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.
15
Leticia woke him a little after noon with a kiss on the nose as more prayers floated through their open window, and after he showered, she presented him with clothes. On three hours of sleep, she’d spent the morning on Tahlia Street, where she’d found a light Ralph Lauren suit with a green silk tie. Once he was dressed, she used a hotel comb to pull at his hair. “We should get rid of that gray,” she said fussily.
“I like my gray.”
She stepped back, judging his appearance, then said, “You know how a little gray makes a man distinguished? Well, that’s only true for some men. On you, it just looks old.”
“I’m only thirty-eight, Leticia.”
“Making it all the more sad.”
She modeled her own purchase, a black sleeveless drop-waist dress from Prada, with a pair of leather boots that reached to just below her knees, leaving most of her thigh bare. He wondered where she was getting this money. Those bottomless Tourism credit cards were a thing of the past.
It didn’t matter, though. None of these people mattered anymore. He’d had a night to reflect on everything, to truly grasp his helplessness, and had come to a decision. As soon as he talked to the Germans, it would be settled, and Alan Drummond, Xin Zhu, Nathan Irwin, and even Leticia Jones could go to hell.
“So?” Leticia asked.
“Very nice.”
“You know, we’ve still got time.”
Milo briefly considered it, for what did any of those old rules mean now? If you cut yourself free, you’re free of everything, even selfishness. He gave her a wink and collected his cash. “I’ll be in the lobby.”
“No questions?” she asked. “Not interested in where we’re going next?”
“You’ll tell me eventually,” he said and left.
Though her partner didn’t appear, the tall German woman crossed the lobby soon after he arrived. She gave him a significant look, then headed to a counter lined with in-house telephones and lifted one. He followed, grabbing another phone two down from her. He put the receiver to his ear, listening to the
beep-beep
of the dial tone as she said, “Take the stairs to the first floor,” then hung up and walked away.
He followed her instructions, and in a long corridor of identical doors he waited until, halfway down, one opened but no one came out. He approached quickly, because Leticia would be in the lobby soon, and when he stepped inside, he found a small, mustached man sitting on the corner of the made bed, hands resting on his knees. It was Erika Schwartz’s assistant, whom Milo had only known as Oskar, a happy participant in Milo’s torture a few months ago. Milo closed the door behind himself. In German, Oskar said, “Tell me one reason I should be sitting right here, talking to you.”
“I don’t know, Oskar. You’re the one who’s sitting here.”
“That’s my boss’s decision. Strangely, she feels like she owes you.”
“For the cigarette burns?”
Oskar wiped at the corners of his mustache. “Something else, apparently.” He stood then, and though he tried, he couldn’t quite manage a threatening stance. “She helped your idiotic father, and we nearly got ourselves busted for the favor.”
“My father?”
Oskar just stared.
“When?”
Oskar shrugged. “He asked for help extracting your wife and daughter, and—guess what? No wife and daughter. Me, I’m of the opinion you killed your old man. So why don’t you try to convince me I’m wrong?”
Milo blinked at him, feeling as if a remarkable coincidence had occurred. His father had gone for help to, of all people, the woman he was now asking for help. But was it a coincidence? Not really. Erika Schwartz had already been looking at Milo because of the Sebastian Hall name, and would probably have discussed him with Yevgeny. Who else would Yevgeny have gone to? Milo rubbed his face and said, “The Chinese have them. My family. A colonel named Xin Zhu.”
“Why did he take them?”
“He warned me he would do it,” said Milo. “It was my mistake. I thought I could outsmart him.”
Oskar nodded, as if he saw some truth in this, but said, “Now that you’ve summoned me, I assume you have something to ask.”