Panic

by Jeff Abbott

  They’d found her. It could explain Carrie’s behavior after he’d left for Austin. They’d forced her to quit her job so she wouldn’t be missed, forced her to call him to see where he was when he was in the car with Durless.

  ‘Carrie is a true innocent, Evan. I think she’s a fine young woman. I don’t wish her any harm. I’d like to let her go, and I will, as soon as you give me those files. You and Carrie can talk privately. Then I can take you to your father. He’s desperate to see you.’

  Evan opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He stared at Carrie. She shook her head, ever so slightly.

  ‘Yes or no, Evan.’

  Evan kept waiting for the government to descend on them. Bricklayer might be lurking nearby, watching the drama play out, seeing who broke the standoff. But he couldn’t wait forever.

  Evan said, ‘Carrie walks out of here, free and clear. She tells that security guard over there she’s very sick, she needs to go to a hospital. Right now. An ambulance takes her away. When she’s safe, she calls me on a number I give her. Then you get my dad on the phone and I talk to him, and then, and only then, do I give you the files.’

  ‘I’m a great believer in compromise, Evan.’ Jargo held up a small device – a handheld computer, a PDA – next to Evan’s ear, thumbed a control.

  ‘Evan,’ his father’s voice said. Mitchell Casher sounded tired, sounded desperate. ‘The danger you’re in is not from Jargo or any of his people. It’s from the CIA. You’ve made a mistake in not trusting Jargo. The CIA killed your mom. Not Jargo. Please cooperate with him.’

  Jargo clicked off the voice recorder. ‘I’ve satisfied one of your requirements.’

  ‘I said a phone. Not a recording. He could have said all that under duress. You could have put a bullet in his head when he was done talking.’

  ‘Let me assure you, I would never hurt your dad,’ Jargo said in a low voice. ‘I don’t want to hurt you. You don’t want to come with me, fine. You and Carrie can just walk out of here once I have the files.’

  ‘As if I could trust you.’

  ‘That’s your call,’ Jargo said with a quiet shrug. ‘If you want to trust the CIA not to kill you once you’re back on the streets, that’s your call, too. Give me the files, and you and Carrie can walk out of here together if you choose. Have your wonderful life together, although I think the CIA will keep that wonderful life exceedingly brief. Or you can come with me and I’ll take you to your father, and I’ll protect you from those murdering bastards.’

  ‘You promised me my father. You can’t tell me that he didn’t want to come here and see me.’

  ‘Your father’s face is all over the news right now. You and he are the most prominent missing people in the country. He wasn’t comfortable with traveling. Not when the CIA is hunting him as much as they hunted your mother.’

  ‘I don’t believe you. We had a deal. You’re changing it.’

  ‘The world changes all the time, Evan. Only fools don’t change with it.’

  ‘Well, your world just changed. Look over by the elephants,’ Evan said.

  ‘I don’t have time for games.’

  ‘I’m not playing one.’

  Slowly Jargo made a quick survey over the scattered crowd around the elephant pen, looked back at Evan.

  ‘Thanks for the nice profile shot,’ Evan said. ‘You’re being filmed. On digital, with a high-powered lens that provides me pristine prints of your face and of Dezz’s face.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘I have friends in the documentary world all over this country. You hurt or kill me or Carrie, you’re on the evening news, and you won’t be able to spot the hidden camcorder before my friends get away. I told you my demands for giving you the files. Let me talk to Carrie. Now.’

  Jargo beckoned with a single finger and Carrie hurried over to them. Dezz stayed put.

  ‘Evan,’ she said.

  ‘No touching.’ Jargo raised an arm, kept her back.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Evan asked in a low voice.

  She nodded. ‘Fine. They didn’t hurt me.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said.

  She opened her mouth to speak, then shut it.

  ‘She leaves, just as I described,’ Evan said.

  ‘You’re not very smart,’ Jargo said. ‘You showed too much of your hand. I would have been willing to let Carrie go once you gave me the files. But film of me? No. I’ll need that as well.’

  ‘When she’s gone.’ Evan narrowed his stare. ‘Soon as Carrie’s safely away, I’ll give you the film and hand you a music player that has the files stored on it. I don’t have copies. Understood?’

  ‘No. Give me the files and the film, then she walks. If you’ve got a camera on us, I certainly am not going to harm you, if that’s what you’re so wrongly worried about. Then we can all part ways, if you’re so determined not to see your dad,’ Jargo said.

  Carrie broke free from Jargo, closed her arms around Evan. Sobbed into his shoulder. He embraced her, smelled the soft peach scent of her hair, kept his stare locked on Jargo.

  ‘Trust me,’ Carrie whispered into Evan’s ear. Then she pulled a small gun free of her coat and jabbed it under Jargo’s chin. ‘Tell Dezz to walk away or I shoot you through the neck.’

  Jargo’s eyes widened in shock.

  She pulled Jargo in front of her and Evan, putting him between them and Dezz. ‘It’s okay, Evan. We’re getting out of here. He’s got a gun in his pocket. Take it.’

  ‘Carrie, what the hell…’

  ‘Do what I tell you, babe,’ Carrie said. Evan did, pulling a gleaming pistol free from Jargo’s coat. He risked a look the other way – toward where Shadey actually stood, under the awning at the edge of the food court. With a duffel, one side cut out, the camera resting inside.

  Dezz, now hurrying forward, stopped, fifteen feet away from them, staring at the small gun pressed into his father’s neck. Carrie moved the gun down, pressing into Jargo’s back, where it wasn’t so visible.

  ‘Back off, Dezz!’ Carrie shouted. She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘Evan, if he comes any farther, shoot him.’

  Evan, still stunned, nodded.

  ‘Evan. You’re making a mistake,’ Jargo said. ‘I’m the one who can help you. Not this lying bitch.’

  Dezz’s mouth worked, watching his father, and he ran ten feet to one side, grabbed a young mother pushing a stroller with a fussing toddler. He jabbed a gun into the young woman’s throat, yanked her around, put her between himself and Evan. The young mother’s face blanched in shock and terror.

  ‘Shit,’ Carrie said.

  ‘I’ll trade you!’ Dezz yelled.

  Another woman saw the gun in his hand, shrieked for security, began to run.

  Carrie shoved Jargo to the ground in a hard sprawl. ‘Run, Evan,’ she said.

  Dezz pushed his hostage away; she grabbed her baby and fled. Dezz ran toward Evan and Carrie. Pistol out, readying to aim.

  Screams erupted around them. Carrie fired past Evan. Dezz ducked behind the bench and shrubbery.

  Around them, people panicked, stunned for a moment at the oddity of gunfire, then stampeding for cover or for the entrance, teachers herding kids, parents carrying children.

  Jargo grabbed at Evan and Evan popped him in the jaw, sent him sprawling back over the bench.

  A zoo security guard advanced toward them, yelling an order. ‘Down on the ground! Now!’

  A bullet splintered the palm trunk by the guard’s head. Dezz had fired. The guard retreated behind the thick trunk.

  Carrie gripped Evan’s arm. ‘Run. If you want to live and get your dad.’

  He ran with her, dodging through scrambling tourists, deeper into the zoo. He glanced back. No sign of Shadey; he would blend in with the retreating crowd, escape. Evan had told him to make sure whatever footage he got of Jargo made it to safety, no matter what happened to Evan.

  ‘The entrance,’ Evan said. ‘It’s the other way-’

/>   ‘I know,’ she said. ‘But they can cut us off. This way.’

  He didn’t argue. He was the faster runner and he clutched her arm.

  Dezz moved through the fleeing crowd, pursuing fast. Gun drawn, people veering away from him in every direction, giving him a clear path. Jargo followed. A man, wearing a Tulane sweatshirt, made a lunge at Dezz, and Dezz hit him hard across the face with the pistol. The man went down. Dezz and Jargo didn’t slow down, Dezz handing Jargo a second pistol.

  Evan and Carrie ran past the singsong of the zoo’s carousel, firing up for its first ride of the day, and onto a tram path where the Swamp Train looped around the zoo. The next section held animals from South America. Evan looked around for an exit sign. Or a building where they could hide. They kept running, onto a wooden walkway. It bordered an algae-topped pond for a flock of flamingos on the right and pine-studded land for llamas and guanacos on the left. A family with three kids stood at the walkway’s halfway point, admiring the flamingos, snapping photos.

  ‘Over the railing,’ Evan said. They couldn’t run past the family, who would be caught between Carrie and Evan and their pursuers.

  Carrie bolted over the wooden divider, dropped down into the exhibit. A small herd of llamas watched them with disinterest. The ground, groomed to look like Louisiana’s best approximation of the pampas, was hard and dusty, and they ran to a dense grove of pines near the exhibit’s back perimeter.

  ‘Get the trees between you and them,’ Carrie said. They ducked into the short maze of pines. A bullet smacked against the trunks.

  ‘Over the fence,’ he said. They climbed in a fast scramble, toppled over the barrier onto an unpaved trail behind the exhibit. The musky smell of wolves in a neighboring exhibit filled their noses. They ran down the service path. Maintenance buildings lined one side, the back of the South American exhibits the other. Tried the doors. Locked.

  Through the foliage and the fencing, Evan saw Jargo running past the family on the wooden walkway, spotted Dezz following in their tracks through the South American grounds.

  Trying to catch Evan and Carrie between them. ‘Keep your head down.’ Carrie grabbed at the back of his head. ‘Security camera up ahead, don’t want it to catch your face.’

  He obeyed. They ran, eyes to the ground. The service road dead-ended. A glass and stone building to their right held a family of jaguars. Jaguar Jungle was a major attraction of the zoo, a re-creation of a Mayan temple.

  They clambered over the padlocked fencing at the dead end, dropped onto a stone visitors’ path by the jaguars, who lounged behind thick glass. One yowled at them, baring curved fangs.

  Jargo huffed into the Mayan plaza, saw Carrie, fired. A bullet pinged against the Mayan stone carvings. The jaguars raised a ruckus of snarls and snaps.

  Carrie and Evan sprinted through dense growth and stone paths, past another faux temple with spider monkeys, past a children’s archaeological-dig play area. They stumbled down a creek lined with thick bamboo, hurried back up the other side to the stone path. A few moms and kids ambled along and they stared.

  ‘Crazy guy with a gun!’ Carrie yelled. ‘Take cover!’

  The moms jumped for cover in the bamboo or off the path. Jargo ran past the women, ignoring them.

  ‘Evan!’ he yelled. ‘I can give you your dad!’

  Carrie spun and fired at him. Jargo ducked back into the bamboo. Evan ran past a sign that read NO TRESPASSING, ZOO EMPLOYEES ONLY, Carrie following. It had to lead to a building, he decided, a place they could barricade themselves in – Jargo would flee to avoid the police, who would be racing into the zoo now.

  Evan hit a short fence, they went over it and then rushed up to another short fence, and Evan said, ‘Shit.’

  Alligators. On the other side of the three-foot divider, on a bank, with a narrow gap of scum-topped water beyond, leading to the zoo’s Louisiana Swamp wooden walkway, where visitors walked above the water and admired the reptiles from a safe distance. Three of the gators sunned themselves on the bank. Not five feet away from them.

  Behind them, a bullet hissed through a silencer. The shot caught Carrie high in the shoulder and she staggered and screamed. On the walkway across the water, a woman screeched for the police. Loudspeakers boomed into life, urging everyone to head calmly for the exits.

  ‘Wrong move, Carrie,’ Dezz called from behind a tree. ‘Wrongo. Stupid. Fucking dense.’

  Evan held her with one arm, aimed the gun with the other. To stand there was to die. The gators looked fat and zoo-happy and probably weren’t hungry. Please. He hoped. He spotted Dezz peeking around a tree and fired a steady barrage of bullets, forcing Dezz back into the undergrowth, helping Carrie over the fence.

  ‘Dezz… hates reptiles,’ she said. ‘Afraid of them.’

  Evan wasn’t sure he had a bullet left in the clip. He hurried her past the resting gators. He stumbled over one’s tail and it opened its white, razor-ringed mouth in a defensive hiss. But the gator started a slow waddle away from them.

  Do they smell the blood? Evan had no idea.

  ‘Go,’ she said. ‘Leave me. Get safe.’

  ‘No. Come on.’ Dezz would be charging toward them since Evan had quit shooting. He saw Dezz approaching, taking careful aim. Evan’s gun clicked on an empty magazine. Evan and Carrie jumped into the green-frothed water. He heard a bullet scream above their heads.

  Evan held Carrie’s gun above the water, but he couldn’t swim, help Carrie, and shoot at the same time. The distance to the wooden walkway seemed like a mile. People on the walkway scattered, mothers fleeing with children, one man hollering into a cell phone.

  Dezz gingerly put a foot over the fence, his gun aimed at the gators, who seemed as uninterested in him as they had been in Evan and Carrie.

  Evan kicked forward, pushing Carrie, thinking, Dezz gets a bead on us, it’s over.

  ‘Help us!’ he hollered up toward the walkway. The cell phone man gestured at Evan to swim to the right.

  A log lay between them and the walkway, and with a sudden, yet ancient horror that spasmed up from his spine, Evan saw it wasn’t a log. An alligator, facing away from them, lay barely submerged. Ignoring the ruckus behind him.

  Evan shoved Carrie to one side, slapped his hand on the water to draw the gator away from her. Carrie paddled toward the walkway. He heard a hiss behind him. One of the gators on the bank opened its mouth again, heckling Dezz, and Dezz gave ground, putting one leg back over the fence. Looking scared and furious.

  They can move faster in water, Evan thought, logic kicking into his brain. Carrie’s bleeding, does it draw them like a shark? Carrie reached the wooden supports, the cell phone man offered a hand, another man steadying him, and they hauled Carrie up to the walkway.

  Evan kicked away from the track Carrie had cut in the water. The log-gator orbited toward Evan. Evan swam hard, waited for the tug to tear off his leg. He blundered close to the walkway and put up an arm. The men yanked him up. Six feet behind him, the gator wrenched its mouth open in bravado, then settled and watched him with an ageless gaze. Evan dripped water and scum and sprawled across the wood. One of the rescuers wrenched Carrie’s gun from his grasp.

  ‘Please!’ Evan said. ‘I need that!’

  ‘No way, asshole!’ Cell Phone Man put a heavy hand on Evan’s chest, pushed him to the railing. ‘I called the police, you stay right here!’

  Evan turned toward the bank. Dezz was gone, swallowed back in the bamboo. No sign of Jargo.

  ‘She’s really shot,’ the other man said. ‘Holy Jesus.’

  Evan seized Carrie’s hand, shoved Cell Phone Man to one side, ran. The men yelled at him to stop. Old swamp-style rocking chairs lined the deck, two older ladies sitting frozen in shock, clutching their purses, as Evan and Carrie ran past. At the end of the walkway stood a gift shop and just past its door, a railing. They went over the railing; the next walkway led to a wildlife nursery, built to look like a weathered swamp shack with small boats docked in a fronting lagoon. Th
ey hurried around the back of the shack. More fencing, covered with ivy, bamboo curtaining a service road beyond.

  Evan pushed Carrie up so she could pull herself over. Blood welled from her shoulder and she gasped as she climbed. She tumbled over the ivy, falling headfirst into the blanketing thicket of bamboo beyond the fence. He jumped on the mesh and saw Jargo approaching from his right, Dezz from his left.

  ‘Give it up, Evan,’ Jargo called. ‘Right now.’

  ‘Stay back, or that tape puts your face on the evening news.’

  The indecision played on Jargo’s face. ‘You go, you’ll never see your dad again.’

  Evan went over the fence. A bullet barked a centimeter from his hand as he let go and fell into the overgrowth.

  Carrie grabbed him and they ran, hearing the pit-pit of bullets pocking through the bamboo curtains. Then the noise stopped. Evan was sure the two men were only stopping to climb over the fence in pursuit. They ran along a paved road that served as a tram path. Zoo employees headed away from them in a golf cart, hollering into walkie-talkies. Another fence and they stumbled along a stretch of parking lot and grassland on the border of the zoo. He checked behind them. No sign of Dezz or Jargo; they hadn’t scaled the fence.

  They ran along the edge of the zoo now, hearing the approaching whine of sirens.

  ‘Are you in pain?’ he asked. Stupidest question ever asked, he decided.

  ‘I’ll make it. Are you all right? Did they hit you?’

  ‘No. I’m fine. How did you…’ Shoot your way out of there. Save me. He looked at her as if he didn’t know her.

  ‘We’re getting the hell out of here,’ she said.

  Beyond the expanse of the parking lot they could see the whirl of police-car lights near the main entrance.

  ‘Here.’ He steadied her. ‘I’m getting you to a doctor.’

  ‘No doctor. Evan, you have to do what I say. I’ve been protecting you since day one. I’m sorry I had to lie to you.’ Her voice faded to a weak whisper. ‘I’m from Bricklayer.’