Clearing the Deck

by Gary Inbinder

Challenge 309 Response

[Challenge 309] Does assassinating Faust seem so difficult that it justifies springing Tony Janeway from prison and spending a lot of money? Why doesn’t Ticky Snyder himself simply shoot Faust from the cover of the darkened store front?

Like many thrillers, “A Stacked Deck” does seem to have some logical holes in the plot.

Faust is hired to assassinate the British P.M. and Janeway is sprung from prison to kill Faust. So must we assume that Faust is the only assassin on this planet capable of whacking the British P.M. and Janeway is the only person on earth capable of whacking Faust?

Moreover, does it make sense for the CIA to use an insane killer to kill a rogue CIA agent? That sounds about as risky as trading hundreds of billions of dollars of securities backed by extremely dicey mortgages in an unregulated market. ;-)

In The Day of the Jackal, the OAS (Secret Army Organization) paid an outside assassin to kill DeGaulle for at least two good reasons: the OAS had already badly bungled an assassination attempt, and their organization was so riddled with informers that the leaders couldn’t trust their own people to do the job. “A Stacked Deck” might take a cue from The Day of the Jackal and make the plot more plausible.

Gary