John Gilstrap - Hostage Zero

Jonathan didn’t like the dip toward sentimentality. “I don’t kill,” he said. “I save people.”

“I mean no offense, Senor Jones.” He looked to Harvey. “You truly are a man of few words.”

Harvey shrugged. “But once I start talking, I’m freaking brilliant.”

Felipe clearly didn’t understand the humor, but he smiled anyway. To Jonathan: “So, short of putting myself in danger, how can I help you?”

“I need supplies,” Jonathan said.

The old man cocked his head. “The kind of supplies you used to need?”

“More or less.”

“Paper or hardware?”

“Both, actually. But in nowhere near the old quantities.”

Felipe’s eyes narrowed. “Jose said that he would provide these things.”

Jonathan leaned back in his chair and crossed his right knee over his left. “Being cautious has always served me well,” he said. “Besides, I have my share of enemies here in Colombia, and I’m more than a few hours away from my reunion with Josie.”

“I see,” Felipe said. “So, weapons for you and Mr. Smith. And one for the other Mr. Smith, just in case?”

Jonathan nodded. “Exactly. And I don’t have much time. What do you have in stock?”

There was that smile again. “Come. I’ll show you. You can shop for yourself.”

Felipe led the way back into the house, past the kitchen on the left, and into a back bedroom that was far better kept than the rest of the rooms they passed along the way.

“This is your room?” Harvey guessed aloud.

“It is not much, but it suits me,” the old man said. “I’m sure your home is much nicer.”

Harvey was about to say something about his tent, but opted not to. The building that housed the hostel was bigger than it looked from the outside, comprising two connected structures to form one. Felipe’s room was at the very end on the back side.

The old man beckoned them all the way in, and then closed and locked the door behind him.

“You’re going to like this,” Jonathan said. Obviously, he’d been here before.

A large wooden chest rested against the back wall under the window that looked out onto the chairs where they had just been sitting. On either side, at about head-height, very Mediterranean candle sconces flanked the window. Felipe pulled the curtains closed, then opened the chest and transferred three armloads of clothing and blankets to the bed. That done, he lifted the candle off the sconce on the right and handed it to Jonathan.

“If you don’t mind?”

“Not at all,” Jonathan said.

The old man then took down the entire sconce. He unscrewed the flat platelike candle holder from the wrought-iron curlicue that supported it, then rehung the sconce and brought the disk to the chest. He peeled up a corner of the wooden bottom to reveal the male end of a bolt poking straight up. Felipe screwed the disk onto the bolt. When it seated, something clicked under the floor, and he was able to lift the entire bottom out of the chest, revealing a fixed ladder that reached straight down into a lightless shaft.

Jonathan grinned at Harvey. “Didn’t I tell you you’d love it?”

Felipe found three flashlights in the top drawer of his dresser and handed one to each of them. As Harvey reached for his, Felipe hung on to it for a second longer than necessary. “I trust you because Senor Jones trusts you,” he said. “Don’t disappoint me. For your own sake.”

Jonathan kept his expression light, but he’d never heard that level of threat from the old man before. “I vouch for him in every way,” he said.

In his own time, Felipe let go of the flashlight, then led the little parade down into the ground.

The first time Jonathan had seen Felipe’s underground storage tunnel, he’d been nearly speechless with admiration. He was so impressed, in fact, that he would later create a similar facility in his own home. His would be bigger, of course, and it would feature state-of-the-art temperature and humidity controls.

Felipe did the best he could with what he had. The underground chamber measured maybe twelve feet square, and it was filled with all manner of weaponry, most of it still in its original containers. Back in the day when they were fighting Pablo, Jonathan had spent tens of thousands of Uncle Sam’s dollars in this very basement, arming citizenry to rise up against the drug lords.

Without asking, the old man walked to one of the smaller crates and opened it. He pulled out a Colt Model 1911. 45 caliber pistol-long Jonathan’s preferred sidearm. He dropped the clip out of the grip and jacked the slide back to lock it open, then presented it to Jonathan for inspection. He smiled broadly. “I don’t forget, Senor Jones.”

Jonathan had to chuckle. “Indeed you don’t, my friend.” He released the slide lock and cycled it a couple of times. It seemed to be well lubricated and in good shape. He would tinker with it later, of course, but for now it seemed fine. He loaded it again, jacked a round into the chamber, then left it cocked as he stuffed it muzzle-first into the waistband of his trousers at the small of his back. It felt great to finally be armed again.

“You’ll shoot yourself in the ass keeping it cocked like that,” Harvey said.

Jonathan gave a tolerant smirk, then told Felipe, “My friend here was a Marine. He needs a dainty little pistol. Something with three safeties and a trigger lock.”

Harvey bristled. “Hey, fuck you, doughboy. I’m just trying to keep you from getting a bullet in your GI GI tract.”

Jonathan laughed. He actually had nothing but undying admiration for Marines, but man was it easy to spin them. And fun. “You a Beretta man?” That was the new standard-issue military sidearm-the one that replaced Jonathan’s beloved. 45. The 9-millimeter Beretta was widely accepted as having better range and accuracy than the. 45, and it was certainly more user friendly. The problem with it, Jonathan thought, was that the people you shot with the thing didn’t fall down nearly fast enough.

“I’m here as a medic,” Harvey said. “What’ve you got in the way of Band-Aids and iodine?”

Felipe looked confused.

“He’s kidding,” Jonathan said with another glare. “Josie will be getting that for us. Pull a Beretta sidearm for my friend, and another for the other Mr. Smith. How about long guns?”

“I have MP5s, one or two M4s and a lot of AKs.”

Jonathan grimaced at the mention of the AK-47. With tens of millions of the damn things in circulation, they were a perfectly acceptable assault weapon, but they weighed too much, and he’d be goddamned if he was going to look like a terrorist.

“I’ll buy you out of M4s, and I’ll take two MP5s. Let me have five hundred rounds for each of the rifles and a hundred apiece for the pistols.” Felipe shuffled as Jonathan spoke, fulfilling the orders on the fly. “What do you have in the way of night vision?”

The old man stopped short and looked embarrassed. “Nothing, I’m afraid.”

“Not a problem,” Jonathan said, even though it was concerning. The ability to operate effectively at night was a huge force multiplier, especially in a jungle environment. He hated having to trust Jammin’ Josie to be the sole supplier for something so important.

“While you’re doing this,” Jonathan went on, “I need to buy a car. What do you recommend?”

The smile returned to Felipe’s face. “I recommend that you let me sell you a car.”

It wasn’t until she’d arrived in Colombia that Brandy Giddings realized her entire notion of what the country would look like had been shaped by the movie Romancing the Stone with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. She’d expected muddy streets teeming with chickens and goats. She’d expected scary people on every corner and motor vehicles that were thirty years out of date.