The Tourist by Olen Steinhauer Read Free Book Online Page A

governments, ruining my business. These days . . ." He shook his head. Milo remembered 2001 better than most years. "I've never been to Amsterdam," he lied.
    "You're curious, Milo Weaver. I've seen files on lots of people, but you
    . . . there's no center to your history."
    "Center?" Milo moved two steps closer, an arm's length from the prisoner.
    Roth's lids drooped over his bloodshot eyes. "There's no motivation connecting the events of your past."
    "Sure there is. Fast cars and girls. Isn't that your motivation?" Samuel Roth seemed to like that. He wiped his mouth again to cover a large grin; above his sunburned cheeks his eyes looked very wet, sick. "Well, you're certainly not motivated by your own well-being, or else you'd be somewhere else. Moscow, perhaps, where they take care of their agents. At least, where agents know how to take care of themselves."
    "Is that what you are? Russian?"
    Roth ignored that. "Maybe you just want to be on the winning side. Some people, they like to bend with history. But history's tricky. Today's monolith is tomorrow's pile of rocks. No." He shook his head. "That's not it. I think you're loyal to your family now. That would make sense. Your wife and daughter. Tina and . . . Stephanie, is it?" Involuntarily, Milo shot out a hand and gripped Roth's shirt at the buttons, lifting him from the cot. This close, he could see that his dry, peeling face was riddled with pink sores. This was not sunburn. With his other hand, he squeezed Roth's jaw to hold his face still. There was rot in the man's breath. "No need to bring them into this," Milo said, then let go. When Roth fell back onto the cot, his head knocked against the wall. How had this man turned the interrogation around?
    "Just trying to make conversation," said Roth, rubbing the back of his skull. "That's why I'm here, you know. To see you." Instead of questioning that, Milo went for the door. He could at least squelch Roth's one voiced desire by removing himself from the room.
    "Where are you going?"
    Good--he sounded worried. Milo tapped the door, and one of the deputies started working the lock.
    "Wait!" called Roth. "I have information!" Milo jerked the door open as Roth again called, "'Wait!'" He didn't slow down. He left the room and kept moving as the deputy pushed the steel door shut.
    3
    The sultry noontime heat swallowed him as he fooled with the new Company-issue Nokia he was still learning to master, finally finding the number. Between a parked blue-and-white and the dead shrubs around the station, he watched as storm clouds began to fill the sky. Grainger answered with a sharp "What is it?"
    Tom Grainger sounded the kind of irate people are when they've been abruptly woken, but it was nearly noon. "I'm verifying it, Tom. It's him."
    "Good. I don't suppose he's talking, is he?"
    "Not really. But he is trying to piss me off. He's seen a file on me. Knows about Tina and Stef."
    "Jesus. How'd he get that?"
    "There's a girlfriend. She might know something. They're bringing her in now." He paused. "But he's sick, Tom. Really sick. I'm not sure he could make a journey."
    "What's he got?"
    "Don't know yet."
    When Grainger sighed, Milo imagined him kicking back in his Aeron chair, gazing out his window across the Manhattan skyline. Faced with the dusty pale-brick buildings along Blackdale's main street--half of them out of business but covered with Independence Day flags--Milo was suddenly jealous. Grainger said, "Just so you know--you've got one hour to make him talk."
    "Don't tell me."
    "I'm telling you. Some jackass at Langley sent an e-mail off the open server. I've spent the last half hour fending off Homeland with makebelieve. If I hear the word 'jurisdiction' one more time, I'll have a fit." Milo stepped back as a deputy got into the police car and started it up. He returned to the station's glass double doors. "My hopes are with the girlfriend. Whatever game he's playing, he won't play by my rules until I have something on him.