An American Spy (25 page)

It was a narrow staircase, and along the wall were three framed photographs of small children, black-and-whites from the late fifties or early sixties. Milo wondered who they were, but didn’t ask; he doubted Irwin knew. At the top, they turned left and entered a small bedroom in the rear of the house, but there was no bed, just a table and four wooden chairs, and tightly laced curtains covering the window. There had been a bed—an imprint remained in the carpet—and there was a dresser and an old vanity, but he noticed all this later. Upon entering, his attention was taken by the well-dressed middle-aged woman sitting at the table with a plastic bottle of Evian. Her hands were crossed in her lap. She watched Milo enter, then stood up, offering a hand. “Hello, Mr. Weaver. My name is Dorothy Collingwood.”

Of the National Clandestine Service
, he thought as he took her small hand, but he said, “You’re not a senator, too, are you?”

She laughed lightly. “Please! I wouldn’t take Nathan’s job for all the gold in Christendom.”

“Then you must be Company.”

“I must be,” she said, smiling, and returned to her chair. “Actually, I’m NCS.”

He felt odd, standing in a dusty Georgetown bedroom with a well-regarded politician and a Company official. Irwin had been in Washington for nearly fifteen years, and he imagined that Collingwood was relatively new to her job—he’d never heard her name before. He wondered if she’d gotten in over her head.

“Is this it?” asked Milo. “Just the two of you?”

“There’s a third,” said Collingwood, “but he couldn’t make it.”

Stuart Jackson,
Milo thought.

Collingwood waved at the chairs, and Milo sat to her left. Irwin sat across from Milo, to her right. Milo said, “I’m here to help. With Alan gone, you’ve got to be hurting.”

“Do you think we’re hurting?” Collingwood asked, but she was looking at Irwin, who shook his head. “Nathan thinks we’re doing fine. So you can go home.”

Milo looked at her a moment, then at Irwin, who stared passively until, unexpectedly, his left eye twitched. It meant nothing beyond the fact that this was a man under a lot of stress. Milo said, “Leticia thinks differently.”

“People on the ground always do,” said Collingwood. “You’ve been around long enough to know that.” She took a long drink of her Evian.

“She asked for my help.”

“Without consulting us,” said Irwin.

Milo was no longer sure why he was here. He knew why
he
was here, but not why they had bothered to meet him. “It’s up to you,” he said. “I’m just puzzled. I understand Alan. He was personally humiliated by Xin Zhu, and he became obsessed with revenge. You, too,” he said to Irwin, “to a degree. Xin Zhu planted someone in your office, so you can’t feel very good about that. But you,” he said to Collingwood, then paused. “I may be wrong, but I doubt you also have a personal gripe with Xin Zhu. You’re approached by a man—Alan, I assume—who’s been made unstable by his desire for revenge and . . . and what? You actually decide to go along with it?” He shook his head to show how ridiculous that was. “I don’t know what you’re doing here.”

“So that’s your narrative?” she asked after a moment. “A simple tale of revenge, a boy’s game of tit for tat?”

“An eye for an eye,” Irwin suggested.

Neither said anything for a moment, waiting, until Milo said, “So it’s a lot bigger than revenge.”

“Of course it is,” said Collingwood.

“And you’re not going to tell me.”

She shook her head. Irwin just stared.

Collingwood said, “Listen, Mr. Weaver. What you see here—a couple of bureaucratic monsters running some agents from a dusty room—that’s only part of the story. We didn’t originate it; we inherited it. Now we’re here to help wrap up the storyline. Do you understand?”

“Not really,” he said. Irwin, he knew, had come into the world of espionage via his position on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. However, senators and ranking CIA officers didn’t sit around in dusty safe houses—they hired other people to do that. The people who populated safe houses were there to protect the identities of politicians and ranking officers who were pulling the strings; in this case, the situation was reversed. Whatever was going on here, these people were desperate to keep it to a select group, which didn’t yet include Milo.

“Sorry for the mystery,” she said, “but that’s all you’re getting. Now it’s your turn to explain yourself.”

Milo had spent most of the train ride going over his own narrative, because that’s all this was—a narrative. As with any interrogation there needed to be a surface storyline and an underlying one. Ideally, a third one would make it more convincing, but he didn’t think he would need that. “I didn’t want to get involved,” he said. “I think you both know that. Alan tried to bring me in before he ran off. Then, when I talked to Leticia, she tried as well.”

“And you said no both times,” Irwin pointed out.

“Of course. I don’t like this world. I haven’t for a long time. Nevertheless, I didn’t realize Alan would be so persistent. He made sure the decision was out of my hands.”

“The name,” said Collingwood.

Irwin said, “What name?”

“The one he used in London before he disappeared,” Milo said. “It was my old work name, in Tourism.”

Irwin looked over at Collingwood; this was news to him.

Milo said, “He used a name that is known to both the Germans and the Chinese, known to be mine. Eventually, one or the other country is going to start pointing in my direction.”

“Then take a vacation,” said Collingwood, matter-of-factly. “Pack up your family and rent someplace in Florida for a few weeks, until this blows over. I can give you some phone numbers.”

Irwin rocked his head. “It’s an idea, Milo.”

Milo smiled grimly. “Sure. I’ll skip town and leave it to the two of you. To Leticia and José and Hoang. I’m sure that, after a couple of weeks, you will have bent over backward to make sure I’m not part of the fallout when whatever you’re doing explodes.”

Collingwood said, “Nathan, I do believe he doesn’t trust us.”

“If I’m in,” Milo continued, “there’s a chance that I can control the damage so that my family remains untouched.”

Milo waited while Irwin bobbed his eyebrows and Collingwood took another drink of water. After a moment, she said, “So you’d like us to bring you in, simply so that you can protect yourself?”

“And his family,” said Irwin. “Never forget his family.”

“That’s part of the reason,” said Milo. “The other part is that I can help you.”

“Of course he can,” Irwin said, a little loudly. “He’s the finest Tourist ever produced! A prince among men!”

Milo gave him a look, then turned back to Collingwood. “I know Xin Zhu better than anyone on your team. I’ve had access to reports you haven’t seen. I know how he thinks.”

Irwin said, “That didn’t save all those Tourists, did it?”

“That was a lack of information. I wasn’t told that his son had been killed in Sudan. Had I known, we could have saved them.”

“What about these reports?” asked Collingwood. “Why haven’t we seen them?”

“Because it’s not American material. I got them from my father.”

“Yevgeny Primakov,” Collingwood said to Irwin. “He runs that UN department we were talking about.”

Milo blinked at her. His father’s intelligence arm was, or was supposed to be, completely secret. Was it a surprise that they both knew about it? He wasn’t sure.

“Could we use your father?” asked Collingwood.

“I could ask,” Milo lied.

Irwin exhaled loudly. “This is idiotic,” he said to Collingwood. “We both know Milo’s a bad seed.”

Collingwood smiled. “Did you really say ‘bad seed’?”

“The child of a KGB officer and a Marxist terrorist? The very
definition
of a bad seed.”

“Right,” Collingwood said, still smiling.

That they knew about his father was one thing, but Milo, perhaps naively, was surprised that they knew about his mother.

His face must have been an open book, for Irwin said, “Come on, Milo. That’s never been a secret from the Company. Hell, it’s why you were recruited in the first place, right out of college. I’ve seen your file. You had lying in your genes. They wanted to make sure you lied for us, not for someone else. Isn’t that right, Dorothy?”

Collingwood shrugged. “That’s what the files say.”

He tried to hide his growing surprise. He shook his head, desperate to change the subject. “The point is that, liar or not, we all know that I could help make sure this is a success. I just need to know more about what’s going on.”

Collingwood brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “Well, what do you want to know?”

“What happened to Alan.”

“Nathan?” she said.

Irwin shook his head. In the dim light his cheeks looked flushed, and Milo finally understood that Irwin was not the alpha in this room. Collingwood was. She was calling the shots. Revenge truly was not the point of their plans.

“It’s a problem,” Irwin said finally. “We don’t know.”

“You don’t know what happened to Alan?”

“He’s off the grid. He walked. We don’t know why.”

“What was he supposed to do?”

“Meet with someone, then reconnect with Leticia.”

“Meet with who?” Milo asked, though he knew the answer was Gephel Marpa.

Irwin looked at Collingwood and said, “I’m
not
telling him that. Not yet.”

“Fair enough,” she said.

Milo said, “If you want me to ask my father for information, I’ll need to have a story for him. You can’t keep me entirely in the dark.”

“You have your story already,” she said, looking at him. “Revenge. It’s not unheard of, you know.”

“So I get nothing? I work entirely blind?”

“Consider Leticia your seeing-eye dog,” she said. “Although I’d like to believe you, I know what excellent liars you Tourists are, and I’d be a fool to take you at face value. Leticia knows as much as she needs to know, and she’ll share what’s necessary. You’ll meet her tomorrow at JFK, Terminal Three. Eight in the morning, and you come as a blank slate. Can you do that?”

He nodded.

Collingwood said, “Tonight we’ll decide on the depth of your involvement, and by tomorrow she’ll know how to use you. What are you going to tell your family?”

“Flying to San Francisco for an interview.”

Collingwood raised her eyebrows. “You think your wife would want to relocate?”

“She’s amenable.”

“Tomorrow, then,” she said and stood, offering her hand again. Milo took it.

Irwin walked him downstairs and, at the door, said, “Don’t fuck us on this, Milo. The bricks will fall directly on your head.”

Replies to that awfully mixed metaphor occurred to him, but he pressed them down, stuffing them into that box in the back room of his head. He trotted down the front steps and flagged a taxi that was cruising down the street. He climbed into the back, saying, “Union Station,” as he pulled the door shut. It wasn’t until the taxi was moving again that he noticed the driver’s face. It was Dennis Chaudhury.

“Shit,” said Milo.

“Just transporting today,” Chaudhury said as he took a turn onto another street. “I told you not to call him, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did.”

“Sorry, then,” he said, “but you’re supposed to tell me what happened at the meeting.”

Milo watched colonial houses pass by. “Well, I’m in. Tomorrow I meet up with Leticia Jones at JFK.”

“To go where?”

“I don’t know.”

“Really?” he asked, peering in the rearview.

“Really.”

“Don’t tell me that’s all you know.”

“I know what happened to Alan.”

“Aha!” said Chaudhury, sounding pleased. “Do tell.”

“He was supposed to meet with Gephel Marpa on another floor, then meet with Leticia. He didn’t do either. He walked out. They don’t know where he is.”

Chaudhury exhaled, frowning at the road. “That’s odd.”

“No, it isn’t.”

Chaudhury looked at him in the mirror, waiting.

“Alan had only two options. He could continue to work for Xin Zhu, or he could remove himself completely from the equation. He assumed that, without having him in hand, Xin Zhu wouldn’t touch his wife, which was the only thing he cared about.”

Chaudhury stopped at a traffic light, staring ahead and saying nothing until the light changed and they were moving again, and then it was only to ask the details of the meeting. Those in attendance, which room it occurred in, and if it was recorded. Milo answered everything honestly—he had no idea about the recording, though he suspected it hadn’t been. When they were close to Union Station, Chaudhury said, “What’s your take?”

“Whatever they’re doing, they’re terrified of it getting out. It’ll be a while before I’m let in on the secret, if ever.”

Chaudhury tossed an iPhone over the seat; Milo caught it. “Keep this on you,” he said, passing over a charging cord as well, “and when he calls, you had better answer.”

Milo caught the 4:00
P
.
M
. return train, and a little before five, as they were approaching Wilmington, he called Tina, who was at home with Stephanie. They’d ordered delivery Chinese, with an extra dish of kung pao chicken for him. “It’ll be clotty and cold by the time you get here.”

“Just how I like it.”

“You find out anything about Alan?”

“Not much. I’ll tell you when I get back,” he said, though he doubted he would tell her anything, because she and Stephanie would not be there. They would either be with Janet Simmons, or—and, preferably, he realized—with Yevgeny. They would be safe, and he could finally be free to do whatever he needed in order to assure their continued safety. One thing at a time, though. “Have you found Penelope?”

“No,” she said.

“And the eyes?” he asked.

“Eyes?”

“You know.”

“Oh, right. I see traces,” she said, and in the background, Stephanie said, “Stop looking at my eyes!”

He fully expected his new phone to ring sometime during the ride, but it was his old one that rang a little after six, with an unlisted number. Hesitantly, he answered it. “Hello?”