“We don’t have enough information,” I admitted.
She didn’t like that but didn’t say a thing.
“Did he call again?” I asked.
“What?”
“Milo. I thought he might try again.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think he ever wanted our help in the first place.”
I remembered the trouble they had gone through to get me to Madrid Airport. “No, he did want your help. But after that call he doesn’t trust you. He thinks you’ll undermine him.”
“But he trusts the Russians?”
I looked past her to where the sun was sitting high in the sky, illuminating a fresh layer of snow that had covered Davos overnight. From my angle, I could make out one of the snipers on top of the Congress Center. I thought about those intelligence chiefs meeting inside that heavily guarded building, a place they knew Milo wouldn’t find them. Oskar Leintz making contact with the fake Ingrid Parker …
Oh.
As the thought came to me, I said, “They’re setting him up.”
Mel’s face settled into a stiff mask. She said, “Explain.”
“I can’t. But all the reports about Ingrid Parker are from the Germans. Yes?”
“Yes.”
“Nothing from the Swiss, the French … no one else?”
She sank deeper into her chair. “Correct.”
It still didn’t make complete sense, but I could feel a truth pushing up from under the surface. “I don’t know why, but the Germans are running a parallel game Milo doesn’t know anything about.”
“What game?”
“Something that requires us, and other countries, to believe Ingrid Parker is here.”
Mel blinked at me, absorbing this.
I said, “My suggestion is to contact Milo Weaver and show him that photo. You don’t lose anything by it, and he might be able to stop a disaster.”
“What if Milo’s plan is the disaster?”
I shook my head. “He’s not here to make more trouble. He only wants his family to be safe.”
She continued to stare hard at me, stiff, and then her features relaxed. “Come with me,” she said.
We went out into the corridor, where Frank stood erect and obedient. “We’ll be right back,” she told him, and he watched us head to the far end of the corridor. Mel knocked on a door, waited, then opened it and brought me inside.
What I saw was a shock, though it shouldn’t have been. Standing with Sally in the room was an angry Gilbert Powell, founder of Nexus. Like a lot of other powerful men, he was taller than expected, and he barely noticed us enter—he was in the middle of a rant.
“What do you think? That I couldn’t find seed money? For fuck’s sake, I didn’t need yours!”
“Yet you took it,” Sally told him in a calm, quiet voice, raising a finger to Mel for patience. “Our terms were never hidden. You signed.”
“Enough!” he said. “I’ll write you a check right now. Give me a number. Just stay out of the system!”
“Gilbert,” Sally said, still measured and cool, “have you met Abdul?”
I was surprised to be brought into this, and Powell seemed surprised by this as well. He shook his head no and turned to the window, not interested in knowing me.
“Well,” Sally said. “Abdul has brought us the most interesting story about Northwell and its relationship to Nexus.”
Slowly, Powell turned back and focused on me. But he didn’t speak.
“It used to be called Tourism,” she went on. “I don’t know what you call it now.”
“I don’t know—”
“Remember Lou Braxton?” Sally cut in. “Where4 was a hell of a platform. Gave Nexus a run for its money. It was a shame he died so young.”
Weak now, Powell sank onto the edge of the perfectly made bed and looked at all of our faces.
Beside me, Mel said, “Principled, too. He refused to even sit down with us.”
“I admired that,” Sally said, then looked a long moment at Gilbert Powell, who seemed to be closing down. “There is a way out for you, Gilbert, and it’s so simple. You do nothing. Everything remains as it is. You do not block our access. If you do, then everything comes crashing down. Everything.”
Powell rubbed his forehead, thinking, then looked up. “You would go down, too.”
She shook her head. “We don’t need customers to buy into our product. There would be a minor storm, a scapegoat would be found, and a year later it’s business as usual. Nexus, though—I give it a month of solvency. No one would trust you. Your pariah status would last a lifetime.”
He breathed loudly through his nose, trying to figure a way out of the trap. But, for now at least, there was no escape.
“Go on, Gilbert,” Sally said. “Think about it. We’ll talk later, before the flight home. And if you get a chance, tell Anthony Halliwell we’d like to speak to him, too. We’re in Davos, after all. This is a place for acquisitions.”
I watched Gilbert Powell shuffle out of that room, defeated, and knew that I would never see him the same way again. I said, “We’re inside Nexus?”
Mel ignored my question and brought me deeper into the room. To Sally, she said, “Abdul’s assessment is that Weaver’s being played. Tell her.”
I repeated my argument, which, though thin, was no worse than any arguments they could come up with. “It wouldn’t hurt to tell Weaver what’s going on,” I said.
“It might,” Sally said, sounding a lot like Mel a few minutes ago. “Maybe the Germans are setting up a coup. Get rid of Weaver so the adults can take care of Northwell.”
“Or maybe, like you, they’re thinking of acquiring Northwell,” I said. Witnessing her conversation with Powell had crystallized that thought. “I don’t think you want German Tourism.”
Sally seemed to take that seriously, but she made no move to admit it. “Put him back on ice,” she told Mel. “You and I have some thinking to do.”
19
After parking in the garage, Milo found a demonstration outside the Rätia shopping center, about a hundred people in caps and heavy coats, puffs of fog rolling from their mouths as they chanted in German and held signs in English. A banner said SYSTEM CHANGE NOT CLIMATE CHANGE; another: ““LET THEM EAT MONEY,” with the A in “eat” a scrawled anarchy symbol. Some were wordy—IF WAR IS AN INDUSTRY HOW CAN THERE BE PEACE IN A CAPITALIST WORLD?—while others were succinct—NOT WELCOME printed under the faces of Benjamin Netanyahu and Jair Bolsonaro. On the wall of the Rätia, in large characters, someone had spray-painted M3.
But he didn’t linger. He pushed through, walking up the Promenade before turning off onto a side street and continuing to fortified Davos Park at the center of town. The soldiers in black eyed him as he approached the press center, where more guards waited with metal detectors and an X-ray conveyor. They checked the press pass Oskar had supplied carefully enough that he grew worried; then they rifled through his bag, where he’d stashed notebooks, a voice recorder, a camera, and a couple of energy bars. It was as boring as he could make it, and they let him in.
The closing performance, a musical program by the Sphinx Virtuosi chamber orchestra with images of Earth from space, was about to wrap up, so the park was scattered with milling journalists catching smokes and waiting to get a final word from attendees. By a snowbank along the ring of trees, he eventually spotted Leticia talking with Poitevin. Poitevin saw him first, but all they did was meet eyes. Conversation would have to wait.
To the left, Alexandra and Dalmatian pretended to work on their phones, standing a good five yards apart. And up ahead, to the right, near the Congress Center’s Talstrasse entrance, he saw Vetrov smoking with Francis, while Li Fan and Oskar, still wearing his sling, conferred. Not far away, four bodyguards stood listlessly.
“Milo Weaver,” he heard, and turned to see a pale woman with intense, businesslike eyes catching up to him. She was clearly American, and he wasn’t sure what to do.
“Do I know you
?”
“Sally,” she said with a sudden, beautiful smile.
“We spoke on the phone,” he said.
“Yes. I wanted to show you something.”
She held out her hand, and in it was a photograph printed on paper. He took it. Oskar, walking with a young woman. “What’s this?”
“We know who Oskar Leintz is,” she said. “The problem is the other one. Abdul saw her in Klosters, made up to look like Ingrid Parker.”
Yes—it had been months, but he remembered the woman. It was Lana, Oskar’s lavender-lipped associate from Tegel Airport.
Sally flashed another smile. “They’re trying very hard to convince everyone that Ingrid Parker is here, when we know she’s not. She’s in Florida.”
Milo examined the photo again. He didn’t trust Sally. She was, he had decided, only interested in keeping a tight grip on Nexus and its intelligence riches. “Does this have to be nefarious?” he asked.
“Abdul thinks it is. He’s the one who convinced us to share this with you.”
That was something. “How is he?”
The question seemed to surprise her. “He’s fine. He’ll be on a plane home by tonight. He’s disappointed he couldn’t get us to work together.”
“Me, too,” he said, which was at least partially true. He nodded toward the Congress Center and his waiting co-conspirators. “You’re not planning to interfere?”
She shook her head. “You do what you have to do. Make your deals. We will do what we have to do.”
“You understand what you’re dealing with, right? If you think you can control Northwell, or use them, then you’re playing with fire.”
“We’ll see,” she said and, with another smile, turned and walked away, back toward the press center. When he looked around, all four of his people were staring at him with anxious curiosity, but he didn’t bother with that. He continued toward the Congress Center, and behind him the others began to follow.
When he reached the entrance, none of the intelligence officers made an attempt to shake his hand. He said to them, “Five minutes. They know we’re unarmed. There shouldn’t be trouble.”
Vetrov grunted, “If you are wrong, I do think this will not be the first time.”
Milo gave him a wry grin, then turned to Oskar. “Can we walk?”
Once they were out of range of the others, Milo handed him the photo. Oskar squinted at it. “Who is this from?”
“CIA.”
“Scheisse,” Oskar muttered, then began ripping up the picture.
“What is it?”
He shook his head, not speaking.
“Oskar. Ingrid Parker isn’t in Europe, is she?”
But the German turned around and began walking slowly back to the others, not even looking at Milo. Finally, he said, “This was a group decision.”
“What are you talking about?”
“This is the best way. Even Erika agrees.”
Milo stopped short and grabbed Oskar by the lapels, his face very close. From nowhere, Kurt appeared and clutched Milo’s shoulders from behind, pulling him off.
“It’s okay,” Oskar told Kurt, and Milo was released. Oskar brushed at his coat, as if getting Milo’s dirt off it. “It’s fine, Milo. Everything is going to be fine.” Then he left and joined the others. Together, they spoke quietly, occasionally glancing back at him.
Leticia joined Milo, watching Kurt join the other bodyguards. “What’s going on?”
“You and Alex were right. They’re up to something.”
“Then let’s call it off.”
What was she thinking? This moment, right now, was why he’d waited months in the desert. “This is our only chance,” he said.
“Not if we end up dead, it isn’t.”
He didn’t want to get into an argument with her, so he walked away and stood alone, looking down the park at its milling journalists, then over to the intelligence officers talking among themselves. What were they up to? He remembered Erika telling him, very seriously, that Ingrid Parker was a variable he would have to take into consideration—but no, Parker was in America, and she’d been there all along. Erika had only been planting the story so that it would grow in his mind, and the minds of other intelligence agencies. For what purpose? Why drag a story of the Massive Brigade to Davos?
What had been Erika’s concern? He thought back to that stuffy house in the Black Forest, and it came to him: If you cannot convince the Americans to join your crusade, then I do not expect the others to commit. She’d spent a lot of time explaining why that was crucial, and yet, even without American support, they had committed. China, the UK, Russia, and Germany. All had come together. Even in that meeting, with the video of the Second Bureau’s slaughter, he’d been surprised that it had worked. Yet he hadn’t seen it. The others had. Alexandra, Leticia, and even Dalmatian had known that something was off.
His stomach twisted as he realized that their final meeting in the restaurant had been a charade, because they had already committed themselves—not to Milo’s plan, but to Erika and Oskar’s. He’d never had to set up the Second Bureau. No one had had to die.
What were they planning? Did Oskar think that he could make a better speech? Fine—if he wanted to make a more convincing threat, then let him. But if that was all he wanted to do, why keep it secret from Milo? No. It was something else, something that Oskar knew Milo would fight against.
What now? Do as Leticia suggested, and call the whole thing off? How would they survive the next twelve months, looking over their shoulders as Northwell’s Tourists homed in on them?
He checked the time on his phone and saw that it was too late. He caught Leticia’s eye—she, too, was lost in thought, but she noticed him looking and nodded seriously. He nodded back. Leticia turned to the others and called for them to follow. Milo walked over to the Talstrasse entrance and said to the waiting intelligence officers, “It’s time.”
20
Leticia didn’t like Milo’s attitude, but she understood it. There was only one outcome that interested him, and that was the safety of his family and the people who had worked for him this last decade. Milo wasn’t an ideologue; he wasn’t fighting for some better version of the world, and for someone like him the aims were always primitive and foundational: Take care of me and mine, and try not to kill too many people along the way.
Fair enough.
To a certain extent, Leticia felt the same. The first principle of life is to stay alive, because without that nothing else can be accomplished. However, once survival was assured, there were other things to consider. Nigeria had taught her that. Other places, too, but Nigeria had hammered it home. And unlike Milo, she’d lived a long time without the incessant chatter of family and colleagues that always distracted you from the big picture. The big picture was this: Northwell and its clients were the reason why little girls in Nigeria were being ripped from their homes and raped and brainwashed and forced into labor. She could list a thousand travesties to justify bringing them down, but there was no need. A single girl was enough to convince her that whatever happened to Northwell couldn’t be a slap on the wrist; it had to be crushing.
She just wasn’t sure they were going to be able to do the job today. The groundwork they’d done in the last three months had been the minimum, a quickly assembled house of cards. If it failed today, she doubted they’d get another chance. And if it succeeded … well, she had no illusion that there wouldn’t be more work to do.
But she didn’t fight him. She hurried ahead to open the door and step into the airy, glass-fronted entryway, where security guards were waiting to check their IDs. She handed over hers and stepped through another metal detector, wondering why she didn’t just leave.
She knew why. It was because the other thing she’d learned was that going it alone never really got her what she wanted. Even today’s half measures were better than what years on the road had gotten her.
But it was more than that, wasn’t it?
Y
es. She was tired. Tired of the disposable life, where when the dark moods came there was no one to turn to, only a mirror, and in that mirror the emptiness could no longer be ignored. Then she’d come to Zürich and discovered something in Milo’s Library that she didn’t even know she’d needed.
At the far end of the corridor, some journalists were huddled with their phones, and when Leticia, then the others, approached they looked up, squinting. But none of her crew were well-known politicians worthy of a byline, so they went back to their phones.
Looking to Alexandra, Leticia said, “Parsenn-Pischa, right?”
Alexandra nodded, and Poitevin joined her as she went through the floor plan in her head, calmly walking past small meeting rooms called Flüela and Sertig. Before reaching the journalists, she turned down a broad staircase under a banner that said ANNUAL MEETING 2019 to the large main hall, where workers were breaking down displays and screens and stacking chairs. Off to the right, nondescript bureaucrats and businesspeople networked in low tones and sudden bright laughter, but Leticia led her people to the left, past the kitchen and VIP entrance, up concrete stairs to automatic glass doors marked with a blue sign with a large orange B.
When they stepped through to B-Wing, she and Poitevin paused. It was a small area that wrapped around an elevator, and to their immediate right narrow stairs led up to the third floor. She waited until all of them—the bureaucrats, their guards, and the remnants of the Library, thirteen in all—were through the doors, then turned to Milo. “One floor up,” she said. “I’ll go first.”
She began to ascend, Poitevin right behind her, and paused at the top step, where she could see on a far wall a sign that said B3—the characters overlapped, she noticed, like the M3 of the Massive Brigade. Then she stepped forward and turned right, where, on the far wall, between two sets of double doors, a small TV displayed:
PARSENN-PISCHA
PRIVAT
Between her and that TV, though, seven men and two women stared at her. One of them was Haroun Ghali, while another, wiping his nose with the back of a hand, was the man who had faked incompetence until the moment he murdered Noah and Kristin—the man they only knew as Joseph Keller. And there, in the back: Karim Saleem, from Nigeria.
The Last Tourist Page 34
