The Hostage

by Saul, Jonas

I knew memorizing that astronomy shit years ago would come in handy one day. If he only knew what that tripod mount was really for, he’d arrest me on the spot.

  “What does all that mean?”

  Is he testing me? Does he know about this stuff?

  “What are you doing?” Spencer stepped back up beside Rod. “What has this got to do with anything?”

  “Let him answer if he wants to. We’re just talking here. No harm.”

  “It means,” Elmore began, “that the secondary mirror is flat and imparts no power as do others.”

  “You go to all that trouble to build an observatory on your roof — why not have a larger telescope than a ten inch? Couldn’t you just aim that thing out your living room window?”

  He’s trying to trip me up. Fuck this. I’ll bury him one day. Nobody tests me. Ever.

  “With telescopes, two contradictory rules apply: the bigger the telescope, the better. The smaller the telescope, the more often you’ll use it. Sure, a ten inch will outperform an eight inch and so on, but unless I built a huge observatory, a ten inch is all I need. Contrary to your earlier comment — that’s not an observatory. It’s a patio, a deck, a veranda — or whatever you want to call it. I use a telescope up there. That’s it.”

  Rod stepped backwards a few more steps to get a better look. Then his face lit up like he remembered something. He grabbed his cell phone and dialed.

  “Who are you calling?” Spencer asked.

  They were far enough away from Elmore’s front door that he had to struggle to listen.

  Rod held up a finger for Spencer to wait. Then he closed his cell phone and looked between Elmore and Spencer.

  “No signal out here.”

  “That’s odd,” Spencer said. “We called in just as we hit the driveway.”

  “I know,” Rod said and then whispered something private to Spencer. He turned back to Elmore. “I will return. See you again soon.”

  Could the American have figured out that I have a cell phone jammer? How?

  Something was going on behind the scenes. Something Elmore couldn’t put his finger on. But he knew, whatever it was, he had to figure it out or it would finish him. This American cop was smart.

  All the men got into their two vehicles and drove down his driveway, disappearing behind the line of trees at the end of his property.

  Elmore slammed his front door and started pulling on his scab. Time was running out. They could get a search warrant and legally walk through his house. He had to do something and fast. Everything was over if he fell on police radar.

  But what brought them here?

  He ran into his office and grabbed one of the toenails from his container. After slipping it in between his front teeth to flick back and forth, he picked up his TagFinder and slipped it in his back pocket. It was a similar model to the ones used on bar codes at any Wal-Mart, but this one was better. It would locate radio frequencies and signals that many others couldn’t. Somehow the cops were on his doorstep this morning because something led them there. Something like a tracking device. It was the only plausible answer. Nothing else computed. Especially after what Rod had said when Elmore asked why they came to his door. Sarah Roberts brought us here. How could she? There was only one way and because of his signal jammer, whatever led them to his house wasn’t working properly. The only proof they had was that no signal worked near the house.

  What did that asshole whisper to the other guy?

  He opened the bottom drawer of his desk and grabbed the pistol, stuck it in the back of his jeans again and left his office, Jackie’s nail digging into his gums. In the kitchen, he mixed mayonnaise with a can of tuna and pulled out his baggy of dried Special K, or as it was better known, ketamine. After mixing enough in to knock Sarah out for a few hours, he spread it on brown bread, cut it in half, added corn chips and started for the basement.

  It was almost seven in the morning. It would take at least thirty minutes to knock her unconscious when ketamine was distributed through food, but he had the time. Rod wouldn’t be back until tonight or tomorrow morning. A man like that was too determined. Elmore knew he’d be back, with or without a warrant.

  Before opening the basement door, he set the food on the hallway cabinet and looked out the living room window. The front drive was empty.

  He turned back to the food and the cabinet it sat on. The third drawer down held an empty syringe. He stuck the tip in and took care to fill it with liquid ketamine. If either of his prisoners caused trouble, he would forgo the food and simply inject them. It would work faster, knocking out a full-grown adult in less than five minutes.

  He set the syringe on the tray, picked it up and opened the basement door.

  “Okay, Sarah, time to eat. Then I can have my way with you. We’ll find out how these men got here today. I’m sure the answer is inside you somewhere and I’m coming to find it.”

  Chapter 23

  Sarah sat up when she heard the basement door open. Elmore came down the stairs, a tray in his hands.

  “Who was at the door?” she asked. “Morning guests coming for tea or Rod Howley?”

  Elmore’s eyes twitched in response to what she asked. “Rod and Spencer didn’t want to stay too long. They were asking about you though, which I don’t quite understand, but I will in time. Everything in time.”

  Rod and Spencer? That’s great, but impossible. No one has those kinds of tracking skills.

  But now that Spencer was working with Rod, and they were already at Elmore’s door, that instilled a surge of hope. With Rod on Elmore’s tail, things could change fast. For a brief moment, she was happy Rod was as tenacious as a shark out for blood.

  But how did he do it? Was he psychic like Dolan or Esmerelda? Maybe that’s why he’s the head of the Sophia Project, because he’s got a sixth sense. That put a lot of things together for her. How he knew she was in that coffee shop and how he just showed up at the CN Tower.

  She thought about Parkman. He had to be going crazy wondering where she was. Why wouldn’t he be working with Spencer too? Parkman and his fucking toothpicks. Sarah smiled at the thought.

  “What’s so funny?” Elmore asked.

  She stepped up to the bars and gripped one on either side of her face. “You can’t beat guys like Rod Howley. He’s too good. That man chased me all over Europe and back here, right to your house. There’s no way you’re smarter than he is.”

  Elmore’s face twitched and he looked away. He picked up something from the tray and slid it into his wide front pocket before she could catch a glimpse of it. When he looked back at her, his lips had tightened. Without averting his eyes, he picked up the food tray and bent in front of her cell door. He placed one sandwich on the floor and slid the paper plate under the bars.

  He walked over to Drake’s cell and did the same.

  “You are looking better this morning, Drake. How’s the breathing going?”

  Drake took in a large breath, smiled and on the exhale said, “Fuck you.”

  “How sweet. Good morning to you too.”

  “Drake,” Sarah said. “Don’t eat anything he gives you.”

  Elmore stood and walked back towards Sarah’s cell door. “So it’s like that, is it?” he asked.

  He produced a key of some sort and pressed down on it. Sarah’s cell door unlocked. She couldn’t believe it. All she had to do was get past him and she could leave.

  This’ll be so easy.

  She braced herself to lunge.

  From behind his back he pulled out a gun.

  Shit. That’ll confuse things a little.

  He aimed it a little left of her head. She saw movement at the trigger.

  He’s going to shoot that thing!

  The gun fired, a bullet zinged by her head barely a foot away.

  Drake screamed, but she could hardly hear it. Sarah dropped to her butt at the thought that he was about to fire his weapon again. She lost her balance and rolled onto her back, bumping the back of her head on t
he concrete floor. All she could think to do was drop and roll. Be evasive.

  She turned around to see what Elmore had fired at. A small hole in the back wall showed where the bullet had entered. Small pieces of concrete had trickled down to the floor where the hole had formed.

  She brushed her hair aside and looked up at Elmore. Would he shoot again? Did he try to hit her?

  He knelt down close to her. She tried to back away, but her head hurt from kissing the concrete. She couldn’t get away fast enough. He jammed his hand into her thigh. She saw the tip of a needle near his thumb.

  What the fuck is that?

  She screamed and tried to scramble away from him. She hit the back wall, used it to get to her feet and then pushed off the wall to jump on Elmore. He repelled her easily and stepped back to the cell door, a foolish grin on his face. Then her cell door shut and clicked to lock.

  Why am I so weak suddenly? What the hell was in that needle?

  She looked at Drake but her vision blurred. She felt wobbly on her feet now.

  “What have you … done to me?”

  Drake banged the bars on his cell. “What have you done? I’m going to kill you. You hear me. I’m going to fucking murder your fucking face.”

  Sarah slipped down onto the mattress. She felt vertigo and her eyes rolled back in her head.

  Then she lost consciousness.

  Chapter 24

  When Drake called Sarah’s name, it pleased her. She smiled, turned onto her side and woke with a sudden pain in her neck. She opened her eyes and lifted her head up. Blood stained the mattress in the area where her head had been.

  What the fuck did that asshole do?

  “Sarah,” Drake called. “You doing okay?”

  From the emotion in his voice, she could tell he cared for her. He had feelings for her and she didn’t mind it at all.

  Yeah, but nothing goes down between us if we’re killed. Gotta get outta here first and in one piece.

  She examined the back of her neck for the source of the blood. The stitches where Rod’s man had hit her with his baton when she got off the plane in Chicago had reopened.

  “Shit, that hurts.”

  She sat up on the mattress and looked at Drake.

  “That guy did stuff to you,” Drake said. He appeared to be on the verge of tears.

  Now she was fully awake. “What kind of stuff?” she asked, not sure she wanted to hear the answer.

  “He used a knife and cut into the back of your neck.”

  “Oh, that’s it? Nothing else?”

  “What do you mean, nothing else? He fucking performed an operation on you, and I couldn’t do anything about it.”

  “But he didn’t … you know, touch me?”

  “No, nothing like that. He operated on you, and then went upstairs mumbling to himself, pissed off about something.”

  The lock clicked on the door above. It slid open and Elmore’s footsteps came down. Sarah ran her hands all over her body checking for anything that may indicate Elmore did more than just cut into her neck. Everything felt fine, except she needed to pee bad.

  He could’ve waited another minute.

  “Sarah, you’re up,” Elmore said. “Glad to see it. We need to talk. Things have changed.”

  She got off the mattress and stepped to the cage’s door. “Tell me what you drugged me with. Then we talk.”

  “Ketamine. I call it Special K. It’s a human tranquilizer. Perfectly safe. Now, I have a question. Are you willingly working with Rod Howley?”

  Sarah looked at Drake and then back at Elmore, confused by the question. “No. He wants me to work with him, but the more I refuse the more difficult he makes my life.”

  “Are you saying you’re not in collusion with him to take me down?”

  “Take you down? You’re deluded. I’ve never heard of you before. I came to Toronto for Drake.” She stopped and looked at Drake. His eyes widened and his mouth moved up a little. She was happy to see his eyes had cleared. She turned back to Elmore. “What I mean is, I heard Drake was in trouble. That’s why I’m here. Rod tried to keep me in the states.”

  Elmore moved his armchair within three feet of her cell door and sat down. “So I’ve been thinking. How did Rod find you so fast?”

  “I’d love to know that too. The bastard feels attached to my hip.”

  Keep him talking. Listen. Evaluate him. There has to be a way out of here and I will find it.

  “I know you don’t have a hidden cell phone that you could’ve called the police on because of this.” Elmore held up a small black device. “This is what they call a Spy Wireless, WiFi Bluetooth Signal Jammer. You can buy one of these babies for just over a hundred American.” He turned it in his hands, examining it like he would appraise a diamond ring. “It’s frequency range blocks anything for up to thirty meters, which to you Americans is about a hundred feet,” he said this last part sarcastically and laughed at his own joke. “It’s great for my business because it’s portable. I can take it with me to the photo studio. If anyone sends a girl in to record a conversation of mine, or open a line on a cell phone to an outside listener, they’ll get nothing. I’m free to talk at my place of business without being recorded. This means even if you brought a cell phone with you to your little cage, you wouldn’t have been able to call out as I’ve had this plugged in down here since you first arrived. I forgot to grab it in my haste to get downtown yesterday.” He shrugged and raised his eyebrows. “I fucked up and totally forgot it. That’s why I had to toss Drake’s cell out of the car.”

  He set the jammer down, steepled his fingers and looked back at her. “So I figured they picked up a signal of some kind all the way to my door. That means they had bugged you or had some kind of tracking device on you. When you were unconscious, I asked Drake and he told me about the tracking bracelet that you managed to remove at the Rogers Centre. It didn’t make sense at first.” He stopped and looked at the cement ceiling as if he was thinking.

  You are the weirdest man I’ve ever met.

  “In case I’m ever electronically bugged,” he continued, “my phones, my office, whatever, I have this little baby.” He held up a different device. “It’s a TagFinder. This device searches for and locates things that are emitting a radio signal. And voila. Wouldn’t you know it? In the back of your neck, I found a VeriChip.”

  Sarah reached up to feel where the stitches were. She put it all together instantly.

  So that’s what Rod did. He pulled my hair to cause pain and had his henchman hit me so I wouldn’t ask why the stitches were in my neck.

  “What’s a VeriChip?” Sarah asked.

  “The VeriChip is a human transplantable tracking device. Although yours was modified for GPS tracking. Quite genius, really. That led me to believe you were working with Rod. How the hell could he have gotten that thing in your neck without you knowing about it? I mean, come on, you’re Sarah Roberts. You are fast becoming a legend in the media.”

  She remembered waking in the interrogation room and feeling that maddening headache and having to chew Advil. Then she felt the stitches.

  That bastard.

  Now she knew what their plan had been from the beginning. And the tracking bracelet for her wrist was like some childish decoy.

  She looked at Drake. The understanding of how Rod had tracked them so well was on his face. She nodded with her eyes, ever so slightly that only Drake could notice it.

  “The look on your face tells me you’re surprised by what I’m explaining to you. Well, let me tell you, I know people. I have a keen sense of what people desire and how emotions play across their faces. Don’t worry, the VeriChip has been destroyed. Now Rod will never be able to track you again.”

  Her stomach dropped. For the first time since she had met Rod in that hotel lobby in Budapest, she really wanted him to track her now. More than ever.

  “How did you destroy it?” she asked.

  “The VeriChip is just a little bigger than a grain of rice. Th
ey’re quite the modern invention really. I looked it up while you slept. The one that was in your neck is a RFID transponder encased in a silicate glass.”

  Sarah held up her hand. “What’s RFID stand for?”

  “I’m getting to that. Don’t interrupt. We have to discuss this and then I will tell you how I’m going to kill Rod Howley.

  Sarah nodded, not liking any of what she heard.

  “The PositiveID Corporation, previously known as the VeriChip Corporation, got preliminary approval from the FDA to market its device. It was later revealed the implants could cause cancer. So be happy I’ve removed yours. It wasn’t in long. You still had stitches.” He adjusted himself in the chair and leaned back. “The PositiveID Corp stopped marketing their implantable human microchip by mid-2010. But it’s still used today. For instance, the VeriChip implant is offered for identifying VIP guests at the Baja Beach Club, a nightclub in Rotterdam, Netherlands, among other places. Theoretically, you can physically locate a person by latitude, longitude, altitude, speed, and direction of movement with one of these modified babies. The mindset is you could track your kids going to school. Courts could order them implanted into sex offenders to track their whereabouts.” He laughed at what he thought was a joke. “And what about missing persons?” He laughed again. “Funny how we’re discussing sex offenders and missing persons.”