Olen Steinhauer - The Tourist

When she got inside, Miguel, stretched on the sofa watching the History Channel, asked why she was looking so pleased with herself.

It was something Milo had once said about enemies. Though he seldom spoke of his history as a field agent, aphorisms sometimes slipped from his lips. They'd been watching an old movie on television where two enemy agents, who'd spent the first half of the film shooting at one another, sat at a cafe and talked quietly about all that had come before. "I don't get it," she'd said. "Why doesn't he shoot him?"

"Because it does no good now," he'd answered. "Killing him serves no purpose. When they don't have to be at each other's throats, spies chat if they can. You learn things that might be useful later on."

Less than an hour later, Rodger knocked on the door. Hanna answered it, blinked as he took off his glasses, and said, "Is that my cup?"

He admitted it was and handed it over as Tina appeared, calling, "Might as well come in, Rodger."

"I don't think that's such a-"

"You're supposed to make sure I don't run off, right?"

He cleared his throat. "Well, it's not exactly that. We're just watching out for you."

Hanna said, "What?"

"That's rich," Tina said, then smiled. "I'm joking, Rodger. Please. It's hot out there."

This was how they began to talk. Tina poured him another lemonade, and they sat at the kitchen table while her parents left them alone. It wasn't an interrogation, really. She just admitted she knew nothing about what was going on, and deserved to know something. It wasn't Rodger's place to share anything, though, and he remained hesitant, even as he accepted his third lemonade.

"I know what she thinks," Tina told him. "Your boss, Janet Simmons. She told me my husband is a killer. I mean, does that make any sense to you? Why would he kill one of his oldest friends?" She shook her head. "It makes no sense to you either, does it?"

He shrugged, as if it were all too complicated for a simple man like him. "Listen," he said finally. "This doesn't have to be some big conflict. Special Agent Simmons is good at her job; she's got years of experience. From the way she tells it, the evidence is strong. And then he fled." He raised his hands, palms out. "That's all I know, okay?"

That really was all he knew-she could see it in his naive face. She felt as if she were in Starbucks, angry with the cashier, but needing to yell at some absent manager.

What, really, could she do? Simply wait in the hope that Milo would call again? She'd been unfair during the last call, and had spent the whole week regretting it. Where was he? Was he even alive? Christ, she knew nothing.

Then, Tuesday night, it had happened. The message. It came to her Columbia account, a bulk-e-mail sent to twenty other names to hide the fact that it was only for her. She knew this because the other addresses had each been misspelled, just slightly. The return address was janestuk@yahoo.com . It read:

FW: Texas BBQ Party!

Dear Friends,

To celebrate Drew's 19th birthday you're all invited to enjoy some REAL Texas BBQ in Loretta's back yard at 6 PM on Thursday, July 19. It's gonna be a blast!

– Jane & Stu Kowalski

She and Milo knew the Kowalskis from Stephanie's school, but their son, Drew, was only seven. She clicked reply and said she was sorry, but she couldn't make it, she was in Austin for a few days. She'd bring back some "Real Texas BBQ sauce" as a present.

Now, it was five o'clock on Thursday. Time to go. Stephanie was with Hanna, playing Chutes and Ladders, while Miguel was again in front of the television, watching financial news. She gathered his keys and shook them. "Can I take the Lincoln? Want to get some ice cream."

He took his eyes off the television and frowned. "Want company?"

She shook her head, gave him a peck on the cheek, then told Stephanie to be good; she'd be back in a sec. Stephanie was winning her game, and had no desire to leave it. On her way out, Tina left her cell phone on the table beside the front door-she'd seen enough television to know satellites could track her that way in a matter of seconds. Then she took two jackets from the wall hook and folded them so they looked like laundry.

The heat blasted her when she stepped outside, and she paused, clutching the jackets. She crossed to the paved driveway and the Lincoln Town Car her father replaced each year with a fresh one. As she fooled with the lock, she noticed the red sedan in front of the Sheffields' bi-level. Rodger pretended not to be looking at her, but she noticed him leaning forward to start up his car.

Damn.

She stayed calm. She put the jackets on the passenger seat, then drove slowly down the lane, up the next right, and out to the highway that led into town, the red sedan always in her rearview.

She pulled into a plaza off the highway and parked in front of a coin-operated Laundromat. The sedan parked two rows back. She went inside, where the warmth of the machines fought the limpid air-conditioning, and put the jackets in a washer but didn't insert any coins. The few other Thursday afternoon customers didn't seem to notice. She took an empty seat not far from the front windows and watched the parking lot.

It took him a while, but she knew he would have to do something. He couldn't see inside, and with the heat he had to be getting thirsty. Or maybe he just had to pee. It took forty minutes. He got out of his car in his dark sunglasses and trotted over to the 7-Eleven beside the Laundromat.

Go.

She ran out, leaving the jackets behind, ignoring the sweltering heat, dove into the Town Car, and screeched out of the parking space, nearly hitting a bicyclist. Instead of heading to the highway, she turned right onto a back road and parked behind the plaza. Then she got out, pulse racing, and ran around the high, graffitied wall to stand at the corner and watch the lot.

The Laundromat and 7-Eleven were on the far side of the plaza, but she could still spot Rodger in his sunglasses, clutching a redand-white Big Gulp as he stepped outside. He stopped, looked around (she pulled her head back), and ran to his car. He didn't drive away immediately, and she suspected he was calling in his failure and asking for orders. That's how these people were. They always wanted orders.

Then the sedan took the same path as Tina had, but turned left onto the highway. He crossed the median and headed back toward her parents' house.

She was overcome by exhilaration. Tina Weaver had thwarted the Department of Homeland Security. Not many people could say that.

She started the car, but waited until her shaking hands had calmed. The exhilaration didn't disappear, but it mixed with a resurgence of fear. What if they decided to do something to her parents? Or Stephanie? That was ludicrous, of course, because she only wanted to lose them for a short time. But maybe they'd figured out that e-mail; maybe they knew exactly what she was doing, and would kidnap her family to manipulate her.

Did they even do that? Television was no help on this point.

She continued down the back roads, past small, ramshackle houses lacking even brown grass. It had been a dry summer here, and some of these chain-linked yards looked like miniature dust bowls. She emerged onto a paved road and drove north on 183 toward Briggs.

At a bend in the highway, in a bare dirt clearing, sat a broad, screened-in building below the sign loretta's kitchen. She had come here as a child, and when she married she brought Milo. "Real

Texas barbecue," she'd told him. They'd sometimes sneak out here, away from her parents, to eat brisket and biscuits with gravy and talk over their life plans. It was the location of many of their fantasies, where they felt they could know with reasonable certainly what university Stephanie would go to, where they would retire to when they won the lottery, and, before a doctor gave them the difficult news that Milo was sterile, the name and character of their next child, a boy.