“Seoul is kind of far. San Francisco is only six hours by plane, and I happen to have one.”
Melchior resisted the urge to whistle again. “I see I called the right lady.”
“You called no one. No one answered. Nothing will be moved. It just so happens that I enjoy visiting San Francisco. Usually I go in January, but I guess I can go in November this year.”
“Understood.”
“Sometimes when I’m in San Francisco I like to meet new people. Perhaps you know someone who could show me around?”
“In fact I do. He’s a nice man. A doctor.”
Song looked at Melchior skeptically. “I’m not looking for a husband.”
Melchior laughed. “He’s not that kind of doctor.”
A pause. “Let me guess. One of the leftovers from Nightingale?” When Melchior nodded, she continued: “You want me to deliver someone to a Nazi scientist?”
“Ex-Nazi,” Melchior said. “I haven’t offended your sense of propriety, have I?”
“Assuming I ever had such a thing, I left it in Korea. I’m in America now, where the difference between right and wrong is a matter of dollars and cents. Why San Francisco? Aside from the fact that it’s as far from Langley as you can get without leaving the country.”
“I was in Laos for a few years, recruiting warlords to fight the Viet Cong.”
“The Hmong,” Song said, as though this were common knowledge. “Laos is not exactly in California.”
Melchior did his best to keep the surprise off his face—fewer than a dozen people had known about his mission.
“The Company couldn’t buy guns for them directly, so I helped them move some of their merchandise to market in order to finance the purchases.”
“By merchandise you mean opium?” When Melchior nodded, Song said, “I thought it went to Marseilles, entered the U.S. through the East Coast?”
“Most of it. But I was able to funnel some to Frisco.”
Song’s eyebrows twitched. For the first time she seemed impressed. “You skimmed. And here I thought the Wiz had raised you to be a good boy.”
“The Wiz never had anything against a little initiative.”
“True.” Song paused, and for the first time Melchior thought he saw a real emotion flicker over her face. “Have you heard anything about Caspar?”
Melchior had been just about to ask her the same question.
“Nothing,” he said. “But I just spent a couple of years in Cuba, so I’m out of the loop. I assume he’s still in Russia.”
Song paused again, as if she was considering whether or not to tell Melchior what she knew. Then: “I saw him. In Japan, before he went to Moscow. The Wiz asked me to—”
“Check on him?” Melchior struggled to keep his voice level. “I never did like that part of the Wiz. I never liked that part of you, either.”
Song’s face went hard. For a moment Melchior thought he’d blown it. But then the condescending mask descended again, and Song’s lip curled slightly as she looked Melchior up and down. “Whatever you skimmed from your opium scheme certainly didn’t go on clothes. So? What do you offer me for delivering your guinea pig to the lab?”
Melchior looked at the Fleetwood, the furs, the expensively maintained cast of Song’s skin. Even the boy in the driver’s seat looked more like an objet d’art than a person.
“The, ah, continued goodwill of the Company?”
Song rolled her eyes. “Drew Everton, second and fourth Thursday of every month.”
“Why, that dirty little scoundrel! I wouldn’t’ve thought he had it in him.” Although, really, of course he would: the only thing a Wasp enjoys more than hoarding his money is wasting it on a whore. Melchior’s eyes flickered over Song’s stole to the breasts beneath it. “I guess we’ll have to call it a favor then.”
A cunning smile spread across Song’s face, though Melchior couldn’t tell if it was a reaction to his gaze or the idea of having him in her debt.
“I guess we will.”
Melchior nodded. “Dr. Keller will meet you at the airport.”
“Keller.” Song’s eyes narrowed. Melchior was surprised. He’d thought Keller was his secret. “This is part of Ultra?”
“Everton can’t keep his mouth shut, I see. But no, not Ultra. Orpheus.”
“I don’t know Orpheus.”
Melchior couldn’t tell if she was lying, but all he said was “Ultra’s bastard child. You’re about to meet him.”
“Do I open the door? Or the trunk?”
“The trunk’ll be fine.” Melchior pulled a small black case from the pocket of his suit, opened it to reveal a syringe and a couple of vials. “He’s sleeping. And if you want to get to Frisco in one piece, I suggest you keep him that way.”
Washington, DC
November 7, 1963
“In conclusion,” J. Edgar Hoover’s droning voice wound up, “the Review Committee, finding no evidence to support any of Special Agent Querrey’s claims save for the single wound to his head, and having had the entirety of his account denied by both public and private sources at CIA, Dr. Leary, and all the residents of ‘Castalia,’ and having further found no substantiation of his assertion of an extramarital liaison between the president of the United States and Mary Meyer or of the possibility that the latter-named woman supplied the president with hallucinogenic pharmaceutical compounds, can only conclude that Special Agent Querrey was the victim of a hoax perpetrated either by Dr. Leary or perhaps by CIA itself, with the intention of discrediting this Bureau. In light of the smear that would have accrued to this Bureau if such a lapse in judgment on the part of one of its agents had become public knowledge—”
BC sat patiently, his eyes focused on the portrait of Jack Kennedy that hung directly above and behind the director, its plain wooden frame outlined by a larger pale rectangle, as if to say that the new president had a long way to go before he filled the space Dwight Eisenhower had vacated three years ago. BC had looked at this picture, or copies of it, countless times before, but now he found himself zeroing in on the private twinkle in the eyes, the too-wide parting of the lips, the eager, almost hungry set of the mouth: this was a lover’s face, not a politician’s. Marilyn Monroe. Mary Meyer. Who knew who else? And who knew what they were slipping into his drinks?
“—have no choice but to remove Special Agent Querrey from active service while his continued career in law enforcement is reevaluated. He will be placed on extended leave, with pay, until such time as we can decide what, if any, his role at the Bureau should be.” Hoover looked up from his desk. “I want you to know I take no pleasure in this decision, Agent Querrey. You showed exceptional promise early in your career, but it takes more than intelligence to be an officer of this Bureau. But who knows? Perhaps, with time, and with a certain amount of soul-searching on your part, you can be rehabilitated.”
Rehabilitated, BC thought. As though he were a drug addict. As though he’d asked to be promoted from Behavioral Profiling to COINTELPRO. The Review Committee’s findings were hardly a surprise to him, and he felt no great desire to fight them. This case wasn’t the Bureau’s responsibility. It was his. Nevertheless, he thought he owed it to his career—and his conscience—to speak for the record.
“Three bodies left that cottage, Director Hoover.” BC didn’t bother mentioning his suspicion that Chandler and Naz were still alive, figuring that was the kind of circle-within-a-circle detail that would only make his account seem that much more far-fetched.
Hoover sighed. He closed the manila folder that contained the twenty or thirty sheets of paper that summed up BC’s career, and, for the first time, looked at his disgraced agent. Four decades in office had erased any vestige of an inner self from the director’s face, until only the public servant remained. The Bureau had replaced Hoover’s blood with paper and his imagination with indexes, engulfing his once-lean features in a gelatinous form that seemed held together by the buttons of his shirt and the knot of his tie. His pale, almost neckless face spilled over the collar of his gray suit like foam spewing from the tip of a science-project volcano. His eyes blinked out of two folds of skin like myopic camera shutters. His voice was as impersonal as clacking typewriter keys. He took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes tiredly, put his glasses back on. Then: