Panic

FRIDAY MARCH 18
39

T he men caught Evan at Heathrow Airport early Friday afternoon. He made an effort to look like any young tourist. He wore fresh-pressed khakis and a new black sweater, tennis shoes, and sunglasses bought from Razur. His hair was still CIA-short but now it was platinum-white, courtesy of Razur’s much-tattooed girlfriend. The men let him approach the British Airways counter, buying a round-trip ticket to Miami, paying with cash, even let him glide through security. He used the South African passport he stole from Gabriel a lifetime ago. He was nearly to his gate when the agents came up on both sides of him, said, ‘This way, Mr. Casher, please don’t make a fuss,’ with cool politeness, and so he didn’t. Suddenly walking next to him and in front of and behind him were six British MI5 officers, and they boxed and steered him with grace.

No one around Evan realized he had been plucked into custody.

The agents escorted him into a small, windowless room. It smelled of coffee. Bedford stood at the end of a conference table. Then Evan saw Carrie on the other side of the room. She rushed to him, embraced him. ‘Thank God, thank God.’

She held him for a long minute, tight, and he gave in to her embrace, being careful of her hurt shoulder.

‘I thought you were dead,’ she said into his neck.

‘I’m sorry. I tried to stop your car but you didn’t see me. I was too far away. But I knew you were alive. You’re okay?’

‘Yes. British intelligence had a team following us. They found me after the blast. Took me to a safe house for questioning.’

She pulled back from him, kissed him quickly, put her hand on his cheek. Giddy in her relief. ‘What’s with the Sting look?’

He shrugged. Bedford came forward, put his hand on Evan’s shoulder. ‘Evan. We are all tremendously relieved that you’re alive and well.’

Another man sat next to Bedford: clipped hair, good suit, a face bland as air. ‘Mr. Casher. Hello. I’m Palmer, MI5.’

‘My counterpart, of sorts,’ Bedford said. ‘Not his real name. You understand.’

‘Hello,’ Evan said. He ignored Palmer’s outstretched hand, shrugged his shoulder out from under Bedford’s grip.

‘Evan?’ Carrie eased him into the chair next to her. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘My problem is with you,’ Evan said to Bedford. ‘You delivered us into the hands of a murderer.’

Bedford went pale. ‘I’m sorry. We’ve looked at every moment Pettigrew’s spent in the Agency for the past fifteen years and still haven’t found the connection to Jargo.’

‘I know where you can get the accounts linking Pettigrew and Jargo. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll give it to you. But you and I have to make a deal.’

‘A deal.’

‘I don’t think you can keep me alive, Mr. Bedford. You’re so worried about showing your face you don’t know who to trust. I’m not waiting to be shot by Pettigrew, Part Two.’

Carrie asked Bedford, ‘Could I talk to Evan alone?’

Bedford measured the chill in the room and gave a quick nod. ‘Yes. Palmer, let’s you and I talk outside, please.’ They shut the door behind them.

Carrie took his hand. ‘How could you let me believe you were dead? I’ve spent the past twenty-four hours grieving.’

‘I am truly sorry. But I didn’t know who other than you and Bedford I could trust. Clearly Bedford doesn’t know either. I wasn’t going to phone in and walk back into the arms of another Pettigrew.’

‘How did you get information tying Pettigrew to Jargo?’ she said.

‘I got resourceful.’

‘Will you give it to me?’

‘No. If I hand it over, my father is dead. I need your help. I have to get out of here.’ Evan spoke in the barest whisper. ‘If Jargo gets word that the CIA has picked me up, he’ll call off trading me the files for my dad.’

‘You really have the files.’ She sounded stunned.

‘Yes.’

‘I can’t go against Bedford. You’re not thinking straight.’

‘I’m so far down the rabbit hole now… I can’t trust anyone. Jargo not to kill me, Bedford to protect me. You to love me.’

‘I do love you.’

He was suddenly afraid the poker face he’d worn the whole day would crack. He closed both his hands around hers. ‘I want to forget everything. I want us to have a normal life. But that’s not going to happen while we’re still down the rabbit hole. I have to take the fight right to Jargo, and I’ve got a way to stop him cold, but I need your help. I have to get to Florida. I need you to stay here, out of harm’s way.’

‘Evan…’

Bedford opened the door. Walked in without waiting to see if their conversation was done. Palmer and one of the MI5 officers followed him into the room, the officer carrying Evan’s luggage. He set it down and left, shutting the door behind him.

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.

‘Lies were integral to their lives,’ Bedford said. ‘I’m so sorry, Evan.’

Silence filled the room until Evan spoke. ‘Okay. So he’s your contact. He’s in trouble. What do you do to help him?’

‘Did he give you those Graham Greene novels?’ Bedford asked.

‘What?’ The question wasn’t what he was expecting. ‘Yes. Before I started at Rice. He said I should read really brilliant books before I had to wade into the crap you read in college.’

‘Did he ever mention the “if one loved, one feared” line?’ Bedford leaned forward.

‘I don’t remember it if he did. But Greene is his favorite author, so he always talked about the books with me. The line sounds vaguely familiar.’

‘The quote is from The Ministry of Fear. It’s a bitter truth. We always risk when we love. It’s also a code phrase I established with your father.’ Bedford folded his fingers over his lips.

‘Tell me what it means.’

‘It means, Forget me. I can’t be rescued. ’

Evan felt his poker face crack. ‘No. No. Your code doesn’t matter now. You have to help him.’

Bedford straightened his stance, with quiet confidence that suggested the battle between them was over. ‘Evan. In this business you lose people. It’s war. It’s sad. I would have liked to have met your dad face to face, to have known him. I believe that I might have even liked him. But he’s telling me to walk away. I don’t know if he believes Jargo, that the CIA killed your mother. It may not matter what he believes. He expected if the CIA caught you, you’d be brought to me, and I’d ask you about anything unusual that he said. Whatever Jargo is setting up in this meeting is a trap. I can’t risk it. My team is too small. We’ll have to wait for another chance.’

‘You can’t abandon him.’

‘I can’t risk resources to save a dead man. He’s warning me off. I’m sure to save you from being anywhere near Jargo.’ Bedford stood. ‘My sympathies. We’ll head to Washington instead of Miami. We’ll get you in a protection program. The government is extraordinarily grateful for what you’ve done.’

Evan stayed in his seat.

‘I know this is hard for you to hear. You’ve lost your mother. But, son, you have Carrie.’

‘I know.’ Evan stared at the warm mahogany of the tabletop.

‘I give you every assurance we can hide you successfully. Think about where you might want to live. Ireland, or Australia, or-’

Evan looked up at Bedford. ‘No. We’re going to Miami.’

‘I’m sorry, Evan, but no. Out of respect for your father-’

‘The laptop. Through my film connections, I found a very good hacker. We already removed and hid the files. You’ll never find them. You try and access the laptop without the right password, it reformats itself. Only I know where Jargo’s client list is. And I’m not telling you unless you get my father back.’

‘Evan, listen to me-’

‘The discussion is over.’ Evan stood. ‘Are we going to Miami or not?’