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 names, 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.”