John Gilstrap - Hostage Zero

Boxers and Venice were seated around the table, as was the newest addition to the inner sanctum, Gail Bonneville. They each nursed a steaming cup of coffee. “Good morning, everyone,” Jonathan said.

Return greetings were more mumbled than spoken. The mood in the room was funereal, with all three of the others averting their gaze to anything but the three-foot-by-four-foot image of a sullen boy that glowed from the projection screen at the far end.

Jonathan had made it clear to Venice that until this case cleared, the image of Evan Guinn would be inescapable. It spoke volumes, Jonathan thought, that the only recent clear photo they had of the kid after four years in their care was this one, taken seven months ago at the school Christmas party. Resurrection House was supposed to be a home, for God’s sake. The fact that this boy’s life was so sparsely documented pissed him off.

The face staring back from the screen emanated a plain vanilla expression from a plain vanilla place. The smile was as bright as it’s supposed to be when someone’s taking a picture, but it was all teeth and mouth. The eyes showed institutional emptiness-the show-nothing-so-no-one-can-hurt-you expression of every young inmate of every prison: equal parts fear and resolution. The boy’s most striking feature was the long, wavy mane of white-blond hair.

With his own supply of caffeine in hand, Jonathan helped himself to the seat at the head of the table and rested his palms flat on the polished surface. “Look at me,” he said.

Their eyes rose to meet his.

“How’s Dom?” he asked Venice. If Mama Alexander was the soul of the House, then Father Dom D’Angelo was the heart. He and Jonathan had been friends since college.

Venice sighed. “He’s doing as best he can. Handling the children’s concerns is difficult, but the newspeople are being pretty brutal.”

“Fuckin’ reporters are gonna crucify everybody who has anything to do with the House,” Boxers said.

“They’re going to do what they’re going to do,” Jonathan said. He rubbed a hand through his hair and scratched the back of his head. Those who knew him well recognized it as a gesture of frustration. “We’re staying out of it. Ven, after this meeting, I want you to get Matt Baker and Anne Hawkins involved. Let’s let Dom concentrate on helping the kids to get whole.”

Venice made a note without uttering her usual condemnation of Jonathan’s preferred public relations and legal experts. Maybe even she recognized the need for the best of the best, despite the combined price tag of nearly two grand an hour.

“Who’s spoken with Mr. Stewart?”

Venice and Gail both raised their hands.

“He’s as sweet as ever,” Gail said. “He’s more worried about the kids than he is about himself.”

“But he doesn’t know about the kidnappings, right?” Jonathan hoped.

“I wish,” Gail said. “A reporter called his room.”

“Fuckin’ reporters,” Boxers repeated. “Why didn’t somebody intercept the call?”

“They are now,” Venice soothed. “Thanks to that call.” She looked at Jonathan. “Dig, it would really help for him to know that Jeremy’s okay.”

Jonathan shook his head. “I know it would, but we can’t afford the chance of a leak. Not yet. But Mr. Stewart is still on track to recover?”

“He’s still critical but stable,” Venice said. “But offline, the doctor told me that he’s past the point of major worries.”

“Thank God for that,” Jonathan said. He took a long sip from his coffee mug, and then caught the entire team up on what the last few hours had revealed. As he did, he rose from his chair and parted two paneled doors to reveal a whiteboard, on which he listed the salient points.

“So here’s where we are,” he concluded. “The driver, Jimmy Henry, was hired through some guy named Sjogren, who apparently has ties to the old Slater crime family through its new leader, Sammy Bell. That establishes a possible organized crime connection.” He jotted that point on the board.

“Isn’t that the same group that your father had all the trouble with?” Boxers asked.

“The very one,” Jonathan said. “But it doesn’t end there. There’s a government connection, too.” He deferred to Venice to relay her discovery about the gunmen’s backgrounds.

“There’s not a hard government connection,” Venice concluded, “but it sure smells like one to me.”

Gail Bonneville raised her hand. “I hate to be the slow one,” she said, “but you’re all talking like this makes some kind of sense. Government operatives attacking and trying to kill children. What am I missing?” Gail had cut her law enforcement teeth in the FBI, rising quickly through the ranks and ultimately snagging a leadership role on the Bureau’s Hostage Rescue Team out of the Chicago field office. A tumultuous end to that career had led to a gig as a county sheriff in Indiana, which itself ended as collateral damage to one of Jonathan’s earlier missions. Trim and athletic, Gail was to Jonathan’s eye movie-star beautiful. Her dark brown eyes matched her dark brown hair, and she carried an air of intelligence that seriously stirred his juices.

“Nothing ever makes sense at this stage of an op,” Boxers said. He had a dismissive way about him that frequently put others on edge.

Venice ignored the big man and looked at Gail. “It’s not completely outlandish when you think about it. Every child in the House has criminal parents. Some of those parents have run afoul of federal law enforcement. Many of them have run afoul of people whom federal law enforcers are looking to prosecute.”

“Okay, then,” Gail said, having clearly connected those two dots on her own. “So, pick one. You’ve got organized crime snatching the boys as retribution. Maybe. Let’s stipulate to that for the sake of argument. But why the feds?”

Jonathan watched his new protege with mixed feelings of admiration and desire. Gail’s strongest professional asset was her ability to process information and reach a well-considered conclusion in just a few seconds.

She continued, “I have a hard time believing that agents of the government of the United States are going to apply such resources to the kidnapping and murder of children. It just doesn’t make sense.”

“The government connection to Sean O’Brian is clear,” Jonathan said. “And frankly, the fact that there’s no information on the other shooter is also damned convincing evidence of Uncle Sam’s handiwork.”

Gail wasn’t buying. “Tell me organized crime, and I’m with you. Tell me government, and it just makes no sense.”

Jonathan loved the way her ears reddened when she became passionate about a topic. “Maybe the mob happened to hire the same shooters Uncle Sam uses from time to time. Wouldn’t that explain the link?”

Bingo. At least it was plausible.

Jonathan shifted his gaze. “Ven,” he said. “Catch us up on what you found about the parents involved.”

Venice pulled a file folder from her stack of meeting-prep materials and opened it. “Let’s talk about Frank Schuler first,” she said, spreading the papers out in front of her. She held up a mug shot labeled with the man’s name. “This is Jeremy’s father. He’s on death row here in Virginia for murdering his wife, Jeremy’s mother.”

Boxers made a noise like air escaping from a canister.

“She was cheating on him with a guy named Aaron Hastings. Schuler shot her. He maintained his innocence all the way through the trial, but the jury didn’t buy it. Unless a miracle happens, he gets the needle in nine days.”

She slid the Schuler papers back into their folder and opened another. She displayed another mug shot. No one would doubt the relationship between Evan and his father. They had the same light hair and blue eyes, the same angular features. “This is Arthur Guinn,” Venice said, “and here is your connection to the mob. He was an enforcer.”