An American Spy (45 page)

A week later, Alan was in Slovenia, taking a clean, modern train from Ljubljana, east to Sevnica, eyeing the cool, stylish Slovenians all around him. He’d mistakenly thought this would be a walk in the park. After all, he’d known Afghanistan, and when you left Afghanistan you left with the confidence that the rest of the world was a walk in the park. However, the impossibility of places had less to do with the places themselves than with what you were carrying in yourself; it had to do with the measure of your guilt. The guilt he was once able to measure with a yardstick now seemed to require a milestick—thirty-three of them.

There was no need for worry, though. The SOVA had no interest in someone who was no longer employed by the American government, and Tran Hoang had done his job well, piloting his plane from Budapest, flying low across the nighttime border to the landing field at Cerklje ob Krki. He’d driven himself and his drugged package in a waiting car north along the Sava River and just past Sevnica to a cabin in the foothills of Gavžna Gora.

When he arrived at Sevnica’s small, provincial train station, Alan walked through the lobby and crossed the bustling morning street to reach, around a corner, a small pharmacy. Tran Hoang’s ten-year-old Yugo idled at the curb, and it was a sign of the man’s skills that pedestrians didn’t even notice that a Cambodian man was in their midst, one who’d spent a time in Sri Lanka as he was being nurtured and then recruited by the Department of Tourism. Alan got in on the passenger’s side, and Hoang put the car in gear. He drove west, toward the bridge that crossed the Sava. “How’s our guest?” Alan asked.

Hoang rocked his head. He was chewing on gum.

“I suppose that means he’s still alive?”

“Sure.”

Of all the Tourists Alan had met, Hoang was the mutest. Talking to him was like dealing with someone who only had ten words left in him and had better uses for them than communicating with you. “Have you started the questions?”

Hoang shook his head.

“Why not?”

“We flew in last night,” said Hoang, making no effort to hide his irritation.

“Is there something wrong?”

His jaw worked on the gum. He shook his head.

It took a half hour to reach the gravel road that snaked through the forest, and the temperature dropped as their elevation rose. The cabin, which Hector Garza, a.k.a. José Santiago, had tracked down, was a two-room affair, nestled against a boulder and surrounded by trees. A thin stream of smoke rose from a tin chimney. Hoang parked and led him into an empty room with a dirty kitchenette in the corner. The air was stuffy—someone had been smoking. They took off their coats. Against the far wall, beside a collection of faded, curling pornographic centerfolds, was a door. “In there?” Alan asked.

Hoang nodded.

Alan went to the door, took a breath, and opened it—another empty room, with the exception of a low cot. Henry Gray, American expat journalist, was sleeping on it, his right wrist cuffed to the bed frame. On the left side of his face was a purple bruise. Alan stepped back and went to Hoang, who was lighting the stove. “Why’d you hit him?”

“Fought back.”

“Did you tell him you just wanted to ask some questions?”

No answer.

“Of course he fought back, you idiot. He’s scared. Did you even read his file?”

Hoang gave him a look, just a look, but it was enough to stop his complaints.

Henry Gray woke up two hours later, and Alan handed him a chipped mug of coffee. Gray took it hesitantly. “Sorry about the face,” Alan said. “He tells me you fought back.”

“I tried to leave,” said Gray. His voice was brittle from dehydration.

“Anyway, I’m sorry. I just need to have a talk with you, and I had to be sure that no one else knew where you were.”

“When you say no one else, who do you mean? The Hungarians?”

“No, Henry. I mean the Chinese.”

Gray nodded slowly but said nothing.

“I’m here to talk to you about Rick.”

“Rick.”

“You spent a month with this man, and I’d like to know him as well as you do.”

“I thought this was over.”

“Did you really? A journalist of your stature?”

Henry Gray’s face looked pained, and Alan wondered if he’d taken that statement for sarcasm. Gray’s stature only meant something to conspiracy theorists, and Alan expected the man to begin a rant against international corporations and the CIA, with liberal doses of the military-industrial complex. Still, Gray had already been through more than most could handle. He had changed.

“I just want to go home,” he said finally. “Ask me your damned questions.”

“You worry too much,” said Leticia. “I’m in, I do some shopping, I leave.”

“But they’ll spot you. Sooner or later, they’ll spot you.”

“I’ll make sure it’s later. Really, baby, you need to get some sleep. It’s a good plan.”

They were at a Mexican restaurant in North Bergen. She was done with her first margarita, while Alan hadn’t touched his. The lunch crowd was just starting to arrive. He leaned closer. “What’s Collingwood been telling you?”

She, too, leaned forward. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m not sure.”

“She agrees it’s a good plan. So do the others.” Leticia reached over to grab his hand, her bright red nails reflecting the ceiling lamps. “You’re the master of deception. That fat Chinaman is going to get vertigo trying to figure it out. And it all starts here. I go in. I tickle his fear.”

His frown deepened, but what she said was true. It was a good plan. A series of distractions to overwhelm him as the pressures within his own government grew against him. Either he panicked and made a mistake, weakening him further, or he followed clues until he was standing in the wrong corner of the room when the door opened and they rushed in to kill him.

Leticia’s face became serious. “You’re really committed to this, aren’t you?”

“It’s the only thing I have left.”

“That’s not true. You’ve got a marriage.”

“I won’t for long if I don’t take care of this. I’m fucking it up.”

She pursed her lips. “It wasn’t your fault, you know. Not really.”

“Milo tells me that, too.”

“Did you convince him to join the great cause?”

Alan shook his head.

“See? He’s got his priorities straight. People like you and me, we don’t know what’s what.”

“You’re not listening to me, Alan. I can see it in your face. Just take a breath, cool off, and listen to what I’m saying.”

“I can hear everything,” he said.

They were sitting in the Georgetown safe house—a funny name for a house they knew the Guoanbu was watching—and he had been through two cigarettes. Dorothy had come alone, claiming the other two were busy, but he knew she just didn’t want a scene. She didn’t want them to think she didn’t have control over him. She said, “Levels. At your level, this makes no sense. At my level, it’s the only option. Things have changed.”

“The whole point of this operation was to bring him down. Or was I missing something?”

“You know better than that, Alan. We never do anything simply to bring someone down. Not in politics, not in intelligence. Everything we do is to strengthen our position. Previously, the best way to do that looked like burying Xin Zhu. Kill him—then frame him. Now, the situation has changed.”

“You’ll have to do better than that, Dorothy. You know how much I’ve poured into this. You know how much it means to me.”

“I can’t,” she said. “Don’t ask for things you know I can’t give. You’re not
in
anymore. You’re a private contractor. I’m your client.” She leaned back, grabbing at her Evian. “Do you follow?”

“Then I’ll sever our contract.”

“And lose the few Tourists you still have? You’d be dead in the water, Alan. You wouldn’t be able to do a thing.”

“I’ll bring in Milo Weaver.”

“Weaver?” She laughed. “He’s over the hill. He’s got a bullet hole in his gut. He’s useless. And he wouldn’t touch this with a ten-foot pole.”

“He could be brought into it easily enough.”

She stared at him a moment, then set down her bottle. “This is academic. You’re not going solo, because in the end you’re a patriot. So leave Milo Weaver alone. You’ll just get him killed.”

She was right, of course, but that was when he began to ask himself questions.
Could
he bring in Milo? And, if so, could he protect him? Probably not, but he could protect Tina and Stephanie, and that, in the end, was all that would matter to Milo.

“So the plan’s changed,” he said finally, because there was no other option. “We frame . . . what’s his name again?”

“I didn’t tell you his name.”

“And you can’t tell me how that gets us Xin Zhu.”

“I’m sorry, Alan.” She stared at him a moment. “It’s what happens when you bring politicians in on your conspiracies; they take over.”

“This is Irwin’s doing?”

“We’re
all
politicians, Alan.”

He stared at her passive, political face. “If you think you can make a deal with Xin Zhu, then he’ll humiliate you in the end.”

“Please, Alan. It’s not about deals, and it’s not about making Xin Zhu’s life any easier than we’d planned. He will go down, but not the way we originally planned.”

Alan flashed on lights, red lights turning blue. “There’s only one way to take care of a man like that.”

She leaned back, still staring, and furrowed her brow. “If you’re not going to be on board, or if you’re going to kick and scream the whole way, then tell me now. It’ll save us a lot of trouble down the road.”

“No,” he said, and only afterward realized he was lying. “I just needed to get it out of my system. I’m on board.”

She was shopping. The video feed was grainy, a little wobbly, but he could make out the shelves and the particular overabundance of Dean & Deluca in SoHo. What even the poor-quality picture couldn’t hide was that she looked miserable. They’d fought that morning over . . . he couldn’t even remember what had set it off. Not that it mattered. The reason for all their fights these days was him, and the shitty moods he brought home, the ones he took to the bathroom when he feared they would lead to outbursts, or worse. She could smell it on him, the misery and the secrecy and the raw hatred that ran his life now. She could see that he’d become a different Alan Drummond, one that was closer to the marine who’d been stupid with his courage in Afghanistan, the Alan Drummond she’d never known.

He was sitting in his home office, staring at the monitor, and in the phone pressed to his ear, Xin Zhu said, “I’m not an unreasonable man, Mr. Drummond. Far from it. Like you, I only try to protect myself and my family. People like you and me, we understand that the safety of our country pales in comparison to the safety of our wives and children.”

“Your dead son,” said Alan.

“Exactly,” said Xin Zhu. “What I ask is nothing so great. You’ll describe the conspiracy to me, and keep me updated at regular intervals. I don’t ask you to sabotage anything, not yet at least. I simply want to know.”

It was his chance, he realized. He could undermine the others so that the only option remaining would be the full-scale war he had wanted in the first place.
Yet there is Pen, right there in front of me.
Or he could help them with a lie right now. He could tell Xin Zhu his own plans for a load of explosives to shatter his bones and organs, and let the others have their plot.
Right there, so close they can touch her.
Because Penelope was standing in front of one of Xin Zhu’s men, he spoke the truth. “They’re not telling me.”

“They’re not telling
you
?”

“That’s right. They’re giving the orders.”

“Sounds like a step down, Mr. Drummond. I hope that the things I did had no hand in your decline. None of it was your fault, you know.”

So this was how the Chinese gloated.

“You’re serious,” said Dorothy.

“Unbelievably so. This changes everything.”

“Why?”

She’d asked that with a face full of innocence, the Evian halfway to her mouth. “He’s onto us,” Alan explained, as if to a child. “It’s one thing if he’s aware of Leticia, but another thing if he’s moved up the ladder.”

“We knew he would do this, Alan. As soon as she got back from China, we knew they would track her to the safe house.”

“But he’s threatening my wife.”

“Don’t think I don’t understand that, Alan. I’m worried as hell about it—remember, I’ve known Pen longer than you have. But slow down. This is bigger than either of us now.”

“What does that even
mean
?”

She shook her head, set down her water, and rubbed her forehead in a way that suggested she was posing for a camera hidden somewhere in this dusty safe house. “What it means is that things are already in motion. We’re not shutting it down. We can’t. Lives depend on everything moving forward.”

“
Lives?
” he repeated, his mouth dry. His exasperation was getting to him, making him lose the half-assed argument he’d marched in here wielding. “My wife’s life depends on me making sure she stays protected.”

“Then send her away, Alan. We can help with that.”