Elizabeth Lowell - The Wrong Hostage

But he wasn’t a ninja and he had too much sense to pretend otherwise.

No point in dying before he had to.

“Hola, nino,” Hector said, opening the door to the utility closet.

Lane squinted against the sudden light. His heart filled his throat, beating like a captive bird.

“You okay?” Hector asked.

Oh, sure, I’m just frigging fantastic, locked in a closet waiting to die. And Hector’s breath could kill scorpions at twenty feet.

“I could really use a bathroom,” was all Lane said.

With surprising strength, Hector pulled Lane to his feet and pointed to a door across the hall.

“Don’ be long,” Hector said around the cigarette stuck in the corner of his mouth. “You daddy, he wait.”

“Dad? He’s coming here for me?”

“You go. Then we go. Andale, nino.”

Lane was so relieved he nearly wet himself. He could hardly believe that his father was really going to come through for him.

“Dad?” he asked.

“Si, si,” Hector said impatiently. “?Andale!”

Lane hurried across the hall. With every step he felt the slight weight of the hard drive in his pocket.

SAN YSIDRO

MONDAY, 10:15 A.M.

FAROE AND GRACE WENT back to the main salon in time to see Steele and the FBI agent cautiously shaking hands across the table.

“Supervisory Special Agent Cook has agreed to an arrangement that will ensure complete FBI control of events in their jurisdiction,” Steele said, weighing his words with the care of the ambassador he once had been. “His surveillance and weapons teams will cover the exchange, with full authority to shut the operation down if he, as field commander, decides it’s too dangerous.”

Faroe went still and deadly. “Shut it down? Dangerous? All he’s worried about is Franklin getting a bullet in his fat ass.”

“Right now,” Cook said, “I’d put a bullet in him myself. Snitches. Jesus. I hate the slimy rocks they live under. I’ve already told Ted and his attorney that they’ll cooperate to the fullest or any deal for immunity we might have in the works is DOA.” He looked at Grace. “I wish you’d come to me instead of St. Kilda. It would have been cleaner.”

“When it mattered, I didn’t know you existed,” Grace said. “But even if I’d known you by your first, last, and middle name, I’d have gone to St. Kilda Consulting. They represent my interests and only mine.”

Cook’s mouth turned down at one corner. “After working on the Calderon task force for two years, if my son was a hostage, I’d think about going to St. Kilda myself. And kiss my career good-bye.”

Faroe poured himself a cup of coffee from the urn on the kitchen counter and turned to Cook. “But you still have to play the game like your badge trumps everything, right?”

“Operational control? Is that what’s chapping your ass?” Cook asked. “You know that I have to go to my bosses with clean hands. That means operational control on this side of the line.”

Faroe took a drink of coffee and waited for what he wanted to hear, or all bets were off.

“But that doesn’t mean I give a rat’s hairy ass what goes on at the other end of the tunnel,” Cook said. “If you want to shoot Hector between the eyes and drag him into the United States by his hang-downs, go for it. Just don’t tell me about it ahead of time.”

That was what Faroe wanted to hear.

“Deniability,” he said, saluting Cook. “It’s the major reason St. Kilda exists. You’ve got it. But we have a problem.”

“Just one?” Cook said acidly.

“Hector wants me where he can see me on this side of the line,” Faroe said.

“Do you think he suspects a trap?” Steele asked while Cook was still processing the possible meanings of Faroe’s words.

“No. He just doesn’t trust me unless he can see me.”

“Smart dude,” Cook said. He looked at Steele. “Can any of your other people handle the job down south?”

“No,” Faroe said instantly.

“What?” Cook demanded. “You got a clone I don’t know about?”

“No, but now that this is officially a federal case, I won’t put St. Kilda operatives into a situation that could cost them their lives or their freedom.”

“Hey, look,” Cook said. “I told you I’m not going to ask what your ops might do on the other side. Ain’t my jurisdiction. Ain’t my problem.”

“You can promise immunity all you want,” Faroe said, “but it’s up to the director, the AG, and a mixed batch of judges to keep your promise.”

Cook didn’t look happy, but he didn’t argue. “The Ambassador told me what happened to you sixteen years ago.”

“Then you know why I don’t trust the system, and why I won’t have any more St. Kilda ops on your record as players.”

“So you’re planning to call off the southern end of the operation?” Cook asked.

“I didn’t say anything about anything. All I want from you is a ten-foot ladder and size twelve running shoes.”

Cook looked at Steele. “Is he for real?”

“He ran the fifteen hundred meters in college,” Steele said. “He still runs it.”

Grace wrapped her hand around Faroe’s arm. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m certainly not going to tell you in front of Cook because it might just possibly maybe could involve illegal reverse entry.”

She blinked. “What?”

“Jumping over the border fence while headed south,” Faroe said. “That’s just not the way things are done on Otay Mesa. Trust me on this.”

Her lungs ached with the screams she was holding back.

Holding your breath won’t help anyone.

Breathe.

“All right,” she said. “What do you want me to do?”

He smiled slowly. “Things that are still illegal in some states.”

Grace didn’t know she could laugh until she heard herself. Some of the tension gripping her eased.

Until she looked at her watch.

Breathe.

SAN YSIDRO

MONDAY, 11:15 A.M.

FAROE, GRACE, AND STEELE sat in the shadows beside the St. Kilda command center, watching. Unlike the chubasco that had drenched Ensenada and then blown on up the coast, the storm gathering in the trailer park had yet to break.

Faroe didn’t know if the clouds or the task force would cut loose first.

A pair of dark blue FBI buses, a mobile command center, and at least a dozen undercover sedans and trucks had joined the St. Kilda motor coaches in the small park. Weapons teams in Kevlar helmets and blue coveralls prowled with undercover investigators from the Rivas task force and command officers from a half dozen local, state, and federal agencies.

Alpha males and a few tight-lipped alpha females walked stiff-legged, waiting for the signal to kill or die.

“This pretty much defines a Mongolian goat-fuck,” Faroe said. “It reminds me why I left government service. Too damn many servants.”

Steele smiled. “Be proud. You’ve started a wildfire that is burning asses all the way to Washington, D.C. My last phone call was from the attorney general’s chief aide, wondering what in the name of J. Edgar Hoover we were doing by injecting ourselves into a federal investigation of the highest priority.”

“What was your answer?” Grace asked.

“I told him that several St. Kilda operators had agreed to act as confidential informants for the task force in expediting the arrest of the Mexican national who is number three on the FBI’s ten most wanted list. I also pointed out that the Justice Department regularly relies on evidence gathered by private investigators.”

“Did that make him feel all warm and squishy?” Faroe asked.

“I didn’t ask about the state of his underwear,” Steele said.

“All he wanted was deniability for the AG if something goes wrong,” Grace said.

“Precisely,” Steele said. “He also reminded me that confidential informants are not permitted to perform actual law enforcement duties.”

“Meaning?” Grace asked.

“No guns,” Faroe said, flipping the satellite phone end over end. “No boots. No badges. Those toys are reserved for sworn agents of the United States.”

“No guns, huh?” she said.

“Cross our hearts and hope to die,” Faroe said.

“That’s a grim saying,” she muttered.

“So I promise not to shoot anybody inside the United States,” Faroe said, launching the satellite phone again. “Under the United States, that’s a different matter.” He looked at Steele. “Did you really refer to me as a CI?”

“Confidential informant. It’s just a description.”

“So is shit. And that’s how agents think of snitches. Oh, excuse me. CIs.”

Faroe spun the phone upward again.

At the top of its arc, it rang.

He grabbed the phone, punched a button, and said, “Faroe.”

“Hola, asshole,” Hector said. “You know El Rey Mexican Foods warehouse at Otay?”

“I can find it.”

“Bring Franklin, the ball-breaker, and you. One hour.”

“We’ll be there. But before anything happens, I’ll need proof of life. Be ready to let us see Lane and talk to him.”

“She jus’ talk-”

“We talk to him before we give you the files or there’s no trade. ?Claro?And we hand the files to you personally. I don’t trust any of your men with the information and neither should you.”

Hector laughed. “Si, gringo. You listen.”

“I’m listening.”

Faroe concentrated, repeated back seven numbers, and waited for confirmation.

The line went hollow.

Lane punched out the call on his end. “That was Hector. The exchange is set for the warehouse of El Rey Mexican Foods, just like we hoped. I’ve got the front door code.”

“When?” Grace asked.

“One hour.” He looked at Steele. “Where are the kids?”

“Right where you wanted them, in the weeds at the border,” Steele said. “Mary is still lobbying to go over the fence with you.”

Faroe shook his head. “Not this time.” He whistled shrilly through his teeth. “Yo, Cook! You’ve got less than an hour to get to an Otay warehouse and infiltrate your shooters.”

Cook waved and started shouting orders. People began running like their feet were on fire.

Faroe stood up and headed for the beach.

“Where are you going?” Steele asked.

“I need a few minutes away from the hive.”

SAN YSIDRO

MONDAY, 11:20 A.M.

GRACE FOLLOWED FAROE THROUGH the wind and stinging grit until she stood just behind him on the beach. Distant thunder blended with the relentless pounding of storm surf. Salt spray and a foretaste of rain stole light from the air, turning morning to evening. There was no horizon, simply the wild blending of sky, sea, and storm.

“Am I part of the hive?” she asked above the wind.

Without turning away from the sea, Faroe held his hand out. “I’m thinking about Lane.”

She laced her fingers through Faroe’s hand.

“I’m thinking about the time I didn’t have with him,” Faroe said, gripping her hand. “The first time he walked, the first word he said. I’m wondering if he was like the toddler I saw in Peru, who pointed at the surf and said ‘laughing water’ and then he laughed with it. Joy. Innocence. Openness. The things Lane had to lose to survive.”

Grace didn’t say anything. She simply held Faroe’s hand.

“Then I think about all the other times I wasn’t there,” Faroe said. “The first time Lane got bloody protecting someone smaller. The first time he sucked it up and didn’t cry because crying didn’t get the job done. The first time his voice broke. The first time he looked at a girl and felt like his skin was too small.”

Grace told herself the cool moisture on her face was salt spray.

“Now Lane is as old as a lot of the soldiers in too many of the regular and irregular armies around the world,” Faroe said. “More innocent maybe-until forty-eight hours ago.”

She lifted his hand and put her cheek against it.

“I’m used to violence, to death,” Faroe said. “Not indifferent to it. Just not surprised. I can accept that I won’t see the next sunset, but not Lane. Not Lane. And there’s damn little I can do to prevent it. So damn little. So I have to trust in greed and violence, because they’re reliable weapons and innocence isn’t.” Faroe’s fingers tightened, then slid away from her grip. “So be it.”

“Can you forgive me?” Grace asked, feeling cold, watching the coming storm with eyes that didn’t see.