Panic

by Jeff Abbott

  ‘I suspected.’

  ‘And clients within the Agency. Those people are at huge risk if Evan turns over the files. They’re dead in the water.’ Jargo tasted the smoke again, stubbed out the cigarette in an ashtray. ‘My people inside the Agency have every reason to get Evan back for me. For us.’ He put a hand on Mitchell’s shoulder.

  ‘They won’t hurt him?’

  ‘Not if I tell them to bring him to me alive.’ The lie felt fine in his mouth. ‘But either way, we must get Evan and whatever information he has away from the Agency. Alive, so you can be together with him again.’

  ‘Please, Steve. Let me help. Let me help you find my son.’

  Jargo stood. Made his decision. Dug in his pocket and unlocked the chain, slipped it free of Mitchell. The links made a pool of silver on the hardwood floor.

  Mitchell stood. ‘Thank you, Steve.’

  ‘Go get showered. I’ll cook you dinner.’ He gave Mitchell Casher a rough hug. ‘How’s an omelet sound?’

  Mitchell seized him by the throat, shoved him hard against the wall, relieved him of his gun, angled it under his chin. ‘An omelet sounds great. But just so you and I are clear. Your agents. They don’t hurt or kill my son. Make them understand we need him alive.’

  ‘I’m glad that’s out of your system. You can let me go now.’

  ‘If they kill my son, I will kill yours.’

  ‘Let go.’

  Mitchell released his hold on Jargo; Jargo gently pushed his hand away. ‘This is what our enemies want. Us at each other’s throats.’

  Mitchell handed him his gun. ‘Evan. Safe. That’s nonnegotiable. I can control my son once we’ve got him back.’

  ‘I will do everything I can to bring him home. You realize he’ll be the best-kept secret in the Agency. Resources, people, will be diverted from their normal work to help hide him and to rally against us. My eyes inside the Agency will be looking for those signs. A well-meaning idiot in the Agency will mass for a secret war against us, and we’ll stop them with our own Pearl Harbor.’

  ‘Getting him back will be almost impossible.’

  ‘In a way,’ Jargo said, ‘I think it might be easy. What we need to do is convince him to come back to us.’

  He went downstairs to make the omelet. The curving cypress staircase was full of shadow; he did not like lights burning brightly in the lodge, even with every window carefully sealed and covered. Too much light would glow like a beacon in the vast dark and might attract unwanted attention.

  The kitchen in the empty lodge was large, dimly lit. Dezz sat on a stool eating a candy bar, sullen, morose. CNN was on the TV.

  ‘Any details of note?’ Jargo asked.

  ‘No. A few people suffered minor injuries in the rush to get out of the zoo. No arrests. No suspects. But no mention of videotape of us.’ Dezz chewed his candy. ‘When we catch them, I get the bitch. She’s all mine. Ask her your questions, then give her to me. Christmas comes early this year.’

  ‘If Evan has the client list and hands it over to the CIA, then they’ll up the surveillance on those targets. Not just on our clients inside the CIA, but elsewhere. But slowly. They can’t commit too many resources suddenly to us without incredibly uncomfortable questions being asked.’

  ‘Your point?’

  He could share with Dezz what he didn’t dare share with Mitchell. ‘Very few in the CIA know about us. There is a man, code-named Bricklayer, but I have not been able to determine who he is. Bricklayer is supposed to root out any internal problems in the CIA: problems such as using freelance assassins, selling secrets, committing unapproved kills, stealing from American corporations. Basically, Bricklayer wants to put us out of business.’

  ‘Bricklayer.’

  ‘Carrie’s a resource Bricklayer will have to use. That may be a blessing to us.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘How the CIA uses Carrie will tell us how much they really know about us.’ He gathered the makings of an omelet from the fridge. Cooking would calm him. He chopped vegetables and he thought of a lifetime ago, a child, watching the girl who became Donna Casher standing across a sun-drenched kitchen table from him, cutting vegetables with a calm precision. She had always wanted everything exact, just so. The sun had always caught her hair in a way that transfixed Jargo, and a tinge of sadness and regret touched his heart. He wished, just once, he had told her how much he liked her photographs.

  ‘You know, Mitchell and Donna and I, the first job we had together when we went freelance, it was in London. A hit. Really simple, it didn’t require all three of us, but there was a sense of power in the three of us doing the kill together. A sense of liberation.’

  ‘Who killed whom?’ Dezz asked.

  ‘Victim doesn’t matter. Mitchell and I both did the kill, although my shot hit first. Donna handled logistics.’ Jargo cracked eggs in a bowl, stirred in milk, dumped in the broccoli and peppers. ‘Because it was our first job, we were cutting the bonds of our old life. We were so conscious in making our decisions. Before we were never encouraged to be so deliberative. We were more point and shoot, don’t ask questions. I fingered the bullets I was using for the longest time, like they were worry beads. Or the last shackles of a chain that we were all breaking.’

  Dezz ate a piece of candy.

  ‘I just traded one set of chains for another, Dezz.’

  Dezz had no mind for reflection. He said, ‘So how are you getting Evan and Carrie back? Or at least shutting them up?’

  ‘Carrie will tell the CIA what she knows, which isn’t much. She can’t betray enough to hurt us. She can give them descriptions, the apartment in Austin, but not much in terms of usable evidence.’

  ‘Get real,’ Dezz said. ‘If she’s double, she might have information, files… she could skin you.’

  ‘She had no access.’

  ‘You don’t know what she had, Dad.’

  Jargo kept his voice low. ‘You missed a prime chance to kill them both. Shut up.’ He dumped butter in the sizzling skillet, poured in the eggs. ‘I intend to cover every base. Including bases you don’t even know are on the field, Dezz.’

  ‘We need to pack and run. Set up shop elsewhere. England. Germany. Greece. Let’s go to Greece.’

  ‘No. I’m not dismantling years of sweat and work. My chains are still ones of my own choice, Dezz.’ The failure dimmed in Jargo. He was ready to roll.

  ‘You’re not going to be able to get Evan back.’

  Jargo finished cooking the eggs and slid them on a plate. ‘Take this plate and a cup of strong coffee up to Mitchell. Be nice; he threatened to kill you a few minutes ago if I don’t get Evan back safe and sound.’

  Dezz frowned.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Jargo said in a low voice. ‘Soon Evan will be dead, but Mitchell won’t be able to blame us.’

  TUESDAY MARCH 15

  25

  E van watched the padded walls, and the walls watched back – the small dents in the fabric reminded him of eyes. He imagined cameras lurking behind the fabric. He wondered what dramas they had witnessed in this room. Interrogations. Breakdowns. Death. A faded stain marred the wall, about the height of a sitting man, and he imagined how the stain had got there and why it hadn’t been removed. Probably because the CIA wanted you to contemplate that stain and what it might suggest.

  Two CIA men, one the pilot, flew them on the private jet out of New Orleans. Evan told them he would only talk to Bricklayer. They provided first aid to Carrie, left him alone, and brought him to this room after the plane landed in a small clearing in a forest. A private ambulance with NORTH HILL CLINIC written on it, with Virginia license plates, whisked them away. A medical team took Carrie away, and a thick-necked security guard put him in this room. He sat and resisted the urge to make faces at the wall, sure cameras watched him. Worried about Carrie, worried about Shadey. Worried about his father.

  The door opened and a man stuck his head inside. ‘Would you like to see your friend now?’

  It occurre
d to Evan the man might not even know Carrie’s real name. It occurred to him that he might not either. But he said, ‘Thanks,’ and followed the man down a brightly lit hallway. The man led him down three doors, and her room wasn’t padded; it was a typical hospital room. No windows, the light on the bed eerie and dim, like the glow of the moon in a bad dream. She lay in bed, her shoulder bandaged. A guard stood outside the door.

  Carrie dozed. Evan watched her and wondered who she really was, in the spaces between flesh and bone. He took her hand, gave it a squeeze. She slept on.

  ‘Hello, Evan,’ a voice sounded behind her. ‘She’ll be right as rain real soon. I’m Bricklayer.’

  Evan put her hand down gently and turned toward the man. He was sixtyish, thin, with a sour set to his mouth but warm eyes. He looked like a difficult uncle. Bricklayer offered Evan his hand. Evan shook it and said, ‘I’d rather call you Bedford.’

  ‘That’s fine.’ Bedford kept his face impassive. ‘As long as you don’t do it in front of other people. No one here knows my real name.’ He stepped past Evan, put a hand on Carrie’s forehead in a fatherly fashion, as though checking her for fever. Then he steered Evan into a conference room down the hall, where another guard stood watch. Bedford closed the door behind him and sat down. Evan stayed on his feet.

  ‘Have you eaten?’

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’

  ‘I’m here to help you, Evan.’

  ‘So you said the first time we talked.’ He decided to test the waters. ‘I’d like to leave now.’

  ‘Oh, goodness, I think that very unwise.’ Bedford tented his hands. ‘Mr. Jargo and his associates will be hunting for you.’ His politeness was like an heirloom, given prominence on the table.

  ‘My problem. Not yours.’

  Bedford gestured at the chair. ‘Sit for a minute, please.’

  Evan sat.

  ‘I understand you grew up in Louisiana and Texas. I’m from Alabama,’ Bedford said. ‘Mobile. Wonderful town. I miss it terribly the older I get. Southern boys can be stubborn. Let’s both not be stubborn.’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘I’d like for you to tell me what happened since your mother phoned you on Friday morning.’

  Evan took a deep breath and gave Bedford a detailed account. But he did not mention Shadey, he did not mention Mrs. Briggs. He didn’t want anyone else in trouble.

  ‘I offer my deepest sympathies on the death of your mother,’ Bedford said. ‘I think she must have been an extraordinarily brave woman.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Let me assure you that her funeral arrangements will be taken care of.’

  ‘Thank you, but I’ll handle her memorial when I get back to Austin.’

  ‘I’m afraid you truly can’t go home again.’

  ‘Am I a prisoner?’

  ‘No. But you’re a target, and it’s my job to keep you alive.’

  ‘I can’t help you. I don’t have these files. Telling Jargo that I did was simply a bluff to get my dad back.’

  ‘Tell me again exactly what your father said. Since he blames us for your mother’s death.’

  Evan did, repeating his father’s plea word for word, as best as he could remember. Bedford took a tin of mints from his pocket, offered Evan the tin, popped a mint in his own mouth after Evan shook his head. ‘Quite a story Jargo’s peddling. We didn’t kill your mother. He did.’

  ‘I know. I’m not sure why he cares what I think.’

  ‘He doesn’t. He just wants to manipulate you.’ Bedford chewed his mint. ‘You must feel like Alice, fallen down the rabbit hole into Wonderland.’

  ‘Nothing wondrous about it.’

  ‘The fact that you survived an attack and a kidnapping is quite impressive. Mr. Jargo and his friends, they’ve stolen your life from you. They put a piece of wire around your mama’s throat and squeezed the last breath out of her. How does that make you feel?’

  Evan opened his mouth to speak and then shut it.

  ‘It’s the kind of question you ask in your films. I watched them a couple of months back. How did that fellow in Houston feel, framed by the police? How did that woman feel when her son and her grandson didn’t come home from war? I was most impressed. You’re a good storyteller. But just like a reporter with his soul sucked out, you have to ask the dreaded question: “How does it make you feel?”’

  ‘You want to know? I hate them. Jargo. Dezz.’

  ‘You have every reason.’ Bedford’s voice went lower. ‘He made your mom and dad lie to you for years. I suspect it wasn’t entirely their choice to work for the Deeps, at least for as long as they did.’

  ‘The Deeps.’

  ‘Jargo’s name for his network.’ Bedford tented his hands.

  ‘Gabriel said he was a freelance spy.’

  ‘It’s true he buys and sells information, between governments, organizations, even companies. As far as we know.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘We’ve never been able to prove, conclusively, that he exists.’

  ‘I’ve seen him. So has Carrie.’

  ‘This is what we know. There is a man who uses the name Steven Jargo. He has no financial records. He owns no property. He does not travel under his own name, ever. Very few people have seen him more than once. He regularly changes his appearance. He has a young man who works with him, supposedly his son, and the son works under the name of Desmond Jargo, but there is no record of his birth, or his schooling, or him having anything like a normal life that creates a paper trail. They have a network. We don’t know if it’s just a few people or if it’s a hundred. We suspect, from the times the name Jargo has popped up, that he has clients, buyers for his information and his services, on every continent.’ Bedford opened up a laptop. ‘I’m about to show extraordinary trust in you, Evan. Please don’t disappoint me.’

  Bedford pressed a button and activated a projector cabled to the laptop. The image of a body, sprawled on pavestones, one arm dangling in a turquoise pool. ‘This is Valentin Marquez. A high-ranking financial official in Colombia, one that our government was not fond of because he had connections to the Cali drug cartels, but we couldn’t touch him. His body was found dead in his backyard; four of his bodyguards were killed as well. Rumors surfaced that an American State Department official funneled money to a man named Jargo; he put a hit on Marquez. Given the political situation, this would not be an activity we want exposed: American officials illegally diverting taxpayer funds to hired killers.’

  Click. Another picture. A prototype blueprint of a soldier wearing a formfitting jumpsuit. ‘This is a project the Pentagon has been working on, the next generation of ultralightweight body armor for field troops. This blueprint was found in the computer of a senior army official in Beijing by one of our agents, who was attempting to steal data on the Chinese conventional-weapons program. We kidnapped the official, and under duress, he told us he bought the plans from a group he called the Deeps. We found an attempt was made to sell the same armor prototype to a Russian military attache three weeks later. He refused the offer and attempted, instead, to steal the prototype from the seller. The seller killed the man, his wife, and his four children. The wife’s aunt, who was visiting, survived by hiding in the attic. She got a glimpse of the killer. Her description matches Dezz Jargo’s, although his hair was a different color and he wore glasses in Russia. Two months later, a major international armaments dealer made a proposal for a body armor that matched these specifications exactly. In short, Jargo works both sides of the fence. He steals from us, he sells to us.’

  Evan closed his eyes.

  ‘Those are the closest cases we can tie to Jargo. We have several others where we suspect his involvement but can prove nothing.’

  ‘My parents could not have been involved with a man like that. It just can’t be.’

  ‘That’s what Carrie thought, I’m sure,’ Bedford said. ‘Her father worked for Jargo. Jargo killed her mom and dad. Or rather, had them killed.’


  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Her real name is Caroline Leblanc. Her father ran a private security service after a long career in military intelligence. He had come to the Agency and met with me, let me know that Jargo had operatives working in the Agency and people buying his services within the Agency. I asked him to remain in place, keep working for Jargo, but report to me. Jargo found out, or Carrie’s father slipped up. Jargo made her think the CIA was responsible for her father’s death. But Carrie came to us after her father’s death – she learned additional details that convinced her that Jargo was behind her parents’ murders. At tremendous personal risk, Carrie joined us and became our double agent within the Deeps.’

  Evan found his voice after a moment. ‘Jargo killed her folks. And she kept working for him. My God.’

  ‘Yes. It was difficult but she knew it had to be done. Carrie is our single operative who’s gotten close to Jargo, although she’s only seen him face to face less than five times.’

  ‘So who sent her into my bed, you or Jargo?’

  Bedford let the words die on the air. ‘A man like you, who looks for truth in the world, knows that life is complicated. I asked her to watch out for you. I didn’t order her to kiss you, sleep with you, or to care about you. She’s not who you thought she was… but she’s still Carrie. Does that make sense?’

  He didn’t know. ‘Why were you and Jargo interested in me?’

  ‘I, simply because Jargo sent Carrie to watch you.’ Bedford cleared his throat. ‘He wanted to know what film you were making next.’

  ‘Film? I don’t understand. Wasn’t he watching me because of my parents?’

  ‘That would be the natural assumption. But he wanted Carrie to find out about your film plans. That seems to have been the genesis of his interest in you.’

  ‘He wanted me for this network. Like Carrie.’

  ‘Possibly. But then he’d have gotten your parents to recruit you. Like how John Walker talked his friend and his son into becoming spies for the Russians.’

  Evan tried to imagine his parents sitting him down for that talk. The picture wouldn’t form.