He lay on the hotel bed without undressing and considered calling Tom. What to say? He'd already argued Angela's innocence. Should he report that James Einner was a dunce, unequipped to handle the operation? Tom didn't care what Milo thought of Einner.
The truth-and for a moment it disturbed him-was that, six years ago, as a Tourist, he never would have questioned any of this. The job would have been simple and clean. But he wasn't a Tourist anymore, and for that he had no regrets.
11
The American embassy was separated from the Champs-Elysees by the long, rigorous Jardin des Champs- Elysees. He parked along Avenue Franklin D. Roosevelt and walked the length of the park, passing old Parisians on benches with bags of bread crumbs dangling between their knees, luring pigeons, while the midday sun burned hot and moist.
Paris in July is a bleak place to be. The locals have started to flee on their welfare-state vacations, and in their place Japanese, Dutch, Americans, Germans, and Brits stand in lines leading to ticket counters, their necks craned, waving brochures at perspiring cheeks, shouting at errant children. The elderly tourists move in packs, clutching walkers or fooling with wheelchairs, while the young stop periodically to bitch about the hard sidewalks and whisper, surprised, about how many black people there are in Paris.
Most of them, just before leaving home, watched Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron dance through white-bread streets and are shocked by today's rues and avenues. Instead of fat old men with mustaches offering slices of cheese with aperitifs, they're faced with white boys in dirty dreadlocks playing movie sound tracks on beat-up guitars, suspiciously pushy Africans selling miniature Eiffel Towers and models of the Louvre pyramid, and hordes of tourists like themselves, guided by stern elderly French women waving colored flags to keep them on track.
Of course, there was plenty of beauty in Paris, but, given his reason for being there, Milo could hardly see it.
He found a bench at the Place de la Concorde end of the park, facing tree-lined Avenue Gabriel and the embassy at number 2. He gave a smile to the old woman beside him on the bench, surrounded by pigeons. She returned his smile and tossed crumbs at the birds. It was only twelve ten, so he searched his pockets for cigarettes before guilt overwhelmed him and he let them be. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared at the white wedding-cake building with three uniformed marines in its yard wearing automatic rifles.
'Bonjour, monsieur,' said the old woman.
Milo gave her a half-smile, no more than politeness. 'Bonjour.'
'Etes-vous un Touriste?'
A single tooth was missing from the front of her grin. She winked. He said, 'Oui.'
'Monsieur Einner voudrait savoir si vous avez le paquet.' Mr. Einner would like to know if you have the package.
Milo looked around. There-parked along Avenue Gabriel was a white van advertising fleurs. Smoke sputtered from its exhaust pipe, the only running motor in sight.
Flower delivery van. Einner had obviously spent his training period watching too many old spy movies.
He turned back and switched to English. 'Tell him to come ask himself.'
Her smile remained, but she didn't say anything. The wire she wore had already picked up his words. Across the park, the flower delivery van's rear door popped open, and a tall blond man crossed the grass toward them. James Einner's face was very red, his cherry lips sealed tight. Once he was in punching distance, Milo noticed that his red lips were peeling. He wondered if Einner had herpes, and made a mental note to update his file when he returned to New York.
'Hello, James,' said Milo.
'Just answer the fucking question, Weaver. You're pissing all over our security.'
Milo smiled; he couldn't help himself. 'Yes, James. I have the package.'
Einner saw nothing funny in any of this. 'You're not in an office, Weaver. This is the real world.'
Milo watched him storm back to the van. The old woman was stifling a laugh, biting her lip so that her giggles wouldn't be heard over the microphone.
Twelve thirty came and went, and Milo started to worry. The black half-moon cameras along the edge of the embassy, and others attached to streetlamps, had no doubt been marking his progress. Some pale technicians in the embassy basement, sitting all day in front of monitors, had by now noticed his loitering and put him through the face-recognition software. Certainly they knew who he was. He didn't know whether they'd pass the information on to Angela Yates. If they did, might she choose to stay inside to avoid him? Maybe she suspected the embassy was watching her, and-regardless of her guilt or innocence-would choose to slip away from him entirely. Milo preferred that possibility.
Then, at twelve fifty-seven, she emerged from the embassy, nodding at the stiff marine who opened the door for her. She wore a light, colorful scarf that showed she was falling for French fashion. A thin mauve sweater was tight over her breasts, and her beige skirt stopped where her patent leather boots started, just below her knees. Five years in Paris had done an excellent job on Angela Yates, formerly of Madison, Wisconsin.
She left through the electrified gate, continued west on the sidewalk, then north to the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore, and stopped to get euros from a Rothschild Banque ATM. Milo followed from his side of the street.
She was a brisk walker, and perhaps that was a sign she knew he was following. If so, she didn't bother looking back to check. Angela had never been a nervous agent. In London, she'd been the best.
The last time they'd seen each other, a year ago, had been at the Peter Luger Steak House with Tina and Stephanie. In his memory there was a lot of laughter. Angela had come to town for some seminar, and over two- inch steaks and baked potatoes she imitated the various speakers' monotone voices. Even Stef had found the humor in it.
She turned up Rue Duras and stepped into a small, packed bistro with gilded windows. Milo crossed to her side of the street, galloping around a wild Renault, and stood by the framed menu, peering through the glass as she approached the bar. A fat man in an apron greeted her with big smiles. This was her regular. The manager put a hand on her shoulder and guided her between hunched backs, around harried waiters, to the far wall, and a small table for two. Perhaps, Milo thought as he entered, she was expecting company.
The manager, having finished with Angela, scuffled up to him with an expression of sympathetic pain. 'Je suis desole, monsieur. Comme vous pouvez voir, pas d'place.'
'It's all right,' he answered in English. 'I'm joining the lady.'
The manager gave a nod before running off to evict a young couple that had wandered in behind him-a tall, handsome man and a butch-looking woman with swollen eyes.
As he approached her table, Angela stared at an opaque sheet of paper with the day's specials written in calligraphy, black hair hanging over her face. When Milo reached the opposite chair, she looked up and, with an expression of shock in her lavender eyes, said, ' Milo! Holy shit! What are you doing here?'
Yes, she'd seen him on the embassy cameras. And, yes, she'd expected company-him. He leaned down to kiss her flushed cheeks. 'I was out on the street, looked up, and saw a beautiful lesbian walking in here.'
'Sit down, you old fart. Tell me all about absolutely everything.'
They ordered a carafe of house red and quickly fell into the rhythm of small talk they had both been trained to use to their advantage in spy school. But neither of them was trying, which was nice. It was good to see her again. Milo wanted to know what she'd been up to.
There hadn't been much, she admitted. A year ago, not long after their night at Peter Luger's, she'd had a falling-out with her girlfriend-some French aristocrat-and since then she'd focused entirely on her work. Never much of a social butterfly, Angela compensated for her heartbreak by rising in rank. She not only ran the embassy's CIA station but also oversaw the entire diplomatic network in France, covering consulates and American presence posts in Paris, Bordeaux, Lille, Lyon, Rennes, Strasbourg, Marseille, Nice, and Toulouse.
She was proud of her accomplishments- Milo could see this. She'd personally directed the uncovering of three leaks in the last nine months. The excitement in her face when she described-in abstracts, of course-the capture of
