John Gilstrap - Hostage Zero

Gail heaved an exasperated sigh. “What money? What was it for?”

“It was mob money,” Alice explained. “Bruce was the middleman. That’s what he did. There was a payment supposed to be made, but it never arrived. It was a lot of money-a couple hundred thousand dollars. He says he never got it, but he had to run because the mob would assume that he had, and they’d come after him.”

Ken chimed in, “So instead, the asshole just runs away anyway, confirming in their minds that he did exactly what they thought he did. The feds think it, too.”

“What was the money for?” Gail asked.

“I don’t know, and I don’t want to know,” Alice said. “I’m ashamed that he would have anything to do with such things.”

“But you know where he is,” Gail guessed.

“I don’t.”

“Then how do you know that he didn’t, in fact, take the money? How do you know he was the middleman?”

Alice gaped.

Gail closed the noose: “You said, ‘He says he never got it.’ That means you’ve talked to him since he disappeared.”

Ken growled, “Damn it, Alice, I told you that we never should have answered the door.”

Alice looked stunned. Her mouth worked as if to speak, but she produced no words.

Gail moved to seal the deal. She leaned forward and put her hand on Alice’s knee. The other woman jumped, but Gail kept her hand in place. “I swear to you that I am exactly who I say I am, and whatever you tell me will remain in the strictest confidence.”

Gail thought she saw cracks in the wall. “Sooner or later, you have to trust someone. Everybody does. Given the stakes-a child’s life-don’t you think that this might be a good time to start?” As she invoked Jeremy Schuler yet again, her thoughts went back to the anguish in his father’s face as he envisioned a scenario that was far worse than the reality, and she again fought a pang of conscience. Manipulating the truth to gain a greater truth was a part of her job to which she would never fully adjust.

Ken stood. “It’s time for you to leave.”

Gail kept her eyes on Alice. “You know what’s the right thing to do. Just let yourself do it.”

“Don’t make me throw you out,” Ken said.

That got her attention. Gail eyed the man with gentle amusement. “Ken, with all respect, if you lay a hand on me, I’ll put your head right through one of these plaster-lathe walls. Please sit down.” One thing about being a woman on the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team: you learned how not to get pushed around by people who were bigger than you. The only hyperbole in the threat was the part about sending his head through the wall. Chances are it would have gotten stuck somewhere in the middle.

Ken looked like he’d been smacked. He looked to Alice for backup, and when it didn’t arrive, he turned to huff out of the room.

“Please stay with us,” Gail said. Her tone made it clear that the word please only softened a stark command. “You’re upset. I don’t want to worry about you going to get a weapon and sneaking up on me.”

He hesitated.

“I’m almost done,” she promised. She gestured back to his pile of magazines.

He hesitated, and then he sat.

Gail turned to the woman on her right. “What do you say, Alice? Are you willing to share what you know?”

Alice’s face was a mask of conflict, that mantle of troubling self-doubt that precedes every confession in every interview room in every police station in the world.

When she finally started talking, it turned out that she knew a lot.

Brandy Giddings needed rest. Lack of sleep was part of it, but the kind of rest she needed went far beyond going horizontal and closing her eyes. She craved a few consecutive weeks-even a few consecutive minutes would be a nice start-when her mind could be free of the terrible things that had been polluting it these past few days. She found it all debilitating, and the fact that she felt that way made her feel inadequate-like she was failing the secretary.

She worked for the man who told the president how to fight wars. Violence was supposed to be a part of her psyche. She knew every military branch’s chief of staff by name. She should be tougher than this.

Still, when the phone on her desk trilled, she jumped. The caller I.D. confirmed that it was Pat Bachelor, SecDef’s executive assistant, and her stomach fell. She’d asked to be put onto Secretary Leger’s schedule as soon as possible, but that had been three hours ago.

“Secretary Leger can see you now,” Pat said. “But I warn you that he has tickets for the Kennedy Center tonight, so you’d best be quick.” Washington was chock-a-block with official reporting chains and protocol-driven rules of propriety, but in the Pentagon, everyone knew that Pat Bachelor outranked everyone but the Secretary himself. She’d never actually ordered anyone into combat, but Brandy had no doubt she could pull it off if she tried.

The source of her power had nothing to do with her ties to Washington. Rather, her loyalty lay exclusively with Jacques Leger, whose assistant she had been since the invention of the wheel.

Pat didn’t like Brandy much; if there’d been any doubt in the past, the leer she delivered as Brandy walked by her desk made it clear today. Brandy wrote it off as old-and-fat dismissing young-and-beautiful, but she could never say it out loud.

The lock on the heavy mahogany door buzzed as Brandy approached, and she stepped into Secretary Leger’s elaborate ceremonial office. It was in here that medals were occasionally pinned, and reporters were occasionally feted, but the real inner sanctum was nestled on the far side of the ceremonial space. She knocked, and when the secretary’s muffled voice told her to come in, she opened the door and stepped into what was regarded throughout Washington as one of the most beautiful offices in all of government.

Secretary Leger’s office presented a commanding, unobstructed view of the Potomac River in the foreground, and the famous monuments of the nation’s capital beyond. Intricate moldings inlaid the twelve-foot ceilings, and the walls displayed a collection of Copleys and Sargents from the National Gallery of Art.

Conspicuously absent from Leger’s personal office, Brandy thought, was any significant homage to the armed services. Having never served himself, he’d said that he wasn’t comfortable choosing favorites, and to include every branch would make the place look, in his words, “like a castle keep.” Instead, he surrounded himself with landscapes and still lifes that brought him a sense of peace.

“What can I do for you, Ms. Brandy?” Leger asked, looking up from the work on his desk, but not rising to meet her.

Navigating her way across the carpet was like walking on a cloud. “Good evening, Mr. Secretary. It’s, um, about that matter we’ve been discussing.”

She though she saw the secretary’s shoulders stiffen as he turned back to the work on his desk. “I trust that it has resolved itself?”

When he moved his eyes away, she stopped advancing on his desk. She clasped her hands in front like an errant schoolgirl and shook her head. “No, sir,” she said. “There’s actually been some more information.” She paused, hoping that she might pique his interest enough to look up again. When he did not, she added, “We’ve found Bruce Navarro.”

That did it. “ The Bruce Navarro? He of the nine-year disappearing act?”

She came close enough to hover near the guest chairs in front of his desk, but knew better than to sit without an invitation. “Yes, sir, the very one.”

He scowled, clearly trying to decide whether or not to believe her. Finally, he gestured to a chair with an open palm. “I’m all ears,” he said.