The Wrong Hostage sk-2

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “If Hector wanted Lane on the field, he’d be there. Hector doesn’t want Lane beaten, or he’d be bloody and bruised. Hector just wants to keep you focused.”

  “El jefe chingon.”

  “Don’t forget it.”

  “Carnicero.”

  “That too. But he loves kids and small animals.”

  Grace made a sound.

  “True fact,” Faroe said. “It’s just adults he whacks. Usually.”

  Faroe parked, got out of the Mercedes, and began memorizing the grounds. His eyes swept the grounds, measuring distances and judging angles, a tactical planner looking for fields of fire and killing zones.

  Grace joined Faroe, but she watched him, not the school.

  “What do you think?” she asked after a few minutes. “Can it be done?”

  “I’ll let you know. What’s the quickest way to the bluff?”

  She led him down the paved path to a cluster of cottages at the edge of the bluff.

  As he walked, Faroe memorized the grounds. He doubted the beach or the bay had been officially mapped, but he made a mental note to check that possibility. Ocean waves broke cleanly on a reef a hundred yards offshore. Breaking waves humped up beyond the reef. Any rescue boat would have to stand offshore and launch inflatables.

  Might be better to hike in from up the coast, with a chopper standing by offshore to dart in for a fast pickup.

  Depending on the guards, of course. How many, how close, how good.

  Faroe looked around. Nobody visible but the three Mexican cops around Lane’s cottage. Two were armed with pistols and assault rifles. The third carried a twelve-gauge riot shotgun. Pistoleros, professional gunmen. They handled their weapons like gardeners handled rakes, no thought required.

  The men had been warned to expect the guests. One stepped out in front of Faroe and stopped him with a raised hand.

  “What?” Faroe asked.

  The guard motioned that he wanted Faroe to raise his hands. Faroe shook his head as if he didn’t understand. The guard brought the muzzle of his shoulder weapon up. Faroe looked surprised, then shrugged and raised his hands.

  The guard patted Faroe down, then looked at Grace speculatively.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Faroe said coldly.

  The guard looked startled. He wasn’t used to taking orders from civilians.

  “Show him your purse,” Faroe said to Grace. “That’s as much of a giggle as he gets.”

  She opened her purse and handed it over. The guard grinned at her breasts, glanced into the leather bag, and waved them through.

  Grace pushed open the door to the cottage and stepped in. The little house once had held four residents, with a small common area and individual bedrooms. But now, only one of the bedrooms was occupied. The beds in the other rooms had been stripped.

  “Lane? It’s Mom. Are you here?”

  A muffled sound came from the occupied bedroom.

  “Jus’ a min’,” Lane said. He sounded like he’d been sleeping. Hard.

  She went quickly to the bedroom door and looked in. Lane was stumbling out of bed, moving with a lack of coordination that frightened her. He looked at her groggily.

  “Wha’ you doin’ here?” he asked, slurring the words.

  Faroe joined her in the doorway and measured Lane.

  “I had to make sure you were okay,” Grace said.

  Lane Franklin lurched across the bedroom and picked up a pair of green shorts. He hopped on one foot and then the other, nearly falling as he dressed. Then he straightened up and pushed his shaggy hair out of his eyes.

  Faroe saw a handsome teenager, lean and athletic, a boy just growing into a man’s body, just beginning to show evidence of peach fuzz on his young jaw. He had his mother’s long torso and a pair of strong legs that were well proportioned and suggested speed.

  But at that moment, Lane’s legs weren’t much good for anything. He could barely stand up.

  Loaded, Faroe thought. Screwed up to the max.

  Lane stared at his mother and mumbled something.

  “What’s wrong, honey?” Grace asked.

  She’s not used to seeing him like this, Faroe thought. He didn’t know whether that was good or bad. It just was. He glanced around the living space.

  “I’m fine…I guess.” Lane’s tone was as uncertain as his balance. “Haven’t felt…good…since just after you left.”

  Grace hugged her son close. Then she held him out at arm’s length, inspecting him. His skin was pale and his grin was lopsided. Everything about him was lopsided. She sniffed his breath and gave a relieved sigh. No alcohol.

  Unlike Ted, who had become way too fond of booze through the years.

  Faroe looked past the boy to the surrounding room. The walls were covered with posters, mostly of soccer players. The exception was one of a musician, Johnny Cash. The country and rockabilly legend was holding his guitar like a machine gun and saluting the photographer with a raised middle finger.

  Defiant, maybe, Faroe decided, but at least he isn’t into the usual doper fare of headbanger rock and nihilist roll. Or worse, the narco-corridas making heroes out of drug traffickers.

  In one corner several Huichol death masks watched over the desk where Lane did his homework.

  Faroe grinned. He’d felt the same way about school.

  A blanket covered something underneath the table like a hasty shroud. Faroe lifted the blanket and found a laptop computer.

  Lane lunged toward Faroe. “That’s mine!”

  Faroe turned, catching the boy before he fell. “Take it easy. I’m not hurting anything.”

  The boy stepped back and squinted at Faroe. “Oh. Sorry. Thought you were one of my pistolero babysitters. They’re not allowed to come in the cottage. The coach told me.”

  “Father Magon?” Faroe asked.

  “Yeah. Who are you?”

  “Lane, this is Joe Faroe, an old friend of mine,” Grace said. “Joe, this is my son, Lane.”

  Lane finally remembered he had manners. He pulled himself together, stepped forward, and offered his hand.

  “Hi, uh, Mr. Faroe,” he said. “Sorry. I was just…taking a nap.”

  “Nice to meet you, Lane,” Faroe said, looking at the boy’s eyes. Clear, but the pupils were too dilated. “Where are your roommates?”

  “Huh? Oh…they all moved…three weeks ago. I don’ know…maybe I have body odor or something.” He laughed weakly at his own joke.

  “How about those dudes outside?”

  “They showed up at the same time.”

  Faroe nodded. “But they don’t come inside?”

  “Not allowed.” Lane frowned and fought to focus his fuzzy thoughts. “They sit on the benches out there, playing with their guns, talking about girls, smoking cigarettes, eating pork rinds.” He grinned. “Their hearts must look like cans of Crisco. I call them the Chicharrones Brigade.”

  Faroe laughed out loud. Like his mother, the kid was smart and had a wicked tongue.

  “Your average Mexican security guard dies before he’s old enough to worry about heart disease,” Faroe said.

  “Of what?”

  “Silver or lead. Both can be fatal.”

  Lane’s eyes narrowed. “Plata o plomo. That’s the slogan of the narcotraficantes.”

  “It sure is. Makes a man wonder, doesn’t it?”

  Faroe glanced over at Grace. She was watching him, her eyes wide and intent. When she saw that Faroe had noticed her, she looked back at Lane.

  “Are they taking care of you?” she asked.

  The boy shrugged. “I can’t leave the cottage.”

  “If you can’t go to the cafeteria, what have you been eating?” she asked.

  “Whatever they bring me. Alfredo, the jefe of the guards, says it’s safer for me to eat here.”

  “What do you think?” Faroe asked Lane. “Is it safer?”

  “It’s boring.”

  “So is safety.”

  Lane grinned, but it
quickly faded. “I want out of here.”

  Grace put her arm around her son’s shoulder. “That’s why-”

  Faroe shook his head sharply. Then held his finger to his lips and pointed to the walls.

  Lane stared at Grace, then at Faroe, then at the walls. Faroe put his finger to his lips again and raised an eyebrow. Lane tried to stand straight, but his eyes were almost unfocused. Then he visibly got a grip on himself, held a finger to his lips, and nodded.

  Grace brushed her lips against the side of her son’s face and whispered, “Trust Joe. We both have to trust Joe.”

  Lane swallowed, nodded, and drew himself up to his full height. Now he was inches taller than she was.

  “Let’s go out in the fresh air,” Faroe said to Lane. “The Pork Rind Brigade lets you do that, don’t they?”

  “Most of the time,” Lane said. “But wait. I need something to drink. My mouth is dry all the time.”

  He went to a small bar refrigerator and pulled out an unopened carton of orange juice. Before he could break the seal and drink, Faroe took the carton.

  “Hold on,” Faroe said. “I’m not a big fan of liquids packaged in Mexico.”

  Lane opened his mouth, closed it, and waited.

  Faroe inspected the waxed carton carefully. The fold-back ears on the “open here” side were still sealed. When he looked inside the fold at the other side of the top, he spotted a tiny hole where someone had slipped a hypodermic needle through the paper. He showed the hole to Grace and to her son. Lane looked confused.

  Grace didn’t.

  “Let’s walk,” she said to her son. “Fresh air is better for clearing your head than orange juice.” Especially that juice.

  When they walked out into the muggy afternoon, two guards stood up quickly and reached for their guns.

  Faroe kept walking.

  Grace tugged Lane in his wake.

  The guards hesitated, then fell in line about ten feet behind Lane.

  As soon as the trail widened, Faroe stepped back and put his arm around Lane to steady him and speed him up. Grace was doing the same from the other side, but Lane was too big for her to hold him up alone, much less to make him walk faster. The three of them moved as a unit to the water’s edge, where waves were breaking on the sand.

  The guards, once they saw where Lane was headed, slowed down to light cigarettes. They were at least fifty feet behind.

  “Keep your voices down,” Faroe said quietly. “They can’t hear us over the sound of the waves.”

  Lane nodded that he understood, but he still looked confused.

  To Grace he looked terribly vulnerable.

  “What’s going on?” Lane asked, shaking his head hard, trying to clear it. “Is this as bad as I think it is?”

  22

  ALL SAINTS SCHOOL

  SUNDAY AFTERNOON

  GRACE GLANCED QUICKLY AT Faroe, not knowing how much to tell Lane.

  “How bad do you think it is?” Faroe asked the boy.

  Lane was silent for a moment, but he was thinking hard. In the ocean air he seemed more alert. He looked at his mother, then at the hard-faced man she’d brought with her.

  “I’m really a prisoner, right?” the boy asked.

  Grace wanted to soften Lane’s words.

  Faroe stopped her.

  “I know this is tough,” he said, touching her hair gently, “but we won’t get anywhere by sugarcoating it.”

  Faroe looked at the boy, who was only a few inches shorter than himself, and said bluntly, “You’re a hostage.”

  Lane blinked. Then he raked his fingers through his hair and yanked, trying to force himself to focus. “I can’t think!”

  “They’re drugging you,” Faroe said. “Probably only in the orange juice.”

  “What?” Lane said sharply.

  “Keep your voice down,” Faroe said. “It’s probably a sedative. It’s a common tactic for controlling hostages. They don’t want to hurt you. They just want to keep you fuzzy.”

  “Okay,” Lane said. “Okay. That’s good. I was thinking I was getting really sick or going crazy or something. The nightmares…Jesus. I can’t believe people spend money to feel like crap.”

  “You’re not crazy,” Grace said quickly, squeezing his shoulders with her arm. “You’re the sanest person in a crazy mess.”

  “Hostage,” Lane said, tasting the word, testing the reality. “So what am I hostage for? What do they want? Money from Dad?”

  “We don’t know for sure,” Faroe said. “We should know more in the next day.”

  “But if you don’t know, how can-”

  “Honey, Joe’s a professional at this sort of thing,” Grace cut in, reaching over to smooth the hair out of her son’s eyes. “He’s the best there is. But he’s only been on the job a few hours. He needs more time to investigate.”

  Lane glanced at Faroe with new interest. “A professional? Really?”

  “That just means people pay me money. But yeah, I’ve dealt with hostiles like your Chicharrones Brigade. They’re just dumb soldiers. We need to find out who the generals are.”

  That triggered something in Lane’s drugged mind. He turned to his mother. “Where’s Dad?” he asked urgently.

  “I-I’ve-” Grace began, but her voice cracked.

  “We haven’t been able to reach him,” Faroe said. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because Mr. Calderon came to see me yesterday, today too. I think. It’s all kind of…fuzzy. He brought juice and food and asked me where Dad was.”

  “Carlos Calderon?” Grace asked.

  Lane fought to call up the memory. Like a lot of reality since his mother had left, memory was slippery. He frowned, remembering the past twenty-four hours in bits and pieces, flashes of light and darkness. “Yeah, Mr. Calderon was kind of pissed, uh, mad when I told him I didn’t know where Dad was. Like he thought I was lying. I think he hit me a couple of times. Can’t really remember. Nightmare…”

  Grace’s hand clenched hard around Lane’s shoulder and she bit back every word she wanted to scream.

  “Why isn’t Dad here?” Lane asked. “Calderon said I could go home if Dad came down to sign me out.”

  Grace looked away, hiding the tears and rage and fear in her eyes.

  “Your mom’s pretty upset about this,” Faroe said calmly. “She hasn’t been able to contact your dad. It’s one of our top priorities.”

  Lane stared at the sand.

  “Do you have any idea where your dad might be?” Faroe asked.

  Lane’s answer was a shake of the head. Then he looked up at Faroe. “I haven’t heard from him in weeks. He used to come down on a helicopter once every three or four weeks, supposedly to drop in to say hi to me, but he spent hours talking with somebody at the school office and barely waved at me.”

  Grace’s heart turned over. No matter how tall Lane was, how fast he was growing, he was only a few months past being fourteen. He was a boy whose world had been turned upside down.

  “We’ll find your dad, get this thing straightened out,” Faroe said. “Don’t worry.” He reached over and gave the boy a poke on the shoulder, man-to-man stuff that was cover for a quick glance back toward the guards.

  They were smoking and laughing. Forty feet away, maybe more.

  With the skill of a pickpocket, Faroe pulled a flat, compact cell phone out of his jeans. He palmed the phone and gave it to Lane, shielding the exchange with his body.

  “Hide this in your room,” Faroe said in a low, intent voice. “We need to stay in touch in a way that the Chicharrones Brigade can’t monitor.”

  Lane looked down at the phone in his hand. “Cool.”

  “Don’t look at it,” Faroe said. “Don’t look at them. Look at me. Don’t look away from me when you put the phone in your shorts.”

  The boy turned his body slightly, slipped the phone into one of the many pockets in his cargo shorts, and never stopped looking at Faroe.

  “Good,” Faroe said. “The battery is ful
ly charged, but I didn’t have time to get fresh batteries brought in. We have to decide on a communications schedule.”

  The boy put his hands in his pockets and tried to match Faroe’s relaxed stance. “Gotcha.”

  Faroe smiled. Once the drugs got out of the kid’s system, he’d be a pistol.

  “Every night, at one A.M.,” Faroe said, “pull out the antenna and turn on the phone. It’s set to vibrate, not ring, so they won’t hear it outside the cottage. If I haven’t called you by five minutes after one, shut down and power up again at five in the morning. Can you do that?”

  Lane thought a moment. “One might be a little tough but I’m used to getting up early for the twice-a-day workouts. I’ll figure something out.”

  “Set an alarm and put it under your pillow so the guards can’t hear it.”

  “You do sneak around for a living, don’t you?” Lane said with genuine admiration.

  “The first thing I ever needed to hide was a Playboy magazine. I know all the teenager tricks.”

  Lane flushed and gave his mother a quick sideways glance.

  Grace didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “It’s okay, baby-Lane. It comes with age and the Y gene.”

  The boy looked relieved and embarrassed at the same time. He glanced back to Faroe. “Can I call you?”

  “Only if you’re certain you’re in immediate danger, the kind of situation my boss-ex-boss-calls a matter of extreme urgency.”

  Grace flinched, remembering how Dwayne had defined it: A terrorist with a gun held against a hostage’s head.

  “But I don’t think that will happen,” Faroe said. “The negotiations haven’t really opened yet.”

  Swallowing hard, Lane nodded.

  “The other reason to call me is if you hear from your dad,” Faroe added. “Just hit the speed dialer. There’s only one number in the memory. It will ring in New York, but whoever answers will always know how to get hold of me and your mom. If they can’t reach us for some reason, ask for James Steele. You have all that?”

  Lane nodded and touched the pocket where he’d concealed the phone. He grinned at Faroe.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I already know where I’m going to hide it.”

  Faroe tapped him on the shoulder. “Good. If I’m going to make burros of the bad guys, I need your help.”