The passenger window shattered from inside, Carrie emptying her gun onto the same fracturing point, firing the clip empty. Carrie went out, feet first, hitting the concrete in a tight roll, her arm out of the sling, and the Mercedes skidded to a stop thirty feet from her, crashing into a Lexus.
She held the decoy laptop in her good hand, raised it like a trophy. And ran. Away from both cars, into the snarl of traffic.
Dezz and Jargo came out of the Mercedes and fired at her. Evan took aim but two people got out of the Lexus, between him and Dezz, and he stopped, afraid of hitting them.
Dezz fired once at him, pinging the trunk lid, and Evan ducked down. People on the street, in the cafes, fled and screamed. He risked a look.
But Dezz and Jargo ignored him; they saw Carrie had the laptop. Carrie bolted toward the western end of the street; she hurtled into the parting crowd, into traffic, and the two men followed her.
They vanished around a corner.
Evan heard a police siren approach, the spill of blues and reds racing along the scorching path they’d taken. He grabbed the laptop bag and jumped out of the trunk; McNee’s door was open, she ran hard in the opposite direction, her gun out, aiming at anyone who tried to stop her.
The BMW – that had been behind the Mercedes on the highway – headed straight for him. Braked. The window slid down. ‘Evan!’
His father behind the wheel, dressed in a dark coat, a bandage on his face.
‘Dad!’
‘Get in! Now!’
‘Carrie. I can’t leave Carrie.’
‘Evan! Now!’
Clutching the laptop bag, Evan got in. This was not what he had expected; he thought Jargo had his father locked in a room, tied to a chair.
‘Here.’ Mitchell Casher pulled away from the Mercedes, tore along the sidewalk, steered off the chaos on Alton, took a side road. Then another side road.
‘Dad; oh, Jesus, Dad.’ He grabbed his father’s arm.
‘Are you hurt?’
‘No. I’m fine. Carrie-’
‘Carrie is no longer your concern.’
‘Dad, Jargo will kill her if he catches her.’ Evan stared at his father, this stranger.
Mitchell took a street that fed back onto Alton, two blocks away from the chaotic mess of the crash, then went onto 41 and cruised up to the speed limit on the stretch of road that cut through the bay. On the left, giant cruise ships shimmered with light. On the right, mansions crowded a spit of land, yachts parked on the water.
‘Carrie. Dad, we have to go back.’
‘No. She’s not your concern anymore. She’s CIA.’
‘Dad. Jargo and Dezz killed Mom. They killed her.’
‘No. Bedford’s people did, and we’ve taken care of them. Now I can take care of you. You’re safe.’
No. His dad believed Jargo. ‘And Jargo just let you go.’
‘He made sure I had nothing to do with your mother stealing the files and running to Gabriel.’
‘You were CIA, too. Bedford told me. If one loved, one feared. I know the code.’
Mitchell kept his eyes on the road. ‘The CIA killed your mother, and I didn’t want Bedford coming for me. All that matters now is that you’re alive.’
‘No. We have to be sure Carrie got away from them. Dad, please.’
‘The only person I work for now, Evan, is myself. The only job I have is to keep you safe, where none of these people can ever find us again. You have to do exactly what I say now, Evan. We’re getting out of the country.’
‘Not without Carrie.’
‘Your mother and I made enormous sacrifices for you. You have to make one now. We can’t go back.’
‘Carrie’s not a sacrifice I’m willing to make, Dad. Call Jargo. See if they got her.’
His father drove the BMW past the emergency vehicles racing toward Miami Beach, eased them back onto I-95 North. ‘Where are we going, Dad?’ Evan still had the Beretta in his lap, and he imagined the unimaginable: pointing the gun at his father.
‘Not a word, Evan, say nothing.’ His father tapped at his phone. ‘Steve. Can you talk?’ Mitchell listened. ‘Evan ran into the crowd. I’m still looking for him. I’ll call you back in twenty.’ He didn’t look at Evan. ‘They have Carrie. Dezz winged her in the leg. They carjacked a ride, they escaped from South Beach. But he has Khan’s laptop.’
‘The laptop she had is a decoy,’ Evan said. ‘Call him back and tell him I’ll trade the files for her safety.’
‘No. This is over. We’re getting out. I did what you asked.’
‘Dad, stop and call them back.’
‘No, Evan. We’re talking, just you and me. Right now.’
42
H is father drove Evan to a house in Hollywood. The homes were small, with metal awnings, painted from a palette of sky: sunrise pinks, cloudless blues, light eggshell the shade of a full moon. Fifties Florida. Stumpy palmettos lined the road. A neighborhood, of retirees and renters, where people came and went without attracting attention. Evan remembered reading, with a chill in his chest and spine, that a group of the 9/11 hijackers had lived and gone to flight school in Hollywood because no one got noticed there.
Mitchell Casher steered into the driveway and doused the lights.
‘I’m not abandoning Carrie.’
‘She ran. She abandoned you.’
‘No. She drew them away from me. She knew the laptop was empty, she knew they’d follow her. Because I can still bring down Jargo.’
‘You put a lot of faith in a girl who lied to you.’
‘And you put no faith in Mom,’ Evan said. ‘She wasn’t leaving you. She wasn’t running without you. She was coming to Florida to get you.’
Mitchell’s mouth worked. ‘Let’s go inside.’
As soon as they stepped in the door, Mitchell closed his arms around Evan. He leaned into his father’s embrace and hugged him back. Mitchell kissed his hair.
Evan broke down. ‘I… I saw Mom… I saw her dead…’
‘I know, I know. I am so sorry.’
He didn’t break the embrace with his dad. ‘How could you have done this, how could you?’
‘You must be hungry. I’ll make us omelets. Or pancakes.’ Dad was always the weekend cook, and Evan sat at the island counter while his dad chopped and mixed and skilleted. Saturday breakfast was their confessional. Donna always lounged in bed and drank coffee, left the kitchen to the men and stayed out of earshot.
He thought of that kitchen, his mother’s strangled face, him hanging from the rafters at the end of a rope, dying, stretching his feet toward the counter before the hail of bullets cut him free.
‘I can’t eat.’ He stepped away from his father. ‘You’re really not much of a captive, are you?’
‘Be happy I’m free.’
‘I am. But I feel like I’ve been played for a fool. I risked my life… so many times in the past week, trying to save you…’
‘Jargo only agreed to let me talk to you this way today. Just today.’
‘He made it sound like he would kill you.’
‘He wouldn’t have. He’s my brother.’
Evan’s stomach twisted. It was the truth of a fear that had lurked in the back of his mind since he’d seen the photos from Goinsville. It explained his father’s gullibility, his torn allegiance. He looked in his father’s much-loved face for echoes of Jargo’s scowl, Jargo’s cold stare.
‘I don’t know how you can claim him as your brother. He’s a vicious murderer. He tried to kill me, Dad. More than once. In our home, at Gabriel’s, in New Orleans, in London. And just now.’
Dad poured them both glasses of ice water. ‘Let me ask you a few questions.’
This was worse than being interrogated with a gun at your head. Because this was reality given an awful twist. Acting normal, talking normal, when nothing was normal.
‘Do you know where the files your mother stole are?’
‘No. Dezz and Jargo erased them. So I went to the source.’
‘Khan. What did you actually take from him?’
‘Plenty.’
‘That’s not an answer.’
Evan knocked the water glass out of his father’s hand. It shattered on the floor, sprayed cubes and liquid across the carpet. ‘I don’t even know you. I came here to rescue you, and you want to fucking grill me, Dad. We need to go out, get in the car, and get Carrie. Then we run. Forever. Jargo killed Mom. She wanted to protect me from this life, and you know it.’