John Gilstrap - Hostage Zero

“These invaders as you call them. They are Americans?”

Mitch nodded.

Ruiz waved his hand dismissively. “I do not believe it. We have assurances from the U.S. government that-”

“They still don’t care about the factories, sir. Their official incursions are over. This is a smaller invasion than what you have seen in the past, but if I’m not mistaken some of the players are the same.”

Ruiz shot annoyed glances over both shoulders, then leaned his forearms on the table. “You’re speaking in riddles, Mr. Ponder. I have neither the desire nor the time to figure them out.”

Mitch gave an understanding nod. “Of course, sir. At one of my business establishments, I have some rather specialized business going on. Believe me when I tell you that you don’t want to know too many of the details. This is above and beyond the manufacture of our usual product. It is for this expanded product line that these commandos are invading your country. They entered on commercial flights from the United States under false passports, but unfortunately, I don’t know under what names they arrived.”

Ruiz raised his hands palm up in an extended and exaggerated shrug. “If you know where they are going, surely you have enough men and weapons to take care of things yourself. What could you possibly need from me?”

Another thoughtful nod. “Well, sir, we have reason to believe that they have raised something of an army for themselves.”

“Surely not an army bigger than yours.”

“No, sir, probably not. But it’s entirely possible that they are better skilled than mine.”

Ruiz lowered his voice to a whisper and leaned in very close. Mitch joined him. “If you are asking me to deploy my soldiers into the mountains to defend your operations, then the answer is no. My God, you’ve been allowed to assemble-”

Mitch raised his hand to interrupt. “No, sir, I would never ask you to do that.”

The general leaned back into his chair and crossed his arms. “What, then?”

Mitch laid out his entire plan in less than five minutes. After another ten minutes of questions and answers, it was a go.

With the jungle this thick, satellite access was spotty at best-far too unreliable for Jonathan to track his own progress on the computer, or even on his GPS system-but compasses never lied, and his good old-fashioned land navigation training was so ingrained that he was almost pleased to have an opportunity to use it again. He found reassurance in the fact that their route was well worn by wide-wheelbase vehicles that clearly traveled heavy.

Thank God for Venice. By tasking the SkysEye network to scan the areas marked by Josie, she was able to confirm the presence of the villages and the mountaintop factory. With the current weather conditions, though, she’d only been able to use the thermal sensing capabilities. No visual confirmation of individual people would be possible until the skies cleared.

Venice also delivered the news that a new picture of Evan Guinn had been posted on the anonymous website that the kidnappers had established. Apparently, they were trying to sell the notion that the kid was in Italy-they’d even gotten their hands on yesterday’s edition of a daily newspaper published for towns along the Amalfi Coast.

“The backdrop is just that, though,” Venice had said. “A backdrop. A cheesy one at that. Evan could really be anywhere. I’m trying to track down the location of the server they’re using for the website. It should be a little easier if I assume that it’s somewhere in Colombia, but so far I’m not having any luck. The people running this are very good.”

“So are you,” Jonathan had encouraged. “What do you hear from Gail and the Alaska connection?”

The pause before the answer had said it all. “I don’t think it’s good news, Digger. The satellite imagery there shows a lot of fire and smoke.”

“You don’t think it’s good news? Jesus, Ven.”

“I know, I know. But I haven’t heard anything from her one way or another. Obviously, something went wrong, but I don’t know that she’s been harmed.”

“How long has it been?”

“The screen showed nothing twelve minutes ago. Now, for the last eight minutes I’ve been showing the fire and smoke.”

Jonathan ran the options through his head. Gail was smart, and she was resourceful. If she had survived, then she’d be in control. “What exactly is burning?” he asked.

“It’s hard to tell from the steep angles,” she said. The SkysEye network orbited close to the equator, so the images from the extreme north and extreme south were always distorted. “Certainly the house is burning, and it looks like the car she rented, but there’s another big fire off to the north of the house itself.” It was clear from her tone that she was examining the images as she discussed them.

“I gotta tell you, Dig, it looks like burning gasoline, to me. You know, that greasy black smoke.”

Jonathan’s gut tightened. He knew exactly what she meant. It was the kind of fire that never occurred in nature, which by definition meant that it was caused by man, and the man who caused it meant to do harm. “Okay, here’s what I want you to do,” he’d told Venice. “Call Wolverine. Get her involved.”

“With what?”

“With whatever is going on up there. This is half on her dime anyway. Have her scramble a medevac chopper or a local squad car or something. If Gail is up there wounded, I want her to get some medical attention right by-God now.”

This was new territory for Jonathan. Until this mission into the jungles of hell, he’d never been in a position to divide his troops-at least not since leaving the Army. Before, it had always been just him and Boxers doing the covert side of the business, with occasional help from outside contractors. Throughout all those years, success had been dependent upon the effectiveness of his command abilities-abilities of which he was abundantly confident. Now, the sphere was expanding with the addition of Gail to the covert team, and the first time he’d taken his eye off the ball, something had clearly gone very wrong, and he was in no position to do anything about it. A knot of fear materialized in his gut and had started to metastasize.

When they’d hung up, Venice was supposed to make that phone call next. He hadn’t heard from her since. That was over four hours ago.

Since then, they’d driven the Range Rover and the Blazer to the spot where the road ended and a trail began, and they’d been hiking since, mostly uphill. They’d taken their time dividing up the equipment. Jonathan had ordered, and Josie had provided the Marine Corps equivalent of rucksacks because, loyalties aside, he thought they were better than what the Army used. Made of the standard MARPAT camouflage scheme, they featured an abundant array of PALS straps for pouches, and they were specifically designed to accommodate modular tactical vests and CamelBak water bladders to keep them from sweating themselves dry.

Absent any reliable intel on the conditions in which Evan Guinn was being held, they had to plan for a number of contingencies. Boxers and Jonathan both carried M4 carbines combat-slung across their chests, plus twelve-gauge Mossberg shotguns bungee-slung under their armpits. Jonathan had his Colt 1911. 45 in a tactical holster on his thigh, the same spot where Boxers carried his Beretta 9-millimeter. Each carried twelve spare mags for their rifles-three hundred sixty rounds-plus four spare clips for their side arms and twenty rounds each for the Mossbergs-fifteen rounds of double-ought buck and five Foster slugs for making big holes. Add to that three fragmentation grenades and two CS grenades, plus a couple of bricks of C-4 explosives and detonators, and each of them was carrying half his body weight in equipment.