Hostage Zero

by John Gilstrap

  “So what the hell am I supposed to do?” Doug said. Exasperation had driven his voice an octave higher.

  “He did tell you that you wouldn’t want to know,” Harvey said.

  “You shut up,” Doug snapped, aiming a forefinger at Harvey’s nose.

  “I can’t tell you what to do,” Jonathan said. “You’re welcome to check in on Jeremy if it’s important that you know for yourself that he’s safe, but please remember that whoever wanted him dead in the first place probably still does.”

  “So you want me to obstruct justice in my own town, letting the Fibbies chase their tails while I know full well that it’s a false mission.”

  “It seems harsh when you put it like that,” Jonathan said.

  “How is that going to make me look when the word finally leaks out?”

  Jonathan felt a rush of disappointment. “Since when did you start worrying what people think of you? The Doug Kramer I grew up with worried only about doing the right thing.”

  The chief flushed. “You know what I mean.”

  “No, I don’t think I do. When I talk about protecting the life of a child, you counter with protecting the legacy of your career. As if the two are remotely equivalent.”

  Doug laughed derisively. “Ah, the ambiguous moral code of Digger Grave, Lone Ranger, ever perched atop his personal pedestal. You must tell me one day what the world looks like from up there.”

  Jonathan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. This was the same man who not too long ago offered to suborn murder in the name of justice. “Who am I talking to?” he asked.

  Doug locked his jaw and glared through the back of Jonathan’s head.

  “Step outside, Harvey,” Jonathan said.

  “What?”

  “Just wait in the squad room for a few minutes.”

  “With the FBI?” Jonathan might as well have asked him to set himself on fire.

  “Don’t say anything to anyone, and don’t wander off. Just wait.”

  Harvey looked to Chief Kramer for an appeal, but Doug was studying a spot on his desk blotter.

  “It won’t be long,” Jonathan promised. His tone found the perfect balance between request and demand.

  Harvey left.

  “Talk to me, Doug,” Jonathan said. “What’s happening?”

  The chief continued to stare at his blotter, clearly intending to say nothing; but when the silence did not relent, he rocked his eyes up. Somehow, he’d aged ten years in two minutes. “Don’t you get what an incident like this does to a town like ours?” he said. “Don’t you get the collective loss of innocence? This isn’t a war zone, Dig. Hell, it’s not even a city-not really. In New York and DC the place gets shot up, and once the media gets past it, so does everyone else.

  “It’s not like that here. This kind of violence erodes the very heart of this town. There’s no getting past it, because the way things used to be doesn’t matter anymore.”

  Jonathan scowled. “But what-”

  “Hush. Just listen. For once in your life, just listen. With all your running around these past couple of days, I don’t suppose you’ve had a chance to read the newspapers, but maybe you ought to. There are a lot of harsh words being thrown around-chief among them the I — word. Incompetent. That would be me.

  “I’ve dedicated my life to this little burg. While you were off touring the world and defending our freedom, I was busting my balls for nothing an hour, keeping Fisherman’s Cove from caving in on itself. And you’re right, I was never in it for the legacy, or even the praise. I’d have been perfectly happy to remain anonymous, but I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to be judged as incompetent.”

  A pause followed, during which Jonathan thought his friend had finished. He had not.

  “I’ve been with you every step of the way on everything you’ve ever done, Dig. I know what a shit life you had as a kid, and I know what a good friend you are to everybody in this town. But there’s got to be a limit to this secrecy shit. Your neighbors are in tears in their homes, praying for the safety of a boy who is already safe. It would mean everything for them to know that their prayers were working.”

  “And soon enough, they will,” Jonathan said. He leaned forward and rested his forearms on the edge of the desk. “But not until his safety is guaranteed. Doug, when all this settles out, I fear that it’s going to be much, much bigger than a simple kidnapping. There’s violence coming, one way or the other, and until we really know what it’s all about, we’ve got to keep the lid on.”

  Doug sighed deeply and stretched his neck muscles. “I know you’re right,” he said, his tone again soft and sane. “I don’t like it, but I do know it. It’s just not the way things are supposed to be.”

  Jonathan smiled, happy to see the return of the man he knew. “Nothing about any of this is the way it’s supposed to be,” he said. “I’ll fix it, though.”

  “Do you really know where the Guinn boy is?”

  “I think so. We’re pretty sure we do.”

  “And you’re going to go get him?”

  Jonathan nodded. Ordinarily, he would not have responded to that question at all. But he owed Doug that much.

  The conversation became awkward, as if they’d burned through all the available words.

  “I’d tell you to be careful,” Doug said, “but I know how much you hate that.”

  Jonathan did indeed hate it. In his line of work, careful people died young, just behind the foolish ones. Aggressive and smart won the day every time. “Are we done here?” he asked. He started to stand.

  “Actually, no.” Doug hadn’t moved, and his expression remained stern.

  Jonathan settled back into his seat and waited for it.

  “Your friend Harvey. There’s the not-small problem of his parole. I’m willing to forgive the violation because you vouched for him, but what am I going to do with him? I can’t let him hang around. Your vouching for him doesn’t take away the judgment against him. And since you’re going away, even that is moot. He’s got to go.”

  Jonathan hadn’t anticipated this. “Even though people are looking to kill him.”

  The chief shrugged. “I could put him in protective custody.”

  “There’s no way he’d tolerate that.”

  “I’m just presenting options. Turns out it’s a damn short list.”

  Jonathan stewed on that. It was a good point, well-made. While he trusted Harvey to be the person he said he was, he had to confess that his opinion was more gut than fact. There were limits to what he could ask even from a friend as close as Doug Kramer.

  He shrugged. “I’ve got to convince him to come along.”

  Harvey stopped dead in the foyer. “You’re out of your mind.”

  “It’s not as if you have a lot of options,” Jonathan argued. He’d had Doug drive them back to the mansion just in case the guy in denim was still lurking in the shadows waiting to take a shot.

  “How about living? I’ve always been partial to that one.”

  Jonathan laughed. “How’s that working for you so far? You still haven’t dried out from your dive to dodge a killer. Where are you going to dive next time?”

  “Nowhere in Colombia, I can tell you that. I hated the desert, and that was a dry heat. You’re talking fuckin’ jungle.”

  Jonathan laughed. “The issue remains that you don’t have a lot of options.”

  Harvey gaped, trying to think of something-anything-to toss out as an alternative to exposing himself to gunfire again. “Were you not listening when I told you about my PTSD? I’m crazy.”

  “Crazy’s a continuum,” Jonathan countered. “You’ve met my friend Boxers, so you know that. You handled yourself really well back there at the marina. That was good thinking. And young Jeremy is perfect evidence that your medic chops are still good. Add the fact that I could use an extra hand, and I think this is a good opportunity for you.”

  “Opportunity.” Harvey tasted the word. Didn’t like it. “Is that what you cal
l it? An opportunity to do what, other than dying?”

  “To regain your self-respect,” Jonathan said.

  Harvey blushed.

  “I don’t mean to presume,” Jonathan continued, “but I’ve been watching you. You’re nowhere near as crazy as you pretend to be. You’ve had some hard breaks, and you’ve been aggressively screwed by the system, but I think that even you see the difference in yourself over the past couple of days.”

  Harvey blushed redder. “Now you’re a psychiatrist in addition to all of your other superhuman skills? Can you see through walls, too?”

  “Scoff if you want,” Jonathan pressed. “I’m just telling you that the way things have been for you doesn’t have to be the way it is from now on. What are you going to do? Go back to your tent? How do you expect to watch your back at night? How do you really ever sleep again?”

  “Because you killed those guys! Thanks a lot.”

  “No, no, no. Don’t you lay that all on me. I was there, remember? You were the point on that spear. You chose to help Jeremy Schuler. You chose to nurse him back to health.”

  “What was I supposed to do? He was dying.”

  Jonathan cocked his head. “Are you going to tell me that you weren’t tempted to just pull out and go the other way?”

  Harvey looked at the floor.

  “It shows that you made a choice,” Jonathan pressed. “You could have walked away, but you didn’t. You could have sold the boy out in the bar, but you didn’t, and by remaining quiet you almost got yourself killed. Like it or not, that’s heroic behavior. Somewhere out there, there’s a drill sergeant who’s damn proud.”

  Harvey wanted to argue. You could see it right there on the front of his face. His mouth worked to form words, but none flowed.

  “Come on, Harvey,” Jonathan said, moving to seal the deal. “When was the last time you got the opportunity to do something noble?”

  He was close. So close. “Why me? There must be a hundred eager soldier wannabes who’d piss all over themselves for the opportunity to shoot up a jungle.”

  “Because I don’t have time to recruit. And because once you walked into this thing, you got skin in the game. You’re a native Spanish speaker, right?”

  Harvey shrugged.

  Jonathan tapped a point in the air. “I thought so. Deep down inside, you’re thrilled to be involved.”

  Harvey smiled. “I am, am I? How deep down inside?”

  “Actually, not deep at all.”

  They shook on it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Jersey City was nowhere near as terrible a place as Gail had thought it would be. Nestled up next to the Hudson River, with some of the best views possible of the Statue of Liberty, the rows of well-kept town houses and the forests of neat single-family bungalows reminded her of the working-class neighborhoods of Chicago that housed her youth.

  Her GPS had taken her directly to Wilkinson Avenue-in fact right to the front door of the house she was looking for.

  Gail climbed out of the rented Celica, closed the door, and scanned the neighborhood for trouble, just in case. Some habits were too ingrained ever to be broken. Outside the protection of her vehicle, the neighborhood looked less inviting. Perhaps it would have been a better idea to make this visit during the day. Tucking her purse under her arm, she walked over the curb and toward the rotting steps that led to Alice Navarro’s house.

  She’d paid calls like this a thousand times over her career as a cop and an FBI agent, but it had only been since working with Security Solutions that she’d been paying them solo. A badge bought the luxury of backup. In the private sector, the best you could count on was your weapon and the skill to use it. In her case, she carried two: a Glock in her purse, and a backup. 38 snub nose strapped to her ankle. In New Jersey, the mere presence of either one could get her put away.

  Better to be tried by twelve than carried by six. Cliches become cliches for a reason.

  The Navarro house was every bit of seventy years old, its facade built of brick, including the pillars that supported the porch roof. The screen door was locked. She rapped with her middle knuckle on one of the glass panes that flanked the door.

  Fifteen seconds passed before a shadowy hand parted the sheer curtain and the worried face of an old man appeared. “Who are you?” He shouted much louder than was necessary to be heard through the door.

  “My name is Gail Bonneville,” she replied. She tried to gauge her own tone to be loud enough to be heard, but not so loud as to involve the neighbors. “I’m here to speak with Alice Navarro.”

  “Why? What do you want?”

  Both reasonable questions, she thought. “Can you open the door please, sir?” she asked. “It’s an important matter.”

  “I don’t open the door after dark,” the man said.

  “I understand, sir. But again, it’s very-”

  “That’s the second time you called me sir. Are you a cop?”

  Gail had to smile. “No sir, not anymore. But I used to be. I’m a private investigator now.”

  “What do you want?”

  A set of curtains pulled away from the front window next door. “It’s about Alice’s brother, Bruce,” she said.

  Two locks turned, and the door flew open, quickly enough to make her gun hand twitch. He fixed her with a furious glare. “Step inside.” He swung his body like a gate-like an extension of the door-and ushered Gail into the foyer.

  The decor was old and boring. Dark wood flooring had worn yellow in the front hall. Dark wood molding outlined the staircase, and the large flowered pattern of the wallpaper reminded her of the eighties.

  The living room sat to the left of the foyer, bathed blue in the light of the muted television. Cast in that flickering light, the woman Gail presumed to be Alice Navarro looked terribly pale.

  “Do you have some kind of a badge or something I can see?” asked the man who had let her in as he pushed the door closed and locked it. He looked younger in real life than he had through the window. She pegged him to be around fifty-five. He wore the wife-beater sleeveless T-shirt that seemed to be the universal working-class lounging uniform, but his muscular arms made it look good on him.

  Gail pulled a silver business-card case out of her pocket and opened it. The lid bore the official seal of the Samson, Indiana, Sheriff’s Department-her only parting gift from her previous employer. She saw her host’s eyes catch the emblem as she slid a card out of the slot and handed it over.

  She offered her right hand as a greeting. “Gail Bonneville,” she said.

  He scowled to read the card as he shook her hand. “Ken Harper. Says here you’re a ‘lead investigator.’ What the hell is that?”

  He’d pronounced it as “led”-like the metal. She corrected him. “It basically means that I have a senior position within our firm.”

  The woman from the living room materialized in the archway to the foyer. She, too, looked much younger in the full light, though during the day Gail was pretty sure she’d do something with the disheveled mop of brown hair on her head. She looked as if she’d been sleeping. “Did you say you have news about Bruce?” the woman asked.

  “Are you Ms. Navarro?” Gail asked, proffering another business card.

  “Mrs. Harper now,” she said. “Call me Alice. Keep the card. One will do. No sense killing more trees than we have to.”

  Gail slid the case and its contents back into her pocket. “Can we please sit for a moment?”

  “You’re lucky you’re inside,” Ken said. “Don’t push your luck. If you’ve got news about Bruce, just say it.”

  Gail winced as she tried to figure out how best to put it. “I didn’t say that I have news, sir. I couldn’t because I don’t. I’m here to see if you can help me find him.”

  Ken’s ears flushed. He reached for the doorknob. “That’s it,” he said, sliding the locks away. “Get out.”

  “But I-”

  “Now.”

  He was clearly angry, but nowhe
re near to the point of violence. If Gail judged the expression correctly, he was embarrassed. She shot a pleading look to Alice. “It’s to save a life,” she said quickly. “A child’s life.”

  They hesitated. Neither was sold yet, but she had a window, if she worked quickly. “I represent Resurrection House,” she said. “That’s a school down in Virginia, where-”

  “The kidnapping,” Alice said. “I heard about that on the news. An orphanage, right?”

  Gail hemmed. “Well, no, actually, but it’s okay to think of it that way. One of the kidnapped boys has ties to your brother.”

  The final lock turned. “No more of this,” Ken said.

  “No,” Alice interrupted. “No, I want to hear what she has to say.”

  “Alice, no,” Ken argued. “There’s no good that can come of this.”

  “There’s good if a child’s life can be saved,” Gail snapped. “With all respect, Mr. Harper-”

  “Call him Ken,” Alice said. “We like first names around here.”

  “With all respect, Ken, I’ve come a long way, and the stakes here are very high. Would a few minutes really kill you?”

  Ken seemed startled by the outburst, maybe even slightly amused. “Funny you mention killing,” he grumbled.

  Gail’s warning radar pinged. “What do you mean?”

  “He doesn’t mean anything,” Alice said. She pushed herself away from the wall of the archway and gestured toward the dark living room. “Come on in. Have a seat. The place is a bit of a mess, but we weren’t expecting visitors.” She reached under the shade of a floor lamp and turned a switch, launching a pale yellow glow.

  “Bit of a mess” didn’t touch it. Apparently Ken and Alice were collectors. Every horizontal surface was covered with trinkets and knickknacks. Little people and little houses and little glass fish and little porcelain horses. Little everything. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. If you wanted a place to rest a drink, you were just plain out of luck. Then there was the floor. Stacks of glossy magazines lay positioned throughout the small room, all of them carefully and tightly bound by bright white twine. The one closest to the chair where Alice had been sitting actually had a drink glass sitting on top of it, proving in a glance that you weren’t plain out of luck after all. For all the clutter, though, there seemed to be some underlying order to it.