Elizabeth Lowell - The Wrong Hostage

Steele smiled. The more he saw of Grace, the better he liked her. Balls and brains were a tough combination to beat.

“Tell Faroe that the situation has changed at All Saints,” Steele said.

“Lane?” she asked, her voice raw.

“Not directly.”

At the other end of the call, Grace sagged with relief.

“What?” Faroe shouted so Steele could hear him.

Grace held the phone to Faroe’s ear.

“Wood is sending me digital photos from the helicopter,” Steele said. “Overnight, the soccer field grew a full crop of tents. Armed personnel are all over the place like ants on honey.”

“So Hector owns the army, too?”

“Do you believe in coincidences?” Steele asked dryly.

“Not that one. How many soldiers?”

“Too many. Any extraction of Lane would have to be extremely quiet. Softly, softly, catchee monkey, and mind the fangs and claws.”

“The chopper is too loud,” Faroe said. “We might fake an emergency landing, but we’d have to shoot our way out. The Aerospatiale isn’t built for that.”

“Wood and Murchison are examining water extractions. Jarrett and you could infiltrate wearing the uniform of the day. We would provide sniper coverage, of course, but if we used it…”

“It would all go from sugar to dog shit real quick,” Faroe finished.

He braked, hit the horn, and swerved around an idiot doing fifty in the fast lane while shaving and flossing his teeth.

“Can you cover the place from real-time satellite photos?” Faroe asked.

“If you don’t mind spending thousands of-”

“Spend it,” he cut in. “It’s on me. Can you get enough resolution for individual ID?”

“Not unless they look up and wave on command.”

“Is Lane’s sat tracker still working?”

“Yes,” Steele said. “He hasn’t moved.”

“Let me know if that changes. Anything else?”

“Your final option isn’t much of an option anymore.”

LA MESA PRISON

MONDAY, 6:15 A.M.

THE GUARD IN THE visitors’ parking lot carried a pistol and charged Grace and Faroe ten dollars because they arrived in a Mercedes. The guard at the visitors’ gate carried a pump shotgun and charged them another twenty dollars because they were gringos.

The courier waiting for them inside the gate was unarmed and he refused a tip altogether.

“Por El Senor,” he said.

For the grace of God.

The courier was wearing an Oakland Raiders cap and a Metallica T-shirt, and had the shy dignity of an altar boy.

He ushered them down a long, narrow alley lined with doors made from steel bars. From inside, hidden by the shadows, prisoners stared at them with glittering eyes. Several of them made smooching and sucking noises when they saw Grace.

She ignored them.

“Muy peligroso,” the courier warned them.

Very dangerous.

“Only if you let them out,” Faroe said.

An inmate hissed at him.

The air smelled of raw sewage.

“Breathe through your mouth,” Faroe said in a low voice to Grace.

“So I can savor the taste? This makes Terminal Island and Lompoc look like day spas.”

“You asked for it.”

She walked around a cloudy puddle that had gathered on the ground near what must have been a cracked septic line. “It’s a learning experience.”

“Only the first time. Whatever happens, eyes front and just keep walking like you’ve seen it all a dozen times before and weren’t impressed.”

“Like you?”

“Just like me.”

The courier led them out of the alley and into the main prison yard. It was as big as a large city block. Even this early in the morning, the space was crowded. Groups of men leaned against walls or gathered near the ratty palm trees, smoking and talking and waiting for something to happen. Anything.

The concrete walls around the courtyard were three stories high. Guards with shotguns and assault rifles prowled the catwalks wearing tan uniforms, sunglasses, and baseball caps.

There weren’t any guards in the main yard. The inmates were on their own.

A group of children were choosing sides for a schoolyard game, but there was no school inside La Mesa Prison. The tallest of the children proudly held a soccer ball. It was so scuffed and worn that its leather covering was the same color as the soil of the courtyard.

One of the kids spotted the outsiders and whistled an alarm. The entire group broke and ran toward the gringos, shouldering and elbowing to get close. They shouted in Spanish and thrust out their hands, palms up, demanding or pleading for money.

Grace hesitated.

“No,” Faroe said, taking her arm. “Nothing.”

“But-”

“Remember,” he cut in. “You’ve seen it all.”

“They’re children,” she said in a low voice, keeping her eyes front. “Why are they in prison?”

“They were born here.”

The courier looked over his shoulder at them.

“Hurry up,” Faroe said.

They walked quickly toward a small building huddled on one side of the main yard. The makeshift church was built of unpainted concrete blocks. A rusty cross made out of rebar was wired to the wooden front door.

When they reached the little church, Faroe loosened his grip on Grace’s arm and spoke in a voice only she could hear. “Remember, amada, you’re inside the prison but outside the pale. Tijuana is San Diego’s Indian country. La Mesa is Tijuana’s Indian country.”

“Odd place for a church.”

“Wait until you see the mother superior.”

The courier knocked softly on the wooden door, pushed it open, and gestured for them to enter. Inside, rows of battered wooden benches faced an altar dominated by a dark-skinned plaster Christ with indio features, a massive crown of thorns, and a blood-drenched torso. To one side a serene, unusually beautiful Virgin Mary smiled her blessing down from a niche in the concrete-block wall. The niche was crowded with burning candles. The air was thick with their sooty smoke.

A white-haired woman in an ankle-length straight skirt and a blue zippered sweatshirt knelt at the altar rail. After a few moments, she rose and turned toward Grace and Faroe. Tall, very well built beneath the modest clothes, the woman was striking. She had the high cheekbones and large, almond-shaped eyes of a cover model. Those eyes were blue, very dark against the frame of white hair that once had been blond.

Grace glanced once more at the shrine. The other woman clearly had been the inspiration for the painting of the Virgin.

“Good morning, may God bless you,” the woman said in clear, unaccented California English. She came down the aisle between the benches, moving gracefully toward her visitors. “I’m Sister Maude.”

Her handshake was firm and her smile gracious. She dismissed the courier and invited them into her quarters at the rear of the chapel. A propane gas ring burned beneath a teakettle. She poured hot water into three chipped, cracked mugs and added powdered coffee. She put the mugs out on a table, gestured to the mismatched chairs, and sat down facing her guests.

“Dimas Quintana warned me you don’t have much time,” Sister Maude said. “How can I help you? You may speak freely here. This is a house of God.”

Faroe looked around with the eyes of a man who didn’t trust much on earth and less in heaven.

“Excuse my bluntness,” he said, “but we’ve had mixed results with some of God’s representatives here on earth.”

Sister Maude studied the two of them over the rim of her cup. “The church is a human institution, as well as a holy one. There are errors. There are sins. There are realities that require even the most devout of Christians to conceal their full intentions from the worldly forces that work to see God and his believers fail.”