The Tourist Page 20

  "I guess so. What are you going to do about this?”

  “About what?"

  "This. When you go back to the office."

  She pursed her lips in an expression of consideration. "I'll have to report the meeting. There were witnesses, after all." Milo nodded.

  "But it doesn't have to be immediate. And once I've typed up the report, it'll certainly take a while to reach your embassy. A day or two."

  "Try to make it two, will you?”

  “I'll try."

  He just about believed her. "Thank you. For being so open."

  Morel leaned closer. "When you do finally talk to them, please tell your masters that if anyone else in Paris ends up dead because of their misinformation, your government can forget about having so much flexibility in the French Republic. You understand?"

  "I'll pass it along," Milo said.

  He felt poor, as if he owed her something for all her cooperation, but had nothing to give. Then he realized that, small as it was, he did have something.

  "You know, Angela dealt with the end of your relationship by throwing herself into her work. She told me that. But that's not why she had to take sleeping pills. It's not your fault she died."

  Morel began to nod, then changed her mind, remembering who she was, and who he was. "Of course it wasn't my fault. It was yours."

  She stood up, crossed to the bar, and tugged at Lambert's sleeve. Milo, from his seat, nodded at Einner's questioning glance, and the Tourist handed back their cell phones. Then they watched the French intelligence agents walk out into the cool, damp afternoon. Both men stared at the empty doorway a few seconds more.

  32

  Rue David d'Angers was one of six major streets that grew like irregular flower petals out of Place de Rhin et Danube 's ovule. It was decided-that is, Milo decided-that Einner should stay in the car, parked along the street as lookout, while Milo and his knapsack went inside. He trusted Diane Morel to a certain extent, though her partner, Lambert, might do anything. "Need the gun again?" Einner asked.

  "If I do, that means I'm doing something wrong."

  Number 37 lay at the beginning of the street, its corner facing the Danube metro stop in the middle of the square. The one key Milo had from Angela's apartment didn't fit it, so he looked at the board of buzzers. Rather than listing apartment numbers, there were only names. There-one of them was a business: Electricien de Danube. He pressed it.

  "Nous sommes fermes," came the answer, a man. We are closed.

  "S'il vous plait," said Milo. "C'est une urgence." It's an emergency. "Oui?"

  "Mon ordinateur." My computer.

  The man didn't answer at first, but he could hear him sighing. The door buzzed as he said, "Quatrieme etage." Fourth floor.

  "Merci."

  Milo pushed inside, then moved under the stairwell, where five soiled trashcans were lined up. He hid, squatting behind them, suffering the stink of old cabbage and bad meat.

  First he heard the sound, four floors up, of a door opening. Then: "Hello?" Then feet stomping as someone came down the stairs, muttering to himself. The old man came all the way to the ground floor and peered out the front door, finally saying, "Merde," and slowly ascending the stairs again. Once his door slammed shut, Milo emerged from the claustrophobic stink and mounted the stairs.

  Luckily, apartment seven was on the third floor, so he didn't have to pass the electrician's door. The name beside the doorbell was Marie Dupont-essentially, a French version of Jane Smith.

  On the off chance a friend named Dupont actually did live there, he rang the bell, but got no answer. He heard a television (Formula One racing) from the next apartment, number six, but nothing from seven.

  It was a typical old-Europe heavy door with two small opaque windows that opened from the inside so that fearful pensioners could have entire conversations without ever opening their doors. And, he noticed, there were two locks.

  His heart sank, because he knew before he verified it what would happen. His key fit the lock in the center of the door, which worked a loud double dead bolt-but it didn't fit in the second lock, just below the handle. He had no idea where that second key could be. It wasn't under the doormat.

  Damned Angela and her overdone security. Like the door itself, the frame was heavy and old, reinforced on the outside by steel. Very effective, just like Angela Yates.

  Milo quietly returned to the ground floor and went back into the courtyard, looking up. On this side, terraces rose up, beginning with the second floor. Each terrace was accessed by a sliding glass door, and in the five-foot space between the terraces was a small, high window, probably from the bathroom.

  A drainpipe along the corner grew to the building's height, but, after tugging at it, he knew it wouldn't hold. So he returned to the third floor and rang the bell for number six.

  After a minute, the inset window opened an inch and a young man stared back at him. "Qui est la?"

  "Uh," Milo began, trying to sound flustered. "You speak English?"

  The man shrugged. "A little."

  "Oh, wow. That's super. Listen, can I use your bathroom? I've been waiting for my girlfriend, Marie, all day. She just called and it looks like I've got another half hour. You mind?"

  The young man rose slightly so he could see down the length of Milo 's body, perhaps checking for a gun.

  Milo showed off his empty hands and flashed the unzipped knapsack at him. "A change of clothes," he explained. "Really. I've just got to take a dump."

  Convinced, he unlocked the door, and Milo kept up the act, pointing and asking, "This way?"

  "Yes."

  "Swell."

  Once inside, he closed and locked the bathroom door, turned on the noisy fan, then listened until he heard the man walk back to his television.

  The small window sat at head height above the tub. Its deep frame was grimy from old showers and dust, but a flip of the latch popped it open. He reached into his knapsack and took out the duct tape, then filled it with his jacket, tie, and dress shirt. He put the knapsack on the floor beside the toilet. In his undershirt, he held the duct tape roll in his teeth, climbed on the edge of the tub, and pulled himself up so he could slip his head through the window. Two and a half feet to his right, and down, was the guardrail of Marie Dupont's terrace. Five feet to the left of it was this apartment's terrace. Directly below, a long drop led to the hard courtyard floor.

  It was a narrow window, but by turning himself sideways he could get his shoulders through. It was difficult holding his body aloft, his legs inside the bathroom swinging until they caught the shower curtain rod.

  Eventually, gasping through clenched teeth holding the tape, and sweating, he got out to his waist, and for a moment, to an outside observer, it looked as if the apartment had grown a human torso, one arm propped against the outside wall to keep it perpendicular. His center of gravity was off now, and if he let go of the wall he'd tumble to his death. He used his free hand to take the duct tape from his mouth and toss it onto the Dupont terrace, where it rolled until it hit the railing.

  It had been a long time since Milo had put himself through this kind of thing, and he was suddenly sure he didn't have it in him anymore. As Tina had pointed out to him a few times, he'd gotten fat. As Einner liked to point out, he'd gotten old. Why was he hanging out of a window three floors above Paris?

  Stop it.

  He pushed farther, until his hips had passed through the frame and he could lean forward, his knees now bent along the inside of the wall to keep him up. He stretched out his hands-briefly hanging unsupported along the wall-and caught the Dupont guardrail. He squeezed harder than he needed to, terrified that now, as he unhooked his aching legs from the window, he'd plummet. But he didn't. Instead, gripping the rail, he straightened his legs, and when they slid out the window and his body dropped, his tightened stomach hit the concrete edge of the terrace floor, making him nauseous. Yet his hands held, and so did the railing. He breathed through pursed lips, trying to get hi
s strength back, then slowly pulled himself up.

  His burning arms almost didn't make it, but he threw a leg over the corner of the terrace floor, which helped. All his extremities now worked painfully for one purpose, and soon he was crouched on the outside edge of the terrace, the pain all over him, shocked that he was still alive. He climbed over the rail and squatted, staring at his red, numb, shaking hands.

  He didn't have time for this. He grabbed the duct tape and tore off ten two-foot-long strips, plastering them on the glass door until he'd made a square of tape. He punched his elbow into the center of it. Glass shattered, but quietly, and remained attached to the tape.

  He peeled off the tape, exposing a jagged hole in the glass, stuck his arm through, and unlocked the door from the inside.

  Without bothering to take in the apartment, he walked directly to the front door and, using a key hanging from a wall hook, unlocked it. He went to number six again and rang the bell. Formula One lowered in volume, then the little window opened. The young man gaped at him.

  "Sorry again," said Milo, "but I left my knapsack in your bathroom."

  The man, stunned, started to reply, then changed his mind and disappeared. After thirty seconds the door opened and he handed over the knapsack. "How did you get out?"

  "I was going to thank you, but I didn't want to interrupt your show. And I hope the bathroom doesn't stink-I opened the window to air it out."

  The man frowned at Milo 's grimy undershirt and slacks. "What happened?"

  Milo looked down at himself, then pointed a thumb toward the open door of number seven. "Marie got back, and… really, man. You don't want to know."

  33

  He'd only just started on the living room, with its broken terrace door, emptying a small desk and riffling through an extensive DVD collection full of Angela's taste-The Misfits, North by Northwest, Chinatown, Some Like It Hot-when the door buzzer rang. He slipped off his shoes and padded to the foyer, wishing he'd brought the pistol, but it was only Einner. He was holding out his telephone. "It's for you."

  Milo took it back to the living room, and the first thing Grainger said was "You alone?"

  Einner had wandered into the kitchen; he heard the refrigerator open. "Yeah."

  "I've been sacked, Milo."

  "What?"

  "Fitzhugh calls it vacation, but it's not that at all. He's furious I tipped you off about Homeland, and he's not happy I showed you Benjamin Harris's file."

  "How did he find out?"

  "I think one of the clerks told him, but it doesn't matter. I'm packing for a week in New Jersey. I've had enough of the city."

  Guilt trickled into his bloodstream-the Company was the only thing the old widower had left in his life, and because of Milo it was now gone.

  "What have you got?" asked Grainger. "Einner says you talked to the DGSE."

  "Listen, Tom. I'm not even sure I should be running. I might just turn myself in."

  "You should stay away," Grainger assured him. "I told you Simmons was meeting with Fitzhugh. She knew you were in Paris and demanded the report on Angela. I didn't show it to her, but I guess Fitzhugh got scared; he'd given in by Tuesday." He paused. "It's all about that blank spot in the surveillance, Milo. You shouldn't have asked Einner to turn off the cameras."

  "You're the one who approved it."

  "Which is something I'll have to live with. Now tell me what you've got."

  Milo explained the most important facts. First, that the whole investigation into Angela Yates had been a ruse. "Yi Lien never brought his laptop out of the embassy. Diane Morel verifies this. That means someone was lying to you. Maybe your MI6 contact. You should get in touch with him."

  "Not possible. Fitzhugh has informed Six of the end of my tenure. They know not to share information with me."

  "Okay. I'm in a safe house Angela set up. I'm hoping she'll have some records around here."

  "Whatever you learn won't mean a thing if you don't have physical evidence. Remember that. What happens if the apartment comes up dry?"

  "I'm not sure."

  "If you run into a wall, call me in New Jersey. I might be able to come up with something. You have the number?”

  “Remind me, will you?"

  Milo took a pen and paper from the desk and scribbled the 973 number of Grainger's lakeside house.

  "One more thing," said Grainger. "With me gone, Fitzhugh is officially running Tourism. He has no idea where you are, but if he does learn that you're with Einner, you know what'll happen."

  Firmer appeared, chewing a Snickers bar he'd found, gazing up at the pen-and-ink nudes Angela had decorated the place with. "I think I do."

  Grainger wasn't going to depend on Milo 's predictive powers: "He'll call Einner-he has his go-code-and order him to bring you in. Catch or kill. So I suggest you lose Mr. Einner as soon as possible."

  "Understood," he said as Einner gave up on the nudes and smiled at him. "And Tom?”

  “Yes?"

  "If Tina gets in touch, can you find a way to tell her I'm all right? That I'll be back as soon as I can?"

  "Sure. But you know that woman. She never believes a word I say."

  Milo hung up, gave the phone back to Einner, and asked him to look through the bedroom.

  "I thought you wanted me to watch the street."

  "This is more important," he said, though in truth he wanted Einner in earshot, just in case Fitzhugh made his call.

  In the end, they only needed twenty minutes. Believing the Rue David d'Angers apartment to be safe, Angela had merely slipped her growing case file on the Tiger into a folder attached to the underside of the IKEA sofa that faced the small television. A stack of maybe two hundred documents, photographs, and handwritten thoughts ripped from notebooks. She'd organized them with paper clips so that anything she found on, for example, Rahman Garang could be added to a paper-clipped section with his photo and basic information on top. Milo was in awe of the lengths to which she'd gone, collecting phone records and occasional photos she'd shot herself.

  He took the stack to the bedroom and found Einner in front of the open wardrobe, breaking the heels off of Angela's shoes, looking for hollow spaces. "Come on," said Milo. "Let's get out of here."

  They took the papers to a brasserie in Montmartre, and over grilled racks of lamb began to sort through the information.

  "You're telling me she did all this on her own?" Einner asked.

  "That's what I'm telling you.”

  “She was better than I thought.”

  “Better than any of us thought."

  Starting from the point she had told Milo about, Angela had focused on bank records for Rolf Vinterberg in Zurich. Using her connections, she had accessed the records of three other banks in town, two of which also showed a Rolf Vinterberg opening accounts that were closed soon after by Samuel Roth. She'd written on one page:

  RV-Resident of Zurich

  Alone?

  No.

  What Company?

  Behind that note-to-self was a twenty-page single-spaced list of Zurich companies, divided by main activity. He had no idea why these particular ones had interested her, or what criteria she'd used. Four pages in, she had circled Ugritech SA with a black marker. How she'd come upon this particular company in the haystack of possibilities wasn't shown here, but he had to believe that Angela had her reasons, which could be hidden in any of the other pages, half of which Einner was reading through.

  The name rang a bell, but he wasn't able to put a finger on it until he turned to the next page, which was a printout from the Web site of Ugritech, a company focused on spreading technology through Africa. Then he saw it-first, the photograph. A handsome man with wavy hair and a seductive smile, "director: Roman Ugrimov."

  Milo exhaled loudly enough that Einner stopped reading. "Find something?"

  "See anything about Ugritech there? It's a company."

  Einner shook his head, then went back to his pages as Milo closed his eyes, remembering 10:2
7 a.m., September 11, 2001, the moment when thirteen-year-old Ingrid Kohl landed hard against Venice cobblestones. Roman Ugrimov's "And her I love, you bastard!"

  There were not many people Milo could say he hated. Hatred doesn't last long in the Company, because with the amount of information you have access to, it becomes too easy to see the perspectives of those who commit heinous acts. But even knowing a fair amount about what had happened, Milo had never found a way to explain the murder of Ingrid Kohl to his satisfaction.

  On September 13, after he'd made sure the pregnant woman, Tina Crowe, was out of danger, he snuck out of the hospital and marched into Ugrimov's palazzo. The visit was a futile act that he couldn't even back up with aggression because of the holes in his chest, but it was enough to make him despise Roman Ugrimov. The Russian had too much faith in his own invincibility-it didn't matter how many crimes he committed; all he had to do was write a few checks. In Italy, the police only questioned him once about the death of the girl in his charge, and soon afterward the official record reflected the story they'd chosen, or been paid, to believe: The poor girl had committed suicide.

  "Here it is," Einner said.

  Milo blinked at the sheet being held out for him to read. "What?”

  “Ugritech. Here."

  It was a photocopy of a he Temps article, in French, dated November 4, 2006, that told of Sudanese minister of energy and mining Awad al-Jazz's diplomatic visit to Europe, listing the countries on his agenda. He was seeking investors for a new electrical infrastructure, to replace the one that had been decimated by civil war. In the second column, with a blue ballpoint pen, Angela had circled a meeting between Ugritech director Roman Ugrimov and the energy minister, at Ugrimov's home in Geneva. Present at the meeting were "various American investors." No address given.

  There, then, was the connection Angela had found. She was phenomenal.

  Milo in turn shared Angela's suspicion that the money used to pay the Tiger had come through Ugritech. Luck, he realized, had played into her calculations-had it not been for that terrible day in 2001, she wouldn't have given Ugritech a second look.