Elizabeth Lowell - The Wrong Hostage

Up to now it had worked.

“Go on,” Steele said.

“The government claimed that the Calderon suit was nothing but a fishing expedition,” she said tiredly. “They argued that turning over the report would reveal the names of dozens of informants. As a defense lawyer, an advocate, I demolished that idea. We won. The report was turned over. Carlos said he was vindicated and there was no point in pursuing the suit.”

“The informants died,” Steele said, watching her.

Grace closed her eyes. She’d always been afraid that might have happened. Now she knew.

She swallowed bile, swallowed again.

“When I saw Carlos standing by while a notorious drug lord threatened my son’s life,” she said hoarsely, “I understood that I’d been played for the fool I was. The monster has always been in the closet and all my denial and shoving against the door won’t keep him from getting out.”

Steele was silent a moment. Then he looked down at his own legs, wasted to sticks, useless.

“For what it’s worth,” he said, “you aren’t the only person in the room to have been fooled by someone like Carlos Calderon.”

Her hands clenched. “I’ve spent my life climbing out of places where criminals strut and cops tiptoe. I won’t be dragged back. I won’t let them have my son. Right is right and wrong is wrong and common citizens shouldn’t live in fear. That’s why I dedicated myself to the law.”

Silence stretched before Steele sighed. “I thought diplomatic immunity would deflect the small-caliber bullet that my trusted translator fired into my spine. My mistake. My payment.”

Tension vibrated through Grace. “Ted is my mistake. Yet my son is paying.”

“That’s the real reason you’re here, isn’t it? To right the wrong being done to Lane? You don’t care if your husband is a criminal working with criminals or an honest businessman making honest mistakes.”

“All that matters is Lane. If I have to deal with Satan-” Again, Grace shut up. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that Joe Faroe is the devil.” Even if he is.

The phone started ringing again. Another one chimed in.

Steele ignored them. “Your attitude is very much that of the safely legal citizen. That’s why St. Kildans don’t wear uniforms or talk to reporters. It’s one of the reasons that professional counterterrorists hide their identity by wearing black ski masks. They aren’t ashamed of their job, but they are targets who get tired of trying to explain to people living in the black-and-white world that reality is a thousand shades of gray, yet some things are still worth killing or dying for.”

“I-”

Steele kept talking. “St. Kildans work among the shades of gray. All of them. The shadow world. All the places where good citizens don’t want to go, don’t want to know, don’t want even to think about.”

“I know.”

“But do you know that when reality rears its complex head-and it always does-citizens, politicians, and journalists race to blame the messenger? Mr. Faroe has already felt the impact of just such an exercise in civic piety.”

She nodded unhappily. “I first met Joe about sixteen years ago, just before he was arrested and sent to federal prison.”

Days before, to be exact. Time enough to fall in love and then watch him turn on me, screaming accusations in gutter Spanish while I cowered beyond the reach of TV cameras and reporters in a shadowy apartment hall.

The flash of steel handcuffs and metal badges was something she’d never forget.

So was the savage hatred in Faroe’s face.

She’d done what he wanted-she’d run and kept on running, never looking back, staying the hell out of his life.

Until now.

Ruthlessly Grace stuffed the memories down and locked them in the deepest closet of her mind. It had been sixteen years. She needed Faroe. If he still hated her, she’d just have to suck it up and take it. Lane was all that mattered.

Steele waited while Grace looked somewhere only she could see. He needed to know her state of mind. He wouldn’t find out anything useful if his own mouth was open.

“I’ve kept track of Joe through the same contacts who got me a copy of the CIA dossier on St. Kilda Consulting,” Grace said tightly. “When Joe got out of prison he went to work for you. Since then he’s been involved in activities in southern Europe, Asia, Iran, and most often, South America. Some of those activities have been termed ‘morally ambiguous.’”

“Does that bother you?”

“Yesterday, yes. Today, I don’t care. Today all that matters is my son. Joe Faroe is the only man I’ll trust with Lane’s life.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Why?” she asked, startled. “Don’t you trust Joe?”

“I trust him far more than either of you can imagine.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“A week ago Joe Faroe was exactly what you said-St. Kilda’s best operative, especially in Latin American kidnap situations.”

“And now?”

“He retired.”

“Try again,” Grace shot back. “He’s way too young for retirement.”

Steele smiled sadly. “Where Joseph has spent his years, time isn’t the best measurement of age. His last assignment was particularly difficult. Among other unpleasant things that occurred, he was forced to kill a good friend who was trying to kill him.”

Grace made a low sound.

“Despite the bloodshed,” Steele continued, “the operation itself was a success. Forty percent of the money recovered came back to St. Kilda, as per the contract. Joe took his five percent, told me to go to hell, and walked out. I haven’t heard from him since. Knowing him, by now he could be anywhere on earth.”

“Knowing St. Kilda Consulting,” Grace said, “I’d bet you know exactly where Joe is.”

“To what point?” Steele asked. “He’s never been motivated by money. The idealism that led him to be an agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration was kicked out of him in federal prison. What does that leave you for leverage?”

“Pride. I can clear his name.”

And I should have done it before now. I should have believed in him and searched and…

But she’d been married then, the mother of a young child.

Now she was divorced and fighting for that child’s life.

“How can you do that?” Steele asked.

“I have the rest of the story, the part that never made the news. Joe was set up and sent to prison because he wouldn’t hand over two men beneath him as politically convenient international scapegoats. I have proof, and I have the political clout to arrange a pardon. How’s that for leverage?”

Steele raised his eyebrows. “It will be interesting to find out. Your driver will give you a single-use cell phone. It will ring as soon as I’m certain of a few things.”

Grace hesitated. “Please don’t tell Joe my name ahead of time.”

Surprise flickered over Steele’s face. “Why?”

“He hates me.”

“Interesting,” Steele murmured. “You’re the first.”

“What?”

“Joe Faroe is a man of few emotions. Prison taught him that. How do you feel toward him?”

“He was the worst mistake of my life.”

And the best.

But that was something Steele didn’t need to know.

OCEANSIDE, CALIFORNIA

SUNDAY, 9:55 A.M.

JOE FAROE WAS HEAD down in the bilge of the TAZ, mixing epoxy and watching the resin slowly change color. The oak of the hull where the trap would be concealed was fifty years old. It had been exposed to the waters of two oceans and the pounding of countless waves. Matching the smuggler’s trap to the salt-aged and oil-stained wood in the bilge was more art than science.

Faroe had been working on it most of the night and into the day.

In the glare of the halogen work light, the wood was brown, then gray, then brown again. The cuts he’d made to receive the trap revealed fresh, bright wood. He’d dyed the rib from Tijuana with several shades of stain. Now he had to match the color of the epoxy exactly or he would have to start all over.

Again.

Naturally, the moment the epoxy was ready, the satellite phone rang.

Other than cursing, he ignored the interruption. With a foam brush he painted glue onto the ends and the bottom of the trap.

Above him, in the stateroom, the phone rang a third time, then a fourth. The answering device snapped on and played Faroe’s new greeting.

“If you reached this number by mistake, hang up. If you didn’t reach this number by mistake, hang up.”

The caller punched in a digital code that overrode the message. Only three people knew that code. Faroe didn’t want to talk to any of them.

He finished applying the epoxy and eased the box into position in the beam.

“Joseph, I need to speak with you. Immediately.”

When Steele chose, he could put the bite of command into his aristocratic voice.

Faroe hesitated.

Then he went back to work with a pad of steel wool, rubbing the excess epoxy off the seam.

“If you don’t pick up the call,” Steele said, “I’ll send an Oceanside cop out to your address to conduct a welfare contact. You’ve been sick, you know, and I’m very concerned that you might be lying helpless, ill, unable to reach the phone.”

Faroe cursed again, louder this time. He tried to scrape away the last of the excess epoxy but it had already hardened. Now he would need a belt sander to finish the job.

He rolled over, sat up, and punched the talk button on the cellular phone. “No.”

Steele ignored him. “I have a message from an old friend. U.S. District Judge Grace Silva.”

Faroe chalked up the hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach to surprise. It sure didn’t have anything to do with the flood of memories that threatened to choke him. Some of the memories were the best of his life. Some were the worst.

He didn’t know which kind hurt more.

“Joseph?”

“I knew a Grace Silva back when I was with DEA. She wasn’t a judge then. She was a federal defense attorney. A good one. Too damn good.”

And once, long ago, he’d believed that she’d set him up to be dragged through the gutter with the rest of the criminal slime for the entertainment of the TV cameras.

“It’s the same woman,” Steele said. “She wants to retain the services of St. Kilda.”

“What does a politically prominent federal judge need with a bunch of private, and therefore unsavory, consultants?”

“I’m sure she’ll tell you. She’s approaching your dock as we speak.”

The feeling in Joe’s stomach went from hollow to something more complex. “Steele, what do you want with a tight-assed feminist and a very respectable party hack who has been rewarded with a position on the federal bench?”

“Is that how you think of her?”

“It’s how she comes across in the newspapers.”

And Faroe had been a fool for lingering over the articles, staring at the pictures, trying to find the ghost of the most explosively passionate woman he’d ever known.

“St. Kilda occasionally needs the services of powerful politicians,” Steele said.

“So service her.”

“Unfortunately, she refuses to be serviced by anyone but you.”

Faroe knew he was being baited. Steele was a master at that. But he’d never cast a lure like Grace Silva into the pool.

“I got the feeling the two of you were once very close,” Steele said.

“So is a snake to his skin. Doesn’t keep him from shedding it.”

“Good. The judge made it quite clear that her interest was business only. She has already wire-transferred two hundred and fifty thousand dollars into St. Kilda’s accounts.”

Faroe went to the refrigerator that was built into the stateroom bulkhead. He looked at the cold beer but took a bottle of spring water instead.

“Silence isn’t a useful answer,” Steele said.

“I don’t need the money.”

“Judge Silva said that she was in a position to offer you a presidential pardon.”

Faroe drank down half the water before he said, “I don’t care whether I can vote or not, and I don’t need to worry anymore about carrying a firearm. So I’m pretty much okay with my status as a convicted felon.”

“Surely you’d prefer to have your name cleared.”

“Actually, my spotted past makes a pretty good pickup line. Woman asks me what I do, I tell her I’m a convicted felon. The dull ones run. The rest move closer.”

Steele made an impatient sound. “Judge Silva must have gone to considerable trouble to unearth the story of your unfair arrest and imprisonment.”