Elizabeth Lowell - The Wrong Hostage

Deadly.

“Stop here,” Hector said. “Shut up. If you good, I good. You bad, I fock you mother and you father and you. Then I kill todo el mundo. ?Claro?”

The sound Lane made was a growl of fear and anger.

Grace gritted her teeth against the scream clawing to get out of her throat.

Hurry, Joe. Lane needs you.

I need you.

I’m not nearly as good at this as you are.

Silently she backed away from the bathroom door where light spilled out brightly. Holding the pistol against her thigh, she walked quickly through separate pools of light and ribbons of darkness. She stopped near the back wall of the hangar, where pallets cast dark shadows. Seventy feet of empty darkness and vertical tunnels of light separated her from the bathroom.

She turned sideways, keeping the gun out of sight.

From inside the bathroom came the hollow ringing sound of someone climbing a metal ladder. The black muzzle of a heavy-bore semiautomatic pistol rose up out of the floor. The weapon was equipped with a black device mounted like a sight on top of the barrel. A pencil-thin beam of red light reached out. Wherever the beam touched, a bullet could instantly follow.

Hector’s black hair appeared at the mouth of the tunnel. He stuck his head up slowly, eyes glinting, like a rat coming out of a sewer.

The red light lanced out across the emptiness, piercing the cones of light, a red finger that touched first Grace, then the shadows and spaces behind her.

She thought about shooting Hector, but the range was extreme, the pistol unfamiliar, and Hector could have left someone down with Lane, a gun at his head.

“Where is my son?” she demanded.

Her voice carried clearly through the warehouse.

Hector climbed out of the tunnel and pointed his heavy black pistol at her. The red light danced in her eyes, then came to rest on her collarbone.

“Where is Faroe?” Hector asked.

“He didn’t feel like hanging around waiting for you to kill him.”

“He leave you?”

“Yes.”

Hector shook his head. “You no have good luck with men.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“Where is Franklin?”

“You’ll get him when I get my son.”

Hector walked into the warehouse with a faintly dragging step. Using the laser beam, he checked out the stacks of cartons and piles of red stone pots. Satisfied that no one was hiding there, he walked toward Grace.

The red dot settled on her breast.

“Maybe I kill you now,” Hector said. “Then Franklin. And the boy.”

Has Jaime already killed Joe? Grace thought. Then she shoved the thought away. She had to stay calm.

For Lane.

Hector kept coming toward her, flashing in and out of darkness like a ghost.

Fifty feet. Forty feet. Thirty.

Twenty.

Grace turned fully toward him and assumed a shooting stance. Reflected light slid over her dark pistol like water. “You’ll be the first to die.”

Hector grinned and kept walking. “You shoot good?”

“Yes.”

She centered the black blade of the pistol sight just south of Hector’s shiny belt buckle.

He chuckled, stopped, and lowered his pistol. “Basta. Enough.”

“It’s not enough until Lane appears here. Unharmed.”

“Where is that burro Franklin? I see him on TV, but no more.”

“He’s here. Where is Lane?”

Grace’s pistol didn’t waver.

Hector shook his head. “Ah, senora, Judge, I no like this. You demand too much.”

Pistol at his side, he took one step, then another, staring past Grace, trying to see into the shadows.

There was just enough light for him to see her finger taking up slack on the trigger.

He stopped. “You tough, you know?”

“No closer” was all she said.

Hector gathered his shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. “I no like orders from a woman.”

“Then consider the orders from the gun, not the woman,” Grace said.

“Aiee, such a ball-breaker.” He laughed. “I get Lane. You get Franklin. But if it go bad, the boy die first.”

“Nothing will go bad. You want Ted. I want Lane. End of negotiation.”

Hector dropped his chin and glared at her. “I no believe Faroe leave you. He is here, escondido, to kill me.”

“Joe Faroe wants Lane alive more than he wants you dead.”

Hector shook his head.

The pistol Grace held felt like it weighed fifty pounds. Cold sweat trickled down over her ribs. Joe, where are you?

Hurry!

“Joe is Lane’s biological father,” Grace said roughly. “That’s why Ted gave Lane to you as a hostage. It didn’t matter to Ted.”

Hector’s eyes glinted. “This is true?”

“As true as death. Joe and I won’t double-cross you for any amount of money. We want our son alive and well.”

Hector glared at her, then he spat in disgust. He dug a Marlboro pack out of his shirt pocket with his free hand, shook loose a cocaine-laced cigarette, and took it out with his teeth. He put away the pack, dug a lighter out of his jeans pocket, and struck a flame.

The movements were ritualized, including the deep breath full of cocaine smoke he drew into his lungs. A shimmering haze of pleasure and power swept through him.

“We do it the gun’s way,” Hector said. “This time.”

He walked back across the concrete to the bathroom and disappeared down the hole.

TIJUANA

MONDAY, 12:23 P.M.

IGNORING THE PAIN THAT jolted through his arm every time his feet struck the ground, Faroe ran down the long tunnel. He dismissed the trail of blood flung from his slashed left calf and his right arm. A man could bleed a lot and still function if he wanted to bad enough.

Faroe wanted to.

The single strand of overhead electrical wire blossomed every hundred feet with a bare lightbulb. The lighting might have been primitive, but the walls were expertly shored with timbers. Wherever the miners had struck loose soil, the walls were lined with sheets of plywood to hold back the dirt. The footing was irregular, humped up with rocks and dirt.

The only sound Faroe heard was his own breathing-deep, harder than he wanted, and better than he had any right to expect. He was losing too much blood.

About every hundred yards, he ran past service rooms, narrow little chambers with a ceiling just high enough for a man to stand erect and repair the blowers that brought air down to the tunnel. He was reaching the last of those chambers when he heard Hector Rivas cursing as he climbed down a metal ladder.

Faroe flattened himself into the tiny service area, forced himself to breathe lightly, and eased his head forward just enough to see down the last hundred feet of tunnel.

Hector.

Lane!

For an instant, relief loosened Faroe’s knees.

There was a gag tied across Lane’s mouth and his hands were cuffed in front of him around the metal ladder.

So near.

And way too far for a pistol shot.

Not when he was shooting wrong-handed, light-headed, with an unfamiliar gun. Surprise was his only hope. If he crept close enough, he could put a bullet in Hector’s head.

A head shot was the only sure way to save Lane.

And Faroe had to be certain, because one shot would be all he got. For that level of certainty, he couldn’t be more than thirty feet from Hector.

So Faroe waited, breathing shallowly despite the aching of his lungs. Sweat cooled, but not the hot slide of blood down his right arm and into his left shoe.

OTAY MESA

MONDAY, 12:24 P.M.

HECTOR’S SHOVE SENT LANE stumbling back into the dirt wall of the tunnel. He sat down so hard his handcuffs clanged against the ladder.

Lane hardly noticed. He was still reeling from the conversation he’d just heard echoing down from above.

Joe is Lane’s biological father. That’s why Ted gave Lane to you as a hostage. It didn’t matter to Ted.

This is true?

As true as death. Joe and I won’t double-cross you for any amount of money. We want our son alive and well.

Lane wondered if his mother was lying.

And he was afraid she wasn’t.

It explained too much. Answered too many questions. And turned his world upside down all over again.

“Don’ move,” Hector ordered.

Lane didn’t.

Hector laid his pistol down on an overturned barrel and dug in his pocket. Then he hauled Lane to his feet and unlocked one of the handcuffs.

Lane ripped his gag off with his free hand and coughed. “Water.”

Hector ignored Lane and slapped the open cuff on his own left wrist. Metal clicked as the cuff closed, binding the boy to him. Hector picked up his pistol, shoved it into his waistband, and turned to Lane.

“You fight me, you die,” Hector said. He jerked his head toward the ladder. “Go.”

One-handed, Lane started fumbling up the ladder. He felt Hector’s breath against his bare calf as the Mexican climbed after him.

OTAY MESA

MONDAY, 12:25 P.M.

GRACE HAD JUST FINISHED checking that Franklin was still hidden behind the pallets when she heard scuffing sounds from the bathroom. Quickly she walked to where she’d stood before and raised the pistol into shooting position. She was sixty feet from the bathroom, much too far for a shot, but it was the only place where she could watch both Franklin and Hector.

Her heart soared when she saw Lane’s head.

And sank when she realized that he was cuffed to Hector.

I’ll have to get close to shoot. Very close.

Six inches.

She doubted Hector was that foolish.

Hector crowded out of the hole behind Lane so quickly that the boy tripped. Using the handcuffs and a casual strength that shocked Grace, Hector levered Lane right into the line of fire from her pistol.

“Mom!”

Using the cuffed hand, Hector backhanded Lane. “Shut up.”

Forcing herself to keep the pistol steady, she spoke urgently to Lane. “Do as he says. It’s almost over. Soon you’ll be free.”

It cost every bit of Grace’s strength, but she kept the pistol steady.

Trip again, Lane. Go down hard and fast. Stay down.

Please, God.

Joe, where are you?

Are you even alive?

Hector laughed at Grace as he strode away from the bathroom, closing the distance between them. “Now you take my orders, yes?”

She drew a hidden breath and sighted past her own son’s head, letting Hector see the deadly black eye of her gun.

He slowed, then stopped ten feet from her.

“Unlock Lane,” she said.

“Give me Franklin.”

“Not until Lane is free.”

“How I know Franklin is here?” Hector said.

“Speak up, Ted.”

Silence.

She glanced in the direction of Franklin’s hiding place. He had a look of terror on his face.

“Say something,” she snarled, “or I’ll shoot you myself.”

“Dad?” Lane asked, not able to stop himself. “Did you really come for me?”

The sound Franklin made wasn’t a word.

Hector pointed his pistol in the direction of Franklin’s voice. The bloodred laser beam probed the shadows.

Franklin saw the light, made another throttled sound, and shrank from the beam.

Grace sensed as much as saw a movement in the bathroom. Silently, slowly, like a bloody ghost, Faroe rose up out of the hole in the floor. His right arm was covered with blood. There was a gun in his left hand.

The wrong hand.

Dear God.

Grace’s eyes locked with Faroe’s. He jerked his head to one side, warning her not to give him away. Instantly she shifted her glance.

Dragging Lane, Hector was walking toward Franklin’s hiding place, getting farther away from her and Faroe with every step.

“Stop!” Grace shouted.

She took several steps toward Hector, hoping to distract him from Faroe.

Hector swung his pistol. The red dot of death settled between Grace’s eyes.

“Let Lane go,” she said, ignoring the red beam. “Now.”

“No,” Hector said angrily. “Franklin!”

Twenty feet away, Grace kept her pistol aimed at Hector’s face and wished to hell Harley had given her a pistol with a laser sight. Hector was using Lane as a shield.