Shift: A Novel

“Scheider thinks Caspar—” Ivelitsch broke off. “What?”

“I said, Kim Philby’s in Russia.”

“What’s your point?” Ivelitsch said coldly.

“My point is, you said yesterday that Philby was your mole inside CIA. But he’s been in Russia since January, which means there’s no way Angleton could have told him he wanted Caspar to kill me. Which means you got the info from someone else. I’m guessing it was Caspar himself.”

“Pavel?” Song said. “What’s he talking about? Did you turn Caspar?”

“Yes, Pavel,” Melchior sneered. “Did you double him? Or is he playing you? Because if the Company’s got a file on you, then this partnership is over.”

Ivelitsch didn’t say anything for a moment. Then: “You’ll have to ask him that yourself. When you see him in Dallas.”

“Cut the bullshit, comrade. I need to know the truth before I see Caspar. Has he been in regular contact with KGB since he came back from Russia?”

“Of course we tried to recruit him,” Ivelitsch said exasperatedly. “But Caspar’s so confused that he can no longer distinguish between legend and reality. He may well think he’s working for KGB. For all I know, he’ll tell you we have dinner once a week. But the simple truth is that he’s too crazy, even for us.”

“So what you’re saying is that I should believe Caspar if he tells me what you want me to believe, but if he contradicts you, it’s just a delusion. You’ll understand me if I find that unsatisfactory.”

“I’d worry less about who he’s working for than if he’s going to shoot you. After his failure in the Soviet Union, he needs to do something that’ll prove his worth to the Company—it doesn’t matter if he’s doing it out of loyalty to the U.S. or the Soviet Union. You’ll still be dead.”

“And so will he,” Song said. “The Company will tip off FBI, who’ll pick him up for murder, and six months later he’ll end up in the electric chair. And that’s the end of the Wiz Kids.”

Melchior glanced at Song, but he was thinking about Caspar again. About the last time he’d seen him, in a geisha bar outside the naval air base in Atsugi. Just before they parted, Caspar had pulled Melchior aside. “Promise me you’ll get me out if they brainwash me.”

“Get you out—”

“Take me out,” Caspar corrected him. “I don’t want them to turn me into something I’m not.” Such a statement begged the question: what was Caspar? But Melchior hadn’t had the heart to ask it. “Promise?” Caspar had said. “I promise,” Melchior had said, and somehow they both knew he was going to break it.

“Melchior?” This time it was Ivelitsch who pulled him from his reverie. Melchior shook his head to clear it, but Caspar’s face refused to go away. He stood up so abruptly that his newspaper fell to the ground and a few pages fluttered away in the breeze.

“I have to go to Chicago. We’ll deal with Chandler and Naz later.”

“Chicago?” Ivelitsch called after Melchior’s retreating form.

“You want the bomb to come to America,” Melchior called back. “I’m going to get it here, and take care of Caspar at the same time.”

Ivelitsch turned to Song. “I don’t understand.”

Song put a hand on Ivelitsch’s knee to keep him from getting up. “I don’t either,” she said, staring after Melchior. “But Chicago is Giancana’s home base.”

“Ah,” Ivelitsch said.

Song pointed to the dateline on the paper, and for the first time Ivelitsch noticed that it was the Dallas Morning News. It took him a second to figure it out.

“He already knew, didn’t he? He was just pumping us for information, making sure we were telling the truth.”

“I told you,” Song said. “He’s good.”

Ivelitsch picked up the front page, which was covered with a series of red and black X’s and O’s.

“What’s this?”

Song peered at it. “I’m not sure, but I think it’s an old cipher system dating from the forties. It’s hugely complicated. You take your message and the particular page of newsprint you’re using and create an algorithm that encodes the former onto the latter. There are only a handful of agents who can break it without a computer.”

“Huh.” Ivelitsch was about to say something else, but, twenty feet away, Melchior had turned to look back at him.

“Did you double him?”

A little smirk played over Ivelitsch’s lips. “I’ll tell you in fifty years, if we’re both still alive.”

Melchior nodded, turned back around. “Song keeps petting you like that,” he muttered, “I’m pretty sure you’ll be dead long before then.”

New York, NY

November 19, 1963

The men flanked him, the smaller one ahead, the bigger one behind, as they descended the staircase and made their way toward the front door. They spoke to each other in Russian, more or less confirming BC’s earlier suspicion. This was a bad sign. It was one thing for Melchior to go rogue. It was quite another for him to cross to the other side. Or had word of Orpheus simply crossed international channels? Still, for some reason he