Of the rest, Chinese connections were either unknown or, in three cases, tangential. Derek Abbott had previously worked for Representative Lester Wharton of Illinois, until Wharton was arrested for receiving gifts from the Chinese honorary consul in Chicago, in exchange for trade legislation.
Susan Jackson had studied Chinese culture in college and was semifluent in Mandarin-which made little difference when she was arrested in Beijing in 2005 for joining with farmers to protest their land being taken to make room for the Olympic Stadium. China had since denied her any more visas.
David-Dave, he remembered-Pearson had visited Shanghai twice in the last decade for vacations with a Chinese girlfriend he had since broken up with and whose calls he avoided entirely.
At eight, Drummond called to ask if he was making any progress with his job search, and he gave a halfhearted yes but pointed out that there were still too many options. “Well, narrow it down,” Drummond said, stating the obvious.
“I could do that,” he answered, “but that doesn’t mean my criteria are any good.” The job search metaphor wasn’t perfect, but with a little imagination it could work.
“Maybe you need some help.”
“You got anyone?”
“A couple of guys who specialize in placements. They should be in touch by tomorrow afternoon.”
“Thanks, Alan.”
He put together a dinner of what the safe house had available: canned cannellini beans, frozen stir-fry vegetables, and rice. For some reason there was no salt in the apartment, so he made do with a bottle of soy sauce.
As he ate his heavy, bland meal, he felt a wave of doubt. What did he really have? An inconsistency between stories. A time problem. That was all he really had, in the end. He was acting like Henry Gray, starting with a conspiracy and rereading all the known facts so that they fit his theory. It was bad journalism; it was bad intelligence.
Not only were his clues scarce, but he began to question his own motives. Was he really through with Nathan Irwin? Or was his unconscious taking charge now, creating phantoms in order to target the senator?
He really didn’t know. Regardless, though they were scarce, the facts did exist, and even Drummond agreed they should be looked into.
The files, he realized with some despair, would tell him nothing. There were three primary ways of gaining an asset in a competing agency: threats, bribery, and ideology. No matter the aides’ connections to China, Xin Zhu could have visited any of them with blackmail material, an offer of money, or even an appeal to their political philosophy. Ever since the start of the Iraq War, plenty of Company men and women had grown disillusioned with their own employer. Even Milo had had enough, making him a prime candidate for some other country’s attentions-so why not some senatorial aide?
So if the mole couldn’t be discovered, it had to be provoked into showing itself.
To provoke a mole into showing itself would require his complete involvement.
Though he wanted to believe otherwise, he was already involved. He’d been neck deep in it ever since he chose to sit down and read that extensive file on Xin Zhu, and he voluntarily submerged himself when he brought the story to Drummond. He’d even stepped out of his own life to look into it, while Irwin’s thugs kept trying to track him.
He called Drummond back but heard Penelope’s voice. “Hello, Mr. Weaver. He’s on the toilet.”
“Pen!” Drummond shouted angrily in the background. “Can you tell him I’m coming by?”
“I suppose so.”
“I’ll be needing a lift to JFK.”
“Are you kidding me, Mr. Weaver?”
“It’s Milo. And I’m sorry, Penelope.”
“You know what?”
“No. What?”
“It’s nice hearing that from someone other than Alan.”
On the way to Eighty-ninth Street, he called home. He chatted unspecifically with Tina about his day, then listened to Stephanie describe hers in unending specifics. She wanted to know when he was coming back; she wanted him to teach her karate.
“Karate?”
“Sarah Lawton pushed me on the ground today.”
“Did she use karate to do it?”
“I don’t know. What does it look like again?”
Drummond was waiting in the foyer, dressed in a long evening coat. Together they took the stairs to the underground parking lot, and Drummond said, “You know this will be noticed, don’t you?”
“I’m betting on it.”
They climbed into Drummond’s personal car, a breathtaking Jaguar E-Type convertible from 1974, and remained quiet until they were out on the street, dealing with the nighttime traffic. “You should probably tell me what’s going on.”
“The files won’t do us any good, Alan. The only way to bring out a mole is to scare him and make him run. From now on, we’re going to do this in the open, but make it look as if we’re trying to hide it. This is the first step-you driving me to the airport before I fly to Germany.”
“Germany?”
“If we were searching for a mole while hiding our movements, we would go to outsiders for help.”
“Oh, Jesus. Don’t tell me you mean-”
“Exactly. That’s the second step. The third step will be the difficult one. For you, I mean.”
“How do you mean, difficult?”
Milo had considered not telling him until the last minute, but he had to know that Drummond was going to follow through. Otherwise, there was no point in beginning. “Do you own a gun, Alan?”
5
It was around two on Friday when he reached the stone arch that spanned the creek running through this quaint neighborhood of Pullach. Oskar had been very specific about the locations of the cameras when he led Milo out, and so he knew to drive beyond the bridge and park in the lot of a tiny grocery store, where he bought two premade ham sandwiches as a middle-aged man with a mustache watched him from the cereal aisle. In English, Milo asked for the toilet and was directed outside. Milo passed the mustached man and went around the rear of the building, but instead of entering the bathroom continued ahead and into the damp woods. He worked his way slowly back to the road, then jogged toward the bridge as he reentered the woods. He followed the dry creek bed.
It wasn’t as obvious as he’d hoped. From the rear, most of these houses looked deceptively similar, and once he had to wait for twenty minutes in the underbrush as a pair of children played with plastic guns in a yard. When he finally got to Erika Schwartz’s house, it was nearly four and he was desperately hungry, so he settled in the bushes around the rear of the house and ate.
Four hours passed. Rain fell intermittently, then darkness, and by the time the headlights appeared in the driveway he was soaked and cold. He waited until the lights switched off and he heard her go inside alone. He rapped steadily on one of the rear windows. It took a while, but he didn’t think it was because she couldn’t hear; it was simply because she moved so slowly. By the time she switched on the light in the utility room and got him in focus, his knuckles were stinging. She approached but didn’t open the door.
“You look like hell,” she called through the glass. “You look radiant, Erika.”
She grinned crookedly. “You really shouldn’t be here. I could have you killed.”
“I’ve no doubt. You might want to listen to me, though. I told you I’d help you if I could.”
“This is how you come to offer help?” She shook her head. “No one stands in the rain just to offer help. You’re standing in the rain because you want something from me.”
“I’m standing in the rain because I’d like to offer an exchange of services.”
She blinked slowly, as if she had all the time in the world, then unlocked the door and stepped back. He came inside, dripping all over the concrete floor. She opened a dryer beside a front-loading washer. “Clothes in there,” she said. “I’ll bring down a robe.” Slowly, she made her way out and closed the door.
As he undressed,
the doubt returned. Was this really the only way to scare a mole? He’d used his real passport at JFK, and before his flight took off he saw one of the shadows running to the gate to catch it in time. That one-a young woman with red bangs-had remained with him in the Munich airport before handing him off to the mustached man they must have called ahead to prepare. The man had followed his rental car all the way to the Pullach grocery store, and was probably still there, watching his abandoned car in the darkness.
Maybe it wasn’t the only way, but it was having the desired effect. Irwin knew exactly where Milo Weaver was. Thus, the mole did, too.
The robe Schwartz brought down was soft and thick and very pink, and as he slipped it on she turned on the dryer, ignoring his nakedness. “Do you have something to drink?” he asked.
“I only bought one wine.”
“Just water, Erika. I’m thirsty.”
They went upstairs to the living room, passing the steel door to the panic room, and settled in the darkness. Schwartz made no move to turn on any light. She went to the kitchen and brought out a bottle of Evian, two wineglasses, and her bottle of Riesling. “So,” she said as they each began to drink. “You have come to offer me your wonderful service.”
“Something like that.”
“Well, I’m flush with excitement.”
Milo didn’t launch into it yet. Instead, he said, “I hear Conference Room S is finally in service.”
“How did you hear about that?”
“You did tell me to ask my own people, didn’t you?”
She raised her eyebrows. “A delegation of Americans arrived today. You know what I told Oskar when they arrived with their bright ties and big smiles and vigorous handshakes?”
“What?”
“That we’ve finally learned the value of a girl’s life.”
Milo nodded into his water. “When’s the next delegation due?”
“Monday. They have a lot of catching up to do.”
“Good.”
“Is it?”
Milo examined her heavy, damp cheeks in the light from the street, then noticed that on the cushion beside her hand was a small pistol. She looked exhausted. He said, “Everything stays in this room. Agreed?”
Erika Schwartz shrugged.
“A few weeks ago,” he said, “there was a scare in the department. We had reason to believe there was a double agent working among us.”
“Double agent?” asked Schwartz. “For whom?”
“For the Chinese.”
She waited.
“We followed the clues, but they didn’t add up. Or, they did, but they proved there wasn’t one at all.”
Schwartz waited patiently.
“Now, though, it appears that we were twice fooled. We believe we do have a mole.”
Schwartz appeared unfazed. “We? I heard you had left the CIA.”
“It’s a figure of speech.”
“Sounds like a CIA problem to me.”
“I’m afraid it’s your problem, too, Erika. Which is why I’ve come to you. The Company now has access to a lot more of your secrets than it did a month ago, and, ergo, so do the Chinese.”
“Thanks to a young girl.”
Milo didn’t say a thing.
She said, “Are you here just to deliver bad news?”
“We’d like your help with this problem.”
“We, again. Who is this abstract pronoun, exactly?”
“Myself, and Alan Drummond.”
Schwartz blinked at him, blank, her eyelids a confusion of tiny wrinkles when they closed. Then, even in the darkness, she found a loose hair on the thigh of her slacks and brushed it away. “The CIA employs twenty thousand people-that’s the number it will admit to. Is there really no one else you can go to? Not one?”
Milo didn’t answer.
Schwartz took a long breath. “You began this conversation by suggesting you had something to offer me. Maybe you should start with that.”
“We’ll give you the means to bring down Theodor Wartmüller. The videotape.”
“Of him with the girl?”
Milo nodded.
Schwartz found another hair on her slacks, picked at it with her stubby fingers, and said, “If you’d asked me a week ago, I would have told you that the videotape was the only thing I wanted. Now I’ve had some time to think. If it goes public, it’ll cause more grief than solutions. Theodor knows that, too. I’m not sure it’s of any use to me now.”
“You don’t want it?”
“I didn’t say that. I’d rather I held on to it than you. I’m simply saying that it won’t solve my troubles. And it certainly won’t bring down Teddi.”
“Then I’ll give you other means,” said Milo.
“You have other means just sitting around?” A slow grin grew on her face, and she sighed. “Of course you do. Frame-ups are child’s play for the Department of Tourism.”
Milo felt her watching his face for some reaction. He gave none, and Schwartz finally shook her head.
“That’s not enough.”
“What is enough?”
“The person who broke her neck.”
“That’s not up to me.”
“Then call Alan Drummond right now and ask him.”
They both knew calling wasn’t an option, so Milo said, “I’ll give you the name myself. All right?”
Schwartz nodded slowly, very serious. “So, to be clear. I will receive the original videotape, the identity of Adriana Stanescu’s killer, and the means with which to prosecute Theodor Wartmüller.”
Milo wondered if it was really worth it. He supposed it was, but for all this she would do only one small thing. “Yes,” he said. “That’s right. Now can I tell you what you’re going to do to earn all these riches?”
“I am breathless, Milo. Really, I am.”
6
He landed at noon and took a taxi back into town, thinking over his escape route. The woman with the red bangs had been on his flight, ten rows up, and while he wanted them to know where he’d been, he didn’t want them knowing his destination: the Bronx safe house, which would now be housing two Tourists.
He peered back at the highway. It was a busy time of day, and any of the cars could have been on him-or none. So he asked the driver to take him to Williamsburg and the Hasidic neighborhood he and Tina used to visit for Israeli specialties-any shadow would look as out of place there as he would. However, once they reached the long, lifeless streets, Milo remembered that it was Saturday; this part of Williamsburg was abandoned. It wasn’t the kind of place to try to lose a shadow.
“Bedford and Seventh,” he told the driver.
As they headed north, the streets filled with hip young Brooklynites at sidewalk tables, munching bagel sandwiches and sushi. He got out in front of a Salvation Army thrift store, then crossed Bedford and bought a Coke at a corner market beside the L-train subway stop. He peered out the window.
“Twenty-five cents,” the woman behind the register said as she handed over his change.
There: An old Suzuki pulled up in front of the Salvation Army.
A tall black man got out and stood beside his door, watching faces. If he was irritated, he didn’t show it.
“You need something else?” asked the woman.
The man left his car and walked left, toward Sixth, and Milo hurried out, took the corner and descended into the subway. As his head sank beneath the sidewalk, the black man turning, scanning, caught his eye.
Milo used his MetroCard as the train arrived at the station. His shadow ran up to the turnstile, stopping, slapping his pockets. Cursing. The subway doors closed. Milo smiled as the train headed out.
The L-train had the advantage of crossing five different lines inside Manhattan, and he chose one at random, then crisscrossed the island, taking locals and expresses until he was sure he was alone. In the Bronx, he picked up groceries-instant noodles and bread and ham and coffee-and by the time he finally climbed the stairs to the safe house, the sun was s
etting. He listened at the door but heard nothing. He knocked and waited.
There was a quick shadow over the spy hole, and a man’s voice said, “We’re not buying anything.”
“The Word of God is free,” Milo said.
There was an awkward pause.
“Let me in,” Milo said. “It’s Weaver.”
Another pause; then the man unlocked the door and opened it a crack. He had dark eyes. “Riverrun, past Eve,” he said.
“And Adam’s,” Milo answered. “Come on.”
The Tourist at the door introduced himself as Zachary Klein. He was a big man who gave off the air of a dunce, though no Tourist is a dunce. The other was a distractingly attractive black woman named Leticia Jones who didn’t rise from the cot as she offered a hand. She had huge eyes and a mirthless smile. “You going to brief us, or what? If I have to spend another night with this lout you’ll have to call an ambulance.”
“Drummond hasn’t told you anything?”
“He said to wait for you,” Klein told him.
Milo began to unpack his groceries, then saw that the refrigerator and cabinets were already full. “You guys went out?”
“I told her not to,” said Klein.
“I’m not eating canned food,” said Jones. “That’s just not what I do.”
“See what I’ve had to deal with?” said Klein.
“This cracker will eat anything.”
Milo almost started to laugh. Despite his easy camaraderie with James Einner, it was a general rule that Tourists should work alone. He’d even tried to explain it in the Black Book, writing, It’s part of the essential nature of Tourism that Tourists cannot abide one another. In the extremely rare instance that two Tourists strike up a friendship, it’s over in two weeks, max.
We are taught, and we learn through experience, that everything and everyone is a potential hazard. Children, butchers, seamstresses, bank managers and particularly other intelligence agents. We’re taught this because it’s true. The better the intelligence agent, the bigger the threat. So what happens when two Tourists-two of the most devious models of intelligence agent the world has seen-are in the same room? Paranoia ensues, and the walls go wet with blood.
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