John Gilstrap - Hostage Zero

Doug laughed derisively. “Ah, the ambiguous moral code of Digger Grave, Lone Ranger, ever perched atop his personal pedestal. You must tell me one day what the world looks like from up there.”

Jonathan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. This was the same man who not too long ago offered to suborn murder in the name of justice. “Who am I talking to?” he asked.

Doug locked his jaw and glared through the back of Jonathan’s head.

“Step outside, Harvey,” Jonathan said.

“What?”

“Just wait in the squad room for a few minutes.”

“With the FBI?” Jonathan might as well have asked him to set himself on fire.

“Don’t say anything to anyone, and don’t wander off. Just wait.”

Harvey looked to Chief Kramer for an appeal, but Doug was studying a spot on his desk blotter.

“It won’t be long,” Jonathan promised. His tone found the perfect balance between request and demand.

Harvey left.

“Talk to me, Doug,” Jonathan said. “What’s happening?”

The chief continued to stare at his blotter, clearly intending to say nothing; but when the silence did not relent, he rocked his eyes up. Somehow, he’d aged ten years in two minutes. “Don’t you get what an incident like this does to a town like ours?” he said. “Don’t you get the collective loss of innocence? This isn’t a war zone, Dig. Hell, it’s not even a city-not really. In New York and DC the place gets shot up, and once the media gets past it, so does everyone else.

“It’s not like that here. This kind of violence erodes the very heart of this town. There’s no getting past it, because the way things used to be doesn’t matter anymore.”

Jonathan scowled. “But what-”

“Hush. Just listen. For once in your life, just listen. With all your running around these past couple of days, I don’t suppose you’ve had a chance to read the newspapers, but maybe you ought to. There are a lot of harsh words being thrown around-chief among them the I — word. Incompetent. That would be me.

“I’ve dedicated my life to this little burg. While you were off touring the world and defending our freedom, I was busting my balls for nothing an hour, keeping Fisherman’s Cove from caving in on itself. And you’re right, I was never in it for the legacy, or even the praise. I’d have been perfectly happy to remain anonymous, but I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to be judged as incompetent.”

A pause followed, during which Jonathan thought his friend had finished. He had not.

“I’ve been with you every step of the way on everything you’ve ever done, Dig. I know what a shit life you had as a kid, and I know what a good friend you are to everybody in this town. But there’s got to be a limit to this secrecy shit. Your neighbors are in tears in their homes, praying for the safety of a boy who is already safe. It would mean everything for them to know that their prayers were working.”

“And soon enough, they will,” Jonathan said. He leaned forward and rested his forearms on the edge of the desk. “But not until his safety is guaranteed. Doug, when all this settles out, I fear that it’s going to be much, much bigger than a simple kidnapping. There’s violence coming, one way or the other, and until we really know what it’s all about, we’ve got to keep the lid on.”

Doug sighed deeply and stretched his neck muscles. “I know you’re right,” he said, his tone again soft and sane. “I don’t like it, but I do know it. It’s just not the way things are supposed to be.”

Jonathan smiled, happy to see the return of the man he knew. “Nothing about any of this is the way it’s supposed to be,” he said. “I’ll fix it, though.”

“Do you really know where the Guinn boy is?”

“I think so. We’re pretty sure we do.”

“And you’re going to go get him?”

Jonathan nodded. Ordinarily, he would not have responded to that question at all. But he owed Doug that much.

The conversation became awkward, as if they’d burned through all the available words.

“I’d tell you to be careful,” Doug said, “but I know how much you hate that.”

Jonathan did indeed hate it. In his line of work, careful people died young, just behind the foolish ones. Aggressive and smart won the day every time. “Are we done here?” he asked. He started to stand.

“Actually, no.” Doug hadn’t moved, and his expression remained stern.

Jonathan settled back into his seat and waited for it.

“Your friend Harvey. There’s the not-small problem of his parole. I’m willing to forgive the violation because you vouched for him, but what am I going to do with him? I can’t let him hang around. Your vouching for him doesn’t take away the judgment against him. And since you’re going away, even that is moot. He’s got to go.”

Jonathan hadn’t anticipated this. “Even though people are looking to kill him.”

The chief shrugged. “I could put him in protective custody.”

“There’s no way he’d tolerate that.”

“I’m just presenting options. Turns out it’s a damn short list.”

Jonathan stewed on that. It was a good point, well-made. While he trusted Harvey to be the person he said he was, he had to confess that his opinion was more gut than fact. There were limits to what he could ask even from a friend as close as Doug Kramer.

He shrugged. “I’ve got to convince him to come along.”

Harvey stopped dead in the foyer. “You’re out of your mind.”

“It’s not as if you have a lot of options,” Jonathan argued. He’d had Doug drive them back to the mansion just in case the guy in denim was still lurking in the shadows waiting to take a shot.

“How about living? I’ve always been partial to that one.”

Jonathan laughed. “How’s that working for you so far? You still haven’t dried out from your dive to dodge a killer. Where are you going to dive next time?”

“Nowhere in Colombia, I can tell you that. I hated the desert, and that was a dry heat. You’re talking fuckin’ jungle.”

Jonathan laughed. “The issue remains that you don’t have a lot of options.”

Harvey gaped, trying to think of something-anything-to toss out as an alternative to exposing himself to gunfire again. “Were you not listening when I told you about my PTSD? I’m crazy.”

“Crazy’s a continuum,” Jonathan countered. “You’ve met my friend Boxers, so you know that. You handled yourself really well back there at the marina. That was good thinking. And young Jeremy is perfect evidence that your medic chops are still good. Add the fact that I could use an extra hand, and I think this is a good opportunity for you.”

“Opportunity.” Harvey tasted the word. Didn’t like it. “Is that what you call it? An opportunity to do what, other than dying?”

“To regain your self-respect,” Jonathan said.

Harvey blushed.

“I don’t mean to presume,” Jonathan continued, “but I’ve been watching you. You’re nowhere near as crazy as you pretend to be. You’ve had some hard breaks, and you’ve been aggressively screwed by the system, but I think that even you see the difference in yourself over the past couple of days.”

Harvey blushed redder. “Now you’re a psychiatrist in addition to all of your other superhuman skills? Can you see through walls, too?”

“Scoff if you want,” Jonathan pressed. “I’m just telling you that the way things have been for you doesn’t have to be the way it is from now on. What are you going to do? Go back to your tent? How do you expect to watch your back at night? How do you really ever sleep again?”

“Because you killed those guys! Thanks a lot.”

“No, no, no. Don’t you lay that all on me. I was there, remember? You were the point on that spear. You chose to help Jeremy Schuler. You chose to nurse him back to health.”