The Tourist (15 page)

"Call your wife," he said. "Say you told her you'd call, and you forgot."

"But they're friends. Angela will want to talk to her, too."

"She's in the middle of something and has to run." It was good enough, so Milo agreed. "You'll turn off the surveillance as soon as I show up?"

"Yeah. Promise."

Milo doubted that, but if things became too confessional, he knew the approximate locations of the cameras and could obstruct them. The microphones, though, would be another matter. Head to her terrace, perhaps?

She buzzed him up, telling him to come to the fourth floor, and he used the rickety elevator. She was waiting in her doorway, in jeans and a Tshirt, a glass of white wine in her hand. "That was quick. Didn't wake you up, did I?"

"Please," he said, wagging the Smirnoff at her. "It's five in the afternoon for me." He kissed her cheeks and followed her in. He soon got the impression that Angela had changed her mind. She'd made the call, but while waiting for him had realized her mistake. They put the vodka in the freezer for later and drank wine on the same sofa he'd seen through the video cameras.

To loosen her up, Milo started in with questions about her love life. Yes, there was the princess from a year ago, but what about since then?

"You've never kept your hands to yourself for long." That provoked a laugh, but the fact was that she hadn't been to bed with anyone since that relationship ended. "It was hard. Remember how I was after Frank Dawdle turned bad? It was like that."

"A problem of trust."

"Pretty much." She sipped the wine. "You can smoke, you know." Milo took out his Davidoffs and offered one, but Angela had quit. "I could've started smoking again when the relationship went south, but that would be admitting defeat."

He gave her a smile, then said, "What did you want to talk to me about?"

Instead of answering, she went to the kitchen, and Milo knew this was his chance. He could call Einner to switch everything on, if it wasn't already. But he didn't, and weeks later this mistake would become a nasty little detail in the history of Milo Weaver.

She returned with the wine bottle, topped off their glasses, and even returned to the kitchen again to put the bottle in the recycling bin. By the time she'd finished the ritual and settled on the sola, she had decided on her tactic. "How much do you know about what's going on in the Sudan?"

"As much as anyone else, I guess. A long, nasty north-south civil war ended a couple years ago. We brokered that. But now, in the Darfur region you've got another civil war between the Sudanese Liberation Army and the government-supported Janjaweed militia. Last I heard, over two hundred thousand were dead and another two million displaced. In the east, in the capital, you've now got another civil war, triggered by the assassination of Mullah Salih Ahmad in January, which was blamed on the president--

though we know better, don't we?" He smiled, but she didn't. "What else?

Terrible economy, crude oil being its primary export." He squinted at her, remembering something: "But they don't sell us oil, do they? We've got an embargo on them. They sell it to China."

"Exactly," she said, unflustered by the name of that country. "Right now, they're supplying seven percent of China's oil. China supplies the Sudanese government with weapons to kill its own people--they'll do anything to keep the oil flowing." She touched her lower lip. "It's funny. China's been under a lot of pressure from the UN to encourage President al-Bashir to make peace in Darfur. Finally, last February, Hu Jintao--the Chinese president, no less-- met with him to discuss this. At the same time, he announced the cancellation of Sudan's Chinese debt and promised to build him a presidential palace. How fucked up is that?"

"Very fucked up."

"But go back to Salih Ahmad. This afternoon, you told me the Tiger killed Ahmad, and he wasn't doing it for the Sudanese government."

"He might have been wrong. He never knew
who
he was working for. Muslim extremists was his best guess."

She frowned. "There's a kid I met with a few times back in May. Rahman Garang. Sudanese. He was part of Salih Ahmad's group."

"Terrorist?"

Angela tilted her head, then nodded. "I'm not sure what all Rahman actually did, but yes, I'd call him a terrorist--a budding one, at least. His family's been here for about five years, and when he came back to visit in May, the French picked him up. They'd connected him to some cell in Lyon. He was a real hardhead. Vitriolic. It turned out he wasn't actually connected to anything in France, but while he was held he kept blaming his interrogators for the death of his mullah.
You and the Americans,
he said. That's why I got a call from my ex--she's not actually a princess, though she acts like one. She's French intelligence. I think it was her way of making peace with me. I talked with Rahman once in jail, and he told me he wasn't afraid of me. I--meaning the United States and all its allies--had killed Mullah Salih Ahmad, and he fully expected to be killed next. The French let him go, due to lack of evidence.

"But I was curious. We'd all seen the news. It was in his interest to blame President al-Bashir. After all, overthrowing him is the whole point of that insurgency. I tracked down Rahman's family about a week later, then convinced him to talk to me again. We had lunch in the center--same place you found me today. Rahman's brother--Ali--insisted on coming along for protection. I agreed, but made him wait outside the restaurant while we talked."

May 16, Milo remembered from Einner's photos. As she gulped down her wine, he said, "Was he raving? Or did he actually know something?" Angela set down the glass; it was empty. "A little bit of both. Rahman had been at the mullah's house in Khartoum the night his body reappeared. A lot of friends were there, a kind of vigil with the family. Rahman went to the bathroom. Through the window, he could see into the backyard. He saw a European--a white man-- delivering the body.
That
was the crux of his argument."

"Did you show him the photos of the Tiger?"

She shook her head, possibly embarrassed. "Didn't occur to me. But I told him I would look into it. If I'd been a man, I don't think he would've believed me. But he seemed to like me. I drove him and Ali back to his house, and over the next several days started looking into it. Really, I had nothing to go on. I had no reason to think this one was also the Tiger. There are a lot of white faces in the world, and I assumed al-Bashir had just gone to the regional open market for his killers."

"Did you report this?" Milo asked. "That you were helping Rahman." Again, she shook her head, but there was no shyness now. "You know what would've happened--no one cares about a potential suicide bomber's conspiracy theories. I just reported that I was working him as a possible source."

"I see."

"After five days, it still wasn't going anywhere, so I went to give Rahman the bad news. His family wouldn't let me in. His mother, father, sister--I was suddenly a leper. Ali finally came out. They didn't know where he was. The day after our lunch, he got a call. Told his mother he had an important meeting. That was the last they saw of him."

"He didn't head back to Khartoum?"

She shook her head. "He couldn't have. This kid had no tradecraft. He wasn't using fake passports or anything like that." She paused. "Then, last week, his body was found in Gonesse, not far off the Charles de Gaulle flight path. Two bullets in the chest. Forensics says he's been dead a month and a half or so--just after I talked to him."

Now it was Milo who needed to move. He rubbed his knees, stood, and went to get the chilled vodka. He should have made that call to Einner a while ago, under the guise of calling Tina, but he assumed Einner was listening anyway. He poured the vodka into their empty wineglasses; Angela didn't argue. "Forensics give anything else?"

"Nine millimeter, PPK. Those are spread pretty evenly throughout the world."

"Sounds like his friends saw him talking to you."

"That's what Ali thinks."

"You talked to him?"

"He called me. As soon as the body was found. That's how I learned about it."

Over the next hour, working their way through the vodka, they mused over the connections that these revelations seemed to suggest. "Seemed" was the operative word.

"X," they agreed, had hired the Tiger to kill a radical mullah in the Sudan, and when the Tiger began investigating the identity of his employer, X had him killed.

"Anyone could have killed Rahman," she said, blinking to keep Milo in focus. "His terrorist friends see him talking to me, and they decide he's a double. Or, whoever had the mullah killed thought he was discussing X's identity with me, and so X had him killed for the same reason he killed the Tiger."

Milo had to hold his tongue, because what he wanted to say would have given away what he knew. X's agent, Herbert Williams, had been seen with Angela Yates. What if, instead of being her contact, Williams was spying on her? Williams had been there, in the restaurant, when Rahman was meeting with Angela.

Ignore the Chinese diplomat and his stolen secrets, and the picture became something else. Angela as victim, rather than security leak. Yet the question the Tiger had posed on his deathbed remained: Who was X? Who would have hired the Tiger to kill both Mullah Salih Ahmad and the French foreign minister? Would some terrorist group want them both dead? While Ahmad's death in the end helped militant Islam's cause in the Sudan, the foreign minister's death would do nothing to help them. What, further, would explain all the acts of assassination by the Tiger since 2001, when Herbert Williams became one of the Tiger's clients?

Maybe Herbert Williams
was
X. Perhaps he was just a broker of death for whatever powerful people needed someone vanquished. In which case, there was nothing to tie the various murders together.

"The Chinese," she said. "Branding Salid Ahmad's corpse looks a lot like a direct warning to the extremists--quit harassing our friend, or you'll end up like this man. But it's almost too obvious, isn't it?" Milo nodded. "China's a lot of things, but it's not shortsighted. The Central Committee doesn't want a fight with the Sudanese masses. China doesn't want to send its troops to Africa, or have the international community looking too closely--they're hosting the Olympics in a year. The brand was supposed to inflame anti-Chinese, anti-imperialist sentiment." He took a breath. "I'm with the Tiger on this--I think he was working for the jihadists."

"The only way to know is to find Herbert Williams," she said. Despite the frustration of no solid answers, he was enjoying this. Sitting with Angela, going through the details and variables and working through possible solutions, reminded him of their friendship more than a decade before, when both were young, unattached, and wildly enthusiastic about their employer and their country.

Then the mood shifted. She rubbed her arms as if chilled by the morbid stories they were spinning. A little after one, she said, "I'll call a taxi. Don't want to be late for Disney."

After calling, she used the toilet and came out popping a pill from a prescription bottle.

"What's that?"

"For sleeping."

He raised a brow. "You really need those?"

"You're not my shrink, Milo."

"Remember when I tried to hook you on amphetamines?" At first she didn't, then she did. Her laugh was natural. "Man, you were such a wreck."

He gave her a kiss on the way out, and she handed him the still twothirds full Smirnoff bottle. "Let's stay in touch about this," he said. "You've done so much more than I ever could have."

She patted his ass to urge him out. "That's because I'm smarter than you are."

The taxi was waiting for him, and before getting inside he looked toward the flower van. From its passenger seat, Einner was staring at him, holding up a questioning thumbs-up sign. Milo gave him an answering thumbs-up, and the Tourist returned to the back of the van. To Milo's surprise, Einner had actually given him his privacy. Milo never would have been so generous.

17

He woke early Saturday morning with a hangover, his lungs suffering dry rot. The television shouted the weather in French. He tried to open his eyes, but the room was a blur, so he shut them again.

This was what happened when he was away from his family. There was no one around to remind him that it was a mistake to spend the night with a bottle of vodka and a pack of smokes, watching late-night French television. He hadn't been like this when he was a Tourist, but now, Milothe-family-man traveled like an immature teenager just set free from home. Something moved--a creak--and he opened his eyes again, smeared colors shifting. He pushed back, fist rising. From the chair beside his bed, Einner smiled at him.

"You with me?"

Milo tried to sit up against the headboard; it was difficult. He remembered sinking into the vodka and, out of curiosity, a child-sized bottle of hotel brandy and another of ouzo. He coughed up some bitter phlegm, then swallowed it.

Einner held up the bottle for examination--only three or so shots remained. "At least you didn't down the whole thing." Milo realized, not for the first time, that he was no good at living. Einner set the bottle on the floor. "Awake enough to talk?"

"I'm still a little drunk."

"I'll order coffee."

"What time is it?"

"Six in the morning."

"Jesus." He'd slept two and a half hours, max. Einner called down for coffee while Milo went to wash his face. Einner appeared in the bathroom doorway, grinning. "Not like when you were young, eh?"

Milo used the toothbrush to scrape stomach acid from the back of his tongue. He felt like he was going to be sick, but didn't want to do that in front of Einner. Not that.

By the time Milo came out again, he could get Einner in focus. Amazingly, the Tourist looked well rested as he flipped through stations, settling on CNN International. Milo wished he looked like that. A shower--that would help.

"You here for a reason, James?"

Einner raised the television's volume, his expression morose. "It's Angela."