by Jeff Abbott
‘I suppose he did.’
‘Why orphans?’
‘Children without families are so much more pliable,’ Khan said. ‘They’re like wet clay; you can mold them as you see fit.’
‘Why did the CIA need them instead of using regular agents?’
‘I don’t know.’ Khan almost smiled, then closed his eyes. He gave a hard sigh, as though confession had lifted a burden from his shoulders.
‘Tell me why they needed fresh starts, fresh names, years later. Did they leave the CIA?’
‘Bast died. Jargo took command of the network.’
‘Jargo killed him.’
‘Probably. I never asked.’
‘Were Jargo and my folks, and the other kids from that orphanage, were they hiding from the CIA?’
‘Before my time. I don’t know. When Jargo took over, he gave me a job. He brought me in to run logistics for him.’
‘Were you CIA?’
‘No. But I’d helped support British intelligence ops in Afghanistan, during the rebellion against the Soviets. I knew the basics. I retired. I wanted just a quiet life with my books. No more field work. Jargo gave me a job.’
‘Well, Jargo just fired you, Mr. Khan. You work for me now.’
Khan shook his head. ‘I admire your nerve, young man. I wish Hadley had become your friend. You might’ve been a good influence.’
The phone rang. Both men froze. It rang twice and then stopped.
‘No answering machine,’ Evan said.
‘My sister-in-law hated them.’
The ringing phone bothered Evan. Maybe a wrong call, maybe someone calling for the dying sister-in-law, maybe someone looking here for Khan. ‘I want my father back. You want Jargo to stop trying to kill you. Do our interests coincide or not?’
‘It would be better if we could both just vanish.’ Khan swallowed. Sweat beaded along his face and he coughed for breath.
‘Give me what I need. We can lean on the clients to break Jargo. Trace their dealings back to him. He’s finished, he can’t hurt you or Hadley.’
‘It’s too dangerous. Better to just vanish.’
‘Forget that.’
‘I can’t think with a knife at my throat. I would like a cigarette.’
Evan saw fear and resignation in the man’s face, smelled the sour tang of sweat on Khan’s skin. He’d overstepped. He eased up off Khan, dropped the knife from his throat. Khan put his fingertips up to the slight welling of blood, dabbed into the blotches. ‘Shallow wounds. Thank you. I appreciate the kindness. May I reach in my pocket for my Gitanes?’
Evan put the knife back at Khan’s throat, opened his jacket. Fished out a pack of Gitanes cigarettes. Stepped back and dropped them on Khan’s lap.
‘My lighter’s in my pocket, may I get it?’ Thomas Khan’s voice was calm.
‘Yes.’
Khan dug out a small, Zippo-style lighter, lit a cigarette, exhaled smoke with a weary blow.
‘I gave you your goddamned cigarette,’ Evan said. ‘Now I want this client list.’
Khan blew out a feather of smoke. ‘Ask your mother.’
‘Don’t be a dick.’
‘You appear to be a bright boy. Do you really think that if your mother stole the files that could identify the clients, we would leave those accounts open?’ His voice was gentle, almost chiding, as though talking to a slightly dense but adored child.
Evan said, ‘I’m not falling into the trap. You have the accounts that the operatives – like my parents – used. That’s all I need. I can break Jargo either way.’
Khan laughed. ‘Do you think our operatives will keep working under those names, given the danger we’re facing?’
‘If they have families and kids like my folks or you, your suburban camouflage, they can’t change.’
‘Sure they can. Your mother’s account isn’t under Donna Casher, you stupid, stupid boy.’ Khan shook his head. ‘It’s under another name she used. You won’t catch anything in that net. We’re far too careful. We’ve got escape routes built in if our covers are ever blown. We’ve all been doing this a very long time, before you were off your mother’s teat.’ He stubbed out the cigarette. ‘I suggest you leave now. I will give you half the money in your mother’s account, and I will keep the rest for my silence. It is two million U.S. dollars, Evan. You can vanish into the world instead of a grave. You will not be able to get your father back. Your dying won’t bring back your mother.’ Khan pulled a fresh cigarette out with delicacy. ‘Two million. Don’t be a fool, take the money. Get a new life.’
‘But…’ And then Evan saw the hole in Khan’s offer. Accounts with false names. The explosion. Escape routes. The phone ringing only twice. A new life. This was a trap, but not the kind he’d expected.
Khan had all the time in the world sitting here in this house. Smiling at him. No dying sister-in-law. No Khan name attached to this house. Escape route.
‘You shit,’ Evan said.
Khan flicked the lighter again, holding it sideways, a blast of mist jetting from the lighter’s end. Evan threw up his jacketed arm across his face. Pepper spray seared his eyes, his throat. He staggered and fell across the Persian rug. Pain gouged up through his eyeballs, his nose.
Khan dashed across the room, knocking a thick tome from the shelf, reaching in, drawing a Beretta free, spinning to fire at Evan. The bullet barked into the coffee table by Evan’s head. He blindly seized the table, brought it up as a shield, charged at Khan, his eyes burning as if he’d had matches poked into them. Two more silenced shots and wood splintered into Evan’s stomach and chest, but he rammed the table into Khan, forced the gun downward, drove him back into the oak shelves.
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.
35
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.
He jabbed a screwdriver into the desk lock with caution; after the trick pepper-spray lighter he could not take anything on face value. But there was only the click of the metal against metal.
He picked up a hammer and with four solid blows cracked open the locks on Thomas Khan’s desk. In one drawer he found papers relating to the ownership of the house. It had been bought last year by Boroch Investments. Boroch must be a front for Khan; if there was no obvious connection to Khan, the police wouldn’t come here. Thomas Khan wouldn’t show his face if he could help it in digging his escape tunnel.
In the desk drawer he found stationery and envelopes for Boroch Investments, a passport from New Zealand, one from Zimbabwe, both in false names with Thomas Khan’s pictures inside. There was a phone, in need of a charge but working. He dug out the charger from the back of the drawer and began to power the phone up. He checked the call log; the list was empty.
He forced the lock on another desk drawer. It held a metal box, containing bricks of British pounds and American dollars. Beneath that an automatic pistol and two clips. He counted the money. Six thousand British pounds, ten thousand in U.S. funds. He set the cash on the desk. The side desk drawers were empty.
He attacked the credenza with a hammer, a screwdriver, and then a crowbar. Dizziness oozed into his brain, from lack of eating, from exhaustion, from the pepper spray, but he knew that he was close, so close to getting what he needed. So close.
The door cracked under the crowbar. Empty.
No, it couldn’t be. Couldn’t. Khan would need data files, he would need to access new accounts, erase old ones. There had to be a computer in this house aside from the PDA. Unless the bastard kept it all in his head. Then Evan was back to zero.
He searched the room. The small closet held office supplies, old suits, a raincoat. He went through the guest bedrooms – practically bare – and the downstairs bedroom. He searched carefully, knowing he was no pro, but reminded himself to be disciplined and thorough. But he found nothing, and the chance to close his hands around Jargo’s throat started to turn to smoke.
In the darkened den, he risked a reading light. The bookcase. Khan had hidden his gun behind the volumes.
Evan searched the rest of the bookcase. Nearly every inch filled with good books, leftovers from Khan’s store. How could such a psychopathic bastard have such excellent taste in reading? But nothing else lay concealed behind the books. He rifled through the kitchen cabinets and pantry. He dumped canisters of salt and flour on the floor. Nothing. A freezer full of frozen dinners, but he ripped them open, dumped them in the sink, hoping a disk or CD might be hidden inside. Suddenly he was hungry and he microwaved a frozen chicken-and-noodle dinner, nauseated at eating a dead man’s food. He decided to get over it.
/> He sat down on the floor and forced himself to calm down as he ate. The food was tasteless but filling. His stomach settled. The jet lag and the fade of his adrenaline rush swamped him, and he fought the urge to just lie down on the floor and close his eyes, slip into sleep. Maybe there was nothing more to find.
The basement. The one room he hadn’t searched. He went down the darkened steps. Past the sheeted bodies. The basement was small. Square, with a stacked washer/dryer on one side and metal shelving on the other. The shelves held an assemblage of junk. More books, boxed. He went through them all. A television set with a cracked screen. A box of gardening tools, clean of mud, probably never used. A couple of cases of canned soups and vegetables and meats, in case Khan had to hide a fellow operative.
His gaze went back to the TV with its cracked eye. Why would anyone keep a small broken TV? TVs were cheap now. To repair the screen, you might as well buy a new one. Maybe Khan was driven by a sense of waste not, want not. But he had been well-to-do. A broken TV was nothing.
Evan took the TV down from the shelf. He retrieved a screwdriver and unfastened the back.
The television had been stripped of its guts. Inside was a small notebook computer and charger. Evan powered on the laptop; it presented a dialog box prompting him for a password.
He entered DEEPS.
Wrong. He entered JARGO.
Wrong. He entered HADLEY. Wrong. The CIA could crack this, but he couldn’t. Even if he deduced a password, Khan might have encrypted and passworded the files on the system. He would be a fool not to take that precaution.
Evan stared at the screen. Maybe he should just take the computer and go to Langley, the CIA’s headquarters. Turn himself in…
… and not save his father.
His father’s face floated before him in the darkened basement, and he stared at the father-and-son bodies of the Khans. If he believed the past few days, his father was a professional killer who had stamped out lives the way others stamped out ants. But that wasn’t the father he knew. It could not be, the truth could not be that harsh or that simple. He had to have the data to rescue his father.
