Shift: A Novel

“Jesus, that’s starting to get on my nerves,” Robertson said, working his way to the bottom of his eighth or ninth can of Spam as he glared at the defector. “What the fuck’s he saying anyway?”

One of the Cuban exiles glared at him, but the other said, “He is praying for his safety, for our safety, for the safety and success of this mission, and for the peace and prosperity of the glorious Cuban nation and its friend and protector, the United States of America, especially its new leader, the Catholic President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, may God bless and guide him in His wisdom, you redneck motherfucker.”

He said this in Spanish, and Robertson just stared at him blankly.

“Jesus, that’s starting to get on my nerves.” He scooped up another scrotum-sized mound of Spam, licked it off his spoon as though it were ice cream. “Hey, Donny, keep it down, will ya?”

Don Gutierrez Rave de Mendez y Sotomayor gave no sign that he heard. “En el nombre del Padre y del Hijo y del Espiritu Santo,” he finished up, then kissed the crucifix, took a breath, and started in on another round. “Padre nuestro, que estas en los cielos …,”

Across from Robertson, Sturgis was shaking his head in disbelief.

“You don’t speak Spanish?”

Melchior bit back a laugh. The guy barely spoke English.

Robertson’s lower jaw hung open, exposing a mouthful of pink pulp, which, on second glance, might’ve actually been his tongue. “Why do I need to speak Spanish? We got the three-a them.” He added more meat to his mouth. “D’you speak Spanish?”

“Of course I speak Spanish, numbnuts. We’re going to Cuba, fer Chrissakes.”

“No one told me I needed to speak Spanish. No one told me shit.” He glanced significantly at Melchior. “Hey you. Domenico. Do you speak Spanish?”

Melchior had learned Spanish from the housekeepers when he was a little boy, along with Latin from the Wednesday-night and Sunday-morning masses they’d dragged him to, and French from the Cajun aunt who raised him until he was seven years old, when she came home and found her dog impaled on stakes in a pitfall in the middle of the front path.

He told none of this to Rip Robertson.

“Don’t you know who he is?” Sturgis asked.

“Howard said his name was Domenico. Alvin … ”

But Sturgis was shaking his head.

“That’s just a cipher. Hunt don’t know his real name. Neither does Bissell, Helms, not even Allen fucking Dulles. Only one who knows is Frank Wisdom. This guy”—Sturgis nodded at Melchior, in case Robertson had forgotten who he was talking about in the litany of names—“is one of the Wise Men.”

“No shit.” Robertson’s whistle elicited a sharp groan from Donny, who seemed to think it emanated from the plane. “I thought they was all gone now.” He studied Melchior a moment. “I’d’ve figured you to be older. What are you, thirty, thirty-one?”

Melchior had to give him that one. Not out loud of course, but still. He got it on the nose.

“They say the Wiz recruited them when they was kids,” Sturgis explained. “Orphans, runaways, juvenile delinquents. Whatever gutter trash he could round up.”

Melchior wondered what Sturgis was getting at. Or rather, he wondered if Sturgis was getting at what he thought Sturgis was getting at.

“No shit,” Robertson said again, too busy scraping the bottom of his can to hear the edge in Sturgis’s voice. “Well, I guess that means this mission is serious. Either that, or we’re being thrown to the wolves.”

Another one, right on the kisser. Melchior wondered if maybe Robertson wasn’t as dumb as his eating habits. The Spam did smell curiously good after three hours of sitting around.

“So, Mr. Wise Man,” Robertson said as he popped the top on his ninth or tenth can of Spam, “what’s the deal with the cigars?”

Before Melchior could give the standard answer—“Need-to-know only,” which is what Dick Bissell had said to him when he asked the same question thirty hours earlier—Sturgis said, “Shit, Rip, you don’t think Alvin fucking Domenico’s gonna tell a couple-a ex-grunts like you and me what’s going on, do you? He’s a fucking Wise Man, for Christ’s sake.” He took a pull off his bottle. “I mean, he was practically bred to be an agent.”

Melchior noted the word. “Bred” rather than “raised.” Sturgis was almost there now.

“Of course, I guess the days of the Wise Men are over.” Sturgis had dropped the pretense of talking to Robertson, was looking directly at Melchior now. “I mean, what with the Wiz being out of the game and all.”

“Flank Wis …” Robertson swallowed, tried again. “Frank Wisdom retired?”

“I wouldn’t say retired.” Sturgis put his fingers on his temples, made a bzzt sound.

“No shit.” Robertson’s eyes went wide, then narrowed. “Wait. You are saying he went crazy, right? Bzzt? Shock treatments?”

Melchior heard a loud staccato, realized it was his fingers tapping dangerously hard on the box of cigars.

“The whole DDP is on the outs now,” Sturgis was saying, a smirk flicking at the corner of his mouth. “It’s all about Technical Services these days. Knockout drops and truth serums and every other kind of magic potion you can think of. Before you know it, the Company’s gonna be able to program sleepers like Big Blue punch cards, and then I guess DDP won’t need to train no garden-variety pickaninnies …”

Melchior was just about to jump out of his seat when the plane banked sharply to the left and he had to clutch at his harness to keep from falling instead. Don Gutierrez Rave de Mendez y Sotomayor wasn’t so lucky. He tumbled