Hoang watched a pair of children with backpacks that looked too large for their small frames. He said, “Remember Henry Gray?”
“Of course.”
“I spent a few days in Budapest, watching him after we put him back. I told you I thought he would go to the Chinese, or to the police, and if it looked as if he was going to do one of those things, I was going to kill him. I was wrong. He was so happy to be back, to be free of us, that he took his girlfriend on a trip to Lillafured, a Hungarian resort in the mountains. Very picturesque. They had sex a lot, ate, and took walks. I felt like I was watching a bad romantic film.”
Alan waited, not knowing what to say.
Finally, Hoang turned to him. “Is that what you have with your wife?”
Alan thought about his hand connecting with Penelope’s cheek, of weeping on the floor, of Penelope’s hard, apathetic stare, and felt his eyes moistening. He resisted the impulse to wipe them dry.
“Okay,” said Hoang. “I’ll help you.”
She’d met him at Heathrow, coming up with one of her ubiquitous smiles, rubbing her decorated hands together as if preparing to dig into a steak. “Oh, honey, it’s so great to see you again!” The hug. The kiss. Then guiding him to the taxi stand, whispering, “Dorothy’s idea, baby. Sorry to cramp your style.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be talking to Sudan?”
“Delayed. They’re getting cold feet. Might as well hang out with you, make it look right.”
“No, Leticia.”
“Gwen, baby.”
“ Gwendolyn, I don’t need the babysitting, all right?”
“Dorothy thinks otherwise.”
“Dorothy can go to hell.”
Which, of course, only convinced her to stay, and left him with what felt like an age-old question: How do you plot and scheme when there’s a Tourist breathing down your neck? Then, early Saturday morning, there was a knock on his door. “Charlie! I know you’re in there!”
He was first struck by how beautiful she was, and then by the coincidence of her being Milo’s sister. How the world folded in on itself. Then, as he listened to her, he was struck by the elegance of simply walking. He’d planned to leave later, but here she was, like an angel, offering him an exit. Penelope was his only worry, and only after Alexandra left did he realize that Xin Zhu would not touch Penelope if he could not find her husband.
It was as if God had sent him salvation, as if God wanted this, too.
“You realize that this is no longer easy,” said the man his Staten Island contact had sent him to. He was young, midtwenties, but he had the movements and deliberate speaking manner of someone much older. Alan supposed political exile did that to you. “A couple of years ago, the Youth League was moving upward, and then- well, you know what happened.”
Alan knew, and so did most politically aware Americans. A congressional committee had uncovered a CIA transfer of ten million dollars to the fledgling Chinese democracy group based in Guizhou province. Had the Youth League been part of the democracy movement that made itself understood through poetry and literary journals and hunger strikes, none of this would have troubled anyone very much. Yet the Youth League had watched the two post-Tiananmen decades slide by as if Tiananmen had never occurred and, as with so many armed groups before them, patience was no longer part of its vocabulary. The CIA had been crucified for its support of terrorists, first by outraged Chinese diplomats, and then by more congressional committees that made it a priority to dig as deeply as possible into the Company coffers.
“They’re on the run now,” said the man, “living in the woods. They’re still hungry, you understand. Their spirit is not diminished. However, they’re on the edge of extinction, and they know it.”
Alan had been ready for this. If the man wasn’t at least a little resistant, then he wouldn’t be trustworthy. “In this situation,” Alan said, “a single victory could make all the difference.”
“Or be the final blow that kills the movement,” the man said quickly, as if the line had been on the tip of his tongue all along.
“I’ve told you everything,” Alan said. “You have the details.”
“You’ll be in Rome for how long?”
“Two nights.”
“Well,” said the man, smiling elusively, “let us hope that everything is settled to the maximum of satisfaction.”
Alan shook the young man’s hand, then left.
He was staying in a small pension in the working-class neighborhood of Testaccio, where the Vespas buzzed and the sun baked the concrete and stones and encouraged his neighbors to shout at one another even louder until the afternoon siesta, when they fell into their sweat-soaked beds and made love or slept. It was during this empty period that he went down to a kiosk, bought a phone card, and went to the local post office to make his call. After two rings, Hoang said, “Hotel Manhattan.”
“Room 9612, please.”
Hoang didn’t bother connecting him.
“Is everything all right?” Alan asked.
“Of course. She’s in the next room. Do you want to talk to her?”
“Please.”
He heard movement, a squeaky door opening, then Hoang’s monotone, It’s him.
Then Penelope’s Jesus! “Alan? Alan!”
“Hey,” he said. “Hey, Pen. You all right?”
“I-well, of course I’m not all right. I’m shaken. Who the hell is this guy? Where are you?”
“He’s a friend, and I’m not in the country right now. But don’t worry-you’re there because it’s safe.”
“What do you mean, ‘safe’? Is this about the apartment?”
“What?”
“The Company ripped apart our place, looking for something.”
“Are you sure it was them?”
“I’m not sure of anything. Where are you?”
“I’m going to be gone a little while longer. Please, be patient.”
“I don’t have much choice, do I?”
“You always have a choice. But I’m asking you-please stay there until I get back. It’s for your own good.”
“Why does he have your wedding ring?”
“What-” he began, then remembered, rubbing the bald spot on his finger. “It was the only thing I could think to do. And, listen, Pen. I’m sorry.”
A pause, then, “He told me about those thirty-three people.”
“He?”
“Milo. I had no idea, Alan.”
“Don’t dwell on it.”
She took a breath, a clotted intake, and he worried she was going to cry. Instead, she said, “Just come home, okay?”
“As soon as I can.”
“When’s that going to be?”
“It’s not entirely up to me.”
Silence.
“Pen?”
“I’m here.”
“What’s Milo doing?”
“Well, he’s trying to find you, isn’t he?”
“Has anyone contacted him?”
“The CIA. They’re trying to figure out the same thing.”
He thought about that, doubting that the CIA really cared where he was. “Okay, listen. You can’t use your
