Hostage Zero

Venice clicked again. The screen displayed a close-up of a TSA clearance tag. “I thought the same thing, so I enhanced this image and got lucky. I cross-referenced the number to the tracking database, and wouldn’t you know it? There’s no record of this particular piece of luggage being processed through TSA’s Houston operation. It is a Houston tag, but it was cleared outside of normal channels.”

Jonathan continued to be amazed, but right now he was confused. “Read between the lines for me, Ven. What are you telling us?”

“This is the same sort of thing that the government does when they transport items that they don’t want to be opened in transit,” she explained. “It looks to me like these skids are definitely being greased at a high level. I figure the guy with the grease gun must be in Houston.”

Jonathan thought she was right. “I hope you’re going to tell me where that big bag ended up.”

Another smirk. Jonathan had learned over the years that this bit of theater was as important to Venice as the information she got to dig up. She pressed the button again.

Now they saw a still picture of Mitch Ponder at an airport luggage carousel, pulling the heavy bag off the turntable. “Prepare to be impressed,” Venice said as she clicked through photo after photo. Each showed a still image, yet as she scrolled through, the photos left the impression of a movie on Jonathan’s mind.

Together, they watched as Mitch Ponder left the terminal and wheeled his luggage to what Jonathan assumed was the Colombian version of short-term parking. “Notice how careful he is on the curbs,” Venice said. She was right. Although for the life of him, Jonathan couldn’t imagine how a bump on a curb could do anything to wake up a child that manhandling by baggage claim attendants hadn’t done already.

The farther Ponder moved out into the parking lot, the wider and higher the angle became in the security camera photos, but they could easily make out the images of him wheeling the bags to a dark-colored SUV. The distances didn’t allow for detailed viewing, but from the way Ponder squatted at the rear wheel well on the driver’s side, Jonathan figured he had to be searching for a key. If so, he found it, because he stood again and loaded the bags into the rear compartment. From there, he backed out of his space and drove out of the frame.

“I thought for a second that we were going to lose him,” Venice said, articulating Jonathan’s thoughts. “But we lucked out.” The image shifted again, this time to a split screen. On the left, they saw a head-on shot of the driver, unfortunately distorted by glare in the windshield, and on the right was an even more valuable prize.

“Holy shit,” Boxers exclaimed. “Is that his license plate?”

Venice beamed. “The Holy Grail. Unless he changes it-and why would he? — we can use that number to track him through any number of databases. With any luck at all, he’ll get pulled over for speeding or something.”

“And if he doesn’t?” Jonathan asked.

“Well, there’s a little more,” she said. She scrolled through a few more photos showing the SUV passing through various traffic cameras at intersections. “The complexity of their surveillance surprises me,” Venice said.

“They’re officially trying to beat down their drug industry,” Jonathan said. “It’s costing billions of dollars and thousands of lives, but-wink, wink, surprise, surprise-it continues to thrive. I’ll bet you a thousand bucks that U.S. aid paid for that surveillance system.”

Venice acknowledged him with a nod, but clearly she’d moved on in her mind. “These last two or three shots just show him driving into the jungles north of the city,” she said. “I wish I had more.”

“That’s a lot,” Jonathan said. “We know that Evan is alive-at least that Ponder thought he was. And we’ve got a positive means to identify his vehicle. Compared to other square-one intelligence data we’ve had, we’re in a pretty good place.” He turned to Boxers. “We need to get this info to Josie so he can start bribing the right people.”

Boxers’ expression showed disbelief. “I don’t believe you’re going to trust that son of a bitch again.”

Jonathan recoiled. “Why shouldn’t we? What did he do?”

“It wasn’t what he did,” Boxers said. “It’s what he didn’t do.”

Jonathan rolled his eyes. “Don’t dig all that up again. He was in self-preservation mode. He did what he thought was best.”

“Since when did doing what’s best involve throwing your ass under the bus?”

Venice cocked her head. “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing,” Jonathan said.

“Fine. Have it your way. I just always promised myself that the next time I saw that son of a bitch I’d be pulling his liver out through his nose.”

“Oh, now that’s pleasant,” Gail groaned.

“I’ve given Josie a list of what we need,” Jonathan said, moving on. “He’s going to meet us in the boonies at what he said will make a good base camp.”

“You gave him the list of acceptable aircraft?” Boxers prompted.

“We’ll exfil in a private jet, but only after a long hike and a car ride.”

“No chopper, then?”