The Last Orphan

The eighth installment in the Orphan X series opens with a prologue set a year before the main events. Johnny Seabrook, a 22-year-old aspiring stagehand from Wellesley, Massachusetts, attends a Labor Day party at Tartarus, a mansion on Billionaire's Row in the Hamptons. Swept up in the hedonistic atmosphere, Johnny is sexually assaulted by a morning-show news anchor and wanders the mansion disoriented. On the third floor, he pushes through a handleless scarlet door and witnesses something shocking. A man shoots him through the shoulder as he flees, catches him in the side yard, and slits his throat.

Evan Smoak, the series protagonist, is a former covert government assassin pulled from foster care at age 12 and trained in a secret initiative called the Orphan Program. His handler and surrogate father, Jack Johns, taught him governing principles called the Ten Commandments and fought to keep his humanity intact. After leaving the Program, Evan reinvented himself as the Nowhere Man, helping powerless people who reach him through an untraceable phone number. He holds a presidential pardon contingent on ceasing these activities, a condition he has quietly violated.

The novel finds Evan sampling rare vodka on an Icelandic glacier, his life in a lull. Joey Morales, his 16-year-old hacker protégée and surrogate daughter, has left on a road trip. Mia Hall, a district attorney Evan has been romantically involved with, lies in a coma, and her 10-year-old son, Peter, is staying with relatives. At Joey's apartment, Evan discovers she has been tracking his biological father, Jacob Baridon, a rodeo cowboy last traced to Blessing, Texas. Evan orders her to stop. Soon Peter delivers joyful news: Mia has woken up.

Evan heads to Cedars-Sinai to see Mia but walks into a Secret Service ambush. During the pursuit, he misses a wide-open shot at 20 feet, an unprecedented lapse that shakes him. He fights through waves of operators but halts when a civilian is trapped between him and descending agents. Cornered by Special Agent in Charge Naomi Templeton, who has hunted him for years, Evan surrenders.

At a secure facility, Templeton connects him via video to President Victoria Donahue-Carr, who informs Evan his pardon is void and he faces execution unless he completes a mission. The target is Luke Devine, a former private banker who hosts lavish parties to compromise powerful guests, generating blackmail material that gives him leverage over two senators critical to the president's trillion-dollar environmental bill. Evan refuses to work for the government but agrees to make a "good-faith effort" (72) to evaluate the mission. Templeton fits him with an explosive ankle bracelet and installs him at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

When a rogue guard steals Evan's DNA to sell, Evan calls Candy McClure, a fellow former Orphan and lethal ally, who infiltrates the hotel and helps him escape. Back at his penthouse, intrusive memories and obsessive-compulsive spirals overwhelm him. He calls his armorer and confidant, Tommy Stojack, who counsels him to find his weak points and repair them.

Evan begins investigating Devine. Joey discovers his security detail consists of dishonorably discharged marines led by Derek Tenpenny, a former media fixer. A government report names Echo Gabriel, Devine's ex-girlfriend, as a contact. Evan calls Echo and finds her on an 11th-story window ledge contemplating suicide. He persuades her inside and flies to New York. Echo describes Devine as extraordinarily charismatic but dangerously manic since stopping his medication a year ago. She sends Evan a video by Ruby Anne Seabrook, Johnny's 19-year-old sister, who pleads for help investigating her brother's murder and its connection to Tartarus.

In Wellesley, Evan meets the Seabrook family: Ruby; her father, Mason; and her mother, Deborah. Ruby plays a threatening voice mail warning her to stop asking questions. Meanwhile, Devine's men fly to Boston and murder an associate of Angela Buford, a sex worker linked to Tartarus who was killed alongside Johnny, leaving behind a sketch of Ruby that marks her as their next target. Evan investigates in Mattapan, the Boston neighborhood where Angela lived, confirming her connection to Tartarus. He moves the Seabrooks to a safe house and waits at their home. That night, one of Devine's marines infiltrates the house. Evan kills him in a knife fight, then calls Candy to guard the family.

At Tartarus's Halloween gala, Evan slips past security in skull face paint and confronts Devine, who greets him: "Welcome, Mr. Nowhere Man. I've been waiting for you" (225). After a melee with Devine's security team, Evan leaves but returns and rings the front doorbell. Devine empties the party to receive him privately. In a scarlet-walled room housing a Faraday cage, an enclosure that blocks electronic signals, Devine reveals his surveillance nerve center and proposes an alliance. When Evan demands the Labor Day footage, the files prove wiped. Devine delivers a psychological attack, calling Evan "a scared little boy wearing a lifetime of armor, living in a state of arrested development" (254). Evan absorbs the assault and departs unconvinced.

Back in Los Angeles, a reconciliation unfolds on Joey's birthday. Evan prepares military rations with a match for a candle and gives her a diamond necklace that once belonged to a Persian monarch. The gesture heals a rift from their argument about Evan's emotional boundaries and Joey's anger over systemic neglect of foster children.

Joey hacks Devine's network and confirms a physical copy of the wiped footage exists on a flash drive. Evan recovers it from Tenpenny's condo. The footage reveals the truth: Tenpenny took Angela into the scarlet room during the Labor Day party. Johnny stumbled through the unlocked door and saw Devine's surveillance screens. Tenpenny killed Angela and pursued Johnny through the mansion. Devine neither ordered nor knew about the murders.

Evan launches a coordinated assault on Tartarus, blocking road access with a flaming dump truck while Joey floods police channels with false alarms and Candy creates a distraction at the front door. In the darkened mansion, Evan eliminates Devine's remaining marines, wounding Rathsberger and killing the others. Tenpenny flees, but Evan has a separate plan for him.

In the master suite, Devine waits with his pistol disassembled as a gesture of surrender. He frames the outcome as Evan doing his dirty work. Evan grips his ARES pistol, knowing one pull would restore his pardon. He weighs Devine's culpability: The man built the system and employed killers but gave no order to murder. Evan lowers the weapon, warning that if Devine crosses the line, Evan will return. On his way out, he executes Rathsberger, who has spent the intervening time dragging himself across the foyer toward his gun.

Evan plants incriminating materials in Tenpenny's luggage at Dubai International Airport, ensuring his arrest. President Donahue-Carr, dissatisfied that Devine lives, calls Evan, who warns that if the government pursues him again, he will turn his attention toward her. Back in Wellesley, Evan shares root-beer floats with the Seabrooks. When Ruby asks what to do if the monsters return, Evan tells her, "You call me" (324).

Flying to Texas, Evan realizes Blessing is only four hours away. He drives there and finds a dilapidated trailer at the end of a dirt road, empty. As he pulls away, he passes a battered truck and catches a glimpse of a whiskered face through the window. After sitting motionless in his idling Jeep, Evan turns around, drives back, walks up to the splintered porch, and knocks.