“Ven?” he called.
“Down here!”
He looked behind him to see Venice step into the hallway and beckon with one hand. In her other, she held a manila file folder. She looked five years older than she did two days ago. Her chocolate-colored skin had a slack, sallow look to it that spoke of too many tears shed over too short a time.
“Is Jeremy in there?” Jonathan asked as he closed the distance, nodding to the room Venice had just left.
She shook her head. “No, he’s in the rectory with Dom.”
“Is he okay?”
“Physically, he seems okay,” Venice said. “Dom had Doctor Hamilton come in to take a look at him.”
Jonathan felt a flare of anger. “I thought I told you-”
“Dom impressed on him the need for secrecy,” Venice said, heading off the exact objection that Jonathan was about to launch. “He’d been drugged, Dig. We had to have him looked at.”
She was right, of course, but at this juncture, the best way to keep Jeremy alive was to let everybody think he was still missing. Whoever had lost track of him the first time wanted him back badly enough to dispatch a team of killers. That kind of desire doesn’t go away just because it gets difficult to do.
“Just make sure that the word is limited to as few people as possible.”
“Does that include Doug Kramer or not?”
“Not just yet,” Jonathan said. “Let’s keep him out of the loop until we don’t have a choice. He’s busy enough handling this firestorm. How’s Mr. Stewart?”
Venice winced and shrugged with one shoulder. “They think he’ll come out of it okay, but they’re worried about his liver and spleen. Apparently the bullet did damage to both, and then when they punched him…” She stopped as her voice broke.
Jonathan didn’t need to hear the rest. The important part was that he’d survive. On a day when few things were going well, he’d take it. “And what about our new friends?”
“Of the two you shot, one is invisible. I can’t find any record at all. He’s like you-he never officially existed.”
Jonathan’s stomach tensed. In this day and age, everybody had a fingerprint on file somewhere-all except those whose fingerprints had been deliberately erased. To do that on every file was not easy. “What about the other one?”
“Sean O’Brian,” Venice said. “We only know that because he was fingerprinted as a child offender twenty years ago. That’s the only print on file, even though his juvie record shows that the judge pushed him to join the Marine Corps, which he did. That’s clearly documented in his criminal file.”
“Let me guess: the Marine Corps has no record.”
Venice nodded. “Databases never heard of him.”
Jonathan folded his arms and leaned against the wall. “So they were government agents,” he thought aloud. “Or civilian contractors working for them. That fits with what Jimmy Henry told us, too.” He briefly recapped the prisoner’s version of his role in the kidnapping.
“Why would the government be involved in an assault on a school?” Venice asked.
“Clearly, they wanted those boys.”
“But they’re only children. What could they have done to deserve this?”
Jonathan suspected that they hadn’t done anything-at least not knowingly. There are only so many reasons to kidnap someone. When governments get involved, the list boils down to three: to extort information; to ensure silence; or to leverage cooperation. He chose not to mention any of the options to Venice.
Instead, he said, “I need any and all information you can find on the shooters and on the children. Those boys have something in common-a shared secret-and we need to know what it is.” He paused for a breath and a change in topic. “What about the hippie?”
Venice pointed toward the closest room. “He’s in there,” she said. “He’s not talking, though. His name is Harvey Rodriguez. Born in Venezuela, moved to the States when he was fifteen. He’s a child molester.”
Jonathan recoiled.
Venice handed him the file. “It’s all right here. In fact, there’s a lot in there. You should give it a read before you talk to him.”
He took the folder, but held Venice’s gaze for a couple of seconds before he opened it. Was there anyone left on the planet who just wanted to let kids grow up normally?
“Don’t tell Boxers about this,” Jonathan said, hoisting the file. “He’ll kill him.”
“And that would be bad because…?” She headed for the stairs.
It took Jonathan only a few minutes to absorb the basics of Harvey Rodriguez’s file. When he was done, he opened the door and entered.
Despite the availability of a chair and a desk, Harvey stood in the corner, his back to the wall and his arms folded across his chest. An empty plastic water bottle lay on its side on the desk next to a full one. “You have no right to hold me here,” he said in a rush as soon as Jonathan crossed the threshold. It was as if he’d been rehearsing the line and needed to say it quickly before he lost his nerve. “You’re not a cop. You can’t make me stay.”
Jonathan cocked his head, then shrugged. “Leave,” he said, stepping aside and clearing the way.
Harvey’s eyes narrowed. “You’re serious?”
“As a heart attack. As far as I’m concerned, we’re protecting you, not imprisoning you. You want to leave, leave. The easier a target you are on the street, the less I have to worry about you bringing trouble here.”
Harvey hesitated.
“Seriously,” Jonathan said. “Go.”
The hippie’s eyes darted, as if looking for the scam. Then they grew wide as the reality dawned on him. “People are going to try to kill me if I leave,” he said.
Jonathan helped himself to a folding metal chair on the front side of the desk. “It certainly seemed to be on the agenda a while ago,” he said.
“Where’s the boy?”
“Someplace that’s none of your concern. Why don’t you take a seat?”
“He’s the one they were after,” Harvey said. “They left him for dead. Did you know that?”
“And you saved him. You did a good thing. And now I’m saving you.” He paused for effect. “Unless you want to leave.”
Harvey thought on that for the better part of a minute. “You know I can’t do that.”
“I do.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
Jonathan took his time answering. This was a negotiation of sorts, and as in all negotiations, the elements needed to be put in terms of the other party’s best interests. “I’d like to think you’d accept this hospitality for what it is.”
“You put me in the basement.”
“Only because it’s out of sight,” Jonathan explained. “Things are happening here that don’t yet make much sense to me. But I know this: If people are willing to kill a child, they’re willing to kill anyone.”
Harvey’s face turned wistful as his eyes focused on a point that didn’t exist in the real world. “I don’t like people,” he said. “Never had much use for them. Then this happens right in front of me, and I’m stuck holding the bag.” His eyes rolled up to bore through Jonathan. “Does that make any damn sense to you?”
Jonathan liked this guy. He couldn’t articulate why, but he liked him. “There’s a lot in this world that doesn’t make sense to me, Harvey.” He let a beat pass. “Like how a man like you-a Marine Corps medic-ends up molesting children.”
Harvey’s jaw set at Jonathan’s accusation, but his eyes just remained tired. “You’ve done your homework,” he said.
Jonathan nodded. “I have. And I have to tell you that knowing this makes me wish you’d died out there with the others.”
Harvey’s eyes went red. He said nothing.
“Is it true?” Jonathan pressed.
“It’s true that I’m a registered sex offender, yes.”
Jonathan scowled. “Is there a ‘but’?”
Harvey smiled without humor. “Not one that you’d be
interested to hear.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because nobody’s interested in hearing it. I’m a kid toucher on the record, and that’s all that matters.”
“That’s a lot,” Jonathan said.
Harvey glared through Jonathan’s brain. “You tell me what your mood dictates,” Harvey said. “Do you want to draw conclusions, or do you want to hear the truth?”
“The truth always works for me.”
Harvey sat in the chair on the opposite side of the desk from Jonathan. He took his time assembling his thoughts, then launched into the story. “I had… difficulty in 2004 after the first battle for Fallujah. I don’t know if you know anything about military operations, but that was pretty intense. They called it ‘urban warfare’ and I guess it was, but to me ‘urban’ means city. Fallujah was like a thousand years old. I was with Company K, three-five, and we caught nothing but shit for days on end.”
Jonathan recognized “three-five” as Third Battalion of the Fifth Marine Regiment.
“Those Hadji fuckers were everyplace. We took a lot of casualties. I was up to my elbows in brains and intestines for days on end. I’d get one Marine packed up for transport and then another one would get hit. It was fucking awful.”
It was also the most intense urban combat that United States armed forces had ever encountered, Jonathan didn’t add, although he had studied it. He’d been separated from the Army for more than a few years by the time Operation Iraqi Freedom was launched, but he’d stayed in touch with many of his buddies who were still on active duty. The American press denied people at home the story of the stunning victory, choosing instead to concentrate on U.S. casualties and collateral damage, but the strategy and tactics developed during that weeklong battle would be studied in military textbooks for generations to come.
Harvey continued, “Anyway, if you’ve never been there, it’s hard to describe how something just breaks inside of you. I just wasn’t the Marine I thought I was. One day I was a damn good medic-and I mean damn good, even thinking of a way to use G.I. benefits to get to medical school-and then I just couldn’t do it anymore.”
He stripped the cap off his water bottle and took a long pull. “They called it PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. That’s a great name when you’re using it on someone else. When it’s you, it just feels like ‘crazy.’ They sent me to Bethesda for a while, but then they drummed me out. I was fine with that, but what was I going to do for a living? I didn’t want nothin’ to do with the blood-and-guts business anymore, so I thought I’d try to help kids. You know, the future of the world?”
His bitter sarcasm triggered a humorless chuckle. “I took a job at a community health club in Braddock County, up near Brookfield.”
Jonathan recognized it as a neighboring county in Northern Virginia.
“I taught swimming, did some lifeguarding. Even taught first-aid courses. It was exactly the kind of gig I needed. Kids are basically, nice, right? They live in a world where the only violence is the stuff you see on TV. They’re refreshing to be around.”
Jonathan jumped ahead. “So, refreshing, in fact that you-”
A white-hot glare cut him in half. “You gonna listen, or are you gonna talk?” Harvey spat. “See, this is why it’s not worth explaining the facts to people. You see the label, and then everything just falls into place for you.”
“I’m sorry,” Jonathan said. And he meant it.
Harvey’s eyes held him for a while longer, testing. “All right. Well, the fact is that kids are shit, too. I had one, Amanda Goldsbury, a loudmouth punk maybe thirteen years old whose parents dropped her off every day in the summer at seven in the morning, and then picked her up at eight at night. Our job was to babysit her ass for the six-buck-a-day admission charge. She wasn’t the only one like that, but she was the one who was easiest to hate. She thought she was queen shit. She terrorized the other children, and she had no compunction about telling an adult to go fuck himself. You know the type?”
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 cliche 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.
Hostage Zero Page 11
