Panic

by Jeff Abbott

  ‘China. Too far away. I’d miss you.’

  He kissed her. ‘I’d miss you, too. You could come with me. Be my unpaid assistant.’

  ‘My dream job,’ she said. ‘So who’s the lucky subject in China?’ She thought this might be the seed of Jargo’s interest. Evan had zeroed in on a high-ranker in Beijing who lined Jargo’s pocket. But how would Jargo have known?

  ‘There’s a Hong Kong financier named Jameson Wong who might be an interesting character, he lost all his money in bad deals, and instead of rebuilding his business he’s become a leading activist against the Communist government. Businessman turned campaigner for freedom.’

  She snuggled her face against his chest. Tomorrow she would betray his confidences, report his every word. China. This Jameson Wong guy. That was the interest point. ‘I’d buy a ticket. You’re my brilliant boy.’

  ‘Unless I do the other project,’ he said. ‘But I think it’s a dead idea.’

  She kept her face close to his chest. ‘What other one?’

  ‘About an interesting murder case in London, about twenty-five years ago.’

  ‘Whose murder?’

  ‘The guy was named Alexander Bast. He was kind of an uber-funky cool guy, very much into the art scene, very much into sleeping with young starlets, famous for his parties. Like Wong, he lost it all. In a scandal about drugs at one of his clubs. Then someone put two bullets in him.’

  ‘I thought you preferred your subjects living.’

  ‘I do. Dead people don’t talk well on camera,’ he said with a quiet laugh. ‘I thought about combining both stories. Compare and contrast two very different lives, find a common thread that gives an insight about success and failure.’ She heard his voice rise in excitement. ‘But it might not be commercial enough.’

  She raised her face toward his. ‘Don’t worry about that, make the movie you want to make.’

  ‘I know what I want to make right now.’ He kissed her, they made love again. He dozed and she got up from the bed and washed her face.

  She made no mention to Jargo, in the days ahead, of Jameson Wong or Alexander Bast or Jacques Cousteau.

  ‘He’s focused entirely on editing his current movie,’ she said the next week when she talked to Jargo. She had a cell phone that Evan didn’t know about; she kept it hidden in a pocket under the driver’s seat. She sat in the car, in the parking lot of a Krispy Kreme.

  ‘Stay on him. If he commits to another film, I want to know immediately.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘I’ve deposited another ten thousand in your account,’ Jargo said.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I wonder,’ Jargo said, ‘if you think Evan might ever consider working for me.’

  ‘No. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t be good at it.’

  ‘It’s an unbeatable cover. A rising-star documentary film-maker. He can go anywhere, film about anything, and no one would doubt his credentials or his intentions.’

  ‘He’s interested in the truth. That’s his passion.’

  ‘And yet he’s fucking you.’

  ‘Recruitment’s not a good idea. Not now.’ She was afraid to argue further; afraid of what would happen if Jargo thought Evan was a danger to him.

  ‘I want you to be prepared,’ Jargo said. ‘Because you may have to kill him.’

  She watched the line of cars slowly move through the doughnut store drive-through. The back of her eyes hurt. Jargo had never suggested such work to her before; mostly, before sliding into Evan’s bed, she’d worked as a courier for Jargo, in Berlin, in New York, in Mexico City. Never a killer. The silence began to get dangerously long, he would get suspicious. ‘If you say so,’ she said. There was nothing else to say. ‘Then I should get distance. I don’t want to be a suspect.’

  ‘No, you stay close. If it has to happen, you and he both vanish. You don’t stay around. You’re both dead and gone, and we build you a new legend. I can probably use you more in Europe anyway.’

  ‘Very well,’ she said. He told her to have a good day and then he hung up. She filed her empty reports with Jargo, manufacturing innocuous lies about what Evan’s next project might be, until Jargo had called her two days ago and said, ‘I want to know if Evan has any files on his computer that shouldn’t be there.’

  ‘Be specific.’

  ‘Lists of names.’

  ‘All right.’

  An hour later she searched Evan’s computer while he was out running errands. She called Jargo. ‘I found no files like that.’ Evan had scant data on his computer other than scripts, video footage, and basic programs.

  ‘Check every twelve hours, if possible. If you find the files, delete them and destroy his hard drive. Then report back to me.’

  ‘What are these files?’

  ‘That you don’t need to know. Don’t memorize the information or copy the files. Just delete them and make sure that hard drive can’t be recovered.’

  ‘I understand.’ And she did. The files were what Jargo was truly worried about, probably files that connected back to Jameson Wong or the other potential film subjects.

  But if Evan’s hard drive was to be destroyed, she had a sinking, awful feeling that Evan was to be destroyed as well.

  Carrie washed her face again. Evan was gone, stolen by a man who might be very, very bad, and soon Jargo’s technical elves would find a trace of him and they would go get Evan from the man who had taken him. The files had been sitting on his system this morning, she had left without looking for them, and if Jargo doubted her word, he would kill her. She had to win back Jargo’s trust. Now.

  Last night, Evan telling her that he loved her, seemed like a moment from a world that no longer existed, a pocket of time where there was no Jargo and no Dezz and no files and no fear or pretending. She wished he hadn’t said it. She wanted to hit him, to push him away, to tell him, Don’t, don’t, don’t, you don’t know anything, I can’t have a life with you, I can’t be normal ever again, it can’t ever be, so just don’t.

  She had to harden her heart now. She had to catch Evan.

  SATURDAY MARCH 12

  8

  E van opened his eyes.

  He was lying on a bed. The cream-white sheets had been folded back; a thin cotton towel was spread behind his head. One of his arms was raised, bound to the bed’s iron-railing headboard with a handcuff. The bedroom was high-end: hardwood floors, a rustic but expensive reddish finish on the walls, abstract art hung to precision above a stone fireplace. A sliver of soft sunlight pierced a crack in the silk drapes. The door was closed.

  He had been seconds from wrecking the car when Gabriel had grabbed him and hammered him. His tongue wormed in his dry mouth. A heavy ache settled in along his jaw and neck for permanent residence. He smelled his own sour sweat.

  Mom. I failed you. I’m so sorry. He swallowed down the panic and the grief because it wasn’t doing him any good.

  He had to be calm. Think. Because everything had changed.

  What had Gabriel said? In your life, nothing is as it seems.

  Well, one thing was exactly as it seemed. He was completely screwed.

  Evan tested the handcuff. Locked. He sat up, pushing with his feet, wriggling his back against the headboard. A side table held a book – a recent thick bestseller about the history of baseball – and a lamp; no phone. A baby monitor stood on the far table.

  He stared at the monitor. He couldn’t act afraid with Gabriel. He had to show strength.

  For his mom, because Gabriel knew the meat of the story as to why his mom had died. For his dad, wherever he was. For Carrie, however she was mixed up in this nightmare. She knew he was in danger – how? He had no idea.

  So, what do you do now?

  He needed a weapon. Imagine the guy who killed Mom is here. What do you hurt him with? Look at everything with new eyes. New eyes. It was advice he gave himself when he was setting up scenes to shoot. He could barely reach the side table. He managed to fingertip the knob and open the dr
awer. His hand searched the drawer as far as he could reach: empty. The book on the table wasn’t heavy enough. The lamp. He couldn’t reach it but he could reach the cord, where it snaked to a plug behind the bed. As silently as he could, keeping an eye on the baby monitor, trying to quiet the handcuff from rattling against the metal headboard, he tugged the lamp closer to him; the base was heavy, ornate, wrought-iron. But at the angle he was bound, he wouldn’t be able to swing the lamp with enough force to cause serious hurt. He unplugged the cord, looped it neatly behind the table so it wouldn’t catch or snag. Just in case he got a chance. Lamps could be thrown. He peered down the back of the bed, to the floor. Nothing else but miniature tumbleweeds of dust.

  ‘Hello,’ he called to the monitor.

  A minute later he heard the tread of feet on stairs. Then the rasp of a key in a lock. The bedroom door opened; Gabriel stood in the doorway. A sleek black pistol holstered at his side.

  ‘You okay?’ Gabriel said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Thanks for putting our lives at risk with your stupid stunt.’

  ‘Did we crash?’

  ‘No, Evan. I know how to drive a car while seated in the passenger side. Standard training.’ Gabriel cleared his throat. ‘How you feeling now?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ Evan tried to imagine driving from the passenger side to avoid a high-speed crash. It suggested an extraordinary level of calm under fire. ‘So where did you learn that driving trick?’

  ‘A very special school,’ Gabriel said. ‘It’s early Saturday morning. You slept through the night.’ A coldness frosted his gaze. ‘You and I can be of great help to each other, Evan.’

  ‘Really. Now you want to help me.’

  ‘I saved you, didn’t I? If you had stayed out in the open, well, you’d be dead now. I don’t believe even the police could protect you from Mr. Jargo.’ Gabriel leaned against the wall. ‘So, let’s start afresh. I need you to tell me exactly what happened yesterday when you got to your parents’ house.’

  ‘Why? You’re not the police.’

  ‘No, I’m not, but I did save your life. I could have let you hang. I didn’t.’

  ‘True,’ Evan said. But he watched Gabriel. The man looked as if he hadn’t slept at all. Jumpy. Nervous. Like a man in need of a solid blast of bourbon. But there was nothing to be gained by silence, at least not now.

  So Evan told him about his mother’s urgent phone call, the drive to Austin, the attack in the kitchen. Gabriel asked no questions. When Evan was done, Gabriel brought a chair to the foot of the bed and sat down. Frowning, as if he was considering a plan of action and not caring for his options.

  ‘I want to know who exactly you are,’ Evan said.

  ‘I’ll tell you who I am. And then I’ll tell you who you are.’

  ‘I know who I am.’

  ‘Do you? I don’t think so, Evan.’ Gabriel shook his head. ‘I’d call your childhood sheltered, but that would be a sick joke.’

  ‘I kept my promise to you. You keep yours.’

  Gabriel shrugged. ‘I own a private security firm. Your mother hired me to get you and her safely out of Austin, get you to your father. Clearly she slipped up and tipped her hand to the wrong people. I’m sorry I couldn’t save her.’

  So he knows where Dad is.

  ‘Go back to the attack. You were unconscious,’ Gabriel said. ‘For a few minutes, at least, between when they hit you and they strung you up.’

  ‘I don’t know how long. Why does it matter?’

  ‘Because the killers could have gotten the files I mentioned. Found them on your or your mother’s computer.’

  ‘They wouldn’t have been on my computer.’ But one of the men had accessed his laptop. He remembered now, the start-up chime, the sound of typing, telling Durless about it. ‘The killers, they typed on my laptop. Said something about…’ He struggled to remember past the haze of trauma. ‘About “all gone.”’ He waited to see what else Gabriel would say.

  ‘Your mother e-mailed you the files.’

  E-mailed. His mother had sent him those music files for his soundtrack late the night before she called. But they were just music files; he’d listened to them on the way to Austin. Nothing unusual. She hadn’t put anything weird in her e-mail to him. But he hadn’t mentioned the e-mails to Gabriel in relating Friday morning’s events; it hadn’t seemed important compared to the horrors of yesterday. ‘My mom didn’t e-mail me anything weird. And even if she did, the killers couldn’t have gotten past the password.’

  So what did all gone mean?

  ‘There are programs that can crack passwords in a matter of seconds.’ Gabriel leaned against the wall, studied Evan. ‘I don’t have one. But I do have you.’

  ‘I don’t have these files.’

  ‘Your mother told me that you did, Evan.’

  Evan shook his head. ‘These files… what are they?’

  ‘The less you know, the better. That way I can let you go and you can forget you ever saw me and you can go have a nice new life.’ Gabriel crossed his arms. ‘I’m an extremely reasonable man. I want to give you a fair deal. You give me the files. I get you out of the country, provide you a new identity and access to a bank account in the Caymans, which your mother had me arrange. If you’re careful, no one will ever find you.’

  ‘I’m just supposed to give up my life.’ Evan tried to keep the shock out of his voice.

  ‘It’s your call. You want to go back home, go ahead. But if I were you, I wouldn’t. Home is death.’

  Evan chewed his lip. ‘I help you, then what about my dad?’

  ‘If your father contacts me, I’ll tell him where you are, and then finding you is his problem. My responsibility to your mother stops once you get on a plane.’

  ‘Please tell me where my dad is.’

  ‘I’ve no idea. Your mother knew how to get in touch with him, but I don’t.’

  Evan let a beat pass. ‘I could give you what you want and you’d just kill me.’

  Gabriel reached in his pocket and tossed a passport on the bedspread. It bore the seal of South Africa. With his free hand, Evan opened it. A picture of him was inside – his original passport photo, the same as he had in his American passport. The name on the passport was Erik Thomas Petersen. Stamps colored the pages: entry into Great Britain a month ago, then entry into the United States two weeks ago. Evan shut the passport, dropped it back on the bed. ‘Very legitimate-looking.’

  ‘You need to slip into being Mr. Petersen very carefully. If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead. I’m giving you an escape hatch.’

  ‘I still don’t understand how my mother could have gotten any dangerous computer files.’ And then he saw it. Not his mother. His father. The computer consultant. His father must have found files, in working for a client, that were dangerous.

  ‘All you have to do is give me your password.’ Gabriel opened the bedroom door, wheeled in a cart, one that might be used as extra serving space for food during a brunch or a party. Evan’s laptop lay on the table. Gabriel parked it close to Evan, keeping the cart between the two of them. A crack straddled the screen but the laptop was cabled to a small monitor. The system appeared to be operating normally. The password screen displayed, awaiting the magic word.

  That was why Gabriel had taken the enormous risk of returning for Evan, ambushing the police car, kidnapping him. He couldn’t get past the laptop’s gates.

  ‘It’s on here,’ Gabriel said. ‘Your mother placed a copy on your system before she died. E-mailed it to you. She told me. She did it to ensure if she were killed, another copy of the files would be accessible to me. It was part of the deal I made with her. I couldn’t risk her being caught and me not getting the files. It guaranteed I would still take care of you if she were killed.’

  Gabriel was so matter-of-fact that Evan wanted to hit him.

  Gabriel leaned closer to him. ‘What’s your system password?’

  ‘You’re supposed to get me out of the country. So your job, t
echnically, isn’t done until you deliver. I’ll tell you the password when you get me to my father.’

  ‘I’ve told you what the deal is, son. That’s it. No room for negotiation.’ Gabriel retreated to the bed’s edge and aimed his pistol at Evan’s head. ‘I don’t want to hurt you. Open the system.’

  Evan pushed the laptop away. ‘Contact my dad. If he tells me to give you my password, I will.’

  ‘Wax out of ears, son. I can’t get in touch with him.’

  ‘If you were supposed to get me and my mom to safety, that means getting us to where my dad could find us. You must have a way to reach him.’

  ‘Your mother knew. I didn’t.’

  ‘I don’t believe you, Mr. Gabriel. No password.’

  ‘You don’t give this to me, you spend the rest of your brief life handcuffed to that bed. Dying of thirst. Of starvation.’

  Evan waited, let the silence grow heavy. ‘You know who killed her. This Jargo guy. Who he is.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Tell me about him and I’ll help you. But look at it from my side. You’re asking me to run away from my life. Do nothing about my mother’s murder. Simply hope I can ever find my father again. I can’t just walk away not knowing the truth.’ He didn’t believe Gabriel, anyway. His father had been impossible to find yesterday, but the police would have found him by now, wherever he was in Sydney.

  ‘You’re safer not knowing.’

  ‘I don’t care about safer at the moment.’

  ‘Jesus and Mary, you’re stubborn.’ Gabriel lowered the gun, averted his eyes from Evan’s.

  ‘I know you risked a lot to save me from Jargo. I know. Thank you. I can hardly run, though, and be successful at it if I don’t know who’s after me. So I’ll trade you the password for information on Jargo. Deal?’

  After a long ten seconds, Gabriel nodded. ‘All right.’

  ‘Tell me about Jargo.’

  ‘He’s… an information broker. A freelance spy.’

  ‘A spy. You’re telling me my mother was killed by a spy.’

  ‘A freelance spy,’ Gabriel corrected.