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.”
Had she made the offer immediately, or if it hadn’t taken argument to bring her to that point, he might have taken it. However, like Milo Weaver weeks later, he no longer believed that, in a pinch, these people could guarantee Penelope’s safety. Why would they? Why, in their position, would he?
He shook his head. “I can take care of her.”
“Good,” she said, crossing her forearms on the table, gripping her elbows as she leaned closer. “Now, about you. You realize that this is a stroke of luck.”
“Because you can play me back to him,” he said in monotone.
“It’s his biggest mistake, and he’s walking into this. Why he thought you wouldn’t bring this to us is a mystery for the ages.”
“It’s because he wouldn’t bring it to his people. He knows better.”
She smiled at that, then rocked her head. “Must be a holy terror working in their system.”
“It must be,” Alan said.
Two days later, he talked to them. Though he hadn’t been around when the company was in regular contact with the Youth League, he had come across the old contact procedure in the Tourism files long before his life in that office ended. An ad in the New York Post, which was monitored by a Chinese exile living in the Bronx, then a rendezvous on the 9:15 ferry to Staten Island, leaving from Whitehall Terminal, with a volume of Charles Bukowski poems in hand.
Bukowski?
The things one does to be unheard.
2
Fear of failure haunted him during the flight to Seattle, as he worked his wedding ring off his finger, and again during the drive north toward the Canadian border. Not just a failed operation but a failed life. A week before, he’d struck his wife. As he groveled on the floor, crying real tears, she’d only stood over him, rubbing her face and staring, strangely devoid of expression. He’d expected anger and hatred, but by the evidence, she felt nothing.
Milo wasn’t helping, pulling back from every attempt to bring him in voluntarily, so he’d done all he could, letting slip the location of where, in the future, he could go and find his family.
In Ferndale, a farming town north of Seattle, he met Tran Hoang on the long, low Main Street. The Tourist was sitting in a Mazda, sipping coffee from an anonymous white cup, parked outside of a stylist called Hair to Dye For. Alan parked two spots in front of him, using the car Hoang had left in the Seattle airport lot. Hoang waited a full five minutes before climbing out of his Mazda and getting in beside Alan. He said nothing.
“This is the deal,” Alan said. “Once you’re done with Korea, I need you to disappear, then go back to Manhattan and keep an eye on my wife, Penelope. You won’t be the only one watching her.”
“Who else?”
“The Chinese.”
Hoang nodded.
“Figure out a good time, then extract her. You’ll explain that I’ve sent you, and you’ll show her this.” He took his wedding band out of his pocket and handed it over. “Show her that ring, and she should cooperate. If not, try to call me directly, and I’ll talk to her. Then you bring her to this place,” he said, handing over an unmarked envelope. “Keep her safe.”
“For how long?”
“Until I tell you otherwise.”
Hoang opened the envelope and read the address that lay on the shore of Colorado’s Grand Lake. Below it was an address in Brooklyn. Hoang sighed and stared out the windshield. In profile, he resembled a statue. He said, “You’re changing tactic.”
“I’m changing nothing,” Alan lied. “The others are trying to change it.”
“I’m sure they have their reasons.”
“They’ve lost their nerve.”
“Maybe they know something you don’t.”
Alan fingered the steering wheel. He wasn’t sure why he’d expected Hoang to go along with this. He’d forgotten, perhaps, that he was no longer the one with power. He was trapped, though, and had no choice but to push forward. “Once she’s safe, you’ll return to New York and watch Milo Weaver. He lives there, in Brooklyn. We’ll keep in touch, and at some point I’ll ask you to take his wife and child as well.”
“To Colorado?”
“Yes. They’re friends of Penelope’s, so once they’re together you should be able to leave them alone. At that point, we’ll discuss what comes next.”
Hoang said nothing.
“Are you with me on this? If you aren’t, then tell me now.”
