The Tourist by Olen Steinhauer Read Free Book Online

messy. But when someone like bin Laden or al-Zarqawi needed a specific person taken out, he, like the rest of the world, went to the professionals. In the assassination business, there were few better than the Tiger. So over the last six years, from his twenty-second-floor cubicle in the Company office on the Avenue of the Americas, he'd tracked this one man through the cities of the world, but never close enough for an arrest. Now, here he was, the man from that embarrassingly meager file Milo knew so well, sitting comfortably on a cot, his back to the wall and his orange-clad legs stretched out, crossed at the ankles. Samuel Roth, or Hamad al-Abari, or Fabio Lanzetti--or five other names they knew of. The assassin didn't check to see who was peering in at him; he left his arms knotted over his chest as Milo entered.
    "Samuel," Milo said as a deputy locked the door behind him. He didn't approach, just waited for the man to look at him.
    Even in this light, with its harsh shadows and the way it yellowed his skin, Roth's face recalled the three other photographs back at the office. One from Abu Dhabi, as al-Abari, his features half obscured by a white turban. A second from Milan, as Lanzetti, at a cafe along the Corso Sempione, talking with a red-bearded man they'd never been able to identify. The third was CCTV footage from outside a mosque in Frankfurt, where he'd planted a bomb under a black Mercedes-Benz. Each remembered image matched these heavy brows and gaunt cheeks, the pitch eyes and high, narrow forehead. Sometimes a mustache or beard hid aspects of the face, but now his only mask was a three-day beard that grew to the top of his cheekbones. His skin was splotchy in this light, peeling from an old sunburn.
    Milo remained beside the door. "Samuel Roth--that's the name we'll use for now. It's easy to pronounce." Roth only blinked in reply.
    "You know why I'm here. It has nothing to do with your problems with women. I want to know why you're in the United States."
    "What name are you going by?" asked Roth, in Russian. Milo grimaced. He was going to have to go through the motions. At least a change of language would hide their talk from these Tennessee boys. In Russian, he answered, "I'm Milo Weaver, of the Central Intelligence Agency."
    Samuel Roth looked as if that were the funniest name he had ever heard.
    "What?"
    "Sorry," Roth said in fluent English. He raised a hand. "Even after all this, I still didn't expect it to work." He had the flat, irregular accent of someone who'd absorbed too many.
    "What didn't you expect to work?"
    "I'm lucky I even remember you. I forget a lot of things these clays."
    "If you don't answer my questions, I'll hurt you. I am authorized." The prisoner's eyes widened; they were bloodshot and tired.
    "There's only one reason you'd risk entering the country. Who are you supposed to kill?"
    Roth chewed the inside of his cheek, then spoke in a laconic tone:
    "Maybe you, Company man."
    "We were tracking you since Barcelona--you know that? To Mexico, then Dallas, and that rented car to New Orleans where you picked up your girlfriend. Maybe you just wanted to know if she survived Katrina. You switched to your Italian passport--Fabio Lanzetti--before switching back in Mississippi. Changing names is a nice trick, but it's not foolproof." Roth cocked his head. "You'd know that, wouldn't you?"
    "Would I?"
    Samuel Roth wiped his dry lips with his fingers, stifling a cough. When he spoke, he sounded congested. "I've heard a lot about you. Milo Weaver--a.k.a. many other names. Alexander." He pointed at Milo. "That's the name I know best. Charles Alexander."
    "No idea what you're talking about," Milo said as nonchalantly as he could manage.
    "You've got a long history," Roth continued. "An interesting one. You were a Tourist."
    A shrug. "Everyone likes a vacation."
    "Remember 2001? Before those Muslims ruined business. Amsterdam. Back then, I only worried about people like you, people who work for