Hostage Zero

by John Gilstrap

  Yeah, right. Never in the history of Murphy’s Law had so many things gone perfectly wrong at precisely the worst moments. Everything Sjogren touched had turned to shit, up to and including the capping of a child. Good God. And he’d already been drugged, to boot.

  The litany of things gone wrong swirled through Mitch’s mind with such intense clarity that he nearly missed the arrival of his guest, who announced himself by casting a shadow over Mitch’s untouched beer.

  “Good evening,” said the new arrival in heavily accented English.

  Mitch looked up, at once pleased that his guest had finally arrived, and concerned that he had allowed himself to drift so far away from the present. Inattentiveness was a fine way to get yourself killed.

  Mitch rose to greet the man and shook his hand. “General Ruiz. How are you sir? Thank you for joining me.” He gestured to the seat across from him. “Please sit.”

  General Ignacio Ruiz was the head of the PNC- Policia Nacional de Colombia — the Colombian national police force. He had risen through the ranks, as had most of his predecessors except for a brief period in the late nineties and early 2000s, on the corpses of assassinated and disgraced former leaders. Given the brief tenure of most incumbents in his position, they tended to live large and fast during the time allotted to them. This evening, the general had shed his uniform in favor of beige linen pants and a white guayabera.

  Ruiz looked around uncomfortably. “I think this is perhaps the wrong place,” he said.

  Mitch resumed his seat. “With all respect, sir, I think this is exactly the right place. You’re not in uniform, we can converse in English, and I will remain in a public place during my meeting with a man who is so… renowned for his skills.”

  Ruiz hesitated a moment longer, then produced a smile as he lowered himself into his chair.

  “State what is on your mind,” the general said.

  The waiter returned. The recognition was both instant and awkward. Having clearly been made, the general told the young man in Spanish to leave them. Two seconds later, they were alone.

  “You were saying,” Ruiz reminded.

  Mitch smiled. “Yes, I suppose I was. I came here to alert you to an invasion that is ongoing in your country.”

  Ruiz’s expression darkened. “What kind of invasion?”

  “Small but important. It involves my business interests in the Santa Marta.”

  Ruiz’s expression reflected a foul odor. “I’m not a fan of your business interests,” he said. “They are ugly and violent.”

  “And profitable,” Mitch reminded. “Profitable enough to be of great interest to your bosses.” He let that sink in. He and the general had had this discussion before. While they stood on different sides philosophically, each understood that philosophy paid no bills. “If the businessman in you does not care, then I appeal to the patriot within you. Do you really want these invaders to return us to the nineties?”

  “These invaders as you call them. They are Americans?”

  Mitch nodded.

  Ruiz waved his hand dismissively. “I do not believe it. We have assurances from the U.S. government that-”

  “They still don’t care about the factories, sir. Their official incursions are over. This is a smaller invasion than what you have seen in the past, but if I’m not mistaken some of the players are the same.”

  Ruiz shot annoyed glances over both shoulders, then leaned his forearms on the table. “You’re speaking in riddles, Mr. Ponder. I have neither the desire nor the time to figure them out.”

  Mitch gave an understanding nod. “Of course, sir. At one of my business establishments, I have some rather specialized business going on. Believe me when I tell you that you don’t want to know too many of the details. This is above and beyond the manufacture of our usual product. It is for this expanded product line that these commandos are invading your country. They entered on commercial flights from the United States under false passports, but unfortunately, I don’t know under what names they arrived.”

  Ruiz raised his hands palm up in an extended and exaggerated shrug. “If you know where they are going, surely you have enough men and weapons to take care of things yourself. What could you possibly need from me?”

  Another thoughtful nod. “Well, sir, we have reason to believe that they have raised something of an army for themselves.”

  “Surely not an army bigger than yours.”

  “No, sir, probably not. But it’s entirely possible that they are better skilled than mine.”

  Ruiz lowered his voice to a whisper and leaned in very close. Mitch joined him. “If you are asking me to deploy my soldiers into the mountains to defend your operations, then the answer is no. My God, you’ve been allowed to assemble-”

  Mitch raised his hand to interrupt. “No, sir, I would never ask you to do that.”

  The general leaned back into his chair and crossed his arms. “What, then?”

  Mitch laid out his entire plan in less than five minutes. After another ten minutes of questions and answers, it was a go.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  With the jungle this thick, satellite access was spotty at best-far too unreliable for Jonathan to track his own progress on the computer, or even on his GPS system-but compasses never lied, and his good old-fashioned land navigation training was so ingrained that he was almost pleased to have an opportunity to use it again. He found reassurance in the fact that their route was well worn by wide-wheelbase vehicles that clearly traveled heavy.

  Thank God for Venice. By tasking the SkysEye network to scan the areas marked by Josie, she was able to confirm the presence of the villages and the mountaintop factory. With the current weather conditions, though, she’d only been able to use the thermal sensing capabilities. No visual confirmation of individual people would be possible until the skies cleared.

  Venice also delivered the news that a new picture of Evan Guinn had been posted on the anonymous website that the kidnappers had established. Apparently, they were trying to sell the notion that the kid was in Italy-they’d even gotten their hands on yesterday’s edition of a daily newspaper published for towns along the Amalfi Coast.

  “The backdrop is just that, though,” Venice had said. “A backdrop. A cheesy one at that. Evan could really be anywhere. I’m trying to track down the location of the server they’re using for the website. It should be a little easier if I assume that it’s somewhere in Colombia, but so far I’m not having any luck. The people running this are very good.”

  “So are you,” Jonathan had encouraged. “What do you hear from Gail and the Alaska connection?”

  The pause before the answer had said it all. “I don’t think it’s good news, Digger. The satellite imagery there shows a lot of fire and smoke.”

  “You don’t think it’s good news? Jesus, Ven.”

  “I know, I know. But I haven’t heard anything from her one way or another. Obviously, something went wrong, but I don’t know that she’s been harmed.”

  “How long has it been?”

  “The screen showed nothing twelve minutes ago. Now, for the last eight minutes I’ve been showing the fire and smoke.”

  Jonathan ran the options through his head. Gail was smart, and she was resourceful. If she had survived, then she’d be in control. “What exactly is burning?” he asked.

  “It’s hard to tell from the steep angles,” she said. The SkysEye network orbited close to the equator, so the images from the extreme north and extreme south were always distorted. “Certainly the house is burning, and it looks like the car she rented, but there’s another big fire off to the north of the house itself.” It was clear from her tone that she was examining the images as she discussed them.

  “I gotta tell you, Dig, it looks like burning gasoline, to me. You know, that greasy black smoke.”

  Jonathan’s gut tightened. He knew exactly what she meant. It was the kind of fire that never occurred in nature, which by definition meant that it was caused by ma
n, and the man who caused it meant to do harm. “Okay, here’s what I want you to do,” he’d told Venice. “Call Wolverine. Get her involved.”

  “With what?”

  “With whatever is going on up there. This is half on her dime anyway. Have her scramble a medevac chopper or a local squad car or something. If Gail is up there wounded, I want her to get some medical attention right by-God now.”

  This was new territory for Jonathan. Until this mission into the jungles of hell, he’d never been in a position to divide his troops-at least not since leaving the Army. Before, it had always been just him and Boxers doing the covert side of the business, with occasional help from outside contractors. Throughout all those years, success had been dependent upon the effectiveness of his command abilities-abilities of which he was abundantly confident. Now, the sphere was expanding with the addition of Gail to the covert team, and the first time he’d taken his eye off the ball, something had clearly gone very wrong, and he was in no position to do anything about it. A knot of fear materialized in his gut and had started to metastasize.

  When they’d hung up, Venice was supposed to make that phone call next. He hadn’t heard from her since. That was over four hours ago.

  Since then, they’d driven the Range Rover and the Blazer to the spot where the road ended and a trail began, and they’d been hiking since, mostly uphill. They’d taken their time dividing up the equipment. Jonathan had ordered, and Josie had provided the Marine Corps equivalent of rucksacks because, loyalties aside, he thought they were better than what the Army used. Made of the standard MARPAT camouflage scheme, they featured an abundant array of PALS straps for pouches, and they were specifically designed to accommodate modular tactical vests and CamelBak water bladders to keep them from sweating themselves dry.

  Absent any reliable intel on the conditions in which Evan Guinn was being held, they had to plan for a number of contingencies. Boxers and Jonathan both carried M4 carbines combat-slung across their chests, plus twelve-gauge Mossberg shotguns bungee-slung under their armpits. Jonathan had his Colt 1911. 45 in a tactical holster on his thigh, the same spot where Boxers carried his Beretta 9-millimeter. Each carried twelve spare mags for their rifles-three hundred sixty rounds-plus four spare clips for their side arms and twenty rounds each for the Mossbergs-fifteen rounds of double-ought buck and five Foster slugs for making big holes. Add to that three fragmentation grenades and two CS grenades, plus a couple of bricks of C-4 explosives and detonators, and each of them was carrying half his body weight in equipment.

  Okay, for Boxers a quarter of his body weight, but it was still heavy. Jonathan drew straws with the Big Guy to see who would carry the long-handled bolt cutters-in case they had to snip a padlock-and the Big Guy lost. Jonathan almost felt sorry for him- almost. While Boxers was two times stronger than Jonathan, he was also the only one among them with a rod in his femur where there should have been bone. Jonathan figured that that was countered by the fact that he, Jonathan, had been gut-shot twice in his career and therefore had fewer functioning viscera. He didn’t know what that meant, actually, but it had sounded good at the time.

  For his part, Harvey carried an MP5 machine pistol with two hundred spare rounds, plus a sidearm and a shitload of medical supplies. Jonathan had tried to talk him out of some of them, but Harvey had ignored him. In fact, Harvey hadn’t said a dozen words since they’d left the scene of Josie’s shooting.

  Finally, Jonathan had insisted that they “soldier up all the way” for this mission, meaning mandatory body armor and helmets. This mission nearly guaranteed CQB-close quarters battle-and he wanted them prepared. As he’d said, “It’s not about comfort, it’s about professionalism. The only way Evan Guinn finds freedom is if we stay alive. And if we have to carry you, we won’t be able to carry him if we need to.”

  Jonathan took point on the walk into the jungle, with Harvey in the middle, and Boxers in the rear. After an hour, Jonathan dropped back to walk alongside Harvey. In a real war zone in a real war, it would have been unforgivable, but out here he thought they could afford a little bunching.

  Harvey’s silence was bothering him. He seemed to be struggling with the emotion of the fight with Josie. Jonathan had discovered before that medics were wired differently than other soldiers, equally willing to risk their lives-perhaps even more willing-but oddly disconnected from the real business of war, which was killing. For medics, the line that separated good guys and bad guys was refreshingly blurred by the presence of beating hearts on both sides.

  Harvey just walked. He kept his jaw clamped tight and his lips pressed into a thin line, as if forcibly locking his anger inside his head.

  Finally, Jonathan had had enough. “Okay, Harvey, spill it. What aren’t you saying?”

  Harvey glanced at Jonathan, then returned his gaze to the road. “Anything, so far as I can tell.”

  Okay, he’d walked into that one. “I need you to tell me that you’re mission capable.”

  Harvey cast him a sideward glance and smirked. “By ‘mission capable’ do you mean ‘not about to wig out and frag the commander’?”

  “That’ll do as a start,” Jonathan said.

  Harvey took his time answering. “Don’t worry about me knowing right from wrong,” he said at last. “Killing’s never been my thing, okay? If I’ve led you to believe otherwise, I apologize. I’m way more about hiding and healing, so if you’re expecting me to do a lot of shooting, you might be disappointed. I might be disappointed. Who knows? And the part about wigging out? I just flat-out don’t know. I hope not. But if I do, I don’t owe you or anybody else an apology. You invited me to this party, remember?”

  “I remember,” Jonathan said. And he appreciated the candor.

  “And about your leaving that guy to die, well, it’s done. You didn’t ask my permission, and you certainly don’t need my forgiveness. There’s a reason why I was never promoted to a position of leadership in the Marine Corps.”

  “Says the man who won the Navy Cross,” Jonathan said.

  Harvey laughed. “A fleeting bout of insanity, I assure you.”

  “I read the citation.”

  “Then you know for certain that it was a fleeting bout of insanity.”

  “I know that you repeatedly exposed yourself to heavy enemy fire to pull three critically wounded Marines to safety one at a time.”

  Harvey avoided eye contact. “I feel like I’m repeating myself now. Insanity.”

  Jonathan wasn’t about to let him get away with that. “You’re not in a Senate hearing now, Harvey. You’re with a guy who’s been there, okay? I know what you did, and I know what it took for you to do it.”

  “Well, that makes you one of about three in the world then. Congratulations.” He fell into silence for a long moment, and Jonathan let him have it. He didn’t want to be too direct in looking, but out of his peripheral vision, he thought he might have seen Harvey’s eyes getting moist. No man wants that button pushed.

  After a minute or more, Harvey said, “You know, I can point exactly to the moment when I realized I didn’t give a shit anymore. Want to hear about it?”

  If it were anyone else in the world, Jonathan’s honest answer would have been no. All things related to touchy-feely and fully bared human emotion left him cold. But he was devoted to valor, and those who exhibited it. “Sure,” he said.

  “I had a buddy in boot camp-John Avery. We got really tight. After basic, we went to infantry training together, and in the last week, he blew out his knee in some dumb-shit PT exercise, so we got out of sequence, him six months behind me. I’d finished my tour and was back in the States when I got word that John had been killed by a sniper in Anbar Province.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jonathan said.

  “So was I. That was at the height of my crazy period, you know? Anyway, I wanted to go to his funeral. The docs weren’t sure it was the right thing to do, but I was pretty firm, so they let me go.”

  He cleared his throat. “You know, he
was a young guy. What, twenty-three maybe? He had the kind of service records that they make movies out of. Great guy, terrific leader, and scared of absolutely nothing. So a sniper takes him out while he’s sipping out of a canteen at a roadblock. The funeral was everything you like and everything you dread. Lots of family, lots of tears, lots of townspeople, out in Nowhere, Tennessee.

  “The Marine Corps sent an honor guard, and they did their best to make it feel military as they buried him in the yard outside of the Baptist church where his great-grandfather and everybody after him was baptized and married. It was kind of beautiful in its own right.

  “And then these war protestor assholes showed up to heckle. At a fucking funeral, man. A fucking funeral. These are third-generation hippie wannabes who’ve never fought for anything, and while family and friends are trying to bury a no-shit war hero, they’re trying to make it about them. I mean, this is what we fight for, right? So that everybody can say whatever’s on their mind? At John’s funeral, the cops who were originally there as honor guard escorts ended up protecting the assholes who had nothing better to do than ruin a mother’s last memory of her son. Would you care to tell me where the sense is in that?”

  Jonathan shook his head. “I couldn’t begin to.”

  “Well, you see, this is where it really helps not to be crazy. ’Cause from where I sit it doesn’t even make sense to keep trying. Fuck ’em all. Then I got jammed up by some adolescent bitch who knows how the news cycle works, and I just sort of ran out of things worth dyin’ for, know what I mean?”

  Jonathan did know. He’d known for decades; but the mark of an American soldier was the ability to push aside the weaknesses of politicians and slothful do-nothings to accomplish the mission within guidelines established by the politicians and slothful do-nothings. Jonathan’s years in the military had shaped his understanding of God and country. He believed with all his heart that civilians needed to be in charge, but he prayed for the day when those civilians would quit using people like him as political chess pieces.