Elizabeth Lowell - The Wrong Hostage

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.”

Grace saw a sudden proud smile spread across her son’s face. He was in charge of his own fate now, in a way he hadn’t been when she and Joe arrived.

He understands Lane better than Ted ever did. Or ever wanted to.

A familiar mixture of sadness and anger swept through her. She crushed it. Lane needed her focused on helping him, not on her past mistakes.

Faroe gripped Lane’s shoulder gently. “Okay. Now I want you and your mom to kill twenty minutes looking at the gulls and the waves and talking about soccer and grades and the girls you never see anymore. If I’m not back by then, go to your cottage. I’ll meet you there. And don’t worry about the guards. They’re on a short leash.” For now.

“Where are you going?” Grace asked.

Faroe didn’t answer. He just headed with long strides toward the chapel.

Grace started talking about soccer.

One of the guards braced Faroe as he walked past.

“Where do you go?” the guard demanded.

“Church,” Faroe said. “To pray for the boy’s safety.”

The guard’s smile was as thin as a new moon. “You are wise.”

OUTSIDE ENSENADA

SUNDAY AFTERNOON

FAROE STOPPED IN FRONT of the small chapel whose wooden doors had been burned gray and black by the sun. Salt air from the nearby ocean had corroded the doors’ wrought-iron hinges to reddish shadows. A plaque beside the entrance said that Jesuit monks had built the place in 1789, with the help of God and the local Indians. Now the adobe brick walls were slumped like an old priest’s shoulders.

The guard who had followed Faroe lounged against the outside of the adobe wall that surrounded the chapel, not crowding his quarry but clearly keeping his eyes open. The guard’s hand was on the Glock he carried butt forward in the waistband of his jeans. It wasn’t a particularly threatening gesture-if you were used to seeing armed men.

A pepper tree with a trunk three feet thick filled the side yard of the little adobe chapel. The tree shaded a stone fountain so old that the inscriptions had worn away. Through the lacy green curtain of leaves, Faroe caught a glimpse of a swirling black cassock. A priest was entering the church through a back door.

Father Rafael Magon was a little late, but he was there.

Without a glance at his guard, Faroe walked into the shadowed chapel and pulled the wooden door closed behind him. His eyes adjusted to the dim light coming through four dusty stained-glass windows. The altar was made of tarnished tin and ancient wood. The figure of Christ on the cross must have been carved in the nineteenth century, or even earlier. The Savior’s face was dusky, his features thick, his body drenched in blood. He was muy indio, like the parishioners he absolved.

The confession booth was set in an alcove beside the altar. Faroe slid onto the rough bench reserved for penitentes, but he left the privacy curtain open so he would know if anyone came in the chapel’s front door. Through the wooden grille, he made out a swarthy man with black hair and careful blue eyes.

“Father, forgive me, for I have sinned and it’s been a long, long time since my last confession,” Faroe said. “But then, the same is probably true of you.”

The vivid blue eyes focused sharply through the grate. “Confession is a one-way sacrament,” the priest said softly. His English was polished, almost without accent. He could have been raised in San Diego rather than Mexico.

“Then where does a wayward priest confess?” Faroe asked.

“Who are you and what do you want?” The voice was still soft, but it was cold with the understanding of power.

“I’m a man who knows you’re more than the simple indio priest you seem to be. I want to know why a highly placed and well-educated priest, one with powerful sponsors in Rome, finds himself absolving murderers and drug lords.”

Behind the grate Magon was like a mosaic of a man rather than flesh itself.

“All of God’s children need pastoral guidance,” the priest said. “All congregants are human. Therefore they are sinners. The church goes where it is most needed.”

“There’s a big jump from ministering to aiding and abetting. You seem more interested in your corrupt sinners than in the boy Lane Franklin, an innocent who could die of your neglect.”

The wooden grate shot aside. “Who are you?” Magon demanded again, his voice low. “Give me the truth or this charade ends.”

What Faroe gave him was a level, unflinching look.

The little chapel was quiet for a long time.

Magon blinked and glanced away, a man thinking, and thinking hard. When he looked at Faroe again, he seemed less certain, more wary. He settled back on his side of the wooden wall.

“You have a good friend,” Magon said, “a man I trust as I trust few on earth. He told me to be here but he couldn’t say why. He merely said he believed you could be trusted.”

Faroe leaned against the wooden wall on his own side of the screen. The air inside the thick-walled little chapel was humid, still, shielded from the restless storm churning up from Cabo San Lucas.

The place smelled dangerous, not confessional.

No risk, no reward, Faroe reminded himself dryly.

“Judge Silva has hired me to negotiate her son’s release,” Faroe said. “At the moment, we aren’t even sure who to negotiate with, since the target of this extortion is Ted Franklin. Lane is merely the pawn. Will you help?”

Magon bowed his head and stayed motionless for several long breaths. Then Faroe heard a rustling sound, like cloth shifting. A thick leather wallet appeared in the little window.

“Cigar?” the priest asked quietly.

“No thanks.”

“Do you object if I have one? It’s my principal vice. Some of my brethren think I take too much pleasure in them, so I only smoke when no brothers are around.”

“Go ahead, I won’t report you to the archbishop of Tijuana. Does he realize you’re a Vatican spy?”

Magon’s only answer was the metallic sound of a lighter being struck. A few seconds later Faroe smelled smoke from a decent Havana cigar.

“Vatican spy?” Magon asked with a faint smile. “Isn’t that what is called an oxymoron, like ‘military intelligence’?”

“Some of us heathens think the church is as much a political institution as it is a religious one.”

“The church does what it must,” Magon said.

“So do I. I don’t have cathedrals and armies of priests behind me, which makes it a lot easier for me to slide between cracks and disappear into the shadows. That makes a lot of people nervous. What nationality are you, Father?”

The question seemed to surprise Magon. He thought about it for a moment, shrugged, and answered. “I was raised in Logan Heights barrio, in San Diego, but I was born here in Baja.”

“Down around El Alamo,” Faroe said.

Black eyebrows raised in surprise. “You are clairvoyant?”

“No, but I know that the Magonistas who didn’t get their asses shot off in 1911 ended up in the ejidos and the mines around El Alamo. There’s even a little community called Ojos Azules.”

Blue eyes.

“You’ve been there?” Magon asked.

“Yes.”

“Most Mexicans know very little about the Magonistas. It’s one of the sad things about my country. Our history is only found in the shadows. You’re an odd gringo that you see those shadows.”

“I never knew my father very well,” Faroe said. “I was born late in his life. The only trips we ever took were to the mountains east of here, between Ojos Azules and El Alamo. My father was either crazy or a shaman, or both at once. The poor people accepted, even celebrated, his differences. He was a marijuana smuggler back before marijuana became an international commodity. He loved to smoke weed and he loved that wild country and its stoic people. After he died, I came down to Ensenada to go surfing. The ocean was the color of his eyes.”

Magon studied Faroe’s face. There was nothing to see but intent green eyes, wariness, surprising intelligence, and the relaxation of someone who was used to being alert without being anxious.

“Yet here you are,” the priest said. “Between the surfer and the man you are now lies much history, yes? You have a hard look about you, the look of a policeman rather than a smuggler.”

“I was a cop once,” Faroe said, “just like that guy outside with the gun, just like the Chicharrones Brigade keeping Lane in his four-bedroom prison. You don’t have to be honest to carry a badge. Or a crucifix.”

“So cynical,” Magon said wryly.

“It’s a dirty job, but if someone doesn’t do it, everyone will have to. There are still some innocents in this corrupt world. Lane is one of them.”

“And his mother?”

“What about her?”

“I was wondering if there might be some personal relationship between you and the beautiful judge.”

It was Faroe’s turn to be surprised. News of the hot act in the marina parking lot had made it to Mexico sooner than he’d expected. “Since when do the federales report to you?”

Magon looked puzzled. Then he dragged on the cigar, making its tip glow beneath a pale layer of ash. “I didn’t need a federale to tell me there is something between you and the woman. I saw the three of you walking down there on the sand. A close relationship would explain why you’re trampling where angels fear to tiptoe.”

“You have your motives,” Faroe said. “I have mine. The only real question is if we can find common ground.”

Magon sighed. “I don’t want Lane harmed. That’s true of all my charges. But Lane is…different. Intelligent enough to fear, brave enough not to show it, a natural athlete, a superb student once he realized it mattered, and with surprising insight into adults for a boy his age.”

Something in Faroe began to relax. The risk he’d taken was very close to paying off. “Can I count on you to keep Lane safe while I try to untangle this mess?”

“This ‘mess,’ as you call it, is quite complicated. It’s not likely to yield to the efforts of a single man, no matter how skillful or dangerous he is. The outcome is in God’s hands.”

“My objectives are more limited than yours,” Faroe said. “If necessary, I can work alone. Your pope wouldn’t like the results.”

“This situation has very high stakes. No one controls all the players. No one can guarantee the outcome.”

“Not even God?”

“He works in ways we mortals don’t always understand.”

“Save it for the believers. I hold individual mortals responsible for earthly outcomes.”

Magon straightened. “You’re threatening me.”

“Amen.”

The priest’s blue eyes stared through the little window, studying Faroe. Magon puffed quickly on the cigar and his face disappeared in a billow of smoke. When the air cleared, his eyes had changed. They were direct, hard.

“If I am as corrupt as you suspect I might be,” Magon said, “why wouldn’t I run straight to the men who hold Lane?”

“Because you learned this secret in the confessional, Father.”

“Only believers are protected by the sanctity of the confessional.”

“A lawyer, as well as a diplomat and a spy,” Faroe said dryly. “I should have expected no less from the Vatican. Yes, I’m taking a calculated risk with you. I trust our mutual friend in Rome. He may or may not know what you’re up to but he knows you’re more complex than you appear to be.”

“A cynic, yet still a man of some faith,” Magon said.

“I’ve learned to trust a few people. Damned few.”

“I, too, have faith in a few people. For the moment I’ll keep the confidences of a man who walks into danger by choice.”

Faroe almost smiled. Under other circumstances, he would have enjoyed Father Rafael Magon, radical pragmatist and Vatican spy.

“Where can I find Hector Rivas?” Faroe asked.

“Why?”

“He holds Lane’s life in his murdering hands,” Faroe said.

Savoring his cigar, Magon considered the request for a full minute. A feudal lord and traficante like Hector Rivas Osuna had many enemies. A man like Faroe could find many ways to ambush even the highly protected Hector.

“I have nothing to gain by killing Hector,” Faroe said, understanding the reason for Magon’s hesitation. “With Hector dead, Lane would be in more danger, not less. I’m here to negotiate before anyone gets real nervous. Nerves and guns scare the hell out of me.”