Elizabeth Lowell - The Wrong Hostage

Faroe didn’t have to say it aloud. It echoed in the silence that followed his words.

“We have one helicopter, one sniper, and two lightly armed shooters,” Steele said finally. “Even if we had three times that much firepower, I still wouldn’t allow an air strike on a school where an army company is bivouacked.”

The look on Faroe’s face told Grace that Steele wasn’t saying anything Faroe didn’t already know.

“Lane cracked the security on Ted’s file,” Faroe said. “I was right. He ran between fifty and a hundred million dirty dollars through some offshore business accounts and then parked it in some clever little Austrian passbook savings accounts. Nobody’s going to find it without the file, not even Ted.”

“In other words, the computer is the key to a huge amount of narco dollars,” Steele said.

“It was,” Faroe said.

“But now?”

“Now it’s time to look at our hole card.”

“Which is?” Steele asked.

“Father Magon.”

“So you trust him,” Grace said to Faroe.

He smiled thinly and turned away.

“Joe?” she asked.

“When you’re down to your hole card,” Faroe said, “trust is the least of your problems.”

ALL SAINTS SCHOOL

MONDAY, 7:36 A.M.

FATHER MAGON WAS DRESSED for the soccer field rather than the confessional. Loose shorts, black T-shirt, and athletic shoes.

Maybe that was why the soldiers ignored him.

“What are you doing?” he demanded in colloquial Spanish. “That boy is a student here. You have no right to-”

“Get out of our way,” one of the soldiers shouted back.

Lane was slung over a big soldier’s shoulder like a sack of beans, held in place by a large hand. The man’s other hand held a school duffel hastily stuffed with clothes.

The boy’s eyes were open, furious. There was a cut on his cheek that was already swelling into a bruise.

Magon stood in front of the soldier who was carrying Lane and said loudly, “Lane, are you hurt?”

The boy said something that sounded like “…hell no…rat bastard pussies…”

Two soldiers grabbed Magon and jerked him away.

“Where are you taking him?” Magon demanded.

The soldiers just kept on walking.

Magon started to follow.

One of the guards turned around and leveled his assault weapon at the priest. “Stay out of this. It has nothing to do with the church.”

Magon waited until the soldiers were out of sight before he turned and ran into the cottage. Some of Lane’s clothes were scattered around. The bed was a tangle. The bathroom door was smashed, hanging drunkenly by a single hinge.

The priest locked the front door and went to the bathroom. Towels lay in a damp pile. The mirror was a haze of cracks and splinters. The shower curtain had been torn off the rod.

There was a cell phone tangled in the curtain.

Magon picked up the phone, studied it, and hit the button that redialed the number of the most recent outgoing call.

“Who is this?” a male voice asked instantly.

“A man of God,” Magon said, recognizing Faroe’s voice but not knowing if it was safe to speak openly.

“Father Magon?” Faroe asked.

“Yes.”

“You should carry your cell phone with you. Right now it’s ringing and kicking me into voice mail. Is Lane okay?”

“A little bruised, but not really hurt. He was cussing out the soldiers while they carried him off.”

In San Ysidro, Faroe leaned against the counter and almost laughed. “I hope they don’t understand English slang. Do you know where they’re taking him?”

“I asked. They ignored me. I pushed. They pointed an assault rifle at me. All I know for certain is that no helicopters have left the school.”

“Vehicles?”

“Momentito.”

Magon walked to the front of the cottage, which overlooked the long, sweeping road leading up to the school.

“Three Suburbans are leaving now,” Magon said. “I would guess Lane is in one of them.”

“Can you get into Lane’s cottage without being seen?”

“I’m inside it now.”

“Go to the bathroom. Lane was using the computer when he called me from there.”

Magon walked quickly back to the bathroom. He shook out the shower curtain.

Nothing.

He stirred the towels with his foot. He connected with something solid and ripped aside the towels.

“I have it,” he said into the phone.

Faroe smiled like a shark. “Is it running?”

“No. The screen is blank.”

“Can you turn it on?”

Magon juggled the phone and the computer. He hit the start-up button. Nothing happened.

“It’s not working,” Magon said. Then, “Wait. I see a power cord.”

Faroe waited impatiently while the priest fiddled with the cord.

“It’s not starting up,” Magon said. “The cord is in the wall and in the computer, but nothing happens when I press the start button.”

His name is Ivegot Thedrive!

“Look at the keyboard,” Faroe said. “In the top row of function buttons, above the row of numerals, right in the center, there is a transparent button.”

“I see it.”

“That releases the keyboard so you can get inside. Push it.”

Magon pushed.

The keyboard came free.

“Lift the keyboard and look inside,” Faroe said. “Tell me if you see any loose wires or missing pieces.”

Magon removed the keyboard and studied what was left. “I know little about the interior of computers.”

Faroe waited, reminding himself to breathe.

“There is a loose connection in the lower right-hand corner,” Magon said. “It could have been part of a module that has been removed.”

Shit.

“Well, that adds a real gloss to this cluster,” Faroe said. Then he grinned. “But good for Lane anyway. Did he get to take any luggage?”

“A small duffel.”

Faroe blew out a breath. He’d have to assume that Lane still had the hard drive.

Assumption is the mother of all fuckups, and she has many children.

He’d just have to hope that none of those bastards were his.

“Do you remember an incident a few years back,” Faroe asked, “when men were executed in the mountains south of you?”

“I remember several such incidents, regrettably.”

“The dead men were from your birthplace, or close by. They were miners, not narcotraficantes.”

“I know the incident. They were Pai-Pai, indigenous communal farmers. Many of them worked their own small gold mines. Seventeen of them were lined up and murdered. No one knows why.”

“Hector Rivas, your favorite parishioner, murdered them to protect a secret.”

Magon turned his head and spat on the bathroom floor.

“Yeah, I thought so,” Faroe said. “You’re undercover there. A spy for the church.”

“Spies and priests don’t live in the same world.”

“Some of them do. You, for instance. I’ll bet you’re gathering a case against ROG as the murderers of Cardinal Ocampo.”

“God doesn’t need my help. He already knows the guilty parties. They will pay their penalty on Judgment Day.”

“But the earthly church is a different matter,” Faroe said, ignoring Magon’s words. “The earthly church has to survive in this cruel, nasty, brutal world of ours. Survival goes to the swift, the strong, and the mean. The earthly church has survived on all three counts.”

“What is the point of this?”

“I could call Hector and blow your investigation right to hell.”

“Why would you help Hector Rivas Osuna?”

“He wouldn’t live long enough to enjoy it. Neither would Calderon or Ted Franklin. Are you listening, man of God? If Lane dies, none of you will have to wait for Judgment Day. I’ll punish sins of commission and omission. Do you understand?”

“I understood that since the first time I saw you with Lane,” Father Magon said finally. “I would help if I could. I can’t. The boy is beyond the reach of anything but my prayers.”

“I have something for you to do while you pray.”

“What?”

“Take a little helicopter ride with me to Pai-Pai country. If not, I’ll drop a dime with Hector.”

Magon’s breath sighed across the phone. “I suppose I don’t have a real choice. But I do ask that you keep me out of this as much as is possible. The cardinal’s death is not insignificant.”

“Neither is Lane’s. I’ll do my best to keep your skirts clean. Go to the Mission San Isidro.”

“The church just off the Transpeninsular Highway?”

“No. The ruins. The site of the original church. The place where your church spent a hundred and fifty years trying to separate the Pai-Pais from their native religious beliefs. Be there in half an hour.”

The phone went dead before Magon could ask why.

SAN YSIDRO

MONDAY, 7:39 A.M.

AS SOON AS FAROE disconnected with Magon, Steele said, “Ascencio Beltran called your cell. It rolled over to mine.”

Faroe would have asked how long the rollover connection had been in place, but he had more urgent things to worry about. “Number?”

Steele hit the send button and handed over the cell phone.

“While I talk to him,” Faroe told Grace, “get Sturgis to give us a direct number for Ted.”

“Why?” she asked.

Faroe was already speaking Spanish with Beltran. The man had been so eager to talk that he answered his own phone rather than stepping Faroe through a bunch of flunkies.

“When do I meet the miner?” Faroe asked.

“It is not that easy,” Beltran answered.

It never is.

“How hard is it going to be?”

“The miner is in a little town called El Alamo,” Beltran said.

A little town called Cottonwood. Sweet. There can’t be more than a thousand places with that name.

“Where’s that?” Faroe asked.

“In the Trinity Valley.”

Better.

“I’ve been there,” Faroe said. “It’s a good place to find miners.”

“Only if they wish to be found. The man I spoke of does not wish to be found, even by me.”

“Did you spook him?”

“No. I worked through cousins of cousins. He is very frightened. He spends most of his time praying in various village churches.”

“So he’s devout.”

“Aiee, he could teach kneeling to a nun.”

Faroe almost smiled. “I’ve got a helicopter. Do you have a contact who could meet us close to town and take us directly to the miner?”

“There’s a dirt airstrip on a small mesa about a kilometer south of the town.”

“Marijuana transport?” Faroe asked.

“Of course. The villagers, they are used to hearing helicopters and planes and such. The miner will not worry. My man will expect to be well paid.”

“I’ll bet. No one in Trinity Valley wants to be seen with a gringo who might be DEA.”

Beltran laughed. “It is good to work with someone who understands.”

“Your man will be well paid. So will the miner.” Faroe glanced at his watch and did a quick mental calculation. The Aerospatiale was about to be put through its paces. “Tell your man we will be there in an hour.”

“Agreed. May we drink a toast over Hector’s grave.”

“Works for me.” Faroe punched out and said clearly, “Any movement on the sat phone I gave Lane?”

“Negative” came from the back of the bus.

He looked at Steele. “Tell them to rev up the chopper.”

Steele hesitated. “We haven’t had time to set up the usual cover for the helicopter. You’ll have to fly under the radar the whole way.”

Faroe nodded. He hadn’t expected anything else. He hit the redial button on Steele’s phone, memorized Beltran’s number, and entered it into his own phone for future use. As Faroe worked, he heard Grace’s voice. The edge in it told him that Sturgis was stonewalling.

“…the point is that we have something that Ted wants more than he wants his next birthday,” she said.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Sturgis said.

“I’m the judge, remember? I gave you a number to call. Now I want Ted’s direct number-”

“Impossible.”

“-or you can explain to Ted why you booted a chance to get your hands on Lane’s computer,” she finished, talking over the lawyer.

“The legally constituted members of the task force won’t be happy when they find out you’re interfering with their investigation. I’d be surprised if you aren’t facing some federal charges. Unless you work through me, I’ll make certain that no member of the San Diego federal defense bar will touch your case with fire tongs.”