and Governmental Affairs. No more cowboy antics at Langley. “No more rogue departments. It’s a new world. We serve at the pleasure of the American people, who pay our bills. We should be an open book.”
The Company’s collective groan could be heard around the world.
The four secret floors of offices on the Avenue of the Americas, stocked with Travel Agents who focused on the running of, and assimilation of information collected by, Tourists based in all the populated continents, was (behind closed doors) considered a prime target for the inevitable cuts. Director Ascot, it was rumored, wanted to relieve the world of Tourism altogether. He claimed that Tourists, with open-ended resources and no need to collect receipts, would bankrupt the Company. But since he didn’t have enough internal support to erase the clandestine department, all he could do was slowly chew it up.
Milo learned of Ascot’s first tentative steps when he arrived at LaGuardia from Tennessee and met Tom Grainger in the airport security office. The old man had sent away the “rent-a-cops,” as he called most non-Company personnel, and through a two-way mirror they watched crowds jostling at the luggage carousel, the irregular flow of travelers along mass transit lines that had in recent years become national threat centers. Both men missed that almost-forgotten time when travel was about arriving someplace new, not about getting through the clunky measures of antiterrorist law.
“They’re starting the postmassacre frenzy,” Grainger said to the glass, a drawn look on his face.
Even by CIA standards, Tom Grainger was old—seventy-one years, most of his white hair lost to the shower drain, his cabinet full of prescription pills. He never appeared in public without a tie.
“The Grand Inquisitor has sent a memo through his under-lings—through Terence Fitzhugh, to be precise. I’m to prepare for executions, he says. Ascot’s predicting a war of attrition, and he’s getting me to take out my own people. It’s slow hara-kiri.”
Milo had known Grainger since 1990, when he’d been invited to become part of the Company’s clandestine world in London, and he knew the old man was always melodramatic when it came to Langley. His secret department in Manhattan was his private dominion, and it hurt him to be reminded that people in another state really pulled the strings. Maybe that was why he’d decided to appear at the airport, rather than wait for morning to talk in the office—no one here could listen to his bitching. “You’ve been through worse, Tom. We’ve all been through worse.”
“Hardly,” Grainger said dismissively. “One-quarter. That’s how much we’re losing. He’s giving me the heads-up. Next year we’ll work on one-quarter less funds, which’ll barely cover operational costs. I’m supposed to decide which Travel Agents get pink slips, and which get transferred to more public departments.”
“And the Tourists?”
“Aha! Too many. That’s the gist of it. Twelve slots for the whole of Europe, working around the clock, and yet I’m supposed to get rid of three of them. Bastard. Who does he think he is?”
“Your boss.”
“My boss wasn’t there when the planes came, was he?” The old man rapped a knuckle on the glass. A boy standing nearby turned to frown at the noisy mirror. “I guess you weren’t either, were you? You never did visit the old office … no.” He was fully engaged in his memories now. “You were still a Tourist, just barely, and we were sitting at our desks, drinking Starbucks, as if the world wasn’t preparing to explode.”
Milo had heard all this before, Grainger’s endless replay of September 11, when the former secret CIA office at 7 World Trade Center collapsed. It didn’t happen immediately, because the nineteen young men who hijacked four planes that morning didn’t realize that by hitting one of the smaller towers they could wipe out an entire Company department. Instead, they went for the glory of the enormous first and second towers, which gave Grainger and his staff time to flee in panic before the main targets crumbled, bringing number seven down with them.
“It was Beirut times fifty,” said Grainger. “All of Dresden stuffed into a few minutes. It was the first wave of barbarians coming to sack Rome.”
“It wasn’t any of those things. Is this what you needed to talk to me about?”
Grainger turned from the glass and frowned. “You’re sunburned.”
Milo leaned against the LaGuardia security supervisor’s messy desk and looked down. His left arm, which had hung out the driver’s side window, was definitely a different tone. “You want to just wait for my report?”
“They’ve been calling like mad,” said Grainger, ignoring the question. “Who’s this Simmons bitch?”
“She’s all right. Just angry. I would be, too.”
Through the window, luggage clattered down a conveyor belt as Milo outlined his conversation with the Tiger. “He wanted me to track down the people who stuck him with HIV. Terrorists, he thinks. Sudan connections.”
“Sudan. Great. But all he had for you was this one name. Herbert Williams. Or Jan Klausner. It’s pretty sketchy.”
“And the Hirslanden Clinic. He was there under the al-Abari alias.”
“We’ll look into it.”
Milo chewed the inside of his cheek. “Send Tripplehorn. He’s still in Nice, isn’t he?”
“You’re better than Tripplehorn,” said Grainger.
“I’m not a Tourist. Besides, I’m due in Florida on Monday.”
“Sure.”
“Really,” said Milo. “Me, the family, and Mickey Mouse.”
“So you keep telling me.”
They watched passengers press closer to the carousel, knocking into each other in an exhausted panic. To Milo’s annoyance, his boss sighed loudly. He knew what that meant, and that knowledge told him why Grainger had taken the trouble to come out to LaGuardia—he wanted to railroad Milo into another trip. “No, Tom.”
Grainger peered at the travelers, not bothering to reply. Milo would wait him out. He would stay silent, not even pass on the revelation that the Tiger had come from the ranks of their own Tourists. If it was true, Tom already knew it, and had kept this information from Milo for his own reasons.
Almost sadly, Grainger said, “Think you can head out tomorrow afternoon?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Ask me where.”
“Doesn’t matter. Tina’s on the warpath. I missed Stephanie’s show.”
“Not to worry. I called an hour ago with a personal apology for sending you out. I took the responsibility on my own shoulders.”
“You’re a real saint.”
“Sure I am. I informed her that you were saving the free world.”
“She stopped believing that long ago.”
“Librarians.” Grainger sniffed at the travelers. “You should’ve listened to me. There are absolutely
