An American Spy

ITS BEST

“Unless it’s necessary for your purposes,” she said, “I’d leave everything. No need to draw attention to yourself when you walk out.”

He nodded, then went to the clothes and began to dress. “You have a car?”

“My friend does.”

“I’ll walk out of here on my own, but you can pick me up somewhere else that’s convenient. By convenient, I mean a dead zone.”

She thought a moment, remembering various streets that hadn’t yet been equipped with Transport for London CCTV cameras, then told him an intersection in Hammersmith.

Later, as she and Francisco sat in his chilly Toyota, waiting for the man who would never come, it would occur to her that Alan Drummond knew from that moment in the hotel room that they wouldn’t see each other again. He’d come around too quickly. The question, though, was: Why had he come around at all? She hadn’t threatened him, and she’d had no intention to. All she’d wanted was to know if Milo was there or not. Much later, when she knew most of the story, she understood that she’d simply arrived at an opportune time, and Alan Drummond was smart enough to know when to change his plans; he was brave enough to make immediate decisions.

She texted Francisco, asking for another ten minutes for the cameras, then left Alan Drummond and went through the lobby, nodding agreeably at the tired bellboy, pulled up her hood, and walked back down Charlotte Place. She took a right on Goodge before Francisco, breathing heavily, caught up with her. “So?”

“So let’s go to Hammersmith and wait for him.”

“It’s not your brother.”

“It’s someone who doesn’t give a damn about my brother.”

A moment or two later, Francisco said, “I never gave much of a damn about my brother, but after he died I felt differently. That’s the tragedy of human love.”

He sometimes did that, taking some stray statement as an excuse to reveal a sentimental piece of personal history, and she’d always understood this as an attempt to draw her into a closer relationship. She’d heard enough of Yevgeny’s warnings about his agents to know better. She said, “Where did you park your car?”

By five, when they were both yawning incessantly and knew that Alan Drummond wasn’t ever going to show up, Francisco started to drive, and she called Yevgeny in Geneva, taking him through the chain of events and semirevelations. “Two possibilities: Either he walked on us, or someone picked him up. I’m pretty sure he walked.”

“But what was he doing there?”

“Wouldn’t say. He knows what he’s doing to Milo, but it doesn’t seem to bother him.”

“Is he an imbecile?”

She’d considered that possibility as well. “He claims there are two parties watching him, though he wouldn’t say more. Other people, he says, are pulling his strings.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

She didn’t bother answering. Nana was touchy this morning.

He said, “We’ve got a lot of other things to deal with now, but let’s keep an ear to the ground about this.”

“You’re going to call Milo?”

“No need to trouble him yet.”

“But he’s causing us trouble. It’s only fair.”

“Fair?” he said, as if the word were new to him.