The phone woke him at six. “Yeah?”

“Riverrun, past Eve.”

“And Adam’s.”

Drummond cleared his throat. “Looks like it’s verified.”

“Bad news.”

Milo heard papers shuffling through the line-if he was calling from New York, it was 1:00 A.M. there. “You’re going to Warsaw for the next one. It’ll take a little more time.”

“Okay.”

“How’s Einner treating you?”

“We’re old friends. But you knew that, of course.”

“Are you?” he said, then sighed. “Listen, I’ve gotten some word from a friend in Germany.”

“Friend? This have to do with-”

“It has to do with you, Hall. Your ethnic radar might not be so bad. Someone in German intelligence was looking for you, but I’m assured that it’s being taken care of.”

“Why were they looking for me?”

“It doesn’t matter. You should be clear now. If you do see them again, let me know. Got it?”

“Sure. That’s good news.”

“Good?”

“If the Germans are shadowing me, then a Chinese mole is no more likely than it was the day before yesterday.”

“It means we’re still deciding, Hall, which means you’re still vetting.”

He popped aspirin, a multivitamin, and two Nicorette-he’d left the Dexedrine in the hotel trash-then checked out. He tipped the doorman who found him a taxi, and nearly dozed on the ride to the airport, half dreaming of James Einner and his two friends.

Milo hadn’t slept with a woman since October, and that had been a clumsy, desperate attempt with his wife. A part of him wondered if he’d made a mistake sidestepping a night of mindless sex, if only because it carried no investment. Simplicity: just an easy trajectory toward orgasm. Unlike that last attempt in October, it might have been fun.

Fun.

You’re the least happy Tourist we’ve got.

His phone shivered on the M4, and he read the Warsaw instructions.

He was just in time to catch an eight twenty British Airways flight, and when he touched down at Frederic Chopin Airport a little before noon, he was nearly sick with hunger. The official guarding this Schengen entry point gave his Sebastian Hall passport a little more of an examination than he was used to, but in the end it was all the same. “Business or tourism?”

The answer rolled off his tongue without thought.

He picked up a bottle of Coke and a cheese sandwich, which he gobbled down before reaching the Avis rental counter. As he took the long, traffic-jammed road toward town, he drank the Coke too fast and it burned the back of his throat. At least it woke him up.

He’d last been to Warsaw in 2000, during that earlier time when he was known as Charles Alexander. Despite what James Einner and others believed, back then he was more anxiety and suicidal bluster than efficiency and purpose. Back then he took whatever drugs could keep him going-pills, powders, and the occasional syringe. He’d felt as if it were someone else’s body he was abusing.

Then he remembered why he’d come to Warsaw in 2000 and understood why he had walked out of his room the previous night. He felt childishly proud, knowing that Dr. Ray, the marriage counselor, would be impressed by his self-knowledge.

He’d come to buy information from a Lebanese traitor in the Bristol Hotel. The Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon had just ended, and in the inevitable internal shake-up that followed, this man feared for his position. So he was preparing for retirement by selling pieces of his extensive library of secrets to the Americans, the British, and the Israelis.

The purchase had gone smoothly, and at the end of it the door to the suite’s second room burst open and two Polish prostitutes danced in with bottles of champagne. The Lebanese grinned-he’d arranged a party to celebrate their newfound cooperation.

Milo hadn’t resisted, and it had been fun in its peculiar way, but it had been only as pleasurable as it could be for someone so disconnected from himself. Early the next year, though, he learned that, six months after their meeting, the Lebanese traitor had been found on a cannabis farm at the northern end of the Beqaa Valley, his throat cut and his tongue removed. Last night, he realized, that image had been triggered by the women, and he had somehow imagined that if he stayed Einner would end up mutilated.

How do you like that, Dr. Ray?

He came gradually into town, the open fields and sooty buildings slowly replaced by modern, postwar architecture. It was after two by the time he checked into the immense Marriott tower-he had no desire to revisit the Bristol-and while he knew he should immediately begin working on Dzubenko’s Warsaw story, he decided to take the rest of the day off. He had a vodka martini in the hotel’s Panorama bar, then lifted a complimentary Tribune and headed out to CDQ, an arty bar where he could drink in peace to the strains of what the pretty bartender told him was Charlotte Gainsbourg’s latest album, 5:55. Serge Gainsbourg’s daughter was an inspired coincidence, because until last year he’d listened incessantly to the father’s songbook, which had been a sure way to find a better mood. With everything that had gone bad, though, even his musical salvation had been contaminated, and he hadn’t listened to it since. Yet here he was, among the young art crowd of Warsaw, gazing at skinny girls and ugly paintings, listening to the daughter of the man who had once been able to bestow upon him so much joy. He ordered another drink and found a corner with enough light to read the Tribune.

The first article that caught his eye extensively quoted Reuters about the discovery of Adriana Stanescu’s body on a road that led to Marseille. The details, Milo noticed, were sketchy, and the press releases by the Berlin police suggested that Adriana had been captured and killed by human traffickers with Russian connections. He stuck more Nicorette in his mouth and tried to chew away the shakes.

Then, three pages in, he saw a photograph of Senator Nathan Irwin, Republican from Minnesota.

There was nothing truly notable in the senator’s appearance here-he was pictured with a group of other senators looking into the real estate slump that had been causing problems for the last few months-but seeing his smug face did Milo no good. He ordered another martini and considered how much more empty life had become because of this man. Thomas Grainger hadn’t only been his boss and friend; he’d been Stephanie’s godfather, who would sometimes show up at the apartment unexpectedly with gifts and a ruddy smile.

Though theirs had been a long-distance friendship, he’d had a particularly warm connection to Angela Yates. She’d attended his wedding, and their history stretched back to when both of them were young, enthusiastic recruits for the Central Intelligence Agency. She’d even been on hand during that disastrous morning in Venice, when Milo and Tina first met. The day Stephanie was born. September 11, 2001. Angela and Tom had touched so many important moments in his life, and because of Nathan Irwin they were both dead.

In truth, there were only two survivors from last year’s mess-Irwin and Milo himself. They had never met, but each knew the other existed.

Kill the little voices.

It was his mother again, whom he’d only known as an occasional visitor in his childhood. Until he was nine she would visit in the night, fearful of capture as she and her German Marxist comrades spread fear throughout Europe. She came to her son like a ghost, whispering urgent lessons that he was too young to understand and would later seldom follow.

Listen to the Bigger Voice. It’s the only one that will ever be straight with you.

What did the Bigger Voice say now?

It was only later, after he had lost track of his martinis, that he succumbed to that voice and went to look for a Telekomunikacja Polska phone booth. His anger had returned. He had spent too long thinking drunkenly of injustice, and when he shoved in the zloty coins the pad of his thumb hurt. He dialed just as forcefully. It only rang twice before the old man answered with a hesitant, “Da?”