The Tourist (39 page)

"No," Tina whispered. "I can't believe it." Simmons had left doubt at the door. "What was this Russian's name?" William T. Perkins squeezed his eyes shut and clasped his forehead, as if hit by a stroke, but it was only his way of dredging up memories that hadn't been touched in decades. He took away his hand, red-faced. "Yevy?

No. Geny--yes. Yevgeny. That's what Minnie called him. Yevgeny."

"Last name?"

He exhaled a sigh, spittle white on his lips. "That, I don't remember." Tina needed air. She stood, but the higher elevation couldn't help her get out of this cloud of sudden, brutal changes. Both looked at her as she settled down again and worked out the words: "Yevgeny Primakov?" Simmons stared at her, shocked.

Perkins chewed his upper lip. "Could be. But my point is, this pinko pops up out of nowhere and talks Minnie into letting him have the boy." Simmons cut in: "Didn't Milo have any say in it?"

"What do I know?" Then he conceded he might know something:

"Way I see it, the boy didn't know Minnie, did he? This old woman shows up and wants him to come home with her. On the other hand, there's a Ruskie who
says
he's his father. You know how those Russians are. They'll convince you the sky's red. Probably filled his head with all kinds of stories of how wonderful Russia is and why doesn't he come enjoy it? If I was fifteen--God forbid--I'd go east with my daddy. Not head off with some old biddie obsessed with pot roasts and dusting." He paused. "That's what Minnie was like, if you must know."

"What about social services? Certainly they wouldn't just let this foreigner walk off with a fifteen-year-old boy. Would they?" Perkins showed them his palms. "What do I know? Don't listen to me. I wasn't even there. But..." He wrinkled his brow. "These kinds of guys, they've got money, don't they? Money gets you everything."

"Not everything," Simmons insisted. "The only way Mr. Primakov would get him is the will. If your daughter put him in the will, giving him paternal rights."

Perkins shook his head. "Impossible. Wilma may not have liked us. She may have
hated
me. But she wouldn't've given the boy to some Russian. I didn't raise a stupid girl."

Simmons checked on Tina with a glance and a sly wink. She seemed satisfied by the talk, though Tina couldn't get her head on straight enough to understand what, exactly, she'd gotten. None of this helped Milo. Simmons said to Perkins, "Maybe you can tell me one last thing."

"Will if I can."

"Why did Wilma and Ellen hate you so much?" Perkins blinked five times.

"What I mean is," she continued, as if running a job interview, "what exactly did you do to your daughters?"

Silence, then a long exhale that could have meant that the old man was preparing to bare his soul and sins to these strangers. It didn't mean that. His voice was suddenly young and full of venom as he pointed at the door:

"Get out of my fucking home!"

As they left, Tina knew that she would tell Simmons everything. Milo was a liar, and at that moment she hated him.

It wasn't until they picked up Stephanie from the television room full of doting old people that she realized something else. "Oh, Christ."

"What?" said Simmons.

She looked into the special agent's eyes. "When we got back from Venice, Milo came with me to take care of Stephanie's birth records in Boston. He begged me to let him give her a middle name. I hadn't planned on one, didn't really care, and it seemed to mean a lot to him."

"What's her middle name?"

"Ellen."

10

About a half hour before they arrived, two doormen removed the Chinese takeout boxes, replaced his water bottle, and cleaned blood off the table, chair, and floor. It was a relief of sorts, because over the night, the stink of old kung pao and sweat had kept him on the edge of nausea. Then Fitzhugh stepped inside, followed by Simmons. Milo hadn't seen her since Disney World, hadn't talked to her since Blackdale. She looked tired, as if she, too, had spent a sleepless night caged with her own stink.
Remember,
Yevgeny had said,
Simmons is your salvation, but don't treat her
that way.

So Milo crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm not talking to her." Simmons produced a smile. "Nice to see you, too." Fitzhugh wasn't bothering with smiles. "Milo, it's not up to me, and it's not up to you."

"You don't look well," said Simmons.

Milo's left eye was swollen and purple, his lower lip broken, and one of his nostrils ringed with blood. The worst bruises were under his orange jumpsuit. "I keep walking into walls."

"So I see."

Before Fitzhugh could reach for it, she had taken his chair. He asked the doorman for another. They waited. During that minute and a half of silence, Simmons stared hard at Milo, and Milo returned the gaze without blinking.

When the chair arrived, Fitzhugh settled down and said, "Remember what we said before, Milo. About classified topics." Simmons frowned.

"I remember," said Milo.

"Good," said Fitzhugh. "There's something I want to discuss first." He reached into his jacket pocket, but Simmons placed a hand on his lapel.

"Not yet, Terence," she said, then let go. "I want the story first."

"What's that?" Milo sat up. "What's he got in there?" Fitzhugh took out his hand again, empty. "Don't worry about it, Milo. The story first. Okay?

From where we left off." Milo looked at him.

"You were just about to head to Disney World," Simmons said, proving that she'd at least been given an interview summary from yesterday. She opened her hands like a well-trained interviewer. "I have to say, your last-minute escape from there was pretty snappy. Nicely done."

"Is she going to talk like this the whole time?" Milo put the question to Fitzhugh, who shrugged.

"Just talk," said Simmons. "If I think sarcasm's appropriate, I'll use it."

"Yes," Fitzhugh agreed. "Get on with it." To Simmons: "And try to temper the sarcasm, okay?"

He told the story of Disney World as it had happened, with a single omission: Yevgeny Primakov's appearance at Space Mountain. Though he had lied to Tina about so much, he hadn't lied about the purpose of the old man's visit--he had wanted to know what had happened to Angela Yates. It was easy to leave out that meeting, because it had no bearing on the cause-and-effect that is the one concern of interrogators the world over. This ease allowed him to observe how the two people across from him acted.

Fitzhugh sat rigid, straighter than he had the day before. Whereas yesterday he had seemed as if he had all the time in the world, today he was in a rush, as if the contents of the interview no longer mattered. Occasionally, he would say, "Yeah, yeah. We already know that." Each time, though, Simmons would cut in: "Maybe I don't, Terence. You know how uninformed Homeland is." Then, to Milo: "Please. Go on." She wanted to know everything.

So Milo obliged. He told his tale in a slow, purposeful way, leaving no detail untouched. He even mentioned the color of Einner's Renault, to which Simmons said, "It was a nice car, was it?"

"This agent has good taste."

Later in the day, when Weaver finally got to his meeting with Ugrimov, Simmons cut in again and said to Fitzhugh: "This Ugrimov. Do we have him on our arrest lists?"

Fitzhugh shrugged. "I don't know anything about the guy. Milo?"

"No," said Milo. "He's never broken a law in the United States. He can come and go as he pleases, but I don't think he ever does." Simmons nodded, then placed both her hands flat on the table.

"Anyway, we'll get to this in a little bit, but one thing's been nagging at me. After making all these connections, you went and killed Tom Grainger, right?"

"Right."

"In a fit of anger?"

"Something like that."

"I don't buy it."

Milo stared at her. "I'd been through a lot, Janet. You never know how you're going to react."

"And, by killing your boss, you've obliterated the only evidence that might have proven at least some small part of your story."

"I never claimed to be a genius."

The silence was broken by Janet Simmons's ringing phone. She looked at the screen, then walked to the corner, a finger pressed against her free ear as she answered it. Both men watched. She said, "Yes. Wait a minute. Slow down. What? Yeah--I mean, no. I didn't do that. Believe me, I had nothing to do with it. No--don't do that. Don't touch anything until I'm there. Got it? I'll be"--she glanced back at them--"a half hour, forty-five minutes. Just wait, okay? See you then."

She snapped her phone shut. "I've got to go right now." Both men blinked.

"Can we pick this up again tomorrow?"

Milo didn't bother answering, but Fitzhugh stood, muttering, "I guess so."

Simmons looked around the interview room. "And I want him out of here."

"What?" said Fitzhugh.

"I've cleared a solitary cell at the MCC. I want him moved there by the morning."

MCC was the Metropolitan Correctional Center, a pretrial holding facility next to Foley Square in Lower Manhattan.

"Why?" asked Milo.

"Yes," said Fitzhugh, annoyed. "Why?" She looked at Fitzhugh and spoke as if she were voicing a threat:

"Because I want to be able to talk to him in a place you don't control completely."

The air seemed to escape the room as she, miraculously, held both their gazes. Then she left.

Milo said, "Looks to me like Ms. Simmons doesn't trust the CIA."

"Well, fuck her," said Fitzhugh. "She doesn't tell me when my own interrogation ends." He shoved a thumb over his shoulder. "You know why she's hot and bothered now, don't you?"

Milo shook his head.

"We've got a Russian passport with your face on it, under the name Mikhail Yevgenovich Vlastov."

Milo looked taken aback by that, because he was. Whatever plan Yevgeny had hatched, exposing his secret life couldn't be part of it.

"Where'd you get it?"

"That doesn't concern you."

"It's a forgery."

"I'm afraid not, Milo. Not even the Company makes them this good."

"So what's it supposed to mean?"

Fitzhugh reached again into his jacket and took out some folded sheets. He flattened them on the table. Milo didn't bother looking at them; instead, he watched the old man's eyes. "What's that?" he said flatly.

"Intel. Compromised intel that ended up in Russian hands. Intel you had access to immediately before it was compromised." Slowly, Milo's gaze moved from Fitzhugh's eyes to the papers. The first one read:

Moscow, Russian Federation

Case: S09-2034-2B (Tourism)

Intel 1: (ref. Alexander) Acquired Bulgarian embassy tapes (ref. Op. Angelhead) from Denistov (attache) and will forward via U.S. embassy. 11/9/99

Intel 2: (ref. Handel) Recovered items from FSB agent (Sergei Arensky), deceased, include . . . copy of tapes from Bulgarian embassy (ref. Op. Angelhead). 11/13/99

He knew from the concise style that Harry Lynch had put this together. He really was an excellent Travel Agent. In 1999, touring under the name Charles Alexander, Milo had acquired some secret embassy tapes from the Bulgarian embassy in Moscow. The acquisition was called Operation Angelhead. Four days later, another Tourist--Handel--had come across a dead FSB agent, or killed him, and upon his body found a copy of the Angelhead tapes. Milo didn't know how the copy had made it to the Russian.

He flipped through the rest, pausing a moment longer on the third one, which read:

Venice, Italy

Case: S09-9283-3A (Tourism)

Intel 1: (ref. Alexander) Track Franklin Dawdle, under suspicion of fiscal fraud in amount of 3,000,000 USD. 9/10/01

Intel 2: (ref. Elliot) FSB source (VIKTOR) verifies Russian knowledge of the missing 3,000,000 via Dawdle, Frank, and the failed operation to recover in Venice. 10/8/01

Fitzhugh read it upside down. "Yes, your last operation even made it to Moscow."

Milo turned the sheets over. "Are you really that desperate, Terence?

You can put a sheet like that together for any field agent. Information leaks. Did you check how many pieces of intel ended up in French or Spanish or British hands? Just as many, I'll wager."

"We don't have a French or Spanish or British passport with your face on it."

That was when Milo knew--Fitzhugh didn't care about his confession anymore. Murder was small fish when compared to being a double agent. It was the kind of catch that would add a gold star to Fitzhugh's record, and put Milo into either a lifetime of solitary or a quick grave.

"Who gave it to you?"

Fitzhugh shook his head. "We're not telling." No--Fitzhugh had no idea who had given it to him. Milo had a pretty good idea, though, and it threatened to atomize whatever faith he had left.
11

Tina had awakened that morning in Myrtle Beach and taken Stephanie out to the shore feeling lighter, almost forgetting about the tears from last night's poor sleep. She felt, she realized as she settled on a rented lounge chair and watched her daughter splash in the Atlantic, like a cuckolded wife, but the other woman couldn't be surveilled or attacked because the other woman was an entire history. It was not entirely unlike when she, in junior high school, started reading the alternate histories of her own country, finding out that Pocahontas had become a pawn in colonial power struggles and, after a trip to London with John Rolfe, died of either pneumonia or tuberculosis on the voyage back.

But where those broken national myths had filled her with youthful self-righteousness and indignation, her husband's broken myths humiliated her, made her feel stupid. The only smart thing she'd done, she realized, was deny Milo his last request that they disappear with him. Her feelings intensified when they landed at LaGuardia, then took the airport shuttle into Brooklyn. The streets were claustrophobic, and each familiar storefront was another accusation from her old life. That was how she was beginning to see her life: old and new. The old life was wonderful because of its ignorance; the new life was terrible because of its knowledge. Their bags weighed a ton as she followed Stephanie, who rattled the apartment keys as she ran up the stairs. She reached the door while Tina was still on the second landing, opened it, then came out again and pressed her nose through the guardrail. "Mom?"