Shift: A Novel (16 page)

“You have to understand, Agent … Querrey?” Leary paused just long enough to remind BC that Morganthau wasn’t the only young man who’d tried on an alias. “LSD is extraordinarily powerful. Doses are measured not in grams or milligrams but
micro
grams—one one-millionth of a gram. The threshold dosage is only about twenty or thirty mics. An eyedropper could contain enough acid to give everyone in Manhattan a buzz.”

BC shook his head in confusion. “But LSD’s been around for years.
I don’t know much about it, but I know it’s been used in quite a few psychiatric trials. And I assume you’ve taken it a few times. You don’t have any mental powers, do you?”

“It’s not illegal,” Leary said quickly. “Just controlled. But no. No mental powers—yet.” He sounded almost disappointed.

“Was it just the amount?”

Leary shook his head. “I don’t think so. In fact, LSD has analeptic—stimulating—properties, and beyond a certain dosage it really should give you a heart attack. But this is the CIA. Who knows what they added to Morganthau’s LSD? Who knows if it was even LSD at all?”

“And what does all this have to do with the Gate of Orpheus?”

Leary waved his hand. “You should think of the Gate as less object or organ than metaphor. Opening it was meant to lead to higher states of consciousness, not murder.”

“You mean Morganthau?”

“Think how frightened you were yesterday. Imagine if that fear were amplified a hundred times. A thousand.”

BC shuddered. “You think Mr. Forrestal killed him? Made him kill himself? With his mind?”

“I don’t know,” Leary said. “I don’t know what happened here.” His eyes flickered to the ceiling, to the stripped bedroom above. “And my sense is that now we never will. Unless …”

“Unless what?”

“Unless they make another one.”

“Another—”

“Another Orpheus.”

BC just nodded his head, but what he thought was: they don’t have to make another Orpheus. Chandler Forrestal is still alive. And so was Naz, he thought, reaching for the ring in his pocket. But both of those facts could change quickly, unless he found them. And the only way he was going to do that was if he found Melchior.

The headlights on the the stretch Fleetwood went dark just
before it pulled into the back parking lot of the Falls Church storage facility. Silent and invisible, detectable only by the glint of moonlight off chrome and glass and black lacquer, it sluiced across the empty asphalt like the lead ship of a naval battalion until it pulled up soundlessly in front of a lone man standing in the cone of darkness beneath a broken streetlight. A broad-brimmed hat further shadowed the man’s face, but beneath it a nervous hand fiddled with a tiny hole in the suit jacket, under the lapel, over his heart. For the past thirty-six hours Melchior had been trying to make sense of what he’d experienced at Millbrook—the rippling trees, the objects that seemed to fly of their own accord—but as soon as he saw the car he forgot all that. He’d heard that Song was doing well, but not
this
well, and with a pang of embarrassment he wished he’d abandoned the affectation of Segundo’s execution suit, or at least the worn-out sandals. Thank God today’s socks didn’t have any holes in them.

His regrets only increased when the tinted back window rolled down with a space-age hum, revealing a plush cavern lined with black leather, white silk, chrome accents—and a woman whose face, though familiar, still took his breath away. It had been almost seven years since he’d last seen Song. She was in her mid-twenties now—she’d been shady about her age even when he met her a decade ago in Korea. The features were still sharp, but they lacked the hollow, starved look they’d worn when Melchior first met her, had taken on a cast of polished onyx. The eyes were if anything larger and darker, but, though the anger was gone, it had been replaced by a hardness that was even more daunting.

Melchior couldn’t help himself. He whistled.

Song didn’t deign to look at him. “If you use the term ‘Dragon Lady’ in any context whatsoever, I’ll have Chul-moo shoot out your knees. Now, what’s so important that after seven years you suddenly need to see me personally, immediately, and at one in the morning?”

Well,
that
hadn’t changed. Song had always been a no-nonsense type of girl.

“Actually, I was going to say that if I’d known you were going to turn out this pretty, I’d’ve never—”

“One more word and I’ll shoot you myself.”

“You’re afraid I’ll offend poor ‘Iron Weapon’ in the front seat?” Melchior glanced at the chauffeur. “Is he even old enough to drive?”

“His license says he is,” Song said. “And he speaks no English, so the only person who will be offended by your banter is me. Let’s cut to the chase: what do you need?” Song looked at Melchior for the first time, from the ragged sandals all the way up to the battered fedora, proffering an ironic smile that sent shivers down his spine. “And what do you offer?”

In return for
services rendered to the United States government during the war in Korea, Song Paik—Song to her friends, Madam Song to everyone else—asked only that she be allowed to emigrate to America. Melchior had traveled to Korea with the Wiz when he was all of twenty years old, had recruited her himself. She was that one in fifty asset who neither disappeared behind the 38th parallel nor turned out to have been a Communist plant. She’d been fourteen or fifteen then, a slip of a girl, all angles and lines, with sunken eyes that burned with hunger and hatred. Like Melchior, she was an orphan, but unlike him she’d known her parents and witnessed their murder—and the murder of her brother, her nanny, and six more members of her extended family, not to mention countless friends and neighbors—at the hands of Kim Il-sung’s soldiers. Melchior was pretty sure she’d’ve helped the Company even if the Wiz hadn’t offered her U.S. citizenship. No one carried a grudge like a Korean. Of course he hadn’t met any Persians at that point, so it was a qualified opinion.

In fact, after he and the Wiz had been in Korea for just over ten months, Douglas MacArthur made it clear he didn’t give a shit about intelligence as long as he had tanks and bombers and 155-millimeter shells and napalm—God only knows what would’ve happened if he’d gotten his hands on the thirty-eight atomic bombs he’d requested. Never one to stick around where he wasn’t wanted, the Wiz decamped for Persia to take care of Mohammed Mossadegh, dragging Melchior
with him, while Song made her way to the States. Melchior kept tenuous tabs on her in the intervening decade. Though her presence in this country was legal, the rest of her activities appeared to be less above-board. He gathered that she’d tried a little bit of everything: smuggling, drug running, even espionage. Her primary source of revenue, however, was an exclusive brothel that offered every kind of Asian girl—Indian, Thai, Japanese, as well as more rarefied “varietals,” as she called them, as though they were species of orchid—and whose regular patrons had come to include captains of industry and congressmen, along with a regular flow of intelligence agents from around the world, who came there for the information that was on sale along with the girls. Although the official line at the Company was that Madam Song’s was allowed to operate unmolested because she funneled a large percentage of her income to organizations and individuals working for the overthrow of Kim Il-sung’s regime, the truth was she’d taken her cues from the Company and kept extensive evidence—photographic and forensic—on the most sensitive visitors to her establishment. A nosy reporter might take her down one day (assuming she didn’t have the goods on the paper’s publisher), but no government agency ever would.

Melchior shook
his head now. “The years haven’t softened you, that’s for sure. I need to move something,” he said quickly, before she threatened to shoot him again. “Someone.”

“Some who?”

“That’s not important.”

“Some where?”

Melchior chuckled. “Kind of far, actually. San Francisco. I’d take him myself, but I have some business to attend to first, and this is a priority.”

“Seoul is kind of far. San Francisco is only six hours by plane, and I happen to have one.”

Melchior resisted the urge to whistle again. “I see I called the right lady.”

“You called no one. No one answered. Nothing will be moved. It just so happens that I enjoy visiting San Francisco. Usually I go in January, but I guess I can go in November this year.”

“Understood.”

“Sometimes when I’m in San Francisco I like to meet new people. Perhaps you know someone who could show me around?”

“In fact I do. He’s a nice man. A doctor.”

Song looked at Melchior skeptically. “I’m not looking for a husband.”

Melchior laughed. “He’s not that kind of doctor.”

A pause. “Let me guess. One of the leftovers from Nightingale?” When Melchior nodded, she continued: “You want me to deliver someone to a Nazi scientist?”

“Ex-Nazi,” Melchior said. “I haven’t offended your sense of propriety, have I?”

“Assuming I ever had such a thing, I left it in Korea. I’m in America now, where the difference between right and wrong is a matter of dollars and cents. Why San Francisco? Aside from the fact that it’s as far from Langley as you can get without leaving the country.”

“I was in Laos for a few years, recruiting warlords to fight the Viet Cong.”

“The Hmong,” Song said, as though this were common knowledge. “Laos is not exactly in California.”

Melchior did his best to keep the surprise off his face—fewer than a dozen people had known about his mission.

“The Company couldn’t buy guns for them directly, so I helped them move some of their merchandise to market in order to finance the purchases.”

“By merchandise you mean opium?” When Melchior nodded, Song said, “I thought it went to Marseilles, entered the U.S. through the East Coast?”

“Most of it. But I was able to funnel some to Frisco.”

Song’s eyebrows twitched. For the first time she seemed impressed. “You skimmed. And here I thought the Wiz had raised you to be a good boy.”

“The Wiz never had anything against a little initiative.”

“True.” Song paused, and for the first time Melchior thought he saw a real emotion flicker over her face. “Have you heard anything about Caspar?”

Melchior had been just about to ask her the same question.

“Nothing,” he said. “But I just spent a couple of years in Cuba, so I’m out of the loop. I assume he’s still in Russia.”

Song paused again, as if she was considering whether or not to tell Melchior what she knew. Then: “I saw him. In Japan, before he went to Moscow. The Wiz asked me to—”

“Check on him?” Melchior struggled to keep his voice level. “I never did like that part of the Wiz. I never liked that part of you, either.”

Song’s face went hard. For a moment Melchior thought he’d blown it. But then the condescending mask descended again, and Song’s lip curled slightly as she looked Melchior up and down. “Whatever you skimmed from your opium scheme certainly didn’t go on clothes. So? What do you offer me for delivering your guinea pig to the lab?”

Melchior looked at the Fleetwood, the furs, the expensively maintained cast of Song’s skin. Even the boy in the driver’s seat looked more like an objet d’art than a person.

“The, ah, continued goodwill of the Company?”

Song rolled her eyes. “Drew Everton, second and fourth Thursday of every month.”

“Why, that dirty little scoundrel! I wouldn’t’ve thought he had it in him.” Although, really, of course he would: the only thing a Wasp enjoys more than hoarding his money is wasting it on a whore. Melchior’s eyes flickered over Song’s stole to the breasts beneath it. “I guess we’ll have to call it a favor then.”

A cunning smile spread across Song’s face, though Melchior couldn’t tell if it was a reaction to his gaze or the idea of having him in her debt.

“I guess we will.”

Melchior nodded. “Dr. Keller will meet you at the airport.”

“Keller.” Song’s eyes narrowed. Melchior was surprised. He’d thought Keller was his secret. “This is part of Ultra?”

“Everton can’t keep his mouth shut, I see. But no, not Ultra. Orpheus.”

“I don’t know Orpheus.”

Melchior couldn’t tell if she was lying, but all he said was “Ultra’s bastard child. You’re about to meet him.”

“Do I open the door? Or the trunk?”

“The trunk’ll be fine.” Melchior pulled a small black case from the pocket of his suit, opened it to reveal a syringe and a couple of vials. “He’s sleeping. And if you want to get to Frisco in one piece, I suggest you keep him that way.”

“In conclusion,” J. Edgar Hoover’s droning voice wound up, “the
Review Committee, finding no evidence to support any of Special Agent Querrey’s claims save for the single wound to his head, and having had the entirety of his account denied by both public and private sources at CIA, Dr. Leary, and all the residents of ‘Castalia,’ and having further found no substantiation of his assertion of an extramarital liaison between the president of the United States and Mary Meyer or of the possibility that the latter-named woman supplied the president with hallucinogenic pharmaceutical compounds, can only conclude that Special Agent Querrey was the victim of a hoax perpetrated either by Dr. Leary or perhaps by CIA itself, with the intention of discrediting this Bureau. In light of the smear that would have accrued to this Bureau if such a lapse in judgment on the part of one of its agents had become public knowledge—”

BC sat patiently, his eyes focused on the portrait of Jack Kennedy that hung directly above and behind the director, its plain wooden frame outlined by a larger pale rectangle, as if to say that the new president had a long way to go before he filled the space Dwight Eisenhower had vacated three years ago. BC had looked at this picture, or copies of it, countless times before, but now he found himself zeroing in on the private twinkle in the eyes, the too-wide parting of the lips, the eager, almost hungry set of the mouth: this was a lover’s face, not a politician’s. Marilyn Monroe. Mary Meyer. Who knew who else? And who knew what they were slipping into his drinks?