Grainger, who was dead, which meant that, other than Milo Weaver, there was nothing left to threaten him. It was a dead case-it should be a dead case.
Self-assurances can only take you so far. Simmons had first thrown him off guard with that revelation about Weaver's parentage-how had they not found this before? Then she asked him into the corridor.
'Tell me why two aides to Senator Nathan Irwin were questioning Tina Weaver about you. Can you do that?'
'What?' He'd never heard anything about this before. 'I don't know what you're talking about.'
Janet Simmons's cheeks were brilliant in their flush, as if they'd each been slapped hard. 'You told me before that you didn't know anything about Roman Ugrimov. That's correct?'
Fitzhugh nodded.
'Which I guess means you've never met him.'
'That's exactly what it means. What's this about?'
'Then what's this?' She let him open the envelope himself. He pulled out three page-sized photographs. A Chinese restaurant, shot from a wide-angle hidden camera pointed at a small rear table.
'Wait a minute,' he began.
'You and Ugrimov look pretty friendly to me,' said Simmons.
His vision fogged as he thought back to the previous night. Just a mistake, a man who mistook him for someone else. He tried to get Janet Simmons in focus. 'Who gave you these?'
'It doesn't matter.'
'Of course it does!' he shouted. 'This is a setup, don't you see? This was taken last night! The man-he thought I was someone else… that's what he said. He shook my hand, then apologized because he thought I was someone named…' He tried to remember. 'Bernard! That's it! He said Bernard!'
'These were taken last year in Geneva.' Her quiet voice contrasted with his hysteria.
Then, finally, he understood. It was her. It had always been her. Janet Simmons and the Department of Homeland Security had come gunning for him. Why, he didn't know. Maybe in retaliation for Sal. All this-her pretense of wanting Milo Weaver behind bars, of being frustrated by Tom Grainger-it was all a ruse to distract him from her real aim, which was to bury Terence Albert Fitzhugh. Christ, he thought. They didn't even care about the Tiger or Roman Ugrimov. Bait and switch. It was all about him.
Finally, some words had come to him. 'Whatever you think you know, it's just fantasy. I don't know Roman Ugrimov. I'm not the guilty party here.' He pointed at the door. 'That's the guilty party, Janet, and you can falsify all the evidence you like. It won't change a thing.'
He'd stormed out and found his way to this bar full of tourists, not far from his hotel. Scotch had always been his drink, because that's what his father and his grandfather had sworn by, but all around him idiots from south of the Mason-Dixon guzzled beer, while their women sipped wine coolers and laughed at their men's stories.
How could it have gone so bad, so quick? What had he done wrong?
He tried to pull back, to see the situation from a distance, but it was hard. He knew, if only from his good work in Africa, that a few well-placed acts could be interpreted in any number of ways. Was he interpreting correctly? Was he in touch with the underlying truth of the evidence in front of him?
After six, someone at the jukebox put on Journey, which felt like his cue to leave. He slipped into the movement of weekend tourists heading to Broadway shows, wanting to be just another part of their anonymous body, but at the next corner, spotting a pay phone a block from the Mansfield, he realized he couldn't. He needed help.
He shoved in coins and called the number he tried not to abuse, and Senator Irwin answered on the fifth ring with a wary 'Hello?'
'It's me,' said Fitzhugh, then remembered what he was supposed to say: 'Carlos. It's Carlos.'
'Well, how are you, Carlos?'
'Not well. I think my wife's got me figured out. She knows about the girl.'
'I told you, Carlos, you've got to cut that out. It does no one any good.'
'And she's heard about you.'
Silence followed.
'It'll be all right,' Fitzhugh insisted. 'But I might need some help. You know, someone to cover for me.”
“Want me to send someone?”
“Yeah. That would be great.”
“You still meeting her at the hotel?'
'Yes,' said Fitzhugh, pleased by the senator's patience. 'I'm meeting her there at…' He checked his watch in the light of the setting sun. 'She'll be there at ten this evening.'
'Better make it eleven,' Senator Irwin told him.
'Sure. Eleven.'
The senator hung up first, and Fitzhugh settled the dirty receiver in the cradle and wiped his hands on his pants. A bellboy recognized him with a smile and a nod, and Fitzhugh returned the greeting. He had about five hours to get sober, so he went to the Mansfield's M Bar and ordered coffee. But after a half hour and a few words with the twenty-year-old bartender, a pretty aspiring actress, he changed his mind. A little buzz wouldn't ruin him. Three more scotches, and he stumbled up to his room.
What to do about Simmons? The senator had enough pull to transfer her to one of those dreary regional Homeland offices, up around Pierre, South Dakota, perhaps. Simply keep her away until the investigation could be completed and Weaver sentenced to prison for killing Grainger. He no longer placed his bets on Weaver being a Russian mole-that was a bird in the tree. The bird in the hand was murder, and Weaver's beautiful confession. He might change his story at the last minute, of course, but with Simmons out of the way Fitzhugh could work with the story already recorded. Really, he assured himself, finding what was left of his scotch beside the bed and pouring himself one more shot, it was just a matter of removing Simmons from the present equation-that would make everyone, even the irritated senator, happy and safe.
Punctually at eleven, a knock on the door woke him. He'd slipped off into an easy nap without realizing it. Through the spy hole was a man as old as himself, gray on the sides, one of the senator's aides. He opened the door and offered a hand, but when they shook the man didn't offer his name. That's how these special men were; they didn't use names. Fitzhugh locked the door, turned on the television for covering noise, and offered the man a drink from Grainger's bottle. The man politely refused.
'We should get down to business,' the man said. 'Tell me everything.'
17
Special Agent Janet Simmons arrived on Monday, July 30, the morning after Milo's third night at the MCC. The path to Milo Weaver had begun the previous morning, Sunday, when her cell phone buzzed her awake at 5:00 a.m. It was the local Homeland office, which thought she might be interested in some 911 chatter. She was, and took a taxi over to the Mansfield Hotel.
She spent three hours looking over the room and all Fitzhugh's personal effects. She used her Canon to photograph the note he'd left behind. She had a long talk with the homicide inspector, a twenty-year veteran who had seen it all. This was just another sad man in a city that, when it wasn't ecstatic, slipped into a too-easy depression. A Company representative arrived on the scene at nine and thanked her for her swift appearance, but insisted her help was no longer needed.
She'd returned to the Grand Hyatt feeling numb but hungry, ate a large breakfast in the Sky Restaurant, and thought back over the trail of information she'd collected during the previous four days. In her room, she gazed at the photograph of Terence Fitzhugh and Roman Ugrimov in Geneva, then made a call to Washington. Immigration, she was told, did have a flight plan for one Roman Ugrimov, who had flown into JFK on Thursday, July 26, and flown out again on a late flight Saturday, July 28. Yesterday.
She called George and asked for photographs of one Jim Pearson and one Maximilian Grzybowski, aides to Senator Nathan Irwin from Minnesota. An hour later, they were in her in-box.
By four, she had reached Park Slope, but this time she didn't bother parking out of sight of the apartment. She found a spot on Garfield, near the front door, and rang the bell to warn Tina there was a visitor. Because of the
