Elizabeth Lowell - The Wrong Hostage

“Where were we?” he said. “Oh yeah, we were weighing choices and moral implications. Nasty business, but necessary in this line of work. Now we’ve got another choice to consider.”

“We do?”

“Yeah.”

She didn’t want to ask.

She didn’t have any choice.

“What is it?” she said.

“Which benefits Lane more-Hector alive or dead?”

“Are you talking about killing Hector?” she asked, shocked.

“Me? Not at this point. But those four dudes, the ones who were driving vehicles with Baja state government tags, likely they have murder on their minds.”

Grace just stared at Faroe.

“They left a calling card under the flagstone that’s the front doorstep of the Cancion restaurant,” Faroe said.

“A calling card? What do you mean?”

“An IED.”

“Translation,” she said impatiently.

“Improvised explosive device.”

“Like a pipe bomb?”

“That’s one kind. I can’t be sure without going over to take a closer look, but this one looks like a cellular telephone wired to a standard-issue claymore.”

“Claymore-isn’t that some kind of explosive left over from World War I?” she asked.

Faroe smiled slightly. “In the good old days before black powder, a claymore was a big, double-handed broadsword, perfectly designed for splitting a man from crown to crotch in a single stroke. But nowadays, a claymore is a bomb that would do the world a real favor if it went off within ten or fifteen meters of the Rivas family. So is Lane better off with Hector alive or dead?”

Grace opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again. “You’re the expert.”

He drew a deep breath and blew it out slowly. Thinking about Hector’s remains decorating three square blocks made Faroe want to smile. “I should recuse myself. I despise drug dealers.”

She waited and wondered again if she should tell Faroe the truth about Lane, if that truth would affect Faroe’s decision either way.

“Shit,” he said, blowing out another long breath. “I hate it when this happens.”

“This?”

“When I have to save a filthy son of a bitch like Hector so that I have a better chance of saving an innocent like Lane.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Disarm the damn thing.”

“That’s crazy! You could be killed. Call in a specialist.”

“No time to bring in St. Kilda. So who do I call? Who in the Mexican government do you trust?”

She started to speak, stopped, and stayed silent. She hadn’t the faintest idea who to call.

Or who not to.

Faroe smiled grimly. “You’re learning, amada. Wish I didn’t have to be the teacher.”

“Why?”

“Nobody loves the bad-news dude.”

The cell phone in his pocket vibrated. He pulled it out, read the text message, and shook his head.

Grace was afraid to ask and more afraid not to. “Now what’s wrong?”

“The hotel and restaurant are part of a major corporation which is part of the biggest business conglomerate in Baja. Grupo Calderon. Your old friend Carlos Calderon is one of Grupo’s major owners.”

Her hollow, down-the-rabbit-hole feeling increased. “That doesn’t make sense. Carlos Calderon is in business with Hector. Why would he put out word to Hector’s enemies that he’d be at this restaurant tonight?”

“Maybe Carlos wants to dissolve the partnership.”

She frowned. “So are we better or worse off than before?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you’re supposed to…” She heard her own words and sighed instead of finishing the sentence.

“Know everything?” he finished sardonically. “My name is Faroe, not Yahweh. The other news St. Kilda sent is less ambiguous.”

“Is that good?”

“You tell me. They’re closing in on Ted. The fool used his corporate credit card.”

Grace ran her fingers through her windblown hair. “For what? Booze or bimbos?”

Faroe looked interested. “Ted have a problem with booze?”

“As far as I’m concerned, yes. Ted doesn’t think so.”

“You have a problem with his bimbos, too?”

“Only that I was that stupid once.”

“He made you his wife, not his arm candy.”

“My mistake,” Grace said. “Too bad I’m not the only one paying for it.”

Faroe saw the turmoil of emotions beneath her calm words and changed the subject. “Ted was buying something worse than booze-a lawyer.”

“Stuart Sturgis of Bauman, Sturgis, Bauman, and McClellum?”

Faroe nodded.

“He handled our divorce,” Grace said. “He and Ted are old college friends and business partners. And no, every time I called Stu, he hadn’t heard a word from Ted, and if he did he’d get back to me instantly, yada yada.”

“Who was your lawyer for the divorce?”

“I didn’t have one.”

“No wonder you ended up with nothing.”

Grace’s eyes narrowed. “I ended up with a car, a college fund in the form of half ownership in a fake horse ranch, and a house in La Jolla for my son. That’s all I wanted.”

Faroe didn’t point out that the home was now mortgaged to pay for her son’s rescue, and no one might be alive to use the college fund.

“St. Kilda has a tail and a tap on good old Stu,” Faroe said. “Sooner or later, he’ll lead us to Ted.”

“A tap? A phone tap? That’s illegal.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Your Honor, and it will never happen again.”

“Nolo,” she said.

“Bingo. Stop asking questions. Either I lie or I tell you about activities that a judge shouldn’t have personal knowledge of without calling the cops. An enemy who wanted to make a federal case of your guilty knowledge could do just that.”

Grace didn’t argue. She was skating so close to the edge of the legally permissible that it would take a miracle to keep from falling off.

“How long will it take you to”-blow yourself up-“disarm that bomb?” she asked.

“I won’t know until I get a look at it. If it’s beyond my skill set, I’ll leave it alone.”

“Take your cell phone.”

Faroe laughed. “Why? Believe me, if I screw up, you’ll be the second one to know. The chance of a little ‘oops’ like this is why St. Kilda insists on having a full DNA panel on all operatives. Makes positive ID a lot easier.”

Her eyelids flinched. “You’ll need someone to warn you if those men show up again.”

He weighed the idea. Despite her calm words, her eyes were too dark and her skin was unusually pale. But her hands weren’t shaking and she was remembering to breathe.

Most of the time.

“Give me your cell phone,” Faroe said. “I’ll punch in a number.”

“Haven’t we done this before?” she muttered, reaching for her purse.

“Sometimes once just isn’t enough.”

Grace looked up suddenly. Faroe’s expression was bland and his eyes were a smoldering green. Knowing that her thoughts were written on her face, she ducked her head and pulled the cell phone out of her purse.

“Now your color is better,” he said.

“You’re a-”

“Hush, woman,” he cut in, grinning and taking her cell phone. “Think how bad you’d feel if your last words to me were insults.”

“I’ll take a rain check, man,” she retorted.

“You see someone coming, hit this button,” Faroe said, handing her back her phone. “My phone will vibrate against my package and I’ll think of you.”

“Two rain checks.”

Faroe was still laughing as he shut the hotel door behind himself and headed toward the IED.

ENSENADA

SUNDAY, 4:20 P.M.

WHEN FAROE WALKED OUT of the hotel toward the restaurant, the wind was easing, but still strong enough to cover every sound but the constant blare of horns. Local custom insisted that brakes weren’t macho. Horns were.

A huge white cruise ship lay at anchor just inside the small harbor’s breakwater. Dinghies shuttled passengers ashore for an artificial foreign “adventure.” Faroe wondered why anyone bothered with a herd’s-eye view of anything.

But then, he’d never understood people who thought adventure could be safe.

Looking casual, even idle, he wandered over to the garden gate outside the restaurant. The gate was locked. Through the metal grille and iron ivy, he could see the two-by-three-foot flagstone the fake workmen had lifted. The sandy soil around it had been brushed to conceal any signs of their work.

If Faroe hadn’t seen them plant the claymore, he wouldn’t have suspected a thing.

He looked back over at the hotel and let his gaze travel up to the fourth floor. Grace was leaning against the balcony railing like a woman enjoying the view. The cell phone in his pocket was calm.

Faroe ambled around the corner of the wall to the service entrance the workmen had used. Locked.

They must have had a key. Inside job?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Hard to tell the players without a scorecard.

Grace held on to the railing and tried to look as relaxed as Faroe. While he casually tested the quality of the wrought iron, she looked at balconies and rooftops. Nobody seemed to be watching anything but the scenery.

He must have trusted the wrought iron, because in a matter of seconds he’d scaled the eight-foot gate and was out of sight behind the wall. If she’d sneezed, she would have missed it.

He turned and looked up at the roof of the hotel, a place Grace couldn’t see from the balcony. No glass glinted into the falling sun, revealing binoculars. No one but Grace seemed to be interested in him.

After a final quick search, he focused on the restaurant. It was deserted, but the cooks would start arriving soon to prepare for the 9:00 P.M. dinner rush. Quickly he walked around the corner of the building to the flagstone walkway. He checked the ground for trailing detonator wires.

Nothing.

That meant the standoff trigger had to be the cell phone he’d seen the men put into the trap.

Kneeling, he pushed his fingers under the flagstone. It weighed at least thirty pounds but rocked up easily on its side, revealing what was beneath.

For long, long seconds Faroe stared at the convex belly of a U.S. government-issue claymore mine. There was nothing elegant or high tech about this beast. Just a pound of C4 plastique and six hundred steel ball bearings that would explode in a directional, fan-shaped pattern of death. The mine was aimed straight into the air. It would blast ball bearings in a deadly half circle that began at ground level.

It would have killed dozens, maimed dozens more.

He stole a quick glance at Grace. She hadn’t moved. He went back to studying the bomb. The initiator on the claymore had been removed and replaced with a blasting cap. The cap was wired to the battery of a cheap Mexican cell phone.

So far, so good.

Very gently he moved the claymore aside to get a better look at the cell phone. On the back of the phone, someone had written seven numbers with a black marker. Again, nothing unexpected. A bomb maker assembled the device, then turned it over to others to use. Not rocket science. Simple instructions for simple men.

Faroe memorized the number. Then he slowly, tenderly turned the claymore over so that its belly was pointed into the sandy soil instead of into the air. Softly, gradually, he laid the heavy flagstone back in place.

Ninety seconds later he walked back into the hotel suite.

Grace ran across the room and threw herself into his arms. She was shaking.

“Breathe, amada,” he said. “Nothing happened.”

“But I could tell by the way you handled the thing that it was really dangerous.”

He inhaled the sweet scent of her hair. “It’s a decently made IED that would have turned Hector Rivas Osuna into a shocked eunuch for the microsecond before his asshole went through his skullcap.”

Grace let go of Faroe like he’d kicked her. She backed away, hugging herself instead of him.

Faroe told himself that it was a good thing. He really didn’t need the distraction of her fear for him, her breasts pressing against him as she trembled.

At least that’s what he told himself, but he didn’t believe it.

“The really interesting part is that somebody has access to what looks like U.S. Marine Corps hardware,” Faroe said. “I was tempted to get a serial number, but I’m not down here to police stolen gear. I’ll tell Steele, who will drop a word to someone who wears enough stars to make sure Camp Pendleton inventories its arsenal.”