The Nearest Exit (6 page)

By Thursday—which (he saw by the incongruous pink hearts filling store windows) was Valentine’s Day—it was prepared. He knew the way in and the way out. The method of execution and the method of disposal. He had the tools—the coarse wire, duct tape, a large roll of plastic, a backsaw—but when the cashier slipped the saw into a stiff paper bag, he nearly collapsed, imagining its use.

Though he could go through all the motions, the fact was that he was ruined. He was no longer Sebastian Hall, Tourist, but Milo Weaver, father. Then he broke all the laws of good sense and called his own father.

It was irrationally stupid. If his Voice of God found out he was whispering secrets to a senior UN official, he’d be dead. Even the old man became short with him on the phone. “You don’t
need
me, Misha. You just think you need me.”

“No, I do need you. Now.”

“It’s a simple thing. You’ve got it all planned out. So go do it.”

“You don’t understand. She looks just like Stephanie.”

“She looks nothing like Stephanie. This girl is twice Stephanie’s age.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Milo said, because now he knew. “It’s done. Our deal is finished. I’m not killing that girl just so you can have your source.”

Milo noticed that parental responsibility had done nothing to move the old man. This, though—the threat of losing an informer within the CIA—led Yevgeny Primakov to sigh and say, “Meet me in the Berliner Dom at nine in the morning. We’ll join the crowds.”

Before leaving that morning, Milo had scrubbed down the Friedrichshain pension and thrown away his toiletries and the two changes of clothes he’d picked up at KaDeWe. No matter what happened, he’d decided, today he would be finished with this damned city. To ensure that no one back at the Avenue of the Americas could follow his treasonous path, he’d taken apart his phone.

Now it was nine, and the Bavarians were trickling inside.

He approached the ticket window. The vendor, an old woman who’d lived in Berlin since its former life as three hundred and fifty square miles of rubble, squinted suspiciously when he said he wanted to see the church. He looked as hungover as he was, but his five-euro bill was clean enough.

Somehow, Yevgeny Primakov had gotten into the cold church before him, though Milo had entered just behind the last Bavarian. The old man was standing beneath a window topped by a biblical painting and the beatitude
Selig sind, die reines Herzens sind
. Blessed are the pure of heart. Milo’s alcohol-stunted vision wasn’t strong enough to read this, but he’d visited the church before and knew it was there.

His father didn’t bother looking at him. He stood with long, knotty hands clasped behind his back, gazing up at the painting. It had been five months since their last meeting, and Yevgeny Primakov was exactly as he remembered him. Thin white hair; fragile frame; thick eyebrows and a tendency to swipe at his cheek with the fore-finger of his left hand. The same exorbitant suits, which he imagined were de rigueur at all his United Nations functions. Milo, who was taller with dark features but the same heavy eyes, could never imagine aging to look like this.

That previous meeting had been like this one—an unconscionable risk. Milo had been out of jail less than a week when, late one night, frustrated and drunk, he climbed out of his Newark apartment’s window, crawled down the fire escape, and snuck into the opposite building where his twenty-four-hour shadow had been holing up. He knew the face—the young surveillance operative had
been on him since the bus from prison—and knew who he was working for. He unlocked the man’s door with a screwdriver and a homemade pick and found him dozing on a cot beneath the open window, beside a video camera with a stack of tapes and a telescopic microphone. Fast-food wrappers and cups were scattered across the floor. He woke the kid with the screwdriver to his neck and said, very quietly, “You’ll tell that Russian bastard to meet with me within forty-eight hours.”

“Er . . . Russian?” the kid managed.

“The one who pulls your strings. The one even the UN doesn’t know is doing its sneaky work. You call him and tell him to bring everything on the senator.”

“What senator?”

“The one that cost me my family.”

Thirty-five hours later, Primakov had met him in that same dirty room, overdressed as usual, and criticized his description of the man in question. “No,” Yevgeny told him in Russian. “You cost yourself your own family, by being a liar.” He’d brought along the file on Senator Nathan Irwin anyway.

Not that it told Milo much that he didn’t already know, because someone like Irwin made sure the crucial details of his otherwise public life remained private. The senator had been behind last year’s Sudanese debacle—the murder of a Muslim cleric, which had led to riots that had claimed more than eighty lives—and his desperation to cover it up had led to more deaths, among them two of Milo’s close friends, and prison time for Milo. “This man may be at the top of your grievances list,” Yevgeny had said, “but that doesn’t mean he’s responsible for all your life’s disappointments.”

Now, five months later, the old man stared up at the painting that had caught his fancy and spoke to the figures, again in Russian. “I’ve been looking into this. It might be retribution against the uncle. The baker. You didn’t check on him, did you?”

“He’s had some trouble with the law. I watched him. He’s clean enough.”

“Well, I did more than watch. Mihai Stanescu’s involved in immigrant affairs. He works with incoming easterners and sets them
up with jobs. That’s how the girl’s family got here. Sometimes he sneaks them in. He’s got connections with the Russian mafia in Transnistria—which is another way of saying he’s got government connections. I’m guessing he’s using those immigrants to transport heroin into Germany.”

Milo didn’t quite believe it. “So? Why kill his niece?”

“Maybe he’s been warned. Maybe the kid’s involved.”

“She’s not.”

“So you keep saying.”

“I’m right, Yevgeny.”

His father didn’t answer immediately, because three Bavarians materialized close behind them and whispered in awed tones, gesturing up at the painting, one waving his camera around. Once they’d moved on, he said, “You know as well as I do that it would take a lot longer than a week to find out why your people want some girl dead. Just because New York won’t tell you doesn’t mean there isn’t a reason.”

Milo didn’t bother answering, because the subject had moved beyond argument by now. No evidence would sway him.

Primakov turned to look at his son, though at first he focused past him to take in the milling tourists sprinkled throughout the cathedral. His focus drew back, and he frowned. “You look absolutely terrible, Misha. You stink.”

“Perils of the job.”

Primakov turned back to the painting. “My opinion? You’re probably right. This girl has nothing to do with anything, and her death will serve no one’s interests. Except, of course, your immediate supervisor’s. Who is he?”

Even now, Primakov was trying to extract what he could. “Alan Drummond.”

“He’s new, then? I thought Mendel was running it.”

“Drummond says he’s gone now.”

“And this Drummond is . . . ?”

“A voice on the telephone.”

Without turning to face him, Primakov said, “You didn’t check up on the voice on the telephone asking you to kill little girls?”

Milo stared at the back of his father’s head. “Yale. Marines—Afghanistan for two years. Moved to the Company in ’05. Arms Control Intelligence Staff. Requested transfer to Congressional Affairs the next year. Can’t say how he got to Tourism. Friends, I suppose.”

“Who’s he friends with?”

“Don’t know, but it can’t be nobody.”

Primakov swatted at his cheek. “It makes sense, then. Mendel’s been vetting you the slow way. Easy jobs. This Drummond takes over, and he wants to show his government sponsors what a big shot he is; he wants Tourism up and running. So he looks at your file and notices your daughter. Ideally, he’d find a six-year-old for you to take care of, but that’s a lot to ask anyone, even a Tourist. So he doubles the age and pulls out a random name.”

“Then what I said stands. It’s finished. I’m not killing some kid just to clear my name with New York.”

“I’d suggest you think about it first.”

“I’ve been thinking for a week, Yevgeny.” He paused. “Mother won’t allow it.”

The old man swiped at his cheek again. “Been hearing her voice again?”

“Occasionally.”

The fact that his son was listening to a dead woman didn’t faze Yevgeny Primakov. “You don’t have to kill her, you know. You said they want no traces, no body. Disappearance is enough.”

“Hold her in a basement somewhere? Thanks for the help.”

He turned to leave, but Primakov caught his arm, and they walked together down the southern aisle. “You’re strung out. Pills again?”

“Not many.”

“We need you healthy, Misha. I don’t want you buried yet. Neither does Tina. Have you talked to her?”

Quick, elastic memories stretched into his head. That last meeting with his wife—November, the day after the Company came calling. Their counseling sessions had been circling around the same arguments, never moving forward. Trust—that was the issue. Tina
had learned too much about her husband. No one, she’d explained in front of the therapist, likes to feel like the fool in a relationship. Over the weeks he’d seen no sign of forgiveness, so he said yes to the Company, and the next day announced his new job with the vague descriptor
field work
. The therapist, noticing the sudden chill in the room, asked Tina if she had something she felt like saying. Tina stroked the corner of her long, sensual lips.
Well, I was going to suggest he move back in with Stef and me. That’s off the table now, isn’t it?

The worst timing.

“Misha?”

The old man was grabbing his shoulders, pulling him deeper into the shadows.

“No need to cry over it, son. She’s still your wife, and Stephanie will always be your daughter. There’s plenty of hope.”

Milo wiped his cheeks dry, not even embarrassed anymore. “You don’t actually know that.”

The old man grinned; his dentures were a blinding white. “Sure I do. Unlike you, I’ve been stopping in to visit my daughter-in-law and granddaughter.”

This surprised him. “What did you say?”

“The truth, of course. I told her all about your mother, how she died, and why you kept your childhood, and me, a secret.”

“Did she understand?”

“Really, Misha. You don’t give people enough credit. Least of all your wife.” He rubbed his son’s back. “She knows you’re not able to get in touch now. But when you’re able, I think it wouldn’t be a bad idea to call on her.”

It was the best news he’d gotten in months. For almost a minute, Adriana Stanescu ceased to exist, and he could breathe. Still hungover, yes, but his feet were stable. He cleared his throat and again wiped his face. “Thanks, Yevgeny.”

“Don’t mention it. Let’s go fix your little problem.”

They left five minutes apart, taking separate routes to an apartment near Hausvogteiplatz and its flower-petal fountain. The renovated two-bedroom on the third floor was registered to a Lukas Steiner, marked on the mailboxes Milo passed on his way up. When he asked, Primakov was elusive. “Steiner’s a friend, even if he doesn’t know it. Luckily, he’s on holiday in Egypt. And no,” he added when he saw what was in Milo’s hand, “you can’t smoke in here.”

It took them two hours and a pot of coffee to hammer out a suitable plan. More than once, his father would stop and say, “Look, I know you don’t like it, but killing her might be the only option.”

“It’s not an option.”

Primakov seemed to understand, though his understanding failed him now and then, and he restated his opinion with different words. Finally, Milo struck the dining room table in a childish fit of anger. “Enough! Don’t you get it?”

“But really, Misha—”

“You think I could ever go home again if I did that?”

This obviously hadn’t occurred to him, and he let it go.

The old man occasionally asked casual questions about his life, though since a Tourist’s life is the same as his work, he was in effect requesting intel on his son’s jobs. Milo was too exhausted to bother lying. Besides, the man had saved his life last year, and the sooner he
handed over information the sooner he’d be free of that debt. “A robbery. Should be wrapped up in a few days.”

“Robbery? What is it, diamonds? Some politician’s boudoir?”

“Art museum.”

As he stirred his coffee, Primakov seemed to enjoy the images those two words provoked, and then he didn’t. He soured visibly and placed the spoon on the counter. “Zürich?”

“Yes.”

Primakov sipped his coffee. “This is the problem with the world, you know.”

“Is it?”

“No one thinks about the bigger picture anymore, just his own gain. Robbing an art museum is like robbing a library; there’s no integrity to it. Great art hangs in museums for the betterment of society, for the man on the street.”