“Where are you taking me?” Chandler said as he slumped in the car.
“Into the future,” Melchior said as he climbed behind the wheel. “Into the brave new world that you and I made together.”
Dallas, TX
November 22, 1963
On the television, a middle-aged woman and an old man sip from ornately patterned coffee cups. Despite the seriousness of the situation, BC can’t help but think of J. Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson and their talk of gravy boats and butter dishes. He stares at the TV out of one eye even as he continues to try to work his right arm free of the duct tape binding it to the chair. The tape has bunched into a gooey, fibrous strand, making it stronger than ever, but also slightly looser. BC has yanked so hard his skin has torn, and a trickle of blood encircles his wrist like a bracelet. He wiggles even more, using the blood as lubricant.
“I have some very interesting information,” the woman says even as the old man slurps his coffee like someone who’s just wandered out of a desert. “Your great-grandson and his mother are going to have Thanksgiving dinner with us.”
“I must say, I’m surprised,” the old man responds, although all his attention seems focused on his cup. Maybe his lines are written there? He’s lowering his face for another slurp when the whine of feedback shrieks from the TV’s single speaker, and the picture fades to a black screen emblazoned with white letters.
A moment later, the articulate, assertive voice of Walter Cronkite takes shape out of the black screen like God speaking from the void. But it’s not the beginning of the world Cronkite is narrating. It’s the end.
“Here is a bulletin from CBS News. In Dallas, Texas, three shots were fired at President Kennedy’s motorcade in downtown Dallas. The first reports say that President Kennedy has been seriously wounded by this shooting.”
For a moment BC has the distinct thought that his mouth would be hanging open if it weren’t taped closed. He stares at the screen, but there are just the white letters, the black background, the preternaturally calm voice of the nation’s first anchorman.
“More details just arrived. These details about the same as previously. President Kennedy shot today just as his motorcade left downtown Dallas. Mrs. Kennedy jumped up and grabbed Mr. Kennedy. She called, ‘Oh no!’ The motorcade sped on. United Press says that the wounds for President Kennedy perhaps could be fatal. Repeating, a bulletin from CBS News: President Kennedy has been shot by a would-be assassin in Dallas, Texas. Stay tuned to CBS News for further details.”
In the background another voice is heard—“Connally, too”—and then the screen cuts to a spoon swinging back and forth like a pendulum, a heart beating with the regularity of a metronome—or, rather, a metronome beating with the regularity of a heart. “It takes more than an instant to make a real cup of coffee.”
A commercial for Nescafé. Behind his gag, BC finds himself giggling. Maybe that’s what the old man was drinking. A promo for that evening’s episode of Route 66 follows. BC stares at the face of George Maharis, his dark hair rippling as he sits behind the wheel of the famous red Corvette, and then for some reason he remembers hearing that the car Buz and Tod drive is really light blue. Apparently it photographs better in black-and-white than an actual red car. Just one more sign, if you still needed it, that things aren’t always what they seem.
Be that as it may, BC thinks as he resumes his struggle to get free, it’s doubtful Route 66 is going to be on the air tonight.1
Moscow, USSR
November 24, 1963
The apartment’s right on the Moskva. Picture-postcard views, even if the wind off the river comes colder and harder than bullets, and reeks of rotten fish besides. Four rooms, each practically as big as a swimming pool. Fourteen-foot ceilings, eighteen-karat gold detailing on the paneling, marquetry on the floor so intricate that it looks more like embroidery than oak and sandalwood and mother-of-pearl. It’s the kind of place that would have belonged to a minor noble or major bureaucrat under the tsars, and now only goes to one of the Party faithful—or a prominent defector.
“Caspar’s apartment in Minsk wasn’t half as nice as this, I can tell you that much,” Ivelitsch says when he shows it to Melchior. “And it’s a hell of a lot nicer than my place.”
“I’m not a defector,” Melchior growls. “Neither was Caspar.”
“Yeah, yeah, tell that to your neighbor, Kim Philby.”
Right now, though, Melchior’s less concerned with his new home than the man he’s sharing it with. He’s asleep right now, on a hospital bed outfitted with shackles at wrist, ankle, and waist, and enclosed inside a big steel cage to boot. He’s been asleep for two solid days.
“Why isn’t he waking up?”
“I don’t understand,” Keller says, flipping pages on his clipboard, flitting from one instrument to the next. “I’ve given him Preludin, epinephrine, methamphetamine. I even gave him cocaine—enough to give an elephant a heart attack. But his pulse is barely ten beats per minute. Are you sure you didn’t give him too much sedative?”
“I told you, I didn’t give him anything. He collapsed in the car on the way to Song’s—on the way to the plane. Hasn’t woken up since.”
“Melchior.” Ivelitsch is standing in the living room doorway. “You might want to look at this.”
“I’m not letting you out of that cage until you figure out what’s wrong, Doctor,” Melchior says, striding into the other room. “Either you wake that man up or you die in there with him.”
The living room is empty save for a huge console television and a massive broken chandelier hanging over it like a glacier punching a hole in the sky. Beneath it, the TV looks more like Pandora’s box than a modern technological conveyance. It even sounds creepy, voices from six thousand miles away booming out of the shot speaker like ghosts looking for a way out of hell. The tiny screen shows a shallow brick alcove crammed with people. Flashing lights, garbled voices, an air of eager, almost greedy expectation so palpable you can almost see it, although it’s probably just static.
An announcer is speaking, but Melchior concentrates on the noises coming from the alcove itself. Suddenly the pitch heightens several notches, the camera flashes grow even more frenetic; a moment later Caspar melts out of the shadows. His hands are cuffed in front of him, his hair is mussed, and there are bruises on his forehead and lip. He walks slowly, as though dazed or drugged. His right elbow is held by a man dressed all in white, his left by a man dressed all in black, the two men towering over him like a pair of angels bickering over the soul of a little boy.
“It’s a police station,” Ivelitsch says. “What the hell can—”
“There,” Melchior says, pointing to a flicker of movement from the right side of the screen even as a voice rises above the din of the crowd:
“Do you have anything to say in your defense?”
A gunshot rings out. The crowd yells, but Caspar’s groans are louder. The men holding him try to support him, but he falls to the floor.