Jeff Abbott - Panic

‘How did you find out about Bast?’

‘Well, he was semifamous already, simply because he was such a friend to so many famous people. But I was in the UK a few months ago, lecturing at the London Film School, and I got an anonymous package indicating that Alexander Bast would be a good subject for my next film project. It included clippings about Bast, his murder, his life.’

‘That’s rather unusual, isn’t it, for someone to pitch you a film idea anonymously?’ Bedford cupped his hands over his chin, leaned forward on the table.

‘Everyone has an idea for a movie, I get ideas tossed to me by nearly everyone I meet.’ Evan took a long sip of water. ‘But, yes, an anonymous package, this was odd. I hadn’t ever heard of Bast. But the story about him – rich party animal embraces social change – was interesting, and he was certainly an intriguing character. Most pitches are beyond boring – they just don’t have meat enough for a movie.’

‘Did you ever find out who left the package?’

Evan shifted in his chair. ‘The head of the documentary department at London Film, Jon Malcolm, told me that a man named Hadley Khan had been asking him if I’d mentioned doing a film on Alexander Bast. I told Malcolm about the anonymous package I’d gotten, because it was odd.’

‘Hadley Khan.’

‘Yeah. He’s from a wealthy Pakistani family based in London. I had met him at a Film School cocktail party. His family donates money to a number of London cultural interests. Malcolm told me Hadley had mentioned my work to him a couple of times, pushed for me to get an invite to speak at the Film School. I figured Hadley sent the package.’

‘What did he talk to you about at the cocktail party? Do you recall?’

Evan thought, let the silence take hold of the room. ‘I only thought about it later, when it became clear he’d sent me the anonymous package.’ He closed his eyes. ‘He asked about my next film project. I don’t discuss my ideas, and I gave him the polite answer that I wasn’t sure yet. And frankly, I really wasn’t sure what I’d do. He told me how much he admired biography as a focus, that London was full of fascinating characters. It was all harmless and vague. But I remember his face – he reminded me of a rookie car salesman, gearing up for the pitch but lacking the spine to close the deal.’

‘Did you ever ask Hadley Khan about the information on Bast?’

‘No. Malcolm didn’t tell me about Hadley having sent me the package until I was back in the States. I e-mailed Hadley but never got a response.’ Evan shrugged. ‘It was strange, but I found out a long time ago all sorts of people want to get close to the film business. I figured, since he had money, he probably wanted to be a producer. Get a credit on a film. It’s very common. I thought he was just an amateur.’ Evan shook his head. ‘It definitely sounds more sinister now. Knowing what I know.’

‘Alexander Bast was a CIA agent,’ Bedford said. ‘A low-level courier. Not important. But still on our payroll, until the day he died.’

Evan leaned back in the chair. ‘Nothing in the material Khan gave me on Bast indicated he had a CIA tie.’

‘We don’t generally advertise,’ Bedford said dryly.

‘Bast has been dead for twenty-plus years. If there was a connection to him and Jargo, why would Jargo care now?’

‘I don’t know. But that has to be part of the reason Jargo was interested in you. Bast was CIA, Jargo has contacts in the CIA. You were in England before Jargo got interested in you. So was your mother.’

‘She had a photographic assignment for a magazine.’

‘Or she had work to do for Jargo.’

Evan decided to broach the subject. ‘Jargo said your people killed my mother.’

‘We covered that already. He lied, of course.’

‘But what you’re doing is illegal. Last I heard the CIA isn’t supposed to operate on American soil. Yet here you are.’

‘Evan. You’re correct. The CIA charter doesn’t permit the Agency to conduct clandestine ops on U.S. soil or against citizens.’ Bedford shrugged. ‘But the Deeps are a very special case. If we bring in the FBI, we hopelessly complicate the situation. We can act and act decisively.’

‘ Complicate means “expose”, and that’s what you don’t want. The fact is you have active traitors and rogues in the Agency.’

‘I don’t want them to know we’re on their trail. All our activities will come to light once the bad guys are down. We still have congressional oversight, you know.’

‘All I care about is getting my dad back from Jargo.’

‘Without the files,’ Bedford said, ‘we don’t have a lot of options.’

‘I don’t know where any of the files on the Deeps are.’

‘Oh, I believe you. If you knew, you would have given them to us.’ Bedford crossed his legs.

‘My mother had to have stolen them from somewhere. If this network is as fragmented as you say, she wouldn’t have easily amassed a list of the clients. She would have to steal this list. From a central source.’

‘I think it likely.’

Evan got up and began to pace the floor. ‘So. Jargo gets interested in me because he hears I’m doing a film that threatens him. That means he has a connection to Hadley Khan. He inserts Carrie into my life to watch me. Then my mother steals these files… why? Why does she turn against Jargo, after so long?’

‘Maybe she learned of Jargo’s interest in you. It was probably a protective measure.’

Evan’s head spun. His mother. Set her own death in motion, trying to save him from Jargo.

‘You get the client list, what do you do with it?’

‘The CIA has only a few bad apples. I think Jargo knows most of them. We take them down. Jargo has to be stopped.’

‘And you getting a list of Jargo’s other clients, that doesn’t hurt you, either.’

‘Of course not. The British and the French and the Russians want to know about their own loose cannons. But my primary concern is in cleaning our own house. If you might help us figure out where she hid another copy of the files, that would-’

‘I told you, I don’t have the files,’ Evan said. ‘So we should steal the files again.’

Bedford raised an eyebrow. ‘How?’

‘Go backward from when my parents vanished from Washington all those years ago. Find another path into Jargo’s organization.’

‘He’ll have destroyed the files.’

‘But not their essence. He still has to have a way of tracking clients, payments made to him, deliveries he does. That information still exists. We have to crack his world.’

‘Stop saying we.’

‘I want my father back. I can’t just sit around a hospital room forever.’ Bedford leaned back. ‘And you think you could do it.’

‘Yes. If I start getting close to Jargo, he’ll try and grab me. Or he’ll think I’m working with you now and he’ll want to grab me to see what you know.’

‘Or grab Carrie.’

‘No. He nearly killed her. She doesn’t go anywhere near him.’ Evan shook his head. ‘Where were you, by the way, in New Orleans? You sent her alone.’

‘Carrie is an excellent agent, but she’s strong-willed.’

‘Oh. That’s not an act?’ Evan said, and permitted himself his first smile in days.

Bedford gave a soft laugh. ’No, that’s who she is. She risked everything to save you.’

‘I don’t want her near Jargo.’

‘That’s not your choice, though, is it?’

‘Get another agent.’

‘I can’t. Fighting Jargo is not official CIA policy, son, because we don’t want to admit he’s a problem.’ Bedford put the smile back on. ‘You’re at a secret CIA clinic in rural Virginia. The locals think this is a sanatorium for rich alcoholics. On our books you’re listed under a code name, which in the records is a nonexistent Croatian Muslim college student living in D.C. wanting to trade information on Al Qaeda in Eastern Europe that will, of course, not pan out. Your flight from New Orleans will be logged as me traveling back from a meeting with a journalist from Mexico who had information to share on a drug cartel that is financing terror activities in Chiapas. You see how the game is played? Until we identify who Jargo has in his pocket in the Agency, we dare not tip our hand. No one in the Agency can know we’re hunting Jargo and the Deeps. According to Agency records, Carrie is assigned deep cover to an operation in Ireland that doesn’t exist. You don’t exist. I sort of exist, but everyone thinks I’m just an accountant who travels a lot checking Agency books.’ Bedford smiled again.