As he hoisted BC onto his shoulder, a picture fell out of the bum’s expensive-looking jacket. It took the officer a moment to sort out the tangle of legs and arms—he counted six of the former, but only five of the latter. He hoped the missing limb had merely been cropped from the frame.
“A pervert, too, huh? What the hell is this world coming to?”
Washington, DC
November 15, 1963
When they finished, Melchior said, “That proves the old axiom that the boss should be able to outperform any of her employees.” In case Song had missed the point, he added,
Song lit a cigarette, took a drag, passed it to Melchior.
“As I was saying earlier,” she said in a voice that gave no hint of the ripe smell that hung in the room, “you need an organization.”
Melchior sucked on the cigarette, held the smoke in his lungs just to the point of discomfort, then exhaled.
“This conversation requires clothes.”
“So,” Song recapped after Melchior had told her everything that had happened since he’d returned to the States. “Orpheus in Frisco. Naz in DC. And something”—she looked at Melchior significantly—“in Cuba. You entrusted them all to freelancers and look what happened. You’ve lost at least two assets, and, depending on what Comrade Ivelitsch meant by his note, possibly all three.”
“He wouldn’t have left that note if he’d found it.”
Song rolled her eyes.
“I know it’s a bomb, Melchior.”
“What’s a bomb?”
“I told you. Drew Everton, second and fourth Thursday of every month.”
“He doesn’t believe me when I tell him there’s a nuke in Cuba, but he tells—”
“Focus, Melchior. We’re talking about Ivelitsch. He wouldn’t have left that note if he was acting with KGB approval.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying he’s testing the waters, just like you. Looking for an excuse to go freelance.”
“And what’s that mean to me?”
“He’s going to call. My guess is he’ll make a perfunctory effort to turn you. I want you to counteroffer. The two of you pretend to work for KGB to take advantage of their resources, but in actuality you form a new, independent organization.”
“With you as a partner, of course.”
“Let’s face it, Melchior. If someone didn’t kick your ass, you’d still be carrying around a slingshot.”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure I’d’ve graduated to a shotgun by now.” Melchior chuckled. “And what’s this new organization stand for anyway? What is it supposed to do?”
Song made sure Melchior was looking at her before she spoke.
“Anything you want.”
Wheeling, WV
November 17, 1963
Even before Chandler opened his eyes he had a sense of himself in a moving vehicle. This was strange, because he was also lying down. The first thing he saw was a ceiling of tufted white silk a scant eighteen inches above him, stained here and there from old drips. Two rows of windows flanked either side of the long, narrow compartment, covered by drawn curtains.
It hit him. He was in a hearse.
He was dead.
A voice chuckled somewhere in front of him.
“Back among the living?”
Chandler rolled onto his stomach—he wasn’t tied up, which all by itself was a good thing—and he wasn’t in a coffin either. An even bigger plus. The rearview mirror was angled so that the driver could see the bed of the hearse. Chandler could see the driver as well: a white man, a few years younger than him. His haircut looked military, but his black suit was almost rakishly mod, the lapels barely an inch wide, the tie equally narrow.
Suddenly the memories crashed down on him. Running from the Phillips station, the smell of smoke in his nostrils, roasting flesh. He’d barely made it to his car before passing out. It was three hours before a Highway Patrolman inspected the vehicle. Chandler remembered the sound of the billy club tapping the window, a voice calling through the glass, the door opening, the cop shaking his shoulder, the twenty-minute wait for the ambulance to arrive and the forty-five-minute ride to the hospital and the battery of tests the doctors had performed on him— tests to which he had remained unresponsive, even as he recorded everything that was happening through the eyes and ears of the people around him. He’d spent a day in the bed—twenty-three hours and fourteen minutes—and then this man had arrived and taken him away; they’d been on the road for almost twenty hours.
He looked back at the face in the mirror.
“Agent Querrey?”
A look Chandler had only ever seen in religious frescoes and Cecil B. DeMille movies came over the FBI agent’s face. A look of beatific gratitude, as if Chandler were an angel confirming BC’s election among the holy.
