"Did you report this?" Milo asked. "That you were helping Rahman."

Again, she shook her head, but there was no shyness now. "You know what would've happened-no one cares about a potential suicide bomber's conspiracy theories. I just reported that I was working him as a possible source."

"I see."

"After five days, it still wasn't going anywhere, so I went to give Rahman the bad news. His family wouldn't let me in. His mother, father, sister-I was suddenly a leper. Ali finally came out. They didn't know where he was. The day after our lunch, he got a call. Told his mother he had an important meeting. That was the last they saw of him."

"He didn't head back to Khartoum?"

She shook her head. "He couldn't have. This kid had no tradecraft. He wasn't using fake passports or anything like that." She paused. "Then, last week, his body was found in Gonesse, not far off the Charles de Gaulle flight path. Two bullets in the chest. Forensics says he's been dead a month and a half or so-just after I talked to him."

Now it was Milo who needed to move. He rubbed his knees, stood, and went to get the chilled vodka. He should have made that call to Einner a while ago, under the guise of calling Tina, but he assumed Einner was listening anyway. He poured the vodka into their empty wineglasses; Angela didn't argue. "Forensics give anything else?"

"Nine millimeter, PPK. Those are spread pretty evenly throughout the world."

"Sounds like his friends saw him talking to you.”

“That's what Ali thinks.”

“You talked to him?"

"He called me. As soon as the body was found. That's how I learned about it."

Over the next hour, working their way through the vodka, they mused over the connections that these revelations seemed to suggest. "Seemed" was the operative word.

"X," they agreed, had hired the Tiger to kill a radical mullah in the Sudan, and when the Tiger began investigating the identity of his employer, X had him killed.

"Anyone could have killed Rahman," she said, blinking to keep Milo in focus. "His terrorist friends see him talking to me, and they decide he's a double. Or, whoever had the mullah killed thought he was discussing X's identity with me, and so X had him killed for the same reason he killed the Tiger."

Milo had to hold his tongue, because what he wanted to say would have given away what he knew. X's agent, Herbert Williams, had been seen with Angela Yates. What if, instead of being her contact, Williams was spying on her? Williams had been there, in the restaurant, when Rahman was meeting with Angela.

Ignore the Chinese diplomat and his stolen secrets, and the picture became something else. Angela as victim, rather than security leak.

Yet the question the Tiger had posed on his deathbed remained: Who was X? Who would have hired the Tiger to kill both Mullah Salih Ahmad and the French foreign minister? Would some terrorist group want them both dead? While Ahmad's death in the end helped militant Islam's cause in the Sudan, the foreign minister's death would do nothing to help them.

What, further, would explain all the acts of assassination by the Tiger since 2001, when Herbert Williams became one of the Tiger's clients?

Maybe Herbert Williams was X. Perhaps he was just a broker of death for whatever powerful people needed someone vanquished. In which case, there was nothing to tie the various murders together.

"The Chinese," she said. "Branding Salid Ahmad's corpse looks a lot like a direct warning to the extremists-quit harassing our friend, or you'll end up like this man. But it's almost too obvious, isn't it?"

Milo nodded. " China 's a lot of things, but it's not shortsighted. The Central Committee doesn't want a fight with the Sudanese masses. China doesn't want to send its troops to Africa, or have the international community looking too closely-they're hosting the Olympics in a year. The brand was supposed to inflame anti-Chinese, anti-imperialist sentiment." He took a breath. "I'm with the Tiger on this-I think he was working for the jihadists."

"The only way to know is to find Herbert Williams," she said.

Despite the frustration of no solid answers, he was enjoying this. Sitting with Angela, going through the details and variables and working through possible solutions, reminded him of their friendship more than a decade before, when both were young, unattached, and wildly enthusiastic about their employer and their country.

Then the mood shifted. She rubbed her arms as if chilled by the morbid stories they were spinning. A little after one, she said, "I'll call a taxi. Don't want to be late for Disney."

After calling, she used the toilet and came out popping a pill from a prescription bottle.

"What's that?"

"For sleeping."

He raised a brow. "You really need those?”

“You're not my shrink, Milo."

"Remember when I tried to hook you on amphetamines?"

At first she didn't, then she did. Her laugh was natural. "Man, you were such a wreck."

He gave her a kiss on the way out, and she handed him the still two-thirds full Smirnoff bottle. "Let's stay in touch about this," he said. "You've done so much more than I ever could have."

She patted his ass to urge him out. "That's because I'm smarter than you are."

The taxi was waiting for him, and before getting inside he looked toward the flower van. From its passenger seat, Einner was staring at him, holding up a questioning thumbs-up sign. Milo gave him an answering thumbs-up, and the Tourist returned to the back of the van. To Milo 's surprise, Einner had actually given him his privacy. Milo never would have been so generous.

He woke early Saturday morning with a hangover, his lungs suffering dry rot. The television shouted the weather in French. He tried to open his eyes, but the room was a blur, so he shut them again.

This was what happened when he was away from his family. There was no one around to remind him that it was a mistake to spend the night with a bottle of vodka and a pack of smokes, watching late-night French television. He hadn't been like this when he was a Tourist, but now, Milo-the-family-man traveled like an immature teenager just set free from home.

Something moved-a creak-and he opened his eyes again, smeared colors shifting. He pushed back, fist rising. From the chair beside his bed, Einner smiled at him.

"You with me?"

Milo tried to sit up against the headboard; it was difficult. He remembered sinking into the vodka and, out of curiosity, a child-sized bottle of hotel brandy and another of ouzo. He coughed up some bitter phlegm, then swallowed it.

Einner held up the bottle for examination-only three or so shots remained. "At least you didn't down the whole thing."

Milo realized, not for the first time, that he was no good at living.

Einner set the bottle on the floor. "Awake enough to talk?"

"I'm still a little drunk.”

“I'll order coffee.”

“What time is it?”

“Six in the morning."

"Jesus." He'd slept two and a half hours, max.

Einner called down for coffee while Milo went to wash his face. Einner appeared in the bathroom doorway, grinning. "Not like when you were young, eh?"

Milo used the toothbrush to scrape stomach acid from the back of his tongue. He felt like he was going to be sick, but didn't want to do that in front of Einner. Not that.

By the time Milo came out again, he could get Einner in focus. Amazingly, the Tourist looked well rested as he flipped through stations, settling on CNN International. Milo wished he looked like that. A shower-that would help.

"You here for a reason, James?"

Einner raised the television's volume, his expression morose. "It's Angela."

"What about her?"

Einner started to speak, then looked around the room. From his jacket pocket he produced an oil-stained receipt and a pen. Leaning against the bedside table, he wrote one word and held it out for Milo to read: