Jeff Abbott - Panic

Carrie’s hand closed around Evan’s arm. Hard. She pointed wordlessly at a tall, thin boy standing near Bast. Shock on her face.

‘What’s the matter, dear?’ Phyllis asked.

A fter a long moment Carrie said, ‘Nothing. I thought… but it was nothing.’

‘Are you all right?’ Evan asked.

She nodded. ‘I’m fine.’

‘This was the last batch of kids that came in before the fire, I believe.’ Phyllis Garner laid the open scrapbook on her lap, ran her fingers along the page. ‘I remember they were shy at first. And of course, they were older kids, not babies. Sad that they hadn’t been adopted yet. People wanted babies.’

Carrie pointed at one tall, lanky kid. ‘He was in the picture with Mr. Simms.’ She kept her grip on Evan’s arm.

Phyllis pried the picture out of the plastic page cover. ‘I wrote their names on the back… Richard Allan.’ She frowned at Carrie. ‘Honey, are you okay? You still look upset.’

‘Yes, I’m fine, thank you. You’re right, it’s sad, these older kids not finding homes.’ Carrie’s voice was normal again.

‘It was just so unfair,’ Phyllis said. ‘The focus on finding babies. This was an appealing group of kids. Nice-looking, bright, clearly well cared for, well spoken. At the orphanage, you’d see kids, and all the hope had died in them. Hope that they would not just find families, but have a life beyond low-end jobs. Orphans face such an uphill fight. These kids, they don’t look very broken at all.’

Evan flipped a page. A picture of two teenage girls, a teenage boy standing between them, brownish hair thick, a wide smile on his face, a scattering of freckles across high cheekbones, a tiny gap between his front teeth.

Jargo. His eyes were the same, cold and knowing.

‘My God, my God,’ Carrie said. It was almost a moan.

Sweat broke out on Evan’s back.

‘Did you find your dad?’ Phyllis asked brightly.

Evan looked down the rest of the page. Two photos down were two kids, a girl, blond with green eyes, memorably pretty but with a serious cast to her face. A boy standing with her, holding a football, sweaty from play, light hair askew, grinning, ready to conquer the world.

Mitchell and Donna Casher, young teenagers. Frozen in time, like Jargo.

‘May I?’ Evan asked.

‘Of course,’ Phyllis said.

He loosened the picture from the plastic cover, flipped it over. Arthur Smithson and Julie Phelps, written in Phyllis’s neat script.

‘Smithson,’ Phyllis said. ‘Oh, that’s it! Are they your folks?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ His voice was hoarse. He forced himself to smile at her.

‘Honey, then you take that picture, it’s yours. Oh, I’m so glad I could help.’

Carrie tightened her grip on his hand. ‘Phyllis, did any of this last group of kids die in the fire?’

‘No. It was younger kids. The older kids all got out.’

‘Do you remember where any of these kids went after the fire? Specific other orphanages?’ Evan asked.

‘No, I’m sorry. I don’t even know that I was told.’ Phyllis leaned back in her chair. ‘We were told it was best for us not to stay in touch with the kids.’

‘May we borrow these photos? We can make copies, scan them into a computer, give them back to you before we leave town,’ Evan said. ‘It would be huge for us.’

‘I never did enough for those kids,’ Phyllis said. ‘I’m glad someone finally cares. Take the pictures, with my blessings.’

After waving good-bye to Phyllis and Dealey, they drove toward the airport, where a computer and a scanner waited on the jet.

‘My father,’ Carrie said, her voice shaking. ‘That boy in the picture next to Alexander Bast, it’s my dad, Evan, Jesus, it’s my dad!’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. Our parents knew each other. Knew Jargo. When they were kids.’ She jabbed at one of the photos. ‘Richard Allan. My dad’s name was Craig Leblanc. But this is him, I know it’s him. Don’t go to the jet. Let’s go get coffee for a minute, please.’

They sat in a corner of a Goinsville diner, the only customers except for an elderly couple in a booth who exchanged laughs and moony smiles as if they were on a third date.

‘So what the hell does this mean?’ Carrie studied the picture of her father as if he might have the answers. Tears sprang to her eyes. ‘Evan, look at him. He looks so young. So innocent.’ She wiped the tears away. ‘How can this be?’

This evil – Jargo – that had touched their lives went far deeper than Evan had ever imagined. It intertwined his life with Carrie’s even before they were born. It frightened him, made the threat against them seem like a shadow always looming over them, both of them unaware that they lived in darkness.

Evan took a steadying breath. Find order in the chaos, he decided. ‘Let’s walk through it.’ He ticked the facts on his fingers. ‘Our parents and Jargo were all at an orphanage together. The home burned down with all its records. The kids get dispersed. Then the county courthouse burns a month later, and it’s all blamed on a firebug who commits suicide. Alexander Bast, a CIA operative, runs the orphanage under a false name.’

‘But why?’

‘The answer’s in front of us, if we were looking for these kids’ pasts. The records. The birth certificates. You could create a false identity very easily, using Goinsville and the orphanage as your place of birth. You can say, yes, I was born at the Hope Home. My original birth certificate? Unfortunately destroyed by fire.’

Carrie frowned. ‘But the state of Ohio would have issued them new ones, right? Replaced the records.’

‘Yes. But based on information provided by Bast,’ Evan said. ‘He could have falsified records so that he could claim every orphan living at Hope Home was born at Hope Home. Maybe those kids had different identities before they came to this orphanage. But they come here and they’re Richard Allan and Arthur Smithson and Julie Phelps. After the fire, they have new birth certificates in those names, forever, without question. And then you just ask for replacement birth certificates in the names of any of the dozens of kids at Goinsville.’

Carrie nodded. ‘A whole pool of new identities.’

Evan took a long sip of coffee. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the photo; his mother had been so beautiful; his father, so innocent-looking. ‘Go back further. Back to Bast, because he’s the trigger. Tell me why a London nightclub owner, friend to celebrities, dabbles in an American orphanage.’

‘The answer is he’s not just a London party boy,’ Carrie said.

‘We know he was CIA.’

‘But low-level.’

‘Or so Bedford says.’

‘Bedford’s not a liar, Evan, I promise you.’

‘Never mind Bedford. This might have been a way for the Agency to create new identities more easily.’

‘But they’re just kids. Why would kids need new identities?’

‘Because… they were part of the CIA. Long ago. I’m just theorizing.’

Her face went pale. ‘Wouldn’t Bedford know about this if the Deeps were part of the CIA’s history?’

‘Bedford got the job to track down Jargo only about a year ago. We don’t know what he was told.’ He grabbed her hands. ‘Our folks left their lives. Quit being Richard Allan and Julie Phelps and Arthur Smithson and took on new names. Bedford might have been told it’s a problem he’s inherited, rather than a terrible secret.’

Evan went back to the stack of photos. ‘Look here. Jargo with my folks.’ He pointed at a picture of a tall, muscular boy standing between Mitchell and Donna Casher, his big arms around the Cashers’ necks, smiling a lopsided grin that was more confident than friendly. Mitchell Casher bent a bit toward Jargo’s face, as though asking him a question. Donna Casher looked stiff, uncomfortable, but her hand was holding Mitchell’s.