John Gilstrap - Hostage Zero

“Hit man,” Gail said.

Venice tossed off a shrug. “If you’d prefer. He killed people for money and got caught.” She looked at her notes again. “He murdered an aide to then-Congressman Mark Levy from New York. Guinn said he was bent out of shape because of the congressman’s politics, but according to the record, the feds always suspected a connection to the Slater mob.”

Jonathan noted her satisfied smile as she delivered that last line. “Where do he and Schuler intersect?”

The smile went away. “They don’t,” Venice said. “At least not so far as I can tell. I don’t see where they’ve ever occupied the same state, let alone town.”

“There’s got to be a link,” Boxers said.

“No kidding?” Venice returned. “Golly, I wish I’d thought of that.”

Boxers reared back in his seat. “What the hell did I do?”

“You implied that Venice didn’t know how to do her job,” Gail said.

“I did not! All I said-”

Jonathan held out both hands, like a cop stopping traffic in both directions. “Nobody start,” he said. “Gail, I want you to interview both of these fathers. With their kids missing, maybe they’ll be willing to open up a little. Work with Doug Kramer if you get push-back from the prison guys.”

Gail jotted something in the speckled composition notebook that was as attached to her as her arm. “You bet.”

“That’ll get a little frustrating when you go to talk to Arthur Guinn,” Venice said. “I called the Illinois Department of Corrections to see what I could find out, and I learned that Mr. Arthur Guinn is no longer in the system.”

Jonathan stopped in mid-stride and turned. “What does that mean?”

“You tell me.”

Jonathan looked to Boxers and Gail, and saw no indication of a theory. “What did they say?”

Venice consulted her notes. “They said that there’s no immediate disposition of the case against him, but that he is no longer part of the Illinois system. When I asked him if that was double-talk for him being moved to someone else’s system, I got ‘I can neither confirm nor deny.’”

Jonathan saw where Venice was leading him. “You’re thinking witness protection,” he said.

She smirked.

“The feds want him to testify,” Gail said. “They must be going after Sammy Bell, and to get him to talk, they made him a deal.”

Jonathan liked it. He pointed to Venice and said, “I know Dom is swamped right now, but I need him to contact-”

Venice beamed. “I already talked to him,” she said. “You’re meeting Wolverine at one.”

Evan Guinn followed every direction to the letter. They’d led him from the tiny hut, flanked by the two guards who had nearly shot him, to a spot about twenty yards away that looked like it had been turned into a movie set. They’d cut a swath out of the dense green foliage to expose a large rock, which had been painted with stripes of white. The ground all around the rock had been painted white, too, and sprinkled with what appeared to be that fake plastic snow stuff that you put around Christmas decorations.

Through words and gestures, they directed him to stand in front of the rock. They handed him a copy of The Washington Post and told him to hold it just so under his chin, and pantomimed for him to smile. The squat man from the shack did all of the communicating while taking direction from a darker skinned man dressed in black slacks and a long white shirt who held a cell phone camera at arm’s length, composing his shot, Evan assumed. Clearly, they wanted to make the picture look like he was somewhere cold, but he was sweating like a pig and barefoot. Who was going to believe it?

He’d seen this trick with the newspaper before in movies about kidnapping victims. They used the headline on the paper as proof that the victim was still alive so that they would pay the ransom. He felt a sudden flash of fear. Who was going to pay ransom for him? Mom was dead, Dad was in jail, and there wasn’t anyone else. Nobody had anything of value to trade for him. There wasn’t a reason in the world to keep him alive.

But apparently there was. They’d gone to a lot of trouble to get him here to wherever the hell he was. And where was that, exactly? Mexico? South America?

Jesus, how long had he been asleep? South America and Mexico were both a long way from Virginia. Geography was one of his worst subjects, but he knew that much.

What were they going to do with him? Another jolt of fear. He’d been alone in the company of sweaty men before, with the last foster family before moving to RezHouse. He knew what they were capable of, and the fact that he saw no women around made his stomach churn. Evan had meant what he’d said to Father Dom during one of his counseling sessions: He’d never allow himself to be used that way again. The last time, he was little and didn’t have the strength to break their bear hugs.

He was nearly fourteen now, though, and he knew a thing or two that he hadn’t before. He knew what was worth killing for, and what was worth dying for. More to the point, he knew what wasn’t worth living after.

The whole picture-taking process took less than ten minutes.

Apparently satisfied with the results, Shack Man beckoned Evan away from the rock and handed him a pair of well-worn short pants of an indefinable color. Somewhere between gray and black. Evan wondered if they’d once been white.

“You…wear,” Shack Man said, and he pointed to the shack. Then he prattled about something while he made a sweeping motion in the air up and down the length of the boy’s body.

“Huh?”

Shack Man pinched the shoulder of his sweater and tugged lightly. “ Esto… sweetshirt?”

Evan processed it. “Sweater?” he guessed.

Shack Man nodded and pointed to Evan’s jeans. He searched for a word. “Give back.”

Evan didn’t hesitate for a moment to shed the sweater and turtleneck. He pulled them over his head, and handed them over, leaving him bare-chested. He got that he was supposed to return the pants, too, and for that he walked back to the shack. He noted for what it was worth that the guards didn’t follow him this time.

Inside, he changed into the shorts and lay back down on the plank door, after folding the blue jeans and using them for a pillow. He draped his forearm over his eyes and took a deep breath. I will not cry, he told himself. It doesn’t accomplish anything, and it shows weakness.

Worse, the weakness hands power over to the people who want to hurt you.

Who were these people? And what were they planning to do with him?

What were they planning to do to him?

His stomach fluttered, and he closed his eyes tighter. You have to learn to cope with the reality of what is, he heard Father Dom telling him. When bad things happen to us-especially as children-we want there to be a reason. We search so hard for meaning in yesterday that we can lose sight of today. Today is all that matters. Today and tomorrow. Yesterday is past and needs to be shoved aside until the Lord makes it our business to understand.

Lying in this sweaty stinkhole, he felt homesickness sliding in. He felt sadness knocking at the door. They were the same sensations that threatened to suffocate him in the first months after the social workers finally listened. He had been nine years old then. It was hard not to allow the darkness in; but maybe it was supposed to be hard.

“What’s happening to me?” He spoke just loudly enough for him to hear his own voice.

When God wants you to know, He’ll tell you.

Evan brought his arm down quickly and whipped his head to the side, expecting to see Father Dom standing there. His voice had been that clear in his head.