The Wrong Hostage

by Elizabeth Lowell

  Again.

  Naturally, the moment the epoxy was ready, the satellite phone rang.

  Other than cursing, he ignored the interruption. With a foam brush he painted glue onto the ends and the bottom of the trap.

  Above him, in the stateroom, the phone rang a third time, then a fourth. The answering device snapped on and played Faroe’s new greeting.

  “If you reached this number by mistake, hang up. If you didn’t reach this number by mistake, hang up.”

  The caller punched in a digital code that overrode the message. Only three people knew that code. Faroe didn’t want to talk to any of them.

  He finished applying the epoxy and eased the box into position in the beam.

  “Joseph, I need to speak with you. Immediately.”

  When Steele chose, he could put the bite of command into his aristocratic voice.

  Faroe hesitated.

  Then he went back to work with a pad of steel wool, rubbing the excess epoxy off the seam.

  “If you don’t pick up the call,” Steele said, “I’ll send an Oceanside cop out to your address to conduct a welfare contact. You’ve been sick, you know, and I’m very concerned that you might be lying helpless, ill, unable to reach the phone.”

  Faroe cursed again, louder this time. He tried to scrape away the last of the excess epoxy but it had already hardened. Now he would need a belt sander to finish the job.

  He rolled over, sat up, and punched the talk button on the cellular phone. “No.”

  Steele ignored him. “I have a message from an old friend. U.S. District Judge Grace Silva.”

  Faroe chalked up the hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach to surprise. It sure didn’t have anything to do with the flood of memories that threatened to choke him. Some of the memories were the best of his life. Some were the worst.

  He didn’t know which kind hurt more.

  “Joseph?”

  “I knew a Grace Silva back when I was with DEA. She wasn’t a judge then. She was a federal defense attorney. A good one. Too damn good.”

  And once, long ago, he’d believed that she’d set him up to be dragged through the gutter with the rest of the criminal slime for the entertainment of the TV cameras.

  “It’s the same woman,” Steele said. “She wants to retain the services of St. Kilda.”

  “What does a politically prominent federal judge need with a bunch of private, and therefore unsavory, consultants?”

  “I’m sure she’ll tell you. She’s approaching your dock as we speak.”

  The feeling in Joe’s stomach went from hollow to something more complex. “Steele, what do you want with a tight-assed feminist and a very respectable party hack who has been rewarded with a position on the federal bench?”

  “Is that how you think of her?”

  “It’s how she comes across in the newspapers.”

  And Faroe had been a fool for lingering over the articles, staring at the pictures, trying to find the ghost of the most explosively passionate woman he’d ever known.

  “St. Kilda occasionally needs the services of powerful politicians,” Steele said.

  “So service her.”

  “Unfortunately, she refuses to be serviced by anyone but you.”

  Faroe knew he was being baited. Steele was a master at that. But he’d never cast a lure like Grace Silva into the pool.

  “I got the feeling the two of you were once very close,” Steele said.

  “So is a snake to his skin. Doesn’t keep him from shedding it.”

  “Good. The judge made it quite clear that her interest was business only. She has already wire-transferred two hundred and fifty thousand dollars into St. Kilda’s accounts.”

  Faroe went to the refrigerator that was built into the stateroom bulkhead. He looked at the cold beer but took a bottle of spring water instead.

  “Silence isn’t a useful answer,” Steele said.

  “I don’t need the money.”

  “Judge Silva said that she was in a position to offer you a presidential pardon.”

  Faroe drank down half the water before he said, “I don’t care whether I can vote or not, and I don’t need to worry anymore about carrying a firearm. So I’m pretty much okay with my status as a convicted felon.”

  “Surely you’d prefer to have your name cleared.”

  “Actually, my spotted past makes a pretty good pickup line. Woman asks me what I do, I tell her I’m a convicted felon. The dull ones run. The rest move closer.”

  Steele made an impatient sound. “Judge Silva must have gone to considerable trouble to unearth the story of your unfair arrest and imprisonment.”

  “Grace always did worry about unfair treatment. In front of a jury she could work up tears on behalf of some of the most brutal smugglers of drugs and human beings on the entire Mexican border.”

  “Then I’m surprised you had anything to do with her.”

  “You had to be there to understand,” Faroe said roughly.

  Monsoon thunder all around, lightning blazing, a kind of hot rain pouring over him that he’d never felt before or since.

  He’d spent a long time trying to forget, but it wasn’t long enough. In the silence between lightning and thunder, she still haunted him.

  “What does Grace need with me or with St. Kilda?” Faroe asked finally.

  “Her son is enrolled in some highly regimented private school just north of Ensenada. She wants help bringing him home.”

  “Send one of your newbies,” Faroe said. “It will give him or her practice in the fine old art of bribery.”

  “Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. A Mexican businessman named Carlos Calderón and another man, Hector Rivas Osuna, object to the boy’s removal.”

  Faroe whistled through his teeth. “That’s a real pair to draw to.”

  “You always understand things the first time through, Joseph. It almost makes up for your lack of other graces. Please give the judge a civil hearing. I’ve already discussed the financials with her. Your cut will be a hundred thousand dollars.”

  “Back up. I’m not accepting assignments. I quit, remember?”

  Faroe was talking to himself. Steele had cut the connection.

  A low, haunting voice floated down from the dock. “Permission to come aboard?”

  Past and present colliding.

  I don’t need this.

  But part of Faroe sure wanted it. The dumbest part of him. The one that was guaran-damn-teed to get him into trouble.

  I turned forty last year. I don’t react like this anymore.

  The dumb part of him just kept pushing.

  “I’ll be up in a second, Judge.”

  OCEANSIDE

  SUNDAY, 10:00 A.M.

  11

  WHEN FAROE STEPPED OUT onto the main deck of the TAZ, the morning sun was heating up the unusually humid air. The water in the heavily sheltered bay moved uneasily, echoing the power of the Baja hurricane boiling up from the south. Chubasco weather.

  Just like the last time.

  Grace Silva stood on the dock, looking up at him, shading her eyes with her hand even though she wore sunglasses. She wore a white silk T-shirt and blue jeans. She wasn’t thin, she wasn’t fat. She was just all woman everywhere a man liked to feel the difference.

  Sixteen years hadn’t changed her nearly enough.

  Damn you, Steele. Did you know or did you just guess?

  “Hello, Joe. How have you been?”

  For a moment Faroe didn’t answer. He didn’t trust his voice not to be too rough, too hungry, too angry, too everything. Grace had always done that to him, slid past his defenses and grabbed him where he lived and breathed and hoped.

  Son of a bitch.

  He shoved his hands into the hip pockets of his jeans and looked out at the ocean beyond the jetty. The surface was gray, slick, almost oily. Waves were breaking with a deceptive, lazy grace that made the jetty tremble.

  Not a good time to be out at sea.

  N
ot a good time to be docked.

  Welcome to life with Grace Silva.

  When Faroe looked back down at Grace, she’d removed her sunglasses. Some of the sixteen years showed around her eyes. She looked tired, tight, almost brittle. She also looked wiser, more mature, less sure of herself, and very unsure of her welcome with him.

  “I’m fine, I guess, all things considered,” Faroe said. “What about you?”

  “Have you talked to the Ambassador?”

  Faroe nodded.

  “Then you know I’m desperate. Otherwise I wouldn’t have the nerve to come here.”

  “Nerve?”

  “Yeah. Nerve. You’re not an easy man to face.”

  “I’d think judges would be used to facing felons.”

  Grace looked away from Faroe’s measuring green eyes, intense eyes shaped so much like Lane’s she felt like the dock had been snatched from beneath her feet, leaving her dancing on air. She wanted to scream, to run away, to throw herself into Faroe’s arms and find the wild oblivion she’d known only with him.

  I’d think judges would be used to facing felons.

  “Usually they haven’t had sex with them,” Grace said bluntly.

  Faroe almost smiled, almost swore. Then she squared her shoulders and drew a deep breath. The movement outlined her breasts against the silk of her shirt. Faroe wanted to look away but couldn’t. He’d felt a primitive physical attraction to her the moment he saw her sixteen years ago. That hadn’t changed.

  He wondered if it ever would.

  “Do you think this is easy for me?” she asked, her voice too husky.

  Faroe stared at the wind vane on top of a sailboat’s tall mast. The vane pointed into the wind, helpless to do otherwise. And he, well, he was helpless, too.

  Or hopeless.

  “My son…” Grace’s voice failed. “I need you. Lane needs you. Help us. Please.”

  Faroe turned and looked back at her. She wasn’t wearing makeup or high heels or an unbuttoned blouse or tight pants. Nothing to grab a man’s attention. Her nearly black hair was short, clean, and shot through with some silver threads a woman with more vanity would have hidden.

  “Steele mentioned two names,” Faroe said. “I can understand how dudes like that might make you desperate. Steele certainly thought so. He normally doesn’t ask for a quarter million, unless you’re insured to the gills.”

  “He could have asked for double that amount,” Grace said. “And no, I’m not insured. Neither is Lane.”

  Faroe blew out a long, silent breath, trying to shake off the past. Whatever else had happened between himself and Grace, her child wasn’t part of it.

  And that child was in the hands of butchers.

  “Come aboard,” Faroe said. “We can talk below.”

  The relief that swept through Grace left her light-headed.

  He’s not going to turn his back on me.

  On Lane.

  The step up from the dock was more than a foot and the ship moved unpredictably on the restless water. She looked warily at the gap between the dock and the deck.

  Without thinking, Faroe held out his hand to her.

  Grace ignored it. Instead she grabbed one of the stanchions and pulled herself aboard.

  You want me, Faroe thought, but you don’t trust me. That hasn’t changed, either.

  OCEANSIDE

  SUNDAY, 10:03 A.M.

  12

  FAROE LED THE WAY through the hatch into the stateroom. Another hatch was open into the bilge below. The work light was pointed directly at the unfinished beam. Rough epoxy outlined the seams of the smuggler’s trap. Casually he picked up the section of the floor and closed off the bilge. The power cord kept the hatch ajar.

  “Looks like one of those smuggling things you used to tell me about,” Grace said.

  “Hell’s bells,” Faroe muttered. He picked up the floor section again and set it aside. “Go ahead, take a good look. This is going to be the worst-kept secret on the border.”

  Grace studied the box for a moment. “I take it you won’t be smuggling elephants.”

  In spite of everything he smiled. Her words were the punch line from a customs joke he’d once told her about Indian border inspectors and a devious mahout. Each day the mahout and his elephant appeared at the port of entry. The mahout was searched, as was his elephant. Then they were allowed to go on. This happened for weeks, until some smart inspector figured out that the elephants were the contraband.

  “I told that story a year ago,” she said. “It was at the sentencing of a Mexican smuggler.” She looked into the bilge and added, “You may or may not appreciate the fact that I gave him ten years.”

  “Then you’ve learned that there really are smugglers in this world. That’s a good thing for a judge to know.”

  Grace’s smile faded. “Oh, I’ve learned a lot more about the nature of humanity and the shadow world, as you used to call it.” As of yesterday, I learned more than I wanted to know.

  “I still call it that. Nothing’s changed, except we’re older and the crooks are younger.”

  Faroe yanked the power cord out of the socket and dropped it into the bilge. He put the floor hatch back in place.

  “Can I get you something?” he asked, trying to sound polite. “Water? Beer? There’s a little coffee left.”

  “Coffee would be fine,” Grace said. “Black.”

  That hadn’t changed either.

  As Faroe rummaged for a clean cup, Grace looked over the rest of the salon. The TAZ had at least one computer, video screens, telephones like those she had seen in Steele’s office, and a smaller version of the Ambassador’s global clock.

  “A wooden boat.” Grace didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at Faroe’s stubborn determination to do things on his own terms.

  “She was built in Inverness, Scotland, in 1956,” Faroe said, handing Grace lukewarm coffee in a clean-enough cup. “She started out as a herring boat in the North Sea. If you dig down between the hull planks, you can still find fish scales.”

  “I never figured you for a herring fisher.”

  “I’m rigging her for blue-water cruising. She only does ten knots, but she can keep that up for months at a time.”

  “Are you single-handing her?” Grace asked, then realized she was holding her breath for the answer. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  Faroe nodded.

  She told herself she wasn’t relieved. But she was. “Steele said you’d retired.”

  “Yes.” The word as closed as Faroe’s expression.

  She didn’t take the hint. “I can’t imagine you idling away the next forty or fifty years.”

  Neither could Faroe, but it wasn’t a topic he wanted to discuss with anyone, including himself. If that made him pigheaded, so be it. A man was entitled to the occasional indulgence.

  Silence grew.

  “We never were very good at small talk,” he said, gesturing toward the little chart table in the center of the salon. “Do you have a ransom note?”

  Grace sat at the small table. “Nothing that obvious. Carlos and Hector simply made it real clear that Lane wasn’t leaving without Ted’s—my ex-husband’s—signature on the form. Unfortunately, Ted is in the wind somewhere, not returning calls or e-mails. He’s not just ducking me, either. I’m getting calls from angry people at all hours of the day.”

  Faroe nodded. “Tell me about Carlos and Hector and your last visit with your son.”

  Grace sipped, organized her thoughts, and gave Faroe the same presentation she’d given Steele. Faroe listened intently, his eyes focused on the grounds at the bottom of his own coffee cup, a fortune-teller looking for something in the murk.

  He’s learned to listen, she realized. Sixteen years ago, he talked more. At least with me.

  Not that they’d spent a whole lot of time talking.

  “…and then I drove back to the border as fast as I could,” she said. She’d been crying silently all the way, but that wasn’t something Faroe needed to
know. “I wasted hours calling everyone I could think of. Then I called your cell phone. St. Kilda answered.”

  Faroe swirled the cup, drained the last dregs, and looked up at her.

  Grace went still. His eyes were still that astonishing cool green, almost the color of a jade pendant she’d worn the night of their first date. She’d understood from the moment she first saw him that she would sleep with him, even though she knew better. All her life she’d been a dutiful, good girl.

  But not with Joe Faroe.

  He’s the worst mistake I ever made.

  And the best.

  “Sounds like Colombia, not Mexico,” Faroe said finally.

  “What do you mean?”

  “C’mon, Grace. You’re not that naïve.”

  “I’ve never been to Colombia and only rarely to Mexico,” she said.

  Faroe shrugged. “Kidnap and extortion are a way of life in Colombia.”

  She swallowed hard. “You have a way of making it sound so…”

  “Ordinary?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s much more common than you want to know,” Faroe said. “There are a lot of places in the world where hostage-taking is a way of life. Didn’t Steele tell you about what he so elegantly refers to as ‘the Sanguinary Exchange’?”

  “What a grim phrase. I guess he was too much of a diplomat to use it with me.”

  “Too bad. The term describes what you lawyers might call an exceptional business model.”

  “Meaning?” she challenged. He still hates lawyers. Why am I not surprised?

  “When a businessman can’t rely on contracts and statutory protections to guarantee performance, he finds other ways. If he fronts, say, a ton of cocaine to a smuggler, he expects the smuggler to put up a son or a daughter or a wife in return.”

  Grace grimaced. “All right. Yes. Of course I’ve heard about such things, but not here, not as part of American life.”

  “And you don’t want to know about it.”

  “Not everyone likes living in the gutter. Most people want more.”

  Didn’t we have this conversation sixteen years ago?

  Both thought it.