Shift. Part 36

After an interminable moment, he lifted one hand and pointed to the chair. Melchior sank into the seat, trying not sigh. The rickety hinges creaked beneath his wasted b.u.t.tocks, and Melchior started slightly-he didn't have the strength to get up again if the chair broke beneath his weight. But the sound reminded him again: he was real. He was here. And, however tenuous the link to his past seemed, he was an intelligence officer of the Central Intelligence Agency. He had a job to do.

He took a deep breath to steel himself, only to have it turn into a thin, dry cough that shook his whole body. He had to grab the curule's spindly arm to keep from falling off the back. He wondered if this was an attempt at irony on Raul's part-in Roman times the curule was reserved for men of the highest rank-or if Segundo had simply chosen it because it was backless, thus making an audience with him that much more uncomfortable. If that was the case, he had certainly succeeded.

For his part, Raul continued to regard him silently. Then, in an easy, educated Spanish-for all his rough look, he and his brother, like most Communist leaders, were in fact the children of privilege-he said, "Your jailors call you the Magus. Do you know this word? The singular of Magi. The three kings who followed the star to Bethlehem to see the Christ child."

"The Wise Men." Melchior said, a flicker of a smile crossing his lips.

"They say you sit in your cell like a Buddha, meditating all day long."

Melchior's chuckle came out as another chest-wracking cough. "Clearly they don't understand the enervating effects of malnutrition."

"They grew up under Batista and Machado," Raul said in a sharp voice, "all those other puppets of your government. They understand malnutrition just fine. They see it in their parents and grandparents, in their co-workers in the cane fields, in their children, dying of colds and flu because they are too weak to fight off the littlest infection."

This speech did not seem to require an answer-or perhaps the answer had already come, in the form of the '59 revolution-and Melchior said nothing. Raul allowed the silence to stretch for another uncomfortable moment before speaking.

"You are in a very curious position, Magus. A precarious position. Though we know you are an American, neither you nor your American superiors will admit to this fact. Normally such a situation frees us to execute you without fear of reprisal, yet in your case this is a less-than-attractive option."

Melchior's lip curled up in a weak grin. "I've failed at many things in my life, but never at being an 'attractive option' for public execution."

Raul's fingers drummed lightly on his desk. The marble surface was bare, yet Melchior still found himself imagining Segundo's finger pressing a big red b.u.t.ton: a trapdoor opening beneath this uncomfortable chair, a long plunge into a pit with blood-caked spears at the bottom. An image of Aunt Juliette's puppy all those years ago flashed in his mind. The pitfall had been meant for Aunt Juliette-she had sent him to bed without supper for saying a dirty word-but the look on her face when she saw her dead puppy had taught him a valuable lesson: sometimes you can hurt people more by going after the things they love rather than attacking them directly.

A smile creased his face as all this ran through his mind. Raul noticed it, but didn't ask. Instead, in a voice that had quieted somewhat: "Since the Revolution, we have been able to offer free education to all Cubans. Some of your jailers, perhaps eager to show off their new knowledge, call you not Magus but Melchior."

"Melchior?" Melchior shook his head lightly to bring himself back to the present. "The black Wise Man?"

Raul nodded. "On some level this is ironic, since you probably resemble the Semitic Magi more than El Negro. Nevertheless, the color of your skin is precisely the problem-the color of your skin, and the quality of your Spanish, and your ridiculously detailed knowledge of Cuban history, which I confess puts even our newly edified citizenry to shame. In fact, you look and sound so so Cuban that many people are convinced you are trying to intimidate us by claiming to be American." Cuban that many people are convinced you are trying to intimidate us by claiming to be American."

"I never claimed to be American."

"Indeed you did not." Segundo's smile was quick and cold. "It is a troubling situation. We do not know what to do with you. Contrary to the misinformation your government feeds the world, we do not execute people who have not committed a serious offense, and we do not execute foreigners at all, unless they are spies. But, though you are undoubtedly a spy, we would have a hard time convincing the outside world of that. So we find ourselves at an impa.s.se. A public execution would only bring even more of the world's disapproval on the revolution, but a private execution would accomplish nothing. Your government considers you too insignificant to acknowledge while you are living. Dead, it seems likely they would simply write you off and move on."

In his three months in his cell, Melchior had come to pretty much the same conclusion, which, in addition to being both terrifying and infuriating-he had served his government faithfully for nearly twenty years, surely they could broker a private deal to get him back-meant that his life was completely in the hands of the man on the other side of the desk. His only comfort was the fact that he had been summoned here. If Raul wanted him dead, it seemed unlikely he'd've summoned him for a private meeting first.

And so, doing his best to keep his voice level, he said, "If you don't have enough evidence to convince 'the outside world,' I don't see how you can arrive at the conclusion that I'm a, what was the word you used, spy spy?"

The expression that flickered over Raul's face could've been grin or grimace, but Melchior was pretty sure it was a smile.

"There is evidence and there is evidence-as any spy would know. And yet leaving you to rot in jail is not an attractive option either. It is pa.s.sive, and I hate to leave things to inertia. Who knows what sort of unrest you might foment among your fellow prisoners?"

In fact the longest single sentence Melchior had uttered during his time in prison had been "I will cut it off and feed it to the rats if it comes within three feet of me," but he didn't bother to repeat this to Segundo. For one thing, he was pretty sure Raul already knew every word that had pa.s.sed his lips in the previous three months. For another, he was starting to feel light-headed again, and was holding onto the curule's arms with both hands to keep from falling off the back.

"So tell me, Melchior Melchior," Segundo was saying, "have you ever been to Russia?"

Melchior noted the choice of name: not the Soviet Union, but Russia. This wasn't a political conversation then. Not yet anyway.

"I myself have recently returned from nearly three weeks in that country," Raul continued. "It is a very curious place. All around you see the mixture of old and new-one of the most ancient and singular of all European empires mixing with the most radical political experiment the world has ever seen."

Caspar flashed through Melchior's mind. If all was going to plan, he should've been making his was back to the States by now, an American "defector" having been "doubled" by the KGB. He suddenly realized that he might be facing a similar proposition. His heart began to pound in his chest, but, struggling to keep the emotion from his voice, all he said was: "Radical is usually another word for stupid."

"I am inclined to agree with you." Raul's words surprised Melchior. "It is not a happy place. The will of the government is entirely inflected toward a single goal: conquering or, at any rate, outlasting the enemy. Yet the will of the people is bent in another direction: survival. I myself have always believed that the goal of the state should be its citizens' happiness or, at any rate, the pursuit of it, as your own Declaration has it. Yet that goal is made unattainable when all forms of self-expression are quashed and the overwhelming majority of the state's resources are shunted toward the fight against American capitalism. Even the most basic tenet of Communism, that of providing for the proletariat, cannot be realized in such a context. I see you are interested in what I am telling you."

Like most field agents, Melchior was a practical man. He wasn't thinking of winning the war against Communism in Cuba, let alone the Soviet Union. He was thinking that this was the kind of intelligence that made a career. Imagine: even as Fidel was attempting to form a military and economic alliance with the Soviet Union, his second in command-his brother!-was trying to undermine it! This was the kind of stuff that got you out of the field-finally!-and into an office. No more twenty-hour flights in the cargo hold of a C-47, no more weeks or months roughing it in the bush, the mountains, the desert, attempting to recruit local support for whatever revolution the Company was backing that day. No more prisons, rats, lice, firing squads. An office, with a window and a picture of the president and an intercom with a secretary at the other end of it! Melchior did his best to remain calm. But how could he not not be excited? be excited?

"Do not think me disloyal," Raul continued as if reading Melchior's thoughts. "I understand why my brother has sought this relations.h.i.+p, and I support it fully. Your presence on Cuban soil is indicative of your nation's refusal to allow countries to choose their own path. But the Soviet Union is as tolerant of independence as the United States is. Or, to put it another way, Khrushchev seeks an alliance with us not for our sake but for his own. For the sake of his war with your country. And it would be a great-an avoidable-tragedy for Cuba to be consumed in that interaction, like some expendable geopolitical catalyst."

Melchior remained silent. The implications of Raul's statement were broad, but it seemed prudent to let Segundo clarify them, rather than overreach and alienate the man.

But Raul fell silent, and regarded Melchior across the broad plain of his desk. His hard little eyes sat uneasily above his soft cheeks, as if manifesting the conflict between the boy he had been and the revolutionary he'd become. Melchior had seen this dichotomy in a dozen, two dozen, countries, and he knew how dangerous it was. A romantic-like, say, Raul's older brother-will lay down his life for his country but is unlikely to kill you in cold blood, because his heart will trump his politics. A mercenary, like Che Guevara, kills only when necessary but then efficiently and without hesitation. But a divided man-a man like the one sitting on the far side of the desk-is unpredictable. He doesn't know if he should listen to the whisper of his mother's voice, telling him to be a good boy, or the roar of the proletariat, telling him to destroy anything that stands in the way of progress. Though he can be turned, it is a dangerous undertaking, because if he once senses what you're trying to do, he'll not only kill you, but will go after your friends, your family, and anyone who reminds him of you. Melchior didn't have family and didn't really have friends either, but he wouldn't have minded that promotion. A corner office, a house in the 'burbs, government holidays, and insurance. So he waited.

Finally Raul nodded.

"I admire your prudence. I am a prudent man myself. That is why I have approached you rather than attempt what I am about to describe myself. Better you you should be shot if it comes out, rather than me. So. Let me come to the point: Premier Khrushchev has agreed to pay for the construction of a missile-launching facility just outside Cienfuegos, in which he intends to place twenty-five medium range ballistic missiles. As you well know, despite the propaganda your government uses to justify spending so much of its citizens' tax dollars on its bloated military budget rather than health care or education, the United States enjoys a considerable advantage in the size of its nuclear a.r.s.enal over the Soviet Union. But having missiles a little more than a hundred miles off American soil would lessen that advantage considerably. The Soviets could launch an attack from here and still have time to evacuate large portions of their bureaucracy and population from major urban centers before your government could respond." should be shot if it comes out, rather than me. So. Let me come to the point: Premier Khrushchev has agreed to pay for the construction of a missile-launching facility just outside Cienfuegos, in which he intends to place twenty-five medium range ballistic missiles. As you well know, despite the propaganda your government uses to justify spending so much of its citizens' tax dollars on its bloated military budget rather than health care or education, the United States enjoys a considerable advantage in the size of its nuclear a.r.s.enal over the Soviet Union. But having missiles a little more than a hundred miles off American soil would lessen that advantage considerably. The Soviets could launch an attack from here and still have time to evacuate large portions of their bureaucracy and population from major urban centers before your government could respond."

Melchior had a good poker face, but even he found it hard to maintain an impa.s.sive expression when presented with such startling news. What's more, Raul's a.n.a.lysis was exactly correct: if Khrushchev succeeded in placing his missiles here, it would given him tremendous leverage, especially in Eastern Europe. The United States had demonstrated in Hungary in '56 how loath it was to respond to Soviet aggression; that reluctance would only increase with nuclear horror a few hours from its doorstep, and the Soviet Union buffered by five thousand miles of the Atlantic.

He chose his words carefully. "I'm not sure I understand you. Are you asking me to carry this information to the United States in order to prevent the Russians from installing nukes on Cuban soil?"

Raul shrugged. "I doubt that will be necessary. It is very hard to hide the construction of a missile silo, let alone twenty-five, and I have no doubt that your spy planes will discover them soon, if they haven't already."

"Then I'm confused ... "

"I believe the missiles are a diversion. A sh.e.l.l game the likes of which the Russians have been playing for more than a century and you Americans, with your penchant for brute force, have never managed to understand. There will be a confrontation. Your president will threaten war. The Russians will back down, and nothing will change. Or they won't back down, and still nothing will change, because neither side is willing to fire first."

"So what's Khrushchev's real plan?"

"You misunderstand. At this point, Khrushchev is only nominally in charge of the Politburo, and the Politburo is only nominally in charge of the country. But I have reason to believe that certain officers of the KGB-men whose power predates the premier's and will continue long after he has been replaced-have come up with a less visible strategy. The missiles will hold everyone's attention, but they are just empty sh.e.l.ls, both figuratively and literally. Their payloads are the real threat. While everyone's attention is focused on the sh.e.l.ls, these men plan to move several 'unmated' nuclear devices into Cuba under cover of conventional trade s.h.i.+pments-oil, wheat, and the like. The payload of an SS-3 weighs nearly three thousand pounds, so they can't exactly be carried in a suitcase. Nevertheless, they are relatively small and portable compared to a rocket-powered MRBM and, should the necessitating situation arise, could be delivered to locations in the United States by boat or airplane and thence by small truck to any target desired. No doubt some of them would be intercepted along the way, but if even one got through, it could wreak tremendous damage."

Melchior's head was spinning, and it wasn't just the fact that he'd been on an eight-hundred-calorie-a-day diet for the past three months.

"That doesn't make sense. The conventional wisdom says that nuclear weapons are only useful if the other side knows you have them. If anything, you want to exaggerate the size of your a.r.s.enal, not play it down. 'Mutually a.s.sured destruction,' as the policy has it. What would be the benefit of having a hidden nuclear a.r.s.enal on Cuban soil?"

"Your a.n.a.lysis presupposes the idea that the men who are bringing this a.r.s.enal to Cuba are interested in maintaining detente or some other version of the balance of power. But what if they actually want to win win the war, or s.h.i.+ft its terms?" the war, or s.h.i.+ft its terms?"

"You think they actually plan to use use these weapons? But that would lead to nothing but their own annihilation." these weapons? But that would lead to nothing but their own annihilation."

"Would it? If millions of lives were lost in an anonymous nuclear attack on the United States, what purpose would it serve to wipe out Russia and perhaps China? The damage would have been done. A counterattack would be nothing more than punitive, and would lead only to reprisals. Destruction on an unimaginable scale. No, the Soviet Union would be an unattractive target. Cuba, though. An insignificant little country. A thorn that had somehow managed to pierce the aorta of the United States. That That would be a target to appease an enraged citizenry's demand for blood, without risking any kind of serious reprisal." would be a target to appease an enraged citizenry's demand for blood, without risking any kind of serious reprisal."

Melchior looked for a flaw in Raul's reasoning. He didn't see one. So here it was, he thought. The next level of proliferation. Not nuclear-armed states but nuclear-armed organizations, nuclear-armed individuals individuals, with their own, unparsable agendas. He supposed it was an inevitable development, but G.o.d, it had come fast.

"Then my question is the same," he said. "Are you telling me about the bombs so I can pa.s.s the information along to the U.S. government?"

"Pa.s.s along what? A rumor? Your James Jesus Jesus Angleton"-Raul gave the middle name its proper Spanish p.r.o.nunciation-"will spend weeks a.n.a.lyzing every possible motive we might have for telling you such a story and ultimately dismiss it as misinformation, a strategy to focus CIA attention on Cuba while the Soviet Union hatches its real plan elsewhere. You need proof in order to make your story compelling. Of the bombs' existence, and of their location." Angleton"-Raul gave the middle name its proper Spanish p.r.o.nunciation-"will spend weeks a.n.a.lyzing every possible motive we might have for telling you such a story and ultimately dismiss it as misinformation, a strategy to focus CIA attention on Cuba while the Soviet Union hatches its real plan elsewhere. You need proof in order to make your story compelling. Of the bombs' existence, and of their location."

At last Melchior understood.

"You don't know where the bombs are."

"Because they are being moved here clandestinely-that is to say, without Politburo approval-it is very difficult for even my government to keep track of them."

"So you want me to track them down and tell you where they are. Why would I do that?"

"If all I wanted was to track them down, I would put my own men on the task. I want you to remove them."

"You want to give nuclear weapons to your worst enemy?"

"I am giving you nothing that you don't already have. I merely want them off my soil. Cuba has no desire to join the nuclear club, and it is tired of being the p.a.w.n in other countries' wars. I can easier stomach a small-scale CIA operation that my brother can denounce as capitalist intervention than a full invasion in search of something that might not even exist-or, worse, a couple of 'pre-emptive' nuclear strikes."

"Let me see if I got this straight. You're going to set an American agent free"-Melchior figured the time for subterfuge was long past-"on Cuban soil, to track down possible nuclear bombs being moved here by rogue officers in the KGB, and, if I find them, to bring a full CIA team into the country to remove them?"

Segundo smiled.

"Who said anything about setting you free? Just as your country has denied your existence for the past three months, so shall I announce your escape a half hour after you walk out of this office, and call for a national manhunt. Of course, as the man in charge of that hunt, I can do as much to hinder as help its efforts. But if my men were were to catch you, well ..." Raul shrugged. "I would probably shoot you myself, just for making me look the fool." to catch you, well ..." Raul shrugged. "I would probably shoot you myself, just for making me look the fool."

Melchior sat silently for a long time.

Then: "What makes you think I won't just shoot Fidel the minute you let me go?"

Raul laughed so hard that Melchior thought he was going to fall out of his chair. When he'd finally regained composure, he reached into a drawer, pulled out something small and s.h.i.+ny, and tossed it across the desk's broad surface. Melchior recognized it immediately.

Donny's crucifix.

"Shoot him?" Segundo said. "Wouldn't you rather offer him a cigar cigar?"

Leary's Little Trip

The doctor was trying to find a pair of underpants.

He'd been wearing nothing but a tie when the agent's knock woke him. Had slipped a pencil-striped b.u.t.ton-down over it to answer the door, then pulled on two socks (one dark, one light, both on the left foot) while Morganthau explained that his presence was needed in the remote building that, despite its official designation as a coach house, the Castalians preferred to call the gingerbread cottage.

A pair of trousers straddled the back of a chair like a boy riding the top rung of a fence. Before the doctor could put them on, however, he had to find underpants. That was the rule. His mother had taught him when he was two years old. So he was bent over, his s.h.i.+rttails riding up and exposing the pale, golden-haired globes of his b.u.t.tocks while his right hand poked and prodded the clothes on the floor like a heron hunting fish. For some reason it was necessary to stand on one leg like a heron as well. Or a flamingo. Did herons stand on one leg, or just flamingos? Did flamingos hunt fish, for that matter, or just gather in ostentatious crowds in the center of Hialeah? The one-legged approach slowed the doctor's search, but it gave the underpants less advance notice of his presence. Both feet would send ripples of disturbance through the layer of clothing-well, obviously-giving his skivvies ample time to scurry away.

And besides, herons were blue and flamingos were pink, so it was perfectly clear which one he he was. was.

He sifted through the litter, but it was difficult to concentrate. There was the heavy weight of Morganthau's eyes for one thing, also the snores of the woman on the bed, who had promised to kill anyone who made the mistake of waking her before noon. Oh, and the 250 micrograms of LSD he'd taken after dinner, washed down with tea made from some kind of mushroom d.i.c.k had brought back from his last trip to the Village (along with a case of rectal gonorrhea, poor man). That probably had something to do with it too. The LSD, not the gonorrhea. The LSD and the mushrooms. The doctor wasn't sure what time it was-he had an idea it was thirty-seven o'clock, but a niggling, hidebound aspect of his brain told him there was something wrong with this theory. At any rate he was pretty sure he was still feeling the effects of the acid, because all the objects in the room seemed to have lost their color. Not as if they'd misplaced it as sometimes happens-Oh, I've lost my yellow!-but as if some sentient fog that survived by leeching the reds and greens and blues from the world had pa.s.sed through while he lay sleeping, leaving everything parched, black-and-white, desertish. What was the word he wanted? "Lunar," that was it! The bedroom looked like a moonscape.

Of course, that could've just been the fact that it was illuminated only by moonlight. Two bars as cold as Corinthian marble slanted through the tall windows, illuminating a monochromatic carpet of clothing that stretched to all four corners of the floor: jackets, pants, s.h.i.+rts, coats, and shoes and undergarments; also empty bottles, crusty dishes, water-pipes, lighters, and innumerable baggies, their transparent skins sc.u.mmed with the residue of has.h.i.+sh or tuna salad; and then finally dozens of books, all folded open like thick, two-petaled flowers. In the thin light, the hard objects looked as malleable as the soft, as if the fog that had stolen their color had stolen their substance as well; and over this Dalimeetsde Chirico landscape rose the rectangular escarpment of the bed, its sheet coiled caduceuslike around the supple curves of its sleeping occupant.

Something about this sight aroused the doctor-possibly the woman's right breast, whose dark nipple pointed at the ceiling like the tip of a volcano, or the fingers of her right hand, which flitted across the folds of her pubis as though they were the pages of a closed book. Sighing heavily, the doctor reached between the wrinkled tails of his s.h.i.+rt, past p.e.n.i.s and testes (both slightly damp, cf. the woman on the bed), and pressed his index finger against his perineum. The sleeping woman had revealed to him the erogenous possibilities of this part of his anatomy earlier in the evening. It was like a b.u.t.ton, she told him, like a little pump. Pressing it caused the p.e.n.i.s to fill with blood, and continuing to press it- "If you wouldn't mind sparing me the blue show, doctor?"

The doctor started. He'd completely forgotten about the silhouette in the doorway. The agent. Morganthau. That probably wasn't an accident. Freud said there were no accidents, didn't he? Only deliberate omissions perpetrated by the unconscious because the conscious mind is too afraid to violate the rules that govern our day-to-day existence. Freud was a s.e.x-obsessed idiot, but Morganthau still scared the s.h.i.+t out of the doctor. His foot tapped the lintel impatiently, and it seemed to the doctor that the light leaking up the stairs squealed each time the sole of his wingtip crushed it to the floor.

Funny he should use the term "blue show," though, when there was no blue in the room. No color at all. The color had been eaten by the fog. Or drunk? Would you call that action drinking or eating? The doctor decided to make a note and ask d.i.c.k tomorrow. Terminology, after all, was crucial to their enterprise. "Psychedelic," "acid," "trip." How much better these words were than "hallucinogenic" or "lysergic acid diethylamide" or "chemically induced altered state of consciousness." Castalia as opposed to Millbrook. A new world required new names, and those names would color how other people saw it.

Color. There it was again. This was definitely worth writing down. There were certain aspects of the psychedelic experience that couldn't be processed by the straight mind-like, say, the bit about standing on one leg, which would've never occurred to him sober-but other things needed to be recorded so they could be examined more rationally at a later time. That was why everyone who came to Castalia was given a notebook as soon as he or she arrived. The doctor himself used a clipboard. It was partly a vestige of his former life, when he still made grand rounds, and partly a way to invest himself with the teensy-weensiest amount of authority. In this place, where t.i.tles and rank dropped away like clothing, the clipboard was practically a scepter of power.

He abandoned the search for his underpants (among other things, he'd put his second foot down at some point, so his drawers were no doubt long gone), pulled his s.h.i.+rttails down as low as they would go, and picked his way toward the doorway. His clipboard hung from its sacrosanct nail just inside the doorframe, a Bic tied to it by a shoelace. Conscious of Morganthau's eyes on him, the doctor jotted down his note. Fog color drinking? Fog color drinking? he wrote. he wrote. Eating? In my brain underpants Eating? In my brain underpants. A second question occurred to him. Gonorrhea r.e.c.t.u.m? Better ask Mom Gonorrhea r.e.c.t.u.m? Better ask Mom. Because Morganthau was looking at him, he used a private script he invented on the spot, an irregular series of loop-de-loops like the spine of a spiral notebook after all the pages have been ripped away. He flashed the clipboard at the agent-just let him try to read that!-then clapped a hand to his head in a parody of a salute.

"Lead on, Agent Morganthau!"

"Timothy," came a weary voice from the bed, "if you don't get the f.u.c.k f.u.c.k out of here, I will cut your b.a.l.l.s off and use them to gag you." out of here, I will cut your b.a.l.l.s off and use them to gag you."

The doctor winked at Morganthau, as if to say: wouldn't she she be surprised when she did that, to discover he wasn't wearing any underpants? be surprised when she did that, to discover he wasn't wearing any underpants?

On the other hand, it could've just been a twitch.

Hundreds of almost-empty gla.s.ses lined the wide staircase, through which a narrow path meandered like a mountain brook. Morganthau's heavy footsteps rattled them dangerously as he descended the treads, sending up a sticky-sweet cloud of alcoholic fumes abuzz with flies and fairies. In the vast living room, a half dozen bodies were strewn on, under, and around couches and chairs and carpets. One blissed-out bohemian lay stretched on the long trestle table with various gla.s.ses and candlesticks and religious tomes crowded around him (leading the doctor to wonder if the sleeper had climbed over them to get to his berth or if the other occupants of the room had placed them there after he was already ensconced). The sleeper had covered his face with a cloth napkin on which the first hexagram of the I Ching I Ching-creativity in its purest and most powerful expression-had been drawn in six rainbow-colored lines. The doctor took the fact that he could see all six colors as a sign he was coming down, although why they were blinking like a neon sign was anyone's guess.

He gazed at the snorkeling forms. At least half the people hadn't been here at the beginning of the week. They were growing all the time, his little band of colonists, drawn here in flashes of intuition and inspiration like lightning to a rod spiking from a church steeple. And for every one of them here, there were ten or a hundred or a thousand out in the world, turning on to the new layers of consciousness that an ever-growing a.s.sortment of psychedelic drugs was revealing to the world. The doctor envisioned these new levels of mentation like an enormous reservoir of water pooling behind a giant dam-like, say, the dam the Russians had recently begun building for the Egyptians on the upper reaches of the Nile. The world's longest river and, in historical terms, the oldest. For thousands of years it had served its population. The annual flood deposited silt along its banks, making it possible for the Egyptians to grow their famed cotton and wheat, while the water itself provided transport, both for people and for the enormous slabs of stone the pharaohs' engineers floated down its surface to build the pyramids. Now in the twinkling of an eye its offering was being augmented to an almost unimaginable degree. It was estimated that the dam, when completed, would double the energy output of the entire nation. Whole towns, lit previously by candles or gas, would suddenly burst into light. To the doctor, the new drugs were transforming the brain on a similar magnitude. The sleepy current of human consciousness was being amplified into a raging torrent as it sluiced through the turbine of the psychedelic experience, and soon the whole world would be turned on to ...

The doctor pulled up short. The thought of turbines had nudged something in his brain. Water. Rus.h.i.+ng. Breathing. Breathing? Breathing? Ah yes. That was it. Not snorkeling. Ah yes. That was it. Not snorkeling. Snoring Snoring.

Heh.

Meanwhile Morganthau strode ahead, as oblivious to the doctor's musings as he was to the sleepers around him. He seemed deliberately to make as much noise as possible-stiff leather soles clomping on the parquet, fingers jingling the change in his pockets, breath whoos.h.i.+ng from his mouth like water through the aforementioned turbines. Even from the back you could tell he was pure Company Man. The pristine crease that went up the back of his trousers, as if he never sat down to rest or s.h.i.+t or gaze up at the stars. The boxy jacket, cut wide at shoulders, waist, and hips to conceal any hint of anatomical curve. Over it all the broad-brimmed hat pulled low to cover the head-the brain, the mind-and conceal the eyes. This was not a person. Not a body. This was a suit. A suit with a mouth. A mouth that didn't ingest but only barked: orders, complaints, sarcastic asides. If you wouldn't mind sparing me the blue show, Doctor? If you wouldn't mind sparing me the blue show, Doctor?

But, Company Man or no, he was also the liaison between the doctor and the people whose money and connections made all of this possible-the sleepers, and the room they slept in, and the chemicals that coursed sweetly through their veins-and so the doctor hurried after him, being careful to place his feet in the agent's steps in order to cancel out the man's presence in the room. Fortunately the agent left glowing red footprints behind him, so it was easy to know where to step. Toward the end, however, the agent's stride grew longer: three feet, five feet, a dozen, till he was leaping across the room like the monkey G.o.d Hanuman jumping through the heavens. The doctor leapt from hillock to hillock, mountaintop to mountaintop, from the Berks.h.i.+res to the Catskills to the Alleghenies, from the Rockies to the Sierra Nevada and across the Pacific Ocean to the Kunlun and the Hindu Kush and the great Himalayas, where Everest itself towered snow-capped and cloud-shrouded over the world.

So intent was the doctor on not slipping off the sheer slopes that he didn't realize the dark silhouette ahead of him had stopped to pull open the front door, and he crashed into its back. Morganthau spun around, his right hand reaching reflexively inside the left panel of his jacket. But then he saw it was just the doctor, and, scowling with distaste, he stepped back and motioned him through the door.

The doctor regarded the portal. All he could see was a bottomless darkness swirling with razor-sharp snow crystals blown about by a howling gale. He shook his head and smiled, as if to say, You can't fool me that that easily. easily.

"Oh no, after you." Let him him plunge a thousand feet over the precipice. plunge a thousand feet over the precipice.

Rolling his eyes (the doctor could see this despite the hat's shadow because the pupils were emitting a green glow), Morganthau stepped outside. Floorboards materialized beneath his feet, then the rest of the large covered veranda that stretched the length of the house. In another moment the Himalayan vista had disappeared, and the doctor could see acres of lawn gleaming silver in the moonlight. Laughing a little, he stepped outside. The cold air of a New England summer night was bracing, not to mention the dew-slicked floorboards beneath his one bare foot and the novel sensation of damp air moving around his genitals. Sobriety settled on his head like a hat, only slightly askew. A shame a pair of pants didn't come with it.

Morganthau was stamping his foot on the porch just as he had outside the door to the doctor's bedroom. His deeply dimpled chin, less Rock Hudson than Rock Quarry, the Flintstones Flintstones version of America's most eligible bachelor, protruded from the shadow of his hat brim, a puritanical frown pulling down the corners of his thin-lipped mouth. version of America's most eligible bachelor, protruded from the shadow of his hat brim, a puritanical frown pulling down the corners of his thin-lipped mouth.

The doctor shrugged at the eyeless face.

"Aftershock." The doctor waved a hand back at the living room they'd just pa.s.sed through. "You and I just circ.u.mnavigated half the globe."

Morganthau's upper lip twitched. "By definition, Doctor, circ.u.mnavigation requires a complete revolution. 'Half the globe' is simply a very long trip."

The doctor's eyes twinkled. "You can say that again."

Morganthau seemed about to make some peeved rejoinder, then broke off. He fluttered his hands in the direction of the doctor's waist. "Dr. Leary, please. If you would kindly adjust your, ah, s.h.i.+rt s.h.i.+rt."

The doctor looked down and saw that the tails of his s.h.i.+rt had parted around his p.e.n.i.s like a waterfall around a rock (although, on closer inspection, he realized the protuberance was actually the bottom of his tie, but he decided against pointing this out). Chuckling slightly, he pulled his s.h.i.+rt closed and fastened the bottom b.u.t.ton, then hurried off after Morganthau, who had already descended the stairs and turned toward the right. He walked quickly, as if more comfortable having the doctor's genitalia behind him, and soon they'd rounded the northeast corner of the Big House and were heading toward the thick stand of pines that crowded the back of the building, and which sheltered-the doctor suddenly remembered why the agent had roused him in the first place-the coach house, i.e., the gamekeeper's cottage.

"Has something happened?" he called after Morganthau.

"In a manner of speaking," Morganthau said without turning around. "I have someone I think you should meet. He's in the cottage."

The doctor skipped and slipped over the damp gra.s.s after Morganthau. He expected him to say something about the man in the cottage, but the agent just walked silently around the corner of the house. When the pine forest came into view, he pulled up slightly. Leary could almost feel his trepidation at the sight of the shadowed wall of trees, their silver trunks all but invisible in the blackness. Almost shared it himself. Then, visibly squaring his shoulders, the agent marched forward. The doctor heard him take a deep breath. Then: "Mr. Luce and his compadres have, in their inimitable manner, referred to the nineteen hundreds as the American Century."