Jeff Abbott - Panic

‘Then let me find the files. You don’t risk anything and I’m the only one who you know can draw Jargo out.’

‘You’re a civilian. Carrie goes with you.’

‘No.’

‘Because you don’t trust her or because you love her?’

Evan said, ‘I don’t want her hurt again.’

‘She saved your ass, son. She wants the people who killed her parents to go down, and she’s worked this for a year. She’s an extraordinary young woman.’

Evan stood up, paced the room. ‘I just wish… you had been watching my mom instead of me. You had to have checked on me, on my family, when Jargo assigned Carrie to me.’

‘We did. Your parents had extremely good legends.’

‘Legends?’

‘Background stories. There was nothing to make us doubt them, until we went back and found no pictures of them in the high school yearbooks they supposedly were in.’

‘Then why weren’t you watching them?’

‘We were watching your father. But very carefully. We thought he had the connection to Jargo, as Carrie’s father did. These people are extremely good. They’d spot surveillance unless it was perfect.’

‘Once again, you didn’t want to tip your hand. You left us out in the cold.’

‘We didn’t know what was happening. We couldn’t find it out.’

Evan let it go. ‘If my dad wasn’t in Australia, like Mom said…’

‘He spent the last week in Europe. Helsinki, Copenhagen, Berlin. We lost him in Berlin last Thursday.’

His father. Evading the CIA. It didn’t seem possible.

‘Either Jargo grabbed him in Germany or he returned to the U.S. without us knowing, and then Jargo nabbed him.’

‘If I get the files back, what happens to me and my dad?’

‘Your father tells us everything he can about Jargo and his organization. In exchange for immunity from prosecution. You and your father get new lives, new identities overseas, courtesy of the Agency.’

‘What about Carrie?’

‘She gets a new identity. Or she keeps working for us. Whatever she wants.’

‘All right,’ Evan said quietly.

‘I’m surprised, Evan. I had you pegged as more self-involved.’

‘I find out what was in the files my mom stole, I don’t just get a negotiating tool to get my dad back. I find out the truth about who they are. Who I am.’

Bedford gave him a smile. ‘That’s true. It could be the first step in having your life back.’

‘I don’t have my laptop, it got left behind when I escaped from Gabriel’s house, but I have my music player… it contained the files my mother sent, I think, but I couldn’t decode the files again when I downloaded them a second time. And the player was in my pocket when I jumped in the water in the zoo. It’s ruined.’

‘Give it to me. We’ll try.’

‘I have a passport that Gabriel provided. South African.’ Evan pulled it from his shoe. ‘I had other passports, but they got left behind in my motel room in New Orleans.’ He supposed Shadey took them when he fled.

Bedford studied the passport, handed it back, gave him a critical look. ‘We can improve your hair colour. Change your eyes. Do a new photo. It’s probably best the world still thinks you’re missing. You’d be besieged by the media if you surfaced right now.’

‘All right.’

‘Evan. Understand this. One mistake and you’re dead.

Your father’s dead. And worse – the Deeps get away with everything.’

C arrie was awake when Evan returned to her room. The guard shut the door behind him, left them alone.

‘Hey. How are you feeling?’ he asked. A dinner tray of comfort food sat before her: chicken soup, mashed potatoes, a chocolate shake, glass of ice water. Mostly untouched.

‘You’re not hungry?’ He wasn’t sure how to start this conversation. She had been unconscious much of the time on the fast flight out of New Orleans, and he couldn’t talk to her in front of the CIA guys.

‘Not really.’

‘Bedford said your wound wasn’t too bad.’

Color touched her cheeks. ‘More gouge than bullet hole. It caught the top of my shoulder. It’s sore and stiff but I’m feeling better.’

He sat in the chair, bolted to the floor, at the foot of her bed. ‘Thank you. For saving my life.’

‘You saved mine. Thanks.’

Awkward silence again.

He got up and sat on the bed next to her. ‘I just don’t know what to believe right now. I don’t know who to trust.’ He heard Shadey’s words in his head: Don’t trust unless you must. Maybe Carrie had spotted Shadey in the crowd – recognized him from Ounce of Trouble – but she still made no mention to Bedford. Protecting his friend. Showing him, through her silence, that she could be trusted. He didn’t dare mention Shadey’s name – the room was probably bugged. He just hoped Shadey was safe and lying low.

‘Trust yourself,’ Carrie said. Now she looked at the tangle of sheet around her waist.

‘Not you?’

‘I can’t tell you what to do. I have no right.’

‘Bedford says you’ll want to help me get my dad back.’

‘Yes.’

‘At great risk to yourself.’

‘Life is nothing but risk.’

‘You don’t have anything to prove to me.’

‘You and your father are the best hope we have of breaking them. It’s not a matter of force. It’s a matter of subtlety. That’s all I want, Jargo broken. And for you to be safe.’

He leaned forward. ‘Listen. You don’t have to play a role anymore. You don’t have to pretend to love me. Or even like me. I’ll be fine.’

‘Don’t sell yourself short, Evan. You’re easier to love than you think.’

His face felt hot. ‘Why didn’t you just tell me the truth?’

‘I couldn’t put you in that danger. Jargo would have killed you.’

‘And you would have lost your chance to take him down.’

‘But you’re more important to me than Jargo.’ She closed her eyes. ‘I didn’t let myself get close to anyone after my parents died. You were the first.’

He held her hands. ‘Bedford says Jargo killed your folks.’

‘I don’t know who actually pulled the trigger. One of the other Deeps or a hired hit man. Jargo wouldn’t soil his hands. He made sure I was with him and Dezz when it happened. He wanted me to be sure that I thought the CIA was responsible.’

‘Tell me about your parents.’

She stared at him. ‘Why?’

‘Because now you and I do have truly a lot in common.’

‘I’m sorry, Evan. I’m so sorry.’

‘Tell me about your folks.’

She let go of his hands, knotted the sheets with her fingers. ‘My mother wasn’t involved with the Deeps. She was an advertising copywriter for a small firm that did direct mail. She was pretty and kind and funny – just a really great mom. I was an only child, so I was her everything. She loved me very much. I loved her. Jargo killed her when he killed my father. That’s about it.’

‘And your dad?’

‘He worked for Jargo. I thought he had his own corporate security firm.’ She took a sip of water. ‘I suspect he mostly did corporate espionage – finding people inside companies willing to sell secrets. Or setting up compromising situations where they were forced to sell.’

‘Did your mother know?’

‘No. She wouldn’t have stayed married to him. He lived a life we didn’t know about.’

‘How long ago did they die?’

‘Fourteen months. Jargo decided my father had betrayed him, and he killed them both. It was made to look like a robbery. Jargo stole their wedding rings, my dad’s wallet.’ She closed her eyes. ‘I was already working for Jargo. Through my dad. He recruited me.’

‘Jesus. Why would your father have drawn you into this mess?’