“Because it’s not American material. I got them from my father.”
“Yevgeny Primakov,” Collingwood said to Irwin. “He runs that UN department we were talking about.”
Milo blinked at her. His father’s intelligence arm was, or was supposed to be, completely secret. Was it a surprise that they both knew about it? He wasn’t sure.
“Could we use your father?” asked Collingwood.
“I could ask,” Milo lied.
Irwin exhaled loudly. “This is idiotic,” he said to Collingwood. “We both know Milo’s a bad seed.”
Collingwood smiled. “Did you really say ‘bad seed’?”
“The child of a KGB officer and a Marxist terrorist? The very definition of a bad seed.”
“Right,” Collingwood said, still smiling.
That they knew about his father was one thing, but Milo, perhaps naively, was surprised that they knew about his mother.
His face must have been an open book, for Irwin said, “Come on, Milo. That’s never been a secret from the Company. Hell, it’s why you were recruited in the first place, right out of college. I’ve seen your file. You had lying in your genes. They wanted to make sure you lied for us, not for someone else. Isn’t that right, Dorothy?”
Collingwood shrugged. “That’s what the files say.”
He tried to hide his growing surprise. He shook his head, desperate to change the subject. “The point is that, liar or not, we all know that I could help make sure this is a success. I just need to know more about what’s going on.”
Collingwood brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “Well, what do you want to know?”
“What happened to Alan.”
“Nathan?” she said.
Irwin shook his head. In the dim light his cheeks looked flushed, and Milo finally understood that Irwin was not the alpha in this room. Collingwood was. She was calling the shots. Revenge truly was not the point of their plans.
“It’s a problem,” Irwin said finally. “We don’t know.”
“You don’t know what happened to Alan?”
“He’s off the grid. He walked. We don’t know why.”
“What was he supposed to do?”
“Meet with someone, then reconnect with Leticia.”
“Meet with who?” Milo asked, though he knew the answer was Gephel Marpa.
Irwin looked at Collingwood and said, “I’m not telling him that. Not yet.”
“Fair enough,” she said.
Milo said, “If you want me to ask my father for information, I’ll need to have a story for him. You can’t keep me entirely in the dark.”
“You have your story already,” she said, looking at him. “Revenge. It’s not unheard of, you know.”
“So I get nothing? I work entirely blind?”
“Consider Leticia your seeing-eye dog,” she said. “Although I’d like to believe you, I know what excellent liars you Tourists are, and I’d be a fool to take you at face value. Leticia knows as much as she needs to know, and she’ll share what’s necessary. You’ll meet her tomorrow at JFK, Terminal Three. Eight in the morning, and you come as a blank slate. Can you do that?”
He nodded.
Collingwood said, “Tonight we’ll decide on the depth of your involvement, and by tomorrow she’ll know how to use you. What are you going to tell your family?”
“Flying to San Francisco for an interview.”
Collingwood raised her eyebrows. “You think your wife would want to relocate?”
“She’s amenable.”
“Tomorrow, then,” she said and stood, offering her hand again. Milo took it.
Irwin walked him downstairs and, at the door, said, “Don’t fuck us on this, Milo. The bricks will fall directly on your head.”
Replies to that awfully mixed metaphor occurred to him, but he pressed them down, stuffing them into that box in the back room of his head. He trotted down the front steps and flagged a taxi that was cruising down the street. He climbed into the back, saying, “Union Station,” as he pulled the door shut. It wasn’t until the taxi was moving again that he noticed the driver’s face. It was Dennis Chaudhury.
“Shit,” said Milo.
“Just transporting today,” Chaudhury said as he took a turn onto another street. “I told you not to call him, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did.”
“Sorry, then,” he said, “but you’re supposed to tell me what happened at the meeting.”
Milo watched colonial houses pass by. “Well, I’m in. Tomorrow I meet up with Leticia Jones at JFK.”
“To go where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Really?” he asked, peering in the rearview.
“Really.”
“Don’t tell me that’s all you know.”
“I know what happened to Alan.”
“Aha!” said Chaudhury, sounding pleased. “Do tell.”
“He was supposed to meet with Gephel Marpa on another floor, then meet with Leticia. He didn’t do either. He walked out. They don’t know where he is.”
Chaudhury exhaled, frowning at the road. “That’s odd.”
“No, it isn’t.”
Chaudhury looked at him in the mirror, waiting.
“Alan had only two options. He could continue to work for Xin Zhu, or he could remove himself completely from the equation. He assumed that, without having him in hand, Xin Zhu wouldn’t touch his wife, which was the only thing he cared about.”
Chaudhury stopped at a traffic light, staring ahead and saying nothing until the light changed and they were moving again, and then it was only to ask the details of the meeting. Those in attendance, which room it occurred in, and if it was recorded. Milo answered everything honestly-he had no idea about the recording, though he suspected it hadn’t been. When they were close to Union Station, Chaudhury said, “What’s your take?”
“Whatever they’re doing, they’re terrified of it getting out. It’ll be a while before I’m let in on the secret, if ever.”
Chaudhury tossed an iPhone over the seat; Milo caught it. “Keep this on you,” he said, passing over a charging cord as well, “and when he calls, you had better answer.”
Milo caught the 4:00 P. M. return train, and a little before five, as they were approaching Wilmington, he called Tina, who was at home with Stephanie. They’d ordered delivery Chinese, with an extra dish of kung pao chicken for him. “It’ll be clotty and cold by the time you get here.”
“Just how I like it.”
“You find out anything about Alan?”
“Not much. I’ll tell you when I get back,” he said, though he doubted he would tell her anything, because she and Stephanie would not be there. They would either be with Janet Simmons, or-and, preferably, he realized-with Yevgeny. They would be safe, and he could finally be free to do whatever he needed in order to assure their continued safety. One thing at a time, though. “Have you found Penelope?”
“No,” she said.
“And the eyes?” he asked.
“Eyes?”
“You know.”
“Oh, right. I see traces,” she said, and in the background, Stephanie said, “Stop looking at my eyes!”
He fully expected his new phone to ring sometime during the ride, but it was his old one that rang a little after six, with an unlisted number. Hesitantly, he answered it. “Hello?”
