An American Spy

14

In the elevator, he pressed his forehead against the glass, watching the lobby floor rise to meet him, noting faces that turned upward, but none looked familiar. When he got out, moving slowly past businessmen in robes and suits, escorts in Western fashions, and tourists of all nations and attire, he headed first to a lobby sofa and settled down. He didn’t bother looking around, but he made sure he was visible, examining a brochure floor plan of the hotel. After two minutes, he headed downstairs to the Manhattan Sport Diner. He stood at the door, moving his gaze gradually around the place, taking in all the kitschy American memorabilia and the three plasma televisions showing the same soccer game. When a woman with a pen in her pocket asked if he was dining alone, he told her he was just looking for his wife; she must be in another restaurant.

There were plenty to look at: the Vienna, the Al Safina, the Al Khayam Iranian Restaurant, and two terraces-La Terrace restaurant, and the bar at the pool terrace. Only once he’d displayed himself at all these locations did he return to the basement level and, close to the Manhattan Sport Diner, enter a men’s bathroom and go to sit in one of the stalls.

It took three minutes for the door to open and a man to walk past all the stall doors and, finally, choose the one beside Milo. He locked his door, sat down with a stifled groan, and quietly said in what sounded like a local accent, “You’ve got something to tell me?”

“I don’t know who you are.”

“And there’s no reason to know, sir. I heard that the last time you knew someone you nearly killed him in a bathroom. I’m just here to pass on your messages.”

It was enough of an answer. This man was working for Xin Zhu. “Do you have any messages for me?”

“Just a request that you keep your hands off of innocent people such as myself.”

“Tell him,” Milo said, “that tonight I’m meeting someone. I don’t know who.”

There was a pause. “May I ask when you will know this?”

“After the meeting.”

“Yes, of course,” then, “Oh, I forgot. I do have a question for you.”

“Yes?”

“In the Frankfurt airport, what was on the paper?”

“What paper?”

“I do not know. Yet this is the question.”

Milo took an involuntary breath. “Tell him he will have his answer as soon as I speak to Tina.”

“Tina?”

“He knows who that is. In fact, tell him I demand to speak to her in the next twenty-four hours.”

“To this Tina.”

“Yes.”

Milo heard the scratch-scratch of a pencil on paper. Finally, the man said, “This is an ultimatum?”

“Yes.”

“And so what is the then? If this is not done, then…?”

“I don’t know yet, but I have a rich imagination.”

Scratch-scratch. “Is that everything? I was prepared for a longer report.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you. Tell him that I’m not trusted yet.”

The man went silent, and Milo waited for more scratching, but he only flushed his toilet, unlatched the door, and left the bathroom. Milo flushed his own toilet and went upstairs to the pool terrace, feeling the Adderall tweak his blood flow and brighten his eyes. The fresh sea air was inviting. He took a lounge chair away from the pool and ordered apple juice from a waiter. Now, after ten thirty, the terrace was only sparsely populated. Most of the guests were having late dinners or turning in, and so when the European couple arrived they stood out. He saw them whisper to one another and make their way to the opposite side of the pool and talk briefly to the waiter. They settled down, the tall blond woman in a slim gown, wrapped in a shawl to protect her bare shoulders from the night breeze, the shorter dark-haired man in a semiformal suit with casual shoes. The man made no pretense of not knowing who Milo was, watching him carefully as he took a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket and lit one. The woman was typing intently on her BlackBerry. Finally, she sent her message and laid the phone on the tiles beside her.

He had done it, had gained some small measure of control, and this little victory pleased him. He thought of Alan, also under Xin Zhu’s thumb, taking control by starting to smoke, and this reminded him that he hadn’t had a Nicorette in over a day, but he felt no withdrawal. Control, again.

He was starting to get up, to return to the bathroom for another meeting, when Leticia leaned down to kiss his cheek. She was wearing a long summer dress and flat shoes, along with a black fabric shoulder bag. He felt envious-his own clothes were feeling stiff and unclean. “You missed a glorious shower,” she told him.

He raised his apple juice as an offering. She leaned down and took a sip as he tilted the glass, his hand twitching from the rush of amphetamines. She straightened, licked her lips, and said, “Well, we wouldn’t have had time for much more than a quickie. Come see the water with me.”

She reached a hand to him, and he took it, climbing to his feet. Together, they left the pool area, and she reached an arm around his shoulder, pulling him close. “You saw them?”

“I did.”

“There’s a reason I don’t know the word ‘worry.’ ”

On the way out of the hotel, she stopped in the lobby bathroom and reemerged covered in a long abaya and hijab, all black. She gave him a wink, and they headed out. Together, they went down to the beach and then north, past couples and groups of young men sitting in their robes in the sand, toward a tall obelisk of spheres topped by a crescent moon. They remained on the beach, though, and from the folds of her clothing Leticia pulled out a touch-screen cell phone and watched the scrolling numbers on it as she walked. Her GPS led them to a section of sand above the tide line, where she said, “Dig, boy.”

It didn’t take long to uncover the plastic oar and the wide, flat piece of folded rubber that was an inflatable raft. To his relief, there was also a small, battery-powered air pump. He carried everything down to the water, and while Leticia performed lookout, he filled the boat as quietly as possible and pushed it, bobbing, into the sea. The warm water soaked his pants. Leticia took off her shoes and raised her abaya to her hips, then walked into the water and rolled, on her back, into the boat. He pushed it out until the water was at his chest before climbing in beside her and taking the oar.

When they reached the darkened fishing boat forty minutes later, he was exhausted again. It was a cabin cruiser, about thirty feet long, humbly rusted. The captain was an old Egyptian named Ibrahim Fekry who had first helped the CIA as a teenager, during the Suez Crisis of 1956-Milo learned this in the first few minutes of their acquaintance, listening to his singsong French. He had scarred features, skin blackened by decades of sunburns, and a face that was in a perpetual state of animation. He looked younger than his seventy years. Most importantly, though, he had papers to allow him to fish freely in this part of the Red Sea.

He was immediately taken by Leticia, calling her “my Nubian princess,” and she warmed to the attention. Quietly, Fekry asked Milo if he had slept with her yet, but Leticia’s hearing was sharp. “He refused,” she called from the bow, “even though I offered.”

Disbelief spilled into Fekry’s face, followed quickly by disgust. He didn’t speak to Milo again for the rest of the journey.

Again relying on Leticia’s phone, they reached a spot from where they could see, in the clear blackness, lights from two countries. There was the myriad of colors from Saudi Arabia, and only occasional dim white clusters from Sudan. To the north and south, they spotted boats moving gradually along, as if no one were in a hurry. As they waited, Leticia told Milo to keep his mouth shut. “You’re here to look like my boss, and that’s how I’m going to spin it. I don’t know how they would deal with a woman on her own, and I’m not interested in finding out. We’ll be talking in English, but you won’t say a word. Ibrahim?”

Fekry worked open a crate and handed Milo a 9 mm Bernardelli pistol. Milo checked the safety, put a round into the chamber, and slipped it into his jacket pocket.

Her contact arrived late, just after two thirty, in a bright red speedboat that shook the peaceful night. Three men, two in simple robes, the driver had a Kalashnikov strung over his back, while a heavyset man beside the motor held his Kalashnikov up to his shoulder, aimed at their boat. Between them sat a man in dark brown Sudanese robes, a jelabiya, hands crossed in his lap, waiting as they killed the engine.

All three were richly black, and as they approached Milo could only see eyes and the occasional flash of teeth as they spoke to each other. In English, the driver called, “You’re in Sudanese waters!” His syllables pounded like hammer blows.

Fekry muttered something that sounded like an Arabic curse as he backed to the far side of his boat. Milo didn’t like this either.

“I’m in Sudanese sand,” Leticia called back-it was a recognition code. “Put those guns away.”

“You,” said the driver, pointing a long finger at Milo, “you’re not supposed to be here.”

“If he’s not convinced,” Leticia said, “you get nothing.”

The man in the brown robes cocked his head, then spoke to his men in Arabic, and they both relaxed. Then he stood up without faltering as the speedboat rocked beneath his feet and, with a voice nothing like his driver’s, said, “Aasalaamu Aleikum.”

“Wa-Aleikum Aassalaam,” Leticia answered. Milo said nothing.

“Do we remain in our places?” the man asked. His accent had a touch of London to it.

“I’m not going down there,” said Leticia.

“So be it,” he said and settled down again. “You are interested in helping us push out the Chinese who support our enemy’s government. Is that correct?”

“Yes,” said Leticia. She was leaning forward against the gunwale, speaking quietly.

“It’s an interesting proposition,” he said thoughtfully. “We’ve discussed it-in a limited way. Our primary issue is that it would take place outside of our country. Khartoum is our natural enemy, not Beijing.”

So there it is, Milo thought. Out in the open.

Leticia said, “Beijing is supplying Khartoum with weapons and money. Chinese advisors are teaching the Janjaweed how to better kill your people. The UN arms embargo means nothing to Beijing.”

The man just stared at her, waiting.

She said, “Without Chinese support, al-Bashir will fall. You know this. An attack on Khartoum might wound him, but it would never crush him. This way, you can deliver a greater blow without laying waste to Sudanese people.”

“Which is the very point,” he said, beginning to sound exasperated. “We know this-it’s why I’m talking to you now. The risks, though, are immense.”

“Bigger than the long-term risks of losing this war?”

“We’ll be heading back to the negotiation table soon.”

“Only a fool believes what that government signs.”

The man looked from Leticia down to his hands in the folds of his robe. “I have one question for you before you have our decision.”

“Please.”

“Why did you ask to meet here, in the middle of the Red Sea?”

“I explained that before. My associate here wants to see the face of the man who will help carry this out. He believes in faces more than words.”

“Is that why he does not speak?” the man asked, looking hard at Milo.

“He’s a politician,” Leticia said quickly, perhaps too quickly. “He knows that speaking aloud makes him part of something.”

“I do not believe you,” the man said, and as he said the words, his driver and the other man raised their rifles. The sentence had been a prearranged code. Milo’s hand was in his pocket, clutching the Bernardelli, but Leticia spoke calmly.

“If you don’t believe me, then turn around and go. We’ll find someone else who’s not so afraid.”

“Someone who’s more stupid,” he said, almost phrasing it as a question, and they stared at one another for about ten seconds before the man raised a hand from his robe, flat, fingers together, and the men lowered their guns. The driver started the engine, filling their world with noise again. “Ma’a salaama,” the man called to Leticia, but did not raise his hand again.

She answered in kind.

Once they were gone, leaving frothy waves in their wake, Milo gave the pistol back to Fekry and went to sit beside Leticia at the bow. She watched the black water, then looked at him. “What?”

“You’re trying to panic the Chinese. You’re trying to panic Xin Zhu.”

“Look who’s the smartest boy in class,” she said, but the joke seemed to give her no joy.

Remembering that she had also met with Islamic militants in China, he pushed further. “Information overload. You’re diverting his attention from the real attack. Just one or two diversions and he can ignore them, but five or six, and he has no choice but to pay attention.”

She looked satisfied by his astuteness.

“Alan’s idea?”

“Originally, yeah.”

“Are you going to tell me what the real attack is?”

“I wouldn’t tell you if I knew.”

“You really don’t know?”

She shook her head, and when he asked if this didn’t bother her, she said, “I’m just happy I haven’t been shelved. They’ll tell me when it’s time.”

“Irwin and Collingwood.”

“The IRS,” she said, finally grinning, “but I’m getting the feeling that this isn’t going to work.”

“Whether or not these people accept it is beside the point,” he said. “The important thing is letting the Chinese know that you’re trying to do something. That you’re talking to Darfur rebels.”

“Sure,” she said, “but we’ve misjudged a lot here. I talked to the Uighurs, and they weren’t interested. I talked to the Tibetans after Alan disappeared-they wouldn’t even listen to me. I hope the others are having more luck.”

“The two other Tourists.”

“One.”

“What?”

She sighed loudly. “In Frankfurt, I got the news. They got Tran Hoang in South Korea. So it’s serious, kid.”

She leaned back on her outstretched arms as Fekry started up the engine. Milo found her lack of confidence unnerving, and it made him think of his own irrational confidence, the one that kept telling him that he could gain the upper hand and turn events to his advantage. As a Tourist, Milo had once believed that the only way to deal with failure was to treat it as if it were success. To Tourists, success and failure are the same thing.

As they headed back to shore, beneath the engine’s grumble they heard a haunting sound rolling over the water. Leticia checked her gold wristwatch. “Four fourteen. Hijri prayers.”

He wasn’t a Tourist, not really, and there was no reason to think he would ever gain the upper hand in any of this.