Prodigal Son

The sixth installment in the Orphan X series follows Evan Smoak, a former covert government assassin turned vigilante, as a phone call from the woman who gave birth to him pulls him out of retirement and into his most personal mission yet.

The novel alternates between Evan's childhood at the Pride House Group Home in East Baltimore and his present-day life in Los Angeles. At twelve, Evan is the smallest boy in the home. The boys are fascinated by a mysterious stranger who watches them from across the street. Charles Van Sciver, the dominant older boy, claims the Mystery Man selects the best kid from a group home and transforms him into something extraordinary. When the Mystery Man chooses Van Sciver and possibly another boy named Andre as candidates, Evan memorizes the hidden phone number on the man's business card and arranges a meeting. After being struck and dismissed twice, Evan sabotages Van Sciver, steals his bandanna as proof, and sweeps the Mystery Man's legs. A dark sedan that has observed every encounter flashes its headlights, overruling the Mystery Man's objections. Evan is chosen and leaves Pride House without saying goodbye, catching a last glimpse of Andre at the window.

In the present, Evan lives in a fortified penthouse at Castle Heights in Los Angeles. A man named Jack Johns extracted him from the group home and trained him as Orphan X, a lethal operative in a covert government assassin program. Evan eventually went rogue, repurposing his skills as the Nowhere Man, a vigilante reachable at 1-855-2-NOWHERE who helps desperate people. He has secured an informal pardon from the president on the condition he cease all Nowhere Man activities, but retirement leaves him restless. His neighbor Mia Hall, a single-mother district attorney with a nine-year-old adopted son named Peter, occupies his thoughts. His encrypted phone has received repeated calls from Argentina. The one time he answered, a woman claimed to be his mother. He hung up, suspecting a trap, but something about her voice stayed with him.

A parallel storyline introduces Andrew Duran, who works the midnight shift at a Los Angeles impound lot. Crushed by debt and estranged from his eleven-year-old daughter, Sofia, and ex-wife, Brianna Cruz, Duran agrees when two people posing as U.S. Marshals offer him a thousand dollars to alert them when Jake Hargreave, a former air force drone pilot, comes to claim his wrecked Bronco. When Hargreave arrives, an invisible force kills him: A high-pitched hum opens his carotid artery. Duran, the sole witness, traps the buzzing presence inside the kiosk and flees.

Evan flies to Buenos Aires, trails the caller through the Recoleta Cemetery, defeats her bodyguards, and comes face to face with Veronica LeGrande. He experiences an immediate, inexplicable recognition and knows she gave birth to him. Veronica tells him that Jack contacted her the day he was killed and said Evan helps people. She asks Evan to find and protect Andrew Duran and provides a starting address.

Evan investigates Duran's sublet house, but a Hellfire missile fired from a Predator drone destroys it. He survives by diving into a dumpster and wrapping himself in fiberglass insulation to mask his heat signature. The strike was aimed at Duran; whoever ordered it mistook Evan for the target. A drone strike on domestic soil signals involvement at the deepest levels of government or the private sector.

While visiting Brianna for leads, Evan is ambushed by Duran himself. A neighbor's greeting reveals Duran's full name, triggering a buried memory: Duran is Andre, Evan's childhood housemate from Pride House. Andre refuses help and disappears.

Evan enlists Joey Gutierrez, a sixteen-year-old hacker and former trainee in the Orphan Program, the covert assassin program that trained Evan. Joey, who raises a Rhodesian ridgeback she calls "Dog," reconstructs the impound-lot murder using geotagged surveillance footage. The footage reveals the killers: Declan and Queenie Gentner, brother-and-sister contract killers from Philadelphia working for a client they call "the doctor." Declan launched an invisible microdrone from his palm that slit Hargreave's throat.

Following leads from Danny Gallo, another former Pride House boy now in prison, Evan learns Andre lives above a Chinese restaurant. Veronica claims that Andre's mother was a college friend who was raped, bore a child, and later took her own life. Evan finds Andre, and together they return to the impound lot, where Evan recovers the spent microdrone, a dragonfly bearing the logo of Mimeticom, the defense-technology company behind the weapon. In Hargreave's Bronco he finds a parking sticker for Creech North Air Force Base. Private military contractors ambush them; Evan kills all six and learns their employer is "the doctor."

Evan and Joey visit Senior Airman Rafael Gomez, Hargreave's former sensor operator, at a veterans' reintegration center. Rafael reveals that Mimeticom, founded by Dr. Brendan Molleken, is developing autonomous kamikaze microdrones with ethical adaptors, software rules designed to constrain targeting, for a Department of Defense contract. During testing, a drone killed an airman. Hargreave planned to expose the program; Molleken had him murdered and Rafael discredited. The Gentners later assassinate Rafael and find the Nowhere Man's phone number on his body, confirming Evan's involvement.

Joey hacks Creech North's databases and discovers a hidden kill order targeting Andre, set to execute when the drone swarm launches. The tension between Evan and Andre erupts: Andre accuses Evan of stealing his chance at a better life. When Evan tries to abandon the mission, Veronica, visibly deteriorating, stops him: "He's your brother." She confesses the story she attributed to a college friend was her own. Andre is her son by assault; Evan was born later from a brief relationship and relinquished because the trauma of losing Andre left Veronica unable to trust herself as a mother.

Transformed by this revelation, Evan reconciles with Andre. At an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, Queenie Gentner ambushes them; Evan intercepts her knife with his forearm and kills her. He launches a raid on Creech North with Joey and Candy McClure, a fellow former Orphan. Evan wipes the kill order and turns one of Molleken's own drones against the doctor. The full swarm then attacks Evan, but Candy fires a portable electromagnetic pulse weapon to destroy it. Escaping through the rear gate, Evan is rammed by Declan's Corvette. He goads Declan onto a land mine by describing Queenie's death; the mine detonates, killing Declan.

In the aftermath, Veronica tells Evan she is dying of cirrhosis and shares the name of his biological father, a rodeo cowboy named Jacob Baridon, revealing Evan's full name: Evan Jacob. On Christmas Eve, Evan helps Andre reunite with Sofia, gives Joey a dog bowl for her beloved pet, tells Peter he is proud of him, and accepts Mia's dinner invitation. He asks Andre to pass the Nowhere Man's number to someone in need, signaling his return from retirement. He calls the president to demand the Mimeticom contract be terminated; the president warns his pardon is void if he is no longer retired.

Four damaged microdrones, however, shake loose from the testing field. They retrieve Evan's facial data and trace him to the Wilshire Corridor. As Evan sips vodka in his penthouse, his Laser Warning Receiver, a device that detects targeting lasers, sounds its alarm. A dragonfly hovers outside his window with three more behind it. He hurls his glass and sprints for the balcony as the drones breach the armored glass and the penthouse explodes behind him, leaving him at the railing with nowhere to go.