Jeff Abbott - Panic

‘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.’

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 occurred 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.’