Faroe laughed out loud. Like his mother, the kid was smart and had a wicked tongue.

“Your average Mexican security guard dies before he’s old enough to worry about heart disease,” Faroe said.

“Of what?”

“Silver or lead. Both can be fatal.”

Lane’s eyes narrowed. “Plata o plomo. That’s the slogan of the narcotraficantes.”

“It sure is. Makes a man wonder, doesn’t it?”

Faroe glanced over at Grace. She was watching him, her eyes wide and intent. When she saw that Faroe had noticed her, she looked back at Lane.

“Are they taking care of you?” she asked.

The boy shrugged. “I can’t leave the cottage.”

“If you can’t go to the cafeteria, what have you been eating?” she asked.

“Whatever they bring me. Alfredo, the jefe of the guards, says it’s safer for me to eat here.”

“What do you think?” Faroe asked Lane. “Is it safer?”

“It’s boring.”

“So is safety.”

Lane grinned, but it quickly faded. “I want out of here.”

Grace put her arm around her son’s shoulder. “That’s why-”

Faroe shook his head sharply. Then held his finger to his lips and pointed to the walls.

Lane stared at Grace, then at Faroe, then at the walls. Faroe put his finger to his lips again and raised an eyebrow. Lane tried to stand straight, but his eyes were almost unfocused. Then he visibly got a grip on himself, held a finger to his lips, and nodded.

Grace brushed her lips against the side of her son’s face and whispered, “Trust Joe. We both have to trust Joe.”

Lane swallowed, nodded, and drew himself up to his full height. Now he was inches taller than she was.

“Let’s go out in the fresh air,” Faroe said to Lane. “The Pork Rind Brigade lets you do that, don’t they?”

“Most of the time,” Lane said. “But wait. I need something to drink. My mouth is dry all the time.”

He went to a small bar refrigerator and pulled out an unopened carton of orange juice. Before he could break the seal and drink, Faroe took the carton.

“Hold on,” Faroe said. “I’m not a big fan of liquids packaged in Mexico.”

Lane opened his mouth, closed it, and waited.

Faroe inspected the waxed carton carefully. The fold-back ears on the “open here” side were still sealed. When he looked inside the fold at the other side of the top, he spotted a tiny hole where someone had slipped a hypodermic needle through the paper. He showed the hole to Grace and to her son. Lane looked confused.

Grace didn’t.

“Let’s walk,” she said to her son. “Fresh air is better for clearing your head than orange juice.” Especially that juice.

When they walked out into the muggy afternoon, two guards stood up quickly and reached for their guns.

Faroe kept walking.

Grace tugged Lane in his wake.

The guards hesitated, then fell in line about ten feet behind Lane.

As soon as the trail widened, Faroe stepped back and put his arm around Lane to steady him and speed him up. Grace was doing the same from the other side, but Lane was too big for her to hold him up alone, much less to make him walk faster. The three of them moved as a unit to the water’s edge, where waves were breaking on the sand.

The guards, once they saw where Lane was headed, slowed down to light cigarettes. They were at least fifty feet behind.

“Keep your voices down,” Faroe said quietly. “They can’t hear us over the sound of the waves.”

Lane nodded that he understood, but he still looked confused.

To Grace he looked terribly vulnerable.

“What’s going on?” Lane asked, shaking his head hard, trying to clear it. “Is this as bad as I think it is?”

22

ALL SAINTS SCHOOL

SUNDAY AFTERNOON


GRACE GLANCED QUICKLY AT Faroe, not knowing how much to tell Lane.

“How bad do you think it is?” Faroe asked the boy.

Lane was silent for a moment, but he was thinking hard. In the ocean air he seemed more alert. He looked at his mother, then at the hard-faced man she’d brought with her.

“I’m really a prisoner, right?” the boy asked.

Grace wanted to soften Lane’s words.

Faroe stopped her.

“I know this is tough,” he said, touching her hair gently, “but we won’t get anywhere by sugarcoating it.”

Faroe looked at the boy, who was only a few inches shorter than himself, and said bluntly, “You’re a hostage.”

Lane blinked. Then he raked his fingers through his hair and yanked, trying to force himself to focus. “I can’t think!”

“They’re drugging you,” Faroe said. “Probably only in the orange juice.”

“What?” Lane said sharply.

“Keep your voice down,” Faroe said. “It’s probably a sedative. It’s a common tactic for controlling hostages. They don’t want to hurt you. They just want to keep you fuzzy.”

“Okay,” Lane said. “Okay. That’s good. I was thinking I was getting really sick or going crazy or something. The nightmares…Jesus. I can’t believe people spend money to feel like crap.”

“You’re not crazy,” Grace said quickly, squeezing his shoulders with her arm. “You’re the sanest person in a crazy mess.”

“Hostage,” Lane said, tasting the word, testing the reality. “So what am I hostage for? What do they want? Money from Dad?”

“We don’t know for sure,” Faroe said. “We should know more in the next day.”

“But if you don’t know, how can-”

“Honey, Joe’s a professional at this sort of thing,” Grace cut in, reaching over to smooth the hair out of her son’s eyes. “He’s the best there is. But he’s only been on the job a few hours. He needs more time to investigate.”

Lane glanced at Faroe with new interest. “A professional? Really?”

“That just means people pay me money. But yeah, I’ve dealt with hostiles like your Chicharrones Brigade. They’re just dumb soldiers. We need to find out who the generals are.”

That triggered something in Lane’s drugged mind. He turned to his mother. “Where’s Dad?” he asked urgently.

“I-I’ve-” Grace began, but her voice cracked.

“We haven’t been able to reach him,” Faroe said. “Why do you ask?”

“Because Mr. Calderon came to see me yesterday, today too. I think. It’s all kind of…fuzzy. He brought juice and food and asked me where Dad was.”

“Carlos Calderon?” Grace asked.

Lane fought to call up the memory. Like a lot of reality since his mother had left, memory was slippery. He frowned, remembering the past twenty-four hours in bits and pieces, flashes of light and darkness. “Yeah, Mr. Calderon was kind of pissed, uh, mad when I told him I didn’t know where Dad was. Like he thought I was lying. I think he hit me a couple of times. Can’t really remember. Nightmare…”

Grace’s hand clenched hard around Lane’s shoulder and she bit back every word she wanted to scream.

“Why isn’t Dad here?” Lane asked. “Calderon said I could go home if Dad came down to sign me out.”

Grace looked away, hiding the tears and rage and fear in her eyes.

“Your mom’s pretty upset about this,” Faroe said calmly. “She hasn’t been able to contact your dad. It’s one of our top priorities.”

Lane stared at the sand.

“Do you have any idea where your dad might be?” Faroe asked.

Lane’s answer was a shake of the head. Then he looked up at Faroe. “I haven’t heard from him in weeks. He used to come down on a helicopter once every three or four weeks, supposedly to drop in to say hi to me, but he spent hours talking with somebody at the school office and barely waved at me.”

Grace’s heart turned over. No matter how tall Lane was, how fast he was growing, he was only a few months past being fourteen. He was a boy whose world had been turned upside down.

“We’ll find your dad, get this thing straightened out,” Faroe said. “Don’t worry.” He reached over and gave the boy a poke on the shoulder, man-to-man stuff that was cover for a quick glance back toward the guards.

They were smoking and laughing. Forty feet away, maybe more.

With the skill of a pickpocket, Faroe pulled a flat, compact cell phone out of his jeans. He palmed the phone and gave it to Lane, shielding the exchange with his body.

“Hide this in your room,” Faroe said in a low, intent voice. “We need to stay in touch in a way that the Chicharrones Brigade can’t monitor.”

Lane looked down at the phone in his hand. “Cool.”

“Don’t look at it,” Faroe said. “Don’t look at them. Look at me. Don’t look away from me when you put the phone in your shorts.”

The boy turned his body slightly, slipped the phone into one of the many pockets in his cargo shorts, and never stopped looking at Faroe.

“Good,” Faroe said. “The battery is fully charged, but I didn’t have time to get fresh batteries brought in. We have to decide on a communications schedule.”

The boy put his hands in his pockets and tried to match Faroe’s relaxed stance. “Gotcha.”

Faroe smiled. Once the drugs got out of the kid’s system, he’d be a pistol.

“Every night, at one A.M.,” Faroe said, “pull out the antenna and turn on the phone. It’s set to vibrate, not ring, so they won’t hear it outside the cottage. If I haven’t called you by five minutes after one, shut down and power up again at five in the morning. Can you do that?”

Lane thought a moment. “One might be a little tough but I’m used to getting up early for the twice-a-day workouts. I’ll figure something out.”

“Set an alarm and put it under your pillow so the guards can’t hear it.”

“You do sneak around for a living, don’t you?” Lane said with genuine admiration.