John Gilstrap - Hostage Zero

“I was hoping that was you,” Boxers said. “You make a hell of a racket. Come on in.”

“On our way.” Then to Harvey: “You heard the man. Tally-ho.”

Harvey eased pressure onto the accelerator, and they were on their way. Less than a minute later, Jonathan pointed ahead and to the right, where he spotted the first picket. “See the guy in the trees up there?”

Harvey nodded. “I got him. What do you want to do?”

Jonathan repositioned the M4 in his lap so that he could fire left-handed if he needed to. “Just keep going. If he brings a weapon to bear, I’ll take him out.”

“I thought these guys were our allies.”

“In an hour, maybe they’ll be allies. Right now, they’re just strangers with guns.”

“There’s another one on the left,” Harvey said. When he pointed, he kept his hand low so no one could misinterpret the gesture as aggressive.

Jonathan appreciated the smart thinking. “I see him.”

“How many directions can you shoot at one time?”

“When motivated?” Jonathan quipped. “You’d be surprised. Just keep going. Don’t speed up, don’t slow down. Nothing’s pointing at us, so I guess they got the word.”

“You have no idea how little comfort that gives me.”

It had been a mistake to leave the windows up, Jonathan realized. Shooting through glass was inaccurate at best. What he lacked in accuracy would have to be made up for in volume, and just to make sure he was ready for the possibility, he caressed the M4’s selector switch with his left forefinger and verified that it was in the three-round burst mode. As long as he was alive and still had a trigger finger, there wasn’t a target on the planet that he couldn’t hit with six rounds.

Ten seconds later, they were past the sentries and closing in on the clearing that would be their base camp. Including the pickets, whom he could see in his rearview mirror following the Rover, Jonathan counted seven soldiers, all dressed in jungle camouflage, and all holding rifles. To the left of center, Boxers towered over the others, and next to Boxers stood an utterly unchanged Jose Calderon.

“Boy, you don’t really get how friggin’ huge he is till you seem him next to other people, do you?” Harvey said. “He looks like Frankenstein.”

Jonathan pointed to a random spot on the ground beyond the front bumper. “Just stop anywhere in here,” he said. “And Mr. Smith?” Jonathan was fanatical about not using real names on operations, even when outside the hearing of others.

“Yeah?”

“I’m gonna give you a literal life lesson right now. As in, a lesson that will lengthen your life. Big Guy doesn’t like it when people call him names like Frankenstein. He doesn’t like Lurch; he doesn’t like Paul Bunyan. Frankly, he’s not all that fond of Big Guy, but he puts up with it because it’s his code name. In general, he doesn’t tease well.”

“A bit of a sociopath, is he?”

Jonathan’s glare darkened. “That would be calling him a name, wouldn’t it? As the man whose ass he’s saved on more than one occasion, you’re beginning to piss me off.”

Harvey opened his mouth to say something, but Jonathan wasn’t interested. He pulled the door handle and stepped out into the jungle sauna. By the time he got his door closed again, Jammin’ Josie was already on his way over, his arms outstretched. Again with the abrazos. “Senor Jones, it’s been too many years.”

Jonathan held out his arm to stop the man. When he complied, the sign to halt became an offer for a handshake. “How are you, Josie?”

At first, Jose looked confused, but then he offered up a wide grin. “I forget that you don’t like to touch,” he said.

“I don’t mind touching,” Jonathan said. “I just don’t like having to check for my wallet afterward.”

Jose put a hand to his chest, feigning a wound. “Is that any way to greet an old friend?”

“Actually, it’s not at all how I greet old friends. How many people know that I’m here?”

The wound grew deeper. “I have told no one, Senor Jones.”

Sensing trouble, and no doubt welcoming the opportunity to settle it, Boxers moved closer. Behind him, Harvey stepped out of the Range Rover. Jose’s troops sensed it, too, and several unslung their rifles.

“Don’t be an idiot, Josie,” Jonathan said. “Where do you think I got the Range Rover?”

The smile dimmed, and then returned. “Oh, well, Felipe knows, of course.”

“Of course.” He scanned the faces of the men who continued to close in, ever so slowly, and reflexively calculated lanes of fire. They still had time. “Tell your men to stand down,” he commanded.

Jose said the right words in Spanish, and when the men hesitated, he repeated them more forcefully. His troops relaxed, but not entirely.

Boxers said, “You watching this, Boss?”

Jonathan opened his stance so he could keep a better eye on the crowd as he continued his chat with Josie. “Mr. Smith?” he called without looking.

Harvey said, “Sir?”

“Arm yourself, please.”

Concern fell across Josie’s face. “What are you doing, my friend?”

Jonathan dared a glance to satisfy himself that Harvey had picked up his weapon from the Rover’s seat.

Josie said, “You seem to be expecting violence from me. I am your friend.”

“Tell me how Felipe knows so much,” Jonathan said.

Jose shuffled his feet and forced a smile. “Felipe knows everything, yes?”

Boxers made himself taller still, and Josie seemed to shrink accordingly.

“Who else knows?” Jonathan pressed.

The little man held his hand as if taking an oath. “On the grave of my mother, I have told no one.”

Boxers growled, “Careful, Scorpion. Snakes aren’t born. They hatch.”

Jose turned on him, craning his neck to look Boxers in the eye. “I don’t like you,” he said. “I been nothing but nice to you all day, you been nothing but lousy in return.” Then he faced Jonathan. “And then you come and treat me like I am traitor. I never betrayed you, Mr. Jones. Never once, not even during our fight with Pablo. I could have been a rich man if I had betrayed you, but I never do.”

“You would have been a dead man if you’d betrayed us,” Boxers said.

“Back then we all think we are dead men anyway,” Jose countered. “I could have been much safer telling people about you, but I never do that.”

Jonathan felt tension draining from his shoulders. Jammin’ Josie was exactly right. During the shoot-’em-up drug war, there had been a time when the only safe people were the ones on the wrong side of the law. A man like Josie could have retired on the reward for betraying the good guys.

“You’ve always been a good friend to me,” Jonathan said. “But it’s been a long time, and things are different now. Josie, right now is your one and only opportunity to tell me if your loyalty has been compromised. Tell me the details of what you’ve told others, and I promise that I’ll let you all walk away. I won’t come looking for you.”

Something changed in Josie’s eyes. A brief flash of panic, maybe. Boxers saw it, too, and he shifted his grip on his rifle, allowing his gloved finger to slip into the trigger guard of his M4.

“Oh, shit,” he said.

Harvey sensed the tension between Jonathan and his old friend, but there was nothing about their interaction that seemed critical. The order to arm himself surprised him, but even then he didn’t sense urgency. As ordered, he’d lifted out his MP5 machine gun, but he thought it was more a symbolic gesture than preparation for combat, so he didn’t even bother to extend the telescoping stock. He stood, watching and doing his best to listen, with the weapon dangling from his hand like an overgrown pistol.