MONDAY MARCH 14
23
E van didn’t expect the children.
Monday morning at ten Evan imagined the Audubon Zoo would be nearly empty, but a good-sized crowd trickled to the gates as the zoo opened. The small parking lot, on the edge of Audubon Park, held two buses of schoolkids from a Catholic academy and three minivans sporting the logo of a retirement community. Then there was the usual spill of tourists, which New Orleans never lacked.
Evan paid his admission to the zoo. He wore his dark glasses and baseball cap. Few twentyish men were in the crowd. He spotted Shadey, paying in a different line, wearing an Astros ball cap and sunglasses. Keeping his distance, walking with Evan’s duffel slung over his shoulder.
The zoo, Evan noticed, wasn’t a place where many people walked alone. Families and couples and herds of students with harried teachers. He circled, keeping his gaze moving across the crowd.
No sign of his father. Or Dezz. He had no idea what Jargo looked like. He saw no sign of a squad of guys in dark glasses that might work for Bricklayer, with earpieces and trench coats. They wouldn’t be so obvious.
Evan darted through the swell of the opening-gate crowd. Last night, in the cheap motel rooms he and Shadey had scored near the French Quarter, he had downloaded a map off the Audubon Zoo’s Web site and memorized it. Every way in, every way out. The zoo backed up to the green sprawl of Audubon Park on one side, to an administration building, side roads, and a Mississippi River landing on the other. The map was general. He suspected there were routes for animal handlers and zoo employees that were not shown.
He remembered strolls here with his father, his hand in his dad’s, his other hand holding a sticky, melting ice cream. He loved the zoo. He headed in the direction of the main fountain in the plaza, with statues of a mother elephant and her calf cavorting in the spray. He walked a slow, measured pace along the palm-lined brick pathway, glancing behind him, as if he were taking in the sights and were in no hurry. Schoolkids milled around him, a teacher attempting to herd them to his right where the real elephants ambled in the Asian Domain, others eyeing a restaurant to his left, although it was too early for burgers and shakes. He was a man enjoying a day at the park, the gentle best of the Louisiana spring before the swamp-native heat and humidity melted the air.
A long, curving bench near the fountain sat empty. Schoolkids and families drifted toward the elephant pen. Most of the early crowd passed him, moving beyond the fountain for the zoo’s carousel and the Jaguar Jungle exhibit.
Evan spotted a man walking toward him. Eyes locked on him. Tall, a handsome face, hard blue eyes like chips of ice. Hair streaked with gray. Wearing a dark trench coat. Rain loomed in the skies, but Evan believed the man had something hidden under his coat. That was fine. Evan had something hidden under his raincoat, too. Not a gun. Shadey had the gun, because if either Jargo or Bricklayer grabbed Evan, they’d simply relieve him of the weapon. He had his music player in his pocket, and he would say the files were on it. No argument. No searching. He’d just give it to them, let them worry about decoding it if they could.
He watched. No sign of his father.
‘Good morning, Evan,’ the man said. Baritone. The same voice he’d heard in his kitchen, heard on the phone.
‘Mr. Jargo?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where’s my dad?’
‘Where are the files?’
‘Wrong. You first. Give me my dad.’
‘Your father doesn’t really need rescuing, Evan. He’s with us, of his own free will. He’s worked for me for years. So did your mother.’
‘No. You killed my mother.’
‘You’re confused. The CIA killed your mother. I would have saved her, given the chance. Please look over to your right.’
Evan did. There was a small playscape, then by the restaurant a patio of tables and chairs for diners. Dezz and Carrie stood at one of the canopied tables, Dezz with his arm looped around Carrie’s shoulder. She looked pale. Dezz grinned at Evan.
Evan’s heart sank into his gut. No.
Carrie’s gaze locked on Evan’s.
‘But Carrie, she’s another matter. My people found her when they came to your house in Houston to help protect you the morning your mom was killed. We couldn’t leave her for the CIA to kill as well, so we brought her with us.’ Jargo made his voice a slow soothe. ‘This has all been a terrible, wretched mistake, Evan.’
They’d found her. It could explain Carrie’s behavior after he’d left for Austin. They’d forced her to quit her job so she wouldn’t be missed, forced her to call him to see where he was when he was in the car with Durless.
‘Carrie is a true innocent, Evan. I think she’s a fine young woman. I don’t wish her any harm. I’d like to let her go, and I will, as soon as you give me those files. You and Carrie can talk privately. Then I can take you to your father. He’s desperate to see you.’
Evan opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He stared at Carrie. She shook her head, ever so slightly.
‘Yes or no, Evan.’
Evan kept waiting for the government to descend on them. Bricklayer might be lurking nearby, watching the drama play out, seeing who broke the standoff. But he couldn’t wait forever.
Evan said, ‘Carrie walks out of here, free and clear. She tells that security guard over there she’s very sick, she needs to go to a hospital. Right now. An ambulance takes her away. When she’s safe, she calls me on a number I give her. Then you get my dad on the phone and I talk to him, and then, and only then, do I give you the files.’
‘I’m a great believer in compromise, Evan.’ Jargo held up a small device – a handheld computer, a PDA – next to Evan’s ear, thumbed a control.
‘Evan,’ his father’s voice said. Mitchell Casher sounded tired, sounded desperate. ‘The danger you’re in is not from Jargo or any of his people. It’s from the CIA. You’ve made a mistake in not trusting Jargo. The CIA killed your mom. Not Jargo. Please cooperate with him.’
Jargo clicked off the voice recorder. ‘I’ve satisfied one of your requirements.’
‘I said a phone. Not a recording. He could have said all that under duress. You could have put a bullet in his head when he was done talking.’
‘Let me assure you, I would never hurt your dad,’ Jargo said in a low voice. ‘I don’t want to hurt you. You don’t want to come with me, fine. You and Carrie can just walk out of here once I have the files.’
‘As if I could trust you.’
‘That’s your call,’ Jargo said with a quiet shrug. ‘If you want to trust the CIA not to kill you once you’re back on the streets, that’s your call, too. Give me the files, and you and Carrie can walk out of here together if you choose. Have your wonderful life together, although I think the CIA will keep that wonderful life exceedingly brief. Or you can come with me and I’ll take you to your father, and I’ll protect you from those murdering bastards.’
‘You promised me my father. You can’t tell me that he didn’t want to come here and see me.’
‘Your father’s face is all over the news right now. You and he are the most prominent missing people in the country. He wasn’t comfortable with traveling. Not when the CIA is hunting him as much as they hunted your mother.’
‘I don’t believe you. We had a deal. You’re changing it.’
‘The world changes all the time, Evan. Only fools don’t change with it.’
‘Well, your world just changed. Look over by the elephants,’ Evan said.
‘I don’t have time for games.’
‘I’m not playing one.’
Slowly Jargo made a quick survey over the scattered crowd around the elephant pen, looked back at Evan.
‘Thanks for the nice profile shot,’ Evan said. ‘You’re being filmed. On digital, with a high-powered lens that provides me pristine prints of your face and of Dezz’s face.’
‘I don’t believe you.’