Elizabeth Lowell - The Wrong Hostage

“Don’t.”

Chandler sounded surprised. “What?”

“Don’t patronize me. I just had to put up with a leering Mexican customs inspector. Any more flattery like that today and I’ll go postal.”

Again, Grace winced at her tone. She’d known Chad Chandler for a decade. By the standards of politicians, he’d always been a gentleman.

“Sorry,” she said quickly. “I’m being pulled in a lot of directions right now and I’m trying to understand what’s going on with the appointment. Is the delay because of the divorce?”

“Hell no, nothing like that. This is the twenty-first century.”

The silence spread.

The senator took another sip of his martini.

Grace looked at her watch again. “If everything’s okay, what’s the holdup? We both know I’ve already been vetted back to my great-grandparents. There’s no new ground for anyone to cover.”

Silence.

A senatorial sigh.

“Well,” he said reluctantly, “there’s something that a few folks down at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue want to explore.”

“Such as?”

“Your son. How’s Lane doing?”

A sickening jolt shot through Grace’s body, like brushing against a naked, charged wire.

“Lane is fine.” She tried to modulate her voice, to stuff down the panic that had exploded just beneath her careful professional surface. “Why? What does Lane have to do with this?”

“When I heard about his drug problems, I was concerned and so were some people in the White House. You know how tricky that kind of thing can be.”

Grace heard the words as if they were being pushed through a distorter, tones trembling and booming until there was only sound, not meaning.

Drug PROBlems?

DRug proBLEMS .

“I-” she managed.

“It’s a concern,” Chandler said without waiting for her to finish. “We had a situation last session that was similar. A judicial nominee’s daughter had a cocaine problem and the opposition used it to suggest that the nominee would be soft on drug users. It didn’t get much traction, but it was a near thing.”

Grace swallowed hard.

“Nobody wants that kind of complication on the appeals court level,” the senator said. “These days we have such thin majorities and they shift from hour to hour. Surely you understand the need for caution.”

An eighteen-wheeler rocketed by on the toll road, its slipstream buffeting the SUV.

“Lane doesn’t have a drug problem,” she said.

The senator hesitated, sighed, sipped. “Hey, it isn’t a big deal. It happens in all families and nobody’s saying it will jeopardize your nomination. The White House just wants to be sure there are no unpleasant surprises.”

“Well, I’ve just had one,” she said. “Who gave you the idea that Lane is into drugs?”

“Nobody had to. It’s kind of obvious.”

“Because he’s a teenager from La Jolla?”

“No, because he’s down in that rehab center in Ensenada,” the senator retorted.

“All Saints School is a private high school on the beach north of Ensenada. It’s one of the best prep schools on any continent. The Roman Catholic Church runs it and some of Tijuana’s finest families send their children there, as well as wealthy families from South America, Europe, and Asia. It’s not a rehab center for junkies.”

“Grace, I’m sorry if I offended you. I certainly didn’t mean to.”

“No problem, as long as everyone understands that we didn’t send Lane to All Saints because he needed a drug-free environment. Please tell your informants, whoever they might be, the truth about Lane’s school.”

There was a long pause, another sip, another sigh. Finally, Chandler grunted. “Odd. I can’t say who brought it up. I guess it was just an impression I got.”

Even though fear was shifting the world beneath her, Grace made certain her voice was level. “Well, since you haven’t talked to me about Lane in months, and no one else in D.C. really knows my son, it must have been Ted who gave you the wrong idea.”

“Well, now that you mention it…”

“When did you talk to Ted?”

“Two weeks ago.”

“Did you see him?” Grace knew her tone was too sharp, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it.

“He was in D.C. for a few hours, some kind of hush-hush meeting. He just stopped by the Hill for a few minutes to say hello.”

She let out a long, silent breath. Someone had seen Ted in the last two weeks. Progress, of a sort.

“Did he say where he was going?” she asked.

“No.”

“Do you know where he is now?”

“No. You sound upset.”

“I haven’t seen or heard from Ted for more than three weeks,” she said. “I was hoping to contact him through you.”

“Is something wrong? I mean, between the two of you? I thought the divorce was all very civilized.”

“It was. It is. I just hoped that…” Ted would step up and be the father Lane needs. That Ted would at least call Lane once a week or even every two weeks .

Another truck roared by, belching diesel into the unusually sultry air.

“It doesn’t matter,” Grace said. “But if you hear from Ted, please ask him to contact me. I’m tired of being his answering service. A lot of people get angry at me because they can’t get through to him.”

The senator coughed. “I hear you. Take care, Grace. We need women like you on the appeals court.”

“Men, too,” she retorted, but she laughed. “Good-bye, Chad. And thanks.”

She rushed back onto the toll road, leaving a rooster tail of dirt in her wake and wondering if drugs were what Calderon had on his mind.

TIJUANA, MEXICO

AUGUST

SATURDAY, 12:12 P.M.

JOE FAROE CAME OUT the front door of Tijuana Tuck amp; Roll carrying what looked like a two-foot-long section of vaguely curved abstract art carved from oak. The shop that had made the oak piece had been in the same location for more than forty years. It was a hangover from the days of gringo surfers and hot-rodders crossing the border for cheap custom car work. When angora dice and hand-stitched leather seats stopped being cool, the shop had chosen a different business model.

It made the best smuggler’s traps to be had in a city whose economy was based on smuggling.

The output of Tijuana Tuck amp; Roll was the kind of open secret Mexico thrived on. The shop was surrounded by a stout chain-link fence topped with lazy, deadly loops of razor wire, the kind that would cut a man to rags.

Joe Faroe knew about wire like that, just like he knew about the auto upholstery shop’s real business.

Been there.

Done that.

Burned the T-shirt.

Faroe glanced across the street. The man was still there, still leaning in the shadow of a doorway. The watcher looked away when Faroe stared at him, but he didn’t move from his post.

A cop, Faroe decided.

The dude’s leather jacket and comfortable belly gave him away. For some cops, life was good.

Okay, is he a Mexican cop or an American working south of the line, trying to figure out the latest smuggling wrinkle?

Is he looking for an arrest or a shakedown?

Faroe closed the chain-link gate behind him and stared at the cop whose leather jacket was almost as expensive as Faroe’s.

The dude pretended he didn’t exist.

Faroe kept staring.

Finally the cop looked over casually and nodded. He was an old hand. He knew he’d been burned.

“Have a nice day,” Faroe called across the street.

The cop shrugged and turned away to light a cigarette.

Faroe strolled along the buckled, treacherous sidewalk toward La Revo. He’d parked in Chula Vista and walked across La Linea-the border. Now he needed a cab back to the U.S. port of entry. There were always cabs next to the zebra-striped burro on the corner of La Revo and Calle Cinco.