The prisoner's eyes widened; they were bloodshot and tired.
'There's only one reason you'd risk entering the country. Who are you supposed to kill?'
Roth chewed the inside of his cheek, then spoke in a laconic tone: 'Maybe you, Company man.'
'We were tracking you since Barcelona -you know that? To Mexico, then Dallas, and that rented car to New Orleans where you picked up your girlfriend. Maybe you just wanted to know if she survived Katrina. You switched to your Italian passport-Fabio Lanzetti-before switching back in Mississippi. Changing names is a nice trick, but it's not foolproof.'
Roth cocked his head. 'You'd know that, wouldn't you?'
'Would I?'
Samuel Roth wiped his dry lips with his fingers, stifling a cough. When he spoke, he sounded congested. 'I've heard a lot about you. Milo Weaver-a.k.a. many other names. Alexander.' He pointed at Milo. 'That's the name I know best. Charles Alexander.'
'No idea what you're talking about,' Milo said as nonchalantly as he could manage.
'You've got a long history,' Roth continued. 'An interesting one. You were a Tourist.'
A shrug. 'Everyone likes a vacation.'
'Remember 2001? Before those Muslims ruined business. Amsterdam. Back then, I only worried about people like you, people who work for governments, ruining my business. These days…' He shook his head.
Milo remembered 2001 better than most years. 'I've never been to Amsterdam,' he lied.
'You're curious, Milo Weaver. I've seen files on lots of people, but you… there's no center to your history.'
'Center?' Milo moved two steps closer, an arm's length from the prisoner.
Roth's lids drooped over his bloodshot eyes. 'There's no motivation connecting the events of your past.'
'Sure there is. Fast cars and girls. Isn't that your motivation?'
Samuel Roth seemed to like that. He wiped his mouth again to cover a large grin; above his sunburned cheeks his eyes looked very wet, sick. 'Well, you're certainly not motivated by your own well-being, or else you'd be somewhere else. Moscow, perhaps, where they take care of their agents. At least, where agents know how to take care of themselves.'
'Is that what you are? Russian?'
Roth ignored that. 'Maybe you just want to be on the winning side. Some people, they like to bend with history. But history's tricky. Today's monolith is tomorrow's pile of rocks. No.' He shook his head. 'That's not it. I think you're loyal to your family now. That would make sense. Your wife and daughter. Tina and… Stephanie, is it?'
Involuntarily, Milo shot out a hand and gripped Roth's shirt at the buttons, lifting him from the cot. This close, he could see that his dry, peeling face was riddled with pink sores. This was not sunburn. With his other hand, he squeezed Roth's jaw to hold his face still. There was rot in the man's breath. 'No need to bring them into this,' Milo said, then let go. When Roth fell back onto the cot, his head knocked against the wall.
How had this man turned the interrogation around?
'Just trying to make conversation,' said Roth, rubbing the back of his skull. 'That's why I'm here, you know. To see you.'
Instead of questioning that, Milo went for the door. He could at least squelch Roth's one voiced desire by removing himself from the room.
'Where are you going?'
Good-he sounded worried. Milo tapped the door, and one of the deputies started working the lock.
'Wait!' called Roth. 'I have information!'
Milo jerked the door open as Roth again called, ''Wait!'' He didn't slow down. He left the room and kept moving as the deputy pushed the steel door shut.
3
The sultry noontime heat swallowed him as he fooled with the new Company-issue Nokia he was still learning to master, finally finding the number. Between a parked blue-and-white and the dead shrubs around the station, he watched as storm clouds began to fill the sky. Grainger answered with a sharp 'What is it?'
Tom Grainger sounded the kind of irate people are when they've been abruptly woken, but it was nearly noon. 'I'm verifying it, Tom. It's him.'
'Good. I don't suppose he's talking, is he?”
“Not really. But he is trying to piss me off. He's seen a file on me. Knows about Tina and Stef.”
“Jesus. How'd he get that?'
'There's a girlfriend. She might know something. They're bringing her in now.' He paused. 'But he's sick, Tom. Really sick. I'm not sure he could make a journey.'
'What's he got?'
'Don't know yet.'
When Grainger sighed, Milo imagined him kicking back in his Aeron chair, gazing out his window across the Manhattan skyline. Faced with the dusty pale-brick buildings along Blackdale's main street-half of them out of business but covered with Independence Day flags- Milo was suddenly jealous. Grainger said, 'Just so you know- you've got one hour to make him talk.'
'Don't tell me.'
'I'm telling you. Some jackass at Langley sent an e-mail off the open server. I've spent the last half hour fending off Homeland with make-believe. If I hear the word 'jurisdiction' one more time, I'll have a fit.'
Milo stepped back as a deputy got into the police car and started it up. He returned to the station's glass double doors. 'My hopes are with the girlfriend. Whatever game he's playing, he won't play by my rules until I have something on him. Or if he's under duress.'
'Can you put it to him there?'
Milo considered this as the police car left and another parked in its place. The sheriff might turn a blind eye to rough treatment, but he wasn't sure about the deputies. There was something wide-eyed about them. 'I'll see once the girl's here.'
'If Homeland hadn't been shouting at me all morning, I'd tell you to break him out and bundle him for shipment. But we don't have a choice.'
'You don't think they'll share him?'
His chief grunted. 'It's me who doesn't want to share. Be a good boy and let them have him, but whatever he says to you is only for us. Okay?'
'Sure.' Milo noticed that the mustached deputy getting out of the car was Leslie, the one who'd been sent to pick up Kathy Hendrickson. He was alone. 'Call you back,' Milo said and hung up. 'Where's the girl?'
Leslie held his wide-brimmed hat in his hands, nervously rotating it. 'Checked out, sir. Late last night, couple hours after we released her.'
'I see, Deputy. Thanks.'
On the way back inside, Milo called home, knowing that at this hour no one would be there to pick up. Tina would check the messages from work once she realized he was running late. He kept it short and concise. He was sorry to miss Stephanie's performance, but didn't overplay his guilt. Besides, next week they'd all be together in Disney World, and he'd have plenty of time to make it up to his daughter. He suggested she invite Stephanie's biological father, Patrick. 'And videotape it, will you? I want to see.'
He found Wilcox in the break room, having a fight with the soda machine. 'I thought you kept to lemonade, Manny.'
Wilcox cleared his throat. 'I've had it up to here with lemons.' He wagged a chunky finger. 'You let that slip to my wife, and I'll have your ass on a platter.'
'Let's make a deal.' Milo came closer. 'I'll keep your wife in the dark if you give me an hour alone with your prisoner.'
Wilcox straightened, head back, and peered down at him. 'You're talking alone-alone?'
'Yes, sir.'
'And you think that's a good idea?”
