Living in the Shadows

By Mary Beth Hogland

A super star stages his death to escape a government operation gone bad. He has to choose to give up his career or risk his life and his family’s life.

The man sits down and speaks to no one. He looks out the window and feels a huge weight on his shoulders. He realizes that his life is changing, and there is nothing he can do to

• Language: English
• Publisher: URLink Print & Media, LLC
• Release date: Jan 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9781647531195

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Living in the Shadows

Copyright © 2019 by Mary Beth Hogland. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any way by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the author except as provided by USA copyright law.

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, descriptions, entities, and incidents included in the story are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, events, and entities is entirely coincidental.

The opinions expressed by the author are not necessarily those of URLink Print and Media.

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Published in the United States of America

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019920349

ISBN 978-1-64753-118-8 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64753-119-5 (Digital)

27.11.19

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

1

A man in a black suit is boarding a small leer jet flanked by two broad-shouldered men also in black suits. The man sits down and speaks to no one. He looks out the window and feels a huge weight on his shoulders. He realizes that his life is changing, and there is nothing he can do to stop it. His future is undefined, and his past is a memory.

The flight attendants close the door, and the pilots start the engines. The jet is slowly moving out of the hanger and begins taxiing down the runway. The man is now named Jon Becker, a man not many people know. However, the man was once called Eric Preston and known by the entire world. He bows his head and thinks of the lyrics in Reach Out To Jesus. by Ralph Carmichael.

Is your burden heavy as you bear it all alone?

Does the road you travel, harbor dangers yet unknown?

Are you growin’ weary in the struggle of it all?

Jesus will help you when on his name you call

Eric reaches out into space and with his other hand wipes tears from his eyes as he remembers the past few months.

Earl Gosner, Eric’s MK handler, business manager, and agent, says, "This is the fourth death threat Eric has had in one month. The guys got real close the other night. They shot through Eric’s window while he was sleeping. We found a bullet lodged in the headboard of his bed. Eric’s greatest fear is that somehow they will find Lilly and hurt her. He hid her really well, but these guys are professionals and mean business. Eric said he has never seen such evil powerful men. He is really freaked out about this, and something has to be done. I know your guys say that you are going to protect him, but things are getting really hairy. He is sick, tired, and unable to continue with his career and wants out. I mean out for good. We’ve talked about this before, and you said you could arrange something. I told Eric not to get mixed up in this scam you guys were setting up. The Fraternity is just too powerful. Unless the FBI comes in and locks those guys up, Eric will never be free to live again. You know that, don’t you?

Then there are the joint hearings being conducted by Congress. If Eric’s name is ever linked to MKUltra’s—his career is over. We can kiss our million-dollar man good-bye. Earl is now pointing at an article in The New York Times newspaper.

Joint hearing before the select committee on intelligence and the subcommittee on health and scientific research of the committee on human resources United States Senate Ninety-fifth Congress.

August 3, 1977

Some 2 years ago, the Senate Health Subcommittee heard chilling testimony about the human experimentation activities of the Central Intelligence Agency. The Deputy Director of the CIA revealed that over 30 universities and institutions were involved in an extensive testing and experimentation program which included covert drug tests on unwitting citizens at all social levels, high and low, native Americans and foreign. Several of these tests involved the administration of LSD to unwitting subjects in social situations.

Perhaps most disturbing of all was the fact that the extent of experimentation on human subjects was unknown. The records of all these activities were destroyed in January 1973, at the instruction of then CIA Director Richard Helms. In spite of persistent inquiries by both the Health Subcommittee and the Intelligence Committee, no additional records or information were forthcoming. And no one—no single individual—could be found who remembered the details, not the Director of the CIA, who ordered the documents destroyed, not the official responsible for the program, nor any of his reports.

Mr. Chairman: In my letter to you of July 15, 1977, I reported our recent discovery of seven boxes of documents related to Project MKULTRA, a closely held CIA project conducted from 1953–1964. As you may recall, MKULTRA was an umbrella project under which certain sensitive subprojects were funded, involving among other things research on drugs and behavioral modification. During the Rockefeller Commission and Church Committee investigations in 1975, the cryptonym became publicly known when details of the drug-related death of Dr. Frank Olsen were publicized. In 1953, Dr. Olsen, a civilian employee of the Army at Fort Detrick, leaped to his death from a hotel room window in New York City about a week after having unwittingly consumed LSD administered to him as an experiment at a meeting of LSD researchers called by CIA.

The most significant new data discovered are, first, the names of researchers and institutions who participated in the MKULTRA project and, secondly, a possibly improper contribution by CIA to a private institution. We are now in possession of the names of 185 non-government researchers and assistants who are identified in the recovered material dealing with the 149 subprojects. The names of 80 institutions where work was done or with which these people were affiliated are also mentioned. The institutions include 44 colleges or universities, 15 research foundations or chemical or pharmaceutical companies and the like, 12 hospitals or clinics (in addition to those associated with universities), and 3 penal institutions. While the identities of some of these people and institutions were known previously, the discovery of the new identities adds to our knowledge of MKULTRA." New York Times.

Of course we know that, and we are doing everything possible to get the Fraternity. Then the MK thing has hopefully been taken care of by destroying most of the documents. The CIA think they aren’t governed by anyone and think they can do anything without repercussions. We should have what we need to shut down the Fraternity it just takes a while to get all the documentation, taps, and recordings so that they cannot ever get out, Sam Cooper, FBI contact replies.

I can get some Amiodarone, which will make anyone but a doctor think he is dead. He will have one hour or so to be revived. That should be sufficient time to get the ambulance there and take him away. We must have someone on the inside to orchestrate the whole thing, Sam continued.

Jerry Schiliny is the man. He will do anything Eric asks him to do. We will also need to pay someone off in the coroner’s office. Eric says he knows someone there he can contact. I’ve spoken with David Anderson in the FBI. He said to just say the word, and he will set Eric up on the witness protection list so that there will be no problems on that end, Earl says, leaning forward with his hands placed firmly on his knees.

Sam says, Looks like we will just need to get Harry to ship us the wax dummy and get it sent to LA pronto. Do not tell anyone in his family for now. We must keep this within a very small people circle. Be sure to have the funeral home ready and services planned for the next day. We cannot wait for people from out of town to get here before we bury the guy. We will have to set up a viewing of the body, or no one will believe he actually died. The dummy has to be really good, or someone will detect something and start asking questions. We need this thing to go fast. Keep everyone off balance. Have you got all your corporations set up in Japan to take all the income off the big sales?

Earl nods once quickly and replies, I’ve got my end all set up. All we will have to do is get Eric out of the country and fast. Keep him hid for at least a year before he can tell his closest family members. That’s our plan.

August 8, 1977

2:15 p.m.

Eric goes into his bathroom and takes the pills Earl gave him. Eric lays back in his recliner and closes his eyes. He is wearing blue pajamas. A few minutes later, a door opens and Gill, Eric’s girlfriend, walks in and says, Eric, are you okay? Please come to bed, I know you would sleep better. Gill shakes Eric but gets no response.

Eric falls over to the side and looks dead. Gill runs out of the room and screams for help. Charlie comes running from a nearby room.

Charlie, Charlie I think something has happened to Eric, Gill cries.

Charlie looks at the man in the chair and says to the woman, Oh no! Oh no! Quick, call Joe and tell him to get an ambulance. Charlie quickly pulls Eric to the floor and begins to administer CPR. Charlie comes stumbling out of the room with a terrified look on his face and says, He’s not responding. I think he’s dead. Where’s that damn ambulance? Call Dr. Karem.

In just minutes, Dr. Karem runs up the back stairs and into the bathroom to work on Eric.

Dr. Karem knows exactly what Eric took and when to give him the shot to put his heart back at a normal rhythm. Eric is breathing but his breaths are extremely shallow. No lay person could detect his heart beat or his breathing. It had to be obvious to Charlie and the others that Eric had stopped breathing. It must look like he is already dead.

At 2:33 p.m., the call comes to the LA Fire Department. The call, from Eric’s road manager Joe Evans, says that someone is having trouble breathing at Eric Preston’s home. Charles Crosby and James S. Jones jump into an ambulance, turn on the siren and head south. At 3746 Eric Preston Boulevard, the ambulance is led up the winding driveway of Eric’s home by a waiting car.

Crosby and Jones, FBI guys, are brought upstairs where Preston is lying on the floor of his bathroom. His personal doctor, Ed Karem, is administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

In the background, a woman is crying and people are talking frantically. The paramedics put Eric on a gurney and wheel him out to the ambulance and head out to the hospital. Dr. Karem is there to supervise all actions on Eric. The ambulance has the other body ready to be delivered to the hospital morgue unit.

The ambulance, with Eric and the dead body, pulls into an abandoned parking garage. A van pulls in immediately after the ambulance and opens the side doors. A man jumps out of the back door of the ambulance and closes it behind him. He then jumps into the van, which speeds off turning a corner into the night. The ambulance speeds toward the hospital. The ambulance driver opens the back door and pulls out a body covered with a sheet and wheels it into the morgue. Sam tracked down an unclaimed body that had died of drug overdose and heart disease, which is not hard to find in Las Vegas. The body was flown in the night before and was already in the ambulance. The body, curiously, was Eric’s size, age, and approximate weight. The body even looked similar to Eric. The fact that Sam came up with this unknown guy who was so similar was a little eerie, but it was too late to be asking questions.

Back at his home, Eric gets out of the van and quietly goes back into the house the back way. Jerry Schiliny had already whisked Gill and all the others out of the house. Eric is there by himself. He goes to his room and closes the door. He feels exhilarated and anxious. He turns on the TV to wait for the news of his death. The plan is to stay in his room until after the funeral. Eric had already set up remote TV cameras in all the main rooms with a viewing TV in his room. He could open the locked closet that they were in and see all the activity throughout the house. He planned to watch every action that was set into motion. How many people get to watch their funeral?

Some time later, there is a knock on the door. Jerry Schiliny opens the door, and steps in and says, Eric, all is a go. The autopsy is complete and the body buried. I took care of the doctor, and he said to send his regards. The funeral home has Eric 2. It will be brought here tomorrow for viewing. My team is there watching over the body. It is in a locked room and supervised every moment. The guys do not know who or what they are guarding. We are keeping this as hush-hush as we can. We are mixing up people that are actually involved so that no one person will be able to see the whole plan.

The TV is going in the background. The secure phone rings. It is Earl Gosner checking in on Eric. Eric answers, saying, "Hello, yes, I am watching the news. I cannot believe I’m sitting here watching my death. It’s like a dream… or nightmare more like it.

I keep thinking, have I done the right thing? I just wish I could talk to Lilly and my dad. I feel guilty that I have put all the people and fans that I love in such anguish. Maybe this is all wrong."

Don’t worry so much, everything will be okay if you just give it some time. Enjoy life and watch the money start rolling in. I’m telling you we are going to make millions overnight. Just remember I told you so, Earl says.

Eric hangs up the phone after talking and goes back to concentrating on the news. He and Jerry watch with amazement at all the people making the trip to LA and Eric’s home like some sort of god that has died.

Jerry, make sure no one comes up the stairs to the second floor. I want complete security, not even my father, Eric instructs.

Jerry agrees and goes back downstairs to be for sure everything is secured.

Eric watches all his fans waiting by his gates with flowers and tears in their eyes. He hears the newsmen saying that there will be a viewing of his body for all the fans, with the funeral tomorrow. He has set all the details into motion for his funeral. The only thing Jerry has to do is carry it off. He thinks back to when he told Jerry what was about to happen.

Jerry, I have something I must entrust you to do for me. You are the only person I can completely trust with these duties. I feel I must leave my life and go away for a while, maybe a long while. If I don’t do something, those crazy people are going to kill me or someone—like Marie or Lilly. Earl is helping me to stage my death, and I must also ask for your help with this, Eric asks.

Jerry looks puzzled but not shocked. Eric, you know I would do anything for you, just name it. I am so worried about everyone’s safety and mine. I also know you are sick and ready to quit. I’ve watched you struggle with your career and look so miserable. However, I do not trust Earl Gosner with your life like you do, Jerry says sternly.

Jerry remembers the day he was called in to stand in front of Eric onstage in Vegas to protect him from a supposed sniper. He had never been so scared in his whole life. Eric had him wear a bulletproof vest, but still it was something he did not want to relive. Eric had been determined no one was going to frighten him off his stage.

I know you don’t, but this time I think he has the best plan. I’ve done some calculations, and August 8, 1977 is going to be the date. It’s my number and will never occur again in my lifetime, Eric says.

I’m going for it. Please help me with this one last thing. I’m completely depending on you to take care of Dad and Lilly, says Eric in a whisper. I don’t know if Dad can handle this or not. He’s not well, you know. I hate to do this to him, but I don’t think he can handle the secret just yet. Earl wants to wait a while to tell the family. The FBI has been notified and they are going to fly me to an undisclosed location until all this blows over. Please do not tell a soul.

A newscaster is reading a message from President Carter. Eric remembers speaking with President Carter two weeks before his death. It was a meeting to discuss his death, and President Carter presented him with a plaque stating his appreciation for working on Project Fountain Pen. On August 8, 1977, President Carter issued this tribute:

Eric Preston’s death deprives our country of one of its heroes. He was unique and loved by the entire world. He has changed the music industry permanently with his enormous charisma and talent never to be replaced in our time. He brought to life rock and roll, which has changed the world we knew. We are all in mourning over his passing and pray his family and fans will be given peace in this very sad time in America.

This was a formal statement, when a celebrity’s death is usually only commented on. He had spoken to Nixon and Carter both shortly before the day he died.

August 9, 1977

Eric wakes in a cold sweat. He turns on the TV to hear the latest details on his funeral. He feels panicky and wishes it could all be over. The news media is having a field day speculating on what happened and why. They are saying it was a heart attack and possibly a drug overdose. Earl Gosner said he might throw in the drug thing since Blackie and the boys had written that book distorting his life and drug abuse. Eric looks at the table with all the medication on it and thinks maybe he should have overdosed—it sure would have been easier.

There is a knock on Eric’s bedroom door. The first a long knock and then two short knocks. That is the clue that it is Jerry Schiliny. Eric goes to unlock the door.

Hey, Eric, how are you holding up? asks Jerry sincerely.

Well, I guess okay. I didn’t think I would feel this way. I just hope this is the right move.

I cannot tell you how bad your dad is taking this. He was hysterical last night, so Dr. Karem has given him some medicine to calm him down. He was pacing the floors last night crying and saying ‘What am I going to do?’ Dr. Karen was afraid he was going to have a stroke or heart attack. Lilly was frantic. We called Marie, and she calmed Lilly down. I do not know how they are going to make it through the funeral. Marie says she will handle it. I just hope and pray she can pull that off, Jerry reports to Eric.

I know now that letting them show their true emotions without knowing the truth has helped convince others that you really did die. Without that emotion, others would be asking too many questions by now. Charlie is beside himself and so is JD. I know we cannot say anything yet, but they are really hurting bad. I started crying last night just watching them. I also cried because the life we had is over. I don’t know what we are going to do without you. You have filled our every moment. Jerry embraces Eric and tears run down both their faces.

Just before noon on the ninth, Eric 2’s body is sent to his home and up his driveway for the public viewing and funeral. The first day of Eric’s post death sightings is in the foyer of his home. Over seventy-five thousand lined up outside the gates, in an attempt to see him in the box, and about thirty thousand did, including Caroline Kennedy and James Brown. People are saying that there is something that just doesn’t look right about Eric. But then again, what dead person looks like they did when they were alive? Without a spirit, the body is just as much a clay replica as the Eric 2.

Eric can see them slowly moving through the rooms, some crying openly and others with tears in their eyes. Eric is getting a sick feeling in his stomach. What if people start to see the small differences between the dummy and him? Eric 2 was dressed in a white suit, white tie, and a blue shirt. There are several things he does not like about the dummy, but it was too late to alter the plan now.

All these people saw Eric perform his last show looking way over-weight and very stressed –just as he had planned. He had put his head into a basin of some kind of chemical that Dr. Karem gave him to make his face real puffy, and he had worn a body suit that Earl found for him from a props place in Hollywood. Eric had thought he had pulled off the look without a hitch. They wanted him to look like he could die of a heart attack or something similar. He had also fired most of his friends—the LA Mafia—so that there would be very few people with knowledge of the plan.

The news is saying, Eric has died, and the world is in mourning.

The autopsy has indicated a severe heart attack. Many are speculating that somehow drugs were the real culprit and caused the heart attack. It is rumored that Eric was on fourteen different prescribed medications.

Eric lies down and tries to sleep, but his mind keeps churning. "I feel desperate and alone, and the