Olen Steinhauer - The Nearest Exit

There was a quick shadow over the spy hole, and a man’s voice said, “We’re not buying anything.”

“The Word of God is free,” Milo said.

There was an awkward pause.

“Let me in,” Milo said. “It’s Weaver.”

Another pause; then the man unlocked the door and opened it a crack. He had dark eyes. “Riverrun, past Eve,” he said.

“And Adam’s,” Milo answered. “Come on.”

The Tourist at the door introduced himself as Zachary Klein. He was a big man who gave off the air of a dunce, though no Tourist is a dunce. The other was a distractingly attractive black woman named Leticia Jones who didn’t rise from the cot as she offered a hand. She had huge eyes and a mirthless smile. “You going to brief us, or what? If I have to spend another night with this lout you’ll have to call an ambulance.”

“Drummond hasn’t told you anything?”

“He said to wait for you,” Klein told him.

Milo began to unpack his groceries, then saw that the refrigerator and cabinets were already full. “You guys went out?”

“I told her not to,” said Klein.

“I’m not eating canned food,” said Jones. “That’s just not what I do.”

“See what I’ve had to deal with?” said Klein.

“This cracker will eat anything.”

Milo almost started to laugh. Despite his easy camaraderie with James Einner, it was a general rule that Tourists should work alone. He’d even tried to explain it in the Black Book, writing, It’s part of the essential nature of Tourism that Tourists cannot abide one another. In the extremely rare instance that two Tourists strike up a friendship, it’s over in two weeks, max.

We are taught, and we learn through experience, that everything and everyone is a potential hazard. Children, butchers, seamstresses, bank managers and particularly other intelligence agents. We’re taught this because it’s true. The better the intelligence agent, the bigger the threat. So what happens when two Tourists-two of the most devious models of intelligence agent the world has seen-are in the same room? Paranoia ensues, and the walls go wet with blood.

Happily, though, the walls were still clean, and both Tourists were still breathing. The only way to defuse the situation was to give them a reason to be here, so he took them to the files both of them had already no doubt memorized. “One of these is a Chinese mole.”

“Yeah,” said Jones. “It’s Chan.”

“Look who’s the racist,” said Klein.

“Shut up.”

“Both of you shut up, okay?”

They stared at Milo.

“Good,” he said. “Now can you please break into these people’s homes and find out what’s not listed in these files? They have to be done by Monday morning. And please don’t leave a mess. If the mole thinks we’re tossing his apartment, he’s going to walk before we’ve identified him.”

“What exactly are we looking for?” asked Klein.

“Use your imagination.”

As if they’d been replaced with new people, Klein and Jones were suddenly professional and efficient. That was how Tourists worked-with a job in front of them, they were swift and effective; lacking any work, they were destructive and wasteful, many turning into prima donnas. In this case, Klein and Jones began with a map of the Washington, D.C., area, charting a path from Montgomery County down to Charles County. Despite their animosity, they decided to work together on each home in order to move more quickly. By eight, they had settled on the details and had left the safe house to take separate trains to D.C., and Milo was alone again. He called home and chatted with Stephanie, and then Tina, who asked if he didn’t want to just come over for a few hours. She said that he was missed. It was intoxicating stuff, and the lure of their shared bed, just a subway ride away, was incredibly tempting.

Afterward, he called Drummond.

“Your friends are gone now. They should be done by Monday.”

“But they’ll be in touch in the meantime?”

“They’ve got my number.”

“Let me know if the skies open up for you at any point.”

“Are you still on board, Alan?”

“Ask me again after you’ve collected your information. Maybe I won’t need to do a thing.”

“Don’t bet on it.”

“I’m not betting on anything anymore.”

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Milo’s phone woke him at five in the morning. Klein and Jones had gotten to work quickly, and it was Jones who called in their first report. Milo looked for a pen and paper while she rattled off her information. “William Howington. Twenty-eight, white male-”

“Don’t tell me what I already know,” Milo cut in.

“The man’s got a serious cocaine habit going on. Plus a bucket of ecstasy-looks like he uses them as breath mints.”

Drugs were a compromising habit, but enough to make someone spy for a foreign power? “What else?”

“He’s writing a novel. Roman à clef, if I understand the opening. Who do you think Representative Albert Sirwin could be?”

“That’s interesting, but not what we’re looking for.”

“Too bad,” said Jones. “Six more to go.”

They called in Raymond Salamon’s search by noon Sunday, and Susan Jackson’s by three. Salamon’s apartment was clean-“too clean,” Klein suggested-while Jackson’s was stuffed with Chinese artifacts. She was the one who had studied Chinese culture, had visited Beijing, and even been kicked out of China for her demonstrations in support of landless farmers. There were letters and postcards in Mandarin stacked on her desk, and Leticia Jones-who, it turned out, was fluent-went through them quickly, checking for obvious signs of clandestine communication. Of course, it’s the nature of clandestine communication that it’s not obvious, so she settled on taking snapshots of a representative selection for later perusal. From photos and postcards, they did learn of a lover-Feng Liang, a Beijing University student who had been arrested with her. There were letters from him and aborted drafts to him, and on her computer they found an entire romantic history in the form of e-mails.

Maximilian Grzybowski and Derek Abbott were roommates, sharing a loft in Georgetown. Klein and Jones waited for them to head out for their Sunday night thrills and spent a couple of hours perusing an extensive DVD collection of pornography and action thrillers, then worked their way through the laptops. Neither kept any sensitive information, though Grzybowski did have a hidden folder that, once Klein figured out the password, turned out to be full of more pornography-gay pornography. A decade or two ago, the threat of this becoming public might have been reason enough to spill classified secrets, but no longer.

After one on Monday morning, they made it to Jane Chan’s apartment-curiously empty-and discovered what they were half-expecting to find, extensive mementos of Hong Kong. Family pictures, letters and e-mails, and packages of gifts she’d received from her uncles, aunts, and cousins. Besides Susan Jackson’s love affair, it was the most damning material they had come across. Both women, so far, seemed the most open to coercion.

They also discovered that Jane Chan was carrying on an affair with the last person on their list, David Pearson, the legislative director Milo had met in Drummond’s office with Max Grzybowski. She had photographs of the two of them together, sometimes in various stages of undress, dated as far back as December. Jones offered her assessment. “If I was a mole, I’d certainly start screwing someone senior to me. Best way to get what you’re not supposed to have.”

It was a good point, and when they went over to Pearson’s apartment in Alexandria they found that Chan was sharing his bed. Jones left to collect Starbucks coffees for herself and Klein, and when, at seven, Pearson and Chan left looking like a perfect couple and climbed into Pearson’s Mazda to head to work, they moved in.