Hostage Zero (14 page)

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Authors: John Gilstrap

Tags: #Suspense, #Fiction, #Thrillers

BOOK: Hostage Zero
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Jonathan smiled and chose not to say that he established a whole school for kids like that. They didn’t stay that way for long after arriving at Resurrection House, but most students arrived either as bullies or as victims of them.
“So one day, this girl gets in my face, and I told her what I thought of her antics. I mean I
really
told her. Embarrassed the shit out her in front of her buddies and victims.” He inhaled deeply through his nose, closed his eyes, and shook his head. “Next day, five cops show up at the center and arrest me for second-degree sexual assault on a minor. She went home that night after I pissed her off, and she told her parents that I had fondled her in the locker room.
“The prosecutor, a first-degree prick named J. Daniel Petrelli, decided to make an example out of me. He got the press involved, somebody leaked my history of ‘mental instability’”—he used finger quotes—“and I was cooked. Everybody knows kids wouldn’t lie about such a thing, even though they lie through their asses about every other damn thing, and suddenly I’m looking at serious prison time. I don’t know if it’s true, but I’ve heard that child molesters are beaten to shit in prison by the other inmates. I wanted none of that.
“So I took the plea agreement that my public defender told me was a sweet deal. I pleaded guilty in return for no jail time, but I agreed to seek psychiatric counseling and to stay away from children forever. I also landed on the registered sex offender list.”
His eyes turned red as tears balanced on his lids. “And that, my new friend, is a life sentence in and of itself. There are no jobs to be had, and because you’re not allowed to be within two thousand feet of a school or a church or a playground, there’s no place to live, either. Not unless you got land in the country, which is really difficult when you don’t have an income.”
Harvey spread his arms wide, as if to say,
Ta-da!
“So here I am, hero of our nation, brought to nothing by single lie told by a single child who no doubt will one day be president of the United States.”
For a long while, Jonathan just stared, allowing the story to soak in. It was the oldest cliché that everyone accused of disgusting crimes was innocent in his own mind. Over the years, Jonathan had lost track of the number of terrorists and kidnappers who had stared him straight in the eye and sworn that they were the innocent victims of happenstance. The wrong place at the wrong time. Merely exercising their right to practice their own religion. Simply trying to help the victims. These excuses and many more abounded even as their victims’ blood congealed on their clothing.
Jonathan was anything but an easy mark for a sob story; yet he believed Harvey Rodriguez. Perhaps it was the absence of histrionics, the simple, bare-bones telling of the story. No, he realized, it was none of those things. It was the absolute absence of self-loathing that convinced him.
“Your life sucks, Harvey,” Jonathan said. He didn’t mean it to be cruel; he was merely stating a fact.
“Thank you,” Harvey said. “Made even suckier by recent events.” He laughed as he scratched his beard aggressively with both hands. “I am open to any suggestions you might have on how to un-suck it.”
“I think I just might have one,” Jonathan said. “How’d you like a job here?”
“What, at a school? Maybe you weren’t listening to the part where—”
“The law?” Jonathan laughed. “Tell me one thing that’s happened since we met that complies with the law.”
“Easy for you. I’m the one looking at the jail time. I can’t be around kids. Hell, I don’t even
want
to be around kids anymore. I’ve had enough of that shit.”
All things considered, Jonathan didn’t blame him. “Well you can’t just hang around here. Not without a job. Even if I said it was okay, there’s no way Mama Alexander would let it happen.”
“Mama who?”
Jonathan let that go. Mama defied explanation to anyone who hadn’t met her. “We have an opening for a custodian here,” Jonathan said. “It’s yours if you want it.”
Harvey scowled. “What, slopping toilets and cleaning up puke on the floors?”
“And earning a salary for your efforts. It’s better than living in the woods and getting shot to death.”
“Again, easy for you to say.”
“I’m just trying to help.”
Something changed behind Harvey’s eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Jonathan asked.
“What’s your angle?”
“I don’t have one.”
“Bullshit. Everybody’s got an angle—even the ones who don’t think they do. You expect me to believe that you suddenly give a shit about me? Hell, look at me. Even I don’t give much of a shit about me.”
Jonathan scooted his chair back and crossed his legs. As he reopened the manila file folder that Venice had given him, he said, “I have a soft spot for veterans.”
Harvey laughed bitterly. “I swear to God, if you say ‘thank you for your service to our country’ I’m going to barf all over your floor.”
Jonathan read from the file. “Purple Heart, Navy Distinguished Service Medal and Navy Cross.” He looked up. “That’s some pretty high cotton.” Among Marine Corps awards for gallantry, the Navy Cross was trumped only by the Congressional Medal of Honor.
“Don’t mean nothin’,” Harvey said with a dismissive wave. “Not anymore.”
“They mean a lot around here,” Jonathan countered. His own medals for gallantry remained classified top secret and were displayed only in Unit headquarters at Fort Bragg. “I’m alive because of medics like you.”
Harvey looked at his hands. “I’m not a medic anymore. I’m not a Marine anymore. I’m the creepy loner who lives in a tent, and that’s just fine by me.” He raised his eyes. “What are you doing wandering through the woods shooting people? And what did you do with the bodies?”
Harvey Rodriguez posed a special kind of problem. The clandestine side of Security Solutions required extreme secrecy that had all been blown to hell by the events of this morning. It was bad enough that one of the children of Resurrection House had seen him kill; now he had to deal with direct knowledge held by a nominally unstable homeless drifter.
He considered every word as he spoke. “What do you know about the school next door?”
“That every one of the kids in there can probably do algebra better than me.”
Me, too
, Jonathan didn’t say. “It’s a residential school for children of incarcerated parents. Last night, the boy you helped, Jeremy Schuler, was kidnapped from that school.”
“So you’re a cop,” Harvey said.
“No, I’m a good Samaritan.”
“Who shoots people and disposes of their bodies. That’s a lot of attitude for a good Samaritan.”
Jonathan chuckled in spite of himself. He was liking Harvey more and more. “Can we just leave it at that for now?” he asked. “You really don’t have the need to know.” He hoped that if he invoked military-speak for “back off” Harvey would get the hint.
“The police don’t even know about you, do they?” Harvey guessed. So much for taking hints. “And you’re not just hiding me from the killers. You’re hiding me from the cops, too.” His eyes narrowed as they became crystal clear. “You’ve got some interesting secrets, don’t you, Mr. Graves?”
Jonathan cocked his head and smirked. “It’s Grave,” he said. “No
s
. And I believe I’ll neither confirm nor deny.”
“Sounds like a ‘yes’ to me.” Harvey was like a different man. For the first time, he seemed fully engaged, his fear evaporated. “Don’t worry, though,” he added. “Your secret’s safe with me. I got no one to tell it to, anyway. It’s interesting, though.”
Jonathan believed him, though he still had no idea why. He’d come to trust his sense about people over the years—a valuable confidence when working backcountry with local tribal leaders and inner-city miscreants to accomplish tasks that would get them all killed if word leaked out.
“It’s important to me that you stay close for a while, Harvey. And I think it’s important to you to be useful.”
“Ah, so you’re a psychiatrist, too.”
“A legend in my own mind,” Jonathan said with a smile. “Think about it, okay?”
A knock at the door let him off the hook.
It was Mama Alexander, Venice’s mother, and the hand holder in chief for every child in Resurrection House. In her late sixties, with the stamina of a forty-year-old, Mama bore a striking resemblance to the actress Esther Rolle from the seventies sitcom
Good Times
. After Jonathan’s mother had died when he was still a little boy, Mama had stepped in as surrogate. In Fisherman’s Cove and the surrounding communities, the name Mama meant Mama Alexander.
“You wanted to see me, Jonny?” she asked. Of the 6.8 billion people who walked the earth, she was the only one who got away with calling him that.
Both men stood. “Mama Alexander, I’d like to introduce you to Harvey Rodriguez. He was instrumental in saving Jeremy’s life yesterday, and I want you to consider him to be a very special guest.”
Mama’s face lit up like a full moon. “I’m very pleased to meet you,” she said, reaching out to embrace his offered hand with both of hers. “The Lord smiles on any man who offers what little he has to the betterment of others.”
Harvey smiled uncomfortably and shot a look to Jonathan.
“Mama is one of the Lord’s messengers,” Jonathan explained with a wink.
She gave him a playful smack on the shoulder. “You make fun, Jonny, but you know I’m right.”
“How is Jeremy doing?” Jonathan asked. He sensed Harvey’s heightened interest.
“He’s frightened,” Mama said. “And he wants to return to his friends.”
“Well, we’ve talked about that,” Jonathan said. “We need to keep his rescue a secret. At least for the time being. It’s for his own safety.”
“I’m not arguing with you,” Mama said. “I’m just answering your question.”
“And I appreciate it. Now I need you to take Mr. Rodriguez upstairs, and give him one of the guest rooms on the third floor.”
He could see the concern in her eyes, but knew that she would cut off a finger before insulting a guest.
“Hopefully, he’ll be with us for quite a while,” he continued. “Of course, that decision is his.”
C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN
This time, consciousness returned with a harsh shake.
“Wake up, kid,” a voice said. Kid sounded like
keed
. “Nap time is over. Time to open eyes.”
Evan Guinn had been vaguely aware for some time, he thought. He knew it was impossibly hot and that he wanted to roll over into a cooler spot, but his body wouldn’t cooperate. His limbs still weighed a hundred pounds apiece. So he’d just drift off again.
A harder shake this time, accompanied by a smack to the back of his head. “No more sleep. You wake now. Work to do.”
Work? Did he just say work? What kind—
Hands landed heavily on his shoulders. They grasped his arms and dragged him. For an instant, Evan was suspended in the air, and then he hit the hard ground.
“Hey!” he yelled, arms and legs scrabbling for traction. “Leave me—”
The surroundings didn’t make sense to him yet, but the reality of being lifted by his hair brought a certain focus. His attacker was a squat, beefy man not a lot taller than Evan’s five feet, four inches, but outweighing him by at least a hundred pounds. Without thinking, Evan threw a punch at the man. It was a girlie, roundhouse swing with no power behind it that wiffed.
The counterpunch, however—more an open-handed slap, really, or it would have broken something—landed full-force in Evan’s belly, a resounding
whack
that startled more than hurt. He tried to double over, but the grip on his hair tightened.
“Don’t be stupid,” the man growled.
Stoopeed
. “You make me hurt you, I hurt you. You do as I say, I be nice.
Entiende?
”
Evan coughed twice and took a deep breath. “Yes,” he said. “Okay.” He thought he recognized the language as Spanish.
“Good,” the man said. “I let go then.”
It felt like having his scalp reattached. Evan used his fingers as a comb to straighten his hair. It was wet and greasy. “Who are you?” he asked. He heard the accusatory tone in his voice and braced for another smack. It didn’t come.
Instead, the man handed him a thick stack of clothes and said something he didn’t understand. Something about “ropas.”
Evan scowled. “What?”
The man repeated himself, shoving the clothes into his chest. “Put on,” he said.
“Why?”
This time when he shoved the clothes, a finger poked him in the same spot where the slap had landed. Evan couldn’t tell if he did it on purpose or not, but either way, it served as a reminder. He took them the way a linebacker takes a pass from a quarterback, a hand above and below the stack. They felt heavy.
The man held up his beefy hand, fingers splayed wide. “
Cinco minutos
,
”
he said.
You didn’t have to speak Spanish to get “five minutes” out of that.
The man turned and left, closing a flimsy door behind him, and leaving Evan alone. Suddenly, five minutes seemed like way too much time. The room—if that’s really what you could call it—was tiny, maybe eight feet square. The walls and floor seemed to be made of the same wide wooden planks, but the walls didn’t actually go all the way to the floor, leaving a gap of six inches or so. The room didn’t have a ceiling, really, just an elevated cap that looked like it was made of grass. The walls didn’t meet there, either.
Behind him, his bed turned out to be a wooden door nailed to sawhorses. That platform was the only object in the room, except for a bucket that had been shoved into the corner on the wall opposite the door.
Evan placed the pile of clothes on the plank and sorted through them. This couldn’t be right. “Hey!” he called. “Hey mister!
Señor!
”
He waited a few seconds, and when no one answered, he tried again. With still no answer, he padded barefoot to the door and pulled it open. “Hey!”
Jesus, he was in the jungle! Five feet away, two men wearing camouflaged green uniforms jumped at the sound of the door opening and whirled, leveling rifles at his chest.
Evan yelled, wrapped his arms protectively around his head, and dropped to his knees.
Someone shouted, and heavy footsteps ran up to him. Again, he was lifted by his hair, and this time he was shoved back inside. He landed on his back and skidded.
“Don’t shoot me!” Evan cried.
“You crazy boy!” It was the same man as before. “
Loco!
Crazy to escape.”
Evan brought himself to his feet, again adjusting his hair. “I wasn’t escaping!” he yelled.
“You escaping!”
“No!”
“Then why run outside?”
“I needed to talk to you!” Evan said. The fear remained, but anger swelled as well. “Look at those clothes!” He pointed at the pile on the plank bed. “They’re for winter!” Indeed, the man had handed him blue jeans, a turtleneck, and a heavy wool sweater.
“Yes. You wear.”
“It’s a thousand degrees.”
“You wear,” the man repeated. He held up three fingers. “
Tres minutos
.” He turned to the door, then turned back and said something.
“What?”
He mimicked knocking on the door. “No get shot.” He turned to leave.
“Wait.”
His jailer turned again, annoyance blooming on his face.
“I have to go to the bathroom.”
The guard scowled. They weren’t communicating.
Evan went knock-kneed and bounced, the universal pantomime for needing to go. “Pee,” he said. “I need to go to the bathroom.”
The guard’s scowl turned to a grudging smile. He pointed to the bucket in the corner
Evan’s jaw gaped. “You’re shitting me.”
“
Sí,
” he said, pointing again. “Sheet.” He closed the door as he exited, then shouted, “
Dos minutos!
”
 
 
The offices for Security Solutions occupied the third floor of the same one-hundred-year-old converted firehouse whose first two floors served as Jonathan’s residence. He resisted the pull of home as he walked to the public entrance and smiled at the security camera. There’d been some major renovations to this entryway in recent months, following some unpleasantness involving invaders who had let themselves in by hacking the security code. Now, every employee had to offer up a thumbprint and an encrypted card key to gain access, while security cameras verified each visitor’s identity before anyone could be buzzed in.
As the owner of the company, just the smile worked for Jonathan. The door hummed, and he pushed it open.
A rabbit warren of cubicles greeted him. In this front part of the office—everyone called it “the pit,” but he had no idea why—Security Solutions’ team of twenty investigators and their support staff took care of the public, legitimate side of their business, whose clients included some of the most recognized corporate names in the world.
Jonathan’s team was waiting for him in the War Room—the teak conference room in the Cave, Security Solutions’ executive suite, where the clandestine side of the business was run. Precious few in the company knew exactly what went on in the Cave, and that was fine. Even those who guessed knew to keep their mouths shut.
Boxers and Venice were seated around the table, as was the newest addition to the inner sanctum, Gail Bonneville. They each nursed a steaming cup of coffee. “Good morning, everyone,” Jonathan said.
Return greetings were more mumbled than spoken. The mood in the room was funereal, with all three of the others averting their gaze to anything but the three-foot-by-four-foot image of a sullen boy that glowed from the projection screen at the far end.
Jonathan had made it clear to Venice that until this case cleared, the image of Evan Guinn would be inescapable. It spoke volumes, Jonathan thought, that the only recent clear photo they had of the kid after four years in their care was this one, taken seven months ago at the school Christmas party. Resurrection House was supposed to be a home, for God’s sake. The fact that this boy’s life was so sparsely documented pissed him off.
The face staring back from the screen emanated a plain vanilla expression from a plain vanilla place. The smile was as bright as it’s supposed to be when someone’s taking a picture, but it was all teeth and mouth. The eyes showed institutional emptiness—the show-nothing-so-no-one-can-hurt-you expression of every young inmate of every prison: equal parts fear and resolution. The boy’s most striking feature was the long, wavy mane of white-blond hair.
With his own supply of caffeine in hand, Jonathan helped himself to the seat at the head of the table and rested his palms flat on the polished surface. “Look at me,” he said.
Their eyes rose to meet his.
“How’s Dom?” he asked Venice. If Mama Alexander was the soul of the House, then Father Dom D’Angelo was the heart. He and Jonathan had been friends since college.
Venice sighed. “He’s doing as best he can. Handling the children’s concerns is difficult, but the newspeople are being pretty brutal.”
“Fuckin’ reporters are gonna crucify everybody who has anything to do with the House,” Boxers said.
“They’re going to do what they’re going to do,” Jonathan said. He rubbed a hand through his hair and scratched the back of his head. Those who knew him well recognized it as a gesture of frustration. “We’re staying out of it. Ven, after this meeting, I want you to get Matt Baker and Anne Hawkins involved. Let’s let Dom concentrate on helping the kids to get whole.”
Venice made a note without uttering her usual condemnation of Jonathan’s preferred public relations and legal experts. Maybe even she recognized the need for the best of the best, despite the combined price tag of nearly two grand an hour.
“Who’s spoken with Mr. Stewart?”
Venice and Gail both raised their hands.
“He’s as sweet as ever,” Gail said. “He’s more worried about the kids than he is about himself.”
“But he doesn’t know about the kidnappings, right?” Jonathan hoped.
“I wish,” Gail said. “A reporter called his room.”
“Fuckin’ reporters,” Boxers repeated. “Why didn’t somebody intercept the call?”
“They are now,” Venice soothed. “Thanks to that call.” She looked at Jonathan. “Dig, it would really help for him to know that Jeremy’s okay.”
Jonathan shook his head. “I know it would, but we can’t afford the chance of a leak. Not yet. But Mr. Stewart is still on track to recover?”
“He’s still critical but stable,” Venice said. “But offline, the doctor told me that he’s past the point of major worries.”
“Thank God for that,” Jonathan said. He took a long sip from his coffee mug, and then caught the entire team up on what the last few hours had revealed. As he did, he rose from his chair and parted two paneled doors to reveal a whiteboard, on which he listed the salient points.
“So here’s where we are,” he concluded. “The driver, Jimmy Henry, was hired through some guy named Sjogren, who apparently has ties to the old Slater crime family through its new leader, Sammy Bell. That establishes a possible organized crime connection.” He jotted that point on the board.
“Isn’t that the same group that your father had all the trouble with?” Boxers asked.
“The very one,” Jonathan said. “But it doesn’t end there. There’s a government connection, too.” He deferred to Venice to relay her discovery about the gunmen’s backgrounds.
“There’s not a hard government connection,” Venice concluded, “but it sure smells like one to me.”
Gail Bonneville raised her hand. “I hate to be the slow one,” she said, “but you’re all talking like this makes some kind of sense. Government operatives attacking and trying to kill children. What am I missing?” Gail had cut her law enforcement teeth in the FBI, rising quickly through the ranks and ultimately snagging a leadership role on the Bureau’s Hostage Rescue Team out of the Chicago field office. A tumultuous end to that career had led to a gig as a county sheriff in Indiana, which itself ended as collateral damage to one of Jonathan’s earlier missions. Trim and athletic, Gail was to Jonathan’s eye movie-star beautiful. Her dark brown eyes matched her dark brown hair, and she carried an air of intelligence that seriously stirred his juices.
“Nothing ever makes sense at this stage of an op,” Boxers said. He had a dismissive way about him that frequently put others on edge.
Venice ignored the big man and looked at Gail. “It’s not completely outlandish when you think about it. Every child in the House has criminal parents. Some of those parents have run afoul of federal law enforcement. Many of them have run afoul of people whom federal law enforcers are looking to prosecute.”
“Okay, then,” Gail said, having clearly connected those two dots on her own. “So, pick one. You’ve got organized crime snatching the boys as retribution. Maybe. Let’s stipulate to that for the sake of argument. But why the feds?”
Jonathan watched his new protégé with mixed feelings of admiration and desire. Gail’s strongest professional asset was her ability to process information and reach a well-considered conclusion in just a few seconds.

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