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.”
“Find my wife and daughter. And if you can’t find them, I want you to have me killed.”
After a momentary frown, Oskar laughed. “Kill you?” He covered his mouth with a hand, then waved. “Please! Is it my birthday?”
“I’m serious.”
Oskar shook his head, his smile still large. “Absolutely not, Weaver. As much as I’d be happy to pull the trigger, you’re not going to convince us to enter the assassination business. Talk to Mossad. Hell, talk to the CIA.”
“She owes me this.”
“I don’t think she owes you that much, Weaver.”
“She has her job because of me.”
Oskar’s smile faded. While Milo had stolen the four paintings from the E. G. Buhrle in Zurich, he had given two to Erika Schwartz, which she then planted in her predecessor’s apartment. Of course, a three-hundred-pound woman would have had trouble sneaking into an apartment with two large canvases-she would have needed help- someone small, about Oskar’s size.
Oskar said, “Here’s something you might not know, Weaver. The same evening your family was taken, your next-door neighbor was attacked in his apartment. He was knocked out with drugs, then tied and gagged. He didn’t see anything that we know of, but…”
Milo stepped back involuntarily as those words sank in. He ran into the dresser. Raymond Lister, the drunk. “They were there.”
“Yeah, Milo. While you were crying over your father, your wife and daughter were right next door. In your defense, they probably weren’t calling for help-they would’ve been drugged, too. But, still.”
Milo flashed on that night with his father’s body, and his imagination, in a vain attempt to change history, walked him out his door and to Raymond’s, where he kicked hard, shattering wood, and found…
“And now,” said Oskar, “the surprise.”
“You’ve got something else?” Milo whispered.
Oskar walked past him to the bathroom door. He opened it and looked inside, saying to someone, “Your turn now,” then stepped back.
A woman walked out. Not Erika Schwartz, not Janet Simmons, not Tina Weaver. She was tall, long in the nose, with dark hair that hung past her shoulders. Everything about her was long, but unlike when she was a girl, all elbows and knees, none of this was awkward on her. Like Milo, and like Yevgeny, she had heavy eyes, the flesh around them bruised and serious.
“Alexandra?” he asked, letting the shocked smile come into his face.
His sister didn’t smile. She walked up to him, standing a couple of inches taller, and said, “You’d better talk, Milo. Or I swear I’ll kill you myself.”
PART THREE
SATURDAY, JUNE 14 TO SUNDAY, JUNE 29, 2008
1
Alexandra was too tired and, she felt, too old to be dealing with this, though she was only thirty-two. It was three thirty on a Saturday morning, she’d left Freddy, a man she’d only met two days before, in her bed, and the night’s ridiculously priced cognacs at Zebrano’s were still washing through her scattered thoughts. Bloody family.
She climbed out of a taxi at Goodge Street, then took the Charlotte Place pedestrian lane past shuttered stores to the elbow of Rathbone Street. To her right, the Duke of York was closed, but its smell remained from the sidewalk littered with cigarette butts and spilled beer; to her left, smoky lights glowed from inside the lobby of the Rathbone. She wore a gray hoodie pulled down over her forehead, so that from a distance she looked like a chav at the end of a rowdy night-it was a useful illusion, particularly for the CCTV cameras.
Room 306, he’d said. Go see if your brother’s in.
Half brother, Milo, the one who’d grown up American and never answered her e-mails. Last Christmas, though, his wife had sent a “hello, you might not know me but” letter, which Alexandra hadn’t bothered to reply to.
Francisco was straight ahead, waiting just past the hotel and making no move to approach her. She guessed he was in a blind spot, so she went to him. His hands were stuffed deep into his jacket pockets, and his Spanish face, beneath a black baseball cap, looked muddled and sleepy, making her think of his code name, Hound. Her father named his agents after dog breeds, as if by this he could assure canine loyalty. Once they were close, she said, “He woke you, too?”
“Your father thinks no one sleeps.”
“How much time do you need?”
“Five minutes. I’ll send you a message.”
“What am I supposed to do for five minutes?”
“Don’t fall asleep,” he said and left her on the sidewalk. He ducked into an open garage on the side of the hotel and, after a moment’s pause to work with his tools, opened the locked service entrance and went inside.
It was too chilly to stand still, so she continued down Rathbone Street, past the Newman Arms, to where it bent to turn into Percy Street, then walked back, thinking all the time of the world of opportunities that could be her’s, if she would only quit working for family. For two years now, he’d called her his “assistant.” She still wasn’t sure what that meant. A certain amount of communications, of keeping track of her father’s agents and appointments, of going into the field when he couldn’t make it or when, like now, the worries were personal in nature. Her job description read like a secretary’s.
Sasha, all I know is that someone using his old work papers checked in Thursday night. I didn’t know about it until I got a call from a German associate.
Erika Schwartz?
He didn’t answer.
Openness, Nana. Remember our agreement?
Yes. Erika Schwartz.
The one who tortured Milo.
A pause. She believed at the time that she had reason.
She thought he had killed a little girl, Nana. I would’ve done the same thing. I’m just wondering why she’s telling you about this.
Because we’re old adversaries, Little One. It’s the same thing as old friends.
Then call the room, Nana. Ask who’s there.
