Panic

by Jeff Abbott

  He stopped in his tracks. ‘What?’

  She reached out a hand to him, bloodied from being pressed against her shoulder. ‘I… I was supposed to protect you. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Protect me. For how long?’

  She steered him off a path that cut across a swath of deep green. ‘Jargo thought I worked for him. He thought I would kill you for him today. But I would never hurt you. Never.’

  This wasn’t what he’d expected. He hurried her into the truck he’d stolen from Bandera. Sirens rose.

  Trust me, she had said. He nearly said, I can’t leave Shadey. But if he told her about Shadey, and she was leading him into a trap, then Shadey would be caught in Bricklayer’s net. He shut his mouth, hoped that Shadey had escaped in the melee.

  He eased her over into the passenger seat, looking around frantically for Jargo and Dezz.

  She collapsed, blood smearing the seat.

  ‘Bricklayer and I are CIA, Evan,’ she said. ‘I’m not supposed to tell you but you need to know.’ She gritted her teeth against the pain.

  CIA. Like Gabriel. The people Jargo said had killed his mother.

  He didn’t believe Jargo.

  ‘There they are,’ she said as he climbed into the pickup. ‘The Land Rover. Silver.’ Jargo and Dezz, trying to wend past the New Orleans police cars that had responded. Evan didn’t see Shadey anywhere in the mass of people milling in the lot. An ambulance stood, lights flashing, but paramedics weren’t loading Shadey, or anyone else.

  ‘Hold on.’ Evan floored the pickup across the lot, then over the expanse of lawn. Headed toward Magazine, the frontage street for the zoo that separated it from Audubon Park.

  ‘Jargo’s seen us,’ she said. ‘You’re not trained for evasive driving, Evan.’

  ‘I’m a Houston driver,’ he said, drunk with fear and energy, and he barreled across Magazine, laying on the pickup’s horn, bouncing over the curb into the greater expanse of Audubon Park. Think. Think of what they’ll try next and be prepared for that. Because you can’t make a mistake.

  In the rearview he saw the Rover narrowly miss hitting another car, then follow him across the grassy yard between the parking lot and Magazine, Jargo laying on the horn.

  Midmorning joggers crossing the swale of parkland stared at Evan as he revved the pickup truck along the grass, dodging the oaks. The northern edge of Audubon Park faced out onto busy St. Charles Avenue, and the neighboring Loyola and Tulane universities stood on the other side of the avenue. He had forgotten that along St. Charles everyone parallel-parked along the streets, and this morning cars filled every inch of curb bordering the park. Large concrete cylinders blocked the park’s main gate from the street.

  No way out.

  He veered the car to the left, spotting an opening at St. Charles and Walnut, the park’s far corner. It was a noparking zone across from an old estate reborn as a hotel. The pickup lumbered as he spun out onto Walnut and hooked an immediate right onto St. Charles.

  He started to panic. St. Charles was hardly a raceway. Stoplights stood every few blocks; the wide median held two streetcar tracks, with their green tubes lumbering up and down the rails, tourists leaning out to snap photos of the grand homes or of leftover, faded beads still dangling from the street signs from a passed Mardi Gras. If there wasn’t a light, a crossover spanned the median, and cars making turns backed onto the avenue.

  But at 10:20 in the morning, traffic wasn’t a thick nest. He heard a boom, a thud. The Rover exited Audubon Park behind him, navigating an opening on the opposite corner of the park from where he had exited. Shots hit the bumper; the Rover powered up close to the back of the pickup.

  ‘He’s shooting for the tires.’ Carrie shivered, in shock and dripping wet, blood flowering through her blouse.

  A light ahead, red. Cars stopping.

  Evan swerved the truck into the streetcar median. He nicked a line of crape myrtles and put the truck on the rail tracks to avoid the metal poles that supplied the cars with electricity. He jammed the accelerator to the floor.

  From his right, gunfire, a bullet smashing into the rear window. Shards of glass nipped the back of his head.

  Carrie said, ‘Drive steady, please.’

  ‘Sure!’ he yelled back. He zoomed past – no one in the median turn – the intersection with the light, and in his rearview the Rover bounded onto the median with him. Accelerated fast.

  Ahead, a minivan loitered in the median, waiting for traffic to open up. Two children in the minivan’s windows stared as the pickup truck rocketed toward them, a boy pointing in surprise.

  Evan spun back onto St. Charles, narrowly missing the minivan, clipping a parked car. Jolt and shatter. He could not head farther right – parked cars lined the length of St. Charles, and the front yards of many of the homes were fenced or walled in. No clear room to navigate. It was the street or the median. Bad choice versus worse.

  Another shot hit the rear of the pickup truck. A line of heavier shrubs lined this stretch of the median. Evan plowed back through them, deciding he was putting fewer lives at risk there than on the street, after he went through another intersection where a car waited in the median to turn onto the westbound side of St. Charles.

  Then he saw the streetcar coming toward him, occupying the left-side track, and he laid on his horn.

  The streetcar driver grabbed at a radio mike and yelled into it. Evan screeched to the left, the streetcar passing between him and Jargo.

  Ahead he saw two police cars, lights flashing, sirens blaring.

  Evan rumbled right, aiming for the center of the median; another streetcar was approaching and he overshot, revving off the tracks and back onto St. Charles. An open intersection. He took a hard right, more to keep from crashing than from strategy, then the next left, and drove down a residential street of neat homes, cars parked on the street. Then another right.

  ‘Turn here, here!’ Carrie said.

  She pointed at a corner lot, a bright yellow building, antiques in the window, a neon OPEN sign. He saw her idea. The parking and exits were behind the building. He spun into the lot and stopped the car.

  Waited.

  The Rover, its side badly dented, shot past on the street. Evan counted to ten, then twenty. The Rover didn’t return.

  ‘What now?’ Evan didn’t recognize his own voice. His mouth tasted of the fake-swamp water and his hands shook.

  ‘Police will be all over St. Charles,’ she said. ‘Take a side road that runs parallel. Get us down to Lee Circle, we can get to the interstate there. Get to the airport.’

  ‘You need a hospital.’

  ‘No hospital. Our pictures will be on the police wire soon,’ she said through gritted teeth.

  He gently peeled her blouse away from her shoulder. He saw the small but vicious wound, touched the stickiness of the blood.

  ‘You need a doctor.’

  ‘Bricklayer will get me help.’ She closed her eyes, closed her hand over his. ‘You don’t have any reason to trust me. But we just saved each other. That means something, doesn’t it?’

  He didn’t know what to say.

  She opened her eyes. ‘A government plane there can take us to a place we can be safe. Where we can work on getting your dad back.’

  ‘What will the CIA do to get my dad back? He’s not one of them. He’s an enemy to them if he’s worked for Jargo.’

  ‘Your father could be our best friend. With his help, your help, we can break Jargo.’ She leaned against the door. In pain. ‘Certain people in the CIA and Jargo… have an arrangement. Jargo’s selling information to every country, every intelligence service, every extremist group that he can. We’re trying to find his contacts inside the CIA. Get rid of the traitors. They’re selling our national secrets to Jargo. I was undercover for the Agency, working for Jargo for the past year.’

  ‘Year,’ he whispered.

  ‘We’ve never been able to identify any of his operatives other than Dezz. He has a whole network. Your parents�
�� worked for him.’

  Evan swallowed past the rock in his throat. ‘I can’t keep pretending they are completely innocent in all this, can I?’

  ‘No one can tell you what to do. I learned that early on.’

  ‘But Jargo knows you’ve turned on him, and you have me. He’ll just kill my father.’

  ‘No. He doesn’t want to kill your dad, I don’t understand why. Your father is Jargo’s weakness. We have to use it against him.’

  Airport. Hospital. He had to choose. Trust the stranger beside him or trust the woman he loved. He started the car, eased out of the lot. No sign of Jargo. Evan drove, finally turning back onto St. Charles. He drove through Lee Circle and fed onto the highway that would merge onto Interstate 10. Traffic was light. He steadied his hands.

  ‘So. You knew me before I knew you,’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So our relationship was a trick. A show.’

  ‘You don’t understand.’

  ‘No, I don’t, I don’t understand how you could lie to me.’

  ‘It was to protect you.’ Her voice rose in half-hysteria. ‘Would you have believed me? If I’d said, “Hey, Evan, both a freelance spy network and the CIA are interested in you, want to go see a movie?”’

  ‘You answer one question for me.’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘My mother. Did you tell Jargo that I was going to Austin?’ His voice strained for control.

  ‘No, baby. No. Jargo picked up my voice mail. He got the message.’

  If I hadn’t left Carrie the message, my mom would be alive. Grief and horror rose in him like a tide. ‘No. Why did you have to leave that morning?’

  She covered her face with her hands.

  ‘Goddamn it, Carrie, you answer me!’ he screamed.

  Her voice sounded broken. ‘I wanted permission from Bricklayer… to end the surveillance on you. To pull you and your mom out, get you both to safety. To forget trying to draw Jargo into the open. I had to talk to Bricklayer alone. That’s where I was. When I got back, you were gone.’

  ‘And so you told Jargo.’

  ‘No. No. I acted like I didn’t know where you were. I told him I hadn’t checked my voice mails, I hadn’t gone back to your house.’

  ‘You told him I loved you, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’ She closed her eyes.

  ‘You must have all had a laugh.’

  ‘No. No.’

  ‘Did you send the CIA to my house?’

  ‘No. Bricklayer’s team is very small. We’re not set up for big operations. We can’t reveal our existence to any possible traitors inside the Agency, because they’re our targets, along with Jargo. We’re not supposed to operate on American soil.’

  ‘Wow, so my family and I, we’re really freaking special,’ Evan said. ‘I don’t know why I should believe you now.’

  ‘Because I’m still the same woman you met a few months ago. I’m still Carrie.’ She spoke after long seconds of silence. ‘I love you. I told you not to love me, I didn’t want you to say it, but I wanted it to be true. I didn’t want you hurt. That’s why I wanted to pull out. I’m sorry.’ She leaned forward, watching the rearview, watching for the police. ‘Oh, Jesus, this hurts.’

  Did you ever love me?

  He made his choice. He followed her directions, stopping at a quiet aviation office near Louis Armstrong International with two cars parked in front.

  ‘Inside. People who work for Bricklayer. Bricklayer’s real name is Bedford. There’s trust for you. Only three people inside the CIA know his real name.’

  He looked at her. He could just run. Leave her, her colleagues would find her, and he could vanish and never see her again. Never hear another lie from her lips.

  He thought of that morning three days ago, waking up, loving her with both dreaminess and certainty. And she was gone. Thought of how beautiful she had been the first time he’d seen her in the coffee shop, reading that bad book on film with intense concentration. Lying in wait for him. Thought of her in his bed, the softness of her kisses on his lips. Looking at him as though her heart would burst. Maybe her loving him was a lie, but he loved her. She was the worst thing that had ever happened to him. She was the best chance to get his father home. And she had saved him now, saved him from certain death.

  Evan carried her out of the car and kicked four times on the office door.

  24

  K eeping a man imprisoned was like buying a tour inside his soul. Jargo had seen men, locked in the cramped confines of his homemade jail, talk to people long dead and gone; cry and sob after days of complete silence; one unfortunate drowned himself in the toilet. Strength was often shallow; confidence was a ploy; bravery a mask.

  He already knew Mitchell Casher’s soul. It was a soul incapable of betraying anyone he loved. It was a soul that trusted few, but that trust ran deep as gold veining through the earth.

  Jargo went inside the room. Mitchell lay on the bed, a heavy chain bound around his waist and his ankles, long enough to permit him to reach the toilet. Mitchell was unshaven, unwashed, but dignified. The room smelled of the dried-food packets he’d left for Mitchell, since he and Dezz could not stay to serve as his jailer.

  He stood watching Mitchell, who did not say hello. Jargo lit a cigarette. He had not smoked in fifteen years. He pulled hard on the smoke, breathed in, coughed like a tobacco virgin. He studied the glowing ember of the cigarette.

  ‘I’m afraid to ask,’ Mitchell Casher said.

  ‘I have a difficult question for you,’ Jargo said, ‘but I really must insist on honesty.’

  ‘I’ve always been honest with you.’ Mitchell’s voice was broken, worn with grief for his wife and fear for his son. He sounded like the dead Mr. Gabriel. Jargo offered him a cigarette and Mitchell shook his head. The imprisonment would take months, years, to break him; bad news about his son would shatter him at once, Jargo knew.

  ‘I appreciate your honesty, Mitch. Will Evan fight for you?’

  ‘“Fight for me”? I don’t know what you mean.’

  Jargo sat down across from Mitchell Casher. The glow of the light, high above in the ceiling where no prisoner could reach it, was eye-achingly dim. No window graced the room; Jargo had bricked it years ago, after an unfortunate incident involving a shard of glass and the wrist of a stubborn informant within Castro’s regime. But Jargo considered Mitchell not to be missing a view. Outside, the night sky of southern Florida hung heavy with clouds that resembled cancers. ‘Will he fight for you? Will Evan try and get you back?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking long and hard about Carrie and what she’s done. I don’t know for sure that she is CIA; at the least she’s freelance now, and she’s taken Evan to sell him and his information to the highest bidder. I suspect that bidder will be the CIA.’

  Mitchell put his head in his hands. ‘Then let me go. Let me help you find him. Please, Steve.’

  ‘Find him? You and I can hardly stroll into Langley’s lobby and ask for him back now, can we?’

  ‘They’ll kill him.’

  ‘Yes. But not right away.’ Jargo took another drag on the cigarette, and this time the tobacco soothed his nerves. You never really forgot how to smoke, he thought. The way you never really forgot how to swim, to make love, to kill.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  This was the conversational equivalent of cutting a diamond. One had to be precise to get the intended effect, and there were no second chances. ‘Evan told me he has a list of our clients. He also knows my name, and he knows that Dezz is my son. So either he’s been in touch with the CIA, or he’s got even more information. Information about us. Who we are.’

  Mitchell’s eyes went wide.

  ‘All our clients, Mitchell. Do you realize what this could do to us? It’s one thing if we all have to vanish and start over again. That’s almost impossible. But our clients? We could never rebuild if the CIA got that information.’ Jargo brought his gaze back to the bur
ning ember.

  ‘I swear to you I never knew she was betraying us,’ Mitchell said in a hoarse voice.

  ‘I know. I know, Mitchell. Otherwise you would have run with her. I know.’

  ‘Then please let me help you.’

  ‘I want to let you go. But you’re hardly in fighting shape. You might take off and endanger the only chance I have’ – Jargo paused – ‘of getting Evan back safely for you.’

  ‘The only chance. Tell me.’

  Jargo watched his cigarette burn. Waited. Let Mitchell squirm.

  ‘Oh, Christ. Evan.’ Mitchell put his face in his hands.

  ‘I haven’t seen you cry since we were boys.’

  ‘They killed Donna. Imagine your son in their hands.’

  ‘Dezz would never be taken alive. You know how he is.’ Jargo didn’t look at Mitchell. ‘I’m so sorry.’ His voice cracked. Jargo closed his hand on Mitchell’s arm.

  ‘So let me help you. Please.’

  ‘He said he had the client files, Mitchell.’

  ‘I bet he lied… Donna wouldn’t have shared information with him. His finding out about us, it was her worst nightmare.’

  ‘Reality check. They were on his computer. Donna had clothes packed for him to run. He took off without waiting for his girlfriend. I think he knew. And he might know what the files are worth.’

  ‘Evan… wouldn’t know how to sell the information. He wouldn’t know anyone to contact. And he wouldn’t hurt me.’

  ‘You never told him about your background? Not once?’

  ‘Never. I swear, he knows nothing.’

  You don’t know what he knows, and I’m not taking the risk, Jargo thought, but instead he said, ‘I’m weighing whether to attempt to get Evan back at all. If he plans on fighting for you, he won’t simply hand the files over to the CIA. He’ll try and strike a deal. Which may give us a window of time. But that’s the risk I’m assessing.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  Jargo leaned forward, whispered an inch from Mitchell’s face, ‘You know I have operatives working for me within the Agency.’