Jeff Abbott: Panic

Carrie mouthed, He won’t let you go.

‘Evan,’ Bedford said. ‘What do I have to do to regain your trust?’

‘It’s gone. You’ve got leaks, and those will get me and my dad and Carrie killed. Now we can talk about a deal or you can let me go.’

‘You’re not going anywhere, Mr. Casher.’ Now Palmer spoke. ‘Would you open your bag for us, please?’

Evan did, deciding to let them think they were still in charge for another minute. He saw the bag had already been searched. It held only a few clothes that he had bought and a few thousand in American cash. He had left Khan’s gun with Razur.

‘Your carry-on, please,’ Palmer said.

Evan opened up a small briefcase bag. Palmer reached in and pulled out a laptop computer.

‘What’s this?’ Bedford held up the computer.

‘A laptop.’

Bedford opened up the laptop, powered it on. ‘It’s pass-worded.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Enter the password, please, Evan.’

‘I don’t know it.’

‘You don’t know your own password.’

‘That’s Thomas Khan’s computer.’

‘How did you get it?’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ Evan said. ‘I did what I said I promised, which is get the files my mother stole. Khan is Jargo’s moneyman. Or was. He’s dead.’ Evan raised his hands in mock surrender to Palmer. ‘It was self-defense. In case you’re prosecuting me.’

Palmer shook his head.

Evan turned to Bedford. ‘Here’s the deal. Let me go get my dad. I guarantee I’ll still give you what you need to take down Jargo, but my dad and I, and Carrie, if she wants’ – he turned to her, and she nodded – ‘we vanish on our own terms.’

Bedford sank into his chair. ‘Evan. You know I can’t agree to your request.’

‘Then I get a lawyer and I talk a mile a minute about CIA officers carrying explosive devices into Kensington bookshops. Your choice.’

‘Don’t threaten me, son,’ Bedford said.

‘I have an alternate suggestion,’ Carrie said. ‘Maybe one that will make you both happy.’

Both men waited.

‘If Evan trades his dad for this laptop, it requires a meeting. That brings Jargo out in the open. I know him – he’ll handle this himself.’

‘Where is this exchange, Evan?’ Bedford asked.

‘Miami. Read my ticket, Bricklayer.’

‘I’m not your enemy. I never was,’ Bedford said.

‘I pick the meeting site,’ Evan said to Carrie. ‘Once I’m in Miami.’

Carrie turned to her boss. ‘This meeting pulls Jargo into the light. It’s our best chance to stop him.’

‘And he’ll be lightly guarded. Maybe just Dezz. He won’t tell his operatives a word about this if he can avoid it,’ Evan said quietly. ‘No way his network knows they’re on the verge of being exposed. He would face a mass, very fatal defection.’

‘You really think,’ Bedford said, ‘that you’re running the show now.’

‘I am. And I don’t want my dad put at risk,’ Evan said. ‘Anything happens to him, you get nothing.’

‘I envy your dad, having your loyalty,’ Bedford said. ‘But your dad’s already at risk, because I’m quite sure Jargo has no intention of letting you leave that meeting alive.’

‘I’ve considered that possibility. I have a fallback. We’re doing this my way.’

Bedford put his hands flat on the table. ‘Would y’all please excuse me and Evan for a moment?’

The others got up and left, Carrie shaking her head. She waited for Palmer to step out, then said to Evan’s back, ‘If you love me, you’ll trust me. It’s not a complicated equation. Don’t fight us. Let us help you.’

He didn’t look at her. She closed the door behind her.

Bedford said, ‘This room isn’t bugged. But it is sound-proof. Just so you know.’

‘Palmer’s not taping?’

‘No, he’s not.’ Bedford took a sip of water. ‘If you’ve arranged a trade of these files on this laptop for your father, I assume you’ve spoken with your dad.’

Evan nodded.

Bedford said, ‘Tell me what he said to you. Word forword.’

‘Why?’

‘Because, Evan, I have had a contact among the Deep operatives for the past year. No one else in the CIA even knows I had a contact, including Carrie. I don’t know his real name. Your father might be my contact, and he might have sent me a message through you. He knows we would be searching for you until we had conclusive evidence that you were dead.’

Evan listened to the silence in the room: his own heartbeat, the hum of the heater fending off the wet cold outside.

‘You’re lying. You’re just trying to get me to cooperate with you.’

‘Remember I asked you about what your father said on the tape Jargo played at the zoo. I wasn’t so interested in the story Jargo peddled to your father; I was listening for code words. Just in case your dad was my guy.’

‘No.’ Evan’s voice rose. ‘If Dad was your contact, you would have already known about Goinsville. About the other Deeps. About how to find Jargo and Khan.’

Bedford shook his head. ‘The contact approached me. I’ve never met him. We spoke on the phone; he mailed me cell phones, to be used once, then destroyed. He was extraordinarily careful. I don’t even know how he knew to find me, that I was the one charged with finding the Deeps. But he did. He agreed to work with me on a highly limited basis. I wanted to force his hand to do more – to tell me who he was, to tell me more about the Deeps – but he refused. I didn’t even know his location, where he lived. God knows I tried to trace him; he always hid his tracks. He gave me nuggets that proved his good intentions: a warning about an Albanian terrorist cell planning an attack in Paris; the location of a Pakistani nuclear scientist who wanted to sell secrets to Iran; the hideout of a Peruvian criminal ring. Every bit of evidence he gave me was correct. There was never face-to-face contact. We never paid him for his services.’

‘Why would he help you?’

‘My contact said he disagreed with certain missions Jargo assigned him. He thought they were harmful to American interests. It seemed like he had a complicated relationship with Jargo; he wanted the operations to fail, but he didn’t want to hand Jargo over. So he contacted me. I provided him with disinformation to feed back to Jargo’s clients.’ Bedford shook his head. ‘My contact doesn’t know where the other Deeps are to be found. The network remains highly compartmentalized. But he fed us valuable information about what kind of work Jargo did, the nuances and shifts in the underground market for corporate and government secrets.’ Bedford poured himself and Evan glasses of water, pushed a glass toward Evan. ‘I had an escape clause with my contact – that when it was time to run, he would identify himself to me and I would get him and his family out. Away from Jargo. To safety. It’s what your mother wanted for you. I can’t help your mother but I can help you.’

‘You could have told me about my dad before.’

‘I don’t know if your dad is my contact, Evan. And I wasn’t going to let anyone know I had a contact close to Jargo unless I had absolutely no other choice. We’ve reached that point. Tell me whatever your dad said. Word for word, if you can.’

Evan pulled the PDA from his pocket, unlocked it with his thumbprint, tapped the Voice Memo application. The conversation with Dezz, then Jargo, then his father, spilled out from the PDA, loud and clear. The two men stared at each other while Mitchell Casher’s voice filled the small room. When it was done, Bedford closed his eyes.

‘Look at me,’ Evan said. ‘Is he your contact? Is he?’

‘Yes.’

A tightness seized Evan’s chest. ‘If Mom and Dad had just trusted each other…’ He didn’t finish the sentence. Mom would have known Dad was helping the CIA. Dad would have known Mom had stolen Jargo’s client list as a shield to protect their son. They could have stopped Jargo without a shot being fired, and Mom would be alive.