Hostage Zero

But the rules don’t change with the size of the bully. You can’t ever afford to show weakness. What was it that Father Dom always said? Victory can be claimed, but surrender has to be offered. To Evan, it was a fancy way of saying, Die trying.

“ You kidnapped me, remember?” Evan shouted. “You can’t let me die.”

This time, as he walked toward the car door, he noticed that the henchmen seemed amused, even as Mitch clearly could think of nothing to say.

Evan planted himself back in his seat, closed the door, and fastened his seat belt.

Apparently, in the world of killers and spies, it was never allowable to meet in the same place twice, at least not within too short a time. Thus, the food court at Pentagon City was out, and Founders Park in Old Town Alexandria was in.

If Jerry Sjogren had had his way, they would have met in an underground parking garage a la All the President’s Men, but Brandy Giddings had aborted that idea before it could even take a breath. If she was going to be killed by some whack job, she wanted the murder to be witnessed by as many people as possible.

She’d followed Sjogren’s orders to the tee. Metro from the Pentagon to the Braddock Road Station, and then two taxis just in case: the first one to Reagan National Airport and then a second to the Torpedo Factory-a trendy artists’ colony located in a building on the Potomac River that had in fact manufactured torpedoes through the end of World War II. From there, it was an easy stroll to the park.

Brandy had promised herself that Sjogren would be the one made to wait this time; yet even though she arrived ten minutes late, the man was nowhere to be seen. She considered the possibility that her tardiness had pissed him off and he’d left, but then she remembered that this was his meeting, not hers.

She randomly chose an empty bench and waited to be found.

She never heard him approaching from behind.

“We playing power games now, Missy?” Sjogren boomed from a few feet away on her blind side.

“Jesus!”

Sjogren walked around to her side of the bench and sat next to her. “Being late never gives you the upper hand,” he scolded. “Just so you know. I’ve been here for forty-five minutes. I can tell you everything about everyone we can see, and I watched you arrive. You looked right at me, you know.”

She’d had no idea.

“They call it tradecraft, and if you’re going to play these spooky kinds of games, you’d do well to learn some of it.”

She looked away, stung by the rebuke. It was a little like disappointing your grandfather. Your burly homicidal grandfather.

“Besides, it’s rude to keep people waiting,” he said.

“I’ll keep it all in mind for the future,” Brandy said, struggling to recover face. “I thought you were supposed to be hunting for a homeless guy.”

“In due time. But first I thought you should know that things have gone even further to hell since last time we spoke.”

The familiar fist returned to Brandy’s stomach. She didn’t realize that it was possible to sink farther than dead bottom.

“A private investigator visited Frank Schuler today,” Sjogren went on. “They’ve connected the dots to Sammy Bell’s organization, and they know that Bruce Navarro is involved.” He recounted the details of the conversation he’d heard in the digital audio file he’d received from a contact in the Virginia Department of Corrections.

Indeed, the bottom was only the beginning. “This is unbelievable,” Brandy said. “We go through all of this, only to be taken down by some Lincoln Rhyme wannabe?”

Sjogren clearly understood the reference to the star of Jeffery Deaver’s novels. “I don’t believe I used the phrase, ‘taken down,’” he said. “I’m just reporting facts as I know them.”

He reached into his shirt pocket and produced a folded piece of paper. “I have a research project for you,” he said, handing it to Brandy. “Give me everything you can dig up on this guy.”

Brandy read the name. “Who is Jonathan Grave? Is this the investigator who visited Schuler?”

Sjogren shook his head. “No. That was a lady named Gail Bonneville, an up-and-comer in the Indiana Democratic Party until a shoot-out caused her to resign as sheriff in a little town called Samson. She left that gig to join on with that guy Grave.”

Brandy tried to give back the piece of paper. “Find out for yourself,” she said. “You seem to be doing just fine on your own.”

Sjogren let the note hover between them. “Not this guy,” he said. “I can tell you that he grew up as Jonathan Gravenow in Fisherman’s Cove, and I can tell you that he runs a company called Security Solutions, which in turn employs Ms. Bonneville.”

He paused, and when Brandy tried to repeat her suggestion, he raised his hand for silence.

“I know that he joined the Army,” he continued, “sometime after changing his name from Gravenow to Grave. His father is Simon Gravenow, a mobster now pulling a life stretch in federal prison.”

Another pause. “Sounds like you’re doing just fine,” Brandy said. “I don’t want to have anything to do with this. Our office cannot be linked in any way to-”