Hostage Zero (37 page)
Okay, living nightmare didn’t touch this. Evan was getting out of here. Maybe he’d die trying, but there was no way this was going to be his life.
A pall fell over the compound, almost as if someone had sucked away the atmosphere. Charlie said, “Uh-oh. Speeches are never good.”
Evan pivoted on his bench to see Victor standing up near the grills, his fists on his hips, somehow looking even more menacing from a distance than he did up close. His skin glistened in the fading light. He said nothing until silence had fallen over the compound.
When he spoke, his voice boomed. Even without understanding the words, Evan understood that they were important. Just a few seconds into the speech, he pointed right at Evan and said his name.
Evan looked to Charlie for a translation.
“He says you are a special guest. But he doesn’t mean it. He’s making fun of you.”
As one, the entire crowd pivoted to look at him.
“He says that you can’t be trusted.” Charlie struggled with the translation, as if trying to interpret the words instead of merely reporting them. After just a few seconds of that, he abandoned the effort and started translating directly.
“Mr. Evan Guinn is not to be harmed. No marks may be put on his face. He does not speak our language, so it would be foolish to try to talk with him. Because he is special, he will not be required to work as hard as the rest of you, but he will still live among you.”
“What the hell is he doing?” Evan hissed.
Charlie shushed him. Apparently, it was hard enough to translate one person without having to answer questions from another.
He continued to channel Victor. “Be sure to watch him closely. He is more valuable to me than any of you are. If he is hurt, I will punish you all severely.”
Victor emphasized that last point by brandishing the Louisville Slugger.
“If he runs away, or if someone comes to take him away, I will hurt all of you very bad. If he does not return, some of you will die just because I will be angry.”
Evan felt his ears turning red as his stomach cramped. Victor was fixing it so that everyone would hate him.
“Our newest resident has friends who will try to take everything away from us. One day soon they may try to kill me and all of you. They may make some kind of excuse, but whatever they say to you will be a lie. These strangers when they come will try to take Evan away, and if they succeed, you might as well die. It will be like the old days all over again when the Americans killed so many of your fathers and mothers.”
Victor paused for effect, pacing dramatically down the ranks of tables. He stopped next to Evan, and he glowered. Moving with speed that made Evan jump, Victor clamped his hand on the boy’s ear and lifted him from his seat. Evan yelped and grabbed Victor’s wrist to keep him from peeling the ear clean off his head.
“And if these people arrive for our friend Evan, what are you going to do?”
For a few seconds, no one said anything. Then one boy stood up. He couldn’t have been more than ten. “
Mataremos
,” he said.
Mataremos
,” he said.
The other boys cheered.
Victor cupped his ear with his free hand and leaned in toward the crowd. He said something, and then everyone said in unison, “
Mataremos!
”
Mataremos!
”
“Kay?” Victor said, leaning in even more.
“
MATAREMOS!
” The boys all cheered at that. Victor let go of Evan’s ear and shoved him down into his seat. Around him, the word he didn’t understand became a chant: “Ma-ta-re-mos, ma-ta-re-mos ...”
MATAREMOS!
” The boys all cheered at that. Victor let go of Evan’s ear and shoved him down into his seat. Around him, the word he didn’t understand became a chant: “Ma-ta-re-mos, ma-ta-re-mos ...”
For his part, Charlie looked very uncomfortable. To Evan’s silent inquiry, he replied, “It means, ‘We will kill them.’ ”
C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-EIGHT
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-EIGHT
“Scorpion, this is Mother Hen.”
Jonathan pressed the mike button on his vest. “Hi, Mom,” he said. The three of them walked in single file up a hill that seemed to have no end, Jonathan in the lead and Boxers taking up the rear. In near total darkness, the night glowed green and bright thanks to the enhancement of their night-vision goggles. Their GPS showed that they’d hiked about two miles since leaving the village, and for every step, Jonathan had kept his fist lightly wrapped around the grip of his battle-slung M4, his finger outside the trigger guard, but poised for action with an instant’s notice.
“I’ve got good news from Alaska,” Venice said. “Wolverine came through. Our friends are airborne with special transportation arranged through channels. Word is that everyone is safe and they hit a home run.”
Jonathan smiled. “I’m sure that will be a story worth hearing.”
“I’ve heard some of it,” Venice said, “and you have no idea how right you are.”
“Looking forward to it. Got any good news for us jungle jockeys?”
“I do,” she said. “I think I have a final location for the precious cargo,” Venice said. “He’s in Building Golf. It looks like it might be some sort of a dormitory, judging from the number of people who filed in.”
Without referencing his map or his computer, Jonathan knew that she was referring to the third hut down the eastern edge of the compound. He stopped and let the others catch up. Boxers and Harvey were both equipped with the same communications gear, but as commander, Jonathan was the lone voice back to Fisherman’s Cove. “How sure are you?” he asked.
“I’m one hundred percent certain I saw him enter Building Golf. After that, reliability drops,” Venice said. “I’ll monitor for people exiting the building, but if that happens, we’ll have no way of knowing who it is.”
“Roger that,” Jonathan said. “I show us two miles out. Do you concur?”
“I do,” she said. “But I’ve got some troubling news. They’ve got the compound lit up like daytime. I compared that to images from SkysEye last night, and the floodlights appear to be new.”
“That means they’re expecting us,” Boxers whispered. “Fuckin’ Josie.”
“It means they’re expecting
something
,” Jonathan corrected. He keyed his mike. “Have you found the generator?”
something
,” Jonathan corrected. He keyed his mike. “Have you found the generator?”
“I believe so,” Venice said. “I’ve got a heat signature in the five hundred–degree range, consistent with the burning temperature of gasoline, along the western margin of the main building. Problem is, it appears to be in the wash of the light that it’s creating. You’re not going to be able to get to it.”
“Take it out with a sniper shot?” Harvey asked.
Jonathan shook his head. “We’re firing five-five-six millimeter, and you’re firing nines. They’re not reliable for that.” He cursed himself for not having spec’d out a 7.62-millimeter rifle to Josie. There was nothing like the proper application of M60 fire to raise havoc with electrical generators.
“We’ll just have to plant a second charge,” Boxers said.
Jonathan always got a kick out of how easy the Big Guy made complex operations sound. He was right, of course. “That one will be mine,” Jonathan said. He turned to Harvey. “That’ll put a lot more pressure on you as the sole cover. Are you up to it?”
Harvey cocked his head and smirked. “If I say no, do you have a replacement?”
It was a point well made in response to a stupid question.
“Don’t worry about me,” Harvey said. “I’m falling back into the habit. Since I haven’t shot a gun in a while, I might not have the most accurate aim, but I can pull the trigger enough to make the barrel hot.”
The radio crackled, “Hey, are you still there?”
“Sorry, Mom,” Jonathan said. “We were just doing a little strategizing.”
“Well, strategize this: I show two people leaving the compound and heading your way. They’re carrying flashlights, and from their posture, I’d say they’re holding rifles, too.”
Boxers snorted out a laugh. “Way to be stealthy,” he said on the radio.
Jonathan took comfort from the use of artificial light. It put the enemy at a double disadvantage. Not only were they visible before the fight began, but they’d likely be blind afterward because their night vision would be shot. That’s what he was hoping, anyway. Not counting on it, for sure, but hoping very hard.
“Are you sure they’re heading our way?” Jonathan asked.
“I know that they’re heading down the trail that leads to you,” Venice said. “Time will tell if you’re the ultimate target. I’m guessing no.”
“I’m guessing no, too,” Jonathan said. “If they know we’re coming, the last thing they’ll want to do is engage us in anything less than strength.”
“I think they’re setting traps,” Boxers said offline.
Jonathan thought that, too. “Mother Hen, keep an eye on them. If they stop for any length of time, note the location for us on the GPS.”
“I’ll try, but remember the four-minute delay.”
“I understand. Do your best to keep us informed. Now let’s clear the channel for a while.”
Venice was unsurpassed in her skills and her commitment to mission, but left to her own devices she could get very damn chatty on the radio. Sometimes you just had to cut her off early, before she could develop an unmanageable head of steam.
“I’ve got a question,” Harvey said after a couple of minutes had passed in silence. “In The Sandbox, we had a problem with Hadjis faking shit for the satellite coverage. They knew we were watching, so they’d put on a show. Any chance that our bad guys are doing that?”
“Impossible,” Boxers said with hesitation.
“How can you be so sure?”
Jonathan took that one. “Because Josie never knew about the satellite imagery. We kept that just for us. If he didn’t know it, then he couldn’t have told anyone.”
There’d been an argument between the guards as it came time to herd the boys into their sleeping huts, but Evan had no idea what it was about until Charlie explained it to him after the fact. “Some of the
guardia
think it’s a mistake to put you and me in the same hut. They worry that we can make plans that no one else can understand.”
guardia
think it’s a mistake to put you and me in the same hut. They worry that we can make plans that no one else can understand.”
Evan shrugged. “Well ...
yeah
.” When he said it, “yeah” had two syllables.
yeah
.” When he said it, “yeah” had two syllables.
The argument had lasted long enough for them to be the last to enter. Charlie’s feet had barely cleared the jamb when the wooden door slammed shut and something heavy slid across the opening. After the bolt or whatever it was slid into place, Evan heard a heavy rattle that sounded like a lock being snapped closed.
The hut held ten army-style cots, arranged in two ranks down either side of the rectangular interior, but with everybody inside, Evan counted only nine occupants, including himself. The heat and stench of the place were off-the-chart awful. Ten seconds in, he was seriously thinking about vomiting; but then the puking plan was derailed when one of the hut’s residents threw a pair of flip-flops at Charlie, beaning him on the forehead with the first one, and missing with the second, which sailed into the corner near the shit can. The rest of the kids cheered at that, and then there was a long string of angry Spanish, punctuated with pointing and derisive laughter.
The kid who threw the shoe jutted out his neck and made a move on Charlie, his shoulders and arms set for battle. As the distance closed, the fight seemed inevitable, so Evan stepped out to help his new friend. He met the attacker with a football-style forearm block to his chest, and the force of the collision knocked the other kid to the ground. His eyes hot and angry, the attacker tried to stand, but Evan knocked him down again. On the far end of the hut, the other boys started to shout, and they surged forward.
Evan didn’t care. Every one of them was smaller than he, and he was tired of being pushed around. If they wanted a fight, he’d give them one. He needed to hit someone, to break something. If it had to be noses and teeth, that was fine. God knew it wouldn’t be his first time.
The boy he’d knocked down crab-walked backward toward the others, who helped him to his feet. The war was on. Shit was going to fly.
Amid all the shouting, he never heard Charlie yelling at him to stop. He was surprised as hell, then, when arms clamped across his chest from behind and swirled him away from the fight. “Stop it!” Charlie yelled.
Evan was appalled. “Stop? Are you kidding? That kid just threw shoes at you!”
“It doesn’t matter,” Charlie said.
Behind them, the door to the hut flew open, and three guards stormed in, rifles at the ready.
Charlie darted over to them, his arms outstretched to show restraint. “No, no, no, no,” he said. And then there was a long string of Spanish. The guards seemed unmoved at first, but the longer Charlie talked, the more the men seemed to relax. On the far side, the other occupants of the hut had fallen silent, and went through the motions of climbing into their cots.
After thirty seconds, the incident had passed. From body language alone, Evan could tell that Charlie was finishing up some kind of negotiation. Cautiously satisfied, it seemed, the guards nodded and backed out the door. The locks slid shut, and it was over.
Charlie turned and glared at the residents, then walked the few steps to pick up the flip-flops that they’d thrown at him.
“What the hell’s going on?” Evan asked.
“Don’t ever try to fight my fights for me, okay?” He pointed at the end bunk—the one closest to the shit can. “That one’s yours. The newest guy gets the stink.”
Evan cocked his head, stunned. “You’re welcome,” he said.
Charlie turned on him. “I didn’t thank you,” he snapped. “Don’t think you understand this place, Evan. We have rules here, and one of the rules is that the new guy gets the stink. Because I’m your guardian angel, I get
you
, which means that I get the stink, too.” He moved to the second-to-last cot, leaving an empty one between himself and the next guy. He sat on the edge, then lifted his filthy feet on the end of the cot closest to the aisle and lay back. “Now try to sleep.”
you
, which means that I get the stink, too.” He moved to the second-to-last cot, leaving an empty one between himself and the next guy. He sat on the edge, then lifted his filthy feet on the end of the cot closest to the aisle and lay back. “Now try to sleep.”
Evan followed, but sat on the edge of his own cot, facing Charlie, his elbows resting on his knees. “He threw shit at you, man. You can’t let that happen. I live in a dormitory, too, and I’m telling you, you’ve got to fight for your reputation.”
Charlie rolled his head to make eye contact, his expression one of mild amusement. “Does this really look like a dormitory to you? This is a concentration camp. Siberia without the air-conditioning. Around here, you can fight every day or live every day. The fuck do I care how close to the shit can I sleep? This whole fucking place smells the same. Up there, back here, what difference does it make? Its not worth getting your nose broke or balls beat. It’s just not.” He shifted his gaze back to the ceiling, then closed his eyes. “Now go to sleep.”
Outside, in the distance, an engine fired up, and a moment later, bright light flared through the windows, turning the inside of the hut to day and casting sharp shadows on the walls and ceiling. Almost as one, the boys in the hut all sat up and whispered their concerns to each other.
“Well, that’s different,” Charlie said, sitting up. “People really coming to get you?” he asked.
Evan screwed up his face and shook his head. “I wish. Anybody wants to, I’m happy to come along.”
Charlie chuckled, then lay back down, placing his forearm over his eyes.
Evan followed suit, but was so many miles away from falling to sleep that he was already worried about how long the night was going to be.
After about five minutes, as the kids at the far end began to fill the room with the sounds of sleep, Charlie whispered, “You awake?”
“Oh my God, yes.”
“I want you to do me a favor. If some away team does beam down here for you, take me back to the mother ship with you, okay?”
Sometimes, it’s the stupidest images that give you the giggles.
Jonathan’s earpiece crackled, “They’re moving again. Away from you.”
Venice had been tracking the movements of the two men who had left the compound with guns, and had been fortunate enough in two four-minute cycles of pictures to catch them in the act of setting a booby trap on the trail they were walking. Because of the jungle cover, she wasn’t able to determine what munitions they were using, but the fact that it took them so long told Jonathan that it was something pretty rudimentary. By zooming in closely to the operation and using a stylus on her computer screen back in Fisherman’s Cove, she’d been able to mark the location of the trap to within a fraction of one second of latitude and longitude, and she’d already uploaded that location to the GPS devices Jonathan and his team were carrying.
It only made sense that the team would travel to the farthest point to set the first trap and then work backward. Reversing the order would be a terrific way to get snared by your own genius.
“Scorpion, I show you only about a hundred and fifty yards from the location of the trap,” Venice said.
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