Elizabeth Lowell - The Wrong Hostage

“But-” Franklin said.

“Later,” Faroe interrupted. “Now it’s quiet time.”

He drove a slow circle around the square, blank warehouse, checking concealment spots and potential countersurveillance locations. The place looked abandoned, but there were more than twenty federal agents within a hundred yards.

And there were three St. Kilda operators facedown somewhere in the rows of the strawberry field that lay between the warehouse and the border fence.

The only sign of the surveillance team was a faintly glittering puddle of broken glass just outside one of the warehouse’s rear doors. Someone had used a silent pellet gun to break the glass housing on the automatic light inside. More than once, Faroe had done the same kind of thing for the same reason.

He pulled up in the dark shadows of a ten-foot-high oleander hedge and watched a border patrol Suburban cruise slowly by on the dirt road immediately adjacent to the twelve-foot boundary fence. The vehicle slowed even more, then stopped. The driver lowered his window and peered through the rain at the field.

Damn, Faroe thought. He must have spotted a movement.

Faroe leaned over Grace’s breasts. “Which mutt forgot to tell the border patrol that there’s an operation going down here?”

Static popped from the radio on Faroe’s belt.

Message received.

The border agent opened his door and stepped out. Obviously he was taking a better look at the rain-swept field a hundred feet away. He stepped off the roadway, an agent on the way to flush a band of illegal immigrants.

Then the man stopped and reached for his belt radio.

“Yeah, Cook,” Faroe said against Grace’s shirt. “Hector probably has someone watching from the other side, so tell the border patrol to haul ass out of here like he just got a hot call on Dairy Mart Road.”

The border agent held the radio to his face long enough to acknowledge. Then he tossed the radio back into the truck and climbed in. The red and blue lights on the roof snapped on. The green and white vehicle left a rooster tail of mud as the agent raced down the boundary road in the direction of Chula Vista.

“Good job,” Faroe said. He nuzzled against the transmitter. “Thanks.”

Grace took a startled breath. Then she smiled.

“Okay, Central,” Faroe said, his lips less than a half inch from her shirt. “We’re going to the warehouse now. We’ll be inside in about thirty seconds. I’ll play it loose until I make sure that nobody’s waiting. And we’ll need a sound check to make sure the body bug works inside the walls. Do you copy? Pop once.”

A single burst of static whispered from the radio on his hip.

“Did you get the inside wired for sound?” he asked.

Another pop.

“Remember,” Faroe said to Grace and Franklin, “there are TV cameras inside the warehouse, so expect Hector to be watching.”

“Can he listen, too?” she asked.

“Galindo didn’t know about any microphones, but we can’t be certain. The task force will be listening for sure, even if your wire shorts out.” Faroe pointed to the warehouse. “The rathole is in the washroom beside those offices. Knowing Hector, he’s probably got shit smeared on it to blow out the noses of customs dogs.”

“Sweet,” Grace said.

“That’s our Hector.”

Faroe let the vehicle coast silently across the blacktop to the side door. He shut off the engine. Silence built around them.

“You have that thing Harley gave you?” he asked Grace softly.

“Yes.”

“Remember when to use it?”

“What are you two talking about?” Franklin demanded.

“The gun in my purse,” she said.

“They gave you a gun? Why didn’t I get one?”

“It didn’t go with the handcuffs,” she said.

Franklin slumped back against the seat.

“Stop worrying about all the ways I can screw up,” she said to Faroe. “I know the rules of engagement. I do nothing unless someone is in immediate danger of being killed. But if things fall apart, I won’t stand by and scream. I’ll start shooting and save the screaming for later.”

Faroe’s radio popped once. He smiled. “Dead or alive, just like the posters said?”

“Exactly like that.”

Faroe breathed against her neck. “Don’t say anything you wouldn’t want to appear in an after-action report.”

“I’m just stating the obvious,” Grace said. “Hector is an old-fashioned fool. He doesn’t think women are a personal threat. I’ll have a better chance of getting a shot at him than all the ninjas in the parking lot.”

“Are you a good shot?” Faroe asked.

“From six inches who isn’t?”

“Don’t do anything to make Hector mad,” Franklin said nervously.

“I was thinking more like dead,” she said.

“Uh, Cook, you’d better back up that real-time tape and start over again,” Faroe said, pulling out his shirt to cover the radio.

A single pop.

Faroe reached for the door handle. “Showtime.”

OTAY MESA

MONDAY, 12:05 P.M.

IGNORING THE RAIN, FAROE got out of the Mercedes, opened the back door, and dragged Franklin roughly out.

“Hey, watch it!” Franklin said.

Faroe’s response was another snake-fast blow to the corner of Franklin’s mouth.

Grace made a low sound but didn’t say a word. She just shut the door behind her and waited in the rain for whatever came next.

“Let it bleed,” Faroe said softly to Franklin.

“No more,” Franklin said, “or I’ll-”

“You’re lucky I don’t gut you for what you did to Lane,” Faroe cut in. “Shut up and count your blessings.”

Franklin’s eyes showed white in the rain-washed gloom.

Faroe shoved.

A stumble, a lurch, and Franklin was on his way. He staggered over to the concrete slab that was the threshold of the warehouse and stood numbly in the broken glass of another neutralized security light. If he noticed the rain, he didn’t show it.

Blood ran red, then pink, down his face to his no-longer-white shirt.

Grace didn’t try to shield herself from the rain. She waited while Faroe punched a seven-digit combination into the electronic sentry that controlled the door.

The bolt released with a sharp metallic snap.

Faroe swung the door open, went in low, and felt around until he found a light switch. From the ceiling thirty feet overhead, bright lights blazed on, dividing the warehouse into pools of light and darkness.

Nothing moved.

He looked around slowly, twice, then waved Franklin and Grace inside and closed the door.

The huge warehouse was so empty it echoed. Toward the front, a half dozen wooden pallets stacked with cases of a popular brand of canned Mexican chilies made a backdrop for the front offices. Toward the rear, where the doors were locked and wired to alarms, another half dozen pallets loaded with canvas sacks of pinto beans and rice were lined up as a screen in front of another small suite of offices. In between was more than a hundred feet of nothing but concrete floor and thirty-foot metal ceiling.

Faroe counted four closed-circuit television cameras on wall mounts positioned to cover the entire interior of the warehouse. Red status lights burned on each camera, a warning that they were transmitting to a control center.

The camera mounted above the warehouse door swiveled to follow Faroe’s movement. He pulled Grace close and breathed down her blouse.

“Transmitter check.”

The radio on Faroe’s belt beneath his shirt popped twice.

“I’m going off the air,” he told Grace’s bra.

Two more pops.

Faroe kissed her fast and hard and deep. She kissed him back the same way.

Then he turned his back to the closest camera, reached under his shirt, and switched off the radio. He walked toward the sandbagged defensive position that had been created by pallets of beans and rice.

Except for the soft drumroll of rain on the roof, the place was silent.

The offices were empty.

The door to the bathroom was locked.

Unless there was somebody already inside the bathroom, the warehouse was deserted.

“Anybody home?” Faroe called out.

Silence.

Pulling his cell phone off his belt, he punched in numbers as he walked back to Grace and Franklin.

“No noise,” he said to them.

He punched the send button and listened for the telltale sounds of another phone ringing somewhere in the warehouse.

Silence.

After two rings, Hector answered. His voice was slurred, like he was loaded.

Good news and bad news in one, Faroe thought grimly.

“We’re in the warehouse,” Faroe said. “Nobody’s home.”

“We close, pendejo.” Hector chuckled.

“Put Lane on.”

“You give me Franklin with the files.”

It wasn’t a question.

“With my blessings,” Faroe said.

“You have him?”

“You’re looking at the TV displays, what do you think?” Faroe said impatiently. Then he said to Franklin, “Wave to the cameras.”

Sullenly Franklin lifted his cuffed hands toward the nearest camera.

“Now put Lane on,” Faroe said.

“I no like orders. I am el jefe.”

“You’re in charge the moment I see you and the kid,” Faroe said. “Until then, we’re just two men bullshitting over the cell phone.”

Over the invisible link that reached up to a communications satellite in space and back down six hundred feet to the south, Faroe heard a moist noise as Hector sucked on a Mexican cigarette and drew the cocaine smoke into his lungs.

Enjoy it, Faroe thought. With a little luck, it will be your last.

“Okay,” Hector said, his tongue thick. “You talk to Lane. Then I send Jaime. If he like what he see, we make next step.”

The connection rattled hollowly for a moment, then Lane’s voice came over.

“Mom, Dad?”

“It’s Joe,” Faroe said. “You okay?”

“I guess.” Lane’s voice sounded shaky. “At least I, uh, have everything I left with.”

“Got you. Can Hector hear me?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Watch your mom. Don’t take your eyes off of her. Okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Do what she tells you to do,” Faroe said. “Don’t pay any attention to your dad. Just your mom. Got that?”

Lane started to say something, but his words turned into a sharp cry of pain.

“Don’ worry, gringo,” Hector said. “He jus’ fine. I show him manners, tha’s all.”

Faroe’s grip on the cell phone made his knuckles white. “Send in your man.”

He looked at his watch and started counting.

OTAY MESA

MONDAY, 12:11 P.M.

FOR WHAT SEEMED LIKE an eternity, Faroe, Grace, and Franklin stood in the glare of the overhead lights. By Faroe’s watch, the eternity was only one minute and forty-nine seconds.

Faint sounds, metal on metal, muffled.

Fifteen seconds.

A toilet flushed.

“Who will it be?” Grace asked under her breath.

“Jaime,” Faroe said. “Hector has to send someone he trusts, someone who already knows both ends of the tunnel. That means family. With people like Hector, blood is all that counts.”

And blood is what screws them every time.

Faroe would have felt sorry for Hector if the man hadn’t earned a slow death fifty times over.

The doorknob of the bathroom squeaked.

The bathroom door swung open. Jaime Rivas-blow-dried and splendid in an Italian suit and loafers without socks-strolled out of the darkened room, zipping up like he’d just finished filling a urinal. In his left hand he carried a silver-plated semiautomatic pistol.

Jaime never took his eyes off Faroe.

“Hola, Jaime,” Faroe called out. “?Que pasa?”

“Shut up,” Jaime said. “I don’t like to chat as much as my uncle does.”

When Jaime was ten feet away, he snapped his pistol up to eye level and stared over the sight into Ted Franklin’s face.

“You stupid son of a bitch,” Jaime snarled. “I ought to whack you right now.”

Franklin made a primal sound of fear.

“You kill him and nobody is happy,” Faroe said. “Especially Carlos Calderon.”

Jaime stared through the pistol sight at the patch of skin between Franklin’s eyes. “Where’s the file?”

“It’s on a hard drive, pendejo,” Faroe said. “All decrypted and ready to go.”