foster associations with third parties, often without their knowledge. Enter Dr. Leary. Apparently his ‘experiments’ did not pass academic muster at Harvard, and he was, to put it politely, not asked to renew his contract. Cut off from his academic supplier, the doctor was forced to enter into a relationship of convenience with Billy Hitchcock. No, not the Orioles ‘coach.’” Another lopsided smile, acknowledging the Orioles dismal .500 record last season. “William Mellon Hitchcock is the grandson of William Larimer Mellon, the founder of Gulf Oil, and the great-grandson of Thomas Mellon, founder of Mellon Bank. He also, apparently, has aspirations to being a spook, and, in exchange for being allowed to supply Dr. Leary with enough LSD for his experiments, he reports on the results of those experiments to his handler at CIA, and Edward Logan based in Boston. This morning we received credible intelligence suggesting Dr. Leary has achieved some kind of breakthrough. The exact nature of this breakthrough is not clear to us, nor does it appear to be clear to CIA, perhaps because of Leary’s attenuated relationship with Logan. I need you to travel to Millbrook to find out if anything Dr. Leary has discovered—or, dare I say,
As he spoke, Hoover’s mouth seemed to separate from the unmoving white sludge that surrounded it, until it was just a void in space through which issued the director’s uncannily articulate summary. Beyond the pinkish slug-shaped lips and small, sharp-looking teeth, the tongue pulsed wetly, and, even further back, the uvula wiggled in front of the dark shadow of the director’s esophagus like a pendulum swinging at the entrance of a house of horrors. With each word, BC felt as if he were being sucked toward that void, so completely that when the director’s lips sealed shut, he almost felt as if he were being swallowed.
“Agent Querrey? I wish you wouldn’t chew your lip like that. It’s hardly becoming in a representative of the Bureau.”
BC blinked his eyes rapidly, took a moment to consider everything the director had just told him. He’d never heard of Hoover telling a joke. He’d heard that Hoover had interfered with American citizens in left-wing groups in clear violation of their First Amendment rights. He’d heard also that Hoover had cut deals with gangsters in Chicago, New York, and Miami to the effect that if they confined their business to prostitution and narcotics and a little bit of honest graft at the dockyards—and continued to maintain a hardline anti-Communist stance—he wouldn’t sic the Bureau on them. He’d heard that Hoover’s mania for keeping up appearances was a reaction to his father’s nervous breakdown, that his hatred of miscegenation stemmed from the fact that he himself was mulatto, and that he was sexually involved with Associate Director Clyde Tolson, and was wont to sport black cocktail dresses at their all-male soirees. But he had never heard of Hoover telling a joke, and he didn’t want to know what would happen if he laughed in his boss’s face. But still:
“Orpheus?”
An actual expression flickered across the director’s face. It was hard to read, yet BC could have sworn it was consternation, as if the director had been caught out. “The code name for the project,” he said, waving a hand as if the term were of no importance. “As with all CIA terminology, its meaning is unclear. It seems to be used variously to refer to the drug, the ‘receptor’ in the brain to which the drug is meant to ‘bind,’ and the person to whom the drug is administered.”
The director paused. He was not generous with his time, and this had already been a long briefing. His mouth pursed, his cheeks stretched like egg whites beaten to within an inch of their life. Then:
“We find ourselves in a curious position, Agent Querrey. On the one hand, we have ridiculous claims of chemically engineered secret agents that, on the face of it, defy credulity. On the other, we have evidence of ten years’ worth of CIA experiments on a single compound, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars and at least one life lost. And, finally, we have a supporting cast of players who all bear watching. This Timothy Leary character was kicked out of West Point and three or four subsequent colleges, and earlier this year attempted to found something that looked like a Communist cult in Mexico. Billy Hitchcock has simply extraordinary amounts of capital, not to mention influential positions on the boards of several of the nation’s top banks and a desire to leave his mark on the world. And then there’s the breakthrough itself. As I stated, we don’t know its exact nature, but we do know it centers around two persons who are, shall we say, of interest to the American intelligence community. The first is a young woman by the name of Nazanin Haverman, whose parents were killed for aiding CIA in the overthrow of Mohammed Mossadegh’s Communist regime in Persia, and who may well bear animus against this country for failing to protect them. The second is a man named Chandler Forrestal, nephew of the late secretary of war—and one of the founders of CIA—James Forrestal. Both the secretary and his brother John, Chandler’s father, took their own lives, the former in response to the failure of Operation Mockingbird, the CIA’s plan to liberate the Ukraine from the Soviet Union, and the latter in response to his failure to successfully negotiate the business world. In addition to suggesting a family history of mental instability, this personal history also gives Chandler as good a reason as Miss Haverman to hold a grudge against the United States. So I submit to you that, though the possibility of any sort of science fiction–type success with this Orpheus project is extraordinarily slim, it still behooves the Bureau to investigate. Given the family connections borne by Messrs. Forrestal and Hitchcock—oh, and Miss Haverman is the goddaughter of Kermit Roosevelt, grandson of Teddy—it also calls for extreme discretion, which is why you were especially chosen for the task. You have a reputation for curmudgeonly reticence that would be seen as an indication of antisocial tendencies in anyone other than an agent of the Counter Intelligence Program, where it is instead admirable.”
Hoover paused, and glanced at his watch.
“The ten twenty-seven will get you into Pennsylvania Station at three fifty-eight,” he said in a voice that had slipped back into its executive tone. “An agent will have a car waiting for you. If you beat rush hour, you should make it there without difficulty. I had one of Clyde’s boys fill a suitcase for you, so you can leave immediately.”
BC heard heavy footsteps behind him, turned to see the tall, athletic form of Associate Director Tolson walking out of the Vault with one of his—well, his mother’s—suitcases. The suitcase had been in his mother’s—well, his— bedroom, in the closet, behind a box of Eddie Bauer, L.L. Bean, and Sears and Roebuck catalogs that had accumulated since his mother died. Certain pages had been dogeared in these catalogs, displaying items of clothing that, let’s just say, wouldn’t have fit BC, and he searched Associate Director Tolson’s face to see if “his boy” had reported this to him. But all the associate director said was:
“Agent McClain says your underwear drawer is better organized than Miss Gandy’s files. He also tells me you have a very nice Hepplewhite secretary.”
The secretary was in the downstairs study, where, presumably, Agent McClain had not expected to find any clothes needed for a weekend trip. BC wondered when McClain had broken into his house. It was barely nine thirty, after all. He must have been waiting outside for BC to go to work this morning.
“It’s, ah, it’s a reproduction.”
The associate director shrugged. “Although the director has quite a passion for antiques, they were never really my thing.”
BC thought about saying “It’s a reproduction” again. He didn’t.
“One last thing,” the director said. BC turned back to the desk and, with a sinking heart, saw that a book had
