“Pavel?” Song said. “What’s he talking about? Did you turn Caspar?”
“Yes, Pavel,” Melchior sneered. “Did you double him? Or is he playing you? Because if the Company’s got a file on you, then this partnership is over.”
Ivelitsch didn’t say anything for a moment. Then: “You’ll have to ask him that yourself. When you see him in Dallas.”
“Cut the bullshit, comrade. I need to know the truth before I see Caspar. Has he been in regular contact with KGB since he came back from Russia?”
“Of course we tried to recruit him,” Ivelitsch said exasperatedly. “But Caspar’s so confused that he can no longer distinguish between legend and reality. He may well think he’s working for KGB. For all I know, he’ll tell you we have dinner once a week. But the simple truth is that he’s too crazy, even for us.”
“So what you’re saying is that I should believe Caspar if he tells me what you want me to believe, but if he contradicts you, it’s just a delusion. You’ll understand me if I find that unsatisfactory.”
“I’d worry less about who he’s working for than if he’s going to shoot you. After his failure in the Soviet Union, he needs to do something that’ll prove his worth to the Company—it doesn’t matter if he’s doing it out of loyalty to the U.S. or the Soviet Union. You’ll still be dead.”
“And so will he,” Song said. “The Company will tip off FBI, who’ll pick him up for murder, and six months later he’ll end up in the electric chair. And that’s the end of the Wiz Kids.”
Melchior glanced at Song, but he was thinking about Caspar again. About the last time he’d seen him, in a geisha bar outside the naval air base in Atsugi. Just before they parted, Caspar had pulled Melchior aside. “Promise me you’ll get me out if they brainwash me.”
“Get you out—”
“Take me out,” Caspar corrected him. “I don’t want them to turn me into something I’m not.” Such a statement begged the question: what was Caspar? But Melchior hadn’t had the heart to ask it. “Promise?” Caspar had said. “I promise,” Melchior had said, and somehow they both knew he was going to break it.
“Melchior?” This time it was Ivelitsch who pulled him from his reverie. Melchior shook his head to clear it, but Caspar’s face refused to go away. He stood up so abruptly that his newspaper fell to the ground and a few pages fluttered away in the breeze.
“I have to go to Chicago. We’ll deal with Chandler and Naz later.”
“Chicago?” Ivelitsch called after Melchior’s retreating form.
“You want the bomb to come to America,” Melchior called back. “I’m going to get it here, and take care of Caspar at the same time.”
Ivelitsch turned to Song. “I don’t understand.”
Song put a hand on Ivelitsch’s knee to keep him from getting up. “I don’t either,” she said, staring after Melchior. “But Chicago is Giancana’s home base.”
“Ah,” Ivelitsch said.
Song pointed to the dateline on the paper, and for the first time Ivelitsch noticed that it was the Dallas Morning News. It took him a second to figure it out.
“He already knew, didn’t he? He was just pumping us for information, making sure we were telling the truth.”
“I told you,” Song said. “He’s good.”
Ivelitsch picked up the front page, which was covered with a series of red and black X’s and O’s.
“What’s this?”
Song peered at it. “I’m not sure, but I think it’s an old cipher system dating from the forties. It’s hugely complicated. You take your message and the particular page of newsprint you’re using and create an algorithm that encodes the former onto the latter. There are only a handful of agents who can break it without a computer.”
“Huh.” Ivelitsch was about to say something else, but, twenty feet away, Melchior had turned to look back at him.
“Did you double him?”
A little smirk played over Ivelitsch’s lips. “I’ll tell you in fifty years, if we’re both still alive.”
Melchior nodded, turned back around. “Song keeps petting you like that,” he muttered, “I’m pretty sure you’ll be dead long before then.”
New York, NY
November 19, 1963
The men flanked him, the smaller one ahead, the bigger one behind, as they descended the staircase and made their way toward the front door. They spoke to each other in Russian, more or less confirming BC’s earlier suspicion. This was a bad sign. It was one thing for Melchior to go rogue. It was quite another for him to cross to the other side. Or had word of Orpheus simply crossed international channels? Still, for some reason he wasn’t afraid. He was already bucking the FBI and CIA, after all. What was one more acronymed agency?
When they reached the bottom of the stairs, the first man turned back to him. “We know you are traveling with Orpheus. You will take us to him, or Nazanin Haverman will die.”
“Of course,” BC said. “If you’ll go get me a pen and, uh”—a glance over his shoulder—“your partner tracks down some paper, I’d be glad to write down the address.”
The lead agent smiled at BC’s attempt at a joke. “We are strangers in the city. We would be very appreciative if you took us to him yourself.”
BC shrugged. “Whatever floats your boat.”
The second man pressed so close as they made their way through the thronged front hall that BC could feel the man’s belly pressed against the small of his back. He couldn’t resist.
“Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?”
“Why can’t it be both?” the man said.
The crowd seemed to have thickened. The parlors oozed smoke and music and body heat, and people eddied back and forth between them, making the hall a swirling mass. The three men inched their way forward, the lead Russian unwilling to shove through. Probably didn’t want to attract attention, BC thought. The agent’s hesitation bought him a few seconds, but to do what?
A fresh surge of people pushed the three men against a sleek modern console. An expressionist portrait hung over it—a woman looking like she’d been dismembered and reassembled by a blind surgeon. More helpfully, there was a medium-sized brass vase on the console beneath the painting.
Another press from the crowd. BC slipped his left hand into the vase as though it were a big brass glove. A puff of ash floated into the air as his hand sank into the metal canister. Great, he thought, I’ve stuck my hand in an ashtray. He hugged it quickly to his stomach, thankful he wasn’t wearing one of his new suits.
“So, uh …” He squinted at the signature on the painting. The man’s handwriting was the most recognizable thing on the canvas. “What’s your opinion of de Kooning?”
Even as the front man was turning around, BC whirled, leading with his metal-capped hand. The big Russian behind him was fast, he had to give him that. His gun was already out and leveling off. The vase struck it with a loud clang. The gun bounced off the console and went flying across the room.
“Whoa, bad trip!” someone yelled as BC whirled back to the front. He wasn’t so lucky this time. He heard the sound of a shot as he turned, saw the smoking barrel of the gun in the lead Russian’s hand even as a ripple traveled up and down his skeleton, shaking his bones one from the other. He wobbled on his feet, only his skin holding him together.
The Russian smiled. He seemed about to say something, then stopped. His brow furrowed, his smile leveled out. Blood leaked from his mouth and a second stain was flowering on his chest.
“Blyat,” he said, and fell backward.
BC held up the vase and saw the dent on the base. He’d gotten lucky after all.