Olen Steinhauer - An American spy

“We knew he would do this, Alan. As soon as she got back from China, we knew they would track her to the safe house.”

“But he’s threatening my wife.”

“Don’t think I don’t understand that, Alan. I’m worried as hell about it-remember, I’ve known Pen longer than you have. But slow down. This is bigger than either of us now.”

“What does that even mean?”

She shook her head, set down her water, and rubbed her forehead in a way that suggested she was posing for a camera hidden somewhere in this dusty safe house. “What it means is that things are already in motion. We’re not shutting it down. We can’t. Lives depend on everything moving forward.”

“ Lives? ” he repeated, his mouth dry. His exasperation was getting to him, making him lose the half-assed argument he’d marched in here wielding. “My wife’s life depends on me making sure she stays protected.”

“Then send her away, Alan. We can help with that.”

Had she made the offer immediately, or if it hadn’t taken argument to bring her to that point, he might have taken it. However, like Milo Weaver weeks later, he no longer believed that, in a pinch, these people could guarantee Penelope’s safety. Why would they? Why, in their position, would he?

He shook his head. “I can take care of her.”

“Good,” she said, crossing her forearms on the table, gripping her elbows as she leaned closer. “Now, about you. You realize that this is a stroke of luck.”

“Because you can play me back to him,” he said in monotone.

“It’s his biggest mistake, and he’s walking into this. Why he thought you wouldn’t bring this to us is a mystery for the ages.”

“It’s because he wouldn’t bring it to his people. He knows better.”

She smiled at that, then rocked her head. “Must be a holy terror working in their system.”

“It must be,” Alan said.

Two days later, he talked to them. Though he hadn’t been around when the company was in regular contact with the Youth League, he had come across the old contact procedure in the Tourism files long before his life in that office ended. An ad in the New York Post, which was monitored by a Chinese exile living in the Bronx, then a rendezvous on the 9:15 ferry to Staten Island, leaving from Whitehall Terminal, with a volume of Charles Bukowski poems in hand.

Bukowski?

The things one does to be unheard.

Fear of failure haunted him during the flight to Seattle, as he worked his wedding ring off his finger, and again during the drive north toward the Canadian border. Not just a failed operation but a failed life. A week before, he’d struck his wife. As he groveled on the floor, crying real tears, she’d only stood over him, rubbing her face and staring, strangely devoid of expression. He’d expected anger and hatred, but by the evidence, she felt nothing.

Milo wasn’t helping, pulling back from every attempt to bring him in voluntarily, so he’d done all he could, letting slip the location of where, in the future, he could go and find his family.

In Ferndale, a farming town north of Seattle, he met Tran Hoang on the long, low Main Street. The Tourist was sitting in a Mazda, sipping coffee from an anonymous white cup, parked outside of a stylist called Hair to Dye For. Alan parked two spots in front of him, using the car Hoang had left in the Seattle airport lot. Hoang waited a full five minutes before climbing out of his Mazda and getting in beside Alan. He said nothing.

“This is the deal,” Alan said. “Once you’re done with Korea, I need you to disappear, then go back to Manhattan and keep an eye on my wife, Penelope. You won’t be the only one watching her.”

“Who else?”

“The Chinese.”

Hoang nodded.

“Figure out a good time, then extract her. You’ll explain that I’ve sent you, and you’ll show her this.” He took his wedding band out of his pocket and handed it over. “Show her that ring, and she should cooperate. If not, try to call me directly, and I’ll talk to her. Then you bring her to this place,” he said, handing over an unmarked envelope. “Keep her safe.”

“For how long?”

“Until I tell you otherwise.”

Hoang opened the envelope and read the address that lay on the shore of Colorado’s Grand Lake. Below it was an address in Brooklyn. Hoang sighed and stared out the windshield. In profile, he resembled a statue. He said, “You’re changing tactic.”

“I’m changing nothing,” Alan lied. “The others are trying to change it.”

“I’m sure they have their reasons.”

“They’ve lost their nerve.”

“Maybe they know something you don’t.”

Alan fingered the steering wheel. He wasn’t sure why he’d expected Hoang to go along with this. He’d forgotten, perhaps, that he was no longer the one with power. He was trapped, though, and had no choice but to push forward. “Once she’s safe, you’ll return to New York and watch Milo Weaver. He lives there, in Brooklyn. We’ll keep in touch, and at some point I’ll ask you to take his wife and child as well.”

“To Colorado?”

“Yes. They’re friends of Penelope’s, so once they’re together you should be able to leave them alone. At that point, we’ll discuss what comes next.”

Hoang said nothing.

“Are you with me on this? If you aren’t, then tell me now.”

Hoang watched a pair of children with backpacks that looked too large for their small frames. He said, “Remember Henry Gray?”

“Of course.”

“I spent a few days in Budapest, watching him after we put him back. I told you I thought he would go to the Chinese, or to the police, and if it looked as if he was going to do one of those things, I was going to kill him. I was wrong. He was so happy to be back, to be free of us, that he took his girlfriend on a trip to Lillafured, a Hungarian resort in the mountains. Very picturesque. They had sex a lot, ate, and took walks. I felt like I was watching a bad romantic film.”

Alan waited, not knowing what to say.

Finally, Hoang turned to him. “Is that what you have with your wife?”

Alan thought about his hand connecting with Penelope’s cheek, of weeping on the floor, of Penelope’s hard, apathetic stare, and felt his eyes moistening. He resisted the impulse to wipe them dry.

“Okay,” said Hoang. “I’ll help you.”

She’d met him at Heathrow, coming up with one of her ubiquitous smiles, rubbing her decorated hands together as if preparing to dig into a steak. “Oh, honey, it’s so great to see you again!” The hug. The kiss. Then guiding him to the taxi stand, whispering, “Dorothy’s idea, baby. Sorry to cramp your style.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be talking to Sudan?”

“Delayed. They’re getting cold feet. Might as well hang out with you, make it look right.”

“No, Leticia.”

“Gwen, baby.”

“ Gwendolyn, I don’t need the babysitting, all right?”

“Dorothy thinks otherwise.”

“Dorothy can go to hell.”

Which, of course, only convinced her to stay, and left him with what felt like an age-old question: How do you plot and scheme when there’s a Tourist breathing down your neck? Then, early Saturday morning, there was a knock on his door. “Charlie! I know you’re in there!”

He was first struck by how beautiful she was, and then by the coincidence of her being Milo’s sister. How the world folded in on itself. Then, as he listened to her, he was struck by the elegance of simply walking. He’d planned to leave later, but here she was, like an angel, offering him an exit. Penelope was his only worry, and only after Alexandra left did he realize that Xin Zhu would not touch Penelope if he could not find her husband.