Hostage Zero

Brandy couldn’t believe that the secretary hadn’t already pulled ahead of her. “What do HRT and Delta have in common?” She actually waited for an answer, but only for a couple of seconds, before she realized that SecDef probably did not like being quizzed. “Hostage rescue,” she said, answering her own question.

She waited for him to connect the dots, but when he didn’t, she pressed harder. “The church that owns the school where Ponder’s men snatched the children is literally next door to Jonathan Grave’s home. He spent a career rescuing people, and Gail Bonneville now works for him. Isn’t it obvious that they’re planning to rescue the Guinn boy?”

As she watched Secretary Leger decode it for himself for the first time, she saw the physical burden consume him. He pushed some papers around on his desk, then cleared his throat. “My, but you are full of news, aren’t you?” he said.

He thought for a moment. “Well, clearly we have some things to do,” he said after clearing his throat again. “The Guinn boy is not our concern. We’ll pass along what we know about him to the right people, and that will be the end of our involvement there. I want to concentrate on this Navarro business.” He avoided eye contact as he said, “Talk to your friend from New England. Tell him he now has the green light to do whatever he needs to do, to whomever it needs to be done in order to eliminate Bruce Navarro and the investigator woman.”

Brandy felt her skin go cold. “Eliminate, sir?”

A beat. Leger made a show of sitting up straight and crossing his arms. “That’s not too big a word for you, is it, Brandy?”

She gaped back at him. No, there was nothing big about the word. The word was easy. It was the murders that came with it that were difficult to comprehend. She squirmed in her seat. “Sir, if you’re talking about killing people…” She let her words trail off.

Leger laughed. “Oh, for God’s sake, Brandy, grow up. This has been about killing from the very beginning. Welcome to the big leagues. Only at this level, we don’t think of it as killing. We think of it as problem solving.”

She felt sick to her stomach. First the child and now this. “I, uh, I don’t think I can do that.”

“Of course you can’t. That’s why I would never ask you to. I never have asked you to. We have people who do that for us. Tell our Boston friend what we need, and he’ll take care of the rest. You never even have to mention the K — word, if you don’t want.”

Brandy felt somehow heavier as she sat there. Would this never end? She found herself nodding in agreement before she’d even thought it all the way through.

“Good,” he said. “And on the other thing, I want you to be my messenger. Go home and pack for a warm climate.”

“Sir?”

“Someone will contact you with the details in a couple of hours.”

It felt as if she’d slept through a part of the movie of her own life. “I don’t understand.”

Leger gave her a little wave. Of course she didn’t understand. “We’re going to get you down to Colombia,” he said.

Evan Guinn had fallen asleep in the back of the SUV, lulled by the never-ending bouncing and rolling along the trails that doubled for jungle roads. When the jostling stopped, he awoke, confused about where he was. The nap had allowed him to forget. Now reality returned.

They’d reached a small clearing, about a quarter of the size of a football field, where the trees had somehow been removed, leaving only a green ocean of low-growing ferns and bushes. A few bore flowers, but most did not. On a different day, it would have been beautiful. As it was, Evan was overrun with the sense that he was going to die out here and no one would ever find his body.

As a lump grew in his throat, he refused to let himself cry again. He’d already been a pussy for running after the car. And what had that gotten him? If this was where they were going to drop him off, it had bought him nothing. Maybe less than nothing.

“Stay here,” Mitch commanded. Without waiting for an answer, he pulled open his door and stepped out. He crossed in front of the vehicle and strode to the center of the clearing, where he stopped. With his arms outstretched and his legs spread to shoulder width, he slowly pivoted 360 degrees, and then stopped.

“What’s he doing?” Evan asked the driver. He craved someone talking to him, but he wasn’t surprised when the driver remained silent. He probably didn’t even understand.

After maybe thirty seconds had passed, the surrounding jungle squeezed out four dark-skinned men armed with rifles-Evan thought they were M16s based on what he’d seen on the History Channel. The men were dressed like soldiers: camouflaged uniforms that hadn’t been washed in a very long time, which, he thought, matched the appearance of the men wearing them. For a second, he thought they were going to shoot Mitch on the spot, but then they approached him.

As they got closer, three of the four men held back, while the fourth approached Mitch like an old friend.