Elizabeth Lowell - The Wrong Hostage

Mary and two other St. Kilda operatives were trying to brace the bottom of a long ladder that barely reached to the top of the border fence. A long-barreled bolt-action rifle with a telescopic sight hung upside down across Mary’s back. It was a sniper’s rifle,.50 caliber, capable of dropping elephants before they heard the shot.

Everyone but Faroe was dressed in cammies that shed rain.

“I told you I was going south alone,” Faroe said, reaching for the ladder.

“Wait,” said one of the ops. “It’s sliding like a bitch in this mud.”

Mary gave Faroe an angelic smile. “I’m using the fence as a benchrest. I’ve got your back.”

Faroe watched the ops struggle to place the ladder securely in mud that was slicker than snot. “A fifty-caliber round will go halfway to Ensenada.”

“Not if I don’t aim halfway to Ensenada,” she said. “I won’t fire unless I have a clear shot and see that you need it.”

Faroe gave up on keeping Mary out of the game. “Did you see Lane?”

“Just a peek through the scope, when they took him inside. Handsome kid beneath the bruises.”

Faroe’s mouth flattened. “What about a Mexican wearing long hair and an Italian suit?”

“He ran a squad of gunmen around the perimeter of the Tijuana warehouse half an hour ago,” Mary said. “A few minutes ago the gun handlers got in some SUVs and split.”

“So far, so good.” Faroe smiled darkly. “After this goes down, if you get Jaime in your sights, drop him. He’s not as mean as Hector, but he’s a whole lot smarter.”

“Will do. Jaime is still over there, sitting in a black Murano with another man. Here.” Mary pulled a pistol from the ballistic nylon holster she wore and handed the weapon butt first to Faroe. “It’s cold.”

He nodded, checked the round in the chamber, and shoved the pistol in his belt, butt forward.

Like Hector.

Faroe took two steps up the ladder.

It slipped.

While the ops cursed and threw their weight against the ladder, he kept going.

The last rung of the ladder was tangled in the razor wire that looped along the top of the barricade fence.

“Leather gloves,” he called down.

Within seconds the ladder shivered under the added hundred and twenty pounds of female sharpshooter.

“Here,” Mary said, passing up a pair of gloves. Then she saw the top of the ladder. “Wait! Let me get canvas or something to throw over the loops. They’ll tear the hell out of you.”

“No time.”

Faroe yanked on the gloves. Like his borrowed running shoes, they were a little small. He pried apart two loops of wicked wire, then eased up the ladder and stepped through the separated coils with their razor-blade edges and barbs.

“Joe, you can’t-”

“I have to.”

Straight ahead, brace yourself on the coils, one foot on the top of the barrier fence, then over and into thin air.

No sooner thought than done.

Except the razor wire collapsed, then lashed back at Faroe as he leaped. He twisted in midair and landed hard in the mud. He made himself push past the wrenching fall, forcing himself to breathe, to move, to stand.

Pain stabbed, telling him what he already knew: he hadn’t dodged enough of the razor wire. His right sleeve was wet with more than rain.

“Oh, man,” Mary said. “You’re cut bad. Stay down until I-”

“No! That’s an order.”

Quickly Faroe checked the cuts for the deadly pulse of arterial blood. So far, so good.

He took off running.

OTAY MESA

MONDAY, 12:18 P.M.

“I DON’T LIKE THIS,” Franklin said.

“Nobody asked you to,” Grace said.

“I’m getting out of here. I’m a sitting duck!”

“You’ll be a dead one if you run.”

The tone of Grace’s voice made Franklin turn and look at his ex-wife. She had her back to the nearest camera. She was holding a gun.

It was pointed at him.

“You’re kidding,” Franklin said.

“You’re all that stands between Lane and death.” She flicked off the safety and took up slack on the trigger. “You gave him as a hostage to the Butcher of Tijuana. What makes you think you should live and Lane should die?”

“I never meant-”

“I don’t care what you meant,” she cut in ruthlessly. “I have to deal with reality, and reality is that you’re a money launderer to murderers, and a coward who put a boy on the firing line to save your own ass. I’d feel more compassion for a rabid dog, but I’d kill it just the same.”

Franklin looked at Grace’s eyes, the flat line of her mouth, and the darkness around her eyes from tension and lack of sleep.

She gestured slightly with the gun. “Sit on the floor behind those bags and stop whining. When Hector comes, don’t show yourself and don’t talk unless I tell you to. Do you understand?”

“You’re crazy.”

“My gun is quite sane.”

Without a word Franklin walked away from the only safe exit, across an expanse of cold concrete cut by circles of light and pools of black, and sank down in shadows behind burlap bags of rice.

Grace hid the gun behind her purse and faced the camera again.

TIJUANA

MONDAY, 12:20 P.M.

FAROE GRINNED DESPITE THE blood dripping down his right arm and pooling in his leather glove.

You tell him, amada. He’ll never underestimate you again.

And neither would Faroe.

He clamped the gloved fingers of his left hand over the deepest slash on his arm and kept running south. The airport runway lights glittered in the rain like a beacon. He sprinted across the cement between planes and ducked under the eaves of an anonymous building. Breathing deep and steady, he searched through the rain for sentries around the Grupo Calderon warehouse and hangar.

A black car was idling in front of the Grupo Calderon building, the same kind of SUV Mary had seen Jaime driving.

The lights flashed once.

I see you soon, gringo. Look for me.

Headlights flashed again.

Faroe pulled his pistol and ran toward the vehicle. The driver’s electric window slid down. There was a man in the passenger seat.

“So, you came alone,” Jaime said, ignoring the drawn gun.

“One riot, one ranger,” Faroe said. “How many men does Hector have with him?”

“None. He doesn’t want any witnesses. Even me.”

Faroe hoped Jaime wasn’t lying, but didn’t count on it.

The passenger leaned forward. It was Carlos Calderon. “I want that money!”

“Sue the U.S. government,” Faroe said. “All I promised you was Hector.”

“The hangar is open,” Jaime said. “The bathroom is-”

Faroe was already running. He knew where the tunnel entrance was.

He was inside the hangar before Jaime left the parking lot.

The wooden door of the lavatory stood ajar at the back of the hangar. The floor and the toilet were filthy. The cubicle stank. The mirror over the tiny sink was flyspecked and grimy. It reflected a man who looked like he’d been used to mop up a bloody murder scene.

Faroe shoved the stinking toilet to one side. The stool was connected to a concrete waste pipe by a section of flexible hosing that leaked and dripped. There was a puddle of raw sewage in the bottom of the hole that was the mouth of the tunnel. The metal rungs of a ladder were shiny with foul moisture.

No point in worrying about gangrene in a few days when I’m likely to be dead in a few minutes.

As soon as he dropped below floor level, he lost radio contact.

OTAY MESA

MONDAY, 12:21 P.M.

GRACE STOOD BESIDE THE door of the warehouse bathroom and listened to the noises that welled up from the open hatchway. Everything was clear, distinct, almost too loud. She heard footsteps drawing closer, followed by a muffled cry.

Lane!

Then came Hector’s voice, surprisingly close, cold.

Deadly.

“Stop here,” Hector said. “Shut up. If you good, I good. You bad, I fock you mother and you father and you. Then I kill todo el mundo. ?Claro?”

The sound Lane made was a growl of fear and anger.

Grace gritted her teeth against the scream clawing to get out of her throat.

Hurry, Joe. Lane needs you.

I need you.

I’m not nearly as good at this as you are.

Silently she backed away from the bathroom door where light spilled out brightly. Holding the pistol against her thigh, she walked quickly through separate pools of light and ribbons of darkness. She stopped near the back wall of the hangar, where pallets cast dark shadows. Seventy feet of empty darkness and vertical tunnels of light separated her from the bathroom.

She turned sideways, keeping the gun out of sight.

From inside the bathroom came the hollow ringing sound of someone climbing a metal ladder. The black muzzle of a heavy-bore semiautomatic pistol rose up out of the floor. The weapon was equipped with a black device mounted like a sight on top of the barrel. A pencil-thin beam of red light reached out. Wherever the beam touched, a bullet could instantly follow.

Hector’s black hair appeared at the mouth of the tunnel. He stuck his head up slowly, eyes glinting, like a rat coming out of a sewer.

The red light lanced out across the emptiness, piercing the cones of light, a red finger that touched first Grace, then the shadows and spaces behind her.