Elizabeth Lowell - The Wrong Hostage

ALL SAINTS SCHOOL

MONDAY, 1:32 A.M.

STROKE AFTER STROKE OF lightning raked across the sky, turning night into a blinding network of white against black. Thunder was immediate, continuous explosions that rocked the night. Rain came down like the end of the world.

“Yes!” Lane laughed out loud as guards raced for cover. “Bring it! Send those cabrons running to cover.”

Since the nearest permitted shelter was fifty feet away in another cottage, he wouldn’t have to worry about his guards peering in his windows and wondering what he was doing under the sheet or in the closed, locked bathroom.

For a few seconds more Lane enjoyed the storm washing across his face, its taste wild and sweet.

Like freedom.

Then he closed the windows, pulled the curtains, and took his computer into the bathroom, where there was both privacy and an electrical outlet. The last thing he wanted was to run out of juice just when he hacked into the file.

If I hack it.

No. When. I’ve hacked harder security.

But he’d been younger then. He hadn’t believed in death. That, and the guards, broke his concentration.

Pretty Good Privacy was turning out to be pretty good indeed. The first sample key he’d played around with hadn’t gotten him very far. As in headfirst into a stone wall, locked up, reboot, and try again. And again.

And again.

The cigarette smoke and jokes and catcalls from the open windows hadn’t helped. But now all he had was the heady freedom of the storm and the computer itself, something he was comfortable with.

Something he was good at.

Something that didn’t constantly taunt him that he was scheduled to die at twelve-thirty this afternoon.

BROWN FIELD

MONDAY, 2:10 A.M.

“SO,” STEELE SAID, SUMMARIZING the debriefing, “in less than forty-eight hours you’ve managed to get on the wrong side of both the lords of the Tijuana underground and the United States government. Even for you, Joseph, that’s impressive. Now what?”

Senor Quintana hid a smile behind his neatly trimmed mustache and goatee.

“We need some muscle on standby,” Faroe said.

“Three ops are already aboard, not including Harley,” Steele said, pointing around the interior of the motor coach. “Wood is the armorer, ex-SEAL with good sources of supply, fluent in Spanish. Jarrett and Murchison are communications cross-trained, also fluent in Spanish, and Murchison is a medic. Dwayne is working on a helicopter and pilot.”

“Problems?” Faroe asked.

“Only that you wanted an Aerospatiale.”

Wood smiled in approval. “Fast helo, that.”

Faroe looked at the two men and one woman-Murchison. They had the relaxed yet ready posture of people accustomed to being sent to strange places at strange times to do jobs that may or may not be legal. And to do them quietly.

“Okay,” Faroe said to the ops. “You three take the chopper down to All Saints at first light. No matter what I tell you, or what sat photos and web site stuff you have, nothing beats seeing it yourself.”

All three nodded.

“Pleasure to work with someone who understands that,” Wood said.

“I learned it the hard way,” Faroe said dryly.

“At least you learned,” Murchison said. “That’s why I went private. Some bosses never learn.”

Grace looked at the other woman and told herself Murchison wasn’t flirting with Faroe-which was true. Then Grace told herself she didn’t care-which wasn’t true.

Maybe I need some of those wake-up pills after all. I keep forgetting why I think I want to keep Faroe at arm’s length.

Don’t I?

Faroe turned back to Steele, answering the question his boss hadn’t quite asked. “I want an Aerospatiale for more than speed. The American Coast Guard uses them for search and rescue. The Mexican navy might not be so quick to fire on us if they think it will be the opening shots of World War III.”

“Then you’ve decided that force is the best option?” Steele asked.

Grace went very still. She’d learned enough about St. Kilda to know that force was an unhappy last resort in kidnap situations.

“I hope not,” Faroe said, “but I’d be a fool not to be prepared.”

“Outline your other options,” Steele asked.

Faroe looked at Grace. “Judge, I need you to be alert. Harley will show you a place for a quick nap.”

She stared at Faroe for a long time. Then she shook her head. “If I have to, I’ll use Steele’s meds.”

“The more I tell you, the more vulnerable you become when this is over.”

“What about you?”

“I’m used to it. I need you strong. Trust me.”

“The last time I did that, you told me to get the hell out of your life.”

“If things go wrong now, wake-up meds won’t save your job,” Faroe said bluntly. “Ignorance will.”

“Ignorance?” Grace laughed. “I’m complicit in a bombing in Ensenada. I saw a man murdered in Hector Rivas’s Cash-and-Carry Bank and House of Horrors. I lied repeatedly and with great pleasure to agents of the United States government. Right now, just what part of ignorance do you think applies to me?”

“Okay. Point taken. But this is going to get ugly,” Faroe said. “I don’t want it to get ugly all over you.”

“Too late.” She toed off her flat shoes. The recessed lighting inside the vehicle showed dark spots against her golden brown skin. “I still have that murdered man’s blood on my feet.”

Instantly Harley got up, went to the sink, returned with a wet cloth, and knelt in front of Grace.

“Thank you, but it won’t change anything,” she said to Harley. Then she looked at Faroe. “Will it.”

Faroe opened his mouth, closed it, and ran his thumb over her cheekbone. “I’m sorry.”

She turned her head, brushed her lips over his thumb. “Why? You didn’t do it.”

Steele watched them, eyes narrowed, face expressionless.

Grace turned to him. “You made the trip for nothing, Ambassador. Joe and I aren’t going to bloody each other.” Yet. But tomorrow? Well, tomorrow is another day, isn’t it? “It’s also too late to separate us. You need Joe. You need me. If we break your rules by being together, well, we’ll just have to be your exception, won’t we?”

Steele almost nodded.

And almost smiled.

The expression on the Ambassador’s face made Faroe wonder what he’d missed.

ALL SAINTS SCHOOL

MONDAY, 2:25 A.M.

LANE SWIPED AT HIS EYES, telling himself it was sweat, not tears, that kept blurring his view of the computer screen. He really wished he believed it.

Another bout of thunder made the cottage tremble.

He noticed the sound only because it meant that his mouthy guards wouldn’t be catcalling from the windows. His stomach growled and cramped with hunger.

He ignored it.

He couldn’t take a chance on eating drugged food. After he was free, he’d eat a double-sausage pizza as big as a coffee table. He’d bury his face in the spicy sauce and-

After.

But first he had to hack his way into his father’s file.

The second sample key wasn’t any better than the first had been. He must be screwing up something because he was light-headed and scared and hungry.

Focus, Lane told himself fiercely. You can do this in your sleep and you know it. It’s just a matter of concentration and time.

Concentration he didn’t have.

Time that was sliding away.

Suck it up.

Just. Suck. It. Up.

Lightning burned through the little bathroom window. Lane didn’t notice it, or the thunder that followed. He was staring at the computer screen, his fingers poised over the keyboard.

Shaking.

BROWN FIELD

MONDAY, 2:30 A.M.

GRACE AND STEELE SAT at the motor coach’s built-in dinette. Across from them, Faroe and Quintana conferred over a map of Baja California del Norte, orienting the journalist on All Saints School.

In the background the three operators checked firearms and ammunition, set the defaults on cell phones and pagers, and inventoried the equipment that had already been laid aboard the coach. Their movements were economical, quick, and relaxed. They slid through the small space between Steele’s wheelchair and the cupboards with the casual grace of the physically fit. Every time they passed, they looked at the map, noting anything new that had been added by Quintana or Faroe.

Grace was getting more and more nervous. Everyone was paying way too much attention to what everyone agreed was the most dangerous option.

Brute force.

She put her hand over the map. Both men glanced up at her.

“I know I should shut up and let you do your thing,” she said, “but I can’t. I have to be certain we haven’t overlooked some other way to get Lane free.”

Faroe put his hand over hers and curled their fingers together. “What angle do you think we’re missing?”

“Politics.”

“Whose?”

“Start with Hector,” she said, looking at Quintana.

“Hector smokes enough crack to put an elephant on the moon,” Faroe said.

Quintana lifted his thin shoulders in an elegant shrug. “May he smoke too much and die soon.”

“Someone else will take his place,” Faroe said.

“It is the curse of American drug habits feeding Mexico’s political corruption,” Quintana said.

“Somehow I can’t see Hector running for president,” Grace said. “And that’s the kind of politics I’m talking about.”

“Very few traficantes care about politics,” Quintana said, “except to understand who to buy in order to be left alone. Traficantes have no interest in a director of public works, or a provincial secretary of education. They are only interested in the police. As long as they control the police, they are safe.”

“Don’t forget the people who appoint men to direct the police,” Steele said.

Quintana sighed and looked like a man who wanted a cigarette. “Important appointments are made in Mexico City. That is why men like Hector Rivas own jet aircraft that depart weekly with millions of gringo dollars headed for the corrupt bosses in our national capital. There was a time when the national power structure was as addicted to those weekly payments as Hector is to his cocaine. That is how one president ended up in exile and his brother in prison.”

“But it’s better now?” Grace asked.

Quintana hesitated. “At the highest levels, it is better or at least more discreet. But the corrupt relationship between trafficking and law enforcement still remains. Hector Rivas is the boss. Four of his nephews participate in the daily activities of payoffs and corruption. Several nieces are said to be involved.”

“What about Hector’s own children?” she asked. “Does he have any?”

“Si. It is not well known, but they are in the United States with their mother. He loves them very much. We know he visits them often, but we don’t know how. No one sees him crossing the border.”

“They live in the U.S. so they can’t be taken hostage,” Grace said bitterly.

“It is a way of life,” Quintana said.

“It must be,” she said. “Carlos Calderon acted like it didn’t matter that his son was enrolled at All Saints.”

“Oh, it matters. Many million times it matters.” Quintana pursed his lips. “Think of the narco dollars as a river. The river flows out into the desert and disappears into the ground. But down there, beneath the surface, everything still flows, yes? Underground rivers.”

Grace nodded.

“Then, hundreds of miles away, the water surfaces again. Carlos Calderon is where the dollars reappear. He is not a traficante, he is a facilitator, one of the principal links between the traficantes and the politicos. That is politics.”

“Is it something we can prove?” Grace asked.

Faroe shook his head. “We don’t have time for courtroom proof.”

“But we have time to mount an attack that could get Lane shot?”

“Contingency planning only.” He released her hand, pushed back against the seat, and rubbed his face wearily.

“Can’t we leverage Carlos’s political need to have a clean public image into a way to help Lane?” she insisted.