Elizabeth Lowell - The Wrong Hostage

Faroe didn’t have any choice, so he started after Hector.

Grace followed.

“No,” Hector said, waving her off. “You puke.”

Grace looked at Faroe.

“Stay here,” he said instantly.

“Why? What could be worse than seeing a murder?” Though her voice was steady enough, her skin was pale beneath all the makeup.

“Plenty. Stay, amada. You don’t need new nightmares.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll squint.” Then he added very softly, “Work on Jaime. Find out what pushes his buttons.”

TIJUANA

SUNDAY, 10:48 P.M.

FAROE FOLLOWED HECTOR THROUGH a door leading to a short, brick-lined hallway. At one end of the hall a circular metal staircase wound down to the lower level of the house, which was also walled with brick.

Hector, less angry now but getting higher with each toke, reverted to Spanish. “This is a wonderful building. Very expensive, very solid. It belongs to a wealthy judge here in Tijuana, although he has decided to let me borrow it for a few months.”

The traficante’s amused smile told Faroe that the judge hadn’t had any choice.

“He would like it back someday, but he is not man enough to ask,” Hector said with a laugh. “Not like the ball-breaker upstairs. Aiee, that is a strong woman.”

Faroe hoped that Grace would continue to amuse Hector…but not too much. Hector’s reputation with women depended on how high he was.

There was a heavy metal door at the base of the staircase. The door was guarded by a blank-faced man carrying an assault rifle. Without a glance Hector brushed by the man.

Faroe followed and found a spacious wine cellar converted to a torture room. Beautiful wooden wine racks were attached to the walls with heavy wrought-iron supports. A big, unshielded lightbulb dangled from the ceiling. The intense glare fell on the slumped body of a man dangling from chains strung up over the wine racks. The prisoner had longish dark hair that was slick with sweat. He was dressed in a white shirt that was red, covered with his own blood.

Faroe recognized him instantly-the bomb layer from Ensenada. One of the guards was wearing his solid gold diamond-rimmed watch.

Hector grasped a handful of the prisoner’s sweaty black hair and jerked his head upright.

The bomber’s face was a swollen, gross balloon. Bruises had gathered below and around his eyes, closing them darkly. His jaw hung slack and awkward. Broken.

Hector twisted his handful of hair and the bomber grimaced in pain, showing bloody, broken teeth.

“Are you ready to talk?” Hector asked, his voice gentle.

The hair on Faroe’s neck stirred. He would rather Hector had screamed.

The bomber made a ragged sound. Behind swollen lids, his eyes glittered dryly, like those of a coiled rattlesnake. His tongue worked behind bloody teeth. He tried to spit in Hector’s face.

His mouth was too dry.

Hector patted the bruised and bloody cheek and said tenderly, “There, there, it is almost over. Just tell us who paid you and we will take away all your pain.”

Faroe felt the chill of danger and the heat of adrenaline sliding into his blood. He wondered what his chances were of getting one of the automatic weapons before they got him.

Hector was nuts.

“So, what you think?” Hector asked Faroe. “Is this the man who tried to kill me and my family?”

Faroe’s face was a mask. He carefully studied the man but finally shook his head. “I doubt his mother would recognize him now.”

Hector laughed and nodded. Then he signaled to the shadows.

One of the waiting men stepped into the cone of light. He had a barrel chest and the emotionless eyes of a picador in the bullring. He mustn’t have been as stupid as he looked-he wore tight latex gloves to protect him from his victim’s blood.

The torturer held a stripped electrical wire in each hand. He looked at Faroe, then at the bomber, and touched the two copper conductors together. Dazzling blue-white sparks arced and showered over his hands. He grinned and waved the two wires in front of the bomber’s face. He touched them together again.

“Would you care for a little of this, perhaps?” he asked, polite as a waiter presenting a dessert tray.

“This man, Tomas, he really enjoys his work,” Hector said, clapping the man on the shoulder. “My Torquemada.”

Faroe looked into the torturer’s eyes and knew Hector wasn’t bragging. It was the simple truth.

“This one has been disloyal for a long time,” Hector said, gesturing toward the prisoner. “He works for a band of marijuana farmers down in the mountains between Sierra de la Laguna and the ocean. They use my plaza but they do not pay. I think I will hang his body from an overpass on the Ensenada toll road for all his friends to see on their way to work tomorrow morning.”

Faroe waited, wondering if Hector had a point or if he simply got off on blood and death.

“Should I bring my Tomas upstairs and introduce him to your judge?” Hector smiled. “Should I tell her that her son will be my gift to Tomas?”

Only years of living undercover kept Faroe from going for Hector’s throat. Only hard-won discipline kept Faroe’s voice neutral.

“As you pointed out, the judge is not without her own power,” Faroe said. “If Lane is harmed, there will be an international crisis. That is not good for business.”

“Ha! You think that will save the boy? I have many eyes reading the diplomatic telegrams between the gringo government and Mexico City. I have many ears listening to embassy conversations for the first sign of intervention.”

Faroe agreed with a calm he was far from feeling. “This is so.”

“The boy would live only as long as Tomas and I decide to keep him alive. And after we finish with him, somebody will tell the gringo authorities that the boy was a bad one who simply ran away and, like so many other unfortunates, was never heard from again.”

Faroe didn’t doubt a word of it.

And if Lane got hurt, Faroe would hunt Hector down and execute him where he found him.

“What you said is true,” Faroe said, “but it will not get you Ted Franklin on a golden platter with a roll of hundreds in his mouth.”

“Yes.” Hector ground the spent cigarette beneath his heel. “That is why you are still alive.”

OVER THE U.S.

MONDAY, 1:00 A.M. CST

STEELE SAT IN THE part of the Learjet that had been transformed into a flying office for the use of whichever St. Kilda consultant needed it. The wheelchair was a tight fit in the working space, but it didn’t matter. If he needed anything, Dwayne would get it before Steele even knew he wanted it.

Dwayne handed over a satellite phone. “It’s Mazey with the land and cell phone taps. Something is going down.”

“Steele,” he said calmly, taking the phone. But his heart kicked in the hope that they’d caught a break. “Go ahead, Mazey.”

“We’ve had multiple hits on her home and cell phone, all from Ted Franklin, all within the last hour.”

“Messages left?”

“He wants his ex-wife to go to Lomas, where he’ll call her at midnight.”

“What, where, or who is Lomas?”

“We’re working on that, sir. It’s a fairly common name in the area.”

“Midnight.” Steele looked at his watch and folded his lips unhappily. “We’re not going to be on the ground in time to help you with this one. Call Faroe and see what Grace knows.”

“His phone is off. Hers is ‘out of area.’”

“Mother of-” Steele bit off the curse. “Where is Faroe?”

“Assuming that he’s still carrying the phone, our satellite monitor puts him in Tijuana.”

“That’s a large place. Do better. What about the boy?”

“Still at All Saints. Assuming-”

“That he has the bloody phone with him,” Steele finished impatiently.

“Yes, sir.”

“Anything else?”

“The team watching Sturgis’s office saw him get in a car whose plates came back to the U.S. government. The driver shook the team. We didn’t have enough assets in place to tail a real pro. No one has seen or heard from Sturgis since.”

“Bloody hell.”

“John told me the feds have withdrawn surveillance from the La Jolla house, but the Mexicans are all over the place like a rash. He left a message on Dwayne’s phone, but-”

“The phone is turned off,” Steele finished. Since John was Mazey’s husband and the head of all surveillance teams on this consultation, Steele knew that the information was solid. “Dwayne is with me. Forward all intelligence to the number he’ll give you.”

Steele handed over the phone to Dwayne, called up the satellite monitor, and split the screen. One dot stayed put above Ensenada. One dot was mired in Tijuana.

He tried Faroe’s number himself.

Nothing.

Grace’s number.

More nothing.

“Anything on Lomas?” he asked Dwayne.

“Too much. We’ll never get it sorted out by midnight California time.”

“Can you override Faroe’s off switch?”

“If he hasn’t dicked with it, yes,” Dwayne said. Then he told his frustrated boss what Steele already knew. “But if Faroe shut down his phone, he had a good reason. The life-and-death kind.”

Steele didn’t argue. “What do you make of the fact that the feds withdrew from the La Jolla surveillance?”

“It means they know more than we do.”

“Precisely. Get someone monitoring all government communications channels within sixty miles of the border. Key words ROG, Hector Rivas Osuna in any combination, Faroe, Grace, Judge Silva, Ted or Theodore Franklin, Calderon, Lane Franklin, All Saints or Todos Santos, Bank of San Marcos, Banco de San Marcos.”