Shift: A Novel

“I always knew you would do this to me,” she said. “You pretended you were different from the rest of them, but I always knew you were just the same.”

And then she died in his arms.

A gunshot brought Chandler back.

No, not a gunshot: the backfire of a motorcycle. The motorcade’s escort had arrived, was turning onto Elm Street.

Chandler staggered backward. Only the umbrella he was leaning on kept him from falling over. His senses were still screwed up, and instead of throwing himself at Melchior, he almost fell on him. The people around them took a few steps away, their hands shielding their eyes as they looked at the approaching vehicles. A thousand versions of There he is! flashed in Chandler’s mind.

He leaned on the umbrella heavily. “Where is she?” he demanded.

Melchior’s smile was a sickening parody of innocence. “What do you mean, where is she? You’re Orpheus. That means she’s in hell.”

Another image of Naz’s dying face flashed in his mind, and Chandler shook his head to clear it. That was a mistake: again Melchior had to grab him to keep him from falling over. Chandler shook him off roughly, doing his best to steady himself as the acid continued to flood his system.

“You—you added something to the LSD.”

Melchior’s smirk grew wider. “Several somethings in fact. Among others: psilocybin to increase the hallucinogenic power, sodium pentathol to render you open to suggestion, and a heaping spoonful of methamphetamine just to make you crazy.”

“Yeah, well, crazy or not, I’m going to rip your brain apart.”

“I don’t think so,” Melchior said. “I may play fast and loose sometimes, but I never make mistakes.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out an empty pill bottle. “While you went fishing in my brain, I took another pill. You won’t be getting back in for a while.”

Chandler pushed—pushed hard—but it was like trying to get the water out of a sponge with a needle. It would take ten thousand pricks before he accomplished anything. Melchior’s nose wrinkled. It was obvious he was feeling something, but not enough to really hurt him.

“I’ll save you the effort,” he said. “She’s in Cuba. Trust me,” he threw in, when it looked like Chandler might turn and run. “I can have her killed a dozen different ways before you could get out of the country, let alone into Cuba. Listen to me,” he hissed, stepping closer to Chandler. “I know you know Caspar’s in the building behind me. I know you know he’s got a rifle, and I know you know he’s going to shoot the president. I want you to help him.”

Chandler was fighting a fresh wave of dizziness, and he barely heard what Melchior said. “Help him?”

“Caspar never was the best marksman. Help him find his target. Steady his hand. Pull the trigger for him if you have to.”

“Help him?” Chandler said again, but even as he spoke Chandler’s brain was reaching out. It was like Melchior’s words were a map, guiding Chandler to Caspar’s brain.

“But … but why?” he said, trying to fight the connection, feeling it grow stronger instead.

“Why? Because at any point in the past two weeks you could have gone to the police, and you refused to. Because all you could think about was getting your girlfriend back—a girl you spent less than a week with, who you slept with all of one time. For her you were willing to sacrifice your duty not just to your country but to your beliefs. It’s time you learned that there are consequences for putting yourself ahead of everyone else. This morning I killed the only woman I might have ever loved—and now you and everyone else are going to learn what it means to cross me. Now, help Caspar make his shot or I swear to God I’ll pull the top of Naz’s skull off with my bare hands and eat her brains for dinner.”

The whole time Melchior spoke, the connection to Caspar grew more and more palpable. Chandler felt the gun as if it were in his own hands, smelled the dust from thousands and thousands of boxed books. The concrete was hard under his knees, and he had to fight the urge to fidget. No, Chandler told himself. Caspar’s knees. Caspar was fighting the urge to fidget, not Chandler. Caspar was looking desperately for Melchior, the scope of his rifle ignoring the motorcade as it moved from one face in the crowd to the next. Chandler could see the faces through the crosshairs. Male and female, black and white, their attention focused on the long line of motorcycles and limousines, their hands shading their eyes from the death pointing down at them from sixty feet above, and as he looked at one innocent face after another he had an idea. He pushed deeper into Caspar’s mind, found what he was looking for, pulled it out, and put it before Caspar’s eyes. The gun angled to the left.

The few seconds it took the motorcade to complete its left turn onto Elm and enter the shelter of the live oaks growing in front of the depository seemed to take all of Caspar’s life.

He stopped looking through the crowd for Melchior and instead angled the rifle just past the last oak and waited. Melchior had told him he had to play it straight right up until the end.

Suddenly a thought flickered through his head and he jerked the gun a few inches to the left. The view through the scope blurred, settled, and there he was.

Melchior.

He stood on the edge of the street, casually talking to a second man who leaned on an umbrella. He never once looked up at the window.

He hates you.

The thought seemed to come out of the ether, and Caspar twitched so hard he nearly pulled the trigger.

He’ll sacrifice you to his game.

Caspar took his eye from the scope, shook his head to clear it. KGB had said things like that to him, when they were trying to turn him. Had said the Wiz sent him behind enemy lines to be slaughtered, just like he’d done with all those poor boys in the Ukraine and Korea. Caspar could almost believe that about the Wiz. But Melchior? Melchior was his friend.