John Gilstrap - Hostage Zero

“Did you kill him?” Jimmy said as he tried to find his feet again. “Jesus, he dropped like you killed him.”

“I didn’t kill anybody,” Jonathan said. He just hoped he hadn’t broken Shenton’s jaw. He stooped to go through his pockets.

“So what do we do now?” Jimmy asked. He darted to the door and leaned out, looking both ways down the hall.

“Get inside and close the door,” Jonathan commanded. He found a ring of keys in the deputy’s front pocket and shuffled through them. He saw a standard Schlage key, probably for his house, plus a Honda key and another for a Ford. None looked like it was made for a high-security lock. He did find a handcuff key, though, and that was enough of a reason to slip the ring into his suit-coat pocket.

“There!” Jimmy said, pointing. “You just had it. That was the key to these fucking things.” He raised his hands as best he could and rattled his chains.

Finished with the unconscious guard, Jonathan stood and thrust a forefinger at Jimmy Henry. “Listen to me,” he said. “This is my op, not yours. I don’t need suggestions, and I don’t need advice. My job is to get you out. Yours is to do exactly what you’re told. Tell me this isn’t too complicated for you.”

Jimmy reared back, clearly insulted. “Dude, there’s no reason to be hostile.”

Jonathan stepped forward until their noses were nearly touching. “I’m breaking you out of prison, shithead. There are armed guards everywhere, and I want very much to wake up alive tomorrow morning. There is every goddamn reason to be hostile.”

The prisoner jingled as he took a step backward. “Really, dude-”

Jonathan silenced him with a raised finger. “Remain silent, do exactly what you’re told, and don’t do anything I don’t tell you to do. Remember that, and we’ll be just fine.” He waited for the nod that confirmed that his words had penetrated. “Good. Now when we get into that hallway, we’re going to head left, and we’re going to keep going till we’re outside. Then we’re going to catch a ride out of here.”

The prisoner cocked his head. “Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

His earbud popped. “Scorpion,” Venice said, “we have a problem.”

For not being hungry, Jeremy Schuler faked it well. The way he wolfed down the mac and cheese, he was lucky he didn’t lose a finger. Ditto the baked beans and the orange pound cake. Skinny thing that he was, he scarfed more calories in a single sitting than Harvey consumed in an entire day. Clearly, he was a kid who didn’t go wanting very often. In Harvey’s experience, people who understood scarcity ate with more appreciation.

“That was really good,” Jeremy said as he licked the last of the cake from his fingers.

“Glad you liked it.”

“Is there more?”

“Not tonight.” As he spoke the denial, Harvey was half prepared for an argument, and surprised when it didn’t come. The kid merely nodded, and put his plate on his lap.

Harvey picked up the plate and poured some boiling water onto it from the pot on the burner. With the water balanced in the center, he used a ratty dish towel to clean it off. Through it all, Jeremy said nothing. But he stared a lot, and that was annoying.

“You got something on your mind, son, it’s best to get it out,” Harvey said.

The observation seemed to startle the boy. “I want to go home,” he said.

“I imagine you do,” Harvey said. “Where is home?”

“I go to a school in Fisherman’s Cove. I live there. It’s called Resurrection House.”

Harvey had heard of the place. It was affiliated with St. Katherine’s parish, the very one that had given him tonight’s dinner. Except he’d always thought it was an orphanage. “Well, let’s take that on in the morning. It’s a long walk, and I don’t have a car. It’s even longer in the dark.”

“But what if they come back for me?”

Now that was the panic-inducing question, wasn’t it? “I wouldn’t worry about that,” Harvey said. “They’ve had all day to come back for you. If they were coming, they would have come then.” Maybe if he said it definitively enough, Harvey would believe it himself. The simple truth of the matter was that Jeremy wasn’t yet ready to make that kind of trek.

Jeremy thought for a while before asking, “Don’t you want to know what happened?”

“Of course I do. But only if you want to tell me.”

“I got… kidnapped,” he said. He stumbled on the last word, and in the uneven glare of the lantern, Harvey could see Jeremy’s eyes glistening.

“A bunch of men crashed into my room.” Jeremy struggled to keep his tone even. “They tied up Anthony, and then they…” His voice trailed off, but then he settled himself with a deep breath. “And then they killed Mr. Stewart.”

A knot formed in Harvey’s belly. “Who’s Anthony?” he asked.

Jeremy covered his eyes. “My roommate,” he squeaked.

Harvey’s head swam. This was worse than he’d thought. “A bunch of men came into your room and took you away?”

Jeremy let his hands fall away, and nodded as he pulled his legs up into the chair Indian style.

“And who is Mr. Stewart?”

Jeremy answered to his lap. “The janitor. He was my friend.”

“Why would someone do that?”

“They took other kids, too,” Jeremy said. “At least one.”

“Are you sure?”

As he sat there in the camp chair, Jeremy seemed to shrink, as if growing younger and smaller. His shoulders slumped, and his head drooped. For a few seconds, Harvey thought maybe the boy had fallen back to sleep.

But then he looked up again. He drew a huge breath, and he told his story.

Granville George looked up from his daily log reports and leaned back in the medieval torture device that posed as his chair. He swore that the sheriff had specially ordered this uncomfortable piece of crap just to make his six-month sentence as miserable as possible. As if the mind-numbing work weren’t painful enough.

As he arched his back and stretched, he caught a glimpse of himself on the security monitor. Without paying attention, he scanned the other monitors as well. In the women’s wing he saw Terry Milan strolling her patrol, just as she was supposed to, while in the men’s wing, the hallway remained empty-not unexpected, given the fact that Rob Shenton would be babysitting Agent Harris for the time being. Meanwhile, three other guards attended to their various admin duties in the center security section.

But that didn’t really add up, did it? Granville shifted his gaze to the interview room, and sure enough, there was the Henry kid sitting at the interview table across from his Fibbie visitor. So where was Rob? He must have been standing in the corner where there was no camera cover.

Only, that didn’t make sense either. Chase Battles had told him during shift change that the asshole from the FBI was very specific about wanting to talk to his prisoner alone.

In fact, there was Chase Battles on the screen right now, leaving the interview room and beginning his patrol.

Not Rob Shenton. Chase Battles. From evening shift.

“Oh, shit!” Granville spat. “Oh, fucking shit!” He snatched the phone from its cradle and mashed the emergency alert button with his palm.

Venice knew something was wrong from the way the desk attendant launched upright. She shot a look to the feed monitor, and right away saw what had happened. He recognized the guard.

As he reached for the phone, she was a step ahead of him, and she typed in the code to shut the phone system down. It was one of the emergency precautions she’d planned for.

“Scorpion, we have a problem,” she said into her boom mike. As she uttered the words, she saw the desk attendant reach for something on his console, and an instant later, her monitor speakers erupted with an earsplitting squeal.