Hostage Zero

by John Gilstrap

  Jimmy shook his head. “I didn’t want to know. I didn’t need to know.”

  “You must have heard names,” Jonathan prompted. “You must have heard who they were coming to get.”

  “I knew there’d be two,” Jimmy said. He spoke emphatically, clearly anxious to prove that he was being truthful. “But I only heard one name. It was Evan something. An Irish name.”

  “Guinn,” Jonathan said.

  “That’s it. But then they came out and I heard they’d shot somebody. I was like, what the fuck?”

  “So Evan Guinn is the only name you heard,” Jonathan recapped.

  “I swear to God.” Despite the slack in his leash, he stood on tiptoes and kept his jaw extended.

  “Why him and not the other one?” Jonathan asked.

  Jimmy’s breathing quickened again. It was his tell for not having the answer he thought they wanted to hear. “I don’t know. I swear to God. I only know about Evan Guinn because I overheard the name.”

  “Why did they take him?”

  “They didn’t say.”

  “You mean you didn’t ask.”

  Jimmy hesitated. “Yeah, that, too. Look, all I know is that this guy paid me six hundred bucks to drive a car, okay?”

  “You knew it was for kidnapping children,” Jonathan pressed, “but you never thought to ask why?”

  Jimmy dared to bring his heels to the ground and lean against the column. “I figured it was obvious,” he said with a barely perceptible shrug. “I mean that place is an orphanage for criminals’ kids, right? I figure somebody pissed off somebody else, and they wanted to snatch their kid because of it.”

  Before Jonathan could intervene, Boxers swung his rubber truncheon with everything he had into the heavy timber pillar, shaking the barn with an enormous boom. “And that seems all right to you?” he growled.

  “Hey, I’m just telling you what happened!” Jimmy yelled, once again on his toes.

  Jonathan held out a hand to settle Boxers and fired a glare that told him to back off. The vigilante that lived in Jonathan’s soul wanted to beat the kid to death, too. But they were professionals, and they had a job to do. There was no room for that kind of outburst.

  “Everybody just calm down,” Jonathan soothed. “Take a deep breath, both of you. And I mean that literally.” He gave himself a few seconds to follow his own advice. “Jimmy, it’s hard for us to understand how someone can agree to kidnap a pair of children and not ask why.”

  “If they wanted me to know why, they’d have told me why,” Jimmy said. “Plus, like I said, I figured I already knew. It’s about criminals doing what they do best.”

  “Who hired you?” Jonathan asked.

  “A guy named Sjogren. Jerry, I think. Or maybe George, I’m not sure. A J sound. But I’ve done a couple of things for him before.”

  “Kidnappings?” Jonathan asked.

  Jimmy shook his head vehemently. “No, nothing like that. One bank thing that didn’t turn out to be much, and a convenience store thing. Nothing where anybody got hurt.”

  “But they could have,” Boxers suggested.

  “They didn’t. ”

  Jonathan shot another disapproving glare. Boxers knew better than this. For an interrogation to work, there had to be one contact, one focus. Boxers knew this as well as anyone, but he was pissed.

  “What happened to that guy who was shot?” Jimmy asked.

  “Why do you care?” Jonathan asked.

  Jimmy blew a puff of air through his nose and shook his head. “I was the fucking driver, okay? I didn’t plan any of this shit. I’m not some fucking animal who snatches kids, but I also know that I’m fucked by the law because I was part of it. Doesn’t mean I want some guy to die.” His voice dropped in volume. “I was earning a living. I didn’t think it would go like this.”

  Jonathan kept to the point. “This Sjogren guy. Is it S-HO-G-R-E-N?”

  “I don’t know how he spells it. It’s not like we wrote letters back and forth.”

  Jonathan conceded the point. “Was he with you at the school?”

  Despite the fear and the discomfort, Jimmy was able to cough out a laugh. “Sjogren? Hell no. He never gets his hands dirty.”

  “He’s just the middleman,” Jonathan helped.

  “Exactly. People need help and they contact him.”

  “Who were his customers?”

  “The first jobs I did with him were about a thug named Sammy Bell. I don’t know if you know that name.”

  Jonathan shot a knowing look at Boxers. Sammy Bell used to be an enforcer for the Slater crime family, whose interests often clashed with those of Jonathan’s father. When Old Man Slater kicked the bucket a dozen years or so ago, Sammy had stepped in to take over.

  “This was Sammy Bell’s operation?” Jonathan asked.

  “No, no, no, no. I didn’t say that. I said that’s how I first met Sjogren. I don’t know if Sammy Bell is involved.”

  “Where can I find this Sjogren guy?” he asked.

  The breathing tell kicked in again. “I don’t know,” Jimmy said. “I’ve never tried to find him. I don’t have to. He finds me when the time comes.”

  “Is Sjogren his real name?”

  “It’s all I’ve ever called him.”

  “And what about the others?” Jonathan asked, moving on. “What did you call them?”

  Frustration took root. “Jesus, you make it sound like we’re drinking buddies. I didn’t call them anything. Hell, I didn’t even want to talk to them.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Scary, scary dudes. Like they were pissed at the world. They growled and snapped at each other like they were married or something.”

  “How many of them were there?”

  Jimmy hesitated long enough to verify the number in his head before answering. “Four,” he said. “Five, including me. Only, they all seemed to know each other, and they weren’t happy about me tagging along.”

  The wording made Jonathan cock his head. He noticed Boxers doing the same. “What does that mean, ‘tagging along’?”

  “Like when you have to take you little sister with you on a date.”

  “I know what the phrase means,” Jonathan said. “It was an odd choice of words for you.”

  “But that’s what it was like. I think something happened to their original driver. That’s why I was brought in.”

  “Something happened like what?”

  Jimmy’s frustration peaked and he shouted, “I don’t fucking know!”

  The outburst brought another explosive but harmless blow from Boxers’ truncheon onto the heavy pillar.

  “Go ahead!” Jimmy yelled. “Go ahead and hit me again, you stupid shits. But before you can beat information out of me, you’ve got to beat it into me first. I just don’t know this stuff you’re asking me.”

  “Everybody settle down!” Jonathan commanded.

  “Who are you people?” Jimmy asked.

  Jonathan was shocked that it took him so long to ask. “Trust me when I tell you that you don’t want to know,” he said. “Are you telling me that you never heard any names from these guys you were with? They must have called each other something.”

  Jimmy steeled himself with an enormous breath. “A guy named Ponder seemed to be the guy in charge. He was the one who was pissed when shit started to fall apart.”

  “How did your time with these people end? When did you last see your friends?” Boxers asked.

  Jimmy drew another deep breath. “I dropped them off at a storage place in Kinsale,” Jimmy said. “It had some stupid name that used the letter U instead of the word ‘you.’ They off-loaded the kids and never looked back.”

  “Why the storage place?”

  “I guess they had stuff stored there,” Jimmy said. He quickly added, “I’m not being a smart-ass. They honest to Christ didn’t tell me about their plans.”

  “What did you see?”

  “As little as possible. I’m telling you, these are reall
y scary dudes. You know how when you get mugged you don’t want to look the dude with the gun in the eye so he won’t have to kill you to keep you from testifying? It was like that with these guys.”

  Jonathan had never felt that way himself, but he’d inflicted the feeling on others a time or two. “What did you see, then, when you were trying not to see anything?”

  This time, Jimmy hesitated a long time-probably twenty seconds. That kind of internal debate usually portended something big.

  “First promise you won’t kill me,” Jimmy said.

  Jonathan shot a look to Boxers. This was an interrogation, not a negotiation. The rules prohibited any deals with the target. To maintain the command position, the book said you had to make your target feel utterly helpless.

  Jonathan decided to trust his gut instead. “I’m not an assassin,” he said. “I wouldn’t shed a tear if you got hit by a truck, but as long as you continue to cooperate, I’m not going to kill you.”

  Another pause. Another gut-check for Jimmy. “They had a helicopter in there,” he confessed. “It wasn’t very big, and the propellers or whatever the hell you call them were, like, folded back, but I could see the front of it.”

  Jonathan’s stomach fell. “So they moved the children by helicopter.”

  “I think so.” Jimmy’s tone turned whiny. “I saw that, and I knew I was in deep, deep shit. A chopper, for Christ’s sake. Who does that? Who’s got the money for that? I just boogied the hell out of there as fast as I could.”

  Jonathan’s brain was stuck on the image of the chopper. Jimmy had asked all the right questions. Who the hell did have those kinds of resources? “Where did you boogie to?” he asked.

  Jimmy managed a laugh. “To jail,” he said. “I was supposed to ditch the van at a McDonald’s parking lot in Montross, where there was supposed to be a Mustang waiting for me. Only, I got pulled over on the way.” He sighed. “I guess I got a little heavy-footed.”

  Jonathan didn’t share with him the fact that his van had been spotted by a witness. If it hadn’t been for that one insomniac, Jimmy probably would have skated with nothing more than a speeding ticket.

  He found himself out of questions. He looked to Boxers and got a shrug. The big guy was out of questions, too.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Granville George struggled to contain his amusement as he watched the teams from the FBI and the Virginia State Police try to make sense out of all that had happened. Whoever planned this mess had every right to feel proud of himself-even though Granville himself was probably looking at an extended tour of duty behind the desk.

  Sheriff Charles Willow had hauled his shriveled ass out of bed to be a part of the investigation, and from the looks of him, with his sleep-twisted hair and his white beard stubble, the usually media-savvy sheriff had forgotten to glance at a mirror on his way out of the house.

  Presently, the sheriff seemed most concerned about remaining relevant among the state troopers and FBI agents, all of whom had taken the position that as keeper of the jail system, Sheriff Willow was more a target of the investigation than a participant in it. Still, since he literally had all the keys, there was no keeping him out of the reception area as the very attractive Sergeant Lindsey Wilson of the Virginia State Police ran Granville through his story for the third time.

  “But there’s no such person as Special Agent Leon Harris with the FBI,” she said, responding to the information he’d just recited.

  “I’m not hard of hearing,” Granville said. “And I’m not especially dim-witted. Right around the time that he was coldcocking my colleague I think I began to consider the possibility that he was an imposter. How many times must I say it?”

  Sheriff Willow rose to his opportunity to make noise. “I’d watch my tone if I were you, Deputy,” he said.

  Granville ignored him.

  So did Sergeant Wilson. “When you explain how you let an imposter into a secured area, I can stop asking.”

  “He was an imposter with legitimate FBI credentials,” Granville explained. Again.

  “Not possible.” This from Special Agent William Meyer, FBI, whose role in this was not clear to Granville, beyond the fact that Jimmy Henry was being held on federal charges. “They had to be counterfeit.”

  “Then they were good ones.”

  “Perhaps to the untrained eye,” Meyer said. Wilson nodded in agreement. It seemed that the federal government and the Commonwealth of Virginia had jointly decided that there was a certain dimness between Granville’s ears.

  Granville gestured to them both. “You two met before?”

  “Actually, no,” said Sergeant Wilson. And judging from her tone, this was a good thing.

  “Then how do you know he’s really with the FBI?”

  Meyer puffed up like an indignant fish.

  “His credentials, right?” Granville answered for her. “I mean you didn’t do a quick background check or take any fingerprints? It was the attitude, the badge, and the gun, right? Same with me.”

  Sergeant Wilson smiled as she got the point. Special Agent Meyer did not. “Let’s move on,” she said.

  “No, let’s not move on,” Granville said. He struggled to keep his tone even, but the more he spoke, the more difficult that became. “Let’s stay right where we are until we all embrace the fact that I am not an idiot. In fact, let’s all agree that I am not only a victim, but in many ways the primary victim of what went down here.”

  Sheriff Willow took a step forward.

  “Save it, Sheriff. I understand that this is embarrassing to the department. Christ, of all the people in the room right now, I understand that better than anyone.”

  “You’re getting defensive,” Meyer said with a roll of his eyes and a wave of his hand.

  Granville shot to his feet, toppling his chair with his knees. “Defensive, my ass. Shall we talk about what really happened here tonight?”

  “What we’ve been trying to do since we got here,” Sergeant Wilson said.

  “Bullshit. Y’all have been trying to dig a bunker for yourselves with a door that’s too small to let me in.” As he felt the color rising in his cheeks, he knew that his dreams of getting away from the desk were done, but he didn’t give a shit anymore. “What actually happened here is a very carefully planned and brilliantly executed prison break.”

  “That better not be admiration I hear in your tone, Deputy,” Willow said.

  Granville glared. “Jesus Christ, Sheriff, open your eyes. ‘Admiration’ might not be exactly the right word, but I gotta tell you it’s close. It was a flawless plan.” He turned on Agent Meyer. “And why would you doubt that a team that was able to hijack our entire security system-and, in the process, erase every goddamn trace that they were ever here, despite the eyewitnesses-could figure out a way to forge a hunk of metal into a precious FBI badge, and some papers into convincing creds?”

  He paused. It was a real question, but Agent Meyer’s only answer was to make his ears turn red.

  Granville shifted his attention to his boss. “You know, Sheriff, as you struggle to find the right kind of message to send out to the voting public, you might want to mention the fact that thanks to me and all the other competent deputies you hired, we came this close to stopping them, and we limited what could have been a mass breakout to only one.”

  Sheriff Willow prepared to be angry, but then the words got through, and he backed off.

  Granville lowered his voice as he closed the deal. “What I saw happen tonight was nothing short of heroic. One deputy was overpowered and severely beaten, and then the rest of the team risked their lives to keep everything from going to hell.”

  He turned to Meyer. “I’m guessing that your guy has some damned important friends, and they didn’t want him spending time with you. The kind of help he got doesn’t come cheap.”

  “But he’s nobody,” Sergeant Wilson said. “Jimmy Henry is a small-time crook, in and out of the system two or three times, but no known ties to anyone imp
ortant. No known ties to anyone at all.”

  Just like that, Granville saw that he’d earned his way inside the circle. She was speaking to him, not at him. “He was accused of shooting up that school yesterday, right?” he asked. He knew the answer, so he kept going. “Maybe it was just a vigilante thing. People broke him out to string him up.”

  “For God’s sake, Deputy George,” Sheriff Willow growled.

  Again, Granville decided not to engage the boss, deciding to cut a break for the guy who was watching his career implode.

  “Was there anything in this Leon guy’s words or actions that make you think that might be the case?” asked Sergeant Wilson.

  Granville shrugged. “No. But then again, there was nothing in his words or actions that made me think he wasn’t an FBI agent.”

  “Seems awfully Zane Grey to me,” Meyer said, alluding to the famed writer of pulp Westerns.

  “You know what goes on at the school, right?” Granville pressed. “Every single student there is the child of an incarcerated parent. If ever there was a group that could open up a can of Zane Grey vigilantism, that would be the one.”

  “It’s worth looking into,” Wilson said, jotting a note to herself. “We start with the parents of the two who were kidnapped-”

  A state trooper who looked too old not to have any stripes on his sleeve interrupted Wilson by clearing his throat. He held a cell phone in his fingers, ready for it to be taken. “Excuse me, Sergeant, but this is a park ranger. He first asked for Sheriff Willow, but when I told him you were running the investigation, he said he wanted to talk with both of you.”

  “A park ranger?” Wilson said. She looked to Willow. “Any objection to putting it on speaker?”

  The sheriff shrugged.

  She pressed the button on the phone. “This is Sergeant Wilson with the Virginia State Police,” she said. “I’m here with Sheriff Willow. How can we help you?”

  The background noise through the speakers made it clear that the ranger was outdoors. “Yeah, hi,” said a young voice. “This is Paul Johnson with the National Park Service. I’m at the George Washington Birthplace Memorial here on Popes Creek?”