An American Spy

2

Fear of failure haunted him during the flight to Seattle, as he worked his wedding ring off his finger, and again during the drive north toward the Canadian border. Not just a failed operation but a failed life. A week before, he’d struck his wife. As he groveled on the floor, crying real tears, she’d only stood over him, rubbing her face and staring, strangely devoid of expression. He’d expected anger and hatred, but by the evidence, she felt nothing.

Milo wasn’t helping, pulling back from every attempt to bring him in voluntarily, so he’d done all he could, letting slip the location of where, in the future, he could go and find his family.

In Ferndale, a farming town north of Seattle, he met Tran Hoang on the long, low Main Street. The Tourist was sitting in a Mazda, sipping coffee from an anonymous white cup, parked outside of a stylist called Hair to Dye For. Alan parked two spots in front of him, using the car Hoang had left in the Seattle airport lot. Hoang waited a full five minutes before climbing out of his Mazda and getting in beside Alan. He said nothing.

“This is the deal,” Alan said. “Once you’re done with Korea, I need you to disappear, then go back to Manhattan and keep an eye on my wife, Penelope. You won’t be the only one watching her.”

“Who else?”

“The Chinese.”

Hoang nodded.

“Figure out a good time, then extract her. You’ll explain that I’ve sent you, and you’ll show her this.” He took his wedding band out of his pocket and handed it over. “Show her that ring, and she should cooperate. If not, try to call me directly, and I’ll talk to her. Then you bring her to this place,” he said, handing over an unmarked envelope. “Keep her safe.”

“For how long?”

“Until I tell you otherwise.”

Hoang opened the envelope and read the address that lay on the shore of Colorado’s Grand Lake. Below it was an address in Brooklyn. Hoang sighed and stared out the windshield. In profile, he resembled a statue. He said, “You’re changing tactic.”

“I’m changing nothing,” Alan lied. “The others are trying to change it.”

“I’m sure they have their reasons.”

“They’ve lost their nerve.”

“Maybe they know something you don’t.”

Alan fingered the steering wheel. He wasn’t sure why he’d expected Hoang to go along with this. He’d forgotten, perhaps, that he was no longer the one with power. He was trapped, though, and had no choice but to push forward. “Once she’s safe, you’ll return to New York and watch Milo Weaver. He lives there, in Brooklyn. We’ll keep in touch, and at some point I’ll ask you to take his wife and child as well.”

“To Colorado?”

“Yes. They’re friends of Penelope’s, so once they’re together you should be able to leave them alone. At that point, we’ll discuss what comes next.”

Hoang said nothing.

“Are you with me on this? If you aren’t, then tell me now.”

Hoang watched a pair of children with backpacks that looked too large for their small frames. He said, “Remember Henry Gray?”

“Of course.”

“I spent a few days in Budapest, watching him after we put him back. I told you I thought he would go to the Chinese, or to the police, and if it looked as if he was going to do one of those things, I was going to kill him. I was wrong. He was so happy to be back, to be free of us, that he took his girlfriend on a trip to Lillafured, a Hungarian resort in the mountains. Very picturesque. They had sex a lot, ate, and took walks. I felt like I was watching a bad romantic film.”

Alan waited, not knowing what to say.

Finally, Hoang turned to him. “Is that what you have with your wife?”

Alan thought about his hand connecting with Penelope’s cheek, of weeping on the floor, of Penelope’s hard, apathetic stare, and felt his eyes moistening. He resisted the impulse to wipe them dry.

“Okay,” said Hoang. “I’ll help you.”

She’d met him at Heathrow, coming up with one of her ubiquitous smiles, rubbing her decorated hands together as if preparing to dig into a steak. “Oh, honey, it’s so great to see you again!” The hug. The kiss. Then guiding him to the taxi stand, whispering, “Dorothy’s idea, baby. Sorry to cramp your style.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be talking to Sudan?”

“Delayed. They’re getting cold feet. Might as well hang out with you, make it look right.”

“No, Leticia.”

“Gwen, baby.”

“ Gwendolyn, I don’t need the babysitting, all right?”

“Dorothy thinks otherwise.”

“Dorothy can go to hell.”

Which, of course, only convinced her to stay, and left him with what felt like an age-old question: How do you plot and scheme when there’s a Tourist breathing down your neck? Then, early Saturday morning, there was a knock on his door. “Charlie! I know you’re in there!”

He was first struck by how beautiful she was, and then by the coincidence of her being Milo’s sister. How the world folded in on itself. Then, as he listened to her, he was struck by the elegance of simply walking. He’d planned to leave later, but here she was, like an angel, offering him an exit. Penelope was his only worry, and only after Alexandra left did he realize that Xin Zhu would not touch Penelope if he could not find her husband.

It was as if God had sent him salvation, as if God wanted this, too.

“You realize that this is no longer easy,” said the man his Staten Island contact had sent him to. He was young, midtwenties, but he had the movements and deliberate speaking manner of someone much older. Alan supposed political exile did that to you. “A couple of years ago, the Youth League was moving upward, and then-well, you know what happened.”

Alan knew, and so did most politically aware Americans. A congressional committee had uncovered a CIA transfer of ten million dollars to the fledgling Chinese democracy group based in Guizhou province. Had the Youth League been part of the democracy movement that made itself understood through poetry and literary journals and hunger strikes, none of this would have troubled anyone very much. Yet the Youth League had watched the two post-Tiananmen decades slide by as if Tiananmen had never occurred and, as with so many armed groups before them, patience was no longer part of its vocabulary. The CIA had been crucified for its support of terrorists, first by outraged Chinese diplomats, and then by more congressional committees that made it a priority to dig as deeply as possible into the Company coffers.

“They’re on the run now,” said the man, “living in the woods. They’re still hungry, you understand. Their spirit is not diminished. However, they’re on the edge of extinction, and they know it.”

Alan had been ready for this. If the man wasn’t at least a little resistant, then he wouldn’t be trustworthy. “In this situation,” Alan said, “a single victory could make all the difference.”

“Or be the final blow that kills the movement,” the man said quickly, as if the line had been on the tip of his tongue all along.

“I’ve told you everything,” Alan said. “You have the details.”

“You’ll be in Rome for how long?”

“Two nights.”

“Well,” said the man, smiling elusively, “let us hope that everything is settled to the maximum of satisfaction.”

Alan shook the young man’s hand, then left.

He was staying in a small pension in the working-class neighborhood of Testaccio, where the Vespas buzzed and the sun baked the concrete and stones and encouraged his neighbors to shout at one another even louder until the afternoon siesta, when they fell into their sweat-soaked beds and made love or slept. It was during this empty period that he went down to a kiosk, bought a phone card, and went to the local post office to make his call. After two rings, Hoang said, “Hotel Manhattan.”

“Room 9612, please.”

Hoang didn’t bother connecting him.

“Is everything all right?” Alan asked.

“Of course. She’s in the next room. Do you want to talk to her?”

“Please.”

He heard movement, a squeaky door opening, then Hoang’s monotone, It’s him.

Then Penelope’s Jesus! “Alan? Alan!”

“Hey,” he said. “Hey, Pen. You all right?”

“I-well, of course I’m not all right. I’m shaken. Who the hell is this guy? Where are you?”

“He’s a friend, and I’m not in the country right now. But don’t worry-you’re there because it’s safe.”

“What do you mean, ‘safe’? Is this about the apartment?”

“What?”

“The Company ripped apart our place, looking for something.”

“Are you sure it was them?”

“I’m not sure of anything. Where are you?”

“I’m going to be gone a little while longer. Please, be patient.”

“I don’t have much choice, do I?”

“You always have a choice. But I’m asking you-please stay there until I get back. It’s for your own good.”

“Why does he have your wedding ring?”

“What-” he began, then remembered, rubbing the bald spot on his finger. “It was the only thing I could think to do. And, listen, Pen. I’m sorry.”

A pause, then, “He told me about those thirty-three people.”

“He?”

“Milo. I had no idea, Alan.”

“Don’t dwell on it.”

She took a breath, a clotted intake, and he worried she was going to cry. Instead, she said, “Just come home, okay?”

“As soon as I can.”

“When’s that going to be?”

“It’s not entirely up to me.”

Silence.

“Pen?”

“I’m here.”

“What’s Milo doing?”

“Well, he’s trying to find you, isn’t he?”

“Has anyone contacted him?”

“The CIA. They’re trying to figure out the same thing.”

He thought about that, doubting that the CIA really cared where he was. “Okay, listen. You can’t use your phone.”

“He already took it from me.”

“Don’t be insulted if he doesn’t give it back-he’s not very trusting-but he’s going to have to leave you alone for a few days. Go out with him and do some shopping-cash only-and make sure you’re stocked up for a week. Okay?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“When he comes back, he’ll have Tina and Stephanie with him.”

“ What? ”

“Listen, okay? They’ll be scared, but let them know they don’t need to be. They’ll have to follow the same rules as you-no phones, no credit cards-but you’ll all be fine. This shouldn’t last long.”

“Christ, you’re mysterious.”

She was starting to sound like the girl he had married.

With everything set up and ready to go, this was an unforgivable risk, but Hoang had been insistent. “You have to come-unless you want me to kill them, too.”

“Don’t touch them, Hoang. I’ll be there,” he said, then noticed what the man had said. “Wait-what do you mean: kill them, too?”

“There was an old man. He’d figured out where I was holding them.”

“What old man?”

“A Russian. His accent, at least. He was in the Weaver apartment, but he came out and knocked on the apartment we were in. He said he knew they were in there.”

“Jesus.” Alan’s stomach dropped an inch.

“What?”

“You killed Milo’s father.”

Silence. Finally, Hoang said, “I had no choice.”

“Of course you did, you murderous shit.”

Again, silence.

Alan closed his eyes, and the next day, as he descended into Denver International, he realized that, eventually, whether or not his plan succeeded, Milo Weaver would hunt him down and kill him for this.

He used the name Edward Leary for the flights, then used the name George Miller to rent a car, and by the time he reached Grand Lake he had been traveling for a day without rest. He didn’t feel up for this, but there was no choice. Time was running out, and, given another day, he had no doubt that Tran Hoang would shoot everyone.

He parked beside Hoang’s rental and walked up the lane to the two-story cabin that overlooked the lake. A chilly breeze rattled the trees. Hoang stepped out onto the porch to meet him but didn’t offer a hand. “Don’t worry,” said the Tourist. “Everyone’s breathing.”

Alan pushed past him and found Penelope first. She gripped him in a desperate hug and began to cry. At first, he feared that Hoang had been lying and the tears were for two corpses upstairs, but when she began to kiss him frantically, he realized the tears were for him. She was full of questions, but he fended them off, saying, “Where are they?”

She led him upstairs, holding his hand, and in a bedroom he found Tina Weaver sitting in bed looking angrier even than when he’d first met her at New York Methodist, just after her husband had been shot. Again, Stephanie was leaning against her arm, half asleep, but then she blinked, waking, and said, “Hi, Alan.”

“Hi, Stef. Tina.”

Tina kissed her daughter’s head and said, “Wait here, Little Miss. I’ve got some things to get straight with Alan.”

Stephanie let her mother go, and once they were in the hallway, heading back to the stairs, Tina said, “I could fucking kill you.”

Penelope said, “He’s trying to save us, Tina,” which he knew wouldn’t help.

No one said anything else until they were downstairs. Hoang had stepped outside. Tina turned on him in the middle of the living room. “He told me you were crazy. He told me-but I didn’t believe him. You, ” she said, drilling a finger into his chest. “You’re the one who got him involved. You’re the reason we’re stuck in the goddamned woods.”

He wanted to tell her to shut up, but that was the wrong move here. Instead, he said, “Yes. It is my fault. All of this.” Once he said it, it occurred to him that she didn’t know about Yevgeny Primakov. Neither of them did. “Now,” he continued, “I’m trying to clean it up. Milo’s in trouble. The Chinese are threatening you and Stephanie in order to control Milo.”

“How do you know this?”

“Because they did the same thing to me,” he said, noticing a look of surprise cross Penelope’s face. “What I’ve done is remove all of you from harm. Now, I need to do the same thing for Milo.” That was a lie, but when you build a lie off a truth, the difference is hard to notice.

Proving, however, that she had an eye for such differences, Tina said, “I don’t believe you. I won’t believe it until I hear it from Milo.”

“Don’t call,” he said. “You call him and his life will be in danger. Then they’ll trace the call, and you and Stephanie will be next.”

“You people lie so well.”

What to say to that? Nothing, really, except “Of course we do. So do they. Everybody lies, Tina, so grow up. Don’t risk your daughter’s life by being rash.”

That cooled her off, but only a little. “Then what’s your glorious plan?”

“To get your husband back to you.” Another lie.

She breathed loudly through her nose, then waved an arm around. “So we get kidnapped, and that’s all you’re going to tell me?”

“Yes, Tina. That’s all I’m telling you.”

She crossed her arms over her stomach and walked away, shaking her head.

“You’re going to be left alone for a few days, so please just keep to yourselves. Either Milo or I will come back here, and by then it should be settled.”

It was a kind of explanation, a sort of plan for the future, though when Penelope walked outside with him, she said, “What does it mean if Milo comes back and not you?”

He knew what she was getting at. “It means I’m not done with my job.”

“Or that you’re dead.”

“Doubtful,” he said and kissed her small, upturned nose.

They left Hoang’s rental behind for emergencies, and on the road back to Denver, Alan said, “We’re going to Hong Kong.”

Hoang didn’t seem to care.

“I’m going to check into a hotel, but I’m not going to the room. You are.”

“How long until the Chinese come for me?”

“Not long, so prepare your escape.”

“And you?”

“I’ll be elsewhere. Just make sure they think I’m in that room.”

After another mile, Hoang said, “So you’ve got an arrangement with the Youth League?”

Alan nearly lost control of the car. He hadn’t mentioned a thing about them to Hoang, or to anyone. Their name had come up during the initial planning stage but had been cut because the group was too unpredictable. Alan considered bluffing his way out of it, but Hoang valued his words too much to waste them on idle speculation. “How did you know?”

“They were the only ones left, weren’t they? At least, the only ones who would be desperate enough to raise arms. You walk in, to one of their old paymasters, and tell them the time has come to rise against Beijing.” He paused, staring at leafy trees blur past. “It’s intoxicating for people like them, even when they know it’s doomed to failure.”

“History is the only thing that’s doomed.”

“Man, did you read that in a book? ” For the first time in Alan’s experience, Hoang sounded exasperated. “You think any of them have thought more than five minutes past a successful revolution? They’re suicidal, all of them. Maybe they want freedom, maybe not, but what unites them is that they want to be part of something enormous to make their lousy lives mean something. Hand them a country and they’ll probably just go shoot themselves. What they want is martyrdom, Alan. And that’s what you’re going to give them, because it’s going to blow up in your face.”

After another half mile, still stunned by the unprecedented flow of words, Alan finally found his tongue. “Then why are you helping me?”

The rarest of all of Tran Hoang’s expressions: a smile-a big, open smile that displayed a row of large teeth, two of them crooked. “You think I don’t want martyrdom, too?”

Alan blinked at the road that was darkening with the descending sun. Two days later, even after flying to Hong Kong, checking in, and in the stairwell of the Peninsula, switching coat and hat with Tran Hoang and leaving again, after meeting with a stern Chinese woman he knew as Hu, waiting for dark and boarding a small fishing boat headed for Xiayong-even after all that, he thought that Tran Hoang, perhaps, was more insane than he was.