Olen Steinhauer - The Tourist

All those T's-Tom, Terri, Tina, and Texas. He grinned, remembering something Tina had once said about Patrick and Paula in Paris.

For a long time, Tina accompanied Terri to her chemo sessions. She became the older woman's confidante. Then, when the cancer worsened, and even the most optimistic knew this was going to be a losing battle, Terri shifted gears. She withdrew and ended phone calls in midsentence. She didn't want Tina to suffer through the end with her.

Milo parked under the pines along Brady Drive, not far from the shore, but a good half mile from Grainger's house, hooked his knapsack over his shoulder, and began to walk. Pickup trucks and Fords rolled past, and sometimes a driver gave a toot on the horn and a wave. Milo smiled and waved back. Once he was close enough, he climbed off the road and worked his way through the foliage toward the lake.

Grainger had picked it up in the seventies from an estate sale. It was from the thirties, built in a Teddy Roosevelt-inspired cabin style. According to Grainger, during the Depression the industrialist who owned it had moved here from Manhattan, with his wife and servants, in order to save money.

The Graingers had let the servants' quarters collect spiders and hedgehogs-the two floors and three bedrooms of the main house were enough to keep up.

He spent forty more minutes in the woods, circling the house to see it from various angles and check the trees for surveillance. Once he was convinced the woods were empty, he approached the house. On the far side, where the living room windows looked out on Grainger's parked Mercedes and the small pier, he saw that Grainger's rowboat was gone.

The house was unlocked, so Milo went inside and looked around. It was empty. He climbed the stairs by the door, passing the bedroom and heading for Grainger's office. It was a small room, with a single large window that looked over Lake Hopatcong.

It was the time of day photographers call the magic hour, when the light of the setting sun refracts just so, and faces seem to glow in the way pregnant women are said to glow. The lake glowed, and so did the small form in its midpoint: Tom Grainger, fishing.

He went through desk drawers until he reached the locked one at the bottom, which he had to force open with a screwdriver from another drawer. During those old weekends, he'd seen the contents of this drawer: the German Luger Grainger claimed had been taken from a German soldier during the Battle of the Bulge, and a box of 9mm ammunition. He checked the breech, then loaded the magazine.

If Grainger was surprised to see him, he hid it well. He was tying the boat to the pilings when Milo stepped out from behind a tree, the pistol hanging by his hip. "Catch anything?"

Grainger, breathing heavily, didn't bother looking up from the rope. "Never do. Not in the last years, at least. I've got a suspicion some jackass dumped something in the lake and killed them all." He straightened, finally looking at Milo. "On the other hand, I've caught nothing since Terri died. So maybe it's just me." He noticed the Luger and frowned. "You didn't break my desk to get to that, did you?"

"Afraid so."

Grainger shook his head. "The key was in the top drawer.”

“Sorry."

"Oh well." He started to take the fishing pole and lures from the boat, then looked up at the clear sky. "I'll leave them. It's not going to rain."

"Good idea." Milo waved the gun. "Let's go."

Protest-that's what was missing here. Grainger wasn't protesting anything beyond the destruction of his desk. He had known that Milo would come. In fact, Milo suspected the old man had been waiting for him, day after day, fishing to fill his absent hours.

They found places in the living room. First, Grainger went to the liquor cabinet, which was stocked with a dozen bottles, and picked out a ten-year-old scotch. He poured it into a collins glass, replaced the bottle, and filled another with Finlandia vodka. He gave the vodka to Milo, then took the narrow, leather-padded chair, while Milo sat on the cushioned sofa. Between them was a low coffee table, and against the wall sat an antique radio, from the days when the house was first built. Grainger said, "So. I see you made it back in one piece."

"I did."

"And you came to see me. Am I your first stop?”

“You are."

"Good." Grainger sipped his scotch. "Tell me. What evidence have you collected?"

Milo took a breath. He knew the answers lay with this man, but the whole trip here he hadn't actually formulated how he was going to extract them. He had no method at his disposal, because the methods he knew didn't take into account godfathers and old friends and Company men who knew all the methods by heart. He said, "I've figured out that I didn't need to collect anything for my defense, Tom. You tricked me into running.”

“I just tried to help you out."

Milo felt the urge to shout-nothing in particular, just whatever nonsense touched his lips when his mouth opened. It wasn't only that Grainger was his friend and the closest thing to family Milo had in his daily life; it was this: the comfortable chairs, the living room stocked with old-world knickknacks, and the two of them nursing drinks from crystal glasses.

Milo put his vodka on the coffee table and went to the kitchen.

"The evidence," Grainger called.

Instead of answering, Milo returned with a thick roll of duct tape.

Grainger's smile faded. "For Christ's sake, Milo. Can't we just have a conversation?"

Milo pulled off a length with a loud grinding sound. "No, Tom. We can't."

Grainger knew better than to fight back as Milo attached the end to the back of his chair, then pulled the roll around his body five times, securing the old man to the chair from his shoulders to his elbows. He ripped off the end with his teeth and pressed it flat against the back of the chair. Then he stepped back, checking his handiwork, and returned to the sofa.

"You're going to have to feed me my scotch," said Grainger.

"I know."

"Stick and carrot?"

"Bait and switch," Milo suggested, then blinked. He could hardly make out Grainger's face. It was the sun. When he wasn't looking, the sun had disappeared behind the mountains.

"So tell me," Grainger said as Milo turned on a floor lamp, "what evidence have you collected? Not suppositions, mind you. Not hearsay. Evidence."

Milo returned to the sofa. "You set me up, Tom. You had me flee from Disney World when I didn't have to run. I was under suspicion, but that was all. Right?"

Grainger, trying without success to shift under his bonds, nodded.

"It was you all along. You passed money to Roman Ugrimov, who then passed it to the Tiger. You controlled Tripplehorn, who ran the Tiger. That was why you hid the Tiger's Tourism file from me for so long. It had nothing to do with Fitzhugh recruiting him."

"Yes," Grainger admitted after a moment. "I hid the file from you for those reasons, but I showed it to you later because Terence Fitzhugh recruited him."

"Let's not get off track. You ran the Tiger. Angela, like me, was hunting for the Tiger. So you had her killed. That was another Tripplehorn job."

"Yes."

"Colonel Yi Lien had nothing to do with anything. You just placed Tripplehorn in a few strategic spots and let the cameras do the work."

Almost reluctantly, Grainger said, "MI6-well, I made that up, didn't I?"

"So, it follows that you ordered the assassination of Mullah Salih Ahmad in the Sudan."

"Yes." Since Milo didn't seem to want to follow it up immediately, he repeated the word he'd used earlier: "Evidence? You do have some evidence behind all this, don't you?"

Milo wasn't sure if he should answer. To admit there was no real physical evidence might make the man clam up. Still, Grainger was adept enough to see through his lie, and would want to know precisely what the evidence was.