An American Spy

10

On the walk home, he decided he hadn’t done enough. Though he trusted that Janet Simmons would do her best to help him, he didn’t know what was and was not possible for an agent in her position. The other alternative, though, made him queasy. The last time he’d asked his father to hide someone, it had been a fifteen-year-old girl who, in the end, had escaped the old man and was killed on the side of a French mountain road.

The circumstances now were different, but he still felt unsure as he developed his second strategy, beginning with a visit to the grocery and buying materials for a Vietnamese noodle soup. He took the items up to the apartment and julienned the vegetables, and before storing them in the fridge grabbed a ballpoint from the counter and slipped it into his pocket. He unwrapped the paper covering the chicken breasts and, as he put the paper into the trash, ripped off a rough square and slipped it into his other pocket. Then he pounded the chicken, seasoned it, and slipped it into the oven to grill while he went to the small bathroom behind the front door.

As he undid his pants, he took a look around the small space-toilet and sink, a mirror and an overhead lamp. He found no signs of surveillance, but in fact, he worked less from observation than from the hope that, while the apartment might be full of cameras, Xin Zhu’s men had no interest in watching this space. He sat on the toilet, took out the pen and paper, and began to write in Russian.

He picked up Stephanie from camp, putting on a happy face, and listened to her complaints about Sarah Lawton, who’d had the audacity to wear a ballerina outfit to school without informing Stephanie first. When they got home, she smelled the air. “You’re cooking?”

“Noodles. You like my noodles.”

“I thought grandpa was taking us out.”

“It’ll be more comfortable here.”

She sighed, heading off to her room.

When Tina arrived at five thirty, she asked the same thing and seemed equally disappointed, and when Milo went down to meet Yevgeny’s chauffeured car, the old man was more than disappointed; he was angry. “They don’t give these reservations to just anybody, you know.”

“Don’t be an ass,” said Milo, trying on a smile. “Tell your driver to join us if he likes.”

“Francisco doesn’t like home cooking,” Yevgeny said as he leaned down to the open window. “Do you, Francisco?”

“Despise it, sir,” said Francisco, a beefy, dark man with a South American accent. “You will call when you need me?”

“I’m afraid I will,” Yevgeny grumbled before turning to follow his son into the building.

Milo didn’t pass the note on the street or in the stairwell. Though he didn’t trust his own apartment, he was even more wary of anything in the public realm, which was why he had vetoed the restaurant. It wasn’t until they were inside, and Stephanie was running up to him, that Milo grabbed his father by the waist, shouting, “Watch out for the maniac!” and slipped the paper, folded around the spare apartment keys, into Yevgeny’s rear pants pocket. The old man certainly felt the move, but he played along well, making a loud noise of terror as his granddaughter barreled into him.

Milo patted him on the shoulder. “Drink?”

“Immediately,” said Yevgeny, then pinched Stephanie’s cheek so hard that she yelped.

As they settled into conversation, Milo realized that he was now in Alan’s shoes, the Alan he had talked with on the roof two and a half weeks ago, the Alan who was agonizingly preoccupied by a matter of life and death but unable to communicate it to anyone. Now, here, Milo had to pretend to listen to Yevgeny’s description of Public Service Day, and all the wonderful things the United Nations had done to celebrate it. Why, Milo wondered, hadn’t Alan slipped him a note? Why hadn’t he shared more on the roof? Because Alan didn’t trust that which he did not personally control, even if it meant not trusting Milo. Because Alan didn’t believe anyone other than himself could rescue Penelope.

Or was Milo wrong? Had Alan dropped clues that he was too dense to have noticed? He thought back. I keep seeing those dots… there were other survivors… cabins on Grand Lake — Grand Estes… he got married to some sweet young thing… I wasn’t planning to bomb

… You don’t even know their names, do you?

Nothing pointed to anything. Or it all pointed to everything.

For the moment, none of this mattered. What mattered was Homeland Security and his father’s people, and what they could do for him. Each time he heard footsteps in the stairwell, he waited for the banging on the door, then the inrush of agents. How would they do it? Would Simmons be with them? Would they take Milo and Yevgeny as well?

Yevgeny leaned close to Stephanie-who, wary of another pinch, pulled back-and said, “You’ve got something here.”

“It’s Magic Marker on her eyelids,” Tina informed him.

“No,” he said, and pulled something out from behind Stephanie’s right ear. He opened his hand to reveal a rather beautiful bracelet made of five rows of polished agate stones. “How could you hear a thing?”

“Wow,” said Stephanie, taking it carefully. She wasn’t sure what to think.

“I heard you were making friends in Botswana,” he told her. “So I told their ambassador that I knew a girl with a burgeoning interest in his beautiful country. I asked for advice on a gift. He made some calls and had this sent over in the diplomatic pouch, direct from Gaborone.”

“Wow,” Stephanie said again. “Thanks.”

Milo thought, I never told him about Stephanie’s Botswana friend.

She latched the bracelet onto her wrist while Milo brought out the serving bowl full of noodles and broth, to which he had added the chicken. Then came smaller dishes of vegetables, and another of a fish sauce concoction. “It looks good,” Yevgeny admitted, before examining his hands and saying, “I had better clean myself.”

“Use the small bathroom,” Milo told him.

While his father was gone, Tina helped with silverware and asked if he was feeling all right.

“Sure, why not?”

“You’re a little distant.”

“I’m fine,” he said and kissed her on the lips, thinking mawkishly that this could be their last kiss in a long while.

Once Yevgeny returned and gave Milo a significant nod, verifying that he would, according to the instructions in the letter, take Tina and Stephanie away tomorrow evening, he actually did feel better. He reminded himself again that the old man’s failure with the fifteen-year-old really had been a different situation. This time, Milo was being smarter. He’d admitted to Yevgeny that he was under constant surveillance and told him to not speak of this until his girls were absolutely safe. He’d said only that the Chinese were involved but refused to go into details until he knew Tina and Stephanie could not be touched. Yevgeny seemed to understand everything, and the only sign of anxiety was the now more frequent swiping at his cheek.

The noodles went over remarkably well, and halfway through the meal Milo’s phone bleeped a message. It was a single word from a private number: roof. He deleted the message, patted his napkin against his mouth, and rose. “Sorry, I’ve got to make a call. Be right back,” he said and walked out of the apartment.

He found Leticia Jones standing in the center of the roof, smoking a menthol cigarette. It was a blessedly cool evening, and she wore a long black linen jacket that reached her calves, which were covered by leather boots. “Hey, baby,” she said.

“Come on downstairs. My noodles are a hit.”

She smiled, then stepped closer. “Sorry, I gotta see a guy about a thing.”

“That’s always the way.”

“You are cute,” she said, touching his cheek with her long, painted nails, knowing exactly how to keep a man off balance-or some men. To Milo, she was only growing more wearying. “But let’s be serious, okay? I’m assuming you’re in, or else you wouldn’t have called.”

“Yes.”

“Would you like to tell me why?”

“Because I don’t have a choice.”

“I hope you don’t think I’m forcing you into anything, Milo.”

“You don’t need to,” he said, “Alan’s already done that.”

She nodded, perhaps understanding, then exhaled. “Well, it’s this way. You’ll go to Georgetown tomorrow for a two o’clock meeting with some people who want to talk to you.”

“People like Nathan Irwin?” he asked, remembering what Xin Zhu had told him.

Leticia seemed to consider ignoring the question, but then cocked her head. “Somebody’s been doing some thinking.” She paused. “Unlike me, Irwin doubts conversions. Unlike me, that man don’t like you. See what I mean?”

“Sure.”

“You’ll be there?”

“With bells on.”

“Something for the imagination,” she said, then gave him an address. She came closer and kissed his cheeks. “Take care of yourself, okay?”

Milo turned to open the roof-access door for her, but she was already walking off, stepping up onto the raised edge, and leaping down to the next rooftop. He wondered how many buildings she had to go before reaching a jimmied access door that would take her to the street.

When he returned to the table, Yevgeny was quizzing Tina about where she would like to live. “Anywhere in the world. Forget your job. Forget about money entirely. Where do you imagine is your ideal home?”

The question seemed to fluster her. “God, I don’t know.”

“Hawaii,” said Stephanie.

“Excellent choice,” said Yevgeny.

Milo said, “How about-”

“Not you,” Yevgeny cut in. “You’ve seen too much anyway. I’d like to know what a sophisticated American woman dreams of.”

Tina took the question seriously, pouring wine as she mulled it over, then said, “Costa Rica? That’s supposed to be wonderful.”

“Interesting,” Yevgeny said approvingly.

“No,” Tina said, shaking her head. “Geneva.”

“Even better. You’ve never been to my apartment there, and I think that should be remedied.”

“We’re moving to Switzerland?” asked Stephanie.

Yevgeny smiled, looking at Milo, who didn’t smile. He didn’t like the idea of them hiding out in Yevgeny’s Geneva home. It was known.

After dinner, Tina asked a question that, strangely, she had never posed before, “What do you do at the UN?”

“Milo knows this. I work for the financial section of the Security Council’s Military Staff Committee.”

“Which makes him an accountant,” said Milo.

“Which makes me an administrator,” Yevgeny said. “I’m a mess with numbers.”

“So that’s what you do?” Tina pressed. “You manage a team of accountants?”

“Something like that, but they’re an excellent group, and they hardly need my attention. I have an enormous amount of free time.”

“That’s it? You check in with them occasionally, and travel in leisure the rest of the time?”

“Anyone would be lucky to have my job,” Yevgeny said, aiming his words at Milo.

“I’m jealous,” Tina said.

Yevgeny leaned across the table and placed his hand on hers. “Then leave this fool and run off with me.”

“Can I bring Stef?”

Stephanie went to bed wearing her bracelet, and all three adults had a hand in tucking her in. Afterward, Milo brewed coffee, and Tina told Yevgeny about Alan and Penelope. She told everything she knew, which was little, and added that that afternoon she’d gone by their apartment on her lunch break.

“Why?” asked Milo.

“I still can’t find her.” To Yevgeny, she said, “But you know all this, right?”

Yevgeny looked at Milo, then shrugged.

“And?”

“And I’m in contact with people in London, looking into this. I don’t think he’s dead.”

“Milo doesn’t either.”

“He walked out of that hotel.”

“He used one of Milo’s old work names,” she said after a moment. “Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe he really has gone crazy.”

Yevgeny considered that, as if it were an angle that hadn’t occurred to him, then shook his head. “No, he’s just American.”

Tina blinked at him as Milo set down the cups. She said, “What does that mean?”

“Nothing really,” he said. “It’s just that Americans… well, they’re distinctive in the developed world, aren’t they?”

“Are we?”

Yevgeny smiled. “Of course. Your people still believe in Utopia. Maybe because it’s part of your founding myth, the search for the perfect home. In the twenty-first century, Americans still think it’s possible to have a society in which a level of civility is constant, where a perfect balance of control and freedom can be maintained. It’s quaint. Try a few hundred years of war and civil strife on your own land, and see how much of your faith remains.” He paused, but they were still waiting. “Alan Drummond’s failures have shown him the flaws in his own utopian dreams, and that’s a terrible thing to face. Traumatic. When it happens to America-when, for example, a small band of desert lunatics brings down two enormous towers, proving that America’s sense of security was always an illusion-the country lashes out. It snaps. There’s an irrational side to it, something wild. No one likes to be shown that their core beliefs are wrong, particularly when those illusions fuel their only happy dreams. So when America’s dreams have been bruised, the nation comes on like an express train. God help anyone standing in its path.”

Yevgeny reached for his glass, looking suddenly embarrassed. Milo remembered similar speeches from his teenaged years, living with him and his family in Moscow. Back then, he’d been adolescent and angry enough to fight the old man on every point. Now, Milo only said, “Well.”

“As for Alan Drummond,” Yevgeny said quickly, then cleared his throat. “I can only imagine that he’s lashing out in a similar fashion, and believes in his fight so deeply that he’s willing to drag others, like Milo, into it.”

Milo tensed when he heard crashing footsteps on the stairs, but then he heard the voice of their neighbor, Raymond, coming home drunk. “Christ, that guy’s loud,” Tina said, reading half of his mind, then looked at Yevgeny. “That sounds a bit harsh.”

Yevgeny blinked, confused.

“About America. Do you really think we’re that naive?”

“Maybe,” he said, shrugging. “Milo’s sister, Alexandra, thinks America is full of xenophobes. That’s something I’d never suggest.”

“It’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Tina said definitively.

“Maybe you should invite her here. Show her what she’s getting wrong.”

Though she’d never met Milo’s younger Russian sisters, Tina seemed to like that idea. Milo didn’t. He’d spent too many years keeping that other life under wraps to be comfortable, even now that it was in the open, with Alexandra, the sharp London lawyer, invading his home. Alexandra had tried to insinuate herself a few years ago, meeting Milo at a restaurant and staking out her claim: She deserved to know about his life. Milo had done his best to make it clear: You’re part of my old life; this is my new life. To her credit, she took it with good humor, even confessing, Sometimes I wish I could do the same thing to our family. Kudos. There was no antagonism-he had no fight with Alexandra or the younger Natalia-but he found the prospect of complicating his life by the addition of more family members unbearable. Having Yevgeny around was enough of a chore.

Now, though, he could tell that Tina needed this-she needed to know more about her husband’s family-so he said, “Maybe I should give her a call.”

Later, Milo walked Yevgeny down to Seventh Avenue, where Francisco was waiting. All Yevgeny said as they shook hands was “I know you didn’t mean what you said up there, but you really should call your sister. She would appreciate it.”

Milo just nodded.

In bed, he told Tina that he would have to go to D.C. in the morning, and that she would have to pick up Stephanie from camp. “Is that doable?”

“I’ll find a way,” she said quietly, then placed a hand on his chest. “Why D.C.?”

He’d considered saying that he had a job interview, which would have been easiest, but he was sick of lying to her. By being partly honest now, he could temper his guilt over the bigger lie she would discover once either Janet Simmons or Yevgeny appeared the next night to take them away. He said, “It’s just a day trip, and it’s to find out some more about Alan.”

“Someone in D.C. knows?”

“I think so.”

“Then he wasn’t just crazy, was he? He was working with someone.”

Though he admired the connection she’d just made, he wished she hadn’t made it. “Anything’s possible,” he said. “Did you enjoy Yevgeny?”

“He’s an oddball, but I like him. And I do like the idea of taking a vacation in Geneva. Don’t you?”

“Who wouldn’t?” he asked, though the last time he’d been in Geneva he’d fought another Tourist and tied him up in his hotel room. That same Tourist later killed fifteen-year-old Adriana Stanescu, and was then killed himself during Xin Zhu’s annihilation of the department. Geneva was the last place he wanted to return to.