Shift. Part 35

A fresh wave of emotions washed over Naz, but they were all her own. Sadness, self-loathing, utter horror, not just at what she had done, but that it was known by others. By this boy, and his intrusive employer, which was famous for rooting out the shameful secrets in people's lives and holding them over their heads like the sword of Damocles. Which beggared the question: what did he want with her?

When she could speak again, she said, "It's a little rich having my adolescence referred to by someone who looks like he only started shaving a few years ago. Okay, then. You've established your bona fides. Isn't that how they put it? So tell me, Agent ..."

The boy had to reach for a last name just as she had in the bar.

"Morganthau."

"Tell me, Agent Morganthau Morganthau: what exciting service can I perform for the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States of America?"

The boy paused a moment, jaws slightly parted, eyes wide. Naz was reminded of a phrase her father had often used, always citing Henry James when he did so: hang fire. Technically speaking, it meant simply a pause, but it had originated as a munitions term, referred specifically to a delay between the moment you pulled the trigger and the time it took the powder to spark the bullet and propel it from the barrel. Whenever her father said someone hung fire, Naz always had an image of that person holding a gun to her father's head. But now it was pressed against hers. The trigger had been pulled; she was merely waiting for the bullet to strike home.

"Let's start at the beginning," he said finally. "Have you ever heard of LSD?"

He took her to a small restaurant just off Newbury Street. Roses in the wallpaper, crisp white tablecloths free of stains or cigarette holes, golden sconces with beveled gla.s.s refracting soft light over the patrons. A far cry from the Firelight, to say the least-although the pairings were still the same, Naz noted. Older men, younger women, the latter leaning slightly forward to show off their cleavage. Services paid for in kind, of course: jewelry, furs, second homes in Newport or Miami. Give her the cleanness of cash any day.

Morganthau held out her chair for her, then sat down opposite, his frat-boy grin bookended by a pair of impishly proud dimples.

"Well, this is a little nicer than that other place, isn't it?"

Naz stared at him flatly. "This isn't a date, Agent Morganthau. Settle down."

A waiter set menus in front of them. "A c.o.c.ktail before dinner, perhaps?"

"I think we're fi- ..."

"Hendrick's and tonic," Naz said over Morganthau. "Make it a double. And bring me an ashtray, please."

"I wasn't aware you smoked," Morganthau said after the waiter had left the table.

"Well, that's one thing you don't know about me."

Morganthau blushed. "Yes, well. I did did want to ask you about something." want to ask you about something."

"Didn't you read it all in Dr. Calloway's files? G.o.d knows I told him enough times. I 'overempathize.' I'm 'unable to mediate' my or others' feelings. As a consequence, I form undue attachments or aversions as soon as I meet someone. Humiliating crushes or inexplicable disgust, both of which have the effect of leaving me isolated in a fantasy world where-how did Calloway like to put it? Oh yes: 'where fact is washed away in a tidal wave of feeling.' He thinks it's because I lost both my parents and my country when I was so young. Everyone I encounter is a potential savior or murderer."

"I hope you don't think I'm going to kill you."

"Well, I certainly don't think you're going to save me. So," Naz spoke over his protest, "to flesh out your skeletal tale of my life: my first suicide attempt came at ten. Pills; something Mrs. c.o.x, my guardian's wife, took to get her through the long days when he was at work. I lost my virginity at eleven. Mr. c.o.x; something he did to get through the long nights when Mrs. c.o.x was too numb from pills to notice him. I also seduced two of my teachers when I was twelve-one of whom was female, I might add-and I tried to kill myself for the second time the same year when we were caught by the school secretary. Running car this time, closed garage door; alas, the gardener needed a pair of pruning shears for Mrs. c.o.x's damask roses. I changed schools six times over the course of the next three years, had s.e.xual relations with nine different partners ranging in age from twelve to forty-seven, and sliced my wrists with Mr. c.o.x's razor when I was sixteen. The following fifteen months on Thorazine were by far the most peaceful of my life. Alas, I turned eighteen, and Mrs. c.o.x, seeing her husband's legal obligation discharged and unwilling to spend $25,000 a year to maintain the daughter of a long-dead 'business acquaintance'-apparently she was as blind to her family's relations.h.i.+p to the CIA as I was-I was summarily discharged. I was given an allowance of $5,000 a year, the proceeds of a small trust my father had set up for me before he ... before he ..."

She couldn't bring herself to say it. She had never said it, but now Morganthau said it for her.

"He died."

Naz was silent a moment. She reached for the fizzy highball the waiter had just set in front of her. "Yes. Well. My preferred medication is rather more expensive than that, so I supplement my income with the generosity of men looking to relieve their loneliness for an hour or an evening." She drank from her gla.s.s as though as it were water and she'd just wandered in from the desert. When only the ice and lime remained, she set it back down on the table and signaled to the waiter for another. "Did I leave anything out?"

Morganthau was silent. Naz couldn't tell how much of this he'd already known, but she could feel the effect her rendering had had on him. His grin faded, his eyes softened, and he'd begun compulsively straightening his silverware like a drill sergeant worrying a troop of raw recruits. Pity exuded from him like cheap cologne. A tepid feeling to be sure, but Naz knew how quickly its warmth could grow into a full-fledged fire. And, try as she might to resist this warmth, she could already feel the heat in her own body, the need to validate this man's compa.s.sion, to be worthy of it. She thought about driving her knife into her chest but couldn't, because she knew how much it would hurt the boy sitting across from her, and because the white silk blouse she was wearing was her last clean s.h.i.+rt.

"Actually," Agent Morganthau said finally, "I wanted to talk to you about MIT."

Naz squinted. "MIT?"

"You partic.i.p.ated in a pair of studies ..."

"I know what I did at MIT. What I want to know is why you you care what I did at MIT." care what I did at MIT."

Morganthau recoiled from the tone of Naz's voice.

"Perhaps I should step back a moment. I'm not here to hurt you, or punish you, or anything like that. To the contrary. I was a.s.signed to look after you. Your father performed a valuable service for the Company, and it is my duty-my honor, I should say-to see that that debt is repaid."

Only someone as young and naive as the boy across from her could have made such a speech, and it was precisely that youth and naivete that made it ridiculous.

"I can look after myself very well, thank you."

"Pardon me for being blunt, Miss Haverman, but you're an alcoholic and a prost.i.tute. If that's what you call looking after yourself, I'd hate to see what you call neglect."

In answer, Naz turned her wrists upward, nudged the watch on the left and the bracelet on the right to reveal the thin pale scars beneath. She held them in the light for a moment, then turned them down again.

"By my own standards," she said quietly, "I'm doing great."

She saw his fingers tremble, felt him fight the urge to take her hand. It was too easy to imagine him sweeping her up in his arms, pressing her cheek against his hard flat chest and wrapping his strong arms around her. She could feel herself wanting this to happen, yet knew that in an hour or six, when she had given him more than he'd have ever dreamed of asking for, the urge to protect her would fade away, replaced by disgust.

But right now there was just the heat.

"I'm just curious," Morganthau said huskily. "You seem to hate psychologists and hospitals and every other inst.i.tution devoted to emotional and physical caretaking. So what made you volunteer for three different studies testing-what was the term? 'psychic apt.i.tude'?-over the course of six months?"

Naz shrugged. "They paid."

"Ten dollars for a full day's work. I would think a woman of your beauty makes more than that on a single date."

Now it was Naz's turn to blush. "I have no doubt you know exactly how much I charge. You seem to know everything else about me."

"Actually, I don't. And"-Morganthau raised his voice to speak over her-"I'd rather not. I find it tragic that any woman should have to resort to those means to support herself, but for a lady of your character, it's maddening. I want to find every man who ever took advantage of you and cut his heart out."

They didn't take advantage of me, Naz thought. I took advantage of them. Or I took advantage of myself-it amounts to the same thing. But she didn't say it aloud.

"I was curious," she said instead, aware that it was the same word he'd used. "Dr. Calloway told me it was all in my head. My empathy. My inability to screen out others' feelings. He meant that I was making it up, but I found myself wondering: what if it is is in my head? Not in the way Calloway meant. What if there's a biological or genetic or, I don't know, in my head? Not in the way Calloway meant. What if there's a biological or genetic or, I don't know, magical magical cause for this torture I've had to endure every minute of every day of my whole life? These waves of emotion was.h.i.+ng over me every time I come within ten feet of someone-love and hate, fear, anger, l.u.s.t, greed, all pressing down on me the way raindrops fall on other people. At least then I'd have an explanation for what I've done, what I've felt. And, who knows, maybe a cure, as well." cause for this torture I've had to endure every minute of every day of my whole life? These waves of emotion was.h.i.+ng over me every time I come within ten feet of someone-love and hate, fear, anger, l.u.s.t, greed, all pressing down on me the way raindrops fall on other people. At least then I'd have an explanation for what I've done, what I've felt. And, who knows, maybe a cure, as well."

"But the studies you partic.i.p.ated in were testing for a different kind of psychic ability, weren't they? Telepathy, prognostication, and remote viewing. None of these is exactly the condition you describe. Anyone can see that you're special, Naz. Anyone."

Naz could feel the desperation beginning to grow in him. The need to convince himself-to convince her-that he could help her. No, she told herself. She didn't feel it. She heard it in his voice, saw it in his hands, his eyes. The cues were physical, not mental.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, but my results actually fell below below statistical norms. Dr. Calloway was right. It is all in my head. The only emotions I feel are my own. And they are terrible, Agent Morganthau. Terrible." statistical norms. Dr. Calloway was right. It is all in my head. The only emotions I feel are my own. And they are terrible, Agent Morganthau. Terrible."

His hand moved toward hers, but just then the waiter arrived with a second round of drinks. By the time the waiter left, Morganthau had regained some of his composure.

"It's funny. I initially thought of approaching you with this idea because I deduced from your file that you had some interest in the paranormal. I wouldn't have guessed that your motivation was so ..."

"Weird?" Naz said. She too had calmed slightly. All hail the great G.o.d gin.

"I was going to say 'normal,' actually," Morganthau said. "I mean, it makes more sense to me when a person for whom all the usual channels of aid have failed turns to superst.i.tion. It's when rational people get interested in this stuff that I get confused."

"The world is strange enough on its own, eh, Agent Morganthau?"

"I'll say," he said, sounding for a moment even younger than he looked. He blushed and sipped at his drink. "So I asked you before if you'd ever heard of LSD." say," he said, sounding for a moment even younger than he looked. He blushed and sipped at his drink. "So I asked you before if you'd ever heard of LSD."

"Actually, the clinician who ran the second study I partic.i.p.ated in-the one on prognostication-mentioned it to me. He said several studies had shown that it proved beneficial to schizophrenics and other patients suffering from acute mental disorders. He even gave me the name of one working at Harvard-O'Reilly? O'Leary?-but when I went there, it turned out he'd left the inst.i.tution."

"Leary," Morganthau said. "He was asked to leave, actually. His methodology was a little too unorthodox for Harvard."

Naz's eyes narrowed. "You sound like you know something about him."

"Just what I read in his file. His interest in LSD and the Company's ran on tangential tracks."

"And what exactly is the Company's interest in LSD?"

Morganthau waved her question away with a smile. "'Need-to-know basis,' as they say."

"Then let's return to our original subject: what is the Company's interest in me?"

"The Company's only official interest in you is in a caretaker capacity, as befits the debt owed to your father. But the Company is also looking for people to a.s.sist in its LSD investigations, and I thought you might be interested in helping."

"You want me to take LSD?"

"Not necessarily."

"Then what?"

"I want you to administer it."

"To ..." Naz's eyes suddenly went wide. "You've got to be kidding."

Morganthau refused to meet her gaze. "The Company requires a few things from its subjects. First, that they be completely ignorant of the fact that they're being given the drug. And second, that they be unwilling to pursue the matter should the drug cause them any adverse effects."

"And who would be less likely to pursue matters than a man given the drugs by the prost.i.tute he was sharing his evening with? And I a.s.sume the corollary is true as well? That if I refuse to help you, you'll report my own illegal activities to the police?"

Morganthau blushed yet again. It was clear Naz wasn't the only intoxicated one at the table. "Before I met you, I would have said yes, that was the reasoning behind it. But, having spent an hour with you ..."

"Two, by the way I reckon these things."

Morganthau's blush deepened. "After getting to know you, I would be hard-pressed to do anything that might cause you harm."

"But?"

"But I've already included your name in my report. If I don't recruit you, there will be questions. Repercussions. Though I I wouldn't turn you in, someone else in the Boston office surely would." wouldn't turn you in, someone else in the Boston office surely would."

"So your hands are clean, is that it? It's the Company that's doing this to me, not you?"

"You have to understand, Miss Haverman, there are goals here that are bigger than you or me."

"Is that what Kermit Roosevelt told my father? Because if he did, he was right. What my father did for the Company not only got him him killed, my mother, and my aunt, and three housemaids, and how many hundreds, thousands, of other innocents. Yes, I know," she said. "I've always known, on some level. Whatever, you don't need to persuade me. I know a losing battle when I see one. But I want compensation." killed, my mother, and my aunt, and three housemaids, and how many hundreds, thousands, of other innocents. Yes, I know," she said. "I've always known, on some level. Whatever, you don't need to persuade me. I know a losing battle when I see one. But I want compensation."

"Of course."

"Five hundred dollars per 'subject.'" She said the word as lewdly as possible. "And I want protection. I've heard people do some crazy stuff on this drug, and I don't want someone acting his Jack the Ripper fantasies out on me for the sake of science or national security."

"I'll be in the next room the whole time, Miss Haverman."

"The next room?"

"Watching," Agent Morganthau said. "For the sake of science, of course. And national security."

Three days later, Naz walked into another bar. The King's Head. Other than the name, everything was the same-the gray dress, the dim lighting, the need for a drink. Even Morganthau was there, tucked into a back corner, his face lost beneath the shadow of his fedora. There were the girls and the men, the choking press of desperation and l.u.s.t, and of course the bartender; the cold gla.s.s in her fingers, the soothing chill of gin sliding down her throat, the nod yes, get me another. The only thing different was the tiny gla.s.sine in her pocket, the even tinier stamp of paper inside it.

"Stamp" was the right term, for the paper was embossed with a profile of Thomas Edison. "Big fan of cocaine," Morganthau had told her; and then, when she didn't laugh: "Kind of an inside joke."

But she had more than that. She had a mark too. "Although I suppose you'd call him a john," Morganthau had said, his cheeks turning red even as he forced a laugh.

"John, Mark, what's the difference?" Naz had answered, her cheeks coloring almost as much as Morganthau's. "It's all Tom, d.i.c.k, and Harry to me."

Morganthau had given her a photograph but not a name. "You need to be surprised when he speaks to you." He told her nothing about the man. Not why CIA was interested in him nor what the Company hoped the "experiment" would prove. Instead, the agent told her about himself.

He'd been recruited while still at Yale. It was no secret the Company was thick with the university's alumni, and he knew he was a prime candidate: president of the College Republicans, possessed of a trust fund sizable enough to cover the shortcomings of a government salary, and a track star to boot (javelin and high jump, although how these skills would serve him as a spy was unclear). He was pa.s.sionately patriotic-had had to be talked out of going to West Point but then signed up for ROTC without his parents' knowledge-but his desire to join CIA was motivated by more than mere love of his country: he believed it was a moral imperative for the United States to deliver freedom and democracy to the enslaved populace of the Soviet Union. The world stood at a precipice. Forget what Khrushchev said about burying us. The United States and its allies possessed a clear military advantage with both conventional and nuclear weapons. Western economies were humming along while Eastern Bloc nations were having a hard time keeping the lights on. Now was the time to make a concerted push into Red Europe, with propaganda, with money, and with arms if need be. Forget South America for the moment, forget Africa and Asia; these were just distractions from the real battle. As Hungary had shown a few years ago, the citizens of Russia's satellite states were ready to revolt, and if the United States backed them in that uprising, there'd be NATO troops in Moscow before John F. Kennedy stood for reelection. The worst possible outcome was that he might win a second term.

His idealism and zeal had impressed his higher-ups, but, no surprise, they hadn't decided to change the course of Company policy based on the theories of one Yale poli-sci major, even if he had had been graduated summa c.u.m laude. After a brief training period-munitions, hand-to-hand combat, and the "utter boredom" of ciphers and cryptography, he'd been sent to "cut his teeth" in the Boston station before eventual rea.s.signment (he was fluent in German, and hoped for a place in the Berlin station). Although what he was supposed to cut his teeth been graduated summa c.u.m laude. After a brief training period-munitions, hand-to-hand combat, and the "utter boredom" of ciphers and cryptography, he'd been sent to "cut his teeth" in the Boston station before eventual rea.s.signment (he was fluent in German, and hoped for a place in the Berlin station). Although what he was supposed to cut his teeth on on was a mystery. Boston hadn't been a center of intrigue since the Tea Party. Morganthau thought there might be some action at the docks-contraband, human smuggling, something like that-but most of his job consisted of taking meetings in spindly old colonial houses with spindly old colonials who, after cuc.u.mber sandwiches or shortbread, would produce wads of cash (none of them trusted banks, and one man, who didn't even trust paper money, pulled out a bag of gold coins) and talked about "funneling" it to anti-Communist forces in Chile or Vietnam (their choice of words made Morganthau think of a pneumatic tube running under n.o.b Hill all the way to Santiago or Saigon). One of them had asked point-blank why we didn't just shoot "Uncle Joe" already (this was the man with the gold); when Morganthau pointed out that Uncle Joe had been dead for almost a decade, his host had looked confused for a moment, then winked knowingly. "Still a secret, eh? Well, mum's the word, old boy, mum's the word," and he had gesturally locked his lips and thrown away the key. was a mystery. Boston hadn't been a center of intrigue since the Tea Party. Morganthau thought there might be some action at the docks-contraband, human smuggling, something like that-but most of his job consisted of taking meetings in spindly old colonial houses with spindly old colonials who, after cuc.u.mber sandwiches or shortbread, would produce wads of cash (none of them trusted banks, and one man, who didn't even trust paper money, pulled out a bag of gold coins) and talked about "funneling" it to anti-Communist forces in Chile or Vietnam (their choice of words made Morganthau think of a pneumatic tube running under n.o.b Hill all the way to Santiago or Saigon). One of them had asked point-blank why we didn't just shoot "Uncle Joe" already (this was the man with the gold); when Morganthau pointed out that Uncle Joe had been dead for almost a decade, his host had looked confused for a moment, then winked knowingly. "Still a secret, eh? Well, mum's the word, old boy, mum's the word," and he had gesturally locked his lips and thrown away the key.

Probably his most interesting a.s.signment had been chaperoning the activities of a half-c.o.c.ked Harvard psychiatrist named Timothy Leary, who was conducting experiments with a powerful hallucinogen called lysergic acid diethylamide. Technical Services hoped the drug might have military applications. Apparently it was so powerful that the munic.i.p.al water supply of a city the size of Boston could be tainted with just a few quarts of the stuff, leaving it susceptible to invasion or even the illusion of invasion-all you'd have to do is tell the citizens that the tanks were on the way, and their amplified imaginations would take care of the rest. In his eighteen months in Beantown-Beantown! even the nickname is boring!-the boy had often thought of dumping acid in Boston's water supply, just to break the monotony. To make things worse, he had been instructed to watch Leary's work from afar; photographs of Leary's notes were brought to him by someone who worked in the office of the dean of the School of Arts and Sciences. Morganthau had argued that Leary's experiments could prove much more informative to the Company if they were actually directed, and had argued for a chance to speak to the psychiatrist directly, but before approval was granted Leary was fired by Harvard, who found his experiments rather less interesting than CIA.

That left him with Naz. The a.s.signment had come from none other than James Jesus Angleton, who felt that Naz had the potential to be recruited either by the enemy abroad or by pro-Communist forces working in this country. Her father had been killed working for CIA; her mother had been collateral damage, and along the way she lost her country and her family. Her emotional fragility was well known, and it was easy to imagine a scenario in which her resentment was stoked until she turned against the country that had taken her in. Morganthau had chafed against the surveillance at first-it seemed prurient, if not simply voyeuristic-but that had all changed when he saw her for the first time. Saw the haunted look she seemed always to wear on her proud, beautiful face. Saw the way she gulped her drinks down in an obvious-and obviously futile-effort to numb the pain. And saw the way she degraded herself with men who weren't worthy of opening a door for her, let alone opening her blouse, her skirt, her . ...

He had watched a lot. And, though he didn't say it aloud, it was clear he wanted to see more.

Our Man in Havana

After languis.h.i.+ng in a Havana prison for more than three months, he'd been dragged out of his cell one morning, into a courtyard whose western wall was stained darkly with the blood of previous executions. His guards stripped him, handed him a sliver of soap, told him to clean himself up. It was his first time in direct sunlight in three months, and he had to squint to see. Rubbing only seemed to spread the dirt across his skin, until finally his weakened eyes realized it wasn't dirt he was ma.s.saging into the sallow flesh of his arms and legs, but bruises. Naked and dripping, he was brought to a barber, who shaved his head with an electric clipper, then took a straight razor to his beard, chest, underarms, and the rest of his body. p.r.i.c.kly as a poorly plucked chicken, he was handed a thick tube of anti-lice cream, then given a p.i.s.s-elegant suit in midnight blue linen-bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, silk lining, and two carefully mended bullet holes under the left lapel-and a pair of rather dainty leather sandals for his sockless feet. Gussied up like a scarecrow on his way to the yacht club, he was hustled into the back of a van and driven through the sweltering maze of Havana's Old City until, just over three hours after he thought he was being taken to his death, he was instead escorted into the office of none other than the brother of the revolution, El Segundo himself, Raul Castro.

Melchior had to admit: he hadn't seen this coming.

In many ways, Raul Castro was more fearsome than his older brother. He'd personally overseen the summary execution of scores, possibly hundreds, of soldiers and government officials loyal to deposed President Fulgencio Batista, and he was the man Fidel dispatched to Moscow to negotiate a military alliance that brought Soviet tanks, troops, and planes to Cuban soil. But more than that, he had the reputation of being fanatically loyal-not to Communism, which would have been familiar enough and easy to handle, nor even to the age-old concept of Cuba libre Cuba libre, but to his brother. To Raul, Fidel was was Cuban Communism, and Segundo would do more than lay down his life to protect him: he would kill, mercilessly and indiscriminately. Cuban Communism, and Segundo would do more than lay down his life to protect him: he would kill, mercilessly and indiscriminately.

But reputations, as it turned out, are not always what they're cracked up to be.

The office of the Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, Raul's only official t.i.tle, occupied the fourth floor of a converted town house just off the Malecon, the long promenade on Havana's northeastern coast. It was a long room, possibly a ballroom in its previous existence, or a gallery. The tread of thousands of military-issue boots had bruised the delicate parquet, and tiny pieces of sycamore and mahogany creaked and splintered beneath Melchior's sandals like the sh.e.l.ls of dead c.o.c.kroaches. The sound rea.s.sured him somewhat-reminded him that, despite his diminished frame and the legs that wobbled beneath him, he still had a presence in the world. Was still capable of having an effect on things outside of himself. He shuffled as steadily as he could to a curule chair planted in front of the desk but didn't sit down. While he waited for Raul to acknowledge him, his gaze drifted of its own accord out the tall windows to the nearly deserted promenade. Once the boulevard of Cuba's rich, the Malecon had begun to deteriorate after just three years of Communist egalitarianism. Not even Communism could dull the glow of the sun, however, and beyond the potholed, pockmarked concrete was the brilliant blue vista of the Florida Straits. Melchior squinted as if he might actually spy Key West, ninety miles more or less due north, and when he returned his attention to the baroque desk that sat in front of the gla.s.s, all he could see were shadows and shapes. An expanse of pink-flecked marble the size of a DeSoto, a tall man seated behind it in some kind of creaking industrial office chair, his broad shoulders and smallish head nothing more than a featureless silhouette until Melchior's sun-blinded eyes readjusted to the light.

Unlike his older brother, Raul Castro did not affect military fatigues, but wore a plain gray business suit. The jacket fit his tall frame poorly, pulling across the shoulders and riding up in the sleeves, and the narrow black tie had been crookedly knotted, so that it ran aslant the b.u.t.tons of his s.h.i.+rt instead of covering them. All in all, he gave the impression of a man who would rather be s.h.i.+rtless, wielding a machete in the cane fields perhaps or a machine gun in the mountains. Though he was over thirty, he still had a baby face, but the eyes above his round cheeks were small and hard, and he regarded the shabbily dressed skeleton who walked into his office skeptically, as though he could not believe this was the agent of the all-powerful Central Intelligence Agency he had summoned. It was as if he was contemplating, not whether the visitor should live or die, but rather if it was even worth the effort to give the order.