An American Spy

1

“When the world ends, Milo, no one will even notice.”

“You’re drunk.”

Alan set his Heineken can on the flat, pebbly rooftop, then stretched hands and smoldering cigarette above his head, yawning. “Not yet. I’m just saying that when all this finally collapses, it’s going to smell sweet. There won’t be terror in the streets. No blood, no starvation-nothing like that. Just the scent of peppermint.”

“Peppermint?”

“Lemon, caramel, jasmine… peppermint-take your pick. The next day will look the same, maybe a little better. They’ll have no idea that everything important has just died.”

Milo had been drinking tonic water; his glass was already empty. He took a position along the raised edge of the apartment building, as if falling four stories weren’t a possibility. “If you’re trying to sound smart, you’re failing spectacularly.”

A rare breeze swept over them. Alan sucked on his Marlboro, looking like the new smoker he was.

“Here,” said Milo. “Gimme some of that.”

Alan passed the cigarette, and as Milo took a drag, they gazed over rooftops toward Prospect Park. Despite it being a little before midnight, they were forced to wear shirtsleeves. Alan’s wife, Penelope, had dredged up the phrase “global warming” five times that night.

It was three weeks after Xin Zhu’s visit to Qingdao, though neither man knew about that. Nor did they know that, downstairs in the Weaver apartment, their wives were discussing marriage. Later that night, Milo’s wife would relate the entire conversation to him, while Penelope would tell her husband nothing, not for some days at least.

“You really should stop,” Milo said as he handed back the cigarette and took a blister pack of Nicorette from his shirt pocket. He squeezed out a square of the gum and popped it into his mouth. “You’re not even addicted yet. Just quit.”

“Makes me feel in control of something. I haven’t felt that way in a long time.”

“And Pen? What does she think of the new Alan?”

“She says he’s a moron.”

“You guys having problems?”

“Oh, no. That’s the one thing that’s going right.”

Milo didn’t quite believe that. He’d noticed the slow progress of Alan Drummond’s depression over the course of periodic couples dinners that had begun after Milo had returned from the hospital. Alan claimed that that initial invitation had been his wife’s idea, but as soon as they met in the Drummonds’ Upper East Side apartment with Stephanie in tow, Milo saw plainly that it had been Alan’s idea, and he read their future conversations in his ex-boss’s young but dreary face: endings. Their careers, the bloody full stop to the Department of Tourism, and, distantly, their own mortalities.

The truth was that Alan had initiated the dinners because he wanted to jointly lick wounds, but Milo’s only troubling wounds had been physical. After nine weeks, the doctor had pronounced his recovery “remarkable,” but he still wasn’t allowed alcohol. Some gin in his tonic might have made these conversations more bearable.

Unlike Milo, the drunken man wandering his rooftop still saw his future entwined in the intelligence world. Unlike Milo, he hadn’t been shot point-blank by the weeping father of a girl who had been killed by the intelligence world-that could wash away anyone’s illusions about their industry’s virtues. In fact, Milo hadn’t even planned to follow up with his own dinner invitation until they got home that first night and Tina raved about Penelope- She’s funny. And smart as hell. See? That’s the kind of couple friends I’ve been hoping for.

Alan squatted again and lifted his beer. “Did you know that he’s in trouble with his own people?”

“Who?”

“Who do you think? Turns out his little massacre wasn’t even sanctioned. He’s weak now.”

“Who told you this?”

“I’ve still got friends, Milo. I’m out, but that doesn’t end friendships.”

Milo wondered who in the Company would be dumb enough to share secrets with someone as bitter as Alan Drummond. Unless he wasn’t really out after all. “Are you still unemployed, Alan?”

“Unemployed, yes. Dead, no. I’ve had a wonderful idea.”

“You’ve had ideas, remember? I vetoed them.”

“Modified. It’s radically modified.”

Milo remembered Alan’s feverish rant, from two weeks ago, about how he could lure Xin Zhu to Japan and assassinate him in his hotel room. Then another one, more ambitious, involving terrorists from the Youth League, who would converge on Beijing during the Olympics with explosives and long-range rifles. He, like Milo, was still a young man, but when he got to raving, he sounded like a man twenty years older, fighting madness. “They were bad plans, Alan. They weren’t the kinds of things that could be modified.”

“Then let’s call it a new plan,” Alan said, standing. “Leticia thinks it’s an excellent plan.”

“Leave that woman alone.”

“I’m telling you, she thinks it’s good.”

“Who else have you been bothering with this? Zachary?”

Alan shook his head. “Zachary Klein has apparently found himself a civilian life. But you know he wasn’t the only other survivor.”

“Jose-”

“Let’s not name names,” Alan cut in. “But there’s also a third, who wasn’t on the Tourism rosters when everything went down. You remember him. My point, though, is that they all agree that it’s an excellent plan.”

Milo turned to give him his attention. “It might be the best plan, but I’m not taking part. I’ve made that clear.”

“Did you know he got married?”

“Zachary?”

“Xin Zhu. Last summer he got married to some sweet young thing and-”

“Stop it.”

Alan stared at him, then wiped his mouth with the back of one of his red hands; it made him look like a drunk. His bare arm, Milo noticed, was dense with muscle; he’d been working out. “Sixty years.”

“What?”

“Sixty goddamned years,” Alan said. “The department chugs along. Complete secrecy. Complete freedom. I get control of it for two months-sixty days — and the entire thing’s wiped out.” He looked at his can, as if it might hold answers. “You have any idea how that makes me feel?”

Milo had no idea how it made Alan feel, so he said nothing. Besides, Alan wouldn’t have heard him.

“I keep seeing those dots. Red dots turning blue. I have nightmares about those dots. Do you?”

“Sometimes,” Milo lied. His own nightmares covered different territory.

“Well, I have them all the time. Damn near every night.”

They didn’t speak for a while, just turned back to the vista of nighttime Brooklyn. Cars rumbled along Seventh Avenue, music drained from bars, and a couple argued somewhere up the street. Chewing hard and getting too much nicotine, Milo tried to suppress a hiccup, but it slipped out, and Alan looked at him as if he’d cursed. Milo said, “Look, it’s not your problem anymore. Zhu played it better than we did. That’s all.”

“You think that was a game?” Alan flicked his cigarette off the roof; it glowed and arced slowly down to Garfield Place. “Thirty-three corpses-a game?”

“That’s how we treated it when we ran operations.”

“You’re con doning him?” Alan said, slapping one of his red hands against his hip. “When we ran operations we had reasons. Security reasons. Xin Zhu killed thirty-three Americans for revenge. How can you not see the difference?”

“We don’t know why he did it,” Milo said quietly, hoping to calm the man down. “We think he did it for revenge, but we don’t know anything for sure.”

“You don’t even know their names, do you? Sandra Harrison, Pak Eun, Lorenzo Pellegrini, Andy Geriev, Mia Salazar, John-”

“It’s not your problem,” Milo cut in, irritated. “Not anymore. You know what your problem is now? That woman downstairs. You need to find a job so you can keep your life running.”

“This, from an unemployed man?”

“I’ve got an interview next week. What about you? You look like hell, you know. You’re going to sit around in your underwear hatching some plan to-to what? Wipe out all his agents? Kill his wife? Bomb his office? No, Alan. I’m not helping with your revenge.”

“I wasn’t planning to kill-”

“No!” Milo said, raising a hand. “Enough. I don’t want to know. I’ve told you before-I’ve wasted too much of my life, and too much of my family’s life, fighting losing battles. I looked into Andrei Stanescu’s eyes before he shot me. I listen to his disconnected speech-the man is completely destroyed, and I’m not going to be part of the machine that does that to people like him. Not anymore.”

“But Xin Zhu sent him to you,” Alan said, not understanding a thing. “We can get that bastard!”

Milo rubbed his eyes and took a breath before speaking. “You’re not listening, Alan. Killing the Tourists didn’t bring back Xin Zhu’s son, and getting rid of Xin Zhu isn’t going to bring back your agents. This is nursery-school moral philosophy. It’s time to get your priorities straight.”

Alan seemed to be considering it.

“Come on,” said Milo. “Let’s go downstairs and talk about the primaries. Or our glorious president. Let’s talk about Barry Bonds, for Christ’s sake. And if anyone brings up China, all you have to say is that it’s a shame so many died in the earthquake.”

“How many at last count?”

“More than sixty thousand.”

“A lot,” Alan muttered.

“Yeah, it is.”

They stared at each other a moment, Milo feeling a dull throb in his gut, reminding him of the miles he’d trekked looking for a mole, the many ways in which Xin Zhu had fooled them all, and the disheveled, mourning Moldovan man who had tracked him here with a pistol.

Alan wiped his lips again. “Maybe you’re right.”

“I’m not far from it.”

“Listen,” he said, his voice lowered slightly. “I’m thinking about taking a vacation.”

“What do you call what you’ve had?”

Alan blinked at that, as if fighting down a rising tide of anger, but then it was gone. “Take Pen away from the city for a while. There’s a great place up in Colorado, cabins on Grand Lake. Totally secluded, totally off the grid. Grand Estes Cabins.”

“You want to be off the grid?”

“It’s useful,” Alan said, then winked.

Milo patted Alan’s hard, muscled shoulder. “Come on, let’s go downstairs.”

Alan stepped forward, then paused. “But if you do change your mind-if you suddenly feel the urge for vengeance-you just let me know.”

“I won’t.”

“Or if I’m not available, contact Leticia. You remember how to do that, right?”

Milo turned to him again. “I’m not going to change my mind, and I’m not going to go through Leticia’s Byzantine contact procedure.”

“But just in case.”

“Sure, I remember. Now let’s go try to fool our wives into thinking we’re just nice guys.”

He led Alan to the access door, and as they descended, ducking to avoid hitting their heads, they heard music filtering up the narrow, rickety staircase.

“What is it?” asked Penelope.

“I don’t know. I-” Tina leaned to squint at the screen of Milo’s iPod, which was wired into their stereo. “Francoise Hardy. It’s pretty.”

“You said this is Milo’s music?”

Tina returned to the couch and scooped up her wine. “Yeah. Weird, huh?”

Penelope rocked her head from side to side, as if she wouldn’t be pinned down to an opinion. “You’re right, it is nice, but I have a feeling you put that on to change the subject.” She spoke with a sly smile, then leaned back, cradling her own glass in her palm.

“No, no-just gave me a moment to think. The answer’s yes. We’re getting along well, though we’ve taken a break from the marriage counseling.”

“His idea or yours?”

“Both of us, really. Stephanie saw her father in a pool of blood. Our focus now is on her. She sees someone once a week, and she seems to be dealing well. I’m sure we’ll get back to the marriage soon enough, though I’m not sure we need it anymore.”

“But…?”

“No but. Not really. As soon as he finds a job, he’ll be happier. You don’t just go from living your life in hotels all over the place to sitting unemployed in this dinky apartment-not without a little tension. I know I sound stupidly optimistic, but I have reason.”

Penelope shook her head. “I’m not saying anything. You know me, discreet as a Buddhist.”

They both laughed at that. “It’s just this place,” Tina finally said, motioning to take in the whole apartment. “I wouldn’t mind moving. Every time I go downstairs my chest tightens.”

“You expect to find a guy with a gun.”

“It’s ironic, really. Last year, Milo wanted us to run off with him, to Europe. I said no. Now, running off sounds great to me, and he’s the one who, as he puts it, never wants to get on a plane again.”

“Funny,” Penelope said with no trace of humor.

“How about you guys?” Tina asked.

Penelope moved her free hand so that she was clutching the glass with both. That thin smile returned. “I’m thinking about divorce.”

It had been said so pleasantly that Tina thought she must have misheard, but Penelope’s smile faded, and she knew she hadn’t. “Since when?”

“Who knows? You never know when these things start. But it’s become more serious these last couple of months.”

“Since the department closed down.”

Penelope nodded, then looked into her empty glass. “You have any more of this?”

It was the same delay tactic Tina had used a moment before, and she couldn’t argue with that. She went to the kitchen, and, as she worked on another bottle of Beaujolais, Stephanie appeared in her pink pajamas, clutching the PlayStation Portable that Milo had irrationally bought her a week before. “What is it, Little Miss?”

Stephanie looked surprised, then she glanced behind herself toward the living room. “Is there…”

“What, hon?”

It took another moment to get the question out, and Stephanie’s tendency to block up when speaking seemed to be an aftereffect of seeing her father shot. Whatever you do, the therapist had said, don’t draw attention to it. Finally, Stephanie said, “What’s wrong with Pen?”

“Nothing. What are you doing up?”

“I’m thirsty. What’s wrong with her?”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s crying.”

Tina turned to her daughter, whom she sometimes worried had seen too much during her six years of life. “Crying?”

“I think so.” A pause. “I don’t know.”

“Don’t worry about her. She’s just got some problems.”

“You’ll help her out?”

“Yeah, Little Miss. I’m here to help her out. You said you were hungry?”

“Thirsty.”

“So that’s why you’re awake?”

“Yeah.”

“And that PlayStation just happened to be in your hand when you woke?”

Stephanie turned it over, examining the machine as if its presence were a surprise. The gears in her brain worked. “I just woke up and there it was!”

Tina set her up with a glass of water and sent her back to bed, then brought out the Beaujolais. There was no evidence of weeping on Penelope’s delicate, sensual face, just an occasional twitch at the corner of her lips. “I think I scared Stephanie.”

“She’s seen me cry often enough,” Tina said as she refilled their glasses. She placed the bottle on the coffee table, then decided to sit next to her on the couch. “Go ahead.”

“With what?” Penelope asked. “All I can say is it’s gotten worse. Men are… well, they are their jobs, aren’t they? Is that sexist?”

“Don’t think so. Patronizing, maybe.”

“What I mean is, you’re a librarian. But is that who you are?”

“No, I get your point.”

Penelope drank, whispered, “Mmm, this is good,” then looked directly at Tina with a newfound intensity. “Anyway, the job disappeared, and he became a different person. Starts smoking. Exercises like mad. When he drinks, he does it stupidly. He starts fights for no reason. He’s acting like some washed-up jarhead, which I suppose is what he is. He-and this sounds weird-he spends the longest time in the bathroom. Goes off to take a crap, and I don’t know when I’ll see him again. And no, it’s not medical-not self-abuse either. When he’s not shitting he barricades himself in his office. It’s like he can’t stand to be in the same room with me.”

As Penelope spoke, Tina instinctively compared these observations to how Milo had become since his unemployment. Since getting shot. She wanted to find similar things in him so that she could hold them up and say, See? They all do it, but she came up short. “What does he say?”

“He says there’s nothing wrong. Just distracted. He’s working on a project. What kind of project? Sorry-it’s top-secret stuff. I point out that he doesn’t work on top-secret stuff anymore, and he backtracks and says it’s for friends.”

“Friends like Milo?”

Penelope shrugged. “You’ll have to ask him yourself.”

They let that sit between them, Tina wondering if Milo was, despite his insistence that that kind of work was behind him, helping Alan with some lingering projects from the Department of Tourism. “Is it really that bad?” she asked. “Sounds like a phase to me-divorce is permanent.”

Penelope raised the glass to her lips but before drinking let three words slip out. “He hit me.”

“ What? ”

She finished her drink and set down the glass. “Few days ago. Just once. During an argument. Right here.” She tapped her left cheekbone, just under her eye, and that was when Tina noticed the extra layer of makeup on that spot. “He apologized, of course. Cried. But that was when it really came together for me.”

“Okay,” Tina said. “Now I get it. When a man hits you it’s time to go.”

“No.” Penelope shook her head. “You don’t get it. I’m not worried about getting beat up-despite the signs, that’s not the kind of man he is. It was afterward, when he was there on the floor, crying. Begging me not to leave him. That’s when I knew.”

“Knew what?”

“That I didn’t love him anymore. It wasn’t him striking me. It was the miserable mess he’d become. I realized that I didn’t care if he drowned in beer and ended up living on the street. I didn’t care if he had a heart attack and died right there. No-it wasn’t anger. It was apathy. It was the complete lack of all those feelings I’d had when we got married.”

Again, silence came between them. Tina was thinking of the few times in their marriage that she’d thought the same thing-that she had no love for Milo anymore. Those moments had occurred, but always as a question rather than a statement: Do I love him anymore? Just as she was preparing to ask Penelope if, perhaps, she was asking herself a question rather than answering it, she was drawn to nine weeks ago, when Milo was shot on the steps of this very building. When it occurred, all she could think was that she wanted him to be okay. She’d even lost track of Stephanie during those brutal minutes. If anything had convinced her that their marital troubles could be worked through, it had been that event. That, maybe, was the thing she had that Penelope didn’t have.

Finally, Tina said, “I don’t really know anything, but if you’re asking, I’d guess that you’re trying to convince yourself that the marriage is dead, when it isn’t.”

“What makes you think that?” Penelope asked, the signs of real interest in her face.

“You’re still with him, and you came here to tell me about it. You’re looking for a way out of this mess.”

Penelope didn’t answer, only stared at her, and that thin, sad smile returned. Tina really had no idea who this woman was. Then the door opened and the men came in.

Each pair was acutely preoccupied by its own silence, and both silences were so painfully self-conscious that not even Francoise Hardy’s breathy singing could hide them. So they all went to it at once, four awkward voices laughing and muttering banalities. They just wanted to fill the living room with noise. Any noise; it didn’t matter.