by Tim Kring
“Where is she?”
A trained professional, Ivelitsch didn’t react. He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it to his shoulder to stanch the flow of blood.
“Who?”
Chandler’s eyes narrowed, and he pushed as hard as he could. A wave of fire washed over Ivelitsch’s body and he screamed hysterically until Chandler relaxed. Even so, he continued rolling on the ground in an effort to douse the flames for several seconds, until Chandler kicked him onto his back and put the gun in his face.
“Where?”
Ivelitsch stared up into the face of Orpheus. It was implacable and otherworldly. The face of a man possessed by love and hatred. His flesh still scalded and he couldn’t believe he was alive.
“Wh-what are you?”
But Chandler didn’t respond. The answer to his question had floated to the top of Ivelitsch’s brain like a drowned corpse rising from the bottom of a lake.
A nightclub, a portly balding man. He pushed at Ivelitsch’s brain until he had a name, a location.
Jack Ruby.
The Carousel Club.
Dallas.
He brought the butt of the pistol down as hard as he could on Ivelitsch’s skull and, like an unplugged TV, the picture snapped to black.
19
The integrity and vitality of our system is in greater jeopardy than ever before in our history. Even if there were no Soviet Union we would face the great problem of the free society, accentuated many fold in this industrial age, of reconciling order, security, the need for participation, with the requirement of freedom. We would face the fact that in a shrinking world the absence of order among nations is becoming less and less tolerable. The Kremlin design seeks to impose order among nations by means which would destroy our free and democratic system. The Kremlin’s possession of atomic weapons puts new power behind its design, and increases the jeopardy to our system. It adds new strains to the uneasy equilibrium-without-order which exists in the world and raises new doubts in men’s minds whether the world will long tolerate this tension without moving toward some kind of order, on somebody’s terms.
The risks we face are of a new order of magnitude, commensurate with the total struggle in which we are engaged. For a free society there is never total victory, since freedom and democracy are never wholly attained, are always in the process of being attained. But defeat at the hands of the totalitarian is total defeat. These risks crowd in on us, in a shrinking world of polarized power, so as to give us no choice, ultimately, between meeting them effectively or being overcome by them.
—NSC-68, issued April 14, 1950; signed by President Truman, September 30, 1950; declassified 1975
This is a serious course upon which we embark. I would not recommend it except that the alternative is much more serious.
—Harry S. Truman, March 12, 1947
Dallas, TX
November 19, 1963
“Boo.”
The slim, russet-haired man gasped when Melchior stepped from behind the flaking bark of a sycamore tree. He stumbled backward several steps, barely managing to keep from falling. Melchior might’ve liked to think he still had that kind of effect on Caspar after all these years, but the sweet smell of whiskey carried in the warm air.
When the man had finally recovered his balance, he squinted against the shadows, his right hand already inside his jacket.
“Tommy? Is it really you?”
“Hey, Caspar,” Melchior said. “It’s been a while.”
New York, NY
November 19, 1963
When BC got back to the hotel and found Chandler gone, he stared at the whorls of grime crusted beneath the radiators as though Chandler might take shape out of the shadows. But all he saw was a stack of empty suitcases—six of them, because, like a turtle, a snail even, he had to carry his clothes on his back. A rack of clothes sagged beneath the weight of the brightly colored suits and shirts and sweaters and slacks BC had purchased when he tried to reinvent himself as some kind of playboy–cum–private eye. Who in the hell did he think he was? James Bond? Sam Spade? Philip Marlowe? He wasn’t even Paul Drake, the nebbishy gumshoe Perry Mason used to do his legwork. He was just the ugly duckling who’d tried to convince himself he was a swan—or a peacock, judging by the clothes. All that was needed was a feather boa and the wardrobe would’ve fit in perfectly in a showgirl’s dressing room.
Somehow in less than three weeks he’d lost everything. Not just his job but his career. Not just his home but his inheritance. Not just Chandler and Naz: himself. How had he let Chandler slip away? And why had he run? Didn’t he realize BC had given up everything—everything—to help him get Naz back, to get back at Melchior and get his world back on track?
He lifted a silk tie from the riotous lattice of color that covered the bureau. The tie was black and narrow, woven of wool rather than silk. Matte rather than shiny, like a pencil line. He should just save everyone the trouble and hang himself with it.
He continued looking at the tie until suddenly it occurred to him that it was also the same color as Naz’s eyes. As her face flashed in his mind, he understood how it could captivate you. Capture you really. Take hold of your soul and never let go. He remembered the dance in her room at Madam Song’s, felt her hip bones beneath his fingertips, the gentle press of her chest against his. And he remembered the feeling that had filled the room when Song came in. Hatred as palpable as an undertow, as toxic as poison gas, and every bit as indiscriminate.
He continued staring at the black tie, only now it reminded him of Millbrook’s shadowed forests. And then a lightbulb went on over his head: Millbrook.
It was one of the basic tenets of investigation. When you can’t go forward, go backward. He didn’t know where Chandler had gone—or where the presumed KGB agent had taken Naz—but he knew where they’d started from. And Chandler’d wanted to go to Millbrook in the first place. He knew how dangerous Melchior was: surely he wouldn’t go after him without all the LSD he could get his hands on? BC tried to tell himself it was the logical choice, but really, logic had left the building a long time ago.
He cinched the tie around his neck, just tightly enough that he felt each breath as it squeezed past the knot like an egg swallowed whole. It was uncomfortable, but it also reminded him he was alive. He grabbed his wallet, his jacket, his gun—at least Chandler had left him that—and headed for his car.
“Damn it, Chandler!” he muttered to himself as he raced for his car. “After everything I’ve done for you!”
Dallas, TX
November 19, 1963
Caspar’s hands twitched as he uncorked the bottle Melchior’d brought with him—his whole body twitched, not like a drunk’s, but like a man who feels bugs crawling over his skin. He scratched and rubbed and slapped at imaginary pests, pausing only long enough to down one shot of whiskey, then a second.
“You hear ’bout the Wiz? They say Joe Scheider fried his brain. Say he sits around in his bathrobe all day and pisses his pants like a goddamn nutcase.”
“Don’t you believe it,” Melchior said, sipping at his own glass. For once he didn’t feel like drinking. “The Wiz’ll be running ops long after you and I are rotting in some unmarked grave.”
Caspar’s face lit up. “You remember when you shot him? With that slingshot? I wish you’d shot the doc. I never liked him. I liked the Wiz well enough, but I never liked Doc Scheider.”
Melchior sipped his whiskey and let Caspar talk.
“I was just Lee then, wasn’t I? No Caspar then. No Alik. No Alik Hidell or O. H. Lee. Just Lee. I liked it when I was just Lee.”
“You were all alone then.”
Caspar shook his head like a rag doll. “I had my mother. I had you, too.” The assertion was almost violent. “And I had me,” he added in a tiny, self-pitying voice. He downed another shot of whiskey. Then, smiling brightly: “I got a wife now. She had a daughter. Today.”
A wife, a daughter, Melchior thought. Another man would have said their name
s, but all Caspar did was smile at him hopefully, as if begging Melchior to confirm the truth of what he’d said.
“I got two daughters now,” Caspar said beseechingly. “Two.”
“Who does?” Melchior said. “Caspar? Alik? Or Lee?”
Caspar looked at him with a stricken expression. “I do.”
Melchior tipped more whiskey into Caspar’s glass. Caspar looked at it as though it was one of Joe Scheider’s potions, then, like a good boy, took his medicine. His shirt opened as he leaned forward, and Melchior noticed something around his neck. A string of beads. Skulls, it looked like. Hundreds of them, hanging down inside his shirt.
“They’re trying to make me do things,” Caspar said. “Not me, though. They want Caspar to do them.”
“You are Caspar.”
Caspar shook his head. “I’m Lee.”
“Marina thinks you’re Alik.”
“I’m Lee.”
“You can be whoever you want to be.”
Caspar stared at Melchior with a stricken expression. “Alik Hidell bought the guns,” he whispered. “Not me.”
“Alik Hidell can do it then.”
“I don’t want to do it,” Caspar said.
“Caspar can do it too. Or Alik. Or O. H. Lee.”
Caspar got up and began pacing Melchior’s motel room. He’d placed his .38 on the bureau when they first came in, and he walked to it, stood facing it with his back to Melchior. Melchior’s gun was a warm lump under his arm, Ivelitsch’s telegram a slip of paper in his pocket.
“What’s with the skulls, Caspar?”
Caspar’s left hand slipped under his collar. “I’m Lee,” he whispered. He worried a bead between thumb and forefinger, and Melchior imagined bones breaking beneath the boy’s fingers, cranial plates cracking, teeth snapping out like kernels of corn.
“What’s with the skulls?”
Caspar whirled around to face Melchior. If he’d had his gun in his hand, he could have shot Melchior before the latter had time to react. But he didn’t have his gun in his hand.
“I went to Mexico.”
Melchior sat calmly, not reaching for his gun, not setting his drink down—although an agent with more wits about him than Caspar would have noticed that Melchior’s jacket was unbuttoned now, that he’d moved his drink to his left hand.
“Who went to Mexico? Caspar? Alik? O. H. Lee?”
“I did.” Caspar’s fingers moved from one bead to the next like the housemaids at the orphanage saying their rosaries. “I was trying to get away. But I couldn’t.”
“You were trying to go to Cuba, weren’t you?”
“I wanted to get away.”
“You were trying to kill Castro.”
“It was the Day of the Dead,” Caspar said.
“You wanted to go to Russia, too. To kill Khrushchev.”
“People were walking around with skulls hanging around their necks and painted on their faces. It was like they’d already died but their bodies hadn’t figured it out yet.”
Melchior shook his head. “Lee went to Mexico in October, Caspar. The Day of the Dead is in November. Did you think Lee was already dead?”
“I’m Lee,” Caspar said. “I am.”
“But you know they don’t really want Alik to kill Castro, don’t you? Or Khrushchev?”
“They do,” Caspar said angrily, plaintively. “They want him to shoot everyone.”
“Who?” Melchior didn’t bother to distinguish between target and master.
“Anyone. Everyone.” He was pulling so hard on the string of beads that Melchior thought he was going to break it.
“Who do they want Alik to shoot, Caspar?”
“Lee.” Caspar’s eyes dropped to the floor. “I’m Lee.” And then, in a quiet voice: “You.”
“Who do they want Alik to shoot, Caspar? You know who.”
Caspar lurched across the room again, walked straight into the wall, knocked his head against it over and over.
“They want me to shoot you.”
He was by his gun again. He picked it up this time, then turned and walked over to Melchior as steadily as he could, the gun resting flat on his palms like a dead kitten.
Melchior had something in his hand too. Ivelitsch’s telegram.
“Who do they want Alik to shoot, Caspar?”
Caspar stared at the slip of paper in Melchior’s hands. At the name written there. He looked up at Melchior, his shaking hands outstretched, the gun vibrating on his palms, until finally Melchior took it from him and set it on the table and Caspar threw his face in Melchior’s lap like a humbled dog. Melchior put his hand on Caspar’s head and stroked the wiry hair, resisting the urge to bring his glass down on the back of the boy’s head and put him out of his misery.
“You said you’d take care of Lee, Tommy. You said you’d always take care of Lee.”
Very gently, Melchior lifted the string of skulls from Caspar’s neck and slipped it in his pocket.
“He will,” Melchior said. He stroked the hair and tried not to think of the orphanage. “Tommy will take care of Lee. Right up until the very end.”
Millbrook, NY
November 19, 1963
It was nearly one in the morning when BC arrived, but the Big House was ablaze with light. When he burst into the house he found a half dozen Castalians sprawled around the common rooms on the first floor. He counted twenty-two infractions of the law, along with eleven nipples (two were marble, on a statue of Dionysus, and five more were painted on canvas or the bare plaster of the walls), plus one completely naked baby.
No one noticed him at all.
He managed to track down Leary on the second floor in a round garret with a lighted chandelier and rugs draped from the ceiling. Leary sat on a pillow in the middle of the room, his legs folded into a painful-looking knot. BC had to call his name three times before the doctor opened his eyes.
“Is he here?” he demanded, although he knew it was a pointless question. Leary would not be contemplating his navel if Orpheus was on the premises.
“Agent Querrey?” BC was still wearing his hipster getup—was still stained with blood and ash for that matter—and Leary stared at him in confusion. “I would never have recognized you.”
After the circulation had come back to his knees, Leary led BC to his bedroom. A twelve-inch carpet of clothing and books and used dishes covered every square foot of floor space. In the center of this chaos rose a bed whose yellowing sheets reeked of a smell BC remembered from certain of his bunkmates’ cots in the academy: not just sweat, but something else. Something funky. Something …
Sex, BC told himself. Just say it.
“Sex,” he said out loud, and he still didn’t blush, though Leary glanced at him sharply.
“In the past two weeks, Dr. Leary,” BC began, “I’ve seen things that would surprise even you. Things that, for better or worse, have changed my life irrevocably. But this isn’t about me. It’s about a man named Chandler Forrestal and a girl named Nazanin Haverman and a third person—though I hesitate to give him that much humanity—whose real name might never be known, but who needs to be brought to justice.”
Fear added itself to the confusion on Leary’s face. “But I thought Chandler and the girl were—”
“Dead? That’s what Melchior wanted you to believe.”
“Melchior? He was the dark-complected man?” Leary shuddered. “There’s something off about him.”
BC paused to kick a pair of boxer shorts off the tip of his shoe.
“If you’d asked me two months ago, I would have told you the Bureau was my life. Was all I had, all I wanted even. Now I realize that’s not true. What I had was a desire to sort truth from lies—the kind of lies men like the ones who run the Central Intelligence Agency tell, but also, as it turns out, men like the ones who run the Federal Bureau of Investigation tell. Men who believe that truth is relative, or subjective, or the provenance of victor over vanquished. I do not believe that, Dr. Leary. I will nev
er believe that. There are facts and there are falsehoods, and never the twain shall meet. Before, the Bureau served as the most natural outlet for me to express that belief. Now I just have myself. My faith, my desire. My will. What I’m saying, Doctor, is that I need you to tell me everything you know about Project Orpheus, not just for your sake, but for mine.”
Leary fiddled with a statuette that BC thought was a chess queen until he saw the bare breasts—all eight of them, which the doctor was running his finger over absently, like a little boy playing with the teeth on a comb.
“I told you the last time you were here, Agent Querrey. Agent Logan kept me out of the loop.”
BC stood up and stepped very close to Leary. Close enough for the doctor to see that the flesh beneath his strange new getup was every bit as real as the doctor’s. The bones. The muscles. The fists.
“You need to understand, I’m a desperate man, Dr. Leary. I’ve given up everything to get to the bottom of this story. My career. My home. My reputation. Don’t make me give up my morals as well.”
A faint smile curled the side of Leary’s mouth. “You said story.”
“What?”
“You said ‘the bottom of this story’ instead of ‘the bottom of this case.’”
BC wasn’t sure what Leary’s point was, but the doctor’s tone seemed to be softening, so he just stood there. After nearly a minute of silence, Leary nodded.
“There is one thing. I don’t think the CIA is aware of it. It concerns Miss Haverman. I did a little digging, and I discovered that before Logan drafted her, she’d been a subject in Project Artichoke, one of the precursors to Ultra and Orpheus.”
“Artichoke was about ESP, wasn’t it?”
Leary nodded. “Miss Haverman’s test results were, I don’t want to say extraordinary, but consistently above average. And the more emotionally fraught the context became, the better she scored. Over the course of her final experiment, she became sexually involved with one of the scientists administering it, and her apparent telepathic abilities increased dramatically as she became more intimate with her experimenter. He’d been instructed to conceal his participants’ results from them—they would all either ‘fail’ the tests or score just high enough above a statistical mean that they could go home thinking they were special. But anyone who scored over a certain percentage was to be sent to me on some pretext or other. In Miss Haverman’s case, it was the idea of LSD as a therapeutic agent for survivors of trauma. Unfortunately, I’d left Harvard by the time Naz tried to contact me, so we never connected until three and a half weeks ago.”
