Milo used paper towels to dry his hands, then walked out.
Leticia was watching him intently as he crossed back to the gate, yawning into the back of his hand. The adrenaline was fading, leaving him wasted. He crashed down beside her.
“ So? ” Leticia asked.
“So I peed. Where’s the guy?”
“He’s in the bathroom, you idiot!”
Milo widened his eyes, then pointed at where he’d come from. “ That bathroom?”
“What the hell are you up to?”
Milo shook his head in feigned surprise, then nodded. “Oh, look. There he is.”
As a flight attendant announced that Continental Flight 50 to Frankfurt would soon commence boarding, Chaudhury walked swiftly and purposefully out of the bathroom, and though his skin was dark, there was a definite redness on the left side of it. His eyes were watery and bloodshot, and he was pressing a wet paper towel to the side of his mouth. The red spots on the white paper were visible from where they sat. Then he did something that Milo hadn’t expected-he left. He turned away from the gate and walked away.
“That’s weird,” said Milo.
Quickly, Leticia snatched his right wrist and raised it, turning his hand around to better see the bright red, slightly swollen knuckles. With a disgusted sound, she threw it down again. “Idiot.”
“You want them to follow us, right?”
“That’s the idea.”
“Well, now they’ll be sure to have someone waiting in Jeddah. And just so you know, they are Chinese.”
She gave him a look that suggested-what? That she was impressed? That she was about to kill him? He had no idea, but in the tired euphoria that followed what he’d done he didn’t care. He had a name, He Qiang, that went with a face he’d seen outside his daughter’s summer camp, and he had a new possibility in Frankfurt. He felt more like a Tourist every moment.
13
He had eight hours to think. It was, objectively, plenty of time to find answers, or at least to reorient himself and place things in their proper perspective. However, by the time they landed at Frankfurt at ten in the morning, forty-five minutes late, nothing felt better in any sense of the word. Clearer, perhaps, but no better.
As they had begun to soar up the Atlantic coast, Milo had taken a short nap, because by then it was required. He’d gotten no sleep with his father’s corpse lying beside him on his bed, and a day of skipping around the metro area with Leticia and too many margaritas had pummeled him no less than the final exertion of beating Dennis Chaudhury. As Leticia plugged into the airline’s entertainment system, he closed his eyes and was soon asleep. And in a park. Holding his daughter’s hand, then running with her.
“You need another drink, baby?” Leticia asked when he woke with a start, swinging his hands.
Airplane. Leticia. Atlantic far below. A drink was the last thing he needed. He closed his eyes again and tried to think rationally. Like a Tourist.
His most urgent goal was to divide everything into what he did know, what he suspected, and what he did not know at all. From those things, hopefully he could come up with a plan of action.
He knew, for instance, that his family was no longer under his protection. He suspected that they were being held by Xin Zhu, though he only had the man’s word for that-he’d seen no objective evidence of it. Yet at the same time, he could not afford to decide it was not true, for to do that and be wrong would be a disaster.
Among the things that were beyond his knowledge was how far Xin Zhu would go to make sure Milo remained under his power. Obviously, the last thing he would want to do would be to kill Tina and Stephanie and let Milo know about it-in that case, he would lose control of Milo completely. However, death is only one sort of threat. Xin Zhu could easily hurt them or mutilate them and feel free to let Milo know about it, for Milo’s only recourse would be to work harder.
With this in mind, there was only one plan of action concerning his family: He had to play along, and if he had the chance to undermine the man, it would have to be done in such a way that Xin Zhu would never find out.
It was important to settle this first, because his terror over his family’s situation was blocking him up. He could think of nothing else. Even after he’d dealt with it, though, it still took a while and an airline sandwich to begin to move on.
He said to Leticia, “Is anyone looking for Alan?”
“The whole world’s looking for Alan,” she said without hesitation.
“Is that why we’re going to Jeddah?”
She shook her head. “We’ve got more important things to do than look for that turncoat.”
“Why do you call him that?”
Leticia sighed, then leaned closer and lowered her voice. “Milo, Alan Drummond made himself a threat as soon as he walked out of the Rathbone Hotel. And he knows it. But he doesn’t care. Since then, we’ve had all our red flags going for him. MI-5 has his vitals. Embassies are listening. Not a whisper. He’s good, it turns out. You know he got the Medal of Honor in Afghanistan?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“He’s more than just an administrator,” she said after a moment, “and he’s no idiot. He’s got enough spy craft to elude us all.”
“To what purpose?”
She shrugged. “All I know is that his operation is running counter to my operation, and that’s a problem.”
“And what happens when he’s finally found?”
“That depends on him, doesn’t it?”
“Are you going to kill him?”
“You’re very sensitive, aren’t you?” she asked, then smiled. “No, I’m not going to kill him. If I’m ordered to, I’ll have to be given some pretty persuasive evidence. Like, that he’s actually working against us. Or for the Chinese.”
“I doubt that,” Milo said.
“You never know.” She tapped his forearm with a long nail. “Any of us could be.”
For all of her elusiveness, Leticia was at least verifying the story Irwin and Collingwood had told him. While a plan of attack may have originated with Alan, some sort of schism had occurred between him and Collingwood, Irwin, and Jackson. The disagreement had been so strong that Alan had felt the need to disappear completely, jeopardizing not only the others’ operation but also his wife and Milo’s family.
Once the trays had been taken away, Milo said, “How do you know that it’s better to work for Irwin than for Alan?”
“Excuse me?” she asked, turning to get a better look at him.
“There are two plans here,” he said. “Irwin and Collingwood’s, and Alan’s. You said you don’t know the scope of either one. So how do you know that it’s not better to throw your lot in with Alan?”
She licked her lips, thinking a moment. “Milo, have you taken a good look at Alan lately?”
“He’s unbalanced.”
“That’s a nice word for it. Don’t get me wrong-I like Alan-but would I put my life in his hands?” She shook her head. “Look, Milo, you’re giving yourself a headache with all this thinking. I suggest you go back to sleep.”
Two plans, he thought as she put on her headphones again. He knew-or he suspected-that Alan’s plan was built on revenge, while the others had something else in mind, perhaps hidden in the obscure folds of foreign policy. Whatever Alan was up to, it was problematic enough that Collingwood had sent out a worldwide alert for him.
Here, he tried to separate himself from his prejudices. No matter how mad Alan had become, Milo leaned naturally toward his side, for on the other side was Irwin. Though Milo tried to keep his distance from terms like “good” and “bad,” he knew that he was naturally putting such labels on these opposing sides. Then, of course, there was Xin Zhu.
The problem with this-with taking sides at all-was that their fight was not his concern. His only concern was
