‘Honey, then you take that picture, it’s yours. Oh, I’m so glad I could help.’
Carrie tightened her grip on his hand. ‘Phyllis, did any of this last group of kids die in the fire?’
‘No. It was younger kids. The older kids all got out.’
‘Do you remember where any of these kids went after the fire? Specific other orphanages?’ Evan asked.
‘No, I’m sorry. I don’t even know that I was told.’ Phyllis leaned back in her chair. ‘We were told it was best for us not to stay in touch with the kids.’
‘May we borrow these photos? We can make copies, scan them into a computer, give them back to you before we leave town,’ Evan said. ‘It would be huge for us.’
‘I never did enough for those kids,’ Phyllis said. ‘I’m glad someone finally cares. Take the pictures, with my blessings.’
After waving good-bye to Phyllis and Dealey, they drove toward the airport, where a computer and a scanner waited on the jet.
‘My father,’ Carrie said, her voice shaking. ‘That boy in the picture next to Alexander Bast, it’s my dad, Evan, Jesus, it’s my dad!’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. Our parents knew each other. Knew Jargo. When they were kids.’ She jabbed at one of the photos. ‘Richard Allan. My dad’s name was Craig Leblanc. But this is him, I know it’s him. Don’t go to the jet. Let’s go get coffee for a minute, please.’
They sat in a corner of a Goinsville diner, the only customers except for an elderly couple in a booth who exchanged laughs and moony smiles as if they were on a third date.
‘So what the hell does this mean?’ Carrie studied the picture of her father as if he might have the answers. Tears sprang to her eyes. ‘Evan, look at him. He looks so young. So innocent.’ She wiped the tears away. ‘How can this be?’
This evil – Jargo – that had touched their lives went far deeper than Evan had ever imagined. It intertwined his life with Carrie’s even before they were born. It frightened him, made the threat against them seem like a shadow always looming over them, both of them unaware that they lived in darkness.
Evan took a steadying breath. Find order in the chaos, he decided. ‘Let’s walk through it.’ He ticked the facts on his fingers. ‘Our parents and Jargo were all at an orphanage together. The home burned down with all its records. The kids get dispersed. Then the county courthouse burns a month later, and it’s all blamed on a firebug who commits suicide. Alexander Bast, a CIA operative, runs the orphanage under a false name.’
‘But why?’
‘The answer’s in front of us, if we were looking for these kids’ pasts. The records. The birth certificates. You could create a false identity very easily, using Goinsville and the orphanage as your place of birth. You can say, yes, I was born at the Hope Home. My original birth certificate? Unfortunately destroyed by fire.’
Carrie frowned. ‘But the state of Ohio would have issued them new ones, right? Replaced the records.’
‘Yes. But based on information provided by Bast,’ Evan said. ‘He could have falsified records so that he could claim every orphan living at Hope Home was born at Hope Home. Maybe those kids had different identities before they came to this orphanage. But they come here and they’re Richard Allan and Arthur Smithson and Julie Phelps. After the fire, they have new birth certificates in those names, forever, without question. And then you just ask for replacement birth certificates in the names of any of the dozens of kids at Goinsville.’
Carrie nodded. ‘A whole pool of new identities.’
Evan took a long sip of coffee. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the photo; his mother had been so beautiful; his father, so innocent-looking. ‘Go back further. Back to Bast, because he’s the trigger. Tell me why a London nightclub owner, friend to celebrities, dabbles in an American orphanage.’
‘The answer is he’s not just a London party boy,’ Carrie said.
‘We know he was CIA.’
‘But low-level.’
‘Or so Bedford says.’
‘Bedford’s not a liar, Evan, I promise you.’
‘Never mind Bedford. This might have been a way for the Agency to create new identities more easily.’
‘But they’re just kids. Why would kids need new identities?’
‘Because… they were part of the CIA. Long ago. I’m just theorizing.’
Her face went pale. ‘Wouldn’t Bedford know about this if the Deeps were part of the CIA’s history?’
‘Bedford got the job to track down Jargo only about a year ago. We don’t know what he was told.’ He grabbed her hands. ‘Our folks left their lives. Quit being Richard Allan and Julie Phelps and Arthur Smithson and took on new names. Bedford might have been told it’s a problem he’s inherited, rather than a terrible secret.’
Evan went back to the stack of photos. ‘Look here. Jargo with my folks.’ He pointed at a picture of a tall, muscular boy standing between Mitchell and Donna Casher, his big arms around the Cashers’ necks, smiling a lopsided grin that was more confident than friendly. Mitchell Casher bent a bit toward Jargo’s face, as though asking him a question. Donna Casher looked stiff, uncomfortable, but her hand was holding Mitchell’s.
Carrie traced Jargo’s face, looked at Mitchell’s. ‘There’s a resemblance with your dad.’
‘I don’t see it.’
‘Their mouths,’ she said. ‘He and Jargo have the same mouth. Look at their eyes.’
Now he saw the similarity in the curve of the smile. ‘They’re both just grinning big.’ He didn’t want to look at the men’s eyes – the nearly identical squint. It couldn’t be, he thought. It couldn’t be.
She inspected the back of the photo. ‘It just says Artie, John, Julie.’
He flipped over to the other picture of Jargo that Phyllis had shown him. ‘John Cobham.’
‘Cobham. Not Smithson.’ She clasped both his hands in hers.
‘The photos are faded,’ he said in a thin voice. ‘It blurs features. Makes everyone look the same.’
She leaned back. ‘Forget it. I’m sorry. Back to what you said. Whether Bedford knows. He must not, he wouldn’t have bothered to send us here.’
‘So what are you going to tell him?’
‘The truth, Evan. Why not?’
‘Because maybe, maybe this is a CIA embarrassment Bedford doesn’t know about. Bast brought these kids here, set up names for them, made it hard for anyone to ever trace their records, and he worked for the CIA.’ Evan leaned forward. ‘Maybe the CIA took these young kids and raised them to become spies and assassins.’
‘That’s a crazy theory. The CIA would never do this.’
‘Don’t take the CIA’s side automatically.’ Evan lowered his voice, as though Bedford sat in the next booth. ‘I’m not attacking Bedford. But don’t tell me what the Agency – or maybe a small group of misguided people in the Agency – might or might not do, or have done over forty years ago, because we don’t know. Bast was CIA. He brought our parents here. For a reason.’
Carrie held up a hand. ‘Assume you’re right. But, at some point, this group took on new names and new lives, and they all went to work for Jargo. Why? That’s the question.’
‘Bast died. Jargo took over.’
‘Jargo killed Bast. It has to be.’
‘Maybe. At the least, Jargo had a hold on our parents and maybe these other kids. An unbreakable hold. I want to go to London.’
‘To find out about Alexander Bast.’
‘Yes. And to find Hadley Khan. He knew about the connection between Bast and my parents. It can’t be coincidence.’
‘It can’t be coincidence, either, that your mom picked now to steal the files, to run. She knew you’d been approached about Bast.’
‘I never told her. Never. You know I don’t talk about my films when I’m concepting. You were the first person I told.’
‘Evan. She knew. You e-mailed Hadley Khan, trying to find out why he left you that package about Bast. She could have looked on your computer. Maybe she saw Bast’s name in an e-mail to Hadley. Or when she met me… maybe I reminded her of my dad. Maybe she was afraid you’d be recruited. And she just wanted a permanent escape hatch for your family.’