The 1968 Broadcast Tapes: How My Uncle Used an Underground Radio Show to Cover Up Serial Murder
👉 Previous Decision: You chose Option B in Chapter 3 – Contact investigative journalist Clara Finch.
The clatter of ceramic plates and the murmur of conversation in the diner near Capitol Hill felt like a different world from my isolated studio. Clara Finch, her short hair practical and her gaze intense, sipped her coffee, her eyes scanning the room as if expecting to be followed. I had met her briefly during a press conference a few weeks prior. She was a legend at the *Washington Daily*, known for digging into stories others avoided.
“You said you have a tape,” she began, her voice low. “Something about military deaths.”
I pushed the reel across the Formica table, its dark plastic a stark contrast to the bright diner light. “It’s more than that. I isolated a 60Hz hum, military-grade equipment. The killer isn’t some lone wolf.”
Clara took the tape, turning it over in her hands, a flicker of recognition in her eyes. “Interesting. Your hum supports what I’ve been hearing. These aren’t random killings, Julian.”
She leaned closer, her voice dropping to a near whisper. “The three victims mentioned on that tape – Miller, Davies, and Chen. They weren’t civilians. They were Army payroll auditors. All three of them were investigating a major financial discrepancy in Saigon before they died.”
My jaw tightened. “A discrepancy? What kind?”
“A big one,” Clara confirmed, her eyes meeting mine. “A $185,000 fraud operation. Stolen funds, funneled out of a Saigon army depot account, disappearing into a private D.C. shell bank. My sources were telling me these men were close to exposing the whole thing.”
The coffee grew cold in my cup. The pieces clicked into place with a horrifying logic. The precision of the killings, the military equipment hum, the secrecy—it wasn’t a serial killer looking for notoriety. It was a cover-up. A very expensive, very deadly cover-up orchestrated by someone with deep connections to the military industrial complex.
“So the tape… it’s not a confession,” I murmured, the weight of the realization pressing down. “It’s a distraction.”
Clara nodded slowly, her gaze hard. “Someone wanted the killings to look like the work of a madman. To keep attention away from the real story: stolen war money, and the powerful men who pocketed it.”
She pushed the tape back towards me, then pulled a small notepad from her purse. “I have a lead on a commercial bank officer who might be involved in laundering those funds. Raymond Sallow. You ever heard of him?”
My blood ran cold. Raymond Sallow. The name from the liquidation papers. The man who had frozen my accounts and seized my station.
➡️ Read CHAPTER 9 to continue the story.
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