Hostage Zero

“You’re not seeing it, are you?” Frank pressed. “I can see it in your eyes.” He leaned in closer to the table and rested his forearms on it. “Navarro, Hastings, and my wife all worked together for a law firm with mob connections. Now, they’re all missing or dead. You say you’re a private investigator, Gail. How big a stick do you need to be hit with?”

Gail turned to Marie. “How did the police just write that off?”

She shrugged. “They had the guilty party they were after.”

“Have you ever tried to trace it all to ground?”

Marie’s expression said, Give me a break. “Of course we have. But the time for suppositions and alternative scenarios passed the moment a jury found Frank to be guilty. It takes a twelve-to-nothing vote to make that happen. In Virginia, once the jury has spoken, it takes truly incontrovertible evidence to turn things around. DNA is working for wrongly accused rape convicts, but even that can be hard to get introduced into the system. Too many political careers get harmed when a prosecutor is found to have made a mistake. Some would rather see an innocent man die than look in his eyes and apologize for countless years lost to wrongful incarceration.”

The cynical words stung. Gail had been a part of that system for long enough to know that the threads of truth within the bitterness were thick and strong.

“I think it might be even worse than you think it is, Frank,” Gail said.

His face darkened as he connected the dots for the first time. “Oh, my God.”

Gail said it out loud for both of them: “They’re all missing or dead, but you’re in prison scheduled to die, and now Jeremy is-” She stopped herself. They’d left him for dead, she didn’t say.

Frank’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Christ, they’re going to kill him, aren’t they?”

“No,” Gail said. Her tone was too emphatic for the ruse she was trying to sell. “I won’t let that happen,” she added.

Marie’s eyes narrowed. “You know something,” she said.

Gail felt her heart rate double. She’d never been a good liar; she wore her thoughts on her forehead. She stared straight into Frank Schuler’s eyes. “I think you need to have faith that Jeremy will be fine.”

Frank scowled. He started to say something, but when Marie rested her hand on his arm, he swallowed the words.

“Do you have any more questions for us?” Marie asked.

Gail knew that she’d blown the secret, but she couldn’t help but feel relieved. No one should be allowed to think that his child is in danger when it simply is not true. “No more questions,” she said. She stood.

The others stood with her.

“Thank you,” Frank said. “For whatever you’ve done. Whatever you’re going to do.”

Gail scooped her notes into her arm and shook Frank’s hand. “I think there’s an injustice under way here.”

“Welcome to our very small club,” he said.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Jonathan arrived ten minutes early.

The Maple Inn on Maple Avenue in the heart of Vienna, Virginia, had been a meeting place for spies and miscreants for decades. Known locally for its chipped floors and do-it-yourself coffee station, the Inn poured more beer than restaurants three times its size, and hauled cash in by the bucketful, one chili dog at a time. Actually, it was two chili dogs at a time, because no one had the willpower to stop after one.

Situated six and a half miles south of CIA Headquarters, the Maple Inn provided neutral ground, where known sworn enemies could occasionally sit down and discuss matters that would forever remain off the record, even as they changed the course of history. Jonathan had first come to know the place back during his days with the Unit, when his own duties occasionally required him to eavesdrop on conversations that weren’t as off the record as the participants might have thought.

He loved the food and the cheerful atmosphere, and appreciated the unofficial role it played in shaping policy and strategy. Dozens of such hangouts existed throughout the world, but this was the closest one to Fisherman’s Cove, and it was therefore a common place for him to break bread with his contacts.

As he approached across the packed parking lot, he noted the unmarked black government vehicle backed into a spot close to Maple Avenue, and knew that Wolverine had beaten him here. The beefy guy sitting behind the wheel with the pigtail wire in his ear looked none too pleased to be excluded. Jonathan thought about offering him a friendly little wave, but in the end opted for discretion. Venice would have been proud.

Jonathan pulled the door and entered, unleashing the wall of noise that was typical at lunchtime, which at the Inn ran from noon to midnight. Even though he knew where he’d find Wolverine, he made a cursory scan of the inhabitants to reassure himself that it was safe to proceed. His concerns had little to do with violence-given the clientele, if you pulled a gun in this place, you’d be torn in half by the cross-fire. What he really worried about were nosy observers with cameras.