being smarter. He’d admitted to Yevgeny that he was under constant surveillance and told him to not speak of this until his girls were absolutely safe. He’d said only that the Chinese were involved but refused to go into details until he knew Tina and Stephanie could not be touched. Yevgeny seemed to understand everything, and the only sign of anxiety was the now more frequent swiping at his cheek.
The noodles went over remarkably well, and halfway through the meal Milo’s phone bleeped a message. It was a single word from a private number: roof. He deleted the message, patted his napkin against his mouth, and rose. “Sorry, I’ve got to make a call. Be right back,” he said and walked out of the apartment.
He found Leticia Jones standing in the center of the roof, smoking a menthol cigarette. It was a blessedly cool evening, and she wore a long black linen jacket that reached her calves, which were covered by leather boots. “Hey, baby,” she said.
“Come on downstairs. My noodles are a hit.”
She smiled, then stepped closer. “Sorry, I gotta see a guy about a thing.”
“That’s always the way.”
“You are cute,” she said, touching his cheek with her long, painted nails, knowing exactly how to keep a man off balance-or some men. To Milo, she was only growing more wearying. “But let’s be serious, okay? I’m assuming you’re in, or else you wouldn’t have called.”
“Yes.”
“Would you like to tell me why?”
“Because I don’t have a choice.”
“I hope you don’t think I’m forcing you into anything, Milo.”
“You don’t need to,” he said, “Alan’s already done that.”
She nodded, perhaps understanding, then exhaled. “Well, it’s this way. You’ll go to Georgetown tomorrow for a two o’clock meeting with some people who want to talk to you.”
“People like Nathan Irwin?” he asked, remembering what Xin Zhu had told him.
Leticia seemed to consider ignoring the question, but then cocked her head. “Somebody’s been doing some thinking.” She paused. “Unlike me, Irwin doubts conversions. Unlike me, that man don’t like you. See what I mean?”
“Sure.”
“You’ll be there?”
“With bells on.”
“Something for the imagination,” she said, then gave him an address. She came closer and kissed his cheeks. “Take care of yourself, okay?”
Milo turned to open the roof-access door for her, but she was already walking off, stepping up onto the raised edge, and leaping down to the next rooftop. He wondered how many buildings she had to go before reaching a jimmied access door that would take her to the street.
When he returned to the table, Yevgeny was quizzing Tina about where she would like to live. “Anywhere in the world. Forget your job. Forget about money entirely. Where do you imagine is your ideal home?”
The question seemed to fluster her. “God, I don’t know.”
“Hawaii,” said Stephanie.
“Excellent choice,” said Yevgeny.
Milo said, “How about-”
“Not you,” Yevgeny cut in. “You’ve seen too much anyway. I’d like to know what a sophisticated American woman dreams of.”
Tina took the question seriously, pouring wine as she mulled it over, then said, “Costa Rica? That’s supposed to be wonderful.”
“Interesting,” Yevgeny said approvingly.
“No,” Tina said, shaking her head. “Geneva.”
“Even better. You’ve never been to my apartment there, and I think that should be remedied.”
“We’re moving to Switzerland?” asked Stephanie.
Yevgeny smiled, looking at Milo, who didn’t smile. He didn’t like the idea of them hiding out in Yevgeny’s Geneva home. It was known.
After dinner, Tina asked a question that, strangely, she had never posed before, “What do you do at the UN?”
“Milo knows this. I work for the financial section of the Security Council’s Military Staff Committee.”
“Which makes him an accountant,” said Milo.
“Which makes me an administrator,” Yevgeny said. “I’m a mess with numbers.”
“So that’s what you do?” Tina pressed. “You manage a team of accountants?”
“Something like that, but they’re an excellent group, and they hardly need my attention. I have an enormous amount of free time.”
“That’s it? You check in with them occasionally, and travel in leisure the rest of the time?”
“Anyone would be lucky to have my job,” Yevgeny said, aiming his words at Milo.
“I’m jealous,” Tina said.
Yevgeny leaned across the table and placed his hand on hers. “Then leave this fool and run off with me.”
“Can I bring Stef?”
Stephanie went to bed wearing her bracelet, and all three adults had a hand in tucking her in. Afterward, Milo brewed coffee, and Tina told Yevgeny about Alan and Penelope. She told everything she knew, which was little, and added that that afternoon she’d gone by their apartment on her lunch break.
“Why?” asked Milo.
“I still can’t find her.” To Yevgeny, she said, “But you know all this, right?”
Yevgeny looked at Milo, then shrugged.
“And?”
“And I’m in contact with people in London, looking into this. I don’t think he’s dead.”
“Milo doesn’t either.”
“He walked out of that hotel.”
“He used one of Milo’s old work names,” she said after a moment. “Why would he do that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe he really has gone crazy.”
Yevgeny considered that, as if it were an angle that hadn’t occurred to him, then shook his head. “No, he’s just American.”
Tina blinked at him as Milo set down the cups. She said, “What does that mean?”
“Nothing really,” he said. “It’s just that Americans… well, they’re distinctive in the developed world, aren’t they?”
“Are we?”
Yevgeny smiled. “Of course. Your people still believe in Utopia. Maybe because it’s part of your founding myth, the search for the perfect home. In the twenty-first century, Americans still think it’s possible to have a society in which a level of civility is constant, where a perfect balance of control and freedom can be maintained. It’s quaint. Try a few hundred years of war and civil strife on your own land, and see how much of your faith remains.” He paused, but they were still waiting. “Alan Drummond’s failures have shown him the flaws in his own utopian dreams, and that’s a terrible thing to face. Traumatic. When it happens to America-when, for example, a small band of desert lunatics brings down two enormous towers, proving that America’s sense of security was always an illusion-the country lashes out. It snaps. There’s an irrational side to it, something wild. No one likes to be shown that their core beliefs are wrong, particularly when those illusions fuel their only happy dreams. So when America’s dreams have been bruised, the nation comes on like an express train. God help anyone standing in its path.”
Yevgeny reached for his glass, looking suddenly embarrassed. Milo remembered similar speeches from his teenaged years, living with him and his family in Moscow. Back then, he’d been adolescent and angry enough to fight the old man on every point. Now, Milo only said, “Well.”
“As for Alan Drummond,” Yevgeny said quickly, then cleared his throat. “I can only imagine that he’s lashing
