Читать книгу The Tourist - Olen Steinhauer - Страница 17
ОглавлениеWhen Milo returned to the cell, Samuel Roth sat up as if he’d been waiting for this chat, a sudden wellspring of energy at his disposal. “Hello again,” he said once the door had locked.
“Who showed you my file?”
“A friend. An ex-friend.” Roth paused. “Okay, my worst enemy. He’s seriously bad news.”
“Someone I know?”
“I don’t even know him. I never met him. Just his intermediary.”
“So he’s a client.”
Roth smiled, his dry lips cracking. “Exactly. He gave me some paperwork on you. A gift, he said, for some trouble he’d put me through. He said that you were the one who ruined the Amsterdam job. He also said you were running my case. That, of course, is why I’m here.”
“You’re here,” Milo said, reaching the center of the cell, “because you beat up a woman and thought she wouldn’t pay you back for it.”
“Is that what you really think?”
Milo didn’t answer—they both knew it was an unlikely scenario.
“I’m here,” Roth said, waving at the concrete walls, “because I wanted to talk to Milo Weaver, once known as Charles Alexander. Only you. You’re the only Company man who ever actually stopped me. You’ve got my respect.”
“In Amsterdam.”
“Yes.”
“That’s funny.”
“Is it?”
“Six years ago in Amsterdam, I was high on amphetamines. Completely strung out. I didn’t know half of what I was doing.”
Roth stared at him, then blinked. “Really?”
“I was suicidal. I tried to walk into your line of fire, just to finish myself off.”
“Well,” said Roth, considering the news. “Either I was never as good as I thought, or you’re so good you could beat me blind and drunk. So … it stands. You have even more of my respect now. And that’s a rare and wonderful thing.”
“You wanted to talk to me. Why not pick up a phone?”
The assassin rocked his head from side to side. “That, as you know, is unverifiable. I would’ve been handed to some clerk for an hour, answering questions. If he didn’t hang up on me, he would’ve called Tom—Tom Grainger, right?—and then the whole department would be involved. No. I only wanted you.”
“Still, there are easier ways. Cheaper ways.”
“Money doesn’t mean anything anymore,” Roth said patiently. “Besides, it was fun. I had to give one last chase. Not so difficult a chase that you’d lose me, but not so easy that the FBI or Homeland Security would stumble across me when I arrived in Dallas. No, I had to set up a trail outside the country that you—because you’ve been responsible for my case these last years—would be watching. Then I had to lead you around this enormous country. I’d hoped to make it all the way to Washington, or even to your home in Brooklyn, but it wasn’t to be. A lot of things weren’t to be. I wanted to go further. I wanted to really make you work.”
“Why?”
“If I had the time,” Roth explained, “I’d be elusive with you, because it’s a known fact that no decent intelligence operative believes anything he’s told. Each agent needs to beat it out of his subject, or, better yet, discover it on his own, without the subject ever realizing he’s slipped up. But, sadly, there’s no time. It has to be little Blackdale, and it has to be direct, because I won’t be around by tomorrow.”
“Going somewhere?”
Again, that smile.
Milo wasn’t ready to believe this. It was pride, of course, balking against the idea that someone had for the last three days been leading him by the nose. “And Kathy Hendrickson?”
“She only knows that I paid her well for her performance. Yes—and for her bruises. She doesn’t know why. Really, she knows nothing,” he said, then gasped his way into a retching cough. Once it passed, he looked at his hand. “Oh.” He showed his blood-speckled palm to Milo. “Faster than I’d hoped.”
“What is?”
“My death.”
Milo stared at the Tiger’s face, at what he’d wanted to believe were the symptoms of a difficult run through the southern states. Bloodshot eyes, fatigue, and the skin itself. That yellow pallor wasn’t from the fluorescents. “Diagnosis?”
“AIDS.”
“I see.”
The lack of sympathy didn’t faze Roth. “I talked to some doctors in Switzerland—the Hirslanden Clinic, Zürich. You can check on that if you like. Look up Hamad al-Abari. Those mountain Germans are smart. Some new procedure they’ve got to examine the rate of growth through the T-cell count—something like that. They can figure out when the HIV virus got in me. Five months ago, it turns out. February. That places me in Milan.”
“What were you doing in Milan?”
“I met my contact. The intermediary I mentioned before. He goes by the name Jan Klausner, but he can’t speak decent German or Czech. From his accent, he might be Dutch. Midforties. His red beard is the only real thing about him.”
Milo remembered that file photo of Fabio Lanzetti—Milan, the Corso Sempione, with a bearded man. “We’ve got a picture of you two together.”
“Good start.”
“He gave you a job?”
“He’s been feeding me jobs for years. Actually, the first one came six years ago, not long after Amsterdam. A surprise. I worried my failure there had made the rounds, that work would dry up. But then Jan showed up. The work was irregular—one or two a year—but it paid well. His last order was for January. A job in Khartoum. Mullah Salih Ahmad.”
Milo thought back. The Sudan. January.
In January, a popular radical cleric known for inflammatory pro-al-Qaeda speeches, Mullah Salih Ahmad, had disappeared. Two days later, his garroted corpse was found in his own backyard. It had been international news for about five minutes, quickly overcome by the continuing civil war in the western Darfur region, but in the Sudan it stayed brutally current, and the blame was placed on the president, Omar al-Bashir, who seldom let critics remain in the limelight, or out of jail. Demonstrations followed, met by battle-gear police with guns. In the last month, more than forty had been killed in riots.
“Who hired you?”
The energy seemed to go out of Roth, and he stared, unfocused, past his interrogator. Milo didn’t bother breaking the trance, though he imagined SUVs full of Homeland Security barreling down the dusty Tennessee roads toward them.
Finally, Roth shook his head. “Sorry. The doctors call it AIDS dementia. I lose track of stuff, forget things. Can hardly walk.” With effort, he swallowed. “Where were we?”
“Mullah Salih Ahmad. Who hired you to kill him?”
“Ah, yes!” Through a twitch of pain, Roth seemed pleased that he could still find that memory. “Well, I didn’t know, did I? I have this contact, Jan Klausner, maybe Dutch, a red beard,” he said, unaware of his repetition. “He tells me nothing about who’s hiring him. He just pays the money, and that’s all right by me. But then there was the Ahmad job, and Jan’s master cheated me on the money. Only paid two-thirds. Klausner says it’s because I didn’t follow the instructions, which were to brand the body with some Chinese pictograms.”
“Chinese?” Milo cut in. “Why Chinese?”
“Good question, but no one tells me anything. Klausner just asks why I didn’t do this. After all, I did have a metalworker make the brands. Sadly, though, the Sudan is not overflowing with expert machinists, and what I got turned out to be made of aluminum. Can you imagine? When I heated them up, the pictograms just melted.” He coughed again, as if his body weren’t built for so many words at a time. “No Chinese—that was Klausner’s excuse for his master coming up short.” Another cough.
Milo reached into his jacket and took out a small flask. “Vodka.”
“Thanks.” The assassin took a long swig, which only made him cough more blood across his prison oranges, but he didn’t let go of the flask. He raised a finger until the coughs had trickled away, then said, “I better get it out quick, no?”
“What did the pictograms say?”
“Something like: As promised, the end. Weird, huh?”
Milo nodded.
“I could have let it go, and I considered that. But that’s bad business. If people find out I let one customer cheat me, then …” He wiped his bloodstained lips. “You understand.”
“Of course.”
Roth coughed again, less wretched this time. “Anyway, I thought for obvious reasons that it was the Chinese. They’ve invested billions into that country for oil; they supply the government with guns. They’d want to protect their investment. But then … yes. I saw the newspapers. Everyone believed the president had it done. He’d been harassing Ahmad for years. So I had it, right? There was Jan Klausner’s master, at least for this job.” He blinked a few times, and Milo feared he’d drift off again, but then he was back. “I’m an impulsive worker. In other men that spells defeat, but somewhere along the way I made it work for me. Half-second decisions are part of the job, don’t you think?”
Milo didn’t dispute the point.
“President al-Bashir, it turned out, was on a diplomatic trip to Cairo. So, impulsively, I flew there. Fancy villa, all the security out. But I’m the Tiger, right? I figure a way in. All the way in. I find him in his bedroom—alone, luckily. And I put the question to him: Omar, why are you stiffing me? But listen to me, Milo Weaver. After we’ve gone through about twenty minutes’ rigmarole, I realize he doesn’t know anything about this. Did he want Ahmad dead? Sure. The man was a pain in his ass. But did he actually order the killing?” Roth shook his head. “Sadly, no. So, like the wind, I’m gone.”
He took a sip of Milo’s vodka, letting it sit on his tongue before easing it down his throat. He looked at the flask. “Rus sian?”
“Swedish.”
“It’s nice.”
Again, Milo waited.
After another medicinal sip, Roth said, “I thought it through again and decided to search for Jan Klausner instead. I did some research—I know people, you see. People who can help. Turns out that Jan Klausner is registered in Paris, but under the name Herbert Williams, American. I went to his address, which is of course fake, but this, I believe, is where I took my wrong turn. I must have been spotted. A week later, Jan—or Herbert—he contacted me. It’s February by then. He asked me to come to Milan again to collect the rest of my money. His master had realized the error of his ways.”
“So you went,” said Milo, interested despite himself.
“Money is money. Or, it used to be.” That grin, weary now. “It went smoothly. We met in a café—February fourteenth—and he handed me a shopping bag full of euros. He also handed me, as an apology, a file on Milo Weaver, once known as Charles Alexander. Your nemesis, he tells me. This man has been after you for half a decade.” Roth frowned. “Why would he do that, Milo? Why would he give me your file? Any idea?”
“I have no idea.”
Roth bobbed his eyebrows at this mystery. “Only later, in Switzerland, once they told me the approximate time I got infected, did I remember what happened. You see, there were metal chairs at that café. Aluminum wire. Very pretty, but at some point during our coffee, I felt a little pinch from the chair. Here.” He touched the underside of his right thigh. “Poked through my pants, right into my leg. I thought it was just a lousy factory job, a little sliver of metal. It drew blood. Klausner,” he said, shaking his head at the memory, almost amused, “he got the waitress over and started bawling her out. He said his friend—meaning me—would sue them. Of course, the waitress was pretty—all Milano waitresses are—and I had to calm things down.”
“That’s how you think you got it?”
Roth shrugged with some effort. “How else? I’m sure you know from your file that I’m celibate and that I don’t shoot drugs.”
Milo considered not replying, but finally admitted, “The file on you is pretty thin.”
“Oh!” That seemed to please the assassin.
All this time, Milo had remained standing in the center of the room. By now, the position felt awkward, so he settled on the foot of the cot, by Roth’s feet. On the assassin’s upper lip a thin trail of snot glimmered. “Who do you think Klausner’s master is?”
Roth stared at him, thinking it over. “It’s hard to know. The jobs I got from him, they were inconsistent, just like your personal history. I’d always wondered this—does Mr. Klausner-Williams represent one group, or many groups? I’ve gone back and forth, finally deciding that he represents one group.” He paused, perhaps for dramatic effect. “The global Islamic jihad.”
Milo opened his mouth, then shut it. Then: “Does this bother you?”
“I’m an artisan, Milo. The only thing that concerns me is the feasibility of the job.”
“So, terrorists paid you to get rid of Mullah Salih Ahmad, one of their own. That’s what you’re saying?”
Roth nodded. “Public killings and private killings serve different purposes. You of all people know that. You don’t think al-Qaeda’s only technique is to pack little boys with bombs and send them off to a heaven of virgins, do you? No. And the Sudan—at first, I couldn’t see it either. Then I started watching. Who’s winning now? Ignore Darfur for the moment. I’m talking about the capital. Khartoum. The Muslim extremist insurgency, that’s who’s winning. They have public support like never before. Ahmad’s killing was about the best gift those bastards ever got, and with a Chinese brand on his body it would’ve been even better—blame it on the Chinese investors who prop up the president.” He shook his head. “They’ll have an Islamic paradise in no time, thanks to me.”
Judging from his features, no one would have been able to tell how much this news excited Milo. He’d asked all his questions in the quiet way of the interrogator, as if no answer were more important than another. In that same way, he said, “There’s something I don’t understand, Roth. You learned that, five months ago, you caught HIV. You learned it in a Swiss clinic. Now, it’s nearly killed you. Why aren’t you on antiretrovirals? You could live well enough for decades.”
It was Roth’s turn to look passive as he studied Milo’s face. “Milo, your file on me must be very small indeed.” Finally, he explained: “The Science of Christianity makes pure the fountain, in order to purify the stream.”
“Who said that?”
“Are you a man of faith, Milo? I mean, beyond the limits of your family.”
“No.”
Roth seemed to take that seriously, as if wondering whose path was better. “It’s a tough thing. Faith talks you into doing things you might not want to do.”
“Who were you quoting?”
“Mary Baker Eddy. I’m a Christian Scientist.” He swallowed again, roughly.
“I’m surprised,” Milo admitted.
“Sure you are, but why? How many Catholic gangsters are there? How many Muslim killers? How many Torah-loving angels of death? Please. I may not have lived up to the Church’s tenets, but I’ll certainly die by them. God has seen fit to strike me down—and why wouldn’t He? If I were Him, I would’ve done it years ago.” He paused. “Of course, those Swiss doctors, they thought I was nuts. Nearly forced me to take the treatments. They kept finding me outside, under a tree, on my knees, praying. The power of prayer—it didn’t save my body, but it just might save my soul.”
“What does Mary Baker Eddy say about revenge?” asked Milo, irritated by this sudden fit of moral poetry. He supposed it was what happened to killers like the Tiger, shut-ins who avoided even the intimacy of sex. There was no one to bounce your thoughts off of, no one to remind you that what came from your mouth wasn’t necessarily wisdom. He pressed: “That’s why you’re here, right? You want me to take revenge on the person who’s killing you.”
Roth thought a moment, raised a finger (Milo noticed blood on his knuckle), and intoned: “To suppose that sin, lust, hatred, envy, hypocrisy, revenge, have life abiding in them, is a terrible mistake. Life and Life’s idea, Truth and Truth’s idea, never make men sick, sinful, or mortal.” He lowered his hand. “Revenge does not have a life of its own, but maybe justice does. You understand? I’ve given you all I have on him. It’s not much, but you’re a smart man. You’ve got resources. I think you can track him down.”
“What about the money?” said Milo. “How did Klausner pass it on to you? Always in a shopping bag?”
“Oh, no,” said Roth, pleased that Milo was asking. “Usually I’d be directed to a bank. Go in and empty an account. The banks changed, each account was opened under a different name, but I was always put down as a coholder. Under the Roth name.”
Milo stared at the man. Given all the bodies Samuel Roth had collected over the years, there was something inappropriate about this last wish. “Maybe he’s done me a service. He’s closed a few of my cases by killing you. Maybe this Klausner is my friend.”
“No.” Roth was insistent. “I did that for you. I could’ve died in obscurity in Zürich. It was certainly more picturesque. This way, I help you out. Maybe you’ll help me out. You’re a Tourist. You can catch him.”
“I’m not a Tourist anymore.”
“That’s like saying, I’m not a murderer anymore. You can change your name, change your job description—you can even become a bourgeois family man, Milo. But really, nothing changes.”
Without realizing it, the Tiger had voiced one of Milo Weaver’s greatest fears. Before his apprehension could show, he changed the subject. “Does it hurt?”
“Very much. Here.” Roth touched his chest. “And here.” He touched his groin. “It’s like metal in the blood. You remember everything I’ve said?”
“Answer one question, will you?”
“If I can.”
It was something Milo had wondered for the last six years, ever since he’d decided to focus his efforts on the assassin whose bullets he’d once tried to face. He’d learned a lot about the Tiger, even backtracking to find his first verified assassination in November 1997, Albania. Adrian Murrani, the thirty-year-old chairman of the Sineballaj commune. Everyone knew Murrani had been ordered killed by the ruling neo-communists—it was a year of many sudden deaths in Albania—but in this case the gunman had been hired from abroad. Despite the stacks of physical and eyewitness evidence collected from the assassinations that followed, Milo had never come close to answering the most basic mystery about this man: “Who are you, really? We never found a real name. We didn’t even figure out your nationality.”
The Tiger smiled again, flushing. “I suppose that’s a kind of victory, isn’t it?”
Milo admitted that it was impressive.
“The answer is in your files. Somewhere in that tower facing the Avenue of the Americas. See, the only difference between you and me is that we chose different ways of tendering our resignations.”
Milo’s thoughts stuttered briefly before he understood. “You were a Tourist.”
“Brothers in arms,” he said, his smile huge. “And later, you’ll wish you’d asked another question. Know what it is?”
Milo, still spinning from the realization of Roth’s Company past, had no idea what the question could be. Then it occurred to him, because it was simple, and the assassin’s mood was so simple. “Why ‘the Tiger?’”
“Precisely! However, the truth is a disappointment: I have no idea. Someone, somewhere, first used it. Maybe a journalist, I don’t know. I guess that, after the Jackal, they needed an animal name.” He shrugged—again, it looked painful. “I suppose I should be pleased they didn’t choose a vulture, or a hedgehog. And no—before you think to ask, let me assure you I wasn’t named after the Survivor song.”
Despite everything, Milo smiled.
“Let me ask you something,” Roth said. “What’s your opinion on the Black Book?”
“The What Book?”
“Stop pretending, please.”
Within the subculture of Tourism, the Black Book was the closest thing to the Holy Grail. It was the secret guide to survival, rumored to have been planted by a retired Tourist, twenty-one copies hidden in locations around the world. The stories of the Black Book were as old as Tourism itself. “It’s bunk,” said Milo.
“We’re in agreement,” Roth answered. “When I first went freelance, I thought it might be useful, so I spent a couple years looking for it. It’s a figment of some overactive imaginations. Maybe Langley first spread it, maybe some bored Tourist. But it’s a nice idea.”
“You think so?”
“Sure. Something stable and direct in our befuddled world. A bible for living.”
“Luckily for you, you have the Bible itself.”
Roth nodded, and when he spoke again, his tone was earnest. “Please. You and me, we’re enemies—I understand that. But trust me: The man who did this to me is much worse than I am. You’ll at least look into it?”
“Okay,” said Milo, not sure how long his promise would last.
“Good.”
Samuel Roth hunched forward and lightly patted Milo’s knee, then leaned back against the wall. Without ceremony, he clenched his teeth. Something crunched in his mouth, like a nut, and Milo smelled the almond bitterness in Roth’s exhale. It was a smell he’d run into a few times in his life, from people either utterly devout or utterly frightened. The hard way out, or the easiest, depending on your philosophy.
The assassin’s veined eyes widened, close enough that Milo could see his own reflection in them. Roth seized up three times in quick succession, and Milo caught him before he fell off the cot. The yellow-tinted head rolled back, lips white with froth. Milo was holding a corpse.
He dropped the body on the cot, wiped his hands against his pants, and backed up to the door. It had been years since he’d faced this, but even back then, when he saw death more often, he’d never gotten used to it. The sudden heft. The fast cooling. The fluids that leaked from the body (there—Roth’s orange jumpsuit darkened at the groin). The quick cessation of consciousness, of everything that person—no matter how despicable or virtuous—had experienced. It didn’t matter that minutes ago he’d wanted to ridicule this man’s false piousness. That wasn’t the point. The point was that, within this concrete cell, a whole world had suddenly ceased to exist. In a snap, right in front of him. That was death.
Milo came out of his daze when the door against his back shook. He stepped away so Sheriff Wilcox could come in, saying, “Listen, I got some folks here who—”
He stopped.
“Christ,” the sheriff muttered. Fear stalled in his face. “What the hell’d you do to him?”
“He did it to himself. Cyanide.”
“But … but why?”
Milo shook his head and started for the door, wondering what Mary Baker Eddy said about suicide.
