John Gilstrap - Hostage Zero

The sound of more movement made her tense, and then the door opened. The man on the other side bore the same features as the photos Gail had studied, but all semblance of polished corporate lawyer had eroded away, leaving a much thinner, more drawn and haggard-looking alternate version. He wore blue jeans and a gray sweatshirt, and if anyone had asked, she would have said that this man was more attractive than the softer one from the past. He stared at her, cradling a sawed-off side-by-side shotgun in his arms. His finger lay poised outside the trigger guard, and the muzzle was not threatening her.

“Say what’s on your mind,” Navarro said.

“I’d like to come inside.”

“I’d like to be twenty again,” Navarro replied. “Which do you think will happen first?”

Gail smiled. Good guy, bad guy, or somewhere in between, you had to admire a sense of humor. “I’m going to reach around to my back pocket,” Gail said. “I have a note from Alice. I’m hoping it will put your mind at ease.”

Navarro nodded.

Avoiding any jerky motion, Gail reached with her left hand to her pocket, where her fingers found the edge of the invitation-sized envelope. She withdrew it and handed it to Navarro.

He accepted it, then appeared hesitant to look away from her.

“I’ll wait in the yard,” Gail said. She walked back down the steps to the lawn. She figured the distance would make Navarro feel less vulnerable.

The envelope appeared sealed, but of course she’d already read the contents-it would have been foolish not to verify that Alice hadn’t given her brother an order to kill Gail on the spot. The note was short and sweet, oddly devoid of personal information despite the years. Perhaps the separation hurt less if the communication stayed businesslike. That it took Navarro over a minute to look up from the note told Gail that he must have read it several times.

When he was finally finished, he turned on his heel and disappeared into the house, leaving the door open behind him. Gail took that as her invitation to enter.

The interior was every bit as well-groomed as the yard. Navarro had decorated the place as if it were a New York apartment, in stark colors with minimalist furniture that must have cost a fortune to begin with, and then another fortune to have delivered. At first glance, the place was very dark, but as Navarro walked deeper in, he flipped wall switches that bathed each room with light that seemed to emanate from behind the walls. Maybe through the walls. Overall, it was a stunning effect.

“Your home is lovely,” Gail said, perhaps for no other reason than to say something.

Navarro stopped in front of a conversation cluster of two chairs and a love seat near one of the front windows. “I believe it’s best to make do with what little you have,” he said. He gestured to one of the chairs. “Please,” he said. He took the love seat, clearly the most worn piece in the room, for himself. The dent in the pillow confirmed for Gail that he had been sleeping when she knocked on the door. He never relinquished the shotgun. On the other hand, he never menaced with it, either. It was just there in the crook of his arm if he needed it. Behind him sat a rack bristling with firearms. It said something about Navarro’s personality that he chose the shotgun over the others. She wasn’t sure exactly what it said, but there was definitely a conclusion to be reached. Maybe he just wasn’t a very good shot.

The cushions crinkled as Gail sat on them.

“They don’t get sat in very often,” Navarro said, reading her thoughts. “Under the circumstances, I’m not all that fond of visitors.”

Gail gave a pleasant smile.

“You must be proud of yourself for finding a man so many have been hunting for so long,” Navarro said.

“I had certain advantages,” she said. “It helps to be doing the right thing for the right reasons.”

Navarro nodded. “My sister’s note mentioned something about a kidnapping.”

Gail revealed the details of the assault on Resurrection House and the information they’d learned since. As she laid out the story, the lines in Navarro’s face grew progressively deeper.

“Mr. Navarro,” she concluded, “you are the common denominator in this story. Arthur Guinn is being threatened in order to silence his testimony against Sammy Bell and the Slater syndicate, Marilyn Schuler worked for you, and you worked for Sammy Bell. The smart money says you’re the one who can untie this knot.”

For the longest time, he just sat there, mulling over the story he’d just heard. Gail gave him space. After a minute or so, she saw the shotgun lift out of the crook of his arm, and she went to high alert-but only for an instant. He swung the weapon in a wide arc, the muzzle never in play, and set it down on the coffee table in front of the love seat.

He stood, shoved his hands into his trouser pockets, and turned to look out the front window.

“Life never ceases to surprise me,” he said, his back turned to Gail. “You don’t get into the kind of trouble I’m in and expect to survive all that long. It’s been a good run for me-nine years is about ten years longer than I had a right to. I always figured that when I was finally busted, there’d be a lot more violence.”

He turned to make eye contact, and Gail tried to conjure her most pleasant smile.

“If I tell you this, what happens to the information?”

“We use it to rescue a child.”

Navarro thought for a moment more, then resigned himself to the inevitable.

They walked for a long time. Evan guessed it was three hours, but it could just as well have been two or five. The jungle never changed. The heat never cooled. A foul smell filled the air at every step, as if everything around them were rotting in the heat. At first, he’d wished that he had boots like Oscar and the soldiers did, but after walking over and over again through shin-deep water, he bet they wished that they were barefoot like him. He saw a show on History Channel on trench foot, and given the shit they’d had to wade through, his guards would be lucky not to pull their skin off when they removed their socks.

No one spoke during the walk-certainly, no one spoke to him-which was fine with Evan, because he’d promised himself not to say anything to anyone until someone had answers. So he just walked. One foot in front of the other, hoping, even though it was ridiculous, that his footprints might leave a clue for someone to come and rescue him.

No one could find him out here. No one except God, of course, and as he slogged along, he offered up a continuous prayer that maybe He would at least tell Father Dom that he was okay. Father Dom would worry about that sort of thing.

It’s funny how your mind shifts into neutral when there’s nothing to say and nothing to see. It occurred to him that despite the hours spent marching along like this, he had no real memory of any of it. There were no special plants or flowers that stuck out to him-although he knew that he had seen some beautiful ones. It’s as if the sameness just attracted more sameness, and in the end it all translated into nothingness.

He was mentally entrenched in that sameness place when he became aware of a new aroma. He didn’t know where it was coming from, but it was as if something pleasant were struggling to push away the constant fart smell of the jungle. Could it be food?

He told himself that he was just getting hungry, and that he was imagining things; but within a dozen steps or so, he changed his mind. He was definitely smelling food. His stomach rumbled.

Apparently the others smelled it, too, because the whole line picked up its pace. By Evan’s estimation, they’d been doing about one step per second, and now they were doing like twice that. Would they let him eat?