Jeff Abbott - Panic

Pressing and pressing and pressing harder. Evan powered his legs, his arms, the agony in his face fueling him. Flattening the man into the wall. He heard Khan’s lungs empty, heard him gurgle in pain; the man dropped to the floor, the gun still in his hand.

Evan dumped the table and snatched at the gun, Khan’s face and fingers nothing but a blur. But Khan held on to the Beretta. Evan fell onto the older man. Khan pistoned a knee into Evan’s groin, jabbed bony fingers at his clenched-shut eyes. Evan let go of the gun with one hand and punched, connecting with Khan’s nose. The man’s face was a haze through his tearing eyes. Evan seized the Beretta again with both hands, fought to turn it toward the cloud of the ceiling. Khan jerked it back, aimed it toward Evan’s head.

The gun fired.

T he heat of the bullet passed Evan’s ear. He put all his weight and strength into twisting the barrel toward the floor. Khan jerked, trying to wrench the weapon free. The gun sang again.

Khan spasmed. Then went still. Evan yanked the gun away, staggering, clawing at his eyes.

He retreated to a corner of the room. He could barely see Khan, but he kept the gun trained on him. Evan moaned; the pain in his eyes was blinding.

No movement from Khan. He forced himself back toward the body, touched the throat. Nothing. No pulse.

Agony. Evan stumbled into the kitchen. Powered on the faucet, splashed handfuls of water on his face. The brown contact lenses Bedford had given him washed free. After the tenth handful the agony started to subside. No sound in the house but the water hissing into the sink. He rinsed his swollen eyes, again and again, the gun still in his other hand, until the pain lessened. He walked back into the den.

Khan stared up at him from the floor, three-eyed, the middle eye red. Evan checked again; the neck, the wrist, the chest, were all empty of a heartbeat.

I just killed a man.

He should be sick with fear, with horror. A week ago he would have been paralyzed with shock. Now simple relief flooded him that it was Khan lying dead on the floor and not him.

He went to the bathroom and studied his face in the mirror. His eyes hazel again and swollen almost shut. His lip was badly split and bloodied. He opened the cabinet under the sink and found a fully stocked first-aid kit. Of course there was one here; in this house was everything Khan needed.

This was Khan’s escape route.

He had not thought clearly in the chaos of the bomb blast, he was so focused on getting his hands on the man who could unfold the map to his parents’ lives.

Khan had screwed up in Jargo’s eyes, but maybe Jargo didn’t want him dead. Maybe Jargo wanted to dead-end any immediate investigation into the Deeps. Khan had walked out after Evan had said the name Jargo. Or maybe he already knew Evan’s face. Then Pettigrew walked in with the bomb, or Khan triggered the bomb once he was clear of the building. Khan, with his own business destroyed, would not run to a place that would only give him a few hours’ sanctuary. He would run for his escape hatch. If the Deeps had fallback identities, so did Khan, their moneyman. He’d brought Evan to a place where Khan could hide, clothe himself in a prepared identity, melt into the world. Even better, he would be assumed dead in the bookstore blast.

When Thomas Khan was assumed dead, then no one in the CIA would be looking for him.

It was no small thing to walk away from your life. And if this house was Khan’s hidey-hole, his first stop in the journey into a fresh and secret life, he would have resources here to shut down his operations, money and data to cover his tracks and to step into his new identity. But if Jargo knew this was where Khan would run – and Jargo might – then Evan didn’t have much time at all. Jargo could send an agent to ensure Khan had escaped the blast if Khan didn’t check in.

The ringing phone. Maybe it had been Jargo calling for Khan.

Evan might not have much time at all, but he had to risk it. The answers he needed could be inside the house.

Evan checked every window and door to be sure it was locked. He pulled down every window shade, closed every curtain. Two small bedrooms, a study, and a bath upstairs, a master bedroom and bath downstairs, with den, kitchen, dining room. A door off the kitchen led down to a small cellar; Evan ventured down steps, flicked on a light. Empty. Except for in the corner, a large, black, zippered bag. A body bag.

Evan eased down the zipper.

Hadley Khan. He recognized the face – what was left of it. He had been dead for a few days. Lime powder dusted his body, to minimize the burgeoning odor of decay. Shot once through the temple. He lay curled tight in the bag, naked; long, vicious welts marred his face and his chest. His hands were missing. His mouth gaped open; there was no tongue.

I forgave him, Khan had said.

Evan stood and walked to the opposite side of the cellar and pressed his forehead against the cool stone and took deep, shuddering breaths. Khan did it here, he tortured and killed his own son for betraying him. For betraying the family business.

What would his parents have done to him if he’d stumbled on the truth or threatened to expose them? He could not imagine this. No. Never.

Khan’s voice echoed in his ear: I know them much better than you do.

Evan closed the body bag. He went upstairs to the den. He dragged Thomas Khan’s body down the basement steps, placed him next to his son. He went back upstairs, found a folded sheet in a bedroom closet, and covered both corpses with it.

He drank four glasses of cold water, ate four aspirin that he found in the first-aid kit. His eyes hurt, his stomach ached.

He returned to the study and tested the desk and a credenza; both were locked. Evan went back to the basement and searched Khan’s pockets; no keys, but a wallet and a PDA. He powered it on; a screen appeared, asking for his fingerprint.

He dug Khan’s right hand from under the sheet, pressed the dead man’s forefinger against the screen. Denied. He grabbed Khan’s left hand, pressed Khan’s left forefinger against the screen. It accepted the print, opened to show a normal startup screen. He studied the applications and files. The PDA held only a few contacts and phone numbers: a few Zurich banks, a listing of London bookstores. There was an icon for a map application. He opened it. The last three maps accessed were London; Biloxi, Mississippi; and Fort Lauderdale, Florida. A notation on the Biloxi map, showing the location of a charter air service. Biloxi wasn’t that far from New Orleans. Maybe that was where Dezz and Jargo had fled after the New Orleans disaster.

But nothing that announced, X marks the spot where your father is.

Except maybe Fort Lauderdale. A specific place in Florida. And Gabriel had said Evan’s mother had claimed that they would meet his father in Florida. Carrie thought his father was in Florida.

Carrie. He could try to call her. Reach her through the London CIA office. Tell her he was alive. But, no. If Jargo’s agents or clients within the CIA thought he was dead… no one would be hunting him. And they had known he was in London, had nearly killed him. Bedford’s group had been compromised.

He wanted to know Carrie was safe; he wanted to tell her he was alive. But not now, not until he had his father back. She wouldn’t go back to the house Pettigrew had taken them to, he believed; if Pettigrew worked for Jargo, it was too dangerous. She would carefully reunite with Bedford.

Evan reconfigured the password program to delete Khan’s fingerprint and used his own thumbprint as the passkey. It might be useful later. He put the PDA in his pocket. Standing up, he spotted a toolbox in the corner and took it upstairs.