The Nearest Exit by Olen Steinhauer Page B

bought a change of clothes in the Westenhellweg shopping center, rented a car, and drove through the Ruhr, where industrial and once-industrial cities like Bochum and Essen passed; then the landscape turned to farmland as he continued into the Netherlands. By Saturday afternoon, he’d reached Amsterdam, turned in his car, and boarded a bus heading to Belgium. Only once he’d taken a room at Antwerp’s Hotel Tourist that evening did he pick up some German newspapers. The only sign of Milo Weaver’s trail of destruction was a brief update, on the arts pages, on the lack of progress on the E. G. Bührle theft. There was no mention of Adriana Stanescu—the Berlin police would be waiting seventy-two hours before raising the alarm.
    He ate a dinner of beef stewed in red wine with pearl onions, the obligatory french fries, and two half liters of Vondel brown ale. The meal left him tired again, so he climbed up to his meager room. Before sleep came, a cell phone melody jolted him.
    “Yeah?” he said irritably.
    “Riverrun, past Eve.”
    “And Adam’s.”
    “Nice job, Hall. We’ve even heard of it over here. The family’s been hounding the police.”
    “I’m glad you’re pleased.”
    “None of us can figure out where you put her. In Kreuzberg?”
    “Ask me no questions, Alan.”
    “I am asking you, Sebastian.”
    The lie came out smoothly because it had been practiced. “There was a second car in the courtyard. That’s where I put her. After your Germans left me at the Tempelhof gate, I doubled back. I picked up the car and drove her out to the countryside.”
    “What Germans?”
    “The ones you sent to watch over me.”
    Drummond paused, perhaps wondering about the uses and misuses of irony. “You lost me. I didn’t send anyone.”
    “Doesn’t matter. It’s done.”
    “It might matter. If someone’s following you—”
    “No one’s following me now.”
    Another pause. “Where are you?”
    It was a pointless question, as Drummond’s computer charted the location of all his Tourists’ phones. “Antwerp.”
    “You’ll be heading back to Zürich now?”
    “Yeah.”
    “First thing when you arrive, drop by the Best Western Hotel Krone. There’ll be a letter for you.”
    He rubbed his eyes. “Listen, I’ve got things to prepare.”
    “Won’t take long, Hall. Trust me on that. Just follow the instructions and you’ll be done in no time.”
    The line went dead.

7

    From hotel to hotel, the trip took nearly nine hours, placing him in the Best Western’s arid lobby by six Sunday evening. He drove most of the way in a Toyota he’d picked up on an Antwerp side street using his key ring, then dumped the car just over the Swiss border in Basel, wiped it down with a towel he found in the trunk, and took an hour-long train to Zürich Hauptbahnhof, where the previous night’s snow had blackened into mud.
    He gave his Tourism name to a demure desk clerk with tight, tired eyes and received an envelope with SEBASTIAN HALL scribbled across it. As he headed back to the front doors, he realized he was being watched by a man and a woman, placed strategically at opposite ends of the lobby, wearing matching dark suits, one clutching a
Herald Tribune
, the other an
Economist
. They watched him stop at the doors, where he read the note. One word:
Outside
.
    He found a spot on busy, cold Schaffhauserstrasse, beyond the reach of some inconspicuous security cameras at the next corner. The two lobby watchers didn’t follow him out.
    It only took five minutes. A gray Lincoln Town Car made wet sounds through the dirty snow as it pulled up to the curb. The back door opened, and a man not much older than him—maybe forty—peered out. That now familiar voice said, “Riverrun, Hall. Get inside.”
    He did so, and as the car started moving again Drummond said, “We finally meet like civilized people.” He gave a tight-lipped smile but made no attempt to shake hands.
    He was young for a Tourism director, and his dark