Olen Steinhauer - The Nearest Exit

“When I was at Erika Schwartz’s house. They took apart my phone, but you figured out where I was and got to her through Theodor Wartmüller. How?”

Drummond shrugged. “I guess I can share-you’ve got a tracker in your left shoulder.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You do,” he insisted. “Since October all Tourists have one. Phone trackers are too easy to bust, or lose. You got yours in training, one of the hundred immunization shots.”

“No one told me?”

“We don’t tell anyone.”

Milo began to reflect on this fact, that every move he’d made had been easily tracked by Drummond on his computer. “Wait. That means you knew where I was after I kidnapped Adriana. You knew I didn’t take her body out into the countryside.”

Drummond stared back at him but said nothing. There was a kind of sadness in his face.

“You didn’t expect me to kill her, did you?”

Finally, Drummond said, “Don’t give yourself a headache. No, I didn’t want her dead, but we had to get rid of her. That’s why I chose you, the only Tourist with a child. I knew that, given a whole week, you’d find some other solution.”

“You could have told me that.”

“Maybe, but I wanted you to hide it from me. If I couldn’t figure it out, then no one else could, either.”

Milo couldn’t speak.

“And you came through-almost. What really went wrong?”

“I overestimated my friends. Then you had her killed anyway.”

“You were her last chance.”

Silence fell between them, and Milo hit the elevator button again. He didn’t know if he believed any of this, or if he just didn’t want to.

“You’re not really quitting, are you?”

“You’ll get my resignation letter by to night.”

“Jesus, Weaver. I need you here.”

The elevator opened, and Milo stepped inside. There was a pleading quality to Drummond’s voice that worried him, but he’d been through this so many times in his head that it was as if the resignation had already been filed. There were so many arguments he could make, but only one mattered: “We set up the girl. Then we killed her.”

“And because of that, we now have an open invitation at BND headquarters. They built an overpriced meeting room-Conference Room S-solely for meetings with us. After a year it’s finally being used. That’s no small thing.”

“Yet not big enough.”

Milo watched the despair grow on Drummond’s face as the doors slid shut. Beyond, one of the senator’s aides-Dave Pearson-was standing at the blinds, watching them.

By the time he was out on the street again, having nodded to the doormen and winked at Gloria, he felt something like freedom. Not freedom exactly, because he knew he would have to work to make it safely through the extensive exit interviews, but he was certainly lighter. It was the release from obligation, a rare and wonderful feeling.

He wanted to call Tina, and even stopped at a pay phone, but changed his mind. Better to go to her later, when he knew he could stay. He stuck a square of Nicorette into his mouth.

Stout was mostly empty, partly because the after-work revelers had moved farther uptown, partly because most of its remaining clientele hadn’t gotten out of work yet. He settled at the extremely long, woody bar and ordered a vodka martini. It was delicious, and he thought over all the vodka martinis he’d had over the last three months, in Moscow, Paris, Podgorica, London, Zürich, Budapest, Berlin, Rome…

While the drink’s name made most people think of Italy, the only place he’d ever had a really good one-big, ice cold, and very strong-was in Manhattan. Though Stout’s version wasn’t nearly as good as, say, the Underbar of the W Hotel on Union Square, it was still leagues ahead of any Florentine café’s, and he gave the bartender-a blonde with a slight harelip-earnest thanks.

The other customers-five in all-were scattered at the tables behind him. One woman with a man, a pair of men, and a man on his own. The male pair, he decided, was Irwin’s contingent, and he was proved right when one of them made a call from his cell, hung up, and seconds later Irwin walked in alone. He went straight to the bar without looking around, settled next to Milo, and summoned the bartender with a snap of his fingers. She hid her annoyance admirably and delivered his Scotch on the rocks with a smile, then moved to the far end of the bar.

“So, Weaver,” Irwin said after taking his first sip. The way he said the name made Milo think of a high school principal beginning yet another session with the class troublemaker. “You do, I believe, know me?”

“I don’t think we’ve ever met, sir.”

“Of me, I should have said. You know of me.”

“I think all politically aware Americans know of you, sir.”

Irwin swirled his drink. “September twenty-eighth, October fifteenth, January seventh. Those dates ring any bells?”

“Afraid not.”

“Those are three dates you accessed files related to me personally. Phone records, my home addresses, details on my foreign trips. You,” he said, wagging a finger, then lowered it and began again. “You seem very interested in me, Milo.”

“I got bored, Nathan.”

The senator grinned.

“No, really,” Milo insisted. “We both know why I should be interested in you. You had two of my friends killed. You tried to kill me. I’m not one to hold grudges, but that’s a lot to bear. Then you had me followed. How is Raleigh, by the way?”

“Raleigh?”

“The shadow I nearly killed in Budapest.”

Irwin’s face went slack, and he wiped at the corners of his mouth, muttering, “So that’s why Cy’s not returning my calls,” and took another drink. “I made a mistake last year. I didn’t know Terence Fitzhugh would start doing things in my name.”

Terence Fitzhugh had been Irwin’s liaison with Tourism, his hand in the department. He, too, was dead. “I’ve seen the call records,” said Milo.

“Oh. Right.” Irwin considered that, then frowned, realizing his lie had been untenable. “And you’re still bored?”

“I’m tired of blaming you. I’m tired of my own anger. I’m also sick of politicians who think they’re patriots.”

“You think I’m a patriot?” The idea seemed to please him. “I think you believe you’re a patriot.”

“And you? Are you a patriot, Milo?”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

That seemed to kill the conversation. Both worked on their drinks and glanced at the bartender, who finally wandered over and had to be sent away again. Finally, Irwin said, “I actually liked Grainger. He was a likable guy.”

“He was an excellent guy. There was a lot of blood when he died. I suppose you never looked at the pictures.”

“I took a glance.”

“Just to be sure?”

Irwin shrugged.

“Did you know Angela Yates?”

“Never met her.”

“She was an excellent woman. A fantastic investigator.”

“A lesbian, right?”

“Yes, Nathan. A lesbian.”

Milo was doing it again, measuring distances. Geography, geometry, and time. How long would it take him to reach out, break the senator’s neck, and get away before one of the two men at the table could pull a gun and stop him? He doubted he could do much more than bruise the senator’s windpipe before he was stopped cold. That would have been enough for his mother, he suspected.

No, the math didn’t add up, but it was comforting all the same.

Irwin said, “You know, politics is a funny thing. At first glance, there’s something glamorous about it. Then you look harder, and you start to think that behind all the glamour, all there really is is a world of spreadsheets. budgets and polls and itemized bills. That’s true enough, but the real key to any political success is the ability to read people. If you can read another politician’s real thoughts, then you’ve got something. I’m pretty good at reading politicians. People like you-simple citizens-they’re a cinch. The fact is, you’re not so good a Tourist that I can’t see through you. You’re not done with me at all.”