Hostage Zero

Jonathan had to chuckle. “Indeed you don’t, my friend.” He released the slide lock and cycled it a couple of times. It seemed to be well lubricated and in good shape. He would tinker with it later, of course, but for now it seemed fine. He loaded it again, jacked a round into the chamber, then left it cocked as he stuffed it muzzle-first into the waistband of his trousers at the small of his back. It felt great to finally be armed again.

“You’ll shoot yourself in the ass keeping it cocked like that,” Harvey said.

Jonathan gave a tolerant smirk, then told Felipe, “My friend here was a Marine. He needs a dainty little pistol. Something with three safeties and a trigger lock.”

Harvey bristled. “Hey, fuck you, doughboy. I’m just trying to keep you from getting a bullet in your GI GI tract.”

Jonathan laughed. He actually had nothing but undying admiration for Marines, but man was it easy to spin them. And fun. “You a Beretta man?” That was the new standard-issue military sidearm-the one that replaced Jonathan’s beloved. 45. The 9-millimeter Beretta was widely accepted as having better range and accuracy than the. 45, and it was certainly more user friendly. The problem with it, Jonathan thought, was that the people you shot with the thing didn’t fall down nearly fast enough.

“I’m here as a medic,” Harvey said. “What’ve you got in the way of Band-Aids and iodine?”

Felipe looked confused.

“He’s kidding,” Jonathan said with another glare. “Josie will be getting that for us. Pull a Beretta sidearm for my friend, and another for the other Mr. Smith. How about long guns?”

“I have MP5s, one or two M4s and a lot of AKs.”

Jonathan grimaced at the mention of the AK-47. With tens of millions of the damn things in circulation, they were a perfectly acceptable assault weapon, but they weighed too much, and he’d be goddamned if he was going to look like a terrorist.

“I’ll buy you out of M4s, and I’ll take two MP5s. Let me have five hundred rounds for each of the rifles and a hundred apiece for the pistols.” Felipe shuffled as Jonathan spoke, fulfilling the orders on the fly. “What do you have in the way of night vision?”

The old man stopped short and looked embarrassed. “Nothing, I’m afraid.”

“Not a problem,” Jonathan said, even though it was concerning. The ability to operate effectively at night was a huge force multiplier, especially in a jungle environment. He hated having to trust Jammin’ Josie to be the sole supplier for something so important.

“While you’re doing this,” Jonathan went on, “I need to buy a car. What do you recommend?”

The smile returned to Felipe’s face. “I recommend that you let me sell you a car.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

It wasn’t until she’d arrived in Colombia that Brandy Giddings realized her entire notion of what the country would look like had been shaped by the movie Romancing the Stone with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. She’d expected muddy streets teeming with chickens and goats. She’d expected scary people on every corner and motor vehicles that were thirty years out of date.

What she got instead with Santa Marta was a modern if slightly threadbare city on the seashore that housed the Hotel Santorini, which itself sported perfectly acceptable air-conditioning, and whose bartender knew his way around a good caipirinha. And why not? She was a heck of a lot closer to the birthplace of the national drink of Brazil here in Colombia than she was in DC, where she’d first tasted the concoction.

Brandy sat in the lounge near a window that gave her a panoramic view of the Caribbean, watching the street vendors hawking their wares to tourists whose pockets were the targets of roving street urchins. She found comfort in the two beefy soldiers guarding the front doors. Actually, maybe they were policemen; they all wore the same uniforms in this part of the world. Either way, their presence put a lot of brawn and bullets between her and any of the criminals out there.

For the thousandth time in just a few days, she had to pinch herself to believe that she was actually here doing this. After she’d gone home from her last meeting with Secretary Leger, her doorbell had rung, and when she’d answered it, there was a young man in a crisp white Navy uniform, absent the ubiquitous white-on-black name tag. His equally white hat sat at a studied angle over his brow.

“Ms. Giddings?” he’d said. He had that sunny-but-tough Academy look.

“I’m she,” she’d said, and instantly she’d regretted the Wellesley grammar.

He presented an eleven-by-seventeen-inch manila envelope. “I’ve been ordered to deliver this to you personally.”

She took it without thinking. “Ordered by whom?”

“You’re to read it carefully and speak to no one.”

She’d actually giggled at that. It sounded like something out of a movie. “Is this from-” She cut herself off, just in case. “Who sent it?”

The young officer grasped the visor of his cap with his thumb and forefinger, a gallant tip of his hat. God, he was gorgeous. “Have a good day, ma’am,” he said.