to get up? She may have been asleep when he came in, but when she was shot she was sitting up.”
“Like I said,” Jones reminded him, “it’s no good.”
Klein wandered in from the kitchen, a pint of Haagen-Dazs in his large palm, eating. They both looked at him. “What?” he said.
Drummond came back holding his phone aloft. “It’s Reagan National. They’ve got Pearson.”
He had been picked up in Terminal B with a ticket for the six fifty-five Air Canada flight to Montreal. Klein drove alone; Milo joined Jones in her car; Drummond drove Irwin, who by now was showing real signs of shock. The ride with Leticia Jones was silent most of the way, until Milo said, “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. No one should be dead.”
Jones didn’t bother answering that.
Reagan National Airport, like JFK, had its own series of back corridors that led to interrogation rooms. The one in which they’d placed Pearson had a table and chairs and a window reinforced with wire mesh. Before going in, they peered at him through the window. The man that Milo remembered from Drummond’s office, talking into his cell phone with the easy confidence of young power, was now a mess. Hair awry, clothes disheveled, and a blank, wet stare.
“Who’s going to start?” asked Drummond.
Before anyone could argue, Milo stepped inside the room. David Pearson hardly gave him a look as he walked to the table and sat down opposite. “Talk, Dave.”
Pearson stared at his hands, which were flat on the table. “I don’t know who he was. But she did. She told me.”
“Told you what?”
“That they would get her. She knew.”
“Who’s they?”
“Her masters in Beijing.”
“I don’t follow.”
He kept his gaze fixed solidly on his chewed nails and shook his head. “She called. Susan. She told Jane that the CIA was bringing her in for some questions, and Jane-I didn’t understand it at first-she panicked. She told me she had to go. She had to leave. I asked why. She wasn’t making any sense. Then she told me. She said she was working for the other side. For… it really sounds ludicrous. For the Chinese. She said she’s been working for them for years.”
“Did she say why?”
Finally, Pearson looked at him. “Her family. She was protecting them. Do you know what that means?”
Milo didn’t answer.
“She said-and she kept telling me how sorry she was-she said that she used the information I shared with her. I mean, we talked about everything, Jane and me. Everything.”
“Tell me what happened next.”
“Well, I was angry. You can imagine. Can you?”
“Sure.”
“I told her I couldn’t speak to her. I walked out.”
“Outside?”
“No. To the bedroom. She was in the living room, and I went to the bedroom and slammed the door. And this…” He trailed off. “The last words I spoke to her were in anger. My God.”
“Go on.”
He finally took his hands off the table and put them in his lap, which made him look cold, though his face was shiny with sweat. “After some time-ten, fifteen minutes? I don’t even know. I came out again. And there she was, on the couch. The window was open-it was cold in the room-and she was dead.”
“You didn’t hear anything?”
Pearson shook his head. “The TV was on. No, I didn’t hear any gunshots.” He frowned, as if this had never occurred to him. “Do you think they used a silencer?”
Milo stared at the corner of Pearson’s mouth, which was twitching uncontrollably.
“What happened next?”
“I ran. Stupid, maybe. But I thought… well, I thought that they didn’t know I was there in the other room. As soon as they figured that out I would be next. Witness, that sort of thing. So I wanted to run as fast as I could.”
“Why Montreal?”
“Why not?” he said, then shook his head. “Actually, it was the next flight out of the country, so I took it.” He frowned. “Am I under arrest for running away?”
Milo got up. “You want anything? Coffee?”
“Alcohol,” said Pearson. “Something to settle me down.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Milo said and left.
In the dim outer room, Irwin had collapsed in an office chair, while Jones and Drummond were standing by the window, arms crossed. They’d heard everything from speakers.
“It’s tight,” Leticia Jones said. “The story, I mean.”
“Think so?” Milo asked, turning to watch Pearson reexamining his fingernails. “What I don’t understand is how they did it so quickly. Maybe they had a gunman in the area, but the decision? That had to be Zhu’s call. And it’s- what time is it in Beijing?”
“One in the afternoon,” said Jones.
“She calls-who? Not Zhu directly. Her controller. Wakes up her controller. The controller contacts Zhu. Zhu makes a decision, relays it back to the controller, and the controller contacts the gunman. The gunman climbs up into the apartment and kills her. All this in… twenty minutes, a half hour? It’s efficient; I’ll give it that.”
Pearson had moved on to his wristwatch, removed it, and begun to examine it.
“The television was off,” said a voice, and they all turned to find Irwin, white-faced and old, staring through them. “He turned off the television after finding her body.”
No one spoke for a moment. It was a small thing, but it reminded Milo of something else. “And he didn’t say anything about Chan making a phone call. She received the call from Susan, they argued, and he stormed off. Fifteen minutes later she’s dead. When did she call her controller?”
Irwin made a long exhale, like a deflating tire. “Jesus Christ.”
11
There was no point giving him what they knew and didn’t know, so when he returned to the room he lied. “We just heard from our people-your prints are all over the shell casings. You killed her.”
Pearson looked shocked. “What? No!”
“Did Zhu tell you to kill her? Or was that your idea? I’m guessing it was your idea, because Zhu would have done it properly. He would have moved her body so that it looked like she had run away from an intruder. Shot her in the back. Or he’d simply hide her body. But not you. You were in a panic; you did it all wrong. You walked right up to her, and she sat up-she trusted you, of course. Then you whipped out the pistol and did it. Then you turned off the television and opened the window and dreamed up the story of the assassin.”
Pearson’s eyes were drier now, but he still held on to his confusion. “You don’t understand anything. I loved Jane. We were going to be married.”
Milo wasn’t listening; he was too taken by his own thoughts. “That was Zhu’s idea, wasn’t it? The relationship. He probably told you from the beginning-stay close to Chan. If you’re ever discovered, you can shift the blame to her. Pillow talk. Yes,” Milo said, now sure. “You both knew everyone would buy her as a mole-but a round-eye like you? Never.”
“Shut up!”
“We were watching your place when you left. You came out walking. Like a man who’d just killed someone, not like someone afraid for his life. You checked your watch, because you wanted some grounding. But you still had
