Damage Control (6 page)

“
None
of the hostages survived?” Munro asked. It seemed impossible. “Have you verified that?”

“One or two might have,” Sjogren said. “My guy on the ground—an army captain named Palma—told me there were thirteen dead on the ground, including the kidnappers and two of Palma’s own guys, but a full count is complicated by the fact that we don’t really know what the starting numbers were. We know that your butt buddy’s goons killed a couple before the bus ever got to the jungle, but since you insisted that the goons die first, we don’t know who or how many. The only kid missing is a seventeen-year-old named Tristan Wagner. Stupid name, yeah, I know. The four chaperones are missing, too, but like I said, they might have been killed before. I haven’t looked it up in the dictionary, Trev, but I’m pretty sure this set the new definition for a cluster fuck.”

Profanity notwithstanding, Sjogren’s larger point was spot-on. But what seemed so shockingly simple to that beefy boor—getting the Crystal Palace to go along with the scheme—turned out in the end to require a great deal of heated last-minute negotiation.

The original plan had called for Hernandez to keep the ransom—three million dollars. Then, the right reverend Jackie Mitchell changed the rules at the last minute. She decided that for the kind of risk she was taking, her own three million was not enough. She needed the ransom, too, for a total of six mill. Any less, she said, and she’d go to the FBI. She’d take some heat, she reasoned, and might even face jail time, but she rolled the dice that it would all go harder on Munro than it would on her.

As with any good game of brinksmanship, it’s impossible to tell when the other party is bluffing. As a longtime veteran of such games, Munro sensed that she was serious. Given all the scandals she’d endured in the last year or so, she’d been coming from a very weird psychological starting point. Under the circumstances, such self-destructive behavior was well within the bounds of reason.

In the end, he’d had no choice but to blink.

Getting Hernandez to agree took some work, as well, but it turned out that settling the debt owed to him by Harris and Lerner—Munro was likewise willing to bet those weren’t their real names—was worth the three million dollars. Unfortunately, Felix’s largesse did not extend to the soldiers who’d done the kidnapping in return for a share of the payment. They would be angry when they found out that there’d be no payment for their efforts—angry enough to pose a security risk to Felix. Therefore, they had to die, too.

Now, after all that, Munro had nothing to show for all of his efforts but collateral damage. Worse, if Sjogren knew these details from his people on the ground, then Hernandez must know as well, and he’d be furious.

“What are you going to do to fix this?” Munro asked.

“What am
I
going to do?” Sjogren said, aghast. “I’m going to call it a day and watch the fireworks. The question is, what are
you
going to do? You screwed the pooch big-time on this. Not only are Harris and Lerner still out there—now they know they’re being hunted. You don’t have a clue who they are, but depending on who they might talk to, they’ll find out who you are. Or maybe they’ll just figure out how totally screwed up the Crystal Palace folks are. Oh, yeah, and let’s not forget what’s going to happen when all those big parishioners get wind of what you did with those little parishioners. Of course none of that will matter if Hernandez gets to you first.” Another laugh, this one heartier than the others. “Hell, Trev, I get nervous just standing next to you.”

“We can’t let them get back into the country,” Munro said, the barest outline of a plan forming in his mind.

“How’s that?”

“If we can keep them in Mexico, we can keep this contained. If they cross the border, it will be too late.”

“You don’t even know who you’re looking for. How are you gonna do that?”

“I’m going to trap them,” Munro said. Just like that, the plan became fully formed in his head. As he walked away from Sjogren, he said over his shoulder, “You’re still in this. Keep a phone nearby in case I need you.”

Mother Hen—a.k.a. Venice Alexander (it’s pronounced Ven-EE-chay, by the way)—sat in her office on the top floor of the converted firehouse in Fisherman’s Cove, Virginia, watching helplessly as the nightmare unfolded. Her official job title was something like director of operations for Security Solutions Inc., the private investigation firm that served as the cover for Jonathan Grave’s hostage rescue shenanigans. When the boys weren’t out saving lives, she in fact managed seven investigators, who each ran as many as eight different investigations simultaneously. The legitimate side of the business earned a fortune—not that Jonathan needed it—and numbered among its clients some of the biggest corporate names in the world. Few of the staff on the overt side of the business understood the covert side—or if they did, they had the good sense to keep their suspicions to themselves.

Routine investigations, though, could never hold Jonathan’s attention. He lived for the adrenaline rush of the rescue missions. When he was away on an op, it fell to Venice to manage whatever intel they could get, and to troubleshoot things when they went wrong.

Right now, things were going very, very wrong. And she’d sent for reinforcements.

When Gail Bonneville arrived in the War Room—the high-tech teak conference room that was decked out with every techno-toy imaginable—her hair was still wet from the shower that Venice’s call had interrupted. Even disheveled, Gail had an air of athletic grace about her that always thrummed a pang of jealousy in Venice, whose constant battle with the same thirty pounds had once again turned to a losing one.

“What’s wrong and how bad is it?” Gail asked as she helped herself to one of the ergonomic chairs that surrounded the massive table. As she spoke, she lifted a panel in the table to reveal a computer screen, slid out a keyboard, and logged in to her account.

“All the hostages but one are dead,” Venice said. She took a couple of minutes to fill in the rest of the story.

A former member of the FBI Hostage Rescue Team, and a retired sheriff of a small community in Indiana, Gail Bonneville had a law degree and a PhD in criminology. After one particularly difficult op in West Virginia, she’d decided that extra-legal door crashing didn’t suit her, and she’d assumed official control of Security Solutions’s legitimate side. She kept her finger on the pulse of the covert side, but she no longer put herself in the position of perhaps having to shoot people whom she had no authority to kill.

As Gail listened to Venice fill in the details, the space between her eyebrows folded into deep furrows. “How’s Digger holding up? He’s never lost a hostage, has he?”

Venice gave a look that said,
Are you kidding me?
“You might have noticed that Dig doesn’t exactly bare his soul to me.”

“To anyone,” Gail acknowledged. She sat back in her seat and scowled even deeper. “I don’t understand how this is possible,” she said. “The entire population of people who knew about this is either in this room or in Mexico getting shot at. How could their plan have leaked out?”

“That’s why I called you in,” Venice said. “None of this adds up. I thought of Reverend Mitchell at the Crystal Palace and whoever is advising her, but that doesn’t make sense, either. Even if she had reason to betray us—and why would she when the mission is to rescue her parishioners?—Digger never divulges operational details to a client. To prevent this very scenario.”

“Like I said,” Gail concurred, “we’re witnessing the impossible. You and I haven’t leaked anything.” A pause. “Right?”

Venice’s ears turned hot. She’d known Jonathan since she was a little girl, and she’d been his right hand for nearly as long. Gail was the newcomer, and while she was Jonathan’s regular bed partner—who the heck knew where their relationship stood these days?—how dare she question—

“I’m sorry,” Gail said, clearly interpreting Venice’s glare for what it was. “Of course you didn’t. Boxers doesn’t say two hundred words a month about anything, and he’d cut out his tongue before he talked about an upcoming op, so he’s out, too.”

Venice didn’t like the remaining implication any better than the veiled accusation against her. “Are you saying that Digger sabotaged himself?”

Gail held up a hand. “I’m not suggesting that he did it on purpose, but you know how Jon can be when he gets into his gamesmanship mode. Remember how we first met?”

Gail had a point. Boxers often railed against the shortcuts Jonathan took in the area of opsec—operational security. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that he’d let his tongue wag more than was prudent.

“It doesn’t matter,” Gail said, dismissing her own argument. “We’re where we are. How we got here matters less than fixing it. We need to find a way for them to get out of there.” She started typing. “Let’s start with the topo maps.”

While Gail typed some more, gaining access to the computer files Jonathan had used to plan the mission, Venice brought the giant wall screen to life. From there, they could monitor each other’s screens. Two seconds after the images appeared, Venice’s computer rang like an old-fashioned telephone.

Venice’s heart jumped, and as her hands flew to enter the right commands, Gail said, “What’s that?”

“Bad news,” Venice replied. “Always, always bad news.”

Boxers drove slowly—on these roads, slowly was about the best you could do—while Jonathan worked his GPS and map. They’d set a general course to the north, just to put distance between them and the bad guys. Outside, the scenery never changed: a wall of green wetness that smelled of rot. They kept the windows down and the air-conditioning off, both to give the engine a break, and to keep their sense of hearing intact.

“I wish we’d had a chance to collect intel,” Boxers said. “Maybe those guys had shit in their pockets that would give a clue who they are.”

“Woulda, coulda, shoulda,” Jonathan said without looking up. “I’m thinking that maybe when we get to the U.S. border, Wolverine will be able to talk us across. Without passports, that could be a problem.”

Boxers laughed. “Yeah, well, on the spectrum of our problems right now, let’s call that one minor.”

Jonathan looked over his shoulder again to check on their PC. Now that the shooting had stopped, he let the kid sit upright in his seat. “Hey, Tristan, did they let you keep your passport?” He wasn’t surprised that the answer was no, but it was worth checking, just to be sure.

“Why are they doing this?” Tristan asked. “What did I do to hurt them?”

Boxers smirked to his boss. Between the two of them, Jonathan was by far the more sensitive, and that was a very low bar. Jonathan hated the touchy-feely stuff. Back in his days with the Unit, they had psychologists to take care of that crap.

“You didn’t do anything, Tristan,” he said. “You can’t think of it that way. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sometimes, it’s no more complicated than that.”

“But we were
targeted
,” Tristan said. “They knew exactly who they were coming for. They even had our pictures.”

A bell rang in Jonathan’s head, and he sat taller in his seat. The maps could wait for a minute. “You mean physical pictures?”

“Yes. Well, not on paper, but they had it on their iPhones.”

Jonathan cursed under his breath. Yeah, they should have gathered intel; but it would have been a ridiculous risk. “What did they tell you about why you were being taken?” Jonathan asked.

“Nothing,” Tristan said. “They just told us, you know, to stay in our seats and be quiet and stuff. They never said why.”

“You didn’t ask?”

“Allison did,” Tristan said, “but that really pissed them off. They yelled really loud and hit her. Told her to shut up.” His voice caught at that last part. “After that, I guess nobody wanted to chance it again.”

The SUV hit a pothole that caused them to lurch hard to the left. Jonathan damn near lost control of his computer.

Boxers said, “Sorry about that. I’m lodging a complaint with the Department of Public Roads.”

Jonathan kept focus on Tristan. “Did they speak English or Spanish?” he asked.

“Both. They mostly spoke Spanish to each other, but they spoke English to us, even though most of us are pretty fluent.”

Jonathan was trying to picture the event in his mind. “So, during your days of captivity, did they forbid talking? Don’t speak unless spoken to?”

Tristan shook his head. “It wasn’t like that at all. They let us talk among ourselves, but they listened pretty carefully to what we were talking about. One of them was a big fan of pop music. He and Ray talked a lot about that.”

Jonathan was sensing the presence of training among the captors. Stockholm Syndrome was a very real factor in hostage situations, and smart hostage takers know how to build rapport with the victims they intend to kill. Done skillfully, that engineered sense of friendship will cause victims to take violent action against their rescuers.

“Four people were missing in the bus back there,” Boxers said. “All the adults. What happened to them?”

“Mr. Hall and Mrs. Charlton were killed in the beginning, when the terrorists first stormed the bus. They tried to stop them. The terrorists didn’t give a warning or anything. They just came in, shouting. Mr. Hall and Mrs. Charlton stood up—not really interfering, even—and they shot them down without a word. Just bang, bang.” Tristan’s eyes narrowed. “How did you know how many people were taken? How did you know my name?”

“Homework doesn’t stop when you graduate from school,” Jonathan said. “People who care about you hired us to rescue you.”

“People who care about me? Who’s that? What does that even mean?”

“Believe it or not, that’s none of your business,” Jonathan said. “Tell me about the executions.”

“I did. After they killed Mr. Hall and Mrs. Charlton, they just dragged the bodies out of the bus and dumped them on the ...” The boy’s voice caught in his throat and he went quiet. A few seconds later, he cleared his throat. “They dragged them out onto the street and we drove off. The terrorists kept yelling at us to keep our heads down and to stay in our seats. While we drove through the streets, they made us change seats—nobody could sit with who they were sitting with—and then they passed out handcuffs and ankle cuffs, and made us chain ourselves to our seatmates.”