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.’
‘She spied on me.’ He knew it was true. ‘My own mother spied on me.’
She reached past their cold coffee cups to take his hand. ‘I’m so sorry, Evan.’
The photo of Bast, scattered among the pictures of their parents and Jargo a lifetime ago, smiled up at them.
They called Bedford from the plane and explained what they had found. ‘We want to go to London,’ Evan said. ‘My mother’s last travel photo assignment was there. Hadley Khan is there. And Bast died there. Can you get the CIA office in London to get us the complete files on Bast’s murder?’
‘There is no record in Bast’s file about this orphanage,’ Bedford said. ‘Are you sure it’s him in the photo?’
‘Yes. Could his record have been expunged if someone at the CIA wanted to hide his involvement?’
‘Anything is possible.’ Bedford’s voice sounded tight, as though the rules of engagement had just been rewritten. Evan could see the heightened tension on Carrie’s face: What the hell are we dealing with here?
‘London,’ Evan said. ‘Can we go?’
‘Yes,’ Bedford said. ‘If Carrie feels well enough to travel.’
‘I’m fine. Tired. I can sleep during the flight,’ Carrie said. ‘I’ll arrange a pickup for you in the London office. I’ll talk to our travel coordinator, but I believe you’ll have to have a fresh pilot. Change in Washington. And, Carrie, I’ll have a doctor check you before you leave for Britain, and another doctor for when you get to London.’
‘Thank you, Bricklayer.’
Bedford hung up. Carrie went to the restroom. Evan closed his eyes to think.
He heard Carrie return to her seat. He kept his eyes shut. The jet roared above Ohio, turning toward Virginia. Leaving a patch of ground that was the first step in the long lie of his family’s existence.
He pretended to be back in the study in his Houston house, digital tape downloaded onto his computer and him threading his way through twenty hours of images, paring away all the extraneous gunk and talk from the heart of the story he wanted to tell the audience sitting in the quiet dark. He had read once that Michelangelo just took away the chunks of marble that didn’t belong and found the David hiding within the mass of stone. His David was the truth about his parents, the information that would free his father.
So what was the true story, where was the subtle art under the block of marble?
He opened his eyes. Carrie sat, staring ahead of her, hunched as though caught in a chill wind.
Suddenly his heart filled with… what? He didn’t know. Pity, maybe, sadness, in that neither of them had asked to be born into this disaster. But she had chosen to stay in it. First for her parents, then for Bedford. And
