Hostage Zero

by John Gilstrap

  Something changed behind Jimmy’s eyes as he cocked his head. His belligerence had dimmed.

  “I’ll come clean with you,” Jonathan said. He unfolded himself and leaned forward until his forearms rested on the cold table. “But first I want you to understand that the quickest way to die is to piss me off. And the quickest way to piss me off is to repeat a word of what I’m going to tell you. Do you understand?”

  Now Jimmy seemed amused. Jonathan was easily three inches shorter than the man he’d just threatened, and frankly didn’t look all that intimidating. But what he didn’t possess in physicality, he projected through the intensity of his glare. As Jimmy absorbed it, the smile went away. “Yeah, okay, I got you.”

  “Be sure, Jimmy. There’s no room for error.”

  “What the hell kind of FBI agent are you?”

  Jonathan reassumed his comfortable posture. “Well, that’s the thing,” he said. “I’m not an FBI agent. I’m the friend you never knew you had. My job is to bust you out of here.”

  Jimmy shot a paranoid glance over his shoulder toward the door. “What do you mean?” He’d dropped his voice to a whisper.

  “I work for people who don’t want the details of what you did this morning to leak out. That leaves two choices: They can hire someone to kill you, or they can hire me to get you out. If I were you, I’d pick me.”

  “But why?”

  “Because you were the only one stupid enough to get caught. You get credit for youthful stupidity, which is why you’re still alive, but the offer to get you out expires in about three seconds. So, are you willing to cooperate or not?”

  Another quick look over his shoulder. “How are you going to do it?”

  “My concern, not yours. Just be ready to go at two a.m. And keep your mouth shut. I get paid for trying, not succeeding. If you betray me-”

  Suddenly animated, Jimmy shook his head. “No. God no, I wouldn’t do that.”

  Jonathan took his time. He wanted to instill even more fear. “Okay, then. I’ll be coming back to visit around two. I need you to be in bed and as asleep as you can pretend to be. When you get up, dress just as you are now. Don’t try anything on your own. When the time comes, all you’ll have to do is what I tell you.” He stood. “I’ll see you in a little while.”

  As Jonathan strolled to the door, Jimmy shifted quickly in his chair. “Wait. How do I know you’re telling the truth? How do I know I’ll be safe coming with you?”

  “You don’t,” Jonathan deadpanned. “But consider the alternative. You’re a kidnapper, kid. If that guy you shot dies, that means a needle in your arm.”

  “I didn’t shoot anybody. That was the crazy dude.”

  Jonathan stopped him with a raised hand. “Save it. I don’t care. Not now, anyway. Keep on keeping your mouth shut, and everything will be fine.” He pounded on the door for Battles.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The body was a little boy wearing torn pajamas, and Harvey hadn’t been prepared for that. The kid lay on his back with his eyes closed, a loop of duct tape around his mouth. His legs lay slightly askew, but his hands lay on his stomach, as if placed there by a mortician. Harvey was no expert in these things, but he placed the age at somewhere around thirteen or fourteen years old. Maybe a little younger. It was always hard to tell with kids this age.

  The sudden rush of emotion had come from nowhere. Harvey found it embarrassing at first, and then he found it just human. He’d seen his share of death over the years, and after a while you sort of get used to it. But not with kids. If you can get used to that, then there’s no point living anymore. Slip to that level, and society has no use for you.

  Harvey just stood there for a long time-probably three, four, five minutes-figuring out what he was supposed to do. It was one thing to leave some bum like himself out in the weeds to get eaten by buzzards and carried off a piece at a time by foxes and dogs, but you couldn’t-

  The boy’s chest moved. It wasn’t anything dramatic, but there definitely was movement.

  As Harvey leaned closer, he saw that he’d been wrong. The kid wasn’t dead. His face had too much color. Stooping to his haunches, he grasped one of the boy’s hands. It was warm. With his own heart racing, Harvey dropped to his hands and knees at the level of the boy’s shoulders and felt his neck. With the tips of two fingers, he located the larynx, and then slipped his fingertips into the groove between the cricoid cartilage and the anterior border of the sternocleido-mastoid muscle. He expected to find a weak thready pulse, but found a strong one, instead.

  This wasn’t right at all. He lifted one of the boy’s hands from his belly and let it drop. It fell like a rock. The kid was out cold. A peek under his eyelids reveal pinpoint pupils. That meant drugs.

  Harvey raised up straight, still on his knees. He again craned his neck, looking to see if help might have wandered by. Seeing none actually brought relief. This next step had to be done, but it would be a bitch to explain if anyone wandered by.

  He had to make the kid naked.

  There’d been a gunshot, for God’s sake. He didn’t see any holes or any blood on the pajamas, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any on the boy. Harvey’s hands trembled as he undid the four buttons of the pajama top and peeled it away. The chest and belly looked normal, though he noted light bruising high on his chest, inferior to the clavicles. The kid looked on the thin side, but there appeared to be no nutritional issues.

  The speed with which Harvey’s skills returned amazed him. He used his fingers, left hand under the right as if making a forward dive into a swimming pool, to palpate the boy’s belly. It felt loose and malleable, so there was no significant internal bleeding. Liver and spleen were both normal size.

  There comes a point where a lack of a diagnosis is as concerning as a troubling one, and Harvey found himself rapidly approaching that line.

  Scooting to the child’s hips, Harvey slipped his fingers into the pajamas’ elastic waistband and slid the fabric down to his shins. Again, no sign of trauma, but he’d definitely entered puberty, and he definitely was not a practicing Jew. Feeling progressively more optimistic that he’d find no bullet wound, Harvey leveraged the kid’s thigh and ribs to roll him to his side, till he rested against Harvey’s kneeling thighs. He shoved the pajama top up to his shoulders to expose the entire posterior surface and issued a sigh when he saw that there were no signs of penetrating trauma. He returned the boy to a supine position and pulled his clothing back into place.

  What else was there? Harvey wondered. He fought to recall his Marine Corps training.

  Of course! His arms. With bullet trauma off the table, the arms made the most sense. Sure enough, as soon as he wrestled the boy’s left arm free from the sleeve of his pajamas, he saw an antecubital bruise. The injection point for whatever had knocked this kid out appeared as a bull’s-eye in the middle of a purple halo at the crease of his elbow joint.

  Sixteen hours later, the boy still had not awakened. He’d stirred a few times, and in the last couple of hours he’d made some mumbling sounds-all good signs-but he remained unconscious.

  Harvey recalled the list of drugs that could have such lasting effect and realized how lucky the kid was to still be alive. Risks remained for liver damage or renal failure, but with each additional sign of recovery, the risks diminished.

  As time passed, the how of the kid’s situation mattered less, but the importance of the why continued to glow as brightly as ever. Anyone who was angry enough to inject an overdose of narcotics into a kid’s system and then leave him for dead in the middle of nowhere was likely to be a person who’d be mightily pissed to learn that he’d failed. It was exactly the sort of person that Harvey wanted nothing to do with.

  If Harvey’d had a brain in his head, he would have run away from this kid like a bunny rabbit on fire, putting as much space as possible between the two of them before finding a way to call for help. Woulda, coulda, shoulda. Fact was, he didn’t have a brain in his head. He’d decided instead
to play floor nurse, monitoring the boy’s respirations and pulse, and making sure that if they faltered, he would be there to jump-start them.

  And if the bad guys came back, well, that would just be the perfect ending to the perfect day, wouldn’t it?

  He was so screwed.

  The boy lay in Harvey’s tent now, in Harvey’s sleeping bag and under his mosquito netting. Now that night had returned, recovery was all up to the boy and God.

  Harvey’s money-as if he had any-said that the kid would be fine after he slept it off. And then what?

  Well, that was the question, wasn’t it?

  Harvey could see the headline now: HOMELESS MAN FINDS PARTIALLY CLOTHED BOY. Jesus.

  Forget all those worries from last night about being associated with a dead guy. Being found with a live boy was the stuff of national headlines. These days, the mere appearance of impropriety made you a pedophile. Been there, done that. Thanks, but no.

  So, just what the hell was he supposed to do? Going to the police was a ticket to prison. Not even the kid himself could testify that he hadn’t done anything awful, so the cops would automatically assume that he had. Once they get that thought in their head, facts stop mattering.

  After the first hour or two, when the kid still hadn’t stirred, and his pupils were still pinpoints, Harvey had come this close to leaving him to get help, but what would have happened if the kid’s vitals had crashed in the meantime? He’d have brought the police to the body of a boy who’d died in Harvey’s tent.

  Thanks again, but absolutely not.

  Welcome to the land of crappy choices, starring Harvey Rodriguez.

  Harvey sat way forward on his nylon sling camping chair, tending to the Coleman one-burner stove and the pot of reheated coffee from lunchtime. To stay near the boy, he’d opted to dig into his emergency supply of canned tuna for both lunch and dinner, and he was hoping that the astringent twice-cooked java would take the dead fish taste out of his mouth.

  The boy coughed.

  Harvey spun his head. Coughing is a voluntary action that implies a higher level of consciousness. It meant that the boy was coming out of his coma.

  Harvey left his coffee on the stove but turned the burner down as he pulled himself out of his chair and crawled back into the tent. He used a cigarette lighter he’d found in a trash can a month ago to light the single mantle of his propane lantern. Pulling the mosquito netting out of the way, he leaned in close to the boy’s face and held the lantern off to the side, trying to tame the dark shadows thrown by the kid’s facial features. He saw that the boy had ejected a bit of spittle onto his cheek, and he wiped it away with his thumb.

  The boy twitched at his touch.

  “Hey, kid. Are you awake?”

  Nothing.

  Harvey gently grabbed the boy’s shoulder and shook it. “Hey, pal, come on and open your eyes.”

  They fluttered.

  “That’s it. Go ahead and open them. You’re safe. You’re okay.”

  The boy coughed again, and as he did, he raised his head a little with the effort. He was close to wakefulness.

  Harvey rubbed the shoulder more vigorously. “You’re almost there. Come on. Open your eyes. Let me know that you’re okay. Talk to me. I don’t even know your name.”

  Wrinkles appeared in the boy’s forehead, and when his mouth twisted into a wince, Harvey moved the light away from his eyes.

  “You’ve had a long hard day, my friend,” Harvey said. “Open your eyes now and join the world.”

  The lids parted, though it took a few seconds for awareness to arrive. The boy raised both hands to his face and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. For a few seconds, he looked like any other child waking from a long sleep, but then full awareness arrived. His hands shot back down to his sides, and the boy recoiled in terror, trying to roll away, but unable to flee from the tangle of the sleeping bag.

  Harvey reached out to comfort him, but the boy yelled out at his touch. “Leave me alone!”

  Harvey pulled back as if he’d touched a hot stove.

  “Help!” the boy yelled.

  Harvey felt a jet of panic. “Hush! Shit, kid, be quiet.”

  “Help me! Don’t hurt me! Let go of me!”

  It was the nightmare. Harvey shot a glance out the tent opening, half expecting a police officer to be standing right there. “I’m not touching you, kid,” he said at a harsh whisper. “Jesus, I saved your life. Cut me a break.”

  The kid kicked at his covers, and the more he struggled, the more tangled he became. “Please don’t hurt me anymore.”

  “Listen to me!” Harvey barked, loudly this time, hoping to startle the boy into sanity. “I’m not the one who hurt you. I saved you.” He raised the lantern parallel to his own face. “Look at me,” he went on. “I am not the one who hurt you.”

  At first, it was as if the boy hadn’t heard him; he continued to wrestle with the sleeping bag as fear and frustration turned his efforts violent. Then, he stopped. It was as if Harvey’s words had traveled the slow route and had only just now arrived. He pivoted his head and scowled as he studied the man’s features.

  “You’re safe here,” Harvey said, his voice soft again.

  The kid darted his glance from one corner of the tent to another. “Where are they?”

  “Gone,” Harvey said. “About twenty hours ago.”

  This was a lot to process even when you were clearheaded. Given his drugged-up stepping-off point, the boy was having a particularly difficult time of it.

  “You’re safe now,” Harvey repeated.

  It was what the kid wanted to hear, but he wasn’t ready to trust the words. “Where am I?”

  “As close to nowhere as a human being can get,” Harvey said. When the scowl deepened, he added, “You’re in the woods. In Virginia. Near the Potomac River, and the people who hurt you probably think that you’re dead.”

  Cobwebs remained. “ Am I dead?”

  Harvey smiled. “Alive and well. And lucky to be that.” He extended his hand. “Harvey Rodriguez,” he said. “Nice to meet you.”

  The boy looked at the hand, but retreated some more. “Where did they go?”

  Harvey kept his hand outstretched. “They’re gone.”

  The boy shook his head. “That’s what they are,” he said. “Not where they went.”

  Harvey chuckled and abandoned the handshake. “Fair enough. I don’t have an answer for you.” He recounted the events that led them to the present. “As surprised as you seem to be alive, that’s half as surprised as I was to find you that way,” he concluded. He allowed it to sink in, and then he extended his hand once more. “Let’s try this again. I’m Harvey Rodriguez.”

  The boy accepted the hand. “I’m Jeremy Schuler.” This time, the friendly touch seemed to relax him.

  “I’m pleased to meet you, Jeremy Schuler. Are you hungry?”

  Jeremy shook his head. “Could I have some water?”

  As Harvey poured water from a converted plastic milk jug into a metal coffee cup, he fought the urge to pummel the kid with questions. After all he’d been through, he needed time to orient himself to the present before Harvey dragged him back to the past. He handed the cup to Jeremy. “Sip, don’t gulp,” he warned. “Your stomach might not be as awake as the rest of you.”

  The boy sipped and swallowed. “Thank you,” he said.

  “You’re welcome.” He watched Jeremy drink until it became awkward when the boy became aware of being watched. “Tell you what,” he said with a single, gentle clap of his hands. “I’m going to leave the lantern here with you, and I’m going to go out there and cook some dinner. If you change your mind about eating, there’ll be plenty for you.”

  While there was no critical medical need for the kid to eat right this minute, sooner or later he’d need sustenance, and sooner was better than later.

  Harvey grabbed a flashlight from the piece of two-by-four that served as his nightstand, crawled back into the night and over
to the surplus footlocker that served as his pantry. He spun the combination lock, lifted the hasp, and opened the lid.

  Seeing as how Jeremy was his first company in five years, it only made sense to appeal to his young taste buds. He pulled out a packet of macaroni and cheese, courtesy of the United States Army. Last winter, on one of the truly cold days, Harvey had agreed to spend a night in a shelter. He hated the principle and he hated the crowds, but he was impressed with the generosity of the pastor of St. Katherine’s Church, who handed out cases of Army MREs-Meals Ready to Eat-to anybody who wanted one. They weren’t likely to put any restaurants out of business, but they tasted pretty decent, and on the days when you wanted to splurge a little, they came in handy.

  Tonight, he decided to bypass the typical procedure of cooking the meal in its FRH (flameless rotational heater), and actually cook it on the stove. Somehow, food tasted better when a real flame was involved in the preparation process. He’d just gotten the water to boil when Jeremy appeared in the tent opening.

  “Can I still have dinner?” he asked.

  Harvey smiled and pointed to the camp chair. “Make yourself comfortable,” he said.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Venice Alexander had tried to nap on the sofa in her office, but it was impossible. Whenever she closed her eyes, the images of blood-spattered walls and the puddled gore on the linoleum flooded the darkness. She could still see the shock and sadness on the faces of the children. It was unspeakable that such violence could visit them literally at their doorstep. They’d already suffered so much in their young lives.

  She tried to will the thoughts away. They were counterproductive. Right now, everything was about the mission. She labored not to fixate on the right or the wrong of things anymore, hoping that she could one day find that emotional place where Digger lived at times like these, but she just wasn’t wired that way.

  She could pretend-she could push herself when the time came to don her game face and be one of the boys-but when quiet returned, she always remembered that there really was good, and there really was evil, and that in the end, good always prevailed, even if at a daunting price.