Hostage Zero

Jonathan placed a reassuring hand on Harvey’s shoulder, and as he reached, the hippie flinched. “Trust me, Harvey,” he said. “I know how to take care of these things.”

Lightbulb moment. Harvey got it.

“Now, please get into the vehicle. And please behave yourself when you’re in there.”

He hesitated, but finally climbed inside.

“The front seat’s for you,” he said cheerily to Jeremy.

The boy’s hand clamped tighter.

“Jeremy,” Jonathan said. The boy kept staring straight.

“He okay?” Boxers asked.

“Not now he’s not,” Jonathan said. “Jeremy, please look at me.”

The boy’s face pitched up.

“It’s okay for you not to be okay right now. You’ve been through a lot, but you’re safe now. My big friend here, Mr. Boxers, is going to take you back to Fisherman’s Cove. He’s going to take you to see Father Dom. You like Father Dom, right?”

Jeremy’s nod was barely perceptible.

“Nothing can happen to you now, understand? It’s been a terrible couple of days, but you’re completely safe now. I need you to get into the truck.”

“Are you coming, too?” Jeremy asked. His voice was a raspy whisper.

Jonathan was glad to hear him finally speak. “I’ll be along in an hour or so. Maybe two. I have some things I need to take care of.”

“What kind of things?”

Jonathan exchanged glances with Boxers. “Stuff that doesn’t involve you. Now, be a good kid and hop into the truck. Boxers will drive carefully for you.”

It took another two minutes of negotiation, but when it was done, Jeremy was strapped into the front passenger seat, and Jonathan closed both doors.

“You sure you don’t want me to take care of this for you?” Boxers said when they were shut off from prying ears. “We can trade places.”

Jonathan would rather walk through fire than deal with Jeremy’s anger and sorrow for much longer. “No, I’m good,” he said. “Just take them right to the mansion. Call Dom ahead of time and see if he can be there waiting.”

“And your scraggly friend?”

“Find a room for him. Make him comfortable while we sort him out.”

Boxers handed over the keys he’d pulled from one of the dead men’s pockets. “Let me know if you have any trouble,” he said, and then he walked around to the driver’s side.

Jonathan stripped to his boxer shorts to load the bodies into the Chrysler’s trunk. He felt more than a little ridiculous, but if someone wandered up in the next ten minutes or so, embarrassment would be the least of his problems.

Among the biggest surprises of this day that was filled with surprises was the fact that the gunmen-he’d sent their prints off to Venice as well-had already lined the interior of the trunk with plastic. How could you not smile at the irony of that?

Then the despicability of what they were planning came back to him, and the ironic smile dissolved to anger. These assholes’ mission had been to stash the body of a dead child in here. One of the House’s children, which made him one of Jonathan’s children. How dare they? Hell had two new residents tonight, and he suspected that even Satan held child killers in contempt.

He’d moved the Chrysler as close to the bodies as he could without running over them so that once he had the corpses hoisted onto his shoulders it would be as short a walk as possible. Both of the dead guys had been in good shape. The muscle tissue made them a little heavy for their size, but the lack of flab made them less slippery and therefore easier to flop into the trunk bed. He took perverse pleasure in the way the heads collided when he deposited the second body.

With arms and legs all tucked in, Jonathan shut the lid and looked himself over. Blood streaked his hands, chest and arms. It caked his fingernails. He could only imagine what his face looked like. It wouldn’t do. He wandered to the hippie’s tent, rummaged through his stuff, and found the bar of soap he knew had to be there somewhere. With the Ivory in one hand and his pistol in the other, partially concealed by a purloined towel that he’d draped over his forearm, he trudged through the tall grass all the way down to the river.

He kept the bath to only a few minutes. Part of him continued to worry about being caught in such a compromising condition, but all of him worried about God only knew how many microbes were invading his body from the waters of the Potomac.

Clean, dry, and redressed, he climbed behind the wheel of the Chrysler and dropped it into gear. When he’d put a couple of miles between himself and the crime scene, he slid his cell phone out of his pocket and pressed the button for the voice command. “Call Niles Decker,” he said.

The man he was looking for answered on the third ring. Jonathan told him what he wanted.

Decker sighed. “I’ll meet you at the office,” he said. “Drive straight to the back.”

“See you in thirty,” Jonathan said, and he closed the phone.

It only took him twenty-five.