John Gilstrap - Damage Control

“Four people were missing in the bus back there,” Boxers said. “All the adults. What happened to them?”

“Mr. Hall and Mrs. Charlton were killed in the beginning, when the terrorists first stormed the bus. They tried to stop them. The terrorists didn’t give a warning or anything. They just came in, shouting. Mr. Hall and Mrs. Charlton stood up-not really interfering, even-and they shot them down without a word. Just bang, bang.” Tristan’s eyes narrowed. “How did you know how many people were taken? How did you know my name?”

“Homework doesn’t stop when you graduate from school,” Jonathan said. “People who care about you hired us to rescue you.”

“People who care about me? Who’s that? What does that even mean?”

“Believe it or not, that’s none of your business,” Jonathan said. “Tell me about the executions.”

“I did. After they killed Mr. Hall and Mrs. Charlton, they just dragged the bodies out of the bus and dumped them on the…” The boy’s voice caught in his throat and he went quiet. A few seconds later, he cleared his throat. “They dragged them out onto the street and we drove off. The terrorists kept yelling at us to keep our heads down and to stay in our seats. While we drove through the streets, they made us change seats-nobody could sit with who they were sitting with-and then they passed out handcuffs and ankle cuffs, and made us chain ourselves to our seatmates.”

Jonathan admired the level of detail in Tristan’s storytelling.

“After a day or so, maybe two, that guy who was dead in the aisle made a speech about nobody caring enough to pay for our release, so he unlocked Mrs. Blazak’s handcuff and he let her ankles go and then he dragged her out of the bus by her hair. He took her right outside the bus and made her kneel down, and, you know, just put his rifle to her head.” His eyes reddened again. “She was a really, really nice lady and they just blew her head off.” He grew quiet.

Jonathan gave him a half minute or so to collect himself. “What happened after that?”

“He just left her there. Climbed back into the bus, and within an hour, he was trying to do small talk again. I hated that son of a bitch.”

Hate was good, Jonathan thought. As emotions went, that was one that tended to focus the mind.

“That leaves one more, right?” Jonathan asked. “Miss James?”

Tristan pushed filthy tendrils of blond hair out of his eyes. “We’d been held hostage for a couple of days, I think. The kidnappers said something about people not being fast enough. They took her outside and two of them…” His voice faltered again.

“Take your time,” Jonathan said.

“You have to understand that she was really a nice lady. She was like a thirty-year-old grandmother, you know? She was all about stopping the death of decorum. That’s what she called it.”

Jonathan just waited through the preamble, confident that the boy would get to the point.

Tristan struggled more with this story than he had with the others. “So, there were two of them, so they took her out just like they did Mrs. Blazak. They made her kneel on the ground, but then they made her give both of them a blowjob. In front of everybody. I tried not to watch, but…”

There was no reason for a seventeen-year-old boy to finish that sentence.

Tristan settled himself with a long, deep breath. “And after she’d done them both, they shot her in the face. A third one took videos of the whole thing.”

Jonathan inhaled forcefully through his nose and held the breath in for a few seconds. There were levels of cruelty that he just could not comprehend. He got the panicked shooting that happened in the bus after the assault started back there at the drop site. He didn’t endorse it, but he understood it as if I’m dying I’m taking you with me. But to humiliate someone in the most brutal way like that made no sense to him at all.

If nothing else went right with this mission, at least he could rest comfortably that he’d increased the population in Hell.

“Those are some pretty ugly pictures to have swimming in your head,” Jonathan said.

“Tell me about it.”

“I am,” Jonathan said. “When you get back to the World, people aren’t going to want to hear those stories, but you’re going to need to tell them. Make sure you find yourself a good shrink.”

Tristan seemed anxious to push that topic aside. “So, how long will it be before I’m home?”

“A day or two,” Jonathan said. It was a flat-out guess, but he’d have a plan soon, and when that happened His earbud popped. “Scorpion, Mother Hen.”

“Ten bucks says this isn’t good,” Boxers grumbled.

Tristan cocked his head. “What are you talking about?”

Jonathan pointed to his chest so that Tristan could see him press his transmit button. “Go ahead,” he said.

“I just got an alert from ICIS,” she announced. Jonathan knew that she was referring to the Interstate Crime Information System, pronounced EYE-sis, a post-9/11 invention that tracked criminal investigations in real time, in hopes of encouraging better communications between law enforcement agencies. “You know I always put tracers on your aliases and your real names whenever you go out on an op. If you blow your cover, then I want to be the first to know about it.”

Boxers grumbled, “Just once in her life, that woman is going to get straight to the point.”

“Well, that tracer just paid off. Leon Harris and Richard Lerner have both been accused of murder,” she said. Those were Jonathan’s and Boxers’ aliases, respectively. “It says here that the charges were filed by Mexican authorities as a result of thirteen murders you committed today. They even list the names of the victims. Names I don’t recognize-I assume they’re the terrorists-and the dead hostages, too.”

Boxers said on the air, “That’s not possible. The bodies are still warm.”

“I’m just reporting what I see, Big Guy,” Venice said. “Interpol is involved. The borders are closed to you. The FBI has pledged to do everything in their power to bring you in. You’ll need to switch to alternative identities.”

Jonathan and Boxers looked at each other, and in unison they said, “Shit.”

Jonathan keyed the mike. “That’s a problem, Mother Hen,” Jonathan said.

“You left them in the captured vehicles, didn’t you?” Venice was very good at connecting those kinds of dots.

“That’s affirm. We’ll need more to make the crossing.”

A long silence followed. In his mind, Jonathan could see the concern in her face, the eye creases that always appeared in her flawless chocolate-brown skin when she was worried. Jonathan gave her a lot of cause to worry. “This is really, really bad,” she said.

How artfully understated. “Thanks, Mother Hen,” he said. “I’ll get back to you. Keep us informed as things change, and find me a good forger in Mexico.”

“Who’s Mother Hen?” Tristan asked. He leaned forward in the backseat so that his head was closer to theirs.

“I need you to be quiet for a few minutes,” Jonathan said. To Boxers, he said, “This is a problem.”

“Yes, it is,” Boxers agreed. “And I have every confidence that you’ll devise the perfect plan.” He waited a beat. “Have I ever told you how much I enjoy our times together?”

Jonathan looked out his side window at the passing jungle, trying to force the pieces to fit. “Assuming all the names are correct, how did anybody know we were going to kill the guards?” he asked Boxers.

“Because they forced our hand,” Big Guy replied. Jonathan guessed that they’d been thinking the same thoughts-not an unusual occurrence after the number of years they’d worked side by side.