John Gilstrap - Hostage Zero

This was a lot to process even when you were clearheaded. Given his drugged-up stepping-off point, the boy was having a particularly difficult time of it.

“You’re safe now,” Harvey repeated.

It was what the kid wanted to hear, but he wasn’t ready to trust the words. “Where am I?”

“As close to nowhere as a human being can get,” Harvey said. When the scowl deepened, he added, “You’re in the woods. In Virginia. Near the Potomac River, and the people who hurt you probably think that you’re dead.”

Cobwebs remained. “ Am I dead?”

Harvey smiled. “Alive and well. And lucky to be that.” He extended his hand. “Harvey Rodriguez,” he said. “Nice to meet you.”

The boy looked at the hand, but retreated some more. “Where did they go?”

Harvey kept his hand outstretched. “They’re gone.”

The boy shook his head. “That’s what they are,” he said. “Not where they went.”

Harvey chuckled and abandoned the handshake. “Fair enough. I don’t have an answer for you.” He recounted the events that led them to the present. “As surprised as you seem to be alive, that’s half as surprised as I was to find you that way,” he concluded. He allowed it to sink in, and then he extended his hand once more. “Let’s try this again. I’m Harvey Rodriguez.”

The boy accepted the hand. “I’m Jeremy Schuler.” This time, the friendly touch seemed to relax him.

“I’m pleased to meet you, Jeremy Schuler. Are you hungry?”

Jeremy shook his head. “Could I have some water?”

As Harvey poured water from a converted plastic milk jug into a metal coffee cup, he fought the urge to pummel the kid with questions. After all he’d been through, he needed time to orient himself to the present before Harvey dragged him back to the past. He handed the cup to Jeremy. “Sip, don’t gulp,” he warned. “Your stomach might not be as awake as the rest of you.”

The boy sipped and swallowed. “Thank you,” he said.

“You’re welcome.” He watched Jeremy drink until it became awkward when the boy became aware of being watched. “Tell you what,” he said with a single, gentle clap of his hands. “I’m going to leave the lantern here with you, and I’m going to go out there and cook some dinner. If you change your mind about eating, there’ll be plenty for you.”

While there was no critical medical need for the kid to eat right this minute, sooner or later he’d need sustenance, and sooner was better than later.

Harvey grabbed a flashlight from the piece of two-by-four that served as his nightstand, crawled back into the night and over to the surplus footlocker that served as his pantry. He spun the combination lock, lifted the hasp, and opened the lid.

Seeing as how Jeremy was his first company in five years, it only made sense to appeal to his young taste buds. He pulled out a packet of macaroni and cheese, courtesy of the United States Army. Last winter, on one of the truly cold days, Harvey had agreed to spend a night in a shelter. He hated the principle and he hated the crowds, but he was impressed with the generosity of the pastor of St. Katherine’s Church, who handed out cases of Army MREs-Meals Ready to Eat-to anybody who wanted one. They weren’t likely to put any restaurants out of business, but they tasted pretty decent, and on the days when you wanted to splurge a little, they came in handy.

Tonight, he decided to bypass the typical procedure of cooking the meal in its FRH (flameless rotational heater), and actually cook it on the stove. Somehow, food tasted better when a real flame was involved in the preparation process. He’d just gotten the water to boil when Jeremy appeared in the tent opening.

“Can I still have dinner?” he asked.

Harvey smiled and pointed to the camp chair. “Make yourself comfortable,” he said.

Venice Alexander had tried to nap on the sofa in her office, but it was impossible. Whenever she closed her eyes, the images of blood-spattered walls and the puddled gore on the linoleum flooded the darkness. She could still see the shock and sadness on the faces of the children. It was unspeakable that such violence could visit them literally at their doorstep. They’d already suffered so much in their young lives.

She tried to will the thoughts away. They were counterproductive. Right now, everything was about the mission. She labored not to fixate on the right or the wrong of things anymore, hoping that she could one day find that emotional place where Digger lived at times like these, but she just wasn’t wired that way.

She could pretend-she could push herself when the time came to don her game face and be one of the boys-but when quiet returned, she always remembered that there really was good, and there really was evil, and that in the end, good always prevailed, even if at a daunting price.

Her years at Security Solutions working with Digger Grave had taught her that when the stakes were as high as Digger ratcheted them, outcome often trumped means. When the prize was important enough, any law was expendable if it stood in the way of justice. They were in the business of reuniting families, after all, and for Digger and Boxers, shattering rules was a part of the game that energized them. Venice could intellectualize immorality as necessity, but she’d never be able to fully embrace it.

That’s part of the reason why Jonathan called her the soul of the team.

With sleep out of the question, she’d spent the last half hour rechecking her connections to the Basin, Virginia, jail. Unlike Jonathan, whose ground-level view saw only one-third of the building, she was responsible for controlling the whole thing. The jail’s graveyard shift, which started at ten and would run until six o’clock the next morning, consisted of six deputies who divided their time between the front desk and the three cell blocks, all of which were connected by a series of steel security doors.

Looking at the plan view she’d pulled up on her center screen, she once again noted the important landmarks. The adult portion of the detention facility resembled a wide, asymmetrical V, with the men’s cell block taking up the longer left leg, and the women’s portion the shorter right leg. The two legs joined at the administrative section of the facility, where the admissions desk and the main security air lock were located.

The hallways through the cell blocks were further controlled by intermediate security doors which, in the event of a prisoner uprising, could isolate the event to one-third of either wing. Guards who were not patrolling the hallways worked at a warren of desks in the heavily secured apex of the two wings.

Watching her screens, she could see every corner of the jail, including the insides of the cells if she were so inclined-which she was not. There was nothing remotely engaging in watching men and women in their alone times, especially at night.

When the balloon went up on this operation, she was going to have a lot to do in a very short period of time, with no room for error. She’d programmed all the appropriate commands and committed them not only to memory but to a list that lay beside her keyboard, and in these final moments, she waved her fingers over the keys, practicing the strokes the way a piano player will silently practice a concerto before stepping onto the stage.

Finally assured that she’d done everything she could, she pulled up Spider Solitaire in a separate window on her computer and stacked up four wins.

At 01:45, she donned her headset with its boom microphone and waited for the boss to check in. Knowing Jonathan and Boxers, they’d probably spent the last three hours at a restaurant somewhere having a nice meal before another day at the office.