An American Spy (16 page)

Here, then, was the evidence. Alan had truly gone mad, and it had begun with specks on a computer screen, tracking individual murders across the globe. Red dots turning blue. Thirty-three Tourists going from hot to cold.

While helping Alan piece together evidence for the final report, he had learned that most had gone surprisingly quickly, perhaps even painlessly, their executions from unexpected gunshots to the face, surprise knives and wires slicing through windpipes and carotid arteries, and, in a few cases, hit-and-run automobile accidents. Only one went out in flames when the car she was driving down an Afghan road was struck by an Alcotán C-100 antitank missile.

Some—perhaps six or seven—didn’t enjoy a quick exit. They were shot in the stomach and left bleeding in foreign streets for hours or poisoned badly and left suffocating in their hotel rooms. A woman in Mexico City and a man in Vancouver were discovered by generous strangers and carted to hospitals, but within twelve hours, they received visitors who ended their fights.

Of the four who survived, Leticia Jones and Zachary Klein had been on an under-the-radar job with Milo, out of the range of Xin Zhu’s elaborate scheme to make Tourism wipe itself out. In Buenos Aires, José Santiago lived because his phone had been ruined by falling into a sink full of his shaving water, and when his assassin arrived, he was quick enough to kill him. In Hanoi, Tran Hoang was lounging in an opium den in Long Bien. He was the off-the-roster Tourist Alan had mentioned—meaning that Xin Zhu hadn’t even known of his existence.

By then, Milo had resigned from the department and could return home, but Alan had had to travel to Langley. Though Director Quentin Ascot claimed to be too busy to attend the meeting, his assistant, George Erasmus Butler, the director’s iron gut, arrived carrying a folder thick with failure. It wasn’t just Alan he’d come to skewer but the entire Department of Tourism.

The fall had made Alan simple, obsessed with revenge. Now, it had gotten him abducted, possibly killed. And it was drawing Milo into something he wanted no part of.

At the Seventh Avenue stop, he took the stairs to the surface and tried Alan’s number. His phone, a voice explained, was no longer in service. As he walked, he called his one contact in Homeland Security and left a message. He continued through the heat to where he waited under a birch tree not far from the loitering nannies chatting among themselves and giving him significant looks outside the Berkeley-Carroll School. A father was a rare enough sight at that hour. One nanny, a recently arrived Swiss girl who’d spent other days flirting with him, wandered over. She was in her midtwenties and painfully blond with wide lips; she enjoyed talking to him in German. “Hallo, Milo.”

“Hallo, Gabi.”

“Letzter Tag, huh?” she said, and it took him a moment to remember that this was, in fact, the last day of school—Alan Drummond was already interfering with his life. Gabi squinted at his face, then began to laugh. “Hast du es
vergessen
?”

“Of course I remembered,” he muttered in German.

She said, “The only problem is that now I have to be with the brats all day long. I don’t know how I’m going to survive.”

“Day camp,” he told her, now remembering more about Stephanie’s life. “It’s not far from here, and it’s nearly the same hours. Tell their parents that all the brats’ friends will be there.”

She brightened visibly at the suggestion as Milo’s phone began to ring.

“Entschuldigung,” he said, and she watched him check the number and take the call.

“Did you call me from jail, Milo?” said Janet Simmons.

“From the unemployment line.”

Self-consciously, Gabi turned back to look at the school, but she didn’t walk away.

“Thank God for little mercies,” said Simmons. “Is it true that someone put a bullet in you?”

“Is that the rumor?”

“It was on the wire a couple months ago.”

“I’m nearly back to normal.”

“And
normal
for Milo Weaver would be what, exactly?”

“Why don’t you tell me about your life?” he asked. “I’ll lay odds it’s more interesting.”

It wasn’t. In part because of her failed pursuit of Milo a year ago, Simmons had been reassigned to border duty in Seattle. Though the demotion had been rough at first, she’d grown fond of the city.

“You sound happy,” he said.

“Being engaged will do that to you.”

“Well. Congratulations.”

“We’ll pretend that’s why you called me out of the blue,” she said, then added, “Why don’t you tell me why you called me out of the blue?”

“I’ve got an ICE agent asking me questions. Can you check his name and verify he is what he says he is?”

“What does he say he is?”

“A special agent, just like you.”

“Nobody’s just like me, Milo. You should know that. What’s the name?”

She promised to get back to him by the next day, then asked about Tina and Stephanie. As he was trying to answer, children spilled out onto the sidewalk, weighed down by fat backpacks. Gabi waved long fingers at him and gave a wink as she went to meet the two boys she called her brats. In his ear, Simmons told him not to break Tina’s heart, or else she’d be on the next plane to New York with her SIG SAUER. He promised to try his best. Stephanie waved for his attention.

At home, he and Stephanie ordered pizza, briefly assessed the academic year (
okay
was her opinion), and while she talked online with Unity Khama, a friend from Botswana she had met through a class project (even though it was after 10:00
P
.
M
. in Gaborone), Milo used his own computer to search for
Sebastian Hall
. The first hit was dated yesterday, Monday, June 16.

An anonymous employee of the Rathbone Hotel had told a
Guardian
journalist that an American had vanished from his room on Saturday. Nothing particularly strange there, but Scotland Yard had been called in, which was odd. Further questions to hotel management had confirmed the disappearance, but, according to the police, the name was being withheld until the American’s family had been contacted. By Monday, though, a Scotland Yard leak had let the name slip: Sebastian Hall.

Armed with that name, the
Guardian
journalist had found gold: an Interpol arrest warrant for one Sebastian Hall, dated 25 February, charged with involvement in the notorious E. G. Bührle art gallery heist in Zürich.

As was well known to
Guardian
readers, the mystery of the heist had been solved at the beginning of April when, in Munich, Theodor Wartmüller, a ranking member of the German Federal Intelligence Service, the BND, had been caught with the missing paintings in his apartment.

So what, the journalist asked, was Sebastian Hall—assumedly a coconspirator with Wartmüller—doing in London? What had happened to him? Also why, the journalist continued, was New Scotland Yard remaining so quiet on the issue?

Beside the article was a police sketch, from the Interpol Web site, of Sebastian Hall. A face that, when set beside Milo’s, was a nearly perfect match. Without his face to go by, it could have been anyone.

Milo said, “That fucker,” and closed his eyes.

“What fucker?” asked Stephanie. She was standing in the kitchen doorway, clutching a can of Sprite with a straw in it.

“Oh, no one, hon, and don’t ever say that word again.”

Stephanie sipped on the straw, staring at him.

“Something wrong?”

She shrugged, eyes big.

He closed his laptop and came over, squatting to her height. He stroked some hair off her face. “What is it?”

“Nothing, I . . .”

“Are you worried about me again? Because I’m fine.”

“What’s going on with Pen?”

He thought a moment. “Nothing important, she’s all right, too.”

“But she’s getting a divorce, right?”

“Who said anything about divorce?”

“I heard her talking last night.”

“I thought you were asleep.”

She pursed her lips on the straw so that they turned white. “I couldn’t help it,” she said finally. “She’s loud.”

“Come here,” he said and pulled her closer. “They’re having problems, yes, but that doesn’t mean they’re getting a divorce. People just fight sometimes. Like you and Sarah Lawton. Look at you now! Best friends.”

She grinned up at him, then lowered her voice to a whisper. “I don’t know, Daddy. Sarah’s starting to get on my nerves again. Maybe I’ll divorce her.”

4

A little after eight, he found Dennis Chaudhury at a window table of the Twelfth Street Bar & Grill, a placement that struck him as sloppy. “Where’s your friend?” Milo asked as he sat down.

On Chaudhury’s plate lay the remnants of a burger and fries, and he tapped the corners of his mouth with a napkin as he spoke. “Prior engagements. You want something to drink?”

Milo gazed out the window at the busy evening street; there was no way to know if some other shadow had been brought in, and there was no point asking. He felt a strong desire for a vodka martini, wondering just how much damage it would really do to his insides. “Tonic water.”

“Straight?”

Milo shrugged.

They didn’t start their conversation until the waiter had collected Chaudhury’s plate and delivered tonic water and a Beck’s. Until then, Chaudhury asked about the neighborhood; he had never been to Park Slope before and was surprised by how genteel the place was. “Expensive, though, right?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Life in the brownstone jungle.”

Milo smiled.

“But you make ends meet.”

“My wife does well.”

“Lucky man.”

Though there was no real justification for it, Milo didn’t like Chaudhury. Perhaps it was just that he’d been the bearer of bad news, the same bad news he’d had to deliver to Tina right after their dinner, the same bad news he knew he would have to deliver to Penelope before this man got to her. Or perhaps it was only that, knowing the extent of Alan’s madness, he felt in everything around him the weight of omens. He felt as if the settled life he’d finally achieved was going to be ripped from him.

Once they were sipping their drinks, Chaudhury leaned forward. “We’re assuming his trip to London was connected to everything he’s been doing over the last month or so. Correct?”

“I don’t know. What’s he been doing over the last month?”

Chaudhury settled back again and regarded Milo. “You’re not really going to play that card, are you?”

“Alan didn’t share.”

“You were his only regular friend in town.”

“He knew better than to open his heart to friends.”

Again, Chaudhury examined him from a distance. “We’re talking about an unbalanced man trying to take revenge on the Chinese. Can you at least tell me about his feelings?”

Milo let those words sink in before saying, “How’s any of this Homeland’s business, Dennis? He disappeared in the U.K., and now you’re bringing up the Chinese. You walk and talk like a Company man.”

Chaudhury shook his head at Milo’s evident stupidity. “Do you really believe everything you read in congressional documents? Sure, this isn’t our main line of business, but in this case we’re helping out our friends.”

“Friends?”

“Your former employers.”

“Since when did Homeland and CIA become friends?”

Chaudhury raised his palms. “Since forever.” He joined his hands. “In this case, the Company thinks it’s not a terrific idea to appear to be investigating the disappearance of a man they buried so deep that it drove him nuts.”

It was a fair enough point, and well within the realm of possibility. Whether or not he liked Chaudhury, in the end they were both interested in finding out the same thing, so Milo relented. “Some people thrive outside the Company. Others fall apart. I think Alan’s been falling apart. To keep from blaming himself, he—and not without reason—blames the Chinese.”

“He blames Xin Zhu.”

That was a surprise. “Homeland knows about Xin Zhu?”

“Yes, we know about Xin Zhu. We know about Tourism. We know how the one killed the other.”

“I’m impressed.”

“Just your tax dollars at work—a lot of them.”

Milo smiled.

“How well do you know Gwendolyn Davis?” Chaudhury asked.

“I don’t. Who is she?”

Chaudhury reached inside his blazer, pulling out a stack of five or so photographs. Quickly, he shuffled through them and turned a passport shot around for Milo to see. A sensual-looking black woman gazed back at him.

“Gwendolyn? Really?”

“So you do know her,” Chaudhury said, putting the photos away. “Gwendolyn Davis is the name she used in London. Last month in China, she used a Sudanese passport with the name Rosa Mumu. She also goes by Leticia Jones.”

“Jones was her work name. Before.”

“Tourism?”

Milo shrugged a noncommittal answer. He still wasn’t comfortable speaking such things aloud.

“Well, we know Alan met with her in D.C. Then we find out she’s in the Rathbone Hotel at the same time he is. By the time the hotel staff realized Alan wasn’t around to pay his bill, though, she was out of the country.”

“You’re not blaming her for this, are you?”

“Like I say, Weaver, we don’t know anything.”

“What was she doing in China?”

Chaudhury exhaled, considering the limits of what he could share. “We don’t know much, but she was meeting with people. Talked with a consular official, talked with a known terrorist connected to the East Turkestan Islamic movement.”

“Really?”

“I’m not lying, if that’s what you mean.”

There was nothing hopeful in any of these details. Was Alan now using Leticia to support Uighur revolutionaries who wanted to kick China out of East Turkestan and establish an Islamic state? Last year, these people had shot up cars full of Chinese in Pakistan and sent the videotape to Beijing. In Dubai, one of their cells was caught planning to attack an entire mall that sold Chinese products. There were perpetual rumblings that they might commit atrocities during the Beijing Olympics—which, of course, had the Chinese terrified.