by Tim Kring
What he knew for sure was that before the revolution Donny had worked in the Sans Souci with a man whose wife’s sister or daughter or cousin was a chorus girl turned housekeeper, now employed in Castro’s private offices off the Plaza de la Revolución. What he surmised was that the housekeeper had agreed to add one of the Company’s exploding cigars to the box on Castro’s desk, presumably in exchange for payment, or else because the Company had something on her. Castro’s love of a good cigar was well known, as was the fact that the box in his office always contained a representative selection from the island’s top growers: Diplomatico, Bolívar, La Gloria Cubana, and of course Montecristo, which was the name on the band Sidney Gottlieb’s whitecoats in TSS had wrapped around their boom-boom sticks. When Sturgis asked him how powerful the explosive was, an image of Pablo’s headless torso flashed in Melchior’s mind.
“Let’s just say the housekeeper should be working below the belt by the time Castro’s on his third or fourth puff. And she shouldn’t use too much hairspray that day.”
“Ha!” Robertson burped. “That shouldn’t be a problem! I bet they don’t even got hairspray in Cuba no more!”
The real problem, of course, was that Donny didn’t have arms and legs no more, so it was going to be a little hard for him to deliver the cigars to the housekeeper, and God forbid one other member of the team should’ve known her name. Welcome to the new CIA. Streamlined and simplified. Apparently the endangered Cuban crocodile hadn’t been let in on the new bureaucratic structure.
Once they made it to Havana, García and López tried bribing random female members of the Ministerio’s housekeeping staff, which got García arrested the second day and shot, as far as they could figure, sometime on the third. Then Robertson took half a dozen of the cigars to the Mexican embassy. First he tried to reach Howard Hunt at the Mexican field office, and then he tried to convince the Mexican Ambassador to Cuba to present them to Castro as a gift, which got him deported the fourth day. On the evening of the fifth day, after García’s execution had been announced in the papers under the headline TRAITOR TO THE REVOLUTION BROUGHT TO JUSTICE, López got so drunk that he smoked one of the cigars himself, or at least that’s what Sturgis and Melchior assumed when they found his headless, armless torso slumped in a chair, the fingers of his left hand still wrapped around the neck of a bottle of Cuban rum. At that point, Sturgis just bolted, which left Melchior by himself, nothing but a half-full box of exploding cigars for company, along with a little rum still left in the bottle in López’s hand.
Three days later, as he was leaving a whorehouse in Barrio Chino, he passed a couple of police officers on their way in, one fat and dopey looking, the other more solid, and scowling.
“You smell like shit, my friend,” the fat policía said genially enough. “What were you doing, fucking your girl up the ass?”
In fact, Melchior had penetrated Rosita anally. Another of the Wiz’s field lessons: the Company only provided one condom per man per mission, but bastard children, whether fathered on a Cuban prostitute or a field slave like the one the Wiz’s grandfather had owned, always came back to haunt you, so one had to improvise. And besides, Melchior’d doubled the girl’s rate, so as far as he was concerned, he’d paid for any inconvenience.
Nevertheless, the two policías reminded him a little too much of Robertson and Sturgis, and he was half blind on rum to boot: before he knew what he was doing, he’d kicked the fat policía’s nuts through the roof of his mouth. Over the course of the next fifty years, he would realize that that single action, more than anything since the day the Wiz picked him and Caspar out of the orphanage, set him on his destiny.
He turned to go for the second policía, only to find a Makarov trained on him.
“I would much rather give one of these ladies an evening of pleasure then take you to the station. So please. Give me an excuse to pull the trigger.”
Melchior looked up from the stubby, rust-flecked pistol to the policía’s piggy little eyes. All four of them. Really, the resemblance to Sturgis was uncanny.
Even shit-faced, he had enough self-awareness to know that his smile wasn’t the kind of smile that set other people at ease.
He smiled anyway.
“I’m sure we’re all reasonable men,” he said. “Why don’t we discuss this over a nice cigar?”
Project Eurydice
It hit her as she passed through the muted spotlight over the inner door: not just the heat, the smoke, the urgent murmur of voices. The need. Though no one actually stopped what he or she was doing to inspect her entrance, she still felt her presence sizzle through the room like an electric current. Felt the sidelong glances and equally circumspect feelings that accompanied them, that ineffable combination of lust and derogation on the part of the men, sympathy and jealousy on the part of the women.
The emotional miasma swirled around her as palpably as the smoke. Against its press, all she could do was fasten her eyes on the bar and forge ahead. Fifteen steps, she told herself, that’s all you have to take. And then you can reward yourself with a nice tall glass of gin.
The men looked at her openly now, their stares as tangible as the sweaty hand of a soused uncle at a wedding reception. Barely five feet, four inches in heels, Naz was inches shorter than the rangy lasses scattered around bar stools and tables, but there was something oversized about her presence. Her pearl-gray dress directed their attention to her hips, her waist, her breasts—her cleavage—but it was her face that held them. Her mouth, its fullness made even more striking by lipstick the color of a darkened rose; her eyes, as large and dark as walnuts. And of course her hair, a mass of inky black waves that sucked up what little light there was in the smoky room and radiated it back in oily rainbows. Or who knows, maybe it was just her nose, which had more length than any native-born woman could carry off, let alone work to her advantage. It would be thirty or forty years before anyone in the room would recognize the faint dimple in her left nostril as the mark left behind by a nose ring, ceremonially administered on her thirteenth birthday, and removed less than a year later when Uncle Kermit put her on a plane to the States carrying a single suitcase equipped with a false bottom into which the remnants of her mother’s jewels had been stuffed. Even without that tidbit of knowledge, everyone in the bar could see the newcomer was foreign. Exotic. If it was a husband she wanted, a boyfriend, some kind of lasting connection, she wouldn’t have stood a chance. She was too strange. But strangeness was a virtue in her line of work and, well, no one came to the Firelight for a lasting connection.
The women noticed her too, of course. Their stares were as hard as the men’s but significantly less friendly. They recognized her for the threat she was. It was Tuesday, after all. Business was slow.
“Hendrick’s and tonic?” The bartender was already setting a chilled Collins glass on the bar. “Easy on the tonic?”
The man’s voice and face were professionally neutral, but Naz could feel the pity behind them, knew just what he thought of her. Knew too that it didn’t prevent him from wanting her, like all the other men in the room.
“A slice of cucumber, please,” Naz answered. “I haven’t eaten anything all day.”
She tried not to gulp her drink as she perched on the bar stool and turned halfway out. Not quite facing the room—that would read as too obvious, too desperate—but not quite facing the bar either. The perfect angle to be looked at yet not seem to be looking back.
She brought her glass to her lips, was surprised to find it empty. That was quick, even for her.
“Another?” The bartender was already there, his voice a bit bolder, the heat of his desire a degree warmer. Naz knew it would happen one day. It always did, and then she would have to find another bar.
“May I get this one?”
She turned rapidly on her stool. A young man was sitting next to her. She wasn’t sure if he’d been there the whole time or if he’d sat down after she arrived. He was tall and taut as a ripcord on a parachute
, affected a broad-brimmed fedora that he pulled low on his forehead despite the heat and the dimness of the bar. Naz noted that it was an expensive-looking suit, probably bespoke—Saville Row, she guessed, acquired during his postcollegiate European tour. Cartier watch, matching silver cuff links. So he was a rich boy, which automatically set him apart from everyone else in the bar, as did the fact that he radiated none of the sexual energy everyone else here did. But his smooth-skinned, shadowed face, though slightly smug, was honest looking. All Naz felt was curiosity and a slight sense of … of mischief almost. No malevolence. No lust. But still. A free drink was a drink.
“Thank you.” She tried not to clutch the drink. “My name is Joan.”
“Really?” The boy’s mischievous grin widened. “I thought it was Nazanin. Nazanin Haverman.”
Naz’s blood went as cold as the drink in her hands. The drink. She looked at it a moment, then drained it in a gulp.
“Easy there, Miss Haverman. I’d rather not have to carry you out of here.”
“Pardon me, but I think there’s some kind of mistake. My name is Joan.”
“Really? Joan what?”
Naz’s eyes darted around the bar. No one ever asked for a last name. She caught a glimpse of her panicked face in the mirror over the bar. “Mir-ren,” she stuttered. “Joan Mirren.”
The boy looked at the mirror a moment, then back at her. “Nice save, Miss Haverman. Now,” he went on, “I can show you my identification in here, or I can save you the embarrassment and you can walk outside with me.”
Naz realized she was still clutching her glass like a lifeline. She thought of throwing it at him, running, but knew she wouldn’t get anywhere. Not in these shoes, this skirt. Not after two gin and tonics. And there was still no sense of malice coming from the boy, nor the kind of contempt she’d encountered during her one or two run-ins with Vice. Indeed, she almost thought she sensed compassion.
Straightening her back, she offered him her widest smile. She would snatch what victory she could from this disaster. “Put your hand on the small of my back as we walk out,” she said. “So it looks convincing.”
As the boy followed her out, he said, “If I wanted to be convincing, my hand wouldn’t stop at the small of your back.”
“If you want to keep your fingers,” she said, “they won’t go any lower.”
Once they were outside, she quickened her step a half pace to dislodge his hand from her body. They walked a block in silence to the edge of a small park. The air was brisk and cleared her head a bit, even as the alcohol calmed her nerves and dulled her senses. I can handle this child, she told herself. Everything will be just fine.
The boy motioned through the gates. The gesture was diffident, almost abashed, and part of her wondered if he’d ever been unchaperoned in the company of a female.
She shook her head. “Let’s see that ID.”
The boy grinned again, reached inside his jacket. Naz saw the Henry Poole label and congratulated herself for guessing his suit’s origins, then chided herself for losing focus. He brought out a slim wallet and flicked it open. Instead of a badge, she saw a simple white identification card. His employer’s name had been printed in full, and she had to squint to read the tiny letters in the faint light.
She looked up at him. “Do you really expect me to believe this?”
The boy shrugged, as if acknowledging the incongruity of someone as young and innocent looking as him belonging to such an organization. As he slipped his wallet back inside his suit, he said, “Do you remember a man by the name of Kermit Roosevelt?”
Naz’s eyebrows rose. Uncle Kermit had been one of her father’s closest friends and business associates in Tehran, had dined with the family at least once a month.
“Mr. Roosevelt was, as they say, our man in Tehran, and your father, owing to his lifelong residence in Persia, was one of his most valuable assets.”
Naz smirked, but it was an act. This boy wasn’t lying. She could tell by the awe in his voice, as much as any sense of his emotions.
“My father was a British citizen. Why would he work for the Central, the Central …” She couldn’t bring herself to say it aloud; the idea of her father as a spy was just too absurd. “Why would he work for the United States rather than the English?”
“Like many British nationals living abroad, your father admired everything about his fellow tribesmen save their country itself. As proof,” he said in a slightly louder voice, “I offer the simple fact that he sent you here when the fighting broke out, when it would have been just as easy to send you to England.”
Naz was silent a moment. Then, almost against her will: “Have you … do you know what happened to him? Or to my …” Her voice broke off.
She felt a wave of compassion from the boy, but it was detached, almost intellectual: he kept his hands in his pockets rather than putting one on her shoulder.
“I was still in prep school when the counterrevolution occurred.”
“So was I.”
The boy winced. “I know that your time in this country hasn’t been easy, Miss Haverman. Your adolescence was plagued by emotional problems. Depression, anger, and, ah, sexual precocity.”
A fresh wave of emotions washed over Naz, but they were all her own. Sadness, self-loathing, utter horror, not just at what she had done, but that it was known by others. By this boy, and his intrusive employer, which was famous for rooting out the shameful secrets in people’s lives and holding them over their heads like the sword of Damocles. Which beggared the question: what did he want with her?
When she could speak again, she said, “It’s a little rich having my adolescence referred to by someone who looks like he only started shaving a few years ago. Okay, then. You’ve established your bona fides. Isn’t that how they put it? So tell me, Agent …”
The boy had to reach for a last name just as she had in the bar.
“Morganthau.”
“Tell me, Agent Morganthau: what exciting service can I perform for the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States of America?”
The boy paused a moment, jaws slightly parted, eyes wide. Naz was reminded of a phrase her father had often used, always citing Henry James when he did so: hang fire. Technically speaking, it meant simply a pause, but it had originated as a munitions term, referred specifically to a delay between the moment you pulled the trigger and the time it took the powder to spark the bullet and propel it from the barrel. Whenever her father said someone hung fire, Naz always had an image of that person holding a gun to her father’s head. But now it was pressed against hers. The trigger had been pulled; she was merely waiting for the bullet to strike home.
“Let’s start at the beginning,” he said finally. “Have you ever heard of LSD?”
He took her to a small restaurant just off Newbury Street. Roses in the wallpaper, crisp white tablecloths free of stains or cigarette holes, golden sconces with beveled glass refracting soft light over the patrons. A far cry from the Firelight, to say the least—although the pairings were still the same, Naz noted. Older men, younger women, the latter leaning slightly forward to show off their cleavage. Services paid for in kind, of course: jewelry, furs, second homes in Newport or Miami. Give her the cleanness of cash any day.
Morganthau held out her chair for her, then sat down opposite, his frat-boy grin bookended by a pair of impishly proud dimples.
“Well, this is a little nicer than that other place, isn’t it?”
Naz stared at him flatly. “This isn’t a date, Agent Morganthau. Settle down.”
A waiter set menus in front of them. “A cocktail before dinner, perhaps?”
“I think we’re fi- …”
“Hendrick’s and tonic,” Naz said over Morganthau. “Make it a double. And bring me an ashtray, please.”
“I wasn’t aware you smoked,” Morganthau said after the waiter had left the table.
“Well, that’s one thing you don’t know about me.”
Morganthau bl
ushed. “Yes, well. I did want to ask you about something.”
“Didn’t you read it all in Dr. Calloway’s files? God knows I told him enough times. I ‘overempathize.’ I’m ‘unable to mediate’ my or others’ feelings. As a consequence, I form undue attachments or aversions as soon as I meet someone. Humiliating crushes or inexplicable disgust, both of which have the effect of leaving me isolated in a fantasy world where—how did Calloway like to put it? Oh yes: ‘where fact is washed away in a tidal wave of feeling.’ He thinks it’s because I lost both my parents and my country when I was so young. Everyone I encounter is a potential savior or murderer.”
“I hope you don’t think I’m going to kill you.”
“Well, I certainly don’t think you’re going to save me. So,” Naz spoke over his protest, “to flesh out your skeletal tale of my life: my first suicide attempt came at ten. Pills; something Mrs. Cox, my guardian’s wife, took to get her through the long days when he was at work. I lost my virginity at eleven. Mr. Cox; something he did to get through the long nights when Mrs. Cox was too numb from pills to notice him. I also seduced two of my teachers when I was twelve—one of whom was female, I might add—and I tried to kill myself for the second time the same year when we were caught by the school secretary. Running car this time, closed garage door; alas, the gardener needed a pair of pruning shears for Mrs. Cox’s damask roses. I changed schools six times over the course of the next three years, had sexual relations with nine different partners ranging in age from twelve to forty-seven, and sliced my wrists with Mr. Cox’s razor when I was sixteen. The following fifteen months on Thorazine were by far the most peaceful of my life. Alas, I turned eighteen, and Mrs. Cox, seeing her husband’s legal obligation discharged and unwilling to spend $25,000 a year to maintain the daughter of a long-dead ‘business acquaintance’—apparently she was as blind to her family’s relationship to the CIA as I was—I was summarily discharged. I was given an allowance of $5,000 a year, the proceeds of a small trust my father had set up for me before he … before he …”
