pier. Members of the FBI were also present, their job being to make the formal arrests at the appropriate time. There were also a handful of CIA agents and representatives of the U.S. Coast Guard deployed strategically around the expected exchange location. Unfortunately and tragically, the CIA’s intelligence was far, far off base. The purchasers who arrived at the pier to complete the arms purchase were not Nicaraguan officials, but a heavily armed contingent of the Ozuna drug cartel out of Columbia.

The good news was that Carlos and Ramon Caminiti were present for the proposed transaction. The twin brothers were expected to take over the Caminiti family operations whenever their father died or retired. So, the opportunity to capture high-ranking members of the family had presented itself. But, again unfortunately and tragically, one FBI agent inexplicably loudly introduced himself, held his identification credentials high over his head and claimed to arrest all present on the pier, prematurely and well before an actual exchange of money or arms had taken place. What happened next was a bit of a blur for Adam Carter and his mates, but the inept FBI agent who had stepped forward was shot to death where he stood on the pier, whether by the Caminitis or the Ozuna gang being unclear. Obviously, with the appearance of law enforcement personnel, each side to the transaction in progress believed they had been betrayed by the other, whether through collusion or plain ineptitude. The two parties thus became immediate mortal enemies and a volley of gunfire burst out from each camp, resulting in Carlos Caminiti being wounded and falling limp onto the pier.

With two criminal forces going at each other in armed combat, Adam Carter had some difficulty deciding which faction to support. Or, perhaps he should just lay low and let the criminals fight it out. However, seeing Carlos Caminiti laying helpless on the pier, fully exposed to further gunfire, set off an instinct in Adam, whether a natural one or one acquired in his training, it would be difficult to say. In ether case, his response was to dash onto the pier, fire two shots from his hand gun that downed a couple of cartel men fast approaching the fallen Caminiti, lift Carlos’s body and attempt to drag him out of the line of fire. He had almost made it to safety behind some metal bins on the side of the pier when another shot caught Carlos in the head, finally and fatally wounding him in Adam’s arms.

Eventually, the gunfire ceased and each side carefully retreated, leaving the arms shipment sitting on the pier. No arrests were made, but the arms shipment was confiscated. The only fatalities from the gunfight were the foolish FBI agent, the two men downed by Adam Carter and Carlos Caminiti. There were probably a number of wounded, but, if so, they all managed to escape with their respective groups. As for Adam Carter, he was subsequently berated by his superiors in Special Forces for his decision-making, but was not punished for his actions, which were deemed heroic, if ill-advised. Worst of all, despite the cover of darkness and the confusion of the melee, members of the Caminiti family were able to identify Adam and, far from saluting him for assisting a prominent family member, managed to blame the death of Carlos on him, thus making him an enemy and a target of the Caminiti family. The information about the identity of the soldier dragging a wounded man toward safety eventually made its way to the Ozuna group. Having killed two of that group’s men made Adam Carter an enemy and a target of the cartel, as well. Thus, by performing an act of human kindness and a form of heroism, Adam had succeeded in making himself a hunted man by two of the most vicious, vengeful and resourceful criminal groups in the world. He needed to disappear, at least for a while.

*****

Presented with the problem of Adam Carter’s extreme vulnerability to potential mortal harm, the Army was sympathetic to his wish to go into hiding. However, the Army could not, or at least would not, agree to create an official record of Carter’s death in the shoot-out in New Orleans. On the other hand, none of the Army personnel familiar with the situation ever undertook to dispel or deny any of the many rumors circulating to the effect that Carter had, in fact, died in the attack on the pier in New Orleans.

Adam was given a release from the remainder of his military obligation and was presented with an opportunity to participate in the government’s witness protection program, an offer he declined. At that time, the success rates in that program were not attractive; and given the power and resources available to the two entities interested in locating Carter, there was at least a fair likelihood he would be discovered. Also, Adam had his own plan for disappearing, a plan he implemented without conferring with a single government or Army figure, or with anyone else in the civilian world for that matter.

Chapter Five

After the Folsom family had settled into a booth at the restaurant in Glenwood Springs, Riley cleared his throat and began speaking in a low voice.

“As I mentioned, there is something I need to talk to both of you about and it starts with me letting you know that I am not and have never been, Riley Folsom. Hold on, I know this comes as a huge shock and you already have a ton of questions; but please hear me out and let me explain everything.”

Gemma blurted out, “Are you saying you aren’t my dad?”

“No, no, I’m not saying that because I am very much your dad who loves you more than anything in the world. I’m just saying my name is not Riley Folsom, so please, please let me explain everything.” Riley said this while holding up both hands, palms out, basically adopting a surrender position.

“Something happened years ago in my past that required me to adopt a new identity for my own protection.”

He then set out in general how he had, as a Special Forces soldier, been involved in the incident in New Orleans with the Caminiti family and the Ozuna cartel, creating the necessity for a change of identity. He did not tell them about the incident at Lake Texoma, figuring he needed a little more time to understand and assess that situation, which, he reasoned, might or might not become an issue of concern.

Louella, now in tears, waited a bit to make sure Riley was finished with his explanation and to give herself some time to process this bombshell of information as best she could, then finally asked, “So why haven’t you told us all this before and why are you telling us now? Did you not trust us to keep your secret identity a secret? Didn’t you think this was something we needed to know? So, the man I’ve been married to for eight years doesn’t exist? I’ve been living with a complete lie all this time?

Adam reached across the table to take his wife’s hand, but she withdrew it. Looking first at Gemma and then at Louella, he lowered his head and, in a voice barely above a whisper and with total contrition, said “Those are all good, important questions and I don’t have answers that will satisfy you, I know. Believe me, I am still the man you married back then and still the father I’ve always been, who loves you both with all my heart. All I can say is that I felt it was in all our best interests for me to keep that information to myself. My telling you about it before would only cause the two of you to worry unnecessarily without being able to do anything to change the situation. I may have been wrong, but, believe me, I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was doing what was best for the two of you.”

“And why are you telling us now?” Gemma wanted to know.

“Because of what happened today,” Riley said. “I think I successfully avoided allowing any photos of my face, but some enterprising reporter will soon get his hands on the bank’s security film footage of the incident, which will undoubtedly provide clear images of me. The printing and circulation of such photos will expose me to people I have been avoiding for years. And while you might think the encounter I described to you earlier will have long been forgotten, that will never happen in the two organizations and families I’m talking about. They don’t forget such things. So, I’m telling you now because I think we are all three in danger, serious danger, of the kind that probably will require us to move and make drastic changes in our lives.

“I’m truly sorry about all this, but especially for putting the two of you in harm’s way when you are completely innocent and had nothing to do with the creation of this danger. I should never have done what I did today, but the moment I felt Gemma was becoming a hostage, I reacted in a way I had been trained to respond. I simply could not stand the idea of her being harmed by obvious criminals. I’m sorry.”

Chapter Six

Upon graduation from high school, Adam Carter had taken a bus to New York to begin his career at West Point, deviating from a direct route to make a stop in Canada to mail some post cards. One such card was mailed to the parents of Riley Folsom containing a hand-written, but printed, message saying “MADE IT HERE. GLAD I LEFT. It was signed “RILES”, the name his parents used to call him. Again, it was not a signature, but just printed letters.

The other two post cards were addressed to Pete Malone and Wes Tanner at addresses for them in Desmond. The contents of the cards were also printed, containing a short message letting them know he had made it to Canada and planned to stay. They were signed with a printed RF. Most importantly, the cards would have postal markings showing they had originated in Canada. On another occasion during Carter’s third year at West Point, he traveled up to Canada to mail another post card to Folsom’s parents.

In his fourth year at West Point, Adam visited a department of motor vehicles office in Fishkill, New York, a small town located very near the academy at West Point. Armed with the Texas driver’s license and Social Security card he had taken from Riley Folsom, Adam managed to secure a new driver’s license in Folsom’s name, this one issued by the state of New York. At that time, very few states required a photo on the license. In fact, New York was the very last of the 50 states to impose such a requirement, doing so in 1984. Adam simply tucked the new license away, along with the Social Security card, not planning to use them in any particular way; it was just another step taken to “keep Folsom alive” according to the plan hatched by Carter, Tanner and Malone on that fateful night in Texas.

So, when Adam Carter found himself needing to disappear, following the fiasco on Boudreaux’s Pier in New Orleans, he had available to him a ready-made new identity. And he was already briefed on the back story of Riley Folsom from his early childhood in Desmond, Texas, to his years in Canada, supposedly there avoiding the draft during the Viet Nam War, to his reappearance in America in Fishkill, New York, following President Ford’s amnesty order, to his move to Colorado to start a new life. It all worked very well until two geographically separated events coalesced to change Adam’s life once again. And this time, there were two loved ones whose lives would change as well.

Chapter Seven

At the dinner in Glenwood Springs, Riley Folsom told Louella and Gemma Folsom the entire story of Adam Carter, his true self, from his childhood to his time at West Point, to his life as a Green Beret in the Army Special Forces, to the shoot-out on Boudreaux’s Pier and, finally to his adoption of the personae of Riley Folsom. What he did not tell them was what had happened to the real Riley Folsom. Addressing that particular incident would require Adam Carter to activate some memories and emotions he had been avoiding for years. While he probably had never heard of a concept known as the Oblivion Principle, he had been applying the basics of that principle throughout all the years since his final days as a high school student. The Oblivion concept has been around since at least 400 B.C. when it was recognized and applied by surviving Athenians after the civil war ending the brutal reign of the so-called Thirty Tyrants. In essence, the survivors undertook not to remember the horrors endured so that it would be possible to return to the kind of life that existed before the monstrous reign of terror. The application of the Oblivion concept does not require forgiveness for essentially unforgiveable acts. In fact, forgiveness is discouraged. But through a form of forgetfulness, it becomes possible to leave the abhorrent actions in the past so that normalcy can once again be experienced.

While the Oblivion Principle has been formally recognized in law – the Indemnity and Oblivion Act restored the British monarchy after the English Civil War and several states passed Acts of Oblivion to help reintegrate English loyalists following the American Revolution – it has never been officially applied in personal or inter-personal relations. But whether or not he ever thought to designate or name the concept and process, Adam Carter had, in effect, lived according to the Oblivion concept, meaning he had never tried to justify or forgive his actions on that night near Lake Texoma, but he had, through carefully constructed mental discipline, simply refused to ever recall the event. Whenever something would occur which, ordinarily, would trigger a memory of the occasion, he would immediately direct his mind elsewhere, invoking a kind of anti-mnemonic mentality. In this manner, he was able to proceed with his life in a way that was otherwise normal for him. And the life he lived was exemplary in all respects if that horrible incident was not considered.

Now, however, it seemed the awful truth of his involvement in the death of Riley Folsom would have to be addressed, because, when the “Folsom” family returned to their home following the dinner in Glenwood Springs, the throng of news reporters had disappeared, but sitting on the front steps was a man Adam recognized immediately as Wes Tanner.

Chapter Eight

The other two individuals complicit in the disappearance of Riley Folsom at Lake Texoma, Wes Tanner and Pete Malone, dealt with their own memories of that horrid occasion in very different ways. Tanner stayed close to home after high school graduation, attending North Texas State University in Denton, Texas, where he ultimately (six years of college in all) received a business degree in marketing. He managed to achieve some moderate success working for an oil company as a salesman, but he continued to be plagued by deep feelings of guilt and shame relating to his role in the experience. By internalizing these feelings, Tanner began to manifest signs of chronic anxiety, depression and a sense of worthlessness. His internal struggles affected his self-esteem, leading to a sense of being unworthy of happiness or success.

Dealing with these issues without help, professional or otherwise, led to the destruction of two separate marriages, neither of which produced any children. Alcohol and drugs slowly became, over the years, a large part of his lifestyle and he struggled to hang onto a job after being released by the oil company. Such were his circumstances when he read about the proposal to drain Lake Texoma, followed shortly thereafter by a visit from Pete Malone, who delivered an unsettling message about his plans for the future.

***

Psychologists and behavioral analysts of all kinds would have scratched their collective heads in uncertainty, if not bewilderment, had they been presented with Pete Malone’s manner of dealing with his involvement in the Riley Folsom death and disappearance. Not only did he not grieve over the death, he felt no remorse whatsoever; instead, his reaction was one of irritation, maybe even anger, for having to deal with the problem caused by Folsom’s death. His agitation evolved from his opinion that Folsom was a weak, sniveling wus who didn’t really deserve to be allowed into the “D” Association in the first place. Folsom’s death during the initiation process was convincing proof that his assessment was accurate. Throughout the process of disposing of the body, Malone seethed with hostility for the inconvenience of it all.

During the following years, Malone’s simmering annoyance over the incident morphed into a form of silent suppression. He simply stashed the memory into a recess of his brain reserved for any number of unpleasant occurrences. He refused to even think about it, until the time he met the woman who would be his wife. Single for most of the years following his graduation from high school, Malone hung around northern Texas, holding down various jobs until he finally landed a position with the local police back in his hometown, no doubt aided by the influence of his father, a long-time member of the force in Desmond.

He met his wife-to-be in the municipal court building in Desmond where she worked as a clerk. She was a quiet, demure, slightly-built woman who managed to find something appealing about Malone. As a church-going, God-fearing, naïve individual with modest demands for attention, Hannah Pearson presented an improbable match for the outgoing and boisterous, if not outright immoral, Malone. Perhaps, she saw an opportunity to win him over to her vision of the world; or maybe it was merely an attraction of opposites, or more likely, it was a mutually desperate grasp by two long-unattached people. In any event, once married, Hannah quickly began her efforts to convert him to a religious life, eventually convincing him to join her church. Although Malone never discussed the Riley Folsom matter with anyone else, after several years of marriage, he did speak to Hannah about it.

The subject came up one evening during dinner while the two were going over possible attendees at an upcoming high school reunion. Initially unperturbed by Pete’s account of the events of that fateful night because she believed he was only making up a story to amuse her, as he persisted in his revelations about the incident, Hannah became more and more concerned, finally asking him to stop.

“Are you making all this up,” she wanted to know, “because you are beginning to frighten me.

“No, I’m not making it up, but it happened a very long time ago and was not that big of a deal. The boy killed himself because he was weak and spineless. I had nothing to do with that. He just died on us.”

By this time, Hannah was standing, then pacing, still not fully believing what she was hearing. She was upset by the factual account, of course, but even more so by the cavalier manner in which Pete was delivering the revelatory message.

“Do you not grasp the gravity of the situation you just disclosed to me? Do you not understand that what you did was criminal and, even worse, a violation of God’s law? Oh, my God, you now have me sick with worry for your soul, Pete. What are we going to do?”

“Look, Hannah, all this happened many years ago and, even if somehow this all came to light now, no one would care. It’s been forgotten, OK. I’m sorry I brought it up.”

These words did not help. Hannah’s distress was only heightened. “We have got to talk to the church pastor about this. He will know what to do.”

“Whoa, wait a minute. I’m not telling anyone else about this. Not the pastor, not your sister, not anyone. You hear.”

“We have to tell the pastor, Pete. He is bound by confidentiality principles, so you don’t need to worry about him telling anyone else. We need his guidance, believe me, because I do not know what to do with this information and how it will most likely condemn your soul. Do you hear me?”

 Mostly to console Hannah, Pete did finally talk to the church pastor about the Folsom affair, leading to consequences that would impact the lives of several people, including Adam Carter and Wes Tanner.

Chapter Nine

Over the years as efforts continued to keep Riley Folsom alive, Tanner and Carter had maintained a low level of contact regarding such matters. Contacts between the two were infrequent, usually initiated by one of them calling the other from a reasonably remote phone booth. Once Adam took on the character of Folsom full time, he insisted that Tanner never call him. Instead, only Adam could initiate a call. And so, even though Adam had correctly assumed the newspaper article about the draining of Lake Texoma had been sent by Tanner, they had not actually spoken about it.

Adam, startled at first, said, “Good god man. What in hell are you doing in this part of the world?”

“Hey, uh, Riley? I was just passing through on my way to Oregon, heard you were up here and thought I’d look you up,” was the reply.

After some nervous introductions and typical small talk during which the stranger was identified simply as an old high school classmate, Tanner volunteered that, when he first arrived at the house, there were a number of cars parked around and some people milling about, obviously waiting for something or somebody. “When I asked someone what was going on, I was told this story about you jumping in the middle of a bank robbery and saving the day. Eventually, they all gave up for the evening and cleared out, leaving me here to wait alone. What was that bank robbery thing all about?”

Now inside the house, Adam gave a cursory description of the events at the bank, Gemma was sent off to bed, some coffee was had and Tanner finally asked, “Can I talk to you outside for a few minutes and then I need to head on out?”

Once outside, Adam quickly asked, “Have they found it yet/”

“I’m not sure, but they are definitely going to drain the lake, so it’s a fair certainty…. But that’s not why I came by. It’s about Pete Malone.”

“What about him?”

“Well, it seems a while back, Malone got religion or found Jesus or got reborn or whatever you call it these days. In any event, he’s got it in his head that he has to confess his involvement in the Folsom affair or he won’t be allowed into the kingdom of God, or some such notion. He came by to see me and let me know he was going to the authorities to free his soul and prepare himself for heaven. When I asked him if he was going to implicate you and me, he said he would have to or it wouldn’t be a complete confession. He said he was sorry, but that he had no choice. And then he said he hoped I would do the same, meaning confess, so that my soul could be saved as well.

After allowing this news to soak in, Tanner continued. “Now, I was sorta worried ‘bout the draining of the lake and the likelihood they would discover the car and the body, but I was thinking that after these umpteen years and Riley having no respectable kin, if any, they wouldn’t spend a lot of time figuring out what happened or who might be involved if they thought it was from foul play. But this thing with Malone is scary, because I’m pretty damn sure he’s going to blab, if he hasn’t already. I don’t know about you, but I’m not sticking around to find out. Don’t know if you heard about it, but I got divorced a couple of years ago, so its just me now, so I’m gonna disappear, kinda like you did.”

“Hell, man, can’t he just go confess to his minister or priest or whoever has planted this crazy notion in his head?”

“He’s already done that. In fact, it’s this minister who has convinced him he needs to make a full confession to the authorities and accept whatever punishment is coming to him. Only then, according to Malone, can he ever hope to make it to the promised land.”

“Man. I cannot believe this. I’m already dealing with a load of shit. I’ve got two big-time criminal groups looking for my ass while my wife and kid are starting to wonder if I am a complete fraud. And now you tell me Malone is about to rat us out after all these years just because some damn Bible-beater says he should. I’m a good mind to go down to Texas and kick some sense into that thick head of his – and I would do just that if I didn’t have my hands full right here.”

When the rant was finished, Adam asked, “So, you think I should just call him?”

“I sure do. He has always listened to you. But, I would not suggest you go down there to talk in person, ‘cause there’s no telling who else he may have talked to about this stuff. I don’t know if you’ve kept up, but Pete moved back to Desmond and got married. That’s when all this got started. I have a phone number for him there, so if you could just give him a call, I would appreciate it.”

Adam said he would call Pete in the morning and Wes Tanner waved goodbye, got into his car and headed off to Oregon, or maybe British Columbia, who knew?

Chapter Ten

Adam wasn’t certain he should contact Pete Malone, but when he saw the local newspaper the next morning, he knew he most certainly would not. He had more pressing matters for which his attention was needed, not the least of which was to convince his wife and daughter that the three of them must leave the country, immediately. Beneath a headline in the newspaper saying “LOCAL MAN FOILS ATTEMPTED BANK ROBBERY” was a large photograph of Adam restraining one of the bank robbers in front of a teller window in the bank. While Gemma could not be seen in the photo as she stood behind her father, Adam’s image included a clear and distinct full-on facial shot. The photo was attributed to United Press International (UPI), which meant it was now available to news media everywhere. The sub-heading above the full story said “Lone Man Used Martial Arts Maneuvers to Subdue Two Armed Bandits.”

The ensuing discussions with Louella and Gemma went pretty much as one might expect under the circumstances. Neither of them wanted to leave Aspen, forsake all their friends and start a new life in a foreign country. Why should they. Adam was highly sympathetic toward their situation and would likely have quickly agreed to go off on his own despite his love for them both. But he knew that leaving them behind was not an option because their lives would be in horrible danger of being captured and held as ransom for Adam’s return. Either of the groups who were looking for him would not hesitate for a moment in bringing harm to Adam’s family if it would help them get their hands on Adam.

There were some angry moments when Louella pointed to Adam accusingly, saying things like, “How could you have brought these evil people into our lives?”  There was also a lot of crying from Gemma.

In the end, Louella reluctantly accepted the inevitability of it all, but then asked, “And by the way, how in the world can we afford to do what you are suggesting and how will we be able to get passports and whatever else is needed to just up and leave the country?”

Adam’s response took her completely by surprise. “You will have to trust me on all that. I have made preparations for dealing with this situation, knowing there was always a possibility it would come to this.”

“What kind of preparations?”, Louella shouted as her anger was flaring up again. “Are you saying you have been anticipating this development all along without ever mentioning it to me? OK. OK. Never mind. I know you couldn’t tell me about an escape plan without telling me what we were escaping from. So, just give me a moment here. I’m processing quite a bit of new stuff, so I would appreciate it if you would bear with me just a bit.”

Louella paced around in silence for a bit and finally said, “How about we get Gemma in here and talk about where we are going and how? And when?”

“Good idea,” was all Adam could manage.

Chapter Eleven

On the night of the shoot-out on Boudreaux’s Pier, after the FBI agent made his untimely arrest announcement and the shooting began, two men from the Ozuna camp were spotted by Adam rushing toward the wounded Carlos Caminiti. The men were not charging in looking to finish off Caminiti, they were going after the bag containing the cash payment for the armaments, a bag which Caminiti was in the process of inspecting when the shooting began. When he fell from the bullet wound to his leg, the bag landed beside him on the pier. Rushing to save Caminiti from what appeared to be imminent peril, Adam had shot and killed the two Ozuna men. As he started dragging Caminiti toward safety, Adam noticed the bag, grasped it quickly and drug it along with Caminiti. When Caminiti was fatally wounded before reaching safety, Adam clung to the bag as he hurtled himself behind a metal bin on the pier.

Without fully realizing what was happening, Adam stuffed the bag into an opening between two metal bins and waited for the shooting to cease. After both sides to the confrontation had retreated and disappeared, Adam did not mention to anyone the existence of the bag or its contents, which he now knew contained a large amount of US currency, having taken a quick peek while the arms were being confiscated. Instead, he found a little better place to hide the bag before joining his colleagues for a quick de-briefing.

Apparently, the Caminitis assumed that the Ozuna group had retrieved their cash before departing. So, too, did the law enforcement officers on the scene. The Ozunas, on the other hand, apparently assumed the money had been confiscated along with the armaments, making for a major coupe for the U.S. government. As a result of these, certainly realistic, assumptions, no one made a search for the bag of money.

When it was safe to do so later that night, before rejoining his Special Forces team, Adam retrieved the bag and took it with him to a local motel. He spent a few minutes making a rough count of the cash, coming up with something in the neighborhood of $4 Million Dollars.

*****

When Adam, Louella and Gemma had their family discussion regarding the logistics of their departure, Adam disclosed that he had decided on Venezuela as the best destination. When quizzed about the choice – why not somewhere a little closer to home, like Canada or Mexico –Adam simply said that both places were too accessible for the people hunting him. Venezuela was chosen as the best South American locale because that country had done an unusually good job of keeping the big drug cartels out of the country, especially the Ozuna group. He also mentioned that Spanish was the official language of the country, a language with which both Adam and Louella had at least a passing familiarity from high school and college courses. At age 7, Gemma would have no difficulty in quickly picking up the tongue. He also explained that he had taken the precaution of securing passports for the three of them, using different names, of course, and that he had just recently updated Gemma’s. What Adam did not mention was the fact that the U.S. and Venezuela did not have in place an extradition treaty, a key factor in his decision, especially given the developments regarding Lake Texoma.

When asked about the timing of their departure, Adam said he figured they would be safe for a couple of days, but would have to plan to leave the day after tomorrow. About this, he was very wrong.

The very next morning, as the threesome finished breakfast, Adam was heading to the kitchen sink carrying his empty plate when his fork fell to the floor. As he bent to pick it up, a bullet crashed through the window above the sink, whizzed just above Adam’s head and lodged into a wall just over Louella’s shoulder as she was sitting at the breakfast table. Adam screamed for Louella and Gemma to get down on the floor and stay there while he crawled toward a back room where he stored his hunting rifle. Grabbing the weapon, checking the ammunition and slipping out the back door, Adam began to circle around through the woods to approach the spot from where the shot must have come. Just as he was able to spot the shooter, the gunman noticed Adam and turned to fire quickly in the general direction where Adam had positioned himself for a shot of his own. The hurried shot from the sniper didn’t come close to Adam, who was then taking careful aim himself. A single shot brought the gunman down before he could get off another round. Adam rushed over and found the man on the ground, unconscious and bleeding.  Blood was coming out the man’s neck and, though still alive, he would most likely bleed out on the spot. Adam was not willing to wait for that to happen. He pinched the man’s nose with his thumb and index finger while cupping the rest of his hand over the man’s mouth, cutting off all air and ultimately causing the would-be-assassin to expire.

Leaving the man on the ground with his rifle across his chest, Adam raced back into the house to find Louella and Gemma still cowering on the floor in the kitchen. After assuring them both that the shooter had ran away and left the area and that they were safe for the moment, Adam said, “OK, the timing has changed. We need to leave right now. Grab a few things like we are going away for a single night, but nothing else. We have GOT TO GO!”

Chapter Twelve

Adam drove his family to the small airport in Aspen, left their vehicle in the parking lot there, then took a taxi to the bus station. The threesome soon found themselves on the way to Grand Junction, Colorado, on the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains. In another taxi, they made a quick stop at the bank where Adam had elected to stow the Ozuna money bag in a safe deposit box. From there they proceeded to the airport for a flight to Houston, Texas, using their new names and passports. From Houston, they caught a flight to the Cayman Islands, where Adam was able to establish a bank account from which transactions could be conducted using only an account number without names. Eventually, they made their way to Venezuela to begin their new lives.

In the years following the events on Boudreaux’s Pier, Adam had removed only very small amounts of the cash from the bag he had retained, the first withdrawal being to provide funds for his transition into the role of Riley Folsom. He used some of the cash to make a small down payment on a pick-up truck (paying all cash would have been too suspicious), which he would use to travel to Colorado, his chosen refuge. He would use a bit more of the cash for initial sustenance until he started making a little money at his job at the Shaft restaurant.

 Thereafter, he made no withdrawals, except for expenses related directly to his need to remain in hiding and prepare for another escape should that become necessary. His reasoning for handling the cash in this manner ran something like this: using the money to escape from the criminals who were after him felt morally acceptable, whereas using it for his convenience or comfort made it feel criminal, even though he did not mind at all depriving the Caminitis or the Ozunas  of several million dollars of drug money. Using part of the money to pay for his family’s escape to Venezuela and provide for the costs associated with starting a new life in a strange land definitely did not cause any moral issues for Adam.

He had chosen to stow the bag in a safe deposit box he opened in Grand Junction, a town reasonably close to Aspen. He did not attempt to invest the money, thereby causing the cash to lose value from the forces of inflation; but there was comfort in not worrying about the money somehow leading to him being found. After marriage, his earnings, combined with Louella’s meager teacher’s salary were plenty to accommodate their modest life-style. So, until recent events, Adam had no reason to access the cash, which still amounted to well over $3 Million Dollars.

Chapter Thirteen

As their plane taxied to the terminal in Caracas, Anthony Childress, nee Riley Folsom, nee Adam Carter, already could sense a heightened level of safety and security away from the Caminiti family and the Ozuna cartel. But, as he began to speak and think in Spanish in his new country, would his practice of selective forgetfulness relating to the awful events at Lake Texoma become more, or less, difficult? In other words, would he still be able to invoke, on demand, his own personal version of el principio del olvido.

THE END