The Tourist Page 26

  He'd found a good dropping point in the upper reaches of Route 23 when Tripplehorn's phone buzzed silently on the passenger seat, private number. On the fourth ring, he picked up but said nothing.

  Fitzhugh said, "The American handed Leamas."

  Milo paused, knowing it but unsure. With an accentless voice, he whispered, "Another cup of coffee.”

  “Is it done?”

  “Yes.”

  “Both?”

  “Yes."

  "No trouble?”

  “None."

  A sigh. "Good. Take some time off. I'll be in touch." Milo hung up, remembering what that go-code had come from. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold:

  The American handed Leamas another cup of coffee and said, "Why don't you go back and sleep?"

  If only I could, he thought.

  42

  There were three of them. They took shifts. The heavy one on the night-to-early-morning shift wore a mustache as if he hadn't heard the seventies were long past-this one, she christened George. Jake watched the house from around 6:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.-he was a gangly fellow with no hair on top and a thick novel always pressed open against the steering wheel. The one out there now was Will-or he was until Monday afternoon, when she walked out to the red sedan with a huge cup of lemonade and learned his real name.

  He watched through his impenetrable aviator sunglasses and straightened when he realized her destination. He jerked a pair of earphones from his head, reminding her of Milo and his iPod, and rolled down his window as she approached.

  "Afternoon," she said. "Thought you might be thirsty."

  She'd flustered him. "I'm, uh… I'm all right."

  "Don't be a stiffy," she said, winking. "And take off those glasses so I can see your eyes. Can't trust someone without eyes."

  He did so, blinking in the bright light. "Really, I don't think I should-"

  "Please." She forced the cup through the window so that his choices were either to take it or let it spill in his lap.

  He peered around, as if afraid of witnesses. "Thanks." She straightened. "You have a name?"

  "Rodger."

  "Rodger," she repeated. "Of course, you know my name already."

  Embarrassed, he nodded.

  "Just bring us the cup when you're done."

  "I'll do that."

  When she got inside, Miguel, stretched on the sofa watching the History Channel, asked why she was looking so pleased with herself.

  It was something Milo had once said about enemies. Though he seldom spoke of his history as a field agent, aphorisms sometimes slipped from his lips. They'd been watching an old movie on television where two enemy agents, who'd spent the first half of the film shooting at one another, sat at a cafe and talked quietly about all that had come before. "I don't get it," she'd said. "Why doesn't he shoot him?"

  "Because it does no good now," he'd answered. "Killing him serves no purpose. When they don't have to be at each other's throats, spies chat if they can. You learn things that might be useful later on."

  Less than an hour later, Rodger knocked on the door. Hanna answered it, blinked as he took off his glasses, and said, "Is that my cup?"

  He admitted it was and handed it over as Tina appeared, calling, "Might as well come in, Rodger."

  "I don't think that's such a-"

  "You're supposed to make sure I don't run off, right?"

  He cleared his throat. "Well, it's not exactly that. We're just watching out for you."

  Hanna said, "What?"

  "That's rich," Tina said, then smiled. "I'm joking, Rodger. Please. It's hot out there."

  This was how they began to talk. Tina poured him another lemonade, and they sat at the kitchen table while her parents left them alone. It wasn't an interrogation, really. She just admitted she knew nothing about what was going on, and deserved to know something. It wasn't Rodger's place to share anything, though, and he remained hesitant, even as he accepted his third lemonade.

  "I know what she thinks," Tina told him. "Your boss, Janet Simmons. She told me my husband is a killer. I mean, does that make any sense to you? Why would he kill one of his oldest friends?" She shook her head. "It makes no sense to you either, does it?"

  He shrugged, as if it were all too complicated for a simple man like him. "Listen," he said finally. "This doesn't have to be some big conflict. Special Agent Simmons is good at her job; she's got years of experience. From the way she tells it, the evidence is strong. And then he fled." He raised his hands, palms out. "That's all I know, okay?"

  That really was all he knew-she could see it in his naive face. She felt as if she were in Starbucks, angry with the cashier, but needing to yell at some absent manager.

  What, really, could she do? Simply wait in the hope that Milo would call again? She'd been unfair during the last call, and had spent the whole week regretting it. Where was he? Was he even alive? Christ, she knew nothing.

  Then, Tuesday night, it had happened. The message. It came to her Columbia account, a bulk-e-mail sent to twenty other names to hide the fact that it was only for her. She knew this because the other addresses had each been misspelled, just slightly. The return address was janestuk@yahoo.com. It read:

  FW: Texas BBQ Party!

  Dear Friends,

  To celebrate Drew's 19th birthday you're all invited to enjoy some REAL Texas BBQ in Loretta's back yard at 6 PM on Thursday, July 19. It's gonna be a blast!

  – Jane & Stu Kowalski

  She and Milo knew the Kowalskis from Stephanie's school, but their son, Drew, was only seven. She clicked reply and said she was sorry, but she couldn't make it, she was in Austin for a few days. She'd bring back some "Real Texas BBQ sauce" as a present.

  Now, it was five o'clock on Thursday. Time to go. Stephanie was with Hanna, playing Chutes and Ladders, while Miguel was again in front of the television, watching financial news. She gathered his keys and shook them. "Can I take the Lincoln? Want to get some ice cream."

  He took his eyes off the television and frowned. "Want company?"

  She shook her head, gave him a peck on the cheek, then told Stephanie to be good; she'd be back in a sec. Stephanie was winning her game, and had no desire to leave it. On her way out, Tina left her cell phone on the table beside the front door-she'd seen enough television to know satellites could track her that way in a matter of seconds. Then she took two jackets from the wall hook and folded them so they looked like laundry.

  The heat blasted her when she stepped outside, and she paused, clutching the jackets. She crossed to the paved driveway and the Lincoln Town Car her father replaced each year with a fresh one. As she fooled with the lock, she noticed the red sedan in front of the Sheffields' bi-level. Rodger pretended not to be looking at her, but she noticed him leaning forward to start up his car.

  Damn.

  She stayed calm. She put the jackets on the passenger seat, then drove slowly down the lane, up the next right, and out to the highway that led into town, the red sedan always in her rearview.

  She pulled into a plaza off the highway and parked in front of a coin-operated Laundromat. The sedan parked two rows back. She went inside, where the warmth of the machines fought the limpid air-conditioning, and put the jackets in a washer but didn't insert any coins. The few other Thursday afternoon customers didn't seem to notice. She took an empty seat not far from the front windows and watched the parking lot.

  It took him a while, but she knew he would have to do something. He couldn't see inside, and with the heat he had to be getting thirsty. Or maybe he just had to pee. It took forty minutes. He got out of his car in his dark sunglasses and trotted over to the 7-Eleven beside the Laundromat.

  Go.

  She ran out, leaving the jackets behind, ignoring the sweltering heat, dove into the Town Car, and screeched out of the parking space, nearly hitting a bicyclist. Instead of heading to the highway, she turned right onto a back road and parked behind the plaza. Then she got out, pulse racing, and ran around the high, g
raffitied wall to stand at the corner and watch the lot.

  The Laundromat and 7-Eleven were on the far side of the plaza, but she could still spot Rodger in his sunglasses, clutching a redand-white Big Gulp as he stepped outside. He stopped, looked around (she pulled her head back), and ran to his car. He didn't drive away immediately, and she suspected he was calling in his failure and asking for orders. That's how these people were. They always wanted orders.

  Then the sedan took the same path as Tina had, but turned left onto the highway. He crossed the median and headed back toward her parents' house.

  She was overcome by exhilaration. Tina Weaver had thwarted the Department of Homeland Security. Not many people could say that.

  She started the car, but waited until her shaking hands had calmed. The exhilaration didn't disappear, but it mixed with a resurgence of fear. What if they decided to do something to her parents? Or Stephanie? That was ludicrous, of course, because she only wanted to lose them for a short time. But maybe they'd figured out that e-mail; maybe they knew exactly what she was doing, and would kidnap her family to manipulate her.

  Did they even do that? Television was no help on this point.

  She continued down the back roads, past small, ramshackle houses lacking even brown grass. It had been a dry summer here, and some of these chain-linked yards looked like miniature dust bowls. She emerged onto a paved road and drove north on 183 toward Briggs.

  At a bend in the highway, in a bare dirt clearing, sat a broad, screened-in building below the sign loretta's kitchen. She had come here as a child, and when she married she brought Milo. "Real

  Texas barbecue," she'd told him. They'd sometimes sneak out here, away from her parents, to eat brisket and biscuits with gravy and talk over their life plans. It was the location of many of their fantasies, where they felt they could know with reasonable certainly what university Stephanie would go to, where they would retire to when they won the lottery, and, before a doctor gave them the difficult news that Milo was sterile, the name and character of their next child, a boy.

  The clientele of Loretta's was evidenced by the pickup trucks and big rigs gathering heat around it. She parked between two rigs, waited until six, and walked through the hot dust and into the restaurant.

  He wasn't among the crowd of construction workers and truckers getting their hands dirty on the picnic tables, so she went to the window and ordered a brisket plate, biscuits and gravy, and ribs from a pink-cheeked girl who, after taking her money, gave her a number. She found a free table among the chatter and laughter of the sweaty, sunburned men, ignoring their intense but friendly stares.

  She watched the highway and the dusty parking lot through the screened walls, waiting, but didn't see him. Then he was right behind her, saying, "It's me," and touching her shoulder. His cheek was suddenly beside hers. She grabbed his face and kissed him. The tears, too, had crept upon her unawares, and for a moment they only hugged; then she pushed him back to get a look at him. He looked tired, baggy-eyed, pale. "I worried you were dead, Milo."

  He gave her another kiss. "Not yet." He glanced out at the lot. "I didn't see anyone following you. How did you get away?"

  She laughed and stroked his rough cheek. "I've got a few tricks up my sleeve."

  "Twenty-seven!" the girl at the window called.

  "That's us," said Tina.

  "Stay here." He went to the window and returned with a tray overflowing with food.

  " Where've you been?" she asked when he'd settled beside her. "Too many places. Tom's dead."

  "What?" Her hand on his arm squeezed tight. "Tom?" He nodded, lowering his voice: "Someone killed him.”

  “Someone… who?”

  “Doesn't matter."

  "Of course it does! Did you arrest him?" she asked, then wondered if that was a stupid thing to ask. Despite the years she'd spent with a Company man, she really knew nothing about his work.

  "Not really. The guy who pulled the trigger-I had to kill him."

  She closed her eyes as the stink of vinegary barbecue sauce overwhelmed her. She thought she might be sick. "Was he trying to kill you? This guy?"

  "Yes."

  Tina opened her eyes and stared at her husband. Then, overcome again, she grabbed him and squeezed. He was here, finally, and she felt the kind of consuming love that fills you with the desire to eat your loved one, a feeling she hadn't felt since their courtship. Her teeth grazed his stubbly cheek, which was wet from tears she could taste. His? No-he wasn't crying.

  He said, "The point is, everyone will think I killed Grainger. I'm on the run now, but once they've made up their minds, there won't be a safe place in the country for me."

  She got control of herself and pulled back, her hands still on him; his hands were on her. "So, what now?"

  "I've spent days thinking about that," he said, strangely matter-of-fact. "Every way I turn it, I can't figure out how to solve the problem. The Company wants me dead."

  "What? Dead? Why?"

  "It doesn't matter," he said, but before she could protest, he added, "Just know that if I show my face again, I'm dead."

  She nodded, trying to mirror his logical composure. "But you were collecting evidence before. Did you get it?"

  "Not really."

  Again, she nodded, as if these things really were part of her world, things she could actually grasp. "So what's the answer, Milo?"

  He took a raspy breath through his nose and looked at the untouched food. To it, he said, "Disappear. Me, you, Stephanie." He held up a hand. "Before you answer, it's not as hard as it sounds. I've got money hidden away. We've got new identities-you got the passports, right?"

  "Yes."

  "We can go to Europe. I know people in Berlin and Switzerland. I can make a good life for us. Trust me on this. Of course, it won't be easy. Your parents, for instance. It'll be hard to visit them. They'll have to come to us. But it can be done."

  Despite his slow speech, Tina wasn't sure she had heard him right. An hour ago, the worst news she could imagine was that Milo had been injured. She'd nearly collapsed, imagining that. Now, he was telling her that, as a family, they should disappear from the face of the earth. Had she really heard him right? Yes, she had-she could tell from his face. Her answer came out before her brain had a chance to process it: "No, Milo."

  43

  He'd been crying since Sweetwater, a half hour back. For the first hours of driving, there had been no tears, just red, stinging eyes. He wasn't sure what had finally triggered them. Perhaps the billboard advertising life insurance, with the Midwestern family smiling back at him-happy, insured. Maybe that was it. It didn't matter.

  What really struck him as the sun set up ahead, turning to flame against the flat, arid West Texas landscape, was that he hadn't actually been prepared for what happened. Tourists survive by foreseeing unexpected eventualities and preparing for them. Maybe his oversight meant he'd never been much of a Tourist in the first place, because he never even considered the possibility that his wife would refuse to vanish with him.

  He went through her excuses. At first, they didn't have anything to do with herself; it was all about Stephanie. You can't just tell a six-year-old her name's something else and she's going to lose all her friends, Milo! Though he hadn't posed the question, he should have asked if it was worse or better than having her dad disappear. He hadn't asked it because he was afraid of the answer: Well, she does still have Patrick, doesn't she?

  Finally, she admitted that it had to do with herself as well. What would I do in Europe? I don't even speak Spanish well!

  She loved him, yes. When she saw how her refusal was killing him, she kept grabbing his face and kissing his flushed cheeks and telling him just how much she loved him. That, she insisted, wasn't the issue, wasn't even a question. She loved Milo completely, but that didn't mean she would ruin their daughter's life in order to follow him across the world, spending years looking over their shoulders for some hit man. What kind of life is that, Milo? Think
about it from our perspective.

  Well, he had, hadn't he? He'd imagined them with Stephanie at Euro Disney, finishing their aborted vacation with laughs and candy and no more interruptions from the cell phone. The only difference was that they used different names. Lionel, Laura, and Kelley.

  Now he knew why the tears had finally reached him: It was the realization that she was right. Grainger's death had rattled him, turned him into a desperate dreamer, imagining that the soft-edged world of Disney could be theirs.

  Milo had been too in love with his fantasies to realize how childish they were.

  And now, where was he? In the desert. It went out in all directions-flat, two-toned, empty. His family gone, his one real ally in the Company dead, killed by his stupidity. There was only one ally left to him in the world, someone he never wanted to call, whose calls he always dreaded.

  At Hobbs, just over the New Mexico border, he stopped at a generic gas station/convenience store with peeling white walls and no air-conditioning. The fat, sweating woman behind the counter sold him quarters and directed him to a pay phone in the rear, by the canned soups. He dialed the number he'd memorized back at Disney World, then put in all his quarters.

  "Da?" said that familiar old voice.

  "It's me."

  "Mikhail?"

  "I need your help, Yevgeny."

  Part Two. TOURISM Is STORYTELLING

  WEDNESDAY, JULY 25 TO MONDAY, JULY 30, 2007

  1

  Terence Albert Fitzhugh stood in what had once been Tom Grainger's twenty-second-floor office. No longer. Through the ceiling-high windows behind the desk lay a vista of skyscrapers, the canopy of the urban jungle. Beyond the blinds on the opposite wall lay a field of cubicles and activity where all the young, pale Travel Agents made sense of Tourist chatter, culling it into slim Tour Guides that eventually made it to Langley, where other analysts produced their own policy-ready reports for the politicians.