John Gilstrap - Hostage Zero

“What do you want me to do?”

She swept the room again with her eyes. When she spoke, her voice was barely a whisper. “I want you to get Evan Guinn back.”

Jonathan laughed. “Oh, well, if that’s all…” Then he saw she was serious. “Irene, you’ve got the full power and authority of the United States government at your disposal. Why don’t you get him back?”

“Because we’re not allowed to go there anymore.”

“Where’s there?”

“Your old stomping grounds, I believe. Colombia. They won’t allow us on their soil anymore, and the president won’t approve a covert op. The secretary of defense won’t even recommend it. Hell, he won’t even approve the intel.”

Jonathan cocked his head. “So, what do you want me to do?”

She shrugged. “What you always do. Ignore the law and do what needs doing.” When her levity didn’t earn a smile, she said, “Look, Digger, I’ll say it again. The rules have all changed now. The rules are real rules. I can’t ask my people to break them. Not like this. It would mean jail.”

Jonathan laughed. “Well, thanks a lot.”

“This is what you do. This is your gift. I’m only asking you to do what you’d do anyway if I told you you couldn’t.”

Jonathan rubbed his forehead to make the confusion go away. “How is your sanctioning me doing it different than you actually doing it?”

She looked away, and then he got it. “Jesus, Irene. I have to pay for it, too? At least half this op belongs to you, doesn’t it?”

She waved that idea away. “No, I can find funds from somewhere. The administration is too new to know where all the hiding places are. That way we can go to jail together if it comes apart. Does that sound better to you?”

Jonathan chuckled. “Actually, it does. Both parts-the money and the company in jail.” He shifted gears. “Colombia’s a big place for a small country. Do you know where he is?”

“I have a contact there. He’s generally pretty reliable, and he tells me that a guy named Mitchell Ponder is the kidnapper, and he’s got the boy with him.”

“Who’s Mitchell Ponder?”

“A bad egg. He used to do some wet work for the good guys back in the day, and then he went after the bigger money. We’ve never been able to catch him, but he’s suspected in a number of shootings from years ago. Now we think he runs Sammy Bell’s cocaine operations in Colombia with a wink and a nod from appropriately grafted politicians. But again, in official Washington, this is none of our business.”

Jonathan was confused. “Why would they take the boy there? I mean of all the places in the world, why there?”

Irene shrugged. “I think it makes sense. It’s out of the country, in a corner of the world that is safe from America’s prying eyes. And it’s a place they have to be anyway. Why not?”

Jonathan felt the weight of the challenge bearing down on him. “So out of hundreds of little factories dotted all over the mountainscape, how are we going to find one boy in one place?”

“Now, there we got a break. Because the Colombian government is a willing partner in the drug trade these days, we hear that Ponder has been able to consolidate his operations into just a few good-sized factories.”

“You mean slave farms,” Jonathan corrected.

Irene showed her palms. “Truer than false. By all accounts, Ponder is a butcher when villagers don’t cooperate. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but my contact tells me that Ponder’s MO is to gain cooperation by killing the men and teenage boys of a village, and then putting the younger boys to work in the fields and the factory.”

“And the girls?” Jonathan asked. The instant he heard his own question, he knew the nauseating answer.

“They become the playground for the men. It’s a disgusting business.”

Jonathan inhaled. “Tell me what you know about someone named Bruce Navarro.”

Irene’s eyes grew large again. “Jesus, I’ve got entire field offices that are slower on the draw than you,” she said. “He was a lawyer for Sammy Bell. He’s one of my dream witnesses, but he pulled a Jimmy Hoffa and disappeared on us. Why?”

Jonathan smirked as he recalled his debriefing from Gail. “Did you know that he was Marilyn Schuler’s boss?”

Irene scowled. “Who’s Marilyn-” Then she got it. “Holy shit. No, I didn’t.”

Jonathan filled her in on the details of Gail’s jailhouse interview. “I think if we can find him, we can get some nifty answers.”

Irene got a faraway look. “He’s got a sister in New Jersey,” she said. “We’ve always suspected that she knows where he is-at least if he’s still alive-but she won’t say a word to us.”

Jonathan raised his eyebrows. “To you. I wonder if she’ll speak to me.”

“I doubt it. But from what I know of Gail Bonneville…” She let him finish her thought for her.

Jonathan liked that idea. “We’ll give it a shot.” He snorted a laugh. “What an honor it is to be the boss. She gets New Jersey, and I get the armpit of the world.” He shook his head at the irony. “Tell me about your Colombian contact.”

Irene hedged, “I can give you a name, but you need to understand that he’s an independent contractor.”

“Is he any good?”

“He’s done good work for me,” Irene said. “Problem is, his loyalties are not predictable. He likes chasing the highest bidder.”

“What’s his name?”

“Jose Calderon. He lives in Panama City now, but he-”

Jonathan’s face brightened. “Jammin’ Josie? Guerrilla fighter, used to work out of Cartagena?”

“You know him.”

Jonathan chuckled at the memory. “Sure, I know him. He led us to Pablo back when I was with the Unit. Twitchy little guy, but he knew his business. I thought he was PNG in Colombia now.” He knew that Irene would understand the acronym for persona non grata.

“Did I not mention that he runs to the highest bidder?”

“Has he worked for you guys recently?”

Irene shook her head. “Not for us. Not for years. He did some work with the DEA toward the end of the last administration, and I heard he was trolling for work with the Agency in Nicaragua, but all of that has dried up. This getting-along business is putting a lot of contractors out of business.”

“How do we know the other side hasn’t picked up where we left off?”

“We don’t. In fact we don’t know a lot anymore.”

Jonathan always did admire blunt honesty. He’d also had a lot of good fortune with Jammin’ Josie. The man knew everybody, was trusted by people who counted, and was able to raise a small army, complete with weapons, on relatively short notice.

“And you know where you can find him?” Jonathan asked.

Irene gave a coy smile as she reached into the pocket of her suit jacket and handed him a card, complete with name and number. “He’s waiting for you to call,” she said.

The jungle had grown progressively thicker during the four-hour ride from Evan’s first prison compound. Mile after mile, the foliage pressed ever closer to their SUV as the road disappeared to little more than a trail. All the jungle had to do was take a deep breath, and the road would disappear completely.

Evan rode in the backseat next to a white man who seemed nearly as out of place as Evan did. He didn’t say anything, but he kept casting glances to the boy and then returning his eyes to the front as soon as Evan caught him looking. Stare away, Evan thought. No harm in that. But if he even thought about touching him, he’d wish he hadn’t.

As Evan had told Father Dom in the past, there wasn’t much good to come out of a shitty childhood, but you learned how to take care of yourself. If those assholes back at the school had attacked when he was awake instead of sound asleep, he wouldn’t be here right now.