Shift: A Novel

the railings—in the legs, the torso, the arms, each blow stinging as sharply as a whiplash. The guard caught him with a blow to the side of the head and then a foot slammed into BC’s ribs, sending him flying back over the table.

The guard leapt after him, but slipped on the pieces of broken vase all over the floor. It was the closest thing to a break BC had caught. He grabbed the fallen table by its central leg and held it in front of him like a shield. It vibrated beneath the guard’s blows as BC attempted to shoo him back like a matador facing down a bull.

Suddenly the guard dropped the pair of railings and grabbed the edges of the tabletop. BC braced himself, expecting the man to push, but instead the guard spun it so rapidly that the feet at the base of the table spun like propeller blades, smashing him on the chin. Stars flashed in BC’s eyes and he went down hard on the ceramic- covered floor. The guard kicked at his ribs, and BC barely managed to roll out of the way. He felt ceramic shards cutting into his suit, and for some reason this made him angrier than anything else.

“Do you know”—he panted, rolling down the hall to avoid the guard’s kicks—“how much I paid”—still rolling—“for this suit?” His fingers clutched at the shards, and finally he managed to grab one. He flung out his arm to stop himself, braced himself for impact, and felt the guard’s foot slam into his abdomen. A bolt of lightning stabbed through his body. As the air rushed out of his lungs he threw everything he could into a single blow, jamming the shard into the guard’s femoral artery.

The guard staggered backward, the piece of ceramic protruding from his thigh. At first BC wasn’t sure he’d managed to stab deeply enough, but then a dark stain plastered the man’s trouser leg to his skin. Within seconds blood was seeping from beneath the man’s cuff and pooling around his shoe.

Wincing as he struggled for breath, BC leaned heavily against the wall and pushed himself to his feet. He lifted his arms, and another bolt of lightning sliced through his chest. He didn’t know if he had the strength to hold his arms up, let alone throw a punch, but the guard was still standing. BC had no choice. Warily, wheezingly, he advanced.

The guard took his own halting step in BC’s direction, but it was clear that his injured leg wasn’t going to hold his weight. For a moment the two men just stared each other down. Then the guard shrugged and reached into his jacket and pulled out a long knife.

He smiled, not so much wickedly as triumphantly, as he raised it above his head to throw.

Before he could, however, a shot rang out, and he pitched forward. BC looked up the stairs as Naz descended. There was a spot of blood on her lip, but otherwise she seemed unhurt. Unhurt, but exhausted. She clutched the banister, and on the penultimate step she stumbled. If BC hadn’t stepped forward to catch her—the pain in his ribs was as bad as when the guard had kicked him—she would have fallen to the floor. For three long breaths she leaned heavily on him, then recovered enough to stand on her own.

“That—upstairs,” BC said, taking the gun from her trembling fingers. “Is that what happened at Millbrook? To Eddie Logan?”

Again he felt that sudden connection, not of sex or rage this time, but an empty sorrow, as of a bucket striking the bottom of a well whose water has long since dried up.

“Everyone who knows me ends up dead or gone,” Naz said in a muted voice. “My parents, Agent Logan, Chandler. I hope you fare better, Mr. Querrey.”

BC did his best to smile. “I have something for you.” He reached into his pocket for the ring he’d been carrying around for the past ten days, then stopped when Naz’s eyes went wide with horror. She grabbed BC’s arm and pulled herself right next to him.

“Tell Chandler,” she hissed just before BC’s head exploded in a shower of sparks. “I’m pregnant.”

Pavel Semyonovitch Ivelitsch exchanged the brass lamp he’d hit BC with for a pen he pulled from his pocket, which, when uncapped, revealed not a nib but a needle.

“Everyone seems quite interested in you,” he said, pressing the needle against Naz’s suddenly pliant arm. “I think it’s time we found out how interested.”

Washington, DC

November 14–15, 1963

“I don’t understand how you let this happen!”

Melchior’s growl practically rattled the paintings off the walls of Song’s office. Although maybe it was just his feet: the shoes he’d taken from Rip came down so heavily on the small Persian carpet that it seemed he was trying to grind it to dust.

Song sat at her desk, rubbing a knot on the side of her head. Melchior could tell from her pout that she was pressing hard enough for it to hurt.

“I suspected the man was KGB. Now I know.”

“And this one’s FBI.” Melchior jerked a thumb at BC. “I thought you said your establishment was secure, yet somehow you’ve managed to run afoul of the three largest intelligence and law-enforcement agencies in the world in the space of a single night.”

“Maybe if you’d told me what I was dealing with—”

“A mentally unstable twenty-three-year-old prostitute with a drinking problem? I thought you were supposed to be able to handle things like that.”

“Nancy—”

“Naz.” BC spoke for the first time since Melchior had shown up. He lifted his head slowly, a lump the size of a dumpling visible through his high-and-tight. “Her name is Naz.”

“Another thing you didn’t tell me,” Song said to Melchior.

“What other thing?” Melchior demanded again. “What didn’t I tell you?”

“She … did something. I don’t know how to describe it.”

“Yes, you do,” BC said.