John Gilstrap - Hostage Zero

Such was his posture when one of the mercenaries on his left shouldered his M16 and brought it to bear.

Boxers said, “Oh, shit,” and then the jungle exploded in automatic weapons fire.

Harvey dropped to the ground for cover, but by the time he rolled to a prone shooting position and brought his weapon up, it was over. None of the mercenaries remained standing. Most appeared to be dead, but the one closest to him writhed from his wounds, one of which pumped blood at a fatal rate.

Harvey whipped his head toward the spot where he’d last seen Jonathan and Boxers, and both of them had dropped to a knee. Barrels smoking, their weapons remained locked in on their targets. In less than five seconds, they’d cut down seven men. Harvey had never seen anything like it.

“Mr. Smith, are you all right?”

Harvey gaped. His ears felt like they’d been stuffed with cotton. “Yeah,” he said. “Holy shit.”

While Jonathan held his aim, Boxers rose to his feet, and with his weapon always at the ready, approached the bodies. “If you’ve got nothing better to do, how about giving me a hand?” the Big Guy said.

“M-me?” Harvey stammered.

“Y-yeah, y-you,” Boxers mocked. “Disarm these men.”

Harvey rose to his feet. “But they’re dead. Jesus.” Once he stood, he could see just how dead they were-every one a head shot.

“Disarmed and dead is better than just plain dead.”

“No, Big Guy, I need him here with me,” Jonathan said. He was kneeling over Jammin’ Josie, his bloody hands pressed against the other man’s belly. “Find the aid kit and bring it here.”

The trauma bag lay on the top of the equipment piled next to one of Josie’s Blazers.

Harvey knew it was bad the instant he saw pallor in Josie’s face. The location of the bullet wound in the upper left quadrant of the abdomen, combined with the flow of blood, said that his spleen had been hit.

“He needs a surgeon,” Harvey said.

Jonathan gave him a knowing look. Josie was not long for this world. “Do what you can.”

A new kind of fear gripped Harvey’s insides. He hadn’t seen a bullet wound in years; and the last time he did, a medevac chopper was always a radio call away. He had no magical powers. This man was going to die, and Harvey was going to have to tend him while it happened.

“What’s this all about?” Harvey asked. “What just happened?”

“You tend to the wounds, Doc,” Jonathan said. “And we’ll find out the rest together.”

Jonathan helped Harvey strip Josie of his shirt, exposing the wound that had been inflicted by one of Josie’s own-by accident, Jonathan assumed, but with mercenaries, you could never be sure. This man who’d betrayed him had a chest and belly much like Jonathan’s own-less developed, perhaps, but equally disfigured by scars from previous wounds. This new one was a perfectly round hole in the front, about the diameter of a number-two pencil, while the exit wound in his back was a ragged avulsion three times the size of the entry hole.

While Harvey pulled HemCon packets out of his med kit and ripped them open, Jonathan said, “Tell me what you did, Josie.”

“Am I shot bad?”

“Yes,” he said. “You’re shot bad.” No matter what, Jonathan owed him the truth.

“Fatal?”

“Probably.”

“Jesus,” Harvey snapped. “Where did you learn bedside manner?”

Jonathan ignored him. “I need to know the details, Josie. You don’t want to die with betrayal on your soul.”

Harvey said, “This is going to hurt.” He’d donned a pair of latex gloves and prepared to insert the HemCon pads into the wounds. Similar in appearance to standard gauze dressings, HemCon pads were soaked in a coagulating agent that was damned effective at stanching the flow of blood from traumatic injuries long enough to get the patient to a hospital.

“Wait a second,” Jonathan said.

Harvey shook his head. “No.”

No easy way existed to jam fabric into the ballistic pathway of a bullet. Josie howled like a tortured animal as Harvey stuffed first the entry wound and then the exit. The very thought of it churned Jonathan’s stomach.

Josie lay soaked in sweat and heaving for breath when it was all done. He’d nearly bitten through his lower lip. “ Dios mio,” he moaned.

Jonathan stroked his hair. “It’s over now. That should slow the bleeding.”

“Then maybe I can live?”

Harvey shot a glare.

“Maybe,” Jonathan said. “But Josie, you have to tell me what you did. After you do that, we can give you a shot for the pain.”

Josie locked eyes with Jonathan. They shimmered with fear and shame. “A man came to me,” he said. “He knew of our work together in the past. He had pictures of you. All three of you.”

Jonathan’s heart skipped. No one knew they were coming. “Who was this man?”

“I don’t know him.”

“You know his name,” Jonathan said, his heart heavy with disappointment. “I know it, too, but I need you to say it. Please don’t lie to me. Not now.”

Tears tracked from the corners of the little man’s eyes. “I don’t know how he found me,” he said. “He approached me on the street, showed me a picture of my family, and told me that if I saw any of you-he showed me your pictures-I was to call him and tell him.”

“Tell him what?”

“That I saw you, I suppose.”

Boxers had rejoined them. He stood at his full height, allowing his shadow to keep the sun out of Jose’s eyes.

“He threatened my family,” Jose said.

Jonathan understood now. “What did he want?”

The last of the resistance went away. Jonathan saw real remorse. Genuine regret. “He knew that I was raising an attack force. He guessed that it was for you.” He tried a friendly smile. “I’m not the liar I used to be. He wanted me to kill you.”

Jonathan gave a wry chuckle. “With the people I hired to help me?”

Josie closed his eyes against another wave of agony. “It would have pained me,” he said after it passed. “He had pictures of my family. He was going to kill them.”

“What makes you think we won’t?” Boxers asked.

Jonathan didn’t like the question, didn’t like the tone, and didn’t like the implication. But he showed none of it.

Jose smiled. “You are here to rescue a child,” he said. “People who rescue children don’t kill them.”

Bingo, Jonathan thought. In fact, a Silver Star citation posted on the wall at Unit headquarters at Fort Bragg gave testimony to the lengths Boxers would go to protect children.

Jonathan cranked his head to look up at Boxers’ silhouette. “Get on the horn with Mother Hen and have her scan the screens. Make sure we’re still alone.”

Boxers backed off a few feet and keyed his microphone. Jonathan tuned him out. “I need to know everything, Josie. Every detail. Start with his name.”

The little man squinted against the sun. “I knew who he was as soon as I saw him. They call him El Matador. He is very feared by the people here in the mountains, and he is allowed by the policia to do whatever he wants. He kills people, Mr. Jones. His last name is Ponder. First name Michael, I think. No, it’s a different name that sounds like Michael. I don’t know.”

Jonathan didn’t know what to say. This mission had barely begun, yet the battle plan had already been shredded.

“I did it to save my family,” Josie repeated. Another wave of pain rolled through his gut. And he tensed against it. “It was never my plan to betray you, Mr. Jones. You must know that.”

Boxers’ shadow returned. “We’re alone,” he reported.

“Good to know,” Jonathan said. To Josie: “Did you even look for the boy we’re trying to find?”