The Tourist (19 page)

he truly wanted to become a field agent, he would exclude anything that might get him placed behind a desk.

The approach was made in January 1990 by Terence A. Fitzhugh, an Asia specialist who had just taken a new position in the Directorate of Operations (which, in 2005, was absorbed into the National Clandestine Service). Harris had graduated from Boston University the previous year in journalism, with a minor in Asian languages, but the approach was made in New York, where Harris was freelancing for the
New York Post.
Fitzhugh's initial report on Harris noted "an unexpected ability to gain confidence, which in this reviewer's considered opinion should be the hallmark of field agents. We have in the past depended too much on technical prowess, and as a result operations have left too many players psychologically devastated. This is best remedied by field agents who can work the psyche as well as the body. Cooperation, not coercion."

Despite his feelings about Fitzhugh, Milo agreed. It was one of Tourism's flaws, he'd once told Grainger, that Tourists were trained as hammers rather than feathers. Grainger had found the metaphor flimsy, so Milo tried again: "Tourists should be mobile propaganda machines. Personal and political propaganda." Unconvincingly, Grainger had said that he would make a note of this.

After an extended training period at the Farm, Harris was sent to Beijing to apprentice under the then-famous Jack Quinn, who, according to Company lore, had carried much of Asia's cold war on his own shoulders, moving people and information in and out of Vietnam, Cambodia, Hong Kong, China, and Malaysia. The only country where he'd stumbled was Japan, where, from 1985 until his death from cancer in 1999, he was persona non grata.

Quinn's early reports on his young recruit were enthusiastic, citing Harris's ability to absorb information quickly, his near-native fluency in spoken Mandarin, and a highly developed sense of tradecraft. Harris had, in the four months from August through November 1991, developed a network of twelve agents from the clerking sections of the Chinese government, which produced information that, when backtracked, led to an average of three monthly reports on the tensions and machinations within the Chinese Central Committee.

By 1992, however, discord had appeared in the Beijing station. Comparing memos written by both Quinn and Harris, the problem was clear. Harris, the rising star, was attempting to gain control of the station, while Quinn, by now past his prime, was doing everything he could to hold on to his position. Langley's opinion, inferred from additional memos, was that Quinn's position should be inviolable, and they approved disciplinary action against Harris. A three-month forced leave followed, which he spent in Boston with his family.

Here, Fitzhugh reappeared, visiting Boston and making assessment reports on his young discovery. Though he noted Harris's anger about his shoddy treatment, Fitzhugh also pointed out that his protege "has developed far beyond his years in all areas of tradecraft and mental aptitude. His continued employment should be assured." Fitzhugh's report ended abruptly at that point, the rest of the text blacked out. When Harris returned to Beijing in February 1993, there was a monthlong honeymoon before trouble reappeared. Quinn complained of a renewed attack on his position, and Langley unhesitatingly suggested disciplinary action, but insisted that under no circumstances was Quinn to send him back. Harris was demoted, his networks taken over by Quinn; according to some hastily scribbled memos, Quinn worried that he'd overdone the discipline. Harris had taken to drinking, appearing late at the embassy, and sleeping with a variety of shopgirls from all around the capital. Twice the Beijing police picked him up for public displays, and once a friendly official in China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs suggested to Quinn that the young troublemaker be sent to a country "where such activity is considered more the norm."

That suggestion was dated July 12, 1993, and followed by a copy and translation of a police report, five days later, of an automobile accident in Guizhou province, along the Guiyang-Bije highway. The diplomatic car, signed out to Harris, plummeted 305 meters off the Liuguanghe Bridge. Upon hearing of this, Quinn demanded that an American team be sent to sift through the wreckage of the car.

China generously acquiesced. The team cleared away the mess, and Harris's remains were transferred to a family plot in Somerville. The file did not contain Harris's rebirth as a Tourist, nor a list of his works or the Tour Guides resulting from his travels. Such a breach of security was more than even Grainger could have managed. What he included was a report on Harris's 1996 disappearance, though in the report he was referred to by his Tourism name, Ingersoll.

Last known location: Berlin, an apartment on Frobenstrasse. After a week of trying to get in touch about a new operation, Grainger (who had by then been running the Department of Tourism only two years) sent Lacey to track him down. The apartment had been cleaned from top to bottom. Grainger wrote a memo to Fitzhugh, asking if he'd had any word; he hadn't. Lacey, then, was assigned to track Ingersoll/Harris.

It took nearly a week of meetings with Harris's known associates for Lacey to come up with a Trabant stolen by Harris and driven east, all the way to Prague, where it was abandoned. Grainger requisitioned Czech police reports to find that another car--a Mercedes-- had been stolen two streets from where the Trabant had been deposited. This took them west again, into Austria, where Decker joined Lacey, and both found the Mercedes ditched in Salzburg. In each case, the abandoned car had been wiped entirely clean of fingerprints, which became its own kind of fingerprint--that level of cleanliness was probably a sign of Tourism. The trail petered out in Milan, where the frequency of stolen cars made following leads impossible.

They picked up the trail again by pure luck, three months later in Tunisia, where Decker had just finished a job and was vacationing at the Hotel Bastia in L'Ariana, on the Gulf of Tunis. While working with Lacey, he'd studied a photograph of Ingersoll/Harris, and he saw that same face in the Hotel Bastia restaurant. The man with Harris's face was eating soup and staring out at the water. Decker got up, went to his room, and collected his pistol. When he returned to the restaurant, however, Harris was gone. Four minutes later, he broke into Harris's room, which was empty. Decker called Tunis, directing the embassy to watch the train stations, harbors, and airport. One young man, just graduated from Banking Section to Security, called in that he had spotted Harris at Carthage Airport. When Decker arrived, he found a cluster of police around the men's bathroom, examining the young man's corpse. He'd been strangled. Decker called in a list of possible destinations--if, in fact, Harris had stuck to flying--which included Lisbon, Marseille, Bilbao, Rome, and Tripoli. Grainger contacted Tourists in each of those areas, ordering them to abandon whatever they were doing and station themselves at the airports. Only by the next day, with the discovery of Bramble's corpse at Portela Airport, did they realize that Harris had flown to Lisbon. It was nearly one when Milo finished reading. It frustrated him to know he would be a wreck in the morning, while his reason for staying up hadn't given him any fresh answers.

He stretched, filled a tall glass with vodka, and dropped a lighter into his pocket. He slipped on sandals and took the file and vodka into the stairwell, then climbed to the rooftop-access door. Once outside, looking over the Park Slope roofs leading to the hazily lit Prospect Park, he drank some of the alcohol, but just a sip. He put the file on the concrete roof and doused it with the vodka, opening the file to get the center wet as well. He lit his little funeral pyre and stared for a long time at the flames and ash that caught on the breeze and flew away, thinking of where he'd been during the saga of Harris's move to the open market. Vienna, with Frank Dawdle, then-Vienna station chief, planning the execution of a retired Eastern Bloc lieutenant general named Brano Sev. Dawdle had been nervous, he remembered--an old man who'd spent the seventies in the field, but the eighties and nineties behind a desk--yet at the same time excited that, once again, if only as support, he was in on the action. It had been Dawdie's job to watch the house and give the signal when, as usual on a Saturday, Sev's wife left the house to go into town for shopping with their daughter. Sev always remained at home on Saturdays. According to sources, he was working on a memoir. Grainger later told him

that this job was a favor to some Eastern European friends who thought it best that the old man's memories die with him. The U.S. government, Grainger suggested, had just as much to lose from this man's stories. It went smoothly. Dawdle gave his signal, and Milo climbed into the house through a first-floor window. On the stairs, he stepped along the wall-edge to avoid creaks, and when he found the elderly cold warrior in his office, pen to paper, he was surprised by how small and meek the man looked. Milo removed his pistol, and the old man, hearing the noise, turned. There was surprise in his face, but the shocking thing was that it passed so quickly. Brano Sev's eyes, magnified by thick glasses, relaxed, and he shook his head. In German, he said: "You certainly took your time." Those were his last words.

Milo kicked at the embers, poured the last of the vodka, and lit the remaining pieces. It took a while, but finally everything turned to ash.
24

She had booked them into a long, red-roofed atrocity called Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort, where even the lobby was set up with stanchions and padded ropes to arrange the crowds into orderly lines, as if this were another ride. Restaurants of no recognizable real-world cuisine threaded through the complex, and after each long day of chasing Stephanie to the various attractions they collapsed in these places, ordering nachos or spaghetti, and then wandered out to the crowded "beach" that bordered the man-made lake.

Despite an initial onrush of sarcasm, by the second day Tina was much less annoyed by Disney Reality. There was something narcotic about the easy predictability and the soft, cushioned safety that surrounded them at every moment. Ignoring the sudden outbursts of children, there was no chaos here, no unpredictable variable. There was nothing even remotely connected to the miserable stories of the planet's shadow side, that parallel world in which her husband worked.

Tuesday night, after a long phone conversation with Grainger that had interrupted their dinner, Milo even said that it might be time to quit the Company completely. "I don't want this anymore," he said. He seemed surprised when she didn't get up and start cheering him.

"What else would you do?"

"Anything."

"But your skill-set, Milo. Really. And what kind of resume would you have?"

After considering this, he said, "Consulting. Security consulting for big business."

"Aha," she said. "From the military to the industrial. Very complex." He laughed, which pleased her, then they made love, which pleased her more.

It was a moment, one of those rare things that when you're old enough you know to appreciate, because the truth is you might never feel it again. Happiness. Despite the machinations in Milo's world, here in the fictitious land of Disney they had a little oasis.

Like anything that good, though, it was short-lived, crumbling by the third day.

"Space
Mountain"
Stephanie shouted over the hubbub around them. She was just ahead, Milo gripping her hand. He looked down with a confused expression. "Yeah. There it is." He pointed. "Space Fountain."

"Not
fountain.
Mountain!"

He turned back to eyeball Tina. "Can you understand a word this kid's saying?"

With impressive precision, Stephanie landed a quick kick on Milo's shin. He gripped it, hopping on one leg. "Oh!
Mountain*."
Tina hurried to catch up.

They registered themselves for the ride using the Fastpass that allowed them to wander for most of the forty-five minutes' expected wait, listen to Stephanie's one-sided conversation with Minnie Mouse, then go find some snacks that required another twenty-minute line.

Stephanie was unimpressed by the oranges Milo bought, so he explained that the vitamins were necessary for their upcoming space flight.

"Astronauts have to eat barrels of fruit before they're allowed anywhere near the space shuttle."

She believed that for approximately five seconds then glared up at him with a half-smile and sliced through his logic: "That makes no sense, Dad."

"Doesn't it?"

An exasperated sigh. "They take vitamin pills. Not oranges."

"When was the last time you went into space, Little Miss?"

"Come
on."

Among the stanchions that forced Space Mountain guests into a line that folded back on itself ten times, Stephanie rechecked her height with the forty-four-inch marker as Milo's phone sang. He turned away when he took it, so Tina couldn't hear the conversation. It lasted about a minute before he hung up, turned around with a smile, and said, "You two sit together, okay?"

"And you?" said Tina. "You're not going?"

"Of course he's going," said Stephanie.

"I'll sit near the back. You guys get in front. Turns out there's an old friend here. I'm going to sit with him."

"Who's this old friend?"

"She's a Lebanese dancer," Milo said, then broke into a grin when he saw the expression on her face. "I'm
kidding.
An old friend. He might have something for me."

Tina didn't like this, but Milo had warned her before they left that, given the way work was going, they might have to make a concession now and then. Still, a secretive meeting at Space Mountain? "You'll introduce us on the other side?"

Milo's lower lip shivered briefly. "Yeah, of course. If he has time." Stephanie turned up her hands. "Who
doesn't
have time at Disney World?"

Right on, Little Miss.

They reached the front, where two empty trains sat at the platform. Each train consisted of two narrow cars, each with three seats, one behind the other. Milo kissed his girls and told them he'd take the next train, right behind them. A uniformed teenager led them to the front, but Milo whispered something to the boy, showed his Company badge, and took the second-to-last seat on the second train. Tina sat behind Stephanie, then turned to look back at Milo, but couldn't see him because of the other passengers. When she leaned out of the car to peer around them, another uniformed teenager, a girl, said, "Ma'am, please stay inside. It's for your safety."