"I thought Mackey liked a hand-knit operation."

"That's what he likes. This is what he gets. Alpha is in whether we want them or not. Best to join forces. He'll make the most of it. Once the motorcade route is public, he'll scout the area and set up positions. The hero comes riding into town. Tra-la, tra-la. We get him first crack out of the box."

They went down the stairs and paused outside the building entrance.

Banister said, "We have one more thing working. We want to leave an imprint of Oswald's activities starting today and ending when the operation is complete. A series of incidents. We want to establish Oswald as a man that people will later remember. Someone involved in suspicious business."

"What if Oswald doesn't cooperate?"

"We create our own Oswald. A second, a third, a fourth. This plan goes into effect no matter what he does after Mexico City. Mackey wants Oswalds all over Texas. He wants Alpha to supply the people. I talked to Carmine Latta about money for this thing."

"I'm the one who talks to Carmine."

"Not this time."

"I'm the contact."

"Shut up so I can tell you."

"Carmine and I have a rapport."

"There's an Alpha chapter in Dallas with headquarters in some rundown house. Carmine sent his bodyguard to Dallas earlier today. Pockets hot with cash."

In Mexico City

Postcard #6. Mexico City. Ancient and modern. Sprawling yet intimate. A city of contrasts. Leon stands in his room at the Hotel del Comercio, counting out his pesos. He has a street map with the day's destinations clearly marked. He has his documents and clippings. He has his thirty-five-cent Spanish-English dictionary with the kangaroo emblem. (New, concise. Nuevo, conciso.) He enjoys foreign travel, just like the President.

He walks two miles from his hotel to the Cuban embassy. He tells the woman he is going to Russia and wants to stop off in Cuba for a while. It is easier to get a transit visa because of the Cuban wariness of Americans. And anyone on his way to Russia gets the benefit of the doubt.

The woman examines his old Soviet work permit, his proof of marriage to a Soviet citizen, his proof of leadership in the Fair Play for Cuba movement, the news story of his arrest and a number of other documents.

She does not say si. She does not say no.

She sends him off to get photographs for the visa application.

He stops in at the Soviet embassy, a couple of blocks away. The nearness is reassuring. The embassy is a large gray villa with a columned entrance and fancy dormers. There are armed sentries and a tall iron fence with a spiky top. It occurs to Leon that a concealed camera is probably taking his picture as he enters.

An official looks at his papers. It might be nice, he says, if Leon could come back with his Cuban transit visa in hand.

All right. He gets his picture taken and goes back to the Cuban embassy. The woman says he must get his Soviet entry visa before he can get his Cuban transit visa.

All right. He goes back to the villa. The man tells him a Soviet visa will take four months to arrange if he can get it at all. Leon says that when he was in Finland he got a visa in two days. The man says, "But this is Mexico City," and Leon expects him to add, "Hotbed of intrigue."

He eats the soup of the day, rice and meat. It costs forty-two cents. He checks the menu against the dictionary, then takes a bite of food, then checks again.

The next day at the Cuban embassy he demands to see the consul. He stands there shouting at the man. They have a loud and bitter exchange. He knows his rights. He is a friend of the revolution.

Then he goes to the Soviets and tells the man to check with the embassy in Washington. There are letters on file. His wife is Russian. They were married the day Castro won the Lenin Peace Prize.

It occurs to Leon that this man is KGB. So he mentions Kirilenko. Is this a good idea or not? At least it's a name, it's a link. It also occurs to Leon that he is being photographed not only by hidden Soviet cameras but probably by CIA cameras concealed in the building across the street or in a parked car or dangling, for all he knows, from a satellite in the sky.

His room number is eighteen. It is almost October and he was born on the eighteenth. David Ferrie was born on March 18. They have sat and discussed this. The year of Feme's birth is 1918.

On Sunday he goes to the movies in the afternoon and again in the evening.

The next day he visits the Cuban embassy, talks to the Soviet embassy on the phone and then visits the Soviet embassy. It occurs to him that the CIA probably taps the Soviet telephones.

Cuba and Russia. Russia is not totally out of the question. He could actually go back to Russia if Marina's visa comes through. He could visit or actually stay. They could be a family again.

Leon asks the Soviet official if there is any reply to the telegram sent to Washington. He tells the man he has information to offer in return for travel expenses to the USSR. He mentions Kirilenko again.

In the afternoon he consults his copy of Esta Semana, which he picked up in the hotel lobby. Events and locations in English and Spanish. Everything here happens in twos and his eyes constantly dart from one language to the other.

The next day they tell him at both embassies that there are no new developments. Once again he shows his documents, his correspondence. Documents are supposed to provide substance for a claim or a wish. A man with papers is substantial.

But this is the bureaucratic trap, in two languages, three languages, and nothing has effect. He is turned down, frozen out. It's hard to believe the representatives of the new Cuba are treating him this way. It's a deep disappointment. He feels he is living at the center of an emptiness. He wants to sense a structure that includes him, a definition clear enough to specify where he belongs. But the system floats right through him, through everything, even the revolution. He is a zero in the system.

For the third or fourth time he eats dinner in the small restaurant next to his hotel. It occurs to him that communications are flowing between agencies in the U.S. based on these wiretaps and the pictures taken by these hidden cameras.

Up to now he has been the only North American in the hotel and in the restaurant. But he realizes someone is looking at him, a man at a table near the kitchen, and Leon is fairly certain it is not a Mexican. He thinks he had a glimpse of the man coming in.

But he doesn't want to look that way and see who it is. He senses something about the man that he doesn't want to know. There is music playing on a radio that sits on a shelf, maybe a fandango. He shifts in his chair, turning his back completely to the corner of the room where the man is sitting. Because the curious thing, the odd and strange and singular thing is that Leon believes the man is T. J. Mackey. He sips his water carefully. He feels the blood sort of surge up his back. He knows the man is not Latin, from the glimpse. He knows he's broad-shouldered, hair cut close. He takes the dictionary out of his pocket just for something to do, a busyness, flipping through the pages. It was just a glimpse, a blur. He drinks his water slowly, almost formally, aware of himself, holding himself in a correct and serious way, as anyone does who knows he is being watched.

Walking across the square he hears someone call, "Leon," but the name is pronounced more Spanish than English and he decides it is not meant for him.

The next day he gets on a bus at eight-thirty in the morning and sits in seat number twelve, which he has reserved in the name H. O. Lee. It is not until they approach the International Bridge, seventeen hours later, that Leon realizes he has forgotten to visit Trotsky's house, the fortified house in Mexico City where Trotsky spent his last years in exile. The sense of regret makes him feel breathless, physically weak, but he shifts out of it quickly, saying so what.