toward the embassy.
From his position, Milo couldn't see the embassy gate, so he started walking toward Avenue Gabriel, holding the iPod near his face, as if having trouble with it. But he stared ahead at the old man, who got slowly to his feet in an imitation of old bones, then crouched to fool with his shoelaces.
Milo, too, had to hide his face, because Angela had passed the fleurs van and was walking in their direction, heading east through the park to the Place de la Concorde metro station. Milo, among the crowd, turned casually away from her. The old man followed Angela away.
Milo hurried toward Gabriel and reached the van as it was beginning to reverse out of its tight parallel parking situation. He rapped on the tinted rear window and waited.
Einner didn't answer immediately, probably looking out at Milo 's face and wondering if he'd go away. Then he made up his mind and popped open the door. His lips were in terrible shape-it looked like he'd been chewing them. 'What the hell are you doing here, Weaver?'
'Give me a lift?'
'Get out of here. Go home.'
He started to pull the door shut again, but Milo put himself in the way. 'Please, James. I need to come along.”
“What you need to do is get home.'
'Come on,' Milo said, making friendly. 'If you have to pick her up, it'll be easier with me. She won't run if I'm there.' Einner considered that. 'Honestly,' Milo said. 'I just want to help.”
“Did you clear this with Tom?”
“Call him if you want.'
Einner pushed the door open again and grinned to show that he wasn't such a bad sport. 'You look like an over-the-hill teenager.'
Milo didn't bother telling him what he looked like.
Einner's mobile control center was an elaborate affair consisting of two laptops, two flat-screen monitors connected to a mainframe, a generator, and a microphone and speakers. The seats had been moved flat against the right wall, facing the equipment. It made for a tight fit, particularly since the embassy lightweight behind the wheel drove by punching the pedals. The whole way to Angela's apartment in the Eleventh Arrondissement, Einner remained in radio contact with his shadows. They reported that Angela had boarded the metro, gotten out at Place de la Nation, and taken the long walk up tree-lined Avenue Philippe Auguste to her apartment on Rue Alexandre Dumas.
'Good thing you were on top of that,' said Milo.
Einner was focused on a video feed of Angela's apartment building, taken from a wide-angle tie-pin job. They watched Angela push through the glass doors. He said, 'If your role here is to offer sarcasm, we'll drop you off at the airport.'
'Sorry, James.'
They rode in silence and soon reached her neighborhood. Some members of the diplomatic crowd, which was big enough in Paris to constitute its own city, kept house in this eastern part of the eleventh district. The streets were lined with Beamers and Mercs.
From a speaker, they heard a click and a dial tone.
'You tapped her phone?' Milo said as a monitor displayed the number she'd dialed: 825.030.030.
'What did you think, Weaver? We're not amateurs.'
'Neither is she. I'll bet your vacation time that she's on to you.'
'Shh.'
A woman's voice said, 'Pizza Hut.'
The computer's phone directory verified that this was true.
She proceeded to order a Hawaienne pizza with a Greek salad and a six-pack of Stella Artois.
'Big eater,' Einner said, then typed on a laptop. The second monitor, wedged against the inside of the roof, flickered and lit up on a high angle of Angela's living room. There she was, walking away from the phone to the couch, and yawning. Milo imagined the afternoon champagne had made the rest of her day a chore to get through. She found a remote among the cushions, flopped down, and turned on the television. They couldn't see the screen, but heard canned laughter as she unzipped her boots and set them beside the coffee table.
The van slowed, and the driver called back, 'We're here.'
'Thanks, Bill.' Einner glanced at Milo before returning to the screen. 'This could take days, you know. I'll call you when she does something.'
'if she does something.'
'Whatever.'
'I'll keep you company.'
After a half hour, the sun began to set at the end of the street, cutting though the rear windows. Pedestrians returned home, desperate to shed their suits. It was a pretty street, and reminded Milo a little of his home in Brooklyn, which he was beginning to miss. He still wasn't sure why he wasn't on a plane right now-what, really, could he do to help Angela? Einner might be arrogant, but he wasn't going to frame her. And if Milo turned out to be wrong, and she was selling secrets, then he couldn't help her anyway.
'How did all this come about?' he asked.
Einner leaned back, but kept watching Angela. She was smiling at something on the tube. 'You know how it came about. Colonel Yi Lien's laptop.'
'But why was MI6 looking at the colonel in the first place?'
He considered Angela a moment, then shrugged. 'They'd been tracking him. Two-man team, routine stuff. Just keeping an eye on the opposition.'
'They told you this?'
Einner looked at him as if he were a child. 'You think they talk to Tourists? Please. Only Tom's ear is worthy of their secrets.”
“Go on.'
'Well, every other weekend, this colonel takes the ferry from Portsmouth to Caen. A little cottage north of Laval. One of those remodeled farmhouses.'
'What about this girlfriend?'
'Renee Bernier. French.'
'A budding novelist, I hear.'
Einner scratched his cheek. 'I've read a little of her opus. It's not bad.' When Angela got up, he typed something, and the monitor switched to the bathroom as she entered, unbuttoning her skirt lazily.
'You're going to switch that off, aren't you?'
He gave Milo a sour look. 'I don't get off on this, Weaver.'
'What about Renee Bernier? Could she have accessed the memo?'
Einner shook his head at Milo 's simplicity. 'You really think we just sit on our hands here, don't you? We're all over her. She's a devoted communist, for sure. Her novel's one big anticapitalist rant.'
'I thought you said it was good.'
'We're not the unwashed masses. I can tell a good writer when I read her. Even if her politics are juvenile.”
“That's very open-minded of you.'
'Isn't it?' he growled, then changed cameras again as Angela flushed the toilet and returned to the couch, now wrapped in a plush white robe. 'Anyway, you know the story. Colonel Lien boards the ferry from Caen after another of his lost weekends. Halfway across the Channel, he collapses. The two MI6 men resuscitate him, and take the opportunity to copy his hard drive.'
'Why Angela?'
Einner blinked at him. 'What?'
'Why is everyone convinced that she's the source? All this is so circumstantial.'
'You don't know?'
Milo shook his head, and that provoked a blistery smile.
'That's why you're being so hard-headed about this.' He tapped on the second laptop. A file marked swallow
