Olen Steinhauer - The Tourist

She rubbed the spot between her brows. "Last week, Friday, you were seen lunching with Ms. Angela Yates. That same night, you were with Mr. Einner, watching Angela Yates's apartment. You left early, yes, but then you returned and visited Ms. Yates. Some hours later she died of poisoning. A barbiturate, the doctors tell me. They say all her regular sleeping pills were replaced with this drug."

"Yes," said Milo.

"Mr. Einner and another associate entered the building at 5:16 a.m., Saturday. Then, Mr. Einner went to your hotel. Soon after, both of you fled through the rear entrance." She cleared her throat, sounding like a heavy smoker. "We found both of you at the airport, fleeing. Remember?"

"Einner wasn't leaving," said Milo. "And we left through the back of the hotel because I was in a hurry."

"To get home."

He nodded.

"In actuality, Mr. Einner did flee, but not by airplane. He got in his car and left the airport. Unfortunately, we lost him. He disappeared."

"I suppose he had someplace to be."

"Had I known in the airport that Angela Yates was dead, you wouldn't have left the country. Sadly, I didn't learn this until that afternoon." She pursed her lips, considering him. "You see where I'm going with this, don't you? It looks a lot like premeditation."

"Does it really?"

Diane Morel stared at him. Unlike Janet Simmons, she had no lightness in her face. With her swollen eyes, she looked as if the motif of her life had been suffering. "Also, you tell me you know nothing about Angela Yates's murder, but the story I've just described suggests something different. It suggests that you came to Paris and worked with Mr. Einner until your job was completed. As soon as Angela was dead, you left." She paused. "If I'm missing something, please let me know."

"Angela was a friend of mine," he said after a moment. "I didn't kill her, and neither did Einner. If I believed he did, I'd hand him to you right now."

"A question," she said, raising a finger. "Who, exactly, is Mr. James Einner? He seems to have been working with embassy personnel, but there's no public record of his employment there. In fact, he only arrived in Paris three months ago. Before that, he was in Germany for three weeks; before that, Italy for two months… before that, he was in France again, Portugal, and Spain. And before Spain -he arrived there a year and a half ago-there's no record at all of him in Europe. Who is Mr. Einner?"

That was the one question Milo wished she hadn't asked. Diane Morel had done her homework. "I don't know," he said. "That's the truth. But I will tell you something that I hope we can keep private."

"Go on."

"Angela Yates was under suspicion of treason. Selling secrets.”

“To whom?”

“To China."

Morel blinked again, rapidly. It wasn't the kind of thing the Company would ever admit to, and he hoped it would push the question of James Einner out of her head. Finally, she said, "That's curious."

"Is it?"

"I now ask the same of you, Mr. Weaver. Some privacy." Milo nodded.

"Until about a year ago, Ms. Yates and I were also close friends- which, I imagine, is why I haven't just shot you and handed your body to the Americans. I, too, would like to know the truth."

"I'm glad."

"My point is that I tried to get her to do the same thing. Sell secrets." She shook her head, biting her lip. "I find it very surprising that Angela would sell them to the Chinese. In fact, I'm sure she wouldn't."

"I agree," he said, then stopped. A year ago… "Oh." Morel sat up. "What?"

This was the woman Angela had dated, who had left her with a broken heart. Morel had broken her heart by showing that their affair had simply been a way to turn her. "Nothing. Go on."

She let it go. "Angela wouldn't sell to us, but she did work with someone else. We spotted her having meetings with a man."

"A red beard," Milo said.

Morel frowned, then shook her head. "No. Why do you say that?"

"Just a hunch. Go on."

"The man she met with was clean shaven. An old man. Turns out our friend Angela was a double agent of sorts." Milo stared back. "Who for?”

“For the United Nations."

He wanted to laugh, but it was too ludicrous even for that. "You mean Interpol. That would make sense."

"No. I mean she worked for the United Nations."

"Really," he said, finally smiling nervously. "The United Nations has no intelligence agency. Maybe she was getting information from them."

Morel rocked her head from side to side. "That's what we thought at first. She met with someone from the UNESCO office here in Paris. His name is Yevgeny Primakov."

"Primakov?" Milo said dumbly.

"You know him?"

He shook his head to cover the sudden feeling of panic. Not Yevgeny. "Go on."

"We did some background checks. Primakov used to work for the KGB. He reached a colonel's rank and kept it when the KGB became the FSB. Then he quit in 2000 to work for the UN out of Geneva. There's not much on him, but in 2002 he worked with some representatives from Germany, trying to institute an independent intelligence organ. Their argument was that the Security Council could only make educated decisions with an independent agency giving them information. Of course, it didn't even reach a vote. China, Russia, and your own country made it clear that they would veto it."

"There you go, then," said Milo. "There is no UN intelligence agency for Angela to work for."

Morel nodded, as if Milo had finally put her suspicions to rest, but said, "In early 2003, Mr. Primakov vanished for approximately six months. He reappeared in July of that year in the Military Staff Committee of the Security Council, working out of the financial section. He's kept his position despite changeovers of all the other staff. I find it all highly suspicious."

"Are you telling me that this man, Yevgeny Primakov, is running a secret agency within the United Nations? Impossible."

"Why is it impossible?"

"If there was an agency within the UN, we would know about it."

"You mean you would know about it."

"Listen." Milo felt himself reddening. "For the last six years I've been running a desk that deals solely with Europe. If there was a new intelligence agency working the same beat, I'd figure it out pretty quickly. You can't hide that kind of stuff. Inexplicable events start to build up, little black holes that need filling. After a year or two, it becomes simple to put together, and there you have a new organization."

"But don't be so sure," said Morel, smiling. "Back in the seventies, this Primakov was running successful operations for the Soviets in Germany. He helped a network of Baader-Meinhof terrorists. He knows how to keep things quiet."

"Okay," said Milo, still not believing, but for reasons he couldn't share with Diane Morel. The same reasons he'd never shared with the Company, nor even with his wife. "Please. Tell me about Colonel Yi Lien."

"You seem to know everything already, Mr. Weaver. Why don't you tell me?"

So Milo did. "You met with him on weekends at his cottage. But you were working on him, weren't you? You might have slept with him-I suppose that was unavoidable-but he brought his laptop, so you could take what you liked from it. Am I right so far?"

Diane Morel didn't answer. She waited.

"We know all this because MI6 was watching the colonel. They're the ones who helped him when he had his heart attack; they also copied his laptop. That's how we learned he had some of our embassy documents, which he received at the cottage from a man named Herbert Williams, or Jan Klausner. We suspected that Williams received the documents from Angela, which is why we were watching her."

"Is that why Mr. Einner killed her?"

He shook his head. "You don't understand. Einner didn't kill her. He didn't want to kill her. We needed to see who she passed the information on to."