Panic

29

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.

Carrie traced Jargo’s face, looked at Mitchell’s. ‘There’s a resemblance with your dad.’

‘I don’t see it.’

‘Their mouths,’ she said. ‘He and Jargo have the same mouth. Look at their eyes.’

Now he saw the similarity in the curve of the smile. ‘They’re both just grinning big.’ He didn’t want to look at the men’s eyes – the nearly identical squint. It couldn’t be, he thought. It couldn’t be.

She inspected the back of the photo. ‘It just says Artie, John, Julie.’

He flipped over to the other picture of Jargo that Phyllis had shown him. ‘John Cobham.’

‘Cobham. Not Smithson.’ She clasped both his hands in hers.

‘The photos are faded,’ he said in a thin voice. ‘It blurs features. Makes everyone look the same.’

She leaned back. ‘Forget it. I’m sorry. Back to what you said. Whether Bedford knows. He must not, he wouldn’t have bothered to send us here.’

‘So what are you going to tell him?’

‘The truth, Evan. Why not?’

‘Because maybe, maybe this is a CIA embarrassment Bedford doesn’t know about. Bast brought these kids here, set up names for them, made it hard for anyone to ever trace their records, and he worked for the CIA.’ Evan leaned forward. ‘Maybe the CIA took these young kids and raised them to become spies and assassins.’

‘That’s a crazy theory. The CIA would never do this.’

‘Don’t take the CIA’s side automatically.’ Evan lowered his voice, as though Bedford sat in the next booth. ‘I’m not attacking Bedford. But don’t tell me what the Agency – or maybe a small group of misguided people in the Agency – might or might not do, or have done over forty years ago, because we don’t know. Bast was CIA. He brought our parents here. For a reason.’

Carrie held up a hand. ‘Assume you’re right. But, at some point, this group took on new names and new lives, and they all went to work for Jargo. Why? That’s the question.’

‘Bast died. Jargo took over.’

‘Jargo killed Bast. It has to be.’

‘Maybe. At the least, Jargo had a hold on our parents and maybe these other kids. An unbreakable hold. I want to go to London.’

‘To find out about Alexander Bast.’

‘Yes. And to find Hadley Khan. He knew about the connection between Bast and my parents. It can’t be coincidence.’

‘It can’t be coincidence, either, that your mom picked now to steal the files, to run. She knew you’d been approached about Bast.’

‘I never told her. Never. You know I don’t talk about my films when I’m concepting. You were the first person I told.’

‘Evan. She knew. You e-mailed Hadley Khan, trying to find out why he left you that package about Bast. She could have looked on your computer. Maybe she saw Bast’s name in an e-mail to Hadley. Or when she met me… maybe I reminded her of my dad. Maybe she was afraid you’d be recruited. And she just wanted a permanent escape hatch for your family.’

‘She spied on me.’ He knew it was true. ‘My own mother spied on me.’

She reached past their cold coffee cups to take his hand. ‘I’m so sorry, Evan.’

The photo of Bast, scattered among the pictures of their parents and Jargo a lifetime ago, smiled up at them.

They called Bedford from the plane and explained what they had found. ‘We want to go to London,’ Evan said. ‘My mother’s last travel photo assignment was there. Hadley Khan is there. And Bast died there. Can you get the CIA office in London to get us the complete files on Bast’s murder?’

‘There is no record in Bast’s file about this orphanage,’ Bedford said. ‘Are you sure it’s him in the photo?’

‘Yes. Could his record have been expunged if someone at the CIA wanted to hide his involvement?’

‘Anything is possible.’ Bedford’s voice sounded tight, as though the rules of engagement had just been rewritten. Evan could see the heightened tension on Carrie’s face: What the hell are we dealing with here?

‘London,’ Evan said. ‘Can we go?’

‘Yes,’ Bedford said. ‘If Carrie feels well enough to travel.’

‘I’m fine. Tired. I can sleep during the flight,’ Carrie said. ‘I’ll arrange a pickup for you in the London office. I’ll talk to our travel coordinator, but I believe you’ll have to have a fresh pilot. Change in Washington. And, Carrie, I’ll have a doctor check you before you leave for Britain, and another doctor for when you get to London.’

‘Thank you, Bricklayer.’

Bedford hung up. Carrie went to the restroom. Evan closed his eyes to think.

He heard Carrie return to her seat. He kept his eyes shut. The jet roared above Ohio, turning toward Virginia. Leaving a patch of ground that was the first step in the long lie of his family’s existence.

He pretended to be back in the study in his Houston house, digital tape downloaded onto his computer and him threading his way through twenty hours of images, paring away all the extraneous gunk and talk from the heart of the story he wanted to tell the audience sitting in the quiet dark. He had read once that Michelangelo just took away the chunks of marble that didn’t belong and found the David hiding within the mass of stone. His David was the truth about his parents, the information that would free his father.

So what was the true story, where was the subtle art under the block of marble?

He opened his eyes. Carrie sat, staring ahead of her, hunched as though caught in a chill wind.

Suddenly his heart filled with… what? He didn’t know. Pity, maybe, sadness, in that neither of them had asked to be born into this disaster. But she had chosen to stay in it. First for her parents, then for Bedford. And now for him.

The weight of what he owed her, as opposed to the confusion and pain from her earlier lies, settled onto his heart. ‘What are you thinking of?’ he asked.

‘Your father,’ she said. ‘You look like him. In your smile. In those photos, your father had a very innocent smile. I was wondering if he is scared. For himself, for you.’

‘Jargo’s told him a thousand lies, I’m sure.’

‘He only has to tell one really good one.’

‘One wasn’t good enough to fool you,’ Evan said.

‘I wonder if our parents were ever afraid we would find out the truth and turn away from them.’

‘I’m sure they must have been. Even when they knew we loved them.’

‘But my father recruited me, he pulled me into this world, the same way Jargo did to Dezz. I still don’t understand why he did it.’ But she sounded tired, not angry.

‘We don’t know he had a choice, Carrie. Or maybe he hoped if you were involved in the business, you wouldn’t reject him.’

‘I would have loved him, no matter what. I thought he knew that.’

‘I’m sure he did.’

She shook her head. ‘I just feel now, he had this whole life I never knew. A whole set of thoughts and worries and fears that he had to keep secret. It’s as if I didn’t know him at all. Probably that’s how you feel about your dad.’ Or me, he waited for her to say, but she didn’t.

He cleared his throat. ‘I only know I love the dad that I know, and I have to believe that’s the truest part of my father, no matter what else he has done.’

‘I know. I feel the same. You would have liked my father, Evan.’

‘You must miss him.’

‘My God, seeing him in those pictures, so young… it’s still getting to me.’ She wiped at her eyes. He moved into the seat next to hers. Put his arm around her. Brushed the tears from her cheek.

‘They didn’t trust us with the truth,’ she said after a moment.

‘They were trying to protect us.’

‘That was all I wanted to do with you. Protect you. I’m sorry I failed.’

‘Carrie. You didn’t fail me. Not once. I know you were in a terrible, terrible position. I know.’

‘But you hate me a little. For lying.’

‘I don’t.’

‘If you hate me,’ she said, ‘I’d understand.’

‘I don’t hate you.’ He needed her. It was a subtle shock. The knit of tragedy forever linked them, the same way his parents and her father were linked. He did not want to be alone.

He kissed her. It was as tentative and shy as a first kiss, a first real kiss, often is. He leaned back to study her, and she closed her eyes and found his mouth with her own, gently, once, twice, then he kissed her with passion. A need for tenderness mixed with a need to show her that he loved her.

She broke the kiss, rested her forehead against his. ‘Our families lived false lives. I did it for a year, I don’t want to live a lie anymore. You cannot imagine how lonely it is. I don’t want you to do it. We can just be us. I love you, Evan.’

He wanted to believe. He needed to love; he needed to believe the best in her. He needed to regain what he had lost, in some small measure. The awareness was sudden and bright, a firecracker in his head. He wanted to be alone with her – away from CIA bugs, away from their parents caught as strangers in old photos, away from death and fear.

‘I love you, too,’ he said quietly.

She settled into his arms and he held her until she slept.

We can just be us.

Yes, he thought. When Jargo is dead. When I’ve killed him.

As the jet screamed toward Virginia, Evan didn’t wonder if she was the same woman he loved. He wondered if he was still the same man she loved.