Hostage Zero

That struck Jonathan as an odd detail to emphasize. Why deny an accusation that had not been made? “Where did you get your medical training?” he asked. It was a legitimate question, but he intentionally timed it to pull the hippie away from his anger.

“Who says I have medical training?”

“You said you knew Jeremy was drugged because of the ‘pinpoint pupils.’ Not only is that specialized knowledge, but the phrase ‘pinpoint pupils’ is sort of…esoteric.”

Harvey didn’t flinch a bit from the five-dollar word. “I was in the military a while back,” he said. “I was a medic. A good one. Saw action in both the Bushes’ wars.”

“Which branch of the service?” Jonathan started leading them toward the Hummer again.

“Marines.” Harvey glared for a few seconds, then shook his head. “No need to talk about bad times,” he said. “And who the hell are you, anyway?”

Something about the delivery-the sheer incredulity-of the question made Jonathan laugh. “Well, now, that’s complicated,” he said.

“You with the government or somethin’?”

“No.” He didn’t bother to add, not today, anyway. “Let’s just say I’m a friend.”

“Whose friend?”

They arrived at the Batmobile. “Jeremy’s certainly,” Jonathan said. “And yours, if you’ll play along.”

“Play along with what?”

“Just answer the questions as they come. You’re not the only one who saved a life today, you know?” In case the hippie’s memory had failed, Jonathan tossed a glance back toward the woods and the bodies they concealed. He noticed that Boxers was just emerging and heading their way.

“You look like government,” Harvey said.

“Actually, I’m told I look like an aging Boy Scout.”

Finally, a smile from the guy. “Yeah, that, too. But I think those guys you shot were government, too. It was the way they held themselves. The way their hair was cut.”

And the car they drove, Jonathan thought.

“At least give me a name,” Harvey said. “Somethin’ to call you.”

He hesitated. His was a world of pseudonyms and fake credentials; he didn’t like being this far out on a limb under his own name in his own backyard-almost literally. Jeremy knew who he was, though, and soon Harvey would know where he came from, so it didn’t make a lot of sense to keep unnecessary secrets. “My name’s Jonathan,” he said as Boxers approached within hearing distance. “My friends call me Digger.”

Harvey considered that for a while. “Well, Jonathan,” he said, his eyes squinting to slits, “what the hell is going on here?”

Jonathan unlocked the Hummer and opened the front and back doors on the passenger side. “You stole my line, Harvey. I wanted to be first on the record with that very same question.” He looked beyond the hippie to Boxers. “Did you get it all?”

The big guy nodded. That meant he’d recovered the spent brass from the shootings, and he’d stripped the bodies of identification.

“Good,” Jonathan said. He leaned into the truck, across the massive front seat, and into the center console, from which he removed a black box about the size of a pack of cigarettes. Turning to face Harvey he said, “I need to see your hand.”

Harvey shoved them into his pockets. “What for?”

Jonathan opened the box and displayed a flat surface that might have been an iPod but wasn’t. “I want a fingerprint from you. Just want to make sure you’re not scarier than you seem to be.”

“Fuck you.”

Boxers loomed over the man. “Watch your mouth, friend,” he growled. “The kid doesn’t need that kind of language.”

When Boxers wanted to look intimidating, even the toughest of men cowered. Harvey Rodriguez was nowhere near the toughest of men. He withdrew his hand and held it out flat. It was trembling.

“Thank you,” Jonathan said. He took the hippie’s forefinger and pressed it against the tiny screen, and then repeated the process for his thumb. After verifying that the images were clear, he pressed S END. Within minutes, Venice would begin the process of matching the prints to people.

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” he said. “Now I want you to climb into the backseat here, while Jeremy rides up front with Boxers.”

The big guy shot a furious glare at the sound of his real name. Jonathan ignored it.

“Why?” Harvey asked.

“Because I asked you to?”

“Where am I going?”

“Where Boxers takes you.” He paused for a smile. “Harvey, you’re safe, okay? You’re no longer in any danger.”

“What about my stuff?”

“It’ll keep,” Jonathan assured.

“Everything I own is out there.”

Jonathan cocked his head and let the words hang, hoping that Harvey would hear the nonsense of his own words. “You think those two guys are the last ones?” he asked. “When they don’t show up to wherever they’re supposed to be, don’t you think there’ll be more? I don’t think you want to be around when they arrive.”

Understanding bloomed in Harvey’s eyes. “People are gonna think I did that,” he said. “Whether it’s those guys’ friends or just some hiker, somebody’s gonna walk by and see those corpses, and they’re gonna think I’m the one who offed them.”

“No, they won’t,” Jonathan said.

“Of course they will.”