Olen Steinhauer - The Tourist

"I've got a trail that leads directly to you."

"Yes, a trail. But where's your bag of tricks? I thought that by the time you made it here you'd have videotapes and fingerprints and bank records. You can't even prove I was part of this, unless you're recording our conversation. You're not, are you?"

Milo shook his head.

"Very shoddy. Not that a confession in this situation would hold up in court." He paused. "If you can't even prove my guilt, how are you ever going to prove Fitzhugh's masterminding it? You think he's an amateur? His involvement was always verbal, and he never got anywhere near the action. He's never even met Roman Ugrimov- they wouldn't recognize each other if they were in the same room. How are you going to collect evidence against a man like that?"

It was a remarkable moment, Milo thought. Grainger had been forcibly retired, he was duct-taped to his chair and faced with the barrel of his own pistol, yet he still spoke as if he were in his Avenue of the Americas office, running a whole world of Tourists. "You're not giving the orders anymore, Tom."

Perhaps he, too, realized the ludicrousness of his position, because he sighed. "It's probably best I'm not in charge. See what a mess I've made already?"

Milo didn't answer.

"You know when it started, don't you? This thing with the Tiger. Just after you left Tourism. You'd just finished protecting that fascist Tweede Kamer representative from him. You'd stopped him, yes, but we all knew the man was good at his job, so this information was filed away for future use. Next thing we know-next day, really-you're in Venice, and in New York we get hit by terrorists. We gather the military and prepare to hit back in Afghanistan, but Fitzhugh and a few others-they knew where the wind would start blowing. They discussed options. Fitzhugh visited me right here, in this house. They were rebuilding our offices, and it was the one clean place to meet. He asked if we could use Tourists as part of our tactic. Sneak them into the Middle East and take out this Saudi or that Iranian. I told him we didn't train Tourists for that kind of assassination, and it would be best to go private and use someone like the Tiger." Grainger nodded. "Yes. I was the first one to say his name. Fitzhugh came back a week later with a counterproposal. Use a Tourist to track the Tiger and approach him as a client."

"Tripplehorn."

"Of course."

Milo imagined six years' worth of surgical strikes, killings he'd charted and been at pains to find a common thread among. A moderate Islamic figure in Germany, a French foreign minister, a British businessman. What, he'd always asked himself, unites these killings? He'd been stumped, falling back on the theory that nothing united them; they were simply jobs for different people. Sometimes, perhaps, they were, but whenever Tripplehorn, a.k.a. Herbert Williams, a.k.a. Jan Klausner, a.k.a. Stephen Lewis, approached the Tiger with a job, the underlying thread was always American foreign policy.

He imagined not only six years of assassinations, but also six years at his computer in the office, the efforts of all his Travel Agents, and the years of feigned help from this man in front of him. Six years of tracking a man that no one, in the end, wanted caught.

"But he came to me," Milo said suddenly. "The Tiger came to me because he had my file. That was you as well?"

"I passed it to Tripplehorn to hand over. The orders to inject him with HIV had come from above. There was no way around that. The only thing I could do was add a piece of information to the Tiger's knowledge. Fitzhugh didn't think the Tiger would know where he'd picked up the disease. I knew he was underestimating the guy. I knew-or at least I suspected-that a celibate, religious man would put it together. I hoped he would look for you, if only because your file was the last piece of information handed over by his killers."

"Everything went according to plan," Milo said, marveling at the way the old man's brain worked.

"Not everything, Milo. You. You were supposed to go on the run, but return with the evidence. I even gave you Einner for help. Where is he now?"

Milo cleared his throat. "I had to incapacitate him."

"Probably for the best. But you see what I'm getting at, right? I gave you all I could, but I guess I had too much faith in you."

"You should've been open with Angela, and with me. You didn't give anywhere near what you could have."

Grainger pursed his lips to stifle a yawn. "Maybe you're right. But if I'd told you everything from the beginning, what would you have done? I know you: You're not as patient as you used to be. You would have taken it straight to Fitzhugh; you would have strong-armed him. You wouldn't have tried to track down the evidence. You would have acted like a Tourist, cornered Fitzhugh and his band, and put them down. You wouldn't have taken the time to collect what's needed to put a stop to the whole operation. In short, you would have acted like the thug you are."

"But it's over," said Milo. "Your assassin is dead."

"You think they won't find another? Despite everything, the fact is that the technique works more often than it fails. There's a Cambodian boy based in Sri Lanka. He doesn't have a silly name yet, which is preferable. Jackson's down there as we speak, tracking him."

Milo finished his vodka, then got the bottle to refill both their glasses. "So what are you trying to convince me to do?"

"Really, Milo. You're smarter than this. With no evidence, what have you got? Just my word. And if they know where you are now, then they'll make sure I'm not able to tell you a thing."

"They don't know where I am."

"You better be sure of that. Because after they get rid of me, they'll make sure you can't tell anyone what I've told you."

A nerve in Milo's cheek began to spasm, so he rubbed it. It was anxiety, the realization that Grainger was right.

Then another thought came to him: Grainger was lying. The old man was cornered. He knew that Milo would take him back to the Avenue of the Americas. Grainger had perhaps even planned for this eventuality. As he had said, the intelligence game is all about storytelling. Grainger presented no real evidence either, just stories to fill the gaps between actual events.

Milo realized he hadn't been breathing. He inhaled. It was a hell of a story, the kind that only a veteran like Grainger could dream up. A part of him even still believed it-that's how good it was. He tipped Grainger's vodka into the waiting lips, then sat across from him.

Before he could speak, the telephone on the far table began to ring. Milo stared at Grainger. "Expecting someone?”

“What time is it?”

“Eleven."

"I haven't mixed with the villagers in a long time. Maybe Fitzhugh, checking on us."

Milo got up, the alcohol rushing to his head but not debilitating him, and turned off the lamp. In the darkness, the phone continued to ring-seven, now-and he stood beside the heavy drapes, peering into the nighttime darkness, toward the lake. He saw trees and the gravel road in the moonlight before a cloud slipped a little farther and obscured the scene. On the ninth ring the telephone quieted. Milo didn't know what he believed. "We're going."

"Please," Grainger said. "I'm exhausted. Fishing all day takes it out of you."

He turned back and saw Grainger's dark form slump, chin against the duct tape across his chest, breathing loudly. "You all right?"

The head raised. "Just tired. But really, if there's someone out there, it's the Company. I'd rather be executed in bed, out here, than be grilled for months in Manhattan, then shot in some dirty safe house."

Milo returned to the window. Lake, moonlight, and silence. If he hadn't been tracked here, there really was no hurry. Just his desperation to have all this finished. He let the curtains drop. "We'll leave in the morning. Early. Same bed, though."